Dreams interrupted

Civil War field hospital

Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
they think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.
- Siegfried Sassoon -

 

Old Motor magazine covers

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Motor is a technical journal that caters to gas station owners, automobile repair shops, parts suppliers, and dealers. It was first published in 1903 and is still active, although it has moved from print to digital media. 

These covers are from 1904 through the 1940s. When the magazine started the covers featured a lot of women. However, they moved on to having humorous covers featuring visual jokes. Of course, during WWII they switched to patriotism and War Bond drives.

These examples are from MagazineArt, there are more at that link.  

The Prisoner’s Song

Get ready for a hoosegowed weekend with Alice Lee.

 

Filling a piano with water

In the above video a fellow, for reasons I can't quite fathom, fills up a piano with water to hear what it sounds like. I guess everybody has a dream. Anyway, this is a more difficult project than he first expected. He ends of doing a considerable amount of experimenting, fiddling, and water-proofing a piano before he gets it to work.

There is a short ad in the video, but at least it is about coffee.

 

Link maintenance

I've made a couple of changes to Flares' links. Powerline's article feed stopped working, so I moved it from 'Blogs of Interest" to the 'Recommended' section. Don Surber has moved from Blogspot to Substack, so I updated his link as well. Their new links:

• Don Surber
• Powerline

  

Tramp steamers

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Tramp steamers are ships without a fixed schedule. Instead of pre-arranged routes, they trade on the spot market picking up new cargo upon the delivery of whatever they are hauling. Although they can be any type of ship: freighters, tankers, container ships, etc., in popular imagination they are smaller, older, rust buckets.

There is a sub-genre of movies and literature set on tramp streamers. They feature a cast of colorful passengers, most with dubious motives and questionable pasts, as well as crews full of sketchy characters that are likely up to no good. Of course, there will also be a hot dame or two mixed in to roil the pot. They're almost always entertaining in a cheesy sort of a way.  

I thought insurance issues would have prevented modern freighters from carrying passengers, but apparently you can still book passage on some tramp steamers. Sounds kind of dreadful to me, but who knows?

Angie

Get ready for a resigned weekend with Jacqueline Lord.

 

WWI Fokker DVII biplane

The above video shows the construction methods and workings of a Fokker DVII biplane. The planes entered service in 1918, late in the war, but proved to be an excellent warplane. After the war all existing DVIIs were transferred to the allies as part of the armistice. Below are a pictures of surviving planes. 

 

Jungle paintings

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A jungle is woods in a tropical zone. It is miles upon miles of trees underneath which is a dense weed utopia. They are difficult to move through and so, like any remote area, they are cloaked in mystery and romanticized. 

To temperate dwellers they contain strange tropes: from safari members nervously muttering "it's quiet, too quiet" as they watch the trees, to Rosseau-like dreams of animals frolicking together in peace instead of eating each other, to ape-raised Tarzan swinging through the trees as he yodels to elephants.  

Above all, they are places where one's imagination can run as wild as the foliage.  

Happy Mother's Day

my mother

is pure radiance.

she is the sun

i can touch

and kiss

and hold

without

getting burnt.

― Sanober Khan ―

 

Qimmijuat (Wild Horses)

Get ready for an enduring weekend with Elisapie.

 

Stir fried steak & French fries

This a is a Peruvian dish called Lomo Saltado. It is a stir fry of steak, onion, tomatoes, pepper, soy sauce, and French fries served with a side of rice. Sometimes the French fries are also served to the side, but a common preparation includes them in the stir fry so they can absorb the flavor of the juices. Looks wonderful to me.

It comes from an infusion of Chinese techniques into Peruvian cuisine. In the 19th century many well-off Peruvians had Chinese cooks as indentured servants. They introduced stir frying (saltado) and many of the ingredients, including the side of rice, to the dish.       

 

Ralph Pallen Coleman artworks

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Ralph Pallen Coleman was an American artist active during the first half of the 20th century. He did paintings and illustrations. He started doing work for pulps and local newspapers and worked his way to selling to more mainstream magazines like the Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, and Home and Garden. Later in his career he turned more towards religious-themed artworks. 

Ralph Pallen Coleman

Scheef

Get ready for a noisy weekend with Eefje de Visser.

 

Happy May Day Comrades!

Once again, it is that most wonderful time of the year... May Day! Yes, that magic day when, as we stand in our bread lines, we can reflect on the wonders of communism: the Little Red Book, rocket forces parading down main street, and struggle sessions until the wee hours of the night!  

Above is a uplifting music video by the North Korean girl band the Moranbong Band! As you can tell, the North Korean damsels are far superior to the undulating, mini-skirt clad, South Korean K-Pop hussies that pollute the air waves! Be still my beating heart! How I would love to go to the nearest People's Hall and attend one of their shows, where I could robotically clap as I absorbed their inspiring message!

 

Paintings of wagons

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Wagons used to be ubiquitous, but with the onset of internal combustion engines they've been replaced by trailers. They are now nostalgic elements of bygone days. In their prime they were the Conestoga wagons that carried America's westward migration, haulers of freight and passengers, Gypsy caravans, workhorses on farms, and so forth. Now, they are rarely seen.

The One I Love

Get ready for a skirt-chaser's weekend with the Chocolate Factory.

 

Walking in David

David sits astride the Pan-American highway in western Panama. It is primarily an agricultural hub, but other investment monies are strengthening its economy. As you can see from the walk, it looks like a well-tended and solidly middle-class city. I imagine that there is a fair number of expat retirees who have moved there.

 

Whiling away the hours

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The Turks have a proverb which says that the devil tempts all other men,

but that idle men tempt the devil.

