Beech King Air Crash at Long Beach Airport

I usually listen to the tower at LGB all day long, but this happened after I turned the radio on. I noticed that there was a lot of helicopter activity around one of the runways, and that the runway was closed. I didn't think anything about it until my wife came home and told me about it.
A Beech King Air went down on takeoff, killing 5 of the people on board.
More here at the Press Telegram.

Man With 4th Amendment Written On Chest Sues Over Arrest

I almost didn't believe this when I read it.
According to the suit, while under interrogation on December 30, the authorities wanted to know “about his affiliation with, or knowledge of, any terrorist organizations, if he had been asked to do what he did by any third party, and what his intentions and goals were.”

Read the whole article here.

Major PC Clean Up Time

No, not for me. I run Linux, and don't have these problems.
The Church where my wife and I were married has a PC in their office that I've worked on a couple of times before. The last time it needed a new power supply, and while I was at it, I maxed out the memory, and installed a newer, bigger hard-disc. Well, I got a call from them the other day that they couldn't get on the Internet, so not having TOO much else to do these days, I drove over there to see what was wrong.
They had installed a Linksys Cable-and-DSL Router, which was working fine, but *something* had changed the way they connect using their Ethernet port. It had been set to use a proxy, which they don't require, and as a result, they couldn't connect. A simple change, and they were back on the Net in no time. Since I was already there, I went to see if Windows Update had anything new, and it wouldn't connect. Hmmm....we have Internet connectivity, but can't get to the WU site. So, I went to run the anti-virus/anti-spyware programs I installed for them, and they wouldn't run. Since they were using MacAfee, not one of my favorites, I uninstalled it, and tried to install AVG.
It would install, but wouldn't run!.
Now it starts to get interesting. I opened my Bag-O-Tricks, and grabbed one of my run-from-CD virus scanners.
HOLY SMOKES! They had 117 infections of various types that one program found, 57 more another program found, and a staggering EIGHT HUNDRED assorted types of Trojan Horses, keyloggers, password stealers, and other various pieces of malware that my third Magic Bullet found. At this point I wasn't going to be able to save the patient on-site, so I brought it home to work on.
I copied all their documents, photos, and records to a clean hard-disc, and ran various utilities on the drive to make sure their data was clean, and not booby-trapped with other nasty junk. Right now I'm running DBAN on the original drive, and after it's finished scrubbing the drive, I'll reinstall Windows and all the protection utilities I install for people. When I take it back in the next day or so, I'll give them a tutorial on how to use and update these programs, and a printed list of things to do weekly.
So how did this mess happen? They let a few of the church's youth group use the machine for a few hours, unsupervised, to ostensibly "check their email"! I didn't find any evidence of Adults Only sites being visited, but I did see plenty of file sharing and music downloading, along with a couple of visits to some warez sites. It's anybody's guess which site did the Drive-By Download on them, but the point is that it did happen. Whoever used the computer tried to cover their tracks, but if you know where, and how, to look, it's not terribly difficult to reconstruct.
From now on, the PC will be "Off Limits" to anybody but the office manager, and we'll be changing the passwords on it to something easy to remember, but hard to guess. I've also instructed them to watch their credit cards and bank accounts for suspicious activity, just in case any of the staff did any financial transactions while this PC was compromised.

Skyscrapers Swaying Like Trees In A Wind

Found the video at "Dark Roasted Blend", and did the YouTube embed here.
Amazing footage...

Slide Rule Musings.....

One of my AMSAT friends sent me a link with pictures of the early days of Amateur Radio Satellites, and we all joked about all the slide rules in the pictures, which started an ongoing discussion on the email list.
My Dad bought me my first slide rule back when I was about 12 years old. I was studying for my Amateur Radio license, and it just made doing the math so much easier. It was a Post 1445P 8" "Student Model", but it let me do multiplication, division, and logs in the blink of an eye. I can still remember going in to the FCC Field Office in the Federal Building in downtown Chicago to take my General Class exam. I had a big paper bag with my Heathkit HD-10 keyer, some pencils and erasers, and my slide rule. The examiner gave me a big smile when I took it out of the bag.
In the years since then, I've had half-a-dozen linear slide rules, from little 6" ones that fit my pocket protector (yes, I had one...), to the monster 12" ones that cost almost $100, and came with a beautiful fitted leather case. Some of the linear rules had specialized scales on them for doing certain calculations that would be cumbersome on a "regular" rule. I've had a few circular ones, too. The round ones were, like most round slide rules, specialized completely for certain functions. On of my favorites (that I still have somewhere) was my aluminum E6B Flight Computer, still available, by the way, commonly called a "Pilot's Confuser" or "Whiz Wheel". Once you learned how to use it, it sure beat drawing out a wind triangle on the map in your lap while bouncing around in rough air!
Sadly, most of the companies that made slide rules have either gone out of business, or shuttered their slide rule manufacturing facilities. In the end, slide rules helped design the machines that made them obsolete, a rather ironic turn of events for a device that was (literally) hundreds of years old. The only place I'm aware of that you can still buy a freshly-made slide rule is Think Geek, one of my favorite places for funny tee shirts.
With the loss of new slide rules, the market for old ones has gone through the roof. What were once yard-sale $1 items are now going for $50~$150 on eBay, depending on how complex and large they are.
So, if TSHTF and we don't have electricity, I can always get my slide rule out for those important I'm-going-to-help-save-the-world calculations.

New Desoldering Station...

