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Emergency Plumber Charleston West Virginia 25356

Just recently, I was having a discussion with a local business owner. He was extremely happy of the fact that he was Number One in Google for his service name and main search terms, which bring him organisation. But I went home and looked for the very same terms and found that he was lucky to be ranked fourth or 3rd. Exactly what is taking place here, and could this be taking place to you?

The Charleston WV 25356 24 Hour Plumbing Service Which Should Blow You Away

Don’t simply presume that the plumber will be good for your emergency issue due to the fact that somebody you relied on informed you about them. You have to make 100% sure that they can help you prior to hiring them so you do not have larger issues later on from making a rushed decision and employing the wrong plumber.

Next, make sure that you get the ideal person or company to install your new gas hot water system. It is necessary that the person is accredited and licensed in gas pipes. Understand that it can not be a standard plumber. You will need a gas plumber who has experience in dealing with and connecting gas home appliances. Ensure that you get plenty of great quotes and guarantee that the set up system includes a good warranty.

We also call headings categories. In any case, you have to comprehend the importance of remaining in the correct location so the right consumer can find you. It sounds simple enough. Perhaps you are a full-service plumber. You put a large ad under, “Plumbing-Repair” and you’re done, right? Not so quick. Do you deal with water heaters and drains pipes? Of course, you state. Doesn’t the general public recognize that? Maybe they do however maybe they do not. Do all plumbers take credit cards? A lot of do however they still state it in their ads. It’s since a little reinforcement can never ever hurt. So your only ad states “We do drains and water heater repair.” If Mrs. Smith has a dripping water heater, what. Will she go to plumbers heading or look under Water Heaters?

Careful Analysis And Long Term Remedies

Constantly ensure to save all the belongings on racks as water can harm these products when it seeps in. Be educated about location of the water pipe in your home as you might have to turn it on and off in case of pipes emergency. Have a wrench to turn the water primary on and off. Constantly store the essential tools close by. Practice these tolls to make sure that you are doing it correctly.

Ways to do- simply lift up or lower the deal with to inspect for the pressure. This is to drain pipes the water by means of overflow pipeline. It will suggest the replacement of valve as soon as possible if the water does not come out. Just open the warm water faucet & replace the valve. When in a year, this check must be done.

Leakages for instance can be external as well as internal. For external leakages, you can easily identify when your floor is getting damp whereas with internal leaks, the walls get wet and can become harmful for the electric system. For such leakages, it is best to obtain the 24 hour plumber to address these at the earliest.

Hot Tub Repair In 25356

Normally, sump pumps are positioned in the basements of homes to stop problems with water flooding or dripping into a basement. There are times when washering will also drain into a sump pump. This actually is something which a Burbank pipes expert need to set up if you don’t actually understand what you’re doing with regards to sump pumps. The factor that it’s a job for a plumber is just since they also require a hole in addition to a line for drainage to be installed. Although it’s not an emergency plumber work, it’s really a work for a plumber.

Various problems can appear with shower heads. You can be confronted with leakages in the region where the arm gets in touch with the head or where the shower head body gets in touch with the swivel ball. In this case you need to clean all threads then coat them with making use of plumbers’ joint tape or joint compound.

This is because of the fact that the toilet trap is usually about six inches above the flooring whereas the normally shower drain is level with the flooring. You must call in proficient plumbers if you are unable to clear this backup yourself. They will be clean up the dripped sewage along with learn exactly where the blockage is situated. Unless you understand what you are doing when you attempt to try doing your very own plumbing repairs.


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“As long as justice is postponed we always stand on the verge of these darker nights of social disruption...so said Martin Luther King Jr. in a speech on March 14, 1968, just three weeks before he was assassinated.

...hello + welcome!

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This blog is for regular updates + info connected to the ILLUMINATI, 911, 7/7, recent UFO sightings, CHEMTRAILS, MORGELLONS [98% OF WORLDS POPULATION HAS MORGELLONS DISEASE, they claim - see "Morgellons & SmartDust Infect Individuals to be Tracked via Satellite" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Baua4QzgAjc - MIND CONTROL {MK ULTRA, MANNEQUIN etc.}, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, JOHN LEAR, ALEX COLLIER, PROJECT CAMELOT, PROJECT AVALON, MICHAEL TSARION, JORDAN MAXWELL, PRESTON NICHOLS, AL BIELEK, STEWART SWERDELOW, DUNCAN CAMERON, WILLIAM COOPER, PHIL SCHNEIDER, David Wilcock, FRITZ SPRINGMEIER, BILLY MEIER, MAX IGAN, STEW WEBB, "Democracy Now!", Henry Makow, Linda Moulton-Howe, Dan Burisch, Webster Tarpley, Brother Nathanael, Timothy Good, Miles Johnson, Jim Marrs, John Hutchison, Wikileaks, Julian Assange #FreeAssange #FreeManning #FreeHammond, Dr. John Hall, Edward Snowden, Vladimir Putin, John Lennon, Bob Zimmerman [Dylan], award winning journalist John Pilger's site is www.johnpilger.com + many more who can only be described as heroes...

Like many, this site is shadowbanned, as daily viewing figures prove since March 2018, when before then the figures were 10 times as much as they are since [from approx. 5000 views per day to 500]: "Shadowbanning" is the "act of blocking or partially blocking a user or their content from an online community" - see more: What is "shadowbanning - truther sites are often targeted:

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......Namaste.....John Graham - butlincat

Jai guru deva om जय गुरुदेव ॐ ... peace!

Thursday, 26 July 2018

Novichok in a perfume bottle - REALLY?, "Novichok, Rowley and the ‘Silence of the (Media) Whores’" - 21st Century Wire

Murray: Novichok, Rowley and the ‘Silence of the (Media) Whores’

At long last, the British government’s latest ‘Novichok victim’ appears for a touching and emotional interview. 45 year-old Charlie Rowley was finally let off the security services leash just enough to squeeze out a new official version of how he and his now deceased partner managed to find themselves in the middle of what ITV and the government-media complex insist is ‘Another Russia WMD Attack on UK Soil’.
Clearly looking like a man speaking under duress, substance abuse addict Rowley claims to have somehow found a batch of the deadliest nerve agent known to man, Novichok, laying somewhere (he can’t remember exactly where) on the side of the road disguised as an unopened bottle of perfume in Amesbury, Wiltshire on 30 June. He then proceeds to bring his newfound gift home to his partner Dawn Sturgess, but not before opening it up and spilling the world’s deadliest nerve agent all over his hands – but no fear, he simply washes it off under a standard household tap, which ITV makes a big point of – how this relatively trivial domestic action “saved Rowley’s life” (bringing it all home, well done team). Apparently, his partner Sturgess wasn’t so lucky after spraying herself with the “odorless perfume”.
Previously, authorities were peddling the official story that Rowley and Sturgess had got their dose of Novichok from a “used cigarette butt” laying on the side of road (no we’re not joking, they really said that). So now, according to this dim tale being promulgated by a desperate government and its media operatives, Rowley found a perfume bottle, boxed and sealed, which was laying on the side of the road for 4 months – left there by Russian assassins from the attempted ‘hit’ on the Skripals?
Verdict: As crime novel plots go, this would not pass muster for a made-for-TV B soap.
From the onset, this media road-show was custom-made for dissemination in a mainstream gutter press who, like the US and UK governments, seems as keen as ever to drum-up any xenophobic hate it can against Russia, and features canned tabloid money lines like this one – targeting the lowest common denominator, courtesy of Rupert Murdoch’s flagship propaganda rag, The Sun:
Drug addict Charlie has blasted Russian spies for killing girlfriend Dawn Sturgess, saying: “I’ll never get over what happened.”
The government appears to have tied themselves into a knot of its own making, further compounding a runway narrative that just keeps getting more and more ridiculous by the day. Clearly, someone somewhere made a fatal judgement call by convincing his or her establishment teammates this pig could somehow fly in middle England, leading to another perhaps more profound question: exactly whose bright idea was it to float this Novichok conspiracy in the first place?
Read as former British diplomat and political expert
 Craig Murray further exposes the rank deception shamelessly being perpetrated by the government-media complex…
The mainstream media are making almost no effort today to fit Charlie Rowley’s account of his poisoning into the already ludicrous conspiracy theory being peddled by the government and intelligence agencies.
ITV News gamely inserted the phrase “poisoned by a Russian nerve agent” into their exclusive interview with Charlie Rowley, an interview in which they managed to ask no penetrating questions whatsoever, and of which they only broadcast heavily edited parts. Their own website contains this comment by their journalist Rupert Evelyn:
He said it was unopened, the box it was in was sealed, and that they had to use a knife in order to cut through it.
“That raises the question: if it wasn’t used, is this the only Novichok that exists in this city? And was it the same Novichok used to attack Sergei and Yulia Skripal?
But the information about opening the packet with a knife is not in the linked interview. What Rowley does say in the interview is that the box was still sealed in its cellophane. Presumably it was the cellophane he slit open with a knife.

Novichok survivors’ Yulia and Sergie Skripal, currently being held at a secret government safe house.
So how can this fit in to the official government account? Presumably the claim is that Russian agents secretly visited the Skripal house, sprayed novichok on the door handle from this perfume bottle, and then, at an unknown.
location, disassembled the nozzle from the bottle (Mr Rowley said he had to insert it), then repackaged and re-cellophaned the bottle prior to simply leaving it to be discovered somewhere – presumably somewhere indoors as it still looked new – by Mr Rowley four months later. However it had not been found by anyone else in the interim four months of police, military and security service search.
Frankly, the case for this being the bottle allegedly used to coat the Skripals’ door handle looks wildly improbable. But then the entire government story already looked wildly improbable anyway – to the extent that I literally do not know a single person, even among my more right wing family and friends, who believes it. The reaction of the media, who had shamelessly been promoting the entirely evidence free “the Russians did it” narrative, to Mr Rowley’s extremely awkward piece of news has been to shove it as far as possible down the news agenda and make no real effort to reconcile it.
By his own account, Mr Rowley is not a reliable witness, his memory affected by the “Novichok”. It is not unreasonable to conjecture there may also be other reasons why he is vague about where and how he came into possession of this package of perfume.
The perfume bottle is now in the hands of the Police. Is it not rather strange that they have not published photos of it, to see if it jogs the memory of a member of the public who saw it somewhere in the last four months, or saw somebody with it? The “perpetrators” know what it looks like and already know the police have it, so that would not give away any dangerous information. You might believe the lockdown of the story and control of the narrative is more important to the authorities than solving the crime, which we should not forget is now murder.
Read more at Craig Murray’s blog.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.
READ MORE SKRIPAL NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Skripal Files
see more:

Monday, 9 July 2018

NOW IT'S MURDER: "U.K. woman dies after exposure to Novichok, the same nerve agent used in Skripal attack" + SHRIMPTON ON THE NOVICHOK HYPE - VIDEOs

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George Stringer Passes Away

Posted by: on 10 May 2017

Canterbury Central stalwart George Stringer passed away late last week. he was found at home by a neighbour.

