Random stuff…

Posted on by June 20, 2020

Welp, there was a standoff this morning…

Wendell vs. Tay, the Lemur. Wendell is passing through North Texas on his way back to Florida.

It was declared a tie, since neither would back down…

In other news, some thoughts about the whole WuFlu mess…

1. So let me get this straight, there’s no cure for a virus that can be killed by sanitizer and hand soap?

2. Is it too early to put up the Christmas tree yet? I have run out of things to do.

3. When this virus thing is over with, I still want some of you to stay away from me.

4. If these last months have taught us anything, it’s that stupidity travels faster than any virus on the planet, particularly among politicians and bureaucrats.

5. Just wait a second – so what your telling me is that my chance of surviving all this is directly linked to the common sense of others? You’re kidding, right!

6. People are scared getting fined or arrested for congregating in crowds. As if catching a deadly disease and dyinga horrible death wasn’t enough of a deterrent.

7. If you believe all this will end and we will get back to normal once we reopen everything, raise your hand. Now slap yourself with it.

8. Another Saturday night in the  house and I just realized the trash goes out more than me.

9. Whoever decided a liquor store is more essential than a hair salon is obviously a bald-headed alcoholic.

10. Remember when you were little and all your underwear had the days of the week on them. Those would be helpful right now.

11. The spread of Covid-19 is based on two factors: 1. How dense the population is and 2. How dense the population is.

12. Remember all those times when you wished the weekend would last forever? Well, wish granted. Happy now?

13. It may take a village to raise a child, but I swear it’s going to take a whole vineyard to home school one.

14. Did a big load of pajamas so I would have enough clean work clothes for this week.

Gah…

Posted on by June 19, 2020

Still intarwebz problems… Pretty decent thunderstorm rolled through…

Lite blogging/commenting will continue all weekend, ’cause we’re getting together with a few folks…

Hopefully back to regular posting on Monday… Trying to do this from an iPhone sucks!

Go read the folks on the sidebar!!!

Hrmmm…

Posted on by June 17, 2020

Will Atlanta have a police department today?

From various sources last night…

  • Keep walking off the job officers. Y’all deserve better than a crooked administration
  • 100% behind you guys thanks for your service.
  • LVMPD IS HIRING CORRECTIONS OFFICERS. PROTECTTHECITY.COM
  • To all the officers that quit tonight. Bye, Felicia… ?
  • I just heard some scuttlebutt that officers are resigning en mass? I also read on the twatter that in essence, the entire night shift is calling in sick tonight in protest? YUGE if true and justified IMO- why go risk your life just to be thrown under the bus by civilian leadership? These men and women have one of the most difficult, thankless and important jobs that exist… lets see how a major US city likes not having anyone answer 911 for an entire night/day. My guess is the sentiment will shift REAL fast.
  • Every single officer in Fulton County, not just Atlanta PD, should walk off the job. The rest of the country supports you.

Apparently second shift has walked off the job, including patrol, CID, and detectives…

Atlanta, GA —  The head of Atlanta’s police union confirmed Wednesday that officers from the Atlanta Police Department in Zones 3 and 6 walked off the job Wednesday afternoon.

Vince Champion, southeast regional director of the International Brotherhood of Police officers, said that police officers had stopped answering calls midshift, in response to charges against Officer Garrett Rolfe who is accused of murdering Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta.

Full article, HERE.

Apparently there were a number of officers that suddenly had the ‘blue flu’ after the announcement yesterday that the DA was going to charge the officers involved.

Also appears the surrounding agencies are refusing calls other than officer down. This is going to be bad!

Interestingly, during the announcement, there were multiple repetitions of the phrase that Tasers were not deadly weapons, yet two weeks ago four officers were charged by the SAME DA with aggravated assault, a serious felony.

Aggravated assault in Georgia is described as assault “with a deadly weapon or with any object, device, or instrument which, when used offensively against a person, is likely to or actually does result in serious bodily injury.” (bold mine)

Sooooo… Which is it??? Or is it dependent on whom is holding the Taser? Just curious…

Busy writing…

Posted on by June 16, 2020

And other things, so you aren’t getting much today.

But, I DO have a question re the Elmer Fudd issue…

And speaking of ‘wokeness’, a rather good graphic courtesy of New Discourses com.

Personally, I think a ‘lot’ of this is coming from the education system’s ‘programming’ of children/young adults to increase their insecurities…

There is this-

A Harvard University law professor has sparked controversy after calling for a ban on homeschooling.

