"Hello Honey..I Had a Little Car Trouble"

Cool, Cool Ride... Delahaye Bugnotti

What do you do when you have a craving for a classic Bugatti or Delahaye but can neither afford one, nor would you want to cut one up to make it into your fantasy dream car? The answer Terry Cook came up with was to build such a car from scratch. Starting with one of his composite Generation II Boattail Speedster bodies, which are manufactured by his company DECO RIDES of Long Valley, NJ, he radically modified the design incorporating styling ideas from a number of different cars. The body itself was designed eight years ago for Cook by top hot rod builder/designer Chip Foose of Huntington Beach, CA. It is a cut down and streamlined version, inspired by the early Al Leamy and later Gordon Buehrig styled Auburn Boattail Speedsters. Relatively unknown clay modeler Vince Gardner contributed a lot to the styling of the second generation Auburn Boattail.

The fully enclosed "pontoon" fenders were strongly influenced by several mid 30's Delahayes designed and built in Paris by famed coachbuilders Figoni & Falaschi. The front tires steer lock to lock inside the somewhat bulbous front fenders that look like a Chipmunk with its cheeks stuffed with acorns. The grille shell is a faithful copy of a Bugatti Type 57 that has been chopped about 4 inches to fit the car. DECO RIDES also remanufactures dimensionally correct brass duplicates of the Bugatti shell with reproduction steel shutters in the grille. The radiator shell was capped off with a replica Hispano Suiza stork from American Arrow of Clawson, MI. Put it all together and you have BUGNOTTI, a car that does not pretend to be a Bugatti, but pays homage to this great marque as well as the incredible styling of Figoni, Leamy, Gardner and Buehrig. That explains the FIGONI personalized license plate.

Texas Cops Need Help Getting Rid Of 200,000 Pounds Of Weed..Can You Help?

The Brooks County Sheriff's Department has a marijuana problem. They've got 200,000 pounds of pot, and they're complaining that it would be too expensive to destroy it.

"This is a problem that doesn't seem to be going away and anything we can get to help us to dispose of these cases once they're done and to get ready for the next one that are coming in would be a great help," said Deputy Daniel Davila.

All of the confiscated cannabis comes from drug cases over the past decade. And for now, all that unwanted weed sits in some storage trailers, awaiting an uncertain fate.

The marijuana dates back as far as 2000. According to authorities, the previous sheriff either didn't keep good records, or didn't get destruction orders from judges.

It's a priority for the current sheriff to get rid of the hundreds of thousands of pounds of pot. Deputies destroyed some of the bundles of bud with two visits to the Department of Public Safety incinerator in McAllen, Texas last year, but it cost them nearly $30,000.

The problem seems to be unwrapping the plastic off the marijuana, commonly used by Mexican drug smugglers, and Brooks County just doesn't have the manpower to do that. The county has a small sheriff's department, with only seven patrol officers and one criminal investigator.

"(It's) very time consuming," Deputy Davila said. "Probably for preparation to get it ready a week or more, whatever trailers we are going to use to transport it up there, and it would take several officers especially to remove the plastic from the contraband."

Just for the past 16 months, Brooks County has started keeping more marijuana seized from cases under Sheriff Rey Rodriguez. Already, they've filled two trailers with pot.

The problem is, the dank deluge continues; the cannabis cases keep coming in, and the weed just stacks up higher and higher.

The only place deputies can currently destroy the pot is at the DPS Lab in McAllen, but plans are afoot to pool resources in the Coastal Bend to destroy the weed locally.

County officials believe that would be less costly and might solve their marijuana storage problems.

Florida woman shoots husband after their lovemaking gets too rough

Anita Smithey and her husband may not have been able to live together, but they still had sex regularly.

They were in bed early Tuesday morning when, Oviedo police allege, she shot him two or three times.

She told police that Robert Cline III, 41, was being too rough, that she told him to stop, he didn't, so she got a .38-caliber handgun, pointed it at his chest, warned him again, but he only laughed and leaned toward her, according to her arrest report.

The gun went off accidentally, she told police, and still he did not get off her, so she quickly pulled the trigger twice more, wounding him at least once more.

Cline then rolled off the bed and onto the floor, and she got a knife and stabbed herself in the belly to make it look like she had acted in self-defense, according to her arrest report.

Smithey, 41, was being held in the Seminole County Jail, accused of second-degree murder.

She appeared before Seminole County Judge Ralph Eriksson Wednesday. The judge ordered her held without bail and appointed a public defender to represent her.

During the hearing, Assistant Public Defender Lawrence Kowal pointed to several long red marks on Smithey's neck. Smithey had told police that Cline held what she believed to be a knife at her neck, but the judge said that evidence was not relevant at Wednesday's proceedings.

She was arrested Tuesday. She had called 911 about 2:30 a.m., saying she had shot her husband in her bedroom.

She and Cline had been separated about three months, she told police, but still, they got together every Monday for sex. That was true this week, she said.

He got to her house Monday about 11:30 p.m., they each had a shot of tequila then went to the bedroom for sex, according to her arrest report.

When they were done, she took a shower, she told police, but when she walked out of the bathroom, Cline was still naked, and she asked him to leave.

He did not, she told police. He grabbed her, pulled her onto the bed, got on top of her and accused her of having sex with another man, according to her arrest report.

He then put what she believed was a knife to her throat, she told police. He either leaned away or got off her momentarily, she said, and she got her revolver from a bedside stand and placed it beneath a pillow, according to the report.

He began to have sex with her again, she told police, would not stop when she asked so she pointed the gun at his chest.

Police were awaiting autopsy results to determine how many times Cline was shot. They said Tuesday that it was probably twice, once in the chest or back and once in the arm.

The couple had a history of domestic violence. In November, when they still lived together, Oviedo police went to their home after Smithey called for help. She and Cline had been arguing, according to the report. He tore up a shower faucet. She scratched him, he told police.

That was the day Cline told Smithey he wanted a divorce, he told police.

Smithey wanted Cline arrested, and police concluded he had committed a crime: obstructing justice by repeatedly blocking her attempts to phone for help. She wound up summoning help by using a neighbor's phone. Police made no arrest but filed paperwork, asking prosecutors to file the charge against Cline.

Smithey later changed her mind and said she did not want him charged, and he never was.

Bear Stuck in a Tree..Another Job for the Fire Department

Cats stuck up trees are no problem for the firefighters of California.

Bears are another matter.

The troubles began when the officers in Oxnard, California, discovered a 200 pound bear in their parking lot. They chased it through apartment block gardens and through a condominium complex, where it climbed a tree. It came down and fled to the Santa Clara cemetery, where it sought refuge in another tree.

California Department of Fish and Game officials arrived at the scene where they shot the bear with tranquilizer darts. The firefighters cut away branches to get access to the sedated animal, while branches under the bear's stomach prevented it from falling to the ground. A harness was attached and the bear was hoisted to safety by a truck ladder.