Thursday, December 1, 2016

Sleep? What's That?

(Original Photo Source)
Good morning and welcome aboard Old AF Sarge Airlines Flight 9672 with non-stop service to wherever we feel like going.

Please pay attention as the cardboard cutouts, er, cabin crew explain the safety features of this blog.

If you look directly overhead you will see the ceiling of whatever room you are currently seated in. Unless you're outdoors then you will see the sky. If you are aboard ship then you will see the overhead. Which is what the nautical types call a ceiling.

Why? I don't know, I was in the Air Force. A ceiling was a ceiling, unless you were aircrew, then it was something else altogether different.

ceil·ing
1.

  • the upper interior surface of a room or other similar compartment.
  • an upper limit, typically one set on prices, wages, or expenditure.
  • the maximum altitude that a particular aircraft can reach.
  • the altitude of the base of a cloud layer.

2. the inside planking of a ship's bottom and sides. (Source)

Oh. Maybe #2 is why they call what's over your head an overhead in the nautical services. As ceiling is something else on a ship. Or as the thing is over one's head, calling it an overhead just makes sense. But in that case, why does the Navy call the floor the deck. Why isn't it called the "underfoot." Hhmm, deep question worthy of further cogitation and analysis. Or not.

Now where was I? Oh yes, the ceiling, if we experience a loss of cabin pressure then nothing will fall out of the ceiling / overhead. One has to assume that the room you're sitting in is not pressurized at all, so the loss of cabin pressure might mean that someone forgot to close a window. As it's winter here in the Northern Hemisphere you might want to close that window. I'll wait while you do that.

In the event of a water landing hold the device you're using over your head, otherwise it will get wet and probably cease to function. Now if the water is too deep you're going to look pretty silly holding your cellphone, tablet, or computer over your head (no, no, no, not the overhead, "over your head") while you are drowning. Best let the device go and save yourself.

Oh yes, your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. Until it sinks, or not at all if you're sitting on an anvil. But I digress.

Yes, it's another "Gee the Sarge didn't get much sleep last night did he?" post. Well, I did, sort of. I got to bed at a reasonable hour but woke up at 0430. (Which at this time of year can also be expressed as "zero dark thirty" as it is rather dark out at that time.) The feline staff, who have yet to adjust to Eastern Standard Time, were somewhat elated that perhaps it was time to have breakfast.

Well, it wasn't. Crestfallen, they made no attempt to go back to sleep but were content to just sit there on the bed and look pathetic and cute. That and poke me with a paw every five minutes. I have learned that the first poke is gentle and soft. The second a bit more forceful, the third will have just a hint of claw.

I have never stayed in bed long enough to see what the fourth poke is like. As my "mama didn't raise no fool." Which, if you're still reading this post, you may seriously doubt.

So I am sleeping well, just not sleeping long. While my rational thought processes, such as they are, are sufficient to get me through the day at my paying job, by nightfall I am a bit mentally "winded."

I try to walk it off between arrival at the manse and dinner, but sometimes it's a bit much.

Thinking that is.

I wrote this post Tuesday night in anticipation of posting it Wednesday morning. However, Tuna stepped in and had his marvelous post up in time for Wednesday, delaying this post (the one you're reading now) until Thursday. So bear that in mind as you read the post, the published time slipped by an entire day. (Though this particular paragraph and the next were written Wednesday.) So while I am still tired, I did sleep well and long on Tuesday night. Now that Tuna has given me Wednesday off, I can sleep some more.

Nah, I'll probably just read and stay up too late. Again...

Anyhoo, make sure that your seatbelts are fastened, your seatback is in the upright position, and your tray table is stowed. Hopefully, tomorrow I'll have (to blatantly steal from Suldog) "more better stuff."

Or at least something a bit more coherent.

We shall see.

(Original photo source)


This here is what you call the "fine print." Here is where I would list any disclaimers, modifiers, pseudonyms, or harmful ingredients which Proof's lawyer might find actionable. Or something. Dear Lord but I am tired...

 

24 comments:

  1. And the "overhead" in a Navy "head" should be called the "head overhead?"

    The C2A Greyhound crewmember giving the pre-launch lecture failed to mention trays and seatbacks, but she did say that if we crashed, (and she used the word crash) we would exit the aircraft and make our way to the life raft. I remember thinking, "we are going to get shot off one of the bow catapults, so even if we survive the crash, we are going to get a colonoscopy done by an aircraft carrier a few seconds later."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The "head overhead", I like it!

