The Insta-dude wants a potato gun for Christmas. I think he's setting his sights a little low. That, or he isn't man enough to handle one of these.

Check out the firing mechanism from my old potato cannon.

A while back PawPaw posted some thoughts on diversity in the military.

Continue reading "Diversity in the military"

Jay Feely, the kicker for the Giants, has missed a couple of field goals in overtime today. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

And like I mentioned earlier, they should let Eli Manning run the two-minute/no-huddle offense once in a while. He's something to watch late in the game.

Youth and skill are no match for old age and treachery.

A half-dozen or so Airmen from Charlie Flight challenged the NCO's to game of dodgeball the other day.

Give me your old, your tired, your arthritic, your out of shape, your short of breath... and they will smite the airman six games to three. I would mention something about, "Any time, fellows..." but I'm still kinda sore.

Probably the best moment of the entire afternoon was seeing the look on the faces of the Airmen when they realized the old Seargents still have a few moves. Something between disbelief and panic.

Collectively, we used every trick in the book. Lobbing an easy one in the air that was too tempting for the young Airmen to resist, while three more orange spheres of death came homed in on them. Stepping up to the line to challenge the fellow with the weakest arm, knowing we've got a 75% chance of catching it.

And a few others I won't reveal; the Airmen are still in "what just happened" mode.

The photo to the left was taken a few months ago at the 3rd Air Base Wing dodgeball tournement. Those are volleyballs, making it a "live fire" drill. The dodgeballs we used the other day were of the bright orange, nerf-like variety. Safety is a primary focus in any training environment.

Continue reading "Youth and Skill"

I've finally gotten some free time to get some blogging done. First on the agenda is the Second Amendment Bloggers Target Tour. Bullseye [NSFW] in Fort Liquordale, Florida kicked it off, passing the target to Billy Budd in Arizona. It made it's way to Little Rock, Arkansas where Circa Bellum sent it to me here in Anchorage, Alaska. Where does it head to next?

Details in the extended entry.

UPDATE: Bumped to keep thread at the top for a few days.

Continue reading "The Target Tour, at last"

If you head over to the Weblog Awards page and drop a comment nominating www.resurgemus.com, I'd appreciate it.

And while you're poking around the catagories page, perhaps you'd consider nominating some of your favorite blogs. If you're not sure who to nominate, here's my personal non-biased voter guide:

Continue reading "Shameless Self Promotion"

The Commander -in-Chief visited Elmendorf last week. The other day he swung by Ulaanbaatar for a bit. Via Registan, check out Gateway Pundit, Asiapundit, and Coming Anarchy.

Continue reading "The Boss"

Blogging will be light for the next two or three days. I've got a couple of 14-15 hour shifts ahead of me this weekend. I've got a ton of stuff to update on the site, but I really need to get some solid zzz's tonight.

In the meantime, check out PawPaw's thoughts on diversity. I'll post my thoughts when I get some time. Additions to the blogroll, the Target Tour, and some photos will coming your way, too.

I've been exhausted lately. The details on the Target Tour Contest will be post today or tomorrow. For real this time.

The Commander-in-Chief visited Elmendorf AFB today. I've known for a while that he was coming, but had to keep a lid on it.

Continue reading "Presidential Visit"

I've got some more stuff to update after work today. I might be posting on the story that I alluded to here. The details on the Second Amendment Target Tour contest will be posted.

And there's plenty blogs that I need to add to the blogroll.

And if I can get my technologically inept self to figure out this new Canon Digital Rebel XT, I'll be able to post a couple of snapshots. Stay tuned!

So the Giants' game is over. Perhaps the Giants should run a hurry up offense, at least for a few drives during the game. Manning has led a game winning or game tying drive in the final minute four of the last six weeks, minus only the blowouts against the 'Skins and the 49'ers. Why not once a quarter just run the no-huddle offense?

The Fire Ant Gazette runs a photo of an oversized rattler. I wonder if the folks who campaign against fur have similar feelings towards turning a nine foot rattler into a wallet. Just curious.

Personally, I'm not afraid of snakes like my buddy Raymond. Then again, I'm in Alaska.

Kevin at Smallest Minority reminds us that National Ammo Day is upon us. If you've got a gun, go out and buy some ammo on November 19th.

Via Cox & Forkum a story of some WWII vets from the USS Melvin trying to get a ship named in honor of their Skipper, retired Adm. Barry Atkins.

Publicola and TFS Magnum discuss recent pirate attacks. Another case of disarming those who abide by the law, thus making them vulnerable to the lawless. Compare and contrast with these two stories from Alphecca. When someone is already in your house [or along your port-side] your options are limited.

