Saturday: Around the Inter-tubes

Niagara Falls, from the Usual Saturday Source...



I'd like to see the same views shot at night when the falls are all lit up.  That's one helluva sight to see.

In this morning's mail...
 

I can't believe you just shit in my hand.

And then there's this:

From MyConfinedSpace.com

Yes.  It's past time someone said this.

More Cigar (Box) Art

In today's mail and just in time for Happy Hour...

That's a rather simple natural wood box with no finish but with a pretty cool glass top, all the better to see those tubed Cain Lanceros.  You can see our last example o' cigar art in the background... I've yet to decide how to purpose that box.

But now it's out to the verandah to (a) drink a G&T (or two) and (b) sample one of those Lanceros.

It's Always Sumthin', Stupidity Division

I was given a mouth-guard to wear at night at the conclusion of our latest Adventures In Modern Dentistry, i.e., when I got my two new bridges and the last of several implants, the purpose bein' to prevent damage to these very expensive modern dental appliances in the event I grind my teeth while sleeping.  Not that I've ever done THAT... at least not to my knowledge... but what do I know?  I'm asleep, after all.  So I dutifully wear the thing every night.

Until last night.

I don't even know how this is possible, but I managed to lose the mouth-guard.  This event completely baffles me, as I always take the damned thing out in either one of two places: my bathroom (if I spend a "normal" night in my spiffy bed) or at the kitchen sink, if I spend the night on my spiffy couch.  I rinse the appliance and let it air dry on the sink and the only exception to this ritual is the prescribed once-a-week soak in Efferdent.  No other exceptions, none.

Yet I lost it.  It's gone.

I'm actually beginning to think someone snuck in the house and stole it coz I just could NOT be this damned stoopid.

So now I'm gonna have to pay for a replacement mouth-guard.  It's always SUMTHIN'.

Update, 1600 hrs.  Nevermind.  Found, in the door of my fridge.  I keep a baggie o' pre-cut lime wedges in my fridge and apparently the mouth-guard got stuck to that baggie at some point yesterday.  Yeah, I KNOW... it MIGHT be time to change out that baggie. 

But we ARE relieved.

True

Yup, they DO love irony!

You know where this came from.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack: Skies

All eyes on the skies today, which have been rather dramatic.  Like so...

Looking due north

Looking due west

Looking southeast

It would only follow that we'd do a little bit o' Floyd...



We get more than enough o' those crystal-clear, brilliant, and somewhat unforgiving blue skies in this part o' the world.  The sort o' days that we've been experiencing these last couple o' few are rare indeed, and we're drinkin' them in like a parched man at an oasis.  We've had a lot o' rain this week and our humidity has soared as a result but even in spite o' that it's oh-so-good, Gentle Reader... oh, yes... it IS.

We Won! We Won!

From an article in the WSJ...

You know the beer drinkers have won when you can fill your growler with local craft beer at a drugstore.

The craft beer craze isn't slowing down, and as the number of breweries grows, so has the popularity of growlers—64-ounce reusable jugs that can be filled to take off the premises. With growlers, you get fresh beer. Often it is beer that is not available in bottles or cans. And you get it in a local, environmentally friendly way. 

[...]

There are now as many breweries in the U.S.—2,500—as there were before Prohibition, which ran from 1920 to 1933, says Julia Herz, craft beer program director of the Brewers Association, a trade group based in Boulder, Colo. Survey data from the Brewers Association suggests that most craft beer drinkers are young, male and wealthier than average: More than 77% of craft beer volume is consumed by people who make more than $50,000 a year. Surveys show they prefer beer brewed locally to mass-produced, bottled options. 

Well, now.  Howzabout THAT?  I've been known to fill a growler or three meself, and yeah... we do like to drink locally.

Whistling Past the Graveyard?

