This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Who knows

  • Now the Insanity Starts

    Now the Insanity Starts

    Well here we are once again. The last regular weekend of the year. Enjoy it. The rest of this year will be full of guilt for putting off shopping or repressed rage for going shopping. Tempers will flare, assaults will happen in Walmarts all over the country bedlam and insanity will reign over us, in this the season of love, peace on earth and goodwill to men.

    I had a conversation the other day with a fellow hater of the holidays. We can spot one another you know. We see in each others body language and tone of voice a longing for times gone by. A time when store did not open on Thanksgiving Day, A time where deaths did not occur over a 5 dollar toaster or a good deal on TV. We remember fondly when the schedule for Thanksgiving was we start eating around 1:30 come on when you get ready. Now its the first sale starts a 4 PM so you better be here by 10 am if you want food.

    OK so I lied, I dont hate the holidays, I mourn their loss. I hate seeing people plan the storming of Walmart, Sears, JCPenney and so forth like they were the beaches of Normandy. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow people are acting like covert agents today trying to get the layout maps for black friday sales. They will toil over them, looking for choke points, planning the best routes to take so that they may get from one sale item to the other in the least amount of time. I would love to see this played as a war game. I can imagine sand tables with scores of holiday shoppers around them. Pointing out flaws in the plans. Taking Europe back from the Nazis was childs play compared to getting a 3 dollar Mr. Coffee.

    All over this country people are camping out in front of Best Buy and other big retailers. I guess its kind of like being deployed. Shopping carts are being converted into makeshift forts. Starbucks are command post. Runners are bringing those brave shoppers on the front lines food, and of course the latest intel (Sales Fliers) God help the poor store managers if there is a misprint in an add. Faulty Intel is worse than no intel. Mt God man you are sending them onto a slaughter…

    So from me to you, Enjoy this, the last normal weekend of 2014. God be with those of you going into that fate worse than hell. I will be going into the bunker soon. I have enough Ramen and beef jerky to get me to January.

  • A Blast from the Past: Cults Aren’t Always Bad

    The 1970s were an . . . . interesting time in music. In truth, some of it was crap – remember that abomination called disco? And towards the latter part, punk?

    But some of the music of that era was good. The Stones did some wonderful stuff during the early 1970s. Ditto Deep Purple. The 1970s was Bowie’s heyday – along with that of Alan Parsons and Al Stewart.

    And in particular, I got a chance to reconnect with one band from that era recently.

    So be forewarned – yeah, I’m rambling off-res again. (smile)

    . . .

    New York City isn’t generally thought of as a musical Mecca. Yet in the 1970s, a fair number of influential bands hailed from there. KISS is a NYC band. Before KISS made it big, there was a thriving punk scene – of which some was even listenable! The New York Dolls, the Ramones, and Patti Smith all hailed from the Big Apple in the 1970s; ditto Blondie and the Talking Heads.  CBGBs was there, and was legendary. And for better or worse, Asbury Park isn’t that far away either.

    Of that group out of NYC, KISS eventually became the best known and most successful. There was, however, another NYC rock band out of NYC that made it reasonably big in the 1970s as well. They were also pretty good.

    Besides, ya gotta love a band that has the stones to write a song about freaking Godzilla (and use some clips from the Japanese movie as part of the video) – then actually make it work pretty damn well. And they may have had the absolutely neatest band logo of all time:

    They called themselves Blue Öyster Cult. And while they weren’t as flashy as KISS – and didn’t end up being as big – their music is IMO worth a listen.

    (And no, the logo is not an occult or Satanic symbol. It was created by the artist Bill Gawlick for the band’s first album, using the ancient symbol for Chronos/Saturn as a pattern and modifying from there.)

    I won’t bore you with a longer write-up. Here’s a sampler of their work:

    Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll

    Career of Evil

    Dominance and Submission

    (Don’t Fear) The Reaper

    E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)

    Godzilla

    Burnin’ for You

    Maybe it’s not your “cup of tea”. Or maybe you just had to “be there” in the 1970s. But hell, I liked them. Still do.

    Had the chance to see these guys once live in the late 1970s, before they’d released “Godzilla” and “Burnin’ for You”, unfortunately (IMO those are two of their best).   They really could play – and put on one helluva good show.