George provided over 20 years service to his club Burnham, and as Secretary/Treasurer for Canterbury Central Golf where he was also a Life Member.  He was also a member of the Canterbury Eagles Golfing Society.

A memorial service to celebrate George's life is being held at Christchurch Crematorium Funeral Services (65 Vickerys Rd, Wigram) on Sunday 14 May at 11am.

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375 McLeans Island Road, Harewood

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6556 Desert Spirit Road NW

11 Garden Park

4 Beds, 3 Baths

416 Phoenix Ave

1719 Chacoma Pl SW

101 Caminito Alegre

Why us

let's talk

Castle Finders Realty has served the Real Estate needs of Albuquerque, Rio Rancho and throughout the State of New Mexico for over fifteen years. Our team has a wealth of knowledge and experience with the ever-changing New Mexico Real Estate market. That experience plays a key role in our commitment to guide our clients throughout their Real Estate transaction and beyond in order to ensure their best interests are upheld.

  • Real Estate Sales Brokerage

  • Buyers Assistance

  • Mortgage Referral Service

  • Remodeling and Renovation Management

  • Interior Design Service

  • New Construction Experts

  • Executive Services

As a locally owned and operated small business in Albuquerque, New Mexico, we seek to serve our clients with unrivaled

integrity, professionalism and personal service.  We are devoted to investing in our clients and going the extra mile evaluating their needs and interests, ensuring that we not only meet, but exceed their expectations for their Real Estate transaction. Whether you are buying or selling your home, commercial building, land, or investment property we are here to serve you.

We would love to hear from you. Please select Contact Us under Services to contact our office. Our personal service ensures that you can speak directly to one of our professionals without having to listen to an automated system. If you do get voice mail, we apologize; however, we are probably assisting others. So please leave a message and we promise to return your call as soon as possible. The office phone number is 505.238.6478

3 Beds, 2 Baths

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13608 Elena Gallegos Pl NE


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Hey Jackass

Yes, you. You know who you are. You’re the dumb asshole who doesn’t bother cleaning the snow off of your car before you hit the highways. Yes, you dumb shit, I can’t see your face through the small hole in the snow that you DID manage to clear for yourself in the windshield, but I still want to kick your ass anyway. Hey, I got my ass out of bed a half hour early to clean off my car, why the fuck do you feel that you don’t have to? Sure, the wind will knock the snow off, but it will knock it onto me, the unfortunate asshole behind your illiterate ass. Dumbass.

This was problematic for me when I did the nasty Christmas Day drive north. I’d be flying along just dandily, then some asshole would fly in front of me from one of the exits on the interstate, and next thing I knew, I’d have a white-out on my OWN windshield because Jim-Bob in the pickup truck didn’t feel the need to get out the ice scraper. Motherfuckers. This happened dozens of times, unfortunately, particulary on icy patches. I hate people. They do not deserve to have a car, if they can’t clean it off.

Comments closed.


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Tips to Make your Family Bonding Exciting

All of us want to have a family bonding even once a year to make your family’s relationship strong. But having a family bonding must not only focus on having a strong relationship but also enjoying the time that you are with your family. Because of this, I’ll give some useful tips in order to make your family bonding more exciting. You can also visit, to know more about the things on how you can make your family strong and happy.

Do Physical Activities

In order to be close with your other family, you can do some physical activities like basketball or do yoga with your family on your family bonding. With this, you will be able to hit two birds with one rock because you will be able to be close to your other family members while you are having fun.

family photo

Share your Thoughts

One of the best ways for you to enjoy your family gets together is to share your thoughts about yourself and your other family members. You will be able to enjoy this kind of activity because you are open to other people, especially to your relatives.

Eat at The Same Time

My last tips on how you can enjoy your family bonding are to eat at the same time. You will be able to feel your relatives’ happiness once you are eating at the same time and sharing your food with them. Besides being full, you will be able to spend the best time with your family this way.

How to Learn to Play Guitar Online

Playing the guitar is one of the best musical skills a musician can learn. If you can play guitar, you can also compose your own songs. In addition to learning to play the piano, playing the guitar can be a great career start or a hobby in music.

If you want to play the guitar better, you can learn guitar online. They teach guitar tricks and techniques for starters. Actually, there are a number of great resources that you can find online, which can help you play the guitar better. If you are interested in learning to play guitar online, here are some tips that can help you get off to a good start.

Find a Reliable Website

Typing If you want to learn to play guitar online, you need to find a reliable website where you can take your music lessons seriously and follow them consistently. Although you can find many resources, videos, and instruction pages online, it is important to choose a website that will help you learn the instrument consistently and correctly.

Find a Good Program

You can also learn better timing, precision, and plucking percussion techniques through computer programs and software developed by music lovers and experienced guitarists. Of course, using these tools and resources can be very useful if you want to play the guitar better or take your musical skills to the next level.

Learn the Basics

Even if you already know some chords and techniques, it is essential to learn the basics from the beginning. It is also very important to learn the basics correctly and precisely. If you practice bad playing habits, later on, you will have problems that can be very difficult to correct, so invest time to learn everything correctly.

Learn to Practice Everyday

Guitar Learning to play the guitar and any other instrument can get to a point where you become frustrated or bored, and this often happens when you lose effort and time to practice every day. If you want to succeed in music and do it well, you need to find the time, even if only for a few minutes, to take the guitar and start practicing every day. Little by little, you will realize how quickly you master the instrument.

Learn Some Techniques

Watch the pro and learn from him. One good thing about learning online is the wealth of resources you can use, especially those of professionals and those who excel at playing the guitar. You can also visit exclusive websites that give you access to some guitar techniques that will help you play like a professional. Some member-only sites also have great software that can help you play the guitar better, faster, and easier, which of course, is something most people want.


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Guangzhou Garden Hotel: hotel in GuangZhou China

China Hotels >> GuangZhou Hotels >> Guangzhou Garden Hotel
Hotel Ratings
6481 Ratings

The Guangzhou Garden Hotel is an impressive 30-story deluxe building in downtown Guangzhou.

Hotel Address:
No.368 East Huanshi Road Guangzhou

Guangzhou Garden Hotel

Hotel Room:
828 Rooms

High Season , Low Season

Hotel Location:
Map Location in the city map
The Guangzhou Garden Hotel is only 40 kms from New Baiyun Airport and 4 kms from the railway station. Distance to Canton Fair center: To Liuhua Complex: 4km To Pazhou Complex: 12km

Se more Guangzhou Garden Hotel Photos See more pictures of Guangzhou Garden Hotel

Hotel Video: Conference Room Hall Western Restaurant

1. Please select the date of "check-in", "check-out" and "Adults".
Check-in Check-out Adults: Children:
Show Calendar Show Calendar
2. Select the number of the "Rooms".
* Price Included all service charge and tax!
  Type of Room Rate/night Rooms
Not available, Please check another date.

The Internet discount room rate includes service charge. The hotel accepts major credit card payment. Check out 12 noon. Unless upon request, the hotel will only keep the reservation till 18:00. Rates may be subject to surcharge during peak periods.

Distance from landmarks:
To Yuexiu Park about 1.36km,
To Zhenhai Tower about 1.39km,
To Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall about 1.45km,
To Beijing Road Business Zone about 1.78km,
To Chinese Export Commodities Fair Liuhua Complex about 2.09km,
To Business Zone, Renming Road about 2.31km,
To Pearl River about 2.42km,
To Guangzhou Train Station about 2.61km,
To Sacred Heart Cathedral (Seksat Church) about 3.19km,
To Business Zone of Shangxiajiu Road about 3.69km,
To Guangzhou Culture Park about 3.97km,
To Jiangnan Business Zone about 4.25km,
To Green Xiguan Dawu Community about 4.28km,
To Tianhe Staium about 4.69km,
To Baiyun Scenic Spot about 4.87km,
To Shamian Scenic Spot about 4.9km,
To Guangzhou East Train Station(TianHe District) about 5km,
To Chinese Export Commodities Fair Pazhou Complex, Guangzhou about 9.21km,
To Nanhu Amusement Park about 10.99km,
To Xiaozhou Village of Guangzhou about 11.61km,
To Guangzhou Grand World Scenic Park about 14.44km,
To Sun Island Amusement Park about 21.65km,
To Guangzhou New Baiyun International Airport about 26.57km,

*** Clicking on the underlined words you can find other hotels close to the same landmark

Hotel Description:

The Guangzhou Garden Hotel is an impressive 30-story deluxe building in downtown Guangzhou. The convenient location together with the largest hotel convention hall in Asia and fully facilitated business center makes the hotel a top choice for business travelers to Guangzhou. From the grand lobby to the elegantly furnished guestrooms, the modern architecture is distinctly characterized by traditional Chinese decoration and impressive works of art. An outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts, squash court, comprehensively equipped health club, and an extensive shopping arcade are all on the list to make your stay a pleasant one.

