Monthly Archives: December 2015

A Pocket of Resistance: Music City Bowl

Watching the Music City Bowl while recording the second half of Vandy’s basketball game. With two minutes left, it is a cliff hanger with the Aggies trying to rally (they didn’t pull it off and Louisville wins, 27-21.

The game was exciting, but as usual, i am frustrated the talking heads and commercials didn’t allow me to watch the Texas Aggie Military Marching Band. They are inspirational. Kelly Winkler Adams, who was there, was impressed. She should know. She and her husband Jay Winkler have two sons that are marvelous, successful musicians with about ten years in marching band experience.

But with all of that, the most striking thing about the game was the head referee. He looked scarily like Doug Neidermeyer, the villainous and downright dumb egotist who was the BMOC and ROTC commander in “Animal House.”

The ref was the highlight of my evening. Every time they zoomed on him making a call, i thought of Neidemeyer and started laughing.

But only because, the sports media wouldn’t let me watch the Aggie Marching Band..

A Pocket of Resistance: Rickover and Today’s Politicians and Their Supporters

The amount of crazy, one-sided crap on social media posted by folks with blinders on is reaching frenzied proportions, and the flow will only increase for the next ten months.

It reminds me of a story i ran across years ago when, as the Senior Naval Officer at the Texas A&M NROTC Program, i was interim nuclear program recruiting officer for about six months and consequentially learned a lot about Admiral Hiram Rickover, the eccentric father of the Navy Nuclear program. i no longer know the source of the story.

As the tale went, Admiral Rickover was sitting before the House Armed Services Committee on some matter relating to his job when a committee member asked him if he had the power, what would he do to make the military establishment more effective.

Rickover said he would take half of the flag officers in the Pentagon and give them all an individual office in the “D Ring” (the next to outside ring of the Pentagon) and supply them with pens and a notepad. Then he would direct them to write notes and other papers and send them to the other flag officers in that ring. The generated writings and the flag officers who wrote them would never leave that ring. Then, he said, the other half of the flags would go about taking care of business.

i think we should divide up the conservative and liberal contributors to social media and put all of them in two separate social media programs. There, they could send all of their views to the others in their group: conservative to conservative, liberal to liberal (since they never read or listen to the other side) and the rest of us wouldn’t have to deal with it on our social media.

A Pocket of Resistance: Priorities

The Christmas saga wound down today.

i took a nap around 9:00 this morning that lasted four hours. i am still not in sync but knew a lot of things needed to get done. i made a “to-do” list and prioritized both physical work, computer/administrative work, and somewhat addled brain work. i went through the list and had my action plan scheduled.

Then Maureen came back from the grocery.

The top priority on my action list immediately became:

 Do whatever the hell Maureen tells me to do even if it doesn’t make sense or is out of order

i showed my list to Maureen.

She didn’t think it was funny.

A Pocket of Resistance: End of a journey

It is early, early Tuesday morning. i am  about to go to bed (and hopefully, asleep) in my own bed.

i am writing a summation of my travails with American Airlines, including a blow-by-blow description of today’s silliness beginning with a 3:00 a.m. awakening until now: ugh. i will complete that ugly story tomorrow when i can think as straight as i can think…unless i play golf; then it might have a Wednesday finish.

But on the five-hour flight from Charlotte, i met two really nice young men and hope we can keep our connection. Jim Watkins, a senior at ‘Bama, and Jim Esler, a insurance agent and a new force in the San Diego chapter of The Propeller Club — more on both later.

Just being home is enough right now.

Peace.

A Pocket of Resistance: Just Trees and me

(Written Sunday, December 27, 2015) I’m on my sister’s back porch again. It is a lovely but strange experience sitting here the day after Christmas outside in shirtsleeves.

I did not go to Christmas Eve midnight service. Thunderstorms and lightning were operating at full bore. I was the only one going to the service and decided i would have a couple of more glasses of wine and not risk late-night eve driving in the storm.

My nephew’s family had Santa Claus out on his farm and then came over in the late morning for breakfast and gifts. It rained a humongous amount all day and the thunder drove Wally, the family dog under the bed in the master bedroom. It continued throughout the day and evening, finally tapering off sometime during the night.

The entire area around Chattanooga, both Tennessee and Georgia, has been hit hard. For a while, there was only one road off the mountain. Now there are two but a third had a chunk of it washed away and repairs will be a long-term affair. Christmas has been chaotic nice, but it shouldn’t be any other way if five children are involved.

The country is chaotic from the crazy weather.

signal_mtn-trees-2But our flights have been rearranged; Christmas highs have lowered to a regular rhythm; our stay with the Duffs of Signal Mountain has been what Christmas should be everywhere.

And sitting here on the porch hanging out over the descent, i look at the hundreds of leaf-bare trees with limbs akimbo. Faded white and green moss and these vines that sprout green leaves appearing to come from the trunks and limbs rather than being a vine.

It is peaceful. i am in balance with my world.