Take Your Dog Flying!

Lex posted this last Friday...when I was hors de combat. And I've demonstrated in the past that I am not above piling on, especially when something makes me laugh. As does this:



Some will say "poor dog." I couldn't say anything for at least five minutes after seeing this for the first time and then replaying it four or six times. I was gasping for breath from laughing so hard. YMMV, Gentle Reader.

Just don't shoot the messenger, mmm-kay?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

It’s St. Paddy’s Day, innit? So…In honor of all the Irish and Irish Wanna-Bees…

Wow. That’s BAD. I apologize, Mick. I didn’t mean it. “The luck o’ the Irish,” indeed.

―:☺:―

Aging USAF airframes… I read this lil blurb in the Air Force Association’s Daily Brief this morning:

A Kennedy-era RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic surveillance aircraft surpassed 50,000 flight hours during a mission March 12 in Southwest Asia supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. The aircraft, which has been in service since 1962 and flown tours in far-flung places ranging from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, is the first Rivet Joint and the first of any C-135 airframe, in general, to reach this milestone.

I’ll do the math for ya, Gentle Reader. 50,000 hours is 2083 days, or 69.45 months, or 5.71 years. In the air. I’ll leave it for someone else to count all the maintenance hours required to keep this geriatric airframe in service. But just as a rule of thumb, it takes anywhere from five to 15 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight. And that’s not counting trips to the depot.

There’s more on your aging Air Force here. Here’s a sample, using the RC-135 as an example:

To help put this aging airframe issue in perspective, we recently matched the various dates when aircraft from the Air Force fleet officially entered service (Initial Operating Capability) with the events that were occurring during those same respective years. On a first glance this comparison is amusing. However, upon a second look it is clear that we face a very serious situation and must do everything possible to address this critical issue.

[…]

1973—RC-135 Rivet Joint

· The tiny 1973 Honda Civic debuts with the slogan: “It will get you where you’re going.”

· A ceasefire is signed, ending involvement of American ground troops in the Vietnam War.

· Chile's Marxist president, Salvadore Allende, is overthrown and Gen. Augusto Pinochet takes power.

· Fourth and largest Arab-Israeli conflict begins when Egyptian and Syrian forces attack Israel.

· Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries hikes oil prices tremendously in retaliation for Western countries' involvement in Yom Kippur War.

· President Nixon, on national TV, accepts responsibility, but not blame, for Watergate.

· Spiro T. Agnew resigns as Vice President and then pleads no contest to charges of evasion of income taxes while Governor of Maryland.

· US Supreme Court rules on Roe v. Wade.

· American Graffiti, The Exorcist, The Sting dominate at the box office.

· Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is designed and in 1983 it becomes the standard for communicating between computers over the Internet.

· Skylab, the first American space station, is launched.

A lot of you hadn’t even been born yet. There's more at the link.

―:☺:―

I’m almost caught up on my Daily Reads. Almost, but not quite. It’s a great good thing I decided (?) to get sick over a weekend, because a lot of my Daily Reads post ever so lightly on Saturdays and Sundays. And I'm thankful for those posting habits, given the circumstances.

Things are better today in the body department. I was able to hold down real food yesterday for the first time since Thursday…and let me tell ya: living on bland food just ain’t any fun at all, Gentle Reader. We needs us our salsa! And LOTS of it, too… Maybe today. Or maybe I’ll decide to do corned beef and cabbage this evening, with the usual, customary, and reasonable horseradish (the real stuff. Not that "creamed" krep)... and lots of that, too. Or not.

Perhaps we shouldn’t tempt fate, eh?

One Sick Puppy

That would be me of late.

I’ve been dealing with some sort of stomach bug and/or intestinal flu since late, late last Thursday night (very early Friday morning would be more accurate). Said bug has made it very difficult for me to remain vertical for very long without running for The Little Room. So… inter-tubes surfing and reading have been severely curtailed as a result. Things are looking a lil bit better today, so I hope to resume my regular schedule tomorrow.

I’m putting this up because I’ve received a couple of off-line inquiries from folks who know my posting habits, i.e., long-time readers. Thanks for your concern, and I appreciate it more than you know!

Appalling

OK, I hadn’t hit the news sites when I put up today’s first post. I’ve started reading and I’m simply appalled at this:

My God. I’ve not seen a rant like this, ever. There's more, as well. And Obama is still a member of this congregation? Really? I need to hear WHY. I need to know if Obama agrees with this rant, or not. If this is the man who's giving Senator Obama "spiritual guidance," who married him and his wife, who baptized his children...then we're in so deep we'll NEVER find "up," let alone dig our way out. Even some of the usual suspects and screechers on the Left are shocked, and I quote:

Okay, I don't know how much more any of us can take of the ongoing national nervous breakdown. Paxil anyone? Who Is the Most Oppressed of All? The Black Man or the White Woman? Perhaps there's something from the Hillary camp on par with this video now making the rounds, but this sermon by Senator Obama's Pastor Jeremiah Wright pretty well sums it up. And now I'm going to go to bed and pull the covers over my head.

Somebody please wake me after President McCain's inauguration.

I think the Reverend Wright needs to revisit this speech again. Several times, in fact.

Racism is an ugly thing. And it’s a two-way street, too.

Two Things and a Re-run

Revisiting yesterday’s post…briefly: Happy Birthday, Laurie! Signed: Yours, The Doofus who doesn’t know what day it is, and quite often, at that.

―:☺:―

So. Spitzer resigns. As if we didn’t see that coming, eh? I watched a snippet or two of his resignation press conference, complete with the usual, customary, and (UN)reasonable Stoic, Silently-Suffering-Yet-Dignified wife at his side. And you know what? Just once in my life I’d love to see the klieg lights come on, the cameras begin to roll, the flash attachments fire off by the hundreds…and then watch said Silently Suffering Yet Dignified Spouse scream “You SON OF A BITCH!!” and slap the living shit out of that guy.

Please, God. Just once.

It’s the right thing to do.

―:☺:―

Two items ain’t much for a post, but it’s all I have the will motivation for today. So…like what some of The Cool Kidz have done recently, I’m gonna give you a re-run. And we’re not even close to summer yet.

I apologize, Gentle Reader. You’re free to go read new and different stuff, but should you choose to stay I think you might enjoy this. OTOH, you might not. Your call. Here’s my Greatest Hit, reprised.

