Oversight...Afterthought...Whatever

The Brothers Niedermayer Hoist The Cup

It would be churlish of me to NOT congratulate the Ducks on winning The Stanley Cup. Sooo…

Congratulations, Anaheim. You outplayed the Senators and dominated the series, to put it mildly.

Even though I haven’t blogged about hockey since the Ducks eliminated the Beloved Wings, I HAVE been watching the games. I only missed Game Four of the Finals, and that was because I was on the road this past Saturday. I watched all the rest, including last night’s final game of the 2007 season. There's NOTHING in all of sports to compare with the spectacle of the winning team skating around the rink with The Cup held high. Absolutely NOTHING.

So. What is it? Four and a half months until hockey season? That’s a loooong time…

Photo credit: LA Times.

A Happy Camper...

Another candidate enters the crowded field… David Burge, aka IowaHawk, has announced:

My Fellow Americans:

Today, our nation stands at a crossroads. The direction we take from this point forward is critical for us, and for future generations. Some of the roads we can take may now look like scenic shortcuts, but may lead to long term peril. Other roads may seem covered in potholes, but may in fact lead us to the bright promise of a roadside Stuckey's with clean, well-lit restrooms. The stakes are high, and it is important that we have the right leadership behind the wheel to avoid the geopolitical speed traps and navigate our way to a delicious future of pecan logs for all.

That is why I have taken the first step towards announcing my candidacy for the 2008 presidential campaign. I have officially formed an exploratory committee to advise me on this important decision. This blue ribbon panel includes a number of distinguished public service veterans, including Chuck Helbertson, Supervisor of the Cedar County Pool Maintenance Department, and my brother-in-law Steve Lehr, a part-time Driver's Education professional in the Dubuque public school system and defending Late Model Modifieds champion at Eddyville Speedway.

I have not taken this decision lightly. When considering a run for public office, the first thing a candidate must ask himself is: what can I, as newly elected public servant, expect to get out of this deal? I have researched this question thoroughly, and believe me: being President is a pretty sweet gig. Not only does it pay 400 large, it has plenty of perks including "three hots and a cot," and the world's most fearsome military force at my disposal.

The second thing a candidate must ask is: am I qualified for the position? Let's look at the facts. First, I am a native-born citizen of the United States. Second, I am over 35 years old. Third, I have never had a felony conviction stick beyond the appeals court. And Mister, if that's good enough for the Constitution of the United States, then that's good enough for me. Google it.

Burge lays out his platform at the link. But he had me when I read a piece of his environmental policy, to wit:

To further help reduce the nation's carbon footprint, I will order the Environmental Protection Agency to bulldoze the mansions of Al Gore, John Edwards, John Kerry, and Laurie David, and convert them to more eco-friendly use as free public drag strips. And for all serious environmentalists willing to make the ultimate Green sacrifice, I will offer discounted funerals with hybrid hearses, and framed federal carbon credits for their surviving families and animal companions.

Fred Who?

I missed it. In addition to being the 63^rd anniversary of D-Day, yesterday was also the 40^th anniversary of the Six-Day War. Gerard van der Leun noted the occasion by re-publishing his Letter to the Palestinian People (from the Israeli People). Which, by the way, was picked up and re-published today by the Israel National News. As it is with most everything Gerard writes, the Letter is worth your attention, Gentle Reader. And don’t miss the comments.

I’m a Happy Camper today, ‘net-wise. Last I checked I was getting download speeds of 347 kbps, which is the best speed I’ve ever had with this connection, period. My bitch-piss-and-moan foray down to Yucca Telecom, armed with screen shots of bandwidth tests showing me getting all of 57.7 and 39.5 kbps, was successful. A BIG shout-out, tip o’ the hat and a hearty Thank You VERY Much to Bob Turnbaugh of Yucca’s internet support function. Bob took my complaint seriously and spent quite a bit of time diving into the esoteric details of Yucca’s wireless internet service, eventually pin-pointing the issue as a failure in the dynamic bandwidth allocation mechanism on the tower my modem “shoots” to. It seems the tower continued to accept/maintain connections even when the user load saturated the available bandwidth. The end result was an on-going degradation of connection speeds for all involved.

