Pilot's Log

The above is the corporate logo for the Chinese truck maker Shaanxi Automobile, whose Western doing-business-as name is Shacman. I was pointed in that direction by the China Defense Blog, which had a post yesterday about the military vehicles they are offering to the People's Liberation Army.

I got to do some Wiki-poking around and saw that Shacman is affiliated with MAN (which is connected to Volkswagen) and Steyr (which is aligned with GM Europe and Mercedes-Benz).

And so degrees to Moonshine? The Corolla/Prizm was also sold in Europe as the Opel/Vauxhall Astra, and Steyr did some of the engineering work on follow-up models of the Astra when Opel/Vauxhall evolved their own versions once the Toyota/Geo/Chevrolet/NUMMI partnership finished. In theory, even though Shacman doesn't make passenger cars at all, I could be in my rights to rebadge Moonshine as one, if only to get it "monogrammed" with my S.

I wonder from whom I could get parts...

The Dull Thud of Autumn came; dreary, misty, overcast skies and a turn to chilly air.

Our Mail carrier's SUV had a flat tire when she came to our driveway, so she spent a couple hours in our hospitality while Dad removed the flat tire and I helped him retrieve and mount the spare on the hub. The Mail carrier told us that she had two flats this week, and was thinking that maybe Fate was trying to tell her to find something else to do. She's been a good Mail carrier, and we'll miss her if she decides to retire, but I wouldn't blame her if she does.

A sort of postscript to my entry about Moonliner/Mission To Mars at the Disney theme parks...

I was kind of curious about the dimensions on the scaled drawing of the Moonliner mockup and whether the theater/simulator would have fit inside. Granted, this was spurred on when I attempted to find something else on GoogleImage and found an interior picture of the theater. I'm not going to link to it here tonight, but I did notice something helpful beyond the obvious matter of the room being a cylinder (as it was on the mockup)--there were THREE rings of seats around the central visual projection screen disks.

I don't own a theater seat. But I do own a seat that is roughly the same size and so I posited that each row is probably 30~36". Since it counts TWICE when you add them for DIAMETER--the three rows would comprise at least 180" of the overall diameter of the space--and therefore the fuselage of the Moonliner. As the given measure of the fuselage on the measured drawing is only 108", then the mockup isn't "actual size"--it's a scaled model, if the theater/simulator was meant to "fit inside."

And then I look elsewhere on-line and see that in fact the mockup is 1/3rd scale.

Told you this was "useless".

BTW, my wall calendar this year was given us by a family buddy who's into big rig trucks. It's from Shell Oil and features custom trucks. One of the trucks for the summer months--was posed next to a restored TWA Lockheed Constellation airliner--and the Moonliner was visible in the background! It's still around somewhere!

Early this evening, Dad asked me if he could use the phone. I told him I was on the Internet, but as it was a few minutes before Dead Hour (7 PM ~ 8 PM) I was going to get off and let him use the phone.

In the time between his asking the question of me, and me telling him the line was open and he could make his call, he disappeared.

This made Mum and I very worried, because he didn't tell us anything before he left. We searched the house, we searched the property, and we started to search the area a little--but we couldn't do it because the weather was hot and we both were very tired.

Dad returned almost an hour later and we were both angry and concerned. We all know he takes care of himself and prides himself on his independence, but he really should have included us in his plans and communicated them before he acted.

It turned out he went to a neighbor across the street. The neighbor is a long-distance trucker--and he just lost his rig in a fire somewhere on his latest route. He was able to save the trailer and the cargo for another trucker to deliver, but the cab--along with his wallet and $1000 of walking-around money--went up in smoke. Dad's afraid this may put the poor guy out of business.

When it rains it pours.

I did not witness this directly...Dad's out running an errand and comes upon a traffic stoppage near our house. (We've been having a lot of winter mix weather lately.)

DAD: What's the meaning of this?

FALLEN TREE: All yr roadz r belong 2 us! Someone set us up the baum!

OTHER DRIVERS: :(

DAD: BRB.

(...)

DAD: Say hello to my little friends.

CHAINSAWS: Vrum vrum vrum!

FALLEN TREE: Oh noes!

(...)

The fallen tree is reduced to a stack of wood on the road side. A County truck shows up.

DAD: What took you so long? (Loads his tools up and comes home.)

Due to some mutual familial prodding, I've been learning about the "Car Allowance Rebate System" (a.k.a. "Cash For Clunkers") that will go into effect today. My father's pickup truck, "Dodgepodge" (so-called due to the fact that when we bought it the previous owner had just replaced the driver's side door and front fender after an accident) qualifies as a Catagory 1 truck. We still haven't made the decision about what will happen, but I'll continue to gather information about the program.

A Tennessee Sheriff And His Friendship With A Now-Sober Former Moonshine Outlaw.

Sad...


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I guess I really do need to get out more.

My brother moved, he borrowed Dad's truck, returned it today and I took him back to his new digs in Asheville. He's doing about as well as can be expected of your modern bachelor. I can't help but envy him a little. I guess that's all I can say about that for now.

FP