12 hours ago, birdguy said:

The haunted house was located across the street from Dante Hospital, on Broadway Street, between Van Ness and Polk.

Noel, once again we’ve crossed paths separated by @ 20 years. Back in the 1960s when I was a kid, I was at that block many times. Sometime in the 1950s Dante Hospital became Notre Dame Hospital & a wing was added. My father was a doctor & some of his patients were admitted there. Sometimes I would tag along with him on weekends when he would check in on them. I would wait for him in his car, which was parked in a lot on the south side of Broadway directly opposite the hospital entrance. Is that were your haunted house was, or was it further east on Broadway? Can’t remember if there were homes there at that time, maybe the parking lot was on the spot were the house was. I do remember the back of the lot was up against the back of a fire station that was on Pacific Ave. I would always open the car window so I could hear the signaling bells that would alert a station to respond to a call.

I looked on Google maps street view to check out how this block looks today, as I haven’t been there in 30+ years. I expected change, but the only thing still there is the hospital building, which is now senior housing. Not even the fire station is there (do you remember it?). I couldn’t find anything on line about what happened to it, so I emailed SFFD’s Public Information Officer.  He replied that it was the old location of Station #4, which is now on 3rd St. in the Mission Bay section.

4 hours ago, 188AHC said:

If you are going to get old you better be tough.😄

I won't go through my laundry list of procedures, ER trips, surgeries, etc., but this subject brings to mind the time 30-40 years ago when I was in a poster shop and came across this one:

I found it amusing at the time.  Not so much now, but hey: you can choose to laugh or cry.  At the very least, it was accurate 🤣

5 hours ago, birdguy said:

I wonder what they eat?

Pancakes

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2020/10/a-bizarre-ufo-encounter-and-alien-pancakes/

Sometime in the past year, I came across a picture which looked to have been from the 1920s, showing a guy on a small platform attached to the side of the engine compartment of a single engine airplane while the plane was flying.  I laughed, thought "This can't be true, can it?" and made a mental note to do some research.  

So today I remembered it and checked it out:  Holy Toledo!!!  Check out the pictures in "The golden age of endurance flights" section, as well as the travails faced by the Key brothers on their flight:

https://maisonbisson.com/post/on-building-the-plane-while-flying-it/

And here's a list of some of the notable endurance flights of 1929:

https://generalaviationnews.com/2015/05/10/1929s-record-setting-endurance-flights/

Whoa, this must of been a time when men were MEN!! 😂🤣

... and in high heels.

2 hours ago, Richard Sennett said:

needs to be brought to light

👍🤣

3 hours ago, n4gix said:

Speaking of expensive toys (such as Estes rockets!), did anyone else here get into the slot car hobby?  I'm speaking of the "professional" slot car businesses where you take your slot car and race it around their huge tracks.

Oh, YES!!! There was a slot car track in the 1960s at Playland at the Beach in San Francisco.  What great memories!

Check out this thread with some pictures:

https://www.hrwforum.com/forum/hrw-all-scales/vintage-slot-cars/24134-san-francisco-playland-at-the-beach-slot-car-tracks

In this next thread, check out the 2nd picture, just under the picture of the outside of the building.  This is the purple track, which was the biggest one there. To the right you see a black track w/2 slots that's supported by a bunch of arches.  That track was for drag racing. You can see that at the top of that track that they placed a pile of very soft & thin material, like a curtain, that would catch & stop the cars without damaging them:

http://slotblog.net/topic/93948-american-raceway-tracks-vintage-color-pic/page-2

That was a lot of fun. I had a Batmobile slot car, was even able to find it now on eBay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/113795323103?hash=item1a7ebad4df:g:3yUAAOSwsltgUYSz

HOLY CRAZY INFLATIONARY MADNESS, BATMAN!  THEY’RE ASKING ALMOST 100 TIMES WHAT IT ORIGINALLY COST!!! 😂

20 minutes ago, sightseer said:

also - remember water rockets? that you would pump with air?

Yeah, loved those. When we played war, those were our mortars/RPGs.

15 minutes ago, sightseer said:

If I was sick and had to get a shot, mom would let me pick out a model so long as it wasn't too expensive.

When I was sick my mom would give me a Matchbox car.

After posting above, another related memory came back to me:

One day, must of been during summer vacation, all of us kids were outside, bored, trying to figure out what could we do.  All of a sudden, my friend Charlie said "I know!" & went into his house. He later reappeared carrying a whole assortment of his mother's Tupperware containers & lids, and said "Let's throw these around!" Sure, why not? We spread out on the block flinging the Tupperware back and forth to our heart's content.

But all good things must come to an end.  Charlie's mother was a really cool person.  I remember she drove a copper-colored (1964?) Chevy Nova station wagon with mag wheels.  So here comes her car around the corner, slowing down as she sees all these kids.  We all froze.  I'll never forget the look on her face when it hit her that it was her Tupperware all over the place.  She got out of her car and yelled "What the *^$@ is going on here?  CHARLIE!!!"

And we said "Uh, I got to go home, Charlie"  "Yeah, bye Charlie"  "See you around, Charlie" as we fled the scene of the crime and left Charlie to his fate.

