Plane Pr0n

From the Usual USAF Source...

Air Frame: An F-35A Lightning II (top) from the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Fla., and an F-22A Raptor from the 325th FW at Tyndall AFB, Fla., soar over the coast of northwest Florida, Sept. 19, 2012. This was the first time the Air Force's two fifth generation fighters have flown together, according to Eglin officials. (Air Force photo by MSgt. Jeremy T. Lock) (Click on image above to reach larger version.)

Hey, Ed... isn't that yer house at lower left?

―:☺:―

In other news... it was déjà vu all over again. Windows Update successfully downloaded and installed the latest update from Microsnot overnight... the one that FAILED Saturday night, causing me all that angst.  I have NO ideer why the initial updates fail... and it's NOT a good sign when yer 'puter starts acting weird.

Tonight's ADWH Soundtrack

It's pretty nice outside, so we opened up the windows and door and loaded a few CDs into the CD player for tonight's soundtrack... one o' which is Don Henley's "Building the Perfect Beast."  We usually set our CD player on "random" and did so this evening... So guess which track came up first?  This:

She passed on your passion and stepped on your pride
Turns out you ain't quite so tough
Cause you still wanna hold her
You must not be drinkin' enough 

Shut UP, Don... I think I'm drinkin' enough.

Don't panic... that's well over a month's worth o' consumption.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

I always thought this tune would make the perfect soundtrack for that mo'sickle racing video I never made...



And I SHOULDA made that video... except for one small thang:  there was no such thang as cheap, hand-held video cams back when I was doing that racing thang, which is to say c. '68 - '72.  Which is just a weak excuse to post photos I've previously posted.  To wit:

YrHmblScrb is second from the right

YrHmblScrb is second from the left

That's The First Mrs. Pennington directly behind #48, which would be me

These three photos are all that remain of the racing archives, the great majority o' which were lost in the Great Divorce Debacle o' 1999.  But... back to the tune... I always visualized the opening 30 seconds of "Jingo" as panning up and down the starting line, and the rest of the tune devoted to action shots of a race, culminating in the finish.  YrHmblScrb would be the star of this extravaganza, of course, ignoring the fact that my racing career was less than... ummm... stellar.  But, Hey!  We had us a great good time.

Ah, missed opportunities and the wistful remembrances of an old man...

We Are Concerned

For the second time in ten days, and a second consecutive failure of Windows Update, I got a Blue Screen O' Death when my computer went to reboot following the download of an "Important" MS patch.  Like this:

I suppose all's well that ends well, in that I was able to restore the computer to its previous state using System Restore.  But twice in a row?  This doesn't foster warm and fuzzy feelings in YrHmblScrb... especially since I've never experienced these sorts of failures before.  Not once.

WTF!?!

So there I was, getting ready to watch Notre Dame kick the Hell outta Michigan... in South Bend... and I pulled the teevee guide up to make sure I had the right channel.  And got THIS:

WTF, KAMR?  WHAT THE FUCK are you THINKING!?!  West Texas A&M?  Incarnate WORD?  What the Hell is that, some sorta religious experience?  The only religious experience I want right now is to see Touchdown Jesus smilin' down on the Irish.

Save me.

I THOUGHT I Was Gonna Be Broadenin' My Horizons This Afternoon...

... but, no.  Coz it was just about this time last year when we did this:

Broadening Our Horizons XXXII

I'm pretty sure I've never had a Shiner Oktoberfest and I'm semi-amazed at the oversight, mainly coz we loves us some beer from that lil ol' brewery in Spoetzl, Tejas.  Ain't it loverly?

My go-to guys for beer give Oktoberfest a B- and I think that's pretty harsh.  I'd give the brew a B+ if not an A-.  This beer is eminently drinkable.  Oktoberfest tastes superb... which is to say clean, slightly hoppy, with a very interesting and complex combination of flavors... and it goes down easy, almost too easy.  I'll have to be careful this afternoon.

Sigh.  There's hardly anythang really NEW happenin' in my world these days.  We were lookin' for a pumpkin ale when we went beer shoppin' this afternoon... mainly because of the comments on this post by the Beer and Whiskey Bros.  Pumpkin ales apparently don't go down well here on The High Plains o' New Mexico, coz there was nary an example of such to be found at my local beer emporium.  But that's OK... coz I'd hate to spend good money on sumthin' I may or may NOT enjoy.

Saturday. Suck It Up, Fanbois.

