A Bad Day in Black Rock

Just for kicks & giggles I thought I would start with a little fun that comes with being confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home!  DO remember that I'm male.

A Bad Day in Black Rock

 

This morning for something different I watched “2 ½ Men” and Charlie is in women trouble as usual, this time he has gotten constipated trying to resolve his relations between two gals and his shrink told him to get his act together before he needed a C-section.

Well, this brought back a little memory from a few months ago when Sandra came by and asked if I'd had my morning B.M. and whether it was small, medium, or large. I could honestly answer “yes” and “small”. The “small” was two little rabbit turds and the feeling I was about to pop. All day long I was in and out of the throne room, just couldn't get anything going. Guess my cervix wasn't dilated. Maybe it'll work after supper...

It may have occurred to you that I could have gone to the nurse, told her of my woe and she would have given me a magic elixir. Well, my experience with “loose loads” and wheelchairs has been less than satisfactory. One feels the urge, slides into the wheelchair, and rotates in the direction of the loo. A few bumps later one arrives into the prayer stall, bump-bump-bump-bump, (room is kinda small) turn the chair to close the door, bump-bump-bump-bump, turn the chair to face the throne. Oops. Too late. There's more to the story but this is enough.

...had supper such as it was, feeling bloated and waiting for the next contraction. By now I'm pretty sure I know what's going on...

Here it comes, the strongest contraction yet. Where's my Lamaze coach? Must I do this all alone? Oh, the humanity!

A half hour later, no dice. Weakly wheeled to the bed, sweating and shaking. Am I going to die?

An unknown length of time later, a minute? An hour? A lifetime? A great rumble rips the cosmos... Is IT soon to make entrance into this universe? With my feeble, dying strength, I spastically wend my way to the room of all pain. This will be my final attempt, after this there will be no more strength.

Five minutes pass. MOAN. Fifteen. Moan (getting weaker). Thirty. moan (death approaching). Finally, at the 45 minute mark, PUSH! pantpantpant PUSH! pantpantpant AARRRGG!!! pantpantpant AARRGG...OHohoh. It is finished.

With the feeblist of motions, I perform the necessary ablutions including severing the umbilicus. I look upon the shear magnificance of IT! With diapering and a swaddling blanket plus a pacifier in it's cute little swirly pointy “head”, we can make our grand entrance as soon as my strength returns. Of course I'll need a few stitches plus a butt-plug for a few weeks.

I'm loosing it. Need help. Screw loose.

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Not Well Thought Out

This article in the NY Post gave me a giggle.

 

Weenies burn flag to protest cops, get attacked by bikers, need cops to save their asses

This brought back a memory from early 1971 when the Vietnam "conflict" was still hot and heavy. Walter Crankcase, America's "most trusted newsman", did a series on how "students" were reacting to the returning servicemen. Now I'm close to the same age as the fellows and came close to being drafted into "Lying Bastard" Johnson's Gulf of Tonkin war. Watching the guys get jeered, cursed, and spit on in Oakland International Airport's terminal by a bunch of Berkeley "students" made me a bit more than mad. Jane Fonda's storm troopers weren't fit to polish the boots of these young men. This kind of crap was happening nation-wide if one was to believe Crankcase and crew.

My barber was a former Hell's Angel, one of the nicest guys I've ever met. The original Angels were all WW 2 combat soldiers and staunch patriots and mostly in their late 40's. There were also Korean conflict fellows involved, just children in their 30's! Kinda big. Ate plenty of meat.

Charlie, my barber, told me what to look for when that tape was re-run as it had a late edit artifact on it.

Seems the Angels did not think their younger brothers-in-arms should be treated so disrespectfully. Oh yes, the local TV stations kept the un-edited tapes!

It wasn't mayhem at all. More like a handful of Rottweilers dropped in a box of yappy little dogs. No one was killed, however a lot of teeth and hair went by the wayside, bruises and black eyes aplenty, generally had the used dog food beat out of them...

Where were the Oakland police? Airport Security? Why, watching of course! Darn good show! Darn good cause. Thou shalt show respect for returning troops by spitting on them?

