More Stearmans…

The 2014 New Years Video…

I can’t embed it, but here’s the link…

And Mr. Kinsey deserves a BIG tip of the hat for what he does to support Naval Aviation…

This was a couple of years ago, but thank you sir!!!

h/t Roy Kinsey

edit- Okay, I are now confuzed… Apparently the videos are working… Beats the hell outta me…  Anyway, ENJOY!

Random travel…

In the some ‘stuff’ never changes category…

Bicyclist the world over seem to think they ‘own’ the road, and South Australia is having some big bike race/to do this week…

Soooo, this morning on the way to my meeting, I’m poking along on a main highway, seldom getting over 20-30 mph kph.  I’m about three cars behind a semi and I’m wondering WHY since the speed limit is 50kph.  I can ‘kinda’ see what looks like a pack of bikes in the left lane, but that doesn’t explain why the truck isn’t going.  Suddenly the semi just LAYS on the horns, and keeps on them, and I see smoke pour from the stacks on the truck. And all of a sudden it’s like a covey of quail flushing and going everywhere!!!

Apparently the bikes were taking BOTH lanes, and the trucker had finally had enough… LOL

In the ‘unfortunate advertising’ category, on the main road out of town, it appears there is a restaurant called Chicken Chef right next door to a business called Australian Birds, specializing in rare birds.  I just wonder what gets served as what in that restaurant…

And in the music is world-wide, I’m sitting in traffic and suddenly Sweet Home Alabama comes on the radio… Talk about a double take!!!

And it’s ONLY in the 90’s here today, a positive cold spell…

Peace Dividend???

This one has been flopped over the transom from both the mil-email chain and some readers-

A bit of history, and some interesting commentary here- While primarily pointed at the Army, this also applied to all services and the Navy has gone from 580+ plus ships under Reagan to 250ish under Bo…

When we entered into the first Gulf War, our active Army strength was around 760,000. It was well equipped, well trained and powerful enough to actually maintain the world peace that progressives and beauty pageant contestants so desire. Even as this force pushed the Iraqis out of Kuwait, the liberal media was questioning out loud whether Americans were ready to see the body bags.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, politicians decided we no longer needed such a robust force. There were no more enemies requiring us to maintain it. No more large force on force battles ahead. We had to reduce it. Drawdown commenced. Or as cheerleaders inside the services and Pentagon called it, a builddown. Word out of Washington was a windfall was upon us. We would reap a peace dividend. All of the money we would save by cutting the size of America’s national defense structure could be used to fund other necessary things. Social programs.

I watched Lone Survivor yesterday. From reading the book when it came out, I fully expected it to be gut-wrenching. And it was. It is a well done movie. Go watch it. Sadly, most Americans never knew the story. Still do not. Even when the Congressional Medal of Honor was presented posthumously to Navy SEAL Lieutenant Michael Murphy, the first person to receive it in the Afghan War, it was barely a media blip. You see, it is not the kind of story that interests a progressive media along with the fact that it was presented by President Bush. Never willing to shine a good light on anything military, they were more interested in the propaganda pictures provided to them by the Islamists.

The progressive media prefer the story of down trodden and poverty stricken villagers being brutalized by the U.S. military. Poor people who are driven to terrorism because of stark poverty. Their wealth of course was stolen from them by whom else but the capitalist west led by America. It was the same song they sang throughout the Viet Nam war. I am certain you remember Genghis John Kerry’s famous lies about American Soldiers in Viet Nam burning and pillaging villages. And Hanoi Jane’s radio broadcast. Well, war hero John is at it again. The poor and poverty stricken are driven to war.

When President Bush was in office, the body count was high priority in the media. Boys the media called them or American kids. Anything to pluck at American’s emotions. We would get it daily. There was even speculation about when it would surpass one thousand. The media appeared anxious for that moment. They even went to court looking for permission to photograph the caskets as they came home. Nowadays, it simply is not an issue. You may hear in passing of some “NATO” casualties in Afghanistan. By what we hear in the news, one would think that nothing is happening there. You most assuredly would not know that nearly 75 percent of American war deaths in Afghanistan have occurred under the watch of Barack Obama. The progressive media wing does its job quite well.

