Another Headline

Continuing on yesterday’s theme, this headline reminded me of an old joke:

"Bahrain Police Open Fire on Funeral Procession Leaving One Dead"--headline, Guardian (London), Feb. 16

Recent Headlines

Since the news from Egypt has cooled a bit, I guess the press has moved on to other stories.  Here are a few recent headlines that I found humorous:

"Why You Should Avoid Getting Pregnant on the Way to Mars"--headline, Guardian (London), Feb. 14

"'Mars' Mission Reaches Climax in a Giant Sand Pit"--headline, Daily Telegraph (London), Feb. 15

That takes care of item 1.

"Light-Emitting Rubber Could Sense Structural Damage"--headline, TechnologyReview.com, Feb. 15

… and that takes care of all other missions.

Airport Bombing

So does the TSA groping still make you feel safe? Ask the poor souls in this video.  There’s no reason it won’t happen in the US.  I hope this bomb maker blows his face off soon.

I’ve got a bit of ‘splanin to do

That’s because it’s been since October since I’ve done a real blog post.  It’s not that nothing blog worthy has happened. A lot has happened, actually.  It’s just that I haven’t felt like writing it up and since I don’t make any money or make any promises about posting, I just didn’t.  So let’s see what I remember.

My job kept me on the road after the October triathlon.  I’ve traveled to Germany, Vegas, St. Louis, Vegas (again), St. Louis (again), G-Vegas, DC, and Charleston, SC.  The Germany trip was to upgrade a customers database server.  It took a 24 hour work day (my first ever), but we hit the planned return to service time and the customer has invited me back.  I don’t have any problem with that. 

The first trip to Vegas was for the celebration of my 50th birthday.  I’m still not used to being that old, but so be it.  That trip was awesome.  Most of the folks that I really wanted there made it.  We had incredible dinner at the Hofbrauhaus on Thursday, followed by another incredible dinner Carnevino in the Palazzo, followed by the Cher show at Caesar's on Saturday.  There was some gambling in between with a good session of blackjack, a bad session of pai gow, and lot’s of poker.  Dr. K and I got in a couple of good workouts in the beatuiful fitness spa of the Venetian (where we stayed courtesy of Skoon and Brian the Red) and a visit with my younger brother and Dr. K’s aunt.  Though I ended up on the negative end for gambling, it was my best trip to Vegas ever.

The first trip to St. Louis was for work and nothing real special on that.  I did play some poker at Lumiere Place and River City, both times with poor outcomes, and stayed right downtown near the arch and Busch Stadium.  That was fun.

The second trip to Vegas was for the World Poker Blogger Tour (WPBT).  Seeing that bunch of degens just gets better and better the more times we get together.  The gambling hit a new low as I posted my biggest Vegas loss ever, but I’d do it again.  If I’ve got the resources, I will.

The second trip to St. Louis is probably best forgotten.  I was to present two days of training, but the customer’s folks only showed for 1 of the 4 sessions due to poor weather and general disinterest.  Too bad.  I had some good stuff planned.  I stayed and played at the Harrah’s Hotel and Casino.  My losses continued to mount this trip as well (are you seeing a trend here), so I’ll just move on.

G-Vegas brings us up to the new year and actually New Years Day and the BadBlood New Year’s Tourney.  You can hear all about it on the Gambling Tales Podcast, but the gory details are that I got my money in good and didn’t win any of the significant hands that I needed to post another big loss.  I’ve had good luck and bad luck in G-Vegas.  I’ll try again soon.

Finally, the trip to DC was interesting.  I think that will make for a good blog post of it’s own as that memory is fresh from last week.  I’ll break out this weekend’s trip to Charleston as well.

As for other highlights from the past quarter – Thanksgiving and Christmas were good with family and friends healthy and doing well.  Dr. K lost a bet with her nephew (a Clemson fan) and went over the top in paying off as the picture shows.

The two pictures in this post were taken with my new Windows Phone 7 which really kicksass.  I won’t say that it’s better than the other smart phones (iPhone, Driod), but it holds it’ own with a lot of potential yet to come.

That’s most of the highlights.  There are trips to Seattle, Colorado Springs and San Antonio in the near future.  I’ll try to do better at keeping up.

