Not Much In the Overnight Mail

Well, not much that would be of general interest, anyhoo.  That said, there was this from the Usual USAF Source:

US Air Force crews ferried two MC-130J Commando IIs, assigned to Air Force Special Operations Command, including the one shown here, from the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics facility in Marietta, Ga., on Dec. 5, 2014, to RAF Mildenhall, England. Lockheed Martin photo.

That looks like a giant slinky trying to eat a Herky-Bird.

The only other thing in the overnight mail was a link to a short article at NPR about catalogs.  The first grafs:

Many things made with paper have become relics because of computers and the Internet: the Rolodex, multivolume encyclopedias, even physical maps.

Now take a look in your mailbox or somewhere around your house. There's a good chance you'll see a shopping catalog, maybe a few of them now that it's the holiday season.

OK, I looked and found four catalogs... one from LL Bean, one from Land's End, one from cigar.com, and another cigar catalog from an outfit called Thompson's.  That was it, and I haven't cracked any of those as yet. That doesn't mean I don't use 'em; I do.  My catalog consumption is way, waaay down from Former Happy Days when I'd receive at least 15 to 20 of the things each and every month.  And I remember, quite fondly, the day the Sears Big Book hit our mailbox back when I was a kid... especially when the fam'bly was stationed overseas and we pretty much LIVED out of the Sears Roebuck catalog.  There was a reading/browsing hierarchy associated with the Sears catalog: Mom got it first, then Dad, then us kids.  Woe be unto you if you tried to browse the catalog before Mom said you could.  Death would have been preferable to what would have happened to you...

And so it goes.  I might be back with a video later; it seems The Tube o' You isn't functioning properly at the moment.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack...

... which we listened to yesterday and more about that below.  But first, the tune.  "Proud Mary" is normally one of those tunes that I never want to hear again, if one only considers the original by CCR.  Is that version overplayed?  Oh, hell yes.  But I can listen to Ike and Tina cook on their version over and over and over and NEVER tire of it.



I heard this yesterday while listening to Ann Delisi's show on WDET out of Dee-troit.  We've gone on about 'DET and Ms. Delisi before here at EIP, like this:

I think I discovered Roy by listening to WDET in Dee-troit.  I'd bet money on it, actually.  Speakin' of WDET...

We're down to our emergency tee shirt supply, given the state of our laundry bag and available clean clothes.  This example happens to be well over 20 years old, what with me having acquired it back around 1987 or so.  I wear it rarely these days as it is thin beyond belief.  It's also something of a personal treasure as well, being a memento from Former Happy Days.  This tee was part of the swag one gets for supporting public radio, and I was a BIG supporter back in the day.  Read as: when public radio was worth supporting.  I was saddened to find DET has sunk in the metro Dee-troit radio ratings, but not all that surprised.  DET was a powerhouse back in the '80s and a veritable fount of new music... and Ann Delisi (a deejay and then programs director) was to die for.  But that's another story altogether.

We were quite pleased to find DET is on iTunes Radio; this means we can listen to the lovely Ann on the weekends now.  Ann had a daily show back in the day and we'd speak on the phone sometimes during the course of her show.  I also had occasion to meet and speak with her in person, albeit  briefly, during a couple of the annual cocktail parties DET threw for donors who contributed at a certain level.  We had a nice e-mail exchange after her show yesterday afternoon... which I'd publish if Blogger wasn't such a pain the ass about formatting cut 'n' pasted e-mails.  I can't get the formatting to work to save my ass, so you'll just have to take my word for it.  It's always sumthin'.

Just Because

Bikes and wimmen... what's NOT to like?



We were floundering around, trying to find sumthin' suitable for posting on this too-damned-cold Monday morning (23 degrees as we speak, on its way to 41) and came across what you see above.  Which brings to mind that ol' Richard Thompson song, wherein he maintains "red hair and black leather" is his protagonist's favorite color scheme.  Or blonde.  Or brunette.  Whatever floats yer particular boat.  I'm rather partial to blondes, myself.

The Second Mrs. Pennington on my box-stock RD400, 1979.  The bike didn't stay stock for long.

Of Possible Interest...

... to fans of the Allman Brothers Band.  This, from Rolling Stone:

A couple o' things come to mind here.  First, I was fortunate enough to catch about 45 minutes of the four hour concert on XM yesterday while out gallivanting around and doin' the P-Ville equivalent o' the Grand Tour, which would be Portales - The Big(ger) City^TM - Cannon Airplane Patch - Portales.  I'm pleased to report the band sounded GREAT.  So good, in fact, that I briefly considered taking Happy Hour in the car to hear what was left of the concert when I got home.  But I didn't, for there were groceries to put away and other stuff to be done.

