So, the other day my wife said "I want to go to Metropolis some time". Hmm, I thought,, but didn't bite.
I don't know where that is, but there is a Thermopolis in South Dakota, not far from Mt Rushmore.
We were both wrong. I still don't know about Metropolis,, haven't looked, but there is a Thermopolis in Wyoming. "Worlds largest Hot Spring" is the add. Don't know about that yet either but we do know that there are several pools, here as well as a State Bath House. We'll find out more tomorrow.
Oh,, there are deer everywhere here.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Another One Bites the Dust!
A little bit irreverent but applicable title to a great and true story.
There is an email floating around that compares CPT Freeman to Tiger Woods and says the he just passed away. In reality Ed passed in 2008 but don't let that take away from the facts.
Captain Ed W. Freeman, United States Army, of Boise, Idaho, who distinguished himself by numerous acts of conspicuous gallantry and extraordinary intrepidity on 14 November 1965 while serving with Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). As a flight leader and second in command of a 16-helicopter lift unit, he supported a heavily engaged American infantry battalion at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley, Republic of Vietnam. The unit was almost out of ammunition after taking some of the heaviest casualties of the war, fighting off a relentless attack from a highly motivated, heavily armed enemy force. When the infantry commander closed the helicopter landing zone because of intense direct enemy fire, Captain Freeman risked his life by flying his unarmed helicopter through a gauntlet of enemy fire time after time, delivering critically needed ammunition, water, and medical supplies to the besieged battalion. His flights, by providing the engaged units with supplies of ammunition critical to their survival, directly affected the battle's outcome. Without them the units would almost surely have gone down, with much greater loss of life. After medical evacuation helicopters refused to fly into the area because of intense enemy fire, Captain Freeman flew 14 separate rescue missions, providing lifesaving evacuation of an estimated 30 seriously wounded soldiers-some of whom would not have survived had he not acted. All flights were made into a small emergency landing zone within 100 to 200 meters of the defensive perimeter, where heavily committed units were perilously holding off the attacking elements. Captain Freeman's selfless acts of great valor and extraordinary perseverance were far above and beyond the call of duty or mission and set a superb example of leadership and courage for all of his peers. Captain Freeman's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.
Here is a link to the Medal of Honor page for Vietnam!
http://www.history.army.mil/html/moh/vietnam-a-l.html
There is an email floating around that compares CPT Freeman to Tiger Woods and says the he just passed away. In reality Ed passed in 2008 but don't let that take away from the facts.
Captain Ed W. Freeman, United States Army, of Boise, Idaho, who distinguished himself by numerous acts of conspicuous gallantry and extraordinary intrepidity on 14 November 1965 while serving with Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). As a flight leader and second in command of a 16-helicopter lift unit, he supported a heavily engaged American infantry battalion at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley, Republic of Vietnam. The unit was almost out of ammunition after taking some of the heaviest casualties of the war, fighting off a relentless attack from a highly motivated, heavily armed enemy force. When the infantry commander closed the helicopter landing zone because of intense direct enemy fire, Captain Freeman risked his life by flying his unarmed helicopter through a gauntlet of enemy fire time after time, delivering critically needed ammunition, water, and medical supplies to the besieged battalion. His flights, by providing the engaged units with supplies of ammunition critical to their survival, directly affected the battle's outcome. Without them the units would almost surely have gone down, with much greater loss of life. After medical evacuation helicopters refused to fly into the area because of intense enemy fire, Captain Freeman flew 14 separate rescue missions, providing lifesaving evacuation of an estimated 30 seriously wounded soldiers-some of whom would not have survived had he not acted. All flights were made into a small emergency landing zone within 100 to 200 meters of the defensive perimeter, where heavily committed units were perilously holding off the attacking elements. Captain Freeman's selfless acts of great valor and extraordinary perseverance were far above and beyond the call of duty or mission and set a superb example of leadership and courage for all of his peers. Captain Freeman's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.
Here is a link to the Medal of Honor page for Vietnam!
http://www.history.army.mil/html/moh/vietnam-a-l.html
Monday, March 22, 2010
So. It's spring
Ok. Snow is leaving, birds are singing; it's not raining, oh' the paining. Mom needs her garden tilled, pining for a bigger pill.
I hope you enjoyed this moment from the day. C'ya!!
I hope you enjoyed this moment from the day. C'ya!!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Link of the Day!
Ok,, so I don't post every day. It's still the link of "this day"..... so there!
A friend of mine from way back sent me this link,,, great one I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYMLMj-SibU
Every once't n'a'waal a link comes a long and then I lose my ability to speack//tiyip.
Comes, back,, mostly!
A friend of mine from way back sent me this link,,, great one I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYMLMj-SibU
Every once't n'a'waal a link comes a long and then I lose my ability to speack//tiyip.
Comes, back,, mostly!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Over -- and out!
Ok,, Football is done for the year. Now what -- oh yeah! Motorcycle time. Time to get the bike ready for the coming year.
