#automobile mechanic training

[thegeorgetelegraph]

How To Become A Services Technician At Ashok Leyland After Completing Automobile Courses?

The journey begins with choosing the right course at George Telegraph Training Institute. Our best automobile engineering college in India offers various automobile courses designed to equip students with both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Courses such as:

[kolkata-edu-guide]

Best Paramedical College in West Bengal

The GTTI's paramedical course after 12th programme is entirely focused on the business world. It is highly desired and has a lot of promise.

[pttedu]

Automotive is a dynamic and ever-evolving field. Explore how automotive service technicians can work efficiently with proper equipment training.

[kitixie]

Little Girl Gone (pt 2)

Little Girl Gone / T.S. (part 2) 

part three here

Synopsis: You agree to meet up with Tommy for dinner, but when it doesnt go to plan you find yourself in a dangerous situation.

warnings: violence (not extreme, very canon typical), tommy is not nice but i promise it'll make sense later, cursing

word count: 2.4k

taglist: @budugu , please let me know if youd like to be tagged!

information: Thank you all so much for reading, it warms my heart to know someone enjoys my writing! please leave a comment if you have a critique or anything else to say!

Around 4:30 the following evening, you began to get ready for your dinner with Thomas.

As you brushed and styled your hair, you thought of his strange mannerisms from the night before. He had seemed off towards the end of the conversation, and that was something that never happened, as nothing ever threw Thomas off. Just as the final touches of your hair and makeup came together, you realized the time. You had been so lost in your thoughts and in your indulgent hair care and makeup routine, that you had spent an hour primping and priming. Now only thirty minutes away from Tommy’s arrival, you needed to pick out a dress.

To a man, picking out a dress for dinner may seem like a small task in the grand scheme of his day, but all women know this to be false. First, you pick a dress. Then, you have to pick coordinating stockings, an overcoat, sometimes an undercoat, a bag, gloves, and depending on time of day, a hat. So what most men would deem as a quick process, isn’t a quick process at all. You did happen to be in luck though, as your favorite dress was one of the only items of clothing you’d hung up in your small closet after you moved in. You had your stockings from the night before, and they were a perfect match for your skin tone so that was also an easy choice. You decided to forgo a handbag, as you’d just be going to the Shelby’s, so you wouldn’t need any money. For shoes, you settled on a pair of well-broken-in kitten heels. This outfit was out of your recent rotation, given the odd jobs and such you had been working after your fathers death and mothers disownment, but Tommy always dressed to impress, so you thought you should too. Following that train of thought, you added a pair of your mothers white satin gloves, and awaited his arrival at your place.

6:00 pm

A loud knock sounded through your apartment, and you quickly jumped to open the door. There, in all his glory, stood Thomas Shelby. Looking good as ever in his black suit with a pressed white dress shirt, this time his hat folded in his hands.

“Y/N, you look lovely this evening.”, he remarked, eyes scanning you from head to toe.

“Thank you Tommy, you look handsome, as always,” you blushed, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks.

Tommy smiled, offering his hand to help you out of the door and down the stairs of your apartment. You accepted his hand, loosely holding it in yours, before dropping it to turn around and lock the door of your home.

Once the two of you had made it to Tommy’s car, he opened your door.

“Always the gentleman, aye Tommy?”, you laughed, giving him a soft smile as you stepped into the car and sank down into the passenger seat.

“For you, yes, always.” He nodded, reciprocating your smile, and gently closing the door.

He rounded the car, getting in on his own side and starting the engine up. It gave a sputter, then turned over, allowing him to put it in gear.

“I could take a look at sometime that if you’d like Tommy.” You spoke softly, wanting to offer your help.

“How do you know anything about automobiles? Did you work as a mechanic in your time away, Love?” He joked, a small laugh followed by a toothy smile coming from his mouth.

“Yes, actually. I did.” You said sternly, not appreciating the mans sarcasm.

“And what else did you do in your time away? I suppose you also learned to train horses, or fire a gun?” He joked again, clearly not understanding your short tone of voice.

“One of those I did, the other I am still clueless about. Feel free to guess which.” You stated, now having grown angry at his teasing.

Tommy feigned a sigh, followed by his imitation of a horses neigh. The two of you remained silent for the remainder of the ride to Watery Lane, only for the conversation to be interrupted by Tommy as the two of you pulled up to park in front of the house.

“Just so you know, Arthur and Pol are here as well. They wanted to hear all your stories about your time away as soon as I told them I was bringing you over.” He spoke, his gaze remaining on your face.

“Okay, Tommy.” You spat, still quite upset about the conversation at the beginning of the ride.

Before he could ask any questions, you pulled open the door to the car, getting out. He tried to catch up to you, but you made it to the front door of the Shelby home before he did, and let yourself in the house. Old habits die hard, as they say.

Once inside the home, you surveyed your surroundings. Not much of the decor had changed, a few updated photos here and there, but mostly everything was still in its rightful place. You made your way through the house at a leisurely pace, admiring all the once familiar details that now seemed new. You made your way to the dining room, while Tommy still trailed behind you, watching your every move.

“Oh dear, it is so lovely to see you again! It’s been so long, how are you?” Pol said, quickly rising from her chair to give you a warm, yet firm hug.

“I’ve been good Pol, thank you. How have you been?” You returned, not only as a formality but because you were genuinely interested in her life.

As Pol rattled off her answer, talking about ‘business this’ and ‘this family that’, you noticed Tommy move behind you. He came around to your left side, pulling a chair out. You remained standing, not wanting to sit if that was where he had wanted to sit, but the soft hand on the small of your back encouraged you to take the seat. You briefly nodded up at him and gave a soft smile, then continuing to listen to Pol.

