Lundi, Lundi! *

 Well, Campers, day 1 of the river cruise.  I'm sitting in the shade on the bow of our river boat.  Lunch is finished.  Cheeseburger was okay, not great.  Still trying out the dishes on the menu. Rotisserie Chicken or Baked Cod with Quinoa  were the main courses.  So...I chose Cheeseburger and fries.  Trip over was uneventful, well,  other than my inability to sleep on airplanes invoked a bit of tiredness.

C'est la vie!

We're here in Lyon.  Arrived late Thursday afternoon.  Depending on whether I was on Texas Time or Lyon Time, I was either exhausted from not getting sleep on the airplane or  exhausted for getting up at 0700 Lyon Time or midnight Texas time.  So...Got on the boat, had dinner,  a glass of wine and crashed about 1700 Lyon Time.

Doing better that afternoon though.

Walked around Lyon visiting a few "Many Hundred Year Old churches".  Quite a nice city.  Lot's of history, and the French were unusually friendly.  So...Win, Win.

Mrs J. was here with me on the deck when I noticed her with a decided head bobbing action, so I gave her papal dispensation to take a nap.  I've had  a posting to write, so was out on the veranda deck AKA not the roof where the pool and sun are but rather on the deck below in the shade with a medicinal glass of viognier to help me through this "hardship" vacation.  

I've got to admit that I was a bit worried about my walk around program I've been doing for the past few months.  10 grand steps a day is my goal, my daily average is about 9,400. 

No, Beans, I don't go out when it's thundering and lightening outside.  So there are a few days with under 5K steps.   Mrs J has a new method of getting me out and about on this vacation voyage.  I'm required to go, I'm not sure what it's called, something that rhymes with "hopping", but involves me pulling out the plastic and carrying sacks of stuff back to the boat.  

But, we woke up this morning to the sound of a 30 minute warning until the Expedition to visit the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist of Lyon  Cathedral.

Peter Gridley Gettyimages

Tickets we had bought. Those scramble practices at Osan AB ROK to get airborne in 10 minutes from a sound sleep, came in handy. We made it. 

Nice picture, but it doesn't do the Cathedral justice

Photo by.

Unfortunately, as we went outside to look down on Lyon from the Battlements, my phone decided to die.  Ran out of juice in about an hour, fully charged overnight.  Not sure what the problem is/was.  Charging it again to see if I just had the movie function running for an hour or so in my pocket (I hope so) or something's wrong with the phone.   We shall see but pictures are a bit sparse!  With a little bit of luck pictures will still be on the phone. Update, the phone is fine.  More pictures to follow

But back to touring Lyon!

WOW! Back in the mid-of the last millennium, the French sure knew how to build them.  The Cathedral is a stunningly beautiful building , both inside and out. The view off the battlements around the Cathedral is awesome also.  Again, pictures if possible.

We're off to a great start, both on the touring and the vacationing.  

Peace out y'all 

 

State of Beans

 Well, here we are, a week after Easter.  Fully into the Resurrection portion of the whole arc of wonderment and salvation.

Easter went well.  We had a boneless leg of lamb with garlic pieces pushed into slits and covered with rosemary.  Why rosemary?  Because I couldn't use Texas Pete hot peppers, that's why.  Rosemary sucks, by the way.  More garlic, more pepper, no more Rosemary.

And, of course, cutting said roast I managed to do the unthinkable.

See, over Christmas I got a really nice carving knife, what used to be called a ham carving knife.  Like this one.

The One True Knife of Carving!

Yeah, it's a long thin sharp carving knife.  

Do you get a strong foreboding feeling yet?

So, of course, while carving the lamb roast I had a spastic moment and kind of flicked the knife towards me while dropping it.  

Lots of years of practice and life-fire with knives have taught me to jump away from sharp objects if they are falling.  Fortunately I've always been smart enough to not try to catch sharp blades.

Unfortunately the carving knife, the blade itself being over 12" long, was long enough to reach me after I jumped back.  So it shaved a bit off my right shin (skin only, but deep skin) and did the same to my right big toe.  

Blood and lamb grease was now flowing sluggishly from me.  Yehaw.  Soaped up the wounds up with Dawn and used Hydrogen Hydroxide to wash the soap and blood off, then went to Hydrogen Peroxide the wounds and then bandage them.

Dangit.  

Kind of a bummer during the meal to know that the ultra-sharp knife tried to kill me.  Dangit.

