Yet Even More Thievery

Stolen from Blog-Bud Morgan, at whose place I said:

Hockey fans.  We're like that.
And we know the words to "O Canada," too.

S'true.

Plane Pr0n

From the Usual USAF Source...

Air Frame: A newly manufactured MC-130J special-mission aircraft arrives at Kirtland AFB, N.M., from Lockheed Martin's production facility in Marietta, Ga., March 13, 2012. This aircraft is the second MC-130J delivered to Kirtland's 58th Special Operations Wing, a training unit. (Lockheed Martin photo by Todd McQueen) (Click on image above to reach wallpaper version.)

Interesting whorl-effect from the props, eh?

Heh

Yup.  Fits and starts, but mostly fits.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack...

... is SO very '70s:

Yeah, she could drag me
over the rainbow,
send me away
Down by the river
I shot my baby
Down by the river,
Dead, oh, shot her dead.

I thought about it but it was that "send me away" bit that stopped me.  Crime, time... and all that.

Morbid thoughts aside, it's a brilliant day and we are takin' FULL advantage.

We're almost at the point where we'll re-institute After Dinner Whiskey Hour, but not quite yet.  We're SO impatient!

Acme-Certified Primary Results

A smoking hole in the ground and anvils.  We can only hope.  Meep-meep.

Good, Bad, and Fugly

This is cute:

That's from the Shoebox blog and that's the "good" in our title.

Speaking of "upping your game..." Let's talk about the bad.  I got a call from SN1 last evening right after the Ducks scored their fourth unanswered goal against the Wings during the game in Anaheim.  "I'm done," sez he, "it's late, I'm tired, this ain't doin' NUTHIN' for me, and I have a headache.  I'm turnin' it off and goin' to bed."  I wasn't far behind him, where the game was concerned; I switched it off, too.  I rarely do that sorta thang and last night was only the third time this year.   The Wings have played 71 games this year, I've watched all but two, I've switched off during the debacles in Washington (loss: 7-1) and Montreal (loss: 7-2).  And last night.  How bad was it?  Here's George Malik, Red Wings blogger:

Poor defense, little offense and a power play that has now gone 0-for-30 over the Wings’ past seven games, all combined with occasional lapses in, “I will at least try to salvage the game and save all of your asses” goaltending by Joey MacDonald, who looked very vulnerable at times against the Ducks, and Jimmy Howard, who was understandably rusty against the Kings, and my friends and fellow Wings fans…

It does not get any worse than this. 

What he said. 

It's downright fugly and the signs ain't good.  The Wings have sunk from first overall in the league a few weeks ago to fourth (both in the league and West) while going 3-8-1 since setting their home win record back in mid-February.  The biggest part of the slide can be written off to injuries, what with starting defensemen Lidstrom, Ericsson, and Kindl out (both Lidstrom and Ericsson are out indefinitely), Jimmy Howard (Number One goaltender) just getting back up to speed after missing four games, Pavel Datsyuk out after knee surgery (back on Saturday?), and various and sundry other maladies.  But it is what it is and what it is ain't good.

The Wings will make the playoffs for a record 21 consecutive seasons; I have no doubt about that.  Their playoff run may be pretty danged short, though, what with a potential first round match up with the Nashville Predators, who have been hot of late.  Speaking of... here's ESPN's LeBrun and Burnside:

BURNSIDE: The Wings’ road woes continued, as they were beaten by the Kings. It wasn't a good day for GM Ken Holland, who wasn’t pleased with the league’s decision to allow Alexander Radulov to return to the Nashville Predators without having to clear waivers. The Wings and Predators seem destined to meet in the first round, and the fight for home ice in that round looms large given how poorly the Wings play away from Joe Louis Arena. They need to get healthy, and that series would be dynamite, but it's hard not to like the Predators, especially if they continue to struggle. They play in Anaheim on Wednesday night, and their lead over the Preds is a single point, with Nashville having a game in hand.

LEBRUN: Amazing, really, to see the Wings seven points back of St. Louis in the Central. That race is over. And now Detroit faces a likely first-round matchup with Nashville. Talk about a conference finals-level series right off the hop. One of those two teams will be incredibly disappointed to go home that early after the first round. But the high-end matchup is a result of the excellence of the Central Division this season. The Blues got hot, the Wings got injured, and the Preds hope to get Radulov. Quite the script. 

