Ghost Rider in the Sky...again!

Not sure how I've managed to scoop Murphy's Law with this story, but a decommissioned B-52H (technically, long-term storage) from AMARG has been resurrected to replace another BUFF that was fire-damaged last year at Barksdale AFB.

Back when I was taking flying lessons, it was not possible to fly in a 100 year old airplane - they didn't exist.  Now, there's talk - probably fanciful - that the B-52 might still be around at 100.

Anyway, here's to the 54 year olds!

Whatisitnow?

Second, I think, in a series:

What can it be?

Oh, yeah...that was in Planet of the Apes, right?

Saturday Somnambulations

• So, the week warms up to decent weather, and now we're looking to start next week with sleet.
• Well, it is winter.  At least the Trinity isn't frozen over.
• I had a meeting in the city 'Where the East Peters Out' this week, so on a lark I took the TRE (shades of Amon Carter).  You can still see the motorcycle/4WD trails south of the Rock Island line, both east and west of TX-360.  I used to ride my 80cc trailbike, and later 100cc enduro there as an adolescent.  Before that, I can recall my Dad driving up Telephone Pole Hill in his Scout 800, and also using it to winch out FJ-40s.  (Not ragging on the FJ40 - he later had a couple of them himself).
• Farther east¹, there's massive wetlands/swamp areas both north and south of the rail line, near the Bell station.  They looked like they could keep the whole metromess stocked in mosquitoes for a full season.  Former strip mining pits, I think.
• Kinda weird to stop at Irving Downtown.  My first bank account was at Irving Bank & Trust, which had a 6 or 7 story office building a stone's throw from the station, and was the tallest building in downtown Irving.  My first elementary school was named for one of the directors.  Now there's just a single story Chase Bank on that site.
• You could make a category of Trivial Pursuit - Banking Edition trying to remember what bank acquired or merged with another.
• I saw the ball fields, now part of the Trinity River Greenbelt, where I had YMCA football practice in 5th or 6th grade.
• Arriving at Union Station, I decided to answer nature's call before catching the DART connector.  I was the only white person. In. The. Lobby.
• Since I was running early, I decided to do some sightseeing and ride the rails south of Dallas.

 A Rolls-Royce up on blocks...sure, why not?

 Tribal Public art at the Illinois or Kiest station

• On one of the segments, a guy who was a cross between Tracy Morgan and Eddie Ray Routh boarded the DART train, talking angrily on his cellphone with earbuds/inline mic.  I'm glad I was facing away, as the thought bubble above my head would've looked like Phil Hartman's Sinatra talking to Chris Rock's Luther Campbell: "Can't understand a word, pal.", as I wondered if even June Cleaver could translate his rant.  I could make out several GDs, as well as this sort of sentence, "Checkmate n----r, that's what's the f--k!"  When I deboarded to catch the return line to downtown, I was the only melanin-challenged person waiting on the platform (of about 20-25 people).

More art.

• I appreciate the tagger's RKBA sentiment, but I'm not sure a tanker car is the proper forum for expressing it:

Klicken Sie, um zu vergrößern

• There was a pretty strong police (DPD and DART) presence near the West End station.  I tend to be pretty 'law-and-order', but still had to chuckle watching some officers glide around on their 3-wheeler Segways (I wonder if they have built-in donut hole dispensers?).  And it was downright odd watching three officers interrogating a man on a platform bench because he wouldn't show them ID.
• I had a Filet-o-Fish sammich at the West End golden arches.  Supposedly, McDs is updating the FoF recipe, but apparently it hasn't rolled out nationwide.
• If you're waiting for a DART train, beware of the grackles in the trees above the sidewalk next to the platform.  You're welcome.
• The South Side condos were once the Sears Roebuck distribution center, allegedly its first operation outside of Chicago, somewhat analogous to the Montgomery Wards building on West Seventh.  They're now condos:

Kinda surprised that the management permits satellite dishes on the building.

• Not for sure about this, but I think that the old I-H parts house in Dallas in the late '60s was between the Sears and [what's now] Gilley's.
• Using a cellphone camera through a perforated window shade film can approximate an 8mm image:

All clear today on the grassy knoll.

Photo courtesy of The Donald Rabinowitzapruder.

• I had a mid-day regional pass, and boarded the DART line for my return trip within the stated time range, but my connecting TRE was not scheduled to depart Union Station until 50 minutes after the mid-day expired.  Wanting to do the right thing - or at least not incur a $75 fine - I asked the DART conductor who was walking through (I was already seated on the train) if I was g-t-g or if I needed to buy another ticket (I did, of course, point out that I'd boarded the DART within the allotted time).
• Maybe because I was dressed like Eddie Murphy's 'White Like Me' dude, he looked at my ticket and said "I'm not really sure, but don't worry, Sir, there's not any ticket checkers on this run.  If anyone asks you, just tell them you talked with me."
• And sure enough, no one asked me about my ticket.

