blogger is now offering a blogspot plus service that would allow to upload pictures directly to the blog instead of linking to them. this would allow me to further annoy you with pictures as well. it's a pay service though, and i'm a cheapskate, so we'll have to see


general douglas macarthur arrived in japan today in 1945. hostilities had ended but no surrender document had been signed. that would come on sept. 2. mac was driven to yokohama, with armed japanese soldiers lining the entire route. macarthur almost singlehandedly wrote the modern japanese constitution, borrowing heavily from other constitutions which he found inspiring. he probably contributed more to japan's current status as an economic power than any one person in history.


even though he was aggressive in his execution of the war, he had a great respect for the japanese people. at the end of the war, he met with general 'vinegar joe' stillwell, who had fought the japs in china and burma. stillwell announced that he was going to ride the emperor's white horse through the center of tokyo, which would have been an enormous disgrace to the japanese people. macarthur forbade this, telling stillwell that he would have him court-martialed if he did it. moves like this made him unpopular with americans who wanted revenge for years of way, but mac understood that the japanese would be great allies if they could keep some of their honor. he was, of course, correct.

some weird atmospheric conditions this morning. it's one of those nights in which the moon looks red when it rises, then yellow, then startling white. this all happened in the course of about 30 minutes. i wish i had become an astronomer. then again, i have wanted to be a pirate, astronaut, test pilot, porn star (just kidding---kind of) and ballet dancer at some time in my life. pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.


so i go to dallas tomorrow (saturday). we are going up to lake texoma for a big labor day blowout which should be a great time. everyone will be there, just like old times. except it won't be. i will do my best to be my better self. blessed are the peacemakers.

everything you ever wanted to know about how an aircraft carrier works. be sure to check out the jet engine test stand at the stern of the ship. by the way, that horsepower number on the reactors is complete bullsh*t.

there’s a great column in usa today concerning the potential baseball strike. i am not now, nor have i ever been, a big fan of baseball. but baseball is americana at its finest and we will all be poorer if this strike takes place. it is hard to feel any sympathy for either side in this fight when major league tickets are $40 and you have to mortgage your house to get a beer. we have a great minor league team here in louisville. the tickets are normally $8 and there’s not a bad seat in the house. i’ll be going to see them if this strike takes place.



article in the n.y. times concerning congressional approval for an attack on iraq. what in the hell are the democrats waiting for? does someone funded by saddam hussein have to detonate a nuclear device somewhere before they’ll come out in support of the president? these people disgust me---they have no new ideas and they serve no purpose except to block progress. like all liberals, they only know how to name-call and belittle. they offer no solutions, only contrary opinion. if they were smart, they would get behind him and ride the wave of popularity that’s going to form when some american finally kills that camel jockey.

the soviets exploded their first atomic bomb today in 1949. they got there so quickly with the help of many spies in the u.s. makes you wonder whether joe mccarthy would've been taken more seriously had he not been a belligerent drunk.

i was discharged from the navy ten years ago yesterday. ten years. i was still a kid when i got out. hell, i still feel like a kid now. i really hated it at the end. everyone back here was telling me how i needed to stay in because it's such a good career, yadda, yadda, yadda. only my friend peter understood what i was going through.


here's an alternate oath of enlistment if found:



I, Top Gun, in lieu of going to prison, swear to sign away 4 years of my life to the United States Navy because I want to hang out with Marines without actually having to BE one of them, because I thought the Air Force was too "corporate," and because I thought, "hey, I like to swim...why not?"


I promise to wear clothing that went out of style in 1976 and to have my name stenciled on the butt of every pair of pants I own. I understand that I will be mistaken for the Good Humor man during the summer, and for Waffen SS during the winter.


I will strive to use a different language than the rest of the English-speaking world. using words like "deck, bulkhead, cover, and head" instead of "floor, wall, hat, and toilet." I will take great pride in the fact that all Navy acronyms, rank and ensignia, and everything else for that matter, are completely different from the other services and make absolutely no sense whatsoever.


I will muster (whatever that is) at 0700 hrs every morning unless I am buddy-buddy with the Chief, in which case I will show up around 0930 hours.


I vow to hone my coffee cup handling skills to the point that I can stand up in a kayak being tossed around in a typhoon, and still not spill a drop.


I consent to being promoted and subsequently busted at least twice per fiscal year. I realize that, once selected for Chief, I am required to submit myself to the sick, and quite possibly illegal, whims of my new-found "colleagues."





So help me Neptune.



in the name of honor and fairness, here's the real one:


I,_________,do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

i bid on a used imac today. i can't really afford it, but the idea of having a completely new type of system to play with is intriguing. i probably won't win (i only bid $400, and that's all i'm going to do), but it is a really cool system. it's not one of the new imacs, but neat nonetheless.

something kind of strange happened today. i had just arrived home from work and kelli had not left for work yet. we were talking when i heard some one knocking on our side door (something that doesn't happen very often). it was one of our neighbors (who we had never met), asking to borrow some coffee. in my life, i can remember very few times when neighbors stopped by to borrow something. most of the time it was mom and dad's neighbor lonnie, who used to borrow tools from dad (he restored cars as a hobby). it just harkened me back to the days when neighbors actually knew each other, and i realized the we don't know any of our neighbors very well. i don't plan on changing that, but it makes me a little sad. oh, i did give her the coffee.

