As an amateur historian of World War II (and conflicts before and after) I’ve heard references to the 1973 fire that burned 17 million military personnel records, but there’s been little written about the disaster. WIRED did a good longform piece on the fire and its aftermath, and the lengths to which the government will go to fill in the gaps.

At the time, preservation experts were divided on whether archives should have sprinkler systems, which could malfunction and drown paper records. Yamasaki decided his building would go without. The result, the gleaming glass building on Page Avenue, opened in 1956. More puzzlingly, the architect designed the 728-by-282-foot building—the length of two football fields—with no firewalls in the records storage area to stop the spread of flames.

Date posted: July 19, 2023 | Filed under history, shortlinks | Leave a Comment »

This tune has been going through my head since the trip back from Rhode Island this weekend. It’s a lesser-known song from one of Coldplay’s later albums but I really dig the beat and the tone.

Date posted: July 18, 2023 | Filed under earworm, music | Leave a Comment »

When I first posted on the Binder Planet about the red bus, I got a lot of good feedback and an offer from a nice man up in Massachussetts to come get a Traveall rear bench seat that was taking up space in his barn. Filing that away in the back of my head, I kept an eye out for seating that was closer to home, but it’s rare on the ground pretty much anywhere east of the Mississippi and north of Georgia. When I got back from Nats I reached back out to him, and a plan was hatched. He followed up with more pictures of stuff he’d dug out of his barn, including a front bench and a bunch of smaller parts. We settled on a date and a price, and I made plans to swing up there for a pickup.

I rented a 7-passenger SUV figuring I wouldn’t know how big all this stuff was, and I’d never fit it in the CR-V—plus, I wanted modern amenities and CarPlay to get me through New York City. This was probably the best decision I made on the whole trip. Hertz gave me a shiny silver Ford Explorer with three rows of seats, and it took me a couple panicked minutes before I figured out how to fold everything flat. Once we got it back to the house, I threw some tools, tarps and bags in the back and Finn and I hit the road. We were smart enough to get up and past New York City by 1PM, which put us in a strange dead area of Conneticut north of Stamford trying to find something to eat. We found a Chipolte and powered up, then got back on the road eastward.

I-95 through Conneticut is a disaster. It’s two lanes with a very picturesque view of the Sound to the south, but everyone is driving at 15 miles an hour for no visible reason for pretty much the length of the state. Once we’d gotten past New Haven it opened up a bit, but that was pretty frustrating. I’d found a cheap-ass motel in Stonington, CT over the border from Rhode Island, but when I was looking I didn’t realize its proximity to Mystic, which we had to drive through to get to our destination. We checked in to the room to find it about one step above an hourly hot-sheet truck stop, grimly left our stuff on the desk inside the door, and went back into Mystic to walk around the town.

Mystic is beautiful and quaint and filled with touristy shops selling either expensive local jewelry, expensive preppy boating clothes, expensive beachwear, or expensive gift items. Peppering the storefronts there were very busy bars and restaurants, and the streets were filled with people. We parked a few blocks off main street and walked our way back in, looking through all the stores that caught Finn’s eye. On our way back outside we heard the bell for the drawbridge ring so we walked up and watched them raise it with huge concrete counterweights to let river traffic pass. It was a beautiful place to walk off some of the road. Finn was tired at that point so we jumped back in the car and headed back to the hotel room to hang out before going to sleep. You can tell you’re in a quality establishment when the A/C is running at 65˚ but the room is still damp and smells like mildew.

Saturday morning we drove back into Mystic to get a bite of breakfast and hit the road for Rhode Island. Ray, the seller, was meeting us at a shopping center and we pulled in right behind him. We shook hands hello and loaded up the Explorer with all of the parts (surprisingly, it all fit neatly inside) and then shot the breeze for about 45 minutes. Ray is super cool and we traded IH stories for a while, then said our goodbyes so I could hit the road.

Here’s the back of the Explorer stuffed with rusty parts.

On the way back West I swung up into Mahopac and we stopped to get some lunch with my High School friend Jeff at a cafe in town. It was great to see him and catch up; that alone would have made the trip worthwhile. By 3PM the cafe was closing and I knew we had to hit the road, so we said goodbye and pointed the Ford south. With one stop in Delaware and a half an hour of heavy rain in New Jersey we made it back to the house by 8PM with a little over 900 miles added to the odometer.

I stashed it all in the garage after we got home and vacuumed out the back of the Explorer to avoid any cleaning fees. Overall the Ford was a perfect road trip vehicle; we got 29.5 MPG the whole way, and I never once had a problem with the technology or the car itself. (Five stars! Would recommend).

This is the contents of a box of parts, spread out. From top left: Two panels for the doors that go behind the main door cards. The blue rails go on the seat bases—these are the seat tracks. The two rusty gear/spring assemblies are extra hood hinges. The black geared arm at the bottom is a window scissor mechanism.

