Random travel…

The ‘morning’ challenge…

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Trying to figure out the buttons, knobs and what turns on what was a 10 minute evolution, but at least I didn’t fry myself…

And all I wanted for breakfast was an omelet, not a fikkin masterpiece…  I swear the chef took TEN minutes to make my little omelet and it did come out perfectly shaped and perfectly done, but then I had to wait another five minutes for him to brown the two pieces of english bacon into something I was actually willing to eat.  Which meant everything else was cold…

Sigh… I know better…

Heading to the airport shortly for the final leg home! Yea!!!

Hmmm…

Apparently speaking truth to power is no longer allowed in MD when it comes to schools either…

Baltimore Sun is reporting the dad was charged with One charge, 2nd degree assault of a police officer, max. sentence of 10 years. The other (“disturbing a school operation”) carries a max. sentence of 6 months. So combined is a max. of 10 1/2 years… for questioning a school offiicial and refusing to be silenced.  Doesn’t 2nd degree assault requires the person to have caused physical injury to someone else?

A parent in Towson, Md., was arrested Thursday night at a public forum after vocally expressing his concerns about the Baltimore County School District’s plan to use Common Core standards in its curriculum.

Robert Small, a concerned father, was forcefully removed from the meeting by a police officer after he interrupted Baltimore County Schools Superintendent Dallas Dance during the question-and-answer portion of the forum.

Full article and video HERE.

I guess since he can’t be defined by Sen Feinsteins description of a journalist, he no longer has 1st amendment rights.  And I don’t see anything that realistically constitutes 2nd degree assault either!

What Happens in Vegas???

Maybe doesn’t stay there anymore…

This is also apparently happening overseas, and not just to military but also to business folks.

Recently and with increasing regularity across the military and overseas civilians,
nefarious entities are targeting people through social networking sites; wherein, an online relationship will be established and nurtured to the point where the victim will share sexually explicit images and or video with an attractive person.  Consequently, once those images/video are received by the nefarious entity, a threat of contacting
friends/family/employer will be made unless a payment is received.

With at least one case, the video and/or hyperlink was posted to youtube and possibly a company site.  Past reporting indicated some persons have made payment, only to be extorted for more.

This has many ramifications, personal and professional, as well as criminal.  Unfortunately, there is most likely no judicial solution to this.

Additionally, scrub your social networking sites in order to identify potential nefarious
persons. 

If you don’t know them, you probably shouldn’t ‘friend’ them…

And if it seems too good to be true, it probably is…  Just sayin…

At least I don’t have to buy Pork Chops…

Vito and Jace…

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He’s very careful around him, and already in the protect mode.

Maybe he’ll leave me alone now… LOL

Damn them all…

This crap just pisses me off… ‘We’ can’t go to the White House for a tour, even though it IS ‘our’ house, but…

Regular American citizens visiting the nation’s capital lost access to the White House in March as President Obama eliminated public tours to make a point in his battle with House Republicans in the sequestration debate over cutting spending or raising taxes. 

But hundreds of K Street lobbyists, including corporate advocates who are paid to influence policy on behalf of Fortune 500 giants, saw no change in their access to the chief executive and his senior aides, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of White House visitor logs and lobbying records.

The analysis found that 200 lobbyists met 344 times with White House officials at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. between March and May.

Read the whole article HERE.

And the latest ‘rumor’ is that DOD may lose many more than the 7000 estimated in FY-14 under sequestration, now numbers like 35,000 are being bandied around…

So screw the troops and the people that support them by cutting the administrative and logistics tail. And don’t buy spare parts (like radios), but keep funding over budget/non-realistic programs (F-35/LCS among others)… But let’s cut people and MAKE IT HURT…

OPEN MIC NIGHT AFTER THE APOCALYPSE!!!

Passing the word for Frank-

From Frank James

Great News! Our son’s film has been accepted by Hulu and is available for viewing FOR FREE to Hulu subscribers, so if you are signed up for HuluPlus all you have to do is type in OPEN MIC NIGHT AFTER THE APOCALYPSE and it will come up on your screen.
Please pass this info around as he needs as many ‘hits’ as physically possible. Do me a favor and pass the word around the web. It would be doing me a tremendous kindness if you would.

Thanks again…

All The Best,
Frank W. James

Y’all go view it, I think you’ll find it interesting, and it’s going to help his son out!

True Colors???

Dems appear to be showing their true colors/affiliations… To me this is just unconscionable… 

During the second portion of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing about Benghazi Thursday on Capitol Hill, the majority of Democrats on the Committee left the room and refused to listen to the testimony of Patricia Smith and Charles Woods. Ms. Smith is the mother of Sean Smith, an information management officer killed in the 9/11 Benghazi attack. Charles Woods is the father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, who was also killed.

Gotten from HERE.

If it were me, I’d drag Hillary’s fat ass back and put her under oath, along with every one of the CIA folks.  Those families AND we the people deserve to know the truth.

Unconfirmed list of those that walked out.  If any of them are yours, I’d be calling and asking some questions… Have they no respect???
Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
Danny Davis (IL-7)
Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.)
Gerald E. Connolly (VA-11)
Jim Cooper (TN-5)
John Tierney (MA-6)
Mark Pocan (WI-2)
Matt Cartwright (PA-17)
Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM-1)
Peter Welch (VT)
Stephen Lynch (MA-9)
Steven Horsford (NV-4)
Tammy Duckworth (IL-8)
Tony Cardenas (CA-29)
William Lacy Clay (MO-1)

h/t Brighid

One good meal…

I have a rule that I have to get at least ONE good meal on a trip… IMG_1343

This one also goes out to A Girl and TSM, and MSgt and Mrs. B!

I wasn’t driving, so I even hoisted an Orion for y’all.  And yes, it was as good as always!!!

