what did you do today? (2008-2015) (closed)

[Nords]

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Originally Posted by JOHNNIE36 Nords, last week DW and I dropped down to Ft. Myers Beach for a little R & R and heard about the hurricane about to hit you. I got to thinking, I thought all "hurricanes" in the Pacific were called typhoons. I know that's what they are called in Okinawa. Clue me in again.

There are at least two activities naming storms out here-- one group in the Eastern Pacific (I think Miami's National Hurricane Center?), another in the Central Pacific (Central Pacific Hurricane Center), and a third west of the dateline (don't remember who). The first two call them hurricanes, with appropriate Mainland or Hawaiian names indicating where the storm formed. West of the dateline they're typhoons with some sensitive international politically-correct naming convention. My spouse the military meteorologist used to be the ops officer at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center so she can go into much more excrutiating detail on where the lines are drawn. It makes for interesting conversations when the forecast says one thing for the visitors while the weather charts/satellite images are showing something not quite the same as what the media are spouting. The trash-talking among military METOCs makes submariners look like diplomats.

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Originally Posted by freebird5825 Would it be completely tacky to say "batten down the hatches" right now? Hope all turns out well there. Stay safe!

We're making the rounds again today-- educating our tenants about the yard's high-water mark and encouraging them to clean up their stuff, checking a friend's house (they're on the Mainland, their driveway slopes downhill to their garage, not so good for rain runoff), and then clearing the last of our junk valued collectibles off our lanai.

Felicia's falling into a tropical depression but it's full of water. We're probably going to get 4-6" starting Tuesday afternoon, and around here that's half a year's rainfall. We'll definitely leak-check our roof repairs. Tomorrow morning it's a round of backups, battery-charging, and filling water jugs.

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Originally Posted by Rambler Watched Crimson Tide last night. Don't know how true-to-life the story is, but have a new appreciation for Nords and his fellow submariners...

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Originally Posted by REWahoo Rambler, if you want to have some fun ask Nords who played him in the movie...

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Originally Posted by Walt34 The movies don't come close to capturing the feel of it. After a tour of the USS Torsk (WWII diesel sub) at the Baltimore Maritime Museum all of the guys I was with agreed that "Those guys had Big Brass Ones". I cannot imagine working for months at a time under such cramped conditions while listening to depth charges. While I'm sure modern submarines have a little bit more room, there probably isn't much more.

That movie didn't exactly have the U.S. Navy's support. During filming the director's helicopter tried to buzz a background film shot of an OHIO class submarine that was visiting Pearl Harbor. Naval Region ended up calling in the Coast Guard and the FAA and causing the pilot far more grief than he got in money.

That film is legendary in the submarine force for taking the worst possible features of each officer and putting them in direct conflict with each other. In real military life there are far more subtle non-confrontational ways to stab your CO in the back seek compromise and consensus. But I swear that I've had at least two CO's in Hackman's image, and I've known of at least three more. For example there's the cigar-chomping CO in the documentary "Sharks of Steel". Names provided to fellow submariners upon PM request, but you already know who they are...

The crew's behavior isn't too far off, although I'd love to have their VLF communications technology.

The "Tide" movie also gets a huge mess-decks laugh when the TV news shows some national crisis flaring up and all the boomer boys' beepers start going off. In real life they'd be handing the boomer's ice cream machine over to a fast attack submarine that ran out of time to fix their own before they had to sortie. Sometimes it's hard to believe that boomer and fast-attack submariners are shipmates in the same Navy.

I was the missile tube visited by Gene Hackman's dog. I was a nuclear engineering junior officer on my boomer and a Weapons Officer on my attack sub. (For some obscure liberty-related reason the crew found it appropriate to rename me after that old 1980s pop song "Wild Wild Weps".) Weps wasn't exactly a career-enhancing job but it was a lot more fun than being a navigator or an engineer. Most fun of all was running the submarine training center's fire-fighting and damage-control (flooding) trainers. It was there that we'd figure out who had problems with small, enclosed fires and flooding spaces... or who was pushing cardiac problems.