 

That was such a bad idea. Very poorly thought out.

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Africa Addio

Last night I watched the Africa Addio movie after going through a bunch of hoops trying to get a copy true to the original in English as it was filmed by the Italians. This movie, filmed in 1966, has been repeatedly edited, shortened, lengthened, had the “script” written and re-written, all to fill different sorts of agendas. Once you see it, it'll all be clear. The English “original” I watched was pretty clear of all but clinical commentary, however the graphics were pretty tough for this old boy to take. Truly brutal and knowing it was free of special effects, especially rough.

My maternal grandfather was a Irish merchant seaman from 1917 till he met my granny, fell in love, and changed his profession! They had a marriage that was as beautiful as it could be and lived ''until death do you part” with true love. I think I would have been embarrassed to go a drive-in double-date with them when I was 20!

This doesn't have much to do with anything, just a pair of future lovebirds!
 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            


Grace, my grandmother, at age 17.
She looked the same at 47!            

Arthur, my granddad, at age 21 aboard ship.

He taught me 3 ways to knife-fight at age 8.

 



He had a rather large collection of 19^th and early 20^th century African explorers which I read, plus a almost complete collection of Robert Ruark's fiction. Ruark's fiction is like James Mitchener's, historical fiction based on true accounts and embellished with the exception of Ruark actually being present for the Mau Mau wars.

The earlier explorers brought out the incredible richness and natural beauty of Africa plus the complex and, to my mind, the very fatalistic outlook of the peoples. The very cheapness which human life, indeed all life, was held was so alien that it makes one wonder if this is something that is nurture or nature. When the European colonists were booted out in the early 60's, all hell broke out including such mass slaughter of wildlife for food (the white man brought the means) there was no possible way that the people wouldn't be totally de-sensitized. Miles and miles of boneyards, uncounted people being involved in the butchering of hippos, elephants, antelopes, etc. that had just been slaughtered in mass quantities. I'll link the movie and also give the URL, however I will re-remind you that the movie is far more than gore, it is a blight on one's soul.

The blight gets worse with the helicopter shots of mile after mile of Arabs being forced to walk to their eventual death where enormous pits were filling with corpses. THIS IS NOT A MOVIE, this is reality. Cannibalism was shown and described such as slaves being bought for food, sometimes several buyers for one slave where the various buyers would mark the “cuts” they wanted with the slave taking this treatment without a stir. Grisly. This was LIFE, not a special effects movie. When not slaughtering Europeans or Arabs, they were busy killing and eating each other. Millions disappearing down the collective maw (Mau Mau?).
 

Africa is mind-boggling huge. Just the big three, the US, China, and India make up a population of what, 3 billion? Displayed this way really gives one perspective. Population pressure does generate expansionist pressure. Remember “liebensraum”? Nice war ya got thar... Remember Japan? In this era of hydrogen weapons, even a mindless piece of warlord dung can acquire such. ...plenty of folk in the right places to provide lots of “help”. A grotesquely pitiful collection of sovereign “nations” like Africa, ignorant beyond belief, is very much like a petri dish with lots of different colonies spreading, leaving the center dead with the effluvia of its' life, encountering other colonies doing the same. ALWAYS, all the colonies die. A non-sustainable situation will not be sustained. Something will replace it. In the petri dish's place comes a scraping out and the dishwasher. In the unbelievably fecund humans' place will come what? War absolutely, but a standard world war won't fix it this time. Plague? The Second Coming? The Coming of the 12^th Imam? (I give myself the giggles)

Many moons ago, a fellow known as Paul Erlich wrote a book called “The Population Bomb”. He did something incredibly stupid; he put dates to his predictions. Who's to say an “enlightened” population cannot be as high as Azimov's Trantor?

Or, then again, maybe we'll be happy we have the H-bomb.