It would get a whole lot worse should the Wings survive the first round... coz we'd have to go through St. Louis to get to the Cup Finals, assuming we survive either Vancouver or Chicago in the second round.  That may a bridge too far this year, based on what I've seen of those Blues.

Fugly.

Brackets and... Sunny!

My brackets look a lil different, but still...

―:☺:―

"Black Power, Dudes!"

ESPECIALLY For Blog-Bud Andy

Click to embiggen to full size.  The tune played for all of 30 seconds, but that's only coz I was in the other room when it began.  Normally it takes about 75 milliseconds to give this tune a thumbs-down.  That's just a guess, though.  It could take LESS time.

Political Science... and Physics!

Heh.  Via e-mail from Occasional Correspondent Lin.

Hype

Weren't Apple's launches always overhyped?  I suppose the Fanbois love this stuff, but normal people don't.

―:☺:―

Not hype... the time change is kicking my ass.  I didn't roll out until after 1300 hrs today, which is late even for me.  I'm about halfway in to my second cup and haven't worked my way through the overnight mail yet.  But the good news is the WX is fine (75 degrees!  Yowza!) and it stays light out until well after 1800 hrs.  That means we'll not miss any of the usual, customary, and reasonable verandah time.

―:☺:―

In other news... Flo and I are back together.  Long-time Gentle Readers might remember this from last August:

I Just Got Off the Phone...

... with Flo.  We had a short and VERY pleasing conversation, at least as far as I'm concerned.  Which went something like this:

Flo:  How can I help you today, Mr. Pennington?
Me:  I need to cancel my policy, please.
Flo:  Oh, I'm sorry to hear that... may I ask why you're cancelling?
Me:  Because you wouldn't give me your preferential rate due to bogus "bad credit" information.  I'm with USAA now.

And that was pretty much that, except for minor details.  USAA is charging me MUCH less than half the amount Progressive was bending me over for.  I smiled broadly throughout the entire conversation.

::Chirpy Flo voice:: 
"Discount!"
::/Chirpy Flo voice::

Well... I called up USAA a short while ago to get insurance on El Casa Móvil De Pennington, seein' as how my current policy runs out tomorrow and I KNOW USAA can do better for me when it comes to rates.  So imagine my surprise when the helpful USAA person transferred me to Progressive, which does RV insurance for USAA.  But I was pleased at the quoted rate, which was less than half of my current RV policy.  

 

So:  Me and Flo.  True Love.  Renewed.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack...

... featured a couple o' tunes by Jefferson Airplane.  First:

One begins to read between
The pages of a look.
The sound of sleepy music,
And suddenly, you're hooked.
I saw you, I saw you,
Coming back to me.

You came to stay and live my way,
Scatter my love like leaves in the wind.
You always say that you won't go away,
But I know what it always has been,
It always has been.

We'll not go anywhere near there, coz it's the same ol', same-frickin'-ol'.  We get tired o' that crap after a bit.

And then...

Ah... that's more like it.  Both of these tunes were on Surrealistic Pillow but it's the second tune that foretold the creation of Hot Tuna, a group about which I own many more albums than I do of the Airplane or that abominable follow-on band, J.Starship.  For the musicianship that's in it/them, of course.  And since we're talkin' about Hot Tuna, there's this...

...which we didn't hear on Pandora today, but which we own on a couple o' different Hot Tuna albums.  The mind often wanders, and it often wanders into GOOD places.  So good, as a s'matter o' fact, that we shut down Pandora and loaded up three Hot Tuna albums on the stereo for the balance o' Happy Hour.  The WX is cooperating with us today, in that we have our windows and door wide open to take advantage of (a) the mid-70 degree temps and (b) our own music collection.

And a couple o' cigars and three beers.  At last count.

Nuckin' Futs

I've ridden in snow before... but not like this:

There's NO way a bike could beat a car under these conditions, even with studded tires.  Just sayin'.

Linkage

I can't break the habit, like so many others who read Lex every day.  So I still go there even though I know I won't find any more o' the Good Captain's tales o' derring-do, his astute opinions, or his potent dry wit to begin my day.  It's just a habit...

But I found something of value there today, as I did every day for the past eight years or so.  This, from commenter yaJames:

Have you seen this morning’s Sacramento Bee article? http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/12/4330119/atac-mourns-the-loss-of-capt-carroll.html

The article quotes the CEO of ATAC about the accident, and about tributes to Lex. It’s the first time I’ve seen the funeral arrangements published. (March 27th in San Diego.)

