YD's Dugout

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2011-09-29T23:02:00.000-05:00

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yankeedog out.

Thoughts ten years on...

2011-09-10T22:28:00.002-05:00

I've been fortunate enough to visit the Aloha State, and when in Honolulu I made the trip out to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial. It's probably a place everyone should go when on the Islands. It's a somber place-understated but a dignified monument for those that died on 7 December.

One thing I would be interested in, though, is what was on radio and television on December 7, 1951. I expect it wasn't full of memoirs and retrospectives on what happened ten years previous. Actually, I suppose I Love Lucy was on the tube, Gunsmoke was on the radio, and the news was all about the direct-to-video sequel to WWII-the Korean War.

Point is, Americans probably remembered Pearl Harbor on that day-and moved on with their lives.

I'm not sure we're doing so well with the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Tomorrow will see almost every channel on TV showing retrospectives of the day. The History Channel is even having a special to be shown on all of their channels all over the world. The rest of the world will probably think a) we're a nation of people who can't cope with adversity or b) won't care or c) both.

I realize there is an exponential increase in mass media since the mid-20th Century, and September 11 will be, at least for Americans, a 'remember where you were' day, much like the day President Kennedy was shot, or the Challenger exploded, or the night the Berlin Wall cracked open (I remember watching the news the night the Berlin Wall opened up and thinking 'Well, that was easy'.). That's, I think, fair enough.

But shows featuring the final phone calls and messages of the people who died that day seems to me to be in poor taste and somehow in my opinion cheapens the meaning of the day. Those messages really should have been kept private. And how many times do we really need to see those planes crashing into the World Trade Center?

There was that day, like in any another disaster, the whole range of human nature. There were some outstanding examples of heroism and valor along with I'm sure panic and cowardice. We remember the acts of firefighters, police, and ordinary citizens, who went into places most people were trying to get out of. A lot of them didn't survive the day. We remember those people on Flight 93 who chose to fight back instead of dying in fear. They died anyway, but far better to go down taking a swing if there's no real choice. We remember all the good people who've died since then in the various conflicts.

At the same time, Americans need to move on. There are a lot of issues we need to try to tackle and solve. The current administration seems to want to wind down our foreign adventures, and it's probably time. We've captured or otherwise dispatched most of the brains behind the plot. That the main plotter of the events of September 11 is currently fish food is adequate revenge for me. Paid in full. Perhaps the fish that nibbled on the body of Osama bin Ladin will get caught and provide a day's nourishment for some family-proof that some good is present in all men, I suppose. Anyway, let's get our troops back here. I dare say we could use them around the southern borders of our tired old Republic.

Much to do, everyone, in this nation and world. Remember our fallen, but move on. The people that died on 9/11 would want us to do that, I think. Let's roll!

yankeedog out.

YD's Diet Plan

2011-08-25T22:41:00.000-05:00

Well. Been a while since last I showed up here.

Been a lot of stuff I suppose worth writing about-a debt deal by the government which really isn't much of a deal; the fall of Tripoli and Qaddafi's regime in Libya-good riddance to bad rubbish; the incoming NFL season (the Bears still haven't improved their offensive line); the looming conclusion of the baseball season (Cubs in 5th in the 6 team NL Central-I'm surprised they're that good); the recently concluded International Softball Congress Men's Fastpitch Tournament here in Moline-some good ball played by some talented players from all over the world, and congratulations to the Jarvis Travelers from Ontario for winning the whole thing.

Hmm. Since we're on the subject of ballgames, let's discuss that staple of the baseball stadium concession stand-the hot dog. For me, part of the experience of going to the game is having a dog and a cold beer. I suppose if I were in, say, Australia, watching the footy, I'd have to partake of the infamous 'meat pie', which actually would be quite good if made from someone's recipe, in their kitchen, with identifiable ingredients. I shudder to think of its mass-produced counterpart. I actually had a bratwurst at the softball tournament from a stand run by a local meat market. It had real identifiable meat in it and it was to a mass produced bratwurst what a '59 Cadillac is to a Yugo. Outstanding!

Now I know that hot dogs are made of basically whatever's left from the animal du jour being killed at the slaughterhouse. They're full of fat, salt, and nitrates-which is why they taste so good. I eat maybe six or seven of the things a year. I know they aren't the best things in the world to build a diet around.

But nothing we eat these days escapes the Food Police, those organizations, which I suppose have good intentions, that tell us that anything that has, say, flavor-is going to kill us. And they may be right. But then, life is bad for the heart as well.

This billboard appeared recently, I believe in the Los Angeles area-

That has the subtlety of a mallet! I might be inclined to think that if one were to eat six or seven hot dogs a day-every day-for 20 years-then one might suffer adverse health effects. On the other hand, there is probably some 95-year-old guy out there who's eaten hot dogs every day since the end of Prohibition and is healthy as a horse. Who can say?

I've looked over a lot of studies and looked at the websites of a lot of different scientific and environmental groups, and I've been able to piece together a lot of nutritional and diet information. In the interest of promoting good health, I'm going to pass it along to you, the Concerned Citizen. Ready? Here goes:

Eat fish-Fish are full of good omega-3 oils and are generally lean and full of protein, and can be prepared in a lot of low-calorie ways.

Don't eat fish-Fish absorb a lot of the pollutants that humanity has thoughtfully placed in the world's waterways. Minerals like mercury accumulate in many species of fish. Fish should, therefore, be avoided.

Eat eggs-Eggs have a lot of nutrients and protein, and are portable and tasty.

Don't eat eggs-Eggs are loaded with cholesterol, which clogs arteries and contributes to heart disease.

Eat red meat-Most meat is loaded with vitamins and protein, which helps to make you feel full.

Don't eat red meat-Red meat is laced with fat, contains cholesterol, and, depending on how it's prepared, put a strain on the digestive system. Also, beef and pork take a lot of resources to produce. Red meat should be avoided at all costs!

Eat poultry- Poultry is generally low in fat, high in protein, and very versatile to cook. A must in your diet!

Don't eat poultry-Poultry in high in cholesterol and generally produced in 'inhumane' factory farms. Not to be supported with your purchases!

Drink coffee- Coffee has caffeine and seems to have some life-extending chemicals in it. Enjoy a cup!

Don't drink coffee-Coffee has caffeine, which can increase heart rate and increase the risk of a heart attack or disease. Stay away from the coffee pot..

Eat vegetables and fruits-Vegetables and fruits are high in fiber, and many contain vital antioxidants for cancer prevention.

Don't eat vegetables and fruits-Many vegetables and fruits are grown on huge truck farms and full of pesticides and herbicides. Eat at your own risk!

Drink a lot of water-Drink 8 8 oz glasses of water a day to replenish fluid levels and help flush the body's internal workings.

Go easy on the water-There have been cases of people literally drowning from taking in too many glasses of water. Also, most municipal water supplies are treated with chlorine and flourides, which can be harmful in large doses.

Eat grains and grain products-Grains are loaded with fiber and nutrients and are a good source of energy.

Don't eat grains and grain products-Grains are full of carbohydrates, which, if consumed to excess, can lead to diabetes. Give grains a wide berth!

Eat sugar-Sugar is a natural sweetening substance, unlike saccharine or aspartame, and is generally preferred over its man-made counterparts.

Don't eat sugar-Sugar is a veritable trove of refined carbohydrates, which the pancreas finds hard to produce enough insulin to break down. Can lead to diabetes. Avoid sugar.

Eat salt-Salt is a necessary component for the body to function, and has been infused with iodine, also necessary for the body's functions.

Don't eat salt-Salt conributes to hypertension, which, if untreated, can lead to heart disease. Put down the salt shaker!

There you are. That's easy to follow, isn't it? Sure it is! Enjoy your newfound health and vigor. Bon appetit!

yankeedog out.

Vale Borders

2011-08-07T22:45:00.000-05:00

So, Borders is finished as a chain. The local store up in Davenport has had a lot of traffic over the past couple of weeks. Actually, our store was always full and ours was one of the few that remained open after the initial filing for bankruptcy, but I think the business volume has doubled. Obviously, a lot of people are looking for bargains. The place is starting to get a definite 'picked-over' look.

I've picked up some stuff of interest fairly cheap that I wouldn't have paid full price for. Allen Steele's Coyote series-interstellar colonization in the Heinlein tradition. Not bad, but Heinlein would've wrote it better. The Great War in Africa. Interesting reading about WWI in Africa. Completely different style of fighting than in Europe. Robert Conroy's 1945- not bad alt-hist regarding the US invasion of Japan in 1945-46. Robopocalypse. Don't waste your money on this-either watch the Terminator series or read World War Z which is much more masterfully crafted. DVDs of the early seasons of The Red Green Show. Obviously people in rural Ontario live just like people in rural Northwest Illinois. Overall, not a terrible bunch of titles.

I'm going to miss Borders. I spent a lot of hours in their stores and put more than a little bit of money in their coffers. We still have Barnes & Noble, but a lot of times Borders had a bigger selection of titles to choose from. I guess they were a little bit late to get on the e-book wagon, and they couldn't compete with the colossus that is Amazon.com. Some of the employees have quietly said that perhaps the company had too many chiefs and not enough Indians. If so, some of the chiefs they had might have made some tactical errors in running the business.

I grew up going to Waldenbooks, which could be found in nearly any mall in America back in the 1980s. Most of the stores were small by today's standards, but when you grew up in a small town they looked like the Library of Congress. I believe Waldenbooks was absorbed by Borders, so they'll be gone as well.

In the 1990s, there used to be a smallish chain called Media Play. They had books, and videos, and music. AND video games. One stop shopping! What a concept! That WAS the place to go come Christmastime. A person could get everything on the Christmas list and be done in a couple of hours. But they got too much into items outside of their core business and they folded in the early 2000s.

Oddly enough, some of the small local bookstores are still hanging in there. I don't know how they do it, but they are. It's good to see. I can see the advantages to e-books. They're cheap (after the initial investment in the reader), and they take up NO space. But I still like having an actual book in my hands.

There is a campaign going to get Books-A-Million, which appears to be based in the southeastern US, to locate a store here in the present Borders. Yeah, I'll email the company to do that. I think the area could support a store. For some reason we appear to be more literate than the rest of the country or something. Plus, I like having a couple of major chains in the area to keep each other honest, pricewise. We'll see.

So long, Borders, and thanks for all the reading!

yankeedog out.

And more rails

2011-08-01T21:49:00.001-05:00

Tonight, a few more pics from Train Festival 2011.

First up, though...Steamboat a-comin'!

The Celebration Belle, our local dinner cruise/tour boat. Of course, nowhere near so old as she might look. In the fall, there's not much better than a cruise upriver, looking at the colors along the bluffs.

One of the more interesting engines that showed up was the newest:

Yes, that's right. The newest. This 4-4-0 was the mainstay of American railroads from the 1850s into the 1880s. This engine is actually a homebuilt project/replica of the Central Pacific Railroad's Leviathan. The CPRR was the western 'half' of the first transcontinental railroad. The owner did a fantastic job of recreating a piece of Americana. And since it's new, the engine is actually fuel-fired (instead of wood-fired) and has all of the latest safety gear. Leviathan could run on any road in the country. Now all he needs is an old combine car and a coach to complete the set.

Not Thomas, but a couple of tank engines. They were quite common around factories, lumbermills, and mines until the advent of diesels. Quite small and handy for working industry.

One of the 'stars' of the show was Nickel Plate 765. Officially, a Berkshire class 2-8-4 of the New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati Railroad, built in 1944 by Lima Locomotive Works, Lima, Ohio. 765 had a fairly brief career, hauling freights from 1944 to 1958. The railroad donated the engine to the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana. She sat in a city park, deteriorating away, until the local chapter of the National Railway Historical Society took it upon themselves to restore her to running condition. It took a few years and a pile of cash and labor, but today 765 is a star of the steam engine family.

If you grew up on the image of, say, Thomas the Tank Engine, or seeing small engines from the 1800s, it's amazing to realize the immense size of the final generation of steam locomotives. NKP 765 weighs 804,000 pounds (364 tonnes), has a driver diameter of 69 inches (1.75 meters), is over 100 feet (30.7 meters) long, and can cruise along at a leisurely 70 mph (113 km/hr). Not bad for pulling fast freights across the flatlands!

Next up-some diesels.

yankeedog out.

Riding the rails

2011-07-29T23:37:00.001-05:00

"Oh, the Rock Island Line is a mighty good road

Oh, the Rock Island Line is the road to ride
The Rock Island Line is a mighty good road
Well if you want to ride you gotta ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line."

-Rock Island Line, Leadbelly Johnson

"Well, listen to the jingle

To the rumble and the roar
As she glides along the woodland
Through the hills and by the shore
Hear the mighty rush of the engine
And the lonesome hoboes call
No changes can be taken
On the Wabash Cannonball"

-Wabash Cannonball, various artists

Last weekend saw Train Festival 2011 in Rock Island, complete with various old engines and rolling stock and numerous excursions, both on the railroad and on the Mississippi River. The event seemed to be pretty well attended and well-run. A great time for all of the railroad geeks out there, of which I am at least a junior member of the club.

Most of the excursions were run on the rails of the Iowa Interstate Railroad, which is the spiritual of not actual successor of the old Rock Island Railroad. The IAIS runs from Chicago to Omaha on the old Rock Island main line and crosses the Mississippi here in the QCs.

IAIS even recognizes their ancestor road by having one of their new GE ES44s done up in a 1950s era 'Rock Island' paint scheme. It's an eye-catcher and a favorite of rail photographers.

Iowa Interstate is a 'fan-friendly' railroad, generally amenable to hosting excursions and rail events. They even keep 2 Chinese-built 2-10-2 steam engines on the roster for running steam trains!

TBH and I took the train last Saturday for the all-day excursion west approximately 60 miles through Iowa City and turned on the wye west of town. The consist was one of the IAIS steamers, 2 Amtrak diesels, and 13 passenger cars.

We rolled across the bridge at the Arsenal over the Mississippi River (sorry-no pics. National security and all that. It's absurd in a million ways, but, hell, I don't wanna give ol' Ahmed any ideas), and soon we were on our way across the farms, fields, and small towns of eastern Iowa at a comfortable 45 mph.

For those who haven't heard a steam engine whistle, it has a deep and mellifluous sound not heard on modern-day horns. One need only close their eyes when they hear the old whistle blow and go back in their mind to the days when the train pulling up to the station was a major event for a village or town, bringing goods from far away and passengers leaving and arriving from distant and exotic locales (possibly someplace as far as 25 or 30 miles away!). A big treat when a person's world stretches mostly just to the horizon, I reckon.

The trip went well-no problems that I heard about. Everyone on board seemed to have a good time. I've said it before and I'll say it again-travel by rail isn't always the fastest option, but I think it may be the most relaxing. Nothing wrong with a nice, roomy coach seat and a drink and just taking everything in. Kudos to the Iowa Interstate crews and Friends of the 261 for work well done!

A little bit of background for the next encounter:

When the Iowa Interstate started up in the late 1980s, it ran over the Rock Island main line west from Chicago. The Rock was in sad financial shape for years and had let the physical plant (equipment and roadbed) deteriorate to the point where 15 mph was about as fast as could be run without risking a major derailment. The Rock went bankrupt in 1980 and the track lay abandoned for a number of years. A group of investors, led by a former Conrail manager, Henry Posner, looked at the traffic that was available and could be scraped up, took a chance and created the IAIS. At first, they ran with a hodgepodge of equipment, and none too fast. (Aside within an aside-there used to be a dinner train here in the late 1980s-the Quad City Rocket. I had the pleasure of having dinner aboard her once. Over the track in the condition it was in at that time, the experience was akin to eating on the pitching mess deck of a small ship in a storm.) Over the years, with wise spending and some loans from government and private entities, the ownership group got the roads fixed, new motive power, new service facilities, and a lot of new accounts for moving industrial and agricultural goods along the line. A real business success story, which should be studied by some of the current shlups running businesses (and government) in this country.

We're sitting in our coach on the way back to Rock Island when this thin guy in overalls and a jacket, looking like the guy in the painting American Gothic, walks into the car and introduces himself. None other than Chairman Posner Himself! Cool! He looked like he'd just got done with a turn at the throttle of the steam engine, and maybe he did-it IS his locomotive, after all. He welcomed us aboard, told us a bit about the condition of the railroad when his group bought it, and told us to be safe when waiting to shoot the runby. Actually, he pleasantly told us not to screw up or screw around on his railroad. I can accept that. Railroads are dangerous places to be hanging around. Liability insurance for excursions is expensive, and IAIS doesn't HAVE to sponsor them. Also, running essentially a non-revenue passenger train does divert people and resources from making money moving freight.

I also know from what I've read that Mr. Posner is something of a railfan at heart. He likes trains and is aware of how the rails helped form the nation. And hosting these events and excursions is good publicity for the company and fosters goodwill between the railroad and communities along the line. IAIS keeps their right-of-way, facilities, and motive power clean and well-maintained. Some of the bigger roads could do well to follow their example. It looks like everyone from the Chairman down to the guy wielding the hammer takes pride in their work-and it shows.

A long ramble-but impressive to me that there are still a few businesses that are trying to do things 'the right way'.

Anyway, an outstanding trip. I hope we can pull out another one again soon.

Oh, yes. Of course. You can see the runby and the column of smoke and hear the chuffing of the cylinders and the clicking of the drivers simply by going here. Enjoy!

yankeedog out.

An Overcast day

2011-07-19T21:31:00.000-05:00

with a lot of help from Wikipedia's article.

Aluminum Overcast is the Exprimental Aviation Association's B-17 Flying Fortress. She visited the QCs a couple of Saturdays ago.

Technically, the plane is a B-17G-105-VE, serial number 44-85740, built by the Vega Division of Lockheed (!-think of GM building Ford's cars). This particular plane never served in combat, having been built in May 1945. Most flying examples of the B-17 still existing were planes that either served as trainers in the States or built and moved to surplus. However, this plane was bought by a private citizen, who used it as a mapping plane, so the Overcast had a very interesting career mapping the remote corners of the world.

In the late 1970s, the Fort was bought and restored to a wartime appearance, mostly by veterans of the old 398th Bomb Group. The plane has nearly a million hours of flight time, the leader among the surviving Forts.
Today, the EAA flies Aluminum Overcast to around 60 cities every summer. An enthusiast can even take a flight in her, if said enthusiast has a spare $465. Worth every penny if you're into historic aviation-there are only ten of these still flying. Fortunately, there are several more in museums around the world.

In addition, the local military vehicle club brought a couple of Jeeps to the airport:

The fellow in the pith helmet is I believe the owner of this classic WWII era Jeep, all resplendent with a major general's plate. The windshield frame bears the slogan 'HUMVEE RECOVERY UNIT'. You go, Jeep!

This model dates from the Korean War era, and Jeep made them like this for us civilians well into the 1980s. This bad boy sports the colors of the 45th 'Thunderbird' Infantry Division (Oklahoma National Guard), one of two National Guard divisions activated for the Korean War, and still exists today as 45th Infantry Brigade (Oklahoma). Someone around here has a Jeep with a .30 caliber machine gun on a pedestal mount. I saw it in the 4th of July parade. I'd drive that-and I bet I'd get a good parking spot wherever I went!

Anyhow, a few more pictures of Aluminum Overcast for your viewing pleasure:

Love the B-17. It has elegant lines not seen on the other major Allied heavy bomber types (B-24 Liberator, B-29 Superfortress, Lancaster), though the old Liberator jockeys at least will give an argument over which plane was the better of the two, and I suppose the surviving British, Canadian, and Australian Lancaster crewmen will argue for the British bird. They're all at this point great to see still flying.

As you can see from several of the photos, there was a line approximately the length of a communist-era bread line to tour the interior of the B-17. I decided that waiting an hour in the Midwest sun wasn't going to happen, so I pulled a photo of the cockpit of the Collings Foundation's B-17, Nine-O-Nine, to give an idea of what the interior of those old warbirds looked like.

Close quarters-but then so is the main office of a B-52.

A nice bit of aviation and military history to see. Keep 'em flying!

yankeedog out.

A quarter century ago...

2011-07-14T21:22:00.000-05:00

14 July 1986. Doesn't seem like all that long ago. Perhaps I must have skipped the second half of the 90s and all of the Noughts.

On that July day in '86, I started my first job after college in my chosen field: drafter/designer. And a lot has changed in 25 years in the American workplace.

I started at a company called IMECO, based in a small town in northwest Illinois. We made industrial refrigeration and HVAC equipment for food processing and logistics facilities all over North America. It was a great place to work. It was a family-owned business, and most of the time it felt like a family. We did a lot of after-hours stuff as a group-beers after work, hayrides, company picnics-that I've not done since. I think this kind of thing may not be as common as it used to be. Seems like people are just busy all the time these days trying to keep their noses above water. On the other hand, IMECO was in a small town. Everybody knew everybody else and the only thing that traveled faster than light was gossip. If someone did something at 8, everyone knew about it by 10. But overall, the general atmosphere was pretty laid back.

Back then, I started out drawing on the boards. The guy next to me had a smokeless ashtray. Yeah, kids-at one time you could smoke in the workplace. Tells you how far back this is! We did most of our work on boards until about '88 when we got our first dedicated CAD stations, which no doubt had roughly 1/100th of the computing power of today's smartphones. But drawing on the computer was a hell of a lot faster than doing so on paper, so it was pretty high-tech stuff. Then we could take our drawings to the new fax machine and send them over the phone lines!

Finally, we had a big ol' Digital Equipment DEC VAX mainframe for all of the company's records. There were several workstations scattered around the office for access. You know, even now, IMECO was probably the best organized place I ever worked at. It was super easy to pull up bills of material, purchased parts descriptions, and drawings. In the 9 years I was there, the company's business quadrupled. Am I proud to have been a part of that? You bet!

Eventually the owner of the company retired and the place changed hands a couple of times before I left. The last bunch mismanaged the company and it went under a couple of years ago. In a way, it's still a hard pill to swallow. We made a good company-made it work, made it valuable, only to see some chumps who didn't know their asses from their elbows run it into the ground. All too typical a story these days.

A definite change in the workplace since the mid 1980s has been the onward march of technology. Back in those days, it was possible to actually leave work. There were big clunky mobile phones, of course, and pagers-but nothing like what we have today. Given that I could run Pro/E on the very laptop I'm writing this on, I have a cell phone, and quick access to sites that host Web meetings, it'd be possible to never get away from work. Most people don't really get away from their jobs any more.

Are certain tasks faster than they were before? Certainly. Is life in the modern workplace better? That I'm not so sure about.

Right now, I'm on my third company since 1986. Not too bad a record. The last place I was at was converting over to an employee-owned company. When I left there, I got a nice chunk of change (my 'share' in the company) to roll over into my pension plan. Generally, when I've left a company it's been a more profitable place than when I started. That is by NO means all my doing-you have to have at least a core of good people at all levels to make business work, and I've been most fortunate to work with some fine people. But it's a sight better than most CEOs of major companies can say.

yankeedog out.

Some rails long gone

2011-07-11T19:33:00.001-05:00

As most of you know, I'm a railroad buff. Perhaps naturally, since my Dad and my uncles all worked for the old Milwaukee Road, and the Burlington also went through my old hometown. The Burlington had the great roadbed and track and the gleaming stainless steel Zephyr passsenger trains that roared up the Mississippi valley on the way to the Twin Cities and points west. The Milwaukee was more cash-poor and the equipment was generally a bit more weatherbeaten and worn.

In addition, the Rock Island was south of us. It was the first railroad to have a bridge across the Mississippi river back in the 1850s. By the 1970s it too was running on a cash shoestring and looked it. The Illinois Central ran north of us, along the Wisconsin border. The Chicago North Western ran west through Illinois and Iowa on its way to Omaha, and its connection to the Union Pacific (the first transcontinental railroad).

A local road that occasionally gets overlooked is the Chicago Great Western, which was in existence from the 1880s to 1967, when it merged with the Chicago North Western.

The CGW was a latecomer to the Midwest railroad arena and as such didn't have access to the best terrain or most direct routes between major cities. It crossed through some of the hilliest terrain in the Driftless Area and had to bore through the river bluffs near Galena with the Winston Tunnel. It had numerous branches in Iowa, as did most of the other Midwestern railroads. I believe that in the early 1900s, no place in Iowa was more than 20 miles from some rail line. Since a team pulling a grain wagon could cover 20-some miles in a day, the strategic placement of rail branches made perfect economic sense.

By the middle of the 20th Century, trucks began to haul all that grain, and the growth of the highway system took a lot of passengers and freight away from the rails. Those railroads burdened with a lot of (now) light traffic-density branches and no direct lines between major cities were the first to fall into bankruptcy and merger. So went the CGW. After the merger with CNW, the North Western pulled up a lot of the lines they didn't want or need. By the 1980s, most traces of the old railroad were gone.

The hub of the Chicago Great Western was the city of Oelwein, Iowa. Its lines to Chicago, Minneapolis, and Kansas City all merged there. The main engine and car shops were located there, and the North Western did keep these shops going until its own merger with the Union Pacific in the mid 1990s.

Most of the rail jobs are long gone now, and the UP runs through Oelwein these days instead of stopping. But there are a few people in town trying to keep the heritage alive with the Hub City Railroad Museum, located in the old Oelwein Yard Offices. This is where your correspondent took a day trip last Saturday.

The museum has a decent collection of old employee records, pictures, and small equipment. The museum does a good job of showing the CGW's influence in Oelwein.

But....

A lot of the pictures and equipment aren't shown in any coherent order, and the few pieces of rolling stock they own are in somewhat sad shape. That isn't anyone's fault, really. The museum is run by volunteers, most of them getting up in years. It's a classic case of too few hands and too many projects and not enough visitors to fund said projects. It's a shame, but all too common.

Probably the centerpiece of the museum rolling stock is an old F7 locomotive. General Motors' E and F series were most railroads' first purchase of diesel road power. They're something of an iconic design in 20th Century industrial equipment and have been on many US and foreign rosters. Even today, the F7 can be seen occasionally hauling museum passenger trains, commuter trains, and business trains for the major railroads. They weren't extremely popular with road crews (they weren't easy to climb up into), or maintenance crews (major engine work meant removing a good portion of the carbody), but the things still look cool!

From the outside, she looks resplendent in crimson and black with yellow lettering. This is how she'd have looked pulling a long freight up across the hills and plains on her way to Chicago or the Twin Cities or down to KC.

We'll climb the stairs and go in through the vestibule door in the rear of the engine.

The powerplant-an EMD16-567B 16-cylinder diesel engine, producing 1500 horsepower. Fairbanks-Morse made a similar design for its locomotives-but a person would be more likely to see one on a fleet submarine from the World War II era. F-M produced its 16 cylinder diesel in trainloads for the Navy. Even today, a nuclear submarine carries a similar engine for last-ditch, emergency use. But I digress.

At the nose of the engine is, of course, the head office-the control station. Until the 1980s, a freight train carried a crew of five, three in the engine (engineer, fireman, brakeman) and two in the caboose (rear brakeman, conductor). Nowadays the average crew is two. So the engine has three seats-one for the engineer who actually did work, and two for the relatively useless fireman and brakeman.

This would be view from the engineer's seat:

The interior is, to put it kindly, in rough shape. Certainly not beyond restoration, but needs some serious work.

Like military vehicles, railroad museum engines and rolling stock should be kept under some sort of cover. This F7 would do well in a shed, with the interior refurbished and monitored to keep the riff-raff from stealing stuff and ripping the engine up, or traded to another railroad museum that could keep her up properly.

In short, as a city museum featuring their railroad history-not bad. As a railroad museum-not so good, but still a good collection of a 'fallen flag' road.

yankeedog out.

Hail Atlantis!

2011-07-06T22:17:00.000-05:00

And the end of an era:

The last of the Space Shuttle missions will soon be launched, and with it at least a pause in American-run manned space flight. One hopes this won't be the last time the US launches men into space.

