Roller Coasters

 So...It's been a roller coaster ride over the last couple of months.  Unfortunately, it ain't over yet.  There's been absolutely no progress on settling my sister's estate.  As far as I know, the judge (deliberately lower case as a representation of my respect for the man) hasn't signed the papers to appoint anyone to handle what little "estate" she had.

Our intention is to renovate our mobile home that she lived in for several years.  To do so would mean moving her "things" out. Our attorney says that's probably not a wise idea, until the judge signs the papers.

So,  been twiddling my thumbs on that front for a while.

Speaking thereof...I got some good news this past week at my weekly wound care appointment.  Frequent readers of this blog will remember that I fought "the saw and the saw won".  

Yes, Beans, you may want to close your eyes.

That was in the ER at my second wound cleanup from excessive bleeding.

As of  yesterday morning and Mrs J's daily wound cleanup and bandage change (she's much better at it than I, only partially because I'm right handed and that's the right hand), it looks quite a bit better.

The wound clinic staff also said that it was "unlikely" that I'd picked up an infection in the bone.  They said had I done so, the consequences would be "Bad!"

I elected not to pursue that conversation for any further details.

So...Good News.

Also, some Good News from another major situation in the Family's life.  

Miss B's pulmonologist has removed her requirement for supplemental O2.  She's been off of it completely for a couple of weeks and had been weaning off it for about 6 weeks.  This is the most major impediment and the last one in effect that's preventing her and Mom from rejoining Little J in HK.

Well...that last isn't quite true.  All the paperwork has to be submitted to State, who will ponder it over (and over, and over) and reach a decision...sometime...soon...perhaps....please?

But, prayers up.

On a down note, the introduction of Lisa's 3 dogs to our 3 dogs isn't going well.  For the most part, they're all getting along, but, the puppy (5 months old) is the second largest of the 6.  Suffice it to say the old Fighter Pilot saying of "All Balls, D**k and no Forehead" definitely applies to him.  He's a Great Pyrenees, so is only going to get bigger.  

Oh sure, NOW he's calm, cool and collected

 

His primary trick is to hang out in the kitchen  and wait til my back is turned before standing on his back legs and chowing down on the food being prepared.  He's quite adept at it.  He can consume a boneless chicken breast in under 5 seconds.  Timing started when I opened the oven door, grabbed the bake potato therein, and turned back around to put it on the plate.  

"Hmmm, coulda swore I had a chicken breast on that plate...."

His Uncle, the largest of the 6, is (to quote Trump) "Yuuuggge!".  His primary attribute is barking.  A lot, especially in the wee hours of the  morning, for an extensive time, and for no apparent reason.

Sleep? We don't need no steenking sleep!

Who me? Bark? Not while I'm sleeping, only when YOU are, juvat!

 

The third one is the eldest of the three, and a golden retriever.  As long as he has one of his stuffed animals in his mouth, he's good to go. If not, we have a very short window of opportunity to replace it before he suffers an anxiety attack. 

Ahh, yes! My Christmas Elf! All is right in the world!

So...Peace and quiet.  I get that in my workshop (even with my table saw). 

Mrs J and I have high hopes (low expectations) that things will sort themselves out soon.  We'll see.

Peace out y'all!

 

Mr. Mill Speaks

 At the time you are reading this, I have high hopes of being on my way to College Station to get MBD's final approval of my idea for renovating her built in book shelf.  It's pretty darn big, taking up almost all of the main wall of their living room.  But...I think they've got the books to fill it.  More to follow on the subject.

As I've been reading Sarge's posts on Waterloo, I got to thinking about what a horribly crappy situation those poor schmedleys were in.  Schmedley being a highly defined word describing the folks that nobody really gave a crap whether they lived or died.  Nor did they get much out of it in return.  Pay sucked, food sucked, quarters sucked (if they were lucky they got a tent half).  In short, life sucked and was short.  Unfortunately, the method of dying was often protracted and excruciatingly painful.

Why?

