The Bear

Prompted by VariFrank

Cindy McCain Topless!

Sen. McCain wants to enter her in the "Ms. Buffalo Chip" contest, and I can see why!
Ferdinand T. Cat actually has a photo of Cindy topless,
(and a link with a photo of Laura Ingraham topless too!)

Life Can Be Hard

The temperature-dew points are close, and the wind is dead still.
The sky is clear, so I know fog is coming. The AWOS transcribed weather at our home airport is still reporting 10 miles visibility as we take off.


She buried her Mother, then came home to her familiar surroundings.
She was at the sink washing dishes, and we'll never know exactly what happened except that when she woke up she was lying on the floor with terrible head pain.
All we know is that this 63 year old woman now has a head injury and a serious bleed inside her skull, and she needs help the local hospital cannot provide.

I warn my crew about the pending fog. They make no promises, but they get the job done quickly.
When we get back home, the AWOS says "Winds calm, visibility
5 miles, sky clear below 12 thousand. Temperature 18, Dew Point 18. Altimeter 29.93.

Thirty minutes later the visibility drops to 1-1/2 mile.
I smile inside...
Fortune smiled at us, and at her.
It's been a rough day for her family.
I hope she makes it.

Star Trek, The Experience

One of the main things we wanted to do while in Las Vegas in November was go to the Hilton Hotel and experience "Star Trek, The Experience". Our son is a "Trekkie", and has made a living in the Sci-Fi industry since graduating college. So when I saw this post over at Daily Aviator, I forwarded it to him, knowing for him it was probably old news.
He replied that he knew about the convention, then mentioned something I hadn't heard:
"Star Trek, The Experience" will be closing September 1st.
I'm sorry to hear that. We enjoyed it, and I'll agree with what I heard before going... you'll enjoy it even if you aren't a "Trekkie". If you have any thoughts about going to Las Vegas before 1Sep, be sure and go to the Hilton. Then come here and tell us about it.

Dateline Denver, 2008

Zowie, am I glad I found this guy! It's always interesting to look at something through someone elses eyes, isn't it?

I'm not sure I agree with his forecast scenario, but he may be thinking more like a democrat than I am.
My hope?
Those Superdelegates are NOT locked into their stated positions!
I'm hopeful for HIGH DRAMA...
She could still pull it off ya know!?

Backsliding

A little over a year ago, I lost 17 pounds in just under 4 months, through calorie counting and exercise. At that time I blogged that the only way I would keep that weight off was to have a weekly weigh-in and, if I found I'd gained a pound, lose it right away.
There is no worse fool than those that fool themselves... I didn't follow my own advice, and I've gained EVERY SINGLE POUND back! I'm ashamed of myself.

Sara Jean has been suffering hot flashes. They are so bad, I'm not too worried about our heating bills this Winter. (And that's not much of an exaggeration... she has been known to suddenly shed most of her clothing in an instant... it would be entertaining, if she wasn't in such discomfort.)
She's taking three different medicines to counter the effects of all she's experiencing, and for whatever reason... change of life, medicine, or some other problem, she now has also added a few pounds to her tall frame.
So together we've declared war.

She has had some luck with Nutrisystem in the past, and I like that plan because it provides the necessary nutrition with meals that aren't skimpy and have enough variety to keep her from getting bored. She ordered the plan, and I'm expecting it to arrive later today.
Me? I'll just do what I did before- exercise more and eat less.

But on the exercise side, I've had the bicycle out for a month now, running errands into town on it rather than starting the car and wasting the biggest part of a gallon of fuel to drive 6 miles round-trip in a car with a cold engine. It's felt pretty good.
Today I decided I'd try to ride the 11 mile course I rode daily,
27 years ago. You may remember, I used to be able to ride that distance in 36 minutes on my old 10 speed. Today, on my mountain bike, which is a little heavier and probably not geared as high as the old bike, I did the 11 miles in 62 minutes. It's 85+ F. outside, so this old man ain't ashamed with that performance. I'll work on the time, but the main thing is to enjoy the ride so I don't quit... right?