Hotel Facilities:
3 Chinese Restaurants Guangdong Cuisine 8 International Restaurants French, Italian, Japanese Cuisine Conference Room, Exhibition Hall, Business Centre, Coffee Shop, Bar, Change, Credit Card, Ticket Agency, Car Park, Laundry, Baby Sitter, Swimming Pool, Gimnasium, Sauna, Beauty, Clinic, Massage, Tennis, Handicapped Facilities, Shopping Arcade, Flower Shop, Karaoke, KTV Room, Bowling,

Room Description:

The stylish design of the hotel's garden reflects the perfect blend of art and architecture within the structure's twin Y-shaped towers. The entire complex comprises a 21-story Garden Tower with 800 offices and serviced apartments and the towering 30-story Garden Hotel with over 1,000 luxuriously appointed rooms and suites. The brand new 27th and 28th Executive Floors and the 24th and 25th Business Floors, both offering luxurious amenities and personalized services, are reserved for the distinguished traveler.

Room Facilities:
Telephone, International Call, Air Conditioning, TV, TV Sat, Room Servicee

Besides the complete service package for the business travelers, the hotel has 14 dining halls specializing in Cantonese and Sichuan cuisine as well as French and Italian food. The elegant atmosphere in the revolving seafood restaurant atop the hotel is certainly the best treat after a hard days work in the busy city.

Other facilities include: A bar, child care services, health clinic, dance hall, disco, karaoke room, beauty salon, conference hall, massage room, and sauna.

Guangzhou Garden Hotel Map The_Garden_Hotel_Guangzhou_Logo.jpg Logo

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Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Blackberry Q5 coming next week for Rs 25,000

This mid-range BlackBerry handset runs on latest Blackberry 10 operating system and has powerful specs like 1.5 GHz dual core processor and 2 GB RAM.

Some time back we had reported about BlackBerry's upcoming Q5 smartphone. Now First Post, which has cited some market sources, claimed that the phone will be launched in India next week for Rs 25,000.

This will be an important move for BlackBerry as its first two devices on latest Blackberry 10 operating system, the Z10 and Q10, are too expensive as they are priced above Rs 40,000.

BlackBerry Q10, with which Q5 shares many of its hardware, was made of premium material and is therefore costly. But, Q5 would offer the same performance as it comes with 1.5 GHz dual core processor and 2GB RAM as the Z10 and Q10.

BlackBerry Q5 has a 3.1-inch screen with 720 x 720 resolution at 329 pixels per inch as the Q10. However, BlackBerry Q5 has a LCD TFT panel and not the Super AMOLED like Q10. Beside, Blackberry Q5 comes with 8 GB internal memory, 64 GB expandable storage slot, and a 2180 mAh non removable battery which is slightly bigger than BlackBerry Q10.

The BlackBerry Q5 has a 5 megapixel camera at the back with an LED flash while a 2 megapixel unit is in the front. The phone supports 3G, LTE, WiFi and Bluetooth. Accelerometer, magnetometer, proximity, gyroscope, and ambient light sensors are too in the Q5 which has an built-in digital compass as well.

BlackBerry Q5 is expected to come with complete MapMyIndia suite for free like Blackberry Z10. It will come with its share of corporate security features as well.

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A Pug Like Percy by Fiona Harrison

Wrapped Round His Paws

A Pug Like Percy by Fiona Harrison is the most delightful contemporary novel. I just could not put it down. Written from the point of view of Percy, the reader soon settles into the doggy way of thinking – all Percy wants is a happy ever after family. The same can be said of the humans in the story too.

Percy doubts himself after being passed over in the shelter. “Was I unlovable?” He has friends that speak life into his situation and build him up.

Friends and family are vital to us all. Percy does all he can to bring happiness to his family. “It’s not our job to understand, ours is to be there when our owners need us.”

The novel is about a family in crisis. As a child’s health deteriorates, the stress puts a strain on the family. Couples need to remember why they fell in love to begin with but in the worry, they lose sight of life.

The novel highlights the positive effect pets can have on people and vice versa. We need each other as we journey through life.

A Pug Like Percy is a pure delight. It is a clever read too as the reader ‘feels’ like they are inside Percy’s head.

A wonderful read for all animal lovers.

I received this book for free. A favourable review was not required and all views expressed are my own.

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Sunday, October 31, 2010

My 100th Blogpost

I waited until today so my 100th post would be on my favorite holiday, Halloween. or Samhain for some.

Okay, guys. NaNoWriMo. For some of you, it has already started. For me, it's not officially time for 3 1/2 hours. I haven't signed into my account (I know, I suck) to do my updates and connect with people because... okay, I could drone on about real life and whatnot, but the truth is: I'm a forgetful cow who is easily distracted by anything shiny.

Or with awesome special effects.

Trick-or-Treating etiquette is apparently a thing of the past. A group of six kids came to my door. Every single one of them grabbed heaping handfuls of candy out of my bowl and one little bugger grabbed THREE. He just kept coming back as long as I had the door open for the other kids in his group. HIS PARENTS SAID NOTHING.

At least I'm smart enough to just set my kids loose without me so I don't have to excuse their bad behavior or scold them in front of other people. Ah. Blissfully ignorant, me. My other awesome parenting tactic is to cover my ears and say 'lalalalalalalalala' a lot until they give up trying to tell me something I don't want to hear.

This doesn't work as well with bill collectors. Just saying.

On another note, I guess I spoke too soon. I got a partial request for Postmortal today. "PADDLES, STAT!" *beep* *beep* *beep* We'll see if she pulls through.

There's the doorbell again. I wonder if handsmacking is allowed in Trick-or-Treating etiquette...

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Flatlined Again

So, I think I'm calling it: Postmortal has died. Which is ironic, considering its content. It's been several weeks since I sent out the last queries, and while I had requests for fulls and partials in the beginning, no one's asked for more in three months and I'm out of agents. My second MS has flatlined, and now joins Lesser Evils in the Abandoned Department.

I'm okay with that. Sure, it stings a bit, but I'll get over it. I've done it before. I've been working on a couple of other things, and maybe one of them will work out. I've definitely felt a severe dip in my gungho-ness, though. I enjoy what I'm working on, and that's all that matters. The love of writing will be there, even if the only people who ever read my work are my family and a few 'readers' I have that read my chapters as I go.

NaNoWriMo is something a lot of us are participating in soon. This will be my first time. I'm going to use it get my butt in gear to finish at least one of the ones I've started. I know this breaks the rules, but I'm not actually competing with anyone but myself. I'm the sort to slowly type up a chapter and edit as I go, with each paragraph and dialogue tag scrutinized before I move forward. I don't turn back until the entire thing is written, then read back through it to make sure the pacing is good and fix something here and there. Just sitting back and letting the words flow is going to be a whole new challenge for me.

So, who all is doing NaNo this year? Have you been outlining and making notes? Or do you just have an idea and are going to see how it goes?

Thursday, October 21, 2010

So, I'm a Goober

Today I'm a goober writer for Goober Writer's Anonymous over at Emily's Playhouse.

Who am I kidding? I'm a goober writer every day. Sometimes just a plain ol' goober. I make mistakes. I doubt myself. I feel like an idiot for pursuing a dream instead of being content with 'the day job.' I have some days when I'm excited about what I'm working on, then some days when it feels futile. Time consuming. I have this fear that twenty years from now I'll still be unpublished, and I'll look back at my life and regret I wasn't living it as I could have been.

But that's the risk we're all taking together, isn't it?

I hope everyone has a fabulous Thursday.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Immitating Others

I had a mild panic attack yesterday. I was talking to my thirteen-year-old about my MG I've started. I was explaining my main character and the world he discovers, and I was very excited (and a little proud) of how different it was than anything else I'd ever seen.

Up until she said, "Oh, that's just like *insert name of popular children's book*."

No, not Harry Potter. I'd never in a zillion years accidentally immitate Potterverse. I'm a well-versed Potterdork. But this series she compared mine to is also pretty popular. I knew it because I'd bought her each book as it came out. I've never read it. I've never even read the back to find out what it was about. I just knew she liked it. So, with her words I went from excited to incredibly depressed in 2.4 seconds.

She brought me the books for me to look over. I googled the series. Researched the characters, plot arc and motivations, and am relieved to say mine is still very different from that one. There *are* similarities, though. Unintentional ones. I know this is to do with the fact that *there are no new ideas.* Even that one is compared to another previous author's work.

So how, in this world of millions of books, can we possibly know *our* ideas are fresh and new? They probably aren't. Someone else has already written your book with different characters and motivation. And not necessarily in book form. I told my friend about one element and they said, "Oh, that's like a Dr. Who episode." Crap. I've read jacket copy of some books and said to myself, "That's a Buffy episode."

It sucks, but we have to soldier on and hope that our new take or twist is different enough to not be considered immitation hacks. I don't watch Dr. Who. I haven't read many of my daughter's books. There's the possibility (or inevitability) that if this book finds representation and is published, someone will think I've copied someone else. But none of us do that on purpose, do we? We don't *want* to be like others. We want to entertain with our newness, not disappoint with our similarity.

This might be a bad idea, but I hope an agent would help in this regard. If they are interested in the book, but think parts are too similar to something I've never heard of, they'd let me know so I can change it. Unless they discard mine from the get-go for being too similar. It's a frightening possibility.

Has this happened to any of you? Have you thought you had a new take or idea, only to discover it's been done?

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Just My Two Cents

There's been a lot of talk about the agent/potential client dynamic in regards to the query system. I think we can all agree the system is far from perfect. We, as writers and hopeful clients, feel great frustration when we receive form rejections or no response at all. Agents -trust me- feel that same frustration when they have to weed through a bunch of crazies to find something that is different enough to sell, but same enough to fit the market.

I would never want this job. Yes, most of them rave about how much they love their jobs, and I'm sure they do. It's just not for me. They are always working. If they are awake, they're working. If, gods forbid, the tweet about having dinner with a friend, some assume they are being 'too busy socializing' to read our queries. Personally, I think that's a scapegoat reaction: blaming someone else for our own shortcomings. Agents are humans, too. They have every right to eat, drink, catch some sleep, and mingle with other humans. One agent said she got over 1,200 queries in one month. If she spent only 2 minutes on each, that's about 45 hours of reading queries. That's more than a full week for most of us. And it's not even their job.