From the other box of spares, starting in the upper left: a spare rearview mirror, two short and one long door mechanisms. In the center are the ashtray for the back of the bench seat, two door lock assemblies, and the smaller red piece is a door catch. The two red L-shaped pieces bottom left are lower hinges for the barn doors, and two door lock assemblies.

This is an extra set of door cards for front and rear Travelall doors. The fronts are drilled for a set of armrests, something my truck doesn’t have. At this point I’ve now got three fronts and two rears. One full set will get bead blasted and painted the correct IH interior color.

This odd item is the platform the rear seat sits on and hinges forward from. It’s in rough shape, so I may not be able to use it. You can see how the piping is bent on the ends—I may not be able to pull that back out. That black rubberized coating is giving me PTSD flashbacks.

This is the worst part. What I’ll probably do is take measurements from this and build a newer, stronger box from square tubing, then enclose that with a hinged lid for tool storage, using this video as my inspiration.

Ray zip-tied the two seat catches to the base here—these bolt on to the wheel wells and hold the rear setback in place. I don’t have these and my truck was never drilled for them.

These are two spare rear barn door windows with used gasketry. I’m sure I could have new ones cut, but it’s great to have originals on hand instead. (The line on the left side is a reflection of our telephone wire).

Here’s where it gets interesting. These are two front bench seatbacks. The top one is complete with vinyl upholstery, but it’s disintegrating. The bottom is just the frame and springs, all in one piece. The square in the center is the mount for an ashtray, accessible to the passengers in the back seat. They’re both rusty but complete, and all the hardware is present.

This is the front bench seat bottom. Clearly the driver’s side has seen some wear. It’s torn and the foam is both swollen and disintegrating. I’ll have to replace all of that, which isn’t a huge deal.

Here’s the front and the back seat bases. Both of them are bent (Ray was apologetic) but I can use the back one for a template and I think I can straighten out the front. Again, I don’t have any of this stuff, so I’m just happy for the spares.

Here’s the rear seat, with a closeup of the material color. When I talk with Jeff J. about replacement material, I’ll have to see if he can match this pattern, because I kind of dig it. This bench is all in one piece, although it’s pretty worn; once I understand how to rebuild the front seat I’ll move on to this one. For now, I could install this in the truck as-is and it would probably work fine. The hinges and pins are present and the scissor works just fine.

While I was in Mystic I got a call from Jim at Super Scouts, who told me a bench seat he’d heard of and gone to recover was actually that of a D series; I thanked him for the info and told him about the brake distribution block. I’m still searching for a replacement, and the guys at IHPA are supposed to get back to me sometime this week. With that, I’m stalled on the mechanical stuff, so I’ll probably reorganize the garage to fit these bench seats and start cleaning up the skeleton frame for paint.

→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.

Date posted: July 16, 2023 | Filed under friends, Purchasing, Scout, Travelall, Trip Logs | Comments Off on Road Trip Parts Haul

Date posted: July 14, 2023 | Filed under family | Leave a Comment »

I never watched Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and was not aware they made it into a movie, but when they did, a pre-movie “don’t talk during the movie” reel was produced. It was scored by Mastodon, and is predictably hilarious.

Skip ahead to 1:00 for the best part.

Date posted: July 13, 2023 | Filed under humor, music | Leave a Comment »

On my way back home from New York, I stopped to get a bite to eat and use the restroom somewhere in Pennsylvania. I saw the sign for a Waffle House and figured that would be quick and cheap. Both were correct, and the food had no flavor. On my way out of the parking lot, I drove around back and noticed this statue of the Virgin Mary next to a sketchy path leading off into the woods.

I got the fuck out of there in a hurry.

Date posted: July 12, 2023 | Filed under travel | Leave a Comment »

Well, fuck. Anchor Steam, the great California brewery and maker of one of my favorite summertime beers, is closing, because…reasons? According to the article, the spokesman claims, “The inflationary impact of product costs in San Francisco is one factor… Couple that with a highly competitive craft beer market and a historically costly steam brewing technique.” A comment thread on Metafilter, where I found this news, says something different:

Company unionizes. (Yay!)
Sapporo purchases company.
Sapporo undergoes automation effort to undermine the Anchor union; automation dramatically damages productivity in the factory.
Sapporo ends production of the annual Christmas beer.
Sapporo ruins Anchor’s once-beautiful logo.
Sapporo shutters company.

I haven’t had an Anchor Steam in years; they’re impossible to find in bottles around here and the bars I frequented where it was available on tap are all in my old neighborhood in the city. I’ve seen the Christmas beer occasionally but haven’t had any in a long while. I’ll have to run out to the larger of the liquor stores around here and see if I can get a last six-pack.

