Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Jamie Update - 3:50
We had a visit from the neurosurgeon a bit ago and received good news regarding removal of the AVM. Jamie is still being put back together but the prognosis is good. Once they have closed things up she'll get a follow-up angiogram to take a look from the inside and then another MRI. She should be in the unit by early evening.
Jamie is in Surgery - 0820
Greetings All - They trundled Jamie off about 7:30. By now I imagine she is well on the way to being ready to start. Prep involves getting her plugged in to the various IVs and doing some sort of haircut to allow for the incision across the scalp. We have been told that our first update will be upon completion of the "main part" of the surgery - it's unclear when that will be but I'm expecting it to be some hours away.
For now, Suzanne has calmed down after a very teary few moments after they rolled Jamie down the hall. Her sisters Christine and Audra are both here and are providing plenty of distraction. Royce is also on hand, along with a cast of several more. We've pretty much taken over the small waiting room here at Harborview.
I'll update once we get word from the docs.
For now, Suzanne has calmed down after a very teary few moments after they rolled Jamie down the hall. Her sisters Christine and Audra are both here and are providing plenty of distraction. Royce is also on hand, along with a cast of several more. We've pretty much taken over the small waiting room here at Harborview.
I'll update once we get word from the docs.
Friday, February 20, 2009
A Real Touch of Class
Once in a while you come across truly noble, selfless actions. Here is a story that's worth a read:
By TIM DAHLBERG Associated Press Columnist
The coach never considered any other option.
It didn't matter that his DeKalb, Ill., High School basketball team had ridden a bus two and a half hours to get to Milwaukee, then waited another hour past game time to play. Didn't matter that the game was close, or that this was a chance to beat a big city team.
Something else was on Dave Rohlman's mind when he asked for a volunteer to shoot two free throws awarded his team on a technical foul in the second quarter. His senior captain raised his hand, ready to go to the line as he had many times before. Only this time it was different.
"You realize you're going to miss them, don't you?" Rohlman said.
Darius McNeal nodded his head. He understood what had to be done.
It was a Saturday night in February, and the Barbs were playing a nonconference game on the road against Milwaukee Madison. It was the third meeting between the two schools, who were developing a friendly rivalry that spanned two states.
The teams planned to get together after the game and share some pizzas and soda. But the game itself almost never took place.
Hours earlier, the mother of Milwaukee Madison senior captain Johntell Franklin died at a local hospital. Carlitha Franklin had been in remission after a five-year fight with cervical cancer, but she began to hemorrhage that morning while Johntell was taking his college ACT exam.
Her son and several of his teammates were at the hospital late that afternoon when the decision was made to turn off the life-support system. Carlitha Franklin was just 39.
"She was young and they were real close," said Milwaukee coach Aaron Womack Jr., who was at the hospital. "He was very distraught and it happened so suddenly he didn't have time to grieve."
Womack was going to cancel the game, but Franklin told him he wanted the team to play. And play they did, even though the game started late and Milwaukee Madison dressed only eight players.
Early in the second quarter, Womack saw someone out of the corner of his eye. It was Franklin, who came there directly from the hospital to root his teammates on.
The Knights had possession, so Womack called a timeout. His players went over and hugged their grieving teammate. Fans came out of the stands to do the same.
"We got back to playing the game and I asked if he wanted to come and sit on the bench," Womack said during a telephone interview.
"No," Franklin replied. "I want to play."
There was just one problem. Since Franklin wasn't on the pre-game roster, putting him in meant drawing a technical foul that would give DeKalb two free throws.
Though it was a tight game, Womack was willing to give up the two points. It was more important to help his senior guard and co-captain deal with his grief by playing.
Over on the other bench, though, Rohlman wasn't so willing to take them. He told the referees to forget the technical and just let Franklin play.
"I could hear them arguing for five to seven minutes, saying, 'We're not taking it, we're not taking it," Womack said. "The refs told them, no, that's the rule. You have to take them."
That's when Rohlman asked for volunteers, and McNeal's hand went up.
He went alone to the free throw line, dribbled the ball a couple of times, and looked at the rim.
His first attempt went about two feet, bouncing a couple of times as it rolled toward the end line. The second barely left his hand.
The Madison team stood and turned toward the DeKalb bench and started applauding the gesture of sportsmanship. Soon, so did everybody in the stands.
"I did it for the guy who lost his mom," McNeal told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It was the right thing to do."
