Alcohol

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats - S.O.B. (Official Music Video)
I am generally opposed to using foul language and especially in public, but sometimes you just gotta let it fly. (Where have I heard that before?) Alcohol is a curious drug. I remember missing a question on the drivers license exam (when I moved to Oregon, not when I first took the test 50 years ago). The question was about alcohol and it asked 'what is the first thing alcohol affects?' There were several choices like speed or distance or color or something but the correct answer was judgement. Could be, but then I came across this video, wherein Jordan B Peterson claims that alcohol doesn't affect your ability to judge things accurately, it's just that you don't care about the consequences so much.

Then YouTube served up this video. Man, I swear I've seen every one of these scenes. Or maybe I've just seen numerous similar scenes. I mean drinking is like a required element in every drama.


If You Don't Start Drinkin' (I'm Gonna Leave) - George Thorogood
I'm not as enamored of this tune as the first one, but the video is terrific.

Sun Dogs

Roadrunner

Iaman reports from somewhere in Arizona:

Had a couple of road runners ouside my window yesterday negotiating a catch of a lizard.
Went on a hike with Randy last evening, there are old mines here, one is filled with crystalline water.  The dogs Brill (old cow dog) & Pup run amok in the cactus and rocks seemingly oblivious to rattlers which this is prime habitat for. Both have been bitten.
One neighbor who has no dogs suffers with Coati running on his roof at night, and mice chewing his trucks wiring.  He miss- identified them as ring tailed cats which are  native here too.  A new neighbor who doesn't like dogs, has trail-cams of mountain lions padding around his house.  Randy's dog Pup, big german shepherd, has been ambushed and mixed with up with coyote packs a couple times. 
Weather perfect in morning till 10, then heat is relentless till 7PM.  Randy, a desert rat, goes out shirtless hatless in midday UV walking the dogs on the near vertical hills, I'm attempting to acclimate to the Chihuahua desert life.  Houses relatively cheap here,  may have something to do with no water and relentless solar assault.  Pools scarce, neighbor has one but is always on guard against monsoon winds and debris.

Pic of the Day

Jaguar XKE engine at Chico

Shiny.

Via Posthip Scott

Nambé

Nambé Bowl

California Bob scored this bowl at a flea market over the weekend. Boy, I haven't seen one of those in years. I think my folks had a couple, probably sent to them by my Aunt Margaret, who lived in New Mexico. They are kind of cool, being all shiny and swoopy, kind of like a UFO. Must be something about New Mexico, Roswell is there after all.

The bowls are not good for much except maybe holding jelly beans or your keys. They are kind of expensive and you don't want them getting all scuffed up. The company originated in Nambé, New Mexico, but their stuff is made in Asia now.

Storks

Storks nesting on a rooftop in Puente La Reina

I'm reading The Note-Books of Captain Coignet. Chapter 3 finds him traveling. He crosses the border from France into Spain near the west coast:

We started for Bayonne; the distance was great; we suffered from the heat, but at last we reached the bridge of Irun, Our comrades found a stork's nest and took the two young ones. The authorities came to the colonel to reclaim them; the alcalde requested him to restore them, because these birds were necessary in that climate for the destruction of serpents and lizards; he said that the galleys was the penalty for those who killed storks in that country. Consequently they are seen there everywhere; the plains are covered with them, and they walk about in the streets of the towns. Old wheels are put up for them on the top of high posts, and they make their nests in the gable-ends of the buildings.

Reminds me of a story I read when I was a kid. I can almost see the pictures in my mind's eye. I thought it was set in Holland though, not in Spain. Rooting around I find that Hans Christian Anderson wrote a story about storks. I wonder if that could have been it. Problem is the story doesn't mention wagon wheels and I remember that bit very distinctly.

Puente La Reina (site of photo above) is about 50 miles south of Irun.

WW1, the gift that keeps on giving and giving and giving . . .

WWI Bombs Are Still Being Found Over 100 Years Later
I've done posts on this before. It's gotten to be like a staple, but it's still pretty weird.

Via Posthip Scott.

Greenland

AIRBUS A380 F-HPJ Greenland Fan Hub Recovery by GEUS / BEA (June 2019)
A couple of years ago an airliner engine disintegrated while it was flying over the North Atlantic Ocean. The airliner landed with all passengers and crew safe in Goose Bay, Newfoundland, Canada. The airline people, pagans that they are, were unwilling to accept that an act of God caused the engine to fail. They wanted to examine the pieces of engine and apply their godless scientific acumen to try and figure out what happened. In order to do that though they needed to locate the pieces that fell off.

Map of flight path with altitudes

Being as the aircraft was over Greenland and they knew exactly where it was when this happened, if should be easy enough to find them. And they did find some of the pieces right off. But then it started snowing, winter came and they were stymied. Come the following spring they resumed their search, but now everything is covered with snow. And while they knew where some parts had fallen, other parts might be miles away. The airliner was flying along at 500 knots at an altitude of 35,000 feet when the engine exploded. Predicting where anything jettisoned from that altitude at that speed, not to mention rotating at several thousand RPM, will land is going to be guess work at best.

The Falcon 20 F-GPAA with SETHI. The two containers that it carries under the wings are part of the system - BEA via Austin Lines (Polar Research Equipment) and Thue Bording (Aarhus HGG)

But the science guys persisted. They got out their ground penetrating radar, attached it an airplane, flew a search pattern over the suspect area and got some hits.

Ground Penetrating Radar Set on Sled

Then the put their radar on a sled and dragged it back and forth over the snow until they had a pretty good idea where they might find something, and then they started digging.

The Bureau d'Enquetes et a'Analyses has a full report available (pdf).