After Pol had placed food for everyone on the table, you all began eating. Someone had made a delicious meal, one of your favorites. You first assumed it was Pol, but when you complemented her, she quickly told you ‘Oh dear, I didn’t make this’ and cast a look at Tommy from across the table. You didn’t put any effort into figuring out what that glance meant, rather you just enjoyed the food and answered their occasional question. The questions weren’t anything to outrageous, until one came tumbling out of Arthur’s mouth.

“So, Y/N, what made you come back to the grand ol’ town of Small Heath?” He said, smiling at his question.

“I, uh,” you swallowed. You had truly hoped no one would ask, but you should’ve expected it. You cursed yourself for not preparing an answer ahead of time.

Your mouth ran dry for a moment as you tried to formulate what to say that would keep you out of the most shit. You didn’t want to blurt out the truth, but they most likely already knew it anyways, they were the Shelby’s after all.

“My mother and I had a disagreement about my…life plan.” You spoke, satisfied with your answer.

“What life plan, dear? What does that mean?” Pol added to the questioning.

“Probably the same life plan that included her learning about cars and horses,” Tommy said under his breath, but not nearly quiet enough, as the entire table heard him.

“Now Thomas, you know women can do what they choose.” Pol reprimanded, giving Tom a stern stare.

“Yes, women can.” He spoke, “but not Y/N.”

“And why not Thomas? Am I not a woman?” You said, letting your fork clank against your plate. He had your full attention now, and not in a good way.

“You are, you’re just…different.” He spoke, his gaze now on you instead of Pol.

You scoffed, and shook your head at him. You couldn’t believe what he was saying. You didn’t recognize the Tommy in front of you, your Tommy, the one from 5 years ago, would have been uncaring about your interests, and glad to have someone be so knowledgeable about certain topics. You just stared at him for a moment, waiting on him to say something, anything, that would explain his previous remarks. But nothing ever came, and when you realized nothing ever would, you stood from the table, thanked Pol and Arthur for the dinner, and headed for the door.

Once outside the Shelby house, now all alone, you began walking. You were initially going to go home, but the dwindling liquor supply in your own cabinets encouraged you to find The Garrison. You walked down the streets, that still held a handful of people, mulling your thoughts. Tommy acted like a real jackass, especially given that he was the one who invited you over. By the time your anger had mostly settled, you reached the doors of The Garrison.

9:00 pm

You’d been sat at the bar of The Garrison for around an hour, and were plenty of drinks deep. You now held no anger towards Tommy; hell, you could barely picture his face in your mind. You hadn’t intended on getting drunk tonight, but the lovely barmaid by the name of Grace had been giving you all your drinks ‘on the house’, and who were you to turn down free alcohol? Especially given how you’d left your purse at home because you were ‘just going to the Shelby’s’.

A loud grunt came from behind you, followed by a man sitting down on the stool next to yours. You gave him a quick glance and nod, not recognizing his face. 

“What’s a pretty lady like you doing at the bar all alone, aye?”, he questioned, breathing his hot, putrid breath into your face. 

“One, I’m not alone. Two, none of your business, aye?” You said, hoping to be forceful enough that he got the hint and left you alone. 

Unfortunately, he did not. The next thing you knew, he had his fat arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer to his barstool. 

“Now listen here, little lady,” he breathed, “You can come to the back alley with me on your own will, or I can make you.” He threatened, brandishing a bowie knife from his waist. 

You sat for a moment, considering your options. You knew you definitely were not going into that alley, even if you had to die bloody for it. You quickly came up with a plan in your head, and before you could talk yourself out of it, you acted. 

“Fat chance, ya bastard. Now let me go,” you said loudly, hoping to draw some attention. 

The man laughed at you, and moved his hand up to grab your shoulder, encasing your frame in his large arm. There was no denying he had size on you, but you had speed. And speed always won. You quickly ducked under his arm, knocking your barstool over behind you. You grabbed his wrist as you slipped out of his hold, bringing his hand to the middle of his back. 

“What do ya say now, you piece of shit,” you laughed in his ear. 

Faster than you expected, he ripped his wrist from your hands, and turned to face you. You heard a loud pop, then the feeling of pain registered on your face. The fucker had just backhanded you infront of the entire Garrison. You gave a small chuckle, which spiraled into a full out laugh, leaving the man utterly confused. You turned your eyes up towards him, feigning doe eyes at the man, before you placed both hands on his shoulders. You moved in closer to his body, and before he could realize, you hooked your right leg behind his knee, and shoved his shoulders as hard as you could manage and still stay upright. 

The large man tumbled to the ground, hitting his head on your now discarded barstool. While you had the chance, you snatched the knife from his hands and knelt down on top of his large body. You pressed the edge of his blade against his own neck, feeling a sense of pride swell through you. You had just taken down this very large, muscular man in front of an entire pub. But before you could get any witty remarks out to your fallen opponent, you heard one thing. 

“Y/N, what have you done?” 

Fuck. Tommy had found you, and no less, found you on top of man, with a knife against his throat, in his brothers pub. 

“Y/N, get off of him. Now.” Tommy spoke, his voice sounding closer now. You turned your head to look at him, finally taking your eyes off of the assailant for just a moment. 

Tommy was standing right behind you, with a look similar to what you could assume the wrath of God would look like. He stood poised, with his hands behind his back, peaky hat on top of his head, hiding his eyes. You turned back to look at the fallen man underneath you, seeing his own look of fear on his face. Then you noticed drops of blood splatting onto the man's face. He wasn’t bleeding, you hadn’t cut him, this much you knew. You tossed the knife to the side, far enough away where neither of you could reach it, and felt for your own face. A warm spot of blood came back on your hand; He had cut the corner of your eye open when he backhanded you. You felt angry at first, then ashamed. This man had cut you, and you kept fighting him like a crazed person. Hot tears bubbled at the corners of your eyes, before you climbed off of the man. 

