watching expired appliances align

whenever i traveled from my hometown (fredericksburg, va) to my college town (harrisonburg, va) i'd pass mt. pony, just off route 3. it's a big hill that seems to rise out of nowhere, long before you get to the blue ridge mountains. for decades it was the secret back-up home for the federal reserve. it was there in case nuclear war broke out and the money men in d.c. needed to leave the capital yet stay in charge of the nation's currency. i guess the plan was for them to either helicoptor or drive out of washington and hide out in culpeper, virginia. it's good they had the bunker, even if nuclear war never broke out (i worried about it a lot in the 80's, though). there's not much going on in culpeper but at one time there was a tiny bowling alley about half a mile from mt. pony.

anyway, a report from wired news fills the public in on the new purpose for mt. pony. decommissioned years ago, the facility will now be home to a good portion of the nation's audio & film archives. it seems like a fair amount of the material to be stored there will be the archives donated from rick prelinger. back in the mid-90's i saw a few of the films from his archives at the virginia festival of american film. he's got some really interesting stuff, collecting bits and pieces of film that weren't played in movie theatres but made for other reasons (educational films, training films, etc.).

anyway, check out the article in wired news, especially for the four photographs. it looks like they were taken from an early 90's sales brochure when the goverment was trying to re-purpose the mt. pony property.