What really needs to be done, in my opinion, is for there to be a more streamlined approach to the whole thing. Agents have become the gatekeepers for the publishing houses that can no longer afford to pay people to read manuscripts. I'm old enough to remember when they did this. They would advertise "get paid to read books from home." Now the agent does it, and they do it for free.

Yes, there's their 15%. But let's take a look at that. The average debut author makes $5,000 - $10,000 on their first book. On the high end, that's $1,500. How many hours did the agent spend reading the book? Editing it? Reading it again? How many hours did it take them to draft their proposals? Pimp to editors? Work on the contract? Where do many of them live? New York. It's a pretty expensive place. That $1,500.00 is a pittance for the work they put in. In the meantime, they are reading our query letters for free, and if time permits, replying for free.

It's not their fault the system is what it is. Nor is it even the publishing houses. There's only so many slots and there's a whole bunch of us. We need to find a better way. Let's try to think of one.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Now For Something Completely Different...

I remembered something today that made me wonder why I'm pursuing publication: I wrote for fun. I wrote for the joy of making people laugh, making people worry, making people gasp in shock or squee with delight at something I made happen. My first attempts at writing fiction (in the last decade) started about five years ago. On an impulse to try something new, I began writing fanfic.

It was for my own amusement in the beginning. I was waiting for the next Harry Potter book to come out (Half Blood Prince) and had been directed to a fanfic website by I saw so many stories, and I wanted to see what I could come up with as well. It was great fun. I'd post a chapter, people would read it, they'd leave comments about their favorite parts or try to guess what was going to happen next. There was real interaction there, and I miss that.

I love to make people laugh. I would frantically write out long chapters in long hand during the day, then type them up and post them as fast as I could. Sometimes I wrote three chapters a week (which was about 20,000 words). I had such fire then, such a burning desire to entertain my readers and give them the next piece of the puzzle, the next clue, the next heartbreaking event.

I look back at that work now and I cringe. I've learned so much on my writing journey, I can hardly stand to look at the amateur gibberish I posted. But my readers loved it, weirdly. I miss them. I was led astray by their encouragement to write my own work, to try to get published.

And I realized today my attempt to be published has been selfishly motivated. It became about me and my desire to prove to myself I was 'worthy' or something. But I was happiest when I was writing my nutty stories and getting the joy of a reader's reaction immediately. I used to post a chapter then hover over my email for an hour, just waiting to see what the next comment would be.

Writing a novel isn't like that, is it? You work countless hours on a story and only friends, family, beta readers, alpha readers, or your critique group ever see it. If it's not worth publishing, it gets shelved. It seems like such a waste. You hold on to the hope that maybe someday, if everything goes right and works out, you might get an agent who will read it and maybe try to sub it as well as the work that interested them. Or they might tell you it's a lost cause and to move on to something new.

I don't know what I want, I guess. I would like to make money doing something I enjoy instead of something I hate. But more than that, I want to entertain people. It's what I do. I was never after fame and fortune. I'd be happy with a caricature of me on the back of my books, to be honest. I've seen authors say they dread book signings and being involved in publicity, but to me that'd be the most fun. I've been a vendor at fantasy and comic conventions and it's a hoot to interact with people.

I'm not giving up. Not by a long shot. But today I've been thinking long and hard about when I'm the happiest with my writing, and it's when I know immediately I've made other people smile or even laugh a little.

Not with this post, obviously. I'm sort of the Eeyore of blogging today.

What do you like most about writing? Think back to when you first started writing. What motivated you? What kept you going? What made it the most fun?

Thursday, October 7, 2010

The Answers

We want them. Who has them? As writers, we spend a lot of time on the internet, don’t we? We join forums, blog, tweet, and follow every link someone posts about articles written by ‘those in the know.’ We try to stay abreast of publishing, are wary of trends and following them, see what deals are (and are not) being made. We judge our work against others. We sometimes read a book and ask ourselves, “Why this book and not mine?”

We watch the e-book debates with furrowed brows. We read the agents’ posts about the unimaginable number of queries they get in a month, and sigh at the futility of it all. Who are we to think we’re special? That we are so much better than other writers out there? Are we kidding ourselves?

What do agents want? What do publishers want? What do they not want? What is too high a word count? Too low? What genres are selling? What aren’t? Who represents what, and who won’t touch YOUR genre with a ten foot pole? Why?

We have so many questions, don’t we? See? I asked two more. Sometimes it feels like our bitty brains are going to explode from all the questions rattling around like firecrackers in our heads. But take heart, my friends. I will tell you the biggest secret in the history of the universe (aside from the true role of cereal mascots). I know who knows the answers to all our questions.

You do.

Don’t believe me? That’s okay. Sit back and relax, grab something to drink, focus your thoughts into your biggest questions, and ask one of yourself. Instead of googling it, instead of scrolling through the thousands of blogs you’ve read, draw upon your memory for the answers. Not there? Try again. It might take time, but you already know the answers.

1. What do agents want? – Books they will fall in love with so they can sell them to the best of their ability. If you’re not in love with your own book, you know no one else will love it either. Would you recommend your book for others to read? Would you proudly proclaim ownership of your book with no apologies? If not, no agent will either. You know this. See? I’m not making this up.

2. Why this book and not mine? – Timing and patience. Your book was not done at the same time that one was. Your book was not submitted to that agent on that day when they had room on their list. Your book was not what that agent wanted. Your book was not ready. It needed more time. It needed more attention, more editing, more revising, more plot resolution. You know this. Publishing takes time and patience. There’s more answers to that question, and I promise you, you already know them.

3. Who are we to think we’re special? -- Rhetorical, you say? No, this is a valid question. And you already know the answer. Each book written is special. It takes us on a journey to new places where we meet new people, and maybe even discover new creatures or strange governments. Like snowflakes (or writer flakes if we’re truly honest), our books are special, as is our ability to tell our stories.

4. What do publishers want? – Books that will sell. It’s business, my friend. You know that. Simplicity at its finest.

5. Word counts, genres, prologues, POV, tense, omg, my head’s going to explode! – The answer to these are so easy it’s ridiculous. What is the right choice? Your way. As long as you’re good at what you do, as long as you’ve honed your craft and can tell a story, none of that matters. Don’t scoff. Don’t roll your eyes at me. It’s true. Go to a Best Sellers section at any bookstore. On those shelves you will see varying word counts, multiple genres, prologues (it’s TRUE!), all POV, varying tenses, and a multitude of ‘mistakes’ we worry about. Stop sweating it. All you need is number 2. No, not ‘number two,’ potty brain. Number 2, above: Time and patience. If you believe in yourself and your work, you WILL make it someday.

And you already knew that.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Staying Positive

It's hard, isn't it? It feels like the cards are stacked against us. There are so many highs and lows, and sometimes it feels like there's a whole lot more lows than there is highs.

I was doing okay. I won Honorable Mention in S.E. Slinkhorn's Mash-Up Contest last week, which definitely put a smile on my face. I got an email that I was a finalist in the Women on Writing's contest, so that perked me up a bit, too. I've been getting positive feedback from readers of my latest two projects, and that helped me feel like I was on the right track - that maybe I don't totally suck when I write more than a page of crazy rant stuff (e.i. my shorts).

Then it happened. I got my last partial request back with a rejection. I wanted to stay positive. I know it's subjective. But as I pondered agents in querytracker tonight, I got a huge dose of the why-am-I-even-bothering blues. I had 7 total requests out of 40 queries, and still have 23 queries waiting for a response. I expect many of those to never have a response at all.

To be positive, I try to think of that as 11% positive response. There was *something there* which interested agents, I just lacked *something else* which kept their attention. I'm trying to not think it's my writing. None of the 7 had a word of feedback for me, so I have nothing to go on. Just my own insecurities whispering in my ear. I'm wondering how old I will be when I finally get published. I'm wondering what the publishing landscape will look like by then. I'm wondering why no one who loves me hasn't won the lottery and rescued me from my day job.

Okay, that one I wonder at least twice an hour M-F, so it doesn't count right now.

So tell me, how do you guys stay positive? Supportive friends? Certainty of superiority? Alcohol? Prescription medication?

Friday, October 1, 2010

Mash-Up Contest

This is for Steph Slinkhorn's Mash-Up.

Hazard a guess at the genres.

I’ve been here for years, but the internet has yet to make me famous.

As easily as air, I could slip into anyone’s home. From my house to any house to any place of employment that has a connection, I can be found lingering, just a few keystrokes away.

Even better are the portable units tucked into people’s bags or slung over their shoulders. I might even get to sit in a pretty girl’s lap in the park once in a while, when the signal is good. Sadly, I have no memory of any of this because no one ever pushes the right buttons to bring me to where they are.

I’m starting to take it personally.

People come and go. It’s like they aren’t even real. There is a body on the other side, isn’t there? A being that breathes, has hopes and dreams. So why do you vanish for days at a time then come back with a new icon? Do you do this in real life? I think your boss would fire you if you took ten days off without notification then came back with a facelift.

If it is the anonymity that attracts us to cyberspace, then why do people try so hard to make friends? More importantly (because I’m a priority over any of you), why do all of mine disappear?

Impatiently, I wait for the people I know to appear as little yellow circles on my screen. Each day there are fewer and fewer.

She blocked me on her one account, but she doesn’t know I know the other. I see her sign off and on. I know her new schedule now. It’d be safest to go to her apartment between noon and prime-time, since I think her roommate moved out and it’ll be empty. I just… miss the smell of her. Is that a crime?


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Junior Activities

“Our Greatest Natural Resource is in the minds of our Children”
–Walter Ellas Disney

Join us!
Our Junior meetings are currently online using Zoom
We meet the first Friday of the month until
we can meet in person.