And then Tuesday I was building a platform to allow Mrs. Andrew to get into the van easier and dropped a 4 foot by 4 foot chunk of 3/4" plywood on the same right foot.  Of course.  And, of course I was wearing flip-flops.  Dangit.

Pride definitely wounded.  Foot definitely wounded.  

Then, Friday, Kegan the Dog came down with some bug so every 2-3 hours is a trip outside.  We're hoping that he'll stop soon.  Fortunately he's so well socialized that he refuses to poop or pee in the house.  As I write this, it's Sunday evening.  So I've been dealing with this for 2.5 days now.  Dangit.

He's got a vet appointment on Tuesday morning so hopefully he's plugged up by then.

Dangit.

Other than that, eh, still above the ground so there's that.  

By the way, personal mutilation via sharp objects is not something new.

I almost tagged my right femoral artery with an X-Acto knife while working on straps for my armor.  Operative word there was 'almost.'  Whew.  Did not need to go to the ER for that.  Barely.

I did shove a knife through, I really mean 'through,' my left pinky while trying to separate frozen burger patties.  Trip to the ER.  They sewed up the palm-side hole and pronounced me done.  I lifted up my still bleeding hand and asked, "What about the other side?  I told you I stuck a knife through my hand."  They were shocked, shocked I say, to find out I meant what I said.  Sewed that up and scheduled me for an arterial scan for the finger to check out if I'd done anything bad to the arteries.  That scan meant they shoved a probe/camera/alien up an artery in my groin through my heart into the left arm and down to the left pinkie finger.  Yes, I felt the thing go through my heart.  Very unsettling feeling that was.  Finger okay, no damage to tendons or blood vessels, just to my pride.  Got home, fixed the hamburgers.  Never bought frozen hamburger patties ever again.  And you know what?  There's no need to do that anyways as 93% lean ground beef, with a light sprinkling of salt and pepper, cooked in a thin layer of bacon grease produces a far superior burger. 

Stepped on pins and needles, of course.  Stepped on nails with and without shoes, of course.

But that carving knife? That thing's so sharp it's woodworking router scary.  Anyone who has a router for woodworking probably knows how I feel.  A spinning blade thingy that is spinning so fast it creates gyroscopic force, and will eat you dead before you feel it.  That sharp knife, did not feel it cut at all.  And, of course, blood flow being a great indicator of severity, as in 'if you've cut yourself but it isn't bleeding yet, oh, man, that's bad,' the wounds did take a bit of time to start bleeding.

Yeah.  Walking disaster I am.  

Still doing better than one of my friends, who was shooting at a steel target and the round bounced back and tagged him in the shoulder.  Don't ask me how, as the people involved said it was at a decent distance and the ammo was good.  Total freak accident.

Or the person I know who was doing a Scottish sword dance and one of the sword holders managed to tag her foot really well, like a to-and-through the foot right behind the toes.  Or the guy doing woodworking and managed to router his hand. 

So a surface skin shave, eh, barely registers as bad times.  Still sucks, dontchaknow.

And Here We Go ...

OAFS Android Screen Capture

Just a quick note ...

First Communion is this morning, the granddaughter is rather nervous about the whole thing, Grandpa ain't helping by asking such things as:

"Is the Pope coming?"

"Have you written your speech yet?"

"Is this going to cost me money?"

To which I received:

"Who?"

"I need to write a speech?"

"Shut up, Grandpa."

A chip off the old block she is.''

So proud of that girl.

More later, maybe, the after party features street tacos and cerveza, I probably won't be coherent enough to write a post for Sunday.

But ya never know.

Hasta luego!

So Yeah, I'm in California

Midway airport, Chicago
OAFS Photo

Flew out to California on Monday for granddaughter Li'l Sweetie's First Communion. Which is, as I gather, something of a big deal. Being a Baptist, of sorts, it's not something I fully grok. I just know that we were there for her big sister's First Communion. It was awesome and the after party was lots of fun. Also I hadn't been out to see LUSH and her tribe in quite some time, so it was off to California.

As they live near Fresno, that's where we flew to, no airline has a hub anywhere near Fresno, so getting there is a bit of a chore. Like first fly to Midway, the airport near Chicago not the island in the Pacific, then to Sandy Eggo, then, finally, to Fresno. Approximately eight hours in the air and another six hours on the ground, hanging out, waiting for the next flight.

