Take 80+ people from a dozen different organizations, stick them halfway around the world, throw in one Typhoon, language barriers, multiple locations and still get the job done???
Hell yes 🙂
Sometimes you get lucky and everything falls into place- Old farts and young kids (mid-20’s is young to us) working together; scientists, engineers and operators (did I mention language barriers?) can co-exists…
For some of us, it was a return to a place we have been before; for others, their first time out of the US. It’s about work ethics and generations; just because it’s five o’clock doesn’t mean you knock off for the day. It’s about sea legs and lack of privacy and two to eight to a room only separated by male and female. 12 on, 12 off which really meant about 14 hours a day at work; and everything else done off shift.
It’s about ironies, one ships cook got sick and there was no replacement, so the crew took turns cooking. The US riders said to a person, it was the best food they have ever had on a Japanese RV…
It’s about the informal debriefs that never end up in the reports, but impact the way business will be done going forward. It’s about cooperation and pitching in to help even when it’s not your project…
It’s keeping way too many balls in the air simultaneously and actually making it work; even when the brass are looking over your shoulder…
As everybody disburses back to their various locations, I think everyone will hold their heads a little higher, because they know they have done a good job; been part of something a little bit special, and know they are capable of more than they thought when they arrived.
Ya done good!
This morning, when I went in to work out here, I learned that one of the folks I had trained in 1991 as a young pup in the Navy was in the hospital in Jacksonville, FL with a brain aneurysm. I had worked with him out here the last two years. He had just made E-8, had the dream set of orders he wanted in JAX, and was about a month from getting married. Things just could not have been much better.
As the word got around, we were all stunned, as Todd was the picture of health, never smoked, never drank, was a runner and in great shape.
Three hours later, we learned he had died of a heart attack while in surgery.
I just don’t have the words to express how this loss affected not only me, but the folks here… You never expect something like this, and how must his family and fiancee feel now?
Go with God shipmate… Go with God.
Since we have another $%^& typhoon screwing up our ops, and I was tired of herding cats; three of us went out to dinner last night at Sam’s Anchor Inn in Naha. In the course of dinner, I was reminded we had all been here, in this restaurant, maybe even at this table in 1975.
That was 32 years ago!!!! Damn…
After dinner, we decided to ‘tour’ our old haunts from the 70’s (e.g. we wanted more beer); so we got a cab to China Pete’s (which used to be a one story shack selling junk souvenirs and is now a four story mini-mall).
We hoofed it down to BC street and started looking for any of the dives we used to haunt. There was not a single sleazy sailor bar left!!!! There were fern bars, upscale hostess bars, and nice well lit places; so we finally stopped into the worst bar we saw. The beer was 500 yen ($5) and they even gave us a glass! That was something you NEVER got back in the day…
Sigh… Guess I’m really an old fart…
This is a tribute, I didn’t write it, but I sure as hell can identify with it…
Remembering Airdale Bars
Airdales always stuck together. They worked and played as a crew and they gravitated to places where they could be with fellow aircrewmen, in locations where people who could tolerate the obnoxious conduct, impure verbiage and rollicking nonsense that was the standard by which the aircrew were measured. Their hallmark, so to speak.
The airdale bar was unlike other naval watering holes and dens of iniquity inhabited by seagoing elements. It had to meet strict standards to be in compliance with the acceptable requirement for an airborne sailor beer-swilling dump.
Loudmouth Barmaid.
The first and foremost requirement was a crusty old gal serving suds. She had to be able to wrestle King Kong to parade rest. Be able to balance a tray with one hand, knock bluejackets out of the way with the other hand and skillfully navigate through a roomful of milling around drunks.
On slow nights, she had to be the kind of gal who would give you a back scratch with a fly swatter handle or put her foot on the table so you could admire her new ankle bracelet some AE brought her back from a Hong Kong liberty.
A good barmaid had to be able to whisper sweet nothings in your ear like, “Sailor, your thirteen button flap is twelve buttons short of a green board.” And, “Buy a pack of Clorets and chew up the whole thing before you get within heaving range of any gal you ever want to see again.” And, “Hey animals, I know we have a crowd tonight, but if any of you guys find the head facilities fully occupied and start urinating down the floor drain, you’re gonna find yourself scrubbing the deck with your white hats!”
They had to be able to admire great tattoos, look at pictures of ugly bucktooth kids and smile. Be able to help haul drunks to cabs and comfort 19 year-olds who had lost someone close to them.
