Open House! ...Just some other house.

"Can I ask you a question?"
Oh, boy.
It's not that I hate dealing with people, but I'm there for the dogs, not the customers, and I hate not knowing answers, and I hate more that there are NEVER any employees back in the kennels to talk to people who have questions. But here I am, big leash around my shoulders, big VOLUNTEER on the back of my shirt, so:
"You can ask, but I'm only here once a week, so..."
Lady in her early thirties: "There's a dog back here that has a sign that says 'not ready for adoption' but I'm not ready, either, so would it be okay if I just visited with him?"
You know, it's the Humane Society. All about adoption. I said it shouldn't be a problem, let's go see. The sign said 'impound' so I told her that it might be a court case or something so he might not ever be adoptable, but nothing on the kennel said "To Be Handled By Employees Only", so I put a leash on him (a cute 30-lb puppy named "Cain") and told her where the socialization rooms were.
I walked a few more dogs, and then saw the lady in parking lot.
"How'd it go with Cain?" I asked her.
"Someone took him away from me. They said I wasn't allowed to be with him since he wasn't ready for adoption."
I just shook my head.
"I hope I didn't get you in trouble," she said.
"They don't even know my name."
"Oh, did you just start working here?"
Har!

She asked me if I enjoyed volunteering, and I said I just did it for the dogs, so yes. It was a gorgeous Spring day Friday, and I'd ridden my bike around town and then to the shelter, and had nothing pressing, so I took my time walking all the dogs for two and a half hours. A few of the dogs were gastrointestinally sick, but every time I told the kennel manager, she had to tell me she already knew in such a high and mighty "of course I knew" way that made me want to kick her in the balls.
This was also the lady who killed my special case dog back in February, so forgive my indelicacy.
Also took a cat out from the back into the socialization room to play with for a while, since a note on the volunteer desk had asked volunteers do. This is the extent of our communication. Or training. Hence my Cain faux pas.
But I did pick up a flyer saying that they're holding a Volunteer Open House to recognize our contributions late in May. But it's being held at a Holiday Inn. Which makes me think another name would have been appropriate, say "Volunteer Appreciation Night." Call me crazy.
Call me crazier, but I think King, who I walked Friday, is the same King I walked August 4th last year... no? :-(
Stoopit people.

One potato two potato sweet potato more

Six months old and suddenly someone needs some starch with his dairy.
But we're happy to report that the lad has reached a half year of age, and passed his medical checkup with colors that shot out of his arse at a high rate of speed. Though he is probably starting to connect car rides with getting shots, so we'll see if he starts hiding behind Griffin when he starts crawling.
But thanks to Ainsley's loving, selfless persistence and tireless efforts, he has jumped from being in the 3rd (!) percentile for weight at age 2 months, to being in the 75th percentile now.
That's an awful lot of cleavage coverage.
I owe her so much for building us a healthy child and raising him by herself. But she made e so proud telling the world that this is her career choice -- mommihood.
Now mommihood has decided it's time for the slow, careful, individualized foray into smooshy foods and condiments.
We've stocked up on 409.

The Unwritten Rule

Found out yesterday that the base newspaper rejected my Perryville article on the basis that it heavily endorsed visiting Perryville.

This is what AFIT's Public Affairs representative was told, anyway.

*blink. blink.* I said, in his office.
"That was the whole point," I offered.
"I know."
"It's a military newspaper...talking about a militarily important site."
"I know."
"There's stuff in base newspapers all the time about visiting places." (The ones in Colorado Springs have a weekly feature -- go to this museum, go to this amusement park, go to this shopping center, for the love of Deke Slayton.
"...I know. We're a third-rate organization on this base, so it all depends on which way the wind's blowing as to whether they accept news articles from us. They're getting better, but..."

But nothing.