―:☺:―

Greatest Hit

(originally posted in January, 2006)

(click for larger)

It was a little over six years ago, November of 1999, to be exact, that I first dipped my toe into the retirement waters. I took early retirement from the company I'd spent 14 years with, bought a brand-new motorhome and a brand-new motorcycle to go with it, sold everything that wouldn't fit in the RV, loaded up the remainder of my possessions, and hit the road. I left Rochester, NY for points unknown and with adventure in mind. The extended road-trip lasted until July of 2000 (not even a complete year) before I went back to work. In the interim, I traveled from coast to coast and border to border, managing to find a little adventure in the process.

I maintained a journal of my travels during this period of time and shared parts of the journal with friends via an e-mail newsletter I called "The Trailer Trash Report." What follows is a rather longish piece on motorcycling that was originally an installment of the TTR. This piece got the greatest positive reaction from readers of the Trailer Trash Report, so I thought I'd share it with both of my "new" readers. Here it is, in its unedited entirety.

June 5, 2000

This week's Trailer Trash Report is all about motorcycling and moderately anti-social behavior on the back roads of Oregon's wine country. I've had a life-long, on and off love affair with motorcycles. I began at age 19, with a Triumph 500cc twin road bike. From there I went to off-road riding and racing, owning a succession of Yamaha 250cc enduros and motocrossers. Somewhere during the early '70s I bought my first sport bike, a 350cc Yamaha two-stroke twin. This was when I found my niche, and between 1975 and 1985 I owned about three RD-350s (I bought 'em used and fixed 'em up), a 1977 RD-400 (which is still in the family; my son Sam is restoring it), an RD-350LC, and a Suzuki GS-750 (an aberration, but a nice one). I rode fast two-lanes all over the West Coast, Japan, and the UK, but I hung my helmet up in 1987 after surviving a pretty bad accident. My bike was totaled in that accident, and I suffered two compression-fractured vertebrae...that hurt...for quite a while!! I decided biking's risk/reward ratio leaned decidedly toward the risk side of the equation, so I gave the things up for quite a while. Until this past year.

Bikes get in your blood. Every spring after I quit riding I'd see guys out for that first ride, and I'd be envious. I'd go into bike shops, look at the new models and think "Yeah, they're good looking, but...too much money, not enough time to ride...and I'm getting too old for this stuff, anyway..." Truth be: I missed it. A lot. So, when I decided to run away from home, I also decided to get back on a bike. This time I opted for a 225cc dual-purpose bike, something I could putz around town on and go trail riding on when the opportunity presented itself. My bike is small, light weight and does all of 80 mph, flat out. I decided against getting back into sport bikes because they're simply too advanced now days. Your typical 600cc sport bike will do nearly 150 mph, box-stock, right off the show room floor. Liter bikes (1000cc) are capable of 180 mph today. Too fast for an old man! Which brings us to today's tale...

In my last report, I told you my buddy Lee has three sport bikes: two of which are an RZ-350 two-stroke twin and a 400cc sporter. Saturday Lee, another friend named Dave, and I went for an all-day ride in Oregon's wine country around McMinnville. Dave rides a Harley Sportster, and Sportys are cruising bikes, not back road burners. I rode Lee's RZ, and Lee was on the 400. We took it easy on those nice two lane roads with the good twisty bits, and it was a safe and sane day. I don't think we broke 80 mph once. We stopped often to admire the scenery, had lunch in a nice pub, and took another break for a pint in the Oregon Hotel in McMinnville, which is The Official Location of America's First UFO Sighting, which is celebrating it's 50th anniversary this year, by the way. All in all, it was a good day out.

Now Lee has another friend, Steve Clark, who is a road racer with a garage FULL of bikes; I think I counted 12 of the things in various states of running order. Steve is in his mid-40s, has been riding all his life, and races 600cc modified production class on a VERY highly tuned Yamaha four. This bike puts out 89 rear-wheel horsepower, which moves that 425 pound bike (wet...with fuel) down the road at a damned fast clip. The bike's top speed is in the 150 mph neighborhood, or slightly above. Steve also has a lightly modified Honda CBR 900RR, which puts out 130 hp and weighs a bit over 440 pounds, wet. It's blindingly fast, and so quick it'll make your ears bleed. "I have s***-box cars," sez Steve, "but nice bikes!" He is absolutely right about the bikes. Lee, Steve and I went for a ride Sunday afternoon, and I'll not soon forget it.

We rode Steve's favorite road today... a road that leads out of Albany through farm land and up into the mountains...headed west toward the coast. The road is posted at 55 mph, and the State of Oregon was kind enough to post "suggested speeds" (warnings) at each corner, which range from 10 mph hairpins up to 45 mph sweepers and all points in between. The warning signs do double-duty as brake markers, of sorts. You hold your entrance speed constant and really hit the binders about 100 feet beyond the sign, downshift, snap the bike over on its side, hold the power steady for a moment then roll on the throttle, spinning it around 10,500 rpm while accelerating out of the turn...but, I'm getting ahead of myself, AGAIN! Back to the road...it begins in farmland, with wide sight lines down the road and from side to side. The road gradually increases in elevation, with gentle up and down hill sections that are increasingly wooded. The road tightens up a bit as you go higher, and the turns are a little tighter. The air gets cooler the higher you go. The day is bright, cloudless and about 80 degrees in the valley. This is a good time and place!

Every sport biker has his favorite road, usually very lightly traveled, well maintained, with good visibility and lots of twists and turns...from very tight turns to fast sweepers. The road is the challenge: you try to master it, find "the line" through all the corners (the line can change, but that's another story), and ride it as quickly and skillfully as you possibly can. You score extra points for form. When you're "on," when you put it all together, when you get it absolutely right, it's a glorious feeling that's nearly impossible to describe. It's exhilarating, and it can make you laugh right out loud in your helmet. You walk around for days with a goofy grin on your face after one of those rides where you get it right. Those rides don't happen that often, though. "Getting it right" means matching engine speed and road speed perfectly through the bends, holding the right lean angle, hitting the right brake points at the right times, clipping the apex of each curve perfectly, dialing in the right amount of throttle at the right time, and not missing a single shift, up or down, all while trying to stay out of jail and stay glued together the way you came out of the box, more or less. The activity demands total concentration...anything less than total concentration means a sloppy ride, at best. At worst, you could win a ride in a large Ford van owned by the Fire Department or someone like them.