They could look at your ship’s identification shoulder tab and tell you the names of the Skippers back to the time you were a Cub Scout.
If you came in after a late night maintenance problem and fell asleep with a half eaten Slim-Jim in your hand, they tucked your peacoat around you, put out the cigarette you left burning in the ashtray and replaced the warm draft you left sitting on the table with a cold one when you woke up.
Why?
Simply because they were one of the few people on the face of the earth that knew what you did, and appreciated what you were doing. And if you treated them like a decent human being and didn’t drive ’em nuts by playing songs they hated on the juke box, they would lean over the back of the booth and park their soft warm boobs on your neck when they sat two Rolling Rocks in front of you.
Imported table wipe down guy and glass washer, trash dumper, deck swabber and paper towel replacement officer.
The guy had to have baggy tweed pants and a gold tooth and a grin like a 1950 Buick. And a name like “Ramon”, Juan”, “Pedro” or “Tico”. He had to smoke unfiltered Luckies, Camels or Raleighs. He wiped the tables down with a sour washrag that smelled like a skunk diaper and said, “How are choo navee mans tonight?
He was the indispensable man. The guy with credentials that allowed him to borrow Slim-Jims, Beer Nuts and pickled hard boiled eggs from other beer joints when they ran out where he worked.
The establishment itself.
The place had to have walls covered with ships and squadron plaques. Many of the ships and the airplanes shown in the accompanying photographs had made the trip up the river to the scrap yard or to the Davis-Monthan bone yard ten years before you enlisted.
The walls were adorned with enlarged airwing patches and the dates of previous deployments A dozen or more old, yellowed photographs of fellows named “Buster”, “Chicago”, “P-Boat Barney”, “Flaming Hooker Harry”, “Malone”, “Honshu Harry”, Jackson, and Capt. Slade Cutter decorated any unused space. It had to have the obligatory Michelob, Pabst Blue Ribbon and “Beer Nuts sold here” neon signs.
An eight-ball mystery beer tap handle and signs reading: “Your mother does not work here so clean away your dam trash.” “Hands off the barmaid.” “Don’t throw butts in urinal.” “Barmaid’s word final in settling bets.” “Take your fights out in the alley.” “Owner reserves the right to waltz your worthless ass out to the sidewalk.” “Shipmates are responsible for riding herd on their squadron drunks.”
Typical signage found in classy establishments catering to sophisticated clientele. You had to have a juke box built along the lines of a Sherman tank loaded with Hank Williams, Mother Maybelle Carter, Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash and twenty other crooning goobers nobody ever heard of. The damn thing has to have “La Bamba”, Herb Alpert’s “Lonely Bull” and Johnny Cash’s “Don’t take your guns to town” in memory of Alameda’s barmaid goddess, Thelma.
If Thelma is within a twelve-mile radius of where any of those three recordings can be found on a juke box, it is wise to have a stack of life insurance applications within reach of the coin slot.
The furniture in a real good airdale bar had to be made from coal mine shoring lumber and was not fully acceptable until it had 600 cigarette burns and your carrier’s ship numbers carved into it. The bar had to have a brass foot rail and at least six Slim-Jim containers, an oversized glass cookie jar full of Beer-Nuts, a jar of pickled hard boiled eggs that could produce rectal gas emissions that could shut down a sorority party, and big glass containers full of something called pickled pigs feet and Polish sausage.
Only drunk Chiefs and starving Ethiopians ate pickled pigs feet and unless the last three feet of your colon had been manufactured by Midas, you didn’t want to get any where near the Polish napalm dogs.
No aircrew bar was complete without a couple of hundred faded airplane pictures and a “Shut the hell up!” sign taped on the mirror behind the bar along with several rather tasteless nekkit lady pictures.
The pool table felt had to have at least three strategic rips as a result of drunken competitors and balls that looked as if a gorilla baby had teethed on the sonuvabitches.
Aircrew bars were home, but they were also establishments where 19 year-old kids received an education available nowhere else on earth. You learned how to “tell” and “listen” to sea stories.
You learned about sex at $25.00 or 20 pesos a lesson from professional ladies who taught you things your high school biology teacher didn’t know were anatomically possible. You learned how to make a two cushion shot and how to toss down a beer and shot known as a “depth charge.”