Extrafamous

More contact with the heroic and outwardly mobile last week, as retired Air Force Lt Gen Thomas Stafford gave us a great talk on Thursday about his life in NASA (he holds the dubious honor of being the first person to drop out of test flight school -- when he got the chance to be an astronaut). Took us back to the days of the Cold War tete-a-tete with the Ruskies, the perilous missions in the Gemini (his partner almost dying trying to figure out how to walk in space, losing 10 pounds in 90 minutes) and Apollo programs. He commanded Apollo 10, the mission before the moon landing, which used radar to map out the landing site from a very low orbit around the moon. While attempting to rendevous with the control module, they had a thruster malfunction and began to tumble uncontrollably, and the General let his displeasure be known, unaware that he was on an open mike to NASA. It thereafter became known as "The X-rated Apollo Mission." Gen Stafford is pictured at right.

He would go on to fly in Skylab, and was instrumental in the first docking in space between two different country's capsules (he's closest to the camera in the famous picture of the opposing commanders shaking hands).

He says some of the former red-blooded communist bastard space counterparts are now staunch capitalist businessmen and some of his best friends..."like brothers."
The General went on to test fly the A-10, F-15, F-16, B-1, and what would become the F-117A, and helped design the B-2 stealth bomber, literally drawing up the specifications for a Northup contractor on a cocktail napkin.

As I like to remind people in these situations, I once built a bedside table out of Dr. Pepper cans.

Fossil Fueled

As every news report starts to portend war with Iran, Orville Redenbacher in our tanks, and $17/gallon gasoline by July 4th, I can't help but feel a little relieved to have almost nearly come this close to more or less virtually well-nigh purchased a Ford Escape Hybrid, which recently beat out the Mexican Mono Toalla X5 as the

After settling on the car I wanted, and convincing my espousa, I worked with USAA to do the price-haggling for me -- a great, free service they provide to its members. The Dayton dealership I had been working with came back with a fair price and I paid a deposit, knowing that they would have to go searching for an Escape with the specs we wanted (the Hybrids are not as popular out here as they are on the East coast). (Not yet, anyway.) (Word.)
While I waited, I sent an e-mail to a Ford dealership near our home in Woodbridge, just to see what price they were offering on the same vehicle and if I was getting a good deal. Turns out I was, as Woodbridge's offer came back almost $1,000 higher. I was happy.
Unfortunately, Dayton could not find one in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois... they started asking me how many miles I was willing to have on the vehicle if they had to fly someone somewhere to go retrieve it... and might even charge me extra for delivery. I was going to have words about that, but held my tongue until I saw what they could come up with. They even said that one of the few places they found an Escape with our specs was in the 703 area code, in a town called "Woodbridge."
"You don't say."
I told Dayton that I was not one of those people that decided on a car and had to have it RIGHT NOW DAMMIT. I could wait. Take your time, order one from the factory, if it takes six weeks, that's cool. I really liked the salesman I was working with, and I wanted to bring the sale to his little rinky dink dealership in a rather rough part of town.
In the meantime, Woodbridge wrote me back, and when I told them that I still hadn't purchased a car, they told me they'd beat the Dayton price by sixty-eight entire American dollars, but also give me a $500 military discount, and informed me that while Ford nationwide has a 0% offer on Hybrids, in the DC area that financing rate is good for up to 60 months, whereas elsewhere it's only good for a 36-month loan. Which means that even though we're paying no interest on the car either way, that's about $200 left in our bank account each month for the first three years, which is a lot more comfortable way to live now that we have a child who's going to be going cuckoo for cocoa puffs here pretty soon. So thanks to good timing (Ford's financing specials), my career (the military discount), and your elected congress (providing for a $2600 tax credit), this Spring turned out to be the perfect time to buy a Ford Escape Hybrid.
Rather than pay delivery charges to Dayton for a car they might be getting from Woodbridge, and try and figure out how to title and tag an Ohio-bought car with Virginia plates since I'm moving in two months, I went back to the Dayton dealership, shook hands with the man I admired, got my deposit back, and parted company. To work with some guy over the internet I'd never met.
2006. Weird.
I'm just awaiting some paperwork they said they were overnighting me, though three overnights have passed so far... the car is en route and should arrive early next month, so I won't get to play with it until I move back after graduation. I have about eight more weeks with my fabulous Thunderbird I bought when I was 24 and gas was only a nickel (I'd asked the Woodbridge dealership if they wanted it as a trade-in, but when I said it had 140,000 miles on it, they said they'd trade it for two lollipops and a Kent Tekulve* card, so I passed).