Franklin would go on to score 10 points, and Milwaukee Madison broke open the game in the second half to win 62-47. Afterward, the teams went out for pizza, two players from each team sharing each pie.
Carlitha Franklin's funeral was last Friday, and the school turned out for her and her son. Cheerleaders came in uniform, and everyone from the principal and teachers to Johntell's classmates were there.
Basketball is a second sport for the 18-year-old Franklin, who says he has had some scholarship nibbles and plans to play football in college. He just has a few prep games left. It hasn't been the greatest season for the team, but they have stuck together through a lot of adversity.
None so good, though, as the moment a team and a player decided there were more important things than winning and having good stats.
By TIM DAHLBERG Associated Press Columnist
The coach never considered any other option.
It didn't matter that his DeKalb, Ill., High School basketball team had ridden a bus two and a half hours to get to Milwaukee, then waited another hour past game time to play. Didn't matter that the game was close, or that this was a chance to beat a big city team.
Something else was on Dave Rohlman's mind when he asked for a volunteer to shoot two free throws awarded his team on a technical foul in the second quarter. His senior captain raised his hand, ready to go to the line as he had many times before. Only this time it was different.
"You realize you're going to miss them, don't you?" Rohlman said.
Darius McNeal nodded his head. He understood what had to be done.
It was a Saturday night in February, and the Barbs were playing a nonconference game on the road against Milwaukee Madison. It was the third meeting between the two schools, who were developing a friendly rivalry that spanned two states.
The teams planned to get together after the game and share some pizzas and soda. But the game itself almost never took place.
Hours earlier, the mother of Milwaukee Madison senior captain Johntell Franklin died at a local hospital. Carlitha Franklin had been in remission after a five-year fight with cervical cancer, but she began to hemorrhage that morning while Johntell was taking his college ACT exam.
Her son and several of his teammates were at the hospital late that afternoon when the decision was made to turn off the life-support system. Carlitha Franklin was just 39.
"She was young and they were real close," said Milwaukee coach Aaron Womack Jr., who was at the hospital. "He was very distraught and it happened so suddenly he didn't have time to grieve."
Womack was going to cancel the game, but Franklin told him he wanted the team to play. And play they did, even though the game started late and Milwaukee Madison dressed only eight players.
Early in the second quarter, Womack saw someone out of the corner of his eye. It was Franklin, who came there directly from the hospital to root his teammates on.
The Knights had possession, so Womack called a timeout. His players went over and hugged their grieving teammate. Fans came out of the stands to do the same.
"We got back to playing the game and I asked if he wanted to come and sit on the bench," Womack said during a telephone interview.
"No," Franklin replied. "I want to play."
There was just one problem. Since Franklin wasn't on the pre-game roster, putting him in meant drawing a technical foul that would give DeKalb two free throws.
Though it was a tight game, Womack was willing to give up the two points. It was more important to help his senior guard and co-captain deal with his grief by playing.
Over on the other bench, though, Rohlman wasn't so willing to take them. He told the referees to forget the technical and just let Franklin play.
"I could hear them arguing for five to seven minutes, saying, 'We're not taking it, we're not taking it," Womack said. "The refs told them, no, that's the rule. You have to take them."
That's when Rohlman asked for volunteers, and McNeal's hand went up.
He went alone to the free throw line, dribbled the ball a couple of times, and looked at the rim.
His first attempt went about two feet, bouncing a couple of times as it rolled toward the end line. The second barely left his hand.
The Madison team stood and turned toward the DeKalb bench and started applauding the gesture of sportsmanship. Soon, so did everybody in the stands.
"I did it for the guy who lost his mom," McNeal told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It was the right thing to do."
Franklin would go on to score 10 points, and Milwaukee Madison broke open the game in the second half to win 62-47. Afterward, the teams went out for pizza, two players from each team sharing each pie.
Carlitha Franklin's funeral was last Friday, and the school turned out for her and her son. Cheerleaders came in uniform, and everyone from the principal and teachers to Johntell's classmates were there.
Basketball is a second sport for the 18-year-old Franklin, who says he has had some scholarship nibbles and plans to play football in college. He just has a few prep games left. It hasn't been the greatest season for the team, but they have stuck together through a lot of adversity.
