By the end of summer you will no doubt be sick of hearing about these two. Until then, however, we were amused to learn that the thugs in Pixar's upcoming "Cars 2" are both American Motors vehicles from the unfortunate 1970s. Ridiculed as failures, the duo are part of an evil Axis of Lemons.
Early screenings of “Cars 2,” the sequel to the 2006 Pixar film, opening nationwide on June 24, suggest the truism holds for CGI-variety baddies, too. Upstaging the Owen Wildon-voiced hero car, Lightning McQueen, are the new miscreants, Professor Z and his flunkies — two American Motors-inspired sidekicks, a Pacer with bad attitude and a Gremlin who could hail from the Kremlin.
Grem is a beat-up orange AMC Gremlin, which Pixar said in a news release “has a big chip on his fender that has led him to the underworld of international espionage.” His partner Acer, an AMC Pacer, “joined forces with fellow ‘lemon’ cars as henchmen for the devious Professor Z.”
Funny coincidence: Telstar Logistics was oogling an AMC Gremlin survivor we spotted recently in San Francisco. In case you're wondering how a showroom-stock Gremlin looks after soldiering on for three decades, wonder no more. It ain't pretty:
Air France began Airbus A380 service to San Francisco International Airport yesterday, joining Lufthansa, which inaugurated SFO's first regularly scheduled A380 service a few weeks ago.
Here's a good video of yesterday's Air France arrival, including a runway-side view of the landing and the airport's celebratory fire truck waterworks display. Apologies for the musical soundtrack... it's not our fault.
Telstar Logistics has always been a fan of Putzmeister. The company, based in Germany, is the world's leading manufacturer of mobile concrete pumping equipment used in the construction industry. That's very cool, but as an added bonus, the name Putzmeister is absolutely hilarious if know know a little bit of Yiddish. (We even bought a safety-orange Putzmeister t-shirt from the company's online store a few years ago.)
Schoolyard giggles aside, however, it turns out that a Putzmeister may be one of the most important pieces of equipment available to help bring Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis under control -- both as firefighting apparatus and as a tool to build new concrete containment facilities.
Only three truck-mounted pumps in the world rise high enough to hose water on the overheating, radioactive reactors in Japan. One of them, it turns out, was in Summerville [South Carolina].
That's why sometime this week a tractor-trailer rig with 10 axles will lumber its way down Interstate 26 hauling more than 80 tons of a device that looks like a huge, folded-up steel girder. The truck is bound for Atlanta, where it will be loaded on the largest cargo plane in the world, scheduled to be flown out Saturday.
It's not the first rescue work for this pump. The devices are built to pour concrete, and this one was bought by a Georgia company to pour concrete for casks at the mixed oxide fuel plant at the Savannah River Site in Barnwell. A shorter version of the pump by the same manufacturer poured concrete for the towers of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge.
The pump extends to a length more than two-thirds of a football field, but can be folded up to about the length of most tractor-trailers. The problem is the weight. At 170,000 pounds, the rig is double the weight allowed over the road without special permits. [...]
The pump is one of two that will be flown to Japan aboard Russian-made Antonov AN-225 Mriya Super Heavy Transport planes, the world's largest aircraft.
The other pump is in California. The planes were designed to transport the Russian Space Shuttle, said [Putzmeister marketing services manager Kelly Blickle]. The rigs are being moved to pump water, but if a decision is made to encase a reactor in concrete -- similar to a method used in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster -- they could do that, too, she said.
First came ineffective drops by helicopter, next was spraying from fire trucks. The situation was brought closer to control with the arrival of Hyper Rescue and Super Pump Truck from the Tokyo Fire Department, but it was an extra-large concrete pumping machine that has been most effective, particularly at unit 4 where steelwork obstructs spraying from the ground.
The machine already on-site is a Putzmeister 58, named after the length of its boom in metres, supplied to Tepco on the initiative of Hiroshi Suzuki, director of Putzmeister Japan. It is able to pump up to 120 cubic metres of seawater per hour with fairly high precision thanks to a flexible boom. In earlier phases of the Fukushima accident, the ability to control the pumps remotely was a great help in reducing radiation doses to workers.