We were young, a helluva long way from home. We were pulling down slave wages for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a-week availability and loving the life we lived. We didn’t know it at the time, but our association with the men we served with forged us into the men we became.
And a lot of that association took place in Naval Aviation oriented bars where we shared the stories accumulated in our, up to then, short lives. We learned about women and that life could be tough on a gal.
While many of our classmates were attending college, we were getting an education slicing through the green rolling seas in WestPac, experiencing the orgasmic rush of a night cat shot, the heart pounding drama of the return to the ship with the gut wrenching arrestment to a pitching deck.
The hours of tedium, boring holes in the sky late at night, experiencing the periodic discomfort of turbulence, marveling at the creation of St. Elmo’s Fire, and sometimes having our reverie interrupted with stark terror.
But when we came ashore on liberty, we would rub shoulders with some of the finest men we would ever know, in bars our mothers would never have approved of. Saloons that live in our memories forever.
Oh by the way… Windproof umbrellas AREN’T in 30 plus knot winds…
Murphy’s post about flying in Helos reminded me of a couple of instances from my formative years in the navy.
First a basic indoctrination on helicopters… The whole thing is held together with what is called the Jesus Nut- This one nut holds the rotor system on the helo, you lose it, all you have time to say is, “Oh Jesus”. Second, helos are a collection of spare parts flying in loose formation. Third, helos don’t fly- The earth just rejects them…
Years ago, I was a crewman on the Navy HH-34 at NAS Glynco, GA (no that is NOT me in the picture, I’m MUCH better looking); we routinely flew practice SARs off the coast year round. This particular instance, we had a newby co-pilot who was in training and was a ‘little’ rough on the controls…
Well, the HH-34 had a Wright 1820 radial engine, which generated a considerable amount of “P” factor torque if one yanks on the collective. We had been out on a cold January day and practicing 10/10 hovers (10 feet at 10 Kts), after the HAC had enough of the newby’s yanking and jerking and we were about to throw up in the back, we headed back to Glynco.
After landing, we tried to open the door you see in the picture… Nope, ain’t coming open… We figured the newby’s yanking had torque the airframe and locked the door in the closed position, so…
The HAC picks the helo back up about 4 feet and drops it on the deck, still no joy… try it again, and a third and a fourth time, about this time, the tower comes over the radio, “Ah, SAR One, you got a problem there?” The HAC answers, “SAR One’s got a stuck door, I’m just trying to get it open.” The tower came back with something like, “Ah, SAR One, we can get you a can opener…”
Needless to say, the language got a little foul in the helo at that point… We ground taxied back, door still closed. When we got to our parking spot, we had to unass via the pilot’s escape hatch (the big open window in the upper right).
I got told to get the door open, so being the good Metalsmith that I was, I went to the shop and got a three pound sledgehammer and proceeded to beat the door open… From then on, when the newby was flying, we flew with the door open unless it was absolutely freezing in the back, AND carried a three pound sledge as a necessary part.
The second instance was in Hawaii about three years later. For some reason, we had an exchange with the Army helo pilots up at Fort Shafter. I went up and flew with one of the Cobra pilots who was as they say… Nucking Futs… we were the OPFOR for a helo insertion of the 25th, so this guy decides to “hide” just over a ridge line at the range on Fort Shafter…
Now this guy is just back from a third tour in Nam, so he knows the helo pretty well, so he decided to hide a little better and settles the helo into the TREES!!!! Crap is flying everywhere, you can feel and hear the blade thumps as they hit tree limbs and leaves as he carves a hole for us.
Now I’m in the gunner’s seat (forward seat), trying to get enough saliva to say something, anything… Like let me the %^&* outta here, when the pilots sighs and says, “That’ll do it. You doing okay up there?” I gibbered something, which he took as an okay…
The landing force comes in, and they go OVER us, he yanks the Cobra up out of the hole, dumps the nose and powers up about 50 feet behind the last helo in the formation, and transmits, “Guns, guns, guns.” We then do a swoop to about 1000 feet, roll 90 degrees onto the side and fall back down on top of the other two helos, with him again yelling, “guns, guns, guns” into the radio.
After that, he pulls off and we fly back to the field and land… I’m still trying to get my ass to let go of the seat, my legs are shaking like I’ve been on a weeklong drunk, and this SOB smiles and asks if I enjoyed the flight!!!!
