Pics of the Day: El Mexicano X-11

Back in September of 2012, an Citation Group member wrote a post asking where to find replacement or reproduction decals for his '85 X-11. It occurred to me that any sign shop with a vinyl printer should be able to run off a set. All they'd need is good photos of the originals.

It also occurred to me that I was bored and wanted a CAD drawing project, and that a sign shop could just use the files and save some time and money. I got with the guy and had him send whatever photos he'd taken of his original decals. His shots were just what I needed--big enough to zoom in on the decals and framed with graph paper:

I fired up QCAD, grabbed my dividers, ruler and reading glasses (someone shrunk the markings on that ruler), and got to work. Each of the decals took about an hour, maybe 90 minutes, from roughing-in to scaling up. For the door and spoiler "X-11" emblems, I drew each of the three shades of gray as separate layers and filled them with RGB matches of the colors:

I sent the guy copies of each as CAD DXF and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) files and also made copies available to the Citation group...and moved on to other things.

Last week, he sent me pics of his completed car:

Awesome.

Song of the Day: "Natural Science" and "Animate" (Rush), covered by Pierre Martin

I ran across Mr. Martin's YouTube channel a few nights ago. Don't remember what I was looking for, but his was the third rendition of "Natural Science"--and, I'd say, the best.



I went through his uploads list, watching him play most of Rush's fan favorites--"Cygnus X-1," "One Little Victory," "The Camera Eye," and seriously got tears in my eyes from some of it. This guy's GOOD, with an excellent grasp of the basics and a lock on Neil Peart's drumming style. It seems like he's chosen the more technically challenging songs (that's the thing about Rush--their songs range from kind of challenging to pretty challenging to holy-crap-how-can-three-guys-play-this-live?! Makes it a lot of fun to play on a good day and a trainwreck on a bad one).

It helps that he's got a much smaller kit than Peart; you can see what he's doing from the single front-view camera (Neil's kind of hidden behind a wall of cymbals and drums).

Out of all of them, "Animate" is the one that's been stuck in my head for the past few days:



Love that ride cymbal on the upbeats.

Pic of the Day: Right where he wants them.

The wingnuts just can't stop themselves from doing stupid things. When Nobel Peace Prize Recipient President Obama mentioned skeet shooting at Camp David a few weeks ago, the moronati cranked up their conspiracy generators and grumbled about how this makes him a racist, he's lying, there's no proof he ever did any skeet shooting. A very stupid woman from Tennessee doubted his claim and challenged him to a shootin' match.

It's amusing to think that Obama and his minions were trolling for wingnuts, being as how the fishing has been pretty good lately and they just keep hitting the bait no matter how many hooks they've already swallowed. Part of the skill is in letting them come to the bait, nice and easy...wait for it...then set the hook and bring 'em in.

As a Superbowl weekend gift, the White House released this August, 2012 photo of the Fisherman-in-Chief cross-training at Camp David. The wingnuts did not disappoint. They hit this bait just as hard, claiming it's a Photoshop job ("ya kin tell by the PIXELS, man! The PIXELS DON'T LIE!!"), all part of his continuing ploy to take are gunz.

Meanwhile, I imagine the planning stages of Operation Skeetgate might have looked like this:

Hook, line and sinker.

It can't be much longer before the Three Morons of Bengazigate (McCain, his poodle, and their 'deeply-troubled' female replacement for Joe Lieberman hold a press conference demanding a briefing on Skeetgate while skipping the briefing. Darrell Issa, in a desperate bid to seem important, will investigate and hold hearings on the matter, and all of this will get us through February.