The Wandering Minstrel

When this hot rod passed us in traffic today, The Better Half took this (clickable) image.

I don’t have any late firearms-related things to pass along other than to send this reminder to California District 36 voters (via ACE):

If you’re a resident of California District 36, not only should you vote, you should call friends to get them to vote for Craig Huey.

He doesn’t give taxpayer money to convicted killers and rapists.

His opponent, Janice Hahn, voted consistently against the second amendment as a Los Angeles City councilwoman. We’re registered in Arizona now, but lived in that highly gerrymandered district for years.

The Better Half took this (clickable) image of a very clean ‘58 Chevy Apache yesterday while we were heading home from grocery shopping. I do not remember seeing this beauty in town until yesterday. Shiny . . .

The Better Half took this photo of a WWII era Cadillac that we saw while we were going into the botanic gardens for some business. There was a large film production crew there and we suspect this beautiful car is one of the props. Clickable image.

The Better Half subscribes to Archaeology Magazine. When her copy arrived yesterday, she showed me an article devoted to the history of old computers. They featured the MOS 6502 microprocessor that powered early Atari, Nintendo, Apple and Commodore computers. The article highlighted a group of computer experts that are digging into the history of old computers and attempting to reverse engineer some of the lost, but primitive, technology.

The group has a website that contains a slide show about devices using the 6502 as well as an actual simulator of the microprocessor. If you remember these old computers, you will enjoy their website.

Clickable image - screen shot of the 6502 simulator

Excerpt from their interesting Visual6502.org website:

Welcome to Visual6502.org! Here we’ll slowly but surely present our small team’s effort to preserve, study, and document historic computers. We aim to present our work in a visual, intuitive manner for education and inspiration, and to serve as a solid verifiable reference for classic computer systems. See our slides for an introduction and some fun images.

Have you ever wondered how the chips inside your computer work? How they process information and run programs? Are you maybe a bit let down by the low resolution of chip photographs on the web or by complex diagrams that reveal very little about how circuits work? Then you’ve come to the right place!

The Better Half missed a shot of this nice 1946 Ford coupe when it was parked at “Screamers,” our town’s 1950’s style drive-in. Fortunately, this shiny well-restored car was parked in the Safeway lot when we stopped there to shop. Clickable image courtesy of The Better Half.

The Better Half took this (clickable) photo of a classic 1934 Ford convertible in the parking lot next to the hardware store today. The Oregon tags on this beauty said “TOMS 34.” If I were Tom, I’d be proud of this sharp and shiny classic!

Y’know, I thought the classics would dry up in this small town - boy, was I wrong!

The Better Half took this (clickable) photo of a custom 1850’s Chevy a few weeks ago when we were on a shopping excursion into the metroplex. Somebody put a lot of work into this custom classic. Shiny.

The Better Half took this picture of these two classic vehicles; one is an old VW, probably a pre-1967 bug and the other is a customized 1955 or 1956 Chevrolet pickup. Both are for sale, I think. Nice and shiny. Clickable image.