Second, I saw the Allmans a couple o' times in the way-way-back, the best occasion being when they headlined a triple bill at the San Francisco Cow Palace on New Years Day in either '72 or '73.  That triple bill was something else: the Charlie Daniels Band opened, the Marshall Tucker Band was the middle act, and the Allmans finished it off.  That particular concert was among the top five shows I've ever seen and I was well and truly worn out by the time that evening was over.  (Aside: some day I might rank the concerts I've seen and discuss them, but then again I prolly won't.  You're welcome.)  My friends and I drove to SFO from Klamath Falls, OR to see this concert, which should give you an ideer of just how big a fan of the Bros I was (and still am).  "Southern Rock" didn't get any better than what the Allmans delivered, in ALL their incarnations.

A Passing

This lil blurb from the Usual USAF Source caused a twinge of something like regret and/or sadness in me this morning:

One-Ring Circus

Workers at Misawa AB, Japan, began a year-long project to demolish the base's "Elephant Cage" antenna that the Air Force used for gathering radio signals intelligence for nearly 50 years, announced base officials. "During its long life, the antenna played a major part in the Cold War and beyond," said Col. Andrew Hansen, vice commander of Misawa's 35th Fighter Wing. "However, the technology has outlived its usefulness," he said in the Oct. 17 release. The three-ringed, 137-foot-tall AN/FLR-9 antenna was part of a global network that intercepted and pinpointed the location of Soviet and Communist-bloc radio communications. The array, completed in 1965, could detect and locate signals from up to 4,000 nautical miles distance, according to the release. Misawa's 373rd Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Group controlled the antenna until demolition work began on Oct. 15. A similar antenna at JB Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, is the only remaining AN/FLR-9 worldwide, said officials.

The FLR-9 was the "sister system," if you will, to the FLR-12 I worked on back in the day (see here, that's the FLR-12 antenna farm and ops building at Wakkanai, Japan).  But back to the FLR-9... From The Wiki: 

FLR-9s were constructed at the following places:

USASA Field Station Augsburg (Gablingen Kaserne), Germany
Chicksands, England
Clark AB, Philippines
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, USA (formerly designated as Elmendorf AFB)
Karamursel, Turkey
7th Radio Research Field Station/Ramasun Station, Udon Thani Province, Thailand
Misawa AB, Japan
San Vito dei Normanni Air Station, Italy

Advances in technology have made the FLR-9 almost obsolete.

"Almost obsolete" is prolly being too kind.  That said, I've roamed around the vicinity of the elephant cages at Chicksands, Karamursel, and Ramasun Station and it grieves me to know the old world is fading fast, if not gone.  But Hey!  All things must pass.

Caught My Eye

So, there I was... going through the overnight mail, a piece-part o' same bein' a missive from Amazon concerning new music releases.  Which is where I saw this:

Doncha miss album cover art?  I mean real, big-ass vinyl albums, not CD jewel boxes.

That's the cover art from a new Pink Floyd album due to be released in November.  Here's an excerpt from the Amazon editorial review:

In 2014 David Gilmour and Nick Mason re-entered the studio and, starting with unreleased keyboard performances by Richard Wright, who sadly died in 2008, added further instrumentation to the tracks, as well as creating new material. The result is The Endless River, including 60% of recordings other than the 1993 sessions, but based upon them. The title is a further link, '... the endless river...' being part of the closing phrases of High Hopes, the final song of the previous Pink Floyd album. 

Interesting, but I'm not sure I'll lay down 31 Yankee Dollars for the 2014 Floyd.  But I MIGHT.

In other news... what's Sunday without an EIP re-run?  I was curious about how many times I've mentioned Pink Floyd here at EIP and it turns out that I've posted quite a bit about them.  Not too surprising, eh?  Here's one such mention, which is pretty much a throw-away when it comes to Pink Floyd:

Friday, December 01, 2006

Hey! It's December!

I watched a re-run of Frontline’s Secret History of Credit Cards on PBS last evening, and absorbed some distressing facts on how Americans use credit cards, and much more distressingly, how banks exploit credit consumers. “Exploit” is a pretty loaded word, but it fits. I would say that, as a capitalist, I’m somewhat conflicted about this exploitation, but I’m not. The principal of Caveat Emptor should apply here, in other words, an intelligent individual would avoid the exploiters and do business with banks that are on the up and up. But they’re all in the consumer exploitation business. When it comes to credit cards, the contract language banks provide you is so opaque and so lengthy and so fraught with legalese that no one, and I mean NO one, short of a contract law attorney, can understand the damned things. And nearly no one reads ‘em, either. According to Frontline, anyway, and I tend to believe the assertion because, well, I’ve never read mine.

Some “fun facts:”

145 million Americans carry credit cards

55 million pay off their balance in full every month

90 million Americans carry a balance. These folks are known as “revolvers.”

35 million of the revolvers make only the minimum payment every month.

The average balance…average…is $8,000.00. Per card.

And worst of all, there is nearly NO limit on the interest banks can charge on credit card accounts. You may thank the Supreme Court’s Marquette Bank decision, which effectively eliminated usury laws, for that. (Details here.)

What allowed Wriston to make good on his threat to leave New York was a little-noticed December 1978 Supreme Court ruling. The Marquette Bank opinion permitted national banks to export interest rates on consumer loans from the state where credit decisions were made to borrowers nationwide.

