My take on social media

It's mostly one liners that are spit out without any thought.

makes me feel superior

Another post for Memorial Day

Actually a reprise from last year.
You get a link.

Friday cat

The answer

Craig asked in a comment on Tuesday.

I actually found this in my own files, although I stole it from somewhere else.

Too soon - part II

Oh, good grief.
It isn't even June yet.

By 4:45 it was 102°F.
It's supposed to warm up today and be hot tomorrow.

Too soon?

Yesterday was really way too early to celebrate Memorial Day.
But, I guess three day weekends are more critical and essential than traditional holidays?

Today

Remembering the blessed on this day . . .

. . . and every day.

There's a lot of action today

saw this at the daily timewaster

Hah! There's nothing in the queue

. . . not even a cat pic for next Friday.

This'll have to do for now.

Friday cat(s)

source: daily timewaster

I had a plan

Three days ago I was going to take a picture of the finished project.

Needless to say, I didn't . . .   about six different times I didn't.
Finally, this morning, I realized I had no post.

The real irony is that the blogging of the project took a heck of a lot longer than the actual project.

Bumped from Tuesday

Almost like a scene from Cool Hand Luke.
There was a mailbox there on Saturday [the picture is from Sunday].
The problem was that the post supporting it was no longer anchored in concrete.
Another challenge was the grass under the mailbox was inaccessible to the mower.
Easy task to deal with, right?

Well, it was simple.

• Remove the turf - well established lawn with good root system, not at all cooperative: about 1 hour
• Claylike topsoil - seemingly impervious to shovel or posthole digger . . .  or even water. No wonder there's always runoff when the lawn's watered. Instead of an 18" hole, we dug a 14" hole and used less concrete anchor the ABS we are inserting the steel support into: about 2 1/2 hours

The finished product will be landscaped with African Daisies.
Hopefully it won't take as long to dig the holes for them.
Gonna bury that sewer clean out again after I fill in the hole.

Sure happy it's Tuesday

Monday update

Maybe not so much

I like to think the Navy had refined it.
CPOs were like, "One more hand of euchre and we'll get on with it."
But it looks like the pols may have out done them.

Short story

Back when I was a pizza cook, there was a kid working for me.
He was in the FFA [They used to be Future Farmers of America, but that's a different story].
He raised a pig as his project.
Every take the scrap vegetable leavings from food prep, and we generated a lot, home to feed that pig.
Those were some of the best pork chops and ribs I ever had.

pig's name was Ham

Third Saturday in May

Friday cat

There's nothing original here

♪It's time to join the meeting.♫

♩It's time to start the mic.♪

♫It's time to start the camera on your millionth Zoom tonight.♬

[Lyrics @LauraRoseMills | Image @BlossomStefaniw]

Good read

I don't often post what I've read on this page.
I'll make an exception for this book.

After finishing it I read what I could about the USS Ellyson (DD454).
Pretty impressive ship.

Sure Happy It's Tuesday

That

Maybe the title should be in quotes?
Ten years ago someone challenged my friend, The Brighton Pensioner, to refrain from using it when he writes.
You could look it up if you want*.
Anyway, I thought it was a good idea, too.
Most of the time it is unnecessary.
Try it.

*https://lionskip.blogspot.com/2010/05/before-i-forget-again.html
 https://lionskip.blogspot.com/2010/05/challenge-continues.html

Oh, that I didn't think of this

I know a guy whose attitude would fit this to a tee.

Read more here.

Heat wave

It's been relatively mild here until the past two days (Thursday and Friday).
Then there was a real spike and it reached 94° and 97°.
Tomorrow will drop back down into the 70s and continue to Wednesday.
Rain is even included in the forecast.
We can only hope.
The mountains may even see snow.

Yup . . .   I got nuthin'

Friday cat

G'night folks

[what are you looking for, the title says it all?]

th- th-th-that's all folks

Hey, I remembered

The other morning, after breakfast, but before church, as I was cruising the blogs, I replied to a comment at the Sarge's place.