i made a real find last night. i went with kelli out to the ius library to check out the books on pt boats that i had found on my internet search (see earlier post). i rounded up the books in about fifteen minutes and started paging through them. all of them, without exception, had been donated by a local couple. their address is in clarksville, one town over from where we live. my first thought was that they are/were wealthy people who made a large donation to the school at some time and all the books are some sort of honorary donation made with their money. in front of one of the books, i found a picture that had been taped there. it was of a group of unshaven, half-dressed men standing on the bow of a pt boat. i read the names in the caption and BAM, there was the man’s name!!! he had been on a pt boat during operations off new guinea in 1943. and there he is, in clarksville, probably in his eighties. i even have his mailing address.


so here’s my problem: should i write to this guy and ask to talk to him? what if i write and he’s been dead for several years? what if i write and he’s bitter and lonely? what if i tell him i’m writing a book and he slams the door in my face? of course, what if i do nothing?


the 19th amendment to the constitution was adopted today in 1920. it guarantees the right of americans to vote, regardless of sex. it’s hard to believe that women could not vote in this nation before 1920. of course, some people point out that if you take the female vote out of the equation, bill clinton would still be smoking pot and raping women in arkansas instead of making a nuisance of himself in harlem as a former two-termer. go figure.


here’s something interesting to ponder: what if god is a function of time? i mean, everything in the universe revolves around time---mountains rise and fall, rivers dry up and form, we are born and die, etc., etc. just a thought.

team from louisville wins the little league world series....oh yeah!!!

the council of nicaea concluded on this day in 325. those of you who aren't catholic may want to skip this part. if you have ever been to a catholic mass, you have heard the nicaean creed. you know, 'i believe in god, the father, the almighty, creator of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen...' anyway, that creed was written during that council in 325. think about that---a creed that is nearly 1700 years old. the thing that weirds me out is that the council was called to answer some issues that had arisen concerning christ's divinity (or lack thereof). it was one of those pivotal moments in history. christianity could've been very, very different today. this brings forth a question: how do we know that the christian church, catholic and protestant, is following the path of christ? i mean, look at how many times there have been meetings, councils and synods that have produced 'truths' that automatically became articles of faith. then again, how do we know truth? should we pray for revelation? how can we be sure that any revelation we might receive could be something our subconcious invented for our own benefit? these are the things i wonder about.


sorry to get so deep there.

well, well, well....flyin' to the big d for $125. thank you, mr. gore for inventing the internet.


vesuvius erupted today in 79a.d., burying the city of pompeii.

got a call this afternoon from several of the texas crew. they were riding back from a long 'lunch' at a local establishment and had thought to give me a call (well, at least p. thought to call, although my name probably came up and someone said 'call that bastard'). it does my heart good to hear them together (not the whole gang, but a good representation) like it used to be. i suppose this says something about me that i worry about a group of men a thousand miles away, but i do care deeply about them and i want them all to be happy. and i know they are happy when they are together, even though i don't know if they always realize it. i need to get down there sooner rather than later. but there are so many people around the country who i need to see that i almost feel guilty when i go to dallas instead of l.a. or washington. once again, i guess that says something about my psyche.


i had a rather strange experience last evening. i was paying some bills with a felt-tipped pen that came with my cd-burner. i kept smelling an odor that i couldn't quite place. it became so noticeable that i had to stop what i was doing to investigate. as you may have guessed, it was the pen. the odor was the odor of alcohol that you might smell on someone's breath after they have been drinking for a while. the weird part of the story is how the smell affected me---i felt comforted by it. it was almost as if i had consumed a drink or two, just enough to take the edge off. as some of you know, my mother's father was an alcoholic. he died a decade before i was born, but i wonder if the genes have been passed on. i drink very rarely, but, when i do, i almost always get drunk. they told us in the navy that this was a sign of someone with a drinking problem; in other words, bingeing was as bad as drinking every day. is there something to this? i definitely believe in alcoholism as a disease, but i have never considred it in such personal terms. hmmm.

today in 1851, the yacht 'america' beat 22 british yachts and won a large silver cup that later became known as the 'america's cup'. the yacht was soon sold to an irish sailor who renamed the it 'camilla'. the ship was bought during the civil war by the confederate navy and used as a blockade runner. it was sunk by the u.s. navy, then raised by them and used as a training ship. it was eventually sold, fell into disrepair and was sold in pieces.

i just found out that the indiana university library system has an extensive collection of books about pt boat operations during world war two. yes!!!

the american bar association was formed today in 1878. it's been all downhill since. 'first, let's kill all the lawyers'.

wil wheaton, who some of you will remember as wesley crusher on 'star trek: the next generation', has a really cool weblog i found today (well, i was actually directed to it). it's very personal and real, a switch from so many celebrity blogs out there that are just promotion tools. of course, wil doesn't work all that much anymore, so he probably has less to lose by being himself. he was talking about having his scene cut from the upcoming 'star trek' film (supposedly the last with this cast), which makes for a good read.


