I’ve been thinking about how many times I’ve taken the military oath. Between initial sign up, Officer Training School, my commissioning, joining the National Guard, and finally, the Air Force Reserve, it adds up to maybe a half a dozen times.
In short, I swore to uphold the the Constitution of the United States. I still feel that I’m under oath to protect it. I’m ok with that. I like the constitution. Of course that includes the amendments--- all of them. I suppose, if there were an amendment I didn’t like, I’d be obligated to uphold it, too. Fortunately for me, I like them all. I think people forget that it’s a package deal. You don’t get to pick and choose which parts of the constitution you support.
Maybe it’s time to give the old thing a quick scan, just to refresh in our minds what is says, and why, and what it really means.
We stopped by the cemetery where C's parents are buried to freshen up the flowers. Directly across the street (two lane blacktop) is the Oil Museum. My Grandfather and C's Father worked for The Pure Oil Company. Gathered around the museum grounds were over a dozen antique cars. These are real antiques, from 100 years ago. It was a tour of the Horseless Carriage Club. We took pictures with our new Droids an a few videos. Here’s a video. (You also get to here the dulcet voice of my lovely wife.)
She was a typical JRT, which means she was an extraordinary dog. This is the dog that people like to put in movies and TV shows, mostly because they are so charismatic and smart. They never fail to steal the scene. Katie was like that.
She had Cushing’s Syndrome, which is an abnormality of the pituitary, but causes damage to the liver. Four days ago, an X-ray showed her liver to be nothing but a ghost if what it should have been.
Two years ago, my wife and I got hooked on watching re-runs of “What’s My Line.” It was a prime time game show that was on during our pre-teen years, the “early” days of television. GSN, the Game Show Network, carried it late at night, so I recorded it to watch in the evenings. There were two reasons I enjoyed it. It was pure nostalgia, and it had Steve Allen on it, one of my personal heroes. The show had a panel of minor celebrities, known more for their credibility than for star power, whose task it was to guess a person’s line of work by asking yes or no questions. The contestant could win a whopping fifty dollars for stumping the panel. The thing that really hooked us, was that on each show, they would bring out a “Mystery Guest” that would likely be a truly famous person. Usually a leading lady or man, my jaw dropped to see a young Charlton Heston, just finished with “The Ten Commandments”, but, frequently, someone that had become a household name for other reasons, a politician perhaps. For these contestants, the panel would wear blindfolds and the contestant would disguise their voice. Imagine Ronald Reagan speaking like a cartoon character. One night, the mystery guest was Ava Gardner. Below is a clip of that segment.
If you watch the clip closely, you can see a look that Ava gave John Daly just as she sat down beside him. Fortunately, for John, he didn’t see her looking at him. It was a look that would reduce most men to gibbering fools. It certainly would have had that effect on me.
The “Big A” was before my time, in that I was too young to see the type of movies she made. That’s too bad. I would have loved to watch The Night of the Iguana or The Barefoot Contessa in the theater.
Through out her appearance, I kept thinking, “I never knew she was so beautiful!”
There is a recent, well done biography of her by Lee Server, Ava Gardner, “Love is Nothing”. I’ve just finished reading it. She was literally, born and raised on Tobacco Road, and became the biggest femme fatale of the 50’s and 60’s. Married to Mickey Rooney, Arti Shaw, and Frank Sinatra, pursued by Howard Hughes, she had men tripping over themselves to be near her.
For a while she lived just four miles away from my home near Madrid, Spain, but a decade before I got there.
If you are stuck for something to read, I recommend it. If you are out of ideas for videos, put some of her movies in your Netflix cue.
I occasionally have a lucid moment in which I notice something that had been staring me in the face for years. A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that the pricedifference between regular gas(87 octane) and super(91 octane) had seemed to stay the same (around 20 cents) even from the days when gas was a buck fifty a gallon. Since my teenage years, it had always been axiomatic that high test gas was only for rich folks that had fancy foreign cars and utterly foolish from a economic point of view. Then I got to thinking. At around $3.50 a gallon for regular and $3.75 for super, if I got only a one mile per gallon improvement in mileage on my family car, it would be cost effective.
Here's how it works at today's prices. I filled up at Sam's Club gas stand in Renton this morning. The 87 Octane was $2.91, the 92 Octane (they claim 92!) was $3.11. I get about 19 mpg city and 21 mpg highway in my Ford Ranger, let's call it 20 mpg avg. I only need to get a 7% improvement in mileage to pay for the extra expense. That would be a 1.4 mpg improvement. (I would have needed twice that if the price difference stayed the same when gas was around $1.50 per gallon.) My driving routine varies so much, it would be hard to detect that small of a difference. But, clearly, my long held prejudice against paying for high test gas is no longer valid.