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Dalmo Victor Corporation

Dalmo Victor, a division of Textron, was one of the companies of which I accepted contract engineering. This time was a low light level, LASER illuminated, gated television camera. The basic camera in non-gated mode was capable of generating a high resolution, full TV picture at starlight levels and with the LASER, in full overcast night conditions. The main purpose of the LASER was to provide the ability to “see” through fog and smoke by minimizing backscatter. This was done by firing the LASER at the horizontal line rate, 15,750 lines per second, during the retrace time, and using a very narrow pulse equal to the equivalent of 20 feet in length. The 1^st intensifier of the camera would be turned on during the line delayed by 2 nanoseconds per foot of the desired target distance thereby ignoring backscatter, and 1 nanosecond per foot width of the desired target depth. Also, the frequency of the LASER was able to penetrate fog. Neat, huh?!

Wellllll, there's a couple or three engineering problems that have to get a little love before the gadget would work. The video signal coming from the sensor is typically 200 nanoamps full white and 1% of that is visible enough to be seen. There is approximately 1 inch separating the target (sensor) lead from the intensifier gating lead. Here's part of the fun: volts/second equals amps/farad. Now lets put some real-world numbers in that: 1,500 volts (the amount that has to be switched) in 3 nanoseconds equals X amps in 300 picofarads (switching electrode). Hmmmm, that comes to 225 kilowatts. With the duty factor, it's barely over 5 watts average but quite a stroke of lightning! Right next to the target. Not too amazing that in addition to D-V failing, both RCA and Amperex (sensor mfr. & gated intensifier mfr.) failed. Amperex HAD designed a slick, totem-pole avalanche switch for the gadget, not bullet-proof but nice and small. I had designed one for a different project that only died when near ground-zero of a atomic bomb, however it needed a wheelbarrow to move. Also, the Amperex device had the coupler allowing the switch to safely ride on the 2,000 volt to 25,000 volt intensifier acceleration voltage.

As an aside (as usual ;o), you might have noticed I used “contract engineer” instead of “consulting engineer.” A contract engineer comes into a company to design what needs designing, fix what needs fixin', and, if he's unfortunate, pour oil on some wounds. A consultant comes into a company to take the blame when nothing works. You'll find a LOT of consultants “working” for the gummit. This I learned from a very wise man, my uncle. Look up A. Ernest Fitzgerald in Wikipedia.

Since this device was intended to convert the UH-I helicopter into a gunship (1972, Vietnam “war”), and the range was 4 miles with the required long lens, a serious image stabilizing system was mandatory. The UH-1 isn't a nice, smooth craft, rather it's a collection of 10,000 loose parts kinda flying in formation. Most of the time. Hopefully. I don't much like helicopters.

It has to climb to a minimum of 500 feet before it can auto-rotate and crash. Not fun. Lower than 500 feet, you just crash and I hear that isn't fun either. It's a helicopter. If something isn't broken, it soon will be. I don't much like them. My helicopter pilot was a screwball.

...back to the image stabilizer, I got to work with an old Chinese physicist/mathematician who was a delight. He knew exactly zero English and my Chinese was a bit lacking! You've heard math is the universal language? Yeah, if you use the same symbology. He could use western terminology and we did rather delightfully work together. The image intensifier deflection sensitivity was calculated out as something like 4/3rds times the square root of delta V where V is the accelerator voltage.

Most of the “motion” we needed to stabilize against was the terrific vibration the turbine and the rotor set up. The vibration became much worse if one blade of the rotor flew off. That would make me sad.

Without the stabilizer, the image was nothing but a blur. With it, crystal clear! It could go from 2 KV to 25KV in the old rattle-trap of a chopper as smooth as silk! (I was kinda proud of it)

This missive is a little slap-dash, maybe I'll straiten it out later.

Once we had the camera and LASER working to our satisfaction, it was time for real world trials plus data taking to fit the army's requirements. That meant several trips in the 10 wheel instrumented lab truck with the gear over to Crystal Springs Reservoir, probably the darkest place in the entire area. San Francisco was cooperative enough to send some of their fog into the valley allowing us to do some with/without gating recording. With gating on, it was almost like having X-ray vision. The silly thing worked. Charlie Moore, the young tech working with me, and myself also got a little freebie for the night work. Dinner was on Dalmo Victor, the Bay area had 4,500 real restaurants, and we weren't limited. “More wine, wench!” Ah! ...to be young and foolish!