The site will soon receive delivery of two 62 metre units that were available from a Putzmeister factory in Germany and as well as two 70 metre units from the USA.
There are really no words to express the despair and powerlessness one feels when watching the current crisis unfold in Japan. Our fingers are crossed, and our confidence in Japan is high. Ganbare, indeed.
The US Coast Guard released an aerial video that shows tsunami waves created by the earthquake in Japan battering the Northern California town of Crescent City:
A Coast Guard Air Station North Bend HH-65C Dolphin helicopter conducts an over flight of Crescent City, Calif., Friday, Mar. 11, 2011, after an earthquake near Japan caused a Tsunami to strike the West Coast.
Location: Crescent City Inner Basin Harbor, Crescent City, CA
Cause: Tsunami following 8.9 earthquake in Japan
Damage: • 47 vessels afloat but with some level of damage • 11 sunken vessels • 1 vessel grounded at mouth of Elk River • Large debris including rocks, logs, and vessel debris scattered about inner harbor and shore • Navigable waters status unknown • Significant damage to moorings and docks
Our agents on the waterfront conspired with our agent in the rigging to bring us a wonderful one-two combination of pictures.
The cruise ship Carnival Spendor just entered the big drydock in San Francisco, where she will undergo major repairs -- including an engine replacement. Ouch!
Remember the Carnival Spendor? That's the infamous ship that spent four days adrift last November after an onboard fire disabled her propulsion 200 miles south of San Diego. With 3299 passengers and 1167 crew trapped aboard, the US Navy diverted the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to provision the stricken ship with food and supplies. (Fresh shrimp cocktails for the buffet? Delivered by the Gipper??)
But now it's time to make the ship new again. It will cost $56 million and take 4 to 6 weeks, but in the end the Carnival Splendor will get a new diesel engine and two alternators. The new motor arrived via a gigantic Antonov An-124 that landed on Saturday at San Francisco International Airport.
For the last few days, six giant beer vats have slowly plodded their wayt through the last 108 kilometres of a journey that started in Burgstadt, Germany and that will end sometime tonight or early tomorrow morning at the Molson Coors Brewery on Carlingview Drive [in Toronto, Canada]. The vats were originally supposed to arrive early today, but cold weather and difficulties with hydro wires that needed to be taken down to accommodate the over-sized vehicles have led to a slight delay.
Here are a few of the somewhat staggering statistics related to the journey:
$24 million (cost for the tanks and the move)
40+ support vehicle convoy (police cars, utility vehicles)
35 police officers (to guide the trucks and control traffic)
250 traffic lights taken down and put back up
1600+ Hydro wires lifted or taken down to accommodate the vats)
More than five and a half million bottles of beer can fit in the tanks
We love trucks. And we love yummy food. So it was really only a matter of time until Telstar Logistics turned our gaze toward the gourmet food truck phenomenon that's captivated foodies in major cities across America.
In an article in today's New York Times, Telstar Logistics Fleet Management Officer Todd Lappin described the transformation that is taking place among catering truck manufacturers as their traditional clientele of taco and hamburger vendors expands to include gourmet chefs who seek to serve exotic curbside cusine.
Chef Hugh Schick has cooked in some of the finest kitchens in the land. He took classes at the Culinary Institute of America, studied under Italian food expert Marcella Hazan and served as a private chef for the likes of the writer Christopher Hitchens and the venture capitalist David Cowan.
But when Mr. Schick and his business partner, Blake Tally, decided to open Le Truc, a San Francisco “bustaurant,” with a gourmet kitchen and dedicated seating area inside a converted school bus, the two quickly learned that the kitchens in food trucks are very different from their brick-and-mortar equivalents.
“It’s basically like buying a trailer home,” Mr. Schick said. “You get a kitchen that’s not designed by a chef, but by an engineer who’s simply trying to figure out where to make things fit.”