I first noticed the phenomenon when I read this piece in the NYT two years ago, which was further reenforced by the demise of about one-third of the blogs in my sidebar.  "Blogging is dead," claimed the Times and my personal experience seemed to validate that "fact."  A lot o' people I used to read simply abandoned the medium for the hated Facebook... mainly coz FB is easier to update and it's easier to read (that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it).  You'll see a lot of articles similar to that old Times piece if you google "death of blogs."  OTOH, you'll also find this light at the end o' the tunnel:

Do a search-and-replace on "blog" and you could rewrite the coverage as evidence of the death of television, novels, short stories, poetry, live theatre, musicals, or any of the hundreds of the other media that went from breathless ascendancy to merely another tile in the mosaic.

[...]

When blogging was the easiest, most prominent way to produce short, informal, thinking-aloud pieces for the net, we all blogged. Now that we have Twitter, social media platforms and all the other tools that continue to emerge, many of us are finding that the material we used to save for our blogs has a better home somewhere else. And some of us are discovering that we weren't bloggers after all – but blogging was good enough until something more suited to us came along.

Mr. Doctorow goes on to say blogging is alive and well, even if the audiences are smaller than they used to be.  Well, OK, Cory.  I hope you're right... but I'm thinkin' the war is over and us bloggers are fighting a rear-guard action.  Further evidence is in my SiteMeter numbers, which continue to tell me a sad, sad story.  

All THAT said, it'll be a cold day in Hell before I reactivate my FB page.  Mebbe I'll just start tweeting more or get back to G+ (which I hardly ever visit these days).  Or perhaps I'll just stand here in front of the empty barn and continue shouting at the owls, as Lileks so colorfully put it quite some time ago.

Sigh.

Update, 1104 hrs:  Speakin' o' Twitter...

Heh.

Idiots Among Us

Ramirez gets it right, including the Dr. Hook parody.  I stopped reading RS sometime in the mid-'90s, after having been a subscriber since the late '60s.  I'd damned sure be cancelling my subscription today, were it still active.

Heh

My Buddy Ed In Florida sends the following along...

After the eighty-three year old lady finished her annual physical examination, the doctor said, "You are in fine shape for your age, Dorothy, but tell me, do you still have intercourse?"

"Just a minute, I'll have to ask my husband," she said.

She stepped out into the crowded reception room and yelled out loud:
 
"Bruce, do we still have intercourse?"

And there was a hush...

You could hear a pin drop.

He answered impatiently, "If I told you once, Dorothy, I told you a hundred times... what we have is...

Blue Cross!

Heh. 

In other news... our WX right now:

I'm having to wear a long-sleeved shirt out on the verandah, mainly coz my personal R-factor is rather low and it feels downright chilly outside!  That said, the weather's freakin' loverly and we most certainly are NOT lookin' a gift horse in the mouth.

Amen

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

James McMurtry...

When cornered you complain about the state of your career
And you look intently straight ahead, pretending I'm not here
And you look me in the eye and say "It's not about us"
And you tell me I'm so silly to be making such a fuss

So everything's okay except you're nervous as a cat
But what's it say about me if you think I'd fall for that?

Come on

Where'd you hide the body?
Where'd you stash the loot?
Just keep your hands where I can see them
And maybe I won't shoot

Heh.  This song (full lyrics here) always brings a wry smile to my face, mainly coz I most certainly coulda wrote this song if I had a scintilla of the poet in my soul.  But I don't... and I'm grateful for those that DO, coz I saw this movie... when it was playin' in my local theatre... and it wasn't pretty.  At all.

Yow!

I loves me some trompe l'oeil.

From a tweet by Perfectly Timed Pics.

♫ ♪ What a Difference a Day Makes... ♪ ♫

... 24 lil hours.

Yesterday

Today

Amazing, ain't it?  While we're at it, here's Dinah...



Beautimous.

They're Everywhere

Hipsters.  Well, I don't see many of 'em here in P-Ville, but there ARE a few at ENMU.  Apparently  there are hipster-bikers, too... according to this editorial I read in the August issue of Motorcyclist magazine.

