And LiveStrong is asking you to wear Yellow on Oct 2 to support the testicular cancer survivors!
Thanks for taking the time to support a truly good cause, and if you’re a guy, go get CHECKED! 10 minutes just might save your ass… AND your life!!!
Last meeting is wrapped up, back at the airport, doing the bag drag…
One pic from a bit ago from the hotel room while I was picking up the bags…
Foreground is the beach at the Hilton, the little pier divides that and Ft. Derussy, which stretches to the curve in the distance. VERY few (probably the least I’ve ever seen on the beach in 30 years), and only counted 4 surfers out playing with the little break. I couldn’t help but laugh at one poor kid who was trying to learn how to boogie board, he must have done about 8-9 faceplants in the sand before he ever got one right… I’d be surprised if he has ANY skin left on his nose or forehead…
Gas was $4.64/gal for premium when I filled up today on the way to the airport, and they expect it to be over $5/gal by Christmas. Milk is about that high too, but I didn’t check those prices. And the Hawaiians are actually getting worried about what may probably will happen in Nov when the ‘super committee’ fails to come up with any agreements and the military takes BIG cuts, cause they now realize Hawaii will be on the chopping block for potentially significant cuts.
Among other things, it appears a lot of government/government related contractors are NOT signing new year long leases, instead going month to month until they see what happens…
Over at Murph’s, he’s got a couple of good posts up on this Bauer character HERE. That turd needs to just leave the USA, because he’s too stupid to live here… (Oh, wait a minute, he’s from Berkley; never mind).
Waiting on the first meeting this morning, I was talking to one of the folks I’ve known for years, and he is training for the Triathlon (he’s been a marathoner for years); we were talking about running and maintaining heart rate, and one of the other guys (occasional runner), said “Tim” has a BP of Dead over Zombie… cracked me up… Tim was a bit incensed, and said well it’s REALLY 80 over 60, and pulse is 40 on a bad day…
And then there was the ‘trial balloon’ by NC Gov Perdue about suspending the 2012 elections to give the Congress time to work…
You can go HERE and see if you think she was joking. I don’t…
Okkaaayyyy… One more bag drag, off to the airplane, catch y’all later…
Fast forward to the LAX Red Carpet, all the TVs but two with ESPN on were on CNN. I asked why Fox News wasn’t being shown, and I was told “It’s not allowed in here”…
Interesting… But then it IS LA, nuff said…
And what is it with the androgynous ‘males’ wearing the big watches, no socks and the crappy attitudes??? Is that just a Kalifornia thing or what? One of them was sitting across the aisle from me on the leg to Hawaii, and he was basically being a shit to the flight crew and the people around him.
Hawaii is down ‘significantly’ on visitors, guesstimated at 35% less folks. Very little traffic yesterday coming in from the airport, beaches are sparsely populated, and the restaurants are half empty…
I did meet a 90 year old and his wife this morning at breakfast, he’s a retired submariner, planning on spending tonight in his ‘old’ room at the Royal Hawaiian, just like he did in 1944, when it was an R&R hotel for the USN Submarine Force. He was saying he’d talked to the management and will actually get the SAME room he had back then. Pretty neat!!!
Managed to ‘sleep in’ till 0400 this morning, so I’m only half jet lagged… sigh…
Playing catch up today, potential job change in the offing, weather is lousy, and a trip tomorrow, so I don’t have much today… Go read those on the sidebar, at least THEY have some coherent thoughts…
If you haven’t already, please donate to either Prostate Cancer or Livestrong and support Ambulance Driver’s Kilted to Kick (male) Cancer drive… These are the current standings and the current participants.
Got this in email a few minutes ago, and it pretty much sums up my thoughts on the whole MSM vs. President Unicorn issue… And I don’t see it getting any better any time soon either.
Sigh…
Gotta go try to be productive, y’all have a good weekend and shoot em good if you get the chance!!!
Why is it that people driving vans absolutely REFUSE to look in their @&@*!!! mirrors BEFORE they change lanes??? Not once but twice today I got put in the median by those asshats…
Coming back, it took 1 1/2 hours to get from VA Beach to the tunnel (all of about 20 miles), and watched multiple people try to jump the line at the 564/64 split. Folks were finally getting pissed off enough to not let them in, blocking three lanes when the line cutters couldn’t force their way in. I did see a Trooper show up and start ‘directing’ people off to 564, whether they wanted to go or not! GOOD for him!!!
Four hours coming back, I’ve had it, finishing my Scotch and going to bed…
Maybe some ice cream tomorrow, in any case IT’S FRIDAY!!! 🙂
Maybe you thought they called it Astroglide because it makes you feel like a star. But no. The clear, water-based lubricant was developed by an engineer named Dan Wray while he was working on the space shuttle’s cooling systems at Edwards Air Force Base in 1977. (Oddly enough, this example isn’t mentioned in NASA’s own list of consumer products based on the agency’s tech, and Astroglide’s own website has dropped all mention of NASA recently, although it’s mentioned on tons of other sites.)