We left Steve's place with Steve on the 900, Lee on the 600, and me on the baby bike...with the 14,000 rpm red line. Five minutes or so and we're out into the country, and Steve picks up the pace. We head into a series of right-left-right sweepers posted at 45 mph. I look down at my speedo going into the first turn and I'm doing 70. Steve and Lee are pulling away...quickly. I dial it up a bit and I'm doing 80 coming out of the last turn. Steve and Lee are dots down the road. The first twinge of fear hits...these guys are fast! I wind that little Yamaha out to it's red line in fourth, then fifth, and shift into sixth at 125, indicated. Those guys are still pulling away!! I have VERY brief thoughts about insanity, medical insurance, life insurance, and my kids...but hold it open. I keep it at 125 for what seems like a minute or so then throttle back, hit the brakes and downshift for the next corner, a 35 mph left hander. I'm feeling a little more confident at this point, so I lean a bit further, get a bit more aggressive with the throttle, and exit cleanly, pulling to red line once again through third, fourth and fifth. The bike is an absolute jewel above 10,000 rpm. Below that, there's next to no power at all, but in between 10K and 14K it goes pretty good for a 400. Up ahead I see Steve and Lee have slowed, waiting for me to catch up. I catch up and we repeat the process all over again for the next 20 minutes or so. They run away and hide, I get a bit quicker, they wait for me to catch up. I'm feeling better and better as every minute goes by. Finally, we go through a little town and stop on the outside of town for a break and a root beer. We bench race for about 20 minutes, and then we switch bikes and head out again.

This time I'm on the 600, Lee's on the 900, and Steve's on the 400. I understand IMMEDIATELY why Lee was pulling away so quickly. This 600 is a beast, a weapon. The power comes on around 7K and explodes to its 12K red line. Wheelies are no-brainers on this bike; it takes serious concentration to hold it on the ground through the first three gears. Steve is in the lead, and his road racing skills are such that he can stay comfortably ahead of Lee and I, even though we're on much more powerful bikes. This guy is amazing...smooth AND fast. We head back into the country, reversing our route back home. This time I'm more familiar with the road, but I'm on a bike with a steep learning curve. The bike is a pure racer with a tacked on license plate, and it's intimidating. I'm probably only using 50 percent of it's capabilities and it's awesome. Make that awe-inspiring. You don't want to screw up on this thing...you better know what you're doing. Five miles down the road and I think I have the brakes figured out. They're powerful and allow for serious late braking into turns. The throttle response isn't as easy to dial in as the brakes...the power is either on or off, with little or no ability to modulate the throttle. I'm riding pretty conservatively (it's not MY bike, after all), but I'm also riding a LOT faster than I was on the 400. I'm keeping Steve in sight, and we're losing Lee. I'm establishing a rhythm now, the road ahead is clear, and the bike is a willing and eager accomplice. The speed picks up, I look down and I'm doing 135 on the straight. OK...that's too fast...throttle back. A few minutes later I back it down to 75 or so for a moment or three and Lee catches up. He waves me over, asking if I want to trade bikes. I say "OK," we stop, swap mounts and head back out.

The 900 is a revelation. Where the 600 is brutal, abrupt and hard-edged, the 900 is smooth, comfortable and deceptively fast. It has gobs of torque and is incredibly quick...so much so it's scary. You twist that throttle and you ACCELERATE...no ifs ands or buts...pure, raw acceleration. Keep in mind, this bike puts out 130 hp at the rear wheel...and the bike and I together weigh only 575 pounds...or about one horsepower for every 4.5 pounds of mass to move. That sort of power-to-weight ratio is normally found in race cars, or sports cars costing six figures. It's more power than I can use, but DAMN did it feel good to let that sucker wail!!!

So anyway...we motored back on in to Albany. I explored the Honda's capabilities on the way back in, being respectful of its sheer presence. I'm not sure I'd want to own one of these things...nice place to visit, but ya wouldn't want to live there. It's an amazing piece of machinery, though. Quick, fast, light, comfortable, good looking, and, no...I'm not going to tell you how fast I went on that thing. I'm thoroughly impressed with how far the manufacturers have taken the product in the last ten years. It's been at least that long since the last time I rode sporting machines. Today's bikes perform as well as pure racers of comparable size did ten years ago. It's the motorized equivalent of the computer industry, I guess.

Safely back home after a great ride, and a good dinner (ribs and beer), I'm wondering how I can arrange frequent visits to my Buds and their impressive stable of sport bikes. I really, really, really like the company and the riding! This weekend was a tremendous amount of fun, but it taught me a bit, too. My personal state of tune isn't really high enough to be riding with these guys. It's been a long time since I was out carving up back country roads, and it was obvious I'd been away too long. You never really forget HOW to ride, but you need a lot of practice to keep the skills sharp, especially if you're going to ride at supra-legal speeds. I think I should probably stick to my little 225. Getting on my bike after riding the sport machines this weekend is...uh...boring. At least it's boring on the street. I just have to keep telling myself that 45 mph on a fire road or a logging trail is just as good or better than 135 on a sport bike, now, don't I? ;-)

So...it's Monday morning here in Oregon and I still have this goofy grin on my face...how was your weekend?

Well, you know I've moved back into sport bikes since I wrote this oh-so-long ago (in inter-tubes time), Gentle Reader. But I don't have any partners in crime (locally) with which to terrorize the locals. Or suitable roads, either, being as how roads here are arrow-straight and curves (heh) nearly non-existent. But that's quite another story.

Comings and Goings

Today Tomorrow is Blog-Buddy Laurie’s birthday. I know VERY few people who work as hard or are as dedicated to a cause, any cause…hers being Soldiers’ Angels… than Laurie. And she is a genuinely NICE person on top of all that. Laurie is one of my favorite people in the blogosphere, actually.

Happy Birthday, Girl! Now c’mere and pucker up. I’ve got a birthday kiss for ya.

(Yeah, it’s an old photo. You might could say it’s false advertising, in a way. But it IS me… albeit a younger, better looking me. Just accept it and don’t ask questions, mmm-kay? I don’t wanna scare the horses by posting a current pic.)

Note: Updated when I realized today is Wednesday...NOT Thursday. I'm such a maroon sometimes. But Hey! Now you have advance notice. No need to thank me.