So by early 1980, with New York refusing to go along, Citibank set out on a search for new place to base its credit card division. The pickings were slim. Usury laws were still on the books in the vast majority of the states. And federal banking rules required that before banks could set up operations outside their home state, a formal invitation had to be issued by the legislature of the state they wanted to enter. Local bankers had prevented any state legislature from ever extending such an invitation.

[…]

In an effort to stimulate the local economy, South Dakota was in the midst of eliminating its usury laws. Mr. Wriston told Mr. Janklow that if South Dakota would quickly pass a bill inviting Citibank into the state, he would bring 400 jobs. To preempt concerns from local banks about new competition, Citibank also promised to open only "a limited" bank. "We'll put the facility in an inconvenient place for customers and we'll pay different interest rates," Mr. Wriston recalled telling Mr. Janklow. "All we want to do is use it to issue cards.''

I learned my own personal credit card lesson back in the early ‘70s, before the Marquette decision. I’ll not point fingers or anything, but I cut up three or four cards at that point in time and paid off the balances, slowly but surely. It took me over five years to pay the bastards off, and that was at extremely modest interest rates, compared to today. I’ve not paid a penny in interest since. Well, not entirely true. I’ve paid interest once or twice. But it’s REALLY a rare occurrence. I know one thing, though. I’m awfully damned glad I’m not in the same credit card debt situation today as I was back in ’72.

I know another thing, too. The banks need to clean up their act when it comes to credit cards. It’s way past time. If they refuse, then it’s time for the government to step in. As I said in the beginning, as a good capitalist I should be conflicted on this issue. But I’m not. Wrong is wrong. Period.

This is The Weather Channel…and this is The Weather Channel On Drugs… So, I’m standing in the kitchen around 2030 hrs last evening, finishing up the dishes and just generally cleaning up. I have the Tee Vee tuned to the WX Channel, “Your Local on the 8s” comes on, and my head just whipped around. Nothing to see but the familiar blue screen with WX data, but what’s this? Pink Floyd’s “One of These Days?” Yes, it most certainly is! I’ll be damned…

You may have heard the song before, even if you’re not a Pink Floyd fan. For instance:

"One of These Days" is the song playing over the end credits of the Sopranos episode "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh".

"One of These Days" is featured in "The Lives of the Stars" episode of Carl Sagan's television documentary Cosmos.

And now The WX Channel. On drugs. A one time good deal, perhaps, or a momentary lapse of reason? Because the next and subsequent “Local on the 8s” had the usual innocuous, unidentifiable, guitar soft jazz background muzak music. I like Floyd better.

Speaking of weather…The storm that cut its teeth over the High Plains night before last through yesterday morning is kicking butt and taking names as it moves east and north. We only got a burst of bone-chilling cold and a dusting of snow, but the intersection of that cold front and moisture from the Gulf has dropped anywhere from eight to ten inches of snow on northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas. The St. Louis area was suffering from a pretty good ice storm, with the usual mass power outages ice storms bring. And it ain’t done yet. Not by a long shot. Look out, East Coast…here she comes!

It definitely could have been worse here on the High Plains.

When Terror Strikes… My propane tank went to “empty” overnight, as I strongly suspected it would. After all, our high yesterday was only 35 degrees and the low last night was in the mid-teens. In other words, maximum furnace run-time. The interior gauge LEDs indicate empty, but there’s probably a gallon or so left in the tank. So, at 0800 this morning I make the call to the propane company in order to get in at the front of today’s queue. The nice lady on the other end of the phone sez: “OK, I’ll tell Albert to stop by, but it’ll probably be late this afternoon or early tomorrow morning. He had to go to Roswell this morning to get the truck inspected.”

Aieee!

After I told her I was “on empty” she assured me Albert would be by this afternoon. Good thing we’re warming up today. My brand new little ceramic heater should be able to hold the heating front until the heavy artillery arrives.

Speaking of ceramic heaters... I bought a new one yesterday, the fourth such in six years time. The danged things seem to get less and less efficient as time goes on, until they reach the point where you generate more heat by passing gas than the heater does running on full-stroke. In other words, they wear out. Faster than I think is acceptable, but that’s just me. I switched brands this time, moving from a Holmes heater to one made by Honeywell. In China, of course. Don’t get me started on that subject.

Today’s Pic: The interior of one of our local watering holes: The bar in The Roosevelt Restaurant. This bar is a great example of those old mahogany bars one found throughout the US in the 19^th century. This particular example was found in an old abandoned bar near Roswell, disassembled and trucked to Portales, where it was lovingly and beautifully restored. The Roosevelt is the one place in P-town where you can get a good single-malt or small-batch (read: boutique) bourbon. January, 2003.

Ah, Former Happy Days, part IV or V... which is to say when we were still in El Casa Móvil De Pennington and when we were generating blog posts that actually had some content.  The Roosevelt is also a memory at this point in time but that magnificent bar still exists in the Italian restaurant that took The Roosevelt's place.  We're happy about that, dontcha know.

