When my Grandfather was born, man had not flown a plane...

[4est_4est_Gump]

Before he died we watched a man walk on the moon together.

Now they are both gone.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Yeah, I know.


Life marches on, no matter what.


Meanwhile, Wat has an old Dodge to reincarnate.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Is it the barracuda?




I posted something about how to gain 1MPG for CAFE, that trucks are to go to turbo-charged four-bangers...

 

[Wat_Tyler]

No, it's a '65 Dodge Polara.


It was a bit out of the mold, but it was available and it runs and drives.


It needs some healing from past insults and indignities, so I am giving it therapy.


And it blows the doors off SUV's, no matter the engine size.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You're probably too busy, but if you get the chance, check out History Channel's Counting Cars.




When my grandfather was born, you had the beginnings of the automotive industry.

After he died, Grandma got nailed for doing 72 in a 35 in his 442 Olds.

She was watching the tachometer...

tee hee!

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I think you mentioned that story before.


I like the smell of half-burned hydrocarbons and rubber in the morning. It smells like . . .


a big-block at work.


Which is to say, victory in the stop-light drags.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Yes, it is a favorite story of mine, but it also underlines the rapid rate of change we underwent in the last century...

From family farm to Unionized labor.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

According to my grandfather, his dad's uncle told his dad, about 1900, that he calculated that just about everything that would be invented had been by then.


Then we had planes and tanks in WWI.


And the hits just kept on comin'.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

It is amazing how often the end of progress has been declared or how generationally people assume that society has "evolved" due to technology...


But, people are still people!

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I figure that the ideas were always there, and that as technology improves and/or advances are made in other ares, then what was no previously possible becomes very doable.


I was told in 1973 that the hemi was dead forever because it would never pass emissions regulations, and Chrysler has built a million of them since 2003.


Yet we're still waiting for the better mousetrap.


I'll take the hemi, tyvm.

 

[CandiCame]

Whow, that's hardcore...

I just realized that my grandparents were alive for the moon landing. I should ask them about that sometime.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I figure that the ideas were always there, and that as technology improves and/or advances are made in other ares, then what was no previously possible becomes very doable.


I was told in 1973 that the hemi was dead forever because it would never pass emissions regulations, and Chrysler has built a million of them since 2003.


Yet we're still waiting for the better mousetrap.


I'll take the hemi, tyvm.

Sometimes though, you experience a crash when technology simply cannot keep up with government run amuck drunk of altruism.

Whow, that's hardcore...

I just realized that my grandparents were alive for the moon landing. I should ask them about that sometime.

Yes, and how did it make them feel especially in light of the national turmoil that was Vietnam.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Mom got us out of bed to watch it.

 

[CandiCame]

Sometimes though, you experience a crash when technology simply cannot keep up with government run amuck drunk of altruism.





Yes, and how did it make them feel especially in light of the national turmoil that was Vietnam.

I never think about shit like that. I know that my grandpa hated Nam, because he bitches about that. And how all the old people at the time had WW2 and it was a better war or whatever. He somehow got out of the army, my grandpa. I don't remember how, but he actually had a big hullabaloo bullshittery thing about that where he had to go to court and shit. I never really asked him about it, but I know that the 70s sucked. Every time he talked about the 70s it's just how bad they sucked. Gas was expensive and his job sucked and his house sucked and everything that he talked about sucked. He hated that decade. It always made me happy not to have to live through it. But never interested enough to actually ask what was going on.

 

[CandiCame]

So that moon landing shit... was that faked or...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

So that moon landing shit... was that faked or...

Sheila Jackson Lee, Democratic Congresswoman representing Houston (and thus NASA), asked the NASA scientists if the Mars Rover could get a picture of that flag in order to put the controversy to rest...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I never think about shit like that. I know that my grandpa hated Nam, because he bitches about that. And how all the old people at the time had WW2 and it was a better war or whatever. He somehow got out of the army, my grandpa. I don't remember how, but he actually had a big hullabaloo bullshittery thing about that where he had to go to court and shit. I never really asked him about it, but I know that the 70s sucked. Every time he talked about the 70s it's just how bad they sucked. Gas was expensive and his job sucked and his house sucked and everything that he talked about sucked. He hated that decade. It always made me happy not to have to live through it. But never interested enough to actually ask what was going on.

There were some tough times in the 70s, but it wasn't all bad.