"Squids."  Yup, that's what we called 'em, back in the day... and I saw PLENTY of 'em.  Guys riding around in SoCal clad only in bathing suits and flip-flops... no leather, no helmet, no boots.  I used to shudder at the thought of having to clean up an accident scene involving one of those guys, or worse: being the trauma MD in an emergency room somewhere.  I was pretty fortunate in my early biker days, mainly because my friends... the guys I rode with... impressed upon me the importance of "dressing for the slide, not the ride."  I did just that... wrapping myself in leather, heavy boots, and a Bell Star on my head.  The upshot was I never lost much blood during my 45 years o' riding.  

As the editorial above implies... you gotta be young and dumb before ya get old and wise.  I see plenty o' people on bikes here in P-Ville that fit the first part o' that sayin', and I hope they live long enough to get wise.

And... just for the record... RDs weren't just a mount for squids.  Some really cool guys rode those things. 

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

High-tech music on traditional Japanese instruments.  I have a feelin' the Yoshida Bros just MIGHT be an acquired taste, but I sure like 'em.  Thanks, RP.

In other news... it's hotter than Hades outdoors at the moment.  This hot...

There are thunderstorms in the forecast for later and I can't WAIT!  But in the meantime, it's back outdoors to continue as we've begun.

Ghosts

"You can never go home again," or so it's said.  Well, you CAN go home... just don't expect it to look the same as when you left.  I've mentioned Fortuna AFS, North Dakota several times in these pages (one such mention here)... a place I was stationed for one year, three days, eight hours and ten minutes.  Not that we were counting, or anything.  But we digress.  Great good friend and partner-in-crime (I mean that last quite literally) Lori from the Fortuna days gave us a link to a sad and comprehensive photo essay on what remains of Fortuna AFS today.  A couple o' pics from that essay follow.

Then, c. 1977.  I was there in '77 and worked on that big-ass checkerboard antenna*.

Now, c. 2013.

You can see Part One of "Fortuna Air Force Station" here, Part II is here.  I was a radar guy for 16 years of my 22-year USAF career and nearly ALL of the sites I was stationed at are either gone or will be soon.  It's kinda-sorta like bein' a Squid and seein' yer former home turned into an artificial reef or cut up to make razor blades.  Mebbe worse, I dunno.

* "The system suffered frequent bearing problems as the antenna weighed seventy tons."  That's from a brief article on the FPS-35, with some interesting pics.  I managed to get through MY year at Fortuna without antenna bearing problems.  I had problems of a different sort, like working on the antenna deck in the winter, when ambient... NOT wind-chill... temps fell to ten or 20 degrees below zero.  That was more "fun" than one is supposed to have.

C'est le Quatorze Juillet!

Bastille Day, in other words.  The fambly and I would take up position on the Champs d' Elysee early in the morning on Bastille Day every year we were in Paris and the parades were pretty extraordinary back in the mid-1950s.  And there's this, about the parade:

That's a member of the French Republican Guards.  You see that helmet?  I had one of those as a child... minus the red plumage... all bright, highly polished chrome with a gen-u-wine horse's tail flowing down the back out of that golden top piece.  That casque was one of my favorite childhood treasures and I have NO ideer what happened to it.  More's the pity, eh?

Happy Bastille Day to mes amis!

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack, In Which We Re-Visit An Old Friend

It's no secret that we loves us some Pandora, and it's an open secret Pandora provides us with the better part of our daily soundtrack, when the WX is such that we cannot listen to our own music.  But Pandora has grown stale these last few days, if not weeks, given the rather predictable nature o' the songs we hear... even given the various and numerous different stations we've defined on the service.  I have no ideer how Pandora chooses its music but I have a sneakin' suspicion the playlist is chosen... in part... by the number of "likes" the listener gives the various tunes.  So, Pandora has become eminently predictable for better or worse, and in my case it's MOST definitely worse: I've become bored with Pandora.

