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Just thought you might like to see a very short video of the debris clean up on my street. The clean up crew got here yesterday, the 14th day after. But they’ve been working all over Houston and I’m not sure when the clean up actually started. The first 4 photos were taken by our across the street neighbor. Can you see the blue tarp on the house down the street in the clean up photos? Their tree knocked down the big tree in the photos after it bounced off their roof. And I say again, damn we were lucky.
Another one by Tommy Cox. Tommy spent many a month on various boats during his 20 year career as a Navy spook. In fact, he qualified on USS LAPON in 1968. If you know what I’m talking about you’ve probably heard Tommy. If you don’t know what a spook was/is in the Navy just rest assured they would ride the boats doing special chores. He mentions damn near every submarine hang out in the world in this one. He was giving a concert in Groton last year and he let Ken Johnson video the concert. And Ken is now working on making a DVD of the event. Below this video are links to the other songs he performed that day. These links were posted on Martini’s BBS by Don Ward. Enjoy.
“Frenchie” www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ02byB4XF4
“The Dives We’ve Known” www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpR3bAI3QfE
“Dark Eyes (Ochi chyornye)” www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCIW7IoANdE
Tango Charlie www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjHHIMLkfn4
These Eyes www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xcdvKovTWM
Diesel Boats Forever www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzevwOg4ESg
Bring The Nautilus Home www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qWCrL5L3AM
Blind Mans Bluff www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9OKYQQM5ns
Seawolf www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMGWu_LKy54
Torpedo In The Water www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGnmB8PvfzI
Navy SEALs www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftlLgE8cHyM
Still On Patrol www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dIr5dWes9E
Scorpion www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj3Iey0cmhw
Mamas Dont Let Your Babies Grow Up To Ride Boomers www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP6DmIyAetQ
Big Black Submarine www.youtube.com/watch?v=_91lUQIhEYw
Run Silent Run Deep www.youtube.com/watch?v=64gO6kRKMus
Kursk www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdsjDR-6IF0
Ballad Of Whitey Mack www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaKexkrzBNk
Paybacks Are Hell www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tL6PsMoqh8
TC Commercial www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6EmY52TM9A
Today’s my 50th Submarine Qualification anniversary. En route for Pearl from WesPac I told the qual officer, Lt Durbin, on the 7th that I was ready. He had me meet him on the bridge that night on the 2000 X 2400. He kept me up there answering questions for nearly 4 hours. The The waves were just bad enough to come up through the bridge deck. I was soaking wet from the waist down. He then told me to meet him in the FTR at 0800 the next morning. By 1130 I was a live an’ kickin’ ginuwine qualified submariner. Damn it felt good.
What felt better was getting to give a non-qual Ltjg that reported aboard the week I did a bad time. But that’s another story. The photo below was taken at an inspection shortly after we returned and just before entering PHNSY. The skipper is just kinda pretending to pin ‘em on. I know Jim Duke qualified on that trip back to Pearl also. And I’ve seen a photo of him taken on the same day as this one.
Well, we lost another one last night. Just do a Google News search for several articles about him. I always had mixed feelings about him. Sometimes I really enjoyed watching him and other times I kinda wondered how he ever got a job acting. But I guess I’m that way about most actors so it doesn’t say anything about Heston’s talent. And he was talented.
And we recently watched Solyent Green and last week I recorded the first three ape movies. May have an ape marathon tonight.
I do think he was a great NRA president, in spite of what the basement babies on KOS are saying. What a living pile of dog shit those people are. I won’t link to that bunch of ass wipes so if you have a desire to self-flagellate your brain, look it up.
I believe most old diesel boat enginemen have experienced a fireball flying into the After Engine Room from the cubicle in Maneuvering. It would certainly scare the shit out of you. And I had one chase me up out of the lower flats one time on SPRINGER when I was down there lighting off the auxiliary engine to check it out. The auxiliary was between #3 and #4 main engines. And not a hell of a lot of room to run from a fireball flying out of the generator. Below is a photo of the lower flats looking aft between #3 on the left and the auxiliary on the right. With about 5 feet to stand up in. This photo is from the USS PAMPANITO web site. Go there and take a virtual tour. They have a choice of regular old photos or a Quicktime tour that lets you turn in a 360 in the compartment.