Tommy grabbed you, helping you to stand on your feet. You were still trying to hold back the tears in your eyes while he gently held your chin, looking over your wound. 

“Love, go to the office. Wait for me, I’ll be there soon.” He spoke, softly. 

You mustered a nod, and scuffled your way to the back office, to wait for him. 

[mesetacadre]

Aviation in the USSR

A collection of excerpts from Anna Lousie Strong's The Soviets Expected It, compiled for @czerwonykasztelanic

[...] Or the guerrilla detachment which captured six German planes, destroyed five of them, and sent the sixth to the Red Army, piloted by an amateur air enthusiast, who was a tractor driver in ordinary life. Lt. Talalikhin’s initiative is already a Soviet aviator’s tradition. Exhausting his ammunition in a fight with three enemy planes, he rammed the tail of one enemy with his propeller, smashed the tail of another enemy plane with his wing tip, and then bailed out of his own plane safely. Moscow parks displayed the wreckage of the German planes, and other Soviet pilots quickly copied the tactics. An aviation technician, Konikov, won renown by attaching the fuselage of a plane he was repairing to the front platform of a military train whose locomotive had been bombed by the enemy; he thus pulled the most necessary parts of the train to safety.

pg. 14

The Soviet people glimpsed and felt victory. For the first time they began to feel that they were no longer “backward Russians.” They were beginning to challenge the world. With this went a proud sense of their unity as a nation. Cotton growers in Turkestan exulted, “We have conquered the Arctic,” though they themselves would never see the snow. Bearded peasants, who had never sat in an airplane, began to talk about “our conquest of the air.” Young Nina Kameneva expressed the mood of the country’s young people when she broke a world’s altitude record in parachute jumping and remarked on landing: “The sky of our country is the highest sky in the world.”

pg. 46

Moscow can make all the implements of war, including planes and motor trucks, inside the city. [...] Moscow’s sky is covered by an air defense that was the marvel of the London experts who visited it after the war began to make suggestions and found it far superior to London’s. Anti-aircraft shells make a thick blanket at four distinct levels to London’s one, and observation planes patrol the heavens night and day. Moscow’s four million people also offer a night-and-day defense.

pg. 51

Alma Ata, the capital of this area, has grown from a town of 60,000 to a proud young city of 260,000 in the ten years since the railroad reached it. Its life has leaped at once from the nomad epoch to the airplane. The railroad is too slow to tame the wastes of Kazakstan. From Alma Ata Airport the planes shoot forth, east, west, south, north, on new discoveries. [...] Kazakstan is only one of the energetic regions behind the Urals. South of it lie the lands of the Uzbeks and Tadjiks, where some of the largest textile mills of the U.S.S.R. work up the locally grown cotton and where automobile and airplane parts are produced by mass production in the historic city of Samarkand.

pg. 58

I have traveled many times on the Trans-Siberian. In the spring of 1935, I went from Vladivostok to Moscow with a stop-over in the Jewish autonomous territory whose capital is Birobidjan. The train was crowded with pioneering people in warm woolen clothes and padded leather jackets, engineers, Army men, developers of the Far East. [...] An army engineer who shared my table at dinner was celebrating his return by airplane from the northern wilderness by consuming a whole bottle of port and bragging about the Far Eastern pioneers.

pg. 59

According to Pierre Cot, the French Air Minister, who visited Moscow in 1933, the Soviet air arm was at least equal to the best in Europe in numbers, technical equipment, and, above all, in the productive capacity of the aviation industry.‡ Thus, by the end of 1932, which ended the first Five Year Plan, the Soviet Union had reached the level of Western Europe in armaments – a fairly modest level judged by standards of later years.

pg. 65

Other official indications of the extent of the Red Army’s mechanization come from Voroshilov’s report in 1934 [...]. Five years later [...]. He claimed that the “bomb salvo” of the Soviet air force (the number of bombs that can be dropped by all planes at once) had tripled in five years and had reached more than 6,000 tons.

pg. 66

Soviet airplane pilots also hold many world records, both in altitude and long-distance flights. Their conquest of the Arctic and its difficult weather has accustomed them to the severest conditions. Americans well remember the Soviet pilots who twice made world records by flying from Moscow to America. These were individual exploits, but the development of Arctic aviation on which they were based was the work of large numbers of pilots and implies a whole air tradition

pg. 67

Parachute jumping has become a national sport in the Soviet Union. Soviet people are probably the most air-minded people in the world. Training for air-mindedness begins in the kindergarten. Small tots play the “butterfly game” and jump around with large butterflies pinned on their hair, gaining the idea that flying is fun and a natural activity. Children in their teens make jumps from “parachute towers” which are far rougher and more realistic than the parachute tower in the New York World’s Fair, which was copied from them. The sport is popular not only in the cities but on the farms. Several years ago a Ukrainian farmer told me of his trip to the nearby city with a group of farm children, all of whom immediately formed in line in the recreation park to go up in a tall tower and jump off under a parachute. “I thought it very terrifying,” he said, “and wondered why the park authorities allowed it. Then I saw that my own thirteen-year-old daughter was at the head of the line. These children of today aren’t afraid of anything.” At an older age, Soviet young people jump from airplanes, learn to operate gliders, or even become amateur pilots in their spare time. Every large factory, government department, and many of the larger collective farms have “aviation clubs,” which are given free instruction by the government. Probably a million people in the Soviet Union have made actual jumps from parachutes. It is not surprising that the Red Army was the first to use parachute troops in active service several years before the Germans adopted them. In 1931 a small detachment of parachutists surrounded and cleaned up a bandit gang in Central Asia. The making of airplane models by young people is taken seriously in the U.S.S.R. In 1937 over a million school children were spending after-school hours in aviation model stations. At a later stage, young people of talent create real airplanes and demonstrate them at Tushino aviation exhibitions. Owing to the wide interest in aviation and the public ownership of factories, a bright Soviet youth who invents a new type of airplane may get it constructed by his factory sports club and show it off. At one of the aviation festivals I attended, I saw a score of different amateur planes, including every possible shape of flying object – short, stubby ones, long thin ones, others shaped like different kinds of insects. They added greatly to the gaiety of the occasion. Whether or not they produced any really valuable new invention, they at least encouraged the inventiveness of their makers.

