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Category Archives: Awesomeness

I Hate It When People Post Stuff Like This….

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It lets everyone else in on the secret, then more of those monkey’s from back east keep move out here.  Do as Ry said and play it full screen. (If you’re using RSS, click through to this post or to the video itself on Vimeo, you need it in HD. The RSS strips that.)

And for those of you out of the area, it’s a giant scam, it looks nothing like that, it’s all Photoshopped, and you do not need to come out here and verify my statement as being true or false. 😀

Purely Pacific Northwest from John Eklund on Vimeo.

I highly recommend clicking over and reading his description of the project.

h/t to Ry.

Fair Winds and Following Seas Mr. Armstrong

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So as many of you probably know Neil Armstrong passed away recently.  While it certainly is a blow, it is by no means unexpected:

I am by no means old enough to remember Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic walk.  I was however lucky enough to grow up being the son of an engineer.  One of my father’s good friends worked on the Apollo program.  I will say I’m not a big fan of NASA, but I will not allow my dislike of them to taint or color the value and accomplishment of the Apollo program.

Growing up I looked at Apollo and it meant one thing to me, if I can dream it, I can build it.*  Hence my becoming an engineer.

I want to see us return in my life time.  But everyone in that program can take solace in the fact they helped inspire a bunch of people to become engineers.  No just at that time, but continuing forward even today.

So pardon me while I go give a wink at the moon.

Good bye Neil and God Speed.

Scott_Gives_Salute_-_GPN-2000-001114

*It is worth noting what sealed my decision to be an engineer was seeing the development of the Physio Control Life Pack as well as the Automatic External Defibrillator.  The fact I saw something my dad and his friends built from the ground up that at the time only had the potential to save lives and revolutionize everything.  Yup, it did exactly that.  The Apollo program’s impact though was no slouch either.

Now That’s Awesome

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This can best be summarized as, “Because you CAN!”

Here’s his whole run from Pikes Peak in 2011.

That man has serious balls, especially when there are incidents like this have happened on the same course:

h/t to Ry on that last video.

ESS And Boomershoot 2012…

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It went up without me even noticing it! 

Guns and explosives, not to mention Shelly and Anette.  Why haven’t you hit play yet!?

I mentioned how much I liked ESS Eyewear back here.  The video title makes me wonder where volumes 1-4 are though.

Earworm Wednesday–08/22/2012

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Take your pick for your desired visual absorption.

Naval Aviator Version:

Base Jumper Version:

Music Video from the band  Why watch this one, the other two are just awesome?:

AWOLNation – Sail

Life Imitates the Movies

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Usually the movies imitate life, but in this case I think not.

The Madagascar movie series is hilarious, but I never thought I would hear about an escape that sounded like it came from that movie.  Well here it is:

Hoffmann said the kangaroos got out of their enclosure after a young fox snuck into the park and dug a hole next to the cage’s fencing. Two of the three were then able to escape the park entirely through another hole dug by a wild boar under the exterior fence.

The only way this could have been better is if it had been penguins* that did the tunnel digging.

Madagascar – Smile and Wave
Get More: Madagascar – Smile and Wave

*FYI if you don’t know, the wife and I both love penguins.

Yes Please…

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Via an email from my mom.

4 Star General’s Package

-Introductory tour, history & training

-Driving the Abbott convoy style & the FV432 APC using periscopes simulating a combat driving situation through our scenic wooded course
 
–Test firing three historic machine guns in our indoor range

–2 passengers are included    

What really got my attention though was:

Yeah, at $749 bucks I can think of a lot of other stuff I’d rather do, but man it would be fun.  I am a bit sad that their guns have been de-milled though. Honestly I’d rather shoot from the tank than just about anything.

Don’t get me wrong, driving a tank = awesome.  Lobbing a HE round a mile and smacking on target, priceless.  Just sayin’!

 

Built Ford Tough

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So as I said on Sunday I put my baby into a ditch.  It was a hard hit and had to be winched out of the hole.  I didn’t really think about taking pictures mainly because I’m not a big fan of documenting my stupidity.  At this point though I kind of wish I had.  It would make a great commercial.

The drive home on Sunday had a shimmy though the steering and the wheel was no longer aligned.  I spent last night with the pressure washer removing the concrete clay caking the tires and undercarriage.  I removed a large quantity of clay that was caked on to everything including all throughout the wheel.  By the end I was covered in mud from it flying off while cleaning.  I only blasted the mud off though, she will get a bath this weekend.  Tomorrow, if I get the green light, I shall go do something special for a post.

This morning I dropped her off for an alignment check and to have the front end looked at in detail on a lift.  Also if they could I wanted my steering wheel put back to center.  While driving in this morning there was no vibration through the steering, good it means that the wheel was out of balance from the clay, which I expected.  The truck tracked well and didn’t drift so the alignment seemed like it would still be good but I wanted numbers.

Well I got the numbers back and everything, remained within spec.  I didn’t bump it out of alignment, didn’t bend a tie rod, didn’t do a damn thing to that truck other than de-center the steering wheel.  That’s right, all that happened from a trip into the ditch was that my steering wheel was no longer pointed the correct direction for center.  They say “Built Ford Tough” for a reason.  I just don’t like finding out or pushing those limits first hand.

This weekend she’ll get a nice bath and right now I’m debating on a road trip with her in September.  I just need to talk with some friends to see if we can split a hotel room.