Musings, Commentaries, Photos and Reviews

  I did find myself in a war zone in the Viet Nam war. Collected combat pay and got to mail stuff for free. Thankfully I was stationed on the Carrier USS Bon Homme Richard and the Vietnamese didn't seem inclined to bomb us. So imagine my surprise when Hillary told her harrowing story of dodging sniper fire. I thought about this a bit. Wouldn't this be imprinted on your memory? Having people shooting at you? "There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result." Winston Churchill

  The pundits and talk show hosts will show segments of this speech and pontificate upon what it means. I think it is worth watching the entire speech without having it interpreted for us.

We are responsible pet owners. We neuter all the cats that we share our lives with.  Buster is a gentle loving cat. He was very playful with his male cat buddy Twinkie (our original cat) and gets along with the older male cat Pickles. However Twinkie got ill and passed on. We tried to introduce another male cat "Sam" but that was disastrous.  Buster was very aggressive to the poor guy. Finally poor Sam went outside one evening and never returned. He may have been a victim of a Fisher Cat attack. When my daughter moved into an apartment that didn't allow pets we ended up with a neutered female cat "Paris". She is a feisty little thing and Buster hates her. He's attacked her and has picked up the very disgusting habit of spraying around the house. Besides convincing us that we will never own another male cat, I tried a few remedies. After chasing him around with a spray bottle (taste of his own medicine) I decided that negative responses is going to work

Bob Schieffer (Face The Nation) commented this morning how the war in Iraq has slipped from the public consciousness. Of course this can never be true for the families affected by the separation, injuries and deaths of our servicemen.   I was reminded of this fact from a former shipmate who sent this email early this morning: Just a quick note to let  y'all know what is going on in my life right now. I am in Mena Arkansas to attend my uncles funeral. He was my Fathers youngest brother. Wednesday morning I received word that my older brother Pat was killed,died, in Iraq. Won't know anything about how or what happened till he gets back to Dover AFB on Tuesday. He's the same brother that was a "River Rat" when I was cruising on the Oriskany. It always bothered him greatly that he was IN Country and I was mostly on Yankee station or Dixie station. He was drawing one set of hazardous duty pay, while I was g

One of the benefits of working with computer engineers is meeting a number of interesting individuals from various cultures. When I worked on Spitbrook Road in Nashua, NH for Digital, twice a week we would start our day with a Tai-Chi long form in the parking lot. Tai-Chi is relaxing and strenuous at the same time, it is wonderful. It was great practicing outside as long as the weather cooperated. Later I ended up back in Massachusetts and discovered another lunchtime group that would practice in a conference room. That group was led by Taichun Pan, a software engineer. I knew he was a good teacher but didn't realize what a good musician he is. It was just a matter of time till he appeared on a YouTube courtesy of a local Boston show "Asian Focus".   I was sent these links from a co-worker who is also a musician and practitioner of martial arts (with swords no less). On Spitbrook Road we did a brief stint with swords and I got to meet security one morning (Note: The s

One of the joys of being an elder is the opportunity to try new medications. I managed for decades to avoid any prescriptions but finally my borderline hypertension needed some tweaking. After reading about what high blood pressure can do and seeing stroke effects in my own family, I was only too willing to join the rest of my pill popping generation. Thankfully I only need low dosages of Enalapril and Hydrochlorothiazide. Enalapril was developed by clever folks who found a way to utilize Brazilian viper toxin secrets.... that impressed me greatly. Of course all medication has side effects and as an aficionado of Google I had a great time reading about all the possible side effects of these drugs. Buried deep in the list is something called "vivid dreaming". I missed this on the first pass, instead developing a psychosomatic "dry cough" which was totally self induced (and quickly dissipated). However my dreaming has taken on a more realistic presence. I'm beggi