Subdeacon Joe

I'll watch it. Not sure who to root for, other than defense. About 3 years ago I started sort of liking the Niners, sort of new home team - this after being a Raiders fan since '67, and a Chargers fan since I can remember (being from San Diego County and all). But as much as I don't like KC, being a Raiders and Chargers fan, I do have a grudging respect for them, and, after all they are AFC, which gave us the passing game, remember "Air Coryell?" I don't know who is doing the half time show, don't really care, probably won't watch it. Use that time to make more snacks or something. And I hope that they don't, as they did with the AFC Championship game, make it as much about that singer who is boffing one of the Chiefs payers as about the game. She doesn't need more publicity.

"PLANNED" but never happened

You rang?

Well, because of issues with the production machinery these are no longer being produced. So order now while supplies last! A strict limit of 3 per household.

After decades of watching the NRA do almost nothing in California to fight the attacks on our civil rights, other than maybe at the last minute after others have done all the heavy lifting, maybe file an amicus, and then try to claim that it alone was responsible for the overturn of one of the draconian laws here, I'm pretty much soured on it.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2024/01/30/texas-guard-flies-come-and-take-it-flag-amid-dispute-with-feds/ "Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he would continue to use the Texas National Guard to secure the border and ordered troops last week to roll out more concertina wire to deter migrants at the bank of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass. Guard members at the border are on state orders and are constitutionally obligated to obey Abbott. The order to roll out more wire came after a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision that gives the U.S. Border Patrol the authority to cut the concertina wire. The decision was narrow in scope, and while it says Texas can’t block federal authorities from the border, it doesn’t prevent the state from taking action."

I remember that one. Especially that comment. I had the same reaction, although I think my comment was something along the line of "smooth-brained idjit." I like your term better.

My fault. The FB post I saw the reel in had it as "badger," so that's what I put into the YouTube search. When the same video came up on YouTube I didn't bother to check the title.

I once saw a deep purple Peterbilt, beautiful paint, silver paint detailing, and a nice profile painting of a Standard Poodle. Sitting in the passenger seat was a gorgeous white Standard Poodle.

Thank you. From that article; "UPS’ business surged to record levels in the first three years of the pandemic, as online shopping exploded. The company’s sales topped $100 billion for the first time in 2022. The fact that revenue in 2023 fell more than 9% and won’t top that benchmark again in the near future is “candidly difficult and disappointing,” said CEO Carol Tome on a conference call with investors Tuesday." Sounds to me like false expectations based on unusual circumstances.

Same for me. An amazing bit of technology and engineering.

That's quite a machine.

After perusing about two dozen sites the consensus seems to be 2 years, or 12 years, or indefinite. The one thing that all seem to agree on is that once you open the can shelf life goes down to a couple of months. As an alternative you could get a few boxes of tea lights. Several of them under a pot can heat it enough to cook with and boil water. Even bake bread if you have about 6 hours. Also can heat a small room. Put a couple between some bricks and put a red clay flower pot upside down on the bricks. They also make great fire starters. Lay your materials over a tea light, and maybe put one upside down higher in the stack so it will melt down over the fuel and tinder. That will help those catch fire.

Likely no even a rounding error.

Moving his peg from hole to hole?

Late night television.

"Menu (part 3) from the Midwest Cafe. Laramie, Wyoming in c1946." From the National Archives https://catalog.archives.gov/id/109190695?objectPage=3

For me that post is the first one on page 11.

I'm not sure what you mean. The group has always been losing and replacing members.