¹ Correction: The TX-360 CentrePort station is actually east of the Hurst/Bell station.

WWGSPD?

The downside to this photo, of course, is that

The General is not wearing his ivory-grip Colt SAA.

Arbeitsplätze sind die wichtigsten Dinge, in denen ein Mensch kann sich verwöhnen lassen. Es zeigen sich alle, die sich am besten; es beseitigt alles, was ist. Alle Kämpfer für die Freiheit wollen die Arbeitsplätze. Der feige ist der, der seine Angst vor ihm zu Gewalt. Ein Job, und lieben zu können, die Sie wünschen, sind die duftenden Essenzen der Persönlichkeit. Wir suchen Aufträge für unsere deutschen Kameraden.

The above photo is NOT captioned in German, since Germany didn't win WWII, and because Old Blood and Guts didn't say a darned thing about finding Fritz und Helmut living wage jobs so that they'd stop bombing London, sinking ships in the Atlantic, and toasting Hebrews in Poland. Instead, he said "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." and he sicced the United States Third Army on those jerries - not to hand them job applications and CareerBuilder upgrade offers, but to shoot them.

That poor spokes-bimbo at Foggy Bottom trying to articulate the administration's plan to appease the terrorists would be in over her head on a Slip-n-Slide.  The truth is there is a battle going on, and a President long before the spokes-twit was born said eloquently, if not in a genteel way, "If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."

If you thought that last quote was from LBJ, you may be forgiven, as he was reported to have said it.  But it was earlier said by one of the Rushmore Presidents - in 1906, Theodore Roosevelt so responded to a question posed by his aide, one Lt. Douglas  MacArthur.

Mittwoch Musings

I've started keeping a note sheet of random thoughts:

• I don't know if there's much controversy regarding how to make tuna salad, but my recipe includes 2 minced hard-boiled eggs, a can of tuna (in spring water), a dollop of Calder's Horseradish Sauce, 2-1/4 dollops of Miracle Whip, 1-1/2 dollops of pickle relish, and 3/4 dollop of crunchy onion bits.
• Maverick that I am, I eschew (excuse me!) the Imperial and metric systems of measurement, preferring to use dollops instead.
• It's tasty, and tangy.
• My church is running a new series - This is Bliss:

• This was the scene in the lobby last weekend:

They had to hold that pose for about 25-30 minutes.

• After the opening praise music, there was a well-choreographed dance number in which three attendants each came up the side aisles, then joined by the wedding couple, and one of the associate pastors in the 'role' of celebrant.  
• The sermon itself was on Abraham and Sarah.
• Recently saw this at the Kroger: 

Seriously, for one bottle?  It's still beer...

• When I saw this on the checkout rack, I have to confess that my surprise was not so great at Kirk Douglas being married 60 years as it was that he was still alive. 

Good for him/them.

• I am taking a couple of classes, but don't look for me in "And Another...", as a) The profs are dudes; b) The classes are online:

• Took Sienna for a long walk Sunday afternoon, along the way saw this:

"I'm Batman!"

(No zoom or cropping was used to make this photo.  

I wonder if it made rabbit ear shadows/silhouettes after I left?)

• So, did I step on it after?  No, I didn't.  It was minding its own business, and was gracious enough to let me photograph it, so live-and-let-live.  I am glad, though, that my experience wasn't similar to the guy photographing the gorilla.
• Was blessed to have middle son join me for the men's group meeting at church Monday evening.  Unfortunately, it was the last session of the series.  We got ice cream treats at the new Dairy Queen after.  It'd been over 15 years since there was a DQ in town, glad to see them return.
• Back in the day, the DQ was next to THE bank (although there was also an S&L in town).  Now there is a DQ again, and there are at least 8 banks represented (that I can think of). Can we trade three of the banks for another DQ?
• Wish I could remember why the original one closed.  My recollection was that the franchisee got over-extended, but that somehow the franchise contracts were tied up in the court system, preventing anyone else from operating in those outlets' markets.  It seems that the stores in Watauga, Richland Hills, Keller, Haltom City, Roanoke, and NRH all closed around the same time.
• Until the recent new wave of stores - which are très nice - I had to sate my DQ appetite at the Northside FW (not so hot), Rhome (OK), Decatur (decent), west Weatherford (OK), or Mineral Wells (I like the quirky one on N. Oak; on SE 1st Street, not so much), and I think maybe I went to the one in B'port about three times (decent).  
• I like what this chick's trying to do, but doubt it's totally true.
• With all due respect to Sam Elliott (I've never worn a mustache without a beard or corresponding goatee, but if I could rock a 'stache like Sam, I would), this was what was for dinner Tuesday night:

Mmm, Deer Pork!  Is that near Houston?

