Tiiiiiiiimberrrrrrrr!!!

Early this morning my mom and I drove down to St. Paul to see Xcel Energy implode the smokestack attached to the Highbridge plant. According to CNN, the smokestack was 570 feet high and weighed 5770 tons.

Now, when they say implosion, I picture a structure coming straight down and collapsing upon itself, not tipping over like it did.

Ferns

In 2005, the Como Zoo Conservatory apparently remodeled, and got rid of the old fern room and built a whole new complex with a new fern room. Whenever I used to go to the Conservatory, my favorite place in the whole place was the fern room. A while back, my family and I visited the conservatory, and I eagerly was looking forward to going to the fern room and visiting an old friend. I walked around the central room looking for the doors to the fern room. I kept passing where I thought it was, but it wasn't there. Finally, we walked through a pair of doors, and I was heartbroken. But first, let's compare and contrast:

The new fern room...

...and the old fern room.


To me, the new fern room is too new, too clean, too bright, and too dry. The old fern room was kind of run down and neglected looking. It also felt more naturally lit and rainforest-y. It had these weird little benches like the one in the picture above, which was a little alcove with a bench and a small fountain/puddle/pond thing behind it. It was wet. The floors were always soaked. And it was hot and humid. I loved it.

I want the old fern room back. But it's not going to happen. The best I can do is blow up the postcard the picture above is from, and hang it on my wall.

Or when I'm rich I can recreate it.

Whichever.

A Visit to Fantasy Of Flight

A few years ago, while on a family trip to Daytona Beach, my dad and I went and visited Kermit Week's Fantasy of Flight in Polk City, Florida. FOF is still one of the most amazing museums I've visited, mainly due to all the stuff the guy has in storage. If you happen to be in the area, I highly recommend you visit. But first, let's look at some of the aircraft on the main floor, shall we?


Supermarine Spitfire Mk. XVI



Allison V-3420. The 3420 was essentially two Allison V-1710 mated together into one engine. Not that great an idea, and very few aircraft actually used it.



North American P-51D and P-51C Mustangs



The worlds only flying Short Sunderland



North American B-25J Mitchell



Bachem Ba349 Natter replica



Grumman F3F Flying Barrel



Fiesler Fi-156 Storch



The Douglas B-23 Dragon is one of my favorite airplanes. They only made 38 of them, and there are only around a half dozen or so left. To date this is the only one I've been able to see in person.



Northrop P-61 top turret and a Lockheed Vega in the background



This is one of only three "flyable" Consolidated B-24 Liberators. I say "flyable" because it hasn't flown in quite a few years



The worlds only "flyable" Martin B-26 Marauder, and one of only about a half-dozen left



Lockheed Constellation



B-26 and Storch

Now, as I said before, the most amazing part of this whole museum is all the stuff this guy has in storage:. And I don't even have pictures of all of it in the hangars we got to see. He's also got a pair of rather large hangars across the street from the main museum that have various other aircraft and parts.



This is in the first hangar. On the wall are various parts, and from left to right a Vultee BT-13 Valiant, a pair of Bristol Bolingbrokes (the Canadian version of the Bristol Blenheim), and a Douglas A-24 Banshee (the Army version of the SBD Dauntless), that was missing it's wings because it had previously been used as a film studio wind machine.

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The next hangar over, a Curtiss CW-22 Falcon, and a Grumman F9F Cougar, and...



...a Ju-52 and a Yakovlev of some sort.



I wish I had more good pictures of this hangar, because it was truly awesome to see. Inside were countless engines: Allison V-1710's Merlins, P&W Radials, Wright Radials, Daimler-Benzes, BMW's, and all sorts of other strange and exotic powerplants I didn't recognize. I even recall that in one corner there was an Argus Pulse Jet out of a V-1 .



Why a picture of eight shipping containers? Because in those containers are all the pieces of a disassembled Avro Lancaster. He just hasn't gotten around to having it put together yet.

Along with seeing the storage hangars on the "Backlot Tour", you also get to see the restoration hangar.



A J9, the Swedish designation for the Seversky P-35



Grumman F6F Hellcat



The Hellcat again, and one of my favorite pictures I took at the museum.





A Lockheed P-38 Lightning that was recovered from some South American country. The wings and tail booms were cut off with a chainsaw while being recovered because it was too wide to fit down the roads.



After the museum tour, my dad bought us both a ride in this New Standard D-25 Bi-Plane. Awesome.



And finally, as we were talking to the pilot of the D25, we saw the B-25 being pulled out. We asked what they were doing, and he said that the B-25 was special bomb racks that carried watermelons, and the had a target set up on the lake right next to the museum, and they were going out to practice their aim.

Auto Parts

I don't know what the deal is with my car, but every six months or so it seems, I need to go out and buy new exhaust hangers. So yesterday I went out to go buy some so my exhaust isn't hanging by just the exhaust manifold any more.

The first store I went to was O'Reilly. O'Reilly opened sometime last year, and ever since they opened, they've been my favorite auto parts store in town. I walked in, told the guy what I needed, and he pulled out the parts book to look up the hangers. They had the hanger for the very end of the tailpipe, but they didn't have to one for the muffler itself in stock. The guy working there said he could order one and it would be here Monday, or I could go down the street and try Checker, since they are owned by the same parent company.

So I went down the street to Checker. Told the guy what I needed, he pulled out the parts book and looked it up. They didn't have them in stock, so I decided to go down the street to AutoZone. When AutoZone first opened, they were my favorite auto parts store. But lately, I've liked them less and less. Their staff seems ruder and less knowledgable, and they never seem to have what I need. So I walked in there, and told the guy what I needed. He looked on his computer, and said they didn't have them. I was looking at the computer screen as he was looking for the part, and all he did was type in the vehicle information and do a generic search for "muffler hanger". Nothing popped up. What he was using looked pretty much exactly like the search feature they have on their website. When I tried using it, I couldn't find them either, but I know AutoZone has rubber exhaust hangers for other cars (I found them on their website), so I bet if he would have looked in a parts book and found a part number, I bet he would have been able to find me an AutoZone that did have them.

So then I crossed the street to NAPA. I've never really liked NAPA, their parts seem to cost more, and aside from one person that has helped me there, they all seem very rude. So I walked in, told the counter guy what I needed, and without looking in a computer or looking in a part book, he told me he didn't have what I needed. This seemed odd to me, because the last time I was home I had to replace my exhaust hangers, I came to NAPA and bought the exact same exhaust hanger I was now searching for at a cost of approximately six dollars (O'Reilly want's two dollars for the exact same part). The counterperson then proceeded to tell me he could sell me a universal exhaust hanger, to which I said no thanks and walked out.

Long story short, the NAPA and AutoZone in West Saint Paul both simultaneously suck and blow, O'Reilly rules, Checker is OK, and PepBoys was unmentioned in this post, but they kinda suck too.

I'm going to O'Reilly tomorrow to order my part.