Jay R. Grodner, Attorney at Law

This one takes the cake.

I know Chicago is "Blue", but I also know most folks there are good people... not idiots.
I'm not sure about Jay R. Grodner, Attorney at Law.
Blackfive has the story.
I'd like to use Mr. Grodner's services, and tried to call his business number in downtown Chicago, and in Deerfield, IL.
Surprisingly, both phones have been disconnected!
How's a professional supposed to make any money with no working telephone?!

Need the services of an anti-military Attorney?
Mr. Grodner wants to hear from you too.
You can go to whitepages.com and type in
Jay R. Grodner, Chicago, IL to see what pops up!

Three Dead In Alabama

Breaking news this morning, and it's not good.

Cobra Accident

I routinely read both the NTSB and FAA accident briefs to see if there's anything I can learn there to help maintain my body temperature at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

This report caught my interest because it appeared to involve the "Cobra", an aircraft I flew in Viet Nam.
I was surprised for several reasons...

Cobra?
Mistaken identity!

Fatalities or injuries in the accident?
Not possible!

My question for ya-
Should unmanned aircraft accidents be listed in the same forum as manned aircraft?

Terrorist Permutations

Well, the asssassination of Benazir Bhutto is not exactly the way I imagined chaos in Pakistan might unfold more than two years ago, but it's still scary as Hell.
Just keep repeating-
"We are not at war. We are not at war!"

FLY SOUTHWEST AIRLINES!!

(Tip o' the hat to Powerline.)
I had not heard this story, and that alone bodes well for Southwest Airlines in my book...
They aren't trying to "make hay" with it.
I think it is one of the best feel good stories of the year.

Thank you Southwest Airlines...
Next time Sara Jean and I fly, you'll have our business!

Merry Christmas everyone, and again... please be safe.

Merry Christmas. Try To Stay Alive.

"You're on standby for an MVA at ******.
I have no further information for you at this time."

A few moments later the phone rings again...
"Your flight is a go, but they now want you to meet them at the hospital there."
That means our ETA is too long for their conditions and they want help with their patient sooner than we can arrive.

We take off on the 19 minute flight. From dispatch-
"I still have no information on your patient."
This ground crew obviously has their hands full.

We arrive at the hospital and my crew makes their way to the ER.
As routine, I shut the engines down, secure the aircraft, and make my way to the ER to assist in whatever way I can. The door to the trauma room is closed. Outside the door in a wheelchair sits a late-20ish woman with two women in scrubs providing moral support. The woman is obviously emotionally distraught.
The trauma room door opens and I hear what sounds like the heart monitor they hooked up to Sara Jean when Big Bubba was about to be born. It is really loud, but since I don't hear a discernible heartbeat I question what I'm hearing.

I recognize the Doctor coming out the door and nod to him. He makes his way to the woman in the wheelchair and says, "We're still doing CPR on him, and I'll continue to do whatever I can to help him."

Family arrives...
It's the woman in the wheelchair's Mom and Dad. Dad is carrying a pumpkin-seed carrier containing a few-months old baby. The woman takes the baby from the pumpkin seed and holds it to her chest, sobbing.

My crew comes out of the room, looks at me and shakes their head. We won't be transporting.

He was 27 years old, helmetless, riding his ATV on the highway. Crossing the centerline and hitting a pickup truck head-on under these conditions is not conducive to good health.

Less than a week before Christmas, he has left behind a widow and a baby that will have absolutely no recollection of him... a tragedy at anytime... a particular tragedy when his death will be associated with a time that should bring joy and happiness.

My "Pitchpull" reading friends...
Please use good sense:
-Seatbelts.
-Helmets on two/four wheelers.
-Stay out from behind the wheel after alcohol consumption.

I'm working three of the next five days. I don't want you horizontal in the back of my BK117!

Be safe everyone.

Sigh... Just Watch

I try to have a positive outlook, you know that. But sometimes it's mighty hard.
Good friend Terry is in Law Enforcement and sent this:


Binary Explosive, New Terrorist Threat,scary Stuff! - Free videos are just a click away

Your First Amendment Rights

Time and again we've been told our Constitutional Rights would be denied during the Bush Administration.
Unfortunately, that prediction has turned out to be correct...

How important are your Constitutional rights? Would you be willing to die protecting them? Would you die protecting mine?
The word "HATE" has been used on more than one occasion in comments to this blog. Once the word was used to describe feelings for President Bush. I can't understand that, but those that are feeling that emotion are being affected by it and they have to live with it.

My problem is that these "haters" demand the right to express themselves, while denying the rights of others to point out when they are wrong. Now it has taken a pretty serious step, to almost, (not quite), death threats.
Our higher learning establishments are fortresses of Liberal thinking.
Conservative thought is not welcome. Don't believe it?
Read this article, then tell me you wouldn't feel threatened by Liberals around you.