So it was a rather long day. it was the first time I'd been back to Sandy Eggo in three (ish) years and the terminal we were in was new, it had been under construction the last time I was here. So it was good to be back, but it was different. But hey, it was just the terminal. We were only on the ground for three hours. Long enough to stretch our legs and get something to eat,

Holy sh!t, $25 for a cheeseburger and fries???

We ate something else, some Mediterranean kebob thing, which wasn't bad. Still expensive ($20) but not as expensive. Healthier as well, I actually ate a salad. (No, that doesn't normally happen when I eat at an airport.)

Anyhoo, I'm out here for a few days and juvat is in France. So, we'll see how things go. And from this sign I saw in the airport restroom (one over each urinal) ...

... California appears to be doomed.

That spinning noise you hear?

Darwin in his grave.

Ciao!

Okinawa Eagles

 Well, as many of you long time readers of Sarge's Blog are aware, my last flying assignment in Uncle Sam's Air Force was at Kadena AB, Okinawa Japan.  I have a bit of history with Okinawa.  My Dad was an F-86D driver in the mid-50's. 

F-86D

tvd.im

 I was born while he was stationed at Hamilton AFB, Novato California.  That was also where he met and married my mother.

( ;-) BTW those two sentences are not in chronological order! ) 

In any case, after he'd completed that assignment, he was assigned to Okinawa, still flying the F-86.  Mom and I followed.  My sister, Lisa, was born there.  Getting her officially recorded as an American Citizen took some doing, but that story fits in a different post.

Back on Topic, juvat!  

Aye, Sarge!

I have a few dim memories of that tour.  However,  in the late 80's, Mrs J (aka Captain Mrs J) and  I were assigned to the 18TFW, an F-15 Wing.  This tour I remember with sweet memories.  Two Reasons...Our daughter continued the Juvat family tradition of one of the female children being born in Okinawa. Second, I got to fly the best Fighter in the World at that time.  Supersonic flight was authorized when you got over the Pacific.  Which was about a half mile off the end of the runway.

Yes, Beans, the flying was magnificent.  But, back to the story.

Our Daughter had to be "Naturalized" as an American Citizen. But anyhow.....you know where this post is going, right?

We got her naturalized.

The assignment had a lot of good flying, but it also had a lot of down time activities.  Military Airlift Command (MAC) was very active in the region, so hopping a ride with family around the Pacific wasn't difficult.  The family has been to Hong Kong, the Phillipines, mainland Japan, Korea, and several other places.  Damn, I loved the Air Force!

During the in-processing briefings we were required to attend when we PCS'd to Kadena, we had one on the history of WWII on Okinawa.  One of the many things that I paid attention to was not to walk in the jungle.  There aren't lions, tigers or bears there, but there are booby traps and land mines that might still be around.

I paid attention to that, and made sure my, now walking, son understood also! But, it turns out, the jungle wasn't the only thing to be concerned about.

One of the off time activities I took up was scuba diving.  The water off Okinawa was crystal clear.  It was a 5 dive checkout and we did it off 5 different beaches. Different currents, different temperatures, different depths, all good training factors for a check ride.

 

 

 Now, Kadena AB is on the left side of the island, where the 4 invasion arrows are pointed.  The water there is very clear and that's where the lessons were held.

We're out there swimming around doing our exercises. (Taking off our masks, putting them back on, and clearing out the water was a frequent/common one.  A good thing to know how to do.  You don't need to until you do, then you need to do it correctly and immediately).

 Short interruption to clarify some data.  Our instructor while a certified and available instructor was a civilian who listened to radio transmissions from, oh say, China or North Korea.  8 hours a day, 5 days a week, three year tour.

Yeah, he was a bit odd!

In any case,  he's our instructor.  We're done with our lesson and still had some air left.  The instructor, tapped his dive knife on his tank (that's how he got our attention) and pointed at the ground below.  There looked like a pile of sewage pipes down there.  It was within our dive limits so we followed him down.  

No, these weren't the actual ones we encountered, but they looked pretty similar

Source 

When we got there, he started hitting the encrusted end of the "Pipe" with his knife.  After a few hits, the crust fell off and revealed an ogival nose.  As we were all fighter pilots and having been around bombs and other things that go bang, we recognized the "pipe" for what it was,  some kind of naval round.  

