28. Make your family turn out all the lights and go to bed at 2200, saying, “Now taps, taps! Lights out! Maintain silence throughout the ship!” Then immediately have an 18-wheeler crash into your house (for the benefit of aircraft carrier sailors).
Most living quarters for the enlisted on the carrier were several decks down from the hanger deck, but on the Constellation, on which I did one six-month detachment, they were a lot higher up, they were on the O3 Deck. The O-3 deck is usually just offices and squadron ready rooms as it is one deck below the flight deck, but for some reason there was a small berthing area on this level about midships slightly towards the aft. Because our squadron was not a full time member of the Air Wing and were just assigned to the ship when it came to the Western Pacific we were low men on the totem pole and relegated to having sleep in this compartment.
The metal deck of an aircraft carrier is probably about an inch thick and it formed the ceiling of berthing area. Try to imagine if you will, the sound of a 20 ton jet slamming down on a metal roof about 12″ above your bed. As close as possible civilian simulation would be to take a metal trash can and hold it over your head and shoulders and have a friend hit the outside of it with a baseball bat. But that’s not all, after the initial boom there is the sound of the jets engine at full throttle, followed by the tail hook being dragged behind the plane. In this hook (hopefully) is the 4″ diameter arresting cable bouncing along the deck in sync with loud whir of the powerful engines used to slow the cable and the plane down. Repeat every 2-1/2 minutes 20 to 25 times. And, if they are flying extended night ops, 90 minutes later, right about the time you are in a deep sleep, the cycle happens again.
This made for quite a few restless nights at first, but the human animal is fairly adaptable, so after about a week or two you no longer heard those 18-wheelers crashing into your house.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 519
This “joke” was forwarded to me from my brother-in-law, who like Donna and I, spent a few years as a member of Uncle Sam’s Yatch Club. Ex-swabbies, no matter which portion of the Navy they served in, will be able to relate to almost all of them. I can’t speak for the Med because I never sailed there, but #38 is a pretty accurate description of liberty in every West Pac port…
1. Buy a steel dumpster, paint it gray inside and out, and live in it for six months.
2. Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls.
3. Repaint your entire house every month.
4. Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bathtub and move the shower head to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you turn off the water while you soap down.
5. Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high.
6. Once a week, blow compressed air (or use a leaf blower) up your chimney, making sure the wind carries the soot onto your neighbor’s house. Ignore his complaints.
7. Once a month, take all major appliances apart and then reassemble them.
8. Raise the thresholds and lower the headers of your front and back doors so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through them.
9. Disassemble and inspect your lawnmower every week.
10. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, turn your water heater temperature up to 200 degrees. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, turn the water heater off. On Saturdays and Sundays tell your family they use too much water during the week, so no bathing will be allowed.
11. Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling, so you can’t turn over without getting out and then getting back in.
12. Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have your spouse whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and say “Sorry, wrong rack.”
13. Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in your house – dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc. Re-qualify every 6 months.
14. Have your neighbor come over each day at 0500, blow a whistle so loud Helen Keller could hear it, and shout “Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up.”
15. Have your mother-in-law write down everything she’s going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in your back yard at 0600 while she reads it to you.
16. Submit a request chit to your father-in-law requesting permission to leave your house before 1500.
17. Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not. Have someone repeat loudly, “Now sweepers, sweepers, man your brooms, give the ship a clean sweep down fore and aft, empty all shit cans and butt kits over the fantail!”
18. Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering it to you.
19. Watch no TV except for movies played in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one. Repeat the same movie several nights in a row.
20. When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone shouting that your home is under attack and ordering them to their battle stations, shouting, “Now general quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations!”
21. Make your family menu a week ahead of time without consulting the pantry or refrigerator.
22. Post a menu on the kitchen door informing your family that they are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for an hour. When finally get to the kitchen, tell them you are out of steak, but they can have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they ignore the menu and just ask for hot dogs.
23. Bake a cake. Prop up one side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly. Spread icing real thick to level it off.
24. Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. (Call this “Midrats”.)
25. Set your alarm clock to go off at random during the night. At the alarm, jump up and dress as fast as you can, making sure to button your top shirt button and tuck your pants into your socks. Run out into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose.
26. Every week or so, throw your cat or dog in the pool and shout “Man overboard port side!” Rate your family members on how quickly they respond.
