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To be clear, in the painting, I am on the receiving end.
If you go here, you'll see that I have a brand new page dedicated to making bureaucrats in Europe happy, sort of. Go read it for notices of cookies and privacy stuff. Yes, it's boring, but not as boring as it could be if a corporate lawyer had written it.
And Microsoft©, in their infinite lack of wisdom, has decided to once again "upgrade" Windows© 10. Most of the stuff they did is "unseeable" but is no doubt intended to save us from CHICOM and Russian gangsta hackers. It also broke a number of things which made my life a little easier. In my experience the Dark Lords of Redmond will eventually remedy those things or hope we just stop noticing them.
Sigh.
/rant
Anyhoo. Enough with the legal folderol.
Oh, before I forget (the post title reminded me) I have incorporated young Beans into the header and down on the right sidebar where the staff logo (which no one ever sees) resides. I squeezed LUSH over a bit to make room, she won't mind, once she actually posts I may give her more room. Now, can anyone guess what's going on with the symbology I used? There's Shrute Bucks in it, valueless in all but name, for the winner.
On to other news and fun stuff...
Had a Lexican lass in town over the weekend for the graduation of a young lady of her acquaintance from Harvard Law. Was I impressed? Well, yes, yes I was. The newly minted Harvard Law lady is rather comely and, as we say in these parts, wicked smart. (You'll have to use your own quaint Boston accent for that word. I can hear it in my head but I will not attempt to spell it phonetically. I tried once and incurred the wrath of the native speakers of that tongue. One of whom I am not.)
Now where was I? Ah yes, the graduate. Very lovely she is and rather an expert in an area near and dear to my heart.
Beer.
For she once was a bartender of some note in an establishment in our Nation's Capital. She began life as a whiskey drinker knowing little of that favored beverage made with hops and barley. Her fellow barkeeps quickly educated her as to the finer points of that ancient beverage and she is now quite conversant with that liquid gold.
She asked me what my favorite beer was, I, thinking myself somewhat clever, replied, "The wet kind. Preferably free." She gave me a pained chuckle and a realized that I was in the presence of a true aficionado of beer. I, dropping my country rube act, tried to keep up, to no avail, the lady knew her stuff. My Lexican lady friend, who hails from Texas and has that charming Texas lady accent which I haven't heard in far too long, seemed pleased that Your Humble Scribe and the recent grad were getting along nicely.
I mean, come on, what's not to like? A lady that knows beer. Rare in the female of our species in my experience, limited though that be. At any rate, we moved on to dinner, what would we be having to drink first? I chose thusly, it's a favorite...
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I was asked what was good to eat in this place...
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"Cottage pie," sayeth the lady Harvard grad. I did mention that she was bright didn't I?
"Why yes, yes indeed. The Missus Herself likes it very much on cold, wet days." Which Sunday was. So the ladies both had the shepherd's pie whereas I ordered the 14-ounce steak with the Irish whiskey sauce. A particular weakness of mine. It is good, trust me.
I mean, come on, they use Irish whiskey for the sauce, what's not to like? (And I believe that would be known as gravy to you folks from New Jersey.)
At any rate, the ladies pronounced the shepherd's pie just the thing for such a wet, cold day and the Harvard grad really liked the Heretic. (Though when our waiter asked if we both wanted the Heretic, I said yes, but don't tell the Pope. Which fell on deaf ears as he gave me a puzzled look. And there's me trying to be clever...)
We had a nice long chat, hadn't seen my friend from Texas in over a year, so there was much to catch up on.
As Lex might have said, it was a good craic. I'd go so far as to call it a savage craic.
It was good to see you again Robin, and Diane, nice to meet you, good luck on that bar exam. (No, it doesn't involve drinking, I asked. But I did get a laugh.)
Hey Sarge;
ReplyDeleteI like the Phantom pic you posted, I always thought the Phantom was "Badass", and I do wonder just because my mind does that....How would a phantom perform on a modern battlefield with upgraded avionics and a newer updated powerplant. Like I said, my mind is always working.