pg. 72

In the past two years, especially, all this training has been given a very realistic turn. [...] Only a month before the Germans attacked the Soviet borders, 7,000 Moscow citizens practiced a special drill in repulsing parachute troops over the week end. The large numbers of such trained citizenry, both among recruits entering the Red Army and among the older citizens assisting it, greatly add to the Soviet Union’s total defense.

pg. 73

[whereserpentswalk]

There was, in the days of generations now passed into the gates of hades, a spirit that guarded a road. He was a kind spirit; he had been in the place for as long as anyone can remember. They say he looked like a tall man in shining green armor, with the wings and arms of a mantis. Nobody ever saw the face below his helmet. He was a kind spirit in those days, a protector of the travelers and the wanders. Those lost in the night he would show the way. He would walk with those who needed protection. The shops on the side of the road would put out warm milk and meat pies for him, and he would award them with money and customers. And any church that preached that he was an unclean thing would find themselves restored by termites and rats without his dear protection.

They say one day, as he walked alongside a young woman as she made her way home through a cold winter's night, a man came up to her and tried to take her away at the point of a knife. The spirit was enraged, and melted the attacker's eyes from his skull, and closed the holes in his face under his body died from lack of air. It was a brutal fate, though a fair one for a soul who would have done worse to one more innocent. And from that day forth the spirit spoke that anyone who walked along that road would be protected by the spirit's magic, and anyone or anything, human or beast, spirit or cryptid, who tried to bring those who walked his road to harm, would suffer a horrifying fate.

Though the people were protected, the road changed. First slowly. Automobiles began to appear, fueled by the fossils of the dead, and soon stoplights to tell when people were permitted to walk. Soon what was once the edges of the road was sidewalk. The road was paved again and again. And soon there weren't trains and weren't trollies. And store after store closed down, for new stores to be opened, giant boxes owned by corporations, with massive parking lots outside of them, that would never think to leave out milk and meat pies. And then one day there was no stoplight, and no sidewalk, because any place where human feet could be permitted to walk had been removed. They called the road a highway than, and the humans' leaders were proud of it. It was too noisy for even the wyverns to fly over, and too barren for even werewolves to hunt. But the spirit was still there.

And then the spirit took up a new banner. When the last safe place to walk was gone, and the first human was struck and killed trying to cross the highway, he had dropped the banner of the seelie court and taken up unseelie way. Not out of vengeance but out of duty.

All who seek to harm those who wish the walk the road are caused by his law, and those new powerful machines called automobiles are no different. Cars that drive through the great spirit's road find themselves crashing into each other, or spinning randomly and flying around the road, or breaking down and never moving around. Mechanics can't figure out why, can't explain why there are always flies and worms and snakes and scorpions in every car that passes through that road. Even the drivers aren't safe, nobody who would drive such a lethal machine through the spirit's road is safe, they find their bodies bleeding, and skin dashed with cuts as if from an insect's claws, and minds filled with eldritch madness. And they say there are many cars that seem to lose their drivers, with only bugs or toads in their place.

Some still see the spirit's body in the dark of the night. He's changed now, his armor has turned night black, and its shape twisted from what looked like a knight's suit, to an insect's strange shell, his once slender body stretched to an inhumanly elongated and spindly build. His claws are now like great blades, and where his face was once only in shadows, now two glowing eyes can be seen from below his helm, like a dark pervasion of headlights. But he is still the same creature he always was, this is only another side of the same being. And those animals and jaywalkers who cross the highway, will never be hit under his gaze, even if a thousand cars burst into flames to keep them safe.

[readyforevolution]

History They Didn't Teach You In School

Scholars have left him out of the history books and Hollywood couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge his existence either. He was Howard Hughes’ top engineer and lifelong best friend. This is about Frank Mann, the hidden genius behind much of Howard Hughes’ success in the world of aviation and mechanics. Frank Calvin Mann (November 22, 1908 – November 30, 1992) was an African American engineer who was known for his participation in many Howard Hughes's projects including the Spruce Goose. He also starred in the Amos 'n' Andy radio show. Apparently, his lifelong friendship with Hughes was instrumental in opening doors for Mann's exceptional talents.

A native of Houston, Texas, Frank Calvin Mann's parents wanted him to become a schoolteacher, but from childhood, he had a natural ability to fix things. At age 11, he had his own mechanic shop. As a teenager, he worked alongside airplane mechanics, repairing engines. By the ago of 20, he had designed and built several of his own Model-T cars. It was unheard of in the 1920s for a Black man to have anything to do with cars, trains, or airplanes. His life-long friend Howard Hughes was instrumental in opening doors for Mann's exceptional talents.