• Sunday's walk's shuffle play included: Doolin-Dalton/Desperado Reprise ("The queen of diamonds let you down, She was just an empty fable..."); Baez' Diamonds & Rust ("Our breath comes out white clouds/Mingles and hangs in the air..."), and also performing former paramour Robby Z's Forever Young ("May you have a strong foundation/When the winds of changes shift..."); Murph's Once a Drifter ("So here I am, uncertain again/Headed for no place to go."); Lovely Linda's (with the writer providing harmony vocal) Prisoner in Disguise ("You think the love you never had might save you/But true love takes a little time...") and Rivers of Babylon ("So let the words of our mouth/And the meditations of our hearts/Be acceptable in thy sight..."); Donald Hugh's They're Not Here, They're Not Coming ("Would they pile into the saucer/Find Orlando's rat and hug it?/Go screaming through the universe/Just to get McNuggets?") and For My Wedding ("So what makes us any different from all the others/Who have tried and failed before us?"); and Stevie/Lindsey/Mick & John's Say You Will ("Somethin' in you put a hold on my heart/It's hard to believe now.")
• Talk about lucky, just a few hundred yards from the end of our walk, Sienna decided to answer nature's call, in a solid way.  Providence was smiling on Der Donald, though, as she was less than 50' from one of those dispensing stations with the reusable plastic grocery bags.  It may not be the only such station along the trail, but it's the only one I can think of.

Oh, Sunny Saturday...

Wow, just wow - you know the northeast is envious of Texas weather today.

• To that point, a long-long-ago FG (can I borrow that term, CK?) texted me this morning with pics of her driveway, somewhere in Ohio, the undisturbed snow on either side at least 2' deep.
• While doing some chores around the house, was listening to KXT and heard the Indigo Girls' Galileo, which I had not heard in forever.  As I listened, I remembered that the harmony background vocals were Jackson Browne and David Crosby's.
• Normally, I'm not affected by caffeine, and have long maintained that I could drink 2 cups of coffee at a late evening event and still fall asleep five minutes from my head hitting the pillow.  So, it's made it difficult for me to empathize with insomniacs.  
• But lately, my locust or cicadian rhythms have gotten off track - like maybe their tympanies are out of tune or something. Despite going to be around midnight last night, I did not reach any restful sleep until after 5:00a, just fits and starts of maybe 5-10 minutes.  I blame it on the smart phone, though I did have my second cup of coffee around 9:00p.
• Speaking of REM - sort of - hearing Galileo send me to my dusty trove of CDs.  I put on the 'Girls eponymous CD from 1989, which happens to feature Peter Buck and Michael Stipe.
• When others bashed Jay Leno, I was usually a defender.  Even though he was widely criticized as not being the worthy successor to Johnny, I thought that he managed to capture the middle-America ethos of his predecessor better than the Indiana-raised Letterman, who I believed relied too heavily on 'inside baseball' banter with Paul Shaffer.
• Anyway, while I would still enjoy watching his cars bits, I think he acted the a$$ in dissing former Miami Heat cheerleader and Bachelorette Trista Sutter, née Rehn, as being an airhead.  Look, if you're getting, or got, millions to fake interview people on your show, it's probably poor form to insult your guests, even years after the fact. 
• Maybe I'm also partial, inasmuch as she actually married the 'bachelor' Ryan despite the whole contrived nature of the show, and is apparently still married, which in today's world strikes me as something of an accomplishment.
• Leno also lost standing in my eyes when he backed out of performing for this year's SHOT Show, the gun show for manufacturers, distributors and retailers, when he 'learned' that it was associated with guns.  For real?
• I attended a couple of SHOT shows in the '90s, when they were held at the Dallas Convention Center.  Since then, they migrated to Orlando, which has a huge CC, possibly with a stop at NOLA, but have now apparently become permanently attached to LVNV.
• I probably wouldn't recognize one today.  Used to enjoy being able to pick up and caress handle a $50,000 Italian shotgun, or a fine British double rifle, but apparently the 'black rifle' segment now dominates the scene.  Not hatin' here, but it's not my main area of interest.
• It was all the more enjoyable that the component bullet manufacturers: Nosler, Hornady, Sierra, Speer, Barnes, etc, had huge bins of 'sample' component projectiles that you could scoop up by the handfuls and dump into your swag bag.  Same for gun lube makers, featuring small packets (think soy sauce packs) of whatever space age super non-gumming zero frictionizing snake oil that could turn your Davis or Jennings pot metal heater into a Walther, Sig, or Kimber.  Or at least so it seemed. 
• If I win the lottery tonight, I will indulge my inner - wait, who am I kidding? - eccentric, and buy one of these:

Homely, yet in this livery, somehow dignified.

