Odds and Ends

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While out in Sandy Eggo recently, I started watching pro football again, well, to be honest I watched some college ball as well. After a long week of work it was relaxing to sit, vegetate,  and watch some football. I used to play some thousands of years ago, we actually still had a couple of the old leather helmets around, friend of mine wore one as a freshman. He grew up to be a Master Chief Petty Officer, so you can imagine the pounding his head must have taken in that old helmet.

Speaking of pro football and the Navy, son-in-law Big Time had the opportunity to do another flyover during the pregame festivities. This time over Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, new home of the Oakland Los Angeles Las Vegas Raiders. The stadium has one of those new-fangled "can be opened or closed" roofs (rooves in the U.K. from what I gather). From the opening photo I would guess the roof was closed. Why you'd do a flyover over a closed roof stadium boggles my mind, no doubt it's shown on the big screen inside the stadium, but still and all, Big Time got to do it. His previous flyover experience was at a Dodgers game. I guess when you're stationed at Lemoore you get to cover the west coast games.

Yes, one of those Super Hornets above was being piloted by my youngest son-in-law, which I find cool and impressive. There are worse ways to spend your time.

Anyhoo, the lad is doing well at his chosen profession (he puts on Commander in the spring) and is probably glad he didn't get out to join the airlines. Which would have happened just before the Wu Flu became a thing, that timing would have sucked! He's well on his way to joining Tuttle and Your Humble Scribe in the world of the military retired.

Speaking of airlines, Your Humble Scribe got to ride the B737 MAX 8/9 (bloody safety brochure applies to both models apparently) and was initially kind of freaked out by that. Me picturing all sorts of ...

Actually no, I didn't freak out. I just found it interesting that that model aircraft was back in service. I always operate under the assumption that when my number is up, it's up. Whether I'm sitting on the sofa at home or flying in an airliner at 32,000 feet, when it's your time, it's your time. Of course, on an airliner it means that a bunch of people all hit their time at once. Odd way to think, I know, but it's the way I think. YMMV.

Lately I have begun to question everything. Sometimes it's just me being contrary, sometimes it's me wondering just what the Hell some people were thinking when something was written down/promulgated/sold as absolute truth. Which leads to the paradox -

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Yeah, why?

Or why not, now my head hurts.

I'm looking at the rest of this year, blog-wise, and am up in the air as to what the management types like to call "the way forward." (The peasantry likes to refer to this as a "plan," but I guess "way forward" is more correct corporate-speech-wise. A language I love to hate.)

Do I coast into the New Year, knowing that I'll be taking a lot of time off (well-deserved and otherwise) and want to spend time doing things other than blogging? Or do I resurrect some of the unfinished fiction, one colonial, the other being what a friend referred to as "civil war porn," or do I start something new?

Truth be told, I don't know. I need to finish the WWII novel, I checked, in a month of not touching it, it did not become self-aware and start editing itself, more's the pity. Do I start something new? (The Eastern Front beckons, as does the Pacific. Probably because I'm reading a very good biography of Chester Nimitz at the moment, with Bill Halsey's biography waiting in the on deck circle.)

I could just continue this current string of musings, ramblings, and disjointed accounts of "what's going on with me," or I could just chuck it and walk away until January. The latter, while tempting, probably won't happen. Mostly because I enjoy blogging and also because we have this string of "every day with a post" going. I didn't used to be so anal, especially back in the day of maybe 200 hits a day, now that we're consistently topping a thousand a day, my ego would suffer were that to drop. (Not really, but I am kinda OCD about the blog.)

As to the colonial era novel mentioned above, I ran out of steam on that one, also it seemed (to me) that most of the readership really didn't care for it, not being enamored of that time period as much as others. I know, some of you really liked it, and I feel bad for halting production on it, but we shall have to see what the future holds. I want to get back to it, but not if people don't read it.

The aforementioned "civil war porn" also has rather run out of steam. It was a way for me to blow off steam but too many readers took it far too seriously for my tastes. We might live in scary times (not really, you want scary times, live in Europe during the early '40s, or Africa in damned near any century, we have it easy compared to some) but I like to escape from that shite when I'm "off duty," so to speak.

At any rate, this is Thanksgiving week, for which I'll be heading into the land of limited cell and non-existent WiFi for much of the week. I'll be spending time with my Mom and kid brother, The Missus Herself as well, of course, and won't have much time for writing.

If you don't see me in these spaces in the next cuppla, it's because I'm off to the north, or I've decided to lay low, or I'm just too lazy to write. I do, after all, have the entire week off. So I've got that going for me.

If I forget, may all of you find something to be thankful for.

Ciao!