Hangin’ at the Hospital

Today didn’t go quite as expected.  It was a pretty normal day at work until just after lunch.  My phone rang with the caller ID telling me that it was my mom.  She rarely calls, but will usually call in the morning.  When I answered, it was not Mom, but a friend of hers.  This is not the kind of call where you want to mess around with.  It’s best to get straight to the point, to outrun my imagination.  Diane did just that and the news was not nearly as bad as it could have been.  Of course, it wasn’t great either.

Mom woke up feeling badly and called Diane for help getting to the emergency room.  That was a good call.  Mom ended up having a ruptured appendix.  I did okay with the news.  I called my wife, who is great in situations like this.  I wrote a quick email to my brothers as that was way quicker than calling each one and headed to the hospital.  Thankfully it was only a 5 minute drive.

As I write it is quarter past 11 and Mom has one less organ than she started the day with and is sleeping comfortably.  The staff here at Carolinas Medical Center – Pineville is doing a great job.  I’m confident that I could leave now and that everything would be okay, but I’ll feel better staying here.  Perhaps I could catch this blog up on all that’s been going on with the adventures of Special K.  I don’t have that much time but perhaps I’ll do an overview.  Stay tuned.

PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: XXXXXX 602496

Gambling Tales Freeroll Tournament

If you've not noticed, the Gambling Tales Podcast (gtpodcast.com) is back "on the air" with new shows weekly.  We took a bit of a break over the last 6 months, reformatted the show to single topic weekly shows, and now we've added a weekly freeroll tournament on Full Tilt Poker.  I'm guessing that the tournament might be the most interesting part of the new GTP, so I'll concentrate the rest of this post on that part.

Full Tilt Poker has been kind enough to offer a freeroll tournament to the listeners of the podcast that includes a $50 prize pool.  The tournaments are on Thursday evenings at 9 pm eastern.  You only need a Full Tilt cash account and the tournament password to participate.  The password is generally given out sometime during the podcast which is released the Monday morning prior to the tourney.  Since you have been a friend to the podcast and since I'm getting ready to ask something of you, I'm going to give you this week's password.  It is "CollegePoker" (Tournament #208556681).  It fits into the subject of the podcast.  Shamus, of the Hard-boiled Poker Blog, is teaching a college course on Poker in American Film and Culture.  Interesting stuff.  I hope you will check it out.

Now my ask:  We need links to our web site.  If you like the podcast or the tournament, please write a brief blog post and include a link to http://gtpodcast.com in the post.  You could offer your readers the chance to enter the freeroll.  Encourage them to listen to the podcast, but give out the password if you like.  We would really appreciate it.  If you will reply to this email and let us know that you've created a post, I'll add you to the roll of "Friends of the Podcast" and send you next week's password.

Thanks again for your support and for listening.

May your dice fly high

Gambling Tales Podcast Returns

The Gambling Tales Podcast is back with a new format and a weekly freeroll tournament.  We took 6 months off from the podcast.  It wasn’t planned, but business travel and life in general kept us from putting new shows together until now. 

The new format will be a change from the old 3 segment format that we were publishing every two weeks.  We are streamlining the show with just one segment per show and publishing the show weekly.  We had planned for the old show format to run about 20-30 minutes, but we found that most shows were pushing an hour.  I listen to some podcasts that run an hour or more weekly and I find it difficult to keep up with them.  With our new format, we won’t have to worry so much about the length. Some shows may be as short as 10 minutes while others may run 30.  I’m very open to reading comments and adjusting future shows (gtpodcast@live.com).

Starting January 2, 2011, the Gambling Tales Podcast will host a weekly freeroll poker tournament on Full Tilt Poker.  Full Tilt will put up a $50 prize pool each week.  Most tournaments will be No Limit Texas Hold’em with an occasional venture into Omaha, Stud, or Mixed games.  The password for entry into the tournament will change weekly and will be announced on the show.  Shows will be released on Sunday night and the tournament will be held on Thursday at 9 pm eastern.  We look forward to railing friends and listeners each week.

I’m really excited about the changes and look forward to hearing comments and suggestions from listeners.  Enjoy.

My Favorite Desktop Gadget

A much better tri

As I expected, Saturday night led into a very restless Sunday morning.  I managed to get some sleep between 3 and 5 am, I think.  It was tough wrestling with the ghosts of the triathlon.  They kept trying to help me by wanting to go through the first transition, and then the plan for the biking hills, and then the run strategy, and then the second transition, etc, etc.  I had heard that the night 2 nights before the event was the most important night of sleep for the triathlete.  Apparently that’s because you are not going to sleep well the night before.