As far as beer goes, I don't know anymore, I used to drink German beer...all the time....and getting deployed to the gulf dried me out and I didn't want to crawl into the bottle again so as not to tempt myself, I abstain from beer...and other assorted beverages. Bummer sometimes I know...
As is true with many aircraft, it's more about the pilot than the machine. But she's old, really old.
DeleteIn my experience, law students and lawyers as a group know FAR more about alcohol (and the imbibing of excessive quantities of it) than the general population.
ReplyDeleteIt's the hours they work, has to be.
DeleteYour comment on the dialog of Beantown folk reminds me of a personal experience.
ReplyDeleteThere were two schoolteachers living in the apartment next door to mine in Waipahu, Hawaii. One afternoon I was grilling a steak on the lanai when Ann comes out from next door and asks "Do you have a pen?"
"Why sure" sez I, going inside to fetch a pen, puzzled as to why a schoolteacher would be needing writing tools.
When I offered the pen she exclaimed "No, a pen, a pen, I'm cooking spaghetti!"
If you can hear it in your head it all makes sense.
Hahaha!
DeleteI can hear it in my head, priceless!
Aaaah!
DeleteNow I know what penne pasta is 🙄
Hahaha!
DeleteExcellent job of kow-towing (how come I get the image of a tow truck hooked up to a guernsey?) to the over-company that kow-tow'd to the European butt-monkeys that we saved at least three times, if not more, total euro-showers (insert French frase here!) and euro-circle-inconsiderate idiots (insert another 5 letter word starting in 'j' here).
ReplyDeleteSo we fought WWII and the Cold War to stop rampant national socialism and international socialism so that those two stupid philosophies could take over and some inconsiderate socialist jerks in Seattle (which is full of international socialists) could pull a 3/4 Obama (only thing missing is a plane full of billions of dollars) and we now have to suffer.
This is 'Murica! We tried that socialistic crap before it was even popular, found out it sucked moose male reproductive organ (insert, well, figure it out)(hehe, he said insert, hehe) in 1620 and 1621 and then said 'screw it' and became flagrant capitalists until that rat-bastard limp-unit Wilson and his band of idjits (who were still smarter and more right-winged than all the Brussel-sprouts today) and the follow-up act, Wheels Roosevelt and his merry band of pinkos got in power. But still, we're so far right of that pack of mewling female-reproductive-organs (five letter word starting with the third letter of the alphabet) that we're counterbalancing the whole damned world.
Ogle (the six letter company that reads everyone's stuff on-line and is full of authoritative little STASI agents) should have told the EU (I pronounce it like the sound you make when you step in especially runny cat furballs with your bare feet at 4am on a cold day while tiptoeing to the toilet) to "Go reproductive-act itself because 'Murica, Bald Eagles, Red-White-and-Blue, John Phillips Sousa, John Moses Browning, the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution (just because, well, U-S-A!) and most especially the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution because Google is a US Company so suck it, Beyotches! You're just jealous because Google makes more money than your whole damned satanistic organization of bureaucratic rectal sphincters."
In other words, yes, OldAFSarge, I rather like the way you handled the pleasant request by the hosting company for a requirement about privacy, cookies and any other damned thing that's none of their frickin business. (Calm down, caaaaalm down, breathe in, breathe out, look at the surface of the water, see how calming the bubbling surface of the water is, feel the cool water over your hands, and lower arms as you hold the annoying euro-wimp under the water and count to ten thousand...)
The heading is nice, too. See comments tomorrow.
Have a nice day! Smile, you're computer is spying on you! (Hello, three letter agencies! I'm secretly a female pron star Russian agent who has lots of information on Trumpy-Bear!!!)
Yes, I bought a trumpy-bear for my wife. Which immediately got us looked at by some of our more Engelian friends (well, they aren't quite Marxists, just close, so...)
This comment is why Juvat said to me one day, "We should get this guy to write for the blog."
DeleteIt's why I agreed. ;)
Thanks. That surprised me that Sir Juvat was the one, besides PaulLQ, who suggested I start writing. Though you did suggest a while ago that I ought to jump into it myself.
DeleteAs to the beer, do you know what's so great about it? Even if the Church comes out against alcohol you can still drink it, even on Sunday and Wednesday. Heretic, get it? I'm so funny some days.