It's hard to believe that just over 30 years ago, Crippen and Young flew Columbia on the program's maiden flight. I remember back in the 1970s seeing pictures of the old Enterprise do landing and glide tests. And of course, the losses of Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003. Exploration has always been a risky business.

To be honest, I'm not sure if the shuttle program was a huge success, or if it met any of the 'goals' the original designers might have had. The shuttles were instrumental in launching, supplying, and repairing several satellites and space stations. And for the stresses the vessels went through in a typical mission, they were remarkably durable. 30+ years for an aviation program is remarkable enough.

I think the shuttles were largely a victim of being part of the political football that NASA has been during most of its existence. Given a mission to perform, NASA performed generally well. President Kennedy wanted to place and retrieve Americans on the moon by the end of the 1960s-and it got done. Numerous agencies and nations wanted satellites launched-and it got done.

Now what? During the 1970s and 1980s, NASA didn't seem to have a clear vision for the future. Sure, the shuttles were in the pipeline. But what to do with them? Use them to build an orbital station? What about a manned mission to Mars? A return to the moon?

The collapse of the Soviet Union may have been both a blessing and a curse for the US space program. The 'curse' was that any plans to build orbital stations and planetary bases to counter the USSR went by the wayside. The 'blessing' was that the Mir station could be supplied and serviced by the shuttle. Mir and the new International Space Station provided work for the shuttles through the 1990s and 2000s.

After this final mission, the 135th of the program, the Space Shuttles will fade into history. The surviving vessels will be parceled out to various museums.

Again, now what?

Unfortunately, we haven't found a compelling reason to go to the moon or the other planets. The moon doesn't appear to be loaded with a lot of exotic minerals which would make mining a viable proposition. There may be enough water ice at the poles to sustain a small base-someday.

Building a big enough orbital station to have a permanent industrial presence (building interplanetary craft, for example) seems to be a non-starter. Venus, unfortunately, doesn't have the life many sci-fi authors thought it might. Same with Mars, though it is livable after a fashion, and more amenable to life as we know it. I haven't given up on life on the other planets, since we find organisms in the most inhospitable places here on Earth. If a bacteria can thrive on the inside of an operational nuclear reactor, certainly something could be living on Mars. Obviously, if Mars were more Earth-like, every nation would have been building ships as fast as they could to set up colonies there.

Observation and communication relays can be handled adequately by satellites, so it isn't like we need a manned station to perform those functions.

So what do we replace the shuttles with? Or will we?

The Russian space program seems to be doing okay with its venerable Soyuz/Salyut systems. They've been around a long time, but the Russians are believers in the engineer's dictum-if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Chinese used a Soyuz clone for their manned space flight. Perhaps our next step will be a step back, like the proposed Orion and Constellation craft, which are at heart enlarged Apollo capsules. Perhaps the Air Force already has a replacement craft. There are a lot of strange craft seen out in the hinterlands of Nevada. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if we had something else available to send a brace of astronauts into orbit if necessary. Oh, nothing like a flying saucer with inertialess drive-but maybe a spaceplane like the old Dyna-Soar.

Or some private concern might pick up the slack and develop a manned craft. There may be a market for a very upscale hotel in orbit for the super-rich to spend a few days. Again, with no readily identifiable resources or industry within a practical distance of Earth, it might be a tough sell to get the private sector to invest in space travel. The space program has generated a lot of projects and products that we use every day. I believe continued investment in space, along with a well-defined program with realistic goals, is important for the nation.

In addition to the material benefits, the space program and any endeavors it can accomplish provide a source of pride in a non-violent sphere. Our seeming 'abandonment' of space seems like yet another example of an America in decline. Maybe it is. Certainly, in the halcyon days of the push for the Moon in the 1950s and 1960s, many people and organizations had big dreams and thoughts about man's future in space.

All I know is that by the 1990's, we were supposed to have interplanetary ships like the famous Botany Bay:

And by 2001, we'd have a real, honest-to-God space station with regular Pan Am service:

And I want them!! What the hell happened?

Of course, by some accounts, by 1992 the Apes were to take over the planet and that didn't happen. Whew!

yankeedog out.

I hate a parade!

2011-07-04T22:43:00.000-05:00

Another Fourth in the books. Another year, and the country still together! Didn't think we had it in us, did you?

There are some great Independence Day traditions: baseball, family get-togethers, community festivals. We here in the QCs don't do the Independence Day parade very well, though. Now, the Soviet Union-there was a bunch that could do up a proper parade!

Oh sure, they could only produce one roll of toilet paper for perhaps 10,000 people, but if you need a real, honest-to-God, big-boy parade, you'd have to call the guy who organized the annual May Day spectacle in Moscow.

Now, our Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena on New Year's Day is pretty darn cool. The work those people put into the floats (decorating them with flowers, seeds, and other natural materials) is astounding!

The local parade doesn't have big displays or cool floats, however.

TBH's mom loves parades for whatever reason. I suppose it's because back in the day there wasn't all that much to do, and people had simpler tastes. She did, in her youth, see a few (old!) Civil War vets, and that's a great story to tell. That's 150 years past, but in a way, three generations removed. Doesn't seem like such a distant event when put in those terms. But I digress.

Since Bob (her companion) died, we decided to take her to the 4th of July parade. Now, I don't mind spending the time-but the logistics of carting around someone in their early 90s can be complicated. We got to the parade route two hours early. Any later and it's a hike to the route. She doesn't see too well, so you have to get a spot right on the curb of the street. Oh, and make sure it's shady the whole time because those old Scandinavian types got no appreciable melanin and they burn easily. Also, need to find a spot close to a restroom. The choice of spots available goes down tremendously. Those of you with older relatives understand.

The first part of the parade was a series of firetrucks from the local communities. Very nice-and I have great respect of firefighters, most of whom in smaller towns are volunteer-but I don't know if I need six firetrucks in a row. There was one antique that the local firefighter's union restored, which looked right sharp. Other than that, all the fire engines look about the same.

Next were the local vet's groups. The color guards for the Vietnam Vets and Hispanic-American Vets here I'll put up against any other color guard outfits out there-they're crisp, they march in time, and they look like they could go out and fight today-not bad for guys in their 60s! Even had a couple of World War II vets in restored vehicles. Those guys are going away fast now, and before too long they'll all have passed.

The middle of the parade is local businesses and politicians and wannabe politicians. Oddly enough, most of the politicians were noticeable by their absence. Our local representative to Congress, a Republican, came by and shook TBH's hand. I told him to get his arse back to work. Country's drowning in debt and the economy sucks and you've got time to be fucknuckling around out here instead of being in Washington. Next was the state senator, a Democrat, the ~~scumbucket~~ gentleman we send to Springfield to screw up things. That worthy got in a shoving match with another senator over something or other during the last session. I yelled out and asked him who he'd beaten up lately. There. Got one Republican and one Democrat. Never let it be said that I'm not a fair man.

The worst part of the parade is that everyone in the parade tosses candy to the kids. Consequently, the kids (and worse, their parents, who in most of these cases are roughly the size of a dressed-out bull moose) get up in front of those of us who sat around looking at nothing for two hours before the damn parade started! Now we can't see squat. To be fair, if you ask, they'll usually move-but there's always that ten percent who are stone-cold clueless. The kids-OK, really not much problem with them. They're generally small enough to see over or around. When a handful of candy gets tossed to the street, the scene is reminiscent of a potato-chip truck getting tipped over in Mogadishu. A feeding frenzy. You can replicate this by going to a zoo or aquarium. Go to the feeding pond and buy a handful of fish food pellets and toss them into the water. The carp or goldfish or whatever react just the same as the kids. Really, we're hip deep in candy and gum here. I don't know why the frenzy.

Finally, the equestrian team from some Hispanic group here did some fancy riding. They were pretty good and had some fearsome costumes.

So to sum up: First 1/3 rd of the parade OK. Last group OK. Rest was a waste of time, though TBH's mom enjoyed the show. Guess the day's objective was met.

Back to the grind tomorrow. If the 4th were Monday or Thursday, we'd have gotten a four-day weekend. Since it's on Monday-three-day weekend. That's the way it goes, I suppose.

yankeedog out.

235 years on-still here!

2011-07-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

Fourth of July weekend. Baseball game and fireworks tomorrow. Don't get much more American than that!

Happy 235th to our Republic, somewhat belaguered and debt-ridden bunch that we are at present.

Later, citizens!

yankeedog out.

Stuff of late

2011-06-27T22:28:00.000-05:00

Well, been a while since the last post.

Been a bit busy of late. Mom's house renovation proceeds, perhaps not at the pace I might like, but still progressing. We have the bathroom in running order, and the laundry room is ready for tileboard on the walls and tile on the floor. We'll need to get electric, water, and gas rerouted, and the washer and dryer up from the basement. We should be on the downhill side after that. Still some electrical wiring issues to fix and some copper plumbing to rip out (the Cu should fetch a decent price at the scrapyard).

-----

Last weekend TBH helped run the swim meet for the local Senior Olympics. I 'volunteered' (read 'was conscripted') to help with seeding, timing, and general gofer duties. That went pretty well, though I think 50 as the minimum age to participate seems a bit young. I'd think 55 would be a better minimum age.

The only major issue was that some of the people wanted to change events in the middle of the meet (scratching an event is no big deal, adding is). In any other meet, changing events really wouldn't be allowed, but what the hell-it ain't the real Olympics. I figure as long as nobody got hurt and everyone got their medals, it was a good day.

-----

President Obama is coming to the QCs tomorrow to visit an aluminum plant! Lucky us. Now, I'm not going on ideology here, just on practicality. They're working on a lot of the roads here this summer. The last thing we need during morning or afternoon drive is the President's big tank of a limo, his entourage of War Wagons, and Secret Service types closing off the airport and the one or two major thoroughfares that aren't under construction so he can go to see some people actually working for a living. It'd be nice if they'd bring Marine One along and just helo him to the plant. They could park his copter at the Iowa Guard base outside of town (a helicopter unit, so they have the facilities) and it wouldn't tie up traffic. I think this would make some sense. Therefore the powers-that-be won't do it.

-----

The B-17 Aluminum Overcast is coming to town in a couple of weeks. She's one of the very few surviving airworthy Flying Fortresses out there. A person could take a flight in her-for $429(!) (reckon I don't begrudge the EAA the fare-it isn't cheap to fly a four-engine plane around, and it isn't like everybody can fix the thing if something goes wrong). Not sure it's in the budgetary cards to fly her this year. I did fly in the Collings Foundation B-17 Nine-O-Nine about ten years ago. Truly awesome to fly in a piece of history! I had a great-uncle who flew in Forts during WWII. My flight didn't have any locals trying their damndest to blow us out of the sky, so I suppose my flight went better than his combat missions.

At any rate, one can walk-through Aluminum Overcast for $15. I think I can swing that. I'll get pics.

-----

That's about it, other than the myriad little details that make up life. Fourth of July weekend coming up-chance of rain at least for Saturday and Sunday. I've got tickets for the River Bandits/Lumber Kings game on Saturday night (with postgame fireworks), so c'mon good weather!

yankeedog out.

Some fastpitch from the weekend

2011-06-19T22:38:00.001-05:00

We took a little bit of time off this weekend to watch some of the International Softball Congress adult men's fastpitch qualifier. The winner of the tournament will go on to the ISC World Championship, which will be here in the QCs in August. There are some pretty good teams and players that show up for the event-teams from all over the US and Canada, with players from both countries, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. I believe Kitchener, Ontario, has won at least two of the last three tournaments, so they're the bunch to knock off in August. The fastpitch tournaments are a good time if you're into stick and ball games. And the players at world championship level are talented enough for the scores to be 2-1 or 1-0.

For a time in the mid 1960s, Rock Island was the home of the ISC Worlds. They played the whole tournament on one diamond. Although a given night's games might be scheduled for 6,7,8, and 9 pm, they'd inevitably run much longer and it wasn't uncommon for games to still be going on at 2am! This year's tourney will be at Green Valley Sports Complex, which has 12 diamonds-makes for a MUCH faster tournament.

The Better Half remembers going to some of the 60's tournaments, especially the 1967 series which saw a local car dealer's squad winning the whole thing. One of the players was an affable fellow named Chuck Thome. As TBH remembers it, Thome had a broken arm one year but he was a good player.

Oh yes, he has a son who plays a bit of baseball. Most fans of the game would have heard of him. Not too bad a player-and one of the nicer guys in Major League Baseball.

But that's the past and the future. Back to the present.

This weekend's matches were in Walcott, Iowa, a town just west of us. It's in many ways your basic Midwest small town. You know the place-a couple of bars, a couple of churches, a big grain elevator along the railroad tracks, truck stop on the edge of town along the interstate. A nice quiet place where no one's in much of a hurry and gossip and news travels at warp speed.

Walcott hosts these qualifiers most years. They have two really well-kept diamonds and the community is happy to have the teams and players in town. The townspeople and civic clubs do a great job with the facilities and concessions. While there are many fanatics of bacon that patronize this blog (including the writer of said blog), when it comes to a debate on ham or bacon, I might posit as a third choice a butterfly cut Iowa pork chop, done on the grill and made into a sandwich, for favorite pork product. The pork chop sandwich is a staple at most town fests and local hangouts around these parts.

First game we saw was Quad City Sox vs Life of Iowa (sponsored, of course, by an insurance company). I think the QC Sox were the #1 seed for this tournament, and generally they played like it.

The windup, and the pitch!

Batter up!

And the score after three innings-QC Sox 11, Life of Iowa 0. Oops!

The game ended up 11-1 as the Sox pitchers combined for a one-hitter (the lone hit being a solo home run in the 4th inning). The Sox advance and Life goes to the loser bracket. It's a double-elimination bracket so it's possible to lose a game early on, get hot, and end up playing for the championship vs the winner of the winner bracket.

The second game was Bones Barbeque vs Bowen Merchants Association:

The nine from Bowen look impressive in the old time grays. They had a couple of players who could flat out fly-I've seen MLB players who didn't have those baserunning instincts. Bowen went up 6-2 early and were rolling along until the 5th inning, when the wheels came off the car. A couple of bad defensive plays and a pitcher who wasn't fooling any of the Bones players after a couple of times through the batting order saw Bones come rip-snorting back to win the game 13-6, the highlight of the Bones comeback being a grand-slam homer in the 6th inning. That's the nature of a game played by people who have other jobs-the team looks good, but a play gets screwed up or some error occurs, and the whole momentum of the game changes. The team that was leading comfortably ends up two or three runs down all of a sudden.

Next weekend, the tournament will wrap up. With luck, we'll be there to catch the championship round games on Saturday. It's always a good time at a great venue!

yankeedog out.

A little Zeppelin for the fans

2011-06-03T23:10:00.001-05:00

Just not Robert, John, John Paul, and Jimmy.

I read an interesting piece on the US Navy's fleet of zeppelins, which were used in the 1920s and 1930s.

There were four dirigible airships in the fleet: USS Shenandoah, USS Los Angeles, USS Akron, and USS Macon.

As a review: a dirigible generally has an internal structure that the skin is attached to, where a blimp doesn't have much of a structure, more like a balloon.

Germany and Britain flirted with airships as recon platforms and bombers during World War I, with what I would consider mixed results. Dirigibles didn't seem to have a long lifespan. Although they could outclimb the fighters of the day, they were slower, much larger, and filled with very flammable hydrogen for a lift gas. After the war, Britain pursued other avenues of aviation, while Germany concentrated on passenger airships. We all know how that ended-the Hindenburg explosion at NAS Lakehurst in 1937.

It would appear from reading the article in Naval History and the editor's note that the chief of Naval Aviation, Admiral Moffett, used the airships as much as a way to collect scarce postwar and Depression-era defense dollars for the Navy than in any belief in the airship as the weapon platform of the future. The Navy zeppelins crisscrossed the country, hovering over fairs and parades and visiting cities and towns of all sizes, showing the capabilities of the service and no doubt enticing more than a few souls to sign up for a chance at adventure in the skies.

And adventure is what airship crews had, because the vessels were not easy to handle on the ground or in the air. Tie a balloon to a pole and put it out on a windy day. Watch it flop around. Airships handle much the same way, as shown below:

There were several instances of sailors being hurt or killed when securing airships as they pitched up in a wind gust, and also of damage to the airship when a downdraft slammed a moored ship to the ground. The United States used nonflammable helium as the lift gas for its airship fleet, so at least there were no colossal explosions or fires aboard any of the vessels.

The US Navy generally used zeppelins in a military role as long-range scout platforms during the various Fleet Problems of the 1930s. They were moderately successful at this-airships can loiter for long periods at slow speeds and were capable of shadowing the battlefleet, at least as long as the opposing fleet didn't have access to aircraft of their own.

It wasn't long before someone thought of giving the airships the ability to launch and recover small planes to act as auxiliary scouts and for protection. Germany first performed this task, launching a plane from the Hindenburg on two occasions (not counting the work of a certain archaeologist-adventurer and his father).

USS Akron and sister USS Macon both had facilities to carry 4 F9 Sparrowhawk fighters, using a trapeze and conveyor mechanism for launch and retrieval. The fighters were equipped with a large hook on top of the wing to latch onto the trapeze. The whole process must have looked similar to modern-day aircraft doing in-flight refueling, which is a fair feat of airmanship for all concerned.

Impressive work. But the airships were in the end too accident-prone and vulnerable to other aircraft and even the vagaries of weather, in addition to being very expensive to build and maintain, to survive as military platforms. Three of the four Navy airships met tragic ends. Shenandoah first flew in 1923 but was caught in a squall over Ohio and torn apart in 1925. Akron was launched in 1931, only to crash off the New Jersey coast in 1933, killing 73 of the 76 aboard, including Admiral Moffett, the airships' main proponent. Macon was launched in 1933 and crashed in 1935, losing a fin in wind shear and crshing in Monterey Bay, California. Only Los Angeles had a long career, being commissioned in 1924 and decommissioned, struck, and dismantled in 1939.

That was the end of the Navy's zeppelin fleet. However, the Navy also was developing several non-rigid airship (blimp) classes, and the blimps would go on to perform yeoman service in World War II as anti-submarine patrol and search and rescue craft, where their low speed and long loiter time would prove to be advantageous-and they were kept away from significant air opposition. Blimps served the Navy as radar pickets well into the 1950s, so it seems the lighter-than-air program wasn't a complete waste of time and resources-just that the more simply-constructed blimps proved to be more capable platforms for their given missions than the expensive zeppelins.

So ends the story of the Navy's lighter-than-air ships-an interesting era in aviation.

What?

You want to hear some Zeppelin? But I want to hear some country music. Looks like a compromise is in order here.

yankeedog out.

Three-day weekend post mortem

2011-05-30T22:43:00.000-05:00

Here 'tis-Monday night, and another Memorial Day Weekend in the books.

Generally the weekend went well. TBH and I carted ourselves off to the Amana Colonies (about which you can review) on Saturday. There was a Renaissance Festival going on in Middle Amana Park, which, to be honest, had a lot of minor league talent. We made a circuit of the grounds and left. A visual arts school had a pretty cool glassmaking demonstration-molten glass has some amazing properties and workability. Other than that, meh. We walked through some of the shops, loaded up on various and sundry culinary items, and picked up a couple of bottles of the Colonies' renowned wine. They make wine out of about anything there. The Mark I Model 0 Grape is good, at least in my estimation. I tried the rhubarb wine, which wasn't bad. The dandelion wine (yes, that common nuisance in your lawn ferments up nicely. My great-aunt used to make some of the best dandelion wine around.) was a little TOO sweet for my liking.

Supposedly the microbrewery in the Amanas puts out an award winning beer. I'd like to have bought a sixer for the summer, but the place didn't offer samples. Sorry-but I've had some excellent microbrews, and some that needed to be put back in the horse. I'd like to try before buying, thank you. Ah well. All in all, a good day out.

Sunday, we got Mom's sit-down tub connected up. My brother got the tub plumbing dead on-not a leak or drip anywhere. When we did a test run, Mom was delighted and showed it by saying 'Don't waste all my water.'

You're welcome.

Evidently 'please' and 'thank you' aren't in her vocabulary-perhaps dead in a murder/suicide thing. My brother and Mom were estranged for several years. He says he's done with her after he gets this all completed. Can't blame him in a way. It wouldn't have killed her to put in a kind word for the effort. Me? Fairness and $1.50 will buy you a cup of coffee. I don't expect a lot from most people. What is it they say? You can pick your friends. Family you're stuck with. Something like that.

Well.

Monday we trekked on up to Clinton to see the LumberKings play Beloit. We got a bonus game-since Saturday's game was rained out, we got a doubleheader. Two games for the price of one! Such a deal!

Davenport and the River Bandits are the closest Midwest League team to me, but when I grew up, it was summer nights watching the old Clinton Giants play down at Riverview Park. Even now, the stadium in Clinton is more comfortable, smaller,and a little more 'old school' baseball, than our Modern Woodmen Park is.

The LumberKings are currently residing in the cellar of the Midwest League West with a less-than-stellar 14-38 record so far this year. True to form, they lost the first game 7-1 and the second 2-1 in extra innings. I can see why. The team couldn't catch a cold, their errors cost them games, and they can't capitalize on the other team's mistakes. I didn't see anyone on the roster that really struck me as future major-league material. Looks like a few more lean years for the parent Seattle Mariners. Beloit isn't light-years better, but there a couple of position players which I wouldn't be surprised if they showed up at Target Field in Minneapolis in Twins uniforms in a couple of years. One Beloit player I will have to follow is Wang-Wei Lin. You know everyone calls him 'Wrong-Way' and he'll be stuck with that moniker for the duration of his American baseball career.

The 'Kings got swept, but it was still a great time. How better to spend Memorial Day than watching a ball game or two? And, to top it, the 'Kings did score a run in the 3rd inning of the second game. That was the Arby's Winning Inning-good for a coupon for a couple of roast beefs sometime. Also, we scored a coupon from the Candlelight Inn (a local restaurant known for its Chicken George) due to a young lady catching (in a big bucket) two of three rubber chickens slingshotted into the air in a between-innings contest. Got a big discount on a carry-out order of same Chicken George. Supper's done tomorrow! I rarely leave a LumberKings game without a coupon for something or another. Nice way to take care of the fans!

So mostly a good weekend, with a hint of sour. Reckon I can live with that.

yankeedog out.

Sometimes the universe rolls your way...

2011-05-26T23:25:00.000-05:00

I took Wednesday off to do some work on the bathroom renovation. We're just a few connections from Mom having a working sit-down bathtub. Should happen this weekend, God willing and the creek don't rise.

Unfortunately, I missed the dustup at work. Seems our boy Rimmer finally got told 'no'. And well overdue it is.

Rimmer came up with this idea for a rotator device to pick up a casting. The designer had his doubts but drew the lifter up anyway. The guys in the shop built the lifter, and during the test lift....voila! It doesn't rotate the part and doesn't actually want to pick up the part safely.

Anyone who knows anything about an unmachined casting knows that dimensions of features can vary significantly-that's why faces and features get machined to precise dimensions. In addition, most surfaces have a draft, or slope, to them to allow the part to come out of the mold. These variances and features make large castings a bit of a challenge to handle and manipulate.

So Rimmer was out in the shop trying to come up with little additions and gadgets to add to the lifter. Our new Chief Design Poobah told him that his basic concept was wrong. Evidently that didn't sit well with Rimmer, since he launched into his 'I've had 14 years of experience' spiel. Then he said that this would be a decision for the general manager. The Big Guy heard them both out and said 'I have to go with the Chief Design Poobah. We hired him for his engineering experience.'

YEEESSSSSS!! WIN!

I was informed that Rimmer was pouty for the rest of the day. I for one couldn't be happier! He wasn't in the office today. Rather a shame.

My thought would have been 'You've been doing this for 14 years, and your concept sucks, like a good portion of your concepts do, since we rework a good portion of them.'

I've also been designing lifting equipment for 14 years. I've got big-boy lifting equipment in factories and mills from Ontario to Australia and places between. And one thing I've learned is that I don't know every-fucking-thing, and I can listen to other people's ideas. Actually, the amount of stuff I find I don't know is truly astounding at times. I reckon Bangar probably learns something new about the electrical trade most days. Birmo and Flinthart and Murph would probably say that they don't know everything about authoring. Rhino probably learns something new every day in his quest to be a supergenius. Same goes for the rest of you in your respective occupations. Rimmer, for being a salesman, has an inflated sense of his design knowledge and can't be told anything. That is a bad combination. My advice to him from afar would be to stick to selling stuff and stay away from where the adults are trying to work. He's been allowed for far too long to have his nose in every detail of design and fabrication there. All he needs to do is give us a rough concept for a lifter, then go away and sell something else to other customers.

Don't get me wrong-I screw up more than my share of stuff. But I'm not in the shop trying to manage work flow or telling the other designers how they should do their drawings.

Rimmer is a perfect walking, talking, real-life personification of the line 'A man's got to know his limitations.'

Wish I could have seen the whole exchange, though. The really interesting stuff always happens when I'm not there!

---------

Memorial Day weekend is coming up fast.

First, of course, to all the veterans, American and Allied, thanks for your service, and well done! A popular and fitting verse for the day, is In Flanders Fields, written in the terrible aftermath of the Battle of Ypres in WW I.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Well said, Lt. Col. Dr. McCrae.

-----------

On a lighter note, Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial beginning of summer here, and there'll be a lot of people enjoying a bit of downtime.

TBH and I have a day trip to the Amana Colonies planned for Saturday and if we get back early enough, there's a fastpitch softball tournament in a nearby town this weekend. Might take in a game or two during the evening. Sunday will be working at construction, and Monday if it's decent out might see a trip up to Clinton for the LumberKings/Beloit Snappers baseball game.

I intend to have a good weekend. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to do the same!

yankeedog out.

Singing kids at the ball park

2011-05-22T19:58:00.000-05:00

For the past few weeks, TBH has been planning an outing for youth and families at our church-a trip to the River Bandits v. Cedar Rapids Kernels baseball game.

We've been sweating the weather. It was supposed to rain a bitch today, with high winds and hail. Indeed, as I write this, Joplin, Missouri, looks a bit like someone popped a nuke on it-tornadoes hit them hard a few hours ago. Minneapolis got hit as well. Seems as I watch the incoming footage that the rest of this entry might be a bit incongruous. Going to be a long next few weeks around the Midwest getting cleaned up and repaired.

Well. At any rate, at least the first wave of storms went north and south of us. We had a surprisingly nice afternoon, weatherwise. Clouds and sun and a hefty breeze blowing across the field.

The children were to sing the national anthem before the game:

TBH is the one in the red T-shirt running the kids through their singing paces.

And here they are on the infield belting out the Banner.

Our church doesn't have a formal children's choir. These are mostly the sons and daughters of the members, but the young ladies and gentlemen did a good job with the tune and tempo. The Star-Spangled Banner is a tough song to sing well (would that the anthem were America The Beautiful, or Columbia, The Gem of the Ocean-much easier to perform) and ideally a singer should only take 1 minute 5 seconds to 1 minute 20 seconds to sing it. Anything longer is being a camera hog.

The kids did well. Each family got tickets for their party and some Bandit Bucks (tickets good for food and merchandise at the park). After the singing, most of the children made for the play area with all the jumpys and inflatables and the parents scattered around the park. TBH obtained tickets for the Family Section of the seats (where no alcohol is allowed) but once the ticket is in hand, no one cares if people move out to general admission or the berm to have a beer. Fair enough. I got us tickets in box because I like being away from everybody else. I suppose everybody else doesn't like being around me. Also fair enough.

As I said, we ended up with some pretty decent weather today, judging from this shot out to the left field berm:

Someday I have to pack the blanket and catch a game from out there. Looks like a pretty decent place to watch the action and maybe snag a home run ball. Here the Bandits had the bases loaded but couldn't push a run across in this inning. A couple of guys appeared to be running on contact and got caught in a double play. Gotta make sure those line drives go past the infielder, because the double play ends innings quick!