We also changed our minds when we saw the Titanium Green on the road from Dulles Airport, since it looked less manly-sleek robotic spaceship 3rd Army infantry green and more like the car in National Lampoon's Vacation the dealer described as "the Metallic Pea." So we have gone with the Dark Shadow Gray, as immortalized in the Super Bowl Kermit the Frog commercial.

"His Blood Pressure's Dropping"

Some people complain about military medicine and TriCare and all that, but I tell you, civilian doctors are starting to annoy the hell out of me.
I showed up at 9:20 for my 9:30 appointment to see a neurologist downtown yesterday, was called into the office at 9:45, and sat there until 10:15, when a little man in glasses and a tan corduroy sports jacket came in dressed as if he were on the way to a luncheon. Even though I'd written out my life(back) history yet again on the admission forms, he asked me to explain what was going on with me. I thought I summarized it fairly well, hitting the historical high points with aplomb and alacrity.
"So why are you here?" he asks.
...
I explained...again...that I had been in pain for five years, even after my surgery, numbness and tingling remained, I couldn't exercise, that it seemed to be neurological, and that is why the doctors at the base had referred me to a neurosurgeon.
"...So why are you HERE?" he asks. Again. As if I were a walrus that had shown up asking for directions back to the San Francisco piers.
He gave me a very cursory examination and left the room to check out my MRI films. Unfortunately, the films were too dark for him to read, so he asked if I'd brought along the CD version, which I hadn't since I was told ahead of time that they wouldn't use it. I told him I could drop it off later, and that I had looked at those images on my laptop and they were clear.
He put a condescending hand on my shoulder and said, "Well, clear to you and clear to me might be very different things."
So that was an hour and a half wasted trying to convince some hack that I was sick and not being able to provide photographic proof.
Well, good thing I had my second epidural injection scheduled for that afternoon to prevent the day from improving at all.
Showed up a little late, 3:20 for my 3:15, got checked in around 3:30, and sat in the waiting room reading my Ronald Reagan autobiography (purchased at his childhood home in Dixon, Ill!) until 4:15, when a tech put me into another room where I waited another 15 minutes until I went back up front to complain. Finally, Dr. Reddy showed up, sat down with me, and asked how things were going. I said I'd had a terrible meeting with the neurosurgeon and really felt about the same as I did six months ago. We talked medications and then he recommended I come back for a second injection in about three weeks.
...
"But I'm here today for my second injection. That's what was scheduled, that's what I've been waiting an hour for."
"Then why did they put you in here?"
"I have no idea."
*sigh*
Turns out the girl who checked me in for the injection (and had me sign the consent form) had put my folder in the "wrong slot" and then left for the night and so everyone else thought I was there for an office visit.
They put me in the old injection room, and a nurse asked me if I wanted the IV. I told her that I'd gotten really nauseous last time from "the relaxant" but I'd defer to Dr. Reddy's recommendations. "Is it required?" I asked. "No, it's up to you," she said. "Well, let's try it without," I said, since my injections back in Bethesda Naval Hospital were done with just a local, and I didn't feel like feeling sick and/or ralphing up my dinner later.
Dr. Reddy seemed surprised to see me sans IV when he walked in, but carried on.
Well, kind of like going to the dentist, the application of the numbing agent hurt more than the procedure probably would have; it felt as if he had laid a stapler down on my glutemus crackius, pressed down, and somehow reached in with a metal hook and yanked the tip of my spinal chord down through my coccyx and spread it into both legs. Then he did it again. I grabbed my hands underneath the table and sucked at my teeth, not wanting to move.
Just as the fun was beginning, he used a portable x-ray machine to insert a catheter into the area around the scar tissue that formed after the surgery. He then prepared me for what he said would be the terrible burning of "the medicine", and I waited, and he asked me if I was okay, which I was ... didn't feel a thing. I didn't even know he was done. It hurt worse when he removed the catheter. He lowered the table, cleaned up my back, and sent me on my way.
I sat up, and my back was very stiff. I got up, walked over to my small bag with my book and personal affects, and he called me over to the screen to show me what he had done; he tried to explain that we were looking at my spine, but the image looked like a cloudy day over Dresden in "12 O'clock High." Plus the stiffness in my back was turning to pain, then to searing pain, then to dizzying pain, and I bent over onto the table as sweat started to form on my lip. They went into Emergency Medical Mode and told me to lie down, Dr. Reddy said that it looked like my blood pressure was dropping and started to prepare an IV, and added, "See what you get for trying to be a hero?"
I wasn't trying to be a hero, you poor-bedside-manner bengalese bastard, I was trying not to be sick for the rest of the day. Maybe you shouldn't kick your patients off the operating table thirty seconds after injections next time.
After about a minute, the pain subsided, and I told them I felt much better, so they didn't put the IV in, but my blood pressure was still reading as low as 105/52. So I had to sit there another twenty minutes, taking deep breaths, getting oxygen back into my bloodstream.
They seemed mad at me for not having anyone there to drive me home, but I wouldn't have any friends left if I were to make them sit there for two and a half hours past my scheduled appointment time due to their screwups. I told the I was fine, that I lived just the other side of the river, a ten-minute walk.
I was feeling a little weak, though, so I stopped into McDonald's and ordered a value meal, to go, as you know I do to save on tax, but then they wanted to charge me tax anyway. "What's that for?" I asked. "The carbonation in the drink." "...You tax the carboNATion?" "Yes." "Never mind." I walked out and went home and made myself a delicious cup of tea. Tax-free.
I went to bed at 11:45 but couldn't fall asleep until well after 2 a.m. Seem to remember that happening after the last injection, too. Plus I had a nasty, jolting thought that it would suck if the injection caused me to, oh, I don't know, die when I fell asleep. I would miss my wife terribly.
This nighttime imagination of mine can be a bear.

