zippo

ok i was looking through some of the valuables i have tucked away in a fireproof safe the other day and came across my grandpas WWII zippo. this thing is just awesome. It is very worn down and has no flint or wick. I looked at the date code and it was made in 1946 i believe.when the war was going on, the brass that they used to make zippos at the time needed to be used for the war, so the zippo manufarturers used steel casings and sprayed a quick coat of black paint over them and then put them in the oven to bake it on. this gave the lighters a rough black texture, known today as "black crackle". This particular lighter was carried by my grandpa overseas (im researching exactly where, but i know he was in germany). here it is, on the left, next to a 2007 matte black finish zippo. (this one is matte, but they have started making black crackle finishes again in honor of the WWII ones, and they have also made replicas of the 1941 case as it is different then todays cases)

note the slightly shorter case and more rounded off edges of the older one. other differences are less holes in the chimney area and a hollow rivet where the flint wheel attaches to the chimney.there have been some of the WWII black crackle zippos going on ebay for about $500 recently for ones that are in mint condition.

camp umm.... stupid.

so in case you havent heard, the old park at the mall of america, which used to be called camp snoopy, then "the park at mall of america" is now "nickelodeon universe". this pisses me off for two reasons...
1. nothing here is actually related to nickelodeon other then the giant stickers they pasted on everything that already was built.
2. nickelodeon today SUCKS DONKEY D***! kids these days dont have the joy of growing up with ren and stimpy, rockos modern life, rugrats, doug, aaaah real monsters, salute your shorts, hey dude, are you afraid of the dark (good) all that, pete and pete, clarissa explains it all, etc, etc. they have STUPID shows like dora the explorer, jimmy neutron, and more damn half hybrid cutesy japanese animation styled cartoons then you can shake a tv remote at! what happened to real animation!?!?!
oh yeah, almost forgot the picture of the park with all of the stickers and cardboard cutouts:

it would take about an hour to take just the nickelodeon themed stuff down and have this park back to being a generic theme park. they are probably doing this because mall of america cant keep ANYTHING good and they are preparing for the next change-over at the park and want to make it as instantaneous as possible with more stickers and cardboard cutouts for the next big craze to hit todays moronic youth!at least when it was camp snoopy, there was rides built in the shape of snoopy related things and everything followed some sort of theme. it probably took a 15 minute board meeting to decid "hey lets just put some stickers over everything and come up with some lame-ass names that have current nickelodeon characters names in them"my biggest gripe? they got rid of the friggin MYSTERY MINE RIDE! that was the last straw. so next time you are in the mall and pass one of the 4 enterances to the piece of crap that is "nickelodeon universe", extend a giant middle finger in its direction for me.

cars and coffee

ok so i posted some pics from the last one of these but this one was absolutely insane... every first saturday of the month, a ton of exotics and sports cars gather at the coffe joints on shady oak road right off of 62 in hopkins... the one last week was about 4 times bigger then all previous ones and took up about 4 surrounding parking lots.
there was 3 lambos there, 2 of which i have seen before (silver murcielago roadster, yellow gallardo from last cars and coffee) but also a new one...
black 1994-1997 lamborghini diablo vt roadster!!!!!

there was also the silver esprit that i spotted a few weeks ago downtown:

and a LOT of nice lotus elise and exiges, with these two being my favorite (im a sucker for that green color, its gorgeous in person)

my car was there too but i wont bore you with more shots of the car that has been featured on this journal more then any other subject!

espreeeee

just a car shot that im quite proud of... from after this mornings drive in the lotus:

ZOO!

its that time of the year again! the annual trip to the minnesota zoo! this time they have a new exhibit featuring animals of the "grizzly coast" of russia... sea otters, bears, amur leopards and wild boars....first, the sea otter that looked directly at me:

grizzly bears (one swimming and trying to catch fish, one sleeping):

wild boar (baby):

amur leopards (staring into the wild boar cage):

prairie dog doing an impression of a statue:

moose out of water:

meerkat staring at me:

wolverine (bad ass):

mountain lion pacing:

tapir (fat ass):

red panda:

SLOTH!:

tamandua (type of anteater that i want as a pet):

thats it for now, hopefully ill be going to the como zoo soon for some good pics of their animal selection!

first knife

ok, since i always post pictures of new knives i obtain, i figure id post a picture of my frist knife i ever received... i think i was about 9 or 10... this was my grandpas pocket knife and is made by a company called "Kabar" (they are the ones that make the US Marine Corp survival knives today)Anyways, lots of good times were had with this little gem... i learned the importance of knife safety with it and learned how to sharpen with it. it is now locked away in a safe in my house because of the insane sentimental value....

s**t storm

ok the day WAS bright and sunny and nice and warm... we headed to the store to get some stuff and saw some dark clouds off in the distance and figured the storm was like an hour or so away....

when we cam out of the store FIVE minutes later, it was the darkest damn storm i had ever seen and it was moving in REAL fast...

it was over in like half an hour though. just lots of talk and no follow through.

squirrel!

squirrels like to yell at me for some reason. so i decided to take a picture of one and confuse him...

4th of july weekend...

so i know its a little late for this.... actual 4th of july, watched fireworks at a friends house... heres the standard "fireworks" shot, blurry as heck

next day, there was an exotic car gathering near here and there was a lamborghini gallardo that showed up, kinda customized in little ways...

that night we went downtown to celebrate mollys birthday and there was a V8 lotus esprit that pulled up beside us at a light!

yes, there was way more to this weekend besides cars, but i dont post people pics on here...

lightning!

finally captured lightning with my camera... its actually a frame from a video i shot out of my office window this afternoon...

intermarque car show 2008

ok these pics are a few weeks old (been really busy!) but this is from the annual intermarque british car show held every year at the radisson hotel in plymouth.
first off, my car:

john's esprit (same car as mine, different wheels):

series 1 lotus elise (one of VERY few in the US... this is waht tehy looked like in europe before they were redisigned and brought to america):

new lotus elise (note the visual changes):

the older lotus cars from our lotus club in MN:

aston martin v8 vantage:

delorean!!! I STILL WANT ONE OF THESE! (this one only had 5000 miles on it!):

I got to park next to it and take pics of my two favorite cars in the world that arent lamborghinis!

thats all! there were a number of other awesome cars there but these were what i was really there for.