None so good, though, as the moment a team and a player decided there were more important things than winning and having good stats.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A Brief History of Skipalooza
Back in 2004, my friend Martin and I decided we needed to make a road trip to a ski area. We chose to go to Schweitzer Ski Resort in Idaho - just outside of Sandpoint. The weather was great, we stayed on the mountain and enjoyed a very uncrowded few days. Not a lot of snow that year so a few things were unavailable, but there was more than enough to have a great time. It was so much fun, in fact, that we decided we needed to do the same thing the following year.
In 2005, we headed to Canada, in part to take advantage of the positive (for us) exchange rate. Being fiscally prudent fellows, we saw great advantage in being able to pay seventy bucks for a lift ticket that actually only cost us fifty. In return for that we visited Silver Star - near the B.C town of Vernon, and Big White just outside of Kelowna. It's beautiful country in that central part of the province and the skiing was quite nice. For a second year, snow cover was low and as a result we were unable to get to a number of areas on both mountains. That only means it's just that much more likely we'll return in the future!
It became clear that we'd established a tradition by 2006 so we launched yet another March expedition, once again planning to take advantage of the generous exchange rate. This time we went north to Kamloops B.C. to sample Sun Peaks Resort. I can only say - WOW - there i
s a reason it's called "Sun" Peaks. Fantastic weather as we arrived on the heels of a nasty storm. The snow was cold, dry and fast. We had a very nice condo with an on-deck hottub for muscle therapy. We skied to exhaustion - this place is definitely on the list to re-visit.By 20
07 Bush-o-nomics had eliminated any advantage of the US dollar so we found it possible to make our annual trip to a US destination. We ended up in Montana at The Big Mountain just north of Kalispell. It's since been renamed to Whitefish Mountain Resort - I'm sure the prices went up to go along with that. Day one there was driving rain. The groomers got to the mountain overnight after the rain finally stopped but what we found early the next day - in nice sun - was a beautifully groomed boiler plate beyond anything I've ever encountered. It was like skiing on the deck of an aircraft carrier - except listing at forty degrees to starboard. Eventually it warmed up enough that you could actually set an edge, but in spite of this rock-hard start it proved to be a great trip. We added two new members this year with Rich from Wenatchee and Blake from Boise. The SkiPalooza Crew was growing.For 2008, in the face of continuing financial dominance by the Canadians, we opted for yet another domestic destination. This time it was to be my first trip to Utah, land of the fabled powder. The license plates used to say "the greatest snow on earth". I have to say - it's true. We stayed in a nice suburban condo in Cottonwood Heights - which is really just the most easterm part of Salt Lake City that's shoved into the Wasatch. We skied Brighton, Alta, The Canyons, and Snowbird. I was stunned by how nice it was.
We added my son Zeke this year. Also on the trip for our visit to Snowbird was Justin - a nephew from Salt Lake City. As of 2008 the SkiPalooza Crew was four (and one-half).The Future
This next month we head out for SkiPalooza 2009. We've picked up two new members for this trip - my good friend David from West Seattle, and Blake's father-in-law from Pennsylvania. Because of the incredible time we had last year, we're making an unprecented return to familiar grounds and will be sampling more of the Utah powder.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Out of the Past - Part 1
Over the past few months, for reasons I don't fully understand, I've experienced a series of reconnections with people from my past. Some of them very far in the past. While I can't explain why this seems to be happening right now, I can explain how.
The proliferation of networking websites allows all of us to establish a cyber-presence that makes our existence accessible to the world. Sites like Facebook and MySpace are quite well known and seem to be the most popular, particularly with a slightly younger set than me. While I rarely use those, I do frequent a more business oriented site - LinkedIn.
This started with me connecting to mostly people I currently work with but has managed to open the doors through various organizational connections to a number of other folks. You can search by schools, for instance. One of my recent reconnections was through this means, seeing a school listed that I actually knew someone from. The other common connection is through work history, finding a company I'd worked for in the past and then searching for everyone else that has that same connection. That's how Ron Bailey came to light.
While browsing through a recent connection to me, I saw that GTE (now Verizon) was listed as a former employer. That reminded me of Ron Bailey. Ron and I had started our IT careers at nearly the same time after we graduated from the same training program at a business college in the Seattle area. While working together at GTE we became fast friends and shared a number of common interests that led us to a rewarding friendship. Over time, life's complications managed to insert a wedge between us that ultimately resulted in us drifting apart and eventually losing track of one another completely. The last time we spent any time together would have been about 1986 or so - I'm not entirely certain of the year. I'd tried uncovering his whereabouts from time to time using the trusty method of Google and had come up with nothing. Even though I worked daily with a number of people from the old GTE era, none of them had any idea either. Then came LinkedIn.
