Tyranny of Distance…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

There are a lot of news reports about the hijacking that took place off Somalia the other day. This was the first time in years they took an American crewed ship, and the crew has managed to get the ship back (Good on them!!!).


One of the questions being raised is why it took so long… First, the total area they are trying to patrol is over 1,000,000 square miles (roughly an area 5 times the size of the USA!), with a Combined Task Force (CTF) total of less than 10 ships, not all of which are US Navy… Since we don’t have enough aircraft to fly the patrols anymore, the ships have to rely on notification from higher for directions/locations to go to. Even if they go balls to the wall, they are pretty much limited to 20+ kts transit speed, so it takes them roughly 20 hours to go 350 miles (which is about where the closest unit was).

I’m not going to go into detail, but numerous things are in the works at “many” levels… Just an FYI, years ago we did a study of how many assets would really be required to cover the OPAREA. It was in excess of 50 ships and 30 aircraft- Figure the odds…

On a brighter note, I’m heading back tomorrow! Five days, 30 hours of meetings, after meeting meetings, pre-meeting meetings, and I’m about meetinged out… We did get a good dinner at the Club last night (I have a requirement of one good meal a trip).

The down side, well I finally slept in till 0500 this morning, so I’m almost acclimatized… dammit…

And one to leave you with… This is a pic taken from the bridge of an oil tanker crossing the Pacific. Now this tanker is almost 1000 feet long, and normally has about 30 feet of freeboard (distance from the deck to the waterline)… THIS is what happens when you get caught in the fringes of a typhoon… Oh yeah, you are looking at the bow, that’s the forward mast (yellow and black) sticking up in the distance.
You can go HERE and read about Halsey’s Typhoon in 1944, which did more damage to the Navy in WWII than any SINGLE Battle!!! Even today, that typhoon is part of routine briefs to Navy CO’s and ship’s crews.

Y’all have a good weekend!

On the road again…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Well, back on the road yet again…

At the airport 2 hours before takeoff (international)- Check…
14 hour flight- Check…
1 hour wait for the bus- Check…
2 1/2 hour bus ride- Check…
Room in the BOQ– Ah… er… Sorry, no rooms…
2 hour frantic scramble for a room- Check…
1/2 hour train ride back the way I came- Check…
$180 for a room at a Sheraton– Check…
And a whole three hours of sleep- Check… dammit…

Anyhoo, since I back in Japan (again) and this time I have a camera, a quick little video of the Cherry Blossoms. They are in FULL bloom, and are EVERYWHERE!!!


Also, you may wonder why I included this picture of a street! Simple… These folks actually WORK!

At 0800 when I came on base, they were starting tearing up the street, at 1200 they had the trenching complete and new pipes going in the ground.
At 1600 they were paving the street!!! They did two blocks in 8 hours and had everything tidied up by 1700!

We need to get THAT work ethic in some of our DOT folks… Like that would ever happen… sigh…

In other news, I was watching CNNj this morning and it was interesting that apparently some of the banks are now trying to give the TARP money back to the government, but the Lightbringer i NOT LETTING THEM RETURN IT!!! WTFO???

The banks are willing to pay our money back so they retain control of their banks and they can’t!

Sounds like the administration is going to try to get control of the banking industry like they have of the auto industry! If this is true, just stick a fork in us, cause we’re done…

Off to sleep (I hope)…

What’s Happening…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Well, lemme see… The Lightbringer has fired the CEO of GM, thrown Chrysler under the Italian bus; if I were Fiat, I’d stall, let Chrysler go bankrupt and THEN buy for pennies on the dollar, void ALL union contracts and start over…

Got slapped down by the G20, made a speech directly to the German people (howinhell did he get away with that?) Is flying around with an entourage of about 500 people and apparently 12 teleprompters…

They have rammed through the largest tax increases in history on tobacco ($6.61 a carton on cigarettes, and $23/lb on roll your own tobacco)…


Had ANOTHER income tax “issue”. Jeez do ANY Democrats actually pay ALL their income taxes??? Sebelius… Who is a fruit cake anyway and now SHE is in charge of Health Care? O.M.G!