If "Freedom of Speech" is truly important to you, please take 10 minutes to watch this movie trailer:



I spent 22 years in the ARMY defending the attitude generally attributed to Voltaire-
"I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Apparently that attitude only runs within Conservative circles.

MORE-
That George Bush.... what a tyrant!

UPDATE: 18Dec-
A commenter points out, the Princeton emails are fakes!
The professors shown in the movie telling others to STFU are not.
Care to comment on the subject, David Horowitz?

Giving Thanks...

Thanks to OPFOR

Traffic Cameras

Remember this post?

Someone else had the same idea, only this guy was a man of action!
Tipped once again by Instapundit.

I Am Bud Light??

I found this while visiting John's Blog.

Like John, I disagree with the premise, 'cause I don't drink "Light Beer" of any color, strength, or title. It's real beer with added distilled water... if you want light beer, buy a 2 liter bottle of Club Soda and add your own water to real beer!

As to the description of my "beer character"...

I can't be objective, so you'll have to ask a drinking buddy. ( A few stop by "Pitchpull" now and then!)

You Are Bud Light

You're not fussy when it comes to beer. If someone hands it to you, you'll drink it. In fact, you don't understand beer snobbery at all. It all tastes the same once you're drunk! You're an enthusiastic drinker, and you can often be found at your neighborhood bar. You're pretty good at holding your liquor too - you've had lots of experience.

What's Your Beer Personality?

The Name Game

My Mother's maiden name is Schreiber.
She gets angry when I tell folks that name means "horse thief" in German...
maybe because I'm lying.

I've always been fascinated with names... Schreiber's a simple one. It's an easy process to see "scriber" in the name and guess it's origins.
Other names that end in "er" are obvious... "Barber", "Carpenter", "Fisher".
Others were more difficult and took a little research:
Fletcher,
Chandler,
Frobisher?

Last night I came home to find Sara Jean watching the wonderful "How Green Was My Valley" on TCM. My ears perked as I heard "Collier". The context in which it was used gave me a clue.

Got an interesting or unusual name?
You may find it at the bottom of the page here.
(The -ters surprised me... Baxter, Brewster, Webster.)

I have a couple friends named "Fleener".
That one appears to be a mystery.

Alaska Helicopter EMS Accident- Update

It's a BK117.
They have found the body of the Nurse, and pieces of the aircraft.
It doesn't look good.

Relationships- The Care and Feeding Of,

I wanta talk about two-way streets... or what OUGHT to be two-way streets.

I admit it freely... I'm a "Rube" at heart!
Go back in the archives of this blog and read some of the stories of my childhood and you'll learn I was perfectly happy staying close to my Central Indiana home. When I was drafted in 1966 I had been out of the State only three or four times. Away from home, all I could think of was getting back... back into my comfort zone.

Of course Uncle Sam changed all that with the draft. He took me away from family, friends, and neighbors. To the degree I could I tried to maintain my close relationships. And the way I did that, mostly, was via letter-writing.

It's a lost art now,mostly because of email but part of the blame lies with cell phones too.

I mourn the loss.

I used to LOVE receiving letters! You could open a letter and sprint through it's contents looking for any surprising or important news, then go back again, (and again, and again) and re-read the words... savoring them, looking for subtleties.

And of course, letters that came from someone REALLY special generally included even more... a scent... and wonderful reminder of times past and times to come. (Mail Call in my early ARMY training was done the way we've all seen it portrayed in movies... A group of GI's gathered around the Company clerk calling out the names and passing the mail to the recipients... AFTER sniffing the letter if it appeared to be from a wife/girlfriend. If the clerk oohed and aahed about the letter, we all smiled and shared in the warm feeling, knowing someone had taken the time to put pen to paper, then scent the letter and get it on the way to their special correspondent.)

I loved letters from home. I knew that if I wrote, the recipient was more likely to write back and answer questions or respond to my comments. So I wrote LOTS of letters!
I wrote to family.
I wrote to girlfriends.
I wrote to buddies.
Girlfriends ALWAYS wrote back. Family would frequently write back. Buddies... not so much. Mostly, guys would wait a period of time, then they'd call.

To me that was cheating. I expended time and effort to gather pen/paper/envelope/stamp and send my thoughts in a material way. Their communcation came in such a way that when the phone was returned to the receiver, all I had left was the memory......No goin' back to review the correspondence. Nothing to save and re-read later, maybe YEARS later and be reminded of what was going on at that time in my life.
I resented it a lot!

I don't know why, but most guys are terrible about communicating! I've been given lots of excuses to explain this fact:
"I can't spell.
My writing looks like 'chicken-scratches'.
I can't express myself well.
I don't have time, (and the corollary... never think about it when I have the time.")
What a bunch of crap!