Drugs, sex 'n ROCK&ROLL!!!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Mom got us out of bed to watch it.

I remember growing up glued to the Space Program launches in black and white...

That was the only time we were really allowed to watch much TV.

Kids were meant to be outdoors with the critters.

 

[CandiCame]

Sheila Jackson Lee, Democratic Congresswoman representing Houston (and thus NASA), asked the NASA scientists if the Mars Rover could get a picture of that flag in order to put the controversy to rest...

Did it?

I'm just saying, in the 60, y'halls rocket technology musta been lightyears ahead of your camera technology because my fucking phone takes better video then the best fucking camera that NASA could buy. I don't know if that's the moon or a soundstage because it's a grainy blobby mess.

Either way the moon sucks so who gives a shit? It's a bug rock with no atmosphere. I never understood why we wanted to go to the moon. Go somewhere cool. Like mars. Mars has water and shit. And an atmosphere that can be viable if we pollute the hell out of it. The moon doesn't have shit.

Fucking rocks... we got rocks on Earth. In fact, we have the SAME rocks on Earth. Didn't they have the same composition as Earth rocks?

 

[1fromawoodpile]

My great great grandfather once owned slaves.

Look how shitty it's all gotten.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Did it?

I'm just saying, in the 60, y'halls rocket technology musta been lightyears ahead of your camera technology because my fucking phone takes better video then the best fucking camera that NASA could buy. I don't know if that's the moon or a soundstage because it's a grainy blobby mess.

Either way the moon sucks so who gives a shit? It's a bug rock with no atmosphere. I never understood why we wanted to go to the moon. Go somewhere cool. Like mars. Mars has water and shit. And an atmosphere that can be viable if we pollute the hell out of it. The moon doesn't have shit.

Fucking rocks... we got rocks on Earth. In fact, we have the SAME rocks on Earth. Didn't they have the same composition as Earth rocks?

The Apollo missions had serious weight limits. Of course, better cameras were available, but then, something else would have been limited, so choices were made.

The moon has proximity and low gravity making lift-offs 1/6th more cost efficient.



Not all the same composition for the craters are littered with uneroded rocks from all over the solar system and beyond. Plus, they would not be contaminated.

 

[CandiCame]

The Apollo missions had serious weight limits. Of course, better cameras were available, but then, something else would have been limited, so choices were made.

The moon has proximity and low gravity making lift-offs 1/6th more cost efficient.



Not all the same composition for the craters are littered with uneroded rocks from all over the solar system and beyond. Plus, they would not be contaminated.

Pshshsh, the moon landing sucked. Everything in the past sucked. That's why the present sucks so much.

 

[kbate]

Did it?

I'm just saying, in the 60, y'halls rocket technology musta been lightyears ahead of your camera technology because my fucking phone takes better video then the best fucking camera that NASA could buy. I don't know if that's the moon or a soundstage because it's a grainy blobby mess.

Either way the moon sucks so who gives a shit? It's a bug rock with no atmosphere. I never understood why we wanted to go to the moon. Go somewhere cool. Like mars. Mars has water and shit. And an atmosphere that can be viable if we pollute the hell out of it. The moon doesn't have shit.

Fucking rocks... we got rocks on Earth. In fact, we have the SAME rocks on Earth. Didn't they have the same composition as Earth rocks?

In 1960 your smart phone had a rotary dial and your camera was a box with a fixed lens. Your car had fins, your food came in a can, your milk was delivered to your door and your television was black and white.

Things change.

Now we know the moon is basically a dead rock, in 1966 we did not know that.
In 2080, someone will look back and laugh at the internet because thought transmission will be done by chips implanted at birth and we will know that Mars is a dead rock and an oddball called 'next-ler' will thought project that we should be looking at Neptune as a water source.

 

[1fromawoodpile]

Life on earth would have been far less likely, if not impossible, without the moon. That makes it pretty damn important.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I remember growing up glued to the Space Program launches in black and white...

That was the only time we were really allowed to watch much TV.

Kids were meant to be outdoors with the critters.

Yes, same here. We got tossed outside whether we wanted to go or not.


Mom tells this story that someone gave me an autographed picture of the first seven astronauts. She is alleged to have wet her finger to test the ink and smeared it because it was real. She still tells that story.


She asked me the other day what I had ever done with it. I told her, "Mom, I have no recollection of ever having even seen this picture - not now, not then, not ever."


She seemed perplexed.