This is a screen shot of one of our computer based training lessons.
This is my face reacting to that slide...
WTF man... aircrew are known to be the picture of wholesome health.
I found this old picture on my hard drive and cracked up.
If I remember right, Bull filmed an entire training operation with the video recorder held sideways. We are reviewing the training tapes...
Don't like people anymore... I think I know enough of them, I don't need to meet anymore. This place is much better without people. I have to say that they idea of going to the gulf coast of Florida with all it's people and traffic and subdivisions and people is kind of oppressive to me. To much time in Montana, and Afghanistan I guess... I am not saying that I am about to volunteer to go to Clovis, NM for the next half decade of my life, but it is starting to appeal in some ways.
Surf City has definitely changed atmosphere... I would say around 95% of the houses are closed up for the winter. The weather isn't bad... but i guess everyone is back at a work and school. I like the place much more with nobody in it. I just watched a program on the History Channel about what would happen to the earth if all the people disappeared off of it. It kind of feels like that happened around here.
It isn't completely empty around here. As the tourists have left, it seems they are now replaced by about 1/100th as many fishermen. Before I didn't run on the beach because it was a huge obstacle course of beach blankets, little kids, sand castles, umbrellas, and people playing batchi ball. Now the only ones on the beach are fishermen. I had never expected there would be many fish right in the surf... I have seen fish swim right out of the side of waves when I have been surfing, but didn't expect that they would hang out right where the waves crash right against the shore. I was wrong! They seem to pull out foot and a half long scaly fish right from the edge of the water! But back to what I was saying... every 200 yards or so there might be a guy fishing in the surf... other than that the beach is now totally open and clear for running. After the tide goes out, it leaves the sand almost completely smooth and hard, and without a bunch of people churning it up, it stays that way!
The fishermen don't look like they are pretending to have fun the way that a lot of the people sitting on the beach did.
I have also been surprised to see how many dead rays washed up on the shore. Maybe it is a good thing I can't see very far through the water... That way I can't see the sharks either.
Cops... always reminding me why I am a fan of our law enforcement professionals: One of the biggest differences seems to be in the local police's behavior. Before, the cops drove around on four wheelers in t-shirts and waved to everyone... now they are back in their cruisers with full on aviator sunglasses and triple creased dark blue shirts. This entire tourist season, I never so much as saw a cop pull anyone over for anything though I am sure most of the vacationers were all half in the bag after 9 pm every night... now that the only people here are the fishermen... they pull people over all the time, they set up drunk check-points, and there are speed traps everywhere. Granted, I could give the cops the benefit of the doubt... but though the tourists were almost exclusively well-to-do whites... the fishermen are mostly rural and about 50% black. Though i would like to think the best, it seems that the cops are trying to keep the fishermen out. Kind of discourage them through being pains in the ass. Maybe I am just being paranoid...
In other news:
As I am getting older, more songs make much more sense to me than ever before... I just realized I understand this song now. Probably I would have for a while but hadn't heard it in a while.
I am not saying it isn't easily understood, but I guess I hadn't realized I could feel what it meant before. Turns out it isn't just a good lick to sing about bloody underwear...
"Shot through the butt,
and your to blame!
Baby you gave my underwear
a blood stain!..."
I can only assume that in a few years this song will make sense...
"Someone left the cake out in the rain,
and I don't think I can take it,
cause it took so long to bake it,
and I'll never have that recipe agaiiiiiinn!!!!"
(maybe not)
This song I understood completely when I first heard it in sophomore year of high school. I am just posting it here so it will get stuck in your head.
(My parents had the record... I found it an played it over and over again.)
In other news...
After looking up quotes by famous people that don't indicate care for good spelling I started reading a bunch of quotes by our presidents. If you judge a president by his out of context quotes... "I like Ike!" So, to up my nerdyness quotient... Dwight D. Eisenhower is now my favorite president. As crazy as this sentence may sound, He seems to embody the ideal form of government as it is described in the book "Starship Troopers."
Read these:
If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?
Dwight D. Eisenhower
(Probably one of his best... though I hadn't solidified it in my mind the way reading it did.)
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
Abraham Lincoln
You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
Abraham Lincoln
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
Abraham Lincoln
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
Abraham Lincoln
I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
Abraham Lincoln
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
Abraham Lincoln
(I can only assume that if also follows; those with many vices have many virtues... so bring on the booze and women... I am trying to be a virtuous person here!)
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson
(probably better that they talk than actually act... I would hate for most of the wacko shit they say to actually become public policy!)
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.
Thomas Jefferson
It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?
Ronald Reagan
You can tell alot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.
Ronald Reagan
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
Ronald Reagan
Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.
Ronald Reagan
