United

The Crap You Didn't Know, Volume II

Dayton has a rich heritage of innovation and creativity. While the Wright Brothers and Paul Laurence Dunbar (?) may be the most notable (or not) figures from Dayton,they are only three of the pioneers who used Dayton as their creative breeding ground. Below are some of the other inventions from Daytonians that have helped change the world.

• Isolated Home and Farm Electric Lighting System (yippee!)
• Stepladder
• Radio Isotopic Thermoelectric Generator for Spacecraft
• Controllable Pitch Propeller
• Microfiche
• Collapsible Portable Crib
• Heart-Lung Machine
• Motorized Wheelchairs
• Pull Tab and Pop Top Beverage Cans
• Ice Cube Tray with Ejector Mechanism
• Goniometer (measures location of thalamus for surgery)
• Movie Projector, Movie Camera, Movie Film and Movie Theatre
• Automobile Starter
• Price Tag Affixing Machines
• Directional Compass with Dual Radio Beam Triangulation System
• Cash Register
• Gas Masks
• Airplane, Controls for Rudder, Elevator, Wing Lift Shape; and, it goes to show,
• the Parachute

Famous Old People with Sticks

So the Senior Open is being played on a golf course here in town. NBC will be covering it this weekend. Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Tom Watson, Curtis Strange, Hajime Meshiai, and Wendell Coffee, to name six people I've never had in my kitchen, will be gracing the local Denney'ses with their Puttses. If you look really closely at the 16th tee, you will not be able to see me in the library working on one of my take-home midterm exams.

Good Dogma

I've actually been quite lucky while volunteering. A few weeks ago, Tippy surprised me out front with a sudden dart and pulled his leash out of my grip, running around like a maniac. Fortunately, he ran into the Humane Society's fenced-in rear entrance, and I was able to get him back. Today, after walking Trey, just a sweet little black and white cattle dog/terrier, a little boy asked if he could watch me put the dog back in his kennel. I told him to ask his mother if it was okay, and then he came and watched. He didn't like the loud barking and hung out back by the door. I let Trey in and then put Ace (brown chow mix) on the leash. Unfortunately, his collar was way too loose, and he pulled himself right out of it, and he charged the boy at the end of the hall.
And licked him on the pee pee.
I ran down and wrapped my arms around his head as he squiggled about, just when an employee brought another dog in through the door...and Ace just sniffed its nose. Boy: "Is he mean?" "He doesn't look it..." and I let Ace lick my nose. "Does he like pink leashes?" "I don't think he cares." "What are you doing?" "Tightening his collar!" "He licked me on the--" "WELL LOOK AT THE TIME."
Garfunkle (beagle/basset hound) is a sad case, recovering from a torn ACL and has warts and lumps. They're going to try to make him the senior citizen's home dog. And Harley is still here, four weeks now. The good news is that Bear was adopted and CiCi has been spoken for. They're hoping to adopt out 2005 animals in 2005, and they seem to be ahead of schedule...

Good Carma

To review: Tuesdays I don't have class until 11 am. But the parking meters start being legally binding at 8 am. So I usually leave at 7:59 and go to the gym before class. Today, though, I decided I'd get a haircut first. So, with my uniform and gym bag and book bag and tea mug and breakfast, I walked towards my wonderful Thunderbird, which was bowing towards me as I approached.
Which is odd, for a car.
Then I noticed that the front-right tire was half-flat.
Bollocks.

So it's a good thing that I was parked right in front of a Goodyear station.

Had my car back by 10, in time to reach class, but not get the haircut. Perhaps I will cut it myself later tonight.

Where the Hell are my Parents

After a relaxing day with the critters, I set my alarm for 0515 so I could get to Dulles in time to pick up My Pregnant Wife. Now. A little over three years ago, she flew to England to visit me so I could propose and live happy, though she thought it was just a second date. I also told her how to get to my grandmother's town via bus after landing at Heathrow early in the morning, though no gentleman/future fiance would leave a gorgeous American to fend for herself. I woke up at 0400 to take a bus down to the airport and surprise her. I had a good four- or five-day goatee going, wore a knit cap low over my head, sunglasses, and a cigarette dangling from the right side of my mouth, waiting for her to arrive. She burst from the customs doors pushing a luggage cart, and I limped an exaggerated, broken-knee limp her way and tugged on her shirt. She turned away, good girl. I pursued her and she finally recognized me, no doubt by my nose, which is considerable.