Mann attended the University of Minnesota and UCLA where he earned a mechanical engineering degree. World War II equipment that revolutionized military weaponry would not exist if not for his involvement. Incredibly, few Americans are aware of Frank Mann. He was the first Black commercial pilot for American Airways. He was also a distinguished military officer. In 1935, following Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, Frank Mann flew reconnaissance missions for the Ethiopian army.

He served in the World War II Army Air Corps and was the primary civilian instructor of the famous Tuskegee Airmen in 1941. He left Tuskegee after a rift with the U.S. government, which didn't want the Squadron, an all-Black unit, flying the same high caliber of airplanes as their White counterparts. An angry Mann had refused to have his men fly old "World War I biplane crates," because his airmen had proven themselves as equals.

Though they were being given inferior equipment and materials, their squadron never lost a plane, bomber, or pilot, and they were nicknamed the "Red Tails.” After the war, Mann was instrumental in designing the first Buick LeSabre automobile and the first communications satellite launched for commercial use.

His pride and joy was a miniature locomotive enshrined in the Smithsonian Institute, Mann also played a principal role in the Amos ‘N’ Andy radio show. He moved back to his hometown in the 1970s.

Frank Mann died November 30, 1992 in Houston.

[anxious-lee]

A Sudden Diversion - A Lackadaisy Tickle Fic

Lee: Freckle

Lers: Ivy and Rocky

----

Evidently, plowing an automobile through several thickets and insisting it is a "short-cut" is dangerous.

This may have been a revelation to Rocky, but Freckle could have told him that from the beginning. In fact, he tried.

Yet, here they were: in the Lackadaisy's cluttered garage, mending the battering inflicted on their poor vehicle. The car was nicked and scratched from the shrubbery, not unlike its occupants. The engine compartment would have been just fine had the frenzied tom Rocky not rammed it into a tree's trunk. All in all, the damages were unnecessary and very expensive. To say that Miss Mitzi was peeved at the three stooges would be an understatement. Due to the speakeasy's lack of adequate funds, the car's repairs would need to be done by Rocky, Ivy, and Freckle, as reparations for ruining the car in the first place. Freckle supposed that being placed on mechanic duty wasn't the worst punishment Miss Mitzi could have dealt. Although, if anyone should have to be saddled with this chore, it should be Rocky. He's the one who made the mess in the first place.

But, perhaps it was for the best. It was safer in the garage than it was out there on the liquor-lined battlefield.

All three colleagues sat, working away silently. Or rather, almost silently, as Rocky could only take the deafening quiet for so long before he broke out into a hum. Some tune that neither Freckle nor Ives recognized. The musician himself was made useful by patching up the old paint job, while the two lovers dug through their toolbox, looking for the appropriate equipment to repair the engine.

Freckle had seen plenty of danger in his lifetime with his cousin. Hell, toughing through peril was practically his best trait as an officer in training. But each adventure wore down a little bit more of his psyche. And some nights, like tonight, there was nothing left to wear.

He was exhausted, both from the team's little excursion and the mental power it took not to have a panic attack.

Ivy, who sat at his right, learned over time to recognize these feelings through observation. Because odds were, Freckle wouldn't say it directly. She could pretty much discern and dissect every Freckle frown.

She was gonna make him smile.

She began with a little smirk of her own.

"Car maintenance isn't the peachiest job in the world, but at least we get some quality time together," Ivy said, batting her eyelids.

Brought out of his daze by the sudden sound of her voice, Freckle glanced up at Ivy quickly. He couldn't help but smile sheepishly at her flirtatious remarks.

But Ivy wasn't going to stop there.

"Y'know, I hardly ever get to witness you in your element. Tinkering away with your gadgets, and gizmos, and... whosiwhatsits, " she finished with a flippant backhand toward the toolbox.

Freckle seemed to turn bashful at that.

"Oh. I'm no professional. My mum taught me everything I know, and when it became just me and her in that house, I had to step in and help with the maintenance. If I'm being honest, I'm more familiar with the back-end of a kitchen sink than I am with motor vehicle repair," he cringed.

"Relentlessly humble, as always," Rocky piped in suddenly, "Ol' Freckle Face never could take a compliment, however deserved or warranted."

"Yeah! C'mon McMurray, you're doing most of the heavy lifting here! Little did Miss M. know that when she hired a gunman, she also hired a handyman," said Ivy.

The extra attention was getting to Freckle, so much so that he hadn't noticed when his cheeks began to burn hot.

"It's really not a big deal-"

"I'll say it is, and no take-backsies!" Ivy declared. For emphasis, she burrowed a single claw into his armpit.

Freckle tittered softly and tilted his body away from his attacker.

"Kheehehe, quit it," he near-whispered.

"What will you do if I dont?" Ivy dared playfully.

What to answer with, Freckle hadn't the faintest. His upturned mouth opened and shut a few times, hoping that the perfect reasoning would spring from his lips at any moment. Finally, he spoke.

"We're not gohonna finish our wohork," he retorted lamely.

"Oh yeah? Is that what it is you're scared of? The job?" purred Ivy. She once again buried her pointer claw into the crook of his underarm. It took some more digging than the first time due to Freckle's attempts to keep his arm flat against his side. When she settled into her target, she scritched everywhere she could reach.

"Yehes!" Freckle said, much louder and desperate than he intended. He was squirming a little more now, bent in a seventy-degree angle, but still holding down his position. The first giggle, he couldn't control. The second, third, and fourth, however, he was determined to swallow down. His lips pressed into a wobbly smile, hoping that if he didn't laugh, she wouldn't continue.

That only made her tickle harder.

"You trying to hold it in? Good luck, 'cause my little brothers tried the same trick, and it did not last long," warned Ivy.

