A crew of fishermen off the coast of Massachusetts caught more than they expected while dredging for clams.  The pulled up three canisters of what is believed to be mustard gas. When one of them was found to be leaking, they threw them overboard, but apparently not before they were exposed enough to have some respiratory distress and skin irritation.

They got lucky.   Those old agents are no joke.  People who complain about a little tear gas at the Up With People rally should try being exposed to a real chemical weapon.

When I was a Boy Scout, we met with a group of World War I and II veterans about the meaning of Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day.  They were explaining to us about Buddy Poppies, and what we as scouts could do to help disabled veterans.  One of the gentlemen wore long sleeves and gloves, even though it was extremely hot and muggy.  One of the younger scouts asked him about it, and he said he’d been wounded in the war, and didn’t want to scare anyone with the scars.  Seems his unit had been hit with mustard gas and he didn’t get covered up quickly enough.  He never did show us those scars, but if a grown man is cautious about covering up his battle scars because they’d scare children, they were probably pretty horrendous.

Later, when I was the assistant Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological NCO for my company, I got to watch a lot of training film about how different chemical weapons worked and what they did to test animals.  None of it was something I really want to think about again.  Suffice it to say that the threat of someone using chemical weapons against a city gives me a cold shiver down my back.

Those fishermen are extremely lucky that only got minimal exposure to agents that were old and probably very cold from being in the water.  Here’s hoping that they heal and that their boat gets de-conned properly so they can get back to their business.  By the way, someone should tell the local firechief that mustard gas is a blistering agent, not a nerve agent.  If that had been VX instead of mustard, none of those guys would have made it off the boat alive.

I came up with these shortly after I left the military.  I was thinking recently about how much I’ve changed since I joined up, and since I left the Army.  But these still hold true for me.  Enjoy.

• Even when you rest, scan the horizon.
• You only truly appreciate sunrise if you’ve endured the cold night.
• It only takes a few grains of carbon to turn a sophisticated weapon system into a club.
• It doesn’t matter how good the truck looks if it breaks down constantly.
• You are never given a promotion or award that matters. You earn the ones that count.
• No job operates independently. The Intel weenie doesn’t directly engage the enemy, but the infantryman can’t be utilized effectively if he doesn’t know where the enemy is.
• A march is only long if you haven’t done it before.
• Sometimes it’s a blast, sometimes it’s just a paycheck. If you can’t remember the last time it was a blast, get another job.
• It doesn’t matter how heavy a load you carry at the beginning of the march.
• Any moron can shoot. It takes skill to hit.
• If you’re not willing to maintain and fix it, you don’t get to drive it.
• Take pleasure from the small things. They may be all you get.
• Leadership is more than giving orders.
• Sometimes you have to be at the bottom of a well to see the light.
• Genetics doesn’t make a family.
• Say hello as if you haven’t seen them in years.
• Say good-bye as if you’ll never see them again.
• Cherish the ones that are there, honor the ones that came before, and train the ones that are new.

Co-worker who caused an outage:  Are you doing OK?  Do you need anything from me?

DaddyBear, in a low growl – Just finishing up.  All but one of the servers has been shocked and given atropine directly to the coronary muscle.

Over the weekend, I replaced a leaking power steering hose on my truck.  This is conceptually a simple operation.  Disconnect two hex connectors, put in the new hose, and tighten two identical hex connectors.  However, when trying to get my meathooks and 3/4″ open wrench down the side of the engine to disconnect it, I found that the only way I could get enough leverage to break the connector open was to get my wrist to bend almost 90 degrees in the wrong direction and lock my elbow into a really unnatural position.  I was then able to use my body’s weight to push against these joints and break the hose loose. 

Luckily I was smart enough to do this before I ran the engine up, so I didn’t brand my forearms with the Dodge symbol from the side of the engine block.  I did not, however, think to power wash the engine before attempting this.  Did you know that power steering fluid that has been scorched on a hot engine block is more of a lubricant than graphite and will eat its way into any cracks in your skin, tattooing your hands and fingers with a series of black lines?

But eventually I was able to get the hose off and put the new one on.  It was during the installation of the new hose that I found that I had placed my drip bucket under the wrong part of the engine, and about a quart of power steering fluid was running down the driveway.  I grabbed a handful of paper towels and mopped up what I could. 

I then changed the oil, which thankfully was quick, easy, and only as messy as expected. 

I took the truck for a quick spin to check it out, and the steering was smooth as glass.  I was very overdue for changing the oil, so the engine ran noticably smoother.  

Got back and gave the section of driveway I had gotten power steering fluid and oil on, then parked the truck.  Overall, I’m quite happy with how my 2001 Ram is driving.  It’s not perfect, but it’s also 10 years old. 

I also wanted to change out the serpentine belt, because it looks like the truck has the one that was installed at the factory 100k miles ago.  But the guy at Autozone was unable to figure out exactly which of the 3 belts that are marked for my truck and it’s engine I would need, so I’m going to try somewhere else.  The dealer wants $60 for a Mopar belt, so I’ll see if I can do better at another parts store.

For those who are curious about the van, it still sits unmoving in my carport.  I got another starter motor for it, but even with a brand new starter it won’t crank.  Which means I need to get it to a mechanic to have the flywheel checked out.   When I found out how much that would cost, I had about a reaction pretty much like this one:

So I’ll continue to just drive the truck for now.  If I don’t have it fixed by Christmas, I’ll have it towed to my Ford dealer, ask him how much he wants to give me in trade, and get rid of it.  If it’s running reliably by then, I may hold off for a while and enjoy not having a car payment.

Well, summer is pretty much here.  For the past week and a half the temperature has hovered at around 90 degrees, with high humidity.  Today it cooled off quite a bit, and there’s a breeze.  But that’s temporary.  It’ll be hot and muggy again very soon.