While a man like Marcus Luttrell and his team fights and sacrifices and does what their country asks of them to preserve the peace and ensure freedom at America’s front door, Washington’s politicians are giving both away at the back door. Washington is proving once again that it has little thought of the trials the military and their families have endured during 13 years of war.

Beginning with the Whitehouse and right on down through the halls of the United States Congress there appears little concern for the military. Illegal immigrants are more important that Soldiers, Veterans or their families. There is the big budget deal out of Washington. Then one that will keep the government open. It saves a relative few pennies when considering trillions of dollars of debt ($6.2 billion over 10 years) by reducing military pensions, costing military retirees as much as $120,000.00 over a lifetime. Have to love those peace dividends. With a straight face, Washington laments how important it is to cut military pensions to save the budget, while absolutely refusing to close a tax hole that has allowed the Internal Revenue Service to pay out over $14 billion dollars in refundable tax credits to illegal immigrants – the people we supposedly cannot find because they only exist in the shadows.

I was listening to some banter on a talk radio program the other day. Conservative media view versus a progressive one. The topic was Obamacare and how in the world will we ever pay for it. Without hesitation, the progressive said close 800 military bases.

Washington can only find passion these days for the military when it comes to social engineering it to resemble their Godless utopian world view. The next time they need Soldiers willing to sacrifice for their political blundering, maybe they can find a few brigades of illegal immigrants to do their bidding. They are certainly paid well enough. We can even embed them with progressive media.

Very interesting commentary; very true perspective.  Will we continue to ignore it???
CAN we afford to ignore it???  ‘I’ don’t think we can…
h/t JP, Frito, Snake

Sometimes you just gotta wonder…

Probably one of the most iconic photos ever taken from space, happened accidentally…

Historically, all the Apollo missions were on VERY specific timelines, required to collect data pretty much every waking minute.  Very little thought or time was given to the astronauts for ‘sightseeing’…

And I can’t help but wonder if they got their butts chewed for using ‘extra’ film for non-essential photography…

But ‘I’ am damn glad they did!!!

h/t JP

Classic Dangerfield…

Really tired of all the news, and crap out there, so some humor for Friday…

Why we miss Rodney Dangerfield-

His dryly delivered one liners were hilarious…

My wife only has sex with me for a purpose. Last night she used me to time an egg.

It’s tough to stay married. My wife kisses the dog on the lips, yet she won’t drink from my glass!

Last night my wife met me at the front door. She was wearing a sexy negligee. The only trouble was, she was coming home.

A girl phoned me and said, ‘Come on  over. There’s nobody home.’ I went over. Nobody was home!

A hooker once told me she had a headache.

I went to a massage parlor.. It was self-service. ..

If it weren’t for pickpockets, I’d have no sex life at all.

I was  making love to this girl and she started crying I said, ‘Are you going to hate yourself in the morning?’ She said, ‘No, I hate myself now.’

I knew a girl so ugly… they use her in prisons to cure sex offenders.

My wife is such a bad cook, if we leave dental floss in the kitchen the roaches hang themselves.

I’m so ugly I stuck my head out the window and got arrested for mooning.

The other day I came home and a guy was jogging, naked. I asked him, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Because you came home early.’

My wife’s such a bad cook, the dog begs for Alka-Seltzer.

I know I’m not sexy. When I put my underwear on I can hear the Fruit-of-the- Loom guys giggling.

My wife is such a bad cook, in my house we pray after the  meal.

My wife likes to talk to me during sex; last night she called me from a hotel.

My family was so poor that if I hadn’t been born a boy, I wouldn’t have had anything to play with.

It’s been a rough day. I got up this morning … put a shirt on and a button fell off. I picked up my briefcase, and the handle came off. I’m afraid to go to the  bathroom.

I was such an ugly kid! …When I played in the sandbox, the cat kept covering me up.

I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and radio.

I was such an ugly baby that my mother never breast fed me. She told me that she only liked me as a friend.

I’m so ugly my father carried around a picture of the kid who came with his wallet.