And it was true. Before long, his firmly shut lips did nothing to prevent his giggles from escaping. They sounded more like pleaful whimpers.

It wasn't that Freckle hated her little games, but succumbing to something so childish as tickling was easier said than done. Not to mention the fact that they were in public, where any one of the speakeasy's employees could walk in on them.

Within a matter of seconds, Ivy brought both claws into both armpits and was tickling away.

Freckle gave a laugh of surprise, a notch louder than before. He knew there was no fighting her now. The tingly electricity on both sides of his body overtook him, and he slid to the floor, with his back pressed against it. Ivy followed, now hooked by his incredible laughter.

"You crazy kids ought to keep your hands off of each other. Otherwise, people might get the idea that you two are les amoureux," Rocky called from his place at the car, voice shining with sarcasm. He was watching them now and smirking unsympathetically at his troubled cousin.

"We are les amoureux, Rocky," Ivy called back.

For some reason, Ivy holding a conversation with Rocky while Freckle was underneath her laughing pitifully was making the sensation worse. As his face burned brighter, Freckle turned his head away from her in an attempt to save himself the embarrassment of having her look upon his cheesy face.

"Awh~! Poor boy is embarrassed!" Ivy cooed, taking one hand away from his arm and cupping his cheek with it, pulling his face back to her.

"You are practically burning up!" she gasped, "Are you blushing~?"

The saints above could not help poor Freckle now.

He didn't grace that question with an answer and instead whined through his laughter. This could not get more humiliating.

"I missed that big smile! And that laugh. I love it when you laugh. It's so cute!" the feisty woman squealed.

"Nohoho, it's nohohot!" Freckle squealed louder. His paws, which had been tucked in like T-Rex arms to his chest, were now covering everywhere on his face he could reach.

"It's a shame that me admiring you flusters you so terribly, because I'm not going to stop any time soon. You're all mine to adore, Calvin McMurray~"

Holy hell.

The teasing's subject cried out in ticklish agony and released a new wave of laughter.

"This would be easier if- you know- I'll think I'll just- there we go!" Ivy maneuvered herself to sit behind Freckle's head while she pinned his hands under her knees. Now he was on full display, with no hope of saving his dignity.

"Tickle, tickle, tickle~" she teased as both hands came back down to lightly skitter over and across his belly. Freckle laughed uproariously, unable to hold anything back, his pure-hearted cackle ringing out throughout the garage.

It was almost more than he could bear.

Almost.

"DOHOHONT SAHAY THAT!"

"Why not?"

"IT MAHAKES IT WOHORSE!"

"Ah, good tip! Definitely will be making use out of this. Kitchee kitchee kitchee kitchee coo~!"

Ivy moved her paws towards his hips, squeezing them faster than was merciful.

Freckle's laugh deepened in pitch immediately, sounding more like a maniacal cackle.

"Pretty good targets, Miss Pepper, but you're neglecting some key players in this game of torture!" said Rocky.

"It's not torture! He's fine! Aren't you, sweetie?"

Freckle almost said no, but he was too busy laughing. Laughing from an attack he let happen. If he really detested it, he could have ended this from the beginning, and he knew that. But there was no real danger here. Not with Ivy. Not with Rocky, either. He knew they would never hurt him.

Nevertheless, when one is being pinned down and tickled stupid, the only thought your mind will allow is 'STOP'.

Rocky strode over to Ivy's side and looked down at his cousin.

"Me and Freckle used to get into many a battle such as these when we were little tykes. I triumphed them all, naturally, and I still remember his spots," the tomcat gave Ivy a wink and planted himself on Freckle's legs. "You go for the neck, I'll go for the knees."

"ROHOCKY!!" cried Freckle, betrayed.

"Ooo! Those are good ones!" cheered Ivy.

"ISN'T AHANYONE GOING TO WOHORK ON THE CAHAHAR?!"

"No", they both replied.

They began their double team attack on Freckle's tickle spots. Ivy went to work fluttering in every crevice of his neck, while Rocky rubbed and squeezed his kneecaps, occasionally giving a swift scribble to the undersides.

Freckle couldn't believe how absurd this scenario was. Here he was, now shrieking and giggling shrilly like a small child, while his two closest teammates were tickling him to pieces. He didn't bother to question it any more, simply surrendering to his silly fate and taking the opportunity to let everything go. He had been harboring so much guilt and anxiety over the past few days. Over the past few weeks even. What better time to abandon all sensible thought, what better time to look away from his reality of crime and war, what better time to simply be with his friends, safe and at peace, then now?

But he still needed to breathe, so Ivy let up and released his hands from her hold. Rocky dismounted from his legs and backed away cheerily to give the man some space.

Freckle immediately wrapped his arms around his waist and tucked his legs into himself, tail swishing wildly as he let out his remaining chuckles. As he caught his breath, he looked up at Ivy.

Ivy's expression was kind. "You feeling ok?"

Freckle couldn't stop grinning, and it wasn't from the tickles.

"Y-yeah," he sighed in relief.

"Yes, good man, laughing yourself up a storm, now come on, let's take a break from the car and head to the bar downstairs!" said Rocky.

"You mean after the break we just took from our work?" Ivy smirked.

"I don't know about you two, but all this horseplay has worked up my thirst. Whadd'ya say, Baby Face? Want to grab a beer?" Rocky reached a hand down to help him up.

Freckle was repulsed by the idea of drinking alcohol himself, but Rocky knew that as well, using it as a conversational turn of phrase.

The orange cat softened in agreement.

"Sure."

Rock wasted no time in trotting out the door, hungry for an ice cold scotch.