Once I got over the terror, it wasn’t too bad…
Three weeks later, I get payback. Said Captain shows up to fly with us on an ASWEX off Barbers Point. Now you have to understand the P-3 is a rough riding sumbitch in SMOOTH air, and gets progressively worse from there…
I was playing instructor that day for a couple of new crew operators, so I was floating between stations in the tube, with the Captain observing how we tracked subs. We descended to do some MAD trapping (yank and bank at 200 feet), and I take the Captain up to the cockpit and park him on the Radar cabinet behind the pilot to watch how we do it.
I go back to my job, and about 10 minutes later, here comes the Captain, and interesting shade of white and green, he goes back to the galley and sits down and straps in…
A few minutes later, as we climb out, I walk up to the flight station to see what is going on…
Both pilots and the flight engineer are still chuckling, it appears the Captain never realized we were at 200 feet, with both outboard engines in the bag…
The 3P (junior pilot) was flying and not using altitude hold, so we were dipping a little in the turns, and he was racking the aircraft around pretty good (50+ degree banks). Apparently the Captain asked what the wing span was, did the math for wing clearance and decided he was probably going to die before the flight was over… Plus the cockpit was hot, and the FE had a little problem with flatulence…
When we landed at Barbers, the Captain told me we were all %^&* crazy, unsafe in the air, and he was NEVER coming back and was going to make sure none of the other helo pilots would fly with us as he stalked off the aircraft…
I ‘LOVE’ payback…
In 22 years of Naval Aviation, this was one of my most memorable flights.
Normally these stories start off- It was a dark and stormy night… This one doesn’t… It was the typical Bermuda day. Nice onshore breeze, sunshine and a few clouds over the base. Off to the North was a hurricane running out to sea from the States.
Preflight and briefings were normal, no real ops expected since there were no “players” in the box. The crew secured around 1030 for a boring 24 hour ready one. A couple of us went to the club to get an early lunch, and the Ordy went to the Commissary to restock the chow box, since we were scheduled for a CTF/checkride coming off the alert.
About 1300 that all changed as beepers started going off- We jumped in the van and hauled to the ASW Operations Center, with three of us bailing out, while the rest of the crew continued to the aircraft. As we walked in the door, the watch officer came out of Ops and told us we had a SAR and he had notified maintenance to load the SAR kit (two rafts and an equipment package tied together). We walked back into Ops to hear one of our pilot training flights coming over the radio saying they had an EPIRB pointing North but they couldn’t get to it as the weather was too bad and they had no radar operator onboard.
We grabbed the comm gear, briefing package and a couple of charts, and caught a ride to the hangar; after getting our flight gear out of the hangar, we threw it on and walked out to the aircraft. The fuel truck was just being unhooked as flight engineer and second mech finished pulling the plugs and covers off the engines and pitot static system.
We climbed aboard, checked the SAR kit, loaded the comm gear and got a quick systems check- All stations were up, so we briefed, started engines, and taxied out. I was talking to the pilot trainer asking for their location and found they were only 10 miles North of the field. We lifted off around 1350, and immediately got into light chop.
We turned Northwest circling as we climbed to try to get a rough triangulation with the other aircraft, but both bearings were roughly North, so we turned and put the needle on the nose. Radar immediately called major cells and feeder bands directly ahead of us, and no real holes, so we decided to stay low and try to minimize the penetration.
About 5 minutes later we took multiple lightning strikes on the nose (bout half blinded the pilots and FE’s, a real Oh SHIT! moment in the airplane), and knocked out all the radios, radar, inertial systems and the computer. Oh yeah, we also were immediately in moderate turbulence, heavy rain and almost constant lightning…
We managed to get a couple of radios back on line, but the inertials were down for the count, too rough to even attempt an alignment, and we were bouncing too badly to have the in-flight tech attempt to bring the computer back on line. The forward radar wouldn’t cycle, but the aft came back up.
I reported back to the ASWOC that we had taken a lightning strike and were evaluating our status, only to be told by the ASWOC we were it, the ready two had gone down with a fuel leak and they were recalling the pilot trainer as the ready two…
We held a crew meeting on ICS, and figured what the hell; we were still flying, had comms and we could DR nav, so we would continue.
