British and Austrian Infantry Advance on Blindheim Village¹ Source
The Battle of Blenheim (which you may or may not have heard of) was the greatest victory of a British general on the continent since Henry V defeated the French at Agincourt some 300 years earlier. It would be eclipsed by the Battle of Waterloo a little over a hundred years later. Which may be why you've never heard of it.
Sir John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, was a member of the family which gave the world Sir Winston Churchill as well as Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales. (Whose older brother Charles wrote an excellent account of the Battle of Blenheim which I'm nearly done reading.) He's the general you may or may not have heard of and the victor at Blenheim.
In order to rectify any gaps in your knowledge of European history which might exist, I give you the following, from a fellow on YouTube known as The History Chap². Sorry lads and lassies if I've given ye another way to waste time. But history is important. And sometimes it rhymes ...
So yes, I'll be spending some more time with The History Chap and I'm starting to hear from The Muse that the War of the Spanish Succession might be a great setting for a bit of historical fiction. It's a fascinating period in European history what with Louis XIV³ throwing his weight around.
By the way, the aforementioned war was fought because the King of Spain died without leaving an heir. So Louis XIV volunteered his grandson to take that throne. Other European countries, particularly Austria, objected. So, true to European custom (and truth be told, human custom), they fought a war over it, killing thousands to benefit the few.
The "noble" few.
Sigh, there's an old story there. Which is why we Americans threw off that particular yoke.
Do we ever learn?
Hard to say.
Editor's Note: As I write this, it's snowing, again. Yay, sarcastically, of course. It's pretty, but enough already!
¹ Blindheim is known as Blenheim in English.
² The fellow is a great storyteller, though his pronunciation of Bavaria drives me nuts. Then again, I know it as Bayern, not Bavaria, regardless of that latter name's pronunciation. 🙄
³ The Sun King, surely you've heard of him? (Sorry for calling you Shirley ...)
I recall saying I was done posting about the weather last week.
And yet, here we are, another weather post.
We're in for some more snow, maybe, but not all that much. I will say this, modern weather prediction is far more accurate than back in the day. Knowing the variables helps.
Storm might stay further out to sea, which means we don't get much snow. Might slide right up the coast and give us a mix of rain and snow (argh, the worst thing is when it's freezing rain). Or it could go further inland and miss us completely.
Satellites help the weather guessers and they usually get it right, for certain locations on the earth's surface. I've also noted that weather will sometimes get here later than predicted, or earlier than predicted.
It's that butterfly in Beijing flapping it's wings again!¹
Snow aside, we're getting some really low temperatures this weekend. After a week in the Arctic, then this week where temps were closer to normal, the weekend plunges us back into the Arctic. Might see wind chills² of down to -35°!
That's a killing cold if you're outside and unprepared.
I've been out and about at -30° and it was seriously unpleasant. Like "If I don't get inside soon and get warm, I'm going to die" unpleasant. And I was dressed for it!
Think we'll stay hunkered down this weekend.
Another weather prediction I'll be paying attention to, that's for sure.
² Wind Chill is a term used to describe what the air temperature feels like to the human skin due to the combination of cold temperatures and winds blowing on exposed skin. In simple terms, the colder the air temperature and the higher the wind speeds the colder it will feel on your skin if you're outside. So even if it remains the same temperature, but the wind speed increases it will actually feel colder to your skin. Source
Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus (Ray Stevenson and Kevin McKidd) Source
One of my favorite series, ever, is Rome, which came out on HBO, in the US, and BBC2, in the UK. With twenty-two episodes overall, the series began in 2005 and ended after the second season in 2007. I understand there was to be a third season but the cost of the thing was just too high to get anyone to sign off on that. Pity, considering the garbage which comes out of Hollywood these days.
An outstanding cast, a well-told story, and very high production values, I daresay, they just don't make them like this anymore. More's the pity.
If you haven't watched it, you should. It's entertaining and doesn't stray all that far from the historical record.
Caesar commands it!
The superb Irish actor, Ciarán Hinds, as ... Gaius Julius Caesar Source
Really, you should make the time to watch this. I've watched all 22 episodes three times and am about to embark upon a fourth viewing. It is really good.
Many are the hours I spend looking for, finding, and watching cool videos on YouTube. With all of the crap that is on the internet in these modern times, YouTube still has some good stuff.
