My very talented friend, artist, and squirrel tamer Tom Mills has breached into the waters of the web.
One of the things you must know is that Tom has very exclusive access to Italian catacombs. He receives Vatican grade access unlike any other American. He visits this underworld on earth, a subterranean labyrinth of catacombs and human entombment. Later, he generates an experiential impression , memories incorporated with dreams and visions resulting form his descent. In my mind, these generative works are the marrow of great creation, honest in the use of the artist as corridor, channeling and filtering, instead of simply parroting light’s refraction. The result is superior by its distillation.
His amalgamations dance on the very edges of corporeality, as they dangle from a silver thread of memory leading from the afterlife.
Another is that these are even more darkly glorious in person!Get your toes wet and surf over to see his talents laid out for you.
Please Enjoy,
Wendy Poole at the Ozark literacy Council asked me about his background…. Susan Shackelford is its Patron.
“He has a few roots. Van Gogh was definitely on my mind as a current in the wave of themes I was trying to marry, both for Susan and to reconcile my own aesthetic ends. He was one artist we discussed as well as Obviously klimpt, but also some Schiele, Rothko, and maybe Rauchenberg or Jasper Johns,and an Edward Hopper kind of hidden Rhythm underneath, and a little bit of schizophrenia and obfuscation. Enough ambiguity to allow the viewer to experience a Rorschach effect finding their own joys and elemnts here and there. I like having it become something that rewards the viewer for approaching it, too but part of the density is a result of close working quarters”
fully resolved:
some in progress images
Great old 2-stroke kick-start Honda scooter that i’ve been going though. it’s faster than any modern Honda 50cc
The scooter was a ruby red when it came to me, and had been crashed in the front by a relative
I rode it about 5 miles and lo and behold, i ALSO crashed it in a low side slide. Luckily that was the key to finding that the front rubber bushings have been removed completely by time and weather. Replacing those and it’s a LOT more stable when you hit the brakes because the tires doesn’t immediately wrench sideways out from under you. lovely that.
With the scarring and scrapes of the lowside it was time for real thorough repair, so it got totally stripped, cleaned repaired and repainted CATERPILLAR heavy equipment yellow.
new brakes, bushings milk-crate basket and a battery put it back in service…..just located that LAST reflector…so it’ll be 100% soon!
this is a bike i picked up locally. it’s a TMUnknown bmw R65 built in 1980. It has the lightest frame of the r65 series, and it was the smallest of the BMW lineup. It’s luckily enough that it also benefits from engine changes made in that model year so it has the nikasil cylinders and better head design so it’s got the best power for the series too.
It’s really been around the world, and it’s a proven reliable bike for me, to redline and on tail hopping downshifts it’s fun to flick around and wind out to it’s close to 103 mph top speed (as new).
When i picked it up it was running well at low rpms, but lacked power and would stumble all over itself at about 55mph, refusing to revv out. Tune up time led me through the valves, plugs, wires, points, oil change, timing check and the odd filter here and there. i’ve installed a new oil pressure sensor and rebuilt the petcock. The forks will still need rebuilding and i’ll likely change brake pads if not the front setup entirely for better feel and grip.
With its new tires and an antique plate we can both take a good run at top speed now, but i don’t have the place to try it and those forks need to be dealt with first. it took to 85 on the hwy with plenty to go.Talked to the two previous owners and found out that the trans has been rebuilt in the past 5 years or so, plus a thousand dollars spent at BMW in the last year or so looking after the driveline and clutch.
The little airhead is a reliable old bike and a real star around the city and hillside.
‘here it all is, it’s kindof quick and dirty and builds on previous work by others
‘error handling could be more robust. and you need to make it a button and select a valid contact for it to run.
Public Sub LastContacted()
‘ Purpose: Adds and populates a “Last Contacted” and “contacted by” property to
‘ the active contact item. also adds a NOTE, and schedules a future contact appointment
‘ Note: You must select a contact item before
‘ running this macro.
The openwifi-neutralitizer is a 18″x18″ plug and play commodity Cisco Access Point (E900 model) I’ve embedded in a painting which loosely represents the dissemination of information and vibrancy of communication when open equal access is available. It’s the broad smile of finding/creating free wifi 
. LED indication for connectivity (WAN,LAN,Wifi) and power as well as the reset button are visible or accessible from the front of the panel.
Since these images, wiring has been bundled up and a Female-Female connector Socket graces the end of the cat5′s on the WWW connection so you can extend it and wire tuck it more easily.
This is the second of these router paintings i have created with a partial intention of just getting plasti-devices new style and make them more attractive to wall-mount. The first is in a professional office, but this one is much smaller and intended to be used solely to produce sudden subnet w/open wifi anywhere you can hook it in.
It is partly intended to work with the portable music cabinet of mine featured previously, allowing us to give it web access when we take it places that have locked wifi by using ours.
Just a gallery of some great metal and fiberglass draped over clockwork powertrains.
These are just nice to share. bike is on a lift with most driveline components in place.
This machine is now in its second major revision: I got a deal on some lithium cells from Barefoot Motors (Jamie from Mythbusters’ ATV company) Lucky day, they also came with a balance charger.
Lithium Batteries, Tail-section and Lighting, better cooling and so on.It has a new gear ratio as well. Top speed and acceleration have actually both increased. The previous gearing was simply too tall.
Lower tray expanded by David Davidian of Ironman Fabrication, who also welded the original lead acid tray. Tail section is my first attempt at fiberglass.
