davintosh

The Yankton Trail Bridge has been a landmark in Sioux Falls for a long, long time. The bridge gets its name from the trail & stage road connecting the settlement that became Sioux Falls to Yankton, which was then the capital of Dakota Territory. A small remnant of the original trail remains on the grounds of my alma mater, The University of Sioux Falls. I have no idea when the bridge bridge on the trail was built over the ford; it’s looked pretty old as long as I remember.

Up until the 1970’s, when a much bigger bridge was built over the Big Sioux River at Western Avenue, southbound traffic on the gravel road heading south out of town went over that bridge. The Yankton Trail Bridge was then handed over to the Sioux Falls Parks & Recreation Department, and saw limited use from vehicle traffic entering & exiting Yankton Trail Park, but years later the park’s traffic flow was redesigned, and the bridge was relegated to strictly foot & bicycle traffic. The bridge remained essentially unchanged from its original Pratt Truss design, but the Parks Dept. added a plank deck over its open mesh deck; being able to see through the deck you’re walking or riding over is a bit unnerving, so the plank deck was a welcome addition.

True, the Yankton Trail Bridge is somewhat useful for bike trail users, but with two other pedestrian-friendly bridges within about 600 yards in either direction, it is a bit redundant. There is little historic significance attached to the bridge, so it’s something of an anachronism.

This spring we noticed that construction had commenced on the bridge, and we watched as it continued through the summer. Work on it was just recently completed; the original stone and masonry abutments were removed and new concrete abutments were built, new decking and railing were installed. It looks very nice.

Last week though, I ran across this little tidbit on the city’s website…
(more…)

I was digging through my Sitemeter visitor stats a few days ago, and noticed again with a bit of wonder that one of the posts that consistently sees a fair bit of traffic is the one about the 68000 dash 30fx computer I have at home. The dash 30fx a monster of a Macintosh clone that was built without Apple’s blessing in the early ’90’s. The manufacturer got away with it by building the computer around the logic board of a IIfx purchased from Apple. The IIfx was no slouch in its day, but the 30fx stepped things up to the next rung, but at a high price.

You can read more about that relic in the old post, but seeing a bump in interest on that page made me wonder whether some of that traffic might be driven by some new chatter about those computers. So I did a little searching, and came up with several Google Books hits that I hadn’t seen before. One of them was a Network World article from June 15, 1992:

The part that got me…

The network had to be Ethernet-based in order to accommodate the Macintosh equipment. But the bandwidth constraints of a conventional Ethernet LAN were insufficient for transmitting images ranging from 100M to 300M bytes in size.

That’s a blast from the past. I remember the days of 10baseT ethernet all too well, when pushing a 100MB file over an AppleTalk network would take a matter of minutes, and 300MB… Start the transfer and go take a coffee break! It makes me feel a bit old. The digital prepress shop described in the article sounds amazingly similar to to our shop at CCL where we used the dash 30fx along with a IIfx, some Quadra 950’s, a LaserWriter, a couple of Sun SPARCstation 2s (which served as raster image processors (RIPs) for a DuPont Crosfield imagesetter). Our operation was a lot smaller than the one described in the article, as we only had one Crosfield — they had ten. They may have had more equipment, but still dealt with the same constraints in moving data around the network.

I started work for CCL in 1991, and moved to the graphics department about a year later. I worked in traditional stripping, proof & platemaking for a while before transferring to the digital art department. Not long after getting in the door, the department’s tech guy decided to venture out on his own & started a digital imaging company. I was “promoted” to fill his shoes, providing tech support for the department in addition to my regular duties. In that position, one of my first tasks/learning opportunities was to move a couple of pieces of equipment around in the department, which involved making a couple of changes on the old thinnet daisy chain network. I started the job on a Friday afternoon after everybody else had left, and could not get it working again. Thinnet was as quirky as it gets; throughput may have been slow, but reliability & configuration flexibility were awful. That made the speed less of an issue I guess.