One more thing...
I blogged some time ago about the "Peticure" thingy on TV and wondered if it worked.
Surfing the net led me to this video:


Today I got out my dremel and tried it on Lucy. She was terrified of the "Dentist's drill" sound, but otherwise didn't resist nearly as much as she used to when I got out the pet clippers.
I'm sold. If you've got a dog, the dremel is the way to go because it has so many other uses!

Race and Politics

I've puzzled some of my friends by saying Barack Obama's candidacy is a good thing. I wish the republican party had been first to nominate a candidate of color... a Michael Steele for instance. But Michael hit a political speedbump in his attempt to become Governor of Maryland. We haven't heard the last of him. (Maybe he can be our second black President, after Bill Clinton?)

But consider what BHO's nomination has already done...
It has forced us to openly discuss Race...
What is and is not racist...
Where Black leadership has gotten us, (or NOT gotten us)...
How affirmative action has hurt Black folk. (Do you want to hire a man that has been able to drive from the Women's Tee?)
There's more I'm not thinking of, and there will be more open discussion in the future. How can that NOT be healthy?

Barack Obama is being vilified by some. Those who come here regularly know he scares the puddin' out of me because of his Marxist/Socialist leanings. This is not to say I think he's a bad guy... I just think his ideas will lead to more "hitting from the women's tee", at a time when America needs to push harder and be more competitive.

But have you noticed? Even though we have an attractive, intelligent, articulate man of color carrying the banner for the democrat party, this country of "freedom of speech" has folks of color speaking what they consider the truth, taking an opposing position to this democrat nominee.

I stopped by here for a few minutes and liked what I saw. Click the "About" link and see for yourself if "RattlerGator" doesn't give you a more positive outlook about our political future!

The New Seal:

Do you know Latin?
Thanks to Neal Boortz.

Added:
"I'm taking a special look at Barack Obama because he's a lot closer to a Jesus-type than the other candidates, by quite a bit. What if God decided to incarnate as men preaching 'hope and change.' And what if we didn't recognize them, because we are so dull, and let them slip away, not availing ourselves of the opportunity to be led by God!"
(From a letter to the editor of the "East Illinois Journal Gazette-Times Courier", written by one Steve Davis and quoted in the book by David Freddoso, "The Case Against Barack Obama".)

I've seen pictures of BHO with a halo emanating from his head, but thought that was only backlighting!

Again, thanks to Boortz.

Look Out Canada!

In the middle of all that shouting, hate, filth and stupidity...
"I'm Moving to Canada!"

...Not nearly fast enough for a bunch of us, bunky!
Thanks for bein' there for us Canada!

Even A Blind Pig...

... finds an acorn now and then.
TV sitcoms seemingly must follow a formula in order to be successful these days. Consider:
"Home Improvement", "The King of Queens", "The Simpsons", "The Honeymooners", and the list could go on and on.
The common thread? The husband is sloppy, boorish, and stupid, but he was smart enough to marry a woman smarter than he, who is continually stressed while running around resolving problems he has caused in their lives.
(There is one VERY successful exception to this formula. Have you thought of it?
It's a sign of how society has changed that it's not been tried since TV's infancy.)

So there was something that surprised me about the following clip. See if you agree:



I have never seen "American Dad" so I'm only able to assume from this clip (and others I reviewed on YouTube) that the show follows the successful formula, with the addition that "Stan" is even stupider than usual because he's a gun-owning, homophobic, conservative. I'll freely admit to being dense now and then, but I'm not so stupid that I don't realize the show's producers are using their superior intellect to make fun of guys like me with the overall theme of the show, week after week. That's okay, we've been putting up with that attitude from TV shows for more than fifty years.
But admit it...
When Stan places that Glock on the table and commands it to "KILL!", didn't you nod your head and laugh? I did.