Show and tell. This is everything at a glance. The new cells are so strong that when fully charged they actually hit V+ cutoff on the controller. I’m skipping a cell for the time being and considering using it to run accessory cooling. You can still see the tank tabs from the previous iteration’s plexiglass side covers.
This is my favorite touch. My wife Lori made all of the wooden pieces on the V.1 design and this is how she’s treated the tank’s fill-up door. Wood panel with control switches and 48v voltmeter.
Fill ‘er Up!
- Preview of the final ‘New Hotness’ Portable Party Machine! 50,000 songs+
For something going on 40 years this cabinet looked like some variation on the ratty image pictured next and not the shiny bauble above. It was capable of playing one record at a time and storing a dozen or so albums. This is an illustrated tale of how it came to reunite me with my music collection and frustrate audiophiles.
(here is a new version with the white panel)
Like many of my favorite things, this was discarded in someone’s trash. The smart money might have been on leaving it there, but my wife Lori wanted it immediately, else I was going to be the item the trash.Getting it home, we soon realized that most of the components did not in fact work. Also, the box is not squared anymore, and furthermore there’s not a wal-mart in the land that sells glass for tube amplifiers. Not one! Read the rest of this entry »
Fun for all, old and new! This one’s easy, so get HACKING(or send me your helmets)!!!
Fully Functional Helmet on Mostly functional Human
This is a military helicopter helmet that i found for 22$ at a thrift shop. I like it so much I bought two.
It has re-purposed electronics so that it works with a Playstation3 or Cell phone via bluetooth, and has a complete second circuit integrated to output to a an RF-wireless headset that is also routed through the original system’s speakers. The combination allows for a unique helmet that allows me to both have the ambient video-game sounds as well as chat-communications integrated into a single helmet for gaming, but also allows me to use it as a regular bluetooth, radio, or wireless headset form the TV when the wife isn’t awake yet. This project is straightforward, but to look GREAT it takes some time. One major advantage is that you’re updating very old technology with very new. New stuff is smaller so you have decent working space to hide it all. Read the rest of this entry »
(Submitted by Car Lust reader Julian Santa-Rita)
I have been naming my cars since my first one. Each is its own personality to me. My first was a grey Volvo 240 with velour seats, and I named it ” Nigel.” Later a 1986 RX-7 I named “Chu-Chu Rocket” passed through my hands. There was a Subaru GL called “Roo-Badoo” and a MKII Jetta who was renamed loads of “happy expletives,” depending on whether one or both of us was in a saucy mood that particular moment.
But it took me almost a year to understand my Saab 9000 Aero well enough to finally give it the pet name “E.M.,” which was shorthand for “Executive Missile.” The relationship began as I left college to move to my new home 1,000 miles away, and I needed to replace the “expletive” Jetta. My father brought me to see this somewhat awkward silver Saab which I’d never even heard of before and I’d certainly never seen one in person. Someone had traded it in on a Subaru WRX.
Its rakishness and creases were not immediately beautiful to my young eyes, though its designer dipped his ink to pen some of my favorite legends like the Lotus Esprit, VW Golf, DeLorean DMC-12, and BMW’s M1 Supercar.
My Saab was no DMC-12 with its bulbous 5-door hatchback shape and 3-spoke wheels, I thought, but it seemed to drive with a new tier of urgency. The right(chous) pedal contained threatening levels of acceleration… levels which DeLorean drivers often find lacking in their stainless steel steeds. Even early Esprits would be found tested and lacking. In fact, around this time most of my “cool” friends were getting Celicas and Mustang GTs, but none of them were near as quick as the weird little 5-door I’d discovered almost completely by accident. In the first week, I’d realized that this was a true sleeper car in the performance department, despite its extreme comfort and sensible hatchback, when I found it listed on supercars.net.
This, it turned out, was a real driver’s car… rewarding every input, reacting accordingly to every subtle input change, and in time of need I could fit a whole refrigerator in the hatch. Pictured is an 8-foot futon couch. Eat it, U-Haul.
I owned the sweet little Saab for 6 years. I used it to move all of my things across the country, take me to job interviews, travel around town, and elsewhere. This little supercar sedan set me up in my adult life. I did my own maintenance (sometimes frequently) and eventually my own tuning with software I found online for free (t5suite).
One thing that Saab has is a loyal following of smarty-pants nuttier types who are very willing to share their insanity and knowledge. Within two years my sleeper had sway bars, more boost, better brakes, better cooling, and a few other niceties which enhanced the driving experience alongside the typical maintenance.
It taught me how to treat it along the way, even responding ever so slightly to old oil, and every sensation of the driving experience seemed communicated so cleanly to the cockpit. We went on road courses, off-road to campsites, on date nights, and ran errands together.
E.M. was one of those rare perfect pieces of design, a wondercar capable of utility, speed, comfort, reliability, passion, and it was never too old to teach a young guy a few things about overall goodness of design. I reluctantly sold E.M. because of a leaking sunroof and growing mileage count. Like so many, I thought I needed a newer model.
We were best friends for 6 years, and I traded E.M. in on an Audi Wagon, for which I will never forgive myself.
I last tracked her to Stilwell, O-Kay-lahoma, where I’m sure her heart still beats for someone. If you see her around, please say hello for me, as I think of her often.
–Julian Santa-Rita
Image Credits: Thanks to Julian for the images of the Saab.