The Australian Armour & Artillery Museum has a number of really great videos on YouTube. They restore and display some of the most iconic vehicles of the World Wars. The Grant tank being one of them. If you chase that link under the opening photo you can watch an hour and a half long video of the restoration of a Grant tank.
While working on that vehicle they had teams looking for parts to restore it, amazingly enough, they found another Grant tank.
A barn find!
Their Workshop Wednesday videos are awesome, I learn something every time I watch one. Here's a taste of those videos ...
Great stuff.
I spend a lot of time on their page, if you like armor and artillery, you should too.
We departed Maryland on Monday morning at approximately 0833 local. Weather was CAVU and bloody cold, roughly 15 (sit down you Northern tier types, we don't want to hear how farking cold it is up there, we're glad it's up there, and not down here). Vehicle was fully fueled and all that was required was a coffee and ration stop (Dunkin').
Once that was done, we set a course for Little Rhody via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (not to be confused with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, which is much further south). We wanted to avoid Baltimore's rush hour (we did) and the Eastern Shore side of Maryland is pretty, much prettier than the environs of Baltimore. It's very rural, lots of farms and open fields.
As you can see in the opening photo, Annapolis has snow, rather a lot. Thing is though, it's about four inches of packed snow, almost a solid, topped by three to five inches of ice. The stuff is impenetrable, except by anti-tank ammo. Seriously, the stuff is solid and hard as a rock.
The further north we traveled the fluffier the snow got. The quantity varied from perhaps six inches in some areas to one to two feet in Little Rhody. Seriously, we got pounded last weekend. But it was nice light snow, easy to shovel.
How do I know you might ask?
Well, our next door neighbors cleared the driveway for us, which was awesome pulling up to a nice clean driveway after driving 425 miles. As we prepared for extra-vehicular activity, i.e. unloading the car and moving stuff into the house, I noted that the path to the deck and the deck itself were still piled high with virgin snow. Maybe a foot? Maybe less? But there it was.
Fortunately I keep a shovel handy at the back of the deck and within minutes a path was cleared.
OAFS Photo
More will be cleared on the morrow (today as you read this) but after 7.5 hours behind the wheel with a semi-busted up knee, I was in no mood for further physical activity. So I left it, it will still be there when I get up.
Unless it melts.
Fat chance of that happening, seems the polar vortex is planning an extended stay for the month of February.
So it's winter, real winter, like when I was nobbut a lad.
But back then Dad did the shoveling, now I am the Dad.
Bummer.
OAFS Photo
Gotta admit though, the stuff is pretty when viewed in the right light.
Well, the weather down here hasn't been as bad as a lot of other places, Temperatures right at freezing when we wake up. Been topping out in the high 40's . Forecast for this week is highs in the 60's and 70's and lows in the 30's and 40'. Had icy roads when this front first came through, but they cleared up by lunch. So not a really big deal, most people stayed home for a day or at least a morning. Not a lot of meat in that for a posting.
So, anyhow I re-posted a tale from 5 years ago, flying related. Hope you enjoy it.
...Abundance of Caution
Abundance
of Caution. I've only spoken those words once in my life. I was a
student pilot early in the T-37 phase of pilot training. The syllabus
for the ride I was scheduled to fly that day included "Introduction to
Spins and Spin Recovery." This was generally considered the least
favorite mission in the entire syllabus. One would take an airplane up
and intentionally put it out of control, spinning in flat circles with
unexpected pitch up and down moments all the while falling out of the
sky. Literally, the aircraft was no longer flying. On this flight, I
was scheduled with an IP whose callsign was IronMan. He had been an
F-105 pilot with a couple of tours you know where.
Been
there, done that, got all the respect that he deserved. But...He
didn't put up with much BS, you either knew your S*** and executed it
properly or you didn't pass the ride. And...
You re-flew it with him!
So, we're in the briefing for the mission. He asks me to recite the bold faced Emergency Procedure for Spin Recovery.
Bold
Faced procedures are required to be memorized perfectly, down to the
punctuation and spacing. Students would be selected at the Flight
Briefing at the start of the flying period (as opposed to academic
period) and given a hypothetical flying situation. Most required bold
face. If the bold face was incorrect (e.g. not perfect), the student
would be told "Sit Down!" and he'd be grounded for the day.