Now slogging back to the states… It’s gonna be a LONG day…

The Watchman…

It’s a repost, but worth taking a moment to read… We were chatting this morning about those we’ve lost over the years…

My friend Kevin and I are volunteers at a National cemetery in Oklahoma and put in a few days a month in a ‘slightly larger’ uniform. Today had been a long, long day and I just wanted to get the day over with and go down to Smokey’s and have a cold one. Sneaking a look at my watch,
 
I saw the time, 16:55. Five minutes to go before the cemetery gates are closed for the day.
 
Full dress was hot in the August sun Oklahoma summertime was as bad as ever–the heat and humidity at the same level–both too high.

I saw the car pull into the drive, ’69 or ’70 model Cadillac Deville, looked factory-new. It pulled into the parking lot at a snail’s pace.. An old woman got out so slow I thought she was paralyzed; she had a cane and a sheaf of flowers–about four or five bunches as best I could tell.

 
I couldn’t help myself. The thought came unwanted, and left a slightly bitter taste: ‘She’s going to spend an hour, and for this old soldier, my hip hurts like hell and I’m ready to get out of here right now!’ But for this day, my duty was to assist anyone coming in.
 
Kevin would lock the ‘In’ gate and if I could hurry the old biddy along, we might make it to Smokey’s in time.
 
I broke post attention. My hip made gritty noises when I took the first step and the pain went up a notch. I must have made a real military sight: middle-aged man with a small pot gut and half a limp, in marine full-dress uniform, which had lost its razor crease about thirty minutes after I beganthe watch at the cemetery.
 
I stopped in front of her, halfway up the walk. She looked up at me with an old woman’s squint.
 
‘Ma’am, may I assist you in any way?’
 
She took long enough to answer.
 
‘Yes, son. Can you carry these flowers? I seem to be moving a tad slow these days.’
 
‘My pleasure, ma’am.’
 
(Well, it wasn’t too much of a lie.)
 
She looked again. ‘Marine, where were you stationed?’
 
‘ Vietnam , ma’am.. Ground-pounder. ’69 to ’71.’
 
She looked at me closer. ‘Wounded in action, I see. Well done, Marine. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
 
I lied a little bigger: ‘No hurry, ma’am.’
 
She smiled and winked at me. ‘Son, I’m 85-years-old and I can tell a lie from a long way off.. Let’s get this done. Might be the last time I can do this. My name’s Joanne Wieserman,
and I’ve a few Marines I’d like to see one more time..’
 
‘Yes, ma ‘am. At your service.’
 
She headed for the World War I section, stopping at a stone. She picked one of the flower bunches out of my arm and laid it on top of the stone.
 
She murmured something I couldn’t quite make out.. The name on the marble was Donald. Davidson, USMC:  France 1918.
 
She turned away and made a straight line for the World War II section, stopping at one stone I saw a tear slowly tracking its way down her cheek.
 
She put a bunch on a stone; the name was Stephen X. Davidson, USMC, 1943.
 
She went up the row a ways and laid another bunch on a stone, Stanley J. Wieserman, USMC, 1944..
 
She paused for a second and more tears flowed. ‘Two more, son, and we’ll be done’
 
I almost didn’t say anything, but, ‘Yes, ma’am. Take your time.’
 
She looked confused.. ‘Where’s the Vietnam section, son? I seem to have lost my way.’
 
I pointed with my chin. ‘That way, ma’am.’
 
‘Oh!’ she chuckled quietly. ‘Son, me and old age ain’t too friendly.’
 
She headed down the walk I’d pointed at. She stopped at a couple of stones before she found the ones she wanted. She placed a bunch on Larry Wieserman, USMC, 1968, and the laston Darrel Wieserman, USMC, 1970.
 
She stood there and murmured a few words I still couldn’t make out and more tears flowed.
 
‘OK, son, I’m finished. Get me back to my car and you can go home.’
 
Yes, ma’am. If I may ask, were those your kinfolk?’
 
She paused. ‘Yes, Donald Davidson was my father, Stephen was my uncle, Stanley was my husband, Larry and Darrel were our sons. All killed in action, all Marines.’
 
She stopped! Whether she had finished, or couldn’t finish, I don’t know.
 
She made her way to her car, slowly and painfully. I waited for a polite distance to come between us and then double-timed it over to Kevin, waiting by the car.  ‘Get to the ‘Out’ gate quick.. I have something I’ve got to do.’
Kevin started to say something, but saw the look I gave him. He broke the rules to get us down the service road fast. We beat her.
 
She hadn’t made it around the rotunda yet.
 
‘Kevin, stand at attention next to the gatepost.
 
Follow my lead.’ I humped it across the drive to the other post.
 
When the Cadillac came puttering around from the hedges and began the short straight traverse to the gate, I called in my best gunny’s voice: ‘TehenHut!
 
Present Haaaarms!’
 
I have to hand it to Kevin; he never blinked an eye–full dress attention and a salute that would make his DI proud.  She drove through that gate with two old worn-out soldiers giving her a send-off she deserved, for service rendered to her country, and for knowing duty, honor and sacrifice far beyond the realm of most.
 
I am not sure, but I think I saw a salute returned from that Cadillac.
 
Instead of ‘The End,’ just think of ‘Taps.’
 
As a final thought on my part, let me share a favorite prayer: ‘Lord, keep our servicemen and women safe, whether they serve at home or overseas.
 
Hold them in your loving hands and protect them as they protect us.’
 
Let’s all keep those currently serving and those who have gone before in our thoughts. They are the reason for the many freedoms we enjoy.  ‘In God We Trust.’ 

Vito strikes again…

I swear that damn dog is nuts…

Waiting to see his reaction to the baby…

Sigh…