The steak you had sounds... gooooooood. Mmmm… steaaaaaaak….. I can make cottage or shepherds pie. But a good aged steeaaaaakkk… mmmmmm...
Vis a Vis Beans above comment.
DeleteI got nuttin'!
Beans - As to the beer, I know, right?
DeleteJuvat, speechless?
DeleteHey, when someone says it all, what more is their to add? An artistic master of verbiage, young Beans is!
DeleteThat he is!
DeleteJust for your edification, the spelling of "smart" in the New England dialect is "smaaht." And I commend you on your favorite beer. I prefer free and cold. Red-stripe in the PI, when bought by a squadron-mate usually has only one of those characteristics. Still drinkable though. Robin will have to make it down to Texas to have a beer with Juvat to complete the Chant elder-statesmen triumvirate (no offense to Lush and the FNG).
ReplyDeleteCorrection- San Miguel. I'm confusing different parts of the world.
DeleteOther than opposite sides of the world, there ain't much difference between the two beers. If San Migoo got more that a degree above absolute zero, it was horrible. Other than that, it wasn't bad.
DeleteAs to the first comment, 'tis a common misconception amongst non New Englanders that there is a "New England accent." Yu have your Boston accent, your Rhode Island accent (which has a number of nuances depending on where you are in the state), your Maine accent, your Vermont (north and south), your New Hampshire and...
DeleteHhmm, not sure if folks in Connecticut have an accent.
And they all sound different, my first exposure to Rhode-Islandese I didn't even think they were speaking English!
Yes, that's right! Robin mentioned the meeting she had with you and other Dwight out at Shakespeare's in Sandy Eggo. I saw the picture as well. Yeah, she needs to visit Juvat, hell they're in the same state!
And yes, you, Juvat, and I are the elder-statesmen triumvirate. LUSH is still a young'un and Beans' picture makes him look way younger than the three of us, I mean, damn it, he's still got hair!
I like that elder-statesmen triumvirate thing, we should have a toga party... Or not.
With enough Red Stripes or San Miguels on board, Jamaica, PI, who cares? It's all islands, hot, humid, and ocean...
DeleteAnd fun.
Yup, San Migoo above a certain temperature is toxic.
DeleteDoesn't it sweat nitroglycerin or something?
(And yes, I know I spelled "You" as "Yu." Typo, fat fingered, Freudian slip? Asia on the brain? All of the above?)
A nuanced Rhode Island accent depending on where you are in the state? How can that be? You all live on the same block!
DeleteToga party? Ooh, I'll bring the daggers. (Because that's all I learned about Rome in school... Togas and assassinations.)
DeleteJuvat - I know Rhode Island wouldn't even be a good sized town in Texas, but to the Little Rhodians, having to cross a bridge, or drive more than 15 miles constitutes a journey worthy of packing a lunch and preparing to be out "all day." We're very insular here. No, seriously, it's almost like Central Falls is in a different country than Newport.
DeleteAnd not just linguistically.
a bear - Et tu in ursi?
DeleteAs lovely as the Lovely Lawyer Robin may be, she shan't get her chance to drink beer with me, as, well, as I don't drink. Now, I will watch a lovely lady drink, and I might take a sip or two, but that's as far as she'll get to drinking beer with me.
DeleteNow if it is Diet Dr. Pepper or Diet Coke, well, hell, game on! I'll gladly challenge her to a bladder containment battle over my favorite drink.
Why does this sound weird? It wasn't intended to.
As to Juvat, thanks for the complement and to saying what I was thinking about the vast reaches of Rhode Island. Oh My Gosh. Having to go 20 minutes away... They are doomed...
Beans, it only sounds weird to people who drink.
DeleteI completely understand.
Beans - Diane is the lawyer, Robin doesn't like beer. Just for the record.
DeleteAnd as to the Rhode Island thing? Try getting an "Islander" off the Island, they loath leaving their island. Really, really, try to avoid it. (Aquidneck Island, AKA Rhode Island, the rest of the state is technically "Providence Plantations." Little Rhody's proper name is "The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." Seriously. Heck, the name is bigger than the state!)