27. Put the headphones from your stereo on your head, but don’t plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck on a string. Stand in front of the stove, and speak into the paper cup “Stove manned and ready.” After an hour or so, speak into the cup again “Stove secured.” Roll up the headphones and paper cup and stow them in a shoebox.
28. Make your family turn out all the lights and go to bed at 2200, saying, “Now taps, taps! Lights out! Maintain silence throughout the ship!” Then immediately have an 18-wheeler crash into your house (for the benefit of aircraft carrier sailors).
29. Build a fire in a trash can in your garage. Loudly announce to your family, “This is a drill! This is a drill! Fire in hangar bay one!”
30. Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4 hour intervals. This is best done when the weather is worst. January is a good time.
31. When there is a thunderstorm in your area, get a wobbly rocking chair, sit in it and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseated. Make sure to have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket. ALT: Find the biggest horse you can, put a 2-inch mattress on his back, and strap yourself to it. Turn him loose in a barn filled with snakes for six hours and try to sleep. Then get up and go to work.
32. For former engineers: bring your lawn mower into the living room and run it all day long.
33. Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee grounds per pot; let the pot simmer for 5 hours before drinking.
34. Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with sheep shears.
35. Sew the back pockets of your jeans on the front.
36. Add 1/3 cup diesel fuel to the laundry.
37. Take hourly readings on your electric and water meters.
38. Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go to the scummiest part of town. Find the most run down, trashiest bar, and drink beer until you are hammered. Then walk all the way home.
39. Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you are going to take them to Disney World for “liberty.” At the end of the 6th week, inform them the trip to Disney World has been canceled because they need to get ready for an inspection, and it will be another week before they can leave the house.
We watched the last 5 episodes of Season 5 of TDTVS. Amazing how easily we can get sucked into the show. We were supposed to drag it out so that we ended up watching the last episode of season 5 just before the 6th and final season begins a month from now. Now what’ll we do in the mean time? Start over? Let’s see 5 seasons with a total of 103 hours, divide that by 30 equals about 3-1/2 shows a day…
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 519
We were 0 for 2 at Catfish Bay (pictured to the left) just south of Parksville. We were 1 of 2 in Greenwood and the one didn’t count, it was a bonus cache for finding a series and doesn’t exist on geocaching.com. We were 2 for 2 in Calhoun State Park which allowed us to check off Page 32 of the South Carolina DeLorme Challenge.
Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 519
On our bicycling route to work there is one house we pass that has a small screened-in porch. On that porch are two large dogs, I haven’t seen them because of the way the porch is situated, but they sound large and I’m glad they are kept inside. Definitely on the way to work and most times on the way home, we are the only traffic on the road this house is on, but we can not get within 25 yards of it before the dogs start barking. They bark continuously until we are probably 25 yards down the road past them. We are not usually talking at this point in the ride, it is flat so we aren’t doing any gear shifting, we are just pedaling along with the only sound being the whir of the chain and invariably those two dogs start raising a ruckus long before we get anywhere near them.
I think James Cameron must have been a bicyclist and had similar experiences with dogs hearing him coming a long way off because he includes a bit in the Terminator movies about humans using dogs to detect the cyborgs (AKA Metal.) If dogs can hear a component of the high pitched bicycle chain noise from a ways off it stands to reason that they also can pick up the sound of a motor moving a metal joint encased in a layer of human flesh.
February
Red Shirt
Monday the 2nd
Although originating in Star Trek, the term “redshirt” has been used in commentary on other action adventure stories, particularly serialized television. As a plot device, redshirts are most commonly used on shows which focus on characters who are prominent members of a larger group. In terms of plot function, redshirts serve to highlight the danger of a situation without forcing writers to sacrifice lead characters.
February is National Heart Month and this coming Friday is Wear Red Day 2009 to support the fight against heart disease in women.
For whatever convoluted reason our company nurse decided to pass around a memo last week to try and get everyone to wear red today, Monday, February 2nd and in spite of what happened to Frogurt while wearing a red shirt in last week’s episode of TDTVS…
…I took my life into my hands and wore a red sweater to work today. Obviously because I am home sitting on the couch in a yellow shirt, nothing bad happened to me on today’s “away mission.”
March
Nice One
Tuesday the 3rd
Way back in January I converted the PAL DVDs of all three series of William & Mary I had bought from across the pond to NTSC for watching here. Donna and I had already seen the first two series via Netflix, so we just watched Series 3 and put the box away.