My part of the job was complete except for the usual 47 pounds of gummit & military paperwork plus MTBF (mean time before failure) calculations which, under mil-spec, makes one cry. Boeing and the Italian Navy had already ordered units for their hydrofoils. Seems submerged, but still floating logs are a real problem for them at night. The LASER (910 nanometer wavelength) illuminated camera made them stand out as if they were lit up. They were, and no water reflection at the LASER's 910 nm.

A couple of months later, I got a phone call from my engineering manager at D-V, Justin Rouge, inviting me to come and see some video footage back from Vietnam. I mention Justin because all of the engineering staff really liked him. He sat out to become an engineer but had to settle for administration since he wasn't too bright. Everybody who can't make the grade in assembly, cafeteria, facility maintenance, etc. sends their dregs to administration! (I can't help it..)

One morning, the young grandson, about 30, of the company's founder, decided he needed his Jaguar XKE washed and filled with gas. He called into engineering and asked specifically for me. Now poor Justin knew I was paid regardless if da boss wants me and my rather substantial pay came out of his budget. This being one of President Peanut's gas crisis times, I'd probably be in line for hours. Justin had a nervous reaction when things weren't going right; he blew repeatedly through his mustache, earning him the nickname “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” BTW, the Jag is a tractor. Zero to 60 in a week give or take, understears like a sow with rickets, and has a British gearbox (sez it all). It also leaks oil. Looks cool though.

Back to the Vietnam video, there were 6 or 7 D-V employees plus a pair of army brass in attendence. I knew the video would be messy, I was too familiar with what combat did and the 100 round per second minigun is just plain nasty.

The range display was indicating 1,700 yards and the video window about a hundred feet deep (no display, just approx.). The image was as clear as if we were just a couple of hundred feet away on a sunny day, no VC showing, just some women. The gunner cut loose.

Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki doesn't justify cold-blooded murder even if North Vietnamese women were considered deadly. Made me sick. What really got me was the army brass cheering and high-fiving each other.

That's the reason I told Grumman and Sandia National Labs I wouldn't work on offensive weaponry.

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Frank and the Amazing Flying Machine

Obviously this tale is about Frank, a Texas Air National Guard pilot and his jet.

When I first began working for Sandia National Labs, I lived in a studio apartment complex at the end of the Kirkland Air Force Base runways. It was a pretty nice place to live with a pretty good turnover of interesting people including Frank and Joanie. I'll get back to her later...

Frank was also a ham radio operator as well. We had plenty of good talks after work while waiting for the evening “air show.” Just as the sun went behind the Sangria de Christo mountains to the west, the evening flights began. F-15s in staggered pairs, sometimes as many as eight, lifted off the end of the runway with full afterburners lit up, turning WNW to start the festivities. With the purple evening sky and the blood red sunset behind the mountains, the shock diamonds from the burners was something to behold!

 

That's just a stock shot, no mountains! No red setting sun either, gotta love the high desert!

Following the main attraction were a mixture, A-4s, A-10s, cargo, and tankers. A lot of iron in the sky, a good way to say goodbye to another day!

One evening Frank asked me if I'd like to go on a routine flight with him one night. I knew the regular Air Force did things like that with civilians all the time. Jet jocks gave their gals a ride worth remembering, then took them flying! Illegal as hell, just not prosecuted.

My father was a light plane flight instructor, charter pilot, and mostly a barn-stormer! I had been flying since before I could ride a bike and loved it! Got some tales about that as well.

Also, by August, 1977, I had 2 million commercial air miles logged. Got the privilege of the right seat of a Lan Chile 707 when going to the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile and the right seat of a PSA 727 at their training field in Arizona (you'd be amazed what a totally empty 727 can do!), however I had never been flying in a fighter/bomber before.

You don't need a lot of time figuring out my answer to Frank. Couldn't wait!

I won't trouble you with the details except for following one rule. Act as if the flight was routine; cause no stir. Un-enforced rules are still enforceable.