No Room At the Inn

After my neighbors offered me a kitten from the stray litter they rescued ("Uh..no.") I hit my usual Thursday afternoon at the Humane Society. The cast of characters hasn't changed much from last week, save Sundance the puppy (of course) who was adopted, and Snoopy's gone as well, though replaced by another beagle named Star. Every kennel was full, even one that sits outside. I walked Chudo first, but he just played tug-o-war with the leash. I then decided to walk Ben, who was jumping so high in his kennel I'd swear he could dunk a basketball. Once I got him out, he peed like there's no tomorrow, making me wonder if anyone else had bothered to pay attention to these dogs all day, or just assumes the dogs aren't house trained and will just relieve themselves in the outside part of their kennels.
Fortunately, a young couple showed up around 5 and started playing some of the dogs out in the yard, so I felt better about not getting to them all myself. and spent more time skritching those hard-to-reach earholes of the ones under my charge.
Black Jack is just a beautfiul dog. His picture just doesn't do him justice. He has a wonderful gait. Loves a good belly rub. Might not mind a bad one.
Spent the last five minutes as they were closing down and turning off lights in the back two cat rooms, doing my Hollywood Squares-esque center-up-left-right-center-down petting pattern as cats reached out and meowed and rubbed against bars. Lest people label me a dog person, I will include a picture of one of the more voiceferous fellas, whose name I later saw was Tomas.

Blogged Too Late

As gas prices soar, I had an idea last week that would be a radical, if unpopular in certain shires, step towards improving the state of our nation's fuel supply:

Pass a law banning NASCAR.

