Mt Fuji motor assisted bike

Just to prove it works.

Pito shooting Glock-19 9MM.

Ruby at Shoot Straight range in Apopka practicing with Rugar 25/22.


She fired one round with my Glock-19 9MM and it scared her, but the 22 is more to her liking.

Jaguar project - progress

Still progressing...


Left side. Dual brake boosters for disk brakes.


Transmission removed. Clutch would not disengage completely. Wrong pressure plate, with not enough clearance. New one in the mail from England.


Right side. Oil filter mount has to be modified. New motor mounts welded in final position on frame.

Motorized Bicycle

Old Mt Fuji mountain bike with cheap Chinese 2 stroke engine installed.
Just another project completed. I am still breaking it in with 20:1 synthetic 2-cycle oil. Supposed to get 150MPG. I mixed up 1 gallon of gas, filled the tank, and have used about 1/10th of it so far with 25 miles. Once broken in (300 miles?) should get a surge of power. I have had it up to 25MPH for a couple of seconds. I don't want to over do it.

Really fun to ride!

Jaguar project - Cosworth engine

Preliminary mockup of Ford-Cosworth engine.

Front view. Starting to take shape.


It fits with some room to spare.


Cockpit view.


From under the left front fender.


From under the Left front fender.

Jaguar project - Cosworth engine

Out of the crate and still on the pallet.

Comparison of Ford-Cosworth vs Jaguar engines...

	Ford-Cosworth	Jaguar
Engine type	60 degree V6 24 valve DOHC 2.9Liter	Straight 6 12 valve DOHC 3.5Liter
Engine weight	400 pounds	1100 pounds
Capacity	179 Cubic Inch / 2935CC	210 Cubic Inch / 3442CC
Compression ratio	9.7:1	8:1 stock 10.5:1 rebuild
Bore	3.66 Inch / 93mm	3.2677 Inch / 83mm
Stroke	2.83 Inch / 72mm	4.1732 Inch / 106mm
Horsepower	195 BHP @ 5750 RPM (143KW)	160 BHP @ 5200 RPM
Torque	203 lbs/ft @ 4250 RPM	195 lbs/ft @ 2500 RPM
Fuel injection system	EEC-IV	Twin SU carburettors
Ignition system	EDIS-6	Mechanical Distributor
Power/Weight	133 HP/ton Scorpio	128 HP/ton
	195 HP/ton Jaguar

Removing Air Conditioning and Power Steering (230BHP), lighter engine/transmission (1100lbs vs 500lbs), Regular Fuel instead of 100 octane, 5 quarts of oil instead of 16, all make for a logical engine exchange decision.

Conservative estimate is 200+BHP per Ton Power/Weight ratio.

Jaguar project engine removal

Engine in the car, and out! Sold on E-bay.

Jaguar project - in the shop

In the shop. Starting the tear down.

Jaguar project

No, I did not run over somebody!
Pulled the Jaguar out of the garage in Florida into the street. That is the tow truck driver connecting the winch to get it onto the truck for transport to the shop.











All loaded, tied down and ready to go to Imagination Engineering shop.

This was in July of 2007.

Jaguar project

This is the 1952 Jaguar XK120 as sitting in my garage in Pleasant Valley, New York since August of 1982. For the first few years I would start it up and run for a few minutes to let it warm up then shut it down until the next time. When the batteries would no longer hold a charge, I just let it sit. I moved from New York to Florida in 2005 and it came with my household items but in its own trailer behind the moving van.

Only in Florida

Due to abundance of elderly in Florida, or maybe it is a hiker? This crosswalk sign was spotted on my bike ride along the Orange county multi-use trail. There is usually very little traffic at this pedestrian crossing, so I usually do not mash the crossing button. (This is not an intersection, but a pedestrian crossing only.)
Like the dromedary in the signal, this signal is a bit different in that it has a whole (unused) segment "burned" on, rather than burned out.
As part of the Liberals dumbing down of America and multi-linguist movement, the "walk" "don't walk" English versions are being replaced by pictures of a hand - stick-man walking icon. The instructions to push the button to cross the street are still in English only. No braille, Spanish, French or pictures. What is with that?

The joys of living in the urban wild. This is a Sandhill crane. Big bird, not afraid of humans. Kind of a nuisance when he tries to get inside my sun room by pecking a hole in the screen.
I had to take down the bird feeder to try and get these guys to go somewhere else. The red wing black birds were kind of mad for a couple of days, but they will be back when the feeder goes back up.

