Spar Torpedo
Image by Travis S.
Affixed to a torpedo boat by a spur, a long wooden pole approximately twenty feet long. The spar, raised and lowered by a windlass, projected from the bow of the boat. The torpedo boat would approach an enemy vessel very quickly and lower the spar until the torpedo was several feet underwater and ram it against the other vessel's hull. There were contact points on the head that would detonate the charge. The spar torpedo held about fifty-three pounds of gunpowder.
1955 Morris-Oxford Woodie: Haliburton Fall Festival Antique Car Show, October 2009
Image by bill barber
While we were travelling about Haliburton Highlands on the annual studio tour earlier this month, we stopped off at the Haliburton Fall Festival for a bit. There was a car show at the park, and I was able to get a few shots. The guys that restore these antiques have a lot of patience.
The Morris Motor Company was a British car manufacturing company. After the incorporation of the company into larger corporations, the Morris name remained in use as a marque until 1984 when British Leyland's Austin Rover Group decided to concentrate on the more popular Austin marque.
A woodie is a type of car, more specifically an early station wagon in which the rear portion of the car's bodywork is made of wood. Frequently this wood is visible, since it is covered in a clear finish, either over the entire wooden area or sometimes just on the framework with the interior panels painted.
It is a derivative of the body-on-frame method of car construction. Earlier cars generally had aluminum or steel panels bolted on top of the wood framing. Woodies were originally cheaper because they didn't need these panels and their fitment and painting. So railway stations used them for hackwork of luggage and petty shipments; hence the name, station wagon. The tradition of the woodie remains in the woodgrain decals and plastic beams attached to a structural steel body of many station wagons.
This car body style was popular both in the United States and the United Kingdom. Woodies were produced from all kinds of cars, from basic to luxury, but the most popular conversions in the US were large, powerful but not highly luxurious models. By contrast, in Europe early woodies were usually built on luxury car platforms such as Rolls-Royce.
By the 1960s and to some degree the 1970s, California surfers, among others, realised the potential of these cars; they were cheap, large enough to carry a good number of people, surfboards and equipment, and could be fixed up with woodworking skills. Thus, the woodie became the archetypal vehicle of the surfer.
House under construction
Image by Wade Tregaskis
I took this to demonstrate what an expensive house is made of here in California - i.e. not much. It's all cheap wooden frames and paneling, usually bagged over with concrete, or similar, give it the illusion of real, solid building materials. It's really quite cheap and tacky, all told.
Flickr bike mod (back view)
Image by ginatrapani
After my first ride, I got frustrated at my inability to frame any of the bike's photos, so I mounted my Elph to the housing with zip ties so I could see what the camera can see, have a little more control of what I'm pointing at, and hit the shutter myself for shots I want to get right away.
FULL EXPLANATION:
I am an Electra bicycle equipped with a solar-powered cameraphone in waterproof housing mounted to my handlebars. When I'm in motion, the phone snaps a photo every 60 seconds and automatically uploads it to Flickr all geotagged. Check out my ride map here:
www.flickr.com/photos/ginas_bike/map/
Yahoo made me, Gina rides me around, and my name is Carmen (as in Electra and Where in the world is---San Diego).
lounge corner
Image by s2art
mixture of framing approaches, top left cheap clip frame, small 35mm enlargement, bottom left, left over polaroid film carcass containing surprisingly a polaroid, right small custom made green wooden frame, with 5 x 4 inch contact print inside, salted paper
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