The musings & rants of 3 retired military (2 USAF, 1 USN), 1 former WSO, and 1 AF brat. Old AF Sarge, Juvat, Tuna, LUSH, and Beans.
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| OAFS Photo |
Well Viva La France! We are here. Stayed in Lyon for a couple of days. The first day was to recover lost sleep and the second day was to improve the French economy. Somewhat successful on the first, the French were very grateful on the outcome of the second. Nice place, met up with the folks on the boat. About 145 people. Enough to meet new people and listen to their stories, but not so crowded that you can't get around on the boat. Weather is a bit chilly as we sail down the Rhone River. Seems there's a castle on every hillside. Most were in pretty good condition. Others not so much, but...
I thought all were pretty cool and I could see why they were pretty well needed as things could get a little shaky fairly quickly and the associated town didn't provide much protection. A castle with the draw bridge dtawn up was a lot more effective (if somebody was coming to your assistance to break the siege, else....)
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Yes, this winery in Beaujolais has been owned and operated by many (many, many) generations. And...The wine is quite excellent |
The other thing we sought out was French Wine. Down in this neck of the woods (AKA France), the two primary wines are Beaujolais and Viognier . Man are they excellent.
This is a "Wine Tour", we've got a Texas Wine Maker on the cruise with us. We've visited a few winery's and have several more to visit in the next few days. Lots of fun and I have found several wines that I hadn't heard of nor tried up to then, but now am very sold on them.
Lots of wow's from the gang.
Stopping in Touron and tried a couple of wine tasting rooms. Excellent! Mouvedre, Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah, oh my goodness! And, paired with French Cooking, out of this world!
Yes, I bought a few bottles and am bringing them home.
On to Arles tomorrow. The gang will then disband and Mrs J and I will jet up to London to visit R3 and his gang. Been a while, looking forward to seeing them again.
Peace out, y'all!
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 Cathedral.
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| 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.
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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
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.
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.
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| OAFS Android Screen Capture |
"Is the Pope coming?"
"Have you written your speech yet?"
"Is this going to cost me money?"
"Who?"
"I need to write a speech?"
"Shut up, Grandpa."
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| Midway airport, Chicago OAFS Photo |
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.
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F-86D |
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.
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No, these weren't the actual ones we encountered, but they looked pretty similar |
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.”
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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! |
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