So it was today that we re-visited Radio Paradise (RP) and  downloaded their spiffy app onto the mePhone.  I was gratified to learn RP is alive and well and we've spent most of the day... including today's Happy Hour... listenin' to RP.  The thing I love about RP?  It's oh-so-eclectic.  Example (see here for the current playlist):

RP does radio like radio ought be done, which is to say like late-'70s free form radio.  There are other options on these inter-tubes if you like that sorta eclecticism, and college radio comes to mind.  But RP does it for me....

So, today's tune...



That's from "So," an album The Second Mrs. Pennington took with her when we split the blanket.  I've never replaced that album for some unknown reason... well, THAT'S not true, the truth bein' that the album and the songs therein cause an immeasurable amount o' pain.  But, Hey!  It's good to hear some of these songs every now and again.

It's good to hear RP again, too.  I'm thinkin' we won't be back to Pandora for quite a while.

Saturday: It's In the Car! It's In the Car!

The occupants o' that Toyota are damned lucky the cheetah didn't follow the impala into the car.

―:☺:―

In other news... Occasional Reader and Good Buddy Rob sends the following along from the Bay Area: 

Ho Lee Fuk is right...

Update, 20 minutes later.  As long as we're on about the Bay Area, there's this beautiful piece that's been making the rounds a lot:



There used to be a USAF radar site (scroll down to the very bottom o' that link) on top o' Mt. Tamalpais in Marin county and I was fortunate enough to watch scenes like the above through large plate glass windows in their Officers/NCO club, drink in hand.  One other thing... that fog is COLD when you're in the middle of it, on the ground.  Even in August, mebbe especially in August.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

I think a couple o' few stockers need some remedial training, is what I think.

I Don't Get It

How could anyone in NYC seriously consider voting for this clown or Weiner?  And what makes either one think they can win?

Laundry Day...

... here at El Casa Imóvil De Pennington, about which... this:

Further on “Procrastination…” It occurred to me last evening that one of my “issues” these days is the decided lack of nagging in my life. Now most men would consider this particular lack a blessing, and I most certainly DO… most of the time. But, let’s be honest about this, Guys. A lot of stuff gets done around the house (other places, too) simply because the nag-ee desperately wants the nag-er to STFU. Or more diplomatic words to that effect. Men being men, inertia will raise its ugly lil head in the absence of “motivation.” We’ll do what’s expedient, we’ll do the absolute minimum of what’s required to keep us breathing, fed, and smelling less bad to those we encounter, and we’ll most definitely accomplish things that must be done in the face of penalties… such as paying the bills on time. But we’ll also put off to the VERY LAST MICROSECOND those things we find distasteful or even boring. If left to our own devices, that is.

In my current situation, for example, I find reading every single game recap and poring over obscure hockey stats infinitely preferable to, say, doing laundry. Especially since I haven’t even come close to tapping the emergency vintage tee shirt supply, and I don’t wear socks once the temp is consistently over 60 degrees. Ergo: there’s no real need to do laundry, yet. That changes, once the supply of clean clothes runs out. Or: I’ll be off to the laundromat in my LAST clean tee shirt at the very last microsecond.

Necessity is the Mom of Execution in My World. NOT invention, as is commonly thought.

Oh. I don’t want a live-in nag, thankyouverymuch, if you’re thinking along those lines.

Procrastination may be bad, but there are worse things in life.

Well, we don't have to hie our Old Ass off to the laundromat any longer, seein' as how we have our very own washer and dryer now.  But, that said, it's still a right royal Pain-In-The-Ass to do laundry and I ran it right down to the very last moment these past few weeks.  Which is to say we were but ONE tee-shirt from having to break out the vintage tees, linked above.  Like this:

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Vintage Tees

Remember when I told you I had to do laundry coz I was down to “vintage” tee shirts? Well, I wore one of those self-same tee shirts out to the base yesterday, specifically this one:

And Boy-Howdy did I ever get some hard looks from some ol’ codgers. I felt like telling at least one of those guys “Hey, I’m not a Commie, it’s a souvenir.” And so it is…from one of my Moscow trips during the ‘90s. (I have NO idea what the text says, and I've asked around, too.)