―:☺:―

Two Visa tales… first, from Business Week (“Guess Who's Getting the Most Work Visas;Indian outsourcers top the list of companies bringing foreign workers to the U.S. on the H-1B program”):

The controversy over visas for high-skilled workers from abroad looks like it's about to get even hotter.

The program for what are known as H-1B visas was originally set up to allow companies in the U.S. to import the best and brightest in technology, engineering, and other fields when such workers are in short supply in America. But data just released by the federal government show that offshore outsourcing firms, particularly from India, dominate the list of companies awarded H-1B visas in 2007. Indian outsourcers accounted for nearly 80% of the visa petitions approved last year for the top 10 participants in the program. The new data are sure to fuel criticism of the visa program from detractors such as Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). "These numbers should send a red flag to every lawmaker that the H-1B visa program is not working as it was intended," said Grassley in an e-mail.

[…]

Critics such as Grassley and Durbin charge that the outsourcers are abusing the U.S. program. The work visas, they say, are supposed to be used to bolster the U.S. economy. The idea is that companies like Microsoft, Google, or IBM can use them to hire software programmers or computer scientists with rare skills, fostering innovation and improving competitiveness. Instead, critics say, companies such as Infosys and Wipro are undermining the American economy by wiping out jobs.

[…]

A clash is likely in the coming months. Durbin and Grassley are pushing for more restrictions in the program, even as tech companies are advocating for a sharp increase in the number of visas handed out each year. The senators want to tighten the program's criteria, by requiring participating companies to try to hire American workers first and to pledge that visa workers will not displace American workers. U.S. tech companies, meanwhile, want Congress to increase the visa cap from 65,000 a year to at least 115,000.

I agree with Senators Durbin and Grassley… it appears the Indian outsourcers are abusing the program. But I also agree with the corporate IT guys in that we—the US― need more H-1B visas, not less. Finding qualified American IT workers was pretty danged hard in my day, and I can only imagine the situation is worse these days and not better…given the growth in the IT industry. I had a bunch of database administrators (primarily Oracle DBAs) working for me in the last job I held. Out of the five DBAs on my team three were Indian, one was Russian, and only ONE was American. And these are six-figure jobs we’re on about, Gentle Reader. The financial incentives and rewards are substantial in the IT field, particularly for DBAs, so why don’t we have more native-grown talent in these areas? That remains a mystery to me…

But I know one answer to the immediate problem: there’s a wealth of foreign IT talent beating down our doors. It would be to our benefit to let a few more of ‘em in. It would also be to our benefit to encourage our young folks to take up studies in the technical fields. We can’t survive very long depending on others to carry our water for us.

Oh. I did say two visa articles, didn’t I? So, here’s the second, from Mark Steyn… writing in an article about the differences between the US and Canadian economies:

Fourth point: The Canadian economy is significantly more dirigiste (i.e., centrally planned). A couple of years ago it was revealed that the government had introduced a fast-track immigration program for exotic dancers (otherwise known as strippers). Now as a general rule, one of the easiest things to leave for the free market to determine is the number of strippers a society needs. But for some reason, the government concluded that the market wasn’t generating the supply required and introduced a special immigration visa. To go back to President Bush’s line, maybe this is one of those jobs that Canadians won’t do, so we need to get some Ukrainians in to do it. Naturally, the exotic dancers are unionized, so it’s only a matter of time before the last viable industry in Quebec grinds to a halt and American tourists in Montreal find themselves stuck in traffic because of huge numbers of striking strippers. What governmental mind would think of an exotic dancer immigration category?

Well, I only included Steyn for a laugh, but it is funny, indeed. On the one hand we have Indian outsourcers abusing the H-1B visa program coupled with a bona-fide lack of qualified technical folks…and on the other the Canadian gub’mint is welcoming strippers. How’s that for juxtaposition, Gentle Reader?

(h/t to Lin for the Steyn piece… there’s more and it’s good. Chase that link.)

―:☺:―

I need to bookmark this for future reference when I get down in the dumps after reading the rants and raves posted in the Lefty fever-swamps: “Poll: Most Americans Don’t Read Political Blogs.” Excerpts:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A majority of Americans do not read political blogs, the online commentaries that have proliferated in the race for the U.S. presidency, according to a poll released on Monday.

Only 22 percent of people responding to the poll said they read blogs regularly, meaning several times a month or more, according to the survey conducted by Harris Interactive.

[…]

While blogs are largely considered the realm of young people who are most Internet-savvy, only 19 percent of people ages 18 to 31, and 17 percent of those ages 32 to 43, regularly read a political blog, the poll said.

The generation most likely to read such blogs are those age 63 or older, 26 percent of whom said they do so. Also, 23 percent of those ages 44 to 62 read them, the poll said.

Most of this ain’t news. The part that got me was the “63 or older” demographic being the ones “most likely to read,” and that was something of a surprise. Most people (of all ages) respond with a “hunh?” and the most exquisite of dumb looks when I tell ‘em I blog… usually in response to the UCR question “What do you do to keep busy now that you’re retired?” It’s interesting… the stuff one takes for granted, only to find out most other people don’t give a big rodent’s hind-quarters.

―:☺:―

A funny from My Buddy Ed in Florida… I’ve seen this one before in a different iteration, but this version has a couple of new-to-me twists.

MENTAL HOSPITAL PHONE MENU:

Hello and thank you for calling The State Mental Hospital.
Please select from the following options menu:

If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.

If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5 and 6.

If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want, stay on the line so we can trace your call.

If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be forwarded to the Mother Ship.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press, nothing will make you happy anyway.

If you are dyslexic, press 9696969696969696.

If you are bipolar, please leave a message after the beep or before the beep or after the beep. Please wait for the beep.

If you have short- term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9.

If you have low self-esteem, please hang up our operators are too busy to talk with you.

If you are menopausal, put the gun down, hang up, turn on the fan, lie down and cry. You won't be crazy forever.

If you are blonde, don't press any buttons, you'll just mess it up.

This coming week is National Mental Health Care week.

You can do your part by remembering to contact at least one unstable person to show you care.

Well, my job is done…Your turn

I kept pressing “nine” and nothing happened…

Sex and Cadillacs. Not Necessarily in That Order.