I arose around 5 am to make my final checks, feed the dogs, eat some breakfast and load up my gear.  We got away and to the site a few minutes before 6:30.  Setup went smooth and by 7:15, I was ready to go.  I did make a couple stops by the porta-potty before the race, just in case.  I’d paid for that lesson last year.  I wasn’t going to waste it.  I also ran into an old friend, CM, from my early days at my work place.  She gave Dr. K an invitation to join her all-girls workout club.  It was good to see that she was doing well.  I’d see her again in a bit.

I wore number 68, which set my start time around 7:49.  In this race, someone started every 15 seconds, so we all stood in a line until our turn.  Soon enough it was my turn.  The starter yelled “Three, two, one, go”, and I was off. 

My first mistake was trying to wear my heart rate monitor during the swim.  I didn’t expect to get my HR during the swim, I just didn’t want to have to put it on during a transition and I did want it for the run.  I had noticed that I was the only person wearing one, but not until it was too late to ask why.  There was no problem until the first swimming turn where I pushed off the wall and felt the strap of the monitor slip down to my waist.  The second turn pushed it down to my butt and the third turn took it off.  It remained at the bottom of the pool for the remainder of the race.  I felt a real distraction from this turn of events and I think my swim suffered for it.  Swim time – 4:45 (250 meters).

My swim didn’t feel great, but the finish came up a lot quicker this time.  I managed to pull myself from the pool and run out the door into the very cool October air.  This year, unlike last, I was going for time.  There was no time to dry off or put on socks.  It was time to do what needed to be done and nothing more.  I mixed up the order of things in the transition, but I managed to put on my bike shoes, my shirt, and my helmet in a reasonable time and head for the bike start.

The bike portion went well.  My concentration for the bike ride was the hills on the course.  They are big and the first three come at you one after another.  The second hill is the worst on the route.  I set my mind to climb mode and made those hills mine.  My lungs ached during the entire ride, but I wasn’t letting up.  My Secretariat motivation from Friday night cut at least a minute off my time.  I do remember getting a bit of a ice cream headache about halfway through.  The cold air running over my wet hair made me a little uncomfortable.  It was about this time where I almost drove my bike in a ditch for no good reason other than lack of concentration.  The two were probably connected. Bike time – 34:00 (10 miles).

I returned to the transition zone to prepare for the run.  It was a good long way from the bike dismount point to my spot in the transition zone and another from my spot to the run start point.  This added a ton of time, like a full minute, to my race.  I again messed up my plan.  First, I headed up the wrong row of bikes and had to do an about face.  Once to my spot I had trouble hooking my number belt around my waste and finally forgot to drop my glasses.  All of those mistake probably added another 20 seconds.  Not awful, but significant.  You brain just doesn’t work the same when you are tired and my performance here proves that.

As expected, the run started slow and got better as I went.  There was never any real need to start walking, but I did shuffle through the first mile or so.  This is where I saw my old work friend again.  The run course doubles back on itself 3 times.  CM had started about 10 minutes ahead of me in the swim.  When I saw her during the run, she was up by about 2 minutes.  By the second switchback that time was down to a minute or so.  It was more motivation than competition that made me want to catch her by the finish.  at switchback 3 her lead was only about 150 yards, but we were only a half-mile from the finish.  I picked up the pace and I could see her ahead of me with a quarter mile to go.

I think 100 yards was as close as I got, but the distraction of the chase helped pull me to a good finish. Run time – 26:36. 

My time for this race last year under very similar conditions was 1:23:36.  This year I bettered every segment except the second transition and posted a time of 1:09:20 or 14 minutes and 16 seconds better.

I thought before the race that 1:05 might be possible.  After the race I knew I had given a little more than I had to give (Translation: I felt like crap for the rest of the day).  Now, the morning after the race, my head still has a bit of a buzz and my lungs have a distant ache and my ankles have rough spot or two, but I’m pretty much recovered.  It will be a while before the pain of yesterday’s triathlon recedes enough for me to try again, but I will.  I think I’ll wait a few more days until I start to work on that.

Tri. Now try harder.

This the not football season in the Special K household.  This October has become triathlon season.  I’ve been a workout junkie on and off since high school.  The last time I was really into it was back in 2002 right up until I run the old Cooper River Bridge had my gall bladder removed 2 days later.  For some reason I never gotten back to that routine.  I think the combination of work travel and poker conspired against the workouts by sucking up my free time.  Now, even though I’m not in the best running shape of my 40s, I am in the best all-around shape for swimming, biking and running that I’ve ever been.

