Hobo Jungle

[v8vega]

San Marino mayor resigns after getting caught throwing a bag of dog poop on his neighbors driveway. By a surveillance camera, San Marino is a very very rich neighborhood just south of Pasadena and north east of LA.

[v8vega]

My house fire insurance price went way up so I found another company that was considerably cheaper and insured with them.
Now my old insurance company sends me a bill for the time my premium ended until they say I canceled. If I send them proof of insurance from my policy ending date then I don't need to pay.
I wrote them a letter saying that my contract with them ended when I didn't renew my policy. If I would have tried to make a claim they would have said I didn't pay so I had no insurance. It's stealing to send me a bill, I am not forced to insure with them. They can't try to charge me when I had quit.
I said don't try to extort money from me anymore.

[healey36]

Sarge - I was unfamiliar with the term "Bristol-fashion"...the internet is a great thing...sometimes...

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/ship-shape%20and%20Bristol%20fashion.html

[v8vega]

My friend will be here at 9:15 its 1 hours later here than posted above and were going shooting. We normally shoot at the pistol range as they have heavy steel knock down targets we like to shot at.
I like to put clay pigeons on the far bank and shoot at them with a 22 rifle and prop them up on rocks and shoot them with pistols.
I'm out of clay pigeons so today I have to walk over to the skeet, or trap range and pick up ones that weren't broken or are mostly whole.
Rattle snakes abound all over southern Calif. anywhere off the beaten path and here we are in their home. Especially out in the brush where I will be picking up the pigeons. I'm always super careful but it is a bit frightening.

[2railjon]

Jon, Jon, Jon!
Its a wonder your son did as well as he did! You got the freaking target hung upside down!
Didn't the U.S. Army teach you any better? Shame.
Tony

Now you should know us ex-jarheads have no use for literacy skillz!

[sarge]

Jon, mate:

No wonder you guys have such trouble scoring well on BRM in the Corps. When the target is upside down, the six ring is inside the eight ring. Tends to make the bull a naught.

[2railjon]

MRAP testing!!!!!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c9c4CxwnTq ... e=youtu.be

[webenda]

MRAP Rollover Training
http://youtu.be/iKpY3v6Twjg
The MRAP Flip in real life.
http://youtu.be/ml27LRyFqR4
"Geet offa me!"

[healey36]

The Triumphs of the Chesapeake Club had their "Brits by the Bay" meet this weekend at the Carroll County Farm Museum. Triumph being my least favorite marque of British sports car, I've passed on this show over the years, but this year I decided to have a look. There were probably 100 cars with forty percent of them being the club marque, but there was alot of other stuff to look at. (I apologize for the miserable quality of the photo's taken by my photographer using her POS iPhone 4s):

Absolute classic:


Sunbeam:


Spridget with round rear-wheel arches...nice:


Daimler...ugh:


MGA...brilliant:




Delorean:


Ouch...don't follow so close:


Nice TVR:


The latest, Jaguar F-Type:


Talk about post-war patina, this Morgan has it in spades:


This Rolls was the star of the show:




There were a few bikes as well:






Here's to a long warm summer of English cars.

Healey

[Mitch]

There were a few bikes as well:


Healey

Ahhh! The BSA 441Victor and what may be a 650 or 750 Lightning in the background. I remember them well! The 441 single lunger was a torquey little beast.

[healey36]

There were a number of A.J. Stevens bikes as well, a marque that was unfamiliar to me.

1950 AJS 500:


1959 AJS 350:


Wikipedia has a decent entry regarding the AJS history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJS

When I was a kid my uncle had an old Norton on the farm...that's been my only exposure to English motorcycles.

Healey

[sarge]

Healey!

Stop that!

Then again, don't. What memories all that stuff stirs, all the way through the rack of photos.

The Morris estate at the top; a Morris Minor 1000. Growing up a bit bi-cultural had its somewhat traumatic moments. Things were pretty normal when we had a great whacking Plymouth ( a '54 I believe) station wagon. We kids were a boisterous lot and could bounce about on the back bench-seat and the jump seats with impunity not to mention the enthusiasm of all young boys thrown together by force.

