But... Happy Birthday. You've aged well, far above your female peers... at least the ones I know. That said, you'll always be 19 in my mind's eye, Paula. Life was VERY good when you smiled at me like that.
A Beacon of BRAC: Air National Guardsmen from six states have potentially saved the Air Force some $31 million by stepping up to move a radar research tower from Rome, N.Y., to Springfield ANGB, Ohio. Mandated under BRAC 2005, the Air Force Research Lab set out to consolidate four radar towers near Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. With initial contract estimates as high as $35 million, AFRL sensors directorate officials turned to the New York Air National Guard's 213th Engineering Installation Squadron in 2007. Harnessing Air Guard manpower from across the nation, the squadron estimated that it could complete the project for just $4.2 million. In late May, the Air Guardsmen, supported by active duty airmen, completed the disassembly, move, and reassembly process at Springfield, all for $600,000 under the unit's cost projection. "The underlying theme behind BRAC is achieving savings for the taxpayers. This effort is one of our biggest success stories to date," said Frank Albanese, AFRL's BRAC director. (Springfield report by Derek Kaufman)
There are others, of course, most of which we have no photographic record. And most of those events are minor… mundane, even... such as the time my buds and I walked off the hill at Doi Inthanon, Thailand after a hard day of raising the search radar antenna at a long range radar site we (a USAF Engineering & Installations [E&I] team out of Yokota AB, Japan) were building for the Royal Thai Air Force. Raising that antenna was a milestone in a long and difficult installation… and we celebrated by unfurling a home-made banner on the radar antenna… a huge thing cobbled up out of bedsheets, emblazoned with our makeshift "Baker and Sons Radar Installations" logo, and visible throughout the radar station. That banner was a thing we spent the entire evening admiring, all while hoisting many Singhas in celebration… accompanied by team members from the various E&I disciplines deployed with us… radio, telephone, construction… among others. A victory of sorts, and one to be celebrated. Once again… we were heroes, just for one day.
Photo as captioned on the Lompoc Record web site... and that's The First Mrs. Pennington, second from left. It seems like the the band alumni will have their very own float in this year's Flower Festival Parade. Wow... Glory, eh? Further...From left, former Lompoc High School band members Mary Newcomb, Ramona Pennington, Glen Newcomb, Adeline Trujillo and Esther Childs hold a January 23, 1961 edition of the Lompoc Record heralding the band’s return from President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. //Mark Brown/Staff
On Jan. 20, 1961, 55 Lompoc students marched in President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. This year they will mark the occasion with a reunion during the Flower Festival weekend in June.TFMP tooted her clarinet in JFK's Inaugural parade and a Good Time was had by all, or so I've been told... lotsa times. Now she gets to ride on her very own float in yet another parade... this time as an honoree, which is just pretty danged cool.
“Bob Shaver called and asked, ‘Do you know what Jan. 20, is?’” said Glen Newcomb, who was the Lompoc High School drum major in 1961. “He said, ‘We ought to have a reunion. Make that happen, Glen.’”
So Newcomb and his wife Mary, who played the cymbals in the inaugural parade, are making that happen. They are finding as many of their band mates as they can. So far they have contacted 38.
I wanna breathe when you breathe"Broken Arrow" is off of RR's self-titled album of 1987... which has many more than a few great tunes (think: "Somewhere Down the Crazy River") and used to be in continuous rotation in the way-back. "Broken Arrow" had sumthin' like "Our Song" status in Former Happy Days and it still has a tendency to make me rather misty. If I let it.
When you whisper like that hot
summer breeze
Count the beads of sweat that cover me
Didn't you show me a sign, this time
It's no secret that hundreds of millions of people around the world now routinely use the Internet to indulge their sexual curiosity. Today you can ogle more naked bodies in a single minute online than the most promiscuous Victorian could have seen in a lifetime. Because this online activity leaves behind a trail of digital crumbs, for the first time we can gather reliable data on the erotic interests of a broad swath of humanity.
My colleague Sai Gaddam and I have analyzed a billion of these web searches, using data sets that firms like AOL and Excite make publicly available, obtaining other data from adult web sites, and using web-analysis techniques to gather additional data.
One of our most interesting findings was that women are very different from men in how they use these online services. All across the planet, what most women seek out, in growing numbers, are not explicit scenes of sexual activity but character-driven stories of romantic relationships.
The female cortex contains a highly developed system for finding and scrutinizing a prospective partner—a system that might be dubbed the Miss Marple Detective Agency. Agatha Christie's fictional sleuth is often dismissed as scatterbrained, but she is actually a shrewd judge of character and harbors deep knowledge of the dark side of human nature. She uses her surprising analytical acumen to solve mysteries that have stumped the police.
Using similar investigative skills, the female brain evaluates all available evidence regarding a potential mate's social, emotional and physical qualities to make an all-important decision: Is he Mr. Right or Mr. Wrong? Only if Miss Marple gives her stamp of approval do physical arousal and psychological arousal harmoniously unite in the female brain.