I pulled up all the Ron Baileys on LinkedIn and emailed each of them describing our connection from GTE. A couple of days later an email arrived and sure enough, I'd found him. It turns out we had been working two blocks apart for the past five years of so. Or at least a number of years.
Clearly a lot has changed in the intervening time but it was terrific to find we still recognized one another in spite of the passage of time. We've managed to get together a couple of times to visit and I look forward to many more opportunities to do so. There is a whole world of experiences in our past to share, and a whole world yet to come. Welcome back to my world Ron Bailey!! It's good to have you back.
The proliferation of networking websites allows all of us to establish a cyber-presence that makes our existence accessible to the world. Sites like Facebook and MySpace are quite well known and seem to be the most popular, particularly with a slightly younger set than me. While I rarely use those, I do frequent a more business oriented site - LinkedIn.
This started with me connecting to mostly people I currently work with but has managed to open the doors through various organizational connections to a number of other folks. You can search by schools, for instance. One of my recent reconnections was through this means, seeing a school listed that I actually knew someone from. The other common connection is through work history, finding a company I'd worked for in the past and then searching for everyone else that has that same connection. That's how Ron Bailey came to light.
While browsing through a recent connection to me, I saw that GTE (now Verizon) was listed as a former employer. That reminded me of Ron Bailey. Ron and I had started our IT careers at nearly the same time after we graduated from the same training program at a business college in the Seattle area. While working together at GTE we became fast friends and shared a number of common interests that led us to a rewarding friendship. Over time, life's complications managed to insert a wedge between us that ultimately resulted in us drifting apart and eventually losing track of one another completely. The last time we spent any time together would have been about 1986 or so - I'm not entirely certain of the year. I'd tried uncovering his whereabouts from time to time using the trusty method of Google and had come up with nothing. Even though I worked daily with a number of people from the old GTE era, none of them had any idea either. Then came LinkedIn.
I pulled up all the Ron Baileys on LinkedIn and emailed each of them describing our connection from GTE. A couple of days later an email arrived and sure enough, I'd found him. It turns out we had been working two blocks apart for the past five years of so. Or at least a number of years.
Clearly a lot has changed in the intervening time but it was terrific to find we still recognized one another in spite of the passage of time. We've managed to get together a couple of times to visit and I look forward to many more opportunities to do so. There is a whole world of experiences in our past to share, and a whole world yet to come. Welcome back to my world Ron Bailey!! It's good to have you back.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Show Me The Money
President Obama has just finished declaring a cap on executive salaries for those firms so completely inept that they require the US taxpayers to bail them out of their financial mess. Apparently I'm not the only citizen outraged at the completely obscene levels of compensation for the lords of our economy. While I have no problem with paying generous salaries to the best and the brightest, these folks are clearly forty watt incandescent bulbs. Or less.
The average CEO of a Standard & Poor's 500 company made an average of $14.2 million in 2007. That does not include anything but salary. I find a number of places that provide a ratio between the aveage CEO and the average production worker. Although not all these sites agree on the actual number, the lowest I saw was 430, the highest was 633. That's 633 times the average worker's salary. Think about that. Mulitply your annual salary by 600 and see how happy that would make you! This is so far beyond nuts that I can't think of an adequate adjective to describe it.
Also on my list of unbelievable financial expectations would be Manny Ramirez. The Dodgers offered him 25 million for a one year contract. He turned them down. Let me restate that - they offered him 25,000,000 dollars for one year of playing baseball. And he turned them down. What the heck can you be thinking when twenty five million dollars is not enough for a year's work? This whole pro sports thing is a bit off the subject, but let's at least take a look at the numbers. The average player salary for the four major sports are as follows:
NBA - $4 million
MLB - $3.2 million
NHL - $1.9 million
NFL - $1.4 million
Not bad work if you can get it! Granted, there are a number of superstars that far exceed the numbers listed above, but remember, these are averages. And remember that the average CEO salary is considerably higher than the average sports star.
At least with sports you get to see - on public display - what your money is paying for. If the player does well, you get to see that. If he does poorly, you also see that. The Bozos in the Boardroom, however, are invisible to all of us. Regardless of their performance, they continue to take their huge salaries. Time to stop this. I heard one caller on a radio station this morning talking about a civil war. Nobody was laughing.