A little research on the web, (this is one result) and I have come to the following epiphany: Use what your Owner's Manual recommends!
It comes down to the ECU. It will be set up for what the manufacturer recommends.
If you use a lower grade of gas, it will "de-tune" the engine to avoid knock, aka pre-ignition. Using the cheaper gas will almost certainly decrease performance.
If you use a higher grade of gas, it won't recognise the better fuel and change injection and timing accordingly. You probably wont get significantly better mileage with it.
July 1 was the big day for our Canadian friends. This video has popped up on YouTube and is enjoying a revival in popularity. I get a little nostalgic, myself.
Mad Skillz or Dumb Luck? I'm going with Dumb Luck.
Sometimes computer problems just go away. Occasionally, someone will tell me about a problem they're having, and when I try to help them, the problem's gone. Sometimes, I don't even have to be present.
Our scheduler has had a new smart-phone for a month now, but couldn't use it because it wouldn't sync with her computer. The computer didn't even recognize that something had been connected. Last week, two technicians and the department phone expert tried unsuccessfully to get it working. I promised to take a look at it when I had some time. Today, I did. I had the scheduler connect the phone. She did, then I sat down at her desk to watch what happened. ActiveSync popped up and was ready to connect to the smart-phone and sync with no problem. People started looking at me funny. Someone said I was the "Computer Whisperer."
Now I understand how all those Psychic con-men get lured into fooling all their believers; it's kinda fun!
We went to Martina Franca's old town for dinner again last night. There are four of us pilots, an Evergreen Airlines pilot, an FAA Pilot, me, and the guy who's in charge of this mission, R.
R took us to a cafe he'd had his eye on since we got here. As the four of us got settled at a table an angel with dark hair came to our table and gave us four menus. We studied them for a minute, then R said "There's no pasta on the menu, just pizza." (The sign said pizzeria.) "I want pasta tonight."
"Are you suggesting that we leave?"
"Yes, let's go to the place we ate last night."
The angel was back now. "Can you look at that face and tell her 'No, I don't want to eat here?' "
"I really want pasta."
So, amid lashings of apologies, we left. I gave R trash about it the whole night.
Later, on our way back to the hotel, we met some of the young engineers and technicians supporting us. They ate at the pizzeria and had fallen "head over heels" for the two waitresses. Yes, two!!! The angel we snubbed had a sister!
Easter is a big part of our family tradition, especially the Easter egg hunt. We can trace it back to my Dad's childhood, which would put it in the depression era. Back then, Poppa (my paternal grandfather) would count the eggs before-hand and make the kids keep hunting until they were all accounted for.
By my childhood, it had evolved to the point of being our primary family reunion. It still is today. It marks the debut of all the new babies. It is also the first time tha family gets a look at the new wives and husbands to join the family. And that's not for the faint of heart! My aunts still have a wicked sense of humor.
The family has grown so that Easter might see over a hundred grownups. It's not unusual to have a thousand eggs hidden for the big hunt. Of course, only a small percentage are real eggs. Most "eggs" are the plastic kind that will hold jelly beans and money. One innovation that someone came up with is marking the boiled eggs prior to dying so that it will say something like, "Collect 25 cents from Uncle Don." So after the hunt, a mom will point out one of us, then the child will approach offering the egg as proof that we owe them some money. We, of course, will make a big deal out of being extorted out of our hard earned change. It's a fun way of teaching the young ones who us older guys are.
About twenty five years ago, the venue was changed from the old homestead to Mom and Dad's farm. Dad had a brand new barn, an all metal, insulated, plumbed building. It had a finished concrete floor that, after being triple sealed, turned out perfect for dancing and family gatherings. We had about six acres next to the house that would make a perfect field for the hunt.
There was a problem, though. That field served as a kind of nursery/hospital. Since it was so close to the house, cattle that needed special care were put in it for observation. Mom and Dad needed to partition off a couple of acres so it would be "clean" for the hunt. There was not enough time to build a proper fence, so they purchased the materials for an electric fence. The set up was quick, it took about half a day. Mother, ever the humane care-taker, decided that the cows needed a visual cue so they had a fair chance at not getting shocked. She got some red ribbon and tied flags to the wire at several intervals along the two hundred yard length. When everything was ready, they flipped the switch and watched. The flag thing didn't work. Cows are smarter than we imagine and are naturally curious. One heifer thought the flags might be something edible. My parents tried shooing them away, but they came right back. Mother related the story to me over the phone. She said, "She tried to eat the ribbon, and when she got to the knot where it was tied to the wire, a pulse hit her. A fine mist sprayed out of both ends of that heifer."
