http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437435218.jpg

From last Friday's fire that blew across the interstate:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437435263.jpg

A little cleaning and that would be spectacular. I'd love to live in a place made like that.

I can't think of the last time I heard about Jaaackk - how come he and Dustin Hoffman arent in more films these days?

Interesting. It spirals to the right instead of the left. Very rare. The main purpose of spiral staircases from the beginning was to act as a line of defense against attacking armies. It goes back to the times of armored Knights as the suits were so heavy, they needed their left hand to hold onto the railing as they went up which lowered their shields making them easy targets. Who knows if that's true or not but I read it on the internet somewhere. lol..

Speaking of not knowing the truth, I visited the stairway I posted when I was a kid. It was on a stopover during a cross country trip - in Santa Fe, NM. The story I was told was that no one really knew who built this "miracle staircase". That the sisters who were building the chapel had run out of money and the project stalled. Then a drifter showed up and offered to build the spiral staircase, and did so without a single nail or screw. And that he left without ever accepting payment. At least, that's what I recall about 44 years later...

Building another chapel:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437437808.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437437822.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437437837.jpg

They are old.

Old and sitting on stacks of cash. Why work?

Welding porn courtesy of Earl Jackson:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437452890.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437452953.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437452977.jpg

We just got through with a mini heat wave here, I don't think I'm cut out to live someplace where it gets +95 regularly. At least not with the high humidity we also get with it.


Many places in the Southern US will have 95+ degree days for more than 4 months/year
Far more hot days and air conditioning (and thus less vitamin D) later this century
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437487015.jpg

In 50 years more power will be used for Air Conditioning than for heating
Far more hot days and air conditioning (and thus less vitamin D) later this century
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437487048.jpg

When those stairs were built the "master carpenter" did NOT put a hand rail on them. Many of the nuns would go up or down on their hands and knees in complete fear. The handrail was added later.

From an article in Skeptical Inquirer:

The staircase does have a central support, an inner wood stringer of such small radius that it "functions as an almost solid pole." As well, Nickell observed when he visited Loretto in 1993 that the structure includes an additional support, "an iron brace or bracket that stabilizes the staircase by rigidly connecting the outer stringer to one of the columns that support the loft." Nickell concluded: "It would thus appear that the Loretto staircase is subject to the laws of physics like any other."


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1437488853.jpg

This need more support!