Suddenly our world changed radically as my father's place of work changed and the Plymouth was deemed highly impractical for obvious reasons, so the next family car was a Minor 1000, just like that one but gray. The wood is real on those, BTW, all varnished up. Of all the changes, it was that car that was the most traumatic for me, because suddenly we were in easy arm's reach from the front seat.

The Spridget; any sight of one brings back the lust of youth for one of those. I've driven more than a few, even rallyed an ISCA prepared one several times. I did have a Triumph Spit, and loved it as much, but never owned a Spridget, though I've always wanted one. I actually looked at a Midget (for those I'm confusing, the Austin Healey Sprite and the MG Midget were the same car with different details and badges, hence the slang "Spridget") that was for sale locally the other day, at one of those used car lots that pepper the Pennsylvania countryside like no other state in the Union. It stood proudly with spots of rust here and there where one would expect them, splits in the seats, loose bits hanging here and there (it was a '78, so built by the last few "workers" remaining at British Leyland sometime between strikes and communist party meetings). The joy was in the discovery that I could (with all the foibles of age, the arthritis from horses, motorcycles, and parachutes, and the damages of a misspent youth come home to roost) get in the dam thing and, even more importantly, get out of it with the hood up ("Hood" = "Convertible Top" in this context) and my dignity intact. I was insufferably pleased with myself for days after, and the thoughts of one more roadster in my life before the rocking chair have become practical ones. The search has gone from the casual to something more serious. BTW, under that disguise of a POS with bits falling off lurked a solid strong engine, a crisp gearbox that wouldn't kick the lever back out when you backed off suddenly, absolutely abysmal brakes, and I wouldn't be surprised if the salesman is still gripping the passenger seat mumbling to himself and holding his eyes tightly closed. It was a GRAND day!

The last sentence above and the photo of all the bikes bring me to this muse. The fun we had with these things. They raced, they screamed, they broke. We put wrench to them, drove them like idiots, learned every foible; we loved the dam things. Both in the world of bikes and cars, the Japanese came and made them accessible to the average guy, be it the Miata in the roadster world, the Imprezia in the rallying world, or Honda, Yamaha, or Kawasaki in the motorcycle world. Any idiot can own one, fire it up in his garage, go for a drive and return without even so much as a nod to anyone else. Gone are the days when I would share a ground-sheet and tool-bag with a Harley rider I never had met before (and a beer later) or a Saturday spent with four or five of your mates at the shop working on a host of Spridgets, TR's, and the like, for it was (also gone) going to be a rallye or auto-cross weekend next weekend and we actually had to get ready.

Sure the cars and bikes of today are so much "better" than the old Nortons, Bonney's, Vincents, and BSAs in the two wheel world, and the TD's, Spits, real Mini's, even those Minors. But the camaraderie with both people and machine, the frustration and the ecstasy (you can't have one without the other), all summed the magic; the emotional charge has been lost in the Japanese perfection. Jesus wept, and no wonder. I still want a Spridget with all the flaws, and now ('cause I still can wear one) I shall have one.

By the way, that Daimler looks like an anglerfish; such painful ugliness swimming in a sea of aching beauty...

[jw_clarke54]

To some there was/is a certain charm on Chrome and Curves which in today's standards is seriously lacking! IMHO of course!

[healey36]

I apologize for any sleight to the Triumph aficionados...there were many fine examples on this hazy Sunday:



That little cream Spitfire in the center is a car I pined for desperately during my youth. I was greatly influenced by perhaps the greatest advertisement in sportscar history:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NLxZvdwBXs

I still get chills watching that, lol...

Healey

[sarge]

A Supermarine Spit is an airplane I always wanted to get my hands on for just a few minutes. Someday before I die, I will. There are a few two-seaters flying in the UK, so not as outrageous a dream as it could be.

I had a Triumph Spit, and it was a very pretty car. In spite of the Lucas Prince of Darkness reputation it was also a dependable car, lots of fun to drive (especially sideways) and on my list of possibilities for the next play-mobile; that, a Spridget, or another original Mini are the targets. I'm not closed to other options if something comes along in budget, of course...