I can even watch YouTube videos in real-time now, rather than load, hit pause and wait for the entire video to download before playing. It’s good to have a fast(er) connection, true. But I still want my fiber connection!! Which may appear sometime this summer. Sometime.

Today’s Pic: The last of the Moab/Arches pics (one should never over-do a good thing, nu?). This is a view of the Fiery Furnace, with snow-capped mountains in the distance. Just to give you an idea of the scale of this formation: those are large TREES—not bushes—in the foreground and among the rocks.

D-Day

Today is the 63^rd anniversary of D-Day. The folks at Real Clear Politics have published Ronald Reagan’s speech “The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc,” delivered on June 6, 1984 in Normandy, in its entirety. If you’ve never seen, heard, or read the address I recommend you do so now. And remember those heroes from so long ago. Too few of them are left, and those that are left are leaving us at a rapid rate. We owe them so much…

Via blog-buddy Morgan…How NOT to Use Powerpoint. Lord, how I wish this video had been around back in my day! Anyone and everyone who’s in management, be it civilian or military (and I hear the military is QUITE bad, in this respect) has been there and done that…sitting through an interminable PowerPoint presentation where some dolt literally READS all his slides to you, cheerfully ignoring the fact that his audience can read quite well on their own, thankyouverymuch. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’m sure you’ll relate, Gentle Reader…

More Politically Correct BS…this time it’s the British Ministry of Defense and the RAF, banning nose art.

In killer heels and little else, they have a definite deadly charm.

But the risque images of women that have decorated warplanes since the First World War have been scrubbed out.

The Ministry of Defence has decreed they could offend the RAF's female personnel.

Officials admitted they had no record of any complaints from the 5,400 women in the RAF.

[…]

Nose art enjoyed another surge in popularity during the 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars, when risque images appeared on many British warplanes.

The decision to ban the images followed a visit by glamour models to southern Afghanistan before Christmas. During the trip they signed paintings of themselves on RAF aircraft.

Commanders decided the images were sexist and insisted there was no place for them in the modern armed forces.

There was also concern that they could cause offence in a muslim country where until 2001 all women were forced to wear the head-to-toe burkha in public.

Glamour model Lucy Pinder, 23, who visited the RAF detachment at Kandahar last November and signed a painting of herself on a Harrier jet, said such images were only "harmless fun".

No complaints from RAF women, you’ll note… but a fear of offending muslims.

Good grief.

Network issues… You may recall, Gentle Reader, that stopping by Yucca Telecom to get the story on the long-anticipated but yet to be delivered fiber connection was one of the tasks I was going to address yesterday. I got part of the story, which is the fiber still hasn’t been turned up in my part of P-Town. Less clear was why my on-premise equipment hasn’t been installed. I was promised a call-back with an explanation but have yet to receive it.

Coincidentally, my network speed dropped off to dial-up rates last evening and then disappeared altogether this morning after a period of steady degradation. I was dead in the water from about 0700 until 0845 hrs, but the service is still painfully slow. I am NOT a Happy Camper today!

Today’s Pic(s): Are you tired of Arches yet? No? Well…here’s two more…

The first pic was taken at the first viewpoint on the park road, overlooking the Visitors Center (which isn’t visible in this pic). I shot the picture for a couple of reasons; firstly to illustrate the nature of the road, which is wonderfully curvy as it climbs about a thousand feet in a mile or three; and secondly because of the colors in the rocks juxtaposed against the brilliant blue of the sky. Oh yeah, and to get the ‘Zuki in the picture, too.

The second pic is taken from the same vantage point but one can see the Visitors Center far below, as well as the highway leading into Moab. The highway, by the way, runs right on top of the Moab Fault.

As always, click the pics for the larger versions...which are actually 50% of the originals.

Dazed and Confused...

(titled with apologies to Led Zep)

So. While I may be back home, I’m certainly not “back in the groove,” whatever that means. Do I sound confused? Well, yes, I suppose I do. I’m working through this confusion, albeit slowly, and am trying to figure out just what’s up…

Take yesterday. Normally I “make the rounds” (defined as reading my favorite blogs and several news sources) first thing in the morning while working a pot of coffee. I didn’t read a single blog yesterday, and I didn’t look at the NYT, or the WaPo, or The Times (UK), or any of my other usual (news) reads. And I only had three cups out of that pot, throwing the rest away. Simply put: no desire, or rather what desire may have existed was overcome by other priorities, like paying the bills and catching up on mundane chores. I caught up on the blogs this morning but have yet to wade into the news. No desire.