The Bandits did score earlier in the game, though, and pulled off a nice 4-1 win over the Kernels. Looks like the Anaheim Angels may not have a lot of good pitching coming up anytime soon if today's pitchers for Cedar Rapids are any indication. Too much standing around on the mound and lack of control on pitches.

The three guys in front of me are most likely players or assistants for the Kernels. One has a radar gun to check the velocity of his comrade on the mound, and the fellow with the computer is likely charting tendencies of the Bandit hitters and where they're hitting the ball. Come July, the section I was sitting in will be full of scouts for the Major League teams, as they try to pick out prospects to trade for, trade away, or possibly promote to the next level.

Some of our kids got to be in the between-inning games and those with birthdays got their name on the scoreboard screen.

I reckon in the end everyone that went had a good time. TBH spent a lot of time in organizing and planning the event, so it was great to have the weather cooperate here. Also, the River Bandits staff did their usual great job with making sure big groups are taken care of. It pains me to say anything good about any facet of the St. Louis Cardinals organization, but they do take care of their fans at all levels of the game. The Cards, much like the Cubs, know how to market their teams.

Again, it was an event paid for by our church, and I think promoting fellowship in a family atmosphere is a better use of resources compared to the bunch were going around gathering funds and prattling on about an end of the world that appears not to have happened on schedule. But that might just be me.

yankeedog out.

I missed Top Gun Day!

2011-05-19T22:40:00.000-05:00

I think it was last weekend sometime-the 25th anniversary of the movie 'Top Gun'.

To be honest, I've seen the movie maybe twice. It really wasn't my favorite film. There were some good flight scenes in it, as I recall. And one scene in it was true-the old F-14's, especially the early models, were prone to flat spin flameouts. The -C model had more powerful engines which drastically reduced the incidence of flat spin. The rest of the film? Meh. I wasn't impressed with the use of F-5 Tigers as the fictional 'MiG-28' (which in the NATO parlance would have made it an attack aircraft since 28 is an even number, but I'm probably one of the few who noticed). Also, I'm not a big Tom Cruise fan. And I guess I never noticed the alleged homoerotic undertones, possibly for the same reason that I knew that MiG-28 wasn't a fighter designation. Naval fighter pilots are a generally cocky bunch (if I was catapulted off a pitching carrier deck, only to perform a controlled crash for a landing later, for a living I'd be full of myself as well) and there was of course a massive amount of Hollywood in the movie as well.

Top Gun, though, did become quite the cultural icon in the mid 1980's. I'd bet most people of age back then had a bomber style jacket with the all the patches, or the Ray-Ban aviator glasses, or could quote endless lines from the film. (Yes, I had a jacket with all the patches-but to a milgeek, it's really nothing special). The movie was made with the full support of the US Navy, and indeed the Air Force and Navy saw spikes in recruiting as Top Gun grew in popularity. I suspect all those prospective kids eager to hop in a Tomcat were disappointed to be chipping, painting, swabbing, and being appointed Captain of the Head. Such is the military life-some soar with the eagles, others clean up after them.

At work, we've given each of our salesmen a callsign name from the film. This came about because one of our salesman is actually named Tom Cruise (no kidding-he looks nothing like the actor but has met him). Naturally he's only been called 'Maverick' about fifty billion times since 1986. So we've got a 'Viper', 'Jester', 'Maverick', 'Cougar', and 'Hollywood'. Why we had to go with those I don't know-I'd've rather used the names from Full Metal Jacket. For that matter, there were five Stooges in the run of The Three Stooges. That would fit much better.

But here 'tis, 25 years later. A decade of conflict has taken a lot of the 'luster' out of the being in the military. People are a little bit more wise to what war is about-not high-tech, sterile air battles, but small ground units slogging around scrub looking not to get blowed up by a roadside bomb. Hard to make that palatable for the big screen. The great old F-14s are out of the service now (before their time, in my opinion), being turned into gate guards, museum exhibits, and scrap aluminum. The big bad Soviet Bear has been replaced with various bearded nutcases with 21st century weapons and 12th century attitudes.

As for the main actors, Anthony (Goose) Edwards got middle-aged and bald, Val (Iceman) Kilmer grew to the size of a Tomcat, and Kelly (Charlie) McGillis got a bit mannish. Fortunately Tom (Maverick) Cruise stayed the same level-headed guy he always was....

And at TOPGUN school, the Navy now teaches the fighter jocks to also (shudder) do s-s-str-str (say it)...strike missions! Moving mud for the grunts? Oh the horror... In addition, instead of being at NAS Miramar outside of beautiful San Diego, California, Fighter Weapons School's been moved...to NAS Fallon, smack in the middle of Nevada, with the rocks and sand and UFOs and the Air Force bastidges doing their Red Flag School nearby. The times, how they changed.

That's the whole Top Gun story as I recollect it. But for a great Naval Aviation movie, I'd rather see the classic The Bridges of Toko-Ri, with William Holden, Grace Kelly, and Mickey Rooney. It has some great shots of early jets and a much better story. Or give me The Final Countdown, where the USS Nimitz is thrown through a time warp to December 6, 1941. If only some author would write about a modern carrier task force getting tossed back in time, I bet he'd sell a lot of books. I'll even watch Hot Shots, featuring a pre-meltdown Charlie Sheen!

I think my favorite homage/spoof of Top Gun is the first appearance of Ace Rimmer in Red Dwarf. We're introduced to the intrepid Space Corps pilot, part Maverick, part James Kirk, and a bit of James Bond, in the episode Dimension Jump. Catch it here-they even put in a 'Take My Breath Away'-ish theme for our hero. What a guy!

But if you feel the need...the need for a callsign to paint on your helmet, or on the side of your car or boat or lawnmower, just click on the Top Gun callsign generator and get yourself a moniker! Share it with the class.

yankeedog (Wizzard) out.

Wizzard?

So long, suckers!

2011-05-15T20:48:00.000-05:00

You know, I've been a bit busy of late and I don't seem to find the time to write too much about anything. And I guess it doesn't really matter, since according to one Harold Camping, the much-awaited Rapture will take place next Saturday.

Camping, the founder of Family Radio (a network of Christian radio stations) and a former civil engineer, sat down and did some ciphering and came up with May 21, 2011. How'd he do that? Here's the formula (courtesy Wikipedia):

According to Camping, the number five equals "atonement", the number ten equals "completeness", and the number seventeen equals "heaven".
Christ is said to have hung on the cross on April 1, 33 AD. The time between April 1, 33 AD and April 1, 2011 is 1,978 years.
If 1,978 is multiplied by 365.2422 days (the number of days in a solar year, not to be confused with the lunar year), the result is 722,449.
The time between April 1 and May 21 is 51 days.
51 added to 722,449 is 722,500.
(5 × 10 × 17)² or (atonement × completeness × heaven)² also equals 722,500.

Thus, Camping concludes that 5 × 10 × 17 is telling us a "story from the time Christ made payment for our sins until we're completely saved."

There you are. Welp, been fun knowing y'all, but I intend to be in that number come next Saturday. Enjoy the eternal torment of the lake of fire. Write when you find work!

Now, Camping also made an 'irrevocable' statement that the world would end...in 1994!

C'mon, man! You should only get one chance to predict the exact date of the end of the world. I'd think if you miss, you lose some credibility. That might just be me, though.

I have no idea how Camping came up with numerical 'values' for atonement, completeness, and heaven, nor why you square the equation in step 6. I'd think you'd cube step 6 (the cube, or third power, representing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). I suspect Mr. Camping either missed his meds or took too many on the day he was coming up with the equation. His mathematics are correct, though, for what it's worth.

As my coworker, Brad, who studied physics in university, pointed out-the chances of the Rapture happening are not zero-which can be a matter for concern. However, the chances of a black hole appearing in the Earth's core, or a gamma-ray burst hitting the planet, or the Cubs winning a World Series this year, are also not zero-but the odds are overwhelming enough that I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

It's going to be interesting for Mr. Camping come next Sunday and everyone's still here. My guess is he'll either say 'Obviously God is a God of love and has seen fit to give humans a little more time to get right' or 'Did I say Saturday would be the Rapture? I meant to say that 30 years ago Blondie released the song 'Rapture' and I have given up eating cars and bars and now I only eat guitars' or 'Someone wipe the Cream of Wheat off my chin'.

Really, how many thousands of people need to make false predictions of the end before we all say 'enough'? The answer from the Second-in-Command is clear. He said:

'Of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my father only.' -Matthew 24:36

And what Jesus might have also implied was So don't spend all of your time on Earth worrying about it. Live each day like it were your last. Someday you will be right!

I'm in the Methodist denomination, and as a body, we don't spend a lot of time fretting over the supposed 'End of Days'. There's life to be lived and work to be done here. And I'd hate to be in a sect or denomination where the End Times prophecies are the main focus of the church. Doesn't sound like those people would get a lot of enjoyment from life. Each cat his own rat, though. As long as they don't strap on the Brooks Brothers tailored TNT Vest and blow up themselves and a market, I don't care. Actually, if they put on the vest and just blow themselves up, I don't care.

At any rate...the end comes for all of us eventually. A great English philosopher once said 'You come from nothing, you go back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!!'

Will the world end someday? Yes. Will humanity's reign on earth end? Almost certainly (It might be good if we found some relatively cheap way to colonize some other rocks in the universe). I personally don't believe a vengeful God will destroy mankind, since we're big boys and girls and are quite capable of doing ourselves in if we put a bit of thought to it. But pinning down the exact day of the End? I'll leave that to the nutcases-and laugh at them and live a little along the way. I once saw a bumper sticker which may apply for this week.

'In Case of Rapture, Can I Have Your Car?'

yankeedog out.

First night on the diamonds

2011-05-10T23:19:00.000-05:00

We went to our first River Bandits game of the year, although the Midwest League season is a month old. Tonight's tilt was versus the upriver Lumber Kings from Clinton.

For a couple of weeks, Modern Woodmen Park was surrounded by floodwater from the nearby Mississippi. The ballpark is now 'watertight' (they built berms and walls to keep the water out), unlike the old days when the place would have been under four or five feet of Big Muddy. But the nearby parking lots were underwater, and now they have the delightful aroma of dehydrated river. Ah well-price you pay when you do business along the river.

The River Bandits, as usual, have done a great job with marketing and creating 'special nights' for this season. Tuesday nights are 'Economic Stimulus' Nights-2 tickets, any section, for the price of 1, and kids eat free (1 hot dog, chips, and drink). Really, that's a damn hard deal to beat if you wanted to take the family out for an evening. A mere $10 got TBH and I 2 box seats right behind home plate. The Bandits have front office people who realize that getting a slow nickel is better than a fast dime, and just getting people into the park is a win for the organization and the concessionaires. And we all know, kids, that if you must invest in a sports organization, concessions are where the money is.

It was a nice warm night, more like July than May. We got a couple of Bandit Dogs-a hot dog with chili, cheese, and bacon. Never had one before and to be honest will probably forgo that culinary delight in future for just a plain old dog that I can stack with kraut, mustard, and onions. Add a Great River Brewery Pale for a cold beverage and I'll tell you, one can produce a belch in the low kiloton range. I'll likely be paying for this tonight with heartburn.

We had to leave in the middle of the 5th-work night and all-with the Bandits up 3-1 due to erratic control by the Clinton pitcher walking the bases loaded and giving up a couple in the 2nd inning. I saw a couple of players on the Clinton nine not really hustling on the basepaths. Lack of hustle is a real good habit to lose in Class A ball. I've sat next to scouts from major league clubs, and things like that get noticed-and commented on, in rather blunt language. Far better to play hard and screw up the mechanics than dog it on the bases or in the field. The scouts will put in a blistering report either way, but work ethic is important for most teams in any sport.

Still, a fun (and cheap) night out this evening. Such small yet great things to experience, like kids playing goofy promotional games between innings for prizes; watching young men trying to get to the big show someday; old folks who you know have been going to the games forever because they know everyone in the ballpark; the singing of 'Take Me Out To The Ball Game' in the 7th inning; a cold beer on a warm night; the smell of grilled onions; the bark of the umpires, the crack of the bat when a solid hit gets past the diving third baseman. Great times. Now I'm not saying that baseball is necessarily better than, say, cricket or rugby. I suspect a cricket match has a lot of the same 'feel' from a fan's standpoint as a baseball game. I bet it's still a good time.

Good to be getting into the 2011 Midwest League season. I'll definitely get up to Clinton for some LumberKings home games, and maybe over to Cedar Rapids for the Kernels games. Might even get over to Des Moines for an Iowa Cubs game. That's Class AAA ball-just one step from the Show. Usually at Triple A games you'll see someone who's got a few major league games under their belt, along with the team's hot prospects. We don't have a Class AA league in these parts but a lot of times the really good prospects start there instead of A ball.

Finally, if you weren't sure (and pay attention because there may be a quiz sometime), the hierarchy of professional baseball goes as follows: Rookie League, low A, high A, AA, AAA, Major League. In addition, college baseball can be a substitute for a year or so in the minors for a player so inclined. It's a lot of different leagues and levels-but baseball is the one sport here that has its own player development system and doesn't necessarily depend on colleges and universities, with their charade of 'amateur' and 'student' athletes, to develop their future talent. Perhaps more thoughts on that another time.

Anyway, first night out at the ballgame, and a good time was had by all.

yankeedog out.

Planes, trains, and automobiles...

2011-05-08T22:52:00.000-05:00

...will be big in the area this summer.

We've got the Quad City Air Show in June-the 25th annual already. I can remember going to the second show back in 1987. Doesn't seem like that long ago. Although they have about the same stuff every year, I still enjoy seeing the old and new birds, both civil and military. The featured performers are the Blue Angels. The Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds are a must-see at any show, as are most nations' aerobatic teams.

We've got Train Festival 2011 here in late July, which should draw a lot of people. There are supposed to be several steam engines here for the festival. The Iowa Interstate Railroad (the descendant of the Rock Island Railroad) is quite steam-excursion friendly and will be hosting several small and a couple of all-day trips over their lines. One of the short trips involves taking the railroad downriver to Muscatine and riding the Celebration Belle excursion boat back to the QCs. That might be an enjoyable trip. There's nothing like riding the river on a warm summer's day, especially with access to a cold one and no responsibility for actually driving the boat.

Automobiles? Ok-I don't know of any major classic car show in the area, but I do know that around these parts we can find a car show or cruise night most any weekend. Last year there was a show in downtown Moline that had vehicles going clear back to the very early 1900s. Good stuff! Now, if we count the Trucker's Jamboree in the middle of July, then we do have a major automobile event here. There are some great old rigs out at the Jamboree-well worth a look. Those vehicle owners have put a LOT of cash and sweat in their machines! In addition, they're serving that staple of Midwest festivals-the grilled pork chop sandwich. Done properly, an unequaled culinary delight!

We're going to take in Cubs v. Reds in August at Wrigley, and hopefully some Vintage Base Ball (the game as played with the original 1850s and 1860s rules) games as we run across them. Many Civil War reenactments and living history museums have vintage base ball or cricket (yep, we used to play cricket up until around the 1860s). Fun to watch and definitely different from the game today.

Looks like the summer here shouldn't be boring. There's plenty of stuff happening for a change. Add in the occasional family emergency or crisis, possible overtime, and finishing renovations, and it'll be right busy 'round these parts.

yankeedog out.

Thoughts on the latest

2011-05-05T21:55:00.000-05:00

Hmmm. Reckon it's past time I gave my spin on the recent demise of Osama bin Laden, now that we're well into the news cycle on it, and it's been well covered pretty much everywhere else.

First, as has been stated in so many other places, Well Done to the SEAL team involved. They almost certainly pulled off the kill of the decade. There'll be a few guys with 'black' medals in their service jackets, and probably one guy who has a hell of a story that he'll most likely never be able to tell. Big thumbs up to the Navy on this one.

Big thumbs down to the post-kill handling by the Obama administration. The last few days have been a flurry of contradictory comments and actions. First, they're going to release the death photo, now they aren't. First, bin Ladin was armed, then he wasn't, the house was full of weapons, then it wasn't. On and on.

I'll be honest-I don't care if they caught him in bed watching The Dukes of Hazzard and eating Pringles potato chips. This guy has been responsible, either directly or indirectly, for the deaths of thousands of people over the past few years. It might make a better story if he died with guns blazing, but in truth that really isn't how most of that type ends up dead. Most of the time criminal types get caught coming out of a restaurant, or a theater, or simply offed in their sleep. Why give someone a chance to fight when you can catch them unawares?

There has been talk that, in reality, President Obama ordered an assassination against a head of state, which is against US law. I wasn't aware that OBL was the leader of a foreign state. He was a criminal-no better than a mob boss, really. And I'd call it a 'hit'. It is what it is. And will President Obama try to use this to his political advantage? Certainly. Who wouldn't? I won't fault him for that. I do fault him for the handling, though. Maybe the information cycle and gathering is such these days that it's nearly impossible to keep things under wraps. I'd bet most politicians think 'Oh, for the good old days before umpty-hundred news channels of all slants, when it was just a handful of newspaper guys in the Press Room'. Also, there's been talk that the hit comes at a convenient time for President Obama. It's a good way to divert the nation's attention from the continued sluggish economy and all of the other domestic issues plaguing the current administration. Anything's possible-but there are times when events happen when they will. It looks convenient only in hindsight.

Then there's the whole matter of OBL's burial at sea. The conspiracy whackjobs I guess wanted his body put on tour in all the major cities of the country so that they could actually see that it was him. I'm satisfied that he is, in fact, fish food somewhere in the Indian Ocean. None of the Muslim nations wanted his body, figuring, rightly I suppose, that his gravesite would become a shrine for the wannabes. Cremating him is supposed to be against the rules in Islam, more so than burial at sea. If someone said an Islamic prayer for him before he got dumped over the side, OK by me. It's up to God to judge the man now. And I'm sure he's dead, because he'd certainly have made a video or recording by now saying that he was still alive and the infidels missed him by that much (holding a thumb and finger a millimeter apart)!

And then there's the matter of the celebrations here after OBL's death. I suppose these things crop up anytime a major event like this happens, but I didin't feel his death warrants a replay of all the events post 9/11. I'm glad he's gone. If I knew anyone involved in the mission, I'd certainly buy them a steak dinner and a beer. They did good. But I also feel that 'celebrating' his death gives him a stature that he really isn't worthy of. Hitler, now-there was a guy whose defeat deserved the party that was thrown on V-E Day. Bin Laden? Not really in the same league. A simple thug who died in a fitting manner. I know I woke up on Monday morning and gas prices were still rising, the unemployment rate was still high, and all the other problems in the world were still here. His death didn't change anything on that front.

There have been those who wanted to see him in the International Court of Justice and put on trial for his crimes. After all, they only have the word of the United States that he actually did anything-and that he never claimed responsibility for 9/11. I don't know about that and I don't care. He was responsible for planning, aiding, and financing several attacks on Western interests throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, including an attack on USS Cole in Yemen. That in itself warrants the action from last week.

We here in America know that a lot of people don't like us and what we stand for. Fine. In truth, it's mutual in a lot of cases. The popular notion here in the States is that International Court of Justice is stocked with people who would enjoy nothing more than taking us down a peg or two, and would be quite pleased with putting on a verrrrry protracted trial, followed by a few months in some Belgian jail as punishment. We all remember the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. Five years long and the old bastard died in prison without the court ever rendering a verdict. That's just what we need. OBL with a court-appointed lawyer and a decade-long trial. No doubt someone on the court would notice that President Bush or Obama didn't dot an I or cross a T somewhere and would have let OBL out on a technicality, though I suppose one could argue that spending the better part of a decade in a courtroom is a cruel and unusual punishment of its own. The more I think about it, maybe we did OBL a favor by giving him a quick bullet in the noggin.

And that, kids, is what we think of the ICJ.

In the end, I don't suppose OBL was all that relevant to any major terrorist group any more. That doesn't make him any less culpable for past acts he took part in. Now he's dead-and he died in a much cleaner way than most of the victims of his crimes did. He got more dignity in the end than he likely deserved.

One can hope that the recent revolutions in the Middle East might be followed up with a general liberalization in the culture and religion. The era of the strongman might be starting to end there, and with luck and some adroit help (which probably leaves us out, what with our occasional ham-handedness), maybe the likes of Qaddafi and bin Laden will fade into irrelevance, which would also be a fitting end as well.

I dunno. My head hurts trying to deal with the conspiracy types and knuckleheads that are out there (of all flavors). All I know is, a madman's dead and won't be creating any more misery, either in other countries or in his own land. I'm good with that.

yankeedog out.

Comic relief?

2011-05-01T21:22:00.002-05:00

Old days/Good times I remember
Fun days/Filled with simple pleasures
Drive-in movies
Comic books and blue jeans
Howdy Doody
Baseball cards and birthdays...

-'Old Days', Chicago VIII, Chicago, 1975

As we've worked on the renovation at Mom's, I found a few old comic books that my late stepfather must have had-some Marvel westerns from the early 1970's. They look to be in OK shape and a check of our friend the Net shows a possible value of around $2.00 each. I'm going to take them to the local comic shop and see what Comic Book Guy will give me for them. I'd take 50 cents to a buck each-I don't want the things and anything for them is better than nothing.

There's some great titles: The Western Kid, Two-Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid, Ringo Kid (the saga of an outlaw-son of a traveling drummer from Liverpool, no doubt), and Kid Colt, Outlaw. There's a theme running through all of those titles, I think-but I suppose 'The Middle-Aged Outlaw of Buffalo Chip County' doesn't have much zip.

Now, I'm not much into the comic book scene anymore. I think the last comic (oh, excuse me! Graphic Novel! La-de-da!) I bought was the adaptation of Harold Coyle's Team Yankee from the mid 1980s. But when I was a kid, I read a lot of them. Mom would go uptown and pick up a pack of four comic books for a dollar-mostly Gold Key funnies type. I personally was a big fan of DC's Sgt. Rock of Easy Company. Rock and E Company fought all over Europe during WWII and I think must have been responsible for tying down nearly 15 German divisions all by themselves. Second was Marvel's Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. I believe ol' Fury is still around after nearly four decades, reinvented as Nick Fury, head of some bunch in Marvel's superhero universe. The last third of the triad was DC's Weird War Tales, which was a series of military-fantasy-sci-fi-supernatural-Twilight Zoneish stories. Great stories and art and I might buy a compendium of these if DC were to ever release one. I never cared much for any of the superheroes and never read them.

These comics I found dated from around the early 1970s, when I was in my big comic reading era. I looked through a few of this find and got a kick out the ads splattered throughout the mags. Great stuff, like the 'clubs' where a company got some kid to sell seeds or greeting cards to their unfortunate relatives in order to receive great prizes, like walkie-talkies (long before cellphones, remember), or a flash camera (again, long before cellphones), or an electric football game (long before Madden 2011 on the PS3). Or the companies that sold novelties like joke pepper gum, the infamous 'X-Ray Glasses' (only 95 cents!), and Sea-Monkeys (which, as you may or may not remember, were simply brine shrimp, freeze-dried or some such). Or the 'record clubs', like the Columbia Record Club. Such a deal-14 LPs for only $2.98. Never mind the small print. Let's see what they have. Led Zeppelin III-OK. Mountain's Nantucket Sleighride. Not so bad. Procol Harum's Broken Barricades. Like them. The Partridge Family. The Carpenters. Bobby Sherman. Well, that train went off the tracks quick. But definitely a cross-section of the early 1970s pop music scene! I'm surprised they don't have the option to get these on 8-track or them newfangled cassettes.

As I remember all the ads, I remember thinking how super neato some of that stuff would be to own, but my tyrannical mother wouldn't allow it. Said I had enough stuff as it was. As I look at the ads now, I think 'What ingenious ways those companies had of parting hard-earned nickels, dimes, and dollars from gullible seven-to-ten-year-olds!' This must have been before we got all of the consumer protection bureaus and laws and people lived by the old saying 'caveat emptor' (That's 'Let the buyer beware' for all of you who slept through Latin, Rome, and the Romulans).

Like I said, I fell out of the comic book scene when I got to be of an age where girls started to look all soft and curvy, and I don't know much about the genre today, except that I gather adults buy comic books, never read them, and stuff them in envelopes in the vain hope that they might be worth something someday. Given the sad shape of the economy, who knows? Postwar Brazil used aspirin tablets as currency for a time, and the cigarette was the universal currency of Europe in the late 1940s. So maybe the comic book is as good an investment as buying stock in a company whose idea of raising share value is to move the factory overseas.

Most of you readers are of course from Australia/New Zealand, and I have no idea what comics were big down there. But I'd bet a lot of the ads and content were similar, and for much of the same crap that was peddled here. It should have been cheaper for younger kids there since it wasn't so far to ship the stuff from Hong Kong.

Fill me in, citizens. I'll trade old issues of The Two-Gun Kid, The Western Kid, Ringo Kid, and Rawhide Kid for your Kookaburra Kid, Kid Boomerang, Dropbear Kid, or The Eucalyptus Kid!

yankeedog out.

Oh, nice...

2011-04-27T21:45:00.001-05:00

As some of you know, my brother and I are doing some renovation work at our Mom's place. She wanted one of those walk-in bathtubs-the ones with the car-style door that you sit in. Much easier for older folks who have trouble with getting into regular bathtubs. So we ordered one up from a major home repair center, since nobody seems to keep them in stock. This was on April 11th. We were told that it would ship in 3-5 business days. That time came and went. We tracked the order on the 'net, and that indicated the tub would arrive last Saturday. The weekend passed. Monday I called the major home repair center. The revised arrival date? June 2.

That's an amazing expansion of time.

I keep a lot of peeves around the Yankeedog household. Most are feral but some are pets. One of the pets is 'business ethics' which is fast becoming an oxymoron, like 'hamburger steak' or 'jumbo shrimp' or 'government assistance'. To be brief, businesses-give a realistic lead time on items you ship and sell. If something will take six weeks to get, say it will take six weeks to arrive. Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. Now we've got rooms all tore up. Thanks, Major Home Repair Center, for lying to us.

Geez. At least say '4 weeks' and stall and make excuses for the remaining two weeks. Or try the Montgomery Scott method. Say an item will take eight weeks to arrive. When in comes in six weeks, you get the reputation of being miracle workers!

Monday night we went down to get a refund. We were told the major home repair center would send a check within 14 days. I said they'd have to do better. It was, after all, their fib and screw-up to make right. It isn't like the tub got there and we didn't like the color. They hemmed and hawed, but the next morning they managed to come up with the refund money-in the form of a horse-choking wad of greenbacks. I wouldn't have cared if they gave us a wheelbarrow full of pennies so long as we had the dough.

Long story short-all of the home-repair chains have about the same lead time for a walk-in tub. But we ordered a tub from Another Repair Store Chain, who at least quoted a realistic lead time and have a better delivery plan. It'll still be early June-but some semblance of honesty gets the $5000 order. Now if it gets to us intact and correct...

And I don't know why a walk-in tub takes that long to make. No one can tell me they don't have several of those molded and sitting in a warehouse somewhere. They don't have a troll from Bundaberg paddle his magic canoe here to hand-hew one from the living rock. Or maybe they do, judging from the price and lead time for one. Maybe if they didn't have to ship one from Mexico or China it'd be here sooner. Bastidges.

And while we're on it-we picked up a faucet for the new sink we put in. Made in China, of course. Let's just say that if their military equipment is engineered as well as this faucet was, nobody has anything to worry about. What a piece of crap. Actually ended up tossing it in utter frustration and buying another one. Also Chinese-made, but someone here must've designed the thing so it could be easily installed.

I remember the good old days, when we made things here, and they worked right, and they generally arrived in a couple of weeks.

And a lesson learned-when renovating or remodeling, start the job ONLY when everything you need is in your possession-and take that too-good-to-be-true quoted leadtime and add five weeks to it.

Ah well. It isn't like there isn't plenty of stuff to do in the meantime.

yankeedog out.

All the latest

2011-04-18T22:19:00.000-05:00

It's been an interesting last couple of weeks, at least for me-maybe not so much for y'all.