I bought a digital camera this weekend; a Canon Digital Rebel XT. It won't completely replace my Reagan-era Minolta X-700, but as I get used to it, I think I'll probably shoot the majority of my photos with it. Might take me a little while to figure it all out.

And I definately won't be taking long exposure photos with it. That's one discipline where the old manual-everything Minolta wins. Not that I've been taking many long exposure photos lately. Tim calls me a whiner. He's right. Then again, my first few months in Arizona and Hawai'i I was complaining about the heat, but eventually got used to it. Give me a few more weeks [or months] and I'm sure I'll be adapted. I am amazed at how many people I see in short-sleeves here in Anchorage as soon as the temperature breaks 25°F. Probably the same people that complain about the heat [70°F] in July.

I think I'm going to take a Russian language class at one of the local colleges. There's a great deal of Russian culture here in Alaska, and most of the local schools have some Russian programs. In the meanwhile, I'm checking out Spoonful of Russian to help me get started.

Plenty of blogging to come today, but there's something more pressing at the moment.

Continue reading "More to come..."

On this Veteran's Day, a simple post to recognize some of my heroes: the chuckleheads on Charlie Flight. Most are between 19 and 22 years old, and the level of responsibility placed upon them far exceeds anything their peers from high school are doing right now.

Some will undoubtably leave the Air Force after one enlistment, while others will stick around a while. Regardless of whatever career paths they choose, the boundless potential that I am surrounded by each time I step into the aisle at work is my primary source of motivation.

Even when I'm completely stressed out, I am still amazed at how much fun they seem to have while getting as much work done as they do. It's an honor to serve with them.

And of course, there's the two chuckleheads currently deployed. I look forward to their safe return.

And last, but certainly not least, my undying gratitude to men like Andy, Milt, my uncle Pete, and the others who served the past. Without their sacrifice, who knows if the Kommissar would approve of this blog.

I'm headed to bed. I just sent a huge e-mail to a friend, and it took me close to two hours to compose.

One more night of work, and then I'm off for the weekend.

Continue reading "Too tired to blog"

Check out Soldiers' Angels for the skinny on Project Valour-IT. In a nutshell, the aim is to provide voice activated laptops to soldiers who have sustained in juries in OIF that prevent them from typing. Read it for yourself; make a donation. I'm going to.






While you're surfing around, take a moment to read this post at Mudville Gazette.

I took this photo two years ago at the Anne Arundel County Fair, which was held just down the street from the house I was renting in Maryland. In fact, I think I took the Muffler Man photo the same night.

I want to start shooting night photography again, however Alaska just isn't the greatest place for it. There are no warm summer nights to wander around; in the summer there isn't enough darkness to do the long exposures. With the sun below the horizon for 16+ hours a day, you'd think I'd be excited. Unfortunately, it's been so freaking cold here lately that I just don't see myself outside with a camera popping off a dozen 15-minute exposures. Or 15-second exposures.

Today the temperature will be soaring into the low 20s. Like I mentioned earlier, cold weather and long exposure photography don't work well together.

I'll have to figure something out. I'm itching to take some photos outdoors. Maybe it'll warm up [warm up: in a relative sense; as in "above five degrees"] one night and I'll get inspired.

Or maybe I'll wait until I visit my folks in Florida.

As I mentioned here, Anchorage is the current stop on the Second Amendment Target Tour. The idea is to pass the target around all 50 states, giving pro-Second Amendment bloggers a chance to promote their websites. And we get to have a little fun along the way.

Now it's my turn to figure out a way to select a blogger to pass the target on to. I'm hoping that a photo contest won't turn out to be too ambitious. Nothing fancy, just a gun-related photo taken by the blogger. It could be artsy-fartsy, or a simple digi-cam snapshot of you and your favorite firearm. Give me a few more days to figure out the fine print. For example, should the photos be posted at each blogger's site, and I'll post links? Should the bloggers e-mail me the photos and I'll post them? Hmmmmm... I'll have to dwell on that a bit.

The contest, once it's up and running, will be open to any pro-Second Amendment blogger who lives anywhere in the US except Florida, Arizona, Arkansas, and Alaska.

I've got two more midnight shifts left until I join the real world again. I'm off all weekend, so I'll probably kick off the contest by Monday.

Continue reading "Target Tour Contest..."

Here's a padlock on an old barn in the city of Dawson in the Yukon.

I'm just itching to tell a story, but unfortunately [for reasons I can't explain right now] I've got to keep the story under lock and key.