Called the ASWOC back, they told us the Coasties had launched out of Elizabeth City, but were 1-2 hours out. I passed we would press and continue the mission… What the hell, we’d been flying P-3’s into hurricanes for years, so the odds were a dissipating hurricane couldn’t hurt us much more that we already were, and we were a lot better off than whomever was under the EPIRB. We continued North after getting a TACAN fix off Bermuda and backing it up with the aft radar. Turbulence was continuing to be moderate to severe so we continued to try different altitudes and a few orbits to use the aft radar to pick holes (there weren’t any, just more feeder bands).
Finally about 90 miles out of Bermuda, we got reversal on the needle, indicating we had passed the EPIRB. Radar had nothing, so we did a mark from 10000 feet and went to call home- No joy… Oh great! Now what is going on, just static, meanwhile we are descending in an orbit to try to see what was on the water. Finally, we got comms with Jacksonville on HF, ironically perfectly clear. They were not aware of what we were doing, so it took a few minutes to get that worked out. At this point, we were descending through 1000 feet, with zilch visibility, moderate turbulence, but abating.
Passing 400 feet we break out of the clouds and the flight station eases the descent planning to level at 300 feet, the IFT calls that he thought he saw something red at 8 o’clock and there were BIG effing waves down there… It was so rough we decided not to have anyone up, and we would not drop the SAR kit unless there were people in the water, as I was afraid we would drop both the SAR kit and a crewman if we weren’t careful, since the procedure included opening the main cabin door and two people working at the door with only Gunner’s belts to keep them in the aircraft.
Flight cranked the aircraft around and stabilized at 200 feet, everybody manned the windows and we spotted a square red raft about a half mile off the port wing. We guesstimated the mark, spit a buoy and came back around one more time. The second pass, a hand came out of the raft and gave us a three count and a thumbs up. Meanwhile, I’m talking with Bermuda via Jax on a phone relay (imagine saying Over after every sentence), trying to coordinate a possible rescue. They wanted the exact range to Bermuda, so we climbed back to 10000 feet and got a fix of about 90 miles out at 010 True. The radar operator located a small contact about 10 miles away, and we descended again to locate the contact and see if the ship could come rescue the people in the raft…
We broke out at 200 feet and found a US Navy Research Ship, maintaining headway only. They told us they were taking 40 foot waves, had 60 knots of wind, gusting to 80 knots and could not attempt a rescue and they were almost in extremis themselves. We climbed back into the cloud deck and headed back to our buoy, hoping the raft would still be fairly close to it. As we were bouncing along, I continued to talk to Bermuda and the flight station came on ICS and said they had the Coast Guard C-130 inbound. I told flight to coordinate with them and get them into the area.
Bermuda came up with an option of launching the rescue helo, but it was limited to 100 nm range and would need steers to get to the raft. We went back down and relocated the raft, and determined it was drifting away from the buoy pretty quickly. We went down the drift line and placed another buoy and a smoke, coordinated air to air with the Coasties, and got them down to 300 feet and in trail with us staying at 200 feet.
Once they had the scene, we turned back toward Bermuda and told them to launch the helo, and we would meet them VFR just before the first feeder band. About 20 minutes later, we popped out of the feeder bands at 2000 feet to see the UH-1 (Huey) heading toward us and low. Flight indicated they had comms and had told the helo to stay 200 and below. We descended to 300 and slowed to 180 knots; started S-turning to allow the helo to follow us back out. We were getting bounced around pretty good, in and out of rain bands and talking to both the helo and Coastie C-130. The Coasties were telling us the raft was continuing to drift, they estimated it was 015 at 95nm, I told them 30 minutes for us to get back on scene with the helo in tow.
The helo aircraft commander (HAC) was telling us they were getting beaten up pretty good, and again stated 100nm max limit to attempt the rescue. As we passed 95nm, the HAC called again and asked how far. Flight said 7 miles to the C-130 which was orbiting the raft. The HAC came back with a standby…
Meanwhile, I’m still talking to Bermuda, giving them updates and trying to get a plot to figure out where we actually are. The HAC comes on and says he has the C-130 in sight, and estimates we are at 103nm from Bermuda; he thinks he has three to four minutes to attempt a rescue. We immediately climb to 10000 feet and get a fix, and in fact we are 104nm from Bermuda. The HAC comes on again and says he has the raft in sight one person in the water, he will low hover and only deploy the horse collar, no basket.
We start another descent, as the HAC calls one in the helo, collar out again another person in the water; I report to Bermuda via Jax as we continue to descend. The HAC reports second person in the helo, third and last person in the water and he wants a steer as this will be a drag recovery.