Elizabeth Bartholet told Harvard Magazine that it gives parents “authoritarian” control over their kids — and can even expose them to white supremacy and misogyny.

Full article, HERE.

And this…

For this part of their study, Mayhew and his colleagues asked 3,486 college seniors from institutions across the U.S. about their observations of faculty members’ politics. Forty-nine percent of the sample said that their professors expressed politically liberal views “frequently” or “all the time.” Just 9 percent said the same about conservative professors.

As to the indoctrination question, 10 percent of students said they sensed pressure of any kind from professors when it comes to politics. Conservative students were more likely to feel pressure than those who identified as liberal.

Full article, HERE.

And lets not forget Eric Clanton, HERE.

Anecdotal evidence, based on the few college students I’ve talked to, including one going for their Masters indicates that open support for Antifa and actual meltdowns when Trump won the election is 2016 were not/are not unusual.

And then there’s this…

Lots of things today seem to be passing both the Schenck and Brandenburg tests WRT to the rioting and those inflaming it…

h/t Stretch for the last one

Going to the dogs…

Posted on by June 14, 2020

Literally in these cases…

Rube Goldberg for the win!

The dog is looking around like ‘Is it over yet? Is it safe???

And I wonder how many times this one got filmed before they got it right! Those dogs ‘knew’ there were balls coming down… LOL

You know you’re old…

Posted on by June 14, 2020

When you don’t have to look any of these up…

I came across a picture of an old Thunderbird yesterday and a comment about fender skirts…

A term I haven’t heard in a long time, and thinking about ‘fender skirts’ started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice like ‘curb feelers’

And ‘steering knobs.’ (AKA) suicide knob, Neckers Knobs.

Since I’d been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first.

Any kids will probably have to find some elderly person over 60 to explain some of these terms to you.

Remember ‘Continental kits?’  See picture above. They were rear bumper extenders and spare tire covers that were supposed to make any car as cool as a Lincoln Continental.

When did we quit calling them ’emergency brakes?’

At some point ‘parking brake’ became the proper term. But I miss the hint of drama that went with ’emergency brake.’

I’m sad, too, that almost all the old folks are gone who would call the accelerator the ‘foot feed.’  Many today do not even know what a clutch is or that the dimmer switch  and starter used to be on the floor.

Didn’t you ever wait at the street for your daddy to come home, so you could ride the ‘running board’ up to the house?

Here’s a phrase I heard all the time in my youth but never anymore – ‘store-bought.’ Of course, just about everything is store-bought these days. But once it was bragging material to have a store-bought dress or a store-bought bag of candy.

‘Coast to coast’ is a phrase that once held all sorts of excitement and now means almost nothing. Now we take the term ‘world-wide’ for granted.

On a smaller scale, ‘wall-to-wall’ was once a magical term in our homes. In the ’50s, everyone covered his or her hardwood floors with, wow, wall-to-wall carpeting! Today, everyone replaces their wall-to-wall carpeting with hardwood floors. Go figure.

When’s the last time you heard the quaint phrase ‘in a family way?’ It’s hard to imagine that the word ‘pregnant’ was once considered a little too graphic, a little too clinical for use in polite company, so we had all that talk about stork visits and ‘being in a family way’ or simply ‘expecting.’

Apparently ‘brassiere’ is a word no longer in usage. I said it the other day and my daughter cracked up. I guess it’s just ‘bra’ now. ‘Unmentionables’ probably wouldn’t be understood at all.

I always loved going to the ‘picture show,’ but I considered ‘movie’ an affectation.

Most of these words go back to the ’50s, but here’s a pure-’60s word I came across the other day – ‘rat fink.’ Ooh, what a nasty put-down!

Here’s a word I miss – ‘percolator.’ That was just a fun word to say. And what was it replaced with? ‘Coffee maker.’ How dull. Mr. Coffee, I blame you for this.

I miss those made-up marketing words that were meant to sound so modern and now sound so retro. Words like ‘DynaFlow’ and ‘Electrolux.’ Introducing the 1963 Admiral TV, now with ‘SpectraVision!’

Food for thought – Was there a telethon that wiped out lumbago? Nobody complains of that anymore. Maybe that’s what castor oil cured, because I never hear mothers threatening kids with castor oil anymore.

Some words aren’t gone, but are definitely on the endangered list. The one that grieves me most, ‘supper.’Now everybody says ‘dinner.’ Save a great word. Invite someone to supper.