Contact us for more information.
Jim Urbaniak

In Person meetings are temporarily cancelled.
Junior in person meetings are the
third Tuesday of every month from 7pm-8pm.
Everyone is welcome!
Visit the home page, "Up Coming Events", for a current listing of
Juniors Activities
which includes dates and time. Click or tap
You may also view the calendar below.

To give our Juniors more opportunities to explore geology and the lapidary arts, the Clackamette Club is always looking for new Junior participants and visitors are ALWAYS welcome!

Our Juniors have an instruction time at each of the regular club meetings. Juniors meet separately in the classroom next to the regular meeting room (Located in Kraxburger Hall of the basement of The Zion Lutheran Church in Oregon City). The Junior’s activity program begins shortly after the regular meeting begins at 7pm and lasts for approximately one hour. The Juniors program releases at 8 pm in order to accommodate early bedtimes. Juniors always are welcome to stay for the full duration of the regular meeting with parent or guardian.

So far this year the Juniors have learned:
The story and history of how the Thunderegg became the official Oregon state rock
The Oregon state gem stone: Sunstone
The Oregon state fossil: Metasequoia
The Oregon state rock: Thunderegg
3 Rock types rock Identification of as well as for-mation characteristics of each:
1. Igneous
2. Metamorphic
3. Sedimentary
An introduction to Gemstone, Mineral and Rock Identification.
The juniors will also spend part of the hour designing the layout of a Jr's display case for the club’s annual show in October.

Jim Urbaniak is our Juniors Program leader. Jim has extensive experience as a teacher, speaker, and geology field trip leader throughout Oregon and Washington. He has taught field geology at Camp Hancock-Hancock Field Station and has lectured on topics including the Missoula Floods. In addition, he is the author of more than 60 earth science articles.

Jim is very enthusiastic about teaching junior’s geology, earth science, and lapidary arts to our juniors.

Juniors Activity Calendar 2020

January: What is a Rock? Rocks have different characteristics that set them apart from others. We will be learning the properties of rocks such as slate, marble, chalk, granite and pumice. Which rocks split? Do any of these rocks float?
Photo by selftution.com

February: What is definition of Mineral and Rock? What is the difference between a Rock and a Mineral? Looking at Core Samples. How do Core Samples help us study history?
Short Video: Intro to 3 types of Rocks
Photo by Theresa VanHook Pinterest

  How many naturally occurring minerals are there in the world?
Book by Baby Professor

April: We will study the three main types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic.
Photo by quizlet

May: Intro to Rock Identification. Study various ways by which we can identify minerals, including color, crystal shape, luster, cleavage, and hardness. Mini Rock ID quiz
Photo by lizzadromuseum.org

June: How Hard is Hard? This particular activity focuses on hardness and introducing the Mohs Scale of Hardness and Streak Testing. Bill Nye the Science Guy Video
Photo by Encyclopedia Britanica

July: What is a Fossil?
Part 1 The Forms of Fossilization. Make-a-Fossil: An Activity with Clay and Plaster.
Photo by proglodytes

August: What is a Fossil?
Part 2 Show and tell display of different types of Fossils. Short Video Bill Nye the Science Guy Fossilization
Photos by dkfindout

September: Study of Fluorescent Rock presentations. Juniors individual and group Display case design plans and preparations.
Photo by geology.com

October: Juniors hosting activity for General Club meeting and formal Jr. Federation presentations program.
Photo by Clip Art Library and Pinclipart

November: Equipment: Differences Between Tumblers, Sanders and Saws.
Join regular club for viewing of equipment presentation.
Photo by Lortone

December: Juniors short meeting. Join in Christmas Party Potluck Gift exchange.

Photo by Charles M Schultz

Links for Junior Rockhound's

YouTube Videos for Junior Rockhounds
Petrified Forest National Park - How Petrified Wood is Formed

We meet in the basement of :
Zion Lutheran Church
720 Jefferson Street
(entrance on 8th street)
Oregon City, OR 97045
Our meeting starts at 7pm and we start gathering around 6:30pm.

Last update 8-28-2020
Contact Webmaster by email at rockhound@clackamettegem.org


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. Cobra Ranch Historical Automotive Blog: Featuring Wally Wyss

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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Ford GT40 and the New Ford GT

     I've finally got my hands on a few copies of an outstanding book (contact me if you're interested in one :). With so many amazing pictures and diagrams, it's the kind of book you'd like to own even if you couldn't read. It's hardbound, thick, heavy, and could take out a burglar should the need arise. Ford GT40 & The New Ford GT is written by Al Axelrod, Brian Winer and Wallace Wyss.  It is an in-depth read following the progrssion of Ford from the birth of the Ford GT40 to it's reincarnation as the New Ford GT.

     When it comes to Ford GTs, there are enthusiasts and then there are super-enthusiasts.  Co-writer Brian Winer qualifies as a super-enthusiast.  The following is a candid interview regarding his experience with the car and how his 2007 book came about.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Book Review: The Shelby American Story

Published by Photo Data Research, Redondo Beach,CA
128 pages, hardbound, $39.95

     Art Evans is the “grand old man” of sports car historians in the U.S. at least in the postwar era. He was there way back then, more than 60 years ago, as an amateur driver, and despite various careers in the military and academic circles , has never lost track of the early sports car drivers.
 Hence he was well qualified to do this hardbound book.
 It is his second on Shelby, the first covering Shelby as a race driver. He also previously did one on Ken Miles, one of the most famous Shelby drivers.  This one goes into Shelby as a carmaker but also is a paean to the many drivers who drove for Shelby, some obscure, some internationally known.
    The book is somewhat choppy in its organization, jumping from profiles of race drivers like Ken Miles and Bill Krause and then back to the cars they drove.  For instance, the section called “Bill Krause” is followed by sections called “The First Race” and “The 1962 Bahamas” This writer would have preferred there be an ongoing narrative throughout and the drivers and or cars described in “break out” boxes so you can stop and read about them or just continue with the narrative.
    Where some Shelby histories play down the Sunbeam Tiger, this author gives adequate credit to Shelby’s role in developing the car and also to Ken Miles’ lesser known role developing the same car.  Oddly Mario Andretti gets a chapter when his role for Shelby was, as far as we know, only a couple of races.  Lew Spencer is given credit as a mainstay of Shelby-American, and his dealership with Shelby is explained. Briefly, Shelby started it for him and Spencer to sell Cobras and Shelbys but they didn’t look at the fine print—they were forbidden to sell them new because they weren’t Ford dealers!  But they could sell used cars…
     Phil Remington is given proper credit as Shelby’s most skilled mechanic. I don’t think there’s mention of Phil’s pre-WWII role as a hot rodder but that was one of the reasons Shelby chose Los Angeles to build the Cobra—because it was the birthplace of hot-rodding.  The brief Toyota episode in Shelby’s life is explored, showing the 2000GT cars that his team refined and raced but there’s no mention of Pete Brock’s oft-heard complaint that he had set up the deal to develop a race car out of the 2000GT and was about to sign a contract when Shelby swooped into Japan and made off with that plum assignment. Evans doesn’t want to get into politics, whereas sometimes that makes for entertaining reading.
     Art did some good digging in the case of the vanished Shelby Indy 500 turbine car. He came up with pictures of the car in its Botany 500 (clothing manufacturer) livery and does allude to hanky panky with the air intake, which most historians feel is the reason it was pulled before the race, never to turn a wheel in combat.
     The book has many fine photographic portraits of people. Even if Evans were not a writer, his portraits are remarkable into seeing into the subjects’ minds, “capturing their soul.”
 The epilogue, like Evans earlier book on Shelby the driver, is all too brief. There isn’t any explanation, for instance,  of why Shelby went to work for Iacocca at Chrysler. The picture of the  Shelby Series I, the Olds-powered car, gives the details of the car in a caption but gives no clue that at the car was a failure in the marketplace.
      Overall, I found this 128-page book less rewarding in terms of value-for-the-money than the Shelby-as-driver book by the same author and it’s a bit steep at $39.95. Still, nobody else could have done it--Evans must be respected in the auto racing community for the way so many people were forthcoming with information and pictures.  We wish some of the more deluxe coffee table books could have his level of expertise displayed instead of thinking we will be satisfied with pretty color “glamour” pictures of restored cars.
   One has to give credit to these independent historians, working on their own nickel (no cash advances for them) for coming up with pictures and info that take a lot of digging and a lot of contacts.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Book Review: SHELBY, the Race Driver

By Art Evans.

Review by Wallace Wyss

Art Evans is an old-time race reporter who started writing about sports car racing while the sport was still in its infancy in the U.S., i.e. the early ‘50s.

His softbound book , in a horizontal format that allows you to make the car pictures bigger than in a vertical book, is a real visual treat. Obviously Evans worked long and hard to find hard to find pictures, but also includes a good many of his own as well as photos from Riddell Gregory, Ozzie Lyons, Bill Neale, Lester Nehamkin and Jim Sitz. Especially appreciated are the WWII-era pictures, for instance showing the type of Beechcraft plane that Shelby flew in as a training instructor. He also has pictures of Shelby in the first cars he ever raced, an MG- TC and soon after that an Allard.
      This is at the time Shelby was still a chicken farmer trying to figure out how to make a living at racing because at that time amateur racing in America was amateur—no factory teams.  Many of the words are from Shelby’s own book THE COBRA STORY, which goes in and out of print. Evans italicizes whenever he quotes the Shelby book so you can tell what he wrote from what Shelby wrote forty plus years ago when he wrote his own book (with a co-author).  Some of the rare pictures shown are Shelby with the Austin Healey land speed record car at Bonneville. Then there’s before-and-after pictures of the Austin Healey that Shelby wrecked during the Carrera Panamericana race in Mexico.
     Ironically for a guy who is famous most for his Ford powered Cobra, there’s many pictures of Shelby in this book driving Ferraris and Maseratis but that’s understandable as they were the fastest sports cars around back then, and Shelby had a talent for charming rich folks into sponsoring him.  Some people don’t know Shelby was a sports car dealer back then, partnered  with the brother of Jim Hall, another racer. The brands they carried were MG, Austin Healey, Jaguar, Maserati and Rolls Royce and Bentley. Shelby had already raced examples of the first four, among the more than 50 marques he has raced over the years.
     Evans dug deep to get the stories of some of Shelby’s forays into GM territory but the story on how he came to drive the Corvette SR2 isn’t satisfying—methinks the readers want to know why his Corvette driving period was very short indeed. It must have been GM’s anti-racing policy affecting even those they sold their race cars to when the Corporation abandoned their sports car racing effort in ’58.
     The book is roughly divided into year by year sections, with all Evans could find in each year put in each section. The Cuban Grand Prix story is very interesting because that was the race where Fangio, the world’s most celebrated race driver at the time, was kidnapped by anti-Castrol rebels.