One of the projects my predecessor had started but hadn’t finished was upgrading the network in the department to 10Base-T twisted pair ethernet. The network drops were in place and most of the pieces were there, but we were still waiting on a few last pieces so we weren’t quite ready to pull the trigger on it. The trouble I had that evening helped me decide we were ready enough, so I blasted forward with the 10Base-T and figured I’d deal with the missing pieces afterward. I didn’t see much hope in getting the thinnet working, so even if I spent the whole weekend finishing the project up, I figured I could spend the same time with the thinnet and still end up with a slow dodgy network that might still not work. That turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. I had everything installed and working in less than an hour (after screwing around with the thinnet for four hours just trying to get it to work.) The few devices still on thinnet stayed on a little sub-network, with a Mac bridging the two segments. We limped along like that for a week or so until the rest of the equipment showed up, but just having things working — and working at five times the previous network speed — made it more than worthwhile. My boss was impressed!

I learned a lot on that first 10Base-T ethernet network; the 10 megabit speed in AppleTalk, combined with those early machines made image processing pretty time consuming. In 1992, pushing a 100MB file around the network indeed took a while, plus disk space was very expensive, so all kinds of extra work went into making things as compact as possible. Even on the state-of-the-art RIP running on that 90MHz Sparc 20 workstation, an eight-page layout literally took hours to process before it would begin imaging. A lot of times, we’d set up a layout, send it to the RIP and let the RIP chew on it overnight; if we somehow made a mistake somewhere along the line (it happened; not often, but it happened) we’d have to fix the foible & start all over again. Even before the job went to the RIP we’d examine the Quark, Illustrator & Photoshop files trying to find places we could streamline things a bit; Photoshop images that were scaled and/or rotated in Quark or Illustrator would take extra RIP time, so we’d take the time to re-do those files in Photoshop so they would be placed at 100% with no rotation.

Now though, eighteen years later, with RIPs running multiple 3GHz processors (with multiple cores), 4GB of memory, and gigabit ethernet, that same eight-page spread takes a matter of minutes to send to the RIP and for the RIP to process it. And modern operating systems, gigabit ethernet NIC’s and faster hardware make file transfers of several gigabytes pretty much a non-issue. Then there is disk space; one of the first purchases I had to make was a 1GB SCSI hard drive to replace one that had died in a Macintosh Quadra 950. I don’t remember exactly what I paid for it, but I know it was in the neighborhood of $1,000. Now you can buy a 1 terabyte drive for under $100! So with disk space so cheap and network transfer speeds so fast, the time we spent trimming file sizes and optimizing placement seems a total waste.

The years I’ve spent in this business have pretty much flown by At this point in my career, I’m probably in it for the duration. But thinking about how much things have changed since I started back in 1992 really makes me wonder what kind of changes and improvements the next 18 years will bring; cheaper, faster, smarter…

Somebody at work was complaining the other day about feeling like she hadn’t accomplished anything that day because she spent all her time “putting out fires”. I could relate; I have days like that pretty regularly. But with Christmas approaching, the thought occurred to me that it’d be fun to get her a toy fireman’s helmet as a gag gift, and that led me to remember one of the coolest toys of my childhood, a Texaco Fire Chief helmet.

This was not just any plastic toy hat; it had an adjustable head strap, and a microphone with an amplifier and speaker built into the front of the helmet. I don’t remember when I got the helmet; probably a Christmas gift that kinda blended in with all the other gifts, not leaving any distinct memories. I also have no idea what happened to it, but I’d bet it was jettisoned back in 1977 when my family moved from the house I grew up in — a lot of stuff disappeared during that move. By that time I had pretty much outgrown that toy, but these days I’d sure like to have it back, just for old time’s sake. I do remember being frustrated with it not working, but if I had it now, I bet I could get it working again.

