2nd-Hand War Stories

I was in the Marine Corps Reserve for 11 years, but never got to be in a war zone. The closest I ever got was in the first gulf war; my unit got deployed, but not to the gulf--to Japan.

So I have no direct war stories, but I have heard plenty: My Dad was a career Air Force pilot and he went to Vietnam a number of times and came home with stories. Also, I joined the Marines in 1981, so a lot of the men I worked with had been in Vietnam too.

One guy had been in the infantry in Vietnam, but when I met him he was going through electronics school and joining the Air Wing. He was the kind of guy you didn't know whether to fear or not: He had a round and innocent-looking face, but had biceps the size of my thighs. Also, he was a Sergeant, and supposedly this was the third time he had earned this rank, having punched-out superiors and been busted back to private twice. He had some great stories though.

When on patrols he and his fellow Marines would sometimes shoot game to eat. Well, they had shot a monkey, skinned it and had it on a spit over a fire and one of the guys observed that it looked like a baby. So, our friend took a Polaroid picture of it (the old fashioned kind where you peel the paper off after a minute--or whatever). Then, when he got back to the base he wrote on the back of the picture, "See Mom! Marines really do eat babies". Put it in an envelope and mailed it to his Mom.

After we all had a good laugh, one of the guys inevitably asked, "What does monkey taste like"? "Just like baby, but a little more stringy."

Actually, I made-up that last part. But that is only fair, the older Marine probably made up his whole story too.

Early St. Patrick's Day at Ches Pecchia

I will be at a trade show in NYC on Tue, so it is now or post-Tuesday for this traditional dinner.

The corned beef simmered all day and then was baked for a couple of hours in a 325F oven while each of the other ingredients in turn boiled in the beef water and then joined the rest in the oven.

A beauty day for a run

Sunny, little wind and temps in the mid-50's.

I somehow got it into my mind that last time I did this run in 2:35, but in looking at the older post, I see that it was 2:37--the same as today. I didn't make a note of the seconds last time, but this time it was 49 seconds past the 37 minute mark. All in all, the pace was under 8:19/mile for the 19 mile run.

More IMing...

Wife says: I wanted to ask you if there was anything you wanted me to get while I'm going to the store today

Mister 3:24 for now says: Human cryo bags...

Mister 3:24 for now says: Isn't that what winter camping sleeping bags are like?

Wife says: not just for storing humans! also great for storing suits!

Wife says: I guess people were upset and offended by that post. It was removed from the freecycle site

Mister 3:24 for now says: That is too bad--what a bunch of primadonna's.

Wife says: yeah really

Mister 3:24 for now says: They are probably really expensive and if you need one you could really save a lot of dough.

Wife says: so nothing else you want at grocery?

IMing

Wife says: Meenah smells like smoke.

Mister 3:24 for now says: Maybe she has picked-up a nasty habit.

Mister 3:24 for now says: Could help her loose weight though.

Wife says: I think Bridgy has taught her to smoke.

Mister 3:24 for now says: Bad dog!

Surenna is 12 today.

Who will rid me of this weird metal thing which bends my neck?

A small birthday cake for the actual birth day--the party will have a full-sized one.

Making a wish...

All the candles in one blow! Will her wish come true?

Dilettantism

While running I often daydream. I know what most people would think: Of course you do, what else is there to occupy your mind? Actually, I wool-gather less than one might think. I am pretty serious and focused while training, so a lot of my mental energy is taken-up pushing myself to go faster. But I do daydream as well.

Today I was thinking about "dilettante". It is a word I really like, but often can't think of when I need it. While it is a word I like, it is not a phenomenon I like.

I once worked for a guy who was an uber-dilettante in many subjects and what a pain in the ass it was! He would get an idee fixe from some popular source like a best-seller or a magazine article and then it was off-to-the-races! It would take two weeks of lunchtime encounters, ten minute talks at random and so forth to compress a semester or two of theory and practice into usable form. Then and only then would he suddenly realize that it wasn't so cut-and-dry as he had been led to believe.

Ugh! And that was a boss, so it was kind of my job to educate and advise in situations like that. What is worse is when it is say, the husband of one of your wife's friends.

Wednesday Run

I almost didn't go today due to the gray and drizzly outlook.

79:08--7:40/Mile. This is the kind of speed I need to be at.

If you were grading Barack Obama on his performance as president, what would he get? * 79648 responses so far.

He gets an A 19%

He gets a B 7.6%

He gets a C 5.3%

He gets a D 11%

He gets an F 58%

Not a scientific survey. Results may not total 100% due to rounding.

msnbc.com Note: I gave him a "D", but I thought he would have more high scores since MSNBC is not exactly a right-wing organization.

Update: The poll is still open and there has been 115K votes so far--the totals are roughly the same, slightly fewer A's and more F's.

That's not fair!

How come we can't bring the dog with us when we take our kids to the doctor?

The vet doesn't mind when we bring the kids...

I thought it would go too long, so I stopped filming, then it ended 10 seconds later...

Saturday run in Blue Bell, PA

Update: I ran really slow, like 9-minute miles. Part of this was due to the heat: I have been used to 20-30F and it was in the mid to high 60's. The other part was that this is unfamiliar countryside for me and I didn't want to push myself to the edge of death on a run where there was a good chance of getting lost--and thus not finishing at the expected time.

Today I ran in the cold, it was snowing and there was slick ground, but I still ran much faster than last Saturday. I need to get acclimated to the heat since late April can be pretty hot here and I have a marathon of reasons for wanting to be prepared.