One more thing before I go. It was great to see the saints win this year. Our family was rooting on the Saints and It was fun to have Nate and Jessica here to help cheer them on. Jess got kinda poopy near the end... preggers and sitting and all. Lots of fun though.
So,, Wonder if I can ride on the ICE???
One more thing before I go. It was great to see the saints win this year. Our family was rooting on the Saints and It was fun to have Nate and Jessica here to help cheer them on. Jess got kinda poopy near the end... preggers and sitting and all. Lots of fun though.
So,, Wonder if I can ride on the ICE???
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Big Game!
Superbowl is tomorrow. I don't really have a bone in either team (Colts vs Saints) and really just hope its a good game. My Bronco's didn't do much this year (Pro Wise) The Boise State team took the Fiesta Bowl (and it was a great game).
The family mostly gets together to watch the ads and eat Mashell's fantastic 7 layer bean dip. Jessica also asked for some Spinach Dip -- other than that -- Not sure what we'll do.
Happy big game to all. C'ya!
The family mostly gets together to watch the ads and eat Mashell's fantastic 7 layer bean dip. Jessica also asked for some Spinach Dip -- other than that -- Not sure what we'll do.
Happy big game to all. C'ya!
Below is an article written by Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated (reformatted from an email). He details his experiences when given the opportunity to fly in a F-14 Tomcat. If you aren't laughing out loud by the time you get to 'Milk Duds' , your sense of humor is seriously broken.
This message is for America 's most famous athletes: Someday you may be invited to fly in the back-seat of one of your country's most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have. John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few. If you get this opportunity, Let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity.... Move to Guam. Change your name, Fake your own death! Whatever you do.
Do Not Go!!!
I know.
The U.S. Navy invited me to try it.. I was thrilled. I was pumped. I was toast! I should've known when they told me my pilot would be Chip (Biff) King of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach ..
Whatever you're thinking a Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like, triple it. He's about six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair, finger-crippling handshake -- the kind of man who wrestles alligators in his leisure time. If you see this man, run the other way. Fast.
Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years the voice of NASA missions. ('T-minus 15 seconds and counting'. Remember?) Chip would charge neighborhood kids a quarter each to hear his dad. Jack would wake up from naps surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to say, 'We have liftoff'.
Biff was to fly me in an F- 14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful $60 million weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight, not unlike Colin Montgomerie. I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning.
'Bananas,' he said. 'For the potassium?' I asked.
'No,' Biff said, 'because they taste about the same coming up as they do going down.'
The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with my name sewn over the left breast. (No call sign -- like Crash or Sticky or Leadfoot. But, still, very cool.) I carried my helmet in the crook of my arm, as Biff had instructed. If ever in my life I had a chance to nail Nicole Kidman, this was it.
A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then fastened me into my ejection seat, which, when employed, would 'egress' me out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be immediately knocked unconscious.
Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight, the canopy closed over me, and Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up In minutes we were firing nose up at 600 mph. We leveled out and then canopy-rolled over another F-14.
Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life. Unfortunately, the ride lasted 80. It was like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags Over Hell. Only without rails. We did barrel rolls, snap rolls, loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and dived again, sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. We chased another F-14, and it chased us.
We broke the speed of sound. Sea was sky and sky was sea. Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree turns at 550 mph, creating a G force of 6.5, which is to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing against me, thereby approximating life as Mrs.. Colin Montgomerie.
And I egressed the bananas.
And I egressed the pizza from the night before.
And the lunch before that.
I egressed a box of Milk Duds from the sixth grade.
I made Linda Blair look polite. Because of the G's, I was egressing stuff that I never thought would be egressed.
I went through not one airsick bag, but two. Biff said I passed out. Twice.. I was coated in sweat. At one point, as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on a mock bombing target and the G's were flattening me like a tortilla and I was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first person In history to throw down.
I used to know 'cool'. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass, or Norman making a five-iron bite.. But now I really know 'cool'. Cool is guys like Biff, men with cast-iron stomachs and freon nerves. I wouldn't go up there again for Derek Jeter's black book, but I'm glad Biff does every day, and for less a year than a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.
A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He said he and the fighters had the perfect call sign for me. Said he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit.
What is it? I asked.
'Two Bags.'
God Bless America (We need it!)
This message is for America 's most famous athletes: Someday you may be invited to fly in the back-seat of one of your country's most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have. John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few. If you get this opportunity, Let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity.... Move to Guam. Change your name, Fake your own death! Whatever you do.
Do Not Go!!!
I know.
The U.S. Navy invited me to try it.. I was thrilled. I was pumped. I was toast! I should've known when they told me my pilot would be Chip (Biff) King of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach ..
Whatever you're thinking a Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like, triple it. He's about six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair, finger-crippling handshake -- the kind of man who wrestles alligators in his leisure time. If you see this man, run the other way. Fast.
Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years the voice of NASA missions. ('T-minus 15 seconds and counting'. Remember?) Chip would charge neighborhood kids a quarter each to hear his dad. Jack would wake up from naps surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to say, 'We have liftoff'.
Biff was to fly me in an F- 14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful $60 million weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight, not unlike Colin Montgomerie. I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning.