Jump to 2005. No time to grow a beard, and too bloody hot to wear a wig, I grabbed some yellow-tinted sunglasses from our costume trunk, slunk a baseball camp on backwards, and hoped a newspaper could block my face sufficiently to surprise, but not outright shock lest I induce labor, My Pregnant Wife.

I was hiding behind an information desk while people started mulling around her flight's baggage belt, but I couldn't locate her. I took a chance and, newspaper up, walked and scanned, and spotted her. Unfortunately, she then moved away from the other people to be by herself along the back of the carousel, force protection rule #1. If you're in the Middle East. She seems a tad paranoid. Up came the newspaper, as I walked with a squat gait, trying to make myself appear shorter and unhusband like.

Here's what she told me she was thinking as I approached:

"That guy sure is holding his newspaper funny."

"My husband has that shirt."

"Those are my husband's sandals!"

Aloud: "What the hell are you doing here?"

So the lesson learned is that the art of surprise requires unfamiliar wardrobe, a smaller nose, and an indirect line of approach.

It was to have been six weeks before we'd have seen each other, so this was a welcome three-week injunction. We worked on the nursery a bit, installing another clothes rack for teeny hangers and touching up some of the paint job, but really just enjoyed a relaxing weekend in a house where I no longer know where anything is, but is still the best thing to come home to.

I also put my acoustic guitar up the boy's temporary quarters and played a few tunes, so he should be good to go in the quick-learning department, if not the Queensryche-appreciation department, which is in the same vicinity.

A Room Upon Which Not to Sneak

My school schedule was such last week that I was able to take leave and drive home after classes Wednesday. My VERY Pregnant Wife was in Washington state visiting her sister's family and bringing home several million dollars worth of itty bitty boy clothes on an overnight flight Thursday, so I thought I would surprise her and pick her up myself. I told her parents that I wouldn't know until the day of whether or not I'd be coming, but that if I did, they wouldn't have to pick up their daughter at the airport, but that they should still pretend, in any phone conversations with her, that they were. They were keen to be in on the joke and also not have to get up a 4 in the morning.
My gracious and overdressed pet-sitter of a father had stopped by our human-absent house for eight days, providing breakfast, dinner, and attention for the animals, every night leaving the dogs in their air-conditioned room with a doggie door that gives them free access to the back yard. So I thought I'd surprise them, too.
Tiptoeing around the house at 12:45am, I gently lifted the gate latch and glided across the porch. The back yard has a lamp post in the middle of it, illuminating the surroundings and casting my shadow on the back of the house. Halfway to the door, I realized I was being ... ignored.
Jeremy the cat was sitting at the glass sliding door, staring at bugs in the part of the door the door slides back in forth on the name of which escapes me. I waved my hands in the air to get his attention. His attention hit him like a wet towel in the tuckus, and he scooted down and back, eyes wide at this strange gesticulating outline in the back yard. I put a finger to my lips. He understood.
I peered into the dog's room, seeing Griffin a few yards behind the door and Bailey and Dover on the small carpet in the back, next to, but not on, their doggie beds. All were dead asleep, even Griffin on the cold cement. I crouched down and gently lifted back the doggie door flap and stuck my camera in. Just as I was about to snap the picture, Griffin's head snapped up. *click* He slowly got up with a low, menacing growl, his tail a stiff fluffstick of warning.
"Griffin!" I said in a please-don't-kill-me friendly voice. And all three rushed out to greet me with squeaky whine-barks that were just adorable as heck.
So while I was disappointed I got that far without being noticed, and Jeremy certainly is fired as a guard cat, I was dutifully impressed with Griffin's badassness.

Remember the Alamogordoan

After studying electrical engineering and graduating with honors from North Carolina State College in 1925, George Holloman was commissioned in the US Army Infantry. While serving as a comunications officer, he transferred to the Army Air Corps in 1927 and received both pilot and observer ratings the following year. By 1931, he was assistant director of the Instrument and Navigation Laboratories and tasked with developing aircraft instruments and navigation equipment, which ultimately led to automatic flight (instrument landing and automatic pilot). Later, serving as the Laboratory Direcgtor, he was instrumental (har!) in the development of radio-controlled aircraft. In 1941, Col Holloman headed a special weapons unit tasked with developing guided missile technology.
In 1946, Col Holloman was killed in a plane crash in Taiwan while serving as Deputy Chief of Staff for Supply & Maintenance, 20th Air Force.

