Little things…

Posted on by April 24, 2015

Sometimes it’s the little things that gets to one…

Seeing the big flag at IAD yesterday morning brought a smile, and perked me up. Sadly, the camera didn’t catch the morning hues. It was pretty! (And frikkin COLD! 80’s to 40’s sucks).

Flag at IADInteresting seat mate on both flights though. Federal Judge out of Hawaii, Bush appointee and a really nice guy. We chatted about the 9th Circus, and some of the pending rulings. He was knowledgeable on what was going on with Peruta vs. San Diego and the en banc currently going on at the 9th, which is over Hawaii too. He said the potential ruling could impact Hawaii positively if it’s upheld.

I got a little time before I left and ran by the Pacific Aviation Museum at Ford Island. They are getting more and more aircraft and working HARD to improve the museum.

The flag atop the PAINTED Ford Island Tower. This is the original tower that was there Dec 7th, 1941. Now they just need another $700,000 to actually finish the refurbishment of the ops and tower itself. According to the historian, when they went up to the cab, of the eight cross beams holding the cab up, SIX had rusted completely through!

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Hangar 37 is the main part of the museum, and an original WWII hangar.2015-04-22 14.43.07

Tucked in the bay of the tower building is a period correct fire engine they are hoping to restore also.2015-04-22 14.44.53

Inside, they have a number of ‘period’ displays, including one of Guadalcanal, with 1942 Harley, and an F-4, like Joe Foss flew.2015-04-22 15.13.18

F-4 one each…2015-04-22 15.13.26

And one of the airplanes George H.W. Bush flew in training!2015-04-22 15.13.59

That actual airplane! 🙂2015-04-22 15.14.46

This is the Swamp Ghost, shot down in WWII and crashed in a swamp in New Guinea. It was credited with three Zeros on it’s last mission. It was pulled from the swamp and is displayed as it crash landed. 2015-04-22 15.26.42

I’ll get a few more pics up tomorrow of some more ‘modern’ pieces they have. 🙂

Cats herded…

Posted on by April 23, 2015

About the time you read this, I’ll be finally getting back off the last roadtrip…

The nice thing about this one was the chance to finally meet Rev Paul and his lovely lady.  Great folks, and as a plus, a Navy vet too!

I apologize for the lack of commenting the last few days, but I was up to my alligator in assholes and running pillar to post pretty much every day. And it wasn’t helping that the time zone change had me awake at 0300, 0400 and 0400 the three days I was there. Work was pretty much all day, herding various cats…

I’m going straight from the airplane to the office, trying to catch up then I’m gonna sleep in this weekend!!! Sigh

TBT…

Posted on by April 20, 2015
Take five minutes to watch this video interview —
Listen carefully to what he says and how he says it.
You won’t regret a second of it.

Ask yourself, how many of the few surviving WWII veterans
kept themselves and their uniform in such good condition for
over 70 years and can still proudly wear it?
Notice his superb delivery, no teleprompter, no script —
just a 91-year-old fighter pilot representing the greatest generation
at home and abroad who won WWII.

He has some surprises and a great take on the philosophy of life.

Enjoy!
h/t JP

The Grey Man, update…

Posted on by April 19, 2015

Book three, The Grey Man- Changes is off to the editor!

And here’s the cover that Tina has designed…

It fits with the story line, and once again I’m impressed with the quality and how she’s able to tie the cover into the story.

TGMChangesThanks once again Tina, I appreciate your great work!!!

 

Man with a gun…

Posted on by April 19, 2015

But what if it’s a policeman?  No big deal, right?

One would ‘normally’ think so…

Unless one is in Scotland!

A police officer in Inverness has been photographed carrying a firearm despite assurances that sidearms would only be deployed under special circumstances.

The officer was carrying a handgun in the railway station in Inverness on Tuesday as he walked through the main concourse.

Police Scotland said the officer had breached new force policy.

Soooo… They are now disarming the police, except under ‘certain’ circumstances…

Full article HERE from the BBC.

How many lives will this ‘new force policy’ cost???

Last time I looked, criminals over there don’t obey the laws either. And guns are making their way into Britain and Scotland via the Chunnel and the ferries, and who knows what other small boats that cross the channel…

Moore’s Law…

Posted on by April 19, 2015

Is FIFTY years old…

The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year. Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years.
G. Moore, 1965

moores-law-graph-1965

Gordon Moore was the R&D lead for Fairchild Semiconductor before becoming a founder of a little company called NM which morphed into another little company called Intel with Robert Noyce. They were later joined by Andrew Grove. 667px-transistor_count_and_moores_law_-_2011.svg

Image: Wikipedia

  While Moore has been credited with the comments about increasing performance as part of Moore’s Law, it was actually David House, an Intel employee that looked at the increasing performance of transistors and said that integrated circuits would double in performance every 18 months.

The whole development of transistors, through MOS-Fet, CMOS, processors, and circuits. It reads like a spy novel more than a history of development with companies suing other companies, people moving between companies, ‘trade secrets’ moving, etc. It’s a real time sink for geeks if you start down that road…LOL

Aging out…

Posted on by April 21, 2015

Japan is in trouble population wise…

The total has shrunk for the fourth year running, falling back to a level it was last at in 2000, with more than one in four people now aged 65 or older.

From the Guardian, HERE.

But it’s not just Japan. China is doing the same thing, although they aren’t publicizing it. One generation plus of ‘male’ children has cut their population growth to a negative number.