Female erotica demonstrates how the detective agency operates—and how it differs from the much simpler male brain. Whereas two-minute video clips are the most popular form of contemporary erotica for men, the most popular form for women remains the romance novel, an artifact that takes many hours to digest. Like pornography, the romance novel has established a strong presence in the digital domain. It is the primary engine behind the electronic book boom. Currently, three of the top 10 books on Kindle are e-romances.
Computer whiz kids have long been prize hires in Silicon Valley. But these days tech companies are dreaming up new perks and incentives as the industry wages its fiercest war for talent in more than a decade.
Free meals, shuttle buses and stock options are de rigueur. So the game maker Zynga dangles free haircuts and iPads to recruits, who are also told that they can bring their dogs to work. Path, a photo-sharing site, moved its offices so it could offer sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay. At Instagram, another photo-sharing start-up, workers take personal food and drink orders from employees, fill them at Costco and keep the supplies on hand for lunches and snacks.
Spring
Photo Credit: Anita Martinz from Klagenfurt, Austria (via Wikipedia)
It won't be long until we see tulips, daffodils, and other Spring bulbs bursting from the ground, what with today being the first day of Spring. The crocuses have already come and gone in some places...I've seen them bloom in the snow oftentimes in other parts of the world where I've lived... but for most of us the glories of Spring are just now arriving.
My all-time favorite memory of Spring flowers involves rounding a bend and swooping down a stone-walled lane into a tiny Cotswold village not far from where I lived in High Wycombe, England back in the early '80s. It was on a chilly Sunday morning in early Spring and I was out for a morning ride, alone. This village couldn't have been home to more than 500 souls, but there were literally thousands of bright yellow daffodils in full-bloom lining both sides of the lane leading into and out of the village. It was a breath-taking sight, and that is understatement of the highest order.
I immediately headed back for home after trundling through the village, parked the bike outside the house upon arrival (leaving it running), and burst into my living room, surprising the living HELL out of The Second Mrs. Pennington. I simply said "Grab your helmet, put on your jacket, and come with me! Now!", my outburst being more order than request. She complied... albeit in a somewhat perplexed manner... asking where we were going. I only replied "You'll see."
And see we did. I retraced the exact same route I had taken about a half hour earlier, except this time I approached the village just a little slower while reaching back and tapping TSMP's leg just as we entered the village. I could hear her "Ooooh!" exclamation over the noise of the bike's motor and rush of wind as I slowed to a veritable crawl. We pulled over to the side of the lane, parked the bike and spent about a half-hour walking the lane, drinking in the beauty of the flowers and the tiny thatched-roof houses in the village. And there wasn't a soul to be be seen anywhere, strangely enough. Just the two of us, amid a riot of daffodils on a quiet Sunday Spring morning in Britain.
It doesn't get much better than that, Gentle Reader.
―:☺:―
Today's Pic: Our mount on that glorious Spring morning... my old RD350LC, on the day I sold her... the week before I left Ol' Blighty. Notice my pallor. That comes from living in a country where I might have seen full sun on perhaps seven occasions over the course of three years. OK... I exaggerate... but not by a whole helluva lot.
The narrative begins in the ’60s, when Carole King and Gerry Goffin were writing their now-iconic songs at Manhattan’s 1650 Broadway hit factory, and James Taylor was emerging as a folksinger/songwriter. The location then shifts westward to L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, the breeding ground for the burgeoning singer-songwriter community, and to Doug Weston’s Troubadour, where the King/Taylor partnership begins to blossom and a close-knit crew of future legends — including Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Eagles, and Elton John—performs on the small stage and holds court in the bar, the epicenter of the action.
The story is told through archival footage, much of it never before seen, which is intercut with the vivid recollections and incisive reflections of a wide cast of characters. Along with King and Taylor, contributors include David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Chris Darrow, Kris Kristofferson, J.D. Souther, and Elton John; Taylor’s former manager and producer, music impresario Peter Asher; the one-time head of Ode Records and producer of King’s Tapestry, Lou Adler; musicians Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Craig Doerge and Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar (Taylor’s childhood friend and King’s bandmate in The City); songwriters Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and (King collaborator) Toni Stern; rock critics Robert Hilburn (who covered the scene as Los Angeles Times’ pop music critic); Barney Hoskyns (author of the So Cal music histories Waiting for the Sun and Hotel California) and Robert Christgau; Troubadour denizens Cheech & Chong and Steve Martin; photographer/musician Henry Diltz; and King’s daughter Sherry Goffin Kondor.
"And the sex. There was a LOT of that. There was also this small window of time (he holds his hands about a foot apart to illustrate) between The Pill and AIDS when it was all fun and games, and it was good. (He pauses for about three beats here and looks directly into the camera) I need to emphasize that. It was GOOD."