Alcohol and Related Indignities

I coulda titled this piece "The Sunday Re-Run" but didn't.  But the fact remains: this IS a re-run.  Onward and upward...

Warnings

My Buddy Ed In Florida sends along the following:

Alcohol Warnings

Due to increasing products liability litigation, beer manufacturers have accepted the FDA's suggestion that the following warning labels be placed immediately on all beer containers:

*WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not.

*WARNING: Consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like an asshole.

*WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell the same boring story over and over again until your friends want to SMASH YOUR HEAD IN.

* WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to thay shings like thish.

*WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that ex-lovers are really dying for you to telephone them at four in the morning.

**WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell happened to your pants.

*WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may make you think you can logically converse with other members of the opposite sex without spitting.

WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may make you think you have mystical Kung Fu powers.

**WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to roll over in the morning and see something really scary (whose species and or name you can't remember).

WARNING: Consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns on the forehead.

*WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher, smarter and more handsome than some really, really big guy named FRANZ.

*WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe you are invisible.

*WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may lead you to think people are laughing WITH you.

**WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may cause an influx in the time-space continuum, whereby small (and sometimes large) gaps of time may seem to literally disappear.

WARNING: Consumption of alcohol may actually CAUSE pregnancy.

The asterisked items indicate tee shirts I acquired in my ill-spent youth.  

The double asterisked items concern themselves with a war story I've never told... the Reader's Digest version of which involved me waking up next to a totally bald woman (albeit one with a gray-haired wig askew on her bald pate) who had to be at least 70 years of age and who swore up and down that we had had intimate knowledge of each other not four or five hours ago (as best as I can determine: she did NOT speak English) and wanted to repeat the experience.  I declined her offer as gently as possible, and to this very day I do NOT believe I was THAT drunk.  Some things are beyond the pale and that was one such.  

To make matters worse I had been set up with my new-found geriatric companion in a fitting act of retribution by my so-called buddy, who also stole my clothes and left me buck-nekkid in this harridan's bed.  And why did my buddy set me up?  Well... basically it's because his lady friend and I got incredibly drunk together and argued about politics until the wee small hours (or until I passed out, whichever came first, or both) when she should have been doing something more enjoyable with my buddy.  My bud did NOT take kindly to that and I kinda-sorta ruined his night.  Ergo, retribution.

Back to the story...   I managed to wrap myself in a sheet and searched the premises for my clothes... which involved going from room to room in an establishment where that sorta thang isn't normally done, most especially EARLY in the morning... but I duly discovered where my clothes had been hidden after about 20 minutes of frantic searching... assisted by my semi-clothed elderly lady friend.  I then proceeded to get dressed and got the Hell out o' Dodge in that early morning hour and went searching for a restaurant with ANY sort o' greasy breakfast and a couple o' few aspirin.  Or six of same, because I was sufferin' from God's Own Retribution of a hangover, one of my Top Ten Hangovers of All Time.  I stumbled into a western-style hotel a few blocks from whence I came, and was VERY pleased to find their restaurant was not only open but featured "American Breakfast."  So we ordered about a half gallon of coffee, breakfast, that much needed aspirin, and soon the world was MUCH brighter.  As for the "western-style hotel" bit, all this happened in a country not my own, I should add.  So there's that.

All o' which reminds me of a lil sumthin' I post and re-post from time to time, to wit:

More on drunkenness from an old post I put up back in March of '06:

Apropos of nothing, as is my wont, of late. Quite some time ago I read Dan Jenkins’ novel “Baja Oklahoma,” which was a good tale…funny, creative and full of little folk gems. One of those gems impressed me SO much I took the trouble to transcribe the list and pin it to the wall above my desk. This, of course, was in the way-way-back. But…it’s a very relevant piece of work. Here, for your illumination/edification, are Dan Jenkins’ “Ten Stages of Drunkenness:”

1. Witty and Charming
2. Rich and Powerful
3. Benevolent
4. Clairvoyant
5. Fuck Dinner
6. Patriotic
7. Crank up the Enola Gay
8. Witty and Charming, Part II
9. Invisible
10. Bulletproof

I don’t believe I’ve ever made it to “Bulletproof.” Evidence of that fact is: I’m still alive. I have, however, been “Witty and Charming, Part II” on a few occasions and “Invisible” once or twice. The most common state I arrived at was Number Four and perhaps Five…achieved nearly every Friday night whilst I was living in SFO. Ah, nostalgia!

Truer words were never written or spoken. I usually only get to Stage Three these days. But Stage Five is not unknown...

When Stage Five happens these days (which is rarely, actually) I usually take a nap and then have a late dinner.  Coz dinner is important, Gentle Reader. 

The comments to the original post are (somewhat) interesting, in that the guy who hid my clothes weighed in.  That was one helluva night, Gentle Reader.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

ELO...