The average CEO of a Standard & Poor's 500 company made an average of $14.2 million in 2007. That does not include anything but salary. I find a number of places that provide a ratio between the aveage CEO and the average production worker. Although not all these sites agree on the actual number, the lowest I saw was 430, the highest was 633. That's 633 times the average worker's salary. Think about that. Mulitply your annual salary by 600 and see how happy that would make you! This is so far beyond nuts that I can't think of an adequate adjective to describe it.
Also on my list of unbelievable financial expectations would be Manny Ramirez. The Dodgers offered him 25 million for a one year contract. He turned them down. Let me restate that - they offered him 25,000,000 dollars for one year of playing baseball. And he turned them down. What the heck can you be thinking when twenty five million dollars is not enough for a year's work? This whole pro sports thing is a bit off the subject, but let's at least take a look at the numbers. The average player salary for the four major sports are as follows:
NBA - $4 million
MLB - $3.2 million
NHL - $1.9 million
NFL - $1.4 million
Not bad work if you can get it! Granted, there are a number of superstars that far exceed the numbers listed above, but remember, these are averages. And remember that the average CEO salary is considerably higher than the average sports star.
At least with sports you get to see - on public display - what your money is paying for. If the player does well, you get to see that. If he does poorly, you also see that. The Bozos in the Boardroom, however, are invisible to all of us. Regardless of their performance, they continue to take their huge salaries. Time to stop this. I heard one caller on a radio station this morning talking about a civil war. Nobody was laughing.
Friday, January 30, 2009
A Friday Funny
It's Friday - I've almost made it through another work week. In my email this morning I received a collection of very wise quotes from a collegue here at the office. I wanted to share this with you.
"A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when youleast expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's leftof your unit."
- Army's magazine of preventive maintenance.
---------------------------------------------------
"Aim towards the Enemy"
- Instructions printed on U.S. Rocket Launcher
---------------------------------------------------
"When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend."
- U.S. Marine Corps
---------------------------------------------------
"Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate. The bombs are guaranteed always to hit the ground."
- USAF Ammo Troop
---------------------------------------------------
"If the Enemy is in range, so are you."
- Infantry Journal
---------------------------------------------------
"It is generally inadvisable to eject over the area you just bombed"
- U.S. Air Force Manual
---------------------------------------------------
"Whoever said the pen is mightier then the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons."
- General MacArthur
---------------------------------------------------
"Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo."
- Infantry Journal
---------------------------------------------------
"You, you, and you. Panic. The rest of you come with me."
- (Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeants ROCK!) - U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. (Mgysgt5)
----------------------------------------------------
"Tracers work both ways."
- U.S. Army Ordnance
----------------------------------------------------
"Five second fuses only last three seconds"
- Infantry Journal
----------------------------------------------------
"Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last, and don't ever volunteer to do anything."
- U.S. Navy Swabbie
----------------------------------------------------
"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid."
- David Hackworth
-----------------------------------------------------
"If your attack is going too well, you're walking into an ambush."
- Infantry Journal
-----------------------------------------------------
"No combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection."
- Joe Gay
------------------------------------------------------
"Any ship can be a minesweeper. Once."
- unknown
------------------------------------------------------
"Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do."
- Unknown Marine Recruit
-------------------------------------------------------
"Don't draw fire; it irritates the people around you."
-------------------------------------------------------
"If you see a bomb technician running, follow him and try to keep up."
- USAF Ammo Troop
------------------------------------------------------
"You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3."
- Paul F. Crickmore (test pilot)
-------------------------------------------------------
"The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Blue water Navy truism: There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky." - From an old carrier sailor
------------------------------------------------------
"If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it's probably a helicopter -- and therefore, unsafe."
-------------------------------------------------------
"When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane, you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Without munitions, the USAF would be just another expensive flyingclub.
" -------------------------------------------------------
"What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; If ATC screws up.... The pilot dies."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Never trade luck for skill."
-------------------------------------------------------
The three most common expressions (or famous last words) in aviationare: "Why is it doing that?", "Where are we?" And "Oh S...!"
------------------------------------------------------
"Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two are always needed to complete theflight successfully."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Mankind has a perfect record in aviation; we've never left one up there!"
-------------------------------------------------------
"Flashlights are tubular metal containers kept in a flight bag to store dead batteries."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your flight to aperson on the ground who is incapable of understanding or doinganything about it."
--------------------------------------------------------
"The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can justbarely kill you."