In my “Wheels” post the other day I put in a link to Hemmings, publishers of Hemmings Motor News and other fine automotive publications. It was only yesterday that I spent considerable time on their site, and was pleased to find Hemmings also has a blog. I was further pleased to find a photographic essay about the General Motors Heritage Center on said blog, with an initial installment of 26 photos taken during “a visit to the GM Heritage Center, part 1.” What makes the photo essay special is the fact GM’s Heritage Center is not a museum and it is not open to the public. So the things you see on the blog cannot be seen by just anyone, anywhere. Sorta like another GM archive…the Cadillac Museum.

A little-known jewel of automotive history exists in Warren, Mich., not far from the General Motors Tech Center. This jewel consists of a collection of historic Cadillacs maintained by Cadillac Historical Services and overseen by Greg Wallace.

A descendent of the Cadillac Museum which used to be housed in the Cadillac plant complex on Clark Ave. in Detroit, the collection is open only by appointment or special request. Not as easy to find as the Clark Ave. factory once was, it is well worth the effort.

I toured the original Cadillac museum at the Clark Avenue complex shortly before the manufacturing facility was completely vacated in the mid-90s (all that was left were admin types, security guards, and a caretaker staff). Clark Avenue used to be Cadillac’s one and only assembly plant, beginning sometime in the early 1920s and running until the mid-1990s. My buddy Greg was an engineer with Cadillac at the time, working on the famous Northstar motor. (Aside: Greg holds several patents on the supercharged Northstar found in the Cadillac STS-V, specifically its induction system. I wrote about it here.)

As a member of Cadillac’s engineering division (before the many, many restructurings at GM), Greg knew the Clark Avenue complex was scheduled for demolition and was worried about the fate of the Cadillac Museum. And he also extended an invitation to me to go visit…which I snapped up post-haste. As with the current Cadillac Museum, the Clark Avenue museum was available “by appointment only,” and Greg had greased it superbly. Our guided tour was conducted… for about the first 15 minutes… by an elderly retired Cadillac engineer who was a “principal” at the museum. After the initial 15 minutes had passed the elderly gent made his apologies and said he was required elsewhere, but we were free to wander about the premises on our own. And so we did, for hours.

After we’d lingered over, around, and through the various displays, Greg took me to the now-empty production facility where literally thousands upon thousands of Cadillacs… including the one I owned… had been built over the years. It was an eerie experience, to say the very least. There was only silence… dead quiet… where hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women had formerly toiled in a maelstrom of activity and deafening noise. All the great stamping presses, the overhead tracks, the assembly stations… gone. Nothing remained but a vast empty space, the emptiness broken only by massive concrete and steel pillars every 20 feet or so and shafts of pale, diffused light coming through high windows streaked with years and years of accumulated industrial grime. The facility was so large, the space so grand in scale, that the experience reminded me of being in a cathedral, and it was… sorta. An industrial cathedral built by and run by men who designed and assembled fabulous motor cars for the men and women who built America. That was another age and another time. The Clark Avenue plant is nothing more than a memory these days.

Finally… There are some fine photos at the GM Heritage Center link…assuming you’re into cars, Gentle Reader. If you’re not…don’t bother.

―:☺:―

In other news…some big Democrat politician got busted for whoring around. Or so I heard. You can’t get away from it, actually.

Sad. On many, many levels.

Off to a Bad Start...

Well. First… I hate intensely dislike the time change. The “Spring Forward” bits, anyway. While it’s not as bad these days as it used to be, i.e., when I was gainfully employed, it’s bad enough. My whole routine has been thrown into a cocked hat, which includes sleeping in until nearly noon this morning. OK… until 1100 hrs, to be precise. That’s still too long to be abed, even considering the time change.

Second… No internet connection today. The first thing I did after firing up the coffee and booting up the PeeSee was to call Yucca Telecom, and this was shortly after 1100…say 1110, or so. The receptionist at Yucca tells me all the maintenance guys are unavailable and would I like to leave them a voice mail? Well, no. No, I wouldn’t “like” to leave ‘em a voice mail… I want my frickin’ internet! But I did leave that VM. No “maintenance guys available” might be a good sign, in that all of ‘em could be out working on the problem and I’ll be restored soon. OTOH, it just might mean they’re oblivious to the problem and just left for lunch a lil bit early. It’s been 45 minutes and no one has returned my call. I plan on calling them every hour, on the hour, until I’m restored or get a plausible status report.

Fiber connections are very reliable…unless and until some idjit with a backhoe interrupts service. My darkest fear is this is what’s happened… we have a cable cut somewhere. And that could mean I’ll be belly-up as far as the ‘net goes for most of the day, or longer.

I hate it when this happens…

Update… My network connection was restored at 1225 hrs, but still no call-back from Yucca. The issue was no IP address (system error logs are wonderful things…), which has been fixed. I suspect Yucca was having “issues” with its DHCP server… but I really dunno. Gonna post this and get back later, after making my rounds and seeing what’s going on in the world.

―:☺:―

Via Chap… an SR-71 Blackbird pilot reminisces… most of the piece is about a combat mission over Libyan skies back in 1986, but there’s much more… including this lil vignette:

One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. 'Ninety knots,' ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. 'One-twenty on the ground,' was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was 'Dusty 52, we show you at 525 on the ground,' ATC responded. The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter's mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, 'Aspen 20, I show you at 1,742 knots on the ground.' We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.

Well, yeah…About “another transmission on that freq”… I’d think not, eh? There’s more at the link. Good stuff, too. Blackbird sightings were rare, back in the day. I was privileged to see one take off from RAF Mildenhall sometime between 1980 and 1983, but you had to look quick, Gentle Reader. Such thunderous, earth-rattling, beautiful noise… in a most Wagnerian sort of way…coupled with the fact those Blackbird drivers didn’t waste any time getting airborne. There’s your understatement of the day…

―:☺:―

Today’s Pic: I mentioned my buddy Greg and his Eldorado in yesterday’s post. I went looking for a photo of same while waiting not-so-patiently for my ‘net connection to be restored…and Walla! That’s Greg crouching by my Caddy, looking at the bent chrome strip on the left front fender and me in the shorts standing next to Greg’s car. Now if I had had HIS car and he had mine…well, that Eldo might still be in the stable. Or, not. Depending. You can’t second-guess the past.

Ferndale, Michigan…outside my front door and across the street. Sometime in 1994.

