Free Republic

Back in the 1960s I think, there was an eating place in Dallas that had a whole collection of signs. One was: “We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone”.

I’m guessing Armor (it’s a bit out of focus).

I think it was Norm Van Brocklin who was suffering from some brain problem and said in a press conference that he hoped to get a transplant from a sports writer, as he wanted one that had not been used.

Sick looking, not something I want to spend much time looking at.

In the early 70s I was interested in developing a camera to photograph guided artillery rounds leaving the muzzle and shedding protective devices around their guide vanes. The idea I worked with was a first generation image intensifier, which employed 45 KV DC between the photocathode stage and the third intensifier photoscreen. The EEs were able to switch this HV on and off very quickly, on the order of a few microseconds. By simply photographing the screen with an ordinary film camera (before digital cameras) I could get a usable photograph. We found that the pulse from the grid current caused undesirable distortion in the image intensifier. Didn't have time or funds to pursue that problem. Just some hardware we had on hand.

Years earlier I had worked with an EG&G microflash strobe and Speed Graphic camera to study the formation of molten ammonium nitrate fertilizer pellets being sprayed into a cooling tower. Learned that Lord Rayleigh had done pretty much the same experiments peeking through holes in a spinning disk, 80 or 90 years earlier.

I remember eating at some “greasy spoon” type place that had a sign:”If you wear your hat while you eat at home, please do so here. We want you to feel at home”.

Five or six years ago I stayed at a hotel on the site of the old England AFB at Alexandria, LA. This was once a TAC base and now is the regional airport. There is a regular garden of Tactical aircraft on pylons at the entrance, and I was amazed to see an A-10 up there. I had no idea they were being retired. I guess sometimes they get grounded due to metal fatigue. Impressive to see one alongside the F-84F, F-86 and others of that generation.

Q Why can’t dogs play poker?
A: They can’t keep their tails from wagging when they get a good hand.

I believe it would be possible to convert existing diesel-electric locomotives to burn natural gas. I know that when I was studying mechanical engineering in the 1950s, “dual-fuel” engines in sizes comparable to current locomotive power were used in domestic electric power generation. These were basically similar to diesel, obtaining 95% of their power from natural gas, with fuel ignition provided by a small charge of diesel fuel injected into the cylinder at the start of the power stroke. The LNG, carried in the “fuel tender”, could be vaporized by waste heat from the engine exhaust. This would greatly reduce the cost of new power by saving the existing locomotive engines with fairly simple modifications.

I found a couple of copies of “The Gods of Yesterday” listed on ABE for $60+. Was hoping to find a biography of Bellah. According to Wikipedia, he served in Burma with the First Air Commandos (Col. Phil Cochran/”Flip Corkin”) You can’t make that stuff up! Started WW2 as a 40+ year old lieutenant, finished as a colonel.

Thanks for mentioning “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”. In my opinion, the best of the “John Ford Stock Company” pictures, and the one I will watch over and over. I’ve tried to locate a short story by James Warner Bellah which apparently contributed to the script. I read somewhere that “Mr Cohill” was “Flintridge Cohill” in the original story,but I never heard that mentioned in the movie. And the funeral of “Trooper Smith” , ex-Confederate General Rome Clay - - Bellah was a genius with names!

Good video, but I expected something more spectacular. In the late 1950s I was working on a drone recco program with Texas Instruments and Fairchild. They brought a C-119 down to Addison airport with a complete electronics lab in the hull. At the same time, down the field, Collins Radio was installing some spook equipment in C-130s. One day the Fairchild pilot decided to do a STOL demo with the C-119. I guess he used 1000 feet or so of runway, about the same as the 123 in the video. The same day, one of the C-130s came out and did a real STOL takeoff. That concluded the "airshow" for that day.

A few days later, the C-119 made a very short traffic pattern and came back trailing smoke along with a bit of flame. The Fairchild guys were out the back door before it stopped rolling. A big crane was borrowed from Collins and an engine change got done on the apron in front of the TI hangar.

It sounds like “Y2K” finally got here.

Especially for those Senior citizens like myself who grew up in the Southern woods, may I recommend the short novel "The Bear" by William Faulkner. Included in the story is a mini-dog which Faulkner calls a "fyce" (I knew those as "feist") which wants to tackle a giant black bear. The boss dog, though, is a huge feral mix-breed called "Lion". The action takes place in the late 1800s.

Best hunting story ever written IMHO.

If he made the big bucks, $1,200 monthly Social Security seems low..

For sure. I was not a VP, but my SS and my company pension are both considerably more than the article quotes. Something missing somewhere. My late wife, who had only front-line RN jobs, got more SS too. And we both retired around age 62, so didn't get the maximum.

Far easier to move the Earth out a ways to keep it in the habitable zone

Back in the Cold War days there was a story that "Red China" was developing a Doomsday weapon: The communist government would equip every Chinese citizen with a six foot stump in their yard. At a signal from Chairman Mao everyone would mount their stump and jump off, knocking the Earth out of its orbit.

One of the government facilities in the Washington Navy Yard is, or at least used to be, NPIC (National Photographic Interpretation Center). Back in my working days, most of the overhead reconnaissance data collected by the USA was processed and handled there. Before being cleared for access there to install some new equipment, I had to pass a polygraph test. That was the only time in some 40 years of working on sensitive programs that I ever had that experience. Of course the result was a temporary badge and related paperwork. I doubt if anyone with a history of mental illness would have found it easy to pass. I would guess that NPIC was not the only highly restricted location in the Navy Yard even then.

throw the trap and all into the pond and drown the suckers....

A few years ago there seemed to be a great number of coons around my woods, breaking into deer feeders and robbing my duck nests by my pond. I borrowed a wire cage trap and baited it and left it on the dam overnight. Next morning when I checked, the trap had disappeared. Later after the sun got high, I could see the trap in the water with a dead coon in it. I figured that the coon had gotten caught in the trap, then later a coyote or fox had come along, attacked the trap trying to get to the coon, and accidentally pushed it over to where it tumbled into the water. Sort of an unintentional end for the coon.

Several years ago I tried to raise domestic Mallard ducks on my little one acre pond in the woods. I had one drake and two hens. After the drake had tried to kill some ducklings that I bought at a farmer's market, I was told that if the hens laid eggs and hatched babies, everything would be OK. No, one of the hens hatched 8 or 9 babies, and as soon as she got them out swimming in the open water that drake went right after them. He would hold their heads under water and try to drown them. The hen didn't do much to try to defend her babies. After a day of watching this, I waited until the drake came near the bank and gave him a 20 gauge corrective treatment.

Over time, one varmint or another got all but one or two of my baby ducks, and I gave it up. I have to conclude that ducks are just dumb.

Several years ago I stopped at a highway rest area on I-20 in east Texas. There was a pickup pulling three or four dog trailers hooked up in a train, eastbound. The driver told me they were built for the USAF in some small town, I think west of Dallas. These rigs were pretty plush, with roof ACs. Of course even if carrying dogs, the AC would not have power while on the road. At least they were well ventilated. They were just being delivered to some AF base site (maybe Barksdale, where they still keep some nukes).

While working for a defense contractor in Dallas in the early ‘60s, I distinctly recall the words “Groom Lake” being spoken by another employee. I had no idea what he was working on, but many years later the name began to leak out.