When I was born, the doctor came into the waiting room and said to my father, “I’m sorry. We did everything we could, but he pulled through anyway.”

I’m so ugly my mother had morning sickness…AFTER I was born.

I remember the time that I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more  proof.

Once when I was lost, I saw a policeman, and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him, “Do you think we’ll ever find them?” He said, “I don’t know kid. There’s so many places they can hide.”

My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.

I’m so ugly, I once worked in a pet shop, and people kept asking how big I’d get.

I went to see my doctor. “Doctor, every morning when I get up and I look in the mirror I feel like throwing up. What’s wrong with me?” He said…”Nothing, your eyesight is perfect.”

I went to the doctor because I’d swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. My doctor told me to have a few drinks and get some rest.

With my old man I got no respect. I asked him, “How can I get my kite in the air?” He told me to run off a cliff.

Some dog I got. We call him Egypt because in every room he leaves a pyramid. His favorite bone is in my arm. Last night he went on the paper four times – three of those times I was reading it.

One year they wanted to make me a poster boy – for birth control.

My uncle’s dying wish was to have me sitting in his lap; he was in the electric chair.

One of THOSE mornings…

I’m heading out again, somewhere over the pond… So I’m going to throw PP under the bus…

PP was having one of THOSE mornings…

Her first text-

That moment you blindly stumble to the coffee pot for the first amazing cup…you can already taste it…you pull out the carafe and pour…NOTHING….curse loudly…you stare blankly at the pot u put it back push all the buttons on the pot…check if the is water…yup…check if there is coffee…yup…push more buttons…curse soundly…repeat…curse inventively…repeat…finally admit it’s broken…go back to bed…this must be a nightmare

But it wasn’t, and she had to go on an expanding square search for a coffee pot… Not a backup in the house!

So she goes to the local coffee shop, $5 for two black coffees, but they ONLY take cash (which she doesn’t have), continues on to Wally World and finally gets a coffee pot replacement…

Below Average for headwork there kiddo…  I taught you better!!! 🙂

Another back in the day…

WSF’s comment about Air Force security reminded me of an incident that happened to us back in the day (well, actually TWO incidents)…

Incident One- Back in the 70s we land at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana and they put us on the transient line in front of base ops.  No problem, right???

So we offload the pax and baggage into a crew van the USAF graciously provided.  We walk into base ops to take a leak, get coffee and refile for the next leg of the trip. Still no problem, right???

We go to walk back out to our airplane that is 100 yards from base ops, and the Air Policemen stop us!  These are the SAME two that watched us walk in 30 minutes earlier!!!

The ensuing conversation are words to the effect of what got said…

We don’t have ‘ramp badges’, so we can’t go on the ramp!!!  Of course we go WTF???

Troop back into ops, “Hey your pissants out there won’t let us on the ramp to our airplane. Now what?”

Ops puke, “Oh I’ll call a crew van for you.”

30 minutes later, a van finally shows up.  We pile in, and off we go, only to be stopped AGAIN by the same two twits… Same issue, NO BADGE, NO RAMP.

Back to Ops. Me- “Okay, that didn’t work now what?

OP- “Oh only the command post can authorize a ramp badge.  You’ll need to go over there.”

Me- “The CP that is 2/3 of the way across base?”

OP- “Yep.”

Me- “Lemme borrow a phone.”  Dug in my wheel book for my cousin’s numbers, got one of them and he came down to meet me at Ops.  ‘Splained what was going on, got the eye-roll from him and he agreed to ‘escort’ us to the airplane…

Which lead to a rather interesting confrontation with the twits again, since we were now being escorted by the a full Colonel who also happened to be DO for 2nd Bomb Wing…

But he prevailed after a short radio chat with their security commander…

Gave him the nickel tour of the P-3 and we got the hell outta there, and a fervently hope those APs got their asses handed to them…

Incident 2-

198mumble… Lovely Keflavik, Iceland early spring (snowing like a bitch, with a couple of feet already on the ground)…