so our ford focus was vandalized last night. someone ripped the entire mirror assembly off the driver side door and threw it in our yard. the mirror itself was in the street, so the physics involved ruled out impact from an automobile (the car was otherwise untouched). i filed a police report and called our insurance agency (to whom i owe an eternal debt of gratitude), only to find out that vadalism is covered under comprehensive, thus there is no deductible. kelli is livid over the whole thing, but i am less angry because i can't focus my anger on a person. i am going to talk to some of the neighborhood kids, though, and see if anyone saw anything. i figure that a couple benjamins pushed someone's way may loosen lips. then.....well, we'll just see what happens then.

george noory, filling in for art bell, has a guest on talking about (gasp!) the giant government conspiracy surrounding alien visitations of earth. it always amazes me that they people who call in to the show during these discussions are always people who are on the fringes of society (no computer, borrowing a phone, living in parent’s basement). could it be that they believe their lives are crap because someone (big brother, a shadow government, the u.n.) is holding them back? if there is no invisible hand, their life choices would be their responsibility. and we just can’t have that.


are there beings on other planets? undoubtedly. are they coming to visit us? i don’t know, but my first impression says no. why haven’t more reputable people seen ufos? are they afraid to come forward as the conspiracy buffs believe? why hide from us? if they can travel from distant stars, then they would have the technology to keep us at bay or destroy us. so why be so secretive?


today in 1987, the dow jones industrial average reached a record high of 2772. that was the height of the 80’s stock boom, fueled by junk bonds and trunk-loads of china white. but think: it was only 15 years ago. yesterday, the djia closed at 8872, over THREE TIMES its 1987 level. wow.

so i started on the book. wow. only the first thousand or so words, but it’s the first few pages that are the hardest. i want to have a finished manuscript by christmas. let’s hope so.


i was listening last night to a woman who was talking about eq vs. iq. iq, as you probably know, is how intelligence is measured in our society. it is based on language skills and reasoning. this woman’s assertion is that a) there are different kinds of intelligence and b) a child’s emotional health and their ability to relate well to others has as much to do with how they do in life as their iq. i agree.


this brings me to a disturbing trend that i am noticing more and more: parents pushing their children, male and female, to be “alpha” personalities on the grounds they will be more successful if they are willing to win at all costs. while this may lead to success, it also leads to a host of other problems---adolescent rebellion and general assholeishness later in life. many people who have never been in real management positions do not understand that empathy and understanding go a long way towards success as well. beginning every sentence with ‘i’ may get you noticed, but it will not earn you respect, and respect is what keeps you around when everyone else is on the street with their last paycheck.

time magazine article about how tight the clinton administration was with enron executives. read the whole thing, especially the part about the enormous campaign contribution they made to clinton for the '96 campaign. so for those of you out there whining about g.w. being in bed with 'big oil'----go blow it out your ass. of course, most of you who harp on bush don't know what you're talking about in the first place, so why am i surprised?

tim robbins and susan sarandon don't think we should invade iraq. i'm so glad they decided to comment on it, i could just scream. all our foreign policy decisions should come from hollyweird. in fact, let's make martin sheen president and let aaron sorkin write his speeches. i mean, why not? i'm sure 'west wing' draws more people than ever watch cnn or fox news, so let' stop kidding ourselves. we'll have tryouts for the oval office, a beauty pagent for first lady. then, we'll have a contest on mtv to determine who gets to round out the first family. then, we'll follow them around with camera and let ozzie osbourne do running commentary. 'i,i,i, think that the president is going to you know, you know, ahhh.....f*ck, sharrrrrooooonnnnnnn!!! this f*ckin' dog is sh*tting on the caaaarpet!'


speaking of lucky sperm, i read today that lisa marie pressley cage wants to move back to graceland. no wonder nicholas c. wanted to marry her....it's all about the house, dude.

i have to give a shout out to my wife, who is now sound asleep. i finally told her the whole plot of the book and she threw in some great tips. there is a relationship between our hero and 'a girl back home' that i am using as a communication device between him and his estranged father. it is not a love affair (although there will be an implied sexual connection of some type), but it is important to the story. kelli was great in pointing out some of my flaws in handling their relationship on paper. it has given a side to the story that i never considered. thank you, dear---i wouldn't be doing it without you.

paintball today. normally it's an every-other-saturday thing, but none of us can go next weekend and today was the last day to really practice before we go to pennsylvania in september. i haven't talked much about paintball here; it's great fun and i enjoy it immensely. d.d., the guy who's kind of our 'captain', is very, very good, but the rest of us are all heart. i see myself getting better with each session, however, and today we played with an honest-to-god sponsored team. it was a great learning experience.


so i start writing the war novel tomorrow. it's been almost exactly a year since i finished editing 'driving the circle' (much to the pain of a dozen or so literary agents). a year! what the f*ck did i do with that year? nothing. nothing. well, that changes tomorrow. and this time, it's a helluva story. i'm pumped.

some coke/pepsi franchisee got the great idea to advertise on himalayian rocks. one day, they will probably have billboards in orbit that you will be able to see from the ground. it's a sunny pepsi day...why? because 20% of the visible sky is festooned with their logo, bozo. i can't wait for the day when we will be paid to have commercials sent to us in our sleep. you'll have 'dreams' about britney spears on the beach with a pepsi. wait.....that happens to me now. forget it.

if i see one more ad for 'blue crush', i am going to shave my legs and buy a surfboard. you heard it here first.