Update: here’s a clearer picture of the whole situation, reported by someone who didn’t just rewrite the PR flack’s talking points.

Date posted: July 12, 2023 | Filed under brewing | Leave a Comment »

I’ve got a long car ride coming up this weekend and knew I was going to need to prepare some music for the journey. Driving up to Mom’s house on Thursday evening I fortified myself with a strawberry mint lemonade from Panera, which also happens to contain 260mg of caffiene. I have to avoid coffee anytime I’m out these days because the diuretic in it tends to work all too well; I’m clearly getting old. But the music situation was also key—after awhile podcasts get boring and I need something to keep me awake. Before you ask, I’m resisting cloud services because they chew through our data plan, and I’ve got a shit-ton of music catalogued on the server downstairs.

I’d ordered a new battery for our ancient iPhone 4, which has been my primary iTunes device for years, and when I went to install the replacement the four-prong connector soldered to the motherboard snapped off neatly in my meaty fingers. So I drove up with my decommissioned iPhone 6, which I’d spent less time filling with music, and which suffers from an annoying display bug that doesn’t group music in albums together in albums.

Back at home today I went through some different hoops to try and connect it to the server in the basement, which is running OS 10.7.5 (the last one compatible) and iTunes 10 in order to add more music. Both of these date to about 2015. Predictably, the iPhone 6 was not compatible. I dicked around with trying to restore the iPhone to an earlier iOS but that went nowhere. I tried a few apps that claimed they would transfer music to the iPhone, but that went nowhere ($40 to move files off the phone, but not to move music to it. What happened to all those handy file management apps back in the days of the iPod?) Finally I hooked it up to my old work tower and found a way to get music moved over through iTunes there—but none of this should have taken this long.

I guess time has made all of my home infrastructure completely obsolete even though it’s still functional. I’m going to use the old work tower as a server now that it’s decommissioned, and eventually I’ll have to figure some other solution out—a NAS or other more modern disk storage unit. But for now, it’s still humming along down there, waiting for a 2nd gen iPod and a couple of CDs to rip.

Date posted: July 11, 2023 | Filed under apple | Leave a Comment »

cousins

Date posted: July 11, 2023 | Filed under family, photo | Leave a Comment »

I’ve always done my own IT support for work as long as I can remember. My first real paying job was at Johns Hopkins, where I took over a loosely-organized island of Macs and learned how to optimize, upgrade, and network them all until they were singing in harmony. For a lot of reasons that was my favorite part of that job, actually. From there I took my skills and applied them to various situations, inside bastions of PC’s or design firms filled with Macs—but rarely did I ever need to call on the IT department. At my current gig the whole backend system is a Microsoft implementation, and despite their assurances my Macs would be fine using Sharepoint (“it’s just as good as Dropbox!”) Teams (“it’s just as good as Slack!”) Onedrive (“it’s just as good as Dropbox!”) or whatever service they rolled out, the reality never met up with the promise. There was always some reason why their service wouldn’t work correctly: it completely brought my Mac to a crawl, files got corrupted on their way back to my machine, or there wasn’t enough space on the Sharepoint drive and I was always having to ask them to give me more space.

They fielded a SSO system through a kernel-level nannyware system that’s now keyed to the serial numbers of the company Macs they’ve issued, which means that if I wanted to upgrade them anywhere past MacOS 10.14 the nannyware would immediately take over and install itself automatically, without any option to bypass. I held off for as long as I could but they’ve now got the wireless network in the office tied to SSO as well as printing and a bunch of other services I can’t do without, so I bit the bullet and upgraded my work machine to MacOS 13.3 a few weeks ago. On Friday I had to update my password, which worked fine from Mom’s house. This morning I’ve been locked in an endless loop where I can’t access my machine to access the reset to access my machine, which is the definition of modern technological stupidity.

The modern OS is very nice, and has taken some getting used to, but I like it. Things are peppier, the browsers work better, and there’s some software I use that I’m now able to upgrade to a modern version. The nannyware is there, and I have to use a secondary login to install apps on my own machine (grrrr) but generally speaking it’s OK.

With that experience fresh in my mind, it’s probably time to upgrade my personal machine—a 10-year-old Macbook Pro running a 5-year-old OS. Once I’ve finished paying off our vacation trip, I’m going to bite the bullet and buy my first personal Mac in 13 years. I’ve got it narrowed down to either a 13″ or 15″ M2 MacBook Air. Everything I’ve read says there’s not much point in paying the extra money for a Pro, and nothing I do on my personal machine requires the extra cost. Plus I’ll be able to pair it with my watch and use Sidecar to work more closely with my iPad on illustrations, which I’ve not done much with lately. And I was able to get a sweetheart deal on a lifetime Microsoft Office account for $60 a few weeks ago, which won’t run on this old machine.

Date posted: July 10, 2023 | Filed under apple, family | Leave a Comment »