You can already download this app — it’s called Ball Invasion, and it lets you shoot at balls that are hidden in the real world, in a particularly excellent form of augmented reality. The game was developed by a Swedish startup called 13th Lab, using a NASA technology called Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) that creates a 3-D map of the local environment and calculates your position in it. The technology was originally developed to help robots navigate, but 13th Lab was able to make it work using just an iPad’s camera and other sensors. [via PopSci]
Waste treatment and recycling of water has been a major concern for NASA for decades, understandably — leading to the creation of NASA’s Vascular Aquatic Plant Research Program. NASA researcher Bill Wolverton discovered that the water hyacinth, a weed that’s super common throughout the Southern U.S., soaks up sewage, including hard-to-handle large pieces. The water hyacinth also soaks up heavy metals and other organic compounds from water. This miraculous process is due to tiny bacteria that live on the plant’s root hairs, which break down the sewage into nutrients that the plant can absorb. Now, towns throughout the South are using water hyacinth lagoons to purify their wastewater. [via HowStuffWorks]
NASA partnered with Martin Marietta Corp. to explore the potential of microalgae as a food source, as well as a source of oxygen on long space flights. During the lengthy research process, the scientists realized the microalgae had potential as a food source on Earth, thanks to one strain called Crypthecodinium cohnii, which produces docosahexaenoc acid (DHA) naturally and in high quantities. Meanwhile, a strain of fungus turned out to produce arachidonic acid, a fatty acid that’s crucial for infant health, in high quantities. The researchers spun off a new corporation to develop its nutritional potential. These “nutritional additives” now appear in 90 percent of all baby formula sold in the United States, and also are used in many products for adults. [via NASA]
A perfume company, International Flavors & Fragrances, wanted to know if roses would smell the same in low gravity, so they cultivated a miniature rose called Overnight Scentsation to grow inside a plant growth chamber called ASTROCULTURE in the midsection of the Space Shuttle Discovery. The rose grew during a 10-day flight on board the shuttle, and researchers discovered that roses do indeed smell different in low gravity — because their production of volatile oils, or essential oils, is different. Astronauts sampled the molecules of the flower during the flight, gathering four samplings of how it smelled in space, and then IFF was able to synthesize a scent based on it. The result was Zen, a perfume from Shiseido. [via NASA]
The external tanks on the Space Shuttles contain liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, and NASA developed technology to keep the liquid from sloshing around and disrupting the smooth, predictable motion of the shuttle. Similarly, the center of a golf ball contains liquid — so when Wilson Sporting Goods Co. was developing a new golf ball, they turned to an engineer who used to work on the external tank airloads and “slosh control” for the shuttles — thus resulting in a ball that offers unmatched accuracy and distance. [via NASA]
7. Life-saving grooves
This could be the most valuable of NASA’s innovations, in terms of lives saved. NASA engineers discovered that cutting thin grooves across concrete runways would reduce the risk of hydroplaning, because the grooves create channels to drain off excess water. As a result, hundreds of airports have had their runways “grooved.” And the use of grooves on highways has reduced highway traffic accidents by 85 percent. [via NASA]
Tyrell Inc. founder Robert Conrad suffered from adult acne, and was working on a method to use heat to shock and kill the acne-causing bacteria without damaging the surrounding skin. His device was too cumbersome and expensive to produce — until NASA’s Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP) hooked him up with a Boeing Company design engineer who worked at Kennedy Space Center. The result: the heating element in the device was smaller, and cost only 10 cents instead of $80 to produce, and Zeno is now a fast-growing product. [via NASA]
NASA scientist Dr. Dennis Morrison spent decades researching nano-ceramic materials — tiny particles of ceramics, 10,000 times smaller than a human hair. Among other things, he developed microcapsules full of drugs, that could be injected into cancerous tumors. But Morrison also helped develop a blend of nanoceramic and metals, that could be used in hair-care implements like hair irons — so that when the iron is heated, it releases negative ions that make the hair shinier and more manageable. He’s also researching using near-infrared light from LEDs to stimulate hair growth and speed up hair drying time. [via HowStuffWorks]
When NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak went ballistic and drove from Houston to Orlando wearing her space-age diapers, on her way to confront her rival for a fellow astronaut’s affections, the world’s attention was focused on NASA’s diaper technology like never before. But actually, the same technology used in NASA’s Maximum Absorbency Garments (MAGs) is used in regular diapers — it’s a super-absorbent polymer called sodium polyacrylate. This polymer is also used in gardening, because it can absorb water and keep it stored in the soil during a drought. [via Hampton Roads.]
- Establishing an annual enrollment fee for TRICARE For Life
- But… we were guaranteed free medical care for life as a payback for our service (and we will also be kicked to Medicare/Medicaid at 65 now)…
- Another (unspecified) retail pharmacy copay hike
- Possibly to ‘actual’ cost…
- Establishing a BRAC-style commission to recommend “modernizing” the military retirement system
I’m gonna (once again) be an oddball, since I have actually have TWO carry knives, home knife and away knife…
On the left is my ‘away’ knife, a SOG Twitch II; on the right is my ‘home’ knife, an old Benchmade 154CM. Both of them are kept sharp (see my earlier post about the thumb)… I also carry a little Victronix for the scissors, tweezers, and toothpick.
Why two knives? Simple, I’ve had that Benchmade for almost 20 years, and don’t want it to get ‘five finger discounted’ out of my luggage when I’m traveling. The SOG is a nice knife, but I’m not really attached to it…
So that’s my pocket carries…
Come on people pony up a few bucks, this IS for a great cause (us guys, we ARE kinda important to y’all, aren’t we???); the numbers aren’t good if ONE in SIX is fated to get one of these cancers…
- Weak or interrupted flow of urine.
- Frequent urination (especially at night).
- Trouble urinating.
- Pain or burning during urination.
- Blood in the urine or semen.
- A pain in the back, hips, or pelvis that just won’t go away.
- Painful ejaculation.
- Pain in the testicles.
- Lumps / masses in the testicles (with or without pain).
- Swelling in the testicles.
- Persistant lower back or stomach pain.
- Loss of sexual desire.
- Increased breast size.
See a doctor, and get your PSAT checked every year!!!
And a big tip of the kilt to the folks who were good enough to pony up goodies to support the cause!!!