After years of using solder wick, squeeze bulbs, and manual pumps, I finally broke down and bought a half-ways decent desoldering station. The straw that broke the camel's back was working on a whole pile of PC's and motherboards with bad capacitors that several people gave me. It would take me 20~30 minutes using wick and/or a bulb to get the solder out of the holes on the multi-layer boards, and could get pretty frustrating. Especially on the minus lead of the capacitor, as it usually goes to a LARGE ground foil which conducts the heat away pretty rapidly. It would take a combination of brute force and great delicacy to get the solder and the lead hot enough to wick off or suck out the solder without overheating the board and damaging the foil. I'm pretty good at it, but once in a while I'd lift a pad or a trace, and then have to spend extra time repairing the board.
Well, with my handy dandy SMTmax ML-859 Desoldering station, I can heat up the lead, squeeze the trigger, and SLURP! there goes the solder.
Wonderful!
I'd been mulling over which one of the many units on the market to buy, and finally decided to get this one. Several times I came *this close* to buying one of the $400~$500 units, but always backed off. This one cost $155 plus shipping, and if it wears out in 3 or 4 years, I'll just get another one, although it came with enough spare parts to keep it going for quite a while.
I'll still keep a good supply of wick on hand, and I have several bulbs and pumps, but for the more delicate stuff, I'll use the new unit.
Besides, it's fun to squeeze a trigger, and see stuff disappear!

BulkAmmo.com

Finally got a round to buying some 357 Magnum to use in my Marlin 1894 from these guys.

Good quality, fresh, name-brand stuff at a good price.
The shipping seemed a bit slow, but then it was a LOT cheaper than from the other places I usually buy it from.

Go give 'em a look-see, and compare their prices.
Bulk Ammo

STS-133 As Viewed From A Commercial Airliner

Just is just stunning!
One of my AMSAT friends posted the link on the AMSAT email reflector, and it's absolutely amazing.
Enjoy!

Sad But True......

From a friend of mine.....

John Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock

(MADE IN JAPAN )

for 6 am. While his coffeepot

(MADE IN CHINA)

was perking, he shaved with his electric razor

(MADE IN HONG KONG)

He put on a dress shirt

(MADE IN SRI LANKA),

designer jeans

(MADE IN SINGAPORE)

and tennis shoes

(MADE IN KOREA)

After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet

(MADE IN INDIA)

he sat down with his calculator

(MADE IN MEXICO)

to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch

(MADE IN TAIWAN )

to the radio

(MADE IN INDIA )

he got in his car

(MADE IN GERMANY )

filled it with GAS

(from Saudi Arabia )

and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his computer

( made in MALAYSIA ),

John decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals

(MADE IN BRAZIL ),

poured himself a glass of wine

(MADE IN FRANCE )

and turned on his TV

(MADE IN INDONESIA ),

and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job

in AMERICA AND NOW HE'S HOPING HE CAN GET HELP FROM A PRESIDENT

MADE IN KENYA

Michael Moore Is A Big, Fat, COMMUNIST Slob!

I don't like Michael Moore. I never have. He's a lying, manipulative SOB who will do, say, and film anything he can to advance his communist agenda.
He wears his plaid shirts and grungy baseball caps so he look like the "Common Man", and yet lives in a luxury apartment in Manhattan.
He brags here about his multimillion dollar worth, and yet has the unmitigated gall to condemn the wealthy here.
What a disgusting, hypocritical, socialist, communist douchebag elitist.

The absolute "nicest" thing I could possibly say about him is that he's a typical Limousine Liberal.
Period.

I Guess *Maybe* Wikkileaks Is Good For Something After All...

Courtesy of several links I don't have time to post right now, I found this story over at The Buckeye Firearms Association about how Wikkileaks has published some Department of State documents revealing quite a bit of insight as to how weapons are getting in to Mexico.
AFAIK, this was originally published in The Outdoor Wire.

HINT: It sure aint the Gun Show Loophole!

STS-133 Discovery's Final Flight

Discovery is the oldest Shuttle in the fleet, and this marks it's 39th and last flight. Up until now, it's spent 351 days in space, made 5,628 orbits, traveled 142,917,535 miles, and carried 246 crew personnel.
It docked once with the MIR, and 11 times before with the ISS, and was the Shuttle that originally deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.
I've never seen a Shuttle launch, but I've heard it on its way to land at Edwards AFB many times.
If you've never been at a rocket launch, it's something that film and video just can't capture. It's like the difference between seeing a Top Fuel dragster on TV, and being there in person, but much more intense. It's one of those experiences that you feel as much as you hear. For a long time, until I'd actually been to a launch, and I'm up to 16 launches now, I thought the 'crackling' noise you hear from the engines was just the microphones of the recording equipment being overloaded, but it's not. It's one loooong controlled explosion, like billions of firecrackers going off continuously until the rocket is far enough away that the sound just fades out. Truly amazing, and as somebody said once, "It makes you wonder where they find bolts strong enough to hold it all together!".

This is NOT the final Shuttle flight, however. There's one more *funded* mission on the books, STS-134, the last flight of Endeavour. It's been pushed back several times, and is now scheduled NET 19 April 2011. This is considered to be the last "official" Shuttle flight. The next flight, STS-135 would be the last flight of Atlantis, but AFAIK, it hasn't been funded. It's currently being prepped as STS-335, which would be a "Launch On Need" rescue mission for Endeavour, and the NASA managers have told their teams it will fly "regardless" of funding on what they call the "Continuing Resolution".
So, we'll have a Manned Space Program at least until April, and possibly through July.
After that, we're just cargo again, depending on the Russian Space Agency to deliver us to the ISS.
Yes, it's very sad.

God speed, Discovery.......

You Might Be A Ham If....

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy.
And yes, I'm guilty of more of these than I care to admit.

1. You have bought black electrical tape in ten packs.

2. You have stripped wire with your teeth.

3. You have told your child, "One day, all this will be yours”, and they didn't respond at all.

4. You would rather help another Ham friend hook up new equipment, or put up a new tower, than to mow your own lawn.

5. You have grabbed the wrong end of a hot soldering iron.

6. You have gotten an RF burn from your own antenna.

7. You have given out RST reports while you were on the telephone.

8. When the microphones or visual aids at a meeting did not work, you rushed up to the front to fix them.

9. You have told the XYL, when she noticed a new rig in the shack, "Why,that's been there for years!”.

10. You have set your watch to UTC only.

11. You have had to patch your roof after an antenna project fell onto it.

12. You have put a GPS tracker in the XYL's car or on the riding mower, just so you could watch it on APRS.

13. You have tapped out "CQ" or "HI" on the car horn in Morse Code to another Ham.

14. Your teenager has refused to ride in your car because it looks like a porcupine.

15. You know the Latitude, Longitude, and Elevation of your home QTH.

16. You have gone into the local Radio Shack store, and the store clerk has asked you where something is and how it works.