She came to me like a friend
She blew in on a southern wind
Now my heart is turned to stone again
There's gonna be a Showdown
Save me, oh save me
It's unreal, the suffering
There's gonna be a Showdown

I always liked ELO and the album from whence this tune comes from is a favorite... mainly coz of the time frame when it was popular.  Although I didn't know it at the time, there most definitely was a showdown in my future.  It just took around 23 years to materialize.

The Sunday Re-Run

With minimum fanfare...

Sunday, January 20, 2008

On Any Sunday...

Well, it’s Sunday. Big Doin’s for NFL fans today and for masochists from all over the US, if not the world, who will tune into the NFC game just to watch people suffer. In a good way, of course. Hell, I might even watch. I watch the playoffs in nearly every other sport, but rarely pro-football. That might change today. There’s sure to be lotsa crowd shots of people in Green Bay whose sensibilities and/or sanity I question. Am I being redundant by sayin’ that? I mean…you have to be jes a lil bit “off” to live in that part of the world, dontcha?

―:☺:―

Before I move on to (arguably) “bigger and better” things…there’s this… Best comment on a blog I read yesterday:

· Comment by happyfeet on 1/19 @ 7:06 pm #
Is that different from muesli? I like muesli. Kashi is kind of like muesli plus you get interracial lesbians. Yay!

Yes, it really is a comment. There’s a link hiding up there.

―:☺:―

So, it’s Sunday. And once upon a time, in another world, another time, another season, and another life, I would be doing this:

The pic is of YrHmblScrb and several dedicated competitors on the starting line somewhere in the wilds of Hokkaido, sometime in the summer of 1969 or perhaps 1970. The time period is before motocross caught on as a Big Time Sport in the US, and is exactly the point in time when the Nipponese fielded their very first purpose-built MX bikes. Up until about 1971 (or so) if you wanted a competitive MXer you didn’t buy a Yamaha, a Honda, or a Suzuki…you bought a CZ, a Maico, a Husky, or maybe a Bultaco. European, in other words. Or…you could do as most of us did (at least those of us who raced in Japan), you bought a stock dual-purpose bike, tore it down, and rebuilt it with factory “race kits” and after-market items. Like my friends and I did with Yamaha’s immortal DT-1, an example of which I’m sitting astride in this starting line shot.

Motocross in Japan was interesting, to say the very least. Especially in Hokkaido, where the races were generally held on ski slopes, which made for fine MX tracks… what with the changes in elevation, off-camber corners, and relatively wide open straights. That was just the physical aspect of the racing… there were also cultural differences which made for some “interesting” times, not to mention great good learning experiences. And lots of drunken evenings with the local club(s) after practice on Saturday. First and foremost, though: the Nipponese were fierce competitors, and they were competitors with a great sense of honor. There was very little, if any, “dirty” racing; we were all in it for the fun of it. The “fun of it” is pretty much the way amateur racing is anyway, no matter where you go. 

Lotsa fun. And lots of memories, too many of which have faded away, unfortunately. One memory that sticks in my mind, though, is of the evening my friends and I were at the public bath in some small Japanese town after either a hard day of racing or a hard day of practice before the race. Japanese public baths are segregated by gender, with the larger baths having separate facilities for men and women. The smaller baths, however, usually only had a partition (think: movable wall) that separated the men’s and women’s areas in the large soaking bath. And that partition was less than effective. If one really wanted to look into “the other side” from your side… well, it wasn’t hard to do. 

So… there we were… several of us Yankee GI bike racers, soaking in the bath, and there she was… on the other side of the partition, doing the same thing, yet coyly coming into our view every so often. And she was pretty well-built for a Japanese woman, who are generally not known for being… um… well endowed. One could NOT help but notice, and we were certain she was noticing us, as well. But nothing was revealed, really… until one of us, and I really, truly, do not remember who… stood up and gave the lady a lil show of sorts. And she reciprocated, knocking us back on our collective asses, figuratively speaking. It wasn’t blatantly erotic or meant as a come-on, or anything else in that space…just an unobstructed 360-degree view of the “goods,” so to speak, and such very fine goods they were, too. And just as quickly as it began, it was over. She exited the bath with her towel wrapped around her and a big smile on her face. Made our day, she did.  (I’ve told this story elsewhere on the blog, but damned if I can find it…and I looked, too.)

So, anyway. I continued my racing career for a brief time after returning to the US (to Boron Air Force Station, a great assignment for a dirt biker!) and here’s a shot of YrHmblScrb after a Hare and Hounds somewhere in the great Mojave desert. The pic was snapped immediately after I pulled into the pits, and I’m exhausted… which is fairly plain to see. 

My racing days came to an end when I (a) got assigned to Turkey for a year and (b) got old and slow. MX is essentially a young man’s game, although there are classes for “Over 40” and “Seniors” and the like. But that ain’t me. It was a LOT of fun at the time… but times change.

By the way… that woman with the captivating smile behind me in the mud picture? That’s The First Mrs. Pennington. Lovely, isn’t she?

Ah, Former Happy Days.  We had 'em.

