Given that the last picture I posted of Vector progress was shot at night, under a single fluorescent fixture, here’s a shot of it at the current stage of disassembly taken during the day so you can actually see things.
So, as previously mentioned, the shop was a working motorcycle repair facility for thirty years. Over thirty years, stuff accumulates. And then gets buried. And then there’s a surprise for everyone when they get unearthed!
Sadly, not as useful as one might hope, but possibly of aesthetic use down the road.
A whole crate of ammo for internet flame wars… 😀
Being a deserty sort of place, New Mexico has its share of moderately unfriendly flora and fauna. When it rains, the plants all know that it’s time to grow like hell, and breed like crazy, so the pollen counts can get pretty high, and the pollen itself is pretty aggressive. And there’s the usual sort of poisonous insects, lizards, etc, everything from gila monsters and rattlesnakes to scorpions, black widows, and tarantulas, hornets, bees, and wasps. We’ve got the friendliest bees (Carpenter bees [Xylocopa varipuncta], are about 3x the size of a regular bumblebee, and have a very heavy, ponderous flight pattern. The females are glossy black, and have a stinger, while the males are yellow and fuzzy, and lack a stinger. They’re also fairly curious, so if one comes upon you, it’ll probably circle around you for a while. But they’re harmless, and will usually get bored and go away after a while.) and the most amazingly vicious wasps (Pepsis wasps [Pepsis grossa], A.K.A. “Tarantula hawks” are shiny, iridescent blue and purple, very aggressive, and have one of the most [if not the most] painful stings of any insect in the United States. As the name implies, they kill and eat tarantulas.) but I’d never seen anything like this before…
