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Anything For a Brother

This past April, the day before his wedding anniversary, a United States Marine lost his life in a field in Afghanistan.  One of his buddies noticed that his wedding ring was missing, and began searching the field for it.  He was exposed to enemy fire in a place where two men had already been killed, and he combed the dirt of a poppy field for a circle of metal less than two inches across.

Why would he do something like that?  His friend was already dead, and nothing was bringing him back.  Every moment he spent out in that field was a moment when he could cross someone’s sight picture.  My guess is that he did it because he would want his own sacred momentos to be returned to his family.  Maybe it’s a ring, or a crucifix, or the photos of children that soldiers will tuck into their uniforms so that they always have them, but he would want them taken back to his loved ones.

For whatever reason, this brave, foolish, loving man spent hours searching for it, and eventually he was successful.  Yesterday, he returned to Texas, and brought the ring with him.  He and other Marines who served together returned it to the young lady who lost a husband that day.

Warriors don’t always come home.  But those who serve with them make sure their families can lean on them, even if it’s just to get back a part of their soul that fell in the dust of a faraway farm field.

by daddybear71 on October 3, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in military

Posted by daddybear71 on October 3, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/03/anything-for-a-brother/

The End of the Beginning

The Obama administration has asked the United States Supreme Court to review a case where part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 was struck down as unconstitutional.   There is also a chance, assuming a Republican victory in 2012, of Obamacare being repealed through the legislative process.  The Republicans running for president certainly seem to be making that a plank in their platform.

Personally, I hope the court takes the case and makes a ruling one way or the other.  The issue of whether or not the government has the power to force citizens to purchase anything from another private entity needs to be decided.  If the act is repealed in Congress, it’s only a tactical victory for those of us who believe that the powers of government need to be limited.  Congress can pass other laws that try to do the same thing with no real way to argue that it violates the Constitution.  A Supreme Court decision that holds that practice unconstitutional could be used to block Congress from doing similar things in the future, and would be effectively permanent, unless the Supreme takes the exceedingly rare step of reversing itself.

by daddybear71 on October 2, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Politics

Posted by daddybear71 on October 2, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/02/the-end-of-the-beginning/

Reclaiming Some Heirlooms

This afternoon, we went over to Irish Woman’s aunt’s house to retrieve a piece of her mother and father’s estate.  You see, when they died in the late 1960’s, their household got spread across the extended family, and their bedroom furniture went to this particular aunt and uncle.  They have passed away now, and their kids asked Irish Woman if she’d like the furniture.

Since she became an adult, Irish Woman’s been able to find and reclaim a few things that belonged to her parents.  She’s found some jewelry, her mother’s wedding ring, the family china, a few pictures, and today she got back some of the furniture that her parents bought for each other when they got married.

It’s a fine old hardwood set, and it’s going to need a little TLC.  That being said, it’s in remarkable shape for being almost 50 years old.  We got it home, and set to work giving it a good scrub with Murphy’s Oil Soap and elbow grease.  Irish Woman remarked on how dark the finish was, when her memory of it was that it was lighter.  Then we started scrubbing.

Before:

 After:

That’s one of five bar towels we used to clean up the furniture, along with two buckets of Murphy’s and hot water.  This is the accumulated tar and ash from five decades of smoking in bed.  Another reason I don’t care for smoking – it gets into everything.  The more we scrubbed, the more we smelled Lucky Strikes and Parliaments.

We let the woodwork dry after cleaning it, then wiped it down with a healthy dose of lemon oil.  We’ll keep doing that for a while, but our long term plan is to strip it down to the bare wood and refinish it.

You don’t see craftsmanship like this anymore without paying through the nose for it.  These things are solid wood, and are held together with joinery and some screws.  No plywood, veneer, or particle board in this stuff.  Accordingly, it weighed a ton.

The good news is that if we take care of it, it will be there for Boo when we either decide to pass it on or we decide to start taking advantage of that time share I have on the Lake of Fire.

Here are the two dressers.  The bed is still disassembled, but it’s just as pretty.

by daddybear71 on October 2, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on October 2, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/02/reclaiming-some-heirlooms/

Radio Silence

Off to move heavy antique furniture from one side of Louisville to another, then clean it up and re-assemble it at Casa de Oso.  Once that’s all done, I plan to sit down with an adult beverage, watch football, and see if there’s any energy left to blog.

In the meantime, enjoy this earworm:

by daddybear71 on October 2, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Earworm

Posted by daddybear71 on October 2, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/02/radio-silence/

A Warning

Gentlemen, telling your lovely wife that if she wanted a quiet and delicate child, then she shouldn’t have mated with Sasquatch, while funny, does not go a long way in promoting marital bliss.

by daddybear71 on October 2, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by daddybear71 on October 2, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/02/a-warning/

Hackers for Charity

I don’t want to give the impression that the entire conference was an excuse for negative blogging.  I actually learned quite a bit, and a lot of good people were there exchanging ideas.  One bright spot was a presentation by Johnny Long.

