Forty Years Ago:
(Updated to a larger, complete image.)
Tag: miscellaneous
Armed Man in Grocery Store
Armed Man in Grocery Store
No one injured or even frightened. Shopping completed without incident.
That is all.
Hell, I Was THERE
Hell, I Was THERE!
Well, three miles across the Indian River from Launch Complex 39A, anyway.
I was seven years old.
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=5722827024646179220&hl=en&fs=true
The launch of a Saturn V rocket is the single most awe-inspiring thing I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve seen twelve of them – Apollo 6 through the launch of Skylab (Apollo 7, testing only the newly redesigned Apollo capsule and Command Module in Earth orbit used the smaller Saturn IB). I’ve never seen a shuttle launch in person, and it looks as if that program will end before I get a chance to.
But forty years ago, I witnessed the pinnacle of human achievement. We went to another world.
That’s NEXT Month’s Price
That’s NEXT Month’s Price!
Seems a man bought a pack of cigarettes with his credit card. He had a little trouble with the bill, though.
He was charged $23,148,855,308,184,500 – twenty-three quadrillion, one hundred forty-eight trillion, eight hundred fifty-five billion, three hundred eight million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred dollars.
Obama’s just trying to pay off the deficit and the national debt with “sin taxes,” I guess.
Either that, or Bank of America is trying to compensate for all of its defaulting credit-card holders in one fell swoop.
I Expect This to be GOOD
I Expect This to be GOOD
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e99B80crU3E&hl=en&fs=1&&w=560&h=340]
Coming in 2010. I hope it will be worth the wait.
No 24-Hour TV Coverage, No Obituaries in News Magazines
No 24-Hour TV Coverage, No Obituaries in News Magazines . . .
I found out today via Irons in the fire that Darrell “Shifty” Powers passed away on June 17 of this year.
Who is Shifty Powers, you ask? (Well, some of you, I’m sure.) Perhaps this will jog your memory:
That’s Shifty on the left, as played by Peter Youngblood Hills in the 2001 HBO mini-series “Band of Brothers.” A pretty good job of casting, as here’s what Shifty looked like back in WWII:
And here’s what he looked like just a couple of years ago:
Quite simply, Darrell “Shifty” Powers was considered to be the best shot in all of Easy Company with his M1 Garand.
Firehand found out by email, and I suggest you read the whole thing, but here’s the part that I want to emphasize:
Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.
There was no parade.
No big event in Staples Center.
No wall to wall back to back 24×7 news coverage.
No weeping fans on television.
And that’s not right.
Let’s give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the veterans.
Rest in peace, Shifty.
One other thing: In March of 2006 a very dedicated man did a very nice thing for Shifty. You might want to read that, too:
’72 Datsun: 11.55 Second 110MPH Quarter Mile
’72 Datsun: 11.55 Second 110MPH Quarter Mile
And all electric. I love American ingenuity. It does still “produce” pollution – the power plant they recharge from is almost definitely fossil-fueled, and the Lithium-Ion battery pack (and the lead-acid one that preceded it) both are the result of mining, but still, watching a ’72 Datsun smoke a Corvette and a BMW M3 does something for my soul.
Back Online
Back Online
The Comcast service guy has come and gone. Yes, a subcontractor cut my cable, and then connected the other end to a spot where it shouldn’t have been in the first place. Took the cable repair guy a couple of hours to patch and fix.
The DTs are starting to abate, now.
Security Theater
Security Theater
Found at AR15.com, by a member who worked at an airport driving and operating a fuel truck:
As a fueler, we pretty much lived in our trucks. We just didn’t have the time to stop and grab a drink, and when you are working in a 100 degree + environment, in the sun, jet exhaust, and in the middle of a 20 acre asphalt frying pan, you either hydrate, or you die. One of the modifications we made to the trucks was the installation of a 5 gallon water cooler. And it was a lifesaver. However, when they caught that liquid explosives plot, the edict came down that no liquids were to be on the ramp. So off came the coolers, and all of our water bottles went into the locked TSA fridge of doom behind a security checkpoint.
Needless to say, our schedule went to hell in a handbasket. (Stopping, driving back, and spending 15 minutes to get a drink of water every 20 minutes is not very efficient. . . )
As a result of the huge number of delays and under pressure from the airlines, the TSA head called all the fuel jockeys in to ‘discuss’ the problem. We told her that we either got our coolers back, or the delays were to continue. Round and round we went, still no solution. And the TSA girl was getting mad at us for our attitude towards the whole situation. . . .
TSA: “You guys seem to be treating this as a big joke. Why is such a serious matter so funny to you guys?”
K13: “Honestly?”
TSA: “Yes. Why is it so funny?”
K13: “Ma’am, you are afraid that we are going to replace the water in our 5 gallon water jugs with some sort of liquid explosive, is that correct?”
TSA: “Yes.”
K13: “And that we might use a liquid explosive to conduct a terrorist attack on an aircraft, or the terminal. “
TSA: “Yes.”
K13: “You are aware that as part of my job, I drive a rolling 8000 gallon capacity bomb. And seeing as I haven’t crashed it into the terminal, an airplane, or a baggage cart screaming ‘Allah Ackbar’ yet, what makes you think I’d use a water cooler as an explosives cache. . . . “
TSA: “. . . . . . “
We got our coolers back the next day.
We’re in the very best of hands, and I feel safer already . . .
Someone Else Died This Week
Someone Else Died This Week
Someone you should know.
Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald, who died on June 23 aged 57, was dramatically rescued from the South Pole 10 years ago after diagnosing and treating her own breast cancer.
In the winter of 1999 she was the sole doctor among 41 research staff at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, run by the US National Science Foundation, when she discovered a lump in her breast, and lymph nodes appeared under her arm. Although at first she kept her condition to herself, the burden eventually became too much to bear.
Rescue was out of the question – because of the extreme weather conditions, the station is closed to the outside world for the winter. Jerri Nielsen (as she then was) had no choice but to treat the disease herself. She trained colleagues to care for her, and was in communication by email and via teleconference with doctors based in the United States.
Jerri Nielsen, an accident and emergency doctor based in Cleveland, Ohio, performed a biopsy on herself with the help of non-medical staff, who practised using needles on a raw chicken. A machinist on the base helped her with her IV and test slides, and a welder helped with chemotherapy.
Anti-cancer drugs were parachuted in during a daunting airdrop in July 1999 by the US Air Force in freezing blackout conditions.
In the meantime, as Jerri Nielsen continued with her medical duties, her own doctors in the United States recommended that she return as soon as possible for treatment. “More and more as I am here and see what life really is, I understand that it is not when or how you die but how and if you truly were ever alive,” she wrote in an email to her parents from the South Pole in June 1999.
RTWT, but she also said this:
“Everyone has to get something. Some people are ugly, some people are stupid. I get cancer.”
I like her attitude!