Breakfast Blogging

Coming to you this morning from Grempsey's Restaurant & Bar in "Beautiful Downtown Corvallis" (for those of you old enough to remember Laugh-In.)

Every place in town is packed this morning because its Mom's Weekend at Oregon State. I managed to wedge myself in at the bar and decided to blog while waiting for breakfast. Slight pause-food is here. Gulp gulp. Here is a photo of my friendly wait-staff.


While hanging out at Chester's, I entered into a discussion about what our options were in regards to Iran. I got to thinking about that and will hopefully post something about that later today when I get to a full-sized keyboard. Now its back to my Denver omelette. Yum! Cajun food!


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"Apparently" My A**

I was listening to Fox News in the car a while ago and the talking head is saying that Iraqi "insurgents" had apparently killed the sole survivor of the shot down helicopter. Pardon me, but these scumbags took video of it and showed it to the world. On top of that, the dead pilot's boss has confirmed his identity. Where do we get "apparently?" The MSM needs to come live in the same world we do. It’s awfully hard to maintain your credibility when you are broadcasting from Mars!

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Update ***
Apparently the Pope is Catholic. Apparently bears s**t in the woods.

I've always been against the draft, but I might make an exception for the Fourth Estate -- except that would probably put all those good folks at KBR out of a job.

A Little Family History

I'm third generation military. The first generation was this man.

Click here for larger image.
At the outbreak of WW-I my grandfather, Charles E. Powell, Sr. was a recently married chemist living in Atlanta, GA. He joined the Army along with his Brother-in-Law, John Grice. 1st LT Powell and Capt. Grice served together in the 77th. Field Artillery. Grandpa was wounded in the Ardennes Forest, but was able to return to his unit. After the war, Grandpa switched to the Corps of Engineers. We are fortunate to have a number of his personal effects from the war. The most valuable is a pocket-sized notebook that my Grandmother filled with photos and commentary that he kept in his breast pocket. That is where the above photo of the two of them came from. We also have his dog tags (and Capt. Grice's,) insignia and uniform buttons. Finally, we have this:

Click here for larger image.
This is Grandpa's sidearm. It is a 1917 Smith & Wesson DA .45 revolver. After the war, it was modified to shoot APC rounds as they were cheaper and more plentiful.
I only met my Grandfather once, when I was about 10, shortly before his death. I wish I could have gotten to know him better. He was a great man and it certainly rubbed off on my father.

But what have you done for me lately?

It seems the blogging muse has gone on vacation. I've had several ideas for posts, but the words haven't been spilling forth. I'll be working late tonight -- the joys of keeping Windows patched! I'm just glad that its mostly automated, or I'd be there all night.

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Live Blogging from McDonald Forest

The rain has left us for a while (which around here is an unexpected blessing this time of year.) Therefore I decided to take a hike up here in the OSU experimental forest.

Here is a photo of the logging road I am currently travelling.
I feel lots better after doing 6 or 7 miles like this. Maybe more later today if I can make some progress on the honeydo list.

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Old Friends, Fighting Murphy, and Lunch

Its lunchtime and I am at a local pizza spot. I've finished my pizza and now enjoying the last of my microbrew. Aaaah beer....... My abject appologies for not posting these last several days. I was planning to blog last weekend, but ended up spending all day Saturday and Sunday repairing a spambot infestation on a PC at my wife's business. When will the govt. declare the War Against Worms? Also, I received word that an old, dear shipmate is scheduled for bypass surgery next week. This has really bummed me out.



Here is a picture of my shipmate Manoog Kaprilian in 1972. As you can see, he was a Signalman.
Where did our youth go? I'm not ready to be old, but that clock keeps ticking anyway.



This is a recent photo with Manoog (second from right) at one of our reunions.

Ooops, lunchtime is over--back to the salt mines.

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Update ***
Big Sigh of Relief - Manoog made it through surgery. Thanks to everyone at the New Haven VA Hospital.