Ch-Ch-Changes

So... Skip and YrHmblScrb had this lil exchange in comments yesterday:

(not necessarily your) Uncle Skip, 11 September, 2014 17:41
Uh, Buck, if being married to a Michigander counts, I have more time in grade than you.
Oh, and she lived withing spittin' distance of Woodward Ave.

Buck 11 September, 2014 19:58
I lived about ten houses west of Woodward (or about three-fourths of a block) while I was in Dee-troit. I couldn't spit that far, but I sure could run it without getting out of breath. Then. (Google 351 West Oakridge Ave, Ferndale)

Bein' the anal-retentive kinda guy we ARE, we immediately went to Google Maps to verify what we said was true concerning our old physical location vis-a-vis Woodward and we received a minor shock in so doing.  This is how I remember the ol' Ferndale homestead:

That pic was taken sometime in the early '90s and note the two large trees in the foreground.  There was another, equally large tree to the immediate left of the two-trunked tree on the left hand side of the pic.  Those were big-assed trees, Gentle Reader, at least 40 to 50 feet worth o' tree, and they towered over the house.  And here's how Google's Street View depicts the house in 2012:

There's significant lens distortion here, given my house was about the same size as the one to the right (in the pic).

Those big-ass trees?  Gone!  The "new" owners of the ol' homestead dropped a significant amount of cash to have the trees removed, if one can believe the cost estimates at this tree service's web site.  I know change happens, it's the way o' the world.  But I don't think this change improved the "curb appeal" of this house... as a s'matter o' fact I think it hurt.  But, Hey!  I can take my opinion, add about three Yankee Dollars to it and buy a cup o' coffee at nearly any Starbucks.

Update, later that same day:  We did it again, just (a) for drill and (b) because we CAN.  Here's a "then and now" of yet another old homestead, this bein' the house I owned in Fairport, NY, a suburb o' Ra-Cha-Cha.  First the near-now:

And the way we were:

I don't have a summer shot of the house, unfortunately, but I think the new owners here have increased the curb appeal significantly.  The ol' place looks a lot better now than it did when I was in it.  

I don't have very many happy memories about this place.  There are a few, granted.  The four years I spent here weren't all THAT bad, especially if one discounts the worst singular experience of my entire life that played out (in slow motion) within the walls of this house.  Forgetting that might be asking too much.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: Dee-troit!

This is the first and prolly the last time I'll ever post a tune from Bob Seger.  Herewith "Detroit Made:"



I wanted to post the "official" video available at Vevo, but Blogger has issues with Vevo's embed code.  About which, this:

Above, watch the music video for the record's lead single, "Detroit Made," a John Hiatt-penned tribute to the singer's hometown and the cars that it has produced. Shot largely at Detroit's Woodward Dream Cruise, a hot rod parade that passes through the city on the third Saturday of every August, the video features footage of classic rides owned by other Michigan natives.

The offical vid is cooler than cool and I hope you chase that link.  Just a couple o' things... the first bein' any and every time someone/anyone mentions the Dream Cruise I can't help but tell those someones/anyones that I drove my ol' Caddy* in the first-ever Woodward Dream Cruise, and what a fan-fuckin'-tastic THAT day was.  Second: why no Seger here at EIP?  You go live in Dee-troit for ten years and then come back and ask the question again.  I'm the victim of severe Seger burnout due to MASSIVE over-playing of his songs.

* The Cad:

I loved that car even though it was a serious money-sink.  I had other reasons to love that car, aside from it bein' our ride in the Woodward Dream Cruise.  From an old post:

T (he)S (econd)M (rs.)P (ennington) christened the car “The Smokin’, Drinkin’, Partyin’ Car” and she most certainly was that. The best story about that car can only be told in “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” terms and involved TSMP and I splitting the upholstery in the Caddy’s back seat. Or, to put it another way…we were exuberant and the upholstery was old. In our garage. On a Saturday afternoon. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.  (more on the car here)

Ah, Former Happy Days.  We remember them fondly.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack, or, Where's My Flying Car?

One half of Steely Dan with the quirky I.G.Y...

Standing tough under stars and stripes
We can tell
This dream's in sight
You've got to admit it
At this point in time that it's clear
The future looks bright
On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well by seventy-six we'll be A.O.K.
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free 
(full lyrics here)

I was a big, big Steely Dan fan in the wayback, so it was only natural that I'd buy Mr. Fagen's first solo effort and I was NOT disappointed.  I love this album; it's very much like the Steely Dan albums that preceded it before Mr. Fagen and Mr. Becker decided to go their separate ways.  Which is to say a jazzy, upbeat collection of tunes with interesting lyrics, wonderful (and catchy) music with lots o' hooks, and spectacular production values.  What's not to like?

