Flight 93
Posted by daddybear71 on September 11, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/11/flight-93/
South Tower
Posted by daddybear71 on September 11, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/11/south-tower/
North Tower
Posted by daddybear71 on September 11, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/11/north-tower/
30 Days of Tolkien – Day 9
‘What do you fear, lady?’ he [Aragorn] asked. A cage,’ she [Eowyn] said. ‘To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.’ — The Return of the King
My Take – Eowyn expressed in very few words exactly what those of us who oppose the nanny state feel. It is so seductive to stop worrying, to let it all go, and let someone else do the hard work. The cage of dependency is indeed gilded, and its cushions are soft. But it is still a cage. Every time we compromise and let that cage door swing closed just a tad more, we get used to it just a tad more. Every step back will require two steps forward just to get back to where we start: The first will be convincing ourselves and others that it is indeed necessary to repair the damage, and the second will be to actually regain ground.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 11, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/11/30-days-of-tolkien-day-9/
Today’s Earworm
This one was running through my head as I read the local news tonight. I’m not sure what’s in the water here in Louisville, but I’m about ready to buy a household filter.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 10, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/10/todays-earworm-223/
News Roundup
- From the “Classy” Department – A Las Vegas woman is starting a new small business. She is making dioramas of murders, which she is calling “die-o-ramas”. Because there’s nothing a suffering family wants to know than that the moment a part of their life was destroyed has been memorialized by a twit with a hot glue gun. For those of you keeping count, this is reason 2,123,988,121 that I don’t like humans much.
- From the “Dieter’s Disco” Department – Three people in India were recently arrested after it was discovered that one of them was trying to fly to Delhi with a monkey in his underwear. For his sake, I’m hoping that the monkey was one of the more gentle varieties. I also hope that he isn’t put into general population when he goes to prison, because no prisoner wants to be known as the guy with a monkey in his pants.
- From the “Front Toward Enemy” Department – A family in California is fuming after contractors for Wells Fargo broke into their childhood home not once, but twice. You see, Moe, Larry, and Curly mistook the house, which has never had a mortgage, for a foreclosed property which they were being paid to clean out. Apparently they didn’t fix the damage they did to the door, since the article says that the property is now littered with beer bottles and bongs from people using the property as a hangout. If I were this family, I would be investing in punji sticks and a lawyer with a taste for raw meat.
- From the “Doing the Right Thing” Department – I usually have little good to say about the government, especially when it comes to how it spends my tax dollars. But today I have to pay respect to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which has announced that it recognizes a link between exposure to the dust and smoke of Ground Zero and cancer. Those who have become ill since working at the rescue, recovery, and cleanup efforts in New York can now apply for aid from a fund set up a few years ago. It’s not often that the government does the right thing the first time around.
- From the “My Senator, Tiberius Gracchus Paul” Department – Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has announced that he plans to make it hard for the Senate to get work done until his bill to stop foreign aid to Pakistan is voted on. Senator Paul points to the way which Pakistan is treating the physician who aided the United States in finding Osama bin Laden as his motivation. I guess my only quibble with Senator Paul on this one is that we shouldn’t need an excuse to cut off Pakistan.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 10, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/10/news-roundup-152/
Thoughts on the Day
- Today’s safety briefing pretty much boiled down to “Is plane, is not safe”.
- Taking the guy from Spain out for Mexican food at lunch time got me a couple strange looks.
- So did suggesting a barbecue joint to the guy from Memphis when he requested suggestions for dinner.
- No, I wasn’t being a smart ass. I only realized how odd those suggestions were while I was driving home.
- I don’t know what oompaloompa the door between the crew and cargo areas on some of our jets was designed for, but it certainly wasn’t built for a 6’4″ fat guy.
- My instructor spent a good part of our breaks this morning calling to see if a spare airplane could be had for use as a training aid. And I thought getting a projector and sound system that worked for my classes was a pain in the tuckus.
- I have to remember that when you’re walking around on a concrete pad all day, you have to expect to get sunburned from both above and below.
- Who’s got two thumbs and has a wonderful wife who had a wonderful chicken stew with crusty bread ready for him when he came home tonight? This guy!
- Apparently Boo was acting like his father at school today. Irish Woman got talked to when she picked him up and I got talked to when I got home.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 10, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/10/thoughts-on-the-day-50/
30 Days of Tolkien – Day 8
We promises, yes I promise!’ said Gollum. ‘I will serve the master of the Precious. Good master, good Sméagol, gollum, gollum! — The Two Towers
My Take – Smeagol was an addict. He was addicted to the safety and good feelings that the ring gave him in an unsafe world. Rather than accept that the world was an unsafe place and live his life accordingly, he used the ring to give him a false sense of security and well-being. He left the world of sunlight and fresh air to live at the bottom of a cavern to live in darkness rather than give it up.
In the same vein, our society is addicted to the security of “we’ll pay for it later”. Whether it’s a college student putting herself hopelessly into debt to get that degree that she so desperately wants, or if it’s our federal government putting the grandkids into debt to pay for that just one more thing that we can’t live without, it doesn’t matter. Our inability to not only live within our means, but also to have no real understanding of how deeply we are digging ourselves, is driving us to the edge of a cliff.
Eventually, Smeagol’s addiction to the ring destroyed him. So too will our addiction to debt destroy us. Someday the bills will come due. Someday the pushers of easy money will cut us off. When that day comes, we will learn what the term “rock bottom” means, because we will have to look ourselves in the mirror and figure out how we’re going to feed ourselves, secure the peace, and defend the country when the magic well of money has run dry.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 10, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/10/30-days-of-tolkien-day-8/
Project Report – Replace Porch and Carport Posts
- Mental note – When jacking up a porch/carport so that you can replace the posts, check to make sure the wood you are putting the bottle jack under is actually structural.
- I set a personal best at getting the heck out from under something this afternoon after the “beam” I used to jack up the porch shifted, causing the jack to twist and fall off the porch.
- No damage. I had a couple fail safes (4×4 scrap posts) in place to catch any failures.
- It did make me a little paranoid for the rest of the day. I figure you have one “Hey, I survived that without anything important breaking” moment each day, and I’d had mine.
- Ladies, when your husband is working on such a project and is paranoid that the roof might make another attempt at killing him, please don’t throw a bunch of old scrap wood in the back of the truck. This makes a noise which is very similar to a bottle jack falling and a roof sagging.
- Also, saying “Don’t park the truck under the carport. I have better insurance on you than I do on the truck.”, when told that this is the last-ditch failsafe to make sure your husband isn’t squished like a bug, is not what I would call a warm and fuzzy moment.
- Nothing says “You should have bought a better masonry bit, you cheap bastard.” like having your masonry bit bend 90 degrees while you are trying to drill pilot holes for masonry screws. No, I wasn’t leaning on it.
- It is amazing how tough it was to drill said pilot holes, even using a carbide bit, in concrete that was probably poured before my mother was born.
- Let’s see if you can guess what’s wrong with these pictures:
- If you said “There are no nails or screws or brackets or anything securing those posts to the porch, at either the top or bottom, you get a cookie.
- That’s right, the only thing that’s been holding my porch upright since at least the Johnson administration has been gravity and friction.
- I am vacillating between being pissed off and being in awe. Yeah, it’s a bad job, but it lasted decades in that condition.
- I assure you, it doesn’t look like that now.
- Structural work is done. Now comes replacing trim, doing a few “Aw crap” repairs, and fixing/finishing the concrete.
- Stay tuned.
Posted by daddybear71 on September 9, 2012
https://daddybearsden.com/2012/09/09/project-report-replace-porch-and-carport-posts/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 