It's the dialog... the dialog, Gentle Reader:



Spot-freakin'-on, in all respects.  Well, except for the lawsuit(s), mebbe.

Eastwooded

A play on a story from last week about The One skipping his security briefings.  Empty chair, indeed... sometimes stuff comes back to bite ya.  Right where it hurts.

New and Different

From the Usual USAF Source...

MC-27J concept

Spooky Even in Daylight: AC-130 gunships recently began daylight missions for the first time, providing fire support to coalition ground forces in Afghanistan thanks to a new high-definition sensor suite, said Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. Eric Fiel. "We have not flown gunships during the day before, but they are currently flying during the day" there, said Fiel during the four-star forum at AFA's Air & Space Conference outside of Washington, D.C., on Sept. 19. The sensors "allow us a longer standoff range, which caused a little problem since the weapons can't engage targets at that range," he said, noting that AFSOC is working to fix that. AFSOC has also integrated small diameter bombs onto AC-130W gunships, providing standoff precision attack capability. Stinger gunships in Afghanistan currently carry eight SDBs—four under each wing—as well as "internal precision-guided munitions," detailed Fiel. Next month, AFSOC plans to test Hellfire air-to-ground missiles on the AC-130, he said.

That's pretty interesting.  We're used to seeing Cannon's C-130s (of one stripe or another) orbiting the night skies over P-Ville but see them only rarely during daylight hours... so perhaps that'll change in the near future.  It's the highlighted bits in the blurb above that got my attention, though.  I was under the impression that the Stinger gunship proposal was dead, yet here's the head of AFSOC talking about Stingers carrying the SDB in Afghanistan.  What's up with that, I wonder?

Porn Names

So it came to pass in comments to yesterday's "Your Pirate Name" post that Loosy-Anna Andy brought up the subject of stripper/porn names.  And, according to the rules laid down by Andy, my porn name would be: "Mustapha Pete Rue Mozart."

Well, that's all well and good, I suppose... but we weren't all THAT keen on it.  So we tried another name generator, and came up with this: Uncle Peachybutt.

I think I'll stick with Mustapha Mozart, electing to drop my middle names.  Here's Ol' Mustapha Mozart with one of his favorite co-stars back when he was in his prime.

The boy has since retired from films and doesn't even know his former co-star any longer.

Victims

Gov. Romney was right and you know he's right if you watched any of the pathetic speeches given at the Dims' convention.  You also know why.

The Difference Between Drinking Beer In the UK and In the US...

...illustrated:

The point bein' that you would have consumed three US beers by the time you finished your second pint at the pub.  That's a 12-ounce beer (an Abita Turbodog, in case you was wonderin') poured into my sole remaining pint mug.  When I left Ol' Blighty nearly 30 years ago I had at least a dozen pint glasses and mugs.  But, alas... they all got broken along the way except for the one you see above.  You'll note that there's a logo on that mug and I've chosen NOT to display same.  Mainly for the embarrassment that would be in it.

In Honor o' the Day...

Quite a few o' my blog-buds are talking like pirates today, and some of those same few have even gone out and got a pirate name.  Well.  We shall NOT be left behind in this space, ergo:

Gitcher's here.

SOF

A couple o' items from the Usual USAF Source...

Demand for SOF Outpacing Growth: US Special Operations Command has grown from about 45,000 people in 2001 to about 68,000 today, and it has plans to continue that growth to 71,000 through Fiscal 2018, said Garry Reid, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. Speaking at AFA's Air & Space Conference in National Harbor, Md., Sept. 18, Reid said SOF capacity also has increased about 25 percent during that time. However, even such steady growth has not been able to mitigate the incredibly high operational tempo endured by special operators over the last 11 years. In fact, USSOCOM operational tempo is nine times greater than it was prior to that growth, with many operators racking up 20 to 30 deployments just to Iraq and Afghanistan. "From a command and leadership perspective, we have to start thinking about sustainment and how that goes in the long-term," said Reid. Although the US has pulled out of Iraq and plans are in place for a 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan, that op tempo is not expected to change any time soon, he said. US special operators operate from about 200 different countries throughout the course of a year and are in 70 to 80 countries on any given day.
—Amy McCullough
 

It's All About Adaptability, Agility: More than 80 percent of all of US special operations missions are conducted in the US Central Command area of responsibility, so the majority of SOF assets have been optimized for the hot, mountainous, desert region, said Garry Reid, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict, during AFA's Air & Space Conference Sept. 18. But, as the US prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan senior military leaders now must figure out how to rework those same systems so they will remain fully capable in other contingencies around the globe. "We have to think about that on a global level and make sure we have everything in place," said Reid. USAF Brig. Gen. Marshall Webb, assistant commanding general at Joint Special Operations Command headquarters, said Air Force Special Operations Command is paying particular attention to that as it looks to upgrade most of its airframes. "It's about adaptability and agility," said Webb during an air commando forum Sept. 18. He added, "We are working closely with our partners to discuss the right types of sensors, mobility platforms, and weapons we will need and then to adopt them to the right airframes so we can sustain that in different environments other than the desert."