It's a mystery to me as to why I never bought another of Fagen's albums (and none of Becker's), given I like the guy(s) so much.  That said, "The Nightfly" is one of the better efforts to come out of the '80s, an era not particularly known for great, or even good, music.  Here's an excerpt from that last link:

The Nightfly was certified Platinum in both the US and UK, and produced two popular hits with "I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)" and "New Frontier". It also received several 1983 Grammy Award nominations. This relatively low-key but long-lived popularity led the Wall Street Journal in 2007 to dub the album "one of pop music's sneakiest masterpieces."^[2]

Sneaky? That's an interesting term to describe what's clearly a masterpiece.  But, Hey!  There's prolly no finer endorsement than that given by the Journal.

Totally.

I dunno about a failure to recognize emotions, but I DO know people spend waaay too damned much time looking at their phones.  That would be ALL people, not just the young.

In other news... today is one of those dates that I'll never, ever forget.  It was 51 years ago today that I raised my right hand and solemnly swore "that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...", amongst other things.  Today was also the day I took my first ride in a jet, flying in a 707 from El-Eh to San Antonio.  To say what happened on this date was a life changing event is a massive understatement; things were never the same after this day.  Totally.

Sometimes It Bees That Way

The post title is a quote from a former co-worker and friend whom I respected.  Whenever this woman encountered an unpleasant situation or something that was beyond her control the lady would shrug her shoulders, smile, and say "sometimes it bees that way."  I found myself sayin' that a lot yesterday. 

Explanations are in order.  These photos will help:

My Buddy John, standing in the kitchen of my house in Rochester, NY.  New Years Eve, 1998 - 99.

Close-up of the fridge behind John.  The arrow is pointing to "8-19."

Yesterday was an anniversary of sorts, a black-letter day, in that it was 16 years ago to the day that The Second Mrs. Pennington walked out the door, changing my life and the way I use personal pronouns forever.  "We," "us," and "ours" became "me," "I," and "mine."  That was the least of the changes, to put it mildly.  But let's not go there.

Back to yesterday.  I don't usually remember "8/19" and the date is not a day I would celebrate (heh) even if I did.  I stumbled upon the pic you see above quite by accident yesterday morning while searching the archives for something entirely different.  It's said you "can't un-see something once it's been seen" and that was the case with this pic.  Brain cells were jogged, synapses fired and linked, very unpleasant scenes from the past began a gory B-movie re-run, and I've seen THAT gotdamned movie too many times.  To quote Dylan: "I know every scene by heart."  My day was pretty much toast right then and there but we continued to continue, having little or no choice in the matter.

And then... in the afternoon we got an e-mail from TSMP and had a short call-and-response conversation on a health insurance issue with SN3.  I rarely hear from the woman... maybe once or twice a year, on average... and yesterday was most definitely NOT the day for her to barge into my life unannounced.  Another log on the fire, which went from a few stray flames to something pretty toasty.  And so we continued to continue, with an extra-long outdoor After Dinner Whiskey Hour while listening to NPR (in lieu of any sort of music that would make things worse).  Not a bad evening, all told.

―:☺:―

There's one skill in life I haven't learned and that skill is the ability to let bygones be bygones.  The Deity At Hand knows I've tried in many, many ways... none of which seem to work... and we won't go further than that.  The bottom line?  Yesterday was not my day.

Ah, well.  Sometimes it bees that way.

My Muse Decamped. Again.

So, what do we do when our muse leaves us for parts unknown?  We post a re-run, that's what we do.  Like this:

Thursday, January 24, 2008

A Couple of Milestones...Plus Ruminations on the Past

It’s the eclecticism… Or, yet another reason I listen to RP almost exclusively these days. From RP’s play list this morning:

8:21 am - Frank Sinatra - The Coffee Song
8:19 am - Bottle Rockets - Coffee Monkey
8:14 am - Dire Straits - Expresso Love

 

“Coffee Monkey” kicked off just as I was draining my first cup; I come back to the desk with my second cup and Sinatra’s on. Oh, Yeah! I just don’t have this sort of wide variety in my music collection. Bill and Rebecca do. And they use it, too.

 

―:☺:―

 

A couple of milestones passed me by this week…milestones that should be noted.

 

First: to use the military vernacular, SN2 is working for half-pay as of this past Friday, the 18^th of January. That means he has over 20 years of service now, for you non-military types. One is eligible to retire at 50% of base pay at 20 years, ergo: working for half-pay. He won’t retire anytime soon, though. But with the passing of this milestone, planning for his post-military life has begun. Transitions, and all that. Not to mention the fact I’m feeling pretty old, yet again. To think I have offspring that could retire…Aiiieee!

 

Second: Yesterday marked the passing of one full year since I lit my last cigarette. I still miss ‘em, too. Badly. But I ain’t going back…

 

―:☺:―

 

Long-time readers of EIP know there’s a guy by the name of Dan who hangs around EIP and comments occasionally. Dan and I go back nearly 40 years and he is my oldest friend (speaking of the duration of the relationship and not his age…although he can qualify in that space, too). We met at Wakkanai AS, Japan in 1968 or 1969 and we were both in the same racket, job-wise…which is to say we were both 303X2s, the USAF job code for aircraft control and warning radar technicians. We were also drafted by the Air Force for a “special duty identifier” job that took us out of Air Defense Command’s radar business and into USAFSS’ spook biz, beginning in Wakkanai and leading a couple of years later to Sinop, Turkey. Dan and I worked together, drank together, rode motorcycles together, and raced ‘em all over Hokkaido, too. Here’s a pic of Dan sitting along side of a road somewhere near Wakkanai at some unknown time in ‘69, framed by his Yamaha DT-1 (on the left) and mine… on the right. 