Before saying so on this here plateau of knowledge, I had intended to do some research about how much each of those cars uses up in a race, how many cars per race, how many races per year, and throw some stats at you, what with my recent A in Statistics, but I've recently sold my Stats book on amazon.com, and plus I was busy sitting around waiting for someone to sell me a Ford Escape Hybrid. My latest brilliant original idea could wait.

So I see some guy on tonight's "The Daily Show" rerun with John Stewart interviewing the EmCee for these stupid Competitive Eating competitions, and John asks a question along the lines of "Isn't it somewhat immoral to have these events when there are people starving in other parts of the world?" and the EmCee retorts that no one complains about how much fuel NASCAR wastes...

nertz.

They did more than little

I had the pleasure of meeting some no-kidding, by-God, true-(red white & ) blue heroes yesterday at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.
8 of the 16 surviving men of the original 80 crewmembers who comprised the "Doolittle Tokyo Raiders" were on hand to dedicate a memorial in the museum's monument park, and hundreds of folks and muckity-mucks and a full AF band were present to hear one of them, a gent in his late eighties, tell us how proud he was to see us. Imagine!

As shown in the last hour of the movie "Pearl Harbor", then-Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle trained his team to get 16 B-25 medium bombers to take off from an aircraft carrier in order to bomb Tokyo and retaliate, if not extremely militarily but emotionally, for the attack on Hawaii. The attack was a success, though due to a lack of fuel, one crew had to ditch in Vladivostok, the rest had to bail out or crash in China. Two men died in a crash (drowning, actually, off the coast of China), and three of eight captured by the Japanese were later executed.
Though I didn't witness this ceremony (it was the next day), those present also commemorated the permanent relocation from the U.S. Air Force Academy the goblets upon which all the raiders' names are engraved. At each annual reunion, the remaining raiders toast those that have passed, and turn over the ones that belong to anyone who may have died since the previous reunion. The last two who remain will open an 1896 bottle of brandy and toast all the Raiders. Click here for the www.af.mil story.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond the broken nose

Besides the furniture delivery that was 67% defective, Ryan catching the bottom of the bathtub with his face and Griffin playing headbutt with my dad's nose, it was a wonderful weekend.

My son is so fat and healthy he has extra folds in his arms and thighs, and his belly button is eight inches wide. But his smile still melts a candle, and his teething didn't seem to be bothering him as much this trip. My wife told me he's being much more interactive these days, but of course he then proceeded to stare at the lampshade for three straight minutes.

He also needs to take some sex ed classes but quick; I have a hickey in my right bicep from him trying to extract some milk, and one afternoon, after Ainsley got out of the shower and found him fussing with me to beat the band, I handed him over to her and her luftbaloons; immediately satiated, he glared at me under furrowed brow, and I said, "Don't look at me like that -- I Don't Have Those!"

Of course, the real Future Counseling Session Revealing Moment Under Hypnosis will be him remembering me letting him slip out of my grip while rinsing him off in the bathtub; he fell about a foot onto his forehead, face, and shoulder, and that's just about the worst feeling ever ever in the entire universe ever. Fortunately, he wasn't bruised or bleeding or marked up at all, and when I called child services to turn myself in, they just laughed and called me a Potsie and told me to sit on something. We'll just see if he ends up with a lisp or can't do the bugaloo or turns out left-handed or something weird like that.

My father is faring equally well with his run-in with the block of cement that is my largest dog's noggin, overly excited about the prospect of Grandad picking up his leash and wanting to show him precisely where it belonged and just how immediately it belonged there.
The bleeding stopped after a few minutes.

All told, despite the mini-tragicomedies, it was truly a fantastic weekend, helped by the fact that we really didn't have anywhere to go and could just hang out and be home and a family for three long glorious nights.

Oh, and the cat threw up on the bed this morning at 4:30.