Grrrrrrr!

Continue reading "Padlocked..."

I didn't take this photo. I know it's probably obvious, but I decided when I started the blog that I'd try to stick to posting only my own photography. I'll make an exception for Thomas Hasson, appearing to the right.

He's my great-grandfather. He spent most of his life living in what is now Canadian Forces Base Gagetown.

Although sometimes I wonder about those distant relatives to the North, I'm proud to be of Canadian heritage. I was even prouder back in August, when I learned the story of "Smoky" Smith, a Canadian World War II veteran.

It turns out that a distant cousin of mine [another decendant of Thomas Hasson] was good friends with Smoky, and had traveled to Europe with him a few times -- "...he was a character and he really did love that Scotch."

And while Canada might be the Great White North, Alaska is giving me a crash course on the meaning of the word winter. It might only be the first week of November, but it's down below zero at night here in Anchorage. I don't know how low the temperature gauge in my car will go; I do know that it'll make it down to at least -6°F. That's what it read at 0630 this morning.

Tonight's forecast calls for lows of -10°F [that's -23°C for those rioting en France]. That's just plain cold.

I've had a rough time transitioning from a worker who works to a supervisor who supervises. There are parts of it that I can do fine; I can usually keep people pretty busy, even when it's slow. I can answer most job related questions that folks ask, or I'll know who to turn to if I don't know.

Unfortunately when it's busy, or when an exceptionally difficult task [for a young airman] comes up that an old fart like myself could handle easily, I want to roll up my sleeves and join the fun. Grrrrrr! I need one of those electric dog collars that shocks me when I get try jump in and accomplish something that I should be tasking a young airman to fail miserably at. And by failing miserably, I mean in the crawl-walk-run sense. After all, some old sarge at my first assignment tossed me into the fire, allowing me to screw something up royally for the first few times, until finally after much perserverance I had the necessary skills and knowledge to git 'r done.

But that isn't the part of the job that I hate. Freaking paperwork. If I could clear cut the Amazon rainforests solely for the purpose of denying the U.S. Air Force the necessary raw materials they need to produce the endless forms I must continuously fill out, I'd invent some fuel efficient hybrid-electric bulldozer. Hey, if I'm gonna wipe out a gazillion species of life, I might as well make a minor concession to the hippie-types, right? Eh, maybe not. Make it a diesel.

The part of being a Sergeant that I do like is quarterbacking a crisis. When something big is happening, I enjoy the atmosphere and the sense of urgency. I love seeing training and mentoring pay off; a skill that an airman has developed playing a critical role in accomplishing the mission.

Unfortunately, getting to that point requires 1.3 acres of dead trees to document training and perform feedback sessions, not to mention the write-up to make sure the leadership acknowledges the airman's performance.

Maybe that's why I tend to give them time off from work.

Where's so-and-so?
He [or she] is off today.
Why?
Because he [or she] busted his [or her] butt for the past four weeks.

No paperwork required.

They say that hindsight is 20/20, but looking back I can't find any clues that I missed. We hadn't seen each other in weeks, so there is much that I might not have known about.

Sometimes you think you know someone: what they are capable of, what type of person they are, what they are made of. Then comes the shocker -- they've done the unthinkable. Maybe alcohol played a role, I don't know. Drugs? It crossed my mind, but I doubt it. There's just so much I don't know; so much, that I really don't know anything. I put puzzles together for a living, sorting through clues and details trying to gain insight into what is happing thousands of miles away. If I were an investigator on some TV drama, I could figure it all out. How did this happen?

After a short time, the denial and disbelief sets in. Maybe it's not true. The cold, hard reality is slow to decend, but you eventually realize that someone you cared about is gone.

I know my friend will never read this post, never know the hurt they caused.

Continue reading "I just don't understand"

There's a silhoutte target that is circulating amongst the Second Amendment bloggers. Bullseye [NSFW] in Fort Liquordale, Florida kicked it off, passing the target to Billy Budd in Arizona. It made it's way to Little Rock, Arkansas where Circa Bellum sent it to me here in Anchorage, Alaska. It's traveled roughly 6,000 miles [as the JHP flies] so far.

This weekend I'll be brainstorming to figure out a way of picking a new Second Amendment blogger to send it to. I'm thinking perhaps a photo contest, but I'm open to suggestions. The goal is to have it autographed by bloggers from all 50 states.

And now, after a long 12 hour midnight shift, it's time for me to get some zzz's.

When it rains, it pours. Bad news seems to come in bunches.