17. You have answered the telephone with your call sign, and then finished the conversation with "73" and your call sign.

18. You have looked for antennas, radios, and Morse Code in movies and television shows.

19. When you look at anything made of wire or metal tubing, you wonder if it could be used as an antenna.

20. Your call sign is printed on one or more of your hats, T-shirts, jackets, or other garments.

21. You regularly carry one or more tools in your pockets at any given time.

22. When any kinds of batteries go on sale, you get really excited.

23. When you look at a barbecue grill, it creates ideas about ground plane antennas or microwave reflectors.

24. You have designated all your friends as Hams or Non-Hams.

25. You have referred to your Ham friends by their call sign suffixes instead of their real names.

26. You have intentionally confused Non-Hams by telling them that the only things you talk about on the air are pork products.

27. You have intentionally scared Non-Hams with the word "RADIATION"!

28. You have looked at telephone poles and power line towers as potential antenna supports.

29. You have thought you were still hearing CW, SSB, or SSTV tones, even when your radios were off.

30. Your Go-Bag has more clothes in it than your dresser does.

31. You have a SKYWARN, RACES, ARES, ARRL, or local radio club sticker on your back window.

32. Your significant other sits in the back seat, and your radios ride in the front.

33. Your neighbors wonder if you are a Narc, a Spy, or a Federal Agent.

34. The cops pull you over because they want to see the inside of your car.

"As Much As I Hate The Recent Developments In...."

Oh, man.......you just HAVE to go check out the comments to a post over at Say Uncle's place.
HILARIOUS!
Best laugh I've had in weeks.
H/T to Breda

Have You Seen Me?

Saw this over my buddy Cap'n Bob's place, and just had to share it.
Kinda says it all, doesn't it?

Silver Bullets, Anyone?

My wife and I started watching "The Wolfman", the 2010 remake of the Lon Chaney classic. Made in 2010, it stars Anthony Hopkins, Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving. She could only watch about 15~20 minutes or so of it, up to when Lawrence goes to the Gypsy camp, and then it got too gory for her, so we turned it off.
But it started me thinking of a project I had considered many years ago when I was learning the basics about reloading from my best buddy Joe.
We joked about making real silver bullets, so me being the 'egghead' of our hot rod, shooting, and general carousing crowd, I started looking into it. When I found out that silver melts at 1760*F, compared to 620*F for lead, we kinda gave it up. I also found out from some jewelery-making girlfriends that silver also shrinks quite a bit when it cools, which would make for a loose-fitting bullet.
Back to the present......
Since we didn't have the Internet back then, I punched "silver bullet" into my favorite search engine, and out popped quite a few hits, along with a recommendation to search for "silver ammunition".
Paydirt! Seems I'm not alone in my curiosity.
The best one I found, by far, are the "Silver Bullet" pages on Patricia Briggs' website. One of the more interesting observations made, is that since it's not exactly easy to cast a a properly sized silver bullet, why not just put silver bits and pieces into a shotshell, and use that? And lo-and-behold, the jewelry people already sell "BB size" silver spheres!
So, whether you want to make up some werewolf killin' shotshells, or go to the trouble of actually casting your own silver bullets, it looks doable.
Now I just have to convince my wife that I need to buy some BB-sized silver pellets.
Maybe I can tell her I decided to start doing some "jewelry making" as a new hobby......

I Am A Radioman

After having a few visitors ask me about the "UMSC" patch on the side of the blog, I explained that although I know how to shoot fairly well, my primary "job" would be as a Radioman. I could have said Signalman, or, actually "Signaller" these days, but I'm rusty on my flags, and ALDIS lights aren't very stealthy without the proper filters.
So, I'll elect to call myself a "Radioman", even though I'm pretty good with most other aspects of communications using a variety of methods, both wired and wireless.
I started looking for The Signalman's Creed, or The Radioman's Creed, but couldn't find anything even remotely suitable.
So I "wrote" my own, which I'll present here to all my Radioman brothers out there to use.
With all due apologies, and the greatest respect to Major General William H. Rupertus, I present "The Radioman's Creed".

I Am A Radioman

This is my radio. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My radio is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My radio, without me, is useless. Without my radio, I am useless. I must tune my antenna true. I must broadcast stealthier than my enemy who is trying to intercept my signals. I must DF him before he DF's me. I will...

My radio and myself know that what counts in this war is not the signal we send, the noise of our keyer, nor the smoke we do not make. We know that it is the traffic that counts. We will send traffic...

My radio is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its tuning and its antenna. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my radio clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...

Before God, I swear this creed. My radio and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!

DF= "Direction Finding"

Long Beach Sending Lay Off Notices to ONE THOUSAND School Employees......

Good grief, how many do they have?
The local newspaper says it will be "777.5" (HALF a teacher??), but my inside source says it will be more like one thousand, including teachers and "other" positions.
Considering it can take a WEEK to get some light bulbs or fluorescent lamps changed, I wonder how many union "jobs" will be cut?

Happy Valentine's Day!

To any and all female readers of this little blog.

It's also my first wedding anniversary to the wonderful gal I married after being divorced and on my own for 16 years.

Took a long time to find her, but she's a keeper!

Guys.....do something NICE for your wife or girlfriend today, please?
It's not being a wimp, a wussy, or showing you're pwocked.
It's called being a gentleman, an appellation that really used to mean something in the old days.
I know so because I read it in a Jeff Cooper book, OK?
Flowers, candy, a card, whatever. Just do something for her that you wouldn't ordinarily do, even if it's the dishes, a load of laundry, or vacuuming the house.
Trust me, she'll appreciate it!

Belt Sander Racing!!

Yeah, I know it's not a "real" sport, but then I've always told people "If it doesn't have wheels or wings, and at least ONE motor, I 'aint interested".
Lots more info here.

Arrrrgh....Brain Lock.......