 

 

Dan and I both loved Wakkanai for a number of reasons, not the least of which was, in retrospect, the nature of the job we did. And the bike racing and associated carousing, of course. We both managed to wrangle second tours at Wakkanai after we rotated back to the US in 1970, and we returned to Wakkanai in 1971. Alas, the Air Force had other plans for Wakkanai and for us. In a strange turn of events, USAF announced Wakkanai would be closing shortly after Dan and I returned there in late 1971. The unusually rapid base closure (lights out by the end of 1972, as it were) meant all personnel would be re-assigned to other bases, and Security Service flew in a team of personnel specialists in to handle the short-notice re-assignment process. Dan and I got the short, dirty end of the re-assignment stick. We had two choices: take an assignment to Sinop, Turkey and remain in USAFSS, or turn down Sinop and “get released to Air Force.” While Sinop wasn’t exactly a garden spot assignment, the possible alternatives that came with being released to Air Force for world-wide assignment were decidedly worse. Much worse…like Alaska. So, we opted for Sinop…returning to the US for a short leave before heading off to Turkey for a one-year remote tour in Beautiful Sinop by the Sea.

 

After our leaves were up Dan and I met in New York and caught Pan Am’s legendary Flight 002 for Istanbul…with an interim stop in Frankfurt. Dan is pictured below in a shot taken during the short layover in Frankfurt. 

 

 

After Istanbul we caught a THY Fokker to Samsun, Turkey, and then lucked out and caught the Army’s twin-engined Cessna mail plane to Sinop. I say “lucked out,” because the alternative to the 30-minute mail plane flight was a four-hour bus ride over the tortuous and quite scary mountain road between Samsun and Sinop. Dan and I would make that bus trip a couple of times later on during our tour, but that’s quite another story… and one that won’t be told outside of the bar and amongst good friends. To protect the innocent, of course. Not to mention the guilty…

 

So. There we were…on the beautiful Turkish Black Sea coast for one long, long year. This is the view of the town of Sinop from The Hill, as the base was known.

 

 

The base at Sinop was officially named “Sinop Common Defense Installation (CDI),” which was a euphemism meant to imply the American and Turkish armed forces operated the installation jointly. Which was sorta true, as we had a small Turkish Army garrison collocated with us, but the Turks were separated from the “US side” by high chain link fences, topped with barbed wire. NO ONE got into the US operations compound without some serious security clearances…period. The things we did in there were among the most sensitive of all US intelligence activities at the time. The base itself was run by the US Army Security Agency (ASA) and was otherwise known as TUSLOG Detachment 4. The Air Force was a tenant unit on the base, and had the dual designations of TUSLOG Det. 204 and 6934^th Security Squadron…but you never saw the 6934^th designation… anywhere… even on base at Sinop. But…that was work. Let’s not go there. Here’s a pic of a small portion of the antenna farm at Sinop, taken near the USAF barracks. That water-tower looking thing is actually a large electronically-scanned antenna array, and was part of the system Dan and I worked on.

 

 

And speaking of the barracks…this was our home away from home…

 

 

And this is the dorm room Dan and I shared…

 

 

So. Our year at Sinop passed rather uneventfully and oh-so-slowly, it seemed…at the time. Now that I’m gifted with hindsight, it was over in the blink of an eye. Dan I went to work, drank a bit lot more than we probably should have, went exploring in the town of Sinop…which has some remarkable ancient ruins and an even more remarkable history. We both hired on to the local closed circuit radio station as volunteers and hosted a late nite rock ‘n’ roll show interlaced with snappy patter and the like. We spent lazy weekend days during the summer on our very own (Army-run) private beach, drinking beer and lusting after what few American women there were in the area. We went down to the Yeni Hotel on the weekends and drank lousy Carlsberg beer while watching European tourists get off the White Boat and walk around Sinop for an hour or two before continuing on their cruise of the Black Sea. And we took that bus ride to Samsun a couple of times for wild nights of raki-fueled debauchery. To quote Dickens: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” In spades, Gentle Reader, in spades. I may have had better years in my life, but danged few…and none come to my mind at the moment. Such is the nature of nostalgia, eh?

 

To close…Here’s another good Sinop-related site…best I’ve found, actually… that focuses on the military (albeit Army) side of Sinop. The owner of this site preceded Dan and I by about a year and has written a detailed narrative about life “on The Hill” supplemented with lotsa good pictures.

Just to update this post... SN1 is also working for half-pay these days, which means BOTH sons could retire if they had a mind to do so.  I don't think that will happen anytime soon, though.  A further update: I'm still off the ciggies (seven and a half years now) as well, and won't ever go back.