Copy that Skip. (It also doesn't sound weird to someone with a history of alcoholism in the male line, which fortunately I don't suffer from.)
DeleteWhen out to dinner, my table companions have often times commented on my ability to slug down sodas like crazy.
DeleteThanks for the skinny on Robin vs Diane. Both of them sound like cool ladies. You surround yourself with interesting people OldAFSarge.
They are both very lovely and very nice.
DeleteSomeday I will need to witness your soft drink beverage quaffing techniques.
However, that D model tail number seems familiar to me. Possibly a 80TFS bird later in life?
ReplyDeleteIn response to MrGaribaldi, much like a DC-3 can still be used as an airliner, there are limits to how much it can be modernized. Complete lack of Stealth capability, maneuverability and not a lot of internal avionics space would tend to warrant against bringing it out of retirement.
That having been said, should someone want to purchase one and give it to me for personal use (along with a substantial operating budget), I'd be happy to fly the snot out of it and take fellow readers along.
Just sayin'
Same bird on the masthead and which now sits on the grounds of the Air Force Academy. Was she a Juvat at one time? I don't remember. I do know that I worked on her at Kadena AND Kunsan. Not sure how that happened...
DeleteAnd yeah, I can vouch for the absolute lack of space in the equipment bays, then again, the new stuff isn't as bulky as the old avionics stuff. But then I could see weight and balance issues there.
A Phantom, stealthy? Not in this lifetime.
"...the symbology I used?"
ReplyDeleteIf'n you mean on the header, it's the aircraft that the four of you are associated with and as for AW ( aka Beans ), the face shield used by SCA.
Other than that, the post is good, but not a patch on the comments.
Thanks for the post.
Paul L. Quandt
Sorry, I meant to write: the face shield used by SCA with an AF shoulder patch on it.
DeletePaul
Ah, but there's more to Beans' symbology. Anyone care to guess?
DeleteIt's also more than a face shield, according to Beans Hisself, "It's a sugarloaf bascinet. How very 13th Century..." which I took as a compliment.
DeleteBingo on the USAF patch!
A Norman Conical would have been appropriate, as I like the late 11th Century and have family ties to the Conquest, but most people 'read' a sugarloaf bascinet as a helmet, so it works, works quite well, especially since conicals just don't seem helmety enough. Et Hoc Militarus Est, motha-pockers! (okay, geek point - it's off the Bayeaux Tapestry (which is really an Embroidery, but...))
DeleteBy the way, originally bascinets were sub-helms. They were open-faced, sometimes with an armored nasal (nose covering) either directly mounted or as part of the aventail and hookable over the nose, and worn under an actual Great Helm. Helms had restrictive vision and restrictive breathing, as they were designed for protection against the lance in a lance charge. Once the heavy charge is over, often times the helm was removed for vision purposes and to allow the wearer to suck much more air. Eventually, the bullet shape (the shape of a cone of sugar, thus - sugarloaf) evolved as a heavier all-purpose helmet with the addition of a full face built into the helm, as shown in the picture in the header. Lots of armor was designed for easy removal during battle, by the way, as parts damaged could be jettisoned, or as one got tired one could drop chunks, or if one was wanting to run away one could drop pieces-parts to drop weight. Geek moment achieved!
Now, if you really want to get technical on the patch, OldAFSarge should have cadenced it, more specifically either a mullet (star) if you don't count my sister or a martlet (bird with no feet, really, there are legs on the bird but no feet) if you do, count my sister, that is. Medieval Heraldry, yet another esoteric and pretty-much useless skill that I have acquired somewhere down the line.
As to the flying brick, I mean the glorious Phantom, my dad did have something to do with the F-4, dealing with close-to-the-ground high speed travel tests (test officer for something something.) One of these days I really need to get my grubbies on my dad's DD-214 and use it to request all the info from the AF that they and the statute of limitations and secrecies allows, just to find out what the hell he did when he disappeared for weeks at a time and why did he carry a pistol in his brief-case. Hmmmm. Need to get one of the brother's children to scan a copy and forward it to me so I can scratch that particular itch.