Mr. Long is a security professional from when gods walked the Earth.  He’s written many articles on IT security and been the author or co-author on a lot of seminal books that I’ve read and used.

A few years ago, he decided that even though he was at the top of his industry, he needed more.  He and his wife decided to relocate to Africa and try to make a difference in the lives of the poorest of the poor there.  And he’s made a go of it.

The fruit of his labor is Hackers for Charity.  This NGO provides IT support, equipment, and training to schools, relief agencies, and everyday people in Uganda and other African countries.  It’s a worthy cause, and even with all of the frustrations of trying to do business in the third world, you could hear how much Long cares about his personal mission in his voice.

His speech amounted to a history of himself and the organization, a status update on the organization, and a big thank you to the security community.  You see, almost all of the funding, equipment, and talent in the organization is donated from the ‘hacker’ community.  For example, he asked for donations to a training center he had set up in Uganda, and through small donations from members of the community, he got enough to run the center for 14 months without charging the students a penny.  He gave many examples of people or organizations donating their time or equipment so that those who live in poverty might have a chance to have a better life.

HFC also works with another organization to help provide food to famine victims in Kenya, both in giving direct food aid, and in helping them learn the skills to grow their own food so that they can provide for themselves.

One aspect that never would have occurred to me was his work to provide IT support to relief agencies so that their systems were better protected from malware and hacking.  The amount of money lost in these organizations due to computer problems boggles the mind.

In addition to his work in Africa, Mr. Long mentioned plans to start doing work in the United States.  Hopefully he is at least as successful in that as he has been in Africa.

by daddybear71 on October 1, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in hackers for charity, worthy cause

Posted by daddybear71 on October 1, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/01/hackers-for-charity/

Thoughts on the Day

  • Security Conference: An opportunity to lock yourself into a crowded venue with a couple thousand people with few people skills, no respect for personal space, and a lifetime of being told they are the smartest people in the room.
  • Hints to Speakers:  If your presentation amounts to no more than chest beating or a war story, save it.  If you feel the need to spend an hour doing a code review on the buggy software package you wrote for your thesis, I’m not interested.  If you want to demo a new product from your company, but can’t explain in a few sentences how it could be used in a real world situation that actually comes from the real world, try again.
  • If you’re more interested in chatting up one of the young females who attended the conference than demo’ing and discussing your product and services to a guy from a Fortune 500 company, guess who’s going to have a bad day when you try to convince my company to buy said product and service?
  • Using the Star Trek TNG font in red on a black background for your slides isn’t cool, it’s annoying.
  • When attending a briefing on using the “hacker mindset” in a preparedness / survival situation, don’t sit in the back and make snide remarks when the presenter suggests that personal defense should at least be considered.  Especially to the guy carrying two pocket knives and wearing the ball cap from an ammunition dealer.  You know, the one who raised his hand to all of the “does anyone know how to…” or “has anyone ever….” questions.
  • Seriously, dressing up like the guy you imagined you looked like in CounterStrike is just sad, especially at a technical conference.  Especially if you volunteer that information.  Especially if you’re concealed carrying an airsoft gun.
by daddybear71 on October 1, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Thought for the day

Posted by daddybear71 on October 1, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/01/thoughts-on-the-day-20/

Thought for the Day

Many thanks to Scott Adams for the chuckle.  My 401k statement arrived the other day.  I’m going to just file that one away.  No sense in looking at it.  It’s going to be a very long time before I can think about retirement.

by daddybear71 on October 1, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Thought for the day

Posted by daddybear71 on October 1, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/01/thought-for-the-day-62/

Happy Puppet History Awareness Month!

October is Puppet History Awareness Month.  Let’s all take this opportunity to reach out to our neighbors, the puppets, or as they like to be called, Fabricated-Americans.

We should take this time to remember the words of Dr. Aben Mitchell: 

…we must all learn to tolerate and even celebrate our differences. Whether you’re flesh, fleece, purple, plaid or even Chinese.

by daddybear71 on October 1, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in silliness

Posted by daddybear71 on October 1, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/01/happy-puppet-history-awareness-month/

Quote of the Day

Maybe your golf buddies are soft, and your union thugs are soft, and your legion of academics that have never held a real job are soft, and the societal leeches that depend on the democrat’s perpetual welfare state are soft, but most Americans are not soft.  — Larry Correia, commenting on President Obama’s assertion that all our problems are due to the fact that we’ve gone ‘soft’.



BTW, Larry seems to be closer to the Mormons I knew when we lived in Utah than Mitt Romney seems to be.  

by daddybear71 on October 1, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Quote of the Day

Posted by daddybear71 on October 1, 2011

https://daddybearsden.com/2011/10/01/quote-of-the-day-45/

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