As Mr. Schick and other chefs seek to take more exotic foods like agedashi tofu and foie gras torchon to the streets and sidewalks of San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, they are demanding a host of upgrades to the traditional catering trucks, from teppanyaki grills to vertical chicken rotisseries.
And those who manufacture catering trucks are rushing to accommodate such special requests, which have rescued their industry from a recession-induced plunge in demand for the more traditional taco and hamburger trucks.
In a flattering twist, the Times opted to purchase the Telstar Logistics Multimedia Package, using our photos to accompany the article. But as a regular reader, you get exclusive access to our Greatest Hits collection of ALL the photos we took during our catering truck factory tours.
Join us for a trip to Los Angeles, where we tour AA Cater Truck, which built San Francsico's popular Chairman Bao food truck. We also explore Armenco, which built the innovative Le Truc "bustaurant." It's an interesting business that combines custom fabrication with killer cuisine -- and the results are delicious.
In practical terms, that means 1 in 36 homes in Modesto is in foreclosure, and as we discovered, the evidence of this is visible from street level. You won’t find entire blocks of Modesto that stand vacant -- it’s not Detroit, after all -- but in on practically every steet in every neighborhood, there’s usually there’s one house that’s been foreclosed.
With some practice, foreclosed homespotting becomes easy: Amid the manicured lawns and tidy suburban blandscapes, the foreclosed homes are the ones where things are slighty awry; lawns go feral, the shades in the windows sit askew, and rows of legal notices are taped to the windows near the front door.
Although at some addresses, there's nothing subtle about the situation at all:
In other parts of town, you can see the remnants of housing developments that were started but never completed, as if the land itself is waiting for the economy to recover:
“We’re going to be near the top of the foreclosure list for a long time,” Bob Johnson from Direct Appraisals in Modesto told us. “The majority of the foreclosures here are people who used home equity loans to buy cars and other things. Banks often try to help out with loan modifications, but that doesn’t really help, so people just walk away. Bottom line is, people here say they just won’t pay mortgages that are worth more than the value of the property.”
Oddly, despite Modesto’s high rate of foreclosure, new home construction continues. At a brand-new subdivision called The Arbors at Graham Estates, workers pour concrete for new foundations, just yards away from a row of newly-completed homes. Prices here start at $230,000 for a 1600 square-foot house.
According to Tim Parish, the project superintendent for developer Frontier Community Builders, the new units are selling well, even though foreclosed houses often sell for half as much. Foreclosed homes are often plagued by mold infestation, damaged walls, and broken appliances, Parish says, so “even in a market like this, some people just don’t want a used car.”
It will be a long time before Modesto fully escapes the havoc caused by the foreclosure crisis.
“We see all kinds of properties, even homes bought in 2008.” explained Omar Perez, an appraiser with Cal Valley Appraisers. “It’s going to be like this for a few more years, and that will keep a lot of downward pressure on values. Home values will eventually climb again, but I doubt we’ll get to where we were in 2005 or 2006, even 10 years from now.”
Has NASA discovered ET? Did it have a Close Encounter of the Third Kind? Did Barack Obama receive a signal from a distant galaxy that says "Klaatu barada nikto?" Or even worse, one that said "You will be assimilated!"
NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 11 a.m. PST On Dec. 2
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. PST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.
The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website at http://www.nasa.gov.
Yesterday the US Coast Guard rescued a 54 year-old man who spent five days stranded on Roe Island, a small patch of dry land in San Francisco Bay, at the mouth of the Sacramento Delta, not far from the mothball fleet at Suisun Bay.
The island is uninhabited, but the lost gentleman was surrounded by a metropolitan area that's home to approximately 7.5 million people.
The Coast Guard successfully rescued the 54-year-old man after being notified by family members at 9:19 a.m. The family knew he was stranded on an island, but did not know which one.
The man started in his inflatable raft in the Sacramento River and drifted downriver until his raft began to sink.