Now, we had no idea how it had gotten there, how long it had been there, or whether or not it might go "Boom".  However, I think I could have won any Olympic swimming competition in getting the heck out of there.  As did the rest of the guys. 

Conversation back on the boat got a bit heated with a lot of adjectives in front of the word "stupid" directed at the instructor.

No Beans, I'm not going to quote anything said, Sarge might blush!

Suffice it to say, we found another instructor to finish the certification and put out the word to the other squadron's not to hire this guy, and I believe, that word leaked out to our Squadron Commander about him,  Somehow the Wing Commander found out then the Air Division Commander issued an order preventing any Air Division personnel from hiring this particular instructor.  

Sucks to be him.

All in All, with this one exception, it was a great assignment. Travel around the Pacific was easy, Flying the Eagle was great and...once I got my Diving Certification that was a lot of fun also.

On a sad note, I just (literally, I found this article right after I took a break writing this post) learned that the Eagles at Kadena are being retired. As they are, they will be replaced initially by TDY "advanced" aircraft until  PACAF "modernizes" our forces in the region.” 

78-564 F-15D.  

Yes, it's got an Alaskan Fin Flash now, It was sent there when Kadena got newer model Eagles.  She's STILL my Eagle!

 airhistory.net 

Gonna miss the Eagle, but the one with my name on it was built in 1978, AKA 48 years ago.  She served her country quite well!  She deserves a rest.

 

Peace out y'all 

 

 

 

 

 

Tinian

 So, a while ago, I ran a post that contained this picture.

Source

It contained the caption "Tarawa.  The US cleverly planned on invading at low tide (shown). Tide was so low the landing craft couldn't make it even to the beach.  The Marines had to wade almost a mile to shore.  The Japanese had machine gun emplacements all the way around the lagoon.  I knew a man that was in that invasion.  He wouldn't talk about it."

I made a mistake there.  It's all correct except the next to the last sentence.  I just found out the man I knew wasn't in the invasion of Tarawa.  Here, as Paul Harvey used to say is "The rest of the story".

When Mrs. J and I retired from the Air Force and moved to the 'Burg, we bought a wine store and sold Texas wines.  There weren't a lot of Texas wineries in the entire state, and 5 of them (Bell Mountain Vineyard, Sister Creek Vineyard, Grape Creek Vineyard, Becker Vineyard and Texas Hills Winery) were within 30 miles of us.  At the time, the large distributors didn't see much market for Texas Wines other than Messina Hof in Bryan/College Station and Llano Estacado in Lubbock.  Given that, I would regularly go and pick up wine from the above mentioned wineries to stock our store.  As such, I got to be good friends with the owners and staff of each.  

To be frank in all but Becker Vineyard, the owners WERE the staff or at least part of it.  It was a pretty symbiotic relationship that developed.  The distributors wouldn't stock their wine so it was hard for them to get traffic and be able to sell their wine.  It was hard for us to have unique Texas wine in stock to sell and we were on Main St in the 'Burg, so we got a LOT of traffic. So, win/win.

This went on for a year or so then, Mrs. J got a good Idea.  "Juvat, why don't we start a tour company and offer tours to the local wineries?"  Win/Win/Win. The wineries got more traffic, we made more money, the customers could taste/drink wine without concern for driving.  A good deal all round.

So, it's a Saturday morning and I'm picking up my tour group.  I've got my "uniform" on. A white polo shirt with a red& blue collar for color.  Pick them up at their quarters and give a short intro, my name, the wineries we're going to (all 5, but no word that that's all that are available, salesmanship doncha know) and the order we'll visit in.  There were 3 couples all in their mid 20's. Nice, enthusiastic and fun.  This is going to be easy.

First up will be Grape Creek vineyard.  Grape Creek at the time was owned by Ned and Nel Simes (pronounced Sims).  Great folks in their late '70's.  IMHO, they made one of the best Merlot's I have ever tasted.  Ned and I kinda hit it off as we had both been in the military.  Given his age at the time, I could surmise that he'd probably served in WWII. He was pretty circumspect, but he did say he'd been in the Marines.

However, I could tell that he didn't put up with a lot of BS.  Which I always respect.

So, we've arrived at Grape Creek and I'm giving my short spiel about the owner, types of wine and recommendations for tasting.  I mention that Grape Creek's Merlot was one of the finest I'd ever had and they should try it.

As you may suspect, I am on the cusp of learning a VERY important lesson.