We took off late one night carrying no arms of course, so we were quite light. “Frisky” is putting it mildly! We headed south climbing initially to 47 thousand, then proceeded east when we headed toward Dallas. I did not know the aircraft was capable of such an altitude, however I didn't know a passenger jet could make 43 thousand until a flight I was on from LA to New Orleans did so. ...more on that later.

You might be curious as to why a member of the Texas Air National Guard was doing stationed in New Mexico. Seems he had an ex-wife in Dallas that wasn't very friendly. His presence caused “difficulties.” I didn't ask, he didn't volunteer. Let sleeping ex-wives lie.

Now I'm having the time of my life, lots of new knobs, switches, and instruments to play with, plenty of fun flying in a sky-Corvette! I wasn't paying much attention to the radio chatter as we approached Dallas, don't recall any of it coming from Frank. We were headed approximately 120 degrees and Frank turned to a heading of close to 300 degrees when we were over Dallas. Then he did something completely unexpected. He dove. Under acceleration. We had been dropping altitude for some time so instead of 8 miles high we were approximately 3 miles up when he began our dive. We were not into it very long before the aircraft went into a pair of what felt like lengthwise shudders. Since we were at nearly 600 knots before the dive, it was pretty easy to figure out that we'd broken the sound barrier. A bit rough for a normally sub-sonic craft like the OA-4.

Frank pulled us out in time obviously, however I watched the accelerometer passing through 9.2 G's before blacking out. He was wearing a G suit, I wasn't.

When I came to, we were at 500 feet at 500 knots. He had the terrain-following radar auto-piloting us due north. My flight suit was covered in blood from my nose, I felt like shit, and I wasn't too sure what in the hell had just happened. Yeah, he just dropped a whopping big sonic boom on top of his ex-wife's (formerly his) house. No problem. The Air Force will not pay for any damage caused by military aircraft! Call Moody.

Wonder how far the damage extended? Most sonic booms are heard from the side with the aircraft more or less horizontal and at high altitude. This was a sonic bomb!

There is more to the trip including some good stuff. We popped up for radio contact in Utah, landed and re-fueled. Frank let me run the take-off (easy), then we leisurely flew out over California and the Pacific. BTW, Frank got in no trouble at all. One thing still bothers me. Having someone transferred from the Texas Air National Guard to New Mexico is pretty easy now, however what was he doing with a Navy jet?

 

...to be continued

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Joanie

Life was mostly pretty calm around the apartments. The place was arraigned as two concentric rectangles with the outer layer being efficiencies occupied by singles and larger, more luxurious apartments inside around a huge pool for old folk. When I came to Albuquerque, the boys didn't want me to get lonely so they insisted I bring our large, rather dumb tomcat that my oldest son insisted we name F-14. Grumman Aerospace's premier carrier-based fighter was the F-14 and for the last 2 ½ years I had been commuting up to Bethpage working on the configurable simulator for the F-14 and X-29 among other projects.

 

Have you ever cross-contried with a non-car-trained tomcat? ...in constant rain? ...in a rag-top Land Cruiser? ...yowling constantly? I was thinking how much I would like some Chinese food...
 

Well, we made it. He didn't much care for being locked up for 12 hours a day. One day he got out, probably by the management. Pets, especially cats, were welcome and F-14 wasn't a howler (I asked). He turned up in a sweet little old lady's apartment. She always left her door open, fed and talked to F-14 all day, and I was truly happy they had found each other!
 

This thing was supposed to be about Joanie. I'll try but by now you know I'm a heavy wool-gatherer.

Frank and I continued with our evening air shows, designing new gadgets for our ham radio habits, telling lies about wimmin, and generally having a fine time, One evening he introduced me to Joanie, a gal that came over to Albuquerque every year for a Christian retreat. Frank had met her the previous year. She would decompress from LA at the apartments for a couple of weeks, then move on to one of the famous Christian retreat sites of New Mexico. She was a most pleasant diversion for our evening air shows, asked endless questions, and had the most engaging manner. She also kept our language clean! She was 28 to my 35 and Frank's 38, and with her cheerful nature, made old fogies out of us.
 