-A couple of weeks ago, TBH went to the Illinois Masters State Championship meet. She took first in her age group in 10 events and second in one. Good enough for the high point trophy! Also, the points won helped propel a small Western Illinois Masters Program team to a top-ten finish, which isn't too shabby considering the size of some of the Chicago area swim clubs. Victory doesn't ALWAYS go to the bigger battalions!

-Another year, another renovation: In a flash of brilliance, my brother was out at our mom's place. She has the washer and dryer in the basement but doesn't climb stairs too well. So why not take the extra bedroom and make a bathroom out of it, and make the existing bathroom a laundry room? That way everything's on one floor. Making the bathroom will be easy. Getting the old stuff out of the existing bathroom will be harder. Getting the washer and dryer up won't be a big picnic either. But it'll be a job well done when finished.

-Seems I spend most of my vacation time running people in my life to various doctors. I'm thinking of painting the Brazen Chariot white and putting a red cross on top of it-or finding a '58 or '59 Cadillac ambulance. Maybe do it up 'Ecto-1' style.

-Also, been busy at work of late. Good to have the business.

-The Mississippi River is rising in the annual spring flood. More than a few roads around here are underwater, but most of the towns and cities in the area have been amassing enough sandbags to make a small extension to the Maginot Line so we'll be in good shape. It's the flash floods that do most of the damage because they come in with such force and with no time to prepare.

-I see the British Royal Wedding is coming up. I suppose they're celebrities enough, but as an American, I can't say that I care all that much and I don't know why there's going to be so much coverage of the event here. We did, after all, have a little spat with England 230+ years ago partly to be out from under the Royal Family, and we aren't part of the Commonwealth. He might be HRH Prince William to the Brits, but in my world he's Lieutenant Windsor, RAF, and she's Miss Middleton. Good luck to them and perhaps he'll do better than his dopey father did. 'Nuff said.

-In sports, the Cubs are settling into a 'win one, lose one' pattern of mediocrity. The Blackhawks, who last year rolled through the Stanley Cup playoffs, probably won't survive the first round of the this year's playoffs. Guess you can still buy a championship if you have the cash and you put your mind to it. The Bulls look like the real deal in the NBA for the first time since that Jordan guy quit playing here a loooong time ago. They really should at least win the Eastern Conference, if not make a strong showing for the whole schmear.

I'm looking at doing something this year that's on my bucket list. There's a place not too far up into Minnesota that, after a short course, allows you to drive a 'tank' (actually, they have an old British FV432 APC and an Abbot self-propelled howitzer-same drive and chassis, I believe). For a couple hundred bucks more, you can drive their Chieftain MBT over a car. To me it'd be worth the money to drive one of these for a few minutes. I suppose when I got out of high school way back in the day, I should've done it the old hard way, joined the Army, and spent some time tooling around Fort Knox and southern Germany. I reckon this will be easier, though-and someone isn't out there with an RPG or AT missile wanting to take me out as I'm having my driving experience. We'll see how the finances look before I sign up for this.

Much to do in the next few weeks. Very tired tonight and a bit achy, so I reckon it's time to shut down and catch a few z's.

yankeedog out.

150 years ago this day...

2011-04-12T23:08:00.001-05:00

...saw the opening engagement of the American Civil War-the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor by Confederate artillery.

Civil wars, of course, impact nations at least as much if not more than wars with foreign powers, and ours was no exception.

I've had people ask 'Did the Civil War really impact world history all that much, and why do Americans keep the memories of it alive?' Now, this was a person from a nation (Australia) that had its own military 'coming-of-age' some 60 years later and, indeed, spends a day commemorating it.

My answer was, and would be 'Yes, it did impact many phases of world history, and the Civil War is for better or for worse a part of the national psyche along with Pearl Harbor and 9-11'.

The main cause wasn't as much about slavery as it was about states' rights. Up until the 1860s, the United States government wasn't much of a force in the average person's life. It was more of a weak federation of individual political entities. Most people had more loyalty to their home state than to some far-off government in a city the European powers considered something of a backwater village. The issue of slavery was still a festering sore that had been compromised on and put on the back burner for years. Eventually, perhaps, the issue would have been settled had there been mechanical tractors to do the work of slaves (Tractors don't need to eat when they don't work, after all-and they hadn't ever been known to revolt against their owners). I do think that slavery is an evil institution, but everyone that practiced it weren't all evil-it was what it was. But the issue was one that the major powers of Europe did away with long ago.

By the middle of the 19th century, there were differences in the economies and attitudes of the industrial and 'breadbasket' states of the North and Far West and the agricultural Southern states. The election of Abraham Lincoln brought a strong reaction from the southern states. Secession from the Union and the formation of the Confederate States of America, with a very limited central government, soon followed. The rest of the story you can read about virtually anywhere.

In the area of military history, the Civil War was a pivotal event. The beginning battles were fought much in the way Napoleon would have known-opposing skirmish lines a few yards apart, firing away at each other-and racking up vast body counts. The final campaigns of the war, around Richmond, saw the beginnings of the new horrors of trench warfare which would have been all too familiar to the soldiers at Verdun and Gallipoli. It was one of the first 'total', industrial wars, where the opposing population itself became a target. Rapid mass movement of troops by rail was pioneered. Aerial reconnaissance. Machine guns (albeit the primitive Gatling guns). Armored warships. Sherman's 'March to the Sea' in 1864 would be studied over the decades, and was in all probability the precursor to the 'Blitzkrieg' of World War II. And industrial power and mass logistics became at least as important, if not more so, than individual heroics and gallant soldiery.

The various world powers studied the conflict with interest. It was obvious that advancing technology was changing the nature of warfare. Also, the Powers had economic interests in America. Generally, Britain and France were inclined toward the Confederacy. Several incidents nearly brought both nations into the War, but adroit diplomacy, changing economic patterns, and some Union victories prevented any overt actions by those two empires. Russia leaned toward the Union, and Tsar Aleksandr sent warships to New York Harbor. It is possible that, had a few battles ended differently, there could have been a World War in the middle of the 19th Century.

Socially, the effects of 150 years ago still reverberate through the land. The inequality of the races has been lessened over the decades here in the US, but we've a way to go yet. Still, we've come far since the sad 'seperate but equal' (which wasn't, really) facilities once seen throughout the South. The power of the central government grew exponentially during the Civil War-necessary, of course, to provide the coordination of a large nation at war-and to this day is a far more powerful entity than the original Founding Fathers envisioned. Certainly, the 'Wild West' made famous in so many films and books wouldn't have been so wild without all those old Civil War vets of both sides either looking for adventure or psychologically scarred or embittered at the outcome-or a combination of all three-turning to outlawry.

After the Civil War, the United States took the first steps toward becoming a genuine world power, not so much in the military sphere as the economic one. The United States became an industrial and agricultural powerhouse in the second half of the 19th Century.

Finally, the Civil War did influence the formation of several nations, primarily Canada and Australia. Both nations studied the war and the government that arose during and afterward. Canadians went toward the concept of a stronger federation, as their fathers felt that the pre-war State governments probably had too much power and there was too much democracy in their southern neighbors. Peace and order would be their watchwords. The founders of the Australian Federation, conversely, leaned toward a weaker executive, fearing too strong a central government, and prohibited the importation of 'coloured labour' in part to prevent the formation of a society based upon slavery.

So, did the American Civil War impact world history? Of course. I didn't have to do much research to come up with this post. I'm quite sure many teachers and historians could expound ad infinitum, ad nauseum on the subject.

yankeedog out.

The Mother Road

2011-04-04T23:13:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I had the opportunity to see a musical revue called Route 66, which was essentially a collection of great old country and rock and roll tunes having to do with cars, trucks, and the open road. The show was good, but the addition of a narrator presenting vignettes about the old US 66 in between some of the musical numbers might have been interesting, for it was in the beginning of the 20th century 'The Main Street of America'.

The US has a lot of great drives-the Pacific Coast Highway, the Overseas Highway to Key West, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Lincoln Highway, the Pennsylvania Turnpike. But Route 66-the Mother Road-the two-lane ribbon of road stretching from Chicago through the Southwest and ending in Los Angeles, may have impacted the national psyche and inspired more books, films, and songs than any other road save the trails of the Old West in pioneer days.

Most people know the song Route 66. Acts from Nat King Cole to Depeche Mode have covered the tune. Here it is performed by the original songwriter, Bobby Troup. Anyone who saw the old 1970s television show, Emergency!, remember him as Dr. Joe Early. But he made his name with this song.

Well if you ever plan to motor west

Just take my way that's the highway that's the best
Get your kicks on Route 66

Well it winds from Chicago to L.A.
More than 2000 miles all the way
Get your kicks on Route 66

Well it goes from St Louie, Joplin, Missouri
Oklahoma City looks oh so pretty

You'll see Amarillo and Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona
Don't forget Winona
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino

Would you get hip to this kindly tip
And go take that California trip
Get your kicks-on Route 66!
Route 66 features prominently in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, where the Joad family travels it from their dust bowl-ravaged Oklahoma to the so-called Promised Land of California in the darkest days of the Great Depression. The movie Cars is a detailed and loving tribute to small towns along 66 and the postwar car culture that provided their heyday. Robert Heinlein even gave a nod to it in his story If This Goes On...when he mentioned 'the ruins of the old 66 roadcity'. Not to mention the TV show of the early 1960's...

which was shot on numerous locations around the country, many of which, oddly enough, weren't on Route 66! Go figure.

What would you have seen on 66 if you traveled it all the way? You'd have started on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, headed southwest across the prairies, farms, and fields of Illinois, crossed the Mississippi on the north side of St. Louis, skirted the northern edge of the Ozarks in Missouri, traversed the old Indian Country of Oklahoma, rolled through the high plains of the Texas Panhandle, crossed the continental divide through New Mexico, and shot through the vast deserts of Arizona and California before ending in the City of Angels in sunny southern California.

The road started out, like many highways here, as a series of trails that the pioneers used to make their way West. Part of the route was patrolled in the pre-Civil War era by the US Army Camel Corps-yep, the Army experimented with camel cavalry to cross the western deserts for a time. In the 1920s, the road was paved. Two lanes of asphalt replaced the wagon ruts and muddy mires of the horse-and-buggy era.

Route 66 was, in the 1930s, a main route for the Dust Bowl refugees from Oklahoma and Arkansas, farmers who through poor farming practice depleted their lands (not necessarily entirely their fault) and were looking for agricultural work-or any work- in California, the 'promised land'.

So they loaded up their cars and trucks and headed west. Some of them found work. Many of them struggled in this new state that really didn't want them. And more than a few didn't survive the trip. The wartime jobs in the airplane factories and shipyards would come-but not for a long time.

The economy, in time, rebounded. World War II came and went. The properous postwar families had a desire to travel, not by rail (too many of them remembered cramped and worn-out trains during the war) or by air (transcontinental air travel was for the very wealthy), but by car. The 1950s were perhaps the golden era of the automobile-the cars were big and flashy and gasoline was cheap. People looked forward to the unveiling of the new model year cars like people today look forward to, say, the Super Bowl or the World Series.

And Route 66 was the coolest way to get from the Midwest out to L.A. to see that new amusement park out in Anaheim that Disney built or to catch a Dodgers game (how could the Bums have left Brooklyn, anyway?)

And roadside architecture in many towns was designed to be eye-catching:

...like this place. A kid from the 1950s could go in here and buy a rubber tomahawk or some rattlesnake eggs, or possibly some genuine Indian-style moccasins (made in Japan)! Motels, restaurants, gas stations, and roadside attactions of dubious quality all flourished along Route 66. Getting to a destination was possibly more fun than actually being there.

Eventually, the need for speed became more important to the traveling public. The drawback to the old Federal highway system was that the roads went through every town and city, and they were two lanes wide for the most part-not conducive to rapid travel. The construction of the Interstate Highway System, with four lanes, cloverleaves, and bypasses, eventually choked off many of the towns along Route 66 and other roads. The streams of tourists on 66 fell to trickles. Parts of the Route were incorporated into the Interstates and other parts were assigned to the various state highways. By 1985, the official US Route 66 was decomissioned, and a piece of Americana left us.

But it's still possible to travel bits and pieces of the original Route 66, like this stretch in Arizona:

...or make a parallel journey along Interstates 55, 44, and 40. The trip is definitely faster now than it was 55 years ago-but the interstates all have about the same stuff alongside them-the same gas stations, motels, and eateries all the way from Chicago to LA. Not the local color and culture like it was back then.

And that is one quite amateur historian's view of a road and time gone by. As I was researching this, I ran across a link to this documentary from Australia. It would appear that imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery as the land of the Southern Cross has its own version of 'Route 66', at least in the same spirit if not actual route number.

yankeedog out.

All the news no one cares about

2011-03-28T21:10:00.000-05:00

A good weekend, all in all. TBH and I went to Indianapolis for the state Masters short course yards swim meet. She took first in her age group in 6 of 8 events, and 2nd in the other 2. She swum the 1650 free, 1000 free, and 500 free, in addition to short events in the backstroke. Two good days' work done there.

Next stop, the home state Illinois meet in a couple of weeks. Illinois usually has a big meet, since the Chicago area has a lot of swimmers and teams. I expect Evanston Wild Catfish and Naperville Waves will be the big squads in the meet. We'll see how the Western Illinois Masters Program Swimming (yes, the acronym is WIMPS) does. They probably won't have enough people to win high points in individuals or relays, but they'll make a good showing for their size. Looking forward to the meet (except possibly for several heats of 70+ years old swimmers doing 400 individual medley or 1650 free-those events can take a while. A looo-ooong while).

While in Indy, we did up a dinner at the local Benihana. I do like the cutting and dicing show that the chefs put on in front of the hibachi. Makse one wonder how those guys do it-and who washes out. People like 'Stump' Kobayashi, or 'Three-Fingers' Ito would I suppose not inspire great confidence for the diner. Though if I had a Japanese restaurant, I'd hire a hibachi chef that was missing a digit or two just for the hell of it.
Anyhow, a huge and delicious dinner was served up for us.

When we take a long trip, we tend to rent vehicles. With the right coupons and offers, one can get a vehicle fairly reasonably. Besides, a person has to splurge once in a while. I drove my first Holden. Well, a Cadillac CTS, on a Holden Sigma II platform. Heavy beast of a car for its size, not a terrible drive, but really not my style. It has some ergonomic issues in the interior as far as control placement, especially in the doors and the seats. Those are on the designers up in Detroit, though.

Finally, we got ourselves a new boss in the Design Lair. No more Team Rimmer, alas. The new guy is a degreed mech engineer, which is good. In this litigious society it's good to have calculations run by someone who's supposed to know his stuff. It's hard to get a fix on someone on his first day, but...
...you know in the war movies, when the platoon gets the replacement leader, all squeaky clean and full of book learnin', but not wise to the ways of people in the platoon or in the art of actual combat? I feel like that's what we've got. We'll see how he does when the fecal matter impacts the rotary-blade air mover and Rimmer starts telling us how to design something.

Ah, good times coming up! Ought to be fun.

yankeedog out.

One more before I go...

2011-03-24T23:26:00.003-05:00

The sports talk station I listen to has a feature (670AM- The Score, Chicago) on Thursday afternoons has a segment called 'Who Ya Crappin'?', where listeners can call/email in odd things that someone said (not something someone did). You'd be surprised at some of the gems people dig up, which point out someone's verbal gaffe, lie, or outright hypocrisy. This week had a few winners to pass along. I'll abridge them since I'm doing them from memory. Here goes:

-This week on ESPN, analyst Dick Vitale was expounding the praises of embattled University of Tennessee basketball head coach Bruce Pearl. Vitale said of Pearl "He does things the right way!".

Pearl was fired by the university after lying to an NCAA committee investigating recruiting violations and receiving a five game suspension for same earlier this year.

Dick Vitale-who ya crappin'?

(YD's note: Pearl is a piece of hypocritical garbage. He needs to go away.)

And one for Newt Gingrich, who a couple of weeks ago said on a TV show: "We're the United States. We can go in and set-up a no-fly zone in Libya to aid the rebels, and we should."

In a recent interview after the Libya no-fly operations began, Gingrich said, "I wouldn't have gotten involved in this."

Newt, you windsock. Take a stand. Who ya crappin'?

(YD's note: Newt Gingrich is, in fact, a windsock. Sorry, conservatives, but there it is.)

Vladimir Putin, Tsar of Some of the Russias, also got caught this week. In his protest of the Libya no-fly zone, he stated his concern over nations interfering in the affairs of a sovereign state that was fighting separatist rebels.

This didn't bother him in 2008, when he was rolling Russian tanks through the Republic of Georgia, a...you guessed it...sovereign state that was fighting seperatist rebels!

Vladimr Putin, you unsmiling bastard-Кто ты шутишь?

(YD's note: Tsar Vladimir is a unsmiling bastidge-but he still has more integrity than Bruce Pearl. And possibly Newt Gingrich.)

---------

'Tis time for the annual trip to Indianapolis for a Masters swim meet for TBH. I will of course be chauffeur, lap counter, and equipment manager. Looking forward to getting out of here for the weekend. You kids behave yourselves.

Since all who visit here have a huge fondness for 1980s music, I thought I'd pull up some faves from the Decade of Excess. Like to hear 'em? Here goes:

And a couple for our guy Moko, who is going to start getting behind the wheels of a truck. Look out, everyone!

Ah yes, that tune was written by an Australian, wasn't it-where they have strange place names like Oodnalatta, Moorooka, and Wagga Wagga. Not good American names like Winnemucca, Oskaloosa, or Walla Walla.

Very well, then. The original Oz version for your listening pleasure!

yankeedog out.

The sounds of silence

2011-03-21T22:39:00.000-05:00

Ah. Spring is here. The snow is gone. Spring training games are happening. Another Arab country is getting a cruise missile barrage.

This time it's Libya. I tell you, I'm getting weary of George W. Bush, Cheney, et al. interfering in the affairs of other nations.

Oh, wait. Bush and Cheney aren't in power anymore. Haven't been in two years. I thought the election of Barack Obama was going to eliminate the need for foreign adventures like this. Hmm. Amazing that the usual suspects around the world aren't raising a hue and cry that President Obama should be impeached, or sent to the Netherlands to be charged with war crimes.

It appears that France and the UK pushed the UN for a no-fly zone and possible air combat operations over Libya. So I expect that soon I'll be hearing the call for Prime Minister Cameron and Premier Sarkozy to be removed from power and charged with war crimes. Killing civilians mercilessly, interfering with the affairs of a sovereign nation, and all that.

What, nothing? Anybody?

What about the humanitarian crises that will arise with the disruption of normal life in Libya? Surely that rates a impassioned denunciation of France, Britain, Denmark, Canada, and Norway?

No? Still quiet?

Well, I expect there have been massive antiwar demonstrations in Paris, London, and the other European capitals, with plenty of anti-government slogans and signs, to show to the world how bad their nations and leaders are. After all, Libya has proven not to be a threat to the rest of the world.

Nup. Not a sausage.

Of course! Someone will bring it up for debate somewhere in cyberspace. Boy howdy, we'll see some verbal beatdowns and anti-European rhetoric flying then!

(crickets chirping)

I know! Someone will point out that France and Britain are pushing for a regime change in Libya so they can gain control of Libya's oil! Clever!

Nadie. Nol.

C'mon, people. Where are you? It's awful quiet.

Kind of what I thought. Wasn't a United States-instigated affair, and not a Republican president authorizing the action. So it's OK.

Of the rest of the world, I ask only one thing from now on.

Shut. Fuck. Up.

There's a lot of hypocrisy going on here. If Bush had been president during this recent action, there'd be hell raised from here to Zamboanga (that's in the Philippines, for those curious). We'd be treated to the same old tired anti-American rhetoric, the same old tired calls for trials for crimes against humanity, and the same old tired hippies out in the streets.

Keep it. Nobody wants to hear you anymore. You've been exposed not as people who want to make the world better, just hateful old relics who haven't had an original thought since Vietnam was in full bloom and the worker's paradise that was the Soviet Union was still in business. Not worth paying attention to.

I personally have no great love for Colonel Qaddafi. The sooner he breathes his last, the better. However, I was in no great hurry to get in another adventure in that part of the world. I figure if France, Britain, and Italy want to play at power projection, have at it. Leave us out of this one. I happen to think that President Obama handled events over there correctly-stay out of their internal affairs, since we can't win no matter what we do-until he let himself get talked into dipping into our stock of cruise missiles by the powers-that-be in Western Europe. The best thing we can do now is bring our fleet home or deploy them to where they were headed before all of this blew up, and let Europe do the heavy work.

There. 'Nuff said.

Oh, and as for those of you who picked NCAA bracket teams in the last post:

Bangar-I don't know how you manage to pick that one team every year. Richmond is in the Sweet Sixteen! Pitt was a good pick. The Pitt/Butler game was the biggest upset so far in the tournament, with Butler pulling off the one-point win. Washington left early. Cincinnati got past the first round to lose to UConn. Not surprised.

Therbs-Uh, Radar's home state was Iowa, which wasn't in the tournament. If you're taking Ohio State, you're still in. The Jayhawks of Kansas beat Illinois to make the Sweet Sixteen. All the Texas teams went home this weekend. Memphis is usually a good pick come March-except for this year.

DocY-I think just pulling for the winner. And for a Guinness. OK in my book.

yankeedog out.

Buckets time again

2011-03-14T21:23:00.000-05:00

It's March, and we all know what that means, at least here. NCAA college basketball tournament time!

Or you can go here for a readable bracket.

You know the drill. Pick the Final Four. I think Bangar is the reigning champion, as he spends minutes poring over strength of schedule, player matchups, and statistics for each of the 68 teams going into the tournament.

Don't know much about college basketball? No worries! Just pick a team out of each region and run with it.

YD's Final Four: Ohio State out of the East Region, Duke from the West, Purdue out of the Southwest, and Kansas State as a surprise from the Southeast Region. Ohio State beats Duke, K-State over Purdue. Ohio State over K-State for the National Championship.

There you are. You heard it here first. Bet everything you and your children own!!!

Good luck!

yankeedog out.

Meh...

2011-03-10T22:46:00.000-06:00

Tonight I thought I might write about the likelihood of a lockout and a possible abbreviated National Football League season in 2011 due to a lack of a collective bargaining agreement. But I can't get myself too worked up over the squabbles between a clique of millionaire team owners and a few hundred lesser millionaire players. If they come up with a labor deal, great. If they don't, well, so be it.

I might have a bit more to say about major college athletics sometime, but it's kind of late and I don't want to get into the topic right now.

I'm heartily sick of Charlie Sheen. Isn't he fourteen minutes and thirty seconds into his fifteen minutes of fame? The only reason Two and a Half Men was watchable was that Charlie Sheen was playing a character which basically required him to be himself.

Same with Lindsay Lohan. She needs to go away.

I guess I'm not too interested in celebrities. They do provide an object lesson, though. Fame and fortune don't always bring happiness or contentment or, for that matter, normalcy.

I finished up Robert Conroy's 1901. The book was written in 1995, so anything I have to say about it has probably been said already, but I'll say it anyway.

The premise is based on a diplomatic row with Germany back in 1901 that really happened. Seems Germany wanted to acquire the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and a lot of other places that we'd just taken from Spain. President McKinley evidently told the Kaiser to get bent, and Germany went away to other adventures. In the novel, Germany planned and executed an incursion on the Greater New York City area and fought a war with the US.

Yeah, right. The German Navy was a short-legged force designed to fight the British in the North Sea. It was in no way a real oceangoing force ala the Royal Navy. To have the German fleet escorting a huge fleet of transports across the Atlantic, leaving the German coast relatively uncovered, is unrealistic.

Also, Kaiser Wilhelm was portrayed as more of a megalomaniac than I think he was. He was petulant and possibly no genius, but he wasn't a Hitler type.

A lot of flaws, but it was Conroy's first effort. I had read his book Red Inferno:1945, his latest. Not nearly as bad.

The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke, however, was an infinitely better read. This volume contains most of his short stories and novellas, and well worth purchasing. There are a lot of sci-fi writers out there these days, few of whom are close to Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov, or Bradbury as far as writing talent goes.

And that. citizens, about wraps up my thoughts for this post. Later!

yankeedog out.

Great drives

2011-03-03T23:14:00.000-06:00

The other day, I picked up the latest issue of Motor Trend, and read the article 'Outback Through The Outback', where the author took a Subaru Outback from Adelaide to Darwin along the Stuart Highway (that's Highway 87 to you) right through the hot, dusty middle of Australia. Evidently he found several spots to detour off the paved road and go to some truly remote places in the center of the country, also providing an offroad test for his Subaru. His parents made the same trek back in the middle of the last century in an old Dodge-and this was when one evidently followed the wagon ruts to Alice Springs and points north.

It looks like there are several places along the Stuart Highway where the gas stations are few and far between and the authorities ask motorists to carry spare water, a first aid kit, and enough gear to camp in your car for a day or so. That's when you know you're heading for the middle of nowhere!

Of course, the article had some outstanding photographs. There are some truly awesome places to see in the Land of the Southern Cross.

Since the vast majority of you readers are from Oz, you'll probably read this and say 'Meh. It's a long boring drive with nothing to see-vastly overrated.' But I'd like to do that drive sometime, because there really isn't anything like it here in the lower 48 states. I would say that the closest thing we have in the US is the Alaska and Dalton Highways through the Yukon and central and northern Alaska. The climate is vastly different, especially in winter! but you have the same population density (roughly), sense of isolation, and scenic wonders. That's also a drive that would be worth doing someday.

I've been on a few of the routes that rank among the best America has to offer. The drives aren't of epic length, but there are some great things to see along the way. I have a few here that I'll talk up.

-Minnesota Route 61: The North Shore of Lake Superior.

61 runs along the north shore of the largest of the Great Lakes from Duluth, Minnesota, to Thunder Bay, Ontario. Lakeshore cliffs, the swaths of birch and pine of the boreal forest; access to the great iron mines of the Mesabi Range, the myriad lakes of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and the tourist lodges and camps along the US/Canadian border. Truly breathtaking! The Arrowhead Country of Minnesota is very close culturally to our Canadian friends to the north. When you drive through a town and they have a rink for curling and hockey, you know you aren't in Kansas anymore (or Illinois, for that matter).

-US 1: The Florida Keys

Henry Flagler originally built a series of bridges along the chain of keys from south of Homestead, Florida, to Key West, some 125 miles, for his Florida East Coast Railroad. The 1935 hurricanes wrecked much of the line, but the bridges were rebuilt and opened to auto traffic as the Overseas Highway. This might be one of the most scenic drives anywhere in the world. The Keys are full of little tourist shops, motels, and fishing charters. The ocean around the Keys is a beautiful, clear azure, and I have to think that the fishing around the bridge piers would be fantastic! It was quite an experience for this Midwest flatlander to drive over essentially a 125 mile long bridge. A recommended experience for anyone going to south Florida. Oh, and pack your Jimmy Buffett music to listen to while driving-this IS what he's singing about, after all...

-US 61: the land of the Delta blues

I'd have to say that US 61 along the western border of the State of Mississippi hasn't got a lot of scenery-it's mostly flat with cotton fields and ramshackle, whistle stop hamlets whose best days never arrived. What it does have is history. US 61 and the parallel Illinois Central railroad were two of the main routes north for the blacks of the Deep South who were looking for opportunities in the great industrial cities like Chicago and Detroit during the first half of the 20th Century. It's the land where the blues were born, and one can see why-the area is one of the poorest in the nation. The city of Vicksburg is the main city in the area, as it was in 1863 when the Union won its great victory over the Confederates, cutting the South in two. The battlefields are still there as a memorial. One can still walk along the faint traces of trench lines, and it's an eerie place to visit. I remember seeing markers where the various US and CS units fought. At one spot, a Union regiment from Missouri was opposite a Confederate unit from the same state. One wonders if soldiers in those two units might been neighbors back home-or kinfolk. Very sad.

When driving along 61, going through Clarksdale and Tunica, perhaps you'd want some blues on the radio.