Last week I asked my manager at work, who is actually from Jolly O’l England, if he was interested in seeing the show. He said yeah, he already had it in his Netflix queue, but why wait. I brought him the boxed set. Sunday was a cold and rainy day so he and his wife, lit a fire in the fireplace and settled in on the couch to watch the show. He popped in Disc 1 that contained the first three episodes and nothing happened, the DVD player just sat there. To say they were a bit disappointed was an understatement.
He brought me the discs back on Monday and told be it wouldn’t play. I said I was sorry, I reminded him I told him it might not work because I couldn’t get past the intro stuff on my Sony DVD player before it stopped and told me it was the wrong Region Code for that player. He said his was a Daewoo and that it would do anything.
I brought the discs home and tried the first in my DVD players, the JVC, the Sony, the PC, the laptop, nothing. The PCs didn’t say no disc, but didn’t show any VOB files or any files for that matter. I tried the second disc and it worked as expected in all four places.
Can you guess what the problem was? Yup, that’s right I had labeled the DVD,but neglected to actually burn the files to it. DOH!
April
New Napkin Holder
Monday the 6th
I took the caliper bracket that had the frozen slider pin in to work. An engineer there just knew it would be simple to fix. He toyed with it for awhile without success before giving it to the tool room for them to try. They turned a torch to it while hammering madly. It got so violent their supervisor told them to stop. A day later the engineer went back, put the bracket in a vice, clamped down on the hex head with a 12? monkey wrench and twisted, the pin loosened and was removed. I tossed out the slider pin, but couldn’t bring myself to throw out the bracket for two reasons; 1) that sucker was expensive and 2) turns out it is ambidextrous – fits both driver & passenger sides. Bead blasting made it clean & shiny and I have found a new use for it.
May
Kamakazie Kricket
Friday the 15th
I was just out in the garage giving the Emperor a little sponge bath in preparation for tomorrow’s MMC event when I spotted a cricket watching me. I’m not even positive crickets have eyes, but this one sure seemed like it was giving me the once over. There were several large splats on the nose of the car that I was Quick Detailing off and maybe this cricket felt I was being disrespectful of a dead relative or something.
It was no ordinary cricket either, it was big one, about the size my friend Mark might use as bait while fishing for kayak sized catfish. Well, all that staring kind of unnerved me a little, so I slipped off my sneaker and moved slowly that direction to flatten Jiminy out.
In some places it is believed if you kill a cricket it is bad luck, but with the way my luck is running recently, who would notice. I’ve also heard that if kill a cricket it’ll rain, but with the weather we’ve had, and are predicted to have, who would notice.
As I swung my Nike with deadly intent at our giant cricket, it leaped out of the way at the last minute. Did he jump away from me, no, he jumped AT me!
I am proud to say that I didn’t squeal like a little girl as it bounced off my arm, then my chest and then who knows where. I did however flail my arms and upper body around in a pathetic attempt to get away like an uncoordinated spaz who just stepped on a banana peel.
June
When The Going Gets Tough
Friday the 19th
…the tough go shopping.
The FRS were on TV tonight because they were playing the Braves and if you live in the south every Braves game is on TV. The Red Sox had their 13 Trillion Yen Man (Daisuke Matsuzaka) pitching and there was much excitement in the Land of the Rising Sun because he was facing off against the Brave’s Japanese starter Kenshin Kawakami. Both guys have had rough starts to the season, but tonight’s rough start award went to Boston’s Dice-K as his first pitch of the game was belted into the bullpen for a home run. Then it went downhill from there. By the end of the 5th inning the Sox were down 6-0, so we went out to do our weekly grocery shopping.
For the second time in seven days we have left a store leaving our selected purchases behind.
I got in a checkout line behind what I thought was a woman who was nearly finished as she had a full cart and about a dozen items left on the belt. After unloading 2/3rds of the cart onto the nearly empty belt I realized it hadn’t moved and there were now two cashiers fiddling around at the scanner. I think they were trying to take an item off the woman’s order, they’d swipe something and the machine would boop and they’d both look up at the screen in unison, shake the heads, repeat. After the forth time I think it worked because one cashier left and the remaining one scanned another item and then immediately starting asking for the first cashier to come back. It was now becoming clear that she didn’t know what she was doing. And it also became clear that the shopper was separating the final 10 items into 2 separate orders and she had a paycheck to cash or maybe a substance check and that we were going to standing here awhile. There was one other check out line open, but there was no way that I was off loading the belt to put it in my cart to move over two slots. We looked at each other, shrugged and headed for the door.