But I finally learned the rules of the game and gave up trying to change people.
If I wrote you a nice long letter and you returned my communication via telephone, our communicating was over until you called again to inquire about me. No more letters... I won't waste my time.
(An extension of this rule applied to trips home during leave too... if I drove 700+ miles to come home, surely you could drive ten minutes to shake my hand personally, right?)

So now, in another compartment in my life, I'm bein' reminded that relationships are not always 50/50...
I know that and accept it. I've had relationships where I put out 70% versus 30, but when I needed that 30% friend to be there... they were there in Spades! That certainly makes the 70% expenditure worthwhile.
But what if the relationship is 90/10? What if it's 95/5? At what point do you say to yourself, "I'm bein' used here, and I'm not gettin' back the interest I oughta be gettin' on this investment?"

And that's not a rhetorical question, folks.
I really would like your input on the care and feeding of relationships!

Thanks in advance for your response!

Election '08...

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER FORGET:


Thanks again to Instapundit

Compare and Contrast-

Watch out guys...
More and more women are becoming active in the helicopter industry.

I couldn't be more pleased!
(I've added Maggie and Stacy to my Blogroll.)

Just... Gone.

It's another unfortunate reminder-
Try as hard as we might, the job will always entail a certain amount of risk.

An Open Letter To NBC

Dear Sirs,

I am aware of your stance against running the ads submitted to you by Freedom Watch.
I have had my fill of your anti-troop, anti-American attitude.
If I could have NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC removed from my list of available channels, I would. Denying my ability to do that, I'll set up a new "favorites list" and omit them there.
Folks, you owe the country an apology!

Greybeard

Don't know what I'm talking about? Go and read about these shameful people HERE!

UPDATED 8 December-
In the face of considerable outrage at their censorship, NBC retreats!

Further update, 9 Dec-
Nope, no bias at all at NBC!

Tip 'O the hat to Instapundit.

Hillary Rodham

Oh... and Clinton, of course...
when it's to her advantage to remind you.

I've intended for some time to write about HRC and how interesting it is gonna be now that Obama and Oprah have hooked up.
The "inevitability" of Hillary's candidacy has vanished, like the puff of smoke in a magicians act.
Then I saw Ann's post and realized I could not do better.

--Added, from Synova in the comments:
"Being told what to think by men?
Is that any worse than being told what to think by Jane Fonda and subject to abuse if I have my *own* ideas?
Hillary is evil, not stupid.
Jane Fonda is stupid."

Oh my!

Curiosity

Of course he said nothing about it.
I suppose he figured the storm would come soon enough, and wanted to put it off as long as possible.

We'd had it about a month...
This was back in the day when video cameras still looked like something the guys from "Channel 2" carried around... it was substantial in size. Even on sale it had cost a weeks pay.
Our old video camera had died, so I replaced it with this one...
1Lux meant it would take video in VERY dark conditions, and it had lots of other bells and whistles. I hoped I (and he) would learn how to use them all.

Heading out the door to attend an event I wanted to record, I found the camera in Big Bubba's bedroom. That wasn't out of the ordinary because we had already seen glimmers of his talent in the audio/visual realm and were hoping he'd experiment like a young Steven Spielberg, right here under our roof. But something looked a little odd...
The viewfinder was gone.
Gone... as in non-existent-make-the-camera-USELESS gone!

"Uhh son, what happened to the camera?"

"I just wanted to see how it worked."

Uh-oh.
This wasn't the kind of self-educating I was hoping for.
I wanted "M. Night Shyamalan", NOT "Big Bubba, video camera repairman."

You've probably anticipated the rest of the story-
Getting the viewfinder fixed was 25% the cost of the camera in the first place. But it was almost certainly worth it...
He got very good at writing/producing/directing his own productions, and I don't recall his curiosity getting the best of him again.

Where, Oh Where, Has My Little Bomb Gone?

There's a beach in the shadow of that lighthouse where I've spent many wonderful afternoons. There once was a campground just a few hundred feet away where my parents would park their RV.
Now I'm surprised to find there is a chunk of Plutonium submerged within shouting distance of the spot where I sunbathed, drank daiquiris, and figured a nuclear device was the least of my worries.
I spent several months in Savannah Georgia in 1968 while attending ARMY flight school. I liked it so much I came back and lived there while teaching others to fly helicopters from late '69 to 1972. In those three years I never heard anything about the mid-air collision that resulted in the dropping of the device.
Amazing.

The Discovery Channel is presently running a documentary on attempts to find the bomb using technology that was not available in earlier searches. It's an interesting story. Let's pray they find it.

MSNBC Objectivity-

Subtle, huh?

More of this, please!

More Olby!
More Erin Burnett!

How low can their ratings go??!!