Duh....
Ever have one of those times when you know what you want to say, and can't figure out how to say it?
Yep, that's me tonight. I volunteered to give a presentation on "Software Defined Radio" for my Amateur Radio club on the 18th, and although I have all my "Charts and Graphs" made up, I'm kinda stuck coming up with the verbage to go along with them. I know the subject very well, and I even gave my YF an off-the-cuff presentation on it the other night, but just can't seem to get those same words to flow out through the keyboard. I thought back about what I told her and generated an outline, but now I'm kicking myself I didn't have my little digital recorder running.
Oh, well....I still have 9 days to finish writing it, so maybe tomorrow I'll run my spiel past the dogs with the recorder running and transcribe it later....

Cabela's IK-227687 Gun Vise

Well, I finally had the time today to a) clean both of my Marlin rifles, and b) use the Cabela's Gun Vise I bought a few months ago.
I don't mind just plunking my pistols down on a bench top when I clean them, but cleaning a long gun can get unwieldy when it comes to pushing the patch and bush through the barrel, so it's better to support them some way.
Enter my Cabela's IK-227687 Gun Vise. The vise is made from some kind of plastic, has a padded clamp on one end, a movable support in the center, and V-type holder on the far end. It has lots of molded-in nooks and crannies to store small parts, and so far appears to be solvent-resistant. It normally goes for $49.99, but the night I bought it it was on sale, so I paid $39.95 for it.
Seeing as today was gorgeous outside (sorry, people back East!)I took all my stuff outside, and clamped my Marlin 336 in it to check the fit. It fits great, so then I took the rifle back out, and removed the lever, bolt, and ejector spring so I could get my cleaning rod down the bore. Yes, I pulled the scope off so it wouldn't get sprayed with Hoppe's N0. 9!
Since I didn't have a "30 cal" cleaning rod, I started to use my shotgun rod. OOOPS! It doesn't fit down the bore! The I remembered I bought a "30 cal" Hoppe's BoreSnake a couple of weeks ago, so I got that out. So much for using the gun vise on my 336! Now maybe I'm old fashioned, but I like to run a soaked patch down the bore, let it sit a while, then push a bronze brush down the bore, followed by another soaked patch. I repeat this until the patch comes out clean. Using the BoreSnake sure is fast, though, and until I get a proper sized rod, I guess it'll have to do. I soaked the first 6" inches or so with No.9, and pulled the snake through 5 or 6 times, then put the 336 together, wiped it down with a "Barricade" cloth, and put it back in the gun case. It will be interesting to see if the patch/brush combination reveals any crud left in the bore from using the snake.
Cleaning my Marlin 1894CB in 357 went fine using the "shotgun sized" rod while the rifle was clamped in the gun vise.
All in all, I think this thing is a worthwhile investment, especially considering I bought it on sale. It has numerous warnings to NOT use it for a shooting rest, but it comes in handy for resting the rifle in while cleaning it.

Gun Cleaning Day

Well, I managed to get all three of the pistols swabbed, scrubbed, cleaned, lubed, and did my general after-shooting check out.
Glad I did, because I found some little flecks of.....RUST.....on the case-hardened parts of the wife's revolver.
They cleaned right off with just a coarse shop towel and some oil, but it's the first time I've ever seen any signs of rust on any of my guns.
Disgusting stuff, rust, and I had it hammered into me years ago that signs of rust were signs of neglect.
Maybe they were "tears of neglect" from the poor gun because my wife hasn't gone to the range with me lately, and the S&W TRR8 is basically her gun.
The good news is that one of her friends dropped by last night, and she's very interested in going to the range with us.
Time to get out my "NRA Certified Basic Pistol Instructor" hat, and teach her all the things one needs to know before going to the range for the first time.
Sunday will be "Rifle Cleaning Day", and I'll take some pix when I'm using my new Cabela's gun vise, and do a mini-review of it.

Ahhhhh.....An Afternoon at the Range

Had a very relaxing three hours at the range today with my son. I haven't been there in about six months, and I was NOT up to my usual form! I wasn't all-over-the-place-off-the-paper bad, but not shooting at anywhere near what I'm capable of. We took my Sig P226 in 40S&W, and my Kimber Custom TLE-II 1911.
And we took a Cabela's "Dry Box" box full of ammo, a stack of "Official 25 Yd Slow Fire Pistol" targets, and a several packs of Shoot-N-C stick-on targets.
The thing that I found most interesting, was that for not having shot in so long, I was better with my Sig than my Kimber.
A LOT better!
I've always liked the way the Sig fits my hand, the way it's balanced, the grips, etc, and since I hadn't fired it in over a year, it's what I started off with. Target at 10 yards, full magazine, all in the black.
Then while my son was loading mags for his turn with the Sig, I transitioned to my Kimber.
Wow, out of 8 shots, only 4 were in the black, with the rest pretty close, but a real eye-opener for me!
OK, grab another mag, concentrate a bit more, relax, surprise trigger break, and I started to get them all in the black again. By the third or fourth magazine, I realized my grip wasn't correct, I was flinching a bit, and wasn't "feeling" how the trigger reset, all contributing to my poor (for me) performance.
My son was doing very well with the Sig, considering it was the first time he'd ever fired one. He picked up the Kimber and ran a mag through it, and was all over the place! He stayed on the target, but the recoil surprised him, and his second shot was typical 45 ACP, "Up And To The Left". After I coached him a bit about the proper grip and stance, he got into the rhythm, and was nailing the target 8-ring or better.
We had a great time just goofing off, honing our skills, talking with the staff at the range, and learning a few things.
He learned he really does prefer the Sig over a 1911, and is planning on buying one with his income tax refund.
I learned I have to get to the range at least once a month!
All in all, a great day.
Friday will be cleaning day here, and since I'm scheduling a whole day, I'll clean both pistols, my wife's 357 revolver, and both my Marlin rifles. I'll take some pictures using my "Cabela's Gun Vise, IK-227687" and write a short review about it.