The video below was made on the museum boat USS SILVERSIDES. There is a lot of repetition and slow motion of the fire balls but you’ll get the idea. And turn the volume all the way up and it still won’t be as loud as the engines are really. 120+ dBs. Conversation was impossible. And I guess that may be a major factor in my tinitus.
I know all of you have either received them or know someone who has. A friend just had their number changed because they got tired of giving the hours WalMart was open. Another friend got tired of asking if they wanted fries with that burger. Everyone you know has a telephone story about themselves, a relative, a good friend, etc. Well, here’s ours.
Way back in sittyawttree I was a highly paid, highly skilled chemical plant operator who enjoyed the benefits of rotating shift. Off during the middle of the week which made for great Christmas shopping. One 4 day weekend every month. The only weekend by the way. But it was a long one. Missing all the traffic because not many folks are going to work or coming home around 6 am, 3 pm or 11 pm. And spending the day with 3 (at the time) boys ranging from 2 to 5 years old. And trying to get enough sleep to make it through another graveyard shift that night. At least we only worked 7 of them and then rotated. Anyway, you get the picture.
Now we had 2 phones. One in the living room and one in the bedroom. And they were hardwired to the wall so I couldn’t unplug the bedroom one. I had to turn the ringydingythingy down. So, you can imagine how unhappy we would both get when an unwanted call came in. So, we asked for a new number and wanted it unlisted. Feeling good about that new unlisted number. Now I can sleep.
One afternoon Mrs Myron had taken the boys somewhere and I was sitting there reading the paper. Phone rang. A nice gentleman on the other end asked if I would like to subscribe to the Houston Chronicle. Told him “no thanks. I take it now. By the way, how’d you get this number’?” It’s right there in the phone book he says. Howard on Halifax Street. “Oh yeah. Thanks.” Damn phone company. Another Howard must have gotten tired of unsolicited calls.
I of course told Mrs Myron and we contemplated getting another number but decided to tough it out till that one cycled out of the books. I walked in one night off evening shift and she was grinnin’ like a Chessy. What’s up? “Guess what I did?” I have no idea, sweetie. “The phone rang and some guy wanted to sell us some aluminum siding. I told him it sounded like a good thing. He wanted to come show us and I told him sure, when? And then he asked for the address and I told him it’s in the book.” And he said on Halifax, right? and I said “that’s it.” I was so proud of her. She sent a tin man to try to sell aluminum siding to some unsuspecting folks in a brick house. Damn I love that girl!
Just reading a blog entry about an airplane waiting at the gate for a tug to hook up and the tug driver to plug into the com system and the flight engineer would flip the mike on and just say, in a disguised voice, “cockpit” and the co-pilot would respond and then get all bent out of shape because the tug driver would not respond. And then the tug driver would get plugged in and call “cockpit” and the co-pilot would go off on the poor hapless soul.
Jogged a memory loose about the skipper heading aft while we were on the surface. As soon as he cleared the water tight door and was past the galley, Freddy Atwood EN1(SS), the auxillaryman, got on the growler and rang Maneuvering. “Maneuvering” said the junior controller. “Skipper’s headed your way” says Atwood. “Naw, just getting a good cup of coffee in the crews dinette. You guys can relax” says the skipper, Roy B. Cowdrey. Ol’ Atwood ’bout shit a brick.
Well, hope you have yourself a Merry Little Christmas, ya’ll. And here’s a slide show of winter photos accompanied by Diane Krall singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
Please welcome our new granddaiughter Kristen Brianne who arrived on the scene this morning at 9:02. Can’t wait to get my grubby old paws on her. Our travels are somewhat limited now but we’ll probably get there this weekend. And Christmas. Granny’s got some spoilin’ to do. And Gramps too.
Brother Kellen and sister Katherine are happy to have her in the family.
And that’s my baby boy Kelly holding his baby boy Kaden. And baby daughter in law Amy. She’s the only one in that family whose name doesn’t start with a K. Well, Kelly’s first name is actually Myron but Mrs Myron never liked it so he grew up as Kelly.
Don’t worry kids. Granny and gramps will be there soon.
Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow. – Dwight Eisenhower