Back in a bit…

Old and Older Wheels

When all else fails I turn to cars…I’m speaking of a lack of motivation and/or nothing of note elsewhere. And so it is today… Here’s a couple of rides from my past, one of which is on my “All-Time Favorite Cars” list (maybe even THE All-Time fave, but most certainly in the Top Three) and the other was something I thought would be fun but turned out to be a money-sink. First the Money Sink…

This is a 1954 Cadillac Sedan De Ville, your garden variety doctor’s car of the mid-50s. A four-door sedan with a big (for its time) 331 cubic inch V-8 that was surprisingly powerful, even by 1992 standards. Surprising to a lot of Honda and Toyota owners, anyway, who had the temerity to challenge me at various stop lights in the metropolitan Deetroit area. That two-ton blue whale could charge off the line quite impressively for something as big and old as she was…

My buddy Greg Prior, a power train engineer with General Motors, had (and still has) a 1955 Eldorado two-door coupe at the time, a beautiful car by anyone’s standards and one that I quite admired. I was very vocal in my admiration of that car…even though it was a “work-in-progress” restoration… and one Saturday morning Greg calls me up and sez something to the effect of “Hey! I found a great looking Caddy sedan that’s in pretty good shape down in Inkster (or somewhere like Inkster, anyway). You should check it out!” We talked a lil bit more, and Greg and The Second Mrs. Pennington talked a while, and then TSMP and I loaded ourselves up and headed down to Inkster. Long story short… I took my checkbook with me when we went to look at the car and I drove the Caddy home that afternoon. Thus began a year-long adventure in old car restoration.

I became intimate with Hemmings Motor News. Greg introduced me to several Big Dogs in the Detroit Cadillac restoration community, including a guy who ultimately did a lot of the mechanical work on the car. The Brown Truck of Happiness became a regular sight in our neighborhood. Most of my spare change was poured into that car…and it was about three or four months before she was truly road-worthy and safe, with reliable brakes and hoses that wouldn’t open up and spew coolant all over the street, among other things. Greg, TSMP, and I had one truly embarrassing moment before the Caddy was completely road-worthy… when the Caddy stopped dead…right in the middle of Woodward Avenue somewhere in Birmingham during the First Annual Woodward Dream Cruise. The three of us wound up pushing the car several blocks to Greg’s house, which (thankfully) wasn’t all that far away when she quit. And we got her running again…

TSMP 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.

But. I lost interest in the project after about a year, sad to say. There were so many things on my “to-do” list for that car…and most of ‘em involved significant sums of money, money TSMP had other uses for… that it became overwhelming. The cost/benefit equation got seriously out of balance, in other words. And then the 1995/96 Impala SS hit the market and I fell in motor-lust. The Caddie’s fate was sealed. I sold her and the family ride (a SAAB 9000) off to buy my ‘96 Impala. I don’t regret that decision at all. The Impala was just as much fun…if not more so… and not near as much work. But I do look back on that ol’ Caddy fondly. She was a lot of fun, even while she was parked in our garage.

Which brings us to Vehicle Number Two… which is a 1992 Vette. 1992 was the first year for the now-venerable LT1 small-block V-8, a 350 cu. in. power plant that put out 300 horsepower, which was simply wonderful, in and of itself. At the time. There are more than a few cars out there at the moment that would clean this car’s clock… no debate, no questions asked… and more than a few of ‘em are sedans, albeit rather pricey sedans, mostly of German origins. But in its day…WOW!

The Vette was TSMP’s daily driver in the Michigan Spring, summer, and Fall and was garaged during the Deetroit winters, at which time TSMP took over the SAAB and I drove the “other Vette,” an 80-something Chevy Chevette, which I will not talk about here, coz it was a nasty little car. The Chevette was entirely functional, in that it got me to my place of business and back everyday without fail, and asked for little more than gas. But I was oh-so-glad to see Spring roll around, which meant I got the SAAB back, and got to drive the other, other Vette occasionally. Let’s just leave it at that.

Corvettes used to be notorious for bad build quality and for being just a lil bit unreliable. Such was NOT the case with this car, Gentle Reader. The car was tight from Day One until the day I sold her, with only “normal” squeaks and rattles that develop in all cars, regardless of origin. As for reliability… I owned that Vette for seven years and replaced but a single item during that time…the air conditioner’s condenser. Other than that, nada. Zip. She still had the original spark plugs in her when she left my possession. I might still own that car today, had I not chosen a mobile life style.

There was a lot to like about that car. She was beautiful, fast, and just a little bit difficult to get in and out of. You might ask why I consider the difficulty of egress/ingress to be a good thing, and that’s a fair point. But…try and visualize, if you will, a good looking blonde in a skirt or a dress getting into…or out of… that car. Get the picture? That was a fine sight… Oh, My. Yes, it was.

A question I’m frequently asked is “How fast did it go?” I can’t answer that in absolute terms, but I know the car will do 135 mph…which is all the faster I ever took it. Vettes of that generation were supposedly good for 150 mph, and I have no reason to doubt it. I might have gotten her up near there had TSMP ceased beating on my head and shoulders when we hit 135. Distracting, that, at those sorts of speeds. Ironic, too, since TSMP drove the living HELL out of that car. It got to a point where I’d refuse to ride with her if she was gonna put her foot in it…which she did. A LOT. And she’d giggle like a mad-woman all the while, too. I rather enjoyed the giggling; but her driving? Not so much.

As always, click the pics for the larger versions. The Caddy pics were taken in our driveway in Ferndale, MI, and in Bloomfield Hills. The Vette pictures were taken midway between Deetroit and Harbor Beach, MI... on Lake Huron, in early Spring of 1992.

And thank you, Blogger. Even if I did have to load each picture separately, one at a time.

Hatin' On Blogger...

So. Here I sit, with a post about half-complete... a post which depends in its entirety on supporting photos... and Blogger absolutely refuses to upload pics. And it's been this way for the last two hours, or since about 1200 hrs, MST. You select the photos to upload, click the "Upload" button and Blogger appears to be doing just that for about 20 seconds. And then you get a "server error, please try again in 30 seconds" message.

Right.

As I said... I've been trying for a lil over two hours now. Frustration! I know Blogger is free... and I shouldn't complain about free stuff, right?

But sometimes you get exactly what you pay for... Which, today, is frickin' NOTHING. Well, as far as pics are concerned. At least Blogger is still accepting text-only posts. There's some good in there. Somewhere.