It also links to http://www.atacusa.com. They’ve turned their web-site into a memorial page.

So I went to ATAC and the memorial page they've posted is truly a work of art.  At the very bottom of the page you'll find this:

I had to take two screen shots because all those tributes... they're active links on ATAC's page... don't fit in a single capture.  One small correction: the comments and condolences at Lex's place are up to 1,457 this morning.

The man was loved.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack...

... might better be titled "melancholy radio."  We continue to listen to Joni Mitchell radio on Pandora and we've been there all this week, for the sadness that's in it.  And we ARE that: sad -- for a number o' reasons.  I heard that "Paris" song again, which was followed directly by this tune from Carole King...

Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever gonna make it home again
It's so far and out of sight
I really need someone to talk to, and nobody else
Knows how to comfort me tonight

Snow is cold, rain is wet
Chills my soul right to the marrow
I won't be happy till I see you alone again
Till I'm home again and feeling right 

Didn't anyone ever tell Ms. King you can never go home again?

Me Too

Yeah, an hour less of GOP primary BS is a GOOD thing and I also like the extended verandah time.  But that's it.  It's not as bad as it used to be, though... I REALLY hated this Spring-Forward thang when I was gainfully employed.

Still Under the WX

The actual WX matches my mood and state-o'-being... it's cold, gray, and wet outside, with a possibility of snow.  And we need to go out today if we want sumthin' other than corn flakes for dinner.  I'm not looking forward to that expedition...

I went looking for an answer to a comment Darryl made about yesterday's post, specifically where he asks for my guacamole recipe.  More on that in a minute, but in the meantime I stumbled upon this, which concerns yet another post I put up recently, that one bein' about writing on-line dating ads and trolling and stuff.

Blog-buddy Morgan has had admirable success in the realm of on-line dating (see his comment here). Ah, would that I could make the same claim. In those same comments linked in the preceding sentence I gave you the “Reader’s Digest” version of my issues with on-line dating. And now for a short war-story about this sort of social activity…

I was pretty active in the on-line dating game for a few years, most notably in Rochester, NY, and during my two-year sojourn in the Peoples Republic of the Greater San Francisco Bay Area. It was in SFO that I had one of my most traumatic on-line dating experiences…

It started as these things always do…I read her ad, dropped her an e-mail, she responded, we spent a few hours on several consecutive nights in instant messaging conversation, followed by several phone calls. We both decided we should meet, and we did. She turned out to be everything she appeared to be, and I was happy with that. There were distinct possibilities, in other words, for something other than casual dating. In a nutshell: articulate, intelligent, owned her own business, a voracious reader, great conversationalist, and not at all hard to look at. Fetching, if I may go that far.

So. It was on our fourth date, and we’re having coffee and cognac after dinner at one of SFO’s numerous superb restaurants. We don’t have any firm plans for after dinner, and I casually ask “Well, where to now?” She smiles and says “Your place?”

There couldn’t possibly have been a better answer.

We get back to my place and I’ll spare you most of the details, Gentle Reader, save for this one tiny thing. The lights are low, things are getting hot and heavy, we’re in a state of dishabille, and the deal is about to go down. Suddenly, and I DO mean suddenly, she sits up on my couch, pushes me away to arms-length and says with a very serious look on her face “I have something to tell you.”

“Uh, OK,” sez I, thinking “WTF?”

“I have herpes.”

Wow. Talk about mood-killers! So. The lights come back up, I go to the kitchen, freshen our drinks, and return to the couch, where we spend the next hour or so discussing her problem. “There are ways to work around this,” sez she. “Umm-hmm,” sez I, nodding. The bottom line, as she suggests, is that we should both give serious thought to where we’re going and what we should do. I agree. We finish our drinks and I take her home.

And that, save for two subsequent phone conversations wherein I explained myself in great detail, was that. Work-arounds or no, herpes is forever. I wasn’t willing to take the risk. She understood, and we went our separate ways.

I’ll always appreciate the woman’s honesty, if not her timing. I hope she found someone because, with the exception of this one tiny (?) flaw, she could have been a potential mate.

There are eight million stories in the Naked City; this has been one of them. But it’s pretty illustrative of my experiences with on-line dating. I don’t have any good stories to relate, in other words, Gentle Reader, and I have a couple that are worse. Much worse. But let’s not go there.