- Charles Caleb Colton -

That the Devil finds work for idle hands to do is probably true.

But there is a profound difference between leisure and idleness.

- Henry Ford -

As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.

- Samuel Johnson -

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.

- A. A. Milne -

 

Crossing the Atlantic with coffee

Sunset in the mid-Atlantic

I'm back from my vacation. Since, in my youth, I had crossed both the Pacific and Indian oceans I decided to add an Atlantic crossing before geezerhood did me in. So, I booked a cabin on a repositioning cruise from Barbados to Lisbon Portugal. I sailed aboard the Royal Clipper, which is a larger version of the Star Clipper I did my earlier Caribbean cruise aboard. 

There were only ~140 passengers aboard, which was half capacity. That was nice. Most of the passengers were European and I ended up hanging around with a Canadian couple, a few British, and a cheerful Dutch fellow. Strangely, and in the 'it's a small world' category, I also met an American who had been aboard the carrier that relieved my carrier task force in our deployment to the Indian Ocean during the Yom Kippur War. We got to swap many a sea story.

As for my odd selection of pictures below...  when I suggested the crossing to my wife she looked at me like I was crazy. I took that as a no. Instead, she flew to Portugal with her sister and brother-in-law and did some touring while I was bobbing around in the ocean for days on end. She asked me to send her pictures of my travels and so, swell guy that I am, I annoyed her by documenting my trip via pictures of the coffee pots, coffee shops, and cups of coffee I encountered in my transit. Always remember, it is the little things that are important in life.

To avoid the worries of flight delays and short connection times I built a lot of time into my schedule. As a result I spent one night in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a good thing; my flight was delayed and I eavesdropped on a couple of businessmen who were in a panic over making their connection. I felt their pain. Above is the coffee machine in my hotel room.  

Above is the coffee shop at the Hilton Resort I stayed at. At one of the restaurants they had fish and chips on the menu for $68. That seemed a bit pricey to me, so I subsisted on over-priced ham and cheese sandwiches from the coffee shop instead.   

Above is a pigeon who befriended me in the seating area outside of the coffee shop. He was always hopeful I would slobber some crumbs about. I confess to considering catching and eating him to spare myself from dropping $68 for fish and chips.  However, since I figured the other guests would be aghast at that, I resisted the thought and the little fellow survived.

This is the coffee station on the ship. It was open 24 hours a day and the coffee was good enough. The only drawback to it was the number of tea choices cluttering the area. Plus, the tea drinkers, who had to fiddle with hot water and tea bags, took longer that the coffee drinkers to fill their cups. That can be a crisis when you're getting your first morning cup of joe.  

These are the espresso machines behind that bar. They were a welcome addition to your coffee choices.   

This is a cup of espresso in a cafe in Ponta Delgada, Azores. The Azores were the only stop on the crossing and Ponta Delgada was a pleasant, touristy little city. Being on dry land that wasn't rocking back and forth was a welcome change.

 

My hotel in Lisbon didn't have a coffee maker in the room. Instead, you had to go to the lobby and buy one out of this vending machine. All the labels were in Portuguese, so you had to guess and experiment to get something close to what you were looking for. When you did get it, it was some sort of instant coffee concoction. In Lisbon they gasbagged on endlessly about Portuguese coffee culture. This machine seemed to lack that bragged about culture, but it was serviceable.
   

Comfortably Numb

Get ready for a detached weekend with Mike Masse and Jeff Hall.

 

Egyptian pyramid functionality

To modern eyes the pyramids are evocative, but mysterious structures. Why were they built? This video discusses a theory about how the pyramids were intended to be used.

The original burial structure for pharaohs was a mastaba. It was a tomb surrounded by storage rooms. These rooms were full of supplies that the Pharoah would need in his afterlife. Of course, eternity is a long time, and the supplies would eventually run out, impoverishing our ghostly Pharaohs.

That wouldn't do. Contrary to the prevailing notion that pyramids were sealed to protect their wealth from grave robbers, pyramids and their associated temple complexes were designed to be accessible. Their storerooms would be ceremonially resupplied to assure the dear, departed Pharoah of a comfortable life beyond the veil. It was only when central authority began to collapse that pyramids were sealed to protect their interiors.

    

Our friend the tin can

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I remember being 20 years old and I'm living by myself for the first time with my buddies and what you're worried about day to day is what am I going to eat for dinner?
I don't know how to cook, so I've got to get canned food.
Those are the only worries you have in the world.

- Brad Marchand -

The first meal was an object lesson of much variety.
My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking,
from little tin cans that had printing all over them.

- Mary Antin -

I live out of cans a lot. But I try to indulge only in healthy canned food.

- Dwight Yoakam -

The path of civilization is paved with tin cans.

- Elbert Hubbard -

  

Ces Bottes Sont Faites Pour Marcher

Get ready for a stompling weekend with Emilie-Claire Barlow.

 

The puzzle of mechanical stitching

I had never considered the complexity of the problem engineers faced in designing a sewing machine. With hand stitching, you push down through the fabric and the reverse the needle to push back up through again drawing the thread along. Sewing machines simply push the needle up and down without reversing it, so new methods of sewing needed to be designed. 

 

Old-timey gas pumps

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These are images of old gas pumps. Being a new technology at the time, their design and methods of usage had yet to be standardized. These are from the Flashbak post The Industrial Beauty of Vintage Gas Pumps. There are more examples at that link. 

Help Me Make It Through The Night

Get ready for a lonesome weekend with Corey and Stacey.

 

Making shovels

We visit a small factory in SW Asia (I think it is in Pakistan, but it might be in India) where they are making shovels. As is always with these types of videos, the work is dirty, laborious and slightly dangerous looking.