One Saturday, I was doing some long-neglected maintenance on the Land Cruiser, and since the weather was clear and warm enough for shorts and sandals, dressed in the aforementioned. Joanie came back from where ever, drug me into her apartment, and gave me heck (she didn't cuss). She comminst to covering me with something like Solarcaine, ran out, threatened me with death if I went out, and went to buy more. Interesting. I could take the Gulf beaches from 9 AM to 3 PM without trouble and I'd only been out for a couple of hours.

She slathered me thoroughly with the goo, however by the evening I was red as a beet. She undoubtedly saved me from 2^nd degree burning, 6,000 feet above sea level and low humidity will get you.
 

Like all good things and times, the day came to say goodbye. Frank asked me if I knew her full name. I told him what she told me, Joan Larkin. He said her light brown hair was her natural color and I had her name right. However, she went by another name. Joan Jett of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

 

It's a strange world isn't it?

 

 

 

Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap

Amazing what a little make-up and a wig will do...

 

 

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Flying, Fishing, and Foolishness

One could easily make the argument that the third word is redundant and one would probably be correct, however, that's what life's all about! No matter how serious one takes things, it will matter not a bit. One is born, things go downhill, then one dies.

 

My father and myself used to go flying together most every weekend, weather, charter, & flight training allowing. This Saturday we were to go spec (speckled trout) fishing off Red Bank on Fish River in Baldwin County, Alabama. Since we were going with my maternal granddad in his boat and we lived across the state from him, it was only logical we should have our own flying machine! As I've been told, airplanes & boats share one thing in common, only differently. One is a hole in the air you throw money into, the other is a hole in the water that you do the same thing to! This combines the pair!

 

I've found a photo that is nearly identical to our plane, a Luscombe Silveraire.

 

Just about as much fun as one can have with clothes on!

We got up before dawn to get to the airfield, preflight the plane, and head out. Since Brookley AFB was still in service and doing lots of flight testing with the F-104 ( see PILE DRIVER for more ), it behooved the light plane pilot to stay the heck out of their indicated airspace. The miserable zoomie jet jocks would still do a double high-speed pass on the poor guys.

 

We flew southeast to the entrance of Mobile Bay, then northeast to Riggins field. It was Riggins field, Ernie Riggins, and I would call Mrs. Riggins on the radio to let her know we were on our way and could she please get Ernie to chase the cows off the strip?! Actually, the call was to let her know a teen-age eating machine was on his way. Her chicks had fledged and flown away, here comes one flying in!

This was just another routine flight, right? Since I was 12, dad had put me in the left seat. I aready had enough flight time to be a vet and, at last, I had grown enough to reach the pedals w/o too much extension. I was 15 then (50 years ago- and dad had taken the left seat. I really thought nothing of it, the Luscombe was dual controlled anyway, and besides, I hadn't done anything to get booted out for almost 3 years. Shoulda known...

 

We crossed over the Bay by Fort Morgan, I made the radio call, and dad maintained our altitude. Ordinarily we would begin our descent at this point to be the right height to buzz granddad for pick-up at Ernie's.

 

Have you ever seen “Big Daddy” Ed Roth's “Rat Fink”? As we approached the grandfolk's farm, dad assumed the expression, dropped the last thousand feet, went up from 2200 RPM to 2600, and tree-topped it!

We came down around 50 feet above and 75 feet endwise from granny's kitchen with the unmuffled engine at 120%. The Luscombe is a noisy craft normally, at 120%, it's insane. Square law at least! Dad pulled out hard right and climbing at 3 ½ G's, then we came around normally and landed at Ernie's. Dad & Ernie started talking and I bee-lined to Mrs. Riggins kitchen. Good stuff and lots! Second breakfast, however my leg was empty.

 

A while later granddad pulls in with a big grin on his face, told dad his ass was grass and granny wanted to mow it! Granddad was late due to him loading the car before coming after us, seems dad would truly suffer at the hands of the tiny Scotswoman! We'd also have to stop when we got downriver to the marina for lunch rather than a good grannybucket, that's how mad she was.

 

We only top-pruned a pecan tree...

 

...just a few twigs in the gear.

 

 

Stout little airplane!

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