i am once again questioning how my mind works. i was listening to one of those 80's compilations disks and billy idol's version of 'mony, mony' was on it. it made me think of the fall of '87 when the song was really popular. there was this girl (who will remain nameless) who i had an enormous crush on. we would later date for over a year, but, at this point, i was getting nowhere. she didn't drive, so i would often give her rides after school. this one particular day i took her to a mutual friend's house where we grabbed something to eat and sat in the kitchen listening to the radio. the object of my affection was sitting on the table in a short skirt when billy idol came on. she was kind of swaying in place, yelling 'hey, hey, get laid, get f**cked' (this was the cool thing to do then, as i remember). as she moved, i was able to see clearly up her skirt. as an adult, i realize that it was completely innocent: i don't think she knew i had a view and i really didn't see anything unmentionable for very long. but back then, with my adolescent hormones in overdrive, it was as if i was glimpsing something so special that it would blind me if i stared too long. that image was burned into my soft, teenaged brain.


i haven't thought of that day in almost fifteen years. we dated, had a nasty breakup, i went in the navy and her life became a disaster for about five years or so. she and i are both married (happily for me, hopefully happily for her) and dealing with our lives. she crosses my mind from time to time, but not very often and not in the way that it did so many years ago. but hearing that song brought back that moment so clearly that it seems as if it happened yesterday. it almost makes me feel guilty.


another thought struck me: until i started dating my wife, EVERY woman i dated was a trainwreck and most of their problems stemmed back to their fathers: they were either gone, alcoholics or just emotionally unavailable. what does this say about me? did i need codependence then? if so, am i over it? kelli's father is one of the finest men i know and i love him as i do my own father. she broke the mold. she loves her father and they are very close. she is fiercely independent and gives me as much space as i need. what changed in me that made our relationship possible? i don't think it was just about growing up, although age seems to have softened me in many ways. i'll have to explore this further at some point.


sorry to be so deep, but this is very theraputic...and a part of me loves to talk about myself. buy you're reading it, so what does that say about you? huh? did you say something?

i wanted to post some pictures of gen. wainwright, but they are huge and really affect the speed at which the page loads. i don' t remember how to resize pictures in html and i am too damn lazy to go look it up. if anyone knows off the top of their head, please drop me an e-mail. i would love to inflict some pics on you.

found a very interesting link to a pt boat history page that has a summary of each squadron and an 'action report' page. if you get a chance, check out what the guys in the phillipines had to put up with after the japanese invaded in december, 1941. it seems like they fought with the boats more often than the japanese. those boats were real maintenance hogs, kind of like high-performance autos today. the guy who commanded the squadron (lt. bukelely [sp.]) planned ahead and hid nine engines in PEOPLE's GARAGES in manila when he realized that the japanese were on the way. imagine waking up to an american naval officer knocking on your door, asking if he can hide this here packard engine in your garage for the time being. and, oh, don't tell the japs. we'll be back for it later.


kelli's parents, brother and sister-in-law are coming over tonight so we can plan a little more in regards to the ireland trip. we will be on the ground for six days with two rental cars, so we want to maximize our time. besides dublin (where kelli's sister will be in school), i definitely want to see galway county, which is where my mom's people are from. it is still pretty rural, with galway being the only real city in the county. it's only about 100 or so miles from dublin, but on the other side of the island. by the way, gas in ireland is $4.50 a gallon or so. i'll never complain about the price of gas here again.


elvis presley died today in 1977. elvis, dead? yeah, right.


today in 1945, lt. gen. jonathan wainright was freed by the russians from a japanese p.o.w. camp in china. he had been the commander of u.s. forces in the phillipines after general macarthur was ordered to leave in 1942. he surrendered to the japanese in may 1942, an act that lead to the bataan death march and years of malnutrition for the 13,000 men under wainright's command. if you look at the pictures of the japanese surrendering aboard the uss missouri in september, 1945, wainright is the guy standing behind macarthur who looks like death warmed over. upon returning to the u.s., he was awarded the medal of honor.

wow. dennis prager just spent an hour speaking with several transsexuals. to clarify: a transsexual is someone who is in the process of the changing their sex through surgery. people who just dress as the opposite sex are transvestites. anyway, it's pretty damn depressing. everyone who called was a man in the process of becoming a woman and almost all of them were from abusive/dysfunctional homes.


i read one time (and i don't know how true this is, so don't quote me) that only 25% percent of post-operation 'women' can have orgasms. now, every female out there reading this knows what it is like to have a sexual encounter without an orgasm. for men, this is nearly unthinkable. orgasms for us are a lot like sneezing---once it's on the way, you have to let it happen. i can only imagine going to the doctor and have him tell me 'there's a 75% chance you will never have another orgasm'. i think i would rather keep the equipment i was born with. i know, very weird topic. i just call 'em like i see 'em.


'the wizard of oz' premiered today in 1939. if not for 'oz', i would not have gone into the nuclear power program, met anyone in texas or married my wife. it's a long story that i'll tell some time.

susan sarandon, blithering idiot. i keep waiting for her and tim robbins to set themselves on fire in protest of something. oh, please, do it soon!

well, i hate to do this (not really), but i have to inflict some of my writing upon you. i have been doing some research on a world war two novel and i almost have the story fleshed out. unlike my first book (‘driving the circle’ and no, you can’t read it, sorry), i believe this one may have more broad appeal.


our story begins in 1938. the main character, who we will call joe for the time being, is in the spring of his senior year of high school. his family survives by running a restaurant/boat harbor on the indiana side of the ohio river near louisville, ky. you have to know that, before world war two, louisville was the largest city in the south. that’s hard to imagine now, but trust me on that.