Going to the Range Thursday

My son wants to buy his first pistol, and has his eye on a Sig P226. Since Dear Old Dad owns one, we're headed out to the range so he can see if he likes it.
I'd prefer he learn to use a 1911, and I have a brand-new Kimber Eclipse Custom II that I bought a couple of years ago with him in mind, but he's got his heart set on the Sig, I think.
Me? I'll be dragging along my trusty old Kimber Custom TLE II. Over 5,000 rounds through it, and I'll I've ever done is clean it, and put some Esmeralda grips on it when it was new. I recently replaced the recoil spring, and did a full "detail strip and clean", but otherwise that pistol is like the Energizer Bunny.

Knock-Out Video from Alvie Over at "The Cliffs Of Insanity"

You GOTTA go see this.
Alvie should get an award for this video.

College Student Explains Obama's Budget "Cuts"

This is pretty good, and explains in a very visual manner about the budget "cuts" Teh One wants to make.

YouTube's embedding code isn't working right now, so here's a link.
I'll check later and edit "As Required".

Budget Cuts

25 Years Ago Today.......

The American space program lost it's innocence.
I was working for Hughes Aircraft at the time, and one of my friends answered a phone call, said "WHAT?!?", and turned ash-white. His mother had been watching the launch on TV, and immediately called him with the news that Challenger, STS-51-L, had been lost. A few minutes later there was an announcement over the P.A. system saying that Challenger had blown up in flight, and we were asked for a moment of silence.
I watched the news coverage that night and couldn't believe my eyes. How had this happened? What caused the failure leading to the loss of vehicle and crew? Since I was working on Really Neat Stuff at the time, I knew there were mountains of paperwork for all the hardware involved that had to be checked, double-checked, cross-checked, and signed off by several people, and then checked again by the people in Quality Control before the equipment could be moved to the next step in processing. If all the steps were done properly, a "defective" unit had very little chance of moving beyond where it was, let alone getting out the door. We used to joke that the equipment we shipped was half worn out from the testing we did to it!
So what really went wrong with all this highly inspected and tested hardware? How did "bad" equipment get out the door? Simply put the equipment was fine, but it was being asked to operate well outside its design parameters. Even with evidence from previous flights that this was a Bad Thing to do, the Engineers who sounded the warnings were overruled, and the launch was allowed to proceed.
The "what" that caused the launch failure was determined quite quickly (too cold, O-rings lost flexibility, hot gases escaped, etc), but the "why" took longer. I think the most telling thing was when some high-level manager had told his Engineering team to "Take off you Engineer's hat, and put on your Manager's hat". I was floored when I heard this, as a good manager will listen to their staff, and back them up when required. This was obviously a case of management deciding what was "best" and ignoring the pleas of their staff to hold the launch until the weather warmed up. Previous flights where it was 10 degrees WARMER than current conditions had shown that the O-ring seals in the Solid Rocket Boosters had a *known* problem with low temperatures causing them not to seal properly. Thiokol's engineers, and Roger Boisjoly in particular, had documented this problem, and were repeatedly ignored, leading to a disasterous result.

Construction Sequence of the International Space Station

This is an amazing Flash animation sent to me by one of my satellite buddies. It shows the growth of the ISS from 1998 to present.

I can't post the animation here, so I'll direct you to the USA Today site that hosts it.

International Space Station Comes Together

New Lyrics for Old Rock Stars

A friend sent me this, and it really cracked me up, besides making me feel OLD....

Enjoy!

Oleg Smacks Another One Out Of The Park

I really enjoy the photography of Oleg Volk. He not only uses his talents for "pretty stuff", but also for a LOT of really good pro-2A work.
I'm not sure when he made this one, but his latest over at LiveJournal gives some very interesting facts.

OUCH! Boeing To Lay Off Another 900 In Long Beach

Well, it seems like the end of Aerospace in Long Beach is near at hand. What with budget cuts here in the U.S., and the weakening world economy, the market for the C-17 is drying up. Boeing has been building up to 13 aircraft a year, and that's going to dwindle down to 9 or 10 for the next couple of years, and they expect to close the production line in 2013.
As recently as the 1990's, there were 20,000 good-paying Aerospace jobs in Long Beach, and now that's down to around 7000, and falling.
The Press telegram has an article about it here.

Delta-IV Heavy Launch Video

Well...all I got for a picture was a short, disappointing contrail, not even worth posting.
Enjoy the video!

Delta-IV Heavy Launch Thursday at 2108UTC / 1308 PST

Don't know if we'll be able to see a daylight launch from here in the SouthBay, but I'm sure gonna try!

Mission Status

Launch was successful!

All I was able to see from here was a rather short, disappointing contrail. The last launch was a night launch, and was pretty cool to see. I tried to get some pix of that one, but didn't set my camera up on the tripod, so.....nothing but blurred pics.
Oh, well....

New Phone!

I was in the Verizon store earlier today to swap out a standard-definition set-top box for a high-definition one. My stepson and his girlfriend bought a new 42" TV yesterday, so I told them I'd go get an HD box so they can enjoy HD now that they have a TV capable of displaying it.
While I was waiting to be called, I started looking at the phones they had. The Droid X really caught my eye, so when I was swapping out the STB, I asked the young guy behind the counter if he handled the phone stuff, too. He told me the counter people handled everything, and was I interested in a phone, too? We started talking prices, and since my wife has the Verizon "Family Plan" for her phone and the kid's phones, he said it would be $9.95 a month to add a line. I asked him if the Droid required a data plan (DUH! I already knew it did), and he said yep, and the data plan was $30 a month for UNLIMITED data, like I had with my iPhone.
I about fell over!
I've been paying AT&T $68 a month for my iPhone, and now I find out I can get a newer phone, with more features, for $28 a month less! Then he tells me if I buy the Droid X, they'll WAIVE the $9.95 a month extra-line fee for two years!
I talked to my wife when I got back with the new HD STB, and we both agreed that saving $38 a month was worth coughing up the $200 to replace my iPhone, as the savings would pay for the phone in a little over 5 months.
I originally had Verizon, but I got tired of carrying around a cellphone AND a PDA. Besides, I really wanted a Smartphone, and at the time I bought my iPhone, the data plans Verizon had were more expensive than AT&T was charging, so I wound up with the "original" iPhone.
So far, with the little I've played with it, I think it's going to be quite a nifty gadget. One of the things I like is that it has a replaceable battery, something sadly lacking on the iPhone.