It was noted in my post from early this morning that today I didn't take my coffee black. Which has had me pondering the many discussions about coffee here in the Saloon. Which got me thinking about Hardtack and Coffee by Mr. J. Billings and what he had to say about coffee in the federal army during the War of 1861. I began my description of the rations with the bread as being the most important one to the soldier. Some old veterans may be disposed to question the judgment which gives it this rank, and claim that coffee, of which I shall speak next, should take first; place in importance; in reply [122] to which I will simply say that he is wrong, because coffee, being a stimulant, serves only a temporary purpose, while the bread has nearly or quite all the elements of nutrition necessary to build up the wasted tissues of the body, thus conferring a permanent benefit. Whatever words of condemnation or criticism may have been bestowed on other government rations, there was but one opinion of the coffee which was served out, and that was of unqualified approval. The rations may have been small, the commissary or quartermaster may have given us a short allowance, but what we (coffee distribution) got was good. And what a perfect Godsend it seemed to us at times! How often, after being completely jaded by a night march,--and this is an experience common to thousands,--have I had a wash, if there was water to be had, made and drunk my pint or so of coffee, and felt as fresh and invigorated as if just arisen from a night's sound sleep! At such times it could seem to have had no substitute. It would have interested a civilian to observe the manner in which this ration was served out when the army was in active service. It was usually brought to camp in an oat. sack, a regimental quartermaster receiving and apportioning [123] his among the ten companies, and the quartermaster-sergeant of a battery apportioning his to the four or six detachments. Then the orderly-sergeant of a company or the sergeant of a detachment must devote himself to dividing it. One method of accomplishing this purpose was to spread a rubber blanket on the ground,--more than one if the company was large,--and upon it were put as many piles of the coffee as there were men to receive rations; and the care taken to make the piles of the same size to the eye, to keep the men from growling, would remind one of a country physician making his powders, taking a little from one pile and adding to another. The sugar which always accompanied the coffee was spooned out at the same time on another blanket. When both were ready, they were given out, each man taking a pile, or, in some companies, to prevent any charge of unfairness or injustice, the sergeant would turn his back on the rations, and take out his roll of the company. Then, by request, some one else would point to a pile and ask, “Who shall have this?” and the sergeant, without turning, would call a name from his list of the company or detachment, and the person thus called would appropriate the pile specified. This process would be continued until the last pile was disposed of. There were other plans for distributing the rations; but I have described this one because of its being quite common. The manner in which each man disposed of his coffee and sugar ration after receiving it is worth noting. Every soldier of a month's experience in campaigning was provided with some sort of bag into which he spooned his coffee; but the kind of bag he used indicated pretty accurately, in a general way, the length of time he had been in the service. For example, a raw recruit just arrived would take it up in a paper, and stow it away in that well known receptacle for all eatables, the soldier's haversack, only to find it a part of a general mixture of hardtack, salt pork, pepper, salt, knife, fork, spoon, sugar, and. coffee by the time the next halt was made. [124] A recruit of longer standing, who had been through this experience and had begun to feel his wisdom-teeth coming, would take his up in a bag made of a scrap of rubber blanket or a poncho; but after a few days carrying the rubber would peel off or the paint of the poncho would rub off from contact with the greasy pork or boiled meat rational which was its travelling companion, and make a black, dirty mess, besides leaving the coffee-bag unfit for further use. Now and then some young soldier, a little starchier than his fellows, would bring out an oil-silk bag lined with cloth, which his mother had made and sent him; but even oil-silk couldn't stand everything, certainly not the peculiar inside furnishings of the average soldier's haversack, so it too was not long in yielding. But your plain, straightforward old veteran, who had shed all his poetry and romance, if he had ever possessed any, who had roughed it up and down “Old Virginny,” man and boy, for many months, and who had tried all plans under all circumstances, took out an oblong plain cloth bag, which looked as immaculate as the every-day shirt of a coal-heaver, and into it scooped without ceremony both his sugar and coffee, and stirred them thoroughly together. There was method in this plan. He had learned from a hard experience that his sugar was a better investment thus disposed of than in any other way; for on several occasions he had eaten it with his hardtack a little at a time, had got it wet and melted in a rain, or, what happened fully as often, had sweetened his coffee to his taste when the sugar was kept separate, and in consequence had several messes of coffee to drink without sweetening, which was not to his taste. There was now and then a man who could keep the two separate, sometimes in different ends of the same bag, and serve them up proportionally. The reader already knows that milk was a luxury in the army. It was a new experience for all soldiers to drink coffee without milk. But they soon learned to make a virtue of a necessity, and [125] I doubt whether one man in ten, before the war closed, would have used the lactic fluid in his coffee from choice. Condensed milk of two brands, the Lewis and Borden, was to be had at the sutler's when sutlers were handy, and occasionally milk was brought in from the udders of stray cows, the men milking them into their canteens; but this was early in the war. Later, war-swept Virginia afforded very few of these brutes, for they were regarded by the armies as more valuable for beef than for milking purposes, and only those survived that were kept apart from lines of march.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=yICvepDf6Kc&si=Lg-oFAThdqrpclnq

A true story that sounds false. Old Guy & a Bucket of Shrimp! It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue ocean. Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now. Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts...and his bucket of shrimp. Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier. Soon, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, 'Thank you. Thank you.' In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave. He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place. When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away. And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home. If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like 'a funny old duck,' as my dad used to say. Or, to onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp. To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant ... Maybe even a lot of nonsense. Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters. Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida. That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better. His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero in World War I, and in WWII, on a flying mission across the Pacific to observe the war theatre, he was a passenger on a B-17 with a seven-member crew that went down in the Pacific when the plane had gone off course and ran out of fuel. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft. Rickenbacker and the crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger and thirst. By the eighth day their rations ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were or even if they were alive. The men adrift needed a miracle. They tried to nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged on. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft ... Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull! Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal of it - a very slight meal for eight men. Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught a couple fish, which gave them food and more bait ... and the cycle continued. With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued after 24 days at sea. Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first life-saving seagull, and he never stopped saying, 'Thank you.' That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude. Reference: (Max Lucado, "In The Eye of the Storm", PP.221, 225-226) PS: Before WWI he was a race car driver. In WWI he was a pilot and became America's first ace. In WWII he was an instructor and military adviser, and he flew missions with the combat pilots. Eddie Rickenbacker is a true American hero. And now you know another story about the trials and sacrifices that brave men have endured for your freedom. Also read: https://mixtutu.com/showering-hope-the-wonderful-tale-of-austins-mobile-shower-truck/