Late For the Sky

(with apologies to Jackson Browne)

―:☺:―

A most persuasive argument against The Obamanon:

Europe’s media and left-wing intelligentsia see Barack Obama as the most appealing candidate for the U.S. presidency. He exemplifies what the French leftist magazine Le Nouvel Observateur calls “the America we like.” Most Europeans deny that they’re anti-American; they argue instead that there are two Americas—the good and the bad. Michael Moore is a good American, honored with the Cannes film festival’s highest prize in 2006 for his anti-Bush fantasy documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Other good Americans include Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Noam Chomsky, Barbra Streisand, and Philip Roth. Charlton Heston and Billy Graham are bad—as bad as McDonald’s—and so, of course, are President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Let us understand why, from the European perspective, Obama is good.

Well, now. I’d say the lede graf is more than enough reason… on its own… not to vote for young Barack, wouldn’t you, Gentle Reader? But wait!… as that obnoxious Billy Mays says screams while flogging Oxy-moron or whatever it is… there’s more! And it won’t cost you $19.95, either. “Europe ♥ Obama; For continental elites, the candidate exemplifies ‘the good American.’” Yours, free, just for the reading and but one click away.

―:☺:―

And speaking of Billy Mays… as I just did… that guy sells a lot of stuff. And cleans up doing it, too.

―:☺:―

Why does every useless (or nearly so) thing “as seen on TV” sell for $19.95?

―:☺:―

Interesting, this:

That’s a good political ad, although I did raise my eyebrow just a bit when I saw the implicit comparisons made to Churchill and T. Roosevelt. I think Senator McCain has a ways to go before he can make those sorts of comparisons, in all honesty. And that’s considering his POW story, which is genuinely heroic but not unlike those of Bud Day or Lance Sijan, to name only two. There are many more. Still and even, the comparisons work better with McCain than they would with the other two (Democrat) candidates. In their cases I wouldn’t have raised my eyebrow… I’d have laughed.

―:☺:―

Today’s Pic: Daisies. And someone lurks therein.

North Bend, Oregon. 1979.

What Passes for My Foodie Post

There’s a bit of a food meme going on over at the Southwest Oklahoma Blogging Coalition… Jay started it with a post about his favorite restaurants, and Lou piled on. I dropped comments in both places about how it would be well nigh impossible for me to name my favorite restaurants… due mainly to the fact that I’ve been a transient my entire life. After a while all those wonderful restaurants just seem to run together, memory fades, and few (none, actually) notes were taken. I suppose I could have saved all those expense reports from my business travels after the Air Force, but that would only account for perhaps 25% of my lifetime eating-out experiences. And that’s assuming I would have been anal enough to actually save those things. Ha. My record-retention policy is basically “toss it” if something/anything doesn’t meet IRS record retention requirements. And toss-‘em I did…

That said, I did remember The Second Mrs. Pennington saved a few odds and ends from our 1991 trip to Beijing and Tokyo (more about which, here, conveniently labeled for your reading pleasure. But no photos as yet.), which included some memorable restaurants and great good times with three of The Second Mrs. Pennington’s host families from her Rotary Exchange student days. One such event was Christmas Dinner at a wonderful Japanese restaurant that specialized in European cuisine (French and Italian, predominately). I could have sworn TSMP saved the menu from that night, but I can’t find it. The food was outstanding, as I recall, but the company was the best part. Here are a couple of shots from that night… TSMP’s host father is the one in the light suit with the blue tie, and that’s his wife to his left, and his business partner and wife to his right. The blond-of-many-hair-do’s at the end of the table is another Rotary Exchange student who was staying with TSMP’s host family. She was quite taken with herself, and for moderately good reason, too. She is most definitely a “looker,” but she had yet to learn that looks aren’t everything…

The third picture in this series (TSMP and I) was taken towards the end of the evening and you might be able to tell I was feeling little or no pain, Gentle Reader. This is the result of LOTS of wine with our meal, and lots of beer before and after. A great good time was had by ALL… not the least YrHmblScrb. Note that TSMP doesn’t appear the worse for wear… she had an image to uphold.

These next two pics were taken at a small restaurant near Mount Fuji, in some name-unrecalled small town...which is better described as a village. That’s TSMP and her host father at our table, where we cooked our shabu-shabu. The restaurant we ate in was supposedly famous throughout Japan for both it’s ambience and the quality of the food…which the Japanese can be fanatics about. If you chased the link, you’ll note shabu-shabu is a traditional Japanese winter dish, and it was most certainly winter outside…as you can see from the way we’re dressed. While the day might have been cold, the company certainly wasn’t…and the food was delicious!

The next picture is TSMP and I in a Tokyo sushi bar. We were living in Deetroit at the time, and while Detroit has some very good sushi restaurants, there ain’t nothin’ like the real thing. TSMP and I indulged our passion for sushi at numerable sushi bars during our brief stop-over in Tokyo on the way home. This is but one…

The final three pics illustrate that airline food wasn’t all that bad, once upon a time. This is the menu one received in Northwest Airlines business class back in December of 1991. And the food tasted every bit as good as it reads on the menu. I haven’t flown biz-class in quite some time, but I’d hazard a guess that corners have been cut there, as well as in cattle-car class.

But the best thing about traveling in Biz-Class, back in the day? Free drinks. Up to the point they cut you off, that is. While I never had that particular experience, being the mellow sort of drunk I am, suffice to say I could have been poured off the plane when we reached our destination.

As always...click the pics for the larger versions.

Miscellanea

Didja see my new McCain vid in the sidebar? I got it here…where there’s lots more such stuff, if’n ya have a mind to…ummm… join the party. The winning party…

―:☺:―

Oooh… I want one!

Great ad, eh? I’m normally against co-opting rock ‘n’ roll… but this works. I’ve said this before (and about another Jag, too) and I’ll say it again: this sort of thing almost makes me wanna go back to work… Almost.