Months to Kill

Still annoyed that I have classes four days a week as opposed to just Monday and Wednesday like I'd planned originally until AFIT decided to change my schedule; now I'm left on base with planet loads of free time, even after doing homework, checking my e-mail, catching up on the Air Force Times, eating a lunch, and making up stuff. Yesterday I decided to walk down the hill to the National Museum of the Air Force's Annex hangar (I wasn't even sure if individuals were allowed in, or if you had to be part of a tour), where they have R&D aircraft, engines, bombs -- even an old ICBM training room -- from the last sixty years on one side, and old presidential aircraft on the other, including the bird that took FDR to Yalta, the plane upon which Truman signed the documents establishing a separate Air Force in 1947, and the jumbo jet that ferried JFK back from Dallas and hosted LBJ's inauguration (the plane was used through the Reagan administration).

Since I'm flying home on my usual Thursday volunteer day, I headed down to the Humane Society and had a great day walking dogs for 2.5 hours. I'm sorry they don't have a picture of Snoopy, an adorable beagle, or Derby, and Fiffer and Chudo are STILL (still!) there, but I didn't let that spoil my mood. Especially after getting good slobber time with Tigger, Black Jack, Kris Kringle, Patches, and Sundance here.

Emphatic about the Pickles

After a long day in History, how about a nice day by the lake, with the whole gang from AFIT, enjoying a nice Spring picnic?
In 37-degree weather?
I had volunteered to help with "the food" what with my vast Ponderosal experience, and showed up around 0900 on Saturday to help the organizer and the spouses (who knew this was a "girl" thing?) who had also volunteered to set up food prep dessert tables, mix lemonade, fill coolers, and organize condiments for the planned 1100 start time. Around 1000, I looked outside and noticed that the grill had six bags of coals sitting next to it, and no smoke coming out of it. I knew from the planning meeting that some dudes were in charge of cooking, but I suggested that someone mighta oughta hop to starting that bad boy-a-lit (to paraphrase myself) if they wanted to feed 300 people in an hour. "Good idea, sir -- will you do it?"
I poured the bags into the railroad car-sized barrel-cut-in-two, drenched the coals in lighter fluid, and tried to light some small matches away from the wind. But fire I made, which brought other men by to do the man thing: look at it and nod approvingly.
Despite the cold and wind, the sun was out and it didn't feel that bad; plus we were serving the food in a huge lodge, and most people kept inside anyway, so there was a pretty good turnout. I just floated around, keeping the chip bowls full, removing empty hot dog bun bags, sweeping up spills, mopping up around the coolers. About an hour in, I went back in the kitchen and grabbed another large jar of Vlassic pickle spears, but one of the lasses told me, "Since the lines are dying down, we're going to let the food stay as is instead of opening anything new." Are we now.
After another fifteen minutes, the few remaining half-pickles were looking like a sad inedible floating pile of alien stool samples, so I went back to the kitchen, dramatically swept up the jar, and through gritted teeth, told the girls, "I am ADDING more pickles." I would not be denied.
Facepainted children, Pinatas that wouldn't open, a whipped-cream pie to the face of the commandant, typical stuff, and the picnic was over at 1500. I knew all of two people there. Still amazed that people don't show more esprit de corps. Even Colonels in the unit didn't bother to make a half-assed drive-by. Boggles my mind. Professional responsibility, I've always felt. Dozens of people going through the trouble to make a nice day for the unit to get together, it's almost insulting to not show up. But I knew going in that it was going to be like that; it's why I volunteered to be on the food committee; so I wouldn't have to make conversation with folks I didn't know. Except about condiments. Of which I am king.

Guide dog

Note the bus.