The two stragglers, now alone, slowly followed behind. As they walked, Ivy stretched an experimental pinkie out to Freckle's. He wasted no time in linking his paw with hers and pulling her to his side.

Not the worst of punishments, indeed.

-------

You know what, I eventually got hungry enough for lackadaisy fic that I wrote one myself. I haven't completed a fic in well over a year, but this franchise is beyond inspiring enough to birth this fic ❤️

@veryblushyswitch @someone1348 @kasey-writes-stuff @ticklyfluffstuff

[seat-safety-switch]

In the wild, a lot of prey animals will disguise themselves from predators. This camouflage is accomplished using an adaptation that scientists refer to as "camouflage." By doing this, it is hoped, predators will just walk on past, and the hidden prey animal can continue its life of eating vegetables and being terrified of loud noises in peace.

Art imitates life, and so the humble automobile often also hides itself from those who would do it harm. Just who is the natural predator of cars? It turns out that, like for so many other inhabitants of Earth, it's us. Many cars don't get a natural death, rotting to nothingness in a cornfield somewhere as Virgil Exner intended, and instead are crashed into other cars (accidentally or deliberately,) or crushed into a fine paste in order to be recycled into washing machines and bicycles.

You might think that this is absurd. I can look out my window right now, you say, and my car is right there, obvious as can be. Maybe you even have a crazy bright paint colour for it, like red, or industrial grey. This is the vehicle's camouflage, and inside it are all the problems and miseries that make a car what it truly is: the source of your inevitable torment.

If you were to extinguish all the problems of a car in one Four Loko-fuelled driveway thrash session, it would simply cease to be, vaporizing into a small dust cloud and leaving behind a coupon good for fifteen percent off a Toyota product. Even a new car (do they still make those?) has a perfect ecosystem of minor faults that will one day torture a would-be mechanic into considering moving into the forest and hunting men for sport.

Finding out the actual fault, its source, and its solution takes a trained eye. Faults are our prey, and they will hide anywhere they can fit: inside a wiring harness, motor winding, slightly pinched coolant hose, or even microcode. If you persist, however, you will get to devour the feeling of having fixed a problem on your car. And then you'll get to drive it, causing more faults to lodge inside the body for protection. It's only natural.

[littlenyao]

Perhaps one overlooked misconception regarding Ratchet is that there is a tendency to think of him being akin to a human medical doctor. After all, he's treating exactly one species: Cybertronian.

Well.

Technically that's true.

But what you have to think about is the sheer number of different frames Cybertronians have, even within their own species. How mechanically different all of these frames are. How on a regular basis, Ratchet is treating quite a number of planes, trains, and automobiles. The sheer amount of knowledge of how all of these different frame types function is so vast that describing him as equivalent to a human medical doctor isn't quite sufficient.

No, Ratchet is a veterinarian.

If you've ever hung out with veterinary students (as I have) you know that they are studying not just one but multiple species, including cats, dogs, pigs, sheep, cows, and horses (who are notorious for being just plain weird). In the class I was doing tech support for, we had a pediatrician who had apparently decided to run the gauntlet again to become a veterinarian. They claimed that veterinary school was much harder than medical school.

It's not that hard to imagine why.

So it shouldn't be all that surprising that it's hard to find a medic like Ratchet who can a) switch from from working on a sports car to a fighter jet without breaking a sweat, b) effectively run a department where the list for spare parts is longer than War and Peace, and c) make it look easy.

Not to mention if someone needs custom parts, Ratchet has to be a machinist to create them. Or if someone needs their source code modified, Ratchet has to be a software engineer to reprogram them. And he has to do all of these at an expert proficiency, all day, every day.

Even if he is a hyper advanced mechanical lifeform with tons of memory and millennia of experience, it's easy to see how even he would get burnt out having to keep track of all of this, especially during the war when he was also trying to keep his staff alive.

[thegeorgetelegraph]

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[kolkata-edu-guide]

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[pttedu]

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Discover the earning potential of mechanics with auto mechanic training. Explore median salaries, job outlook, and factors influencing pay in the automotive industry.

[chibrary]

title: "my friend hervé leclerc, father of charles, the young and talented f1 driver" source: sylviebourgeois.com year: 2021

At the moment, in the evening, I fall asleep to a documentary on F1. It's quite poorly done with a montage of images cut very quickly and hysterical music in order to create sensationalism, while this world of speed is sensational enough in itself, there is no need to add more. But what I love are the interviews with these young drivers who, for some, like Charles Leclerc or Esteban Ocon, started in F1 when they were barely 20 years old, they are my two favorites. Esteban because he has a good state of mind, and Charles because I knew his dad, Hervé.

I met Hervé Leclerc in Cap-d'Ail when I was 18 years old. His stepfather Charles Manni was my mother's childhood friend. We met again in Paris, when I was coming up from Besançon, in a truck, with my brother, another Hervé, 7 years older than me, and his best friend, Serge, studying, like him, in architecture. [...]

[...] That year, [my brother and his friend] regularly went to Paris to see construction sites or girls, I don't know anymore. I often jumped into their home-office truck and went to see Hervé Leclerc who spoke to me about his passion for cars and his dream of being an F1 driver. He lived with his grandmother, an exceedingly elegant lady who helped him financially in his desire to become a future champion. I saw Hervé again, a year later, when I went to live alone in Cap-d'Ail in my mother's vacation home that she had inherited from her own mother, more precisely, the half-house, her older sister having inherited from the other party. I wanted to earn my living, to be independent, I worked as a hostess in Monaco and took evening classes to learn how to design clothes.

