Teddy's Dead....YAWN

Nothing to see here....move along....

Birthday Musings

Ah, another year older, but NO deeper in debt!
Considering I'll probably be getting laid-off next week, I'm just glad I own my Jeep free-and-clear, my credit card balance is coming down at a pretty good clip, and I'll be moving in with my girlfriend in the next month or so. The rest of us left at the job site my employer sub-contracts to expect to be released and "sent back" to the Mothership next week. Since my employer doesn't have ANYTHING in this area that I can transfer into, I'll either be going back to my former employer (ALWAYS leave on good terms!) who's actually asked if I might like to come back, or go to a "competitor" of ours. I have a couple of other irons-in-the-fire, but I think I'll take some time off before I decide what to do. My current employer gives a "60 Day Notice" where you basically get paid to stay at home and find another job, while you collect your 40-hour paycheck, and keep your full benefits.
And I'm grateful for all the good friends I've made through the years, my reasonably good health, a son in College I'm extremely proud of, and the fact that I live in the greatest country on Earth!
Off with the girlfriend tonight for an early dinner at The Macaroni Grill, and then a quiet evening at home.

Heroes.......

In reflecting back on what I wrote about the Steve Canyon DVD's, I see that I looked up to these men as heroes.
I've always had heroes. Little boys need heroes so that when we grow up into men, we know how to act.
My list, in no particular order, except for number one!
My Dad
Ben Franklin
Winston Churchill
The Mercury Seven
The Crews of Apollo 11 and Apollo 13
Chuck Yeager
Bob Hoover
Scott Crossfield
Ronald Reagan
Curtis LeMay
Jeff Cooper
Jimmy Stewart
John Wayne
Dan Gurney
Mario Andretti
My high-school English teacher, Mr. Burke
My electronics mentors Pete Gavankar, Kent Earle, and Bob Pease
And many, many others who, just by their being and example, taught me important things that have stayed with me throughout my life.
Some of these men were flamboyant, some were simple. All lived their lives with strength, courage, commitment, and honor. I know they had their faults, because people do, but it's never stopped me froam admiring them.
Like RADM Tarrant said at the end of "The Bridges at Toko-Ri"
"Where do we find such men?"
God knows we sure could use a bunch of them now.......

Steve Canyon on DVD

Guess I'm showing my age, but this was one of my all-time favorite TV shows when I was just a little sprout. I also waited in anticipation for "Science Fiction Theater", and Col. McCauley's "Men Into Space", but I'll always remember certain Steve Canyon episodes, like "The Gift", and the all-time highest-rated episode "Operation Intercept".
Well, Volumes 1 and 2 arrived today, and I'm having fun reliving those nights of my childhood!
I think the appeal these shows had for me, other than the guys were doing Really Neat Stuff(tm), was that the actors portrayed my idea of how Real Men lived their lives. They were cool under pressure, had high morals and standards, always did the right thing, and won out over adversity and evil. In short, they were role models, and I aspired to be like them. My Dad was in the SeaBees during WWII, and taught me great respect for our men and women in the military. He didn't talk much about his time in the service, but he had a box full of ribbons and medals that my sister has now. When I was little, he bought me my own copy of The Bluejacket's Manual, as he thought it would serve me as well as it did him. I've long since mislaid my copy, but hopefully some of what I read at that early age has stayed with me. My Dad pretty much lead by example, just like the guys in the TV series did, and that's probably another reason I connected with them.
If you're interested, cruise on over to "Steve Canyon on DVD", and enjoy! These are fully-remastered DVD's, made from the original 35mm films, and are extremely good quality, and fully authorized by the Milton Caniff estate.
Hmmm....pass the popcorn, please?

As Seen In L.A.

Location unknown.
H/T to our good friends at "The Sipsey Street Irregulars".

South Bay Tea Party Update

We're having an event!

Dear Tea Party Patriot,

I am writing this letter to let you know we at a crossroads in South Bay and America. The time to stop this Socialism is before the bills are passed. Right now Government Health is stalled in the House because of the Blue Dog Democrats. Cap and Trade has not passed the Senate because of the Blue Dogs.

Our Jane Harman is the wealthiest person in Congress and one of the key leaders of the Blue Dog Democrat collation. We have a unique opportunity to influence all of America because of our influence in this Congressional District.

We need to build membership in the SouthBayTeaParty. We need to spread our vision to our neighbors and we need to restore hope to many who do not believe that this is a battle that can be won.

I need you to step up and buy 4 to 8 or even 10 tickets as soon as you read this email, for yourself and your friends and neighbors. The discount code for 25% off is “TeaParty0830-25”. Even if you are not able to attend, buy 4 and give them away to people you think would benefit from what will be a very uplifting experience.

Go to www.DontTellMeItCantBeDone.com to purchase your tickets.

Why did I choose to sponsor this event? Because I met with several of my friends that did not attend our Tea Party event on April 15^th and they were discouraged and hopeless when it came to the future of our country. So I scheduled this event for my friends and your friends to help them restore their hope for the future a vision for how to take back America. So Don’t Tell Me It Can’t Be Done, we can take back America, push back the tide of Socialism, and restore Liberty and Freedom to our country.

Steve Amerson’s inspiring live singing with, live grand piano and a 26 foot HD screen for the video back drop is only the beginning. I am still working on getting a well know personality to come, but no guarantees. Either way we will hear some dynamic and thought provoking presentations and some short speeches from candidates from next year’s election.

No matter what happens this is a time to decide to stand with us. I for one would rather be the man in the arena then stay seated in the stands… go today to www.DontTellMeItCantBeDone.com and act. We will not get a second chance.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
-Theodore Roosevelt April 23, 1910-

In the Arena for America,

Gary Aven
www.SouthBayTeaParty.com
www.DontTellMeItCantBeDone.com

ARRRRGH! Kernel Updates...BLECH!