So we enter the winery, there are no other customers, so Ned comes out and meets and greets.  He asks what wines they'd like to try.  Based on my recommendation they all said "Merlot".  Ned pours the six tastes + one for himself.  He's swirling and sniffing and discussing what he smells.  In other words, educating the guests on wine as well as doing a bit of salesmanship.  

Having completed that, he pushes the tasting glasses to the guests.  I'm standing next to one of the ladies as she swirls, sniffs and takes a big taste.

Then promptly spits it out, unfortunately and with uncommon accuracy, all over my once white shirt., while saying, in a loud Voice, "This is the WORST wine I have ever tasted in My LIFE.!"

My jaw drops.  I happen to glance at Ned and hope to never see a face like that again.  At that point, I knew exactly what a Marine in Combat in WWII looked like.  As to my guests, they recognized that their friend may have committed a bit of a Faux Pas. So we beat a hasty retreat to the Limo where I asked: "What the heck was that?"  I'm pretty sure, but not positive that was what I said.  It might have been a bit stronger.

The young lady said "That was my first taste of red wine.  I like sweet wines like Boone's Farm."

As I said, I learned a big lesson that I need to find out my guests preferences in wine before taking them to the wineries.  So, I took them home, refunded their money, changed out of my uniform and drove back out to the winery to make amends.  Ned had had time to cool off, as I came in and apologized and explained the situation.  He laughed, said OK and that he'd also add a bit of an interview to his spiel.  I later had an opportunity to talk to Nel, his wife.  I told her about the look.  She got very quiet and said that during the war, he'd been in on a few invasions, but had had a particularly hard time on an island she couldn't remember but that it started with a T.  The only one I could remember like that was Tarawa.  She said she thought that was it, but said it would be better if I didn't ask as he didn't like to talk about it.

So.  I thought it was Tarawa.  Ned passed away in 2004 and the Winery was sold in 2006.  I got to thinking about him as we passed the winery on our way to CStat earlier this week and decided I'd do a little googling.  Come to find out that the National Museum of the Pacific War, locally known as the Nimitz Museum, had interviewed Ned in 2002 about his experience in the Pacific.  The Transcript Entry Point is Here.  It's a little tricky to navigate, but in the top right is a download button.  Click that and the transcript will appear with arrows to switch pages.

I think the question marks contained therein were words that shouldn't be seen by children, but that was very much Ned.  

 

Source

And the T island?  Tinian, he was also in on the Saipan invasion and served time on Guadalcanal.  All three were very much the antithesis of a "Walk in the Park".  But reading that brought Ned back for a bit and gave me an inkling of what it was like.  

The Nimitz Museum is a National Treasure.  You should visit it if you get the chance.

 AND....It's off to France we go.  Overnight flight tonight arrive in Lyon in the morning and a bus ride to Provence.  Then the fun begins!  

Peace out Y'all! 

P.S.  The wine industry is going gangbusters down here nowadays.  There are close to a hundred wineries within my old wine tour route.  There are also several dozen tour companies.  

Home Layout

 

I’v signed Sarge’s leave paperwork, so he’ll be absent for a few. Headed to California, I heard, but I think that gold rush is over. I’ve got a few stories in the hopper, so all y’all will have something to read.

I have been requested to update on the new house project, so, below is the layout and dimensions of the House.

Orientation for the North(ish) is the right side, West is the top.  Lots of trees fairly close on the West side, should keep things a bit cooler. Driveway comes in from the East about 3-400 yds from the road.  Porch and garage both push the home back a bit from direct sunshine.

 

 The photo below basically has the same aspect as the blueprints, if a little further back.  The trees in the middle of the picture will remain.  The driveway will go to the right of them.  We're pondering putting a patio in that nest of trees. 

 

 

The architect is working the foundation plans and expecting completion on the 25th.  At that point, construction should start with the pouring of the slab.  

Hopefully, there won't be any major setbacks.  We'd really like to move in to a home where we'll have a bit of privacy, peace and quiet.  Which is in the plan because...  

The Great Pyrenees don't seem to like City Life.  We've had noise complaints from neighbors when we had them outside at night.  So, we brought them in.  That solved the neighbor problem, but...Mrs J and I haven't had an uninterrupted night's sleep in quite a while.  Ahh well.

We're looking forward to the new property and pray that the Great Pyrenees won't bark several times a night out there. 

Get's old....Fast!

Peace out, Y'all!