      The word "crash" is accurate, in the event of a water "landing," not so much.

      colonoscopy done by an aircraft carrier, hahaha! You're on a roll John!

      Delete
    2. Ok, had to zoom the last picture to 250% to get the subtle humor. Well Played, Sarge, Well Played.

      Delete
    3. I am thinking that the only good water landing would involve a frozen lake, but for aircraft with wheels, all other water landings are, bad.
      Some of my Army and Marine coworkers were deriding my ignorance of topographic maps. I listened patiently then explained, "If there are contour lines, that is called dry land, and the Navy tries very hard not to sail up onto the dry land."

      Delete
  2. Hmm, ceiling as the inside planking of a ship's bottom and sides. I did not know that. In perusing my MW (physical) dictionary, the word seems to derive from "ceil," (to furnish a wooden ship with a lining). And ceil derives from the bloody Romans, caelare (to carve), caelum (chisel); akin to Latin caedere (to cut).

    Deck comes from the bloody Dutch; dec (cloak), dekken (to cover), which originally referred to a canvas awning erected on a ship but eventually came to mean the wooden deck itself, which was at once both floor and roof.

    Which explains why the deck is not called the underfoot. It's because of the anvils.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I knew it was the anvils. I just knew it!

      (I like blaming the Dutch for things, but it's more fun to blame the Romans.)

      Delete
  3. So, dekken see Dec, after that they would have to throw my still laughing body overboard...no wonder I never made it thru language class. They would say something, I would start rolling in the aisle, get kicked out again...that was a bad year in college.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds like a FUN year in college! Imagine attending today -- you'd surely have been jailed...

      Delete
    2. Jailed or, God forbid, socially ostracized!

      Delete
    3. Haven't been back since 86, class on psyc and PR, at the national fire college, met an old friend from the local fire department and toured the battlefield there. A month of fun, sites and helped him with a database problem he had. Most productive time, beer was cheap, but the hotels sucked big time.

      Delete
    4. Cheap beer is good. Almost makes up for the sucky hotels!

      Delete
  4. Sleep is what cats do.
    Sebastian has been quite accommodating while I've had this cold and actually waits for me to awaken before making his demands.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sleep is what cats do while I'm at work. At least that's the way it seems.

      Most cats I've known are sensitive to their humans when said human is ill.

      Delete
  5. This is the second time that I've laughed out loud this morning. Oh - and the deck is called "the deck" because all the Navy's terminology dates back to the days of wooden ships (except for the electronic gizmos, but I digress). "The deck" was made of wooden decking. Kinda makes sense, even though modern ships 20th century ships and beyond have steel deck plates. Come to think of it, that's decking, too. Never mind.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. WWII battleships had teak decking, so yeah, I get it. Being an Air Force guy I get a kick out of naval terminology, most of which is based on ancient traditions. Tough to do that in a service which was founded in 1947, though our roots do go back a bit further to before WWI. We don't do ancient, sad to say.

      Delete
  6. Aaaargggghhh! You left out the real term for the overheads. The 'hanging wall'. Us minemen recall this sort of thing even if it wasn't down our shaft. Us sub hunters call it the Layer. Us former radarmen call it the G#ddamned duct. And never forget that most evil of all,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As an Air Force chap, I didn't know that the overhead has multiple names. The Layer I grok (worked submarine systems back in the day) but the "hanging wall" is a new one.

      The "G#ddamned duct" I get, and I know why. Now which is the most,

      (Turnabout is fair play.)

      Delete
  7. Sarge, the reason for the use of obscure terms is so that nobody can understand us when we're sober, either.
    We are, alas, occasionally sober. This is due to the U.S. Navy's terminating the admirable and sensible British practice (since discontinued in the Royal Navy as well) of the grog issue. Apparently, my naval predecessors were insufficiently unhappy, whereupon Big Haze Gray stepped in to remedy such an intolerable, to them, condition.
    --Tennessee Budd

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    Replies
    1. Hahaha! Well put Tennessee, well put. I'm sure Josephus Daniels was very pleased with this unhappiness. (Progressive Democrat that he was.)

      Delete
  8. I keep pushing the flight attendant call button (I almost said "stewardess"!), but no one comes. What kind of an airline are you running here??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A cheap and crappy one, you should expect no less!

      Besides, she's cardboard, she can't move unless the wind pushes her. Wait a minute, your call button actually works?

      Delete

Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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