The first thing that struck me is the OpTempo for our special operators, the second thing was the number of different countries they operate in.  Your average American would be hard-pressed to even NAME 70 to 80 countries, let alone deploy to one of 'em.  As far as OpTempo goes... that's a LOT o' deployments, but all deployments are not equal; you can deploy for as little as a week or two, or for more than a year.  That said, I'm thinkin' ANY SpecOps deployment ain't a piece o' cake.  My hat is off to those guys.

And then there's the bit about SOF assets being "optimized for hot, mountainous, desert regions."  Now you know why the 27th Special Operations Wing is at Cannon.  In part.

Headline...

... in The Daily Mail:

Pakistani man dies after inhaling fumes from burning American flags at anti-Islam film rally

Heh.  Congrats to the manufacturer of that poisonous US flag... may we have another lots more, please?

Happy Birthday to Us

From the Usual USAF Source:

Happy Birthday, Air Force!: Sept. 18 marks the 65th anniversary of the Air Force's founding. "As we celebrate the United States Air Force's 65th birthday, we salute all of the dedicated airmen who serve or have served in our nation's youngest and most innovative service," write Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh, and CMSAF James Roy in a message to airmen. They continue, "Throughout our proud history, the Air Force has embraced the technology that continues to revolutionize our capabilities in air, space, and cyberspace. We owe an enormous debt to the ground-breaking visionaries and engineering pioneers who brought the technology of flight to life, and to the professional strategists and tacticians who imagined the military possibilities of these new technologies and propelled the science, theory, and application forward." Today, as in the past, however, airmen remain "the living engine" of the Air Force, they state, adding, "Happy birthday, Air Force! Aim High! . . . . Fly! Fight! Win!"

Wait.  That means I'M older than my service.  That can't be right.

My Second Grade Class Photo

Guess which one is me.

h/t: My Buddy Ed In Florida.

Not So Stoic This Time

There's this, for starters:

sto·i·cism

n.

1. Indifference to pleasure or pain; impassiveness.

2. Stoicism The doctrines or philosophy of the Stoics.

I've never been indifferent to pleasure (see: epicurean and I'm really surprised there ain't a portrait of me there, just for illustrative purposes.  Wait.  What?) but when it comes to pain I've always kinda-sorta grinned and bore it.  I'm not so damned stoic this time around, however.  We're ten days removed from our latest episode of Adventures In Modern Dentistry and I'm sick to death of (a) pain and (b) soft food.  Where (a) is concerned: we're nearly at the bottom of our Industrial Strength Pain Relivers, so much so that we're rationing them to make the supply last as long as possible (read as: nighttime use only).  Also where (a) is concerned: OTC Aleve and Tylenol ain't cuttin' the mustard.  Further to (a): we shall request refills on the Industrial Strength stuff when we go in to have our stitches removed in three days time.

And then there's (b).  I want some REAL food, but I can't have it at the moment... it's just not physically possible.  I'm pleased that there's a plethora of frozen soft foods out there today and I'd hate to be goin' through this thang 20 years ago when there wasn't nearly as much choice.  That said... I'm sick to death of mac & cheese, creamed chipped beef on toast, chili (in at least three different flavors), pudding (in three flavors, too), and oatmeal.  I'd mention cheesecake, except for the fact I'm NOT sick o' that.  Oh, and ice cream.  Bring on more of the last two items, please.

OK, we're done pissin' and moanin'.

Day One

From the NHL Players Association:



Well, OK... that's all well and good but it rings hollow.  The players and management need to FUCKING FIX THIS, AND FIX IT RIGHT NOW.

The last gotdamned thing I wanna see is a re-run of 2004-2005.

Morning Person?

Occasional Correspondent Lin sends along this vid with the following tag line: "All you happy, perky, sunshiny morning people out there, this is for you!!" 



Don't talk to me until I've had at least one cup o' coffee, either.