What if…

Posted on by June 13, 2020

We took cancel culture to its ultimate conclusion???

ALL memorials destroyed. ALL streets changed to numbers or letters, ALL names changed to alphanumerics, all books burned, all paintings destroyed, all artwork destroyed. The only approved colors are black, white, and gray. One TV channel, no more smart phones, everything recorded everywhere. No privacy. No LEOs, no military. Everything controlled by AIs that are on precise timetables. Everyone is chipped with a chip in the brain controlled by the AIs…

Jan 1, 2050 dawned clear and cold. WEF23419 quickly stepped into the bathroom for his alloted five minute shower as PTW25342 cleaned up the bedroom and laid out the approved clothes on the black coverlet. “Two, we’re about out of bath soap number thirty-two.”

“Nine, we can’t get anymore until next one day. We’ll have to stretch it.”  She heard the shower quit and said, “My turn. We’ve got…eleven minutes until the kitchen power comes on.” He stepped out of the way as she got in the shower, then rehung his towel, making sure the edges were even on the approved rack. Dressing quickly in the loose drab gray utilitarian pants and shirt, and the black slip on shoes, he walked quickly to the kitchenette, checking to make sure nothing was out of order.

Two joined him shortly before the fridge unlocked and he opened it quickly. “You want a breakfast four or a six?”

“Either is fine. I…” She looked up at the camera mounted in the corner of the kitchenette and clamped her mouth shut before she said something that might be considered a crime. They ate quickly and cleaned up after themselves, then picked up their soft-sided bags and walked out the front door.

The autonomous bus was coming down the street and they hustled to the bus stop, glancing at their identically dressed neighbors all doing the same thing. They nodded to the others, but didn’t say anything for fear of offending someone. A half hour later, Nine was dropped off at the planning office #1 where his ten hour shift took place, while Two had another ten minute ride to hospital #2 where she did chip implants in newborns.

The white office was filled with others, all dressed identically, each sitting at their assigned desks as the PA came on. “ZF48932 will have completed its obligation to service as of end of shift today. You will be allotted an extra five minutes at the lunch to congratulate it on forty years of service to the community.” Nine looked at his work schedule and sighed as he started adding streets, mumbling, “Let me see. South expansion so that will be…one twenty-fifth, one twenty-sixth, and one twenty-seventh. East expansion for manufacturing…ZZ, AAA, and AAB streets.

After the shift, Nine saw ZF48932 walking slowly to the bus stop and caught up with him. “Congratulations on your service!”

ZF48932 looked over with a sad expression and said, “I used to have a name. I used to live in a blue house with paintings on the wall. I used to be able to watch five hundred channels of cable television and read any book I wanted. I used to root for the Packers…”

ZF48932 collapsed in a heap and Nine heard the bus stop speaker come on. “ZF48932 has committed a criminal act by alluding to micro aggressions in his previous life. He has been cancelled.”

Nine couldn’t help but wonder what channels on cable were, and books. There was only one channel, expressly diversified by both ethnicity and gender for both the news segments and the one approved show that ran continuously. The Book was required reading, again completely diversified with a plot that had been approved by a diversity committee. He’d read it once and never touched it again.

Packers? What were they? Were they a sports team? Why had ZF48932 rooted for them? All cities had sports teams, perfectly diversified, with every ethnicity and gender getting exactly the same amount of playing time. And the score always played to a tie. He got on the bus and sat next to Two. “How was your day?”

“Sixty-three chip implants. We’re now up into the ABESWR’s on names.”

“Wow! That must have been busy!” As the bus went through a roundabout, Nine noticed a pedestal poking through the sparse vegetation. “I wonder what used to be there?”

His last thought was that he’d made the mistake of saying that outloud…

Book promo… and other things…

Posted on by June 12, 2020

First up is an anthology with a twist… Space Force: Building the Legacy

As always, click the cover for the Amazon link!

The blurb-

Tenere Altum. Hold The High Ground.These are the stories of the first 100 years of the United States Space Force created by then U.S. President Donald J. Trump. Within this new anthology of military sci-fi short stories you will find stories of service and incredible sacrifice. Stories of the one sacrificing a few to save the many, and of the one sacrificing himself for all.But mostly these are tales of the men and women to come, who will patrol the harsh, cold blackness of space. Those that willingly place themselves in harm’s way to protect a solitary blue marble and all that call it home.Tenere Altum!

On of our online writer’s group, Brena Bock has a story it in!