4 hours ago, birdguy said:

If Mom wasn't around, we'd make match rockets.

😆 Yes, I used to do that. Made sure that a window or two were open to dissipate the smoke/burned smell so when my mom came home she would have no clue to what I was up to.

Before Frisbees became popular & widely available (@ 1965 or so?) we used to use the lids from tin coffee can containers.  Not the plastic lids that you could reseal the container after opening the tin, because those didn't exist back then, but the tin lid itself. Of course, after being removed from the tin, the lids had a serrated edge all the way around. Not really ideal for playing catch.  But since our neighborhood was within a mile from Ocean Beach, we often had windy days.  We would fling them into the wind at a 45 degree or greater angle as hard as we could.  The wind would catch them & blow them back towards us.  They would crash to the pavement with a noisy clang, which for us kids was a satisfying sound but drove our mothers nuts.  As long as the wind blowed, we flung them.  We would also fly kites a lot with that wind.

In grammar school I had a teacher who was a kid at that time also & he told us what he saw. Said the same as you, the planes flying overhead & the talk about the Marines.

My sister had a friend in high school whose father was also a guard on the island, and how she had to take the boat back & forth every day to attend school.

Amazing videos of the flooding happening in China due to massive rain:

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2021/7/21/2041049/-Zhengzhou-floods-as-China-experiences-the-most-intense-rainfall-in-a-millennium

1 hour ago, JRMurray said:

and I'm just a regular kinda guy. And ... I can walk, talk, and chew gum at the same time. 🙂

I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to paint with a broad brush & promote a stereotype. But sometimes someone’s behavior/characteristics will fit them, like my brother-in-law. He’s also a good example of the saying “There’s a fine line between genius and insanity”.
https://influencedigest.com/psychology/there-is-an-association-between-insanity-genius/

Again, an actual incident @ 15 years ago when he & my sister were vacationing back in the “old country” (Crete) which also involved another member of his family & involved not just one but two actual real skeletons in a closet ☠️☠️😂😱🤣

Sometimes when I read things like that I think "Yeah.......OK", and wonder how in the world do they come up with these insights? Does LSD play a role? 😄  Not delusional, but the imagination required to solve the mysteries of the universe.

I wonder how they function in the world outside their specialties.  If they're the stereotypical "absent minded professors". I bring this up because I can speak from personal experience.  My brother-in-law, who is now retired, was an absolutely brilliant economics professor, top notch in his field.  Always going to conferences, meetings at the World Bank, testified before Congress (once before the Church Committe that investigated abuses by the CIA, as one of his specialties was Chile), etc.

But away from that, sometimes he could be like a fish out of water.  He & my sister lived back east.  Once my sister was here in San Francisco visiting, & he called her from their home.  He told her that the washing machine repairman was at the front door.  What should he do? My sister yelled "Open the door, let him in & show him where the washing machine is!!"

And later that week he came out to San Francisco. When he arrived, we went in the kitchen & he unpacked his carry on bag.  Out came a bunch of way over ripe spotted bananas & an egg carton half full of hard boiled eggs. I said "Why did you bring this?".  He replied "There was no one else home, so I couldn't let these things go to waste".  Economist.  I can only imagine what the TSA agents thought about it.

(bold mine)

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/11/tech/richard-branson-virgin-galactic-space-flight-scn/index.html

"Let me tell you about the very rich.  They are different from you and me." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The curse of ITV:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9764121/England-defeat-Curse-ITV-win-tonight.html

Ooops!

On 4/8/2021 at 2:32 PM, Mike A said:

I’d like to see a Pilatus PC-24 for MSFS2020. Very versatile jet, can operate on shorter airstrips than Honda jet as well as multiple surfaces, can be configured as an air ambulance. That would be fun to fly to/from remote places in MSFS

YESSSSS!!!!  IRIS Simulations reached an agreement with Pilatus to make the PC-24 along with the PC-9 for MSFS.  Announcement posted on IRIS Simulations Facebook page.

6 hours ago, martin-w said:

6 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Soccer? I’ve issued bans for lesser crimes. 😉

 

Imprisonment I say, for insulting an Englishman that way. 

Well, hold on just a minute there.....🤔 .  As far as I know, the word that I will not use but is up there in the quote, actually had it's origin on your side of the Atlantic:

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/06/the-origin-of-the-word-soccer/

No insult intended, just a little leg pulling 😉

Kermit the Frog hanging from where a rear view mirror would be in a car 🤣

5 hours ago, Matthew Kane said:

Nothing new, we've been dreaming this for decades, same now as back then, still not feasible. But is has always been an amazing concept

 

Looks like an actual “predator” drone that captured a car.

Listen to the oldest surviving musical recording, made June 29, 1888 (but then go back a bit more)

This video should be forwarded to the Darwinism in Action Award committee, so they can scout & keep an eye on this guy, as he shows a lot of potential (“Why do I need an education to fly a plane?”).

5 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

Another set of screen images illustrates how an administrator might respond to a heated conversation — not about politics, vaccinations or culture wars, but the merits of ranch dressing and mayonnaise

“I’ll give you my Thousand Island salad dressing when you pry it from my cold dead hands!”

Mike A.