192 pg. softbound $29.95
Photo Data Research Inc. Redondo Beach,CA

Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Shelby Mk. V

Shelby Mk  V aka The Mangusta

The Shelby Mk. V
Never heard of it? It reached the U.S. market as the Mangusta.

by Wallace A. Wyss

Carroll Shelby was a quick learner. He learned early on that the Cobra, particularly the leaf sprung Cobra descended from the 1953 A.C. Ace, had peculiar handling. The Cobra chassis was redesigned by Ford for the big block model, but it was never a sophisticated handler; more of a “point and squirt” device.

Once he became involved with the Ford GT40 in 1964, Shelby realized that mid-engined was the way to go. Having the engine between the axis made for a better polar moment of inertia, reducing the time a car takes to respond to turning input.

When the Group 7 cars began to emerge, Shelby wanted to get into it. He had earlier imported some Cooper Monacos, mid-engined cars, from England and had Cobra-ized 289 cast iron V8s installed. These were nicknamed by the press “King Cobras” but were dropped from his racing roster once he became involved with the Ford GT.

Then came Alejandro de Tomaso (from here on, we spell it the American with a capitalized “D”). An Argentine living in Italy, he was infamous for developing one race car after another, often with ingenious ideas but he had a penchant for always going on to the next idea; leaving the last project stillborn with no development.

Around 1962 he did get a mid-engined coupe into production, called the Vallelunga after a racetrack where the prototype in roadster form had some small success. This Ford Cortina-powered car was svelte looking, but handled only marginally, and the power output from a nearly stock engine was far below what it needed to beat Porsches in the same class.

Then in 1965 Shelby had his chief in-house designer, Peter Hall Brock, design a mid-engined car that would be good for the emerging Group 7 class in the U.S. The car had a svelte roadster body, with a mid-mounted V8 and a rear spoiler that finally saw the airfoil that Brock had envisioned for the Cobra Daytona coupe reach fruition. The driver could control the angle of a movable panel in the center of the airfoil so that the amount of download on the rear could be varied.

The car was innovative. Unfortunately the first coachbuilder, Frua, totally screwed up the design, so much so that Brock took the car over to Fantuzzi, who built many a race car, and had a new body designed that was closer to his clay model.

The racing world was awaiting the car and had their appetite whetted when DeTomaso rolled out a mockup of the chassis--a spine frame chassis with the engine connected to central spine, an idea that DeTomaso had reportedly cribbed from a German design of the 1920’s called the Rumpler.

Alas two such mercurial temperaments as DeTomaso and Shelby couldn’t get along for long—each had a penchant to take the limelight and there was room under that limelight for only one at a time. Plus Shelby had promised Ford he would make more Daytona coupes. The first Daytona had a body hand-hammered out in Los Angeles by Bill Honda, but the bodywork for the next batch was farmed out to Italy, to Carrozzeria Gran Sport in Modena. Once Shelby took the money out of the kitty provided by Ford to make more Daytonas he had none left to pay DeTomaso so DeTomaso glommed onto the race car project and finished it out as a Ghia show car called the 70P.

Whether one ever reached a racetrack is debatable. This writer has seen pictures of one being tested and even pictures of it being raced, but was it a real race, or just a gathering of individuals to watch a car being tested? And how many were made is even debated some 40 years later…maybe two…maybe three. Documenting early DeTomaso prototypes is like trying to catch cats, the history is elusive, and there are no fulltime DeTomaso serial number mavens equal to Marcel Massini is in the Ferrari world.

But DeTomaso never quite threw anything away. Here he had the world's attention with the spine frame and the 70P. Then luck came his way. Ghia had done a design for a rival firm, Iso of Bresso, who made Chevy V8-powered cars. Giugiaro had penned a dramatic mid-engine car that could have been the "little brother" of the big Iso Fidia four seater. But Renzo Rivolta, head of Iso, soundly rejected the idea so there was DeTomaso with a beautiful mid-engined car body design and no chassis to put it on. Wait a minute--what about the 70P chassis? Thus came the Mangusta.

The DeTomaso Mangusta is one of the most beautiful cars ever to come out of Italy. But it does have its problems.
It had a similar frame to the 70P race car but not quite. Around the perimeter of the floor-pan is tubing of quite a modest size. The body was heavy steel (except for the deck lids, which in some cars were aluminum). The car flexed like crazy.
The engine was a 302 in its American form, not the robust 302 that was in the Boss 302 of 1969 but a weak 302 that was reportedly available as a stationary industrial engine. It was a low revver but at least durable if you kept it below 6000 rpm.
The gearbox was a ZF 5-speed trans-axle similar to that in the GT40, ordered up after the disaster in the ’64 season when the Colotti gearboxes packed up whenever they were pushed hard.
One of the main problems of the Mangusta was that the gearbox was put in the same place vis-a-vis the engine as that in the GT40, with the result that it was quite low to the ground. Hit a pothole and you stood a chance of cracking the bell housing which was quite expensive. In the later Pantera. DeTomaso wisely flipped the gearbox around, so that it was a few inches higher off the road which the result less cracked gearbox casings.
The designer of the Mangusta was none other than Giorgetto Giugiaro, then just a very young man with only one other carrozzeria (Bertone) in his resume, but now arguably the most famous car designer in Italy. The car made it from the prototype to production with very few changes, the biggest being the adding of two vents to the rear deck “butterfly” wings in order to vent hot air out of the engine compartment.
Sitting in the Mangusta , one discovers how close the windscreen is to the driver’s head. This writer is 6’1” and grew uncomfortable having the windscreen only 3” from his head. So much for a design that looks good from all angles but forces you to accommodate to something arguably dangerous in order to get those good looks.
Today’s owners of the 400-odd cars (the general consensus was that 400 coupes were made and one roadster prototype ) sometimes defend it by saying the tires of the time were to blame. Others spend the development money DeTomaso should have spent, re-arranging the rear suspension a bit to correct flaws in the original design. Back in the car's original era, Sports Car Graphic did a whole number of trying to correct the car, such as fitting more modern Polyglas 60-series tires, finally concluding that it was tail heavy . Their staff was able to improve it, but it was all for naught, the car was only popular as The Car To Own in Tinseltown for a few months, soon eclipsed by the Lamborghini Miura, also mid-engined but with a high winding V12 engine with a real yowl.

Carroll Shelby is nothing if not an entrepreneur. Despite the fact that DeTomaso had been so miffed when Shelby pulled funding on the 70P that he had named the subsequent road car the “mongoose” because in nature that is the natural enemy of the Cobra, Shelby was amenable to helping market it in the U.S.
At an auto show, probably the 1969 New York Show, a yellow Mangusta coupe was displayed along with the production Ford cars and the flier handed out to show-goers referred those interested in the car to Carroll Shelby, as if he were the distributor.
At the time, at least two Ford executive were in love with the car including the then VP in charge of design, Eugene Bordinet. Money was even spent in devising a rubber front bumper similar to that later used on the Ferrari 365GTC/4. That nose would have allowed it to meet the upcoming bumper regulations. The Mangustas that did make it into the U.S. were allowed in under a special law that exempted manufacturers who made less than 500 cars from many regulations, but even those regulations wouldn’t let it in past 1969.
During their brief love affair with the 'Goose, Ford dispatched two designers to Modena to inspect the Mangustas being built at Ghia Carrozzeria but they came back with a negative report. Their conclusion was that the term “production line” in this case was a misnomer--the cars were really hand-built with variations from car to car. Ford, back in Dearborn, had already tired of that way of doing things in the A.C. Cobras. They pulled away from wanting to import the Mangusta. Fortunately for DeTomaso, Kjell Qvale of British Motor Car Distributors in San Francisco took up the cause and imported at least 180 of the total, selling them for around $11,000 each.
This left Shelby out in the cold. He had been temporarily buoyed by Ford showing a Mangusta in an internal design review that had SHELBY Mk.V badges on it. The badges made sense,for, in 1967 Ford had won the 24 Hours of LeMans for the second time with a Ford GT called the Mk. IV.

But in that same design show there was another Ford prototype, the Mach 2C, a car designed by Ford designer Larry Shinoda that would have been all American-made. It was a svelte design, using a V8 larger than a 302, possibly a 400, and possibly fuel injected. It would have used a Borg-Warner gearbox. But that design became a political casualty when Shinoda’s boss, Semon Knudsen, was fired by Henry Ford II.
Ford had hired Bunkie") Knudsen away from GM, where he had spent 29 years , in the hopes he would bring some fresh ideas. But Knudsen had rather too many ideas, even going down to the Styling studio and insisting on changes in the upcoming cars. Henry Ford II summarily fired him after 19 months so all ideas connected to Knudsen were round-filed. When Knudsen left so did his fair-haired boy Shinoda, who Knudsen had brought over from Ford, and who had angered the other designers by reporting only to Knudsen, going around the entire design chain of command. Plus Knudsen had a mortal enemy at Ford—Lee Iacocca—of whom Time magazine quoted some Ford executive as saying: "Lee had chewed his way through ten layers of management to get where he was, and he was determined to chew his way through anyone who was placed above him."
Shelby did eventually come up with his own mid-engined design, the Lone Star, about which we’ll do a story on eventually. But it was ignored by Ford and now, some 40 years later, that single car is slowly being restored up in the Northwest where it is in the hands of a well-known Cobra historian.