I've owned guns most of my life.
As a Deputy Sheriff I normally carried a .357 magnum in a visible holster, plus a .380 calibre automatic concealed in an ankle holster. In all my 61 years, with the exception of my time in Viet Nam, I have never even had to point a loaded weapon at another human being. So you can understand my bewilderment at Hollywoods attitude toward guns, playing forboding music every time a gun is even shown on the screen.
Have you seen this movie? I watched for almost two hours as an innocent, terrified family feared for their lives, shouting "Where's your gun?"
A gun is a tool. Any tool... a chainsaw for instance, can be used as it was intended, or it can be misused.

What I have never been able to understand though, is why many women, with their ability to resolve the problems we men continually cause, fear guns. A gun can be a woman's best friend:



...OJ shows up at the front door dressed in black, wearing his Bruno Maglis, and pulls his knife. Nicole, having learned from so many previous incidents, smiles, draws her Ladysmith, and makes the world a better place for all.

Still don't like guns? No problem. You know what you can and cannot do better than anyone.
Got kids in the household? You'll have to take special precautions to protect the kids.
But with proper considerations, a gun in the house can make you AND the kids safer.

Call the police.
How long will it take them to arrive? Got a way to protect yourself from someone two or three times your size?
Sara Jean does.

I'm a stupid, gun owning conservative. But I'm also a survivor.
And as a former Boy Scout I've known a couple things most of my life-
I need to "Be Prepared", and...
Common sense ain't so common as it once was.

"The World Is Ready For Change, 'Cause Obama Is Here!"

Yeah, okay, okay, LUDACRIS! ... Hey!
I'm back on it like I just signed my record deal
yeah the best is here, the Bentley Coupe paint is dripping wet, it got sex appeal
never shoulda hated
you never shoulda doubted him
with a slot in the president's iPod Obama shouted 'em
Said I handled my biz and I'm one of his favorite rappers
Well give Luda a special pardon if I'm ever in the slammer
Better yet put me office, make me your vice president
Hillary hated on you, so that b^$&%* is irrelevant
now Jesse talking slick and apologizing for what?
if you said it then you meant it how you want it have a gut!
and all you other politicians trying to hate on my man,
watch us win majority vote in every state on my man
you can't stop what's bout to happen, we bout to make history
the first black president is destined and it's meant to be
the threats ain't fazing us, the nooses or the jokes
get off your ass, black people, it's time to get out and vote!
paint the White House black and I'm sure that's got 'em terrified
McCain don't belong in ANY chair unless he's paralyzed
Yeah I said it cause Bush is mentally handicapped
Ball up all of his speeches and just throw em like candy wrap
cause what you talking I hear nothing even relevant
and you da worst of all 43 presidents
get out and vote or the end'll be near
the world is ready for change because Obama is here!
yeah... cause Obama is here
The world is ready for change because Obama is here!

Wow.
Catchy, huh?

I Don't Wanta Go There!

"In a free country you could have sued the hospital. As it is, those who murdered your daughter will suffer no penalty."

How sad.
You can read about more about how Universal Health Care is failing here.
(The quote is from comments to the article.)

It Made Me Oddly Sad...

Go and read this post and see if it has the same impact on you.
Heaven help us, 'cause we can't seem to help ourselves.

Optimism, Or Lack Thereof...

We've all had the experience...
You encounter the "gloomy gus" who wants to go into the details of his quadruple bypass and recovery therefrom. If you see him in the grocery before he sees you, you hightail it to the opposite end of the store to check the price of premium diced clams, hoping he's headed for the checkout line.

It pays to be positive.
Like flies to sugar-water, positive people attract others.
I'm mostly a "positive attitude" guy, but it's getting more and more difficult.
One of my last flights bummed me out.
"Your patient is at Rock City Memorial Hospital. She's a 58 year old female, renal failure and rule out sepsis. She weighs 320 pounds."

Ugh.
Ugh for several reasons...
It's hot. The Rock City helipad is adjacent to tall utility poles with wires, mandating a one-way in, one-way out approach/departure.
I check, and the wind is cooperating for an into-the-wind departure, thank God. But that can only happen after we have loaded her bulk into the helicopter. Hoisting that kind of weight through the clamshell doors will be a task that will require two people on the lifting end of the stretcher and another inside the helicopter holding the folds of fat away from the wall as the other two push and lock the stretcher in place.
Ugh.