That tended to mark you for further inquiry if you actually "Knew your S***" or were just bluffing.
I manage to recite the spin recovery procedure to IronMan successfully.
Throttles – Idle Rudder and Ailerons – Neutral Stick – Abruptly full aft and hold Rudder – Abruptly apply full rudder opposite spin direction (opposite turn needle) and hold Stick – Abruptly full forward one turn after applying rudder Controls – Neutral after spinning stops and recover from dive Yes, 47 years after the fact, I did that from memory. Although I confirmed the accuracy here. (A short post with some additional entertaining commentary, go read it. I'll wait.)
So,
IronMan and I start to talk about the mission and how we'll go about
it. He'll demonstrate the first spin and recovery then it'll be me.
Suffice it to say, I'm nervous.
You might understand why.
Airborne, we set up for the spin. Ironman has the throttles at about 80% and the nose about 45o
high. The stall warning horn is going off like crazy, the airplane is
shaking and finally stalls. Ironman then steps on a rudder as it stalls
to induce yaw.
My eyes are about as big as basketballs now.
He holds the controls as they are for three complete turns.
I now have a good idea how long eternity is.
He
executes the bold face, the aircraft recovers in a dive and he smoothly
pulls it out of that. Hands it over to me. We climb back up
I pull the throttles back, nose up, it stalls and pitches down. I immediately do the bold face and recover.
He
snatches the aircraft from me asks me "WTF was that?" I said, "out of
an abundance of caution I thought I'd try an easy one first."
He replied "My Aircraft". We flew home and landed. I've busted my first & last ride in UPT.
He
said a pilot can and must use caution in performing the mission.
However, accomplishing the mission is his first priority and too much
caution is not acceptable. One is always at risk when flying.
He then went and scratched out the student he was flying with that afternoon and wrote my name in.
I was peeved. I'll show this SOB! We get up in the air. He asks if I want him to demo another one.
"NO, sir"
I
entered the spin, held it for four turns (I'll show him!) executed the
bold face and even managed to recover from the dive without exiting the
bottom of the airspace. Which would have been an automatic Flight
Safety Bust.
Got
back on the ground. Got an excellent on the ride. Found out later
that he'd been key to my getting a fighter out of Pilot Training.
We
flew a lot more together in the program. I learned a lot from him but
having an "Abundance of Caution" was not on the curriculum.
Here's a longer version of Spin Training, but does include what it looks like from another airplane.
So, what brought this up, juvat? Got a little bit behind the power curve on the posting timeline, so had to publish a replay. Why you ask?
Did a walk through of our property Friday with the Builder. He's got the property clearing team ready with the dozers and stuff. They're going to take down a limited number of mature trees and virtually all the undergrowth.
Just a tad bit of pruning needed. Let's get started!
Oh yeah, he's also going to take down the old house and cart that debris away also.
Tuttle pointed out that block of ice out by the street the other day. Later on, when The Nuke and Your Humble Scribe went out to fetch BBQ for the tribe, there were a lot of those ice monoliths everywhere.
Last Sunday we started with snow, by the time I got up (9-ish) it was sleet, around noon it was light rain and as it was still very cold, that drizzly rain froze when it landed. By sunset we had a thin glaze of ice on everything. Fortunately there wasn't much of that.
But the parts of streets, roads, driveways, and so forth that hadn't been plowed (or treated) wound up with a good inch or two of ice on top of the snow. So when the town (and state) got out from under all the snow on the main roads and came back to plow the neighborhoods once more, the plows were lifting up those frozen monoliths depicted above.
The Nuke went into work on Wednesday and saw that someone had collected a number of those ice blocks and had built an igloo! I'm guessing it was kids and not that the Inuit were tracking polar bears and seals this far south.
But ya never know!
The knee is better, gets a bit better every day and I'm happy with that. I have avoided walking on ice since then. Should have avoided it altogether but my attention wandered and BAM, next thing you know I'm on the ground wondering just what I was thinking.
I mean, I grew up in this stuff, walking on (as is driving on) ice is not possible without special equipment. Armored fighting vehicles weighing in at nearly 70 tons will slide on that slippery stuff.
Par exemple ...
I mean I'm fairly hefty but nowhere near as hefty as an Abrams, those bad boys slide on ice too. But they don't tip over like I did ...