- Attributed to Max Stanley (Northrop test pilot)
--------------------------------------------------------
"A pilot who doesn't have any fear probably isn't flying his plane toits maximum."
- Jon McBride, astronaut
--------------------------------------------------------
"If you're faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into thecrash as possible."
- Bob Hoover (renowned aerobatic and test pilot )
--------------------------------------------------------
"Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you."
-------------------------------------------------------
"There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime."
- Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970
---------------------------------------------------------
"If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to."
--------------------------------------------------------
Basic Flying Rules: "Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space.It is much more difficult to fly there."
-------------------------------------------------------
"You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes fullpower to taxi to the terminal."
--------------------------------------------------------------
As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, havingtorn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truckarrives, the rescuer sees a bloodied pilot and asks, "What happened?".The pilot's reply, "I don't know, I just got here myself!"
"A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when youleast expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's leftof your unit."
- Army's magazine of preventive maintenance.
---------------------------------------------------
"Aim towards the Enemy"
- Instructions printed on U.S. Rocket Launcher
---------------------------------------------------
"When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend."
- U.S. Marine Corps
---------------------------------------------------
"Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate. The bombs are guaranteed always to hit the ground."
- USAF Ammo Troop
---------------------------------------------------
"If the Enemy is in range, so are you."
- Infantry Journal
---------------------------------------------------
"It is generally inadvisable to eject over the area you just bombed"
- U.S. Air Force Manual
---------------------------------------------------
"Whoever said the pen is mightier then the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons."
- General MacArthur
---------------------------------------------------
"Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo."
- Infantry Journal
---------------------------------------------------
"You, you, and you. Panic. The rest of you come with me."
- (Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeants ROCK!) - U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. (Mgysgt5)
----------------------------------------------------
"Tracers work both ways."
- U.S. Army Ordnance
----------------------------------------------------
"Five second fuses only last three seconds"
- Infantry Journal
----------------------------------------------------
"Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last, and don't ever volunteer to do anything."
- U.S. Navy Swabbie
----------------------------------------------------
"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid."
- David Hackworth
-----------------------------------------------------
"If your attack is going too well, you're walking into an ambush."
- Infantry Journal
-----------------------------------------------------
"No combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection."
- Joe Gay
------------------------------------------------------
"Any ship can be a minesweeper. Once."
- unknown
------------------------------------------------------
"Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do."
- Unknown Marine Recruit
-------------------------------------------------------
"Don't draw fire; it irritates the people around you."
-------------------------------------------------------
"If you see a bomb technician running, follow him and try to keep up."
- USAF Ammo Troop
------------------------------------------------------
"You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3."
- Paul F. Crickmore (test pilot)
-------------------------------------------------------
"The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Blue water Navy truism: There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky." - From an old carrier sailor
------------------------------------------------------
"If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it's probably a helicopter -- and therefore, unsafe."
-------------------------------------------------------
"When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane, you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Without munitions, the USAF would be just another expensive flyingclub.
" -------------------------------------------------------
"What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; If ATC screws up.... The pilot dies."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Never trade luck for skill."
-------------------------------------------------------
The three most common expressions (or famous last words) in aviationare: "Why is it doing that?", "Where are we?" And "Oh S...!"
------------------------------------------------------
"Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two are always needed to complete theflight successfully."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Mankind has a perfect record in aviation; we've never left one up there!"
-------------------------------------------------------
"Flashlights are tubular metal containers kept in a flight bag to store dead batteries."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your flight to aperson on the ground who is incapable of understanding or doinganything about it."
--------------------------------------------------------
"The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can justbarely kill you."
- Attributed to Max Stanley (Northrop test pilot)
--------------------------------------------------------
"A pilot who doesn't have any fear probably isn't flying his plane toits maximum."
- Jon McBride, astronaut
--------------------------------------------------------
"If you're faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into thecrash as possible."
- Bob Hoover (renowned aerobatic and test pilot )
--------------------------------------------------------
"Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you."
-------------------------------------------------------
"There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime."
- Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970
---------------------------------------------------------
"If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to."
--------------------------------------------------------
Basic Flying Rules: "Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space.It is much more difficult to fly there."
-------------------------------------------------------
"You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes fullpower to taxi to the terminal."
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As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, havingtorn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truckarrives, the rescuer sees a bloodied pilot and asks, "What happened?".The pilot's reply, "I don't know, I just got here myself!"
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