And now you know why I decided, in part, not to place that ad on Craig's List.

But about the guacamole.  My first reaction was "recipe?  what recipe?"  I do exactly what Darryl sez he does... I mash stuff up.  But I mash stuff up to taste, and I suppose that's the important part,  given that I'll add more onion, or more avocado, or a pinch of salt, or more lime juice, during the mashing process to ensure I get things right.  Here's that post I went looking for:

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack Project

Two avocados, half a red onion (no Vadalias at the store, dammit) chopped finer than frog hair, half a lime, and about three tablespoons of El Pinto.

Let the flavors marry in the fridge for about an hour or so and then... Happy Hour Bliss!

That's MY recipe... such as it is.

Scrapin' the Bottom o' the Bloggin' Barrel XII

Life is warmer and cozier now that the Brown Truck O' Happiness has come and gone... leaving me with these:

Yes... our tootsies are warm and comfortable, as we speak.  And the old slippers have been disposed of, with a suitable send-off.  They served me well.

Wrong!

Guacamole...

That's pretty cute and clever but one NEVER puts tomatoes in guacamole.  Never.  Ever.

―:☺:―

Wrong on another level... we're slightly under the WX today.  I mentioned in passing that I picked up antibiotics out at the base yesterday to deal with a minor infection.  What I didn't mention were the warnings I received at both my dentist's office and the Cannon Airplane Patch pharmacy, to wit: these antibiotics have side effects, chief among which are nausea and diarrhea.  The side effects kicked in this morning and I am NOT a Happy Camper.

I know: TMI.  Sorry about that.  

―:☺:―

Not wrong:   the 1,147 tributes and condolences (at this writing) in comments at Lex's place.  About which, this:

Well... it's prolly too soon to tell, as I'm not done with my first cup yet. 

That said... I'm still sadder than sad, and just finished reading the 1,128th comment at Lex's place.  Isn't it simply astonishing how much impact this man had on SO many people... women, men, young boys, future chaplains, future pilots, junior officers, senior officers, petty officers, old retired mil-geezers, housewives, Americans, Aussies, Brits, and on and on?  There's a set of common thoughts that run through all the comments, aside from grief and admiration: that of love for a man of honesty and integrity, a guy who made an indelible mark upon all of those he touched.

I'm comforted by the fact I'm far from alone in the way I feel.  There's that, at least.

That's an excerpt from an e-mail conversation I had with a friend this morning, after she asked "How are you doing?"  I've read all of the comments on the Lex tribute post and have kept the thread open in my browser since Wednesday.  I've never seen anything like this on the 'net, ever.  The response to this one man's death is beyond astonishing.  It's unique... in my experience, at least.

Pretty Cool

I don't drink a lotta Bud... well, check that: I don't drink ANY Bud... but I sure would have bought a sixer o' this stuff if I lived in Winnipeg:

Good On Ya, Anheuser-Busch InBev.

h/t: The Usual Hockey Source.

Un-bee-leeb-able

So we're just in from a beer run out to the Class VI Store (with a side-trip to the base pharmacy to pick up some antibiotics to kill yet another one of those gum infections I seem to get every two or three months, Digressions Я Us) and I was shocked.  Shocked, I tell ya.  The Class VI Store had NO Guinness.  Well, no Guinness of the Stout variety; they did have Black Lager, but that ain't Capital-G Guinness.

Now I normally don't drink that swill fine Irish brew, except for a pint or two about every three years in the dead o' winter.  T'was a time when I would drink a lot of that stuff in the winter, but that was back when I lived in Ol' Blighty and the pubs were always a bit on the chilly side, often chillier than the beer in my glass.  But that was then...

This is now.  We went looking for Guinness in honor of our blog-father, for we hear there will be a nationwide get-together to honor Lex at 1700 hrs PST tomorrow.  There will be a physical gathering in San Diego at The Usual Place (a joint called Shakespeare's, so I'm told) and other gatherings are coming together in cities and towns all over this fair land.  The objective is to raise a glass o' Guinness... For Strength!... in honor of Lex.  Yeah, a wake, of sorts.  So now I have a mini-quest to fulfill before 1800 hrs local tomorrow.

I'm thinkin' that shouldn't be too tough of an assignment, no?  But one is left wonderin'... what does the Air Force (or the Cannon Class VI) have against Guinness?  And whatever will I do with the other five bottles?