Industrial City Rail Works

Owenwood chemical tank car

circa 1920's

I am slowly acquiring a consist of HO scale freight cars that will run on a model railroad layout. A few days ago I was given a 4x8 layout that was partially constructed around 1999-2000 and subsequently abandoned because the owner moved out of town. All track is laid and there are tunnels, bridges, a lake, and a large mountain on one end. The entire layout needs to be painted and landscaped as well as electrified with a power pack so trains will run. It is just a matter of time before Industrial City Rail Works is up and running! Will get pics posted as soon as possible.

Electromechanical Mainframe Computing

Calculatron Model 1

The Modern Electromechanical Computer

Steam Powered * No software * All moving parts

Coal or Wood Fired

Hand Crank Option

Reinforced concrete floor required

New Life For Old Robots

Is your old robot sluggish? Does it need a "pick me up" just to get through the day? Use Aunt Martha's Old Fashioned Robot Oil with radioactive K-14 for improved performance!

Compatible with most domestic models

Fly The Axiom Between Worlds

Modern Atomic Engines

Bluemoth Nightcoach To Saturn

serving all major moons

Robots fly for half fare

Soviet Propaganda Art

I have always admired the industrial aesthetic and bold contrasting colors of Soviet propaganda art.

Operation Big Switch

Snow To Greet Those Not Ready

If you live in the US and receive over-the-air (antenna) broadcasts on an analog TV, and DO NOT have a DTV (digital television) converter box installed by 11:59pm February 17, 2009, one minute later at 12:00 midnight (Feb 18th) your television WILL NOT WORK! That's right, the US federal government is pulling the plug on the RCA developed analog TV system introduced to the public for the first time at the 1939 New York World's Fair. World War 2 initially interrupted the television industry, but by 1946, set manufacturing was in full swing and broadcasts resumed. When color TV was introduced in the mid-1950's, older black and white sets could receive color broadcasts in black and white because the entire television system was based on the analog standard. Now that digital is the new standard, the only way for an over-the-air analog TV to work after the switch is to have a digital-to-analog converter box installed between the antenna and the television or to subscribe to cable or satellite where conversion is automatic. Owners of digital television sets ARE READY NOW, and will not even realize a change has taken place. The idea is to make the transition transparent to the end user. The move to DTV has been in the works since 1996, when the Federal Communications Commission established standards and made the conversion mandatory. In spite of the fact that the switch has been planned for over a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars have been funneled into public service announcements and government issued coupons to help defray converter box costs, some people remain unaware of the looming deadline. Others are in denial and state while they have heard the switch is coming, they do not believe it will happen! While the end result remains to be seen, I predict the transition from analog to to digital television will be successful, but initially disastrous.

8000 Gallon Tank Car

Pipeline On Wheels

For safe and efficient transport of fictitious petroleum and industrial solvents, I have acquired a 1930's era, HO scale, Type 21, 8000 gallon riveted tank car. This utilitarian beast of burden will shuttle between industries delivering fuel and other chemicals to manufacturing facilities, refineries, and warehouses. In real life, many of these units continued to serve railroads well into the 1960's. My obsessive thirst for utilitarian aesthetics has been quenched!

21st Century: Decade 2

Welcome To The Future ... What Will We See?

The next decade is certain to bring innovations that will change our lives. Predictions include but not limited to the following technologies and discoveries:

• Super thin video display technologies: OLEDs, (Organic Light Emitting Diode) laser projection, and something new called Trans Luminescence
• Broadband 3-D ready television becomes ubiquitous
• Discovery of microbiological and/or primitive plant life outside earth
• Distinction between computers and TVs disappear
• Domestic robots available for disabled/elderly
• Real time two way video becomes common
• United States has socialized medicine
• Wireless HD Internet everywhere
• US moves to new currency

The Sweet Sound Of Vacuum Tubes

Vacuum tubes are legacy electronic components that were used for amplification and switching tasks in radio, television and telephone industries up through the mid-twentieth century. In some cases they replaced electromagnetic relays giving rise to the first "machines" including computers without moving parts. Vacuum tubes continue to be manufactured in 2009 for specialty applications where performance is superior to transistors and integrated circuitry (i.e. high-end audio, guitar amplifiers, high power radio broadcasting) and for aesthetic reasons. Tubes are not without disadvantages including high voltage requirements, excess heat output, shorter life span, and higher cost compared with solid state devices. Unlike solid state components that simply die when something goes wrong, vacuum tubes weaken over time until they need to be manually replaced by a technician or the end user. Despite theses disadvantages, when vacuum tubes work, they perform their task in such a way as to improve the quality of recorded music, to accurately reproduce even the most delicate musical passages without coloration.

Flashpoint: San Francisco 1967

Photographer unknown

The year, the moment, the place that counterculture reached a tipping point. Turn on, tune in, drop out. The flower children sprouted and what an interesting ride it has been. (Click on the above photo to enlarge and travel back in time 42 years to witness amazing sharpness and color fidelity)

Tribute To Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith was born around 1895 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. At the time African-Americans were looked upon as not being worthy of birth records so her exact birth date is uncertain. All that is known of her early years is that she grew up in extreme poverty. Singing in the streets for change at the age of ten, she joined a travelling show featuring "Ma" Rainey, an experienced Blues singer that knew all of the ropes. Bessie played "on the road" for eleven years before making her first acoustic horn (non-electrical) recording in 1923. Her first record sold 780,000 copies, but only made her $125. Dubbed "The Empress of the Blues," her singing embodied the Blues while her songs, drawn from her world be damned lifestyle, rang true with rural and urban audiences alike. Eventually she purchased a private railroad car so she could have eating and sleeping facilities on the move as well as privacy during segregated times. Her lyrics belt out stories of reefer and gin and the pain of love and bad men that did her wrong and left her down and out. Bessie's music inspired many 20th Century artists including Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin. Tragically killed in a 1937 car crash in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Bessie Smith continues to sing in 2009 through her recordings.

Bessie's final resting place remained unmarked until 1970 when Janis Joplin in tandem with Columbia Records paid for her tombstone.

Photo by Edward Elcha, 1923.

Cozumel August 2008

Departure
Cumulonimbus Cloud

Blue Gulf Water

Mobile Bay Sunset

Mexican

Ship Deck

Into The Gulf

Lifeboat
No Land

Night

Arrival In Mexico

Blue Car

Yellow Motorcycles

Nikon D80 DSLR camera, automatic matrix metering. Click on each image to see the full 10 megapixel file. Photos by David

Back In Time: 2007 Light and Shadows

Acorn Street Lamp

Acorn Shadow

1950's Office

Photos by David

Back In Time: 2007 A Study In Red

Two Windows

Red Door

Time Traveler

Photos by David