Col Holloman graduated from what is now AFIT in 1935.

In 1971, I was born at Holloman Air Force Base.

(gently stroking his mashed potatoes:) "This means something..."

The Dog Whisperer

Bear's still there, Harley's still there, whose sons Gizmo and Tippy are still there. Reagan's still there. Cici, adopted earlier in the week, is back. Not a good week for the maminals.
After letting Tippy and Harley chase bugs on the field across the street, and slowly walking an old beagle with ACL problems, I saw CiCi (the black dog below) being brought back in, a bundle of energy that didn't work with the adopters or their 4 cats. The volunteer coordinator asked if I would walk her around to get her yayas out. Pull, tug, jump, chasing same bugs...I noticed she was never really looking at me. I got on my knees and just let her walk around me in a circle, and for ten minutes, she didn't make eye contact. Just wandered. I took her inside to a "bonding room" and threw toys around for her and played tug-o-war, but she only really looked at me when I started humming to the song on the radio. Head tilting back and forth, what is this strange sound, barking confusion. Seems she hates Rod Stewart.
The volunteer coordinator asked if I wanted to take her home.
The dog, not herself.
I miss my kids.

Puppaplooza

Back into the volunteering game, though I'm still just a dog walker. Beats deworming the rabbits, I suppose, but the volunteers back in Colorado Springs seemed to do so much more and know more about the organization... I asked the coordinator if they were planning on doing anything at the Dayton Air Show in a couple weeks, but she said their equivalent of the Critter Cruiser was too loud with the generator running to attend an all-day event like that. Pooper.
On a good note, previous walkees Whiskey and Duncan were adopted, as was Josie the cat. My new favorite loudmouth is Reagan. Though Curly Sue with the bent ear is adorable as well

I had my cell phone turned off all evening, My Pregnant Wife let me know via email, and when I retrieved my voicemails, I had one from the Humane Society, asking if I was still interested in Volunteering. Seems someone found my application finally. Oh, well. It's all about the animals. (Bear, Gismo, CiCi, Polo, and Tippy, above, are all available...)

London

Learned an hour after hearing the news that my brother (and two visiting Americans) was in London the morning of the bombing, though everyone's fine. They were in a pub when the reports starting to come on the television, I learned. Put the kaibosh on their planned bus tour of the city. Let alone how the hell they were supposed to get back to Oxford that night. Don't know the details, but I got a voice mail that they got home by 11:15pm.

One will leave out the issues of having to be a pub at 9 in the morning.

London, of course, holds a special place in my family's heart, so the attack has raised my hackles. Makes me wish all the more that I wasn't stuck in the middle of Ohio with a bookbag and a locker, instead of heading up some National Reconnaissance Office tiger team doing super-classified shit to destroy these assholes.

Rumbly in the Tumbly

We were given Friday, July 1st off for a nice four-day weekend, so I thunder-scooted outa town on Thursday afternoon, driving through two of the worst storms I've ever encountered in my car. Really keeps you focused. 10 and 2 all the way. It was all I could do not to drop my ice cream cone.

It was My Pregnant Wife's birthday that Thursday, so she drove out to her folks' place in Berkeley Springs to meet me there, where I was overfed and overdrunk and overnatured for two days. Drove home Saturday to see the pups and kittens (I don't think Jeremy knew whew I was for a few seconds) and spent a relaxing three days at home if you don't count me sawing through the tip of my thumb while pruning some trees.

Thumbs are really amazing. Beyond the whole opposability of them, when you've got a gash and a bandaid on the tip of it, you realize all the things you can't do. Button a button. Tie a shoe. Open a package of Combos(TM). Debooger an eye. This is why little kids suck them. They're valuable tools, and need to be tenderized at an early age.

Speaking of, I felt my boy for the first time moving around in My Pregnant Wife's uvurus while we watched "Madagascar" (highly recommended). That's got to be so weird for the host mammal. Bless her and the 23-week-old rugrat.