Sparks

Nikola Tesla in his Laboratory ca. 1899
120 piece jigsaw puzzle

The photo is a promotional stunt, a double exposure, one shot taken with sparks in the dark and a second with Nikola sitting in the chair. Still, those are some impressive sparks. Wikipedia has a page about this image.

In Flight Photos

Saab Viggen 37 Pilot taking a photo
270 piece jigsaw puzzle

Wonder if this is who he was photoing. 

Here's the same airplane emerging from its bunker.

Number 21 has since become a museum piece. 

Tom Scott Robot

My robot double sells out (so I don't have to)
Tom Scott
Robots are getting more lifelike, but it takes an extraordinary amount of hand work to make them that way.

Carlism

General Cabrera's Carlist army camp - Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau
98 piece jigsaw puzzle

It looked like a cool old painting of some soldiers, but figuring out just who these guys are took some digging. The artist, Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau, has depicted zillions of scenes from Spanish history in his paintings. This one is of some Carlist soldiers. Carlist, as in Carlism, not a list of cars on the internet. Never heard of it? Me neither, but Wikipedia knows all:

[Carlism is a political movement in Spain aimed at establishing a branch of the Bourbon dynasty on the Spanish throne.]

It was at its strongest in the 1830s but experienced a revival following Spain's defeat in the Spanish–American War in 1898, when Spain lost its last remaining significant overseas territories of Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico to the United States.

Carlism was a significant force in Spanish politics from 1833 until the end of the Francoist regime in 1975. In this capacity, it was the cause of the Carlist Wars of the 19th century and an important factor in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Today, Carlists are a minor party.

And it's not an old painting, the Augusto was born in 1964.

Shelbyville

Sidewalk Dining at The Observatory

Shelbyville is a fictional town in The Simpsons universe, it is next door to Springfield and is nearly identical, though there are subtle differences. Ross and I drove over to NE 82nd Avenue in Portland on Friday to have lunch at The Observatory. NE 82nd is like the other side of the world for me, being as I  live 15 miles west of downtown. 82nd is where the airport is. If you consider Beaverton to be Springfield, being over there is like being in Shelbyville.

The restaurant is fine, though we ended up sitting at the picnic tables on the sidewalk. It wasn't too bad. We had one person collecting signatures for a petition stop by and ask us for signatures but they were quickly dismissed. There was a fair amount of traffic noise and there was one woman who looked like maybe she was practicing karates moves on the sidewalk in front of the pet supply store next door. Karate or crazy. Or just typical Portland, you pick.

We had burger burgers. They other like four kinds of burgers including elk, lamb and beef. The tab all told was $45.

Like any big city there are myriad ways to get across town to Shelbyville. If I am on a mission to take care of some business, like going to the airport, I'll take I-84. It isn't much fun, it's usually crowded with the usual assortment of idiots putting along at 50 MPH and the maniacs trying to go 90 and failing with intermittent massive application of the brakes. It takes a lot of effort to stay calm, stay in my lane and not get caught up in the frenzy of getting someplace. So we took Burnside. There are a lot of traffic lights and it's slower, but I get to see parts of Portland I seldom visit. Once you get out of the commercial district it turns residential and there some very nice houses so the scenery is pleasant. It also gave us a chance to catch up. 

Vinge's Sheet Metal
Note Bender on the corner

Just past 67th Avenue the main drag veers off to the right. I vaguely remember being out this way before, so I veer and half a dozen blocks farther on I can tell we are in Shelbyville because we come across Vinge's Sheet Metal shop. We made several trips out here when we were working on the duct work in the new house.

Mr. Plywood

We drive around for a bit, gradually homing in on the restaurant and we pass by Mr. Plywood. If you need any further evidence that you are in Shelbyville and not Springfield, this is it.

Jaguar XJ6

There's a 20 minute wait before we can be seated at the restaurant, so we walk around the neighborhood. It basically a little scruffier version of Beaverton. We spot several old cars on our walk: a '64 Mercury Cyclone that someone had but some effort into, a '63 Ford Falcon that looked pretty original and looked like is was still being used, and an aging Jaguar Sedan that looked like it hasn't move in ten years. Amazingly enough, the tires were still holding air. I wouldn't breath on it  though, it looks like one breath could turn the whole thing to dust. We didn't take any pictures, we were otherwise occupied, but when I got home I wondered if that Jag might show up on Streetview, and sure enough it did.

Berthold Woltze - Der Brief

Berthold Woltze - Der Brief (The Letter)

I came across this picture in some meme and I was struck by the apparent grief in the woman's face. I have only experienced real grief once and that's when my mother was struck down by an aneurysm. While she was the one that was struck, for me it was a similar experience, it was like being hit with a hammer. It was sudden and debilitating. I eventually recovered but it took me a year. I didn't experience the same thing with my father's passing. I suspect that was because his death didn't happen suddenly, he just gradually deteriorated over a period of six months until he just wasn't there anymore. It was still debilitating. For some stupid reason I was the executor of the estate and that was extremely painful. I don't recommend it, get a lawyer and let them handle it. 

I had some friends in high school who were killed in car wrecks, but those deaths affected me hardly at all. Of course, they weren't family, so I wouldn't expect those deaths to cause the same kind of reaction. Celebrity deaths affect me not at all except to be surprised that they were still alive. A lot of people seemed to be upset when JFK was assassinated. I remember my neighbor, a teenage girl, was particularly distraught. I remember wondering what all the fuss was about. Bad shit happens, people get killed all the time. His number happened to be up. Why are upset about this one death but you aren't upset about the thousand other people that died in our town recently?

Once I get past the grief I look at the picture again and I notice the woman is leaning against what looks like a large block of stone. Now it could be an oven, but it appears monolithic which makes me think that her home has been built over some ancient ruins and that block was just too big to move, so they just left it there.

This afternoon I was over at my daughter's house. She is planning on some remodeling and there is big fat brick chimney going right up through the center of the house. It doesn't have any real use any more and she is wondering how much trouble it would be to take it out. Shoot, it wouldn't be very much trouble at all, not more than five or six thousand dollars worth of trouble. You just got to figure out if it's worth it. Which brings us back to the big block of stone in the painting at the top.

Sukhoi Su-27 Flankers visit Grand Forks AFB

Sukhoi Su-27 Flankers visit Grand Forks AFB
jaygdav

This happened 30 years ago. The Flankers don't show up until the four minute mark.

B1 Bombers at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota

The video starts with trip down the flight line where a bunch of B1 Bombers are parked. Geez, there are a bunch of them. No B1s are stationed at Grand Forks anymore. The Air Force Times tells us that some are stationed at Ellsworth AFB, and Google Maps delivers.

Moscow to Langley
8,300 Miles

I plotted the stops mentioned in a Daily Press story about the visit. Somehow I don't think the Russians flew directly from Moscow to Anchorage, a distance of of 4,400 miles. I suspect they made a couple of hops across Russia, maybe to Vladivostok, before flying over the Aleutian Islands to Anchorage.

Su-27UB and F-15 side by side at Langley Air Force Base (August 1992)

The Su-27 has appeared here before.