The Coast Guard used information provided by the family who was in contact with the man to determine where he was located. The man reported through family members that he could see Naval vessels and could hear reveille every morning. Due to the information gathered Sector San Francisco believed the man was stranded on one of the islands north of the Concord Naval Weapons Station.
In this situation the Coast Guard also worked with the cell phone provider to trianglate an area in which to search. The cell phone company provided the Coast Guard with a GPS position and a list of the last phone calls made. The Coast Guard routinely solicits assistance from cell phone company providers who provide useful cell phone location information for missing boaters.
UPDATE: 23 November, 2010, 3:43 pm (Pacific)
The San Francisco Chronicle provides additional detail about the stranded man, which suggests he might be more than just a little bit "off" -- if you know what we mean. Setting sail with a mannequin of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes perfect sense, but packing only two burritos? He must be insane!
Hopper, nicknamed Goat Man for his ability to scale mountainsides, said he started out Wednesday morning on the Sacramento River, where he loaded a $300 inflatable raft with camping supplies, two burritos, a bag of vitamins, a Bible and a mannequin of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"This trip was a campaign," Hopper explained. "I wanted to bring more attention to social diseases."
Hopper hoped to make it to the Golden Gate Bridge but disaster struck when his raft sprang a leak in Suisun Bay, east of the Benicia Bridge. He said he managed to guide the sinking vessel to shore, then figured he'd make camp on the island until he fixed the raft.
Last week, a pair of F-35B Joint Strike Fighters flew in formation for the very first time. The F-35B is the STOVL version of the aircraft, which means it can take-off and land vertically (much like the famous Harrier jump-jet) using a system of ducts and pivoting nozzles that redirect the engines' thrust downward.
It's hard to believe, but this is a picture of the first formation flight by two F-35Bs -- taken on Nov. 10, 29 months after the first flight of the STOVL variant. Aircraft BF-1 and BF-3 were photographed near the NAS Patuxent River test center on a flight to evaluate the close-proximity handling qualities of the F-35B.
But what about that vertical take-off and landing sequence? That's even more fantastic to watch, particularly for anyone who has a soft spot for The Transformers:
After sifting through Airbus's presentation to accident investigators, Ben Sandilands of Plane Talking has compiled a superb summary of damage caused recently when a Qantas A380 suffered an uncontained engine failure -- an incident which resulted in significant damage to the aircraft's wing, and which could have easily ended in tragedy for the 466 people who were aboard the stricken plane.
Sandilands says that A380 engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce was aware of the problem well in advance of the Qantas incident. Yet as a result of maintenance contracts that also designated Rolls-Royce as the primary service provider for the engines, the engine-maker felt little urgency in performing the modifications that might have prevented this:
Reviewing these images makes it clear why Qantas was quick, and correct, in grounding its A380 fleet.
The wing of the jet shows remarkable structural strength in sustaining damage that might have destroyed the airliners of earlier decades, but the questions as to whether control system revisions are necessary to deal with some of the consequences in terms of failed hydraulics and fuel imbalance are said to be very actively under consideration.
And the questions concerning the timeliness of the Rolls-Royce responses to a known problem, and its capacity and willingness to share them with the airlines concerned will not go away. If the engine maker doesn’t address them its customers will.
As we all know, a cougar (Puma concolor couguar) is a carnivorous four-legged mammal found throughout the North American continent.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, thanks to the Lincoln-Mercury Division of the Ford Motor Company, the Cougar personal luxury car became synonymous with a very different kind of creature: A middle-aged American male on the prowl to find nubile young females for sexual conquest.
Telstar Logistics was reminded of this recently when we encountered the 1969 Mercury Cougar shown in the photos above. A lot has changed during the last 40 years, and today -- alas -- not only is the Mercury Cougar gone, but so is Mercury.
The culture has moved on as well. Today "cougar" is synonymous with a different kind of creature: A middle-aged American female on the prowl to find strapping young males for sexual conquest.