1938 was not a good year economically. america was still recovering from the depression, so running a business catering to boat owners was not a very good choice. however, joe’s father (a very overbearing, angry man) had hit on a plan that paid the bills even in the worst of times: dock-to-dock valet service. most of the people who owned boats of significant size lived in louisville so, in order to attract business, joe and his dad would deliver people’s boats to them on the kentucky side of the river. to make a long story short, joe becomes very, very good at small boat handling.


but joe is troubled. it bothers him that his father, who used to be a very honorable man, has had to belittle himself in order to keep the business of people who, in joe’s eyes, have not suffered from the effects of the depression. to him, the old-money people his father caters to are snobs and elitists and look on men like his father as servants. but joe also realizes that his life is going to end up just like his father’s unless he can break free and go to college. to this end, he applies for a spot at the naval academy. he is accepted into the next class, which will be the class of 1942.


after having a big falling out with his father (he tells his dad that he, joe, deserves more than to cater to rich people the rest of his life) and being told by his girlfriend that she will not wait for him, joe leaves for annapolis. he leaves with nothing.


four years goes by. world war two starts in europe in 1939 and america enters the war in 1941. by the time joe graduates in 1942, the world is at war. joe has grown into a gentleman and a naval officer, schooled in the old ways of a navy that no longer exists. the navy that joe is serving in is no longer a small service dominated by a small cadre of career officers. it is now a citizen navy made of men who are, to him, nothing more than civilians who have been given uniforms. joe, in the hope of making a name for himself, volunteers for service in pt boats, the small wooden attack boats that served all over the world during the war.


wow....i covered about three chapters there. i’ll try to continue this later if i get a chance. there will be plot spoilers.

the navy is leasing cargo ships to carry equipment to the middle east. this is how it begins. it's depressing to me that the military has to lease ships from foreign countries to accomplish heavy sealift. oh, well.

the battle of britain began today in 1940. it was entirely an air battle begun by germany, who were trying to soften up english defenses in preperation for the invasion of southern england (called operation sea lion). on this first day, the germans set out to destroy british radar installations, but failed miserably. because they lost so many planes, the germans decided to leave the radar stations alone. this one error in judgement did more to lose the war for germany than any other factor in that first year of the war. because they had radar, the british knew when the germans were coming and were able to make best use of the their smaller air force. the germans were never able to invade england because the could not defeat the royal air force. plans for operation sea lion were dismantled in the fall of 1940, and hitler turned his attention to the invasion of the soviet union in may, 1941.


would germany have won the war by successfully invading england? possibly. the exiled governments of france, poland and england would have retreated to canada and continued the fight from there. the u.s. would have had to establish a front line somewhere else (iceland or africa) and england would have been bombed by the allies just as france, italy and germany were. i believe the chances are very good that a fragile peace would have been established with the germans. that seems unthinkable today, but you have to remember that, before pearl harbor, most americans had no interest in getting involved in what was considered a 'european problem'. had the japanese not attacked pearl harbor, we would have never gone to war.

there's an interesting story on the drudge report reporting that someone in lebanon received a report from a 'diplomatic source' stating that, when we invade iraq, we will seize other arab airports by force. uhuh. and this one time, at band camp, i heard they were going to bring the starship enterprise out of mothballs and take out the iraqs with phasers and photon torpedoes. uhuh.

everyone needs a .50 caliber machine gun that hides in the bed of your truck. i'm trying to figure out what kind of environment would necessitate having something like this. i mean, if the neighborhood is that bad, ride around with the damn thing mounted on your hood like those animals in somalia do. look how well it worked for them.

nothing really, really interesting happened today in history. one history note, however: if you are at home at 8PM EST, tune in to the history channel and watch 'mail call' it's a show hosted by r. lee ermey, the guy who was the drill instructor in 'full metal jacket' (you know---'did you parents have any children that lived?' 'yes, sir' 'i bet they regret that!'). anyway, the show consists of him answering questions of a military nature that people send into the history channel. it's pretty interesting and i find ermey to be pretty entertaining. he has his own web site (i don't remember the address off-hand), which states that he spent eleven years in the marines before being discharged for wounds received in vietnam. evidently, he wanted to make a career of it. instead, he has made a career of being a marine on the screen. funny thing is, he's only fifty-eight. i thought he was at least seventy.

wow....haven't posted anything since friday. it's been a pretty busy weekend with paintball, the radio show, etc. i was going to post last night because kell and e went to indy to see dave matthews and i was veggin' in front 'o the idiot box, something i almost never do. anyway, i fell asleep about ten, so no post. we are getting ready to go out as i write this, but i will crank out some wordage tonight.


by the way, i wanted to thank the few of you who wrote concerning my posting about the texas gang. i feel better for having you guys in my life, but, of course, i didn't hear from the people central to the issue. i know, i know: why don't you just call them and tell them, matt? because it's not that easy and those of you who live there know it. that's why i have to vent my frustrations here. but thank you for reading and please encourage others to do so. it does my heart good.

the mirror in london predicts that we will go into iraq on november 6 of this year. no way, no how. no wonder the british lost their empire.