And you can upgrade the Phantom. You can re-engine it, put in new electronics, upgrade the radar, and fine tune it. But it will still have the overall flight characteristics of the original non-upgraded model. They have done this with the Mig-21, producing a quite capable 4th-ish generational fighter, as the base platform is a highly maneuverable dog-fighter to begin with. The most powerful is probably the Mig-21 2000 variants, made by those crafty Israelis. Kinda like taking a Mosin-Nagant and sporterizing it. Nothing wrong with the base garbage-rod rifle, but with some fun tweaks, one can have a super-garbage-rod, maybe shooting a different caliber or different cartridge out of it, adding some high-quality glass, nice adjustable tacticool stock (hey, better than your grand-dad's old Monte-Carlo stock) and... putting a big friggin recoil pad on the butt of it so your shoulder doesn't feel the weight of Mother Russia every time you pull the trigger.
Whooeeee, that's gotta be a record number of subject changes in a reply ever, maybe, possibly.
Certainly an instant classic of a comment. (You simply must put together a post on armor, the medieval kind that is, but others if you're cognizant, which you seem to be on a variety of topics. Man, I like having a co-blogger who is a walking encyclopedia!)
DeleteAnd yes, the data on your Dad's F-4 exploits would be fascinating. Pistol in a brief case sounds ever so mysterious and cool.
Briefcase. Hmmm. Was in master bedroom with Dad, asked what was in briefcase, because curious kid. Rather than 'Nunya' or an equally non-informative comment, Dad said, "Secrets. Can't tell you. Don't look or open my briefcase. I've got a gun in there, here, here it is, see, don't touch the gun."
DeleteSeriously. Been a nagging little itch all my life. What the hell was my admin-puke father doing that he needed a gun in his briefcase?
Armor post is in the future, as long as my weird strange posts are well accepted. I mean, everyone knows what a rerebrace is, right, or why it's important to wear a jupon. Or why having lame armor can be a good thing.
These are all things our readers are dying to know. Trust me.
Delete;)
Dad was a firm believer in Top Secret means Top Secret, especially after a friend of his got into serious trouble for not ensuring everything from a Confidential file was burned (seems the Base Commander himself found a readily identifiable corner of a piece of a document, just enough to identify the document itself, no actual secrets, and that was enough to almost ruin a career.)
DeleteSo, it may be what he did was boring and mundane and sumdude in the Pentagon decided it was confidential, therefore my dad protected that confidentiality. I seriously think if someone declared toilet paper to be confidential, he would have seen to the proper disposal of said tp.
The old ways of shutting your trap are still the best. Anything else is skirting or crossing the line into being a traitor. Like a certain confused senatorial candidate that the previous administration saved from a long time in military pokey-ville.
I'll get to work on finding out, now that the itch is rekindled.
Ah, yes. The renowned Mosin-Nagant.
Deletehttp://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinHumor.htm
Hey, if some tattooed Alaskan native chick (as seen on "Life below Zero") can lay waste to all sorts of critters on the tundra with a garbage rod, well, it's still a garbage rod. And I missed my chance at cheap garbage rods, darned it. Or Springfields, or Garands, or Enfields, or M1917s, or Arisakas, or K98s or even a Carcano. Dammit, my timing just sucks.
DeleteBeans - Old Russian saying, two people can keep a secret... If one of them is dead.
DeleteRHT447 - Nice bit of Mosin-Nagant humor.
DeleteBeans - yeah, cheap long guns, thing of the past.
DeleteAlso, happy to see the LUSH's helmet picture is in the Staff pictures.
ReplyDeletePLQ
Had to keep LUSH's helmet, it's too cool to lose.
DeleteYes, LUSH's helmet is way too cool. Hope she or you still has it.
DeleteFunny about flight helmets. My dad was shopping in the early '60s at an Army-Navy surplus store and found his flight helmet, with name on it, from his advanced training class (T-33s, J-Flight Jets!) and is now a proud addition to the family's collection of stuff. When my dad died, my eldest brother got it, along with his post-war fine Japanese shotguns and the Ruger Mk 1. I got the ShopSmith.