Vacations are supposed to rejuvenate, restore the spirit, rest the body, yadda, yadda, yadda. And this is certainly the result of my latest excursion, in part. Well, except for the “rest the body” bit…ten hours in the saddle on the last day of the trip might better be described as low-level torture to…ahem… “a man of my age.” I still hurt, but only just a lil bit. But I digress…

There seems to be an unintended, unanticipated consequence(s) to my 17-day sojourn and I can’t quite put my finger on it, as yet. Maybe it’s time for a change? But what sort of change? A change in locale? Button up the RV and move on down the road? To where? Change in lifestyle, as in (for example) seek employment, again? Start looking for a new relationship? Is it a case of my senses and sensibilities being over-stimulated these past two and a half weeks? Am I resentful about returning to what I now perceive to be a rather mundane existence? I don’t know…

Sorry for the oh-so-personal bout of introspection. But I want to get it “on the record,” and that’s one of the reasons I blog, ya know.

I’ll whip through the last of the chores today, the first of which involves a jaunt out to the base for a major re-supply run. I’m looking forward to that, as I haven’t driven the Green Hornet in so long I may have forgotten how. I’m sure it will come right back to me…

And the second? That involves stopping into Yucca Telecom and asking just where the Hell my fiber internet connection is, now that it’s JUNE. I was told back in March or April I’d get connected “in May, June at the latest.” I wanna know what the flippin' story is....

Gonna be warm today…hot, even. The forecast says a high of 91 degrees. We had a few anxious moments last evening around sunset as some spectacular t-storms moved through the area, just to the north and east of us. I took some pictures of the cloud formations I’ll post later in the week. Today’s pic will be more from Arches…

Speaking of which: here are two views of Balanced Rock…which may be one of the most photographed formations in all of Arches. It IS breathtaking, on numerous levels.

Saturday, June 2, 2007.

Be It Ever So Humble...

…there’s no place like home. I’m there, and it’s an understatement to say I’m pleased. My own bed. My own PC. My own stuff. Getting away is nice, visiting with friends and family is nicer still, but getting back home? Priceless.

I ended as I began, which is to say I covered a whole lotta ground in one sitting. The first day of the trip saw me riding 577.6 miles in 11 hours flat; yesterday I did 591 miles in ten hours and 21 minutes. The difference? Better weather…much better weather. I dodged a bullet, though…a half hour after I got home the frickin’ bottom dropped out and we were inundated with rain. I held my breath, figuratively speaking, for the last 100 miles of the ride. There were HUGE thunderstorms to the east and the south of me as I closed in on P-Town, and it looked like I was gonna be in for it. The gods smiled on me, though, and although I got a smattering or two of rain, it was nothing serious. Fortune, for once, was on MY side.

Oh. Total mileage for the trip: 2267.7 miles. And not even one close call. That last statement just may be the most amazing thing of all.

I only did three things last evening after I got home: returned SN2’s phone call (he rang while I was on the road), took a long hot shower, and fell into bed. And I slept the sleep of the truly exhausted. This morning I feel fine, well-rested, and refreshed. Now I have to get on with life…unpack, pay the bills, and do other assorted things that have gone undone for the past 17 days. Normal blogging, such as it is, will resume tomorrow. In the meantime…

Today’s Pic: The first of perhaps six or eight pics from Arches National Park. I like this particular photo because it shows the scale of the monoliths, which are absolutely HUGE. Note the road winding into the distance and the small dots that are the cars on said road. Riding among, through and between these formations is an awe-inspiring experience.

Saturday, June 2, 2007.

From the La Quinta Inn in Beautiful Downtown Moab, Utah

An alternate title would be: "On the Road Again." All y'all can just hum along with Willie as you read this.

So. Yesterday worked out pretty much as expected: graduation came off without a hitch, speeches were delivered by faculty, valedictorians, and other dignitaries (ho-hum-- they're all the same, right? or am I jaded?), the proud graduates moved elegantly across the stage (some more so than others), parents cheered, friends blew off those obnoxious air horns, and -- finally -- mortarboard tassels were moved from left to right. Out into the world...