The last figure I saw was something in the neighborhood of 2.1 to 2.16 required to maintain a zero growth rate (which the environmentalists love)…

Problem is, Japan, the US and China are all aging more rapidly than the birth rate to replace us as workers. I’ve seen various reports that China ‘claims’ they won’t see negative growth until 2030, but others say it’s already happening. BUT at 1.3 BILLION give or take a few hundred million, how can one tell?

The Japanese situation is the US in micro, with us baby boomers moving into retirement/death now. There aren’t enough ‘kids’ behind us to maintain the work pool to pay for us (and giving away entitlements to illegals isn’t helping).

This is a Total Fertility Rate calculation by country, and while the USA shows a rate of 2-3 children per family, that is averaged over ALL ethnicities. When you actually drill down, caucasians/asians fall in the 0-1 category, blacks in the 3-4 category, hispanic and middle eastern in the 4-6 category.

Countriesbyfertilityrate.svg
“Countriesbyfertilityrate” by Supaman89 – Own work – updated per The World FactBook (CIA) – https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Probably the scarier part at least for America, is the change in basic values as illegals who don’t WANT to assimilate into America are changing the culture here by taking everything they can (entitlements, medical, etc.) and shipping the money they do make back to their home countries to bring more illegals here.

I don’t like the trends I’m seeing and I feel for my children and grandchildren. I don’t know what they are going to face in 20-30 years…

Edit- Ironically Bob has a post up HERE on a much more localized impact of aging…

A good week…

Posted on by April 17, 2015

Sometimes, not often, the confluence of events allows a little down time on a trip.

This one has proven to be that one break a year type of trip…

Got a chance to attend a military reunion of current/former Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance personnel, and also got a chance to have dinner with Uncle Jay.

We commiserated over the ‘joys’ of travel to foreign destinations, those ‘little’ problems that come up on the road, and how little time one really has during work trips to actually do anything other than work.

Jay is a great storyteller, and has a ton of those little travel faux pas stories, and we also cussed the various customs, ITAR and other petty regulations (like having to have an EXACT number of items in and out, otherwise go to jail, do not pass go, etc.).

Jay really IS one of those ‘little’ guys (actually pretty damn big guy), who make things work behind the scenes, and never get the ‘credit’ (unless something goes wrong). He’s also the guy you want backing you up, anywhere-anytime.

And he educated me on carrying one and more guns on a motorcycle, something I really hadn’t thought about. It IS an interesting problem, and not an easy one to solve.

We got some good food at Whitey’s Fish Camp, a place I used to hit at least weekly, and I almost didn’t recognize the place, it’s expanded so much! But the food was good!!! I think we scared the hell out of the poor waitress as we both grabbed for the bill (and I lost, dammit).

And speaking of motorcycles, coming back to the hotel last night I hear a Harley. Stopping at the light I look over and see a chopped Fat Boy, the rider has on a real helmet, leathers, shorts?? Wha??? Andddd… Flip flops!

Really??? Shorts and flip flops? Sigh… But then it IS Florida…

And lunch was at Sonny’s.

IMG_2215

Now I know not everyone likes Sonny’s, but I’ve eaten at this one for 38 years… It’s not gourmet, but it’s filling and you know what you’re getting. And it’s not expensive either!!!

I’m back on another airplane heading home for the day, then out again… Sigh…

Another YGTBSM…

Posted on by April 21, 2015

I’ve re-written this post about three times, trying to express my disgust without cussing…

Did you know the Bible, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence all promote sexism? And racism?

According to a course (required course mind you) being taught by DEOMI, under the auspices of the Department of Defense, they do!

Those three cherished texts all count as “historical influences that allow sexism to continue,” according to a presentation prepared by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, whose mission is to give a ”world-class human relations education.”

Screen-Shot-2015-04-07-at-10.45.54-AM

Make sure you take your BP meds before you go read the article by A.R. Goldenberg at the Daily Caller, HERE.

I can’t help but wonder who is the drafter of this program and what their background is… I can take a guess, as well as you probably can.

What really frosts me though, is that this crap is allowed to be spewed to the attendees as ‘gospel’… Or can I even say gospel?

The PC police and SJWs are alive, well and with administration top cover, ramming crap like this down our throats, while penalizing those who put courses together than could actually BENEFIT the warfighters…

But you can’t say radical islam, nor make any negative references to muslims, or even use DOCUMENTED actions… That’s ‘prejudicial’…

Gah… $%^&**&%%$$!!!

h/t AFCM

TBT…

Posted on by April 21, 2015

Down in JAX for the MPRA Symposium, and this is a perfect fit…

PBY- WWII

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P-2V7 This one is painted as VP-5 crew nine for a reason…IMG_2203

This is the reason… 38 years, but they were returned to their families…IMG_2205

And yes there are STILL WWII temporary buildings in use… IMG_2207

How big is a Navy battle flag? BIG!!!IMG_2210

The dinner last night had 400 attendees, the oldest from the late 1940s. We had from E-5 to Vice-Admirals in attendance, spanning at least three generations. In one case, a Lieutenant was recognized as the PACFLT NFO of the year, the award was accepted by his daddy, a retired Rear Admiral, who is himself the son of a retired Vice Admiral… 🙂

This was a fitting backdrop for the dinner, and the lighting says it all… The P-3 on the right is fading out, and the P-8 on the left is coming into the fleet.IMG_2212It was great to see old friends, as one said, with the emphasis on OLD… We’re not 21 or even 31 anymore… sigh. But it was also fun to talk to the young sailors who are coming behind us. They got a chance tonight to rub shoulders with us old farts and maybe, just maybe, some of them will look back on this night as one that prompts them to stay the course and continue to serve.