Most of that work was inspired by my wife, Dr. K.  She discovered working out and how much she loves it in the spring of 2009.  Since then she has been working out and building a triathlon machine.  The change has been remarkable.  As we say during election season, I approve that message.

So the official sport around the house is now triathlon.  Three week ago, we traveled to Augusta, GA to watch a friend run in a Half-Max Tri.  I was pretty impressed as he just kept motoring along through a mile+ swim, and 40+ mile bike ride and a 13 mile run.  Last week was Dr. K’s turn for her international distance tri (1k yrds/28 mi./10k).  Unfortunately, the swim was cancelled, but she rallied from her disappointment to do very well.  She came out with a plan to run a half-marathon in Dec.

Tomorrow is my turn.  Around 7:48:45 I’ll start the same tri that I tried last year, the Take Flight Triathlon.  Mine is a sprint of 250 m swim, 10 mi bike, and 5k run.  If you need to catch up on what happened last year you can jump to here.  I’ll not repeat the soiled details of that one, however I was not pleased with the outcome.  Tomorrow is my chance at redemption and I’m pretty nervous about it.  I’m hopeful that by dumping my thoughts here, where no one will read them, that I’ll rid myself of at least some of those nerves.

I’ve trained hard, maybe even too hard at times.  I should have had a plan, but I didn’t.  I just tried to do a lot of each of the disciplines and tried to improve my fitness along the way.  Next time I’ll go with the plan.  I didn’t have to go on a month long trip a few weeks before the event this year like last.  I did go to Afghanistan  during my training, but only for 2 weeks and I did manage to run a few times while there.  My running is still not back to where I want it to be, but my swimming is about as good as ever and my biking is better than ever.

I’ve been over the course and there are about 4 points on the bike course that scare me.  It is hilly and 4 of the hills are going to take my best effort and then some to get over in a reasonable time.  The run will be awful to start, but I’m not holding back on the bike to save for the run.  I’ll do what I can to avoid cramping up totally and take it as it comes.  I’ll probably finish faster than I start on the run.

It all comes down to how deep in can dig in my heart to make myself go beyond where I think I can go.  It seems so silly to do this as a hobby.  There must be more constructive ways to abuse myself.  I’ve got no one to compete against and no money on the line.  I’m not good enough to compete for prizes.  It’s just a goal that I set and I’m determined to see what I’ve got.

Tomorrow, my inspiration comes from an ESPN show I saw last night on Secretariat.  Watching that horse run is such an awesome sight that I get a lump in my throat.  One line from that show said that it was as if God said “go”, and he went.  I’ll not be a Secretariat tomorrow and frankly, I’ll be relieved when it is done, but when they say “go” tomorrow, I’m going to see how much go I’ve got.  I’ll update here when it’s done.

Tri.. er.. Duathlon in Myrtle Beach

Dr. K was to Swim/Bike/Run in the Myrtle Beach Triathlon.  We drove to the beach on Friday, got her registered for the race and loaded up on pasta.  Our arrival at the Marina Inn for the event was about 6:30 am. About 7 am an announcement was made that there would be no swim.  That was upsetting to many racers, some of which were competing for a spot on the national triathlon team.  The problem was the epic rainfall of this past week.  Myrtle Beach had 16 inches of rain from Tuesday to Friday.  The runoff had pushed the e-coli level in the water too high for safe swimming.  The event organizers had no choice.

So they re-jiggered the start and timing and Dr. K’s race started around 9:30.  She did great finishing faster than she was expecting taking 4th in her age group.  Thanks to the Hampton Inn West for allowing us to check out late for post-race showers.  Below are some pictures (of the race, not the showers):

You can tell I’m very proud.  Congrats Dr. K!

It’s Lemming time again

A few pictures from Afghanistan

I just returned home from my adventure in Afghanistan.  Internet connectivity in this 3rd world country is difficult to come by, so I’ve waited until now to post.  Also, most of what I really wanted to take pictures of was just what the military didn’t want me to take pictures of, so I passed on those.  There are no award winners in this bunch, but it may give you a little idea of what the place is like.

Thanks to Jim Bell for the really cool carabineer for my armor.