Intelsat Galaxy-15 a.k.a. "ZombieSat" Returns!

Great day for Intelsat! The Galaxy-15 bird, which stopped responding to ground commands last April 5th and was drifting across the "Orbital Parking Slots" of other satellites, is now responding to ground commands.
This was first thought to have been caused by a solar-flare event, but subsequent ground testing (and a LOT of head scratching!) has determined it was caused by an ESD event. "ESD" stands for "Electro Static Discharge", the same thing that happens when you shuffle across the carpet, grab a door knob or other grounded item, and get zapped. Actually, the other object doesn't have to be grounded, just at a lower electrical potential than you are, and current will flow.
The breakthrough was caused when the satellite's inertial wheels (a method of stabilizing the space craft....think big gyroscope) had absorbed all the momentum they could absorb, and could no longer keep the spacecraft properly oriented with respect to the Earth and the Sun. With the solar panels now pointing away from the sun and not generated any power, the batteries became depleted to the point that the onboard computer caused a reset of all the systems on the satellite, which cleared the fault, and allowed the satellite to begin functioning normally, and respond to ground commands again.
They were very lucky that the ESD event apparently didn't do any permanent damage, like blowing out a bunch of stuff, but instead caused a certain part of the onboard computer to lock-up and ignore ground commands. Once it reset itself and cleared the fault it started operating again.

More here:

Intelsat Galaxy-15 Returns To Service
Build-Up Of Static Electricity Turned Satellite Into Zombie
Intelsat Galaxy-15 Drifts From Zombie To Phoenix-like Recovery

Been Pretty Busy Lately......

So I haven't posted much. The company I was assigned to at my last job has come out of Chapter 11, and is looking to get cranked up again. So, I've been working with another company that's going to bid on providing the services they need. It's an interesting combination of Radio (RF) work, along with a ton of networking support and PC maintenance, and regular maintenance on all the other equipment located on both of the vessels they operate. Since this job requires some very unique skills, the place I'm consulting to is ecstatic that they found me, as I've been able to explain all the arcane things that go on there. Plus, I'm still in contact with most of the old gang, so as Elwood would say, "We're getting the band back together".
I just bought a neat little gun vice from Cabela's, so I'll get some pix of it this weekend, and give a brief review of it. It's easy enough to clean to clean a handgun just sitting at the table, but my rifles were just too cumbersome to do without some kind of holding device.

Things My Father Taught Me.....

My Dad was a Tool and Die Maker by training, and a manufacturer's representative by trade. From the time I was 'knee high', he'd take me into his office/shop in Chicago so I could see what he did for a living. I almost literally grew up in a machine shop, and by the times I was 8 or 9 years old, I could tell which customer he'd been at by the types of chips in his shoes! The company he worked for had the franchise to sell Bridgeport Milling Machines, Hisey-Wolf Grinders, Logan Lathes, ELOX EDM machines, and several other lines of high-end "All American" machine tools.
He started as a Machinist's Apprentice after high-school, working in the "Moore's Joliet Stove Works" in my hometown, learning about cast-iron products. On December 8, 1941, my Dad and his brothers trouped down to the recruiting center to enlist. They were going to enlist in each of the service branches, with my Dad's choice being the Navy. During his physical, he was told that he was color blind, and that he wouldn't be accepted by the "regular" military, but if he still wanted to serve, he could join up with a new unit that the Navy was starting, called the "Construction Battalion", which soon became the SeaBees.
He never talked much about the war, typical of a lot of our "Greatest Generation", as it was just something that needed doing, and he and his brothers were going to get it done.
One brother was a paratrooper, one was a Marine, and one was deferred as he had a job with the railroad, and was deemed too valuable in civilian service, and basically told to stay on the job.
They all came home safely to raise families and go back to normal lives.
Anyway.....I was out in the garage the other day, doing some work on an Amateur Radio project, and as I was laying out some aluminum stock to cut, drill, deburr and turn into a little widget, some of things he told me many years ago came back to gently remind me that I was doing things "right", and it brought a smile (and a little tear) to me.
So here's "Dad List" of basic shop practices.

Any job worth doing is worth doing well, or don't do it at all.

If you don't know, ASK!

If you think you know, but aren't sure, find an expert and ASK!

(My Dad really did believe the “No Such Thing As A Dumb Question” mantra).

LEARN the proper, correct names of your tools, whether a hand tool or a machine tool.

Make a drawing or sketch and materials list before you start.

Have all the required tools and materials on hand before starting.

Do your layout work on the side that won't be seen, and protect the finish side during cutting and machining.

Measure TWICE, cut ONCE!

Remove all jewelry and loose clothing before using machine tools. Roll your sleeves up, and tie back long hair.

Buy the best tools you can afford. The “pain” of paying for quality tools only lasts a little while, while the pain of using cheap tools lasts much longer, and costs much more in damaged projects and scrap.

Always clean your tools and work area when you're done for the day. Store your tools properly.

Promptly clean any liquid spilled on the floor, and keep the floor swept clean of any chips.

If using someone else's tools or work area, leave them/it cleaner than when you started.

Keep your cutting tools sharp. Don't let them bang around in your tool box. Dull tools can damage your work and cause accidents.

Keep your measuring tools clean and in a separate drawer. Precision tools should be treated as such, and not allowed to bang around in a drawer with other tools.

NEVER force a tool to do a job it wasn't designed for!

NEVER “store” the chuck key for your drill press in the chuck!

Always clamp the work to the table, or use a drilling vise to hold it. Thin metal will “bite” when the bit breaks through the other side, and a spinning workpiece can be extremely dangerous.

When possible, 'back up' your workpiece with a wood block or sheet so that you don't drill into the table.

NEVER use your hands to remove the swarf or chips! Besides being very sharp, they can also be very hot. Use a small brush to remove them.

Know the “Speeds and Feeds” for the material you're working with. Aluminum is very different than steel.

Use the proper coolant/lubricant when required.

NEVER grind plastic, aluminum, copper, or “soft” brass on a grinding wheel!