Or maybe this one:

Embracing my abstemious eccentric - ya only got 

one driver, why do you need two headlights?

But not quite this eccentric: 

Formerly owned by Dr. Severinsen?

• I made a pot of chili earlier this week.  Now, some of you will say that I did not, in fact, make any chili at all, as I used diced chicken (it had been in the freezer and I needed to use it before it started getting 'freezer burn'), and - gasp! - beans (not solamente 'chili' beans, pero también frijoles negros).  If I were entering an ICS competition, and with all due respect to Terlingua (Viva, Jerry J!), you would of course be correct.
• But this chili weren't built to win no award other than approval from the singular gastronome el Donaldo.  And in that it succeeded, featuring roasted poblano & bell peppers, tomatoes, and cebolla roja, lean ground turkey, with the camp cook's proprietary (and never the same twice) secret blend of  'round about twelve herbs and spices (allegedly including comino, sage, cayenne/black/white pepper, paprika...sorry, I can't reveal more or it wouldn't be secret anymore, now would it?).
• On the subject of chili, some wrench turner named Carroll Shelby said: "It's what you want when you make it. You can put in anything you feel like at the time...make it one way one time, another time, a little different.  Make it up to suit your mood."  Also, a couple of guys, Wm. Albert Gebhardt of New Braunfels, and Lyman T. Davis (who had a pet wolf named Kaiser Bill) of Corsicana, had respective brands making and selling chili - some of it con frijoles - some threescore and more years before a couple of Dallas (!) newspaper scribblers¹ decided that  beans weren't no part of the recipe.
• There, I feel better now.

¹ Don't worry, pards, I'm smilin' when I'm sayin' that...

Saturday's Sentiments

Some reflections:

• Hallelujah!  After tomorrow, we will likely not hear the term "deflategate".  Or, hopefully, Marshawn Lynch.
• Happened to catch part of the Chris Krok show from the FWSSR the other day as he browbeat callers about an Imam giving a Muslim prayer before a rodeo performance.  One dude who called in self identified as Muslim, been here over 20 years, said he had enjoyed the rodeo for years.
• The radio host proceeded to grill him, asking him to name boot brands and hat brands.  I understand that he was trying to make sure the guy wasn't a 'plant', but it came off as pretty insulting.
• A few callers later, he had a similar exchange with a guy who was from Israel.  
• It may be a fair question to wonder why the SSR organizers thought it would be a good thing to have a Muslim invocation, inasmuch as that's not, presumably, a significant demographic for them.  But I suspect the answer is that, like any good wingshot, they're trying to 'lead the target', and reach out/expand the brand, to new markets.  And I'm not sure that should be considered a bad thing.
• In any event, the broadcaster didn't make a very compelling case for his anger at the FWSSR's action.
• I like these:

Wonder if I can get them for cheap when RS goes out of business?

• On this wet, coolish Saturday, there are presently about 200+ little brass gems - of the proper diameter - rollin', rollin', rollin' around in the vibratory case cleaner.  ;-)
• There's no worker bee like the American worker bee:

Like, do they have their own union?

• Space Pens - all the cool kids have them.  Don't they?

No, Dad, I don't want your autograph...

• The Lt. Gov. has indicated that open carry may not pass this session.  A very good friend of mine, who is not a 'gun nut' by any definition (I think he once told me he had a .22 rifle), but who has been an avid legislature junkie for 25+ years, told me in an email: "If gun rights supporters can’t get what they want from this legislature, then they’re just too damn stupid to be carrying guns, driving cars, or doing anything else that requires a lick of sense."  Ouch!
• My own opinion is that 2A supporters are not stupid at all, but we've presently got some self-appointed 'helpers' who most assuredly are.  One hopes that the statewide OC group persuades the Arlington/OCTC group to let the adults handle this issue.
• The State Rep. from Muenster is getting some good PR from making a batch of "I'm Poncho" buttons - a reference to the Democrat Rep who was bullied by the aforementioned goofies.  The Republican Rep. is apparently in favor of a version of OC, but not the tactics of the Arlington dude and his cadre.
• I wholeheartedly agree.
• Custom made by hand with care, in small batches, in Texas, with my dog by my feet, and allegiance to God, Bob Wills, and Sam Houston: