Feb 21
It’s National Engineers Week! Break out the party hats!
Seriously, there are few professions where you can have the same mix of challange, fun, renumeration, and impact on the world as you can with engineering. And women, you should consider a career in engineering.
Feb 20
Every military base I’ve ever been to has had displays of equipment. I can still remember the directions I was given the first time I went to Pax River – “turn right at the plane on a stick.” And when I got there, I turned right at the plane on a stick to visit the Armament hanger. Sometimes, things are exactly what they seem:
Apparently when Lincolnshire County Council were widening the road past RAF Scampton’s main gate in about 1958, the ‘gate guards’ there had to be moved to make way for the new carriageway. Scampton was the WWII home of 617 Sqn, and said “gate guards” were a Lancaster…and a Grand Slam bomb.When they went to lift the Grand Slam, thought for years to just be an empty casing, with an RAF 8 Ton Coles Crane, it wouldn’t budge.
Read the rest if you can’t figure out what happened or want to find out just how big a 22,000 lb bomb is.
I’m reminded of the story my old english teacher, Mr. Felling, used to tell of when he was assigned to a destroyer in the Navy. He went aboard, and noticed the sailors would sit and smoke on the depth charges- the live depth carges that is. At first, he thought they were crazy, but within a couple of weeks he too was lounging and smoking on the depth charges.
Feb 20
It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.
——- Aristotle (and not Onassis)
Free the Inner City Press!
Feb 19
My son was giving me grief about using aphorisms, and asked me if I had anything original to say. I reminded him of one of my very own (at least as far as I know) aphorisms, or more accurately an aphorism with my own twist:
Time flies whether you have fun or not, so you might as well have fun
Okay, maybe it doesn’t rank up there with
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana
but at least it’s more than a funny line.
I know I’m just a country bumpkin from Missouri, but when a politician says this:
“In addition, Hillary will end the tax incentives to companies that ship jobs overseas, and invest those resources in creating good, high-paying jobs here in the U.S.”
I can’t help but think
“In addition, Hillary will end the mortgage income tax deduction to individuals who buy Priuses, because they are shipping those good, high-paying jobs overseas. Instead, they should buy cars manufactured right here in the U.S.”
Of course, you’ll never hear a politician actually say that, although for the life of me I can’t see the difference between a company buying products from overseas and an individual buying products from overseas. Companies are just aggregators of all the people necessary to make a product for the purchasers of the product. Economically or morally, it makes no difference if the purchaser or the company aggregates from foreigners – the foreigners are employed just the same (not that there’s anything wrong with that). In fact, from this nativist point of view, isn’t better to buy from a company that outsources than from a foreign company because the outsourcer preserves more American jobs?
Feb 3
Or Super Bowl 42.
An exciting quarter of football, a rewarding outcome, so so ads, a brief old school rock interlude, all stretched out over 4 hours.
Tom Brady is a great quarterback, but he had a poor game.
If Belichick is such a great coach, why is he such a cheater?
The Patriots were lucky all game until finally the Manning somehow escaped two defenders and Smith caught the ball on his helmet. Live by luck, die by luck.
Jan 9
Breakfast table 6:45 AM
Her: Oooh, what a beutiful pink sunrise!
Me: Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.
Long Pause
Me: But it sure is pretty.
Dec 24
Merry Christmas!
Why have a merry Christmas? God loves you. No matter what, God loves you.
Merry Christmas!
Dec 17
I hate to tell Steve, but newspapers don’t control the national conversation anymore – they’re still stuck in national lecture mode. At this point, they just hope to remain a part of the national conversation.
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