Category Archives: Fallen Warriors

16 Jan 2017

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Today we have a national holiday to celebrate his birth, and to remember his words and his deeds on behalf of Civil Rights for African Americans.  Today, even with the advent of Trump, the US is a better place than it was in King’s time. This should not be taken to mean that there isn’t far more work to do. Continued racial and religious profiling by law enforcement, and well-documented police brutality that is far more often inflicted on people of color are just the visible tip of the social/cultural iceberg that is inequality in the U.S. today.

How we treat our neighbors first is the most important step we can make in the right direction. I’m very happy that we have a wide diversity of neighbors. I think it makes the neighborhood stronger, and teaches the children of our neighbors that everyone can live together. This is true even though there are people who are unhappy with a well-integrated neighborhood. That’s okay. They’ll live with it, and learn, or they’ll leave. Their loss.

Today, also, we remember that Dr. King was assassinated for his beliefs, and for his work, his speeches, his marches, his arrests in the cause of Civil Rights in America. I will remember that his death does not mark the end of his work. It is up to us to continue it, as best we can, each in our own way.

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I had another good week of exercise last week, and I’m currently down 5# since the first of the year. I’m gunning for five to six days a week of explicit exercise, and planning to continue that regime. I’m back up over 40 minutes per session on the elliptical machine, and approaching my “good” pace: 2000 strides / 15 minutes. I also value what the Marines have to say on the topic: Pain is weakness leaving the body.

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Our condolences to the family and friends of these fallen warriors:

  • Spc. Isiah L. Booker, of Cibolo, Texas, died Jan. 7, in Jordan, in a non-combat related incident.
  • Spc. John P. Rodriguez, of Hemet, Calif., died Jan.12, in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility in a non-combat related incident.

11 Dec 2016

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G’day. What a lovely day. Well, not temperature-wise, as it was 24F when I got up and walked the dog this morning, and had barely crept up to the freezing point by noon. But, still a nice day. We took Linda and Mike to see the matinee showing of It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, staged by the Annapolis Shakespeare Company. It’s running through Christmas Eve, so you have plenty of time to go see it yourself! This is the second year we’ve enjoyed this production. While some might say it’s not the cheeriest of stories, it is indeed a wonderful show. And there’s plenty of humor in the actors interacting in their “radio studio” as the play goes on. And as usual, towards the end, something manages to get into my eyes. Sally Boyett and her team put on a great show, and you’d love it. Go. GO!

Beyond that, a busy work week behind, another one in front. Other than roasting a pound of Honduras coffee yesterday, there’s not much to report.

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A moment of silence to mark the passing of John Glenn.

He was heroic, in the best sense of that word. He flew and fought in two wars. He went to space and into orbit, in a tin can perched atop a tube of high explosives in 1962. Then did it again in 1997 (at age 77!) on the space shuttle. He was a US Senator from Ohio for a quarter century. He’d been a hero of mine for decades, and the world is a poorer place without him in it.l

Our condolences to the family and friends of Sgt. First Class Allan E. Brown, 46, of Takoma Park, Maryland, who died on Dec. 6 at Walter Reed National Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, of injuries sustained from an improvised explosive device in Bagram, Afghanistan, that occurred on Nov. 12.

29 Nov 2016

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Well, this isn’t Sunday, is it? I remembered on my drive in this morning that this place had slipped my mind – I was working for a significant portion of the day on Sunday, and just wanted to unwind when I got home. So goes life. I hope y’all had a nice weekend, and (if you celebrated it) a fine Thanksgiving. All things being equal, I still have plenty to be thankful for in my life.

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Our condolences to the family and friends of Senior Chief Petty Officer Scott C. Dayton, 42, of Woodbridge, Virginia, who died on Nov. 24 in northern Syria, of wounds sustained in an improvised explosive device blast.

20 Nov 2016

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Windy, cold day today. Quite a shift from yesterday’s 70° loveliness. That’s okay. I stayed busy all week and all weekend. Today, for example:

  • 0645-0800 – Start laundry, start coffee, then patching a set of production linux systems
  • 0800-0845 – Walk dog, breakfast
  • 0845-1030 – Shopping, food organization
  • 10:30-1200 – Email, patching another set of production linux systems
  • 1200-1300 – Walk dog, lunch
  • 1300-1400 – Roast coffee (an Ethiopian SO bean from Sweet Maria’s)
  • 1400-1600 – Putter about, relax for a couple of hours
  • 1600-1800 – Cooking
  • 1800-1845 – Feed and walk dog
  • 1845-2000 – Dinner, make bed, email, blog time…

Marcia is doing great. She’s done with the cane, mostly. She did most of the laundry work today, other than the “carry bits up and down the stairs” part. Strength is going up, pain is going down, and she’s weening off the last of the heavy pain killers in the next couple of days. Next up: Driving!

We enjoyed watching the first episode of Amazon’s new car show: The Grand Tour this week! I’d missed having those blokes doing new, fun things with cars. Sorry, BBC – your B-Team isn’t nearly good enough!