'Bananas,' he said. 'For the potassium?' I asked.
'No,' Biff said, 'because they taste about the same coming up as they do going down.'
The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with my name sewn over the left breast. (No call sign -- like Crash or Sticky or Leadfoot. But, still, very cool.) I carried my helmet in the crook of my arm, as Biff had instructed. If ever in my life I had a chance to nail Nicole Kidman, this was it.
A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then fastened me into my ejection seat, which, when employed, would 'egress' me out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be immediately knocked unconscious.
Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight, the canopy closed over me, and Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up In minutes we were firing nose up at 600 mph. We leveled out and then canopy-rolled over another F-14.
Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life. Unfortunately, the ride lasted 80. It was like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags Over Hell. Only without rails. We did barrel rolls, snap rolls, loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and dived again, sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. We chased another F-14, and it chased us.
We broke the speed of sound. Sea was sky and sky was sea. Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree turns at 550 mph, creating a G force of 6.5, which is to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing against me, thereby approximating life as Mrs.. Colin Montgomerie.
And I egressed the bananas.
And I egressed the pizza from the night before.
And the lunch before that.
I egressed a box of Milk Duds from the sixth grade.
I made Linda Blair look polite. Because of the G's, I was egressing stuff that I never thought would be egressed.
I went through not one airsick bag, but two. Biff said I passed out. Twice.. I was coated in sweat. At one point, as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on a mock bombing target and the G's were flattening me like a tortilla and I was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first person In history to throw down.
I used to know 'cool'. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass, or Norman making a five-iron bite.. But now I really know 'cool'. Cool is guys like Biff, men with cast-iron stomachs and freon nerves. I wouldn't go up there again for Derek Jeter's black book, but I'm glad Biff does every day, and for less a year than a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.
A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He said he and the fighters had the perfect call sign for me. Said he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit.
What is it? I asked.
'Two Bags.'
God Bless America (We need it!)
Thanks
So last week one of the guys who works for me retired. He had just had enough of all the "stuff" that happens at work,, and all the "help" we get from Management. (Yes, I know,, I am management too). Anyway he walks by my office and said that he needed to see me for a minute. When we go inside he says that he had heard what I had done for another vet and wanted to tell me thanks. That vietnam vets don't get much help and that he really appreciated it. His eyes said a lot more and if you've ever seen a vets eyes when he talks about the flag, the country or his experiences then you know what I mean.
I thought that was pretty cool.
Ok,, the rest of the story. There is another guy here, vietnam vet, who I first met about 4 years ago. He just didn't talk about the war,, or his experiences there. Over time I told him a few stories about my experiences and he started to tell me some. Like the fact that he was shot down in three airplanes, and a few other things. I ended up going to a flag ceremony here on veterans day 3 years ago and quite enjoyed it. So as time went on and we continued to share information I ended up inviting him to go to the veterans day thing 2 years ago. We went and had breakfast, went to the flag ceremony and then went over and had donuts at the VFW hall talking a little more about our separate experiences. We separated after that and I went and talked to my Uncle for awhile who had been in WWII.
The next morning he came and thanked me for taking the time to share with him. He said that he really appreciated it and that it meant a lot to him. A few days later he sent me a card, again expressing his thanks and that he felt a lot more free than he had in a long time.
We continue to share our military experiences as time and opportunity permits.
Oh,, the shot down thing. He was Air Force Para-Rescue during Vietnam. That means he went in to get the downed pilots and crews. Tough job! A great american.
I thought that was pretty cool.
Ok,, the rest of the story. There is another guy here, vietnam vet, who I first met about 4 years ago. He just didn't talk about the war,, or his experiences there. Over time I told him a few stories about my experiences and he started to tell me some. Like the fact that he was shot down in three airplanes, and a few other things. I ended up going to a flag ceremony here on veterans day 3 years ago and quite enjoyed it. So as time went on and we continued to share information I ended up inviting him to go to the veterans day thing 2 years ago. We went and had breakfast, went to the flag ceremony and then went over and had donuts at the VFW hall talking a little more about our separate experiences. We separated after that and I went and talked to my Uncle for awhile who had been in WWII.
The next morning he came and thanked me for taking the time to share with him. He said that he really appreciated it and that it meant a lot to him. A few days later he sent me a card, again expressing his thanks and that he felt a lot more free than he had in a long time.
We continue to share our military experiences as time and opportunity permits.
Oh,, the shot down thing. He was Air Force Para-Rescue during Vietnam. That means he went in to get the downed pilots and crews. Tough job! A great american.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
So,
Here I am again. Not what I would conside a frequent blogger. Still it does have "some" contextual information.
Had an interesting day yesterday... few problems at work then I get home and Mashell has decided to do a blog. Of course she didn't remember that I have had one for awhile. Guess I need to work at this a little harder or get rid of it. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Had an interesting day yesterday... few problems at work then I get home and Mashell has decided to do a blog. Of course she didn't remember that I have had one for awhile. Guess I need to work at this a little harder or get rid of it. Hmmmmmmmmm.
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