I remember the stupid things, the mood rings
The bracelets and the beads
Nickels and dimes, yours and mine, did you cash in all your dreams?
You don't dream for me, no, you don't dream for me, no
(Goodbye, goodbye)
But I still feel your pulse like sonar from the days in the waves
That girl is like a sunburn
I would like to say
The girl is like a sunburn
I would like to say
She's like a sunburn
(She's like a sunburn)
She's like a sunburn
Bugs
I’m putting the final touches on dinner last evening (read that: taking the last of three grilled cheese sandwiches out of the frying pan) when, from literally out of nowhere, a medium sized daddy longlegs drops on to the counter in front of me. I quickly put that grilled cheese on the cutting board and take a swipe at the spider. I miss. He’s a quick little bugger! There’s only one escape route available to said spider and he takes it, leaping on to the cutting board, heading straight for my dinner. I take a couple of stabs at him with my finger, again. Miss. Miss. Now that bold little SOB is actually ON my dinner, so I sweep him off the sandwiches with the flat of my hand, surgical precision be damned. I succeeded in sweeping him off the cutting board back on to the counter from whence he came. He was terminated with extreme prejudice and the remains deposited in the trash.Fifteen or 20 minutes later and we're done with dinner. Those sandwiches were good! As I’m clearing the table I look down on the cutting board to see what are clearly two tiny little legs amongst the remnant crumbs. Which, of course, raises the question: “How many spider legs did I actually eat?” After a brief “ewww” moment I realize this ain’t the first or the last time I’ll consume a bug, in whole or in parts. The government has standards for “acceptable” amounts of insect parts and other filth in our food, ya know. And here they are. I’m glad I didn’t have any fig newtons for dessert.Which brings to mind another bug story. In the last installment of “Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine” I told you about my mid-70s trip to Ramasun Station in Thailand and associated events. During that trip I became very good friends with a young lady that worked in one of the local bars in Kho Kha. One evening after work I’m sitting at the bar, nursing a Singha and minding my business when my lady friend slides on to the stool next to mine. We exchange greetings, and she says: “I bring you present.” “Cool!” sez I.She reaches into her (very large) purse and pulls out this little cage made out of woven palm fronds or something, about three inches in diameter by two inches high. She then opens the top of the grass cage and dumps out this VERY large beetle-looking insect on to the bar. The beetle is about the size of an Almond Joy piece, which is to say it’s a really big bug. It's alive... and crawling ponderously around on the bartop.“That’s nice,” I say. “What am I going to do with this?”“You eat!” she says.“You SHIT, too!” sez I.She looks at me in a mildly offended way, shrugs her shoulders, picks the bug up off the bar, bites off the bug’s abdomen, and chews it up with exaggerated smiles of delight. I almost threw up.
It turns out she had offered me a Rice Bug, a particular form of beetle found in rice fields. This beetle eats rice, “processes” it, and stores the resulting paste in its large abdomen. A real Thai delicacy, so I’m told, even if the bugs are normally deep fried or steamed. My friend ate this one raw (and ALIVE, fergawd's sake!), though. It was a day or two before I kissed her again.
See when it starts to fall apartWe're on about health issues here, the Hip are on about something entirely different but no less true. I've sung this song in THAT context, too. But not lately.
It really falls apart
Like boots or hearts, Oh when they start
They really fall apart
I was thinking if you were lonelyWell, so much for that sentiment. There might have been some folks who "wouldn't know," but that shit all came out in the wash now, dint it?
Maybe we could leave here and no one would know
At least not to the point that we would think so
Hard as it may be to believe, the fireplace — long considered a trophy, particularly in a city like New York — is acquiring a social stigma. Among those who aspire to be environmentally responsible, it is joining the ranks of bottled water and big houses.
“The smoke from a fire smells very nice,” said Diane Bailey, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. “But it can cause a lot of harm.” The tiny particles, she said, “can cause inflammation and illness, and can cross into the bloodstream, triggering heart attacks” as well as worsening other conditions.
Or as Starre Vartan, a 33-year-old blogger who goes by the name Eco-Chick, put it: “Any time you are burning wood or cow dung, you’ll be creating pollution. It’s like junk food: if you do it once a month, then who cares? But if it’s something you do every day, it’s important that you mitigate it somehow. It’s a hazard.”
Wood smoke contains some of the same particulates as cigarette smoke, said Dr. Norman H. Edelman, the chief medical officer for the American Lung Association, as well as known carcinogens like aldehydes; it has also been linked to respiratory problems in young children.
“We now know from lots of studies that wood smoke is very, very irritating,” Dr. Edelman said. “It contains a lot of irritating gases and it also contains damaging particulate matter. It’s probably not good for anybody, and it’s especially bad for anybody who has a chronic respiratory problem.” So the association strongly advises people not to use the traditional fireplace, he said.