It's probably a psychological thing, but I always felt that I had plenty of room. The WWII subs are a bit tight and modern subs are a bit better. I have plenty of scar tissue from banging into various hatch coamings and other projections but my phobias are air travel, naval aviators, and stormy seas. I don't like roller coasters either.

You want submarine movies I'd recommend "Das Boot" and "U-571". DB's storm scenes, popping rivets, and battery problems are unfortunately very accurate. The U-571 scene where they take over the German sub and figure out how to launch torpedoes in about 90 seconds is total fantasy but very realistic adrenaline.

[REWahoo]

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Originally Posted by Dawg52 And no......I don't have one.

Neither does she. Coincidence I suppose...

[bbbamI]

Wasn't there a joke once about making a certain noise and flying out the window?

[theloneranger]

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Originally Posted by Dawg52 Played golf this morning for the first time in about 10 days. Played pretty good. Got to legally play from the senior tees as I am 55 today. Had some pizza and cake with mom so now time for a little golf on tv and then a nap. Looks like another storm about to brew outside.

I cannot BELIEVE that they let you go to the senior tees at 55.
Here we cannot move up till age 65, and there are still folks at 70 who can score in the low 80's from the regular tees.

[freebird5825]

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Originally Posted by REWahoo Neither does she. Coincidence I suppose...

A match made in Heaven ?

Sorry, Dawg, it was the "low hanging fruit" that got me.

[Dawg52]

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Originally Posted by theloneranger I cannot BELIEVE that they let you go to the senior tees at 55. Here we cannot move up till age 65, and there are still folks at 70 who can score in the low 80's from the regular tees.

Well if that get's your goat, the 65 year old geezers move up to a 'super' senior tee here.

[IndependentlyPoor]

Upgraded my MacBook to 4Gig memory. When I was in college, I don't think there was 4 Gigabytes of memory in the entire universe and now it is sitting on my lap and cost me less than 100 bucks. Dang!
Installed iWork 2009, so I finally have a decent spreadsheet program to play amateur economist with.

[TromboneAl]

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Originally Posted by bbbamI Wasn't there a joke once about making a certain noise and flying out the window?

Two elderly gentlemen, who had been without sex for several years, decided they needed to visit a cat-house for some tail..... When they arrived, the madam took one look at them and decided she wasn't going to waste any of her girls on these two old men.

So she used "blow-up" dolls instead. She put the dolls in each man's room and left them to their business.

After the two men were finished, they started for home and got to talking.

The first man said, "I think the girl I had was dead. She never moved, talked or even groaned... how was it for you?"

The second man replied, "I think mine was a witch."

The first man asked, "How's that?" "Well," said the second man, "when I nibbled on her breast.....she farted and flew out the window!"

[bbbamI]

That's the one!!!!

[freebird5825]

I'm beating the rain forecast...clouds are building up in real time...I got out to the garden and planted my tiny little Concord grapevines. These are cuttings given to me by a friend.
The mini-vineyard is complete. The other 3 seedless varieties are cranking right along and ready to be tied to the boards.
So easily amused...

[W2R]

I *FINALLY* got my retirement estimate from HR this morning. I have been interacting with them since February since they said I should get started on this around that time. Since then I have been even going down there once a month to see how things are progressing, and sending an e-mail summarizing what we said (in a nice way) as documentation, at their request. This is my first indication that HR even agrees that I qualify to retire on November 9th.

The person who is handling my retirement paperwork in HR isn't really a retirement expert, and she just announced that she is going on maternity leave the month before I retire. The person who used to do all of the retirements retired herself about a year ago (so that is why a pregnant receptionist is handling my paperwork).

Simultaneously my agency (in its infinite wisdom) decided that they would not permit me to attend the yearly pre-retirement training seminar last December because I attended it previously. In the past, those who were close to retirement had first priority and we were encouraged to attend repeatedly since federal retirement can be so complex, but the policy changed without warning. Suddenly, first priority was assigned to those who weren't interested enough to attend and have >10 years to go. However, they have plenty of money to send anybody who wants to go (even me) to a leadership and career development seminar next week. No, I'm not going...

