Book Recollection: Chosen Soldier

Admittedly, I am a rabid reader of books covering aspects of our military.  Specifically, the various special forces.  One of the reasons is due to be very curious as to what type of individual that willingly signs up for this occupation and with that said, what it takes for them to succeed.  I like to consider myself somewhat in shape until I read what these soldiers have to do and it motivates me to do more.  It has been awhile since I had the time to actually read a book, but a few weekends ago our dogs were showing in the Teacup Dog Agility Nationals in Racine Wisconsin.  If you know anything about this event, you are aware there is a lot of down time between the runs.  This was a perfect opportunity to finish a book on my list.

Today’s book review is Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior by Dick Couch.  Without hesitation, I can declare this book is right up there with Lone Survivor which is my favorite book (if you have not read or listened to that book, do it immediately).  It also has the distinction of being a 100 fold better than the last military book I read called Warrior Soul.   A big reason for this is the author.  Mr. Couch is a former Navy Seal who was offered the opportunity to observe and write about the process of becoming a Green Beret (contrast that with the Warrior Soul which felt more like a look at me I’m great work).  It was honest, frank and most of all very informative.  I had no idea of the diverse backgrounds this military branch pulled from or its focus as “head of the spear”, tasked with going in ahead of our military might and disrupting the establishment.  They infiltrate, link up and organize local fighters and train them to take control once the military goal is achieved.    Unlike the Seals and Marines who are primarily attack forces, this branch stressed language, culture teaching, medical, engineering and adaptive thinking.  This, of course, is in addition to the elite fighting skills of the other groups.   Even Mr. Couch admitted the stunning difference which means a lot from someone trained as a Seal.

I could barely put this book down to catch the dogs’ runs.  I am completely impressed by the approach taken by the instructors and have a lot more respect for every individual to make through this ordeal and earn their tabs.  To be honest, I even respect those who try their best but find they can’t get to the required level.  As Dick quotes in the book, the Green Berets may lose a candidate in their ranks, but the reassigned branch gains a better soldier.  Those that do make it through are in my opinion as good as it gets both in conditioning, judgment and very apparent in leadership.  Once their job of protecting the interests of the United States are completed, they are more than prepared to excel in any business activity they chose to set their sights on.  My respect and gratitude to those who have earned the Green Beret.

Catch the jump for my recollections:

Continue reading Book Recollection: Chosen Soldier

Another Set of Fails… or Wow, My Hands Still Hurt

The feeling is starting to come back in my hands, but rather than push it, I’m going with another set of fails to provide some humor in your day.  Hoping to get back to some in depth blogging for the next blog… but then again, why start after 1.5 years HeHe.  Okay, let’s start with a save the environment pamphlet.

So here we have an Earth Matters music festival, but what band is selected to participate in this event?  That would be the Backyard Tire Fire band of course, because nothing says I love the Earth than burning tires.

I think my mother clipped this one from the Springfield State Journal Register.  It appears Springfield has as entertaining a Police Beat section as our local Journal Star.

A pretty poor scan, but essentially this entry relates an apparent car burglary at their Best Buy.  It is not clear from the context, but either the Viper Car Alarm was not installed and thus diminished the value of the system or it was installed and the customer needs to call up Viper and have a little chat.

Since we are on the topic of newspaper entries, here is another one from the Springfield IL. paper.    After 50 years of wedded bliss, the Walmire’s are looking forward to a …

a trip to Menards.  I can imagine the scene around 6 o’clock when the guests of honor proclaim everyone has to finish their cake and leave because Menards is closing in a few hours and they need to make sure they get the fresh licorice and Spechter Root Beer (which is quite good by the way)  before the doors close.

It is Halloween time (although most of the stores around here have their Christmas stuff out) so pulling this morbid display out for your viewing.  I can’t remember the exact store this was in (some small shop in a small town), but it definitely caught my attention when I walked by it.

This brings new meaning to hanging the doll up.  I would think the clerk would notice how uncomfortable this was for the customers and wrap it around the arms or chest instead.  Fortunately, they didn’t leave a plastic bag on the head to help protect the hair!

Lastly, I never get enough Ass Signs.

This was taken at the Springfield State Fairgrounds while my dogs were competing in the National Teacup Agility competition.  In fact I have another sign picture on my phone from a recent team building outing I had to attend for work.  Bowling with my coworkers apparently makes me a better employee.   The same probably applies to the Women’s Bowling Ass that are meeting there later in the week.

That’s all folks, but I’ll keep the camera at the ready for more fails I stumble upon.

Taking A Rest, Going With Some Fails

I spent the day today haaaammmmmmeeeerrrrr drilling 24 3.5″ holes in some cement pillars I constructed for a bridge I am building on my lot.  I had no idea it was going to be as difficult as it was and now awaiting a nasty bruise to appear on the inside of my knee and my hands are just about numb.  Oh, a quick word of advise, when your 3/4″ bit is in the cement, don’t relax on your grip as you slowly bring the bit out of the hole.   If you just asked why (which means you probably experienced it yourself), it is because the heavy torque in the hammer drill will rip it out of your hands and if you are position as I was, it will crack right into the inside of your knee.  I was a quick learner on that one.  Anyway, to give my hands a rest (not having to make a logo or work a lot with images) I went with a collection of fails for this post and likely the next one as well since my production is again behind schedule.

Starting off today’s fails is a picture my brother took in Naperville.

He noticed this sign on Plainfield-Naperville Rd.  He even took the time to notify the park district, however, as of a few days ago they have still not corrected it.  The interesting part of this is obviously someone spent a significant amount of time building it, more individuals spent time setting it in concrete and working on the landscape and NONE of them either noticed or cared enough to bring it to someone’s attention.  Thanks for the photo Ron.

