Ruination

Watching Redeye (Jedidiah Bila in the Leg Chair)

And Touched The Face Of God

This was posted on Facebook by a friend of mine. I used to know that poem by heart when I was a child.
Thought perhaps all would like to read this piece from Townhall. It is quite moving. There will be dust in the air.........................
And Touched The Face Of God

HIGH FLIGHT

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee

RUMBEAR CHRONICLES

RUMBEAR CHRONICLES











For Courage as Blog Bud and Fellow Lexican Charles Mellor AKA Rumbear says in the post...................................

Photos of the British WW1 .303 P14 Enfield sniper rifle : theBRIGADE

Found this while doing a rundown of my favourites list.....................
I have had a 1918 SMLE, No3, MkIII since I was 15. I will be 60 in September.
Everything else smaller is for sissies, with the exception of the .30-06 Springfield, the .308 WCF(7.62 by 51) and the 7.62 by 54R/Mosin Nagant.



Photos of the British WW1 .303 P14 Enfield sniper rifle : theBRIGADE

I made some changes................

It was time to add some pizzaz..............
All comments are welcome....................
I decided the blog need some Intruders for certain. I did two tours in that outfit, VA-128. The first one was as a FRAMP Instructor and the second was as Airframes LPO, Phase LPO and TAD to Station Restriction Barracks.

A History Lesson: Nikola Tesla

The story of Nikola Tesla is one of the great personal tragedies of modern history. Arguably one of the greatest scientific geniuses of all time, Tesla faced poverty, slander and persecution during his lifetime. His numerous inventions and discoveries offered the potential to revolutionize the world, and when and where they were implemented, they did so. But Telsa came into conflict with Thomas Edison, America’s foremost inventor at the time, and Edison’s superior sense of business and advertising destroyed Tesla’s reputation and left him and many of his ideas frustrated and unfulfilled. Thankfully, with the rise of steampunk and a renewed interest in nineteenth century science, Tesla has come back into the public eye and, one hopes, will finally get the recognition he deserves.

Tesla was born in 1856 into a Serbian family living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. From an early age, Tesla was fascinated with science and endeavored to become an engineer. When he immigrated to the United States in the 1880s, he brought with him an idea for a new and more efficient method of power generation known as Alternating Current (AC). He was introduced to Thomas Edison, then one of America’s most prestigious inventors and the man responsible for the incandescent light bulb being used increasingly throughout the United States. But Edison was not interested in helping Tesla develop Alternating Current, which would have represented a direct challenge to the Direct Current (DC) system of generation already in use by Edison. Instead, Edison hired Tesla to make improvements to the DC generation plants, allegedly offering $50,000 if the seemingly impossible task could be accomplished. When, far from failing, Tesla made an impressive overhaul of the generator design, Edison claimed that the offer of $50,000 had been a joke. Tesla promptly resigned.

Faced with financial hardship, Tesla was eventually reduced to digging ditches for the Edison company. In 1887, Tesla filed patents for his AC power generation technology. Soon after, he joined with industrialist George Westinghouse to try and realize the dream of AC power. Because of AC’s superior qualities, this represented a direct attack on Edison’s DC power. What followed was a competition known as the “War of the Currents.” Edison, already extremely adept at advertising and self-promotion, launched into a vicious propaganda campaign as he tried to brand AC power as inherently dangerous. In addition to his slander, Edison had a man named Professor Harold Brown travel around giving demonstrations of animals being electrocuted with Alternating Current on stage in front of audiences. (He even killed an elephant with it once) In 1890, Brown conducted the first electric chair execution, using an AC generator. Efforts were then made to have the technique of electrocution named “Westinghousing.”

In spite of Edison’s horrendous propaganda, in 1893, the Columbian Exhibition (a World’s Fair held in Chicago) was lit by a hundred thousand lamps powered by AC generators. In the end, Tesla and Westinghouse persevered, but the monetary damages imposed by the War of Currents robbed Tesla of his financial security.

The radical development of Alternating Current that set him so at odds with Edison was but one of Tesla’s many scientific accomplishments. Others included the discovery of wireless energy transmission, experiments with long-distance radio, x-ray photography, radio-based remote control, proto-robotics, radar, and even a death ray (which he invented with hope of ending war by making the invasion of a country impossible).

The tragedy of Tesla is profound. He was truly a genius and a visionary, and his death, alone and penniless, is both heartbreaking and unworthy of a man of his accomplishments and life-long altruism.

To learn more: Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison: How The Course Of History Was Changed -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iU7tOLGDa0

Nikola Tesla vs Thomas Edison -
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

The Mind Unleashed
www.TheMindUnleashed.org

Veteran's Benefits=New Glasses

In today's mail were these.
Titanium frames no less!

Diatribe.

In a way it is kind of sad that we are being carpet bombed with this.
I leave it to the reader to decide for yourself.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/05/16/cultural-double-standard-michael-sam-tim-tebow-and-free-speech/

Me and OldAFSarge

I finally got around to finding this........The WSO took this shot of Christopher and I on The Good Ship Ronald Reagan on 9 April...................It was one of the very best days of my life.

I can haz Flavours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In BevMo in beautiful sort of downtown Palmdale last weekend there was this little offering from Sierra Nevada...............Four, yes I said Four, IPA variations......................it was in a variety 12 pack......................
I could not leave with out it................................

Yes, my friends and followers, variety is the spice of life...............or in this case the hops...............................................

RDO Ramblings

Today is my RDO-Regular Day Off, in our alternate pay period here in use at Eddie's Airplane Patch in The SE Kern County Desert.
Found this one on That Book of Face....................................

Browncoats! Unite and Stand Ready!

Time for a somewhat meaningless off beat post...................................

Take my love, take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black. Tell them I ain't coming back. Burn the land and boil the sea. You can't take the sky from me. There's no place I can be Since I've found Serenity……But you can't take the sky from me.

The Lt. Dan Band Concert at Jethawks Stadium in Lancaster-May 10, 2014.

We had to make it to this one!
It was a Great Show for a Worthy Cause!
SPC Jerral Hancock of Lancaster was severely wounded in Iraq and is in need of a house that is set up for his needs and that of his two kids.
Gary Sinise and The Lt. Dan Band and The Gary Sinise Foundation stepped up.

This Man Rocks!

The medal was made by a group from Lancaster High School and one was given to every veteran at the concert.

A somewhat better shot of the medal.

Sunday Funny

Found this on my FB news feed this AM.

Beer Blogging New Flavours

As I said in a post earlier this week, I have sampled some of the flavours I picked up at Cost Plus World Market in Bakersfield last Saturday.
These are from Tecate in Mexico and I do like them all. Quite flavourful, I must say!

Death Rides A Pale Horse Blond Ale

DOA IPA. Hop on and Ride!

Pay The Ferryman! The best name I have ever seen for a brew!

DOA IPA

Cracked one open. Pretty good in my humble opinion.

Beer run from Saturday

We stopped by the Cost Plus World Market in Bakersfield before dinner and the Condors Game on Saturday.
I purchased this stash. The names and a recommendation were instrumental.
I will let you all know how they taste when I have them.

Playoff Hockey in Bakersfield

Condors Win! Up 2 games to none against the Stockton Thunder.

I am still here.

Not much to blog about lately.
I will post some pics from a Bakersfield Condors playoff game we attended on Saturday and pics of some unique flavours I discovered at Cost Plus Old World Market.