We drove a mile down the street to another store, probably spent $25 more dollars than we would have at the first store, but we were in and out and on the way home like we should have been at Store #1.
The game was mercifully over by the time we got back, both teams each scored 2 uneventful runs, so they FRS lost by a score of 8-2. They play each other twice more over the weekend, so it is not too late to save face.
July
Insect Food
Tuesday the 7th
About two weeks ago I got two insect bites on both sides of my right leg just above the knee. They itched, swelled and oozed clear stuff, staying that way for about three days until a scab formed. I’ve never reacted to mosquito bites that way, so I guessed they were from a spider, but whatever they were from they were unpleasant.
Then a week ago I got bit 4 times. Back of the right side of my neck, about four inches further down on my back, near the waist on the left side and on my left ankle. I don’t feel the initial bite, but then I’ll notice something itching and scratch a bump.
Those four had just about cleared up when on Monday morning I had an itchy bump on my left forearm. Then later that morning I noticed an itch under my left arm and then one further down the back on the same side.
It is just me, Donna hasn’t been bothered a bit. They could only be coming from a couple places, my dresser or I’m getting bit each time we venture into Hitchcock Woods. My plan of attack to combat this issue was to wait until I had had been bitten enough that my body developed an immunity to what ever was feeding on my, but it didn’t seem to be working. So last night my wife saiid let’s take everything out of my dresser and wash it. Then in the morning you can spray the drawers and everything down with some bug spray.
Washed, sprayed, replaced, we’ll see how it works out.
August
I Know It When I See It
Wednesday the 5th
Let’s talk porn, in honor of my two recent posts on the subject thanks to io9, the scifi (not syfy) site I read every day. They are part of network of sites that cover various subjects, one of which is about the biggest money maker on the net, porn. So every time there is anything remotely about science fiction over on Fleshbot it gets cross posted on io9.
At my age pornography has lost a lot of its luster. Notice I didn’t say all of it, I’m not above checking out some of the posts on Fleshbot when io9 links them, but I don’t have the site bookmarked or anything. There is nothing like that first thrill of finding your dad’s Playboy at 12 or several years later a friend discovers some black and white 8mm stag films in his basement. When I was in the Navy there was a co-worker who knew where you could get XXX on VHS. On Saturdays I would carry my VCR over to his house and we would both make a copy a movie. He was trying to amass a collection, I was just using the same tape and copying over last weeks movie.
It was the last six months in the Navy that removed most of the luster off of porn for me. My final duty station was aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima as an E6, or Petty Officer First Class. We had a 1st Class Mess, which was basically a small room on the Mess Deck, where we could eat our meals, take a coffee/smoke break or just spend our downtime reading or playing Acey Duecy. There was a TV mounted high up in one corner of the room, so we could watch Armed Forces TV. The TV also had a VCR attached so we could watch movies. There was a selection of current releases if you were interested, but by far the largest collection of tapes were of the XXX variety.
Who ever the guy was that was in charge of movies really liked the hard core stuff. Every, and any, time you went into the mess that corner of the room was filled with incessant moaning and close ups of genitalia. Try to eat eggs over easy and sausage links at 5 AM or hot dogs at lunch with that going on in the background, it sort of takes the pleasure out of both activities…
September
Food For Thought
Thursday the 24th
Venture capital needed for a new company that Mark, Jim and I are forming to make food fun and easy. Jim’s first request is help in making a PB&J sandwich without ruining your nice fresh, soft white bread. Peanut butter and jelly formed into slices and individually wrapped, ala Kraft Singles. I thought that once that product takes off our next release should be a Fluff ‘n’ Nutter variation.
After our new company is making money hand over fist we will be getting into genetically engineering fruit. Mark likes apples, but hates the skin, so our first venture in that direction be be to create an apple that will peel like a banana. I thought why stop there, we should make it so that alternating sections are either dense intertwined fuzz or little bitty hook things so that when reeled down and pushed together below the apple they become a stick like handle.
