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Started by billy rubin, October 12, 2019, 11:51:22 PM

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Tank

Very interesting insight into what the brine is used for. I had no idea. And I don't recall Icarus saying he was  professional road racer either, but that's quite possibly my memory not doing its job right any more.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

billy rubin

racing professionally at any level is notches above what i do. my operation is mostly comparable to taking a pile of hundred dollar bills and setting it on fire.

there's another use for produced water and thats spraying it on the highways in the winter to melt ice. i dont know how common that is anymore.

for me, being super clean is a job requirement. any spill more than a fluid ounce--28 mls-- officially requirez reportz and paperwork. bigger spills can cost me my job. my truck has a camera on the back to watch what i do.

ive lived in and out of the oil fields all my life, and its vastly cleaner and zafer than it used to be.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

jumbojak

Welcome to the board. I've spent some time around tuners, dirt drags, and hot trucks. Even done a bit of diagnostic work when things break and my meager equipment speeds up the job. But, I'm not a racer. Know a few from Langley. If you want to see hundred dollar bills go up in smoke hang around some circle track guys. It's really fun when it turns into a demolition derby.

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

Icarus

BR that's a cool scoot.  When I was in college I had a family that needed sustenance.  I was a Triumph dealer and a student at the same time.  I also sold NSU and BMWs and of course did a lot of mechanical work.  Needless to say that my motorcycle exploits interfered with my grade point average. 

I was going to be an aeronautical engineer but I had some problems with the department head professor.  He was a retired Naval hot shot pilot who firmly believed that any research or development that did not concern at least transonic velocities were a waste of resources.  I, on the other hand, wanted to use the wind tunnel to work on aerodynamic stuff to make motorcycles capable of higher speeds. I was also dead serious about working out some aero features for big ass long haul trucks so that the engines did not work so hard and the result would amount to significant fuel savings. That did not fly well with my Prof.  After a little while I said Fuck it and transferred my attention to mechanical engineering.

My racing career had come to an end because I had a wife and two children who needed a live father.  Truth to tell I was a smart rider. Too smart in fact.  During a race I would fall into a thinking category that assessed risk from the behavior and/or decisions of other riders. That sort of thought process does not make a frequent winner.  I was a front runner but an infrequent podium guy. At the time my ride of choice was an AJS 500 single that had some factory backing. A few years later I built several race bikes for other nut case riders.  I was also a nut case because all that stuff was the focus of much of my attention. 

I had a reasonably successful career as a design engineer that focused mainly on The prestressed concrete industry.  That was a helluva departure from my Bike racing passion.  Concrete structures such the Illinois state prison, the LBJ library, the Pan Am building or the Lake Maracaibo bridge, or the Chesapeake bay bridge do not go very fast.

My bosses at the manufacturing steel fabrication firm that I worked for were tyrants who failed to appreciate a guy who several times saved them a lot of grief and made them a lot of money..  Once again I  said Fuck it and decided to go another direction.  Whooda thunk it? I started a small time sewing business that catered to the boating crowd.  That worked out well and I had grown to a sizable employer who was making a a fair amount of money.  That worked well until the early nineteen eighties when the Taiwan and Hong Kong factions began to eat my lunch. .....so much for the sewing business....never garments but mostly canvas and leather or vinyl goods.

I sold my factory, the equipment and everything that had anything to do with the sewing industry.  I am now 54 years old and have no job or immediate prospect for the future.      But there was screen printing in the horizon.  Not tee shirts but printed circuit boards and that sort of thing. .....I had not forgotten motorcycles and I had some time to mess with them. Not as a rider but as a builder and tuner.
I started a small manufacturing business that catered to the screen printing industry.  In the end I had a small manufacturing business the made  precision measuring instruments that were essential to the trade.