And would it be any different today?  Now, that's the question.  There's a lot of nuancing going on about the situation (situation being synonymous for skullduggery/shenanigans/corruption, choose your favorite) today.  I'm even hearing folks whose opinions I respect (if not wholeheartedly agree with) saying it's not worth fighting for, we can't win.

Now, I've never been at or in a war.  Never fired a shot in anger. So take this or leave it.  The closest I've been to combat was sitting 5 minute alert at Osan AB ROK in the F-15.  Our mission was to protect the reconnaissance aircraft patrolling on the south side of the border watching for any sign the North Koreans were intending to vacation in the South without reservations.

Our requirement was to be airborne with 2 Eagles within 5 minutes of the horn going off.  We'd be vectored and briefed on our way.  

However...

Assuming we got scrambled as the "Bad Guys" headed south, but hadn't crossed the border yet. And assuming both of us were doing 600 Knots or 10 miles a minute.  That means we'd be at the merge in... let's see 56 NM/2 =28/10= 2.8 minutes.

2 minutes and 48 seconds..not a lot of time to sort things out and build your Situational Awareness.  Compound this with the fact that the rules don't apply to the "Bad Guys".  They most certainly do to us.  If we screw up, it's all over international news.  If they screw up.  It never happened,  And the USAF was harassing them. And THAT was all over international news.

Yeah, I did a lot of thinking about War while sitting alert.  My wingman and I did a lot of what- iffing as we certainly weren't going to get a lot of time to do it while airborne.

So, no, I've never been to War.  (Thank You, Lord!) But we did a lot of practicing for it.  We'd practice scramble frequently, generally when the assets we were protecting were not airborne or scheduled.  But every once in a while the Guys in the HQ on the advice of the Guy in the HQ wearing a Star would put a fake asset on our schedule, so we'd not be expecting a practice scramble. 

The horn would go off, generally when we were sitting down to a meal.  The first words were "Oh S--t" or worse. And off we'd go.  Jump out of the van, sprint to the jets, pull the Jet Fuel Starter (the starter motor) as we stepped into the jet and the crew chief strapped us in while we were turning equipment on. When done, he'd jump off the ladder and remove it just in time for us to start the left motor.  Soon as that was going, he'd pull chocks and we'd be taxiing.  

Since we were parked at the end of the runway, that didn't take long.  Just long enough for my prayer.

"Dear Lord, I don't feel the need to show off my aerial prowess nor take someones life today, but if you disagree, please don't let me screw (or another word) it up!" 

By that time, I was at flying speed, I'd rotate, the jet would come off the ground, the gear handle would be up. I'd level off until I got to 500K (which was before I got to the end of the runway) I'd do a 4g pull to the vertical. Contact our controller for a heading to the targets. Roll the aircraft to that heading and begin to pull the nose back down to level flight on that heading.  At this point, #2 was about 3-4 miles behind me.  Now, we're heading towards the border.  Any contacts are well within radar range and very soon (mere seconds) will be in shooting range.  For both us and them.  I haven't gotten any word yet on WTF is going on, nor had my radar pointed at the threat vector for long enough to have good Situation Awareness yet.

OT Suz, I wonder what my Cardiologist would say about a heart monitor reading I'd have right then.

Then they'd give us the daily code word for WTF was going on.  Fortunately in my case, it was always the "Good" one.  Meaning no one was going to die today.  Had it been the other one, and given the NK's weren't going to send just one bad guy, chances of us RTBing were not real good.  

So, I haven't been to war, nor have I been all that close, but I've got a pretty good feeling what it might be like.

Do I want a war?  F**K NO! But as I was reading and thinking about the way people are "talking" these days, I'm reminded of this (very long) quote.

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”

John Stuart Mill

That quote is as true now as it was in 1867 when he spoke it.  I fear for this country and the road it's headed down. 

Peace out, y'all! (I pray) 

Just because I hate to end on a down note, here's what an F-15 Afterburner Takeoff and climb out looks like. Damn, I miss flying that jet!

 

The World Today - John Blackshoe Sends ...