Keep your grinding wheels dressed and true, and stand off to the side when turning on the grinder.

(Always good advice. I've had grinding wheels fly apart a second or two after I turned the grinder on, and wire-wheels shed all their wire!)

Unless you have no choice, or no other tool, use a WRENCH on a bolt or nut, not a pair of pliers.

There are at least four types of 'cross-point' screw heads, and they're NOT all “Phillips heads”.

(In case you're interested, there's Phillips, Fearson, JIS B 1012, Pozidriv, Supadriv, Torq-set, and a couple of others that I forget. The driver tips or bits are NOT interchangeable among them, as they'll either chew up the screw, the bit, or both!)

There's no such thing as a “Flat Head Screwdriver”. There are flat BLADE screwdrivers, but a “Flat Head” is a type of head on a screw, not the tool to turn it.

A Pipe Wrench is NOT a Monkey Wrench.

The teeth on a hacksaw blade point FORWARDS when it's properly installed.

Hacksaws and files cut on the FORWARD stroke ONLY. Lift them off the work on the back stroke.

The Economy is on "Borrowed Time".

Go read this.
Read it NOW!
We're running out of time to STOP the coming economic collapse that the Obamanation has put into motion. The elected commies in D.C., dedicated to the destruction of the United States, MUST be stopped, and soon.
It reminds me of several things Khrushchev was fond of saying. That the USSR would "Destroy the United States from within", and that "They will sell us the rope we use to hang them".
If this economic madness isn't stopped by the incoming Congress NOW, it's going to get very ugly.
$10 or $15 gasoline?
$10 loaf of bread?
All your utility bills quadrupling?
Get ready, folks....it's going to be VERY bad.

H/T to Western Rifle Shooters Association.

Senator Alan Simpson Calls Seniors "GREEDY".

Got this from a buddy, and it sure hits home!

Hey Alan,

Let’s get a few things straight…

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS…

2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63)…

3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud…

4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN…

5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills…

6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay of YOUR debt…

To add insult to injury, you label us “greedy” for calling “bullshit” on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU…

1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?

2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?

3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?

4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?

It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators who are “greedy”. It is you and they who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That’s right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.

And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch

Quotations from Robert Heinlein

Heinlein is one of my all-time favorite authors. I think I've read about 85% of his work, and it never ceases to amaze me how far ahead of his time he was. He was also quite a Libertarian, and had very strong feelings about personal responsibility and liberty.
I'm sure he'd be sickened if he came back today and saw the great numbers of sheeple wandering around, totally clueless.
Enjoy the quotes; they're some of my favorites.

“You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.”

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”

“I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

“Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.”

“No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.”

“Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.”

“Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.”

“Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things”

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”

“Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.”

“The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.”

“I never learned from a man who agreed with me.”

“They didn't want it good, they wanted it Wednesday.”

Happy New Year!

Gonna have a quiet one this year. My YF's brother and his YF are coming over here tonight for a while. They've got a new 'interactive' version of "Pictionary" that runs on the Wii, and my YF bribed her son and his girlfriend so that we could have a whole bunch of us play this (stooopid) game.
Oh, well, at least the pizza will be good!
Have a safe, happy and hopefully prosperous New year everybody!
See you all on the flip side....

Update: "Pictionary" on the Wii is way better than the non-electronic version!

Rise of the Muffler Men

While browsing around on Wikipedia for something totally unrelated, I found a picture of the "Gemini Giant" fiberglass statue that stands in front of "The Launching Pad" in Wilmington, IL, one of my hot-rod haunts from days gone by. We always just called him "The Spaceman", but it turns out he's a member of the tribe referred to as "Muffler Men".
The first of the Muffler Men was a giant Paul Bunyan figure made for the PB Cafe in Flagstaff, AZ in about 1962, by Bob Prewitt of Prewitt Fiberglass. Most of the figures produced later by International Fiberglass came from that one mold, often modified to suit what the customer wanted.
The whole story is here on the Roadside America website, and is an interesting look into the people behind these giant glass figures.
For more info on the guys, just Google "Muffler Men", and you'll find more than I thought was possible!

Merry (and I'm NOT sorry!) Christmas!

After reading about the moon-bat lefty who apologized for attending a Christmas party, I modified my title.
Here's wishing all my friends who do, and don't, visit my little blog a very Merry CHRISTmas, and a prosperous New Year.
I'm not sure about the last part, given the nature of the economy!

"Best of the Best" Shuttle Launches 1983~2010

Some pretty impressive film in super slow motion of the engines firing, and liftoff.
When I worked for Boeing on the Sea Launch program in the Range Operations Group, one of our responsibilities was to maintain the cameras that took footage like this. They were 16MM, 400 frames-per-second, and were housed in 3/8" thick steel plate housings. The windows the cameras were pointed out of were about 5" in diameter, and made of two layers of borosilicate glass. Depending on the launch profile, the outer window would usually get trashed, but sometimes came through the launch without a scratch.
The housings, on the other hand, got pretty beat up every launch. After each launch we'd open up the enclosures (about 60 1/2" bolts), pull the cameras out, put the tops back on the enclosures, and do a minor sealing up with silicone caulk for the trip home. The cameras and enclosures got a full check-out, cleaning, and complete sealing once we got down to the launch site for the next launch. Every two years or so we had to scrape off the ablative coating and reapply it, and it was nasty stuff to work with!
Anyway....knowing the work that goes in to just getting these films makes me appreciate their beauty all the more.
Enjoy!