Wouldn't you know it I was still a motorcycle guy.  Cut to the chase here,  I built many race engines and had a state of the art flow bench and cylinder head equipment  that eventually gained some attention.  Somehow I got involved with the three quarter midget race car guys who used bike engines for their race cars. After that there was circle track engine work. Alll the while I was making measuring tools in my little factory.

Some guy with more money than me came along about four years ago. He wanted to buy my manufacturing business.  I gave him a foolishly modest price, he said OK and that was the end of my career. Another guy wanted to buy my flow benches and head tooling stuff. OK he did buy it....cheaply I might add.  What the hell I am 89 years old, I still like bikes, and have no place to go.  It is a little bit late to start a new business...or resume racing bikes..... so I sleep til noon and write a whole damned mini biography on HAF.

Meanwhile I entertain myself and a few others by designing small go fast sail boats and building some of them in my garage. Yes , I do have some credentials for that pursuit. ............whew!  Now you know about my convoluted careers. I advise all my readers to avoid taking your eye off the ball as I have done so frequently. 








billy rubin

Quote from: jumbojak on October 14, 2019, 03:37:39 PM
Welcome to the board. I've spent some time around tuners, dirt drags, and hot trucks. Even done a bit of diagnostic work when things break and my meager equipment speeds up the job. But, I'm not a racer. Know a few from Langley. If you want to see hundred dollar bills go up in smoke hang around some circle track guys. It's really fun when it turns into a demolition derby.

around here the hot thing is 800 horsepower mud trucks, some in bogs and some in drags. i have a pet machinist i get to do honing and lathe work for me, and he always has a selection of oddities in progress. trucks, boats, antique tractors, motorcycles, it never stops.

for me the tuning is the fascinating part, although getting to ride the result is a reward all by itself.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

billy rubin

Quote from: Icarus on October 15, 2019, 01:05:34 AM
Meanwhile I entertain myself and a few others by designing small go fast sail boats and building some of them in my garage. Yes , I do have some credentials for that pursuit. ............whew!  Now you know about my convoluted careers. I advise all my readers to avoid taking your eye off the ball as I have done so frequently.

shoot. i dunno about setting the motorcyles aside. this is a picture of rosie on his 1971 supecharged triumph. he was 84 when i took this picture, and i think he's 86 or 87 now. i've never seen this machine go faster than 155 or so, though, because he's always breaking it.



and to be honest, i dunno about taking your eye off the ball. the people who focus on being responsible, and consistent, and following through to the bitter end on their first choices seem to me to have ended up with somewhat narrower lives.  deep, but not broad, so to speak.

i come from oklahoma, where my grandfather drove a wagon into indian territory when he was ten years old and married a chickasaw. my other grandfather comes out of the cherokees by some convoluted path. oil was big in oklahoma, and so i went with the family on the grand tour of the oil fields of the world as i was growing up. my first job at the age of sixteen was as a roustabout on a drill ship off the coast of borneo. sine then i've worked in academics in evolutionary ecology and crustacean paleontology, petroleum geology, and computer and automotive tech writing. spent ten years as a commercial beekeeper, worked as a cowboy, retail sales clerk, long haul truck driver, and now back in the oil fields driving rock buckets, water bottles, sand boxes, transports, and tankers.

i've been more or less rich, more or less poor, lived in high-zoot houses and live in a different one today with no indoor toilet.  i'm spending all my money puting the five kids through school, and what's left goes into the racing.

so i have great empathy with broad, rich lives that don't seem to accumulate much in the way of security but make up for it with a wealth of living.

and lots of empathy for the AJS/matchless, i remember the older thumpers from when i was a kid, seeing them parked outside the opium dens in kuala lumpur. if i had a time machine i'd go back and fill up a few shipping containers with them.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Dede

Quote from: billy rubin on October 15, 2019, 02:48:39 AM
Quote from: Icarus on October 15, 2019, 01:05:34 AM
Meanwhile I entertain myself and a few others by designing small go fast sail boats and building some of them in my garage. Yes , I do have some credentials for that pursuit. ............whew!  Now you know about my convoluted careers. I advise all my readers to avoid taking your eye off the ball as I have done so frequently.