She is in there

Wednesday run

85:25--8:17/Mile

I thought I was doing better, but about half the distance was on snowy roads and that must have slowed me down.

Update: Thursday run, 4.25 miles in 33:07 for roughly 7:48/Mile. I didn't feel as if I could go much faster since I was just below my aerobic limits--as judged by how out of breath I was.

A Pile of Boxes

Problem:

Hmmn?

Solution

Added, this is especially welcome when the outside world is a frozen wasteland, as it is now.

I'm not loving the symbolism...

Comrade, all projects will be stamped with the ARRA logo. This stands for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the fulfill all of the Democrats' dreams for the last 20 years Bill.

Okay, it is bad enough that most of the money in this "Recovery Bill" will do absolutely nothing to stimulate the economy, but wasting some of it to propagandize for the rest is downright sinister.

Also, look at the symbols they use: The stars. Okay, I don't have a problem with that part--evokes the flag, this is good. Then, some kind of plant thing. Maybe this represents ecology or farming. Last, the machine parts; leaving aside that the gears don't mesh, which may be the only truthful part of the whole emblem. It would appear to represent industry.

This reminds me of another set of symbols: The hammer represents industry, and the sickle represents farming. They should have just used that. It is more graceful and most importantly, we already know what it means.

Tracks

It only took one try!

Saturday running log

I ran again on Saturday, because we are scheduled to get weather for Sunday. Today it appeared to be nice out since it was sunny, but it was still chilly--right at 30F by our thermometer.

I wore just a thin polyester set of running tights and a thick cotton long-sleeved t-shirt, a cotton bandanna and some medium-weight gloves. I wore heavier gloves than normal because last week my hands lost circulation, which wasn't painful but a little disconcerting.

As I left I felt a little cold, but this is good: If you feel fine when you start, you will be too hot once you warm-up. Also, I brought my iPod shuffle. I don't normally want it on runs this long because the ear-buds become irritating after more than two hours. They didn't bother me today though and I really liked the random mix of classical (Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Mozart, Orff, Handel)and rock (too many to mention).

Things I noticed on the way:

A certain proportion of cars will not move one iota from their path, no matter if there is a pedestrian on the side of the road. It doesn't seem to matter much if there is on-coming traffic either: The edge huggers (as I call them) give me less room when there is no traffic, than normal drivers do even when there are cars coming from the opposite direction. What was really odd was one bicyclist today: He practically ran over me and there was no traffic around. With cars I can understand how they don't care if they scare a runner--they are not in any danger. But the cyclist would have been hurt just a badly as me. I am kind of amazed by the cavalier driving I see. Drivers don't put themselves in any physical danger when they come close to hitting me, but they could seriously mess-up their lives. If you go to prison for even a short time, you would probably loose your job, possibly your home, marriage and custody of your children.

Other things I noticed: What looked like an unopened can of Miller beer. Too bad it was so early in the run (about 3 miles in) I would seriously have stopped and drank it had it been at mile 10 or later. At about mile 12 I saw an empty bottle of Grolsh beer. It was one of the fancy green ones with the mechanical closure. If I had been closer to home I would have saved it, but I didn't want to carry the thing for the next 7 miles.

Time wise this was a big improvement over last week, I shaved 8 minutes off that time for 2 hours 37 minutes on the 19 miles. I need to improve further, but am happy with the direction things are going.

I may have noted in an earlier post about how, even hours after a long run, blood pressure can be low. Mine was 113/61 about 90 minutes after getting home. This would scare me, except that it is apparently normal when doing endurance work-outs.

Burning

I've always thought of burning as a Fall activity. This makes a lot of sense, at least to me, because that is when you have just ripped-out the garden and pruned shrubs. In our town the season is Jan 15th till the end of April.

I was interested in burning because last December we had a big ice storm and piles of branches fell in our yard. We still have snow cover and have had since then, but the relative thaw was allowing the branches to show. They are not particually ugly, but they intrude on my peace of mind--they will have to be dealt-with at some point in time. Why not today?

Our town requires a $10 to burn and they justify this by pointing out that in getting the permit, you will be forced to read the rules and this will be good for safety. Thanks! So, if I hadn't worried about the permit, I wouldn't know I needed one and could have saved a sawbuck.

At any rate, I got the permit and wanted to put it to use right away. The problem is that nobody wants to age tree branches for a couple of years before burning them, but they really don't like to burn when they are green. I had to find some old twigs and branches to get the fire going. It took about 30 minutes of scrambling around to get a blaze going. Once you hit a critical mass though you can throw on the wettest, most snow clogged branch and it will burn.

From Noon till about 3:30, I continuously dragged branches to the blaze and flung them on top. There is a science to burning. I would throw on a few loads of light springy stuff and then follow this with some weighty branches to compress it all down. Generally, I would throw things on teepee style, so that as the fire burned, the outside material would fall to the middle. Long, tree trunks would go so that equal amounts stuck-out both sides of the fire. Then when the flames burned through the middle I could throw the two ends in.

There is a lot more to go, but I made a pretty good dent in the project. Back at the time of the ice storm I had already cut-up all of the reasonable sized hardwood branches for firewood. This probably accounted for half the mass of the debris to be gotten rid of.

Recycling, or how things go from bad to worse for my newspaper bag

Reusing is the best kind of recycling because no energy is consumed in making the old thing into a new thing.

My daily Wall Street Journal is delivered in a plastic bag. I keep the bag and bring it with me to work. After I go jogging at lunch, the sweaty clothes are stored in that bag for transport back home. Once I get home the clothes go in the laundry hamper and the bag goes into the box where we store bags for picking up Meenah's leavings.