Cat herding…

Posted on by November 15, 2014

This is turning into one of those weeks…

Why oh why did I EVER let them talk me into management???

Sigh…

No, I can’t fix something halfway around the world. No I’m not going to make any phone calls to ‘rattle some cages’.  No I’m not going to use a silver bullet to fix this…

HELL NO, I’m not getting on an airplane to go fix it…

I didn’t mis-manage the planning. I kept people advised of the situation as it developed. I’m not in a position to waste MY time to fix somebody else’s screw up. YOU have people supposedly ‘qualified’ to unscrew the problems you’ve caused. My suggestion is that you get them off their asses. Not my monkey, not my circus…

Weeks like this really make me wish I was still just an operator. Get up, go fly, go have a beer.  Lather, rinse, repeat as required…

Yes, as a matter of fact I AM a tad grumpy…

No, as a matter of fact, I’m not impressed by your PHD and two years of experience… And yes, I do know the history of the program you are talking about.  I was IN that program for x years…

The ONLY bright spot so far this week is burying that turkey under emails that showed he was on the email string from the first email…

If he keeps digging, he should hit China in about two weeks.

Grumble… Wonder if I can get out of my lease early.  Might just move the ‘retirement’ up…

Now where in the hell are my BP meds…

Go Vote!!!

Posted on by November 2, 2014

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting. – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Tomorrow is the one day you need to be out and about, if you didn’t do early/absentee voting.  Please take the time to go cast your vote. It’s IMPORTANT.

IMHO, America is at a fork in the road.  The left fork is to descend deeper into the morass of government and regulation we have seen in the last six years, cutting our military and raising the entitlement mentality to a ‘goal’ for people to attain OR the right fork is to go back to our Constitution, realistic funding for the military, curbing entitlements to those that do nothing to even attempt to find work, and getting a healthcare plan that is actually affordable by the public.

To the Veterans-

One million military retirees in Florida alone could mean an overwhelming victory in that state if they all show up at the polls. It might not keep another hundred or more US troops from dying, but a turn out to vote by the military against this heartbreaking lack of leadership both by the administration and congress can make a powerful statement that hastens a change.

Veterans, please forward to your lists.  Get out there and make you vote count!  I don’t care WHO you vote for, but dammit… GO VOTE TOMORROW.  It’s important, and our votes may be able to get this country back on track!!!

I voted

I voted, did you or will you tomorrow???

A few…

Posted on by November 15, 2014

Of my favorite things…

Colts… Hey they don’t run fast, and I can catch ’em, unlike the sweet young things I see around work.  Besides, most of the ones around work look younger than my daughters!!! Sigh…

Joe

And they grew… (the #$^#*&) picture flipped, I was NOT standing in front of muzzles… sigh

Colts 2Left to right-  Colt Woodsman, Python, Python, Officer’s Target Match, Trooper, Trooper Mk III, Pre-Woodsman.  Contributors were myself, Keads, Pedi, Thot.

And they all shot pretty dang good! 🙂

Hopefully a few folks got some other pictures of all the ‘goodies’ folks brought out! We had everything from a muzzle loader (thanks Nancy) to a Barrett M-82 , to a Pig… And just about everything in between! Carbines and Garands, ARs a bunch, an Uzi and a RONI too!!!

It’s amazing what 30 folks can bring to the table so to speak!  And  we had a bowling pin shoot too!!!

And Jay and I snuck over to the 400 yard range and banged some steel…  Jay went four for four with a nice little Savage he’s got!

Thanks to Murph for organizing this (again)! You’d think he would have learned…

And after the bill was paid we STILL raised $$ for charity!

And the weather even held off (the rain at least).  It was a bit chilly, but we dealt with that (coffee!!! Thanks Nancy).

And two really lousy pictures of the dinner afterward, at least I got ‘most’ of the folks in the picture!

WWII Poster…

Posted on by October 25, 2014

I’m kinda jumping out of my sequence here, but I wanted to post this one this week…

WWII flag poster

Courtesy of Northwestern Univ HERE.

This one was done by the Office of War Information, but I think it’s applicable for this week…

It is time to go vote, and I ask each and everyone to go VOTE!  Our country needs us to stand up now, more than ever to change our direction back in a positive direction.

I’m not going to ask you to vote a specific way, all I’m asking is you research the candidates and vote based on actual platforms not sound bites and ads…

VOTE!!!  PLEASE!!!

Blogshoot!!!

Posted on by October 31, 2014

Gone shooting

Murph is hosting his annual blogshoot! 🙂

Go read the folks on the sidebar, I’ll be back later…

Something to brighten your Friday morning…

Posted on by October 29, 2014

KLM does it right…

MUCH better than dealing with the grumpy lost articles and baggage dragons… sigh…

h/t JP

TBT…

Posted on by October 29, 2014

Yeesh…

I know I’m old, but dammit… Airplanes I flew on are now in museums…

The old favorite, the T-39 Saberliner…  I was a crewman on these in the early 70s at NAS GLYNCO, GA and then as a plankowner in VT-86.

This one is a T-39D, modified in 1977 by McDonald Douglas with an F-18 nose and a complete APG-65 radar system so that engineering tests could be run.

Also note the ‘old’ TPS logo… T39 2

Just as a comparison, here’s a big CT-39 at VT-86 in Pensacola.  Note the actual nose shape (and more windows/longer fuselage)…

T-39 4

And I did get a half hour ride in the back of one of these…  One of them broke and came into Glynco.  I got to ride in the back (see the little bitty window behind the pilot).  It’s an RA-5C Vigilante also known as the Viggie!

A5 1That has to be one of the scariest rides I ever took!!!  You can’t see s**t from back there!!!

And the pilot was doing checklists and not telling me what was going on!  Talk about being kept in the dark… sigh…

(No it wasn’t THAT RA-5C)… They were reconfigured to RVAH after the ‘little’ problem of bombs trailing the acft after they tried to drop them from the internal bombay…

This is the ‘bomb bay’ door… And yes, it IS between the engine exhaust!

A5 3

The whole door would ‘eject’ and the bomb was supposed to exit along with the extra fuel tanks…

Another ‘strange’ thing with the A-5 was that it didn’t have ailerons, rudders or elevators… It used spoilers on the wings to turn, and the ENTIRE vertical and horizontal tail structures moved… Truly weird to watch one land and see the whole ass end wiggling…

And the fuel dump was also between the engines… Talk about fire for effect!!! Full AB and dumping fuel made for one hell of a fiery tail!  And they did it LONG before the F-111s started doing it… 😛

A5 4

Stories have it that a Viggie driver did a dump and burn over an AGI back in the day because he kept causing the carrier problems during recoveries off Vietnam… And that it occurred shortly after THIS incident took place…

Posted in TBT

Blogshoot!!!

Posted on by October 29, 2014

Murph is hosting his annual blogshoot again this year, Saturday 1 Nov in lovely (and apparently going to be cold) West by God Virginia…

Link is HERE.

Looking forward to seeing the usual suspects out there, and looking forward to raising money for charity again!

See y’all there!!!