I probably would have gotten approving smiles had I worn this one, instead:

The yellow font is hard to read: it says “Miller.” Make sense, now? I love this shirt; it was a gift from SN2 back when he was an enlisted sailor on a boomer...the USS James K. Polk.

Sigh.  So... laundry, and we're ALMOST done.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Life's been Hell since the maid quit."

One other thing: I've given up... completely... on tryin' to fold fitted sheets.  These days I just roll 'em up in a ball and then change the linen, immediately after they come out o' the dryer (or shortly thereafter).  The next time I buy linens... if there IS a next time... I'm only gonna buy TOP sheets.   I know how to make hospital corners and doin' that is infinitely preferable to wrestling with fitted sheets.  I HATE those damned things!

Dang. It Feels Like Mrs. Hippy Outside.

Note the "feels like" bit -- this is coz our humidity is around 50%... highly unusual for us.  We're supposed to go into the high 90s today and I'm guessin' our heat index might crack 100+.

Note the title of this post.  There's a difference between "hippy" and "hippie."

Mrs. Hippy (1)

Mrs. Hippy (2)

Mrs. Hippie

Just tryin' to be clear.

Brave New World...

... for Nasal Radiators.  There's a blurb with lotsa detail on the event below at the Daily Squid Gazette which is pretty good, if'n yer interested.



Lex saw this coming and the topic generated a lot o' discussion at the Ol' Mothership.  "Another brick in the wall..."

130710-N-YZ751-075 ATLANTIC OCEAN (July 10, 2013) An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator completes an arrested landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77). The landing marks the first time any unmanned aircraft has completed an arrested landing at sea. George H.W. Bush is conducting training operations in the Atlantic Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tony D. Curtis/Released)

Spiffy

We haven't done an "Art of Cigars" post in quite a while.  Well, that's been remedied by what came in today's mail... an exquisitely packaged box o' Camacho 11/18 maduros... like this:

The pics don't do the box justice... it's a beautiful piece o' work in a truncated pyramid shape, with nice ornamentation... specifically a large brass medallion on the box top and a smaller medallion on the face o' the box.  

The interior o' the box is equally impressive, what with the foil label on faux black velvet.  Very nice.

Now it's out to the verandah to see if these things smoke and taste as good as they look.

Update, slightly later and before I hit the verandah:



I like this woman's style... and her smoking environment looks pretty danged pleasant, doesn't it?

A Mystery Solved

I was googling fer sumthin' this morning and came upon this:

Note the "also fun to use in other ways" verbiage on the box.  Like this, mebbe?

Equestrian Nightmare

It's nothing, Darling... Mommy's OK.  Go back to bed.

Heh.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Levon...

Well, thank you Detroit
You treated me good
But I've been here longer than I should
I enjoy big money but I miss my Honey so
One thing's on my mind
It's watermelon time in Georgia

Yeah... I hear ya, Levon, mainly coz we had to get outta Dee-troit, once upon a time and it had EVERYTHING to do with our Honey.  At the time.  

That said, you sure are MISSED.

Still Serving

From the Usual USAF Source:

Lead MC-130E from Son Tay Raid on Display
Members of the 27th Special Operations Wing at Cannon AFB, N.M., gathered to officially welcome the MC-130 Combat Talon I that is now on static display near the base's front entrance, according to a base release. This aircraft, tail number 64-0523, has a distinguished past, having led the Son Tay Raid to free US prisoners of war in North Vietnam in November 1970. "By displaying a proven special operations legend at the Cannon Air Force Base front gate, aircrews can see and realize the true spirit and proud tradition of the Son Tay Raid from so long ago," said retired Maj. William Guenon, copilot on the raid, during the June 28 welcoming ceremony. The Air Force retired this airframe in June 2012. While the raiding party found no POWs at Son Tay, the raid boosted the spirits of the POWs held elsewhere in North Vietnam when word spread because it showed that the United States had not forsaken them, states Cannon's July 2 release. (Cannon report by SrA. Jette Carr) (See also The Son Tay Raid from Air Force Magazine's archives.)

