Twenty Years

It has been twenty years since Rob of Acidman's Gut Rumbles shuffled off into the void.

It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but...  Damn. 

Best wishes to his daughter and son, and I hope they got to know him from what he left them on his blog. 

D+ 29,950

82 years ago, the landings for D-Day, Operation Neptune, began.

On a single day, more than four thousand Allied troops killed and more than 10,000 wounded.

For The Fallen

 

 

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.


Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.


They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.


They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.


But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;


As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

-- Laurence Binyon

Today is not about sales. It is not about summer starting. It is not about grandma.

It's is about those who served and have passed beyond the veil.

I want them all back.

To:

Bernie Canniff (Korea, in a car club together).

Carol LeFon aka Neptunus Lex (patiently explained both real world and flight sim military aviation to this tanker).

Davy McGuire (COB USS Whale, originally a friend of my Dad's, later me).

Fred Gabow (we served together, his wife hired someone to murder him).

Jerry Pournelle (you do read, don't you? Willing to be wrong and listened to my correction!).

Kevin O'Brian aka Hognose (our beloved Weaponsman).

Paul Harrell (he taught me a couple things about guns and how to reply to dicks).

Rabbi (Uncle Ben, another friend of Dad who got me a ride in an F-14A).

 

Rich (brother of my Father in law).

Robert (uncle by marriage to Mom's sister).

Standing Bear aka William Dawkins (WW2 and Korea, who taught me gaming).

The world is better that you were in it and worse that you have left.

We're Out Of Beer

The tagline was, "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer."

Pabst has decided to stop brewing Schlitz, bringing a 177 year old brand name to an end. 

This is kind of a bummer for me, it was one of my favorite American style beers, you just never saw it in the stores down here in Florida and I once found some in Iowa on a visit.

Amusingly, based on the tag line, I kept the last bottle from that Iowa visit, so I'd never run out of beer.  It's, at least, 8-years old.  I'm afraid to open the bottle now. 

Slackin'

I got it my head that The Day The Unbearable Light Of Lex went out was next Friday.

It was last Friday.

Make up toast of Guinness (for strength) and Jameson (for courage) was done yesterday at dinner.

Sorry about that, Lex.

Then I totally missed 3-08 day!

So...

 and

plus

 

Prolly Quite Warm Where He Is

Depending on the model you use for Hell, Reverend Jackson might be quite warm now.

Though in the Dante model he might be VERY cold because his self enrichment while representing other causes might be considered a betrayal of the public trust and he's frozen in Lake Cocytus.

Still time to repent, Al. 

A Good Run

Ed Iskenderian has passed on at the ripe old age of 104.

If you know who he was, then I don't have to explain.

Challenger

40 Years Ago some engineers put on their manager hats and seven Astronauts died.

I was in the lunch line at school buying my breakfast.

They announced it over the PA.

Not more than 10 seconds later someone made the "what's this button do?" joke.

Just after I'd finished eating I joked that the student liberation organization claimed credit for the bombing and no teacher would be safe until our demands were met.

Just after that I was waiting for my mom to come pick me up for my three day out of school suspension.

Apparently a teacher was right behind me when I made my joke.

Zero appreciation, or tolerance, for gallows humor at Ames High School.

I've long supported manned spaceflight.

I've long been critical of the shuttle program.

I've loved planes as long as I can remember and from reading about military programs I gleaned that the time to start the replacement is during the first flight.

If NASA had used that rule of thumb then Challenger wouldn't have been on the pad that morning 40 years ago.  She would have been in a museum.

But I remember what the original plan for the orbiters was and we never even once flew them that way.  Hauling modules for the ISS is as close as we got.

So a replacement never got made, we killed 14 astronauts with it, and the jobs program it had become finally died.

The replacement for the replacement would probably have been flying before Columbia's accident too...  But we were never serious about it.

We made a jobs program and science research toy out of a cargo truck and were surprised it was expensive.  So we cut funding for follow-on programs. 

RIP

Crazy man, commentator and cartoonist Scott Adams has succumbed to cancer.

I've been missing Dilbert since the scolds went after him.

Meathead In The Fire

Rob Reiner has died.

Considering how often he lectured me about my politics, I will not miss him much.

He made a lot of stuff I enjoyed watching, and if he'd limited himself to letting his art speak for him, I'd prolly be more upset.

Update: It's being investigated as a homicide.

RIP

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has passed to the actors home in the sky.

His career had some surprising turns for me.

Happy Birthday!

Guinness for strength!

Jameson for courage!

Happy birthday (posthumous) to our dearly missed Captain Carrol "Neptunis Lex" LeFon (USN Ret).

As long as we remember them, they're not quite gone.

Fair Winds

Randy "Duke' Cunningham has left the chat.

Naval Aviator

Congressman

Criminal (Repeating myself?)

Convicted Felon (Pardoned) 

80 Years

80 years ago, this very minute, Bockscar dropped Fat Man on Nagasaki, Japan; marking the last use of nuclear weapons in war to date.

We've been doing good not using nukes since then, but we've come closer than I'd like more than once.

Trivia for this day, Enola Gay was flying as part of the overall mission on a weather reporting flight over Kokura. 

80 Years

80 years ago, this very moment, Enola Gay released Little Boy over the city of Hiroshima marking the first time a nuclear weapon was detonated in war.

Ironically, ground zero Hiroshima looks better than downtown Detroit today.

Shines The Name

On July 31, 1943, the infantry company of which Pvt. Young was a member, was ordered to make a limited withdrawal from the battle line in order to adjust the battalion's position for the night. At this time, Pvt. Young's platoon was engaged with the enemy in a dense jungle where observation was very limited. The platoon suddenly was pinned down by intense fire from a Japanese machinegun concealed on higher ground only 75 yards away. The initial burst wounded Pvt. Young. As the platoon started to obey the order to withdraw, Pvt. Young called out that he could see the enemy emplacement, whereupon he started creeping toward it. Another burst from the machine gun wounded him the second time. Despite the wounds, he continued his heroic advance, attracting enemy fire and answering with rifle fire. When he was close enough to his objective, he began throwing hand grenades, and while doing so was hit again and killed. Pvt. Young's bold action in closing with this Japanese pillbox and thus diverting its fire, permitted his platoon to disengage itself, without loss, and was responsible for several enemy casualties.

Fiesta Time Is No More

Mathematician and song writer Tom Lehrer has passed on.

 

Another One

It seems like celebrities die in clumps.

Hulk Hogan is gone.

This one is different for me because I met him once when I was living in Minnesota.

The AWA guys owned a cabin on the same lake as my dad's buddies and they were all at one of the taverns on a poker run we were doing.

Not like we was friends or anything, but they were a fun group to be around for a couple hours when I was a teenager. 

さようなら先生

Tamiya Shunsaku passed away on the 18th.

I am quite the connoisseur of his company's fine products.

 

Fair winds, sir. 

Uh Oh

An Airman in Wyoming is dead from an apparent unintended discharge of an M18 pistol.

Someone is taking this seriously.

 

I seem to recall that Remington was, essentially, bankrupted by the legal battles over fewer unintended discharges with the Model 700 than Sig is having with their P320 series.

S&W should make sure they can handle the volume of a military order of flat-dark-earth M&P pistols because it's looking like we might just be seeing an M19 competition soon.