Flight clears the Coast Guard C-130 to the East and asked them to check on the research ship before they went home; we continue to descend, and I report three saved to Bermuda, and that both the we and helo are enroute. Now we just have to find the helo again…
We descend to 300 feet and pop out about two miles behind the helo. As we pass overhead, we tell them 85nm 187 to Bermuda. The HAC comes back thinking he will have enough gas, but it’s going to be close… We S-turn in front of the helo until he tells us they have Bermuda in the TACAN and he’s running on fumes. We climb and give the helo the priority for landing.
We land about 15 minutes later, as we taxi in, the HAC calls to tell us he flamed out one engine while he was air taxiing back to his hangar. As we pull into the parking spot, the linesman is directing us and shaking his head simultaneously…
We throw the ladder down and walk off the aircraft at 1800, it was a LONG four hours…
Remember the lightning strike? Well, as it turns out there were multiple strikes on the nose radome, at least three holes, the strikes burned the arrestor material off the radome, softened it , and collapsed the radome over the antenna, locking it in position, that explained why the forward radar wouldn’t work. We were also missing the tail cone from the MAD system in the tail section. The lightning strikes burned the bolts off and blew the foot long tail cone off somewhere over the Atlantic. To add insult to injury, all of the static wicks on the aircraft were burned off, and the lightning arrestor in the cabin was melted.
The rest of the story- The next morning we received a call from Base Ops, they wanted the crew at Ops to meet the folks we had assisted in saving. We loaded up and went over and met both the rescuees and the helo crew. The HAC told me they had just installed a new collapsible fuel bladder in the Huey, otherwise they would never have been able to make the rescue and when he landed he was showing less than 300lbs of fuel remaining!
To this day I remember the comment from one of the rescuees, he said, “I knew when I saw the P-3 we were saved.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him how close they came to NOT being saved… It turned out the three guys were ferrying a 65 foot Nautor Swan sailboat from Gibraltar to Annapolis and got caught by a rogue wave. The wave knocked the mast over, causing severe leaks and the sinking. All three were ex-Royal Navy, and one was an ex-rescue swimmer; that is what allowed them to be saved in three minutes!
They had all been through training and knew all the procedures! The helo pilot was later awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for the rescue. For us, it was just another ready one, albeit with a twist…
Ironically, in the 22 years I flew and participated in SARs, this was the ONLY time I ever met the folks we rescued after the rescue.
Well, ya gotta give em a A for effort, but execution leaves a bit to be desired…
On a positive point, looks like no serious injuries were incurred in the performance of these stunts.
On a different note- If you fly commercially today, DO NOT bet that your flight will actually get out on time and arrive on time if you have a tight connection… grumble…
My cohort is going to miss connections tonight to Australia, leaving me to do all the %^&* work, because he took the late flight (which is now delayed 1 1/2 hours out of BWI), so he will be landing about the time we are taking off from LAX.
Guess I need to get a bigger stick to use on some of these folks… sigh…
Her gun is definitely bigger than mine…
This is the face of the new Soldier, Sailor, Airman (in this case), and Marine; who is having to clean up our messes… Damn Gephart and Kennedy and that ilk for not allowing us to finish this in 1991 when we had the chance…
And now, the same situation is coming to bear, democraps want to end the war, so they are cutting funding. Aren’t the 3k combat deaths enough???? Oh yeah, none of THEIR children are there… It’s just OPK (Other People’s Kids), so they don’t care… And they have a convenient scapegoat, “Well, it’s the military’s fault because they didn’t conduct the war right.”
The MSM is flaunting Bush’s low approval rating of 29%, but aren’t saying shit about the Congresscritters whopping 11% approval rating- Gee, I wonder why… Aw well, enough bitching and whining…
Here’s some “humor”-
You Might be Working for a Defense Contractor if:
1. You write your personal letters in Powerpoint format.
2. You use bullet format to make your grocery list.
3. You sat at the same desk for 10 years and worked for 5 different companies (true story for a friend of mine).
4. Your company welcome sign is attached with velcro strips. Saw that when NG took over TRW Government Systems…
5. You are on a first name basis at your local unemployment office.
6. Your updated resume is on the thumb drive around your neck. Yep…
7. “Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten” really applies. Yep…
8. Your company name on your badge is applied with scotch tape.
9. You have no concept of time or date but to check you look at your timecard.
10. The sun is something you read about.
11. You have to call home to check the weather because you can’t find a window. And your computer system is locked down from the Internet…
12. When the main topic of conversation is where the next job is or who is being laid off.
13. Rumors, Rumors, Rumors.
14. All your friends who went to business school have their own window office and secretary, and still make twice as much as you do.