{sigh}

―:☺:―

There’s more…lots more… on the Air Force’s KC-45 award last week. Yesterday Ms. Sue Payton, the Air Force’s acquisition executive, briefed Rep. John Murtha’s House Appropriations military subcommittee on the award to Northrop-Grumman/EADS. A LOT of the committee members were upset, to say the very least. Some items from the Air Force Association’s Daily Report:

Moving Up: Originally scheduled for next week, the Air Force said Wednesday it would now provide Boeing on March 7 with a thorough debrief covering how its KC-767 was rated in the Air Force's KC-X source-selection evaluation. The company asked the Air Force to move up the scheduled meeting so that the Chicago-based company could gain insight into why it did not prevail in the $35 billion KC-X contest that the Air Force awarded to the KC-30 tanker team, comprising Northrop Grumman and European maker Airbus. Northrop will get its debrief sometime next week, Air Force acquisition executive Sue Payton told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee Wednesday. Payton rejected allegations made by Norman Dicks (D-Wash.), in whose state Boeing has a huge presence, that the Air Force made changes to the evaluation criteria late in the competition that placed Boeing at a disadvantage. "There were no changes made to the requirements or the evaluation criteria of this [request for proposals] after it was approved by the joint requirements oversight council," she said. And she reminded the panel that the Air Force's acquisition strategy was approved by OSD and is in compliance with the Competition in Contracting Act, the Buy America Act, and the Federal Acquisition Regulations that are derived from those acts.

-Michael C. Sirak

Image by Northrop-Grumman.

Game Face: Reiterating the stance made Feb. 29 in announcing the Northrop Grumman/EADS team as the winner in the KC-X tanker competition, Air Force acquisition executive Sue Payton said Wednesday that the company's bid was clearly the best. "Northrop Grumman brought their 'A game,' " Payton told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee in her first public appearance on Capitol Hill since the politically controversial decision. The company's team, she said, "met or exceeded the requirements of the request for proposals" and "provided the best overall value to the warfighter and every American taxpayer based on the competition evaluation factors." When members such as panel chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) and David Hobson (R-Ohio) pressed Payton on whether the Air Force's evaluation weighed factors important to the lawmakers such as industrial capacity and where the jobs will be created and where the profits from the tanker work will go [i.e., home or abroad], she said, no, because such issues lie outside of the federal acquisition regulations by which she must abide. "I wish I could award to somebody I like [or] to somebody who offers things that I personally like, but according to the law ... those things cannot enter into the decisions," she said. The KC-X decision abides with Buy America provisions passed by Congress, she noted. The Buy America Act gives exemptions to about a dozen countries, Payton said, adding that it says to treat those countries "as the US." "The countries that have companies that will be engaged in the new KC-45A are all on that exempted list," she said. So the federal acquisition regulations "are all being followed."

Weighing In: Members on both sides of the political aisle in the House Appropriations defense subcommittee said Wednesday they want to look carefully at the Air Force's KC-X tanker decision to see if lies in the best interests of the country, given the fact that, at first glance, it looks like many American jobs have been lost in favor of much overseas work. "This is as political as anything that we do," said chairman John Murtha (D-Pa,) in characterizing the lawmakers' oversight role in the multi-billion-dollar tanker program. He explained: "We are the ones who appropriate the money. When I look at the Dubai [ports deal] crisis that we had, the public was up in arms. The full committee voted 60 to 2 to stop that provision, so this [too] has to be completely aired so that the public understands." Murtha said he will hold a second briefing on the tanker soon, likely behind closed doors after the two teams are debriefed (see above). Ranking member C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) echoed similar caution. "I want to make certain that we continue with manufacturing capability in the United States," he said. "I want to make certain that any technical developments within this program that are vital to the future interest of the United States are not going to be transferred to the likes of a country that I do not have all the confidence [in] that I would like to have in, namely France." Other members were less diplomatic. "This thing is fatally flawed in my judgment," said Norman Dicks (D-Wash.), in whose state Boeing would have done much of its tanker work had it won. "As far as I am concerned, Northrop Grumman is a front," said David Hobson (R-Ohio). "They are a fine company, but they are a front for the French and their other partners."

I watched parts of the hearing yesterday and it got quite animated and very contentious at times. I fully understand the lawmakers concerns about this award, not the least of which is the diminishment of our industrial capacity and the failure of the Air Force to Buy American…even if the law does provide exemptions to the “Buy American” Act for several of our “allies.” I place “allies” in scare quotes because I still remember the “support” for Iraq we got from the very same people who won the KC-45 deal… “support” that continues to this day in Afghanistan.

Just an aside: Many years ago… following my first successes in the proposal biz… I was asked if I was interested in joining EDS’ fledgling Military Services Division and, more specifically, its Air Force sub-division. I declined, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I wasn’t interested in living in the DeeSee area, even if it was in suburban Virginia. And most importantly, I wanted nothing to do with military acquisitions, given the labyrinth complexity of Federal acquisition laws, rules, and regulations. I think there are as many lawyers on pursuit teams responding to gub’mint requests for proposals (RFPs) as there are technical and pure-business folks, if not more. The civilian sector is much easier to deal with…by far. And that was then (approx. 20 years ago); one assumes it’s a lot worse, now… all the evidence seems to point in that direction. I don’t regret my decision in the least.

―:☺:―

Today’s WX Report… Well. As you can plainly see, Gentle Reader, Ol’ Man Winter ain’t done with us here on The High Plains of New Mexico just yet. It’s 28 degrees outside as I peck this out…with light snow showers. Kinda pretty, it is. Given the fact I made a commissary run yesterday we have absolutely NO reason to venture out today. So: Let it snow, let it snow…let it SNOW!!

(coz it’s gonna be 53 tomorrow.)

―:☺:―

Today’s Pic: Another photo of the dorm room I occupied in the NCO Quarters at Yokota AB, Japan…posted principally because of the travel poster stuck on my wall. That poster illustrates the rustic charms of a mountain river about an hour’s ride north of Yokota/Tokyo, and was the site of The Second Mrs. Pennington’s and my First Date, which was actually the second date. Our first date was on the day we met… and where I had been set-up with TSMP’s roommate (THE classic blind-date) by my good friends Ed and Bernice. The roommate and I had absolutely nothing in common, but TSMP and I had lots…and we spent the entire day together at an outdoor concert.

It was about a week later that I threw TSMP on the back of my motorcycle and took her up into the mountains to this river… where we spent the day playing in the water, eating lunch and dinner at small Japanese restaurants, and returning to Yokota late that evening. We spent that night in my dorm room, it being too late for TSMP to catch a train back to her place. Which, of course, was engineered that way on my part, and which she went along with enthusiastically. It was about a year later we found this poster in a Japan Travel Bureau store. It became a permanent part of our décor until such time as we moved beyond the “posters on the wall” school of interior decoration.

As always, click for larger.