I found several helmets like mine up for bids on eBay (of course); the one pictured was in particularly good condition, and had some great photos (that I could actually borrow; it’s eBay is making it pretty tough to link or directly download images from auctions these days.) I’m really tempted to bid on it.

The family & I just finished watching Jumanji again — that is a fun movie, and one of my all-time favorites! But the scene that gets me is the first stampede… Alan (Robin Williams), Sarah (Bonnie Hunt), Judy (Kirsten Dunst) & Peter (Bradley Pierce) duck down a hallway to get out of the way of the stampeding animals, allowing us, the audience, a view of the animals running past the hallway.

Every time I see that scene reminds me of a fevered dream when I was a kid. I was sick with the flu or something and had a fever. Sleep was sporadic, and I kept dreaming — or more likely hallucinating — that huge animals were running down the hallway past my room making an enormous racket. It seems to me that I had this dream more than just once as a kid… And I know of at least one time as an adult having a fever and getting that déjà vu feeling. Very unnerving. But this movie scene is as close to what I saw in my mind’s eye as anything else.

Pardon the crappy video; it’s all I could find online, and looks like someone stuck a video camera in front of a TV to capture it. If you really want to experience it, rent the movie; it’s worth it!

On our Kentucky visit last week, we intentionally drove some of the two-lane highways when traveling between the sites we visited, and the rural Kentucky scenery made the longer drive times very worthwhile. After our Mammoth Cave tour we had dinner in Cave City, KY, then drove Highway 31W back to Elizabethtown. Not too far down the road we happened across a very special sight, the Wigwam Village Inn.

The sign welcomes visitors to stop and “Sleep in a Wigwam”, and offers fifteen teepee-shaped rooms, complete with modern amenities, arranged in a semicircle around the main teepee in the center. The name of the place confused me a little, as the term ‘wigwam‘ is usually associated with a dome-shaped hut used by Native Americans, while the structures in the Wigwam Village were more like tipis… I won’t argue semantics with them though; wigwam or tipi, they are definitely cool!

The history of the Wigwam Village Inn is interesting; turns out that the one we saw is one of seven that were built some 70 years ago, and they even have a tie to South Dakota!

Wigwam Village Inn No. 2 began as a dream of Frank A. Redford in the early 1900s. Frank’s inspirations in this dream were a popular ice cream shop shaped like an upside down cone and authentic teepees he’d seen on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota. His dream became reality in 1935 when construction on Wigwam Village #1 was completed in Horse Cave, Kentucky. Realizing he’d hit upon a popular idea, Frank patented the design with the US patent office in 1936.

Wigwam Village Inn #2 was completed in 1937 in Cave City, and five more were built over time in Alabama, Florida, New Orleans, California, and Arizona… Of the seven original Wigwam Villages, only three remain: #2 in Cave City, Kentucky, #6 in Holbrook, Arizona. and #7 in Riallto, California. Wigwam Village #2 is an impressive sight and is truly a monument to one man’s American dream that came true.

When we saw it, my first thought was, “This is where they came up with the idea for the Cozy Cone Motel in Pixar’s Cars!” Sure enough, the website for the California Wigwam Village confirms that thought. And it fits right in with the Route 66 theme in Cars, because that Village is located right on the real Route 66.

When we drove by the Village in Cave City, I knew it was pretty cool, and I’m glad I at least stopped to take pictures. But had I known that the place was this old and unique, I definitely would’ve at least stopped in the gift shop. Next time I’m in Kentucky…

How’s this for obscure… On one of the rare occasions I sat down & watched an old, old re-run of the original Knight Rider (starring David Hasselhoff and the talking early-’80’s Trans Am with the funky strobe light), I happened to spot a set of monkey bars identical to the ones we’ve got in the back yard! That is the only time I have ever seen another set like that. Ever.