"So long ago?"  Really, Maj. Guenon?  Seems like only yesterday...

(I was a Staff Sergeant at Wakkanai AS in November o' 1970.  SN1 was four years old, SN2 two.)

Why She Left

She got tired o' looking at this every morning:

Number Six on the list o' "Top Ten Worst Bed-Heads In the Free World."

(The iPhone takes worse pics than my Evo did.  Or it could be the subject matter.)

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Dylan...

I’m leavin’ today
I’ll be on my way
Of this I can’t say very much
But if you want me to
I can be just like you
An’ pretend that we never have touched
An’ if anybody asks me
“Is it easy to forget?”
I’ll say, “It’s easily done
You just pick anyone
An’ pretend that you never have met!”

Any Dylan is good Dylan (except for this, mebbe, and YMMV) but old Dylan is BEST.  I shall now contradict myself by sayin' Blood On the Tracks is my favorite Dylan album, by far.  This isn't so much because BotT was that good musically (it was, even compared to albums that went before), as because the album was a huge part o' our soundtrack when The Second Mrs. Pennington and I fell in love all those years ago.  Those sorts of things have a habit of skewing our sensibilities, dontcha know.

So today it's All Bobby, All the Time... and we shall now return to the verandah to continue as we've begun.

Pretty Cool

Have you seen today's Google Doodle?  It looks like this:

The doodle is actually a lil mini-movie... with an interactive capability that will make ya smile (well, it made ME smile but I'm easily amused... and that's a feature, not a bug).  But about that doodle... there's this, from an article in The Guardian...

Google's latest doodle celebrates the 66th anniversary of the so-called Roswell incident - which generations of UFO enthusiasts and others believe involved an alien landing outside the New Mexico town.

Just down the road a piece, yanno?

Well, You Sure Don't LOOK Like You're Over 60

From the Usual USAF Source...

Air Frame: A B-52 Stratofortress takes off from Andersen AFB, Guam, July 2, 2013. This aircraft, assigned to the 23rd Bomb Squadron at Minot AFB, N.D., is on a rotational deployment to Guam, where the United States maintains a continuous bomber presence to promote stability in the western Pacific. (Air Force photo by A1C Marianique Santos)

Lookin' pretty spiffy fer an old lady, ain't she?

Apropos o' that location... I did a week on Guam once upon a time, where three of my best friends and I changed out the bull gear (a huge gear... about six feet in diameter and weighing several hundred pounds... that drives the radar's antenna) on an FAA-operated FPS-67 search radar, for which USAF had heavy maintenance responsibility.  That was a miserable job, mainly because we worked inside a radome that only had three small access hatches for ventilation... and Guam is a tropical place, as you know.  We worked at night on that job, for the most part, since the radome had all the qualities of a convection oven during the day.  Miserable.

Another fun fact: I learned that "Guam" is actually an acronym* during that TDY.

* Give Up And Masturbate

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

We've reverted to form after two days o' culcha... just in case ya might be worryin' a bit, Gentle Reader.

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

Ah, yes.  We HAVE become comfortably numb, indeed.  That ain't ALL bad.

Heh

Occasional Reader and Frequent Correspondent Lin sends the following along:

This doesn't apply to YrHmblScrb, as one o' P-Ville's many charms is the absence o' a recycling scam.  That said, I hate to imagine what the neighbors think o' me when they throw their trash in the dumpster.  OTOH, they pretty much know... I usually have a beer in hand when I'm on the verandah.

I'm NOT a drunk.  I don't drink a lot, I just drink OFTEN.