Uncle John's organ console

By popular demand (one so far) a request for console details.

Camel crossing

Found this signal on one of my bicycle rides around Mission Bay in San Diego. The LED signals have been in San Diego for quite a few years already and some of the elements are starting to burn out.

I can not fiqure out if this is an indication of things to come, or just some random burnout. Looks like a camel (technically a dromedary, camelus dromedarius one-humped camel of the hot deserts of North Africa and Southwestern Asia) with only 3 legs.

Uncle John's Pipe Organ

My Uncle John's organ. Saved from a old Baptist church in Kansas. Console and wood pipes are from the original organ. The metal pipes were custom made in Wertenberg, Germany. Pipe organ is 13 ranks, prepared for 20.

9 ranks above the console, 3 metal ranks to the left of the conlsole, and 1 rank of wooden pipes for the pedals.

The ceiling had to be raised 4 feet to accomodate the longest pipes.

Shepherds watch

Long before the advent of the wristwatch, mankind marked the passage of time by the height of the sun. The sun was a reliable timepiece, especially with the aid of an apparently simple, yet mathematically complex, tool. If your watch batteries die, you can always count on the sun.

One variation on the sundial is the shepherds watch. One such watch, known as an Aquitaine sundial, was named after Eleanor of Aquitaine who, in 1152, gifted a shepherds watch to King Henry II of England. By suspending the ring of the shepherds watch from a cord and dialing in the month, a ray of sunlight would spill through a tiny hole, illuminating the hour inscribed inside the ring. Eleanor's gift allowed the King to determine the hour so he could return home in time to meet her. In return, the King had a shepherds watch made for Eleanor inlaid with diamonds and engraved with the words "Carpe Diem", "Seize the Day."

The hour indicated by a sundial or shepherds watch is known as the Local Apparent Time (LAT), since two different sundials will read different times unless they fall along the same meridian line of longitude (the lines running from pole to pole). That's true today, with or without a sundial.

Today, the planet is divided into time zones, preset agreed upon longitudinal regions within which the hour is always the same. There are 24 time zones throughout the world, each set at approximately 15 degrees longitude ( 24 times 15 equals 360 degrees, a full circle around the globe). Time zones aren't exact straight lines; instead, they tend to follow geographic and political boundaries. Moving eastward, each time zone is ahead one hour.

San Diego, California, for example, falls within Pacific Standard Time (PST). Traveling eastward, the subsequent continental United State's time zones are known as Mountain Standard (MST), Central Standard (CST), and Eastern Standard Time (EST). Therefore, when it's 10:00am PST in California, it's 11:00am MST in Tucson, Arizona, 12:00pm CST in Louisiana, and 1:00pm EST in Apopka, Florida. Hawaii and part of Alaska fall under Alaska-Hawaii Standard Time, while the rest of Alaska falls under Nome Standard Time. China has only one time zone, and there are lots of other exceptions. Airports often have a series of clocks disclosing the different times in different cities throughout the world.

Time has to start somewhere, and since time is an arbitrary designation set by humans, the agreed upon 0 hour occurs at 0 degrees longitude, the Prime Meridian. Also known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), Universal Time (UT), Zulu Time, and Zebra Time, each time zone of approximately 15 degrees longitude, moving eastward, is one hour later, or +1h.

It might be hard to believe a shepherds watch can tell time as reliably as a wristwatch. While they can't tell time to the second or minute, solar clocks can be fairly accurate down to the hour.

Always try to do things in chronological order; it is less confusing that way. Without time, everything would happen at once.

"What's a sundial in the shade?"
-- Benjamin Franklin

Ronald Reagan Museum

Went to the Ronald W. Reagan Presidential Library and Museum yesterday. Very impressive new display of Air Force One. This is a panoramic stitched together with 3 separate hand-held pictures. http://papitopaul.us/Kpic/pano/AirforceOne.jpg

Digital cameras and orbs

Have you ever noticed 'orbs' in your digital photos? My daughters believe that it is really spirits that are being captured. If it is, then they are probably in the infrared range.
Digital cameras will capture an IR source that can not be seen by the naked eye. To prove it, just aim your TV remote at your camera, and view the LCD while mashing buttons on the remote.