15. If you say “If I tell you, I’d have to kill you” when asked about what you do at work. And you mean it…
16. When you get excited about a 3% raise.
17. You can neither “confirm nor deny” what you are working on. Still, again…
18. You refer to your marriage as a “teaming” arrangement. I should be so lucky…
19. You learn about your layoff on WABC radio.
20. The travel agency sends you a get well card the week you don’t travel. Yep…
21. You have more ID’s than most people have credit cards. Only four, sorry five…
22. You attend more meetings in two weeks than most people attend in
two years. 40 hour week, 22 hours of meetings…
For those who don’t know much about history…… here is a Elsie (condensed) version.
Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.
The two most important events in all of history were:
1. The invention of beer, and
2. The invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer.
These were the foundations of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
1. Liberals
2. Conservatives.
Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That’s how villages were formed.
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.
Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.
Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men.
Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.
Over the years Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.
Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish, but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note:
Most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men.
Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn’t fair to make the pitcher also bat.
Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical workers, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, soldiers, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.
Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . The liberals crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.
Here ends today’s lesson in world history……. It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above.
A Conservative will simply laugh and knowing the absolute truth of this history, he will be forward it immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to piss them off….
Of note: “Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist.”
Now that was humor… This however was not…
Democrat Billary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that a mandate requiring every American to purchase health insurance was the only way to achieve universal health care but she rejected the notion of punitive measures to force individuals into the health care system.
Billary was quoted as saying, “”At this point, we don’t have anything punitive that we have proposed,” the presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We’re providing incentives and tax credits which we think will be very attractive to the vast majority of Americans.”
Liberals produce little or nothing, but want US, you and me, to pay for our own health care (and you can bet your bippy, all the ‘disenfrancised’ too)
AT THIS POINT???? WTFO????? This is beginning to scare the hell outta me… Go read ANY of the nurse blogs I’m linked to and they all have a common thread, the freeloaders are taking over the ER’s and everywhere else, demanding their free drugs and basically holding the ER’s hostage. Read below for even MORE chills…
She said she could envision a day when “you have to show proof to your employer that you’re insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination,” but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.
ARGGHHHH!!!! Somebody please…please tell me this is all a bad dream and I’m gonna wake up soon… whimper…
Go check out Larry Correia’s new Blog…
Larry is well known over at THR and for his company Fuzzy Bunny Guns. This should be an interesting blog if you’re into shooting, B movies and/or Monster movies…
Welcome Larry!
Yawn… It’s 0230, I’m wide awake and bored to tears…
Finished the last of the book I was reading on the airplane, so here I sit, staring at a blank computer screen. This is not good…
Sigh…
Went out on the deck, and promptly came right back in- Shorts and 50 degrees do not mix! I did note how quiet and peaceful it was, not a dog barking anywhere, no lights on in the neighborhood, and a light breeze just rippling the leaves. In a word, peaceful!
Looked up actuarial tables, according to them, my life expectancy is ~80 years… Hmmm… means I’m 2/3 of the way there…
What have I done? Well, grew up, went in the Navy at 19, one failed marriage, retired at 41, got a real job, still working… Two daughters, they turned out pretty good in spite of me…
A few positives over the years, saved a few lives, been a pretty good listener, tried to live a good life, obeyed ‘most’ of the rules…
Still trying in my small way to make a difference, I ‘think’ the systems we are developing and testing are important to keeping the Sailors and Marines alive. I guess this offsets not having a life due to the constant travel and weird work hours, at least I hope so…
A few good friends scattered around the world, quite a few acquaintances also scattered far and wide; I think I have a pretty good professional reputation, other than a total lack of tact… what the hell, can’t win em all…
Called a buddy just now- he was still up, when he answered he said, “Figured it was you.” We talked for about 20 minutes just catching up. Nice to know I’m that predictable???
Lots of memories of different places and people, some good, some bad; I’ve known failure and success, believe me success is MUCH better!
Well, coffee is done, so I’m off to get a cup and try to go back to sleep, perchance to dream…Ha!