and to be honest, i dunno about taking your eye off the ball. the people who focus on being responsible, and consistent, and following through to the bitter end on their first choices seem to me to have ended up with somewhat narrower lives.  deep, but not broad, so to speak.
Icarus and Billy, I'm the newbie and was reading Billy's intro post ... found this interchange rivetingly interesting. Wow, you have both led fascinating lives. And I so deeply agree with valuing broad rather than in-depth life experience; whenever it loses the intrigue, I move on!  Thank you for sharing.

Tank

Quote from: Dede on February 17, 2020, 06:43:03 PM
Quote from: billy rubin on October 15, 2019, 02:48:39 AM
Quote from: Icarus on October 15, 2019, 01:05:34 AM
Meanwhile I entertain myself and a few others by designing small go fast sail boats and building some of them in my garage. Yes , I do have some credentials for that pursuit. ............whew!  Now you know about my convoluted careers. I advise all my readers to avoid taking your eye off the ball as I have done so frequently.

and to be honest, i dunno about taking your eye off the ball. the people who focus on being responsible, and consistent, and following through to the bitter end on their first choices seem to me to have ended up with somewhat narrower lives.  deep, but not broad, so to speak.
Icarus and Billy, I'm the newbie and was reading Billy's intro post ... found this interchange rivetingly interesting. Wow, you have both led fascinating lives. And I so deeply agree with valuing broad rather than in-depth life experience; whenever it loses the intrigue, I move on!  Thank you for sharing.

Icarus lived on Hawaii and witnessed the Japanese attack when he was 11. Very few people can say that.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Dede

Wow!  thank you for sharing that about Icarus experiencing the Japanese attack on Hawaii ... so is he our Venerable Sage-In-Chief, being sort of the oldest? (I'm 75).  Or is that considered a disrespectful question (if so I apologize).

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: Dede on February 17, 2020, 10:18:23 PM
... Venerable Sage-In-Chief...

Well, certainly doesn't refer to me !!  ;D
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Tank

Quote from: Dede on February 17, 2020, 10:18:23 PM
Wow!  thank you for sharing that about Icarus experiencing the Japanese attack on Hawaii ... so is he our Venerable Sage-In-Chief, being sort of the oldest? (I'm 75).  Or is that considered a disrespectful question (if so I apologize).

He is our old sage. But not the oldest member. There is a member called old sage but I can't remember how old he is. :)
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

billy rubin

Quote from: Tank on February 17, 2020, 07:03:08 PM
Icarus lived on Hawaii and witnessed the Japanese attack when he was 11. Very few people can say that.

are you shitting me.

icarus, is that true?


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Tank

Quote from: billy rubin on February 17, 2020, 11:04:30 PM
Quote from: Tank on February 17, 2020, 07:03:08 PM
Icarus lived on Hawaii and witnessed the Japanese attack when he was 11. Very few people can say that.

are you shitting me.

icarus, is that true?

I hope it's true or my memory is truly shot!
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: Tank on February 18, 2020, 08:13:05 AM
Quote from: billy rubin on February 17, 2020, 11:04:30 PM
Quote from: Tank on February 17, 2020, 07:03:08 PM
Icarus lived on Hawaii and witnessed the Japanese attack when he was 11. Very few people can say that.

are you shitting me.

icarus, is that true?

I hope it's true or my memory is truly shot!

If your memory's shot then so is mine, I recall him saying that! ;D
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Icarus

My memory is shot too,  guys.  In fact I have a serious case of CRS (Can't Remember Shit).  To my claimed credit I am aware of my dwindling capacity.  Truth to tell there are some  things that I had rather not remember.  Memory is a problem for old guys and girls because reality was not actually as we might choose to recall.  Some shrewd wag identified the problem with the observation: 'The older I get, the better I was.