In the meantime, Hervé Leclerc had done a lot of racing in F3, he was very fast. The manager of the Châtre circuit believed in him and wanted to push him to succeed, but another racer who had more experience than him in karting, became their official racer. Hervé was terribly disappointed. He continued training and racing, but his pain at not being chosen turned into an obsession. He moved in with his mother, Monique, a very beautiful woman, who had started a new life near Monaco with Charles Manni, my mother's childhood friend. Charles was poor as a child, perhaps the only poor person in Monaco. He had made his fortune supplying mechanical parts to the automobile industry, and had built his factory in Fontvieille, a district of the Principality located under the zoo where an elephant cried night and day, and a stone's throw from the old port where my parents and Charles had their sailboats.

[...] About ten years later, Hervé Leclerc got married and projected his love of cars, his will, his talent, his F1 desires, his humor, his good humor and his kindness onto his sons whom he initiated very early in karting. The ghost of the former kart racer's victory, which cost him his destiny as champion, certainly had something to do with it. Very quickly, Hervé Leclerc was able to admire the victories of his sons who never stopped winning and climbing the ranks, but alas, he was not able to see the destiny of Charles, his second child, who made his dream come true. and that of his father to become an F1 driver.

[whipplefilter]

How exactly did Stanley pass away?

When Stanley was built, cars were more a dream and a concept than a quintessential fact in the world. Cars were coming into being with a distinct sense of possibility, if not a grand blueprint for what life really meant, as an automobile. Some scholars argue this was the most vital, authentic period of the living machine. Others say that only later, once the notion of a car gained stability and variety, did true life for cars begin.

Regardless of one's school of thought, mechanically speaking, cars of Stanley's generation are fragile. They are prone to poor compression and engine management; they aren't near so complicated as their modern cousins, which in some respects makes fixes simple. But it also makes the needs of fixes more common, and the number of built-in failsafes less robust. This stresses the body, and leaves fewer footholds for the ghost in the machine. It's a tenuous thing, that ghost. Even to modern medicine it is still not clear what determines its ability to anchor, to persist, to spark life in metal. But the research is quietly suggesting that a life lived wildly--vitally--is not a life that lends itself often to longevity.

Racecars, for instance, are hardy creatures. They wreck and are remade; they endure full rebuilds--new panels, new components, new hoses, new entire engines--far better than most cars could. They've trained for it; they've weathered it. What could kill a street car is just another Sunday for a racecar. But sometimes that's not true, and wear does compound, and sometimes old racecars leave this world. Too soon? maybe, but glad, at least, that they are leaving more than several empty cups.

Stanley was never a racecar, but he survived the winters of northern Arizona, carburetor and all, and overheating so bad it popped his radiator cap clean off. He lived wildly and vitally and at the edge of possibility, with his body full of dreaming and at a time when the very notion of what it meant to be a car left almost wholly to one's own interpretation. It's a good way to live.

But all things end.

[mensfactory]

Unrestored 1934 Mercedes-Benz 500 K Offener Tourenwagen,

The name Offener Tourenwagen, or “open touring car,” in Mercedes-Benz parlance often brings to mind the vast and weighty 770 Ks of the late 1930s. On their sibling supercharged 500 K chassis, however, it referred to something entirely different: a very attractive two-door open model, with a rather low, subtly curving beltline, that recalled the powerful Sports 4 style of earlier K and S-type models. It was a very sporting automobile and one of the most masterful creations of the factory coachbuilders at Sindelfingen, who finished each body with the superb craftsmanship and quality materials for which they were renowned.

Chassis 105355, is one of only five surviving examples of this style on the 500 K chassis. According to its original Mercedes-Benz kommission sheet, a copy of which is on file, this car was originally delivered in late 1934 to Rudolf Hess of Berlin, one of the highest ranking members of the ruling National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Hess famously flew solo to Scotland in 1941 in a failed attempt to get the UK to exit the war. Instead, he was taken prisoner and convicted. To the victors, however, go the spoils: The 500 K was eventually commandeered at the end of WWII, and like so many of its brethren, wound up being used by American GI’s in Germany, then afterward came to the US.

As early as 1955, the car was in the ownership of V. Link Milsark of Vienna, West Virginia; a copy of a West Virginia title in his name, dated that year, is on file. Known to friends as “The Mayor of Rose Holler,” Mr. Milsark was an auto mechanic, aviator, model train collector, and a genuine character in every sense of the word. He is not known to have shown the 500 K in his decades of ownership but was nonetheless an enthusiastic owner, maintaining membership in and listing the car with the Classic Car Club of America for decades.

Mark Smith acquired the long-hidden Milsark 500 K in 2005 through what can only be described as one of his characteristic transactions, involving multiple cars and parties. He was undoubtedly pleased with the acquisition, which remained one of the great centerpieces of his collection ever after.

Retaining its original, numbers-matching chassis and engine per factory records, as well as the original typenschild on the firewall, the car remains startlingly original, never restored, and “improved” only as necessary over the years. Mr. Smith kept it much as he acquired it, with sensitivity towards preserving the condition in which it had been left by its long-term prior owner. At some point the bottoms of the front seats were replaced and covers were fit over the seat backs; the balance of the interior, including the door cards and rear seat, is that fitted at Sindelfingen in 1934. A 1955–1956 West Virginia DMV inspection sticker is even still intact on the windshield.

Mr. Smith exhibited his 500 K in the Prewar Preservation class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance® in 2006, and at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in 2019, where it received an Amelia Award in the exclusive 500 K/540 K class. Due to its high degree of originality and fascinating history, it ought to be a welcome entrant into many other concours, recognizing what its longtime owners saw in it: a very special automobile, made only more so by its passage through time.

Mathieu Heurtault, courtesy of Gooding & Company.