Massive and un-restrained title change was necessary

STANLEY!

The Honda HSC, which some thought would be the direct sucessor to the Acura NSX, was never put into production.




pity. the car is a beauty, especially in the rear panelling.

Some lady paid me with this one. I can't believe the condition it's in. Judging by the customer, she had no idea what she had but she didn't steal it. This leads me to believe that she got it as change from somewhere else. Strange.

It's amazing what a 6 megapixel camera can do. I'm going to have to invest in a more powerful camera one of these days....
I've taken a picture of two war nickels- a 1943 P is on the left. a 1945 P is on the right. the year, in this case, doesn't make any difference- I just took a picture of the '43 to use it as a reference. If you compare the two coins, you will notice both subtle and noticeable differences. the words "FIVE CENTS" on the right are 'fatter' than the same words pictured on the left. also in "STATES" you will notice some differences.
The error is most notable in the word "MONTICELLO," the final O on the right hand coin clearly has another O under it. the letters in this word also appear to be fatter.

This error is almost invisible to the human eye. The camera clearly magnifies the coin and makes the error highly visible. If you have a 6 megapixel or better camera, you might be a ninja.

I have... an interest in the 'Silver' war nickels. of all the changes made to coins over the years, I find these the most... intriguing. both Nickel and copper were needed for the war efforts during World War II, so the U.S. government looked to other materials for coins made out of these metals. the 1943 penny is the best (and possibly the most well-known) example of this- 1943 pennies are almost exclusively made out of steel and zinc. If you have a 1943 penny that appears to be copper, grab a magnet. Copper is so slightly magnetic that it will not stick to any magnet you have in your house (I really, really hope this is a true statement. If you have a magnet that can attract copper in your home you are most likely a psychopath).
The silver war nickel is both less known than its smaller cousin, and less noticeable. Therefore, I find it more interesting.
Nickels are traditionally made of 75% copper and 25% nickel. During WWII, the nickels composition took a drastic change- 56% copper, 35% silver, and 9% manganese. While war nickels still contain copper, they contain no nickel, which I find rather amusing given their name.
Silver tends to tone yellow (sometimes other colors, typically oranges- but even purple, red, other rainbow colors and even black are possibilities), while manganese seems to tone nasty shades of green. War nickels, at least the ones I find still in circulation, tend to be brown, green, dark dark gray, or some mottled combination thereof. They look like dirty nickels.

There were three major errors in the silver nickels- the 1943/2 (43 over 42) die error, the 1943 "doubled eye" (technically a DDO error but most noticable around jefferson's eyes) error, and finally the 1945 double-die reverse error. all of these errors occur ONLY on P minted nickels. All of these errors are valuable (the 43/2 nickel seems to be the most valuable).
Unfortunately, I don't have a doubled-eye nickel, but I have the other two, in pretty decent shape.

D E S P E R A T I O N
A R O P E E N D S I T

Wish I could host a video here...

So out of the wild blue Randy and I decided to take a trip down to the Kansas Cosmosphere today. it's in Hutchinson, Kansas, which is about 20 minutes away from us.

The first thing that we saw as we approached the mueseum is an old Mercury-Redstone rocket. Sweet! I wrote a report about these things way back when. (All of the pictures are clickable. Wanna see a larger version? Click.)

The Mercury Rocket was the first rocket to carry an american into space sucessfully. It used the Redstone engine (originally designed for military ICBMs). Eisenhower wanted to use some civilian rocket engine, but that failed. Using already existing military-grade technology is tried-and-true. I don't know what Ike's deal was.


Next up is the truly awe-inspiring SR-71 Blackbird Spyplane. Big, sleek, fast- a miracle of engineering that came out of the 60's.


This plane was actually built with gaps in the airframe- the designers knew that when it reached the speeds it was capable of, it would heat the skin of the airplane to tremendous temperatures. Upon heating up the airframe would expand and seal itself shut (Sitting on the runway at normal temperatures, this plane would actually leak fuel because of the gaps).



The engineers soon found that the more times the plane flew, the more aerodynamic it was becoming due to the heat and wind changing the
shape of the plane a tiny amount.
The SR-71 made a great spy plane, but a horrible stealth plane. The engine's jets (literally the fire expelled by the jet engines) were so long that they actually had their own radar signature.















Also, The engines became MORE fuel efficient the faster the plane went. Wikipedia has quite an interesting site on the SR-71.

In order to get a feel for how... amazing this plane is, you'd probably have to see it yourself.


















Next up are just some other things to see. I'll post pictures, but I probably won't have much to say. the pictures might have a caption, however. make sure to put your cursor over them for additional information.

These couple regard german weapons of war. the V-1 and V-2 rockets were the FIRST rocket propelled bombs (rather, missles). They appeared a little too late in WWII to make any significant difference, however...
















































Next up we have the Liberty Bell 7- the Command Capsule that was loaded onto Mercury #4, Spacecraft 11. Second manned flight into space (July 21, 1961). The flight of the Liberty Bell 7 went without event, but upon landing in the ocean, the explosive hatch mysteriously blew off. Although recovery teams attempted to rescue the module from the sea, they were unable- until July 20, 1999.

The capsule was shipped to the Kansas Cosmosphere, where it was dissasembled, cleaned, and put back together.



Amazingly enough, restorers found 52 mercury dimes and 5 silver certificates while taking the spacecraft apart. I'm a coin collector- but DAMN! Space, then the bottom of the ocean for 38 years- what I would do to get my hands on something like that! I took a snapshot of the silver certificate. The brown coloration is probably a rust stain- I assume that this note was against a piece of metal that oxidized in the salt water. What is REALLY amazing about this note is the fact that it is a star note. If you examine the serial number, You'll see that it starts with a star. Star notes are only printed when an error occurs in the printing process. Say the ink runs badly, or the "paper" tears. The damaged note is destroyed, and a star note is printed in its place. Because of this Star notes aren't terribly common. I see them at work sometimes, but DAMN! I've got a birthday coming up, err.... Moving on?





This... Well, this is a Saturn Rocket (The rocket that carried all of the Apollo Missions) being transported by a ...crawler. Each shoe (the treads are composed of hundreds of shoes) weighed about a ton. Ridiculous. This thing is huge! Just imagine being the driver of something like this.

One thing that I really like about my job (that is, working at QT) is the things that customers bring in to pay me with, desperate for their cigarettes or a couple bucks worth of gasoline.

It is amazing what some people will do to get their niccotine fix. Can you honestly say that you enjoy to smoke when you have to dig through your grandfather's coins to find the money to buy the cheapest, most disgusting pack of cigarettes that QuikTrip offers? If I were ever that desperate for anything, I would seriously consider giving it up.

Thankfully, I don't have that problem.

since 1909, people. 98 years. The face on the penny has stayed the same longer than that of any coin (excluding every depiction of lady liberty). I'm betting that since they went from wheat to memorial in 59, we'll see another change in 2009.

We're closing on a house! 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, completed basement, 3 car garage, 1200 sq ft upstairs and 700 more down.
Fireplace is downstairs.

pictures, and more information, will be here next month.

March 22nd and I'll have my own house!

...or not

Sony blows. they have no problem destroying your life for $15.99 .

Here's why.