-The Great River Road

The Great River Road is actually a series of roads from New Orleans to Lake Itasca, Minnesota, following both shores of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi is sort of two rivers. Below Cairo, Illinois, the river meanders through a flat alluvial plain in a long series of oxbows and bends-a challenge for navigators and helmsmen and pilots on riverboats since Mr. Clemens was plying the trade 150 or so years ago, visiting places like Natchez, Memphis, and New Orleans.

The Upper Mississippi plies a straighter course between bluffs and palisades, reminding many tourists of the Rhine and Hudson river valleys. There are a lot of little towns along the course of the river, and some fantastic vistas. Personally, I prefer the Upper River-but then, I might be a bit prejudiced!

When cruising along the Great River Road, maybe you'd find this song to your liking.

Interstate 86-The Southern Tier of New York

When most people think of New York, they think of the Big Apple. It might surprise some people that much of New York State is quite rural, full of quaint small towns, wooded river valleys, and nestled among the Allegheny Mountains, the northernmost range of the Appalachian chain. I had the opportunity a few years back to travel through the Southern Tier-those counties just north of the NY/Pennsylvania border. There are places along I-86 that look little changed since the first settlers pushed through, oh, back in the late 1600s/early 1700s. This part of New York has a lot of farming and is quite non-cosmopolitan. But I'd like to go back sometime and stop in a few places along the way.

And a couple of highways I'd like to drive before I die:

-The Pacific Coast Highway

California Route 1 follows the Pacific shoreline from Los Angeles to San Francisco and points north. It looks like there are spectacular ocean views along the route. And it takes a traveler out of Los Angeles. Win.

-US 50: America's Loneliest Road, Nevada

US 50 cuts through the wide, sparsely populated, desolate part of Nevada. While not as remote as Australia's Stuart Highway, travelers would do well make sure their car is in good order and they're equipped for emergencies, because it looks like facilities are few and far between. One half-expects to see a roadrunner being chased by a coyote (complete with high-tech gear from Acme!) running along 50. Give me a old early '70s Challenger and this stretch of highway to put it through its paces!

A few of our highways and byways. Got a favorite or 'must-do' route on your list? Sound off!

yankeedog out.

Wheww...and oy.

2011-02-28T00:00:00.000-06:00

I'm glad this week's done. A lot of running around stuff taken care of, at least for now.

We had Bob's memorial service last Friday. Nicely done-a dignified service for a man who, despite his flaws, generally tried to leave the place better than he found it. His kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids were all at the service and the dinner afterward. Did you know that children can be active at a social occasion without being loud, rude, or annoying? It's true! I've been told by some that such was impossible. Evidently there are still a few practitioners of the obscure 'Responsible Parenting' cult scattered around these parts.

Also in a bit of debate I guess with Senators Flinthart and Therbs, though quite civil, since they're thinking people. I'm getting too old to expend a lot of energy with name-calling, and at any rate life's too short for it. There's a lot of talk of what's called 'the politics of fear', which I suppose is easier than 'the politics of getting something done'. I'm, as most of you know, pretty conservative-with traces of pragmatism and more than a touch of apathy. But I'm not so tied to the ideology that I can't bend when and where it might be necessary.

There is one phrase in life that, if it isn't carved in stone somewhere, should be.

"It's always different when it's you."

Actually, I think an episode of Red Dwarf might have used a similar phrase, which says that either a) the people who wrote RD were astute in their knowledge of human nature, or b) I watch too much TV and don't think for myself enough. But those six words seem to fit a lot of people who are, for lack of a better term, judgmental.

I can give a few examples for you.

Consider one Rush Hudson Limbaugh, conservative radio host. In his early years, Mr. Limbaugh was big on condemning drug users. Throw them in jail and toss the key. Then he was charged for illegal purchase and use of Oxycontin. Nowadays, he doesn't talk about illlegal drug use.

It's always different when it's you.

Or former megachurch pastor Ted Haggard. He was known for condemning homosexuality. All the gays were headed for hell. He got caught with a male 'friend' and methamphetamines. Today, pretty quiet.

It's always different when it's you.

Or the older person who calls a talk radio show and says 'The government needs to get its fiscal house in order and quit handing checks to everyone.' Meanwhile, they're collecting a Social Security check and getting health care courtesy of Medicare.

It's always different when it's you.

That, citizens, is why I'm not as polarized as a lot of people (on both sides) on a lot of issues. Because, someday, it might be me.

Also, what I actually know about most things you could stick in your eye and not harm yourself too greatly. It just might be that someone out there knows more about something than I do. Except for my boss, Rimmer, and St. Louis Cardinals fandom.

Anyway, I'll end this on a good note regarding a man we laugh at more often than not-Ozzy Osbourne.

There's a little fellow in the area here, 8 years old, with brain cancer. He won't be with us a lot longer, though he's been doing decently of late. He won't make his 9th birthday, probably, barring a miracle. Ozzy was in town for a concert a few weeks back and heard about Brayden's condition. Mr. Osbourne sent Brayden a drumhead, autographed drumsticks, and took some time to call the boy and give him good wishes. And maybe it isn't a big check to cover expenses for the family, but it's a kind gesture from a man who could've been a 'big star with no time for the little people'. Good on the Prince of Darkness!

yankeedog out.

And next on the docket...

2011-02-20T22:06:00.000-06:00

It's shaping up to be a busy bastidge of a week here. My sister-in-law is getting a knee replacement on Monday, I have to cart Mom to two doctor appointments on Tuesday, and Bob's memorial/reception is on Friday afternoon. Add that to work and everything else that crops up over a week-should be fun. There are times I feel spread a bit thin.

I did hop over to Borders this weekend, where there was a surprising number of shoppers. Amazing what can happen when the parent company anounces bankruptcy. I suppose everyone wants to get their gift cards expended in case the local store closes. Picked up a big collection of Arthur C. Clarke's short stories and novellas (I'd forgotten how good his short stories were. I've never been a great fan of his novels, for whatever reason), and Robert Conroy's 1901, which appears to have to do with Imperial Germany invading the US in, well, 1901. Looks like a fun read, if not terribly realistic.

And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is the upcoming schedule. Wish you were here.

yankeedog out.

If it's spring...

2011-02-17T23:16:00.000-06:00

...and it isn't quite yet, although the temps here have been in the high 50s (15ish C) over the last couple of days, melting a good chunk of the blizzard of a couple of weeks back. Actually drove home tonight with the windows down and passed a few motorcycles. I shouldn't be surprised to see a golfer or two out this weekend if it stays like this.

Don't like Midwest weather? Wait ten minutes and it'll change.

I see we've already got a couple of baseball items to discuss, and spring training is just barely started. All right, then!

-It looks like Cardinals superstar slugger Albert Pujols is going to test free agency after the season. He's looking for a $300 million, 10-year deal.

Hmm. Last year, I'd've told Cubs management to open up the checkbook to try to steal away Pujols. But a 10-year deal for a 31-year-old player? I'll pass, thank you. You might get 3-4 more prime years out of him, then he gets paid for sitting at the end of the bench or struggling along on some other team, but still collecting checks from the ~~suckers~~ team that signed him.

If Pujols is hard and fast on insisting on a very long-term deal, then I have to think the Cardinals management will say after this season "Thank you for the good years, Albert. Don't let the doorknob hit you on the way out." The Cardinals historically haven't made a lot of bad deals and I don't see them doing it here. A lot of the Cards fans I've heard are thinking along that line as well. The Cardinals, curse them, always seem to find good players to replace the ones they let go.

Buena suerte, Albert.

Meanwhile, on the North Side of Chicago, The Cubs have hired a new color man to replace the late Ron Santo on their radio broadcasts. And it's an old familiar guy to Cub Nation of the 1980s:

Good old #6-Keith Moreland. 'Zonk' is back! I've heard Moreland do some broadcasts last year. He knows his stuff and did a good job on the games. I used to enjoy watching Moreland patrol right field in that magical 1984 season. He wasn't great at it, but he gave it his all! I've seen him play in all three outfield positions, third base, first base, catch, and-one time-pitch an inning in an extra-inning affair when the Cubs ran out of pitchers. His time playing football at the University of Texas came in handy as well. One time there was a bench-clearing brawl and Moreland threw a tackle that would have stopped any running back in the NFL, let alone a baseball player.

He'll do fine in replacing Ron Santo. Which brings me to the role of the 'color' guy in a radio broadcast. He's the one that's supposed to provide insight on a given situation or play in the game and describe/relate it to the audience. Very important since the guy listening to his radio in the car can't see what's going on and needs a good call to 'see' the game in his mind's eye.

Santo played third base on some pretty good Cub teams of the 1960s. He isn't in the Hall of Fame, but based on his career statistics should be. One could argue that he was the best third baseman of the 1960s in MLB, or at least equal to the Orioles' Brooks Robinson, who is in the Hall.

He played the game despite having diabetes (in an era when treatment wasn't all that refined for it) and in later years lost both his legs and suffered numerous health issues, including the bladder cancer which eventually killed him last December. He was a tough guy who had time for the fans, and a hell of a baseball player.

But he wasn't a very good broadcaster.

The extent of his contributions to Cub broadcasts were mostly grunts and groans when the Cubs screwed up something (all too common) and cheers when they got a home run or pulled off a good play. That's OK if you're listening to some guy in the stands, but not in a major league broadcast. And occasionally you'd get an exchange like this:

Pat Hughes (Cubs' radio play-by-play): 'And Rodriguez is coming up to bat for the Nationals...'
Santo: 'Who's coming up to bat, Patrick?'

or

Pat Hughes: 'And Sutcliffe won the Rookie of the Year award in 1979.'
Santo: 'That would have been his first year in the league, right, Pat?'

Possibly the most famous (or infamous) Santo call happened toward the end of the 1998 season. The Cubs were in Milwaukee, locked in a classic with the Brewers, and playing for a slot in the postseason. Late in the game, a fly ball was hit out to Cub left-fielder Brant Brown, who...well, you can hear the call at the end of this snippet:

Listen to the anguish as the ball gets dropped! OH NO, NO!!!

(Incidentally, the Cubs did end up winning the game in extra innings that day.)

Now, I think Pat Hughes is one of the best play-by-play men in the business-but after 162 games broadcasting with Santo...if it were me, by the end of the season at least one of us would be out the window of the Wrigley Field radio booth!

It was to the point where Cub radio broadcasts were getting unlistenable. You got no thoughts on the game or any of the players in it. It's good to be a fan, but not necessarily if you're a broadcaster. I'm looking forward to next season's Cub games on radio-much more, unfortunately, than looking forward to the 2011 Cubs, which show every sign of being a colossal 'Meh' this year. Well, the Ricketts family has promised a championship 'in my lifetime', so I have that to look forward to. But Hughes and Moreland will at least make it interesting to listen to.

yankeedog out.

That was interesting...

2011-02-12T20:22:00.000-06:00

Any of you regular readers probably know about The Better Half's boyfriend/companion, Bob. If not, you can read a bit about him here.

On Thursday, TBH's mom couldn't get a hold of him on the phone, but she decided that we'd wait the day out. Earlier in the week he was incommunicado for a day because he didn't get his phone hung up properly.

Friday morning, no Bob. We told TBH's mom to call the police to check on him. We're both busy at work and really didn't need to expend the time to track him down. Nothing would do but WE had to check on him. I picked TBH's mom up at her house, then read her the riot act for not doing what was the proper thing.

We knew how to get into his house, so I let myself in, and found him dead on the floor in his bedroom.

I sort of felt bad after that. Bob and The Mole were steady for 20 years, enjoying each other's company and growing old together. But that's the cycle of life. He had had some heart problems, and I think some dementia was starting to set in. TBH and I were thinking that he wasn't long for independent living at any rate. I don't think there was much anyone could have done for him unless they were right there-one of those cases where maybe you have two or three minutes to help. He didn't look agonized, just looked like he was sleeping.

The event wasn't so traumatic for TBH or myself as a whirlwind. If you're the one to find a body, you get all the questions from the paramedics, cops, and coroner. I didn't know where he kept any of his personal papers or effects-the man was a world-class packrat and the place looked like a tornado went through it-or a sharehouse. Plus we had a time getting a hold of his next-of-kin. Eventually someone got his daughter, and she came over. I was never so happy to give her his house keys and get the hell out of there.

It adda one more little thing to our life. TBH's mom is, of course, no kid. She has church and some friends, but Bob provided a lot of her social life. That connection with the outside world is terribly important for older people-it can help keep them alive since it gives them events to prepare for and look forward to. She's a tough old bird and pretty much takes life as it comes, which is about all one can do. I suspect she could find a male friend in time should she put her mind to it. Actually, her neighbor across the street is a widower, and thye've known each other for several decades. He was a Hump (China-Burma-India) pilot in WWII, and is in astounding shape for pushing 90. He likes to dance, just like she does. Might could be in a while, we'll have to get her to take a plate of cookies to his house...she could do worse. Companionship, common interests, and 100 feet away. What's not to like? But first things first and there'll be some mourning before she gets back into the 'dating scene'.

Bob was a heck of a guy. He did a lot, had a lot of interests, and went to a lot of places all around the world. He was an astronomy buff and traveled all over to see the various lunar and solar eclipses. He helped with the development of airborne early warning planes. He worked here at the Arsenal, International Harvester, and taught welding and quality control at our local community college. He made the most of his almost 89 years. Requiescat in pace.

The silver lining (for me) was that I missed a crisis at work. Fortunately, it didn't involve my company or our products. Someone at a local factory we do a LOT of business with got a finger chopped off when manipulating a cab on a dump truck being built. That gets attention from people. Corporate people, who are best left in their offices and not out anywhere near actual work. I don't think I want to say a lot more about this at this point, but rest assured that I will have a comment on design practices at some point in the future. Suffice it to say that we got a rush order for a cab lifter. Win-unless you're Nine-Fingers Malloy.

As I write this, TBH is in bed. Kind of sounds like she's got a bout of the flu coming on. Yay. There's some nasty bug going around these parts. One of my coworkers was home Friday with a head full of snot and watery eyes. Fortunately, I have some Havockian FKN GOD powers and have escaped this so far.

Other than that, pretty quiet here. How about you?

yankeedog out.

The Unlucky Melbourne

2011-02-10T23:50:00.000-06:00

I was perusing Wikipedia today and I saw that February 10 was the anniversary of the Melbourne-Voyager collision of 1964. The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collided with and sunk destroyer HMAS Voyager off the New South Wales coast. I'd guess most of you Australian readers have at least heard of it.

Melbourne has the unfortunate distinction of ramming two destroyers in its 25-year-long career, the Voyager in 1964 and the USS Frank E. Evans in 1969. Both vessels were acting as 'plane guards' in a close formation with the carrier.

In the first incident, it would appear that Voyager's command crew misjudged the speed of their own vessel and position relative to Melbourne, and in trying to compensate slipped in front of Melbourne's bow, with the end result being that Voyager was cut in two, sinking her with the loss of 82 of her 320 crew. The inquiry afterwards placed most of the blame on Voyager, and indicated that her captain may have been medically unfit for command. He had been drinking (though his blood alcohol level was well below any legal impairment level), and a doctor had prescribed amphetamines for him. Use of amphetamines and stimulants is a not uncommon occurrence in the military, so it's unknown if those drugs affected him enough to cloud his judgement.

Here Melbourne is limping back to port, where she'd spend several weeks at Cockatoo getting a new bow.

The collision with the Evans took place at night during a naval exercise. As she took up her plane guard station, she crossed in front of Melbourne. Both ships tried to turn away from each other, but far too late. The big carrier split the Evans, killing 74 of her 336 crew.

Here the stern section of the Evans is seen, still afloat. After the incident, a joint RAN-USN Board of Inquiry was formed to investigate the collision. And from what I've read, it was a bit of-no pun intended-a kangaroo court. The Evans' command crew was clearly at fault. Commander McLemore left two very inexperienced officers on the bridge at the time of the incident-one had failed his qualification exams and the other was at sea for the first time. Nevertheless, strenous efforts were made to place maximum blame on the Australians through fabricated evidence and shady legal tactics.

The Board ruled, however, that both ships were more or less equally at fault. I'd bet there was some fairly colorful language between both sides before reaching that verdict. In 1999, Commander McLemore admitted responsibility for the collision, and that he shouldn't have had two inexperienced personnel in command on that evening. Honorable-but one hopes he contacted Captain Stevenson of the Melbourne to say it as well.

Due to these two incidents, the Melbourne was considered 'unlucky' or 'jinxed', despite having served well for a quarter century. But was it, really?

Going down to the sea in ships is a dangerous profession. Operating an aircraft carrier is one of the riskier things to do in that profession. Take a piece of land 800 feet long and 80 feet wide. Put 25-30 airplanes and 5-6 helicopters on it. Have them takeoff and land at the same time. Fuel them up on one side of the piece of land. Load ammunition on them as well. In addition, have 40-50 people walking around the land. If you can operate without killing anyone or destroying your planes, then congratulations! You can do carrier operations.

It takes great skill and knowledge by captains and helmsmen to perform any operations in formations and manuevering. One of the trickiest pieces of seamanship is underway replenishment. Two or three ships have to maintain a perfect parallel formation, keeping a constant distance from each other and moving at exactly the same speed, possibly in a pitching, rolling sea.

But a good captain only has to keep two pieces of basic physics in his or her mind:

1) Bodies in motion tend to remain in motion.
2) Force equals mass times velocity.

In both cases involving Melbourne, the destroyer captains had far nimbler vessels than the 22,000 ton carrier. There's no way it can be stopped on a dime. And in both cases, Melbourne was ramping up for flight operations, which meant she'd have been getting up to top speed to get enough wind over the flight deck to launch planes. It would have been incumbent on both destroyers' commanders to anticipate and prepare for any manuevers Melbourne would make to allow her to do flight ops.

I don't think Melbourne was any more 'jinxed' than any other carrier. The US Navy has had horrific accidents on its own carriers, especially during combat operations and manuevers. Enterprise, Forrestal, Nimitz, and Oriskany have suffered serious fires and explosions on board in their time.

This was on board USS Forrestal back in the late 1960s.

In 1975, carrier USS John F. Kennedy collided with cruiser USS Belknap-

-resulting in major damage to the Belknap, requiring a three-year rebuilding in the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

So the HMAS Melbourne, although unfortunate enough to sink two destroyers in separate incidents, probably wasn't any more or less 'lucky' than any other vessel. Navies have to be at sea to drill and practice, and collisions are part of the price for doing business.

yankeedog out.

The Lake Michigan Navy

2011-02-05T23:29:00.001-06:00

I recently read an article about the recovery of an F4U-1 'Birdcage' Corsair fighter from the depths of Lake Michigan, near Chicago. There are no flying examples of this particular variant, so it will be restored to at least display condition at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola.

The plane is in quite good condition after being submerged for nearly seventy years. In recent years, a Dauntless dive bomber was pulled out of the lake, also in fair condition.

As well as a very rare find-an old Vought Vindicator torpedo bomber, many of which were destroyed at the Battle of Midway. The plane has of course been restored to what it would have looked like in those dark days of early 1942.

And how did so many old warbirds end up at the bottom of Lake Michigan, in the middle of the United States? In one of those oddities which America is famous for (like all of the outdoors stuff like parks being run by the Department of the Interior), the US Navy has its main training base between Chicago and Milwaukee. Great Lakes Naval Training Center.

During World War II, the Navy needed aviators that were qualified and trained to fly off carrier decks. The Navy also needed carriers in the Fleet, and not doing training duty off the Florida coast. So in a clever move, the Navy leased two lake steamships (in those days, steamships ran regular routes between the cities along the Lakes), the Greater Buffalo and the Seeandbee.

A trip to the Navy Yard, and the two steamships emerged as USS Sable and USS Wolverine.

At first glance these ships look like aircraft carriers, but neither vessel had a hangar deck or permanent aircraft handling facilities, so they were given a 'miscellaneous auxiliary' designation (IX) instead of the more familiar 'CV' for carriers. Both ships were given a 500 foot long deck (about the size of the flight deck on an escort carrier of the time) and homeported in Chicago. Prospective carrier pilots would take off from Glenview Air Station and fly east over Chicago and the suburbs out into Lake Michigan, learning to spot a carrier on open water and how to land on same in all weather conditions. The Great Lakes can be rough, and the decks of the Sable and Wolverine would pitch and roll just like they were the Yorktown, San Jacinto, or Kitkun Bay on the high seas.

On a calm day, one could stand on Navy Pier or Oak Street Beach and watch prospective aviators land, take off, or do bump and gos on the Great Lakes' very own Navy!

Most of these pilots were right out of primary training, and as fitting pilots in training, they occasionally made a mistake or two along the way, like hitting the barrier:

...or missing the wires and barrier altogether and putting their plane in the drink. Some few went down with their mistakes, but thankfully not too many.

Many thousands of pilots learned their trade on board Sable and Wolverine, as well as hundreds of landing signal officers and aircraft handlers. The two ships, while not ideal 'training carriers', served well until the end of the war, after which they were sold for scrapping.

Many people don't think of the Midwest as a great shipbuilding region, but during the war many of our 'fleet boat' submarines were built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and sailed through the Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic Ocean. The bulk of our tank landing ships were built in Seneca, Illinois, and moved down the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. Yards up and down the Mississippi River valley built scores of the small patrol craft and auxiliary vessels the Navy needed to augment and support the fighting fleets.

Today, no active warships are stationed in the Great Lakes, but there are plenty of museum vessels dotting their shores: submarines Cobia, Silversides, Croaker, and Cod; cruiser Little Rock, destroyer The Sullivans, and on the Canadian side, their famous Tribal class destroyer HMCS Haida.

The Great Lakes Navy-a complete flotilla which even at one time could launch and land a very tiny air force!

yankeedog out.

Snowmageddon!

2011-02-03T20:56:00.001-06:00

Or something like that.

We got a good old-fashioned Midwest blizzard Tuesday night. We had about 16" of snow here officially, but the big deal was the wind, right out of the northeast at 35-40 mph, which causes the powder to simply accumulate in big drifts. There isn't much one can do in the middle of these except hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.

It worked out good for us. The Better Half has been dealing with computer issues at work and HAD to be near her office. There's a fairly nice hotel a couple of blocks from the office, so that's where we watched the storm do its thing. It's an ill wind that doesn't blow some good.

By Wednesday night, the state and city plow crews, in addition to a veritable army of people with pickup trucks with plow blades, snowblowers, and the occasional Bobcat, had a handle on most of the snow. I had help getting the Brazen Chariot dug out of the hotel parking lot, and in return helped a couple of people extract their vehicles. Everybody helps each other and the work gets done.

A pile o' pics from the area:

This was Lake Shore Drive in Chicago on Tuesday night rush hour. The cars were abandoned in place due to a blockage from an accident. It looks for all the world like something from a disaster movie. The City of Chicago got LSD cleared out yesterday. I expect some Windy City auto owners got to pay the city a nice towing fee-excuse me, revenue enhancer...

From closer to home, some local snowpiles. I stopped at Oriental Express to pick up supper on Wednesday. A lot of stores were closed. A lot of bars were closed, which tells you how bad the roads were around here for a while. We don't close the taverns on a whim. But the Chinese don't take a day off for snow. That's why someday they'll overrun all of us. Then I'm moving to Beijing and starting an American Food Buffet. Turnabout is fair play.

This is Illinois 64 east of my old hometown. It's kind of flat, open terrain, and the snow can pile up a bit along the road. More than a few people around here have snowmobiles, and they can come in handy. More than a few people have been rescued from a car or had supplies delivered to their house via your friendly neighborhood snowmobiler. A great shot courtesy of one of the local TV stations.

South of here, it's just flat. The plow comes by and five minutes later the road's drifted shut again. The National Guard was patrolling the interstate south of us to pick up motorists who got stuck. Evidently a Humvee or deuce and a half gets through this stuff better than the family minivan. A bonus from the Guard's standpoint is that some schmuck isn't trying to take a shot at you.

A pretty typical sight if you left your vehicle out on Tuesday night. It's not a bad idea to pack a snow shovel in the trunk if you can. It makes life a lot easier if you're out somewhere and your car gets buried or stuck. I used to carry a military-style folding entrenching tool, which is a poor substitute for something with a bigger scoop. Used that once in snow and relegated it to dirt digging.

It isn't all work, though.

There's always time for hoops, sledding, or a good snowball fight! Not for me, though. I'm busy holding this guy's spot by the fireplace. Good luck getting it back!

Now when it comes to snowball fights, this is how we do it around these parts:

yankeedog out.

Does life imitate art or vice versa?

2011-01-28T22:55:00.001-06:00

I read this article about hooking up a cell phone to a hand-held scanner to do basic medical scanning. The image can be sent over the web to the family doctor for analysis. The apparatus looks something like this:

Pretty cool, huh? That could be a lifesaving setup for people that live in remote areas or far away from a specialist.

But for some of us in geekdom, it looks a bit familiar.

Kind of looks like we aren't terribly far from Dr. McCoy's Feinberger medical scanner (which looks like a salt shaker-because it is a salt shaker). Or from the tricorder, come to think of it.

I thought the communicator from the original Star Trek looked pretty cool.

But there's no way we'd ever have a handheld wireless device that would allow people on opposite sides of the planet to talk to each other. Would we?!?

Oops. Guess so. And a modern smartphone has way more apps than Kirk's communicator had.

In some episodes of the original Star Trek, Captain Kirk could be seen signing some sort of tablet with lights on it. No doubt some high-tech device connected to the ship's mainframe. The tablet looked like this:

Certainly, something like this would take a century or so to develop, wouldn't it? Well, no, actually.

Here, Spock can be seen programming a computer with some sort of portable media. Back in the days of tape reel data storage, that must have looked highly implausible.

Hmm. Been there, done that.

Get those big clunky 3.5 inchers out of here and bring me a flash drive!

A tiny color television monitor on a tabletop? Surely not!

Or is the proper question Why is the screen so big and clumsy?

About the only thing we don't have is a decent hand phaser:

The best we can do there is the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser...

...which won't fit on a belt.

Next time you laugh at the 'cheesy' special effects on an episode of the original Star Trek, think about how much they got right on a shoestring TV budget.

I can't help but wonder that if we didn't have science fiction shows on TV, would we have some of the neat devices we use every day? Did the engineers who came up with some designs imitate what they saw? Or would the natural progression of events naturally mean that these items would have been developed anyway?

Something to think on for the weekend.

yankeedog out.

One more step toward idiocracy

2011-01-25T20:02:00.000-06:00

A topic on the radio this morning concerned a move to remove the teaching of cursive writing from the curriculum of schools in 40 of the 50 states. You can read a story on it here.
One woman called the station. Her son was getting his driver's license when the DMV rep asked for his signature. Seems a 16-year old kid didn't have a clue how to sign his name. His mom actually had to write his name in cursive so he could copy that.

You gotta be kidding me. Welcome to the 1800s. Put your 'X' on the line.

Most children going to school these days use computers and texting for communications and to do their schoolwork. There aren't that many people these days that probably sit down to handwrite a paper. Those that do most likely print. I mostly print. 25 years of being a draftsman-and doing lots and lots of lettering by hand once upon a time-brought that on.

The educators who think teaching cursive is a waste of time need to consider that most places still require a real, honest-to-God signature for most official documents. And the next generation or two will only be able to sign with 'X''s. A nation of 300 million medieval peasants.

Seems to me that learning cursive writing is one of those skills that we shouldn't be so quick to dump, along with learning to do basic math by hand, without a calculator. You might not ever perform that particular function on a particular day-but those skills will still work after the power goes out.

Sometimes I hear things like this and just shake my head. I can't help but think that perhaps filmmaker Mike Judge might well have a bit of prophet in him:

yankeedog out.

Well, bugger all...

2011-01-23T18:56:00.000-06:00

The Packers beat the Bears 21-14. Unfortunately, it was about what I expected. Reckon if you expect your team to finish 6-10 or 7-9 in the regular season, and they end up in the conference championship, you can't be all that disappointed.