October
The Emperor Takes A Drink
Monday the 19th
Because we burnt nearly the whole tank of gas on Saturday, the low fuel light came on on the way to work this morning. After dinner we headed over to Kroger to fill up do a little shopping. As we pulled in, the gas station was jammed, every pump had a car at it and every aisle had at least one car waiting. I suggested we go inside and buy the couple items we needed, then maybe the lines would die down. They didn’t.
I voted we just get in line and wait. She countered with, “Just go to the Shell on Price Ave. and pay the extra.” I don’t usually shop for price, but Kroger is usually 15-20 cents cheaper than the Shell station and I just hate to pay that much more. I actually hate waiting in line more than paying two bucks more for a tank of gas, so off to Price we go.
As the the gallon total flew past the 11 mark, simultaneously to my thinking to myself, man it was really empty, the sound of splashing and the smell of gas keyed me to reach down and manually shut off the pump. Perfect, not only am I paying 20¢ extra, I’m pouring it on the ground. The only possible thing that could make this worse would be if I have to go inside to get the receipt…
Bingo!
November
Sex, TV & Spam
Tuesday the 3rd
There were 89 spam messages caught by my spam filter at work this morning and quite a few dealt with trying to sell magic pills to improve my sex life. I am amazed at the creative titles and thought that they could be broken down into which Cable TV channel they would be shown on if they were the titles of infomercials instead of the subject lines of spam.
Release your inside beast! on Animal Planet African temper in amour on BET Your prescription for success on Discovery Health Become arousal athlete! on ESPN Pumper for pant muscle on Fit TV Recipe for hot nights on FOOD Invest in your wang! on CNBC Be her volcano on National Geographic Just be a male! on Spike Right spell for your ‘magic wand’ on SyFy No sad accidents in bed on Tru TV Be furious in bed on Versus
I’m not sure what channel these last three belong on, maybe you have some channels I don’t get, let me know what you think: Be good at humping!
Become a lech instantly
Flaccidity is not for you
December
Got Me There
Sunday the 27th
We went shopping in Staples this afternoon, we needed a new shredder and some other stuff, chief among them, paper. It was time to buy our bi-annual ream of it. We walked into the store and I immediately headed off to the right side where the paper-like office supplies were. I looked along the wall and up and down every aisle (even though paper was not on the sign telling me what was down them.)
My wife suggested that I ask a kid in the red shirt where it was, but just like a man, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. On my second pass down the last aisle a woman who was arranging items on a shelf looked at me and asked, “Can I help you find something?” I can’t ask for directions, but I can’t lie and say no to someone offering help, so I said, “Where is the paper?” She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and replied, “I hate to sound condescending, but (pointing to the wall on the other side of the store) do you see that big sign over there that says paper?” (the lettering was only about 4 foot high…) “Man,” I said, “It always used to be over on this side of the store, why did it get moved?” “Don’t tell me, I know. The paper is over there for the same reason all stores move stuff around, to keep the customer in the store longer while he searches for something, hoping for an impulse buy.”
About this time Donna walked up, so I said to the lady, “Or maybe it is like my wife who moves stuff around in the kitchen every six months just to make me feel inadequate. She’ll ask me to get her something, I’ll look in the spot I think it used to be, it won’t be there, and I have to ask her, so she gets to sigh that sigh that means, ‘Men are so helpless’.”
Without missing a beat, Donna says, “I never move anything, You don’t know where anything is at because you only come there to help me once every six months.”
We have started watching Season 5 of TDTVS in anticipation of February 2nd. This was a season full of long slow reveals. Seems alike at least once an episode they filmed something in a manner that a character would enter a scene and in an effort to surprise the audience they would be filmed from the back or side or in the dark. If they were a new character they were made to look similar to a regular cast member and vice versa. We just finished Episode 11 and it has almost become comical.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 517
For all you MMC members who read this, be careful what you open next year. Remember the infamous leopard print steering wheel cover? This will top it.
We were in Bed, Bath & Beyond this evening to use a couple of the 20% coupons we get in the mail and/or in the newspaper. We bought a 2 big ol’ bags of pistachio nuts and were headed for the checkout when we happened to walk by the Christmas close out area. Within seconds Donna found just the perfect gift for under the communal tree next year. It’s original price was $12.99 (although in our eyes worth so much more) and it was 50% off bringing the price down to $6.50. The 20% off coupon brought the price down another $1.30. Even with the tax it came to less than five and a half bucks. Seeing the look on your face when you open it; priceless.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 517