worldcom finds $3.3 billion more in accounting errors. why can’t i ever find that kind of money in my sofa cushions?


we went to dinner last night with j and e at hooters and had a great time as usual. we were laughing about some of our funnier ‘party days’ experiences, and i told them about talking to an old friend at g.h.’s party in texas last new year’s eve when he interrupted me by asking, ‘would you like to talk about this over a bowl?’ i still laugh every time i think about it.


of course, telling stories about texas always saddens me a little bit now. my two years there were some of the worst of my life---kelli and i were apart, i was broke and i was homesick. but on the other hand, i was surrounded by people who i truly considered a family. they were unique in ways i could never explain and i felt invincible when i was around them. even when i moved back to indiana, i was comforted by the fact that i was still a member of the group, only removed by a thousand miles. i was still there in spirit, still a topic of conversation, still relevant in that corner of the world. every visit there was a sweet, sweet experience, further reinforcing my belief that this combination of people was like none other.


those times are gone now and i can’t do anything to bring them back. the greatest travesty is that our little band of brothers wasn’t broken up by the normal ravages of adulthood: marriage, children, career. our group is broken because of feelings of self-aggrandizement and compensation for things gone wrong in the past. when kelli and i visited in january, the cracks were already there and i knew it. they put on a good show for me, but the end was near. by the time of my visit in april for the nascar race, it was obvious that the show was over. by june, the hostility was almost overt. nothing i could say would heal the wounds because i didn’t cause them.


i have four pictures on my desk at work. one is a photo of kelli and i on our wedding day; another is a picture of us on our anniversary last year; the third is a picture of some of the guys from my nuc school class on the day of our graduation in 1991. the last picture was taken during p and l’s wedding reception in may, 2001 in dallas. it’s a photo of the ‘gang’ as we were at that time. most of us have cigars and all of us are drunk. i can’t look at it without hurting. it wasn’t just about partying and scamming and wrestling over football on sudays---it was about true brotherly love and i know that, besides my immediate family, i will never have it again. ‘that thing is gone, that thing is gone—it will come back no more.’

these guys are attempting to fly a 'real' model airplane across the atlantic from newfoundland to ireland. at last check, they were still waiting for a break in the weather. they have four planes, in case they don't make it on the first try. the planes will fly at 500 feet, which is lower than any full-sized plane and taller than any ship. a crew in ireland will meet the plan to land it manually in a bog. cool, cool, hobby.

i have to wonder sometimes how my brain works. you probably wonder, too. don’t tell me; i really don’t want to know how weird you think i am. anyway, i was reading dlp’s blog and he made reference to erin gray at a convention in san diego that he attended. hmmmm...erin gray? why do i know that name?


‘buck rogers in the 25th century’ is the short answer. she played colonel wilma deerin and man, she was a hottie. i was pre-pubescent at the time, so her hotness passed right by me. the show, however, captivated me. it was set in the 2490’s, almost five hundred years after earth had been ravaged by the inevitable nuclear war between nato and the warsaw pact. civilization was incredibly advanced, but earth was a wreck, so everyone lived in domed cities with names like ‘new chicago’ and ‘new los angeles’. i don’t know how they handled new york and new orleans.


the show was only on for two seasons (79-80 or so), but it seemed like it was on forever. however, two years in my life at the time represented about 20% of my time on earth, so i guess it was on seemingly forever. but, man, was it cool. earth was at war with some alien race that had this huge mothership, but in the second season all that was worked out and buck and wilma were sent out on this big ship to search for other humans. it’s amazing to me that i can remember any of this. at some point, they were joined by a guy dressed up as a hawk. gary coleman was in a few episodes as a child genius who was from the 20th century and had frozen himself before the nuclear war began. calling all nerds.


if i had one of these, i would become an even bigger white blob than i already am.


so i heard an interview with esai morales last night. evidently, he is an actor on nypd blue. i’ll take his word for it. anyway, he was saying that the worst thing to come out of 9/11 was the cancellation of ‘politically incorrect’ because, among other things, bill maher insinuated that terrorists are brave and american soldiers aren’t because we can kill from miles away. tell it to the special forces, a**hole. but i digress.


esai grew up in puerto rico, which means that he did not pay federal income taxes but had every other right reserved for american citizens. despite this, he believes that islamic terrorists act they way they do because ‘they don’t have a voice in our society’. one question, esai (please take your time and think before you answer): should they have a voice? should anti-semites and racists have a voice? should child molesters have a voice? how about rapists? how evil do you have to be before you lose your ‘right’ to ‘have a voice’? to clarify: there are several arab news organizations which do a pretty good job of voicing the opinion of every terrorist group in the middle east. where do you think the videos of osama bin laden come from?


i am becoming increasingly tired of being inundated with the hollywood left’s opinion on everything. if you are an actor or singer or whatever, listen up: you are an entertainer, a clown, a court jester. your opinion is not any more relevant than mine because you can act or have big boobs or a great looking face. just because you are a media darling does not make you intelligent (this especially applies to cher, julia roberts, aaron sorkin, alec baldwin and barbara streisand) or an expert on foreign policy. you are an expert in the arts, not social policy. your little corner of the world is a freakish aberration that, unfortunately, people like to stare at.