The Mangusta occupies rather a strange perch. It is one of the great Sixties designs like the Ferrari Daytona and Lamborghini Miura, but where those cars have equally great engines, the mangusta does not. But that just goes to show you that “putting all the money on the outside,” an old Detroit slogan, sometimes works. The Mangusta put DeTomaso on the map and led to Ford buying his firm, and Carrozzeria Ghia, at a fat profit to DeTomaso.
He laughed all the way to the bank....

Television Show: "The Drivers" based off Wallace Wyss Book.

Seems the Ridley Scott production has been posted on the Internet Movie DataBase. I was excited enough when I found out Ridley was doing another Alien movie, now this! I normally do not watch television, but for this I'll be getting my rabbit ears out.

My Lust and Desire

The Tesla S.  If only I had $70k USD to set aside for a premium model.  Sure it's not a Shelby, But I find something so alluring about a vehicle that doesn't have to be fueled.  Sure the electricity bill will go up, but it doesn't have to be MY electricity.  let's just say I have an extension cord and a few people I have in mind that I wouldn't mind "visiting" for a few hours at a time.  Now if you're thinking, "bah, it's just some EV that looks like the bastard child of a Prius and an Aston Martin."  Perhaps.  Rather than offer a rebuttal I'll simply leave you with this:

I was hoping for a flying car back in 2000, but I'd say driving one of these babies and coming home to a parking space or garage with a built-in induction charging station would be a warm welcome to the twenty first century.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Author Interview for SHELBY. The Man. The Cars. The Legend.

      Here I present the Wallace Wyss interview regarding one of his newer books: SHELBY. The Man. The Cars. The Legend.  If interested in the book please let me know, I have a few autographed copies I wouldn't mind parting with (if the price is right :) and I may even be able to get a personal autograph for you.

Format: Softbound, vertical, 208 pages, published by Iconografix Inc. in 2007
  Q: Tell us about your biography of Carroll Shelby entitled SHELBY: The Man. The Cars. The Legend. Is it a race-by-race history?
A: No, the Cobras' racing history, both roadsters and coupes, is covered in brief, and the GT40 program as well but it's all kept general, because there are plenty of coffee table-like books that go into each car's serial number-wise and recount what happened to each car at each race. In this book I focused on the big picture--why Ford sponsored Shelby, why Ford caved in and gave a failed chicken farmer $25,000 to get the ball rolling on the Cobra, or why Ford thought winning at LeMans was so crucial, etc.

Q: So by "big picture" you mean no nuts-and-bolts?
WW: Oh, there's nuts and bolts but I figure that with the advent of the
internet, you don't need to go into what the cfm was of the '65 Shelby GT-350 carburetor because anyone who wants to know a technical fact like that can now  go to a search engine and find that in five seconds. I spent my time trying to find out why Ford did this or Olds did that in respect to Shelby, which gives the reader a broader view than just discussing the hardware.

Q: What made you think of this approach?
WW: Well, there’s this author I know from Detroit, where I grew up, Eric Davison,. I worked with Eric in Detroit on the Oldsmobile ad account more than forty years ago. Much later
on, he moved to Los Angeles and I worked as a copywriter for the agency he was with out here. After his retirement, when he told me he was working on his book "Snake Bit," discussing the Shelby Series 1 project which he had been involved with. I kept asking him "Why don't you broaden it out to cover all of Shelby's business history?" but he replied "I worked on the Series 1 and that's what I know" so he stuck to that and came out with a damn fine book that really nails it--the whole saga of how a car with so much promise ended up being so compromised. But that episode is only a fraction of Shelby’s entire business history so one day I figured "If Eric didn't do the general business history, I'll go ahead and do it myself."

Q: Did you have any other inspiration?
WW: Well, it's hard to believe but a picture of Ralph Lauren in his 1957
Ferrari Testa Rossa was another inspiration. That's because ol' Ralph, who everyone knows as the founder of Polo brand clothes, was pictured toodling along in his $5 million Ferrari wearing a leather jacket, like an old flying jacket, and a billed baseball cap and I thought "That's cool--tooling around in a car so fast and powerful and valuable but dressed like he's going out to walk his dog. I know Cobra people who look like that--driving powerful Cobras but dressed casually, unlike Ferrari owners who are always trying to impress you with their clothes and expensive watches and so forth. So I partly did the Cobra book to try to capture that spirit in print of the Cobra owners and took pains to spend a few paragraphs trying to describe the feeling that comes from driving around in a Cobra. It's a world-conquering feeling, especially when you put the pedal to the metal.
Q. What about the style of the writing?
WW: Well, some would say it's not laudatory like some car books where the authors just worship the cars they are writing about. In fact you could say it's a bit gossipy--telling tales that couldn't be told at the time, for instance, why Ford wanted to get rid of Shelby in 1969, mainly because they had the Boss Mustang and didn't need the Shelby Mustangs anymore. Or why Shelby pulled out of Indy with his gas turbine cars at the last minute. The  tone and style were inspired by Brock Yates who wrote a book on Harley Davidson called Outlaw Machine: Harley Davidson and the Search for the American Soul  in which he told more of why men lust after Harleys rather than compare the engine designs of the shovelhead vs. the panhead, etc. For instance, there's that incident in the early 50s when some bikers tore up the town of Hollister, CA. That gave bikers an image which still says "bad boy" today--60 years later! And Yates also wrote a book entitled Ferrari The Man the Cars The Races which Ferrari people have tough time digesting because it really shows the vain side of the man, and his ruthlessness. I didn't go that far but let's just say that I expect my book will be a good counter to the upcoming book by Rinsey Mills called SHELBY: The Authorized Biography (MBI 2012) which I presume will be all glorification of what Shelby hath wrought.

Q. What about other books already on the market?
WW: There are many new books on Cobra and Shelby but back in 2007
none of them discussed Shelby's driving career. One was eventually written by Art Evans and I'll do a review of that. But when I got it in 2010 I saw that I was right to assume back in 2007 that if Evans did a book it wouldn't segue from Shelby's driving career into his business life like my book does. I like to feel that Shelby's hard charging style as a race driver is reflected in his hard charging style as a businessman,  so it was a natural approach to me to take a couple of chapters to educate the newcomers to the fact that Shelby was one of America's most promising sports car drivers in his early career--at a time when sports car driving was still damn dangerous. You could get killed in an instant. In fact when Shelby was first racing they didn't even use seat belts!  What makes Shelby interesting as a subject is the fact that he came out of nowhere--a country bumpkin compared to the more sophisticated guys like Phil Hill and Masten Gregory who could plunk down the cash to buy their own Ferrari. When Shelby first began racing, Phil Hill was already a professional driver while Shelby was still a chicken farmer. The fact Shelby came out of nowhere and won LeMans only five years after he first began making money as a driver is really worth talking about.

Q: Did you talk to many Shelby employees?
WW: Off and on. In fact, you could say this is a story I've been working
continuously for forty years, ever since a pert young lady named Pat Merone pulled up next to me by chance in a 427 Cobra back in '66 or so and asked directions to Cobo Hall in Detroit. I told her "I'll show you the way if  you give me a ride." She said "Yes" and I jumped in , belted myself in and she took off screeching rubber at 140 mph!  So, in the intervening 40 years I've talked to many former employees, starting with Shelby at Cobo Hall back in the Sixties but, while researching this one, I went back to visit a selected few, including Phil Remington who still works at Dan Gurney’s shop though he's in his 80s. Also forty years ago when I researched the first book, Al Gore hadn't yet invented the internet so I couldn't reach people I was trying to find. Now in a few minutes, I can contact former race car designers and racers throughout the world to clarify different small points like why the suspension was unsatisfactory on the Len Terry-designed King Cobra.

Q. With so much to cover, how much content is there on the
A. Quite a bit, I have a chapter on the Shelbys. In that chapter I go into how Shelby was asked by Iacocca to build the Shelby Mustang and it is interesting to me how reluctant he was at first.and then later on I have another whole chapter on Trans-Am racing. Then of course, the last chapter talks about Shelby's re-hiring as a spear carrier by Ford to sell the '07 Shelby Mustang and there's still Shelby Mustangs being made now, in 2011.

Carroll Shelby with two of his 1968 cars, a promo photo..

Q. Did you learn anything in your research you didn't know before?
A. I always learn! I didn't realize until I read Dave Friedman's book on
Remembering the Shelby Years how much Holman & Moody, the stock car race car builders, were always trying to rip off a piece of Shelby's business, and I think if Shelby hadn't accepted the assignment to do the Shelby Mustang  the hot Mustang would have been a Holman & Moody Mustang instead. They had the experience over Shelby in building short runs of cars (having built the Ford Thunderbolt drag racing cars in '64).  Also I think few Americans are aware that the first Mustangs ever built were sent to Alan Mann for preparation as rally cars so the Mustangs were already racing when Americans were being sold the car as a "secretary's special." And the Mustangs were already racing in Europe before Shelby ever saw one!

Q: And do you go into Shelby's later business ventures?
A: Yes, this book goes well beyond Shelby-American. It recounts Shelby's
Tiger involvement, his working with Iacocca on the front wheel drive Dodges and the Viper, then the Olds-powered Series 1, and ends with the new deal with Ford.

From the 1966 Ford GT40 ..... (pictured here one of Fords road cars. Ford made 50 identidcal  ones for FIA homologation)

..to the 2005 Ford GT. Both were built to fire up the disspirited troops at Ford. It did create a classic that will not be beat by another American production car for decades to come.

Q: But weren’t you really taking a chance on losing the 100% Ford fans by covering non-Ford related Shelbys?
WW: Not really, it’s pretty clear by the subtitle that this particular book is about Shelby the entrepreneur , and not confined to just his association with Ford-powered products. I follow him in his journey from one automaker to another, for better or for worse. The subtitle is "The Man, the Cars, the Legend."