My Daughter in Law asked me to come speak to her 4th grade math class a few weeks ago. She had mentioned at dinner that they didn't seem to see much value in early geometry, angles and circles, radius and diameter etc. I said those concepts kept me alive during my flying days. So, I gathered up my flight helmet and went to talk about angles during an intercept. (i.e. 1 degree at 60 miles is one mile offset, turning radius at corner velocity is 1 mile. That same offset requires 2 degrees at 30, 4 at 15, 6 at 10 and by then you're pulling for all your worth.) I also talked about turn radius and dive angles. (i.e. if you maintained your dive angle until your turning radius exceeded your altitude, you were a flying dead man). Then showed them the video from my Buried Treasure post of a couple of months ago. Then had them try on the helmet.
DeleteIt was a good day. Lots of fun and some surprisingly good questions about angles and circles.
Beans - she still has the helmet. How could she leave that behind, it's part of the legend that is LUSH.
DeleteJuvat - math is cool, I mean come on, fighter pilots use it!
DeleteGlad she still has her helmet. Something like that is part of who she was and now is.
DeleteApparently, according to my mother, my father acted like a kid just finding a golden ticket in his chocolate bar when he found that helmet in a bin of camping gear.
Math is cool. One of the best way to teach someone vector analysis is to use Traveller RPG vector rules for starship movement, especially if you plot it out on a floor using a ruler (1" being 1g) as all the vectors start to add up real quick, just in a 2-D world.
Man, you guys are educational. I'll be over in the corner, desperately trying to keep up.
DeleteOh, don't beat yourself up. I got all the way to Differential Equations and then my mind broke, hard. As to Physics, I failed the whole vector analysis portion so badly that the Professor teaching it said I just needed to drop the class and that I needed to seriously rethink my college ambitions.
DeleteIt took a friggin sci-fi role playing game to make me understand vectors.
Differential equations, ya just had to mention differential equations. I passed that class, probably because the class average was around 39. Out of a hundred. I think I nailed down a 40. Woo-hoo! It wasn't so much that the professor sucked, he was simply disorganized and slightly insane. I don't think he even understood what he was teaching.
DeleteThat there Heretic looks promising. If you like that sort of thing you may want to consider Founders Breakfast Stout, which I consider one of the finest beers out there. Special bonus that a German friend was horrified by the mere description: "That would be ILLEGAL in my country!" The (Kentucky) bourbon-barrel aged version of Breakfast Stout (KBS) is also good, but such a trendy cult item it's almost not worth the hassle, much less the price.
ReplyDeleteI did a little research, if I had a bucket list, Founders Breakfast Stout would be on it.
DeleteBut I have added it to my "I wonder if I can get that here?" list. Looks outstanding.
Also Germany has very strict rules about the making of beer, rules which are seldom (read never) violated.
Aidan's has a Kentucky Bourbon Ale, which Tuna has tried and which I've had a sip, which is most excellent.
I'm guessing that to get the KBS you'd actually have to die and go to Heaven?
I may have made my feelings about the Brussels mandates known over at the plant stand.
ReplyDeleteCan’t say there’s anything you’ve said with which I disagree.
I’m not gonna beat that horse again... today.
I reflexively deleted Google's little message which you reproduced the other day.
DeleteNoticed at another blog that there was a "we use cookies" thing cluttering up the display. That kinda crap sets my teeth on edge.
Brussels, lotta morons working full time there.
I use cookies in order to maintain my rotundity. Right?
DeleteAs do I. (Along with lots of other stuff, shhh, don't tell.)
DeleteHarvard grad...ex-barmaid...comely...wicked smaht...lawyer...comely...You DID of course give her my number, I hope? If not, there's probably still time. And we have a few bars down here in New Orleans, too. I'd be happy to take her on a tour of the best, followed by the rest. And of course there will be dogs, primed on how to be cute and non-asinine when she's around.
ReplyDeleteYes, you were all I could think of Murph.
DeleteOkay, no, I didn't give her your number. I should have. Maybe.
Belle and Murphy are both masters at that art.
Years ago at a NC FBO, I was directed to the Earl shed. Took awhile to understand "oil" shed.
ReplyDeleteHahaha!
Delete