i wanted to write about this yesterday, but i didn’t get the chance. august 6th was the 57th anniversary of the destruction of hiroshima by an atomic bomb. 80,000 people were killed as a direct result of the blast and another 35,000 were injured. by the end of 1945, another 60,000 would be dead as a result of the radioactive fallout. pretty gruesome, you say? immoral, you say? well, let me introduce you to the alternative. i promise you didn’t learn about this in history class, especially if you went to a public institution.


the planned invasion of japan was called operation downfall. why invade japan, you ask? because they would not surrender. japan had seen her navy destroyed along with good portions of her army and air force. however, japan had not been successfully invaded in over four centuries and the powers-that-be in tokyo believed that they were protected by god from such a calamity ever occurring. therefore, the allies would be beaten back on the beaches, the country would be saved from shame and japan could go living as an aggressor in asia. but i digress.


the invasion would take place in two phases: operation olympic (an invasion of the southern japanese islands) and operation coronet (an invasion of the the tokyo plain, which is the area around tokyo). 500,000 men would be landed on the beaches in the first operation. the second invasion would have included the ENTIRE marine corps (that’s six divisions) and 90% of the ships in the u.s. navy at that time. this does not include what the russians would have contributed by invading from the north (they declared war on japan in early august, 1945).


total allied losses? probably 250,000 men. that’s more men than had been lost by the united states in the whole war up to that point. the japanese air force still had something in the neighborhood of 5,000 planes, all of them kamikazes in the making. the entire japanese population had been moblized to fight, many of them with bamboo sticks. that’s 100 million people. let me put this in perspective: if you are injured or die in combat, you are awarded a purple heart medal. the department of war (as it was then known) ordered so many purple hearts for the invasion of japan that the medals from that batch are STILL being used today. korea, vietnam, the gulf war, haiti, somalia, afghanistan; that’s a lot of injuries spread out over almost sixty years. if you have a grandfather/uncle/dad/whatever who served in the pacific during world war two, he would have taken part in this invasion---and there’s about a fifty percent chance that he would not have lived through it.


japanese losses? that’s hard to say. some estimates say as many as a million. japanese civilians had already shown that they were willing to fight and die as fanatically as their countrymen in the imperial army. during the invasion of saipan in 1944, thousands of women and children threw themselves off cliffs instead of surrendering to the marines. the japanese population had been taught that the americans were murderers and rapists. ironically, it was the japanese who raped and mutilated thousands of chinese women and held korean women as sex slaves. never believe your own propaganda.


let’s get something straight: all wars are crimes. they point to the worst in humans---greed, jealousy, hate. but we did not start the war against japan, despite what the revisionists try to tell us. the two atomic bombs we used in japan in 1945 did more for humanity and for civilization than any act of violence in the history of man. imagine a divided japan or an america that had to fight a war of attrition in japan until 1947. while unleashing those weapons was horrible, the alternative is almost unthinkable.

interesting upi story concerning how many wars start during the late days of summer in the northern hemisphere. as much of a history buff as i am, i never really paid attention to that. i don't agree with the conclusion, however; i think it's probably more about weather than anything.


i have not been having much luck finding detailed information concerning pt boat operations during world war two. there are a few detailed websites, but none of them deal with missions or real history. the majority of them are frontpages for non-profit organizations seeking to restore old boats, of which there only seems to be about 20 or so still afloat. this is pretty sad considering that hundreds of them were built between '41-'45. the problem is that their hulls were wooden and were therefore susceptible to termites, rot, etc. the navy never intended them to be long-serving craft; in fact, they weren't even given names (just numbers). the ones that survived the pacific war were run up on a beach in the phillipines and burned in late 1945. some ended up in the hands of the soviets or british or cubans, but almost all the rest are ashes. the ones that were in the u.s. in training squadrons were mostly sold to civilians or small countries, and those account for most of the ones still in this country. i was working out in the yard today and laughing at the thought of restoring one and taking it out on the ohio river. the ones built at the end of the war were eighty feet long and powered by three 1200hp engines. what a sight! my dad said that, right after the war, someone in louisville had one that had been stripped down and made into a racing boat. you could hear it from miles away. so much for stealth.


by the way this happens to me at least once a week. hey, at least i'm gettin' it.


so i'm still fleshing out the storyline for the book, but the premise will involve a kid from indiana who gets an appointment to go to the naval academy in 1938. he graduates in 1942, six months after pearl harbor. he volunteers for pt boats yadda, yadda, yadda. the book will be about his coming of age during the war, but i want to explore something a little different. i think we all know people who are successful in life only because they were constantly seeking someone else's approval. well, what if you did and became exactly what was expected of you and then the person whose approval you most wanted was gone? and, to top it off, what if you lost this person at a time in your life when you most needed him? would you continue to care about your future? would you continue to strive for excellence? hmmm.


someone needs some anger management counseling

i've noticed that the blogger post page doesn't work well in any brower beside internet explorer. tsk, tsk----someone has been playing with frontpage again. anyway, it doesn't really matter; m$ is once again dominating a market.


i forgot to mention earlier that today in 1990, president bush condenmed the iraqi invasion of kuwait. i remember this clearly because, at that press conference, a reporter asked him what the u.s. was going to do. his response was: "watch, listen, learn".

marilyn monroe was found dead today in 1962. she was 36, which seems very young to me now.