    Oh, and for what it’s worth: they’re still touring (3 of the original 5 members – the band’s creative core). They’ll hit Laughlin, NV, Thanksgiving weekend; Mount Pleasant and Milwaukee, WI, in Dec and Jan; and Everett, WA, and Leesburg, VA next Jan. Plus a load of other places later in the year. They’re still “rockin’ on”.

    Well, I think I’ll be heading back to the res . . . .

  • Nuclear Troubles? Not Just in the Military.

    We all remember the recent spate of nuclear commanders being relieved by the US military. But it seems bad leadership and/or stupidity isn’t limited to the military’s nuclear community these days.

    Back in February, there were two incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) – an underground facility in a salt beds near Carlsbad, NM, that’s 2000’ below the earth’s surface. It was built as a place for long-term storage of the nation’s nuclear weapons-related nuclear waste.

    One of those incidents was a truck fire. OK, sometimes stuff happens.

    However, the other was a radiation leak. So, how did that leak happen?

    Well, it turns out that someone used the wrong kind of cat litter when preparing a batch of highly acidic nuclear weapons waste for storage at the WIPP. Rather than clay-based litter, wheat-based litter was used.

    Seriously.

    It turns out that this created a mixture that was quite volatile – it has been called “akin to plastic explosives”.  After arrival at the WIPP, one such drum cracked open. Twenty workers received radiation exposure (of a low level, thankfully). The facility will require extensive work (to the tune of $500M) for decontamination and substantial time (estimates by the contractor operating the WIPP are 3 years, minimum) before resuming operations.

    So, the WIPP contractor eats it, right? After all, their guys screwed up and used the wrong stuff?

    Well, not exactly. It seems that Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) – not the contractor – prepared the drum of waste for shipment to the WIPP. It turns out LANL’s supporting contractor, Los Alamos National Security LLC, was working in haste to meet a deadline for preparing Cold War waste for shipment that would give them a “leg up” in contract renewal negotiations. An internal investigation conducted at LANL blamed the error on “a typo in a policy manual”. It’s unclear whether that policy manual was prepared by LANL government or contractor personnel.

    Four managers – apparently on the contractor side – were reportedly replaced at LANL since the incident. Whether this will have any effect on that contractor’s contract renewal is at this point unclear.

    Some details of the WIPP and the original accident can be found here. An explanation for the errors leading up to the mistake causing the leakage incident can be found here.  (Unfortunately, this is the short version; the longer version with more details is behind a pay wall.)

    So, folks – no, it’s not just the military’s nuclear community that has its “sh!t in the wind” these days. Looks like the rest of the Nuclear Kingdom has its share of problems too.

  • Scamming with photos of the troops

    “MCPO Ret. In TN” sends us a link to an article in the Tampa Tribune about an engineer officer whose picture was used in a scam to separate a widow from her cash;

    In August, [Norma Jean] Culpeper’s husband died. Seeking companionship, she went on an internet dating site geared for widows and widowers.

    That’s where she met the man claiming to be Capt. Nathan Anthes. The two struck up a friendship that turned romantic, before becoming something else entirely.

    “He said his wife Kelly died, leaving him to take care of his daughter, but that he had no way of accessing his money because he was in Afghanistan,” said Culpeper.

    Seeking a loan, the man emailed the verification note [from the government of Benin] about the gold dust as proof of collateral, said Culpeper.

    Culpeper said that she eventually sent him money, about $1,200. And the two even talked about marriage. Until her daughter, Samantha Bryant, found out.

    Yeah, well, it’s tough to scam an honest man or woman. Ladies, don’t loan money to people you’ve never met. Most folks in the military don’t need a loan, and many more don’t have $2.8 million in gold dust that they’re willing to share with you even though they’ve never met you.

  • SPC Grommet and Matty reunited

    SPC Grommet and Matty reunited

    Several organizations and social media triumphed in the matter of reuniting Specialist Brent Grommet and his bomb sniffing dog, Matty this weekend, according to the Washington Times;

    The soldier had last seen Matty in 2012 at an air field in New Jersey, as the German shepherd, tattooed VO53, was taken away in a crate for processing and medical care.