Our set is a little more weather-worn than the one in the TV show, which isn’t surprising considering they’ve been sitting out in the weather for about 50 years. The bars were purchased by my parents and have been part of growing up since before I can remember. I recall hearing from someone that they were bought when my eldest sister was little, but I doubt that’s true, as that would make them 60 years old, and counting. When Mom & Dad moved from the house on Walts in 1977 I think the monkey bars went to Dick & Dawn’s house, where they stayed until Yvonne & I bought our house on Norton in 1991 or so. We’ve had them ever since, and they’ve been a fixture in our kids’ backyard playtime.

That’s Caleb, at about 18 months old, after having climbed to the top of the monkey bars. That horizontal bar near the top of his head is about 8 feet off the ground. Enough to make any mom a little nervous.

Yes, 50-plus years does a number on the paint covering the bars, and on the metal underneath. The leg ends get rustier every year, and two have broken loose. I’ve been planning to replace some metal and repaint the bars for years — I even went so far as to buy a few rattle-cans of Rustoleum for the job — but it’s the colors that have delayed me for these many years. The bars were originally painted red, yellow and green, but with the years of fading plus the coat of white paint that Dick applied over everything at some point, I’m just not sure which bar was painted what color.

And then I saw this show, Knight Rider, Season 1, Episode 6, broacast on RTN. My first thought was, “YES! I can finally nail down the colors and get it painted!” Problem was that the set was only seen in one short transition shot in the show, spanning maybe three seconds in the frame, and not very clear. I dug around online looking for the video without much luck. I finally tracked down a copy through Google Video last night; the video is actually hosted by a Japanese YouTube knock-off called YouKu.com, and even has Japanese subtitles! Too cool! (link)

But even after looking through the video frame by frame, the colors aren’t clear enough to make any solid determination. So I guess, to paint the thing accurately I’ll have to go back to my original plan to do some judicious sanding in obscure areas that have maybe been spared the fading effects of the sun & hopefully see what the original colors were. Maybe it’ll get done before it ends up as a heap of iron oxide bits in the grass. Maybe…

I just discovered something interesting; the great state of South Dakota allows cars that are at least 30 years old to be registered as Historical Vehicles. That means that as long as the vehicle isn’t used for general transportation, you pay a one-time $10 licensing fee, and that’s it.

Here’s what the Section K of the DMV Motor Vehicle Manual says about it:

HISTORICAL VEHICLES
A. A vehicle or motorcycle over 30 years old that is used only for special occasions such as display, exhibitions, parades, etc., and not for general transportation, although the vehicle/motorcycle may be driven to and from service stations for fuel and repairs, may be licensed as a historical vehicle/motorcycle.
B. Historical plates can be obtained for a one-time $10 registration fee. Application is made directly to the Division of Motor Vehicles.

And that’s not all; if you own a vehicle that qualifies as ‘historic’ and can’t track down the title…

3. If all efforts have been made to locate the title and no records can be found, an affidavit must be submitted indicating efforts made in locating the previous owner to obtain the title.
4. It will be at the discretion of the Division of Motor Vehicles to determine if a title will be issued based upon the applicant’s documentation which is submitted.

Quite a deal for restorers and collectors. I’m sure other states have similar laws on the books, but this is all new to me!

Bummer of it though is that my BMW is a mere 5 years away from qualifying. Of course, I can’t really afford to keep a car for anything other than the dreaded ‘general transportation’, so it’s moot for me anyway. But the one thing that makes this slightly depressing is that cars built the year I graduated qualify as ‘historical’. I don’t feel like I’m historical…

Here’s another cool site featured recently by Neatorama that I can’t get enough of… Scouting New York.

I work as a film location scout in New York City. My day is basically spent combing the streets for interesting and unique locations for feature films. In my travels, I often stumble across some pretty incredible sights, most of which are ignored every day by thousands of New Yorkers in too much of a rush to pay attention.