Bad thing is that the Bears have a lot of holes to be filled, and finishing near the top means their first draft pick will be toward the bottom of the list. Since GM Jerry Angelo doesn't have a good track record in player drafts, not much good will probably come of the 2011 NFL draft for the Bears.

Ok, then. Pitchers and catchers report in six weeks for baseball spring training. The Cubs look all set to have another mediocre baseball season in 2011.

Blackhawks look bad. Not sold on the University of Illinois basketball team. The Bulls don't do much for me. Looks like a long year sportswise.

Anyone got a team I can pull for? Anyone got a team that needs the hex put on?

yankeedog out.

Breakfast at Therbs' Place

2011-01-22T15:32:00.001-06:00

I got a comment on the last posting from our man Therbs, who's looking to watch the Super Bowl in a couple of weeks and wants to have a Super Bowl party. If I was in Australia I'd be at the beach or watching the cricket (not the game-actually watching a cricket rub his legs together and chirping), but to each his own.

Kickoff where he's at is 8:30 am. Hmm. That's breakfast time. That adds a whole new dimension to the party. Most of what we serve at football parties is more lunch and supper type stuff.

Now, most college and pro football fans and Milwaukee Brewers baseball fans have tailgate cuisine down to a fine art-but they're not usually doing breakfast nosh. I'd bet it's the same with AFL and rugby fans there.

He's thinking of an American-style breakfast (pancakes or ham and eggs) and hot dogs for halftime. Not bad. Even wants to buy some American brew for atmosphere. If he wants to make it authentic he'll charge his guests $8/cup and it'll be watered down in the interest of maximizing profits.

For a sports party, of course, the big key is that the food needs to be portable-something you can eat while sitting in front of the tube. You don't want to be getting up to a table and risk missing a play.

So, since Therbs has asked me for some ideas, here goes:

-For breakfast, maybe go with bacon instead of ham. Yeah, bacon is a nutrional time bomb. Everyone likes it anyway. How about scrambling the eggs with onions and bell peppers and serving with salsa on top for quick and dirty huevos rancheros? I don't know what the salsa situation is there, but you all eat tomatoes with your breakfast anyway so it won't be a foreign concept.

-A proper Midwesterner would grill up some bratwurst for his tailgate instead of hot dogs. Not that hot dogs are bad, but bratwurst generally have a better aroma and taste. You could even do up brats for the breakfast meat instead of bacon. If you can get good bratwurst, I'd run with that. If frankfurters is what there is, so be it. Grill them if you can.

-Still another option for the halftime/in-game snack is doing a batch of chicken wings. Buffalo wings are popular here (though not my personal favorite). If you have Buffalo wings, you need to serve them with celery sticks and blue cheese or blue cheese dressing on the side. As an alternate you could do up barbecued wings-just bake up a bunch smothered in your favorite barbecue sauce (if you have one). You'll want to do a few dozen since they don't have a lot of meat on them.

-The halftime fallback can also be pizza, which I'm sure you can make or have delivered right around late morning.

-You may want to have a bowl or two of salty snacks on hand-crisps, popcorn, etc., or a tray of cheese, sausage, and crackers. You could put out a tray of vegetables like broccoli, carrots, radishes, cauliflower, etc. or a tray of fruits. Some roughage might help push everything else through the system.

-As for libations, well, you could go with a run-of-the-mill Yank brew like Bud or Miller. Personally, I'd see if I could get Samuel Adams beer. That may not be available most places outside of the US, but you may as well have a decent American product. I'd have no problem with serving whatever Melbourne's best is, though. Life's too short to drink bad beer.

It wouldn't be unheard of to see Bloody Marys at a tailgate, either. Or hot chocolate or coffee fortified with a splash of whiskey or rum. Might think about those as well.

So, maybe:

Huevos rancheros, with bratwurst as the meat for breakfast.

Halftime/in-game of wings and assorted snacks.

Beer/Bloody Mary/Hot cocoa-coffee

There you are. Unfortunately, the hard-and-fast rule of Super Bowl parties is that there aren't really any hard-and-fast rules for what to serve (other than keeping the food portable). Different regions of the US have different specialties. Someone in Louisiana might do Cajun seafood, while a Midwesterner might serve brats and a Texan serve pulled beef or chili. Whatever you and your guests might like will work just fine. Knock yourself out!

---------

But before the Super Bowl are the conference championships this weekend. In what I would consider a minor miracle, my Bears are in-and playing their greatest rival, Green Bay, for the marbles in the NFC. This may possibly be the greatest sporting event ever played in Chicago. I suspect a good portion of the football-watching segment of the American population will be watching this one. Two of the original teams in the league who've been going at it since 1921. What could be better?

The Packers are favored to win, and based on what I've seen, the oddsmakers and conventional wisdom are right. The Pack had a ton of injuries this year but held it together good enough to bull their into and through the playoffs. They were a favorite to win the conference in the preseason, so it isn't like they came out of nowhere.

The Bears will, I think, have to play near-perfect ball in order to beat the Packers. Their talent level on the offense is not great overall. Jay Cutler can at times look like the greatest QB to play in a Bears uniform, and at other times make you wonder what his thought processes are. He's going to have to be the Cutler that showed up v. the Seahawks last week in order for the Bears to get to Dallas. Same with the offensive line, which at times has been putrid. The Bears are about even with or slightly better than the Packers overall on defense, and the Bears special teams (kicking and returners) are way above what the Packers have.

I'd love to see the Bears get to Super Bowl XLV. Unfotunately, I see the Packers winning it in a close match.

The AFC matchup is the New York Jets v. the Pittsburgh Steelers. Pittsburgh is a pretty well-balanced team overall, playing at home. I've not seen much Jets football so I'll refrain from commenting in-depth on them. I'm thinking that the Jets will run out of gas against the Black and Gold on Sunday afternoon. I think Pittsburgh has more weapons than the Jets do-and to be honest I don't want a New York team in the Super Bowl. ESPN will fall all over themselves telling the world how great the Jets are until the sporting public develops collective nausea, and I have to think that Bears/Steelers or Packers/Steelers would be of more interest to the average football fan. Two tough, hard-nosed teams from tough, hard-nosed Rust Belt cities that know how to play REAL football, and all that.

Should be a good Sunday afternoon. However the Bears/Packers game comes out, the Bears considerably exceeded my (fairly low) expectations of them in 2010-11.

yankeedog out.

Stuff you can learn from TV and movies

2011-01-17T19:49:00.000-06:00

There's a lot of things you can learn from watching TV and movies. I saw this list an another board and ~~stole~~ borrowed it-as a public service.

Large, loft apartments in New York City are plentiful and affordable, even if the tenants are unemployed.

One of a pair of identical twins is evil.

Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don't worry about which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.

It doesn't matter if you are greatly outnumbered in a fight Involving martial arts. Your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one dancing around in a threatening manner until you have dispatched their predecessors.

When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible but slightly blue.

If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to be a world-famous expert on nuclear fission, dinosaurs, hieroglyphics, or anything else, at the age of 22.

Honest and hardworking policemen are usually gunned down a day or two before retirement.

Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their enemies using complex machinery involving fuses, deadly gasses, lasers, buzz saws and hungry sharks, all of which will give their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.

During all crime investigations, it is necessary to visit a strip club at least once.

All beds have special L-shaped covers that reach up to the armpits of a woman but only to the waist of the man lying beside her.

All grocery shopping bags contain at least one French bread and one bunch of carrots with leafy tops.

It's easy to land a plane, providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.

If you are beautiful, your makeup never rubs off, even while scuba-diving or fighting aliens. However if you are overweight, your mascara will run and your lipstick will smear.

The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there, and you can travel to any other part of the building without difficulty.

You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.

Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it is not necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.

A man will show no pain while taking the most horrific beating, but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

If staying in a haunted house, women must investigate any strange noises in their most diaphanous underwear, which is what they happened to be wearing when the car broke down.

If someone says "I'll be right back", they won't.

Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel from time to time.

All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off.

A police detective can only solve a case after he has been suspended from duty.

If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone around you will be able to mirror all the steps you come up with, and hear the music in your head.

Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure each is assigned a partner who is their total opposite.

When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.

The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in France.

Police cars are always going the wrong way when they get a call on the radio.

You can always find a parking spot right in front of the police department, city hall, or any important building.
yankeedog out.

From one river rat to 4.5 million others...

2011-01-16T00:00:00.000-06:00

...Well done!

I have to admit that I have been impressed with the people and government of Queensland during their recent flooding. I've followed most of your reports on Twitter and seen some articles and live feeds, and I was amazed at the lack of reports of looting, lawlessness, and general assclownery, and by the prompt and efficient response from the individual citizen all the way up to the federal government level. There just isn't a whole lot you can do when a column of water comes roaring your way except get yourself to high ground...quickly!

It made for a shocking comparison and contrast to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where what little system there was broke down. Now, I'll state (hopefully once and for all) that what happened in New Orleans in 2005 wasn't all President Bush's fault. New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana get hurricanes every year, so it shouldn't have been a big shock to anyone. For the city of New Orleans to have had an evacuation and relocation policy of 'If you know someone with a car, try to catch a ride out of town' was, to say the least, shameful and more likely criminal. To have fleets of buses underwater and old people left in nursing homes indicates to me that no one had the least idea of what to do.

Civil defense plans for natural disasters need to come from the bottom levels of government up-not imposed by the central government. In other words, it isn't up to Washington/Canberra to come up with a plan to evacuate New Orleans/Brisbane. That job is best left to Louisiana/Queensland.

Except that Louisiana and New Orleans never bothered, and Queensland and Brisbane did, it appears.

I'm told that the US offered Australia disaster management specialists. The Good Doctor said that got a good laugh when that came out, given the black eye the Katrina debacle gave us. Personally, I'd have offered Australia an amphibious ready group if one had been in the area, because 1000 Marines can fill and stack a lot of sandbags, the helicopters in the group could have shuttled food and medicine around (and a CH-53 can carry a pile of vegemite), and the amphib ships have good medical facilities on board if onshore hospitals suffer flooding or damage. I'd've told Governor Bligh to put 'em to work. You all would have known best where and how to use them.

Then I read Murph's blog, and he pointed out that perhaps a better comparison would have been to the Flood of 1993 along the Mississippi/Missouri/Illinois River watershed.

I've lived along the river for four decades and change, and everyone here knows that almost every spring the river will go up and probably go over its banks for a while. If it rains nearly every day for two months up north, the river will go up. Most of us just sandbag where we can, get stuff up high where necessary, and get the flatboat out because we'll be needing it before too long.

The Midwest gives its residents a little bit of everything to deal with-floods, droughts, blizzards, lake-effect snows, and tornadoes. So generally our local and state governments are ready and have a plan for most events.

1993 was a nasty flood here. It rained hard up in Wisconsin and Minnesota for most of June and July. By August, most of the floodplains of Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri were underwater. You can compare the satellite photos of the Illinois and Missouri River confluences with the Mississippi north of St. Louis.

It was damn soggy up here, but, like the people of Queensland, we just went about the job of sandbagging, watching, making sure people were taken care of, and cleaning up afterward. Citizens worked along public works crews, church and civic groups, and National Guard units to shore up levees, feed and house evacuees, and make sure the elderly and infirm were looked after. Here in Illinois, we even had prisoners working on the levees. Chain gangs-just like a modern-day Cool Hand Luke. Never had a problem with escapes or uprisings either. I suppose a Humvee with a manned machine gun will take the 'fuck you' right out of most groups of prisoners, anyway.

The state and local authorities and individual property owners did what they needed to do without waiting for the national government to step in and coordinate everything-which is probably how it should be for a great many things. We didn't loot, and we didn't fall apart under the strain.

Now the citizens of Queensland get the lovely task of cleaning up all of the debris and mud. I suspect the place smells like a giant armpit and will for a few days or weeks if it stays humid. That won't be fun. But you same citizens have earned a pat on the back. You did magnificently! I think a lot of people that live around the Mississippi river valley would say the same thing. And we grieve with you for the people that died.

As a final note, I read in some blogs posts from people wondering why anyone would build an expensive house right on a known floodplain. It happens here too, and it's still a stupid idea. Give me an old mobile home, put it on stilts, and park it right by the shore. If it gets water in it, I'll hose it out afterward. Done.

yankeedog out.

On redemption and second chances

2011-01-09T18:04:00.000-06:00

One of the stories making news this week is that of Ted Williams. Not the Red Sox hitting legend of the 1940s and 50s, but the homeless man from Columbus, Ohio. Williams claimed to have a 'God-Given' gift of a mellifluous voice. As you can see and hear in the video, he does have the classic 'radio pipes', and sounds like he should be doing morning drive or some late-night call-in show.

Turns out he was in radio back in the 1980s until he started doing crack cocaine. Eventually, the crack got the better of him and he ended up out in the street-and having run-ins with the law for things like harassment, theft, and pimping. It happens, of course-and all too frequently in the entertainment field.

When the reporter from Columbus heard this man and caught it on camera, the offers started coming in for Mr. Williams to do voiceover work from such organizations as the Cleveland Cavaliers and NFL Films (Personally, I think he'd be the perfect successor to the late Harry Kalas-the 'voice' of NFL Films).

He claims to have been 'clean and sober' for the past two years. Business owners near where he used to hang out beg to differ. I don't know, because I don't know the guy.

My comment to Mr. Williams:

The networks put you on TV to showcase your talents. Big-time organizations want your services. Through fate, or divine intervention, or a slow news day, you're getting a second chance to get your life back and together.

Don't fuck it up.

Dennis Miller, on one of his radio shows, said "I'll gladly help the helpless. It's the clueless that need to get it together." That pretty much sums up my philosophy, and that of a lot of people I know.

I'll admit it. I'm a Midwest, rural-born, conservative. What that means is that I believe in working hard, taking pride in your work, being as self-sufficient as possible, being rewarded for your efforts, and, yes, a bit of old-fashioned flag-waving patriotism. It also means helping your neighbors and the people down the street if they're having a problem or they're down on their luck. It means assisting the elderly, taking care of the vets who sacrificed for us, and trying to make things a little brighter for people with medical issues. It also means that you might have to chip in for the greater good at times.

Might be that I'm not as 'conservative' as I think. If you call yourself 'liberal' and you believe in any of what I wrote above, then you just might not be as 'liberal' as you claim. Stalemate.

It can be a tough thing at times, discerning those who really need help versus those who just want to live off the work of others. And those that want to live off the backs of others, to use a trite phrase that most of our parents and teachers used on us, spoil it for those who do desperately need assistance.

Here in the QCs, we have some panhandlers on the street corners, all with their cardboard signs proclaiming their various tales of woe. At first, they were getting money and food gifts from passing-by drivers. I think a lot of people have in their mind 'Hey, someday, that could be me-and I'd want to have someone help on that day'. Until the local TV and newspapers started tracking down some of these people and found out that most of them made a better living begging then they would in a regular job. A couple of them readily admitted that panhandling was their way to make beer money for the weekend.

Excuse me? I'm subsidizing your weekend? Don't think so.

I once belonged to a church that did free meals on weekends for the needy. Generally, it was rewarding and fulfilling work. There were those who came in who helped out by clearing tables or sweeping-and I never minded helping them out. There were a few, though, who came in all demanding and complaining about the menu. My desire to help that type waned significantly. There is, in a segment of those receiving assistance, an attitude of entitlement. And those, my friends who think we 'conservatives' are cold and heartless, are the type I hate having to shell out my hard-earned dollars for. I suspect you do as well. And, yes, their attitude of entitlement does harden me toward wanting to help anyone-even those that are in desperate straits.

And while we're at it-as we all know, there's been quite a debate on the issue of universal health care here in the States. I have serious issues about how well the current system works. I also have issues with what's coming. My colleague from Missouri, Senator Murphy, figures that our current health-care system will become a giant version of the Veteran's Administration medical system-which is not the best care available. And I haven't seen any evidence to indicate otherwise. I fail to see the difference between a government bureaucrat denying a medical procedure and an insurance company bureaucrat denying a medical procedure-the end result will be the same.

Some of you live in places that have universal health-care, and from what I hear, think it's great. Might be your system works well for you. I've also heard of Canadians coming over the border to the States to get procedures done that were either denied in Canada or so poorly scheduled that a patient would be dead by the time they got it. I want to believe that universal health care would provide quality care for the vast majority of people and not bankrupt the country in the process. I just don't think it can be done in a nation of 300 million people. And I'm fairly sure a lot of people here have the same concerns.

Perhaps if we had a bigger tax base, say by having some decent jobs for everybody that wants to work, the average citizen would be more receptive to universal health care. President Obama and the Democratic Party quite possibly made a mistake by forcing the health care bill through in the middle of the worst economic mess since the 1930s as well, and then having the Congressional mouthpieces giving us such gems as 'We have to pass the bill to see what's in it' and 'I haven't read the whole bill.'. Well, what the hell do we send you people to DC to do? Never mind. They ain't doing it all that well.

I just don't know. I'm a simple man-a man of the land. A moron. Just a singer in a rock and roll band. I'll leave it up to you to tell me I'm wrong.

yankeedog out.

To start or not to start

2011-01-04T21:35:00.000-06:00

Last week was the final week of the regular season in the NFL, and for teams that already locked up their seed in the playoffs, the same old question comes up-do you start your regular players, and risk them getting injured for the playoff run, or do you sit them, risking losing the game (and as a corollary effect, providing fans a 'substandard' product)?

The Bears had this type of decision in the final game against the Packers. The Bears knew they had the #2 seed and a 'bye' next week, so one could argue that there was no need to risk the important starters. The Packers needed to win the game to get into the playoffs. The Bears had the opportunity to knock what would have been an extremely potent team (but for an extraordinary number of injuries) out of contention. The possibility would exist for the Bears to play the Packers for a third time this year. As a rule, it's best not to have to play the same team three times in a season-the teams have a pretty good pile of knowledge on each other by then.

As it worked out, the Bears did lose to the Pack, 10-3. The Packers are in the playoffs, but the Bears had no major injuries. They'll have two weeks to regroup, get healthy, and figure out what the hell they have to do to win a game in the run to the Super Bowl. But there'd have been screaming all over Bear Nation and cries for head coach Lovie Smith's head on a platter if Jay Cutler got a separated throwing shoulder or Devin Hester blew an Achilles tendon running back a punt in what many would say is a 'meaningless' game.

A few seasons back, the Indianapolis Colts were 15-0 with a chance for a perfect 16-0 record. They had already wrapped up all the advantages they could get in the playoffs. So Coach Caldwell opted to sit Peyton Manning and his big players and put his reserves in for Game 16. The Colts lost the game but I believe ended up in the Super Bowl that year.

I'm sure a lot of Colts fans would like to have seen the regulars in there slugging it out trying for 16-0. And I suppose one could argue that if one pays $80-90/seat for an NFL tilt, one deserves to see the best players in the game.

The coaching staff, however, isn't all that interested in providing a good game for the fans. Their mission is to best manage the assets they have to get to and win a Super Bowl. Anything else is a bonus.

My opinion on the whole start/sit thing is....

...it depends on the situation.

If I were Lovie Smith going into week 16 and the playoffs, and playing the Packers, I'd have put the starters out there. My thought would be to try to eliminate a team I've already played twice and is showing signs of getting healthy at the right time.

Now, if it's 35-3 (either way) at halftime, the starters get to watch the second string finish up. As it was, the score never got to a point where it was a blowout. Indeed, most of the Bear starters seemed pretty disinterested in the whole affair from what I saw.

In the case of the Colts, I think Caldwell made the right call. There wasn't much incentive in playing a team that wasn't going anywhere, and the extra week can work wonders in getting bodies in some semblance of fighting condition for the postseason. Personally, I'm a big fan of getting the second stringers some quality time as well. One never knows when that reserve player may have to go in and make an impact on the game. So I'm for what the Pentagon calls 'total force concept' with my sports squads as well.

Teams have won Super Bowls using both approaches and to me it seems a no-brainer how to approach that last, possibly meaningless game. I'm sure most coaches look at the physical condition of their key players, and their opponent for the last game. I don't know why most sports fans even think about it all that much.

Baseball, basketball, and hockey have different dynamics. Most of the players will get game minutes as a matter of course. Baseball teams like to clinch with a week or so left in the regular season to give the manager time to get his pitching rotation set up. Basketball and hockey will see most of the players get game minutes as a matter of course. The only reason you'll see scrubs in those games after they clinch is because the regulars are generally too hung over or clubbed out to play the next day.

I don't know if, say, Oz rules or rugby has similar considerations. The level and type of impacts and violence is different. But the same thought processes might come into play. I'm sure someone will clue me in.

yankeedog out.

Writer's block

2011-01-03T18:25:00.000-06:00

I have topics, but I don't know what to write about. Can't seem to muster desire enough to write up anything big.

What sounds good?

a) The Great White Fleet of 1906 and its impact on relations with Australia/New Zealand?
b) The common man's guide to capitalism?
c) Playing vs. not playing starters in a meaningless sporting event?
d) Some local history?

Anything sound good?

yankeedog out.

First post of the year

2011-01-01T22:14:00.000-06:00

Well. I see 2011 is here. Looks a lot like 2010. Still no flying car in the driveway or antigrav belt in the closet.

The Better Half's relatives left on the 30th. Christmas around here a something of a six-day long whirlwind. It's good to see everyone. It's also good to see everyone go.

I skipped the New Year's Eve festivities. If I knew of a little place out in the country with a big fireplace and not much in the way of noise I'd have made for it for a weekend getaway. However, if you did go out and/or do New Year's up big, hope it went well for you!

Not much to say right now. I'm going to go read about the British naval mutinies of the 1930s. Later all!

yankeedog out.

Christmas post-mortem

2010-12-26T11:46:00.000-06:00

Urrrr. Ate too much.

A very nice Christmas day for yours truly, and it sounds like most of you did OK as well.

TBH and I went to my Mom's house for Christmas dinner. She did a credible job considering her not-so-great physical condition and middlin' poor eyesight. She always liked cooking big dinners and it's hard to tell her not to bother. She lives alone and likes the company as much as anything. We had turkey (delicious!), green bean casserole (which is required serving at Thanksgiving and Christmas by federal law), coleslaw, and mincemeat pie. Not a twelve-course repast but certainly a great plenty for all of us.

She gave us some mail-order fruitcake and baklava. Baklava is always good whether mass-produced or handmade by Mrs. Papadopoulos down the block. And I may be the only one in the world, but I like fruitcake. Now, I do understand the bad rap it gets-dry fruitcake is really only good for using as a doorstop or a convenient home-defense weapon. When I was young, Mom made a fruitcake every year, 'round about the middle of November. She'd pour rum over it and keep an eye on it and let the rum soak in and the cake was invariably heavy and moist and probably not to be eaten in great quantities before driving home. And the moisture (and corollary alcohol) content is the key to a good fruitcake. Seriously. Try making one early, treat it with tender loving care and a good quality rum or brandy. Trust me-it's nothing like the mass-produced stuff.

After that, off to my brother's digs. Shot the breeze, watched some Britcoms off Netflix (Father Ted and The IT Crowd-both good shows). Supper of that great traditional Christmas staple-sloppy joes-and snacks, and board games afterward. We use the Christmas get-together as game night and we don't exchange gifts. It saves a lot of hassle for all of us and we have a good time and that's what the day is in part supposed to be about.

After that, TBH and I had our Christmas together. Scored some gift cards for Barnes & Noble and Borders, which is good news for authors and magazine publishers everywhere. I like gift cards over receiving stuff I'll never use. I can remember when giving gift certificates was considered a bit gauche, but I like them. I'll do my own shopping.

Now we have to get ready for TBH's sisters arriving. They'll be here for most of the next few days. The holiday just goes on and on here!! I've only got one day of work this week. I have two days of vacation left to burn.

Hope all went well with you regular readers here!

yankeedog out.

The Small Peace of 1914

2010-12-18T06:52:00.001-06:00

Around this time of year, one of the great stories of the season (at least for me) are the tales of the Christmas Truces on the Western Front during the winter of 1914. To me, those stories are something of a triumph of the human spirit.

These stoppages in fighting happen in many wars in Western history. The American Civil War and Spanish Civil War had similar truces, where both sides' soldiers met, exchanged news and goods, and maybe played some sport.

I did a post on the 1914 truce back in the JS days, but it's time for a retell. We'll combine it with a little 'theatre of the mind', though, to perhaps make it more interesting.

Picture if you will, a farmhouse. Picture it being wintertime: snow on the ground. Think of something like this:

It's Christmas Day. All of the regular readers here, past and present, are all gathered together in the living room by the fireplace, sated after a huge Christmas dinner. Some of you are watching the NBA game on TV, others possibly nodding off, drinks in hand. Might be the rest of you are outside in the snow chucking a football around.

Eventually, everyone comes in and gathers around-for it's time for a revered holiday ritual. Glasses are refilled.

Barnesy: "Grandpa Yankeedog, are you going to tell the story of the Christmas Truces of 1914?"
Doc: "Yeah, tell us the story!"
Havock: "Just TELL us the FKN story, you old BASTARD!"

YD (in the 'old man' voice) "Alright, everyone, come on closer while I tell you the story."

Everyone: "YAYYYYYY!"

YD: "Now, all this happened right around the beginning of the last century. This was before TV, them interwebs, and oranges. Why, the question mark hadn't even been invented yet! People then, just like now, got to fussin' and fightin' over all kinds of stuff. Kinda like at dinner today when Bangar hit Moko with a chair leg for eating the last of the sweet potatoes, or when Tricia stuck her tongue out at Natalie during the prayer..."

Mayhem: "SHE started it!"

YD: "You kids hush! Now where was I? Oh yes. I was in Teddy Roosevelt's Cavalry, riding a war-moose up San Juan Hill..."

Therbs: "1914..."

YD: "Yeah, I know! Young punk. Anyway, this all happened during WW One, what everyone called the Great War, because it was great if you were lucky enough not to be in it. Well, in that first autumn of the war, all them politicians told the boys that they'd all be home by Christmas. Winter started to kick in, and still no sign of the war ending. So the troops settled in to the trenches all along the Western Front, from the Channel to where the Swiss live..."

Bangar: "They fought in Wisconsin?"

YD: "No! That was the Cheese Conflict of 1896. If you all are going to keep interrupting me, I'll let you hear the story as the men themselves told it....

On December 7, 1914, Pope Benedict XV suggested a temporary hiatus of the war for the celebration of Christmas. Though Germany readily agreed, the other powers refused.

Even without a cessation of war for Christmas, family and friends of the soldiers wanted to make their loved ones' Christmas special. They sent packages filled with letters, warm clothing, food, cigarettes, and medications. Yet what especially made Christmas at the front seem like Christmas were the troves of small Christmas trees.

On Christmas Eve, many German soldiers put up Christmas trees, decorated with candles, on the parapets of their trenches. Hundreds of Christmas trees lighted the German trenches and although British soldiers could see the lights, it took them a few minutes to figure out what they were from. Could this be a trick? British soldiers were ordered not to fire but to watch them closely. Instead of trickery, the British soldiers heard many of the Germans celebrating.

Time and again during the course of that day, the Eve of Christmas, there were wafted towards us from the trenches opposite the sounds of singing and merry-making, and occasionally the guttural tones of a German were to be heard shouting out lustily, 'A happy Christmas to you Englishmen!' Only too glad to show that the sentiments were reciprocated, back would go the response from a thick-set Clydesider, 'Same to you, Fritz, but dinna o'er eat yourself wi' they sausages!'

In other areas, the two sides exchanged Christmas carols.

'They finished their carol and we thought that we ought to retaliate in some way, so we sang 'The first Noël', and when we finished that they all began clapping; and then they struck up another favourite of theirs, 'O Tannenbaum'. And so it went on. First the Germans would sing one of their carols and then we would sing one of ours, until when we started up 'O Come All Ye Faithful' the Germans immediately joined in singing the same hymn to the Latin words 'Adeste Fidéles'. And I thought, well, this was really a most extraordinary thing - two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.

