De Havilland Vampire

One thing leads to another, and here we have the De Havilland Vampire. A funny looking airplane. Second British jet fighter. Front portion of fuselage is made of wood, which is more than a little scary when you find out this thing can go 500 MPH, carries four 20 mm cannons (!), and can reach 40,000 feet in altitude. More than 3,000 of these things were built.



This engine used a centrifugal compressor instead of the axial flow compressor that we use today.

Here's a more recent color video. The owner disabled embedding so it's there instead of here.

Practical Vampire Slaying

So I'm looking for a picture of an old Cadillac for another post, and I come across this:

There are a lot of ways to say what he's trying to say -- many ways to try and talk about the problem of denial -- but his is certainly one of my favorites. It speaks to the heart of practical vampire slaying, and to the uncomfortable first step we have to take before we can even hope to be free of our vampires: The step where we admit to ourselves that our vampires really are vampires, and not something else.

At first I'm thinking I've found a real nutjob, but then I read some more:

That intruding and advice-giving neighbor who can

never take a hint to leave is not "just lonely and trying to help."

She's a vampire, and she's feeding on me .

That isolating and critical spouse who is never satisfied

no matter what I do is not "just a loner and telling it like it is."

He's a vampire, and he's feeding on me.

and I realize she's right on the money. Only problem is I see a little vampire in me, aaaaggghhh! The light, turn out the light! Hsssssssss..........

P.S. I spent half an hour looking for a decent picture of a vampire, and this is the best I could come up with, and I'm only using it because of the movie, which I have only seen bits of, but those bits looked pretty good.