Next up is Joseph Francis Collins with the fourth book in the Black Hand series- Bomber

The blurb-

Modern Day Assassins
The Black Hand: A shadowy organization that recruits, trains and supports assassins specializing in unique murder techniques.

A Talent for Explosions
Jim Fox is at the top of his game as an elite Navy EOD technician. But when an accidental explosion kills his best friend, it also ruins his career. Now he uses his skills and experience to take revenge on the incompetent and careless individuals responsible.

A New Career
The Black Hand has been watching as Jim travels down his murderous path. When his life is thrown into shambles by events outside of his control, they offer him a job—with some dangerous caveats.

The Future
Before The Black Hand formally offers him a position within their organization, Jim must face a challenge that might very well cost him his life. With luck, skill and determination, he may survive his time as…

This is an interesting tightly written series!

And sadly, an anthology for charity- Give Me LibertyCon in memory of Tim Bolego

The blurb-

BEST-SELLING AND AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS WRITE FOR A GOOD CAUSE: All-new anthology from top names in science fiction and fantasy. A portion of the sales will fund a scholarship set up in the name of superfan, TVA engineer, and LibertyCon founder Timothy “Uncle Timmy” Bolgeo.

Join David Weber, Larry Correia, David Drake, and twelve other best-selling authors as they pay their respects to some of their devoted fans and to a lost friend. Fifteen stories from the authors’ own worlds will showcase some of the names of their greatest fans in original works, written for a charity in honor of Timothy Bolgeo, the founder of LibertyCon.

Contributors:

David Weber
David Drake
David B. Coe
Larry Correia
Sarah A. Hoyt
Timothy Zahn
Mike Massa
Charles E Gannon
Jody Lynn Nye
Bill Fawcett
Chris Kennedy
Kacey Ezell
Les Johnson
John Hartness
Christopher Woods

And one I almost hate to put up, but if knew or read Mike Resnick’s work, or knew him personally, he’s also passed away. However, due to all the medical bills and other issues including $0 income since his death…

Gang, this one is important–Mike Resnick was a giant of the SF community who spent his entire life mentoring other writers, patiently encouraging so very many who have gone on to great success. But more than that, he was a decent, funny, deeply kind and all-around great human being. You always came away from a conversation with Mike feeling lifted up, bostered, and ready to take on the challenges in front of you.

Since his passing, his wife Carol has been trying to deal with large medical bills and a complete loss of income. We all chipped in on the GoFundMe, and it helped quite a bit. Now, she’s setting up an auction for June 14-18 to continue that effort. This is the auction house that will be handling the items. She’s posting the link before Mike’s items go live, so people can register in advance (They’re not on the auction page yet). Please see her note below, and please, share it far and wide. She’s SF family, and she needs our help. (You can share the link from Mike’s page, too, but make sure you get her note included.)

“This is Carol Resnick. I’ve hired an online estate auction house to handle the sale of many of Mike’s treasures. The sale will be June14 through June18. the site is Everything But The House; their URL is www.ebth.com . Anyone can go on the site but you must register to bid; it’s easy to do- even I can do this.”

It’s truly sad that she is having to sell everything, but if you can afford it, buy something to help her out.

And I really, really hope I don’t have to do anything like these last two again anytime soon!

Sigh…

Posted on by June 11, 2020

Welp, PP is having fun out west with the pups… Between booties to keep their paws from getting burned, to the dogs doing ‘dog’ things.

Labs have fairly ‘sensitive’ pads on their paws, and they get walked regularly on asphalt, which is better than the rocks on the shoulder. But, it’s summer and hot on their pads so…

Booties!

This dog…

I think she broke the dog… Or he broke himself trying to get comfortable rather than just get IN the dog bed.

Labs… what can you say… Sigh

Pictures from back in the day…

Posted on by June 10, 2020

Fun times…

This is what is known as a Mark On Top (MOT). Not my picture, but I’ve seen this view a few times, including ‘certain’ waters where the boat was completely submerged, but still visible…

And yes, biologists are cray-cray…

A test I was involved in years ago. A biologist is ‘waiting’ for some part of the Blue Whale to get shallow enough for him to harpoon it with a time depth recorder (TDR). This particular whale was between 90-100 feet long. I believe this was taken from the whale spotter’s Cessna near where we were testing.

The TDR was actually stuck on with glue which lasted about 48 hours. If, big if, I remember correctly, one of the tagged whales dove to at least 900 feet to feed.