That evening, on a whim and because I had yet to post anything else, I wrote

Many of the most recent posts relate to the destroyer I served in during the early sixties, specifically the latter part of 1963 and first half of 1964.
Some time in the spring of '64 the ship made a transit from San Diego to Pearl Harbor to submit to an Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI), a week long set of exercises to determine the ship's preparedness for its mission.

Bear in mind that it takes a week, under normal conditions, to steam to PH  . . . and another week to return.
Anyhow . . .   we completed the ORI . . .   and some departments were pleased with their performance and some divisions within those departments were extremely pleased with their performance.
The Sunday evening before getting underway for the return voyage to San Diego a number of those extremely pleased sailors celebrated.

As Paul Harvey would say, "This is the rest of the story."

There I was* a relatively newly minted E-5, legally of age to drink in Hawaii, with a reason to celebrate. We started out at our hangout [that's another story], the Tahiti Club, just off Hotel Street in downtown Honolulu.
Once everyone had gathered, the party was moved to Red's girlfriend's mother's house.
A stop as the liquor store was made.
I would tell you how great the party was, but I don't remember.
It's not the first party with that group I don't remember.
I do remember a half pint of Black and White Scotch.

Reveille comes early on a ship getting ready to steam back to her home port.
Getting underway is an "All Hands" evolution.
Everyone has a job.
In the CIC (Combat Information Center), mine was to monitor the communication between the conn, the officer directing the ship's maneuvering, and the bridge, where the controls for maneuvering the ship are located.
I wore a sound powered headset and reported to the Watch Officer course and speed orders.
I was not feeling 100%.

One of the requirements of getting underway is that everyone visible on the ship be in the uniform of the day.
In Hawaii the Uniform of the day is whites for enlisted, khaki for Chiefs and Officers.
Chiefs and Officers have work khakis made of cotton and gabardeen that's a little more dressy.
The Chiefs and Officers topside went for dressy that morning.

My position in CIC was directly behind the table where our course was to be plotted on the chart for Pearl Harbor.
Altogether there were about six of us there.
Two, maybe three were redundant, but we were the Destroyer Division 72 flag ship so there was a lot of unnecessary supervision.
Right next to the plotting table was the radar repeater from with the ranges for radar navigation were going to be called.
At the moment, though, the ship was still moored.
And I was not feeling 100%.

I had been in the crew since May of 1962.
Had gotten underway and steamed in all kinds of conditions.
Had yet to be seasick, even when others were carrying a bucket [he got over it].
In fact the bucket sailor was the one on the navigation repeater.
Standing right beside him, wearing a brand new pair of gabardeen trousers, was our leader, the Senior Chief Radarman.

The ship's horn sounded one long blast.
The announcement, "Underway, shift colors!" came over the 1MC, and yours truly filled the Senior Chief's shoes with barf.
Caught the trousers, too.

*SJC

More nauticals

OI Div. - Spring 1964
Yours truly is third from the left in the back row

These are the shipmates with whom I was most closely associated, the Radarmen, Electronic Technicians and a Postal Clerk.
We'd just finished up with a personnel inspection, nobody was on watch, so it was decided we should have a group picture . . .   and we'd just found out we'd earned the green "E" for Operations Efficiency.

The quarters were a little cramped.
Personal lockers were under the bottom bunk, conveniently hauled up and secured in this photo.

This particular compartment was directly below the mess deck and was shared with the ASW Division (Sonarmen, Torpedomen, and Gunners Mates (Missiles), plus overflow from OC Div.
In all there were about 50 sharing the space.

Somebody remind me

I commented over at the Sarge's place earlier.
Then thought, "I could write a post about that."
Now it's too late to do it today.
Maybe tomorrow (POCIR).

Filler (almost nautical)

There's this thing sticking up out of the ocean.

It's called Lot's Wife . . .  and some other names.
It's northeast of Okinawa about 600 miles, with nothing else around.
There are probably better pictures, but I took this one.
Eventually I learned more about the camera, a pre-SLR 35mm with a built-in light meter.

There were also sunrises to shoot.

Westbound from deployment.
The funny thing is there were always clouds, but they were always on the horizon.

Sometime on that transit from WestPac to Conus somebody got an advancement.

This shot was taken on a weekend Duty Day, probably while monitoring voice communications while moored in San Diego.

Friday cat