I always stay close to my crew on these flights... these little hospitals don't have many hands to help lift these heavy patients, so I frequently need to don gloves to help transfer them from the hospital bed to our stretcher. This time is no different. She has about a foot of tissue overhanging each side of the hospital bed, so I'm interested to see how we'll elevate the siderails of our stretcher after we have loaded her there.
Six people around her, three on each side, we all grab handfuls of the bedding beneath her...
Steve counts "one, two, three", and we move her more easily than I thought possible until I do the math: 320 divided by 6= less than 60 pounds each. No big deal. Steve reaches from the opposite side of the stretcher and lifts the fatty tissue out of the path of the siderail as Jim raises it, then they do the opposite side. The siderails disappear. It's an amazing sight.

We load her, fly her, unload her, and get her to the ICU safely.
On the flight back to base I ask, "Was she insured?"
Laughter from the crew answers my question. "She was on Public Aid."
Your tax dollars paid for this "Uninsured" patient to fly by helicopter to get the health care she needs, folks. And tax dollars will pay for her hospital stay, because no federally funded hospital can turn her away, and all the Level One trauma hospitals in Bigtown are federally funded.

I'm conflicted here. How much of this is a lack of personal responsibility?
I realize she's probably mentally ill. I realize she needs a support network.
I realize for her, food is a drug. To her, it's a drug every bit as powerful as heroin.
But she is our slave, isn't she?
We have established a system where she has locked herself up.
On public aid, she has the funds to eat enough to make herself morbidly obese. (This case is worse than morbidly obese... what's the term for that?)
And the scary part? We deal with cases like this often enough that my question, "Was she insured?" elicited laughter.
I ask, "How does she get so fat on Public Aid?"
Jim responds... "Government cheese."

What is OUR responsibilty here in our nearly bankrupt health care system?
Isn't caring for a patient like this a form of codependency?
The system we've established is partially responsible for her condition!

And here is where it begins to be difficult for me to remain positive about the course we're taking...
Let's get back to personal responsibility. These days no one is responsible for the mistakes they make.
"I stole those shoes because he was rich and I was embarrassed with my footgear."
"I stole his BMW because he looked so smug sitting there and I can't afford one."
"I'm fat because I can't stop eating trans-fats at McDonalds."

And instead of realizing where our real problem lies and resolving it, (that would be HARD and would require facing personal responsibility), we're headed toward more Socialist attitudes... more codependency. "Hope and change" means more government programs and more tax dollars helping more of these folks get more access to "government cheese"... a vicious cycle.

I'm in a funk.
Help me to see how we get back on the right course.
Show me how to be optimistic about our future.

300 Miles Per Gallon

Would you be interested in an enclosed, 4-wheel, diesel powered motorcycle that gets 300 miles per gallon? The rumor is that Volkswagen may actually produce this thing in 2010. I have the same problem I had when considering the new "Smart" car...
If it costs $26,000, the purchase price would fuel/repair my present (paid off) work car for the rest of my life, even assuming $5/gallon gasoline. But it's exciting, and a step in the right direction.
You can read more about it here.

Moron Global Warming

"While it will take some time for the research community to digest this new information, it must be mentioned that new research contradicting the latest IPCC report is entirely consistent with the normal course of scientific progress. I predict that in the coming years, there will be a growing realization among the global warming research community that most of the climate change we have observed is natural, and that mankind's role is relatively minor."

Apparently the good Doctor was very nice while he shot holes in AGW theories during his testimony before the Senate.

Crow.
Very soon, some will be able to tell us it tastes like chicken, I bet!

Another One Bites the Dust

I'd take great pleasure in it, except we are balanced on a precipice ourselves and don't need someone poking us in the sternum...
Several Brit Blogs I regularly read are referring to a political meltdown there. "Two countries separated by a single language" keeps me from knowing precisely what is going on, but what little I can glean indicates a big part of the problem is economic. The "Tax and spend" Labour party has apparently screwed the pooch there, and will be on its "arse" soon enough. If you can speak and read English, please go here, read the post and all the links, then come back and translate for the rest of us.
(Don't read the comments unless you're prepared for strong language.)