ted turner is in a land dispute in south carolina over some land that some people bought for public use 82 years ago. i find it funny, yet infuriating, that turner (the largest landowner in the nation) is an avowed socialist. hey, ted: how about giving it back to the people, you self-righteous hypocrite? my sincere hope for him is that he is incredibly lonely in his old age.

you know, i don't like to poke fun at the president because i do respect him a great deal, but damn this picture has rectal exam written all over it.


today in 1958, the uss nautilus became the first submarine to travel under the geographic north pole. the nautilus, by the way, was the first nuclear-powered submarine. commander anderson, the captain of the nautilus at the time, wrote a very interesting book about the experience. in it, he talked about his interview with hyman rickover, the 'father' of the nuclear navy and the man who interviewed every potential nuc sub skipper. rickover's first two questions were, 'what were the last five books you read?'. anderson responded; rickover had read all of them and discussed them in depth. the second question was, 'i see you graduated fifth in you class at the academy. were you lazy or just stupid?' anderson, always proud of his achievements at the naval academy, was bowled over. but that was rickover and that's why he got the job done.

iraq invaded kuwait today in 1990. i was in the navy at the time, stationed in orlando. one of my roommates, dave robertson, had a small tv, a rarity in the barracks. that night, we just happened to have the eleven o'clock news on when the news of the invasion was broadcast. robertson turned to me and said 'what do you think is going to happen over there?' my response was timeless and makes me laugh to this day: 'ahhh, it'll all blow over. now turn down the tv 'cause i'm goin' to bed.' ms. cleo's got nothing on me.

column by a young conservative that nails it right on the head. go read it and give this guy some encouragement. we need more like him.

i just heard ari fleischer, white house press secretary, state that corporate executives who violate the law would be looking at long streches in the 'pokey'. look, i know the guy means well, but can't we use english as it was meant to be spoken? 'pokey' isn't even a real word. if he got up there and said, 'those ding dang ole boys ain't never gonna get outta the big house', i could at least write him off to as someone who grew up in a swamp in louisiana. but he's a very well educated guy---ari, play the part, buddy.

my post from last night has not shown up yet. maybe this will help catch it up.

i'm trying, a little at a time, to do some reasearch on pt boats during world war two. pt boats were basically wooden speed boats (70-80 feet in length) armed with machine guns, rocket launchers and torpedoes. they served in just about every theatre of the war, but i am mainly interested in operations near new guinea and the phillipines from 1943-45. my interest in all this started when i was 11 with a book called 'torpedo run', written by a man named robb white. my research on white has turned up little more than the fact that he was a graduate of the naval academy and served in the war. anyway, the book was about a pt boat operating off the coast of new guinea in 1943. i found an old copy on amazon and bought it, figuring that it might bear rewriting as a screenplay. while the subject matter was very adult and even touched on the morphine addiction of the boat's captain, there wasn't enough story there without some serious embellishment. i read the whole thing in one treadmill session at work.


lately, i have come to the conclusion that an amazing story could be written about the crew of one of these boats. the cast of characters would be small (fourteen men was a normal crew), the action intense and the story possibilities limitless. one interesting thing about the pt's was how young the crews were. almost all the captains (most of them junior-grade lieutenants) were in their early twenties and their crews were no older. losses were terrible; most summaries i have read put the number at over ten percent. and, contrary to popular belief among naval enthusiasts, not all the men were volunteers. i have a decent story in mind, but it hasn't been fully fleshed out yet. we shall see.


i'm listening to dennis prager talk about a war with iraq. it's coming, kids, but not till after the first of the year. this time, we will go to bahgdad...bet on it.


world war one began today in 1914. the 'war to end all wars' would not end until over 20 million human beings were dead, many of them due to imcompetent leadership. coincidentally, i just finished reading 'the great gatsby' (f. scott fitzgerald), which is, more or less, about a tragic love affair begun in louisville during the war that ended five years later on long island in new york. if you ever want to get a good grasp on the social scene of the twenties, pick up 'gatsby' or 'babylon revisited', which is a collection of fitzgerald's short stories written between 1919 and 1931. my favorite story of his is 'winter dreams', which was required reading during our junior year of high school. it is a pretty simple story about a young man who falls tragically in love (see a pattern here?) with a girl who would really not allow herself to be loved. the man eventually moves on with his life only to find, years later, that the love of his life was trapped in a loveless marriage. i memorized the last paragraphs of the story and it's one of the few things from high school that is still with me ( i did have to look it up to get it exactly right instead of paraphrasing):


' He had thought that having nothing else to lose he was invulnerable at last--but he knew that he had just lost something more, as surely as if he had married Judy Jones and seen her fade away before his eyes.

The dream was gone. Something had been taken from him. In a sort of panic he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and tried to bring up a picture of the waters lapping on Sherry Island and the moonlit veranda, and gingham on the golf-links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck's soft down. And her mouth damp to his kisses and her eyes plaintive with melancholy and her freshness like new fine linen in the morning. Why, these things were no longer in the world! They had existed and they existed no longer.

For the first time in years the tears were streaming down his face. But they were for himself now. He did not care about mouth and eyes and moving hands. He wanted to care, and he could not care. For he had gone away and he could never go back any more. The gates were closed, the sun was gone down, and there was no beauty but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of illusion, of youth, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished.

"Long ago," he said, "long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more."