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Our condolences to the families and friends of these fallen warriors:

  • Sgt. John W. Perry, 30, of Stockton, California, died on Nov. 12 of injuries sustained from an improvised explosive device in Bagram, Afghanistan.
  • Pfc. Tyler R. Iubelt, 20, of Tamaroa, Illinois, died on Nov. 12 of injuries sustained from an improvised explosive device in Bagram, Afghanistan.

13 Nov 2016

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Friday the thirteenth falls on a Sunday this month. And it’s nigh unto first “supermoon” (the concurrence of the moon’s orbital perigee and the sun/earth/moon syzygy) in 68 years (although the moon won’t be actually full until tomorrow at around 9AM EST). We have a nice view of that large, bright moon on this cloudless evening – very cool.

Meantime, when I’m not actively taking care of Marcia in her hip-replacement recovery routine, Lexi is filling in – keeping chairs warm, for example:

Lexi the chair warmer

Lexi the chair warmer

I managed several hours at work this week, and I have also been making progress on a Django-based project, in and around keeping up with the chores, etc here at the homestead.

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RIP – Leonard Cohen. Turns out I haven’t listened to NEARLY enough of his work. Here’s a good snippet of a recent interview (From September 2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PqY-VgSsI.

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Our condolences to the families and friends of these fallen warriors:

  • Capt. Andrew D. Byers, 30, of Rolesville, North Carolina, died Nov. 3 in Kunduz, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained while engaging enemy forces.
  • Sgt. 1st Class Ryan A. Gloyer, 34, of Greenville, Pennsylvania, died Nov. 3 in Kunduz, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained while engaging enemy forces.
  • Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, of Lawrence, Kansas, died Nov. 4 in Jafr, Jordan, of wounds sustained when his convoy came under fire entering a Jordanian military base.
  • Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30, of Tucson, Arizona, died Nov. 4 in Jafr, Jordan, of wounds sustained when his convoy came under fire entering a Jordanian military base.
  • Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27, of Kerrville, Texas. died Nov. 4 in Jafr, Jordan, of wounds sustained when his convoy came under fire entering a Jordanian military base.
  • Ronald L. Murray Jr., of Bowie, Maryland, died Nov. 10, in Kuwait in a non-combat related incident.

11 Nov 2016

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Veterans Day, here in the US. Our thanks and gratitude go out to all of those who served our country, upheld our Constitution, and gave lives, limbs, and peace up for their fellow men and women. Also thanks to the families and caretakers of our veterans.

23 Oct 2016

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A good week for theater!

On Wednesday, we attended Poe… And All The Others, a new play by Tony Tsendeas, as presented at Reynold’s Tavern by the Annapolis Shakespeare Company. Last year’s production of Poe was one of the first shows we saw from this company, and it was a good show. This year’s production, again featuring Brian Keith MacDonald and Renata Plecha, is simply superb! The new script is much stronger, but still works very well in the confines of a dining room at Reynold’s Tavern. We turned up at 6:45 or so, and enjoyed a good salad and supper (I had grilled salmon on pasta, and Marcia had a chicken breast) before the play started at 7:30. 40 enthralling minutes inside Poe’s head later, we had intermission and dessert service (we can recommend the tea cakes). The second act kept bringing the power of Poe’s writing, aptly adapted by Mr. Tsendeas, and brought thoroughly to life by Mr. MacDonald. All the while, Ms. Plecha played every other character in the show, often several within a matter of seconds, all flawlessly! Whew!

Then after a couple of days of rest (or, in my case, work), we attended Twelfth Night last night at the company’s intimate theater on Chinquapin Round Road. I’ve seen Twelfth night staged several times, here and there. Last night, though… The Bard’s words, set at the end of the Roaring Twenties, some set to music and dance! A forceful farce, flawlessly fulfilled by this wonderful group of actors! I’d call out especially good individual performances, frankly all were awesome, so special hats off to Olivia Ercolano, Renata Plecha, Brian Keigh MacDonald, Laura Louise Smith, and Jamison Foreman. How good? This show got the first standing ovation I’ve seen at the Annapolis Shakespeare Company! And they deserve every bit of it – especially Founding Artistic Director Sally Boyett, who directed both shows we saw this last week.

I’d go see both shows again, in a heartbeat … but we’re going to be out of commission for the next several weeks due to Marcia’s pending hip replacement surgery (Wednesday, 10/26). You should go see these shows, and anything else this Company puts on. Seriously.

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Alongside all that fun, I fought a cold, had a productive work week, and helped get things organized for the post-surgical eventfulness to come. Wish us luck!

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Our condolences to the families and friends of these fallen warriors:

  • Sgt. Douglas J. Riney, 26, of Fairview, Illinois, died Oct. 19 in Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds received from encountering hostile enemy forces.
  • Michael G. Sauro, 40, of McAlester, Oklahoma, died Oct. 19 in Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds received from encountering hostile enemy forces.
  • Chief Petty Officer Jason C. Finan, 34, of Anaheim, California, died Oct. 20 in northern Iraq, of wounds sustained in an improvised explosive device blast.

10 Oct 2016

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A day late, but a full weekend nearly behind me, so that’s a good thing. Not much on the exercise front last week though, sad to report.