United Airlines F’s over its Customers

On Thursday I had what must rank as one of my top ten all-time worst customer service experience at the hands of United Airlines.  It all started when my 2:30 pm flight to Washington-Dulles was cancelled due to bad weather in the DC area.  I don’t blame them for not flying without permission, but cancelling the flight altogether put the 130 or so folks on the plane in need of rebooking to get to their destination.  Had we flown when the airport reopened, I would have made my flight to Kuwait which was also delayed instead of enduring the torture that followed.

As we pulled back to the gate an announcement was made for domestic customers to line up at one gate and international customers at the other.  I’m thinking that they will give the international customers a priority since they have more expensive tickets and longer delays if flights are missed.  Nothing could have been further from what happened.

The domestic line was about twice as long as the international line, so it wasn’t surprising to see two agents servicing those passengers.  I was 9th of about 45 passengers in the international line.  Things were looking ok until the second customer in my line.  The first customer was in the wrong line so he was gone at once.  The next guy took over 50 minutes to try every possible option and ask every possible question.  Several international passengers asked for the agents to help us out a bit.  That wasn’t going to happen. 

As the ‘help’ whet on, the average time to book domestic passengers was maybe 5 minutes and the average passenger in the international line took about 30 minutes.  Even though I started 9th in line, I didn’t get any help with my travel until I had stood in line for over 3 hours.  Of course, by that time there was no way to get to Kuwait in time to catch my connection. None.  And since my connection only runs three days a week, it pushed my travel back 3 days.

Even though our line was moving so much slower, the 2 agents serving domestic passengers made no effort to help our line at all until all of the domestics were gone.  That happened right about the 3 hour mark.  Score 90 domestic, 8 international.  Nice.

At that point, some folks from further back in the international line stepped into the domestic line.  Once the domestics were gone, the agents continued with those line-jumpers in front of them instead of serving the next customer in the proper line.  Let that be a lesson to those who listen to instructions and play by the rules.  The folks behind the desk don’t give a crap about that.  They will do what is easier for them.  And did United keep all 3 agents working to help customers?  Nope.  One of the agents disappeared with no explanation.

Thankfully I was in my home town, so I could schedule a tentative trip and go home.  I really feel for the folks who were still 3 hours deep in the line and facing a night in a hotel and another day of traveling.

DId I say I could just go home?  That’s not quite true.  I still had to retrieve my bag from the airline.  That took another 30 minutes of waiting at the bag conveyor line.  From there I hopped on the waiting shuttle to airport parking and got right to my car.  Then I say the worst backup at the parking pay windows that I’ve every seen.  It took another 30 minutes to pay for the parking that I didn’t need.  I was home about 20 minutes later, much to the surprise of Dr. K.

As I’m writing this, my second try at this trip is going much better, but there is a long way to go.

The Long Layover

Now that I seem to be on my way I’ll quit being coy.  I’m headed to Afghanistan for a couple weeks.  Specifically, I’ll be traveling to US Army bases in Kabul and Kandahar.  They are exotic locations and the living conditions are much different than I am used to in the states, but the work is pretty much the same.

Is it safe?  Yes, I believe it is.  The most dangerous part by far is the flight, and not because it is in a war zone, but because it is a flight.  The problems that you hear about on the news tend to be out in the country-side or around forward operating bases (FOBs), not the big bases near cities.  I found that to be true in Iraq the past two summers and I expect the same in Afg.

I tried to get this trip started last Thursday.  The plan was to travel from Charlotte to Dulles and then on to Kuwait City arriving Friday afternoon Kuwait time.  There is an apartment that I can use there to get a shower and some sleep before continuing on to Kandahar and finally Kabul on Saturday.  Weather threatening in the DC area botched those plans.  My United flight out of CLT was cancelled.  The resulting ordeal that followed is too long for this post, but I will follow up with that rant shortly.  United won’t be happy, believe me.

Currently, I’m in the United Red Carpet Club in the Dulles International Airport.  It is a much nicer hang-out than the concourse.  Some free drinks, snacks, a bar, and NASCAR on the wide screen will work just fine.  I hope they don’t mind my changing the channel.

Because of the problems of Thursday, I didn’t want chance missing the flight to Kuwait again.  Unfortunately, the next earlier available flight out of CLT gave me a 6 hour layover here in Dulles.  So my current schedule looks like 2 hours of traveling to and hanging out in the Charlotte airport, 1 hour flight to DC, 6 hour layover in DC, 14 hour flight to Kuwait city and probably another hour or two of getting into Kuwait, getting my bag, and getting to the apartment.  After that 13 hours in the apartment, it’s back to the airport for the flight into Kandahar and then Kabul to finally get bedded down around 12 hours of travel on Tuesday.  Of course I will be full of energy and ready to go on Wednesday morning.  Right.

