Back in the late 90's, my boss (and also good friend) asked me if I would be interested in going on a guided salmon fishing trip; as the guide was an old friend of his. "Hell yeah! Sounds great!" I was then told that also coming along was Chuck Yeager.

Are you kidding me?!!!

I immediately ordered a hard cover copy of "Yeager" (my paperback version was well worn), and I was hoping to maybe work up the nerve to ask for the only autographs I've ever asked for.

I don't even remember why the trip was canceled, but it was and it was one of the biggest disappointments of my life.

RIP Mr. Yeager, wish I could have shaken your hand.

Duuuude feed the hawk! Everyone has squirrels, but you have a HAWK!

No shit - hawks gotta eat too!

Go Hawks!

Too bad they are basically packed with sodium. Also quite a bit of saturated fat, what's up with that? Sheesh.

Salt + fat = taste

Cutter wrote on Oct 21, 2020, 16:42:
I'd actually like to buy a rig this time around but I can never find one with the particular build I want. Anyone have a good experience buying a pre-made gaming rig from a particular company?

Back in the summer of 2017 my computer was DOA when I moved into my new place, so I started researching parts and planning a new build. Just for the hell of it though, I started looking at pre-made computers on Newegg and found one with pretty much the exact parts I was planning on buying - and the kicker was that it only cost about $100 more than the price of the parts. The computer is made by Skytech Gaming and the build quality (cable routing, etc.) is really impressive.

RIP Joe Morgan.

There's probably not one baseball playing kid from the 70's who didn't copy Joe Morgans iconic batting stance at least once.

My mother passed this past Friday. Things are not easy / relationship was... complicated. Still processing.

Complicated or not, sorry to hear about your mom.

So Blue, first off, congratulations on the impressive run and may it go on for as long as you want it to - I do have one question though... have you ever taken a day off, especially for something fun?

Love Gary in Extreme. But in Van Halen as lead singer he was like Timothy Dalton as James Bond. No doubt talented and capable of doing the job. But the chemistry, for me a least, wasn't on the same level.

Yeah, when Sammie replaced Dave, it turned out that I still had two bands to look forward to - I liked "Van Hagar" (not as much, but still pretty good) and also like Dave's solo stuff. But when Gary switched to Van Halen, it was the opposite - one of my favorite bands, Extreme, was gone, and Van Halen III just didn't work for me at all.

For me, hearing the first Van Halen album was one of those life moments where I'll always remember where I was, when it happened, etc. When the second album came out, I was old enough to drive, so I was driving to the record store every day, driving the clerk crazy - "No man, we don't have it yet". When they finally got it, all they had were cassettes, no albums - so I reluctantly bought the cassette, even though albums sounded a lot better and I could record my own cassettes to play in the car. Whatever, I had to listen to it ASAP.

The thing is, I never really dug Eddie's solo's all that much. To me they were kind of like jazz (which it turns out he grew up on), they didn't always follow the chord changes or even match the rhythm - not catchy. I finally figured out that I had to learn them before I could appreciate them.

Also, I've never heard it said much before because maybe it seems disrespectful, but I think Eddie Van Halen was the greatest rhythm guitarist of all time.

Anyway, RIP Eddie Van Halen. You were are, and always be, a huge part of my musical life.

R.I.P. Mac Davis.
I'll always remember him as quarterback "Seth Maxwell" in one of my all-time favorite movies, "North Dallas Forty".

That's distasteful! Wait... no. That's regrettable.

Well... I thought it was funny.

I'm pretty sure Kxmode is making a "Silence of the Lambs" joke - (I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti).


A census taker came to my door today to test me. I was also eating snack foods and ate lunch later on.

Okay, whatever you say. https://youtu.be/M1b2v_Lls3A

WarPig's non-scientific musings of the day:

I know that global warming is real and that it has happened fast, but I'm telling you, the reverse, global cooling, could happen really fast. Today it was supposed to be 88 degrees, but since the sun here is hidden behind all the wildfire smoke, we had a high of 72 and it's been like that since Friday. A couple big volcanoes or a small meteor strike could make global warming a not-so-fond memory.

Kxmode wrote on Sep 14, 2020, 18:33:
A census taker came to my door today to test me. I ate jelly beans, and later had pork and beans and a nice pepsi.

They shouldn't be coming to your door unless you didn't comply with the survey already. Sure it wasn't some kind of scam or attempt at identity theft?

I'm pretty sure Kxmode is making a "Silence of the Lambs" joke - (I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti).

My car has a manual also (2016 Miata) - another one of the perks is that most young thieves won't steal it since they can't drive it.

Yeah, Seaver always seemed to be such a class act. R.I.P. Tom.

I'll tell you what though, that Lewy body dementia is the fucking worst. My grandmother had it, and it was more like she had full-blown psychosis than what I imagined dementia would be like. She heard and saw things constantly that were as real to her as anything can be (and she was deaf). And the worst thing is that they were almost always horrible, nightmare things. She moved in with my mom and on many nights Grandma would end up running around the apartment screaming about something. A reoccurring story was about a doctor who was working his way down the hospital halls, cutting off all the women's breasts. That was just one story I remember, they were always pretty bad. Mom was also concerned about getting kicked out of the apartment because of the screaming. Finally she used one of Grandma's delusions she had about a poor family who she imagined living in the attic. Grandma made friends with one of the imaginary little boys and would tell us all about the poor little guy. Anyway, Mom told her that the screaming was scaring the little kids and since Grandma loved kids so much, it kind of worked.

Well, I didn't mean to turn Mr. Seaver's death into a story about myself, it's just when I hear the term "lewy body dementia", it brings back some strong memories.

Can't you order a freezer from Amazon?

Yeah probably, (although it is kind of funny that the one you linked to is out of stock) but I do kind of need something that can take the heat of my garage, which is why I had my heart set on that GE freezer. I guess I could get a really small one and try to fit it next to the washing machine... that's a thought. It's just one of those things that I never thought of as being really hard to find, but it does make sense - 2020 sense at least.

We had a bit of a problem storing some of our food to start with, and with the additional stockpiling the pandemic lockdown inspired, this had become a bit of a crisis.

I've been grocery shopping for my mom for the last few months, which means freezer space has been at a premium, so I thought I'd buy a small chest freezer to stick in the garage - yeah, good luck with that. GE has a line of "Garage Rated" freezers that are supposed to handle extreme temps, which is what I need, but as far as I can see, you can't even order one right now, and I started looking in May.

Even though my garage is attached and insulated, it's 95F in there right now, and the temperature is supposed to hit 110F here on Thursday (outside, hopefully not in my garage).

As for the socializing, if this continues into the NFL season (which seems likely) I'm really going to miss my Sunday noon to six NFL watch parties. Which has been a standard with several friends for approaching two decades now...

Yeah, well, first off, I just hope there is an NFL season this year. For me, the last couple years my dad has come over to watch Seahawk games with me. We'll watch the game, have a Crown & Coke, split a pizza, and then shoot some pool. Great times! Realistically though, there may not be many more years of that left and I hope we don't have to sit one out. Dad will probably still want to come over, and I don't know if I'll have the heart to tell him no. It's tough.

My dad died at 93. I don’t see what’s great about living that long. Three of his wives were dead, one son was dead and most of his friends were dead. It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Exactly.