Sadly there was a shooting today in NY State apparently 12 dead plus the shooter, but I guess everyone has seen coverage… Thoughts and Prayers go out to the families of those who were killed.


Frank James has details up HERE on his Corn, Beans and Brass blog about the truth on the Mexican guns! Frank pretty much calls it as he sees it anyway, and does a MUCH better job than I… Go Read!!! JR over at A Keyboard and a .45 has a post up too. Also, HERE is a link to Fox News with video…

Oh yeah, if you REALLY want to get your blood pressure up, go HERE and take the carbon calculator survey… I got a 23.5, of course I live on the road, and drive a V-8, so I’m on their S**T list anyway…

As far as I can tell, if you own a car and like to heat your house in the winter, you’re going to be in the “much higher than average” category. One of my friends on the Left slide…er side sent it to me, and she’s horrified at how high she scored and she says she’s going to make some changes.

What’s bad is, I know a bunch of idjits like my friend will go out and buy Priuses and mercury-infused light bulbs to get their scores down, but what this really says to me is that unless I retire and move into a nice, unheated yurt (somewhere in the Southwest, so I don’t use carbon in my commute), there’s nothing I can do to earn forgiveness from the lefties. So I might as well climb keep getting on those 777s for a few more trips to earn my paltry salary…

Oh yeah, for my shooting friends, Natchez Shooters Supply has .223 for 12.99 a box…

Y’all have a good weekend!

Random Road stuff, part 3224…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

This is a special video… If you don’t feel good after seeing this one, there is something wrong!!!

And a little food pr0n for BBQ season… 🙂

We are about to enter the summer and BBQ season. Therefore it is important to refresh your memory on the etiquette of this sublime outdoor cooking activity, as it’s the only type of cooking a ‘real’ man will do, probably because there is an element of danger involved.

When a man volunteers to do the BBQ the following chain of events are put into motion:

Routine…

(1) The woman buys the food.
(2) The woman makes the salad, prepares the vegetables, and makes dessert.

(3) The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the man who is lounging beside the grill – beer in hand.

Here comes the important part:

(4) THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.

More routine….
(5) The woman goes inside to organize the plates and cutlery.

(6) The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is burning. He thanks her and asks if she will bring another beer while he deals with the situation.

Important again:

(7) THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN.

More routine….

(8) The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins, sauces, and brings them to the table.
(9) After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.

And most important of all:

(10) Everyone PRAISES and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts.
(11) The man asks the woman how she enjoyed ‘her night off.’ And, upon seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there’s just no pleasing some women….

Ducking and running for cover now… 🙂

On the road again…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Well, so much for my time at home… sigh…


Back on the road and I get a call half way to my destination from my bank…

Not good…

Even worse, it appears there are fraudulent charges on my credit card!!! Just @$&(* lovely…

So now my card is cancelled and I’m waiting on a replacement from the bank to be FEDEX’ed to my hotel… Hmmm, I’ve got a buck forty, guess I’m eating cheep tonight…

Folks, whether you travel a lot or not, I’d STRONGLY recommend you have your credit cards and bank cards put on fraud alert/watch! This is the second time in two years this has happened to me, once overseas and once here in the States. Is it a PITA when you want to make a large purchase? Yes… Is it worth it if your card gets frauded? Hell YES!!!

I will not be charged for any of the false charges 🙂 OBTW, all of them were under $50 dollars, two of the three were Internet charges, and one was a bar in Nevada! Kinda hard to do, since I’m on the East Coast…

A couple of pics to brighten up the day/night/whateverthehelltimeitis…

Art Deco Claymore- An up close and personal look at the damage caused by a Claymore mine! Yep, you ALWAYS want to make sure “Front Faces Enemy”. Those 100 steel balls can do a “bit” of damage!!!