The Christmas Truce

This fraternization on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas was in no way officially sanctified nor organized. Yet, in numerous separate instances down the front line, German soldiers began yelling over to their enemy, "Tommy, you come over and see us!" Still cautious, the British soldiers would rally back, "No, you come here!"

In some parts of the line, representatives of each side would meet in the middle, in No Man's Land.

'We shook hands, wished each other a Merry Xmas, and were soon conversing as if we had known each other for years. We were in front of their wire entanglements and surrounded by Germans - Fritz and I in the centre talking, and Fritz occasionally translating to his friends what I was saying. We stood inside the circle like streetcorner orators.

Soon most of our company ('A' Company), hearing that I and some others had gone out, followed us . . . What a sight - little groups of Germans and British extending almost the length of our front! Out of the darkness we could hear laughter and see lighted matches, a German lighting a Scotchman's cigarette and vice versa, exchanging cigarettes and souvenirs. Where they couldn't talk the language they were making themselves understood by signs, and everyone seemed to be getting on nicely. Here we were laughing and chatting to men whom only a few hours before we were trying to kill!'

Some of those who went out to meet the enemy in the middle of No Man's Land on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day negotiated a truce: we won't fire if you won't fire. Some ended the truce at midnight on Christmas night, some extended it until New Year's Day.

One reason Christmas truces were negotiated was in order to bury the dead, many of whom had been there for several months. Along with the revelry that celebrated Christmas was the sad and somber job of burying their fallen comrades. On Christmas day, British and German soldiers appeared on No Man's Land and sorted through the bodies. In just a few rare instances, joint services were held for both the British and German dead.

Yet many soldiers enjoyed meeting the un-seen enemy and were surprised to discover that they were more alike than he had thought. They talked, shared pictures, exchanged items such as buttons for food stuffs. An extreme example of the fraternization was a soccer game played in the middle of No Man's Land between the Bedfordshire Regiment and the Germans. A member of the Bedfordshire Regiment produced a ball and the large group of soldiers played until the ball was deflated when it hit a barbed wire entanglement.

This strange and unofficial truce lasted for several days, much to the dismay of the commanding officers. This amazing showing of Christmas cheer was never again repeated and as World War I progressed, the story of Christmas 1914 at the front became something of a legend.

YD: "Now, all those officers and politicians knew that if the troops refused to fight, peace might have broken out. So after the first year, they scheduled artillery barrages and trench raids right around Christmas to keep everyone all riled up, and the Christmas truces along the trenches, well, they petered out and by the end of the war were just memories.

...and that's the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914, which is why you kids shouldn't be out messing with my tools in the shed, or monkeying around with the bandsaw!"

Moko: "I don't get what the Truce of 1914 has to do with using your tools..."

YD: "That's because you have no respect for your elders! Maybe instead of yapping, you'll go get me another glass of eggnog. Now you kids go about your business, and leave Grandpa alone to drink his eggnog and watch his favorite holiday movie-Emmanuelle At The North Pole."

BigBadAl: "Can I watch, too?"

YD: "No, you can't! Go outside and sled down the hill on the piece of cardboard I got you for Christmas. When you come back, I'll tell you the story of the First Christmas, where Baby Jesus was born in Allentown..."

Natalie: "Bethlehem. Baby Jesus was born in Bethlehem."

YD: "Wherever. It was somewhere out in Pennsylvania. Anyway, kids, we're now going to play a game called 'Leave Grandpa YD Alone'. The object of the game is to leave Grandpa YD alone. So go outside and play in the snow. And don't angry up my chickens!"

-----------

The actual passage of the Christmas Truce came from About.com-thanks for letting me 'borrow' it. There are numerous stories and articles about it on the 'net, most of which are worth a read. Astounding that people could put a world war aside for one day and get along. It gives one a bit of hope for the human race after all.

But on a lighter note, I know about all this because of Great-Grandpa Yankeedog's experience in WWI. They even wrote a song about it. Like to hear it, here it goes:

yankeedog out.

That was the week that was...

2010-12-12T19:27:00.000-06:00

...which is to say, not much of a week.

The big company feed on Friday went over well. After the dinner, there was a company meeting regarding plans for 2011. Looks like the company is trying to get back to full strength. We're going to hire another fabricator for the shop (which we need). Also, they'd like to hire a mech engineer type to run the design area (us), which would be good. I've been Team Rimmer long enough. It wouldn't hurt us to have a degreed engineer on staff to check some of the concepts the sales guys get sometimes. I can usually tell by look if a given device will pick up a given load, but it isn't the same as having numbers to back it up. Overall, it looks like we're on the way up. Now, if we can get the brass to pony up for an X-Y plasma cutter so we can cut our own shapes and not send out to have them done, we'll be golden. We figure we could have the thing paid for in 6 months at present rates-and have stuff in ten minutes instead of (at best) 4 hours.

It's been cold here over the past week-no surprise since it's winter. The weather people promised us a blizzard this weekend, which fortunately for the most part failed to materialize. We had plenty of wind, but nothing like the amount of snow they thought. I'm getting tired of the meteorologists going on the news, yammering on about 'DEATHSTORM 2010'. Someday we will get a big storm, and no one will pay any attention. It gets around 0 F out and I have no great desire to go outside in it any more. Winter is a kids' season-all the sledding one can handle, school snow days, and a big cup of hot cocoa at the end of the day. I rather wish I could curl up tomorrow instead of heading off to work. Ah well...

Around the NFL, cold, windy, horizontal snowing days are called 'Bear Weather'. At one time it was perceived that the Chicago Bears had an advantage over their opponents in the cold as they played in it all the time. Evidently no one told the New England Patriots this since they beat the Bears 36-7 this Sunday, and the Bears looked dazed and confused. Could be worse-the Vikings lost a home game since the inflatable roof at the HHH Metrodome collapsed due to snow and wind. The Humpdome looks like a souffle gone bad. Who'd've thought an inflatable fabric roof in a city that gets heavy snow and weather extremes was a bad idea?

TBH rolled in last Friday from a week in KC, all full of database management knowledge. Nice to have her back home.

Today we actually went to the local mall to pick up a few final items for Christmas. Granted, the weather wasn't great-but it wasn't terrible, either-but you could have shot a cannon through there and not hurt anybody. Looks like online shopping might be the death of the shopping mall in the not-too-distant future. There are things one needs to physically go shop for-dress clothes, for example, but for a book or a sweatshirt? Screw it-why bother trudging around for those items?

That about wraps it up for this past week and weekend. Not much to report. Cruising as normal. Hope it's the same for you all.

yankeedog out.

The no-party system

2010-12-08T22:34:00.000-06:00

Friday afternoon will see my company throwing a Christmas potluck in the break room. Looks like everyone's contributing some pretty good nosh and I suppose we in the design cave won't get much done in the afternoon, since we'll be filled up like a python that just devoured a goat. I plan on bringing a big bowl of coleslaw. My recipe is quite similar to what you'd get at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Eerily, uncannily similar...some would say, well, identical.

When I started at this company, they had regular off-site Christmas parties. The place I worked at before had Christmas parties.

I've never been to a company Christmas party, and, God willing, I'll never have to go to one. It sure seems to me like holiday parties with open and free access to alcohol are a minefield, to be treaded around carefully-or not at all. I'm not sure that anything good can come from them, and possibly a lot of bad. Things like employees infused with liquid courage giving their thoughts to the president of the company on how the company should REALLY be run; Bill in Accounting settling with Ken from Sales on who should get the parking space closest to the door by means of drunken fisticuffs; Hal from Engineering doing his terrible rendition of 'Let It Snow'; and Mike from Manufacturing drunk on the floor. I won't mention Dave from HR and Julie the secretary leaving early together-her dress looked painted on, and Dave's married, and they both hit the Christmas cheer a bit hard. Things happen.

It seems like companies in this country are steering away from big holiday extravaganzas for a lot of reasons. The economy is still sluggish, and the Christmas party is an expense that can be done away with. Stuff like what I described above can and does happen at parties, which cause hard feelings and awkward moments in the workplace that most bosses would rather not deal with. It's one less excuse for drinking and then getting behind the wheel. And I think a lot of employees (and company brass, for that matter) would rather not deal with spending a night with people they see for 8 to 10 hours/day. That cuts into precious time for family and getting ready for the holiday crush.

The first company I worked at provided a Christmas gift every year of a canned ham and a box of fruit. I for one was glad to get both. I don't figure any company has to provide big cash bonuses or lavish parties for its workers at the end of the year-but at the same time, a business owner can't go far wrong by giving a little something to the employees if it was a good year.

If any of you enjoy holiday parties, that's fine-have at them! Just give me the potluck in the company break room. I'm good with that. If there's a hundred extra dollars in the paycheck, that's even better.

--------

It was thirty years ago today...

...and it doesn't seem like it. December 8, 1980-the day John Lennon was shot. Only forty years old when he died. That seemed so old to me at the time. Now- hell, he was just a young punk of forty, but he got a lot out of his life.

One wonders what Lennon would think of this world we have today, had he survived. I suspect he'd be a bit disappointed that the peace he wanted us to have would be as far away as ever. Maybe he wouldn't be all that relevant to the contemporary music scene. He'd probably still be stirring the pot on a lot of the issues and causes he held dear. Quite possibly, if he'd lived, he'd even realize that Yoko's singing really is, well, godawful.

I'll leave you with one that you can hear on most any classic rock station. It's one of Lennon's last hits before he died, but it's one that I still like a lot.

Someone send us a bit of sunshine!

yankeedog out.

To KC and back and along the way

2010-12-06T19:52:00.000-06:00

It appears winter has settled in here in my part of the country. It's going to be down around 0 Fahrenheit (in Celsius, that's, let's see...9/5...carry the 3....damn cold!) tonight. Ah well, tis December, after all. I just put on some good wool socks and made a nice hot cuppa of YogiTea India Spice herbal tea. Good stuff!

We made the quick trip to Kansas City so TBH could start her class down in Overland Park. Unfortunately, we got snow here on Saturday and weren't able to get on the road until Sunday. We weren't able to meet clan Murphy for BBQ since we didn't get in late and I didn't want them waiting until late for me to fumble around downtown KC. Maybe next spring or summer when the weather gets warmer, I can get back down there. Sometimes plans fall together; other times they don't. Such is life.

I did drive through North Kansas City, though, and saw the Ameristar casino and the big coal-fired power plant as described in Birmo's After America. It's always fun to see places that get mentioned in books like this. When I lived in Dixon, IL, I enjoyed reading the mention in the beginning of Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series. HT got the area right as he described the long retreat into Chicago and Patton's drive through Central Illinois. Mind you, this was back in the old days, when Turtledove used to care about his writing...

I drove back this morning, since I don't have a lot of vacation time left for the year. It's about exactly six hours from KC to here, and there isn't a whole lot to see. Slate-gray skies, shorn cornfields, vegetation in various shades of dry khaki instead of summer's verdant green.

A couple of areas that are interesting along the way are the Amish enclave in southern Iowa and the Amana Colonies closer to home. I was filling the tank at a gas station off I-35 at a junction with a state highway. All of a sudden, here comes one of their little one-horse wagons clop-clopping down the highway like it was 1920 or something! A lot of people poke fun at the Amish avoidance of electricity and modern technology-but you can't help but admire them. They're keeping alive skills and knowledge that we've lost or long since discarded. Might be if something caused our tech-heavy society to falter or collapse, they might be teaching those of us (that are left) how to use all those neat 19th-century farm implements and household gear lying around in the museums.

The Amana Colonies were founded by a German religious sect 'round about 1840 or so. In the 19th Century, a lot of communities in the young United States were created as social experiments. In religious communities, this usually meant they were trying a communist society ('communist' in it's true, pre-Marxian context) where all would work and all would share equally in the fruits of the labor. In addition, these communities attempted to be as economically self-sufficient as possible. The Amana Society formed a cluster of seven small villages and for the next ninety years managed to live their ideal. They raised their own food, started their own wineries, and created woolen and calico mills which turned out goods to be sold to the outside world. In addition, they generally lived a communal existence, eating together in large halls like a giant family, and attended worship and prayer services-up to 11 times per week!

But the Amana Colonies suffered from the same problem that nearly every communist/socialist society hits-there becomes a (real or perceived) notion that there is an inequity in the labor being done and the rewards being reaped by the members. In addition, the world was changing and becoming smaller and members wanted to live like people in the rest of the country and be able to eat in their own homes.

To make a long story short (Too late!!): in 1932 the Amana Colonies voted to change from a communist/socialist system to what is essentially a joint-stock corporation. It seems to be working well for them. Today the Amanas are largely a tourist area of small shops, famous around these parts for fine woolen goods, wineries (I can recommend the dandelion and rhubarb wines-flavorful with a decent kick) and family-style dining on good German-style cuisine.

Oh, yes-and they came out with the first mass-produced microwave oven (the Amana Radarange of the late 1960's and 1970's), and they built a mountain of good quality refrigerators until Maytag bought the Amana Manufaucturing Company and then sent a lot of the appliance manufacturing south of the US border-thanks, Maytag management. Hope your bonus checks cleared. Bastidges.

So that's your lesson on Iowa culture. Hope you paid attention. There may be a test.

Stay warm, Middle America.

yankeedog out.

Midwest sortie

2010-12-02T22:44:00.000-06:00

Next week The Better Half has a week-long class in Kansas City. We'd hoped for Chicago (which is close) or Cincinnati (where her sister lives) but it appears the company running the courses didn't have enough people enrolled for those two classes. KC it is, then.

We're supposed to leave on Saturday afternoon, but we're supposed to get a snowstorm, so we'll see. We did build a day's leeway into getting there. If we leave at the crack of dawn Sunday we'll make it OK-it isn't that far. We're driving there-by the time we get to the airport (90 min early), fly to Chicago to catch a connector to KC, and get out of KCI, I can drive there.

I'm coming back Monday-too much stuff to do around here, and at any rate Kansas City isn't my idea of a vacation spot. I would check out the World War I Memorial Museum there, but it's closed on Monday. Well, piss on them, then.

We're going to see if we can wangle a gen-u-ine Kansas City barbecue dinner (Arthur Bryant's-supposedly the best barbecue in the Free World. We'll see.) out of Mr. S.F. Murphy and his lovely sig other. It'll be an extremely small version of all those Burger get-togethers made famous down in Australia.

A good weekend to all! I'm going to Kansas City, Kansas City, here I come...

I'll be standing on the corner

On the corner of Twelfth Street and Vine...
I'm gonna be standing on the corner
On the corner of Twelfth Street and Vine...
With my Kansas City baby
And a bottle of Kansas City wine.

yankeedog out.

Fixing a leak

2010-11-29T21:00:00.000-06:00

Interesting times.

A new week, and a new pile of stuff for Wikileaks to publish to the world at large. This latest batch consists of diplomatic cables and State Department documents that covers the gamut from impressions of world leaders, to what to do about Iran, to discussions with Yemen and Pakistan regarding the effects of gravity, rocketry, and explosives on various and sundry scumbags.

Part of me isn't surprised by some of the 'revelations'. Missile attacks on terrorists in Yemen? I rather thought that fell into the 'open secret' category. The Arabs and Israel want us to Do Something about Iran? The Arabs and Israel could do the job themselves together. It's the Middle East. A backalley deal could be cut there. Israel could provide the hardware and the Arabs could have convenient radar malfunctions. Plus, the desert is a big place and the sneaky Zionists could always 'steal' a supply depot or create an airfield in the emptiness. The German chancellor is 'unimaginative'? She grew up a functionary in East Germany's communist system. What would you expect? Spying on the diplomats in the UN? Please. That's what people do there. I suspect every nation with spies better than Maxwell Smart has databases and dossiers on every major world leader and senior diplomat squirreled away somewhere. How else are you going to 'convince' the Supreme Leader of Bugfuckovia to give you basing rights it you don't have pictures of him in flagrante delicto with a platypus?

Nor do I have a particular axe to grind with Mr. Assange, the founder of Wikileaks. I do think that his days on this planet are becoming numbered. If he's hidden away, he might want to stay that way. To be honest, he looks like a little twerp who thinks it's cute to twist a few tails. Now, I'm not saying that anyone in this country would order a hit on him. I'm also not saying they wouldn't. He has, however, brought to light activities of leaders of nations that aren't so picky on the legal niceties and wouldn't be above sending a couple of gentlemen to visit upon him the usual array of punishments reserved for little twerps who don't realize they're not pulling a prank on the university dean. This is the big leagues. Oh well...

I do, though, have issues with the alleged leaker of many of the Iraq/Afghanistan/Diplomatic documents, one Specialist Bradley Manning, US Army and possible disgrace to the uniform. Born to an American father and an English/Welsh mother, he was able to obtain an intelligence analyst billet, making him privy to all sorts of interesting information.

The Army plainly screwed up when doing the background check for Specialist Manning. His dual nationality should have made him ineligible for any kind of intelligence job-too easy to be co-opted by the other country. He is supposedly homosexual. That should also be a down-check due to the perceived 'shame' and 'dirt' another nation's intel assets could dig up on him or her. One could argue that a change of official policy regarding gays in the military would negate that, but that's a topic for another time.

I'm not sure if Spec. Manning got all of this material himself. I suspect a lot of people contributed (knowingly or unknowingly) little bits and pieces, which were assembled like a jigsaw puzzle to arrive at the complete document. I AM sure that I'm tired of the culture of leaks that seems to be the norm in this country.

I could argue that Specialist Manning committed espionage by divulging confidential documents to a foreign entity. You might say 'That's your opinion, YD.'

Read on. This is from the United States Code of Military Justice:

906a. ART. 106a. ESPIONAGE

(A) (1) Any person subject to this chapter who, with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, communicates, delivers, or transmits, or attempts to communicate, deliver, or transmit, to any entity described in paragraph (2), either directly or indirectly, any thing described in paragraph (3) shall be punished as a court-martial may direct, except that if the accused is found guilty of an offense that directly concerns (A) nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, early warning systems, or other means of defense or retaliation against large scale attack, (B) war plans, (C) communications intelligence or cryptographic information, or (D) any other major weapons system or major element of defense strategy, the accused shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court- martial may direct.

(2) An entity referred to in paragraph (1) is--

(A) a foreign government;

(B) a faction or party or military force within a foreign country, whether recognized or unrecognized by the United States

(C) a representative, officer, agent, employee, subject, or citizen of such government, faction, party, or force.

(3) A thing referred to in paragraph (1) is a document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, note, instrument, appliance or information relating to the national defense.

Hmm. The UCMJ seems to be fairly comprehensive on this.

And what is the punishment for espionage under the UCMJ?

(b) (1) No person may be sentenced by court-martial to suffer death for an offense under this section (article) unless--

(A) the members of the court-martial unanimously find at least one of the aggravating factors set out in subsection (c); and

(B) the members unanimously determine that any extenuating or mitigating circumstances are substantially outweighed by any aggravating circumstances, including the aggravating factors set out under subsection (c).

(2) Findings under this subsection may be based on--

(A) evidence introduced on the issue of guilt or innocence;

(B) evidence introduced during the sentencing proceeding; or

(C) all such evidence.

(3) The accused shall be given broad latitude to present matters in extenuation and mitigation.

So Spec. Manning will get a long stretch in Leavenworth making sand out of rocks. But if the court-martial board thinks the situation requires it:

(c) A sentence of death may be adjudged by a court-martial for an offense under this section (article) only if the members unanimously find, beyond a reasonable doubt, one or more of the following aggravating factors:

(1) The accused has been convicted of another offense involving espionage or treason for which either a sentence of death or imprisonment for life was authorized by statute.

(2) In the commission of the offense, the accused knowingly created a grave risk of substantial damage to the national security.

(3) In the commission of the offense, the accused knowingly created a grave risk of death to another person.

(4) Any other factor that may be prescribed by the President by regulations under section 836 of this title (Article 36).

The possibility does exist that Specialist Manning could swing from the end of a short rope. The conditions under which the capital punishment can be inflicted are a bit more arbitrary under the UCMJ.

'But what about his civil rights, YD? His right to free speech?'

My understanding is that when one signs the papers to join the service, one signs away some of the rights one enjoys as a civilian. Military law applies, and it's a bit more strict.

I remember reading about Oleg Penkovskiy. He was in the Soviet GRU (Foreign Counterintelligence Service) and passed along information about the USSR's nuclear arsenal and that the USSR was going to place missiles in Cuba. He may have provided President Kennedy enough information to stare down the bad-mannered hillbilly fucking Ukrainian in the Kremlin (sorry-learned about Soviet minorities from a fellow from Leningrad a few years back). He may have saved the world from destruction in those dark days of 1962. His motives were good. It didn't save him from a trial for treason and espionage, a probable round of beatings in Lubyanka, and a 7.62 x 39 headache/forced retirement (or cremation alive, if you believe certain accounts). Brutal. But it is a deterrent to those who think that spilling secrets is 'cute'.

Personally, I think it might be necessary for some of these leakers to suffer the ultimate price for shooting off their mouths indiscriminately. The country needs to learn the difference between what needs to be exposed for the national good and what needs to be left quiet for reasons of security or diplomatic confidentiality.

But I'm not the President. And you ought to be glad of it.

I dedicate this song to all the Julian Assanges and Bradley Mannings of the world. Enjoy.

yankeedog out.

The assault of charity

2010-11-28T23:05:00.000-06:00

Ah. Another Thanksgiving weekend done and time to get back into the swing of things. Everything went surprisingly well-kind of busy and kind of quiet. And the Bears held off the Eagles 31-26 this week in what I consider to be a test of how good the Orange and Blue are. The Bears actually managed to look like an NFL team this week and go to 8-3 on the season. OK. I'll bite. Bears to win the NFC North and (possibly) sneak a playoff win. You heard it here first.

With the onslaught of the Christmas season comes the onslaught of charities. We get it here in the States and I'd bet you overseas readers have the same thing. Every disease that has a fund sends mail or calls during supper or during the last two minutes of a close basketball game. You can't help but run into the Salvation Army kettles and bell ringers in front of every store (the Salvation Army is easy to ignore-the Salvation Marines, now, they're tough and don't take 'I have no cash' for an answer!). Disabled vets, stray animals, dysfunctional countries, churches-they all want a piece of your time and your paycheck. I think this may be part of why the holidays are depressing to some. If you think about it, there are a lot of worthy causes, but only so many spare dollars in pocket. Trying to fix everything is like trying to move Lake Michigan one eyedropperful at a time. It can't be done, and about the best you can do is pick a few causes your heart is close to (and have organizations that are accountable) and do what you can for them.

A dilemma I just can't seem to work out in my mind is giving to and for children-and not because YD hates kids. I've seen a lot of little boys and girls wandering around in the winter dirty, in ragged clothes and lightweight coats that aren't even close to being good enough to keep the Midwest chill away.

The part I have a problem with is that their older relatives-some would call them 'parents' but that certainly doesn't seem to be appropriate considering most of them couldn't train hamsters-always seem to have money for smokes, beer, and a fancier cell phone than mine, all the while collecting aid from the government.

Bloody sucks. We're all supposed to sacrifice a bit so you lazy bastards can game the system because you know no one wants to see children go without.

Don't get me wrong. There are people who are down on their luck. In this economy, we've got a lot of that going around. There are people who are making just enough on some job to keep their head above water with some assistance. Fair enough. Those aren't the ones I'm talking about. Those are the ones I'd prefer to help given a choice.

But that doesn't help the kids who can't help who their older relatives are, does it?

I'd be satisfied if someone would provide me a sock filled with sand. I'd give all those kids a decent meal, a good outfit or two, and a toy or two for Christmas. Then we should be able to whack the older relatives on the head with the sock full of sand and tell them to get with the program and try raising their kids instead of letting all of us do their job for them. I'd feel a lot better, and I'd bet most of you would too.

That's my holiday Catch-22 moment. I seem to be accumulating some topics for the week, and I reckon I'll get to them.

yankeedog out.

Just half a week this week

2010-11-23T22:36:00.000-06:00

Not much to say here of late-something of the calm before the Holiday storm.

Spent the weekend on a bit of R&R, culminating in going to the theater to see Monty Python's Spamalot. It's something of a musical takeoff on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and it was an enjoyable enough show. The cast had studied a lot of the Pythons, I'd guess, because they nailed most of the accents and mannerisms of the troupe. Recommended seeing if you can!

Getting ready for Thanksgiving here. As usual, TBH and I will take her mom and her mom's fellow out for a buffet dinner. By 2:30 pm we'll be done and I can watch the NFL and digest. The rest of the weekend appears to be packed. I'm NOT, however, going out shopping on Friday. Screw that. We'll go see my clan that day.

Welp, reckon that's about it for now.

yankeedog out.

You want HOW MUCH?!?

2010-11-16T22:13:00.000-06:00

Interesting bit of off-season Cubs news. Seems new Cub owner Tom Ricketts wants to add improvements to Wrigley Field. I have an idea on how to improve the place, and it involves a B-52 and a stick of GPS-guided bombs. Clear out the debris afterward and build a decent ballpark with parking.

Seriously, though, the place was built in 1914 (I know this because the last hot dog I bought there may have dated from that very year) and desperately needs work to provide decent facilities for both the players and the fans. I've toured the park, including the player clubhouses, and I know they've shoehorned in about everything they can into the place.

The Ricketts family have a list of things they want and/or need to do, and the bill comes out to a cool $300 million dollars. They want the State of Illinois to float a bond issue to raise money to do this.

Say what?

Tom, have you not seen the state's budget? Did you not watch any of the election commercials? We're $15 billion in the hole! Where's the state going to come up with any dough?

Governor Quinn, on the strength of his 9,800 vote 'mandate of the people' (out of the million or so votes cast-that ain't a 'mandate' unless only 10,000 people vote) has already promised tax increases for all of us here, so I think the Rickettses picked precisely the wrong time to ask for a handout.

And why should everyone in Illinois pay for renovations to what is essentially private property, anyway?

Did the Ricketts family not walk through Wrigley Field before they bought the Cubs? Geez, anybody buying a house knows enough to do that. I could've told you all you needed to sink a boatload of money into the place to get it into the 1980s, let alone the 21st century! Maybe you should have negotiated a few hundred mill out of the Tribune when you bought the Cubs to help pay for the work.

And when did sports franchise owners take to going hat in hand to the state governments any time they want a new stadium or upgrade their old one? Well, I know the answer to that-why spend your own money when you can spend someone else's?-but, really, this is getting old. I'm not sure how many times an owner can say 'We'll leave town if you don't give us what we want.' If that team has been bad forever, I'd say 'Don't let the doorknob hit you in the ass on the way out.' The old-time owners spent their own money to build their parks.

I hate hearing the owner of any major sports franchise cry 'poor'. Way I see it, if you can't afford a team, get out of the game. And I'll say it here to the Ricketts clan: 'You guys bought a Major League Baseball team that generates a lot of money. Most of you went to college here in Chicago and spent time at Wrigley as students. Didn't you see the park was a dump? You had nearly a billion to invest in this team. If you can't afford the necessary reno's, then sell the team to someone who can.'

Maybe they could-and this might be a dumb idea-actually go to one of big banks in Chicago-there are several-and borrow the money to make the improvements! That's kind of the way all the rest of us have to pay for home improvements, after all. I bet a big bank might even give you a favorable interest rate if you offered them naming rights to the renovated stadium.

The state government, in a fit of sense rarely seen here, is somewhat lukewarm to spend money they don't have for something they won't get much return on. Finally.

One wonders if raising ticket prices isn't the way to go. That way, only the fans have to pay for the big fix, instead of everyone in Illinois. I personally would hate to see ticket prices go up $10 each, but it's my choice to go to the game.

We'll see how this plays out. I suspect not well for Cubs ownership.

yankeedog out.

Interesting interests

2010-11-13T23:23:00.002-06:00

I was walking through the bookstore the other day and came across the latest issue of Model Railroader. The cover caught my interest so I picked up the mag to read more about the featured layout. It's a pretty detailed layout, based on a large Eastern city in the immediate postwar era. I found a few pictures around the 'net, so I thought I'd post them here:

Good work, yeh? Very nearly like photos of, say, the 1948 version of New York or Chicago. Quite a lot of detail-and details set apart the good layouts from those of us who nail the store-bought train set tracks down to a 4'x8' sheet of plywood.

