ship breaking

i found these guys breaking up a ship hull that was dredged from the oakland inner harbor. they were using a thermal-lance which burns iron rods that are held in a consumable iron pipe. oxygen is pumped through the tube and lit at the end with an oxyacetylene torch. these things are capable of temperatures of 7000-9000 F, melting through the steel of the bow and the cement ballast inside. they also have magnesium versions that get up to 14,000 F. they said they had pulled out tons of steel ingots the size of a mailbox at about 250 lbs each that also served as ballast.

they also had a wolf tied to a bulldozer.

liss

i found this exceptional liss on an early morning walk on saturday.

south of gilman st.

this website/music server is real super. lots of great bands from hither and yon.

oma

the brains of the operation

here's the zilla waiting to for a housing and installation. it controls the motor's output by taking the accelerator input signal and making electric magic. the main semiconductor fuse is to the left.

coming together

battery pack voltmeter installed and the speedo augmented with a "paktrakr" LCD readout where the old analog fuel gauge once was, just above the needle. It has 2 lines of text that are controlled by a mini toggle switch and a momentary selector button mounted in the dash. (pics of it actually functioning are en route to the blog) I just got a original steering wheel to replace the piece of shit mini wheel that came with the car. now one can actually see the dash.