That was the graduation ceremony. The rest of the day was about as atypical a graduation day as one could imagine. SN1 and extended family worked late into the night on the move, still disassembling, still packing, still loading. The process isn't complete as I write. I spoke with SN1 a few minutes ago and the load-out continues. Hopefully all will be complete by the target departure date: tomorrow. Knowing Buck as I do, it will.

As for me... I left SN1's place at oh-dark-thirty (0605 hrs, to be precise) this morning and made much better time to Moab-- five hours flat--than I anticipated. The 'Zuki simply hummed along at speeds varying between 75 and 85 mph. It was something of a chore to hold the speed down to a reasonable-- and semi-legal --rate, given I was motoring in the Great Wide Open. It seemed like every other time I looked down I was doing 90 mph...or better. The authorities tend to frown on that sort of behavior, even out in the Great Wide Open. I held the 'Zuki in check and got 52 mpg...even at the speeds indicated, by the way.

Once I arrived in Moab I spent the better part of the day motoring through and around Arches National Park, which is just about as spectacular a park as there is in our National Park system. The vistas, the rock formations, the geologic wonder of it all, are simply amazing. Add in the fact that the roads winding through the park are simply made for motorcycles and you have a close approximation of YrHmblScrb's vision of Heaven on Earth. I have some great pictures to share with you once I return home.

One minor downside: it was about 95 degrees in Moab today. I didn't mind the temps when I was rolling; I made "adjustments" by turning the sleeves on my leathers up and leaving the zipper on the top part of my leathers half-open...evaporative cooling really works. But when I stopped and stepped out on one of the numerous trails I followed to various vistas: Sweat-City! Suffice it to say I really, really needed that long shower when I checked in to the motel. Now I have to figure out how to deodorize my leathers. I think Febreze will be my friend.

Ah, but the end of the day just might be the best part of the day. As luck would have it, I stumbled on to The Moab Brewery, which was just a five minute walk from the La Quinta Inn. Like Rooster's (which I blogged about previously), the Moab Brewery had great food, great service, and GREAT beer. I dined on smoked Texas tri-tip BBQ, accompanied by wonderful home-made rolls (big enough to choke the proverbial horse) and a salad dressed with a lime vinaigrette that was superlative. AND I enjoyed two pints of their fine hefeweizen, followed up with a pint of Derailleur Ale ("six types of malt and four hearty hop additions") for dessert. All this enjoyed on their patio, graced with balmy breezes, and capped off with a view of the Moab skyline...which was created by God, not man. It doesn't...can't...get any better than this, Gentle Reader.

And so to bed. I feel so good this evening I may motor on back to P-Town in one sitting, rather than two as I originally planned. I really am hot to get home, but who knows what the road holds? I certainly don't...and that's part of the beauty of not having to be anywhere at any particular time.

Life is good.

Graduation Day

Via Lex, here’s an extraordinary tale from Michael Yon about the Coalition arrest of a powerful Iraqi Police general. Everything about this story is extraordinary, and it’s something you’d never see in the NYT.

LTC Crissman, acting solely on his own and with no direct orders from above, saw that a bloodbath was about to be unleashed, and pulled a plan out of the sky. Yes, there had been a plan already afoot, but Crissman “fragged” it early, managing to arrest an entire police station without a shot being fired, and using me as a photo-op to distract a proud, some might say vain, general just long enough to disarm him.

This is the best read I’ve had in a month or so. I’m sure you’ll agree.

So. It’s Graduation Day. The actual ceremony begins at noon in an amphitheatre in Ogden…but preparations will continue apace this morning. Thus: another post of extreme brevity. I hope to be able to post pictures of The Graduate sometime later this afternoon, but I’m not sure how long the computer will remain available before it’s boxed and loaded into the U-Haul. Which, by the way, is filling up at an amazing pace. Coincidentally, the house is looking decidedly empty. Funny, that.

Today’s Pic: More plane pr0n…clear and not dark, this time. Under the wing of a C-124 Globemaster II, the first of the USAF’s large cargo haulers and a truly impressive airframe, for its time. Hell, the aircraft is pretty impressive even now…actually.