I'm a Linux user. I have been since 1995, and although I keep a couple of Windoze boxen around because of hardware compatibility issues (Audio/Video capture and editing, and Ham Radio stuff), I greatly prefer Linux for my daily driver. No viruses, spyware, trojans, etc. Part of maintaining *ANY* computers system is to keep the system patched and updated. The latest updates for my OpenSUSE 11.1 installation included a kernel update. The "kernel" is the heart and soul of the Operating System, and as patches become available, I apply them. Well....this one BROKE the video subsystem, and I'm going bonkers trying to get it to run like it used to. It works well enough to be usable, but it's not quite "right" if you know what I mean, and if you run Linux, you know what I mean! Since I use an NVidia GeForce video card, and NVidia does NOT "Open Source" their drivers, I'm used to having to recompile the kernel module so everything interfaces properly, I can run my Dell 2405 flat screen at it's native resolution, 3D acceleration is enabled, etc. Somehow the NVidia driver and the compiled module aren't talking the same language as the new kernel is. I can't get the screen resolution back up to 1920x1200, 3D isn't working (more an annoyance, as I don't game on this box), and it doesn't automagically pick up what monitor I'm using from the EDID that the monitor outputs when it's gets queried. In short, I'm stuck in "Frame Buffer Graphics" which is NOT optimum.
Major Payne, here!
I could probably fix this by swapping out the GeForce 9400GT card I have in here for the GeForce 8800GTS I pulled out, which is a better supported card, but it draws a lot more power, generates a lot more heat, and is really overkill for what I use this machine for.
Or I can wait for the next kernel update, or NVidia driver update, which should hopefully fix this problem.
And on top of this minor annoyance, I'm trying to move all my "junque" over to the girlfriend's place, we just got a new puppy, and it's been too damn hot to work in her/our garage to clean it up so I'll be able to store my junque until we can get everything sorted out.
Not a fun weekend here.......

3000 Visits!

Wow, I just looked at the Sitemeter stats, and I see I've gone slightly over 3000 visits.
I doubt if I'll ever generate the site traffic that most of the people on my blogroll do, but then I never thought I'd hit 3000 in 6 months, either.
I started the blog as my own little 2nd Amendment page, but in looking back I see that it's more of a random "Jim's World" kind of thing. I'm a pretty "Constitutionalist" (is that word?) kind of guy, and even though I'm registered as a Republican, I really don't feel much affiliation with them any more. I'll take Mike Church's viewpoint and say that I'm an American first, a conservative second, and a "Small 'r' republican" third. Our government has gotten bigger and bigger over the years I've been on this rock we call Earth, and it troubles me greatly. They're sticking their nose into places it doesn't belong, and they don't have the Constitutional authority to do so. Besides the 2nd Amendment being under constant attack, now they're going after the 1st Amendment with things like the "Fairness Doctrine" (what doublespeak!), trying to slip "Hate Crime" legislation into totally unrelated bills, and other things I've read but can't remember right now.
Really disgusting. It's enough to make me want to "Go Galt", and help stop the motor of the world.
I won't even go into the nuttiness of things out here in the People's Republik of Kalifornia, as it's just as bizzare, and even more disgusting. Last I read, Kalifornia was home to 32% of all the people in the United States that were on welfare. Stunning, just stunning.
Oh, well....I've rambled on here enough. Thanks to everybody who stops by, and maybe one of these days I'll come up with one of those 'Killer Posts' that I admire so much in the blogs I read.

Private Healthcare Destruction.

H/T to Anthony at the Columbia Conservative Examiner for this.
http://blog.flecksoflife.com/2009/07/19/the-first-400-pages-of-the-hc-monstrosity/

Apollo 11 Anniversary

Happy 40th to the crew of Apollo 11!
God, I can't believe it was FOURTY YEARS ago that we landed on the Moon. I was between high-school and College that summer, still not really sure what I wanted to do for a living, except that it would involve Electronics, and probably Radio. That particular Sunday I was rehearsing for a community theater production that I had a part in. Yes, some Geeks have at least a *small* artistic streak in them, and I'm one of them. I wasn't on stage much at that rehearsal, so I'd brought my little Sony B&W TV-500U "Micro TV" with me to watch the landing. I'll NEVER forget "Four forward, kickin' up a little dust", and then Armstrong's announcement that they were down safe.
I erupted into a cheer like my team had just won the Homecoming Game!
A few minutes later, a couple of the artsy-fartsy types came in and asked me what I was being so loud about, and I told them we were down safe on the Moon! Wow, talk about instant Absolute Zero in the room....I couldn't believe the disgust and derision these supposedly "educated" people began heaping on me, NASA, the space program, and anybody who didn't want to just give all that "wasted" money to the poor.
Liberals were pretty annoying even back then, but I was so excited I didn't care much, and just wrote it off to their never having had Real Jobs out in the Real World.
I could bore you with facts and figures about the Saturn rocket, but I won't. If you're interested, just click on over to Ken Rockwell's site, where he does a MUCH better job at this stuff than I do.
And congrats again to our Astronauts, the army of contractors, and the people at NASA who made all this possible back when our country had the will and the backbone to do great things.

"Old Fort MacArthur Days" Pictures

This is the first time I've tried the direct-to-blog function at Photobucket. Seems to work OK, and it looks a little nicer than just sticking all the pix into one blog window.
I see that I forgot to rotate a few. I'll get the actual Photobucket files 'cleaned up' a bit later so you don't have to crane your neck to look at some of them.
The "Old Fort MacArthur Days and Artillery Show" is quite a production. Looks like it's doubled in size from the last time I went, two years ago.
Enjoy!