I had a wonderful time at Capclave this year. Y’all may recall that I missed last year entirely due to food poisoning. This year I met new authors, discovered new works, and really enjoyed myself. The Guests of Honor were Sara Beth Durst and Tim Powers – talented writers both, expressive about their craft and the passion they have for their books. Lovely, lovely weekend. And as we were asked in at least one panel, “If you’re not writers, why are you here?” I find it fascinating to see how this particular sausage is made. So there you go.

And for the icing on the event-filled weekend’s metaphorical cake, my brother and his wife were in town for the Annapolis Boat Show (Sail), so we got to see them for a while and go out to supper. Excellent!

Books I picked up this weekend: Cherie Priest’s The Family Plot, Unidentified Funny Objects 4 and 5, edited by Alex Shvartsman, Find the Changeling by Greg Benford and Gordon Eklund, Tales of Time and Space by Allen Steele, A Legacy of Stars by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, and the first bits of Backstage by Joan Wendland. I’ve already started reading The Family Plot (I’ve been waiting for this one).

Coming up on the entertainment dance card: We’re seeing Poe and Twelfth Night this month at Annapolis Shakespeare. They’re running the latter play from this upcoming weekend through mid-November, and Poe is playing from tomorrow through late November. If you’re in area, or going to be visiting, this company is superb: you should get tickets and enjoy one play or many! For us, we’re seeing the shows back-to-back before Marcia’s hip replacement surgery late this month. That gives her several weeks of recovery time before we’ll be attending It’s a Wonderful Life in December.

Today is a Federal holiday, so I’m off work. That means that I slept in a bit, relaxed this morning, and now it’s time to plow through the email and tickets so that my workday tomorrow isn’t ruined. I’d best get to that, in just a moment…

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Our condolences to the family and friends of Staff Sgt. Adam S. Thomas, 31, of Takoma Park, Maryland, who died on Oct. 4 in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, from injuries caused by an improvised explosive device that exploded during dismounted operations.

 

2 October 2016

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A good week: At work, I got several long-term tasks completed. Things went well enough that I took Friday off. To celebrate that banner event, I spent the morning cleaning the main floor of the house, then went out to lunch with a friend from NFR days. It was great to see Sharon, and we had a nice chat while enjoying an excellent meal at Woodmont Grill. From there, she went back to her office, and I headed up the road to the Apple Store in Columbia. I now have a new small tablet, and it’s ALSO a phone! The 7+ is working well for me so far, and given my common use cases, the larger screen is better.

I got some further household chores done over the weekend, including replacing the screening on a few windows. In my spare time, I’m mucking about with node.js. It’s pretty cool, and seems like a reasonable tool for rapidly building small web applications, of which I have a few in mind. Also, Fitbit says I got five days of exercise in. I say that I got three. Oh, well. An exciting life, I know!

Fun stuff coming up this month, though, so stay tuned…

Recent Listening: Dresden Dolls Live from Coney Island and lots of Pink Floyd from my collection

Recent Reading: Iain M. Banks: Consider Phlebas, Smithsonian magazine, assorted ACM and IEEE publications.

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DoD announced no new casualties in the last week. Ciao.

25 Sept 2016

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By the calendar, it’s Fall. By my reckoning, we’re really close. I count “Fall” as the first morning below 50° F. Close, today, at 52°. A busy work week, productive but long after several “short” weeks under my belt. I also went to the office yesterday to do some work that required off-business hours AND onsite for “just in case the SAN firmware update fails.” All went smoothly this time, thank FSM.

The big events of the weekend were yard work ones. I used the hedge trimmers and the electric chainsaw to clear out the front garden beds and rid us of an elderly and crufty forsythia. I’m going to have to find something else to plant in that corner, but not immediately. Then I used a hoe and finished cleaning up the beds, a de-thatching rake to clean up some of the weedier areas of lawn (more to be done there) and got everything necessary out to the curb for tomorrow’s green waste pickup.

Tonight: ibuprofin.

This evening I composed a dish of red potatoes, mild Italian sausage, a yellow onion, some garlic (to taste, and I like a lot), several green bell and hot peppers (from the garden), and green beans. While the four pounds of potatoes boiled, I browned the 2 pounds of sausage in a sauce pan. Once the potatoes and the meat was drained and combined, I deglazed the sauce pan with a splash of chardonnay, then dropped in the  onion, garlic, and peppers. After a couple of minutes, I added the 2 pounds of frozen green beans and let everything veggie steam for a couple of minutes. All that went in on top of the sausage and potatoes, along with a liberal helping of additional dried red pepper flakes. Fold to combine, and enjoy! The pot contained enough to feed a small army, or me for most of the upcoming week.

This Tuesday is your last chance to see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), staged by the Annapolis Shakespeare Company at the Reynolds Tavern courtyard. Just sayin’ …

Current (re)reading: Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, Tenth Anniversary Edition

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Our condolences to the family and friends of Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Fuels) Airman Devon M. Faulkner, 24, of North Carolina, who died on Sept. 20 of a non-combat-related injury while underway.