What a great job, and what a great idea to go along with that great job… Grab photos of some of the unique but easily missed features of the places you see. And New York City has plenty of character hiding everywhere, but hiding in plain sight. It just takes someone like Scout to see that character and point it out to those who are too busy to notice the beauty that’s around them.

I usually think that I’m pretty good at that — among my family and friends it’s usually me that notices the oddball little out-of-the-way places and the weird little details that others will miss — but I don’t always take the time to sit down and write about them. Around Sioux Falls, there are lots of historic sites that are marked by Historical Society plaques; I started a while back taking photographs of those markers and sites, and writing a little about them on a Blogspot site — Sioux Falls Historic Sites (yeah, original name, I know…) — but my updates have been sporadic and I’m somewhat ashamed to see now that it’s been over two years since I last added a post. I’ve still got photos of a couple dozen more markers sitting on my hard drive waiting for me to get around to writing about them, but still, there they sit.

But beyond even the historic sites, there are plenty of details in the old buildings around town that could be “scouted” & written about… Of course, Sioux Falls doesn’t have the wealth of old interesting things that New York has… But still, it’s a great idea that I might have to pick up. Maybe just add to my SF Historic Sites project? Yup, in my spare time.

We’re having a cold snap in Sioux Falls this week. Not just cold, but stinkin’ cold. The photo above was taken of the thermometer on the back of our house at about 6am this morning. 14 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (that’s -25.5° C for the rest of the world.) No idea how accurate that old thermometer is — it came with the house — but KELO’s weather page shows -15° F for today’s low, and the National Weather Service has an official low of -11° for today. Tonight should be at least as cold.

Thankfully the wind wasn’t blowing much outside this morning, so starting the Suzuki wasn’t too bad. Not long after snapping the photo I went out to start up the engine & let it warm up a little. It’s always funny how the cold sucks the bounce out of the seats & suspension; hopping in is like jumping on a log. No give at all.

The air on a cold, cold morning like this is crisp and clear, and sounds take on a different character. Aircraft flying overhead sound totally different, cars driving by sound totally different… It’s a very cool experience. And on many mornings like this in years past, I’ve seen light pillars — vertical shafts of light above streetlights, farmyard lights, or car headlights. I didn’t get out before it was light, so didn’t see any this morning, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were around.

The cold is brutal, and makes me not want to go anywhere, but the cold brings out special phenomena that make venturing outside well worth the trouble of bundling up.

A while back I wrote a spot about the MI Speedball, a home-built car based on a set of plans published in a 1959 Mechanix Illustrated magazine. Recently, Jalopnik posted an article about a vintage MI Speedball that showed up on an eBay auction. The auction ended on Nov. 30, apparently unsold because the highest bid of $22,456.00 didn’t hit the seller’s magic reserve figure.

The car was originally built back in 1959 by a California boat builder, using suspension parts & wheels from an early-’50’s Citroen 2CV. And it’s powered by an oddball 1952 Ariel Square-Four motorcycle engine. Kind of like a pair of two-cylinder motors stuck together in a square arrangement (here’s a video of one running.) So very cool; makes me wonder how it would look and perform if it was built with suspension bits & wheels from, say a late-’90’s BMW 3-series, and a 4-cylinder from a Civic with a 5-speed in the back. Considering the motor in the 1959 version that scooted it around pretty well with it’s 60 HP, the Honda powerplant would be pretty insane. I’m sure you’d need something more than 2×4’s to hold it all together though.

The best part of the eBay auction page is the photos; I was impressed by the original concept and article, but it is so cool to see hi-res color photos of the machine. If only I had a little more disposable income, a little more spare time, a spare garage stall, and a wife tolerant of such foolery, I’d be showing off photos of my own Speedball. Yeah; if only.

So in lieu of that, here are the photos and copy, lovingly ripped off from that auction. Just don’t drool on your keyboard too much. Oh, and the seller is the Saint Louis Car Museum; they have this car and many others in their inventory available for sale.