Q.: How do you come down on the Cobra replicas?
WW: I have a whole chapter on that non-stop knock-down drag-out battle that
has continued for something like 30 years between Shelby and the clonesters copying his cars. I tell how initially Shelby was opposed to all replicas of his cars but then recount how it was that he gradually came around to entering the replica field himself. In fact, his Cobra replicas are among the highest priced ones on the market.

Q: What about artwork?
WW: There is artwork in the form of black and white photos This is primarily
a words book, as opposed to what I call a “coffee table” tome like Randy Leffingwell's beautiful (and heavy) book , also entitled “Shelby”(published by MBI) or Colin Comer's book The Complete Book of Shelby Automobiles both of which I would characterize as primarily a “pictures-with-words” books.Both are great in terms of lusterous pictures of the cars in their best condition (many restored ones). I could have done that but I wanted a low cost book that anyone--even a beginning enthusiast--can afford. So I downplayed the pictures, even having them put all in one section like the low cost car books used to be back when I was growing up. My  book has 76,000 words and a mere 16 pages of pictures.
Q. Are there many historical pictures?
WW: A few. Many from the press kit. I had a PR photographer question my right to use the press pictures but I went to Ford PR and while I was in the PR office volunteered to call the editor who was with me in 1965 when I went to the Shelby factory on assignment from Motor Trend magazine and they handed me the press kit. I told the PR man in 2007: "When Shelby's PR man Don Rabbitt handed this to me over 30 years ago , he never put any restrictions on when and how I could use them." We never had to make that call though my editor at the time was waiting for it. I have been in auto writing for 40 years and have run across any other photographer who was paid by an automaker to take publicity pictures  come back decades later and want payment for the prictures that the automaker handed out willy-nilly back in the day.
    Most of the pictures I took myself at various events over the last 40 years even as late as 2007.

Q: Who do you see as your market?
WW: Well, my thought back in 2007 was that, with over 10,000 people scheduled to buy the
new GT500 Shelby Mustang and who knows how many buying the '07 Shelby GT Mustang and even those buying the GT/CS Mustang, there's going to be a whole lot of newbies entering the Shelby world in 2007 and not all of them have been involved in the marque for 40 years like myself, so many will be clueless about such terms as "FIA cars" or "USRRC cars" or "cut-back fenders." At the beginning stages of a newcomer’s interest in the man and his cars, I figured they want to know basics, like "Why did Shelby become involved with Dodge?” and so forth.
With the newcomer to the marque in view, we kept the cost down by going
softbound and pricing it at $19.95, so it’s the ideal bargain book for Shelby fans to give to their buddies to get them up to speed on Shelby so they can later dive into the subject deeper and buy the single marquee books that list all those nitty gritty details of each Shelby model. In other words, while it's interesting to note the differences between the FIA and USRRC small block Cobras, I wanted to tell them first why Ford thought it important Shelby race in FIA and USRRC competition with the cars.

Q: Did you have any help from Shelby or Ford?
WW: Of course many authors doing a book on this marque or that one go straight to the subject’s PR firm and say
“What can you give me?” and I did that at first but stopped asking when it looked like they expected me to submit the work for approval. But I didn’t want to have a PR man looking over my shoulder and saying ‘Oh,for God's sake,  don’t put that in,’ because it’s my feeling is that no real historian would go for that. If he does, he might as well be a PR man. I enjoy an ongoing relationship with Ford PR  but they never saw more than a handful of pages and those only on the ’07 Shelby models. They did loan me a Ford GT to drive and that was useful in understanding that car. I had to sneak in the Ford GT preview, but that's an amusing story in itself I'll tell in a separate story.
  Q. We heard Hollywood has an interest in your book?
WW: Hollywood or London. the two producers that announced 1-26-11 that they are going to base a miniseries on the book
are based in both places. They are a coupla brothers who have been making action movies for several decades, and I was pleased when I saw the list of the films they have made that I have seen almost every one of them from Gladiator to Top Gun.
Q. Will it be about Shelby per se?
WW: I don't know. When producers glom onto a literary work, they sometimes just use it for inspiration and go off on their own direction. In the advance publicity they seem to be angling in on more of a Americans-taking-on-the-Europeans-at-Lemans angle. I don't even know if the result will be more on the '50s or the '60s but I like both eras. The Fifties are when the Americans like Shelby, Phil Hill, Masten Gregory, and the like first went to Europe to try to wrest some rides away from the European drivers. But the Sixties are when Ford threw down the gauntlett in front of Enzo Ferrari and said they would beat him, and they did , four years running. In fact, Ferrari has never won a LeMans since, Ford beat them so bad.
Q.Will there be another edition?
WW: I don't know. I am not the publisher. Every book has its time in the sun. My original, Shelby's Wildlife: the Cobras and the Mustangs, was in print for 17 years.  But that's the good thing about SHELBY The Man The Cars The Legend being a low cost book--if I have to assume the mantle of publisher, it will be a relatively low cost book to reprint. I think that with all the newer books on Shelby being so expensive, there will always be a place for a low cost book.

Acclaimed Author Wallace Wyss Interviewed About His Fine Art.

     One of my favorite Authors is Wallace Wyss.  Immortalized by being bound to ink and paper through several publications across the decades, he also gets to drive some of the most amazing rides that even James Bond would be envious of.  Not only is he an author, but a artist too.  Pictured above is perhaps my favorite work by Wyss.  I can't wait to see his latest book, and I hope that it is bound by its own artwork.
     Author Wallace Wyss is mostly known for his automotive histories. He has authored or co-authored no less than three books on the subject of Shelby, In 1977, he wrote the now iconic Shelby's Wildlife: the Cobras and the Mustangs. In 2007,  he premiered his books SHELBY The Man The Cars The Legend and his 1962-2007 Cobra and Shelby Mustang 1962-2007 Photo Archive plus the book he co-authored with Brian Winer and Al Axelrod entitled Ford GT40 and the New Ford GT. But this interview is about his fine art.
Q. How do you mean you became an artist “by accident?
Wyss: I  was going to the Beverly Hills car show, and I brought along a painting of Shelby that I made to promote the book. I also brought my new Ford GT book. I met a publisher at a booth for a magazine called Makes and Models and sold him the GT book and then showed him a small picture of the Shelby painting. He said “Where is it?” and I said “In my car 6 blocks away.” He said “Go get it, I’ll take that too.” On the walk back I thought “Hey, why stop at being a writer?” I bought some watercolors and was off and running.
Q.What art training did you have?

Wyss: None. I earned my degree in journalism. Of course being  a photographer for 40-plus years helps a lot in composition.

Q.What media are you using?

Wyss: I started with watercolors but they were too transparent so now I’ve moved to acrylic oils which I like a lot better because they are more opaque. I’d go to regular oils but don’t want a house smelling of turpentine which you need to clean the brushes.

Q.What did you paint pictures of first?

Wyss: To promote my Shelby and Cobra books and the GT40 book the first few were all of Shjelby-related cars, but gradually I began to paint other cars I like, such as the various Ferraris.

Q. Do you use photographs?

Wyss: Yes, for reference. I first go through my 10,000 photo collection, most of which I shot since 1965, and select those with potential. Then I make a color print or even black and white print and then start a painting, using that for reference to get the proportions right.

Q. What artists influenced you the most?

Wyss: Well, long before I became an artist, I was a fan of such artists as Jay Koka, Ken Dallison, Nicola Wood, Dennis Brown and Art Fitzpatrick. Every year the high point of my visit to the Pebble Beach concours is to go into the Automotive Fine Arts Society cocktail party the night before and see what’s new from each artist.

Q. What about other fine artists?

Wyss: In my painting “Yellow Cobra” I think there’s a little bit of Edward Hopper influence, at least in the way I painted the people. So it all depends on which art book I was looking at last, as to how I am influenced. I wish I could have more people in them like Jack Vettriano, he’s a Welsh-born fine artist who really is becoming popular.

Q.What Mustangs have you painted?

Wyss: I did a ’65 Shelby GT350, a ’69 Shelby, and a Boss 302 plus an ’07 Shelby GT500.

Q. Is your favorite Shelby car a Shelby Mustang, a Cobra or a Ford GT?

Wyss: I like all of them, and particular models within each of those model ranges. For instance, in the Shelby Mustangs I like the '65 GT350 R model, in the GT40s I like the '69-69 Ford GT Gulf car with the 302 and in the Cobras, the 427 Cobra comp car.

Q.What is the trickiest painting you have made?

Wyss: I wanted to show a Cobra in raw aluminum. I found a little known magazine with color of a 427 Cobra being tested over in England at Silverstone racetrack and used that as a reference. It was really hard to get the "raw aluminum" look. Now I'd like to do an aluminum bodied Cobra that's been polished out.

Q. What form is your work sold in?

Wyss: The latest idea is - each time I finish a new oil - to make inexpensive posters of it, which I call “mini-posters” and market those on eBay just to get the existence of each new painting known. In small print on each poster, it tells how to order the large print on either French-made watercolor paper or on canvas.

Q.What car will you paint next?

Wyss: I recently bought a wide angle lens—a 38 mm—for my Nikon F3 so it just depends on what I catch on film and how the resulting picture strikes me. I find that sports cars look a little bolder when shot with a slightly wide angle lens. I might also try some more moving shots of cars but since I don’t use a motor drive, I can just catch one or two shots each time the pack goes by on the racetrack.

Q. What about going beyond cars?

Wyss: Well, my life is built around cars, but I still hope to do some scenics, like Big Sur, which I just went to, or around
Mendocino, where the family ranch, Cobra Ranch,  is. Or do some of the scenes I've recorded on film from Sedona.  But it all depends on the lighting and whether  or not I can capture the scene in paint the way I saw it with my eyes.

Q. What about people?

Wyss: I tried to paint portraits of Shelby—that was the first painting I ever made—and more recently Gurney but I can tell you from personal experience--people are much more difficult to paint than cars.

Q. Where can art fans find out about your art?

has most of my Ford car paintings and this other site
has a lot of the exotic cars.

Q. Thank you.

Well there you have it; artist by accident after three decades of work as an author.  No more excuses for myself, it's time to breakout the watercolors!