Vintage Computing, Part Deux

Well, I finally got enough stuff dragged out of the garage to get a decent PC put together to run "Grim Fandango". My first attempt with the old HP Vectra VE didn't work very well. I had trouble getting the game to install, and it wouldn't play. Then the audio quit working, and I couldn't get it to come back, so rather than spend more time troubleshooting it, I went deep into the bowels of the garage this morning, and dug out what I thought was enough stuff to get something decent running. It took a while, but my trusty FIC VA-503+ motherboard was located, and I spent some time brushing the dust off of it, cleaning the connectors on it, and making sure the fan on the heatsink was good to go. Then I located an AT-style power supply, a 40 GB IDE hard-disk, an IDE CD/DVD drive, a floppy and cables for all the drives, an AT-to-PS/2 keyboard adapter, a 3Com PCI Ethernet card, my Aureal Vortex PCI soundcard, and got my BIG box of memory modules out. I loaded the board with two 64 meg sticks of PC-100 SDRAM (PLENTY for Win98!), checked all the jumper settings, plugged in an ancient NVidia AGP graphics card, crossed my fingers, and powered it up. It powered up OK, but the BIOS settings were all out-of-whack, so I shut it down, and put a new CMOS battery in after cleaning the coin-cell holder contacts. I booted it back up, set the clock, and checked some other settings, as replacing the CMOS battery usually restores it to the OEM default settings for things like type of drives installed, which video slot gets initialized first, and a host of other things. The Windows98 install went OK, but I couldn't get the NVidia drivers to work right with the card, so back out to the garage. I found an ATI "Rage 128 Pro" still in the box, so I brought that back in. As a rule, I prefer NVidia cards over ATI (now AMD) for gaming, but the only other NVidia cards I have for an AGP slot are newer GeForce cards, and the Grim Fandango forums indicate they don't work as well as an older card. I loded all the correct drivers, did the "Windows Update" routine (download, reboot, repeat), and made sure the basic PC was running OK. The heatsink on the video card runs cool-to-the-touch, as does the heatsink on the AMD K6-III/450 MHz processor. Got the game loaded, and it runs smooth as silk! This PC would have been pretty "Hot Stuff" back when the game was released, and even though it runs smooth, the graphics aren't up to the standards of today. "Grim Fandango" was unique in that it used very high quality static backgrounds that the characters moved in relation to, so it has a unique look to it.
I'll post another picture later in the week after I get everything mounted into the new case I have coming. And I still have to find the drivers for the motherboard so I can get things like the drive controllers and AGP slot running at maximum performance. There aren't any "Yellow Ball Exclamation Points" in the Windows Device Manager, but I distinctly remember from using this board years ago that having the correct drivers makes a noticeable difference in performance.
Time to hit the hay here, and listen to the rain. We've had 1.9" since midnight, and more is on the way.

Ahhhh....The Joys Of "Vintage Computers"

I ws cleaning out some stuff in the garage the other day (actually just separating piles of stuff), and I found a box that had my favorite computer games in it. Now I'm not much of a gamer, so the fact that I even saved these particular games kinda surprised me. The two that I played the most were "Grim Fandango", and the "Descent" series of games. I've also got "Half-Life", but never really got into it much. So, deciding that I'd like to play Grim Fandango again, I started looking at the requirements. The last time I played it, Windows 2000 had just started to become big, and I remember ripping out some hair trying to get the game to play on that platform. Since my garage resembles "Jim's Vintage Radio and Computer Emporium", and one section of my radio room is "Jim's Vintage Software Archive", I figured I had enough stuff (the YF calls it "Junque", notice her spelling of my treasures!)) to build a rig that would run Windows98 at a reasonable rate to play the game. I already had an older HP Vectra VL that I had been using as my hardware-based firewall from when I ran my "Community Wireless Network", and it had an original Pentium 233MHz processor with 128megs of RAM and a 6 gig hard-disk. I dug out an old 3dfx "VooDoo 3 2000" PCI video card, and an Aureal Vortex sound card, my Windows98 discs, and proceeded to get this ancient beast running again. Not being a big fan of Internet Explorer, I looked for a version of Firefox for Win98, but no joy, so I grabbed Netscape 9.0 from the AOL/Netscape archives. Then I had to grab some USB Mass-Storage drivers so Win98 could read my external drive.
My first thoughts are it's not fast enough, so back out to the garage to dig out some more stuff. Well, let's see....I've got an Epox MVP3G-M motherboard (one of the best "Super 7" motherboards ever made!), an AMD K6-III+ good for 500 MHz, and enough memory to stuff the board full. The sound card will fit, and since the "Super 7" motherboards also have an AGP slot for the video card, I can put one of my newer NVidia GeForce cards in for plenty of video processing power.
Hmmm....no case for it! All the computer cases and power supplies I have "In Stock" are for later ATX motherboards, and aren't compatible with an AT style motherboard. Off to eBay, where I found a brand-new TechMedia case that includes the power supply, a floppy, and has built-in speakers. What's really "Deja Vu" about this is that this exact case was what I built several PC's in many (well...10 or more) years ago, and I was stunned to see several vendors still have them new-in-box!
The case should be here sometime next week, and it'll take me a day to build it up, load Windoze on it, and get things running smooth.
More to come..........

My Son, the EMT!

YOW! Just got news from my son that he finished his EMT training with an overall grade of "A"!
We had quite a talk about his training on the way up to Angeles Shooting Ranges the day we went, and he was quite pleased with how things were going. Now he just has to to take (and pass) the NREMT test. He was telling me that the ambulance company he did his ride-alongs with was hiring, so he might leave his current job at a large grocery store chain, and go work for them. After some "time-in-grade", he'll be eligible to go to Paramedic school, which he's really looking forward to. Once he gets certified as a Paramedic, he's thinking about applying to one of the local Fire Departments, or maybe the LAFD Academy.
Yep, his Mom, Step-Dad, and my YF are *very* proud of him.

Obama Busted By Jamie and Adam

Hmmmm....the other night when I was flipping through channels, I thought I saw our famed "Mythbusters" team with Teh One. I'm not sure if Obummer will be making a guest appearance or not (haven't had my coffee yet this morning), but I did find this little clip floating around in cyberspace.
Enjoy!

Not In Log

For those of us who "Chase DX", and collect the QSL cards, the words "Not In Log" are devastating. You KNOW you worked the DX station. You KNOW you had the band, frequency, date and time correct. You KNOW you heard the DX station reply to you. What could have happened? It's anybody's guess, but getting your card returned with "Not In Log" stamped on it is a real letdown.
Anyway....we've all seen this clip many times, and in many variations, but I found a new spin on it called "Not In Log". The technical references are spot-on, but the "Pin in the coax" line had me rolling on the floor!
Enjoy!