For security sake, I won’t be giving any details on my specific work.  You wouldn’t be that interested anyway.  I will try to snap some interesting pictures that I’ll pass along if I can, so stay tuned.

Booty Ride Wrap-up

The HearUSA 24 Hours of Booty Team had a very successful ride for charity last week.  All four members completed at least 100 miles.  Captain Tracey (“Dr. K”) and John the Trainer (picture left) completed 200 miles in just under 21 hours.

Personally, I was very happy to participate and glad that I could support my wife in a cause that she is passionate about.  I was also disappointed to have come down with a cold while in Seattle on Wednesday only to have it peak the night of the ride.  I’m thinking that the 3 or 4 days with little sleep in a strange bed and two cross-country flights might not have been the best preparation for the ride.  I had about 91 miles ridden before 4 am, but that’s where I fell out.  I returned to the course about 2 pm to complete my century and to help pack the campsite up.

We completed getting everything in the cars just as the sky opened up.  We literally threw the last two items in the car as the heavy rain began to fall and headed for home. Dr. K insisted on a beer and pizza dinner even though she had not slept all night.  She was pretty punchy by the time we returned home.  In all, the team raised $2785 for cancer research and treatment.  Dr. K is already shopping for a new bike for next year.

Fenway Update

I was just looking back through the last few months of blog posts trying to figure out what I’ve posted and what I’ve missed.  That’s when I came across the posts about one of my dogs, Fenway, and how he blew out his knee.  You can catch up on that story here.

I knew it had been a while, but I had no idea that he hurt himself back at the end of March.  It’s been 4 month or about 16 weeks.  There was a long delay in getting his surgery done as he had some skin infections.  It would have been a really bad idea to operate with the infected skin as it would have gotten into the surgery incision and I don’t want to know what would happen then.

Now to the present.  Our boy is still recovering.  He had his surgery about 3 weeks ago.  I’d say he is a bit behind in his rehab.  He should be walking and exercising more, but he gets really sore for days afterwards, so we are taking that slow.  We are hoping to have him back to normal in 5 more weeks.  I say we, but I’m going to be gone from home the majority of that time.  It’s times like that that my job is not fair to Dr. K and the dogs.

Catching up – Aloha

A few weeks back, business took me to Hawai’i.  First off, when did they add an apostrophe to the name.  I’m thinking before the trip that it was maybe a Hawaiian thing, but when I get to the island I see the state spelling Hawaii and Hawai’i.  You’ll be glad to hear that it didn’t mess up my work or my short vacation.

I mention vacation as I took Dr. K along on this trip.  She was willing to put up with me being gone during the first few days of the trip.  Having the company pick up more than half of the tap for the trip really made it possible.

There’s not a lot to say about the trip.  On the days when I was working, Dr. K rented a bike and rode around Diamond Head and Honolulu.  We rode around the island (Oahu) one day from Waikiki to the North Shore and Hanauma Bay.  Another day we visited Pearl Harbor with the Arizona Memorial and USS Missouri.

The final morning was a real treat.  Doc Chako and the Wife came on vacation and happened to stay at the very same resort.  We met poolside and had a real nice visit, met the Chako kids and au pair.

Here are the best of the  pictures that I promised weeks ago.  Enjoy.

Hanauma Bay

The Missouri looking over the remains of the Arizona (from the beginning to the end of WWII)

The Arizona Memorial from the Missouri

I’m not sure what I did with the pictures from the top of Diamond Head.  I’ll post em when I find em.

Candidate v. President

Candidate Obama (18 Sept 2008):

"Senator McCain's first answer to this economic crisis was - get ready for it - a commission. That's Washington-speak for 'we'll get back to you later.'"

"Folks, we don't need a commission to spend a few years and a lot of taxpayer money to tell us what's going on in our economy," he continued. "We don't need a commission to tell us gas prices are high or that you can't pay your bills. We don't need a commission to tell us you're losing your jobs. We don't need a commission to study this crisis, we need a President who will solve it - and that's the kind of President I intend to be."

President Obama (18 Feb 2010):

Signed Executive Order:

“There is established within the Executive Office of the President the National Commission on
Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (Commission).”