If you can read this- Friend of mine had a problem with 4 wheelers cutting his fences and riding on his pasture land illegally last year… What is not shown in the photo is the steel plate target lying on the ground 🙂 It apparently works, since he hasn’t had any more problems with 4 wheelers or snowmobiles…

Now back to your regular programming… Blogging will probably be light the rest of the week…

Yep, they’re ALL nuts…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Since I was actually “home” this weekend, I took Ambulance Driver up on his invite to drive up to Baltimore and meet he and a few more folks at the EMS get together up there. Of course when I get there, I get introduced as the old fossil to another old fossil… sigh… Lou runs the EMS Museum and publishes books for EMS training and others, in addition to being one of the original medics at Baltimore Shock Trauma. We get to talking and find out we know people in common from 30 years ago! I finally got to meet Eipjunky, TOTWTYTR, and Medic 3 who were also there. Mad Dog had set up a meet at the Nest (across the street from the Conference Center) so we decamped to there and the beer and stories began…

And yes, medic humor is almost as bad as military humor, with more specifics… which I will NOT go into since my kids occasionally read this blog… Others showed up including Sam from On the Clock, and some whom I didn’t get a handle/blog/name for, but all were in the EMT/Paramedic field.

And like most blog meets, there were three, four, maybe five simultaneous conversations going on, running the gamut from lines from poems, to movies, to guns, to shooting, to getting shot, to places, to bar fights, to the proverbial runs from hell, to beer, food, and damn near everything in between! In other words a GOOD time!

Once again I am amazed at the quality of folks who are the other thin blue line that keep our asses alive and get us to the hospital in emergencies! While they may grouse, bitch and moan, and work for peanuts; they are also putting their respective asses on the line for us every day, on every call 24/7/365. For that I thank you!!!

Now some of y’alls OTHER interests… well… 🙂 Pink dresses???

They’re at it again…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Well, the Hildabeast struck again…


“Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians. So, yes, I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility.”…

…The United States needs to stop the flow of guns, body armor and night-vision goggles to the cartels, Clinton said.

“These criminals are outgunning the law enforcement officials,” she said.

“When you go into a gunfight or are trying to round up these bad guys and they have military-style equipment that is much better than yours, you start out at a disadvantage. Since we know the vast majority of that comes from our country, we are going to help stop it from getting there in the first place.” Source: CNN

Although she KNOWS this is not true, she’s putting that crap out there to support the AWB we all know the Lightbringer and Holder are going to try to push through… And OBTW, At a meeting of the Senate Homeland Security Committee yesterday, committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said he requested an additional $380 million in funds for enhanced border protection. But Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she thought that the agency’s existing funds would cover the costs of the administration’s increased presence in the border region. “These actions so far are designed to be budget-neutral,” she said. “What I have done is identify other activities that are less urgent … to be able to move these resources where I think they are needed most.”

Another little digression, we were talking at lunch yesterday about where the country is heading, and an interesting point was brought up- Argentina!

Think about it- The Perons were are similar to the Obamas- Political messiahs, revolutionaries for “change”, and they are the leaders of the pack that are plundering this country to pay back their supporters (unions), giving their supporters more and more power (can we say card check?) and penalizing their opponents. In the mean time, Eva (Michelle) was/is the darling of the media, while being vindictive, secretive and hiding her true feelings. Meanwhile, they spent Argentina into the poor house, which the STILL have not really recovered from.


Just remember, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it”

High Jumper…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

This is from GW in 2003, it shows the inherent danger of working on a flight deck in the BEST of times… Day, VFR, CQs in a workup phase off Norfolk. What you will see is the PLAT video of an F-18 landing and catching the #3 wire (qualifies as a good landing), however as the cable runs out, you will see a brown cloud to the left of the picture. That is the cable parting under load.


You will then see the F-18 go off the bow (pointy end), the canopy blow and the pilot eject (that’s the little splash of flame that goes up). Note the white tow bar on the left side of the frame that seems to move by itself. It was struck by the cable end and moves significantly even though it is attached to the nosewheel of the aircraft.

In the replay, you will see one yellow shirt (the hook man) jump twice, he is jumping the pieces of the cable as it snaps back. The other two people and three more that are not captured in the video were injured and later medically evacuated from the GW, but all survived.

This is why the flight deck is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world to work. You HAVE to keep your head on a swivel, and be alert ALL of the time. Since there is a high noise level, you are basically on your own for your survival… You can imagine what potentially could have happened if this had been at night.