And the ironic thing for me, once again?
Doesn't "We are the ones we've been waiting for" want to take us down that same Socialist path?

GOD help us.

Look Ma, No Tail Rotor II !

(If you missed the first exciting installment of "Look Ma, no tail rotor", you can catch up with the rest of us here.)
I can never remember whether it's Newton's first, second, or twenty-third law...
"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." For conventional twin-engine airplane drivers, it's what makes takeoffs interesting because if you lose your "critical engine", Mr. Newton's law might make the last seconds of your life exciting.
Newton also keeps most helicopter pilots on their toes by constantly keeping them aware of that little turny-thingy on the back of the machine, the "anti-torque rotor".
The turning main rotor tries to twist the fuselage of the helicopter in the opposite direction. The tail rotor is used to stop or control the amount of "equal and opposing" force.

Tail rotors are dangerous.
Back when I was still flying Bell LongRangers, one of my main worries on scene flights was having someone walk into the tail rotor. The bottom of the tail rotor arc reached down to a level less than 4 feet above the ground, so even a child was at risk. I always tried to park the aircraft in such a way that the tail rotor was opposite the direction ground EMS personnel would approach the aircraft... Chaotic scenes with everyone running around willy-nilly were nerve-wracking.

You have to be more than 6 feet tall to be concerned about encountering the tail rotor on the BK117 I now fly, (assuming the aircraft is sitting on level ground). So I can now be a little more relaxed at accident scenes.
The other consideration about tail rotors is their vulnerability. They are quite fragile, and they are at the rear extreme of the helicopter, helping them to be a better lever and do the job they have to do. That position also makes it more likely the pilot will screw up and strike them against something in a hovering turn or extreme nose-high attitude. As we have seen before, a conventional helicopter suddenly losing its tail rotor is an interesting study in physics.
So for a number of reasons, efficiently doing away with the tail rotor is a good thing.

Sitting in my office the other day I heard what sounded like a truck going down the road with the tread of a tire coming off. When the sound didn't fade away into the distance I ran to see what was causing the noise and saw one of the above pictured aircraft land and taxi to the fuel pumps. It's a Kaman Aircraft company "K-Max". The two main rotors cancel out torque. Eliminating the tail rotor also increases the amount of power supplied to the main rotors... and since this machine is designed for lifting, having that extra power to lift is a great thing. And it's an efficient lifter... it can pick up its own weight. There is a penalty in the design... the pilot was flying his machine cross-country to do another job, and when I asked his cruise speed he replied, "Ninety knots".
Ouch.

Other machines use two main rotors to counteract torque...
here's an interesting shot of one you know. Here's another that has just started its U.S. military career.

Finally, there is one more example of a two main rotors to cancel torque shown here. This example is a Russian Kamov, with its coaxial rotor system.

Now, a mental exercise for ya...
Think of how hovering turns are accomplished in all these machines!

Sparta... Greatness!

It's not often that I'm dumbstruck. I can think of only two or three occasions in my life that I've been rendered speechless.

Back in the days I was flying an AStar for the big construction company, we hangared the aircraft next to some pretty expensive flying machines. Normally I'd preflight the aircraft while it sat next to your everyday Piper Cheyenne or King Air 200.

One morning, groggy and with full coffee cup in hand, I rounded the corner to see this vision parked next to me, and I was awestruck. Like the pictured aircraft, the aluminum shone like a new dime. An aging beauty, it was as nearly perfect as its owner could make it.

Preflighting took longer than usual that morning!

We Are Building A Religion!

YouTube has censored the video, but it is still available at this blog.

Does the censorship bother you?
First the scumbag New York Times won't publish McCain's op-ed article,
now YouTube also limits the free expression of ideas...
Scary, huh?

Heads up, free-thinkers.

Via Instapundit.

Added:
The major media is protecting another fluff democrat too!