Any trip that starts with lightning and drenching rain can't be good, so I was surprised to see smiles on most of the faces of the AFIT students getting on the bus for the trip to Perryville yesterday. Mixed with those smiles were confused looks at my uniform, as I felt it was more professional (and probably in some regulation besides) to wear it while driving the government vehicle as opposed to a Megadeth T-shirt and flip-flops. No one knew I was going to be the driver; one girl had asked in one of my classes, and another had joked, "Not Dan!" and we all enjoyed a hearty chuckle.
Fortunately, the weather cleared up after about an hour, and as those of the passengers that were still awake watched a video of a Perryville documentary on four TV screens the size of a deck of playing cards, I found my way to the Bluegrass Parkway, 127, and 68 into Lexington, Harrodsburg and Perryville. A relatively new bus (only 3k miles on it), it did pretty well on the interstates, getting up to speed limit fairly easily, though struggling on some of the hills. Between Harrodsburg and Perryville, however, is a windy, two-lane road with a surprising 55 mph speed limit, though that number is not designed for 1.5-ton vehicles. All told, I only hit two curbs, no vehicles, and zero confirmed deaths. All was well.
The park manager gave us a thirty-minute lecture in the small, one-room museum, focusing on a couple maps in the room and using a laser pointer to point out marching routes, general's photos, etc. I then left everyone forty-five minutes to explore the museum/gift shop and eat their lunch in the pavilion before gathering up for the outdoor tour.
There were exactly twenty of us, including one faculty member who asked me about the trip the day before so I'd invited him along, and one Navy Lieutenant (the were rest AF majors). The first thing our historian/tour guide did was give us ten minutes of "rank & file" training, showing us how troops were marched around and lined up for battle, spaced far apart enough to use their weapons, but not so far apart for a bunch of bullets to get through. He explained that this is what he does for the 4th and 5th graders, and while I really wanted to point out that we were slightly beyond that, most everyone took it in stride, no pun intended, as folks comically groused about being back in field training, the first row lamenting that they were going to take all the bullets, what have you. At one point, the leader failed to call a Right Face and just said Forward March, so, being in the back row, I simply pushed Rod down into a ditch in front of us. Just following orders.
He finally let us gaggle on our own accord, and took us to some of the spots I had visited in January, only adding his decidedly more knowledgeable tidbits, particularly those related aspects that took place immediately outside the park-owned surroundings. It was still incredible to be able to have a ravine pointed out to us, and be told 140-some-odd years ago a battalion of Confederates popped up over it to charge the position we were standing on. This Very Ground. We walked for almost two hours, and about halfway down one path, I noticed that a large white dog from a neighboring farm was starting to follow us. He became our mascot, enjoying a skritch from nearly everyone, and helping herd the stragglers.
We left around 2:30, and soon after the rain began again, so we couldn't have had better luck while at the Battlefield. Heavy traffic in and around Cincinnati delayed our arrival back on base until 6:30, where I got a lot of nice compliments from everyone as they debused. I asked folks to write down some suggestions/feedback, and I'm going to try and push the faculty to add this trip as a permanent part of the curriculum (hell, I'll even help write the lesson plan), if it means folks can get more exposure to real-world, if historical, military leadership issues as opposed to the generic-slash-civilian ones we've had to study at AFIT.
I'll make sure that future classes find the dog, too.

Roll Model

Our son has officially mastered this thing we call "gravity."
As with most things soncentric, I must take my wife's word for this, although if I had a hidden camera in the nursery, yesterday I would have apparently seen Ainsley and Bailey Roo dancing and bouncing and yayRyaning for joy to discover that our son, who had been placed on his back in his crib while she (Ainsley) went to go brush her teeth, had rolled over onto his tummy. Mommy was ecstatic. Bailey was happy because mommy was happy. Ryan blinked some confused blinks at his stuffed cat, wondering what the big deal was, and where the ceiling went.
And so it begins.
Movement.
No longer a blob that can be trusted to stay put, the boy is now an entity whose full 360-degree capabilities we must now pay attention to.
Perhaps we should get him a collar with little bells on it.

Just call me Mr. Tomasi.