    Spc. Grommet never heard from the Army on the adoption application he had filed in Afghanistan, and began a dogged search. He and his father finally tracked down Matty late last year to an Army veterinary clinic at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

    He refiled the application. In January, the unit told him via email: “I have submitted your packet to the chain of command in charge of the [disposition] of Matty. I will let you know when I hear something, they should be in contact with you in the next few weeks. Thank you and have a wonderful day.”

    No one contacted Spc. Grommet until he got the shocking news. An officer at Fort Bragg called the soldier’s father to say Matty was gone. He had been adopted.

    But all is well that ends well – Specialist Grommet and his father drove to Fort Bragg and picked up Matty over the weekend.

  • Cheer Up, NHSparky

    Here ya go, bud.  Since you have to put up with a      Shaheed        Shaheen for a Senator for a while, I thought I’d post something here that might cheer ya up a bit.

    Yeah, the second title is indeed an election reference. (smile)

     

     

     

    And, since it wouldn’t be Gabriel without something a bit avant-garde (and perhaps somewhat dark and disturbing):


     

    Enjoy.

  • Yer Friday Afternoon Funny: Kinda Glad This Guy Wasn’t Ours

    The following was related to me second-hand. It comes, however, from someone who I trust – and who claims to have heard it personally from one of the US soldiers involved.  I believe it to be true, but cannot swear to that as fact.

    But if it’s not true . . . it should be. (smile)

    I am not an aviator, so I apologize any minor procedural or equipment-related errors in the account which follows.

    . . .

    Friendly Activity at Time of Incident:  routine air recon patrol vic Kuwait-Iraq border during DESERT SHIELD

    SALUTE Report

    Size:  one (1) enemy soldier, one (1) other

    Activity (Enemy):   well, that’s kinda . . . complicated. See below.

    Location:   vic Saudi-Kuwaiti border

    Unit:  unknown

    Time:  sometime during hours of darkness

    Equipment (enemy):  mil uniform, some personal gear

    As for “enemy activity” . . . well, the incident was, as noted above, observed during a routine recon patrol by the crew of a US Army helicopter.  The cockpit conversation – presumably over the aircraft’s intercom system – probably went something like this (the names “Bill” and “Jack” used below are intentionally fictitious):

    COPILOT: “What the . . . damn. Bill, check this out. You ain’t gonna believe this sh!t.”

    PILOT: “What, Jack?”

    COPILOT: “Check out the enemy troop over there.”

    PILOT: “Where?”

    COPILOT: “Approx 11 o’clock, top of the second line of dunes.”

    PILOT: “Roger . . . . OK, got it.  Wait, what the . . . oh, Jesus H. Christ!”

    The two had observed an Iraqi soldier who was outside the enemy’s perimeter. The Iraqi soldier apparently was unaware he was being observed.

    But the guy they observed probably wasn’t on sentry or patrol duty – because the guy also wasn’t alone. Let’s just say the Iraqi soldier they observed using their NVG was at the time thoroughly enjoying himself with some (apparently) female company.

    Problem was, that female company was from the species ovis aries.

    To the pilot and copilot’s credit, they did manage to control their laughter (and/or revulsion) well enough to keep from crashing. The remainder of the mission was reportedly uneventful, and they returned to base at end of mission.

    No word on whether the Iraqi soldier and his “friend” did likewise. (smile)

  • Tyler Jeffries repays “Mighty Mom”

    The folks at Dreams Resorts and Spas sent us this story yesterday;

    Dreams Resorts and Spas set out to thank those who serve our country and their families for their continued strength and sacrifice. They found Tyler Jeffries, a veteran who lost both of his legs fighting in Afghanistan, and partnered with Tyler to thank his mom and nine other moms of Wounded Warriors for their service.

    Tyler’s mom Pamela has been by his side every day since he returned from combat, providing 24-hour care for him. Dreams sent a crew to Tyler’s home to hear his story and surprise his mom with a much needed and well-deserved vacation:

    Video: Wounded Warrior Surprises Mighty Mom

    They also arranged vacations for nine other moms Pamela befriended while caring for their Wounded Warriors at Walter Reed hospital. If you or your readers want to nominate others who need a break, Dreams Resorts and Spas is extending the campaign to give away 10 more vacations to deserving people. Submit your stories to http://bit.ly/dreams-giveaway.

    Thanks,
    Sam