A coalition force member watches as the Launch Module on the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) raises during precision fire support training drills at Bagram Air Field, Parwan province, Afghanistan, March 13, 2014. This training helps troops maintain a state of readiness that enables them to quickly execute their fire support missions. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Ricardo Hernandez-Arocho/ Source)

Editor's Note: I'm not sure if everyone reads all of the comments on the posts we provide for your elucidation, entertainment, education, and enlightenment here at the Chant. I do, because it's my blog and I want to make sure the comments stay polite and within the realm of sanity. Every now and then we get a comment which stands head and shoulders above the rest. Yesterday's update from Paweł brought forth a gem of a comment from our own John Blackshoe. I liked it so much I decided to reproduce it as a post on its own merits. OAFS

JB knocks it out of the park -

Random related tidbits.

History is still important. The Russkies remember, even if we have forgotten, that American (and Brit, French, and assorted other) troops were fighting against the Bolsheviks on Russian soil in the Murmansk/Archangel "Northern Russia" expedition in 1918-1919, and in the "Siberian Expedition" 1918-1922 which extended from Vladivostok hundreds of miles westward along the Trans Siberian Railroad [not Orchestra].

The Germans (and Central Power allies) forced the Russians into humiliating terms with an independent armistice and the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in February 1918. Basically, it forced Russia into recognizing the independence of Ukraine, Georgia and Finland; gave up Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to Germany and Austria-Hungary; and ceded Kars, Ardahan and Batum to Turkey. So, yeah, the Russkies think of those places as rightfully belonging to the Russian Empire. Throw in post 11/11/1918 fighting in Ukraine against the Bolsheviks, and the WW2 three way brawl with assorted Ukrainians fighting (simultaneously or separately) with or against Germany and/or Russia and there are a lot of old unsettled scores and animosity lurking about.

Now, we cannot ignore that fact that while we are emptying our bunkers of (most? nearly all?) of our war reserve stocks of conventional munitions, and many of our weapons systems (HIMARS/ M777 howitzers, Stingers, etc., etc.) we are doing little to replenish that inventory. Someone reported that the conventional artillery shell consumption is at WW1 levels, and UKR is using more shells in a day than we fired in a month in AFG. And, the Russians are making the rubble bounce with multiple times that. Over 50,000 rounds PER DAY, IIRC, and they too are running low. They also reported that we are buying 155mm shells at something like 1,500 a month to refill our bunkers. Do the math.

Meanwhile, the Mullahs are wary of their intimidated subjects, Kim (and sister/daughter) control their impoverished neighbors while building nukes and missiles, and Chinese masses are restless, while Xi covets Taiwan, and may not let a good crisis go to waste where he could shift internal unrest into nationalistic pride by recovering that pesky breakaway province. All these folks are keeping an eye on the Great Satan, our leadership, and our military assets.

All the while, the insane clown posse running our country bumbles about making everything they touch worse, with their ineptitude, dotage, and fixation on environmental nonsense hidden by a news media which is less reliable than Pravda.

Hey, I like the UKR folks, and they are kinda sorta our friends, but they are NOT a vital U.S. national interest. We need to remember we are $31 Trillion in debt, and cannot afford to just shovel cash into their hands (where endemic corruption will magically make a lot of it vanish). We need to get our own spending in order, and pay off our debt before we can be so generous.

Interesting times.

Merry Christmas, all y'all.

John Blackshoe

Sound wisdom that.

Thanks JB.

- OAFS

Getting Out of Control

"Moskva" ("Moscow") (ex-"Slava", which means "Glory") is the lead ship of the Project 1164 Atlant class of guided missile cruisers in the Russian Navy. The Project 1164 Atlant class was developed as "Aircraft carriers killer". This warship was used in the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. The Black Sea. Sevastopol bay.
(Source)

Apparently the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva is now an artificial reef.

Russia claims that onboard munitions detonated.

Ukraine claims that she was hit by two anti-ship missiles.

Both could be true ...

We live in scary times.