We Have a Sausage

After the mess at Toyota last weekend, I've actually enjoyed most of my car shopping experiences here in Dayton. The Saturn guy was very knowledgeable, very polite, and didn't push me about a sale or ask if I was trading in a car, the usual B.S. I drove a Saturn Vue and liked it a lot better than I thought I would -- lots of neat amenities and great power for a V6 -- and the 20/28 gas mileage is about what I get on my Thunderbird (and it costs about $15k less than a Highlander Hybrid). But the console that we would be staring at all day looked like it belonged in a K-Mart furniture aisle. Very cheap, half plastic, half faux wood. And, though better than the Highlander, I still felt a little cramped in the front seat. I'm sure that has everything to do with the roads getting narrower and not me getting wider.
The next day, after my dorsal drilling, I drove a Ford Escape Hybrid, something my wife and I had tried out back in Virginia like a year ago just for grins. I barely remembered anything about that first test drive, other than I thought I liked the car. And I still did. Much more comfortable in the front seat -- I can actually move my knees side to side under the steering wheel, and I can lean against the window comfortably, unlike the Vue, which was at a funny upwards angle. Plus, the (possible) city mileage of 36 mpg is nothing to sneeze towards a muppet at. I also liked this salesman immensely, Earl Guy, who knew what he knew, and wasn't afraid to say when he didn't. Also not pushy. LOVE that. When I'm shopping, I'm shopping. When I'm buying, I'll let you know.
Since I was out, I decided to find more dealerships, and remembered passing a string of them on the other side of town. I couldn't get anyone at the Honda dealership to notice me, but the Pilots were too big and gas-guzzling, and the CRVs got worse mileage than my T-bird or the Vue, for not a great price. Went up the road to Toyota.
A tall, gruff gentleman named "Garland Oates" greeted me, and when I told him I was after a mid-size to compact SUV that gets great mileage, he said, in a slow drawl, "Well, that'd be the RAV-4." Only he said "foooooouurrrr..."
"Great."
"And we don't have any."
I pivoted on my heels, but he said we could sit down and talk about it anyway. Turns out to be an ex-AF officer from the sixties (I had an AF shirt on) who was an engineer at AFIT up until the year I was born. Did other things, retired for a while, and has been selling cars for a year. Said he wasn't surprised I wasn't comfortable in the Highlander, but that I would fit in the RAV-4, especially with the new, bigger, '06 model. We chatted about Big Ten basketball, and he gave me a brochure, and I stepped away to use the restroom. On the way out, he had me meet his punk-ass manager who had to have been all of 25 years old, which must drive Garland up the wall. The manager said, in that managerial way, "So, I understand you're looking at a RAV-4."
"No," I said, "you don't have any."
He rolled his eyes and tried to explain what he meant, while Garland let out a deep guffaw. The customer always gets to be a smartass. Rule 1. "He said that so deadpan..." said Garland to no one in particular. They said they'd call me if and when some RAVs came in to test drive.
The Mazda dealership next door was already closed, but I went ahead and got out to look since I was there -- the Tribute is the same as the Escape, though I couldn't find a Hybrid. A salesman came out and talked to me and said it wouldn't be out for another six months, "maybe." He asked if I'd tried an Escape, and said there was virtually no difference.
The next morning I tried another virtually no different Mercury Mariner Hybrid, which had a nicer console and leather interior but rode rougher, gets worse mileage, and is $3-5K more than the Escape. So our thinking is, get an Escape, spend the extra money on "nicing" it up, and still have the better 36/31 gas mileage. I got better than advertised out of my T-bird; I'm curious how I'll do in a Hybrid. Yes, hybrids aren't worth the cost (unless gas goes up to $5/gallon, c'mon Iran, do somethin' stupid!), but we'll get a nice tax credit, and in Virginia (for the time being), Hybrids can drive on the HOV lanes with only a driver, so any time one of us needs to get up into town in the mornings, we'd have that traffic-avoiding advantage.
So, those of you predisposed to providing oral drumrolls, now would be the time:

Yes, we think this our vehicle of the future. Not sure when that future is, but unless something crazy happens, probably before I graduate in June.
Great. I have Metallica's "Battery" going through my head now.