I removed the color from this railroad yard scene, and it looks just about like the real thing. It would be exactly like the real thing if there was coal smoke coming out from some of those steam engines.

Turns out this is the Three Rivers City Railroad, belonging to one Roderick D. Stewart.

Yeah, that Rod Stewart.

It seems that in addition to being a former glam-rocker turned crooner with a storied list of hot-and-cold running women, Mr. Stewart is an avid model railroader. I read the article, and he really does know his stuff about studying light patterns, architectural styles, and how they interact. He built a lot of the buildings in the layout himself, and I have to say he's really done a damn good job in portraying the late '40s setting.

Now, he does have some advantages given that he's sitting on a lot more money than most of the rest of us. He does have plenty of help with the construction, wiring, and rural scenery, and it appears he has an informal 'club' (most likely of fellow celebs with the same desire to run the trains), so it isn't a complete solo effort. But what he has done himself is impressive work.

I don't know why, because I don't really care all that much about celebrities, but I find that seeing a megastar that has the same dumb hobbies and interests that a lot of us great unwashed have is kind of refreshing. You always hear about the rockstar lifestyle, so I never really gave much thought to the idea that, yeah, down inside, some of the big stars aren't any different than the rest of us.

I'm not a huge fan of Rod Stewart's music (not the worst, just not quite my taste for the most part) and I'd probably not pay to see him if he came to the I-Wi for a concert.

It wouldn't matter, because I'd probably see him in the local hobby shop buying building kits for his railroad.

Some celebrities are as well known for their offscreen interests as their movie or TV work, of course. We all know about John Travolta's airplane collection and piloting skills. Most of us might at some time get a minute or so of stick time if we know someone that has a Cessna. Travolta has a four-engine Convair jet all done up in 1960s QANTAS markings (and QANTAS may need to lease his bird if they keep blowing gaskets on those A380s) and he's rated to fly multi-engine commercial. Same with Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. Jay Leno has a car collection most auto museums would love to get their mitts on, and from everything I've read, he knows his way around most automotive systems.

Another example of a celebrity with an 'incongrous' hobby is actor Vin Diesel, action movie star. And as a teenager, a Dungeons and Dragons player. One pictures Diesel with a bunch of pudgy, pockmarked budding grognards: 'My Level 2 Deodorant Grenade negates your Spell of Stinkiness, Riddick!' It just doesn't quite seem right, but there it is.

Can't forget Alice Cooper. In the 1970's, the master of shock rock. Now, golf fanatic. And from all I've ever heard from interviews on the radio, he sounds like just 'one of the guys'-a rare commodity these days.

Former major league pitcher Curt Schilling is a World War II history buff and wargamer, with a fondness for the old paper wargame Squad Leader. Not as nice a guy as Alice Cooper, from what I've heard.

King Abdullah of Jordan. Star Trek fanatic. He was actually on an episode of Voyager in a non-speaking role.

Tom Hanks' hobby is collecting old typewriters. Ohhh-kay...

A lot of celebs go to sporting events in LA, Chicago, New York, and Miami, mostly, I'd guess, To Be Seen. Drew Carey still can be sighted watching his hometown teams back in Cleveland, Ohio. That's a real sports fan, kids, to sit through the Indians, Browns, and Cavaliers games!

So that's this week's issue of 'Celebrity Hobbies'. There are a bunch of others I haven't gotten into. Anyone famous that you know of with a hobby or collection or interest that you wouldn't picture them having? Sound off!

yankeedog out.

11/11 thoughts and ponderings

2010-11-11T22:08:00.000-06:00

First, as is the tradition here on Veteran's/Remembrance day, thanks to all the vets, past and present, American and allied, all who served in peace and war. Without your efforts the world is a much darker place.

Also as usual, the Armed Forces Medley. You can watch it or not as you wish.

And a piece from north of the border. A bit long, but I think it captures something of the feel of the day.

But as I look around the nation today, I wonder if we didn't sell our vets out. The place is a mess. $14 trillion in debt. A weak economy. Not a lot of decent jobs out there for people to make a living. Two political parties, one thinking we need to adopt the socialist system, the other thinking George Washington climbed Mount Katahdin and received the Constitution from God Himself. And for the most part, I wouldn't let most of our leadership run a hot dog stand. We have a surfeit of politicians, and an appalling lack of statesmen (on both sides).

The power and influence we used to have in the world seems to be a pale shadow of what it once was. Yes, we have enough firepower to remove a good portion of life on Earth, but we've become a nation that most nations generally ignore. We're the biggest foreign aid donor on the planet ($66 billion of direct government aid in 2007, I don't know, maybe $15 billion in private aid and who knows how much volunteer time), giving vast sums to people that by and large I think would rather see us gone.

It almost feels like we're drifting aimlessly as a nation. We have no goal-no frontiers to conquer, no race to the moon, no Axis to defeat. We have plenty of things we could do, and no political will to do them.

I miss my country, the place that once was or maybe never was. I miss the America where a man could get a decent job and provide for his family. I miss the America where people could worship how they wanted and let others worship in their own way. I miss the America where people valued hard work, self-reliance, and thrift, and hated to take charity. I miss the America that wasn't fueled by greed. I miss the America where a person could start his own business and not have it regulated to death by those who never had to make a deadline or meet a payroll. I miss the America where people could walk around at night, and criminals were punished instead of their victims. I miss the America that could dream, build, and create.

In many ways I feel like I'm part of the last generation of Americans. I have the sick feeling that I'm watching the beginning of the end of this nation. It might be that this is the Chinese Century after all. Perhaps they'll be kind enough to us to let us fade like the British empire did, and not repossess the country.

I don't know, really. I'm just a simpleton Midwest river rat who in all probability has a very small and parochial worldview. Quite possibly in addition to thanking our veterans, we should apologize to them for screwing up the land that they fought for. I wonder if there were any Romans that scribbled something on parchment a couple of millenia ago that might have been similar to this?

yankeedog out.

Got a spare locomotive lying around?

2010-11-07T21:43:00.001-06:00

A few weeks back, I posted pictures of a tricked-out, civilian version of the Soviet BRDM light armored car.

I think it's been topped by a project that any of us could do. All you need is a few dollars, a little ingenuity, some duct tape...and a surplus locomotive.

The above is the Izaak Walton Inn, near Essex, Montana. The inn was built in the late 1930s by the Great Northern Railroad as a stop and destination hotel to Glacier National Park in northern Montana. It's still a full service resort, and a stop for Amtrak's Chicago-Seattle Empire Builder-the track, after all, is only a few hundred feet from the front door. A beautiful locale in winter and summer, it would appear. I've never been there. I must remedy that sometime.

The big blue and white engine started life as an F45 on the Santa Fe railroad, 'round about 1970. The F45s served on freight service, and its sister FP45s were used on the last of the pre-Amtrak passenger trains. The '45s were mostly out of service by the end of the decade on the big roads. Cowlbody units are a maintenance nightmare, with no room in the engine compartment to do any heavy work, and not good ergonomics for the locomotive crews. My dad was a machinist on the Milwaukee Road, and he used to cuss every time an F or FP came into the roundhouse. Try removing a broken crankshaft-as those engines were prone to do-with limited access. It can be done-anyone who ever served as a machinist's mate or chief engineer on a diesel-powered submarine has done some heavy work in a small space-but it isn't much fun.

Seems one of these were found on a short line railway in Utah serving out its last days. So what does one do with a well-used, fuel-guzzling, third-generation, diesel locomotive?

Simple, really. Make a cabin out of it.

I read the story of GN 441 in the latest issue of Trains magazine, and that article went into a lot greater detail of how the engine started out life in the Southwest on the ATSF, and ended up in a luxury resort in Montana. If you want to read more, look it up.

The locomotive was stripped out and repainted in the snazzy black, white, and Big Sky Blue of the Great Northern before the 1970 merger that created the Burlington Northern. I remember seeing some of these go through town, pulling the old Empire Builder up the Burlington along the Mississippi. It was an eye-catching scheme, quite classy.

So the big, troublesome 16-cylinder diesel was removed, the interior stripped to the structure and cowl panels, and a new interior was designed:

And what does it look like inside, you ask?

Not too shabby, I think. I could spend a weekend here easily enough. And at $230/night and a two night minimum, it should be top-flight.

The control cab was cleaned up and left in, along with the old electrical panel. I'd bet the kids have a great time playing with the throttle and pushing all the buttons and switches. A nice touch-

-though I've never, ever, seen a locomotive cab that clean! Everything on a railroad has a quarter-inch of grease on it and smells of diesel fuel.

Finally, a view out the picture window where the old engine access doors were:

Cool, eh? And for a half-mill or so, you could do the very same thing! I have to say that I've seen cabooses (that's 'guard vans' for you Oz folks) turned into homes and cabins, and a school bus can be converted into a portable tailgate party bus or rolling hunting/fishing camp, but this is a first-a locomotive into a luxury cabin!

The pictures are courtesy of Railpictures.net and the Izaak Walton Inn website.

I now know where I'm going to spend a few days-once I win the lottery, that is.

Speaking of railroads-got a question for the Australians/NZers that visit here.

On a two-track line there, do the trains run in the same direction as your highway traffic, as shown below?

Just curious. Here the rail traffic flows like our highway traffic (the arrows would be flipped), except for the part of the Union Pacific that used to be the Chicago and North Western RR, where the trains run like the picture shows. I've heard this is because British interests helped fund the CNW in the 1800s, but that could be a load of crap. Though I did read it on the 'Net, so it must be true.

yankeedog out.

Yarrr! Here be pirates...

2010-11-04T21:42:00.000-05:00

Our temp designer's little boy likes the old 1966 Batman TV series (and really, who doesn't. Great camp series.), so our guy's been trying to find the series on DVD. After a look around online, he found a store that did indeed have it. Ordered it up and waited for UPS to send some classic comic book superhero TV.

And waited. A check of status indicated that his order shipped from Beijing, China.

Uh oh. That hint of scarlet is the first red flag being run up the flagpole.

He got his Batman boxed set. 16 discs-in what appears to be a videocassette box. The box cover looks like it was done by a five-year-old and run off on a mimeograph. The DVDs have cheap decals glued on them, and someone actually wrote the disc number on with a ballpoint pen! The store does say that the DVD sets are 'custom crafted'.

They also say that the DVD's will work equally well in all regions. This is true. They don't work on ANY DVD player. He got one to run from his DVD burner and he snapped a picture of the title screen for us to see. The screen has a picture that honest to God looks like someone ripped out of a Batman comic. Special features? Noooo. Just a 'Play All' button.

Wow.

I got a good laugh out of this, but not at our guy for getting taken. Rather, it was the just horrible quality of this particular bunch. Good God on a bicycle. You pirates, take a little pride in your work! Turn out a product that has a little bit of production value. At least make the DVD case look good. Even a crap computer would help you do better than what I saw.

I'd love to see these people try to do counterfeit money. They'd probably run off an enlarged copy of a Monopoly dollar, stick a picture of Bill Clinton on it, handwrite 'THE UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA' (that was the spelling I meant) on the top, and call it good.

I hope he can get his money back (if he did the transaction with Paypal, he might. Fat chance from the store). Hell, I hope this bunch don't steal his credit/debit card number to clean him out. Of course, the website has no physical address, just a page to request an email response.

Amazing places countries like India and China must be. High-tech factories making electronic stuff that we buy, right alongside several hundred million people turning out complete and utter and in many cases illegal crap in their hutung factories. One hopes their military equipment is built by the latter and not the former.

I don't know it I should use my blog to be a consumer advocate. It probably isn't my place to say anything good or bad about someone's particular enterprise. So I won't strongly advise you to steer clear of Epic DVD Store if you should run across it in your travels and shopping in cyberspace. And I don't know any of the parties involved with the company, so I can't really in good conscience call them a bunch of minor-league copyright pirates. Did I say pirates? I meant parties. Damn dyslexia... And I don't speak Latin, so I'm not quite sure I know the meaning of caveat emptor.

Just another reason to be doubly careful when doing online shopping, especially with the holidays coming up.

yankeedog out.

The night of sca-a-a-a-ry monsters...

2010-10-31T22:35:00.000-05:00

Halloween here tonight. The day falling on Sunday I think puts a damper on the festivities, since tomorrow is a school and work day, football is on, and the World Series is going full swing.

We helped TBH's mom with handing out sugary goodness. 73 kids came to the door, so it was a bit below average. At least here, most cities and towns have prescribed trick or treat hours (usually on the order of 5pm-7 or 8pm) and the little ~~urchins~~ tricksters are only supposed to go to houses where the porch light is on. Usually the kids come in wolfpacks to the door, their parents watching from the sidewalk. That's a far cry from when we were young, when we went out by ourselves, without parents, banged at everyone's door, and went out-get this, everyone-after dark! No, really.

I saw a lot of adults out in their driveways, fire going in a burning barrel, and a big tub of treats alongside the lawn chairs. We should've done that-got a little fire going and roasted some hot dogs. It was a beautiful night out, for the end of October.

I have to say that whatever Halloween lost as a day where a youngster could go out by him-or-herself, it's gained in quality of costumes. Kids these days have a lot of great homemade costumes. We saw enough mini-zombies this year to give Barnesy the jitters! One girl had a football outfit with a Bears Jay Cutler jersey. I think the trick for her would have been to throw the football to someone in the same color jersey she was wearing. Even Cutler has trouble doing that...but I digress.

When I was really little, we had the cheap crappy nylon suits with the vacformed plastic masks. What a waste of money those were! When I got older, we could all go to the Army surplus store or sporting goods store and pick up some old ODs or camo clothes. Then we'd go out looking like a raggedy-ass bunch of militia-or child solidiers. Little, pudgy, candy-craving child soldiers. After that we discovered eggs, toilet paper, underage drinking, and the fundamentals of stealth, cover, and concealment. Now we pass the traditions along to the younger generation. Some of the traditions, anyway. As for the others...well, some things you just have to learn from your friends and peers.

So in honor of the day just passed, the anthem of Halloween, courtesy of Somerville, Massachusetts' very own...Bobby 'Boris' Pickett. You know the tune. Sing it loud.

----------

I've had a severe earworm this weekend, courtesy of my coworker Brad, the game Fallout: New Vegas, and Kay Kyser and his Orchestra. The only thing I can do is pass it along to the rest of you.

Never played any of the Fallout series, but I have to think it'd be great fun to break people and things in a postapocalyptic retrofuturistic Las Vegas, 1952-era soundtrack going in the background! Might have to think hard about getting this one.

yankeedog out.

YD for (insert office here)

2010-10-26T22:35:00.000-05:00

Oy. Only a week until the midterm elections. Good news. We're going to get bombarded with political ads and commercials for the next week. Bad news.

In all the ads, I've yet to hear anyone come up with any ideas on how to fix anything in this, my beloved country and state. I HAVE heard a lot of mudslinging. And what a crop of candidates here. I wouldn't let any of them run the deep fryer at McDonald's because I think they'd turn the french fries into carburized stumps, let alone give them the keys to the country.

Seems to me our first priorities are to a) get some jobs here, and b) get the debt paid down before the Chinese decide to repossess us. I'm for tax breaks for companies that keep jobs here and for tariffs on imported products equal to the average cost of the same item built domestically. Compete on a level field. We've had plenty of free trade. We need fair trade. On the other side, unions have to realize that their members can't make $60,000/year to put lug nuts on wheels. Maybe some give-and-take here. The way I see it, more workers=bigger tax base=less burden on both corporations and individuals. Could be wrong, because God knows, what I know about most things you could stick in your eye and not cause too much irritation.

As for getting the national debt paid down, there's more fat in government spending than in a whole season of The Biggest Loser. My brother worked in government. I've seen it. Things like buying 1000 wire nuts where 10 are needed. Small stuff-but all that 'small stuff' would add up pretty quickly-and the government would run just as good. Likely a whole lot better.

And maybe, just maybe, we don't need to be the world's policeman. Some places, they've been fighting since the Bible was three books long, and they'll be fighting long after we've left the scene. Actually, if the Defense Department spent like the average household does (that is, with a modicum of sense), we wouldn't lose a whole lot of capability to defend ourselves.

If I were running for office, I might be inclined to put a five-year moratorium on all foreign aid and slap that money on the national debt. If there's a disaster, someone else can help, or our private sector agencies can be first responders. They'd probably do a good job. Besides, why give money and food to nations that likely as not would try to shaft us the first chance they got. We don't HAVE an obligation to help everyone else in the world. Someone else can step up and spend the cash and take the abuse for being 'meddling'.

Ahh, who'm I kidding? None of that's going to happen.

Dreamer...Yankee is a dreamer...

I feel very fortunate that our local PBS is showing Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. Not only are they entertaining (old, but still funny), they provide an invaluable translation guide when our political wannabes and alreadytheres speechify and run commercials.

But instead of ideas from our politicians, no matter how stupid or outlandish, we get stuff like this:

----------------------

'Harlan Veeblefetzer says he has a plan to bring jobs to the 71st District. But did you know that Harlan Veeblefetzer believes in cutting pizza in squares?

I have a plan to introduce legislation that would require pizza to be cut in wedges-the way God ordained that pizza be cut-not the 'liberal' square.

Harlan Veeblefetzer claims to be a veteran. But in reality, his 'service' consisted of watching every episode of M*A*S*H. He even said he liked the preachy episodes filmed after Alan Alda took creative control of the show.

Harlan Veeblefetzer says he's in favor of family values. But did you know he once drove a car with underinflated tires?

Do we need two more years of Harlan Veeblefetzer?

I'm here to offer you an alternative to the current regime.

If I'm elected, I'll fight for the 71st District. I'll vote 'yes' on the Netherlands Rock Band Quota Act. Dutch rockers shouldn't be cluttering up American classic rock airwaves.

I'll vote for the Cryptozoologic Fair Trade Agreement. Our jackalopes and hodags will be able to better compete with imported drop bears and chupacabras.

If you believe that America needs more drop bears listening to Hocus Pocus, then vote for my opponent, even though he fancies conjugal relations with farm animals, and doesn't gargle.

If you want real change in Washington-change based on my interpretation of the Constitution-change you can believe in-then vote for me on November 2nd.'

YANKEEDOG FOR CONGRESS 2010

I'm Yankeedog, and I approved this message.

yankeedog out.

This post needs a title

2010-10-24T17:35:00.000-05:00

I should've gone to work, but it's Sunday. Screw it. The work will still be there tomorrow. I'm getting an infusion of NFL. Unfortunately the Bears wasted 3 hours of my life in a piss-poor effort v. a very average Washington Redskins squad. This Bears team may quite possibly be the stupidest team that ever put on the Orange and Blue. No football sense whatsoever from the front office on down to the players. They are who I thought they were. That's a shame.

Congrats to the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants, who'll be playing in the World Series. The Rangers have never gone in their history, which goes back to 1961 and the Washington Senators Version 2. The Giants have been to the series but haven't won since I think 1954. It's good to see someone other than the Yankees in the Championship. I think ESPN SportsCenter will lead with 'Yankees finish Second to some team we've never heard of...in a place called Tex-as, out near the edge of the world.'

As for the National League representative, all I can say is:

The Giants Win The Pennant! The Giants Win The Pennant! The Giants Win The Pennant! The Giants Win The Pennant!

This morning, The Better Half and I participated in the Pumpkin Dash, which is a 4K/8K run/walk around the perimeter of Credit Island Park in Davenport. Usually it's kind of frosty this time of year-perfect for a little morning exercise. Today felt more like early September-about 60 F and that cool, clammy humid. That's infinitely preferable to summertime oppressive muggy. TBH did the 4K run (once around the island). I, not being in a hurry and terribly out of shape, opted for the 4K walk. Now, I don't flap my arms and walk like I have a hot poker in my kiester, but I do try to get into a march-type rhythm that will eat up yards.

At the end of the day, TBH got 7th overall in the 4K and yours truly snagged the 5th of 5 male walk awards. We both got-and this makes it all worthwhile-an aluminum sports bottle! Yay. These are becoming popular for race awards. I'm not sure we need more than a couple of them floating around here, though. The big prizes go to the 8K runners-trophies and cash awards for the overall winners. Again, the post-race refreshments were good-fruit, coffee/cider/hot chocolate, cookies, water, and beer-the perfect Sunday morning drink. Any race that has beer afterwards is good in my world. Nothing like burning up a couple hundred calories in exercise and putting back 300 cals at the post-race.

At any rate. a hearty well done to TBH for her finish. Also a belated hurrah to our Nautilis/Bignaut for his finsh in the recent Melbourne Marathon. Anyone who even finishes 26 miles 385 yards is a better person than I am (at least in the running department). I believe the US Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC, is coming up here in a week or so. What say we raise a 26-person relay team? A mile (1.5ishK) should be doable for everyone.

For the runners I know and love so well...you know what music is coming up.

I'll be right behind you all-far behind-in march time. Singing the quick march of 5th/RAR:

Really? Dominique? Belgian nuns march to that one. Oh well...

Dominique, inique, inique

S'en allait tout simplement,
Routier pauvre et chantant
En tous chemins, en tous lieux
Il ne parle que du bon Dieu.
Il ne parle que du bon Dieu.

A l'époque où Jean Sans Terre
D'Angleterre était roi,
Dominique, notre Père,
Combattit les Albigeois.

And The Saints Go Marching In? I'd guess the lyric was changed to 'When The 5th/Goes Marching In...'.
The RAR band does a good rendition. I'll bet the RAR doesn't have the likes of ol' Satchmo The Great to sing and play the trumpet, though.

And that, kids, is how you start with work and end up with Dixieland jazz.

yankeedog out.

Aw, bitch, bitch, bitch...

2010-10-21T22:57:00.000-05:00

I drink a lot less water than I should. This may be a good thing, since it seems like someone put stupid chemical in it-and not just here. It's all over the country.

Fer example:

We have 5 bridges over the Mississippi River here in the area, and it seems like two of them are being repaired at any one time. One of the other three has a breakdown sitting on it on the afternoon rush. Usually it's a 1980's vintage minivan with a tie rod that snapped and a large woman calling for help on a cell phone. It isn't the same vehicle, of course, but the preceding description always seems to fit. Add to that several road blockages with bits of pavement in various stages of completion.

Maybe, and I know this is a radical idea-start a project and FINISH it, then move on to the next one! Don't tear up a piece of road and leave it for a month. Same with the bridges. And maybe do some of the work at night when you're not backing up traffic for a mile or more.

Some of the drivers here having been drinking the eau de stupid as well. There's a right lane closure coming up. Everyone is trying to merge, except for one nimrod in a pickup two cars in front of me who's driving down the middle, clogging both lanes. Oh, for a roof-mounted 40mm grenade launcher...

The genius who designed the approaches to the I-74 bridge put two on-ramps within 200 feet of each other right before gettinng onto the bridge. This set-up is the same on both the Illinois and Iowa side of the river. About 3:30, the traffic clogs up with all of the after-work people trying to merge. It slows to a crawl for an hour or so until things clear up. Things go good if the merging traffic alternates with the traffic on the interstate. Unfortunately, there are very few people who seem to have mastered this. One guy merges and two others try to sneak in. Somebody's going to get into a sideswipe sometime. And they'll both probably hit the minivan stuck on the bridge anyway.

Finally, my last driving hint. You don't HAVE to come to a complete stop to make a right turn onto a side street or driveway, just slow down enough to do the turn safely. It's not steering an aircraft carrier through the locks of the Panama Canal. You're holding up the traffic. Let's go-while we're young!

We also have the midterm elections coming up-all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate. There's been a barrage of commercials for the various candidates, all saying the other guy's going to raise taxes, he buggers horses, and voting for him will cause the demise of the Republic. All they're proving is if you're an absolute failure at doing anything out here in the world, you maybe should consider running for an elected office. Shrill bunch on both sides. Somebody humor me and tell me it's the same where you're at. One of the things on the ballot this year that will get my vote is the proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution that would allow the people to recall a governor should it become necessary. Not yes but hell yes on that. Our governors on both sides have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I'd be in favor of recalling ANY elected official that isn't doing his or her job.

Oh, yes, almost forgot. A while back I wrote about the prospect for Amtrak passenger rail service coming through here. Today we got $10 million to go ahead and build a depot. The pollies are all gaga because that'll provide 750 jobs building the station.

Problem is, I haven't seen where anything has come through to actually FUND the line. Why do I have a vision of a shiny new Amtrak station alongside the Iowa Interstate Railroad, waiting for a train that wasn't funded? What is it that I smell? Oh, yes...the smell of pork. This has all the characteristics of a classic Boondoggle (Boondoggilus politicus maximus).

Oh, piss on it. Reckon I've bitched enough for one night.

We're going to play YD's Wheel of Fortune now. The theme is "Australian Musicians Named 'Young'".

Who will come up on the Big Wheel? Will it be George Young? Angus? Malcolm? Someone step up and give it a spin!

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTIKTIKTIKTIKTIKTIKTIKTIK-TIK-TIK...TIK...TIK.....TIK.....TIK....tik.........tik.......tik............tik.

Awww! You hit the one spot with the Disco Young...John Paul!

No, you don't get to spin again. Nothing to be done for it except dust off the platform shoes and practice your basic hustle, samba, or merengue.

Better luck next time!

yankeedog out.

Communications restored

2010-10-17T21:07:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday, I went to fire up the old laptop and got a black screen and nothing else.

Uh oh. Fortunately I don't keep of lot of anything valuable on the machine. I'm old and don't believe in just having all of my records on computer, and I pay bills the old-fashioned way-barter. Trading chickens for access to electric power and all that.

I'm typing this on a brand new Dell Inspiron with Windows 7 and 4 glorious gigabytes on the hard drive. I'll bet these words even smell new! Might have to get my coworkers' version of World In Conflict, where the Soviets invade the US. Should run on this beast right nicely.

In the interim, I read a copy of Judith Heimann's The Airmen and the Headhunters, a nonfiction work about a B-24 crew shot down in late 1944 over Dutch Borneo and crash landing in the heart of what was at that time a largely unexplored island. They managed to survive for several months with the help of a sympathetic District Officer and several groups of the native people, the Lun Dayeh, who hid and fed them and taught the airmen the ways of their own people. Eventually the American flyers were rescued by a group of Australian special forces who were paving the way for their army's landings on Borneo in mid 1945.

Somewhat reminiscent of Peter Ryan's Fear Drive My Feet, I thought it was an interesting read. Worth a look if you find it in a bargain bin or at the local library.

Time to get some of my programs and Twitter back online. Later.

yankeedog out.

The Personals Translation Guide

2010-10-12T22:12:00.000-05:00

...courtesy of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

We've all read personal ads or at least seen a dating website. Personally, I'd rather be by myself than get into the blind meat market. Your mileage may vary. Maybe you had a good experience on a dating site! At any rate, the staff at UJBR put together this handy guide for translating those personal ads. I'm posting it here as a Public Service.

WOMEN SEEKING MEN:

When they say-What they mean is

Affectionate-Possessive
Artistic-Unreliable
Athletic-Flat-chested
Exotic Beauty-Will frighten your dog
Free Spirit-Substance abuser
Loves animals-Cat lady
New Age-Loaded with body hair
Outgoing-Loud
Spiritual-Involved in a cult
Seeking A Soul Mate-Stalker

Don't yuk it up too much, gentlemen. We have our own codewords. Read on:

MEN SEEKING WOMEN:

When they say-What they mean is

Athletic-Sits on the couch and watches ESPN
Average-looking-Over-average hair growth on ears and back
Educated-Will treat you like an idiot
Employed-On management track at Radio Shack
Free spirit-Will sleep with your sister
Huggable-Overweight and hairy (Oops!)
Professional-Owns a white button-down shirt
Sensitive-Needy
Stable-Stalker, but never convicted
Thoughtful-Says 'please' when demanding a beer

Upon reviewing these last ten, I guess I have to say....

....Yeah. They're probably right.

yankeedog out.