Please say a prayer for all our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen who are deployed world wide to keep us safe.

What to do… What to do…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Woke up at 0 dark 30 as usual, tried to get back to sleep, but got woke up again by the maids at 0730 (on a SATURDAY no less)…


Quick SSS, and stumble down to breakfast- Sunny California my ass, it’s in the 50’s overcast and windy…

Lemme see, golf? Nope- too cold and windy, as bad as I play fuggedaboutit!

Go sailing? Nope- no boat, see above on weather, plus no jacket…

Hmmm, what’s in the paper? Ohhh Shiny!!! Gun SHOW 🙂 Yep, that’ll work!

Take my happy ass down and off I go up to Del Mar- Uh oh… 1 mile backup just to get off at the exit, now ALL these people can’t possible be going to the gun show CAN THEY???

/grumble/ 30 minutes to literally go two miles to the gun show parking lot, AND get charged $9 for parking!!! Yep, welcome to Kalifornia!!!

Now go jump in line, hurry up and wait; but I ‘know’ how to do this 🙂 Some interesting conversations about guns, liberty and ammunition as we move slowly to the entrance, a few folks bringing things to sell, but no where near what I’m used to seeing at Tulsa… NRA at the front, join the NRA get a free entry, they’re doing pretty good too!

Woof… crowded at the front door! Oh, no wonder, first set of tables in the door is ammo seller, and they are packed at least five deep all the way around the tables! Probably 5-600 tables total, whole bunch of jewelry/junk/Shamwow stuff…

Definitely Kalifornia prices!!! Old Colts SAA’s $3-5000, a table full of 03A3, M-1, and M-1 carbines, $1700-$7000, bunch of knife sellers, a couple of safe sellers (they are busy!), two tables of MREs (Why???), cheapo flashlights, more cheapo knives, magazines, oddball ammo, another couple of tables of ammo, $400 for 500 rounds XM193 .223; lots of personal defense pistol ammo at HIGH prices, with box limits… sigh…

Obligatory old uniform sellers, Chinese gun cases, cheapo holsters, empty ammo boxes, 3 for $12, Jerky… yechhh! NASTY jerky… phuti…

BOOKS! Lots of books 🙂

Damn, high priced books too!!! First edition Elmer Keith and Jeff Cooper over $130 each, lots of how to gunsmithing, reloading, bits/pieces/parts tables.

Oh, a table selling AR-15s (don’t know how they are doing that); basic Rock River that was $950 last November is now $1895! Sigh…

Oh yeah, and LOTS of people! Young, old, male, female, at least a couple of three generation groups, which are nice to see; single women shopping for pistols too!

And everybody is very polite too! I see this at every gun show, and I’m impressed at how polite folks can be… Of course, an armed society is a polite society 🙂

Spent a few minutes talking to the Calguns.net folks, good guys working hard for gun rights in an uphill battle out here… Drop by and give them some support if you have time!

What I didn’t see- Tables with long guns, or multiple tables of semi-autos from dealers… Interesting…

Okay, the dogs are barking, nothing that I can’t live without, I’m outta here…

Now back to the regularly scheduled “stuff”…

Now Hear This…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Liberty Call – Liberty Call. Liberty Commences at 16:00 for Sections 2 & 3- One of the best sounds to hear over the 1MC 🙂

Here are a couple of our Grey Ships coming back in after a week at sea! One “smallboy” a DDG and one Oiler coming back to 32nd Street in San Diego!


Also, here are a couple of lazy ducks… after all this IS Kalifornia! Note- They are sitting on the rope across the pool at the hotel, floating a little and just lazing about!

For those that have not seen it, go over to Conservative Scalawag and view the Lightbringer’s address to the Iranians… After you watch it, come back and tell me what is missing from the background. I ‘think’ you will be as pissed as I am!!!

And there is a new entry in the blog sphere courtesy of Lawdog and Farm Girl that is worth a look and a read… TOTUS!

Go Enjoy! Y’all have a good weekend ya hear! 🙂 I’m going to curl up in the hotel with a book and a beer…