Pilot (Maintenance Officer O-5) is doing a walk around, the bird is stuffed back in what is known as the ‘throat’ to keep the Aeroflot ‘airline’ flights from ‘accidentally’ taxiing through our flight line.  Problem was, the ‘tail’ of the bird was over the USAF’s infamous Red Line (which happened to be buried under the snow). Now the pilot is walking around the tail and looking UP at the airplane, not looking at the ground, as soon as he crosses the Red Line, two Air Police tackle him and plant him face down in the snow.  Of course this pisses us off…

But they are determined they have a ‘violation’ and RULES MUST BE OBEYED…

So said pilot gets hauled off…

Fast forward 24 hours…

Senior USAF officer, frothing at the mouth is standing in the Navy Rear Admiral’s office (COMFAIRKEF), complaining about how there has been an ‘incursion’ in the hangar by unauthorized personnel and damage has been done to the ready fighters (F-4s that only flew on day/VFR flights it seemed).  When the RADM question how this guy ‘knew’ the Navy was at fault, the guy apparently slapped a zap (example HERE) on the RADM’s desk and stated they had been placed on both F-4s in multiple places including the windscreen!

Promising to get to the bottom of it, the RADM came down to the CO of the squadron, words were exchanged, all officers meeting was held, no ‘culprit’ was found.  Next day, CO has an all hands on the hangar deck.

Oh did I mention that the Maintenance Officer was WELL LIKED by the troops???

CO asked for the ‘perpetrator or perpetrators’ to come forward, finally one E-4 steps out of ranks and marches to the front.  He salutes the CO, and says words to the effect of I did it sir.  When asked why, he answered because the MO was a good guy and what the APs had done was bulls**t, that he’d seen the whole thing and the APs never even warned the MO…

Which caused a massive coughing spell throughout the hangar, and the CO damn near choking trying not to laugh.

The CO stepped away from the mic and quiet words were exchanged with the E-4, then the CO stepped back to the mic, and ‘punished’ the E-4 by slapping him on the wrist. He was then dismissed, and the formation was over.

CO then reported to the RADM that the miscreant had been duly punished…

And the APs had to double their guards and stand out in the snow for the rest of our deployment after their security officer was fired… 🙂

Willie again…

On the road again…

Light blogging and commenting for a week or so…

Quick update on the book.  Second round of edits are completed, book is out to selected beta readers, and starting to filter back. Working on finalizing the book, cover (thank you Mrs. C), and all the little nit stuff that one has to do.

Turns out ‘writing’ is the easy part… sigh…  Thankfully both the alpha and beta readers have been very good (and pointed in a few cases) with their constructive criticism.  And my editor has been great to work with, offering praise and criticism in pretty much equal (more or less) parts…

Why did carrot and stick just pop into my mind… Anyhoo…

Almost there…

Of course after giving copies to those to contributed by reading, I’m gonna cost my self probably half my sales… LOL

Go read the folks on the sidebar, and thanks again for all your support!

PSA, a repost…

Back in 2010, this was posted about cell phone/digital cameras and the metadata…

Based on what I heard out of BO today…

I think this is worth reposting and reminding folks that you CAN put way too much info out there inadvertently…

Stay safe folks!!!

A Matched Pair…

I got an email from a very nice lady at Saddleback Leather down in Texas, wondering if I’d put up a link to a video they’d done…

Backstory from the nice lady-

 I work for a Texas-based company that makes rugged leather gear. We started doing product videos on our website about 3 years ago and it morphed into some pretty cool projects. One of those projects was short profiles on our employees. The first one was about a husband and wife who work here and their desire to have matching guns, so in case there were ever a crisis they could swap magazines.  (Smith&Wesson M&P9s) 
 
Well, it was submitted to Sundance Film Festival and out of the 8,100 short films, it was selected to be on of the 60 entries. Then YouTube has told us they selected it to be one of the 10 in the running for their special YouTube award. Now we want to put the idea of husband/wife gun ownership in front of as many eyes as possible.

No photographers were harmed in the making of this video… 🙂

That a video with guns and real people even made it to Sundance consideration just warms the cockles of my grouchy old heart…

Go take a look and comment please, let’s PROVE that the stereotypes about us are all wrong!!!

And Saddleback DOES make very nice stuff!!! I just wish I could afford it! 🙁