I will be SO glad to retire and be done with this kind of foolishness! But then, you knew that.

[TromboneAl]

DW returns from her trip to Sweden tonight, and I am reminded of the Andy Griffith episode in which Aunt Bea returns from a trip. Remember that one?

[bbbamI]

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Originally Posted by TromboneAl DW returns from her trip to Sweden tonight, and I am reminded of the Andy Griffith episode in which Aunt Bea returns from a trip. Remember that one?

Yeah...I think I know the one you're talking about. You have to leave things a little messy....

[TromboneAl]

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Originally Posted by bbbamI Yeah...I think I know the one you're talking about. You have to leave things a little messy....

Yes, that's right. Pretty funny that this stuff is stored in our brains.

Aunt Bea comes home from a trip and the house is neat and clean. Andy notices her unease, so he an Opie go into the kitchen and make it really messy. When Aunt Bea goes in there, she is happy again, because she feels needed.

[freebird5825]

Double header - 2 days in a row out and about. Got a lot of errands done, had lunch with friends and dh2b, and visited my best friend's father who had decided to become a voluntary shut-in way before his time. Argh!
He was very glad for the company and we talked for 4 hours. He states he just does not want to go out and about.
I'm gonna w*rk on that, gently...I need to think of an offer he can't refuse.

[Moemg]

I have spent the week with my 18 month old grandson . How can a pint size kid have soooo much energy ? I feel like I've been in boot camp .

[IndependentlyPoor]

Had a cat scan and a bone scan today. Bummer.
Barium sulfate smoothie for breakfast. Yuck! Then you go for the scan and the technician comes in with a lead box emblazoned with radiation warning stickers, opens it, and takes out a syringe that has a 1/4" thick lead protective sheath around it and you think: Holy cr@p! They are going to inject me with that stuff! Glow in the dark time.
Before the cat scan came more barium to drink, then barium pudding, designed especially to coat your mouth and throat with slimy gunk. Then they hook you up to an iodine IV for the scan. Four hours later you come back for the bone scan.
So here I am, filled with barium, technesium, and iodine.
I need a drink.

[freebird5825]

Laundry, visited my garden and picked green beans, talked to my fledgling grapevines, surfed.
I made a nice meal tonight instead of leftovers: I made fresh eggplant and yellow squash brushed with olive oil on the grill, sauteed fresh green beans, fried butterfly shrimp, fresh tomato wedges with basil and marinated in olive oil from Mykonos, homemade potato salad for some man who hates eggplant and squash in any form.
Sitting here digesting while some man watches Stargate on the SciFi channel.

Newsflash: A high pressure system will bring sunshine and NO RAIN all weekend.
Temps will be in the high 80s and low 90s. Summer is actually here. Going boating...

[bbbamI]

IP...I think I'll have a drink for ya...you poor thing...

What I did today...not much. Got out of bed around 10 a.m. A friend came over so DH could show him how to do certain maintenance jobs on his bike; his wife came with him. We yammered away about nothing, then when the guys were finished, the couple offered to take us to lunch. We cleaned up, they came by a bit later and off we went to a cafe.

Ate too much, got sleepy but had to go to the grocery store.

The rest of the day....did nothing...and it felt good.

[TromboneAl]

DW had a crash on her bike Friday afternoon, after returning from Sweden at 12:03 AM. She's OK. She attributes it to riding under the influence of jet lag. She's not sure what happened, just that she was going around a curve, saw the curb and thought OMG I'm going to hit it. Perhaps OMG followed by WTF.

Luckily nothing broken only some pretty bad road rash (gory photos here (after initial cleanup) and here (today)). Someone else did the initial cleaning while I rode home to get the car. I'm a little worried that there's some sand or gravel still in there.

I'm getting conflicting info on the web, but I think that after today I won't put any more bandages on it. I have to wear hearing protectors when I change the bandages.