On the bright side, all of this heat and sunshine has done wonders for the plant life in our little suburban jungle out there. 

The wildflowers across the road from us are almost as tall as I am.

The yucca are beautiful this time of year.

Irish Woman’s day lilies are doing really well.  There are about 100 like this scattered around the front yard.

And of course, there are the tiger lilies.  I see these everywhere here.  I guess they grow wild.  Irish Woman has used them to create a low screen in a few places.

And the plants aren’t the only thing that’s being fruitful and multiplying.  We thought our small pond didn’t have any fish in it after we left the hose on all night and the fish we’ve been raising for years all died.  Then, to our surprise, there are 100 or so small black and gold minnows swimming around.  Something must have left eggs behind.

Dr. Grumpy has a good example of people who weren’t raised right.  Another doctor noticed him cleaning up a mess caused by an exploding can of soda, and said that he should leave that for “drudges”.

People who think that their education, position, breeding, or income exempts them from good manners or remembering the need to treat all people with equal respect get under my skin.

I came from pretty low on the socio-economic scale.  My family skipped right across the bottom of the lower-middle class scale during good times, and dipped lower multiple times while I was growing up.  I’ve done some really ugly things to earn my daily bread and to provide for my family.  I don’t even blink when I have to mow, paint, wash, mop, or build something.  I don’t enjoy it, but I don’t think of it as something beneath me.

It was only in the last year that as a systems administrator I acquiesced and let technicians install or deinstall hardware for me.  Not that I don’t think the techs can do it well (they do it better and faster than I do), but that I didn’t think it was necessary for someone else to do the job for me.

Several people I know who came up like I did have the opposite reaction.  Kind of an “I don’t have to do that anymore, so I refuse to”.  If that’s your attitude, so be it.  Most of them who are like that at least show respect for the guy cleaning the men’s room. 

Some of the people I know, as my grandmother used to say, came from the lace-curtain side of town.  They were fortunate enough to grow up with money, attended really good schools, and came into the work force with the skills and background that kept them out of the drudge-work market entirely.  Nothing against them, they just come from a different socio-economic viewpoint than I do.

A lot of them grew up with manners.  Even though they have never had to mow their own yard or clean their own house, they aren’t above doing the dishes or running a lawnmower when it’s necessary.  Even if they pay a house keeper or lawn service, they don’t look down on the people they pay to do it.

It’s the people, no matter how they grew up, who not only refuse to do their own chores, but look down upon those who do it for them that make my teeth itch.  These people need to be issued a Mark I Shit Shovel and pointed towards a cow barn for a couple of months to learn some skills and humility. 

I don’t care if you came up from the street or were to the manor born, no work is beneath you, and no-one who works for their living is worthy of your contempt. 

It’s National Doughnut Day, and both Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme are giving away free donuts.

We’re packing our crew van with people and heading out. If I don’t post again today, it’s because I’m sitting in a corner humming from the sugar and coffee.

Junior Bear graduated from high school yesterday, and I took him to his dorm at university this morning.

It’s been a long row to how with him, but he made it.  We were extremely lucky in that we got him into a good school.  Out of a graduating class of almost 450, there were 27 students who finished with a 4.0 GPA.  Junior wasn’t one of those, but he graduated. 

His grandparents came down from Minnesota to see the ceremony and spend some time with him.  I was worried that seeing my ex-inlaws after so many years would be uncomfortable, but we kept the small talk light and I enjoyed seeing them.  Junior’s mom couldn’t make it, so I was sure to take pictures and send them along to her.

His university is close, so we packed up the truck this morning and had a pleasant drive up to Indiana.  He will be sharing an apartment in the dorm with 3 other young men this summer, but he has his own room.  I was worried that he would out-slob any roommates, but after seeing the state of the room, I have no worries that he will be even more of a slob than them.  The dorms are brand new, so they’re very up-to-date and nice.   After unloading all of his boxes and bags into his room, we headed up the street for groceries.  I stocked him up for a month or so, and I’ll go back up and refill him in July.  Hopefully by then he’ll have a job and can provide for himself outside of the occasional boost from his mother and me.

I don’t feel any of the emotions that people have reported to me about his moving on.  I’m just glad he graduated and has a plan to get a good education.  I suppose the first time I try to do something I enjoyed doing with him or when I clean out his room to start it’s re-purposing as a man cave it’ll hit me.

So, good luck Junior Bear.  You’re finally free from The Man.

If you put trays of cherries and strawberries in the food dryer overnight, you will wake up to a house that smells absolutely, sinfully delicious.  You will also wake up with an insatiable craving to go to IHOP.

Today is Memorial Day here in the United States.  Lots of people have thanked me for my prior service today, and it’s much appreciated.  But today isn’t my day.

Today is the day we remember those of us who didn’t come home.  The sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters who cashed the check that they sign the day they take the oath of enlistment, good for anything in their life, including the giving of that life.

There are ceremonies going on across the nation and overseas today to honor these dead.  In years past I’ve quoted poetry or Shakespeare, but today I want to highlight a memorial that isn’t spoken of much.

At Fort Meade in Maryland, there is a memorial to those members of the signals intelligence community who have died on duty.  The work of these young men and women was classified at the time of their death, and it wasn’t until 2001 that the NSA declassified their files so their sacrifice could be fully known.

I came up in the Army going to buildings named after these warriors and living on streets with their names.  It was only after visiting this memorial that I understood why no-one would tell us why so-and-so had a street named after him.

If you’re ever in the DC or Baltimore area, take a drive up to Fort Meade and visit the National Cryptologic Museum and spend a few moments remembering these 161 brave men and women who not only died for us, but did so behind the veil.