The 10% Rule

It’s funny where life takes you.

Forty three years ago I received my draft notice and at that time  felt that it was the end of the world. My mother, certain that I would be killed in Vietnam, offered me a “last supper” of anything I wanted.

I chose tortillas and lamb chops.

And lobster, if I recall.  With lots of butter.

Come to think of it at least by Hollywood movies, that does sound like something a condemned man would pick for a last meal.

Charles Lindbergh’s San Diego Connection

To tell you the truth, when I started this rather lengthy book I was wondering if I would enjoy it. I can remember a wonderful TV Miniseries back in the 1970s, based on James Michener’s Centennial, about a small Colorado town through the last 200 years or so. I enjoyed the series so much I bought Michener’s book and he developed his story a bit earlier, from the dinosaurs if I am not mistaken. Far be it for me to critique an accomplished author like James Michener, but I wanted things to develop on a faster scale. When the subject is a town and the how the people over the centuries made it and changed it, I could see no reason to delve into dinosaurs….but then maybe that is just me. I was wondering if A. Scott Berg’s long biography was going to ramble in a similar manner, but his 640 pages are tight and as you progress you see where everything is related.

Awakening A Passion For Flight

I’m reading what is becoming an interesting biography on a shy farm boy from Little Falls, MN. He grew up with estranged parents, had an aptitude for machinery, once rode his Excelsior motorcycle from Minnesota to visit his father in Florida, but generally was drifting in life.

Flunked out of the University of Wisconsin and enrolled in one of the first flying schools, where he learned not only to fly, but aircraft construction. The new owner of the flight school just happened to sell the plane with which he was to practice, so he goes barnstorming with the new owner.

Two more books on the Marine WWII Pacific Campaign at Gutenberg

Breaking the Outer Ring: Marine Landings in the Marshall Islands by J.C. Chapin

Breaching the Marianas: The Battle for Saipan by J.C. Chapin

Both available for download from http://www.gutenberg.org.

Armed drones seen as dogfight-ready in (not too distant) future

I told Lex a few years back that he would have silicon wingmen in the future that could take the g-forces that would allow them to operate inside the loop of protein-based pilots.

First they will support, then they will supplant.

And Skynet will have excellent tools when the AI awakening occurs.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-08/armed-drones-seen-as-dogfight-ready-in-not-too-distant-future

Car Choices – Steps and Misteps

I’ve always been a bit of a gear head since the days 40 some years ago when I had a ’67 Camaro. Sold it when I was going to school in Virginia in 1972. Took me 6 months of patient waiting before I got $1,000 for it.

I know, I know.

Project Gutenberg has free commerative series of Marines in WWII

Those who would be interested, go to http://www.gutenberg.org

In the recent books, there are several in the series now available that can be downloaded for free as either Epub or Kindle or PDF.

Best to all.

Edward

From Makin to Bougainville: Marine Raiders in the Pacific War by Jon T. Hoffman

A Magnificent Fight: Marines in the Battle for Wake Island by Robert J. Cressman

Top of the Ladder: Marine Operations in the Northern Solomons by John C. Chapin

First Offensive: The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal by Henry I. Shaw

Across The Reef: The Marine assault of Tarawa by Joseph H. Alexander