One For Old_NFO.......

GO NAVY!

Courtesy of Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford during the Gemini VI mission

Happy Birthday, Frank!

Old Blue Eyes would have been 100 years old today.

Not much I can say about him that hasn't already been said. I remember watching him in movies when I was a kid, especially movies like Ocean's 11, and thinking the Rat Pack was the coolest bunch of guys (next to the Astronauts!) in the world.

Truly a different world back then, and for all it's faults, I think a better place.....

Happy Birthday, Frank!

Down With A Cold.....

Got the blechs again...

Started feeling something coming on late Sunday. My wife came home early last Thursday, and took Friday off, and now it looks like I have it.

Sore throat, runny nose, minor cough, and general blotto feeling.

Feeling somewhat better today, and spent most of the day sleeping. I'll hit the NyQil and Mucinex in a few, and then off to bed.

Oh, well.....

Long Time Gone ~ Aliotta Haynes Jerimiah

These guys were fairly big in the Chicago area in the late 1960's/early 1970's.

Their most "mainstream" hit was called "Lake Shore Drive", about the road of the same name that runs along the West coast of Lake Michigan, but I always liked this one better.

"A Date Which Will Live In Infamy..."

 
Every day we lose many WWII Vets.

Soon there will be none.

I'm very blessed in that I get to meet many of them doing my various "jobs" on the Iowa.

Cherish them while we still have them. They truly were "The Greatest Generation".



These two "vets" of a slightly different type saw much action.

The USS Iowa, and the USS Midway. I'm fortunate to have been on both, and have friends on both.

I "Fixed" My Windoze PC

WELL....thinking about this, I decided to pull the AC plug from the UPS for a few minutes to let the power supply completely discharge, which completely turns the PC off.

Most newer PC's actually don't turn "off", in much the same way that a newer TV never turns completely "off", since the TV needs some circuitry alive 24/7 to detect the commands from the remote.

PC's are similar in the the power switch doesn't disconnect the power like it did in the old "AT" days, but rather puts the PC into a very deep sleep, and brings it back up when the "power" button is pressed.

Sure enough, after being unplugged for a few minutes it got past the POST error, and began to boot into Windoze.

Since I'd attempted to restart it numerous times after the error first appeared, it had some corrupted files, so I let Windoze search for the problems, and selected "Continue" when it offered to restore the system to it's last known operating state.

Now I'll re-do all the updates that I installed before we went to Colorado for Thanksgiving, and *carefully* nuke all the "Get Windows 10!!" spyware that the mothership installs.

And this time, when it wants a reboot, I'll do a complete shutdown, unplug it for a few minutes, and then bring it back up!

Liberal vs. Actual reality

Shamelessly swiped from the fine people at WRSA.....


Nothing to see here.....Move along.....

More "Workplace Violence".....

I was going to do a "Colorado Wrap Up" post, and then the ugliness in San Berdoo took place.

It's amazing how fast the media has dropped this hot potato, no doubt due to the identity of the perps, and the glaring fact that it doesn't fit the official agenda.

And of course, the POS currently residing in our White House immediately spun another BLATANT LIE about how "People we won't let fly can walk into any gun store and buy a gun".

Not hardly......

FINALLY Home!

BLECH........The Explorer wouldn't start this morning. Another hotel guest gave us a third jumpstart.

Plane to Salt Lake City was 45 minutes late arriving in Denver.

Our connecting flight was scheduled to depart 50 minutes after our scheduled arrival, and was one set of gates away.

We barely made it. We were literally the last two people to board the aircraft.

Then because that aircraft had been sitting most of the day at Salt Lake, where there were minor snow squalls moving through the area, it had to be de-iced again.

We left Salt Lake 45 minutes late......

So our "2100" arrival time in Long Beach wound up being about 2225....

I'll unpack tomorrow....I'm trashed......

Headed Home Saturday

After I shut the laptop down tonight I'll pack it, along with all my other stuff except for what I'll wear Saturday.

We had a wonderful time here, as usual, and actually took a few hours today to drive by 6 of the homes I've got in my saved properties list.

We didn't get to look inside any of them, but just doing the drive-by confirmed that yes indeed, the people who take the pictures used in the listing are quite creative with camera angles!

One house looked really sweet "on paper", BUT the listing photos don't show the neighbor's yard with cars-on-blocks, the other neighbor's yard that looked  like a used Jeep/ATV dealership, or the house down the road a few hundred feet that just looked plain "weird".

One we looked at had NO garage at all, the garage having been converted into more living space. Don't know how I missed that in the listing, as a BIG garage is very high on my priority list.

Another had a HUGE yard, but the fence around the yard in the photos was gone! Since the photos were taken months ago, hopefully a new fence is in the works.

BUT....two of the ones I had saved were true gems. One has a very nice yard, with a "nature area" that the back yard abuts to, almost guaranteeing that the land will never be developed, and the other was a knock out. 30,000 sqft lot, a large garage/workshop as a separate building, and looked to be in excellent repair. It's been on the market for almost 6 months now, with the priced dropped $20k at the end of October.

My "local connections" are looking in to it to see if there might be code violations or other headache-inducing things wrong with it. They seemed to think it was still a bit overpriced considering the "comps" in the neighborhood, so they're going to discreetly nose around a bit on our behalf.

My wife has said she wants to seriously "run the numbers" on it when we get home. She's now thinking that we could go ahead and buy it, and let the kids rent it until we're ready to move. That's probably the only scenario I'd EVER consider being a landlord in!

And with family renting it, I could make repeated trips out here with a truck moving our extensive collection of "stuff", greatly easing the entire moving process.

AND...we had another "episode" of our Ford Exploder refusing to start. It's one of these keyless-start cars, loaded with electronics, and methinks there be some gremlins lurking within this particular one. The various modes of the electronic traction control quit working, and the auto-fold mirrors don't always report for duty.

I'd have to give this model of Explorer a strong "NOT Recommended", and we're going to tell Budget to send this one to the showers when we turn it in Saturday afternoon.

See you all on the flip side.........

A Few Pictures From Thanksgiving Day

These are from when we went to pick up the kids.

Their little house is actually in Bellvue, Colorado, very close to Laporte, which is where we're looking for houses.

My stepson greeting my wife:

A neighbors house:

Our rental car, which required a jump start here. No idea why the battery appeared dead. When I started it again up in Cheyenne, the Ford "Sync" screen appeared on the previously dead entertainment center, and announced "Performing required system maintenance".
The car's been OK since then.

Looking out to the East:

Neighbor's house on the North:

So far we've had a great time. It was good to see our future in-laws again, and catch up with thwm on what's been going on here.