Next up is the deceitful marketing arm for Hersheys.  Although I try not to eat lunch out of the vending machines, every once in awhile I have to.  I figured I would at least get some nutrition from the peanuts so I took the king sized PayDay.

A bad habit of mine is to quickly look at the nutrition label and translate it into the miles I need to run that night to work it off.  So I pulled it out of the machine and turned it over and winced.

I read the calorie content and quickly located the serving size (standard marketing gimmicks to make it seem better than it is) and noticed it was 2.  Then an odd little line at the top of the box caught my attention.  I’ll let you figure out why I bothered to save the wrapper for my blog (okay, I did give you a big hint).

LIARS!

So how would you like to a Fireman in this community?  Big thanks to my friend Rocket who gave me this shot.

This actually reminds me of the ambulance service in my area.  Basically it is the Brimfield, Yates City, Elmwood ambulance service so the last thing you see before being put inside the ambulance is the sign on the side that says B.Y.E.  Not exactly what you want to see on your way to the hospital.

Here is one for the do-it-yourself people out there.  Apparently Homax Products Inc. thinks you are an idiot… or has been sued by an idiot.

It is a bad scan, but it basically says Note: Once trimmed, the notch cannot be made smaller.

And the last one for this post, an entire wall reserved to the honoring all the great dogs and their owners  in their club.

Hmmm, well, at least there will be plenty of room when they actually have the need.  I really like how high they put the lettering.

Oh well, catch you next time

One Headache Too Many

So if you read my previous blog entry, you are aware of a recent situation we had regarding our Dodge Durango having more electrical problems.  As an update to that post, the salesman that called me after the service was completed (to sell me a new car) has never called me back regarding my request to find an Aspen.  A week or so ago, Linda decided to head out to the car lots and see what we could find.  This turned out to be a very interesting event.  First off, we went to some lots in Peoria and came to the conclusion that most of these dealerships had very little on their lots and what they did have were either vans or crap looking boxes on wheels.  Now it was a quest so we took off to Morton to check out their lots.  Same situation on the Dodge lot, little inventory or was so ugly they were not even worth getting out of the vehicle to look at and definitely nothing in the SUV category.  We then headed over to the Ford lot.  They actually had a couple of Explorers on the backside of the lot so we stopped and got out to take a look.  In a first for this trip, a salesman came out to help us who promptly told us they did not have any new Explorers left due to being wiped out by the Cash for Clunkers program.  Does this seem odd to you?  Apparently everyone was turning in their clunkers for gas guzzling SUVs which seems contrary to the supposed intent of that program.  When we asked when more would be arriving we were told possibly in 6-8 weeks while he handed us his business card and walked away.  So here we sit wanting to purchase a vehicle and a) there are no vehicles to actually buy and b) the salesman doesn’t even seem interested enough to ask us our name so he can contact us when they do arrive.  We are no longer surprised why this industry is in the toilet.  Unwilling to give up, we headed to Pekin to check out the Dodge dealer there.  As we entered the now common empty lot, we spied a Dodge Aspen (the Durango replacement) and what seemed to good to be true it had a reduced sign on it.  Jumping out of the car we quickly located a salesman to inquire about the vehicle.  Turns out, it was a 2 wheel V6.  I can’t imagine that this configuration appealed to anyone in the market for this type of vehicle.  We also learned that the Aspen was not being made anymore and Chrysler decided to completely exit the SUV market.  This was the final straw and we decided it was time to check out the imports.

A mile or so down the street, there was a Toyota dealer and as it turns out, I actually knew the owner of that dealership (we met at my neighbor’s redneck Wednesday events which consists of everyone bringing over their firearms for target practice – our constitutional right to bear arms and don’t ever try to legislate it away).  Sure enough, this lot had a number of vehicles on it and a couple of Sequoias that were right up our alley.  A helpful salesman came out, we got all our questions answered, took a test drive, negotiated a price (helps if you know the right people) and signed on the bottom line.  We are now the proud owners of a new Toyota SUV and very happy with the decision.  Oh, and before we get the flood of comments trying to criminalize large vehicles, we live in the country in the Midwest (I chuckle every time I pass a stuck Prius in the snow), raise agility dogs that require traveling to competition and still looking for verifiable FACTS on the Global Warming myth (especially ones that justify the record lows we are currently experiencing).

I thought I would give a quick comparison of Toyota experiences with our previous Durango (hit the jump to see)

Continue reading One Headache Too Many

Another Fine Example of American Car Quality

I have stopped speculating as to why American car company quality is considered inferior to the imports.  The reason for this is now I know why by example.  When I did break from tradition and purchase a foreign car last year, I received an owner’s manual that was at least 3 inches thick.  It was frankly quite a shock, but there is not a question you could think of that is not answered in that manual.  Let’s compare that to a recent experience we had with our Dodge Durango.  For what seems like the 20th time we had an electrical issue with this SUV.   These issues have ranged from an all out dashboard power failure, a strange conflict that caused the blowers to go out when a random combination of radio and lights were on to the recent issue where the interior lights would not turn off even when all the doors were closed.  Linda takes this SUV to various dog shows and uses the light wheel to shut off the interior lights so she can keep the tailgate open for the pups.  All of a sudden, that switch would not work and the lights in the tailgate would not shut off even when all the doors were closed.  Frustrated with the poor electrical systems, I headed out to see if I could remedy the problem, but as in the previous cases, no luck.   Assuming another inconvenient trip to the dealer the next day, I decided to at least pull the fuse to save the battery.

I pulled off the fuse panel to see what I was in for:

The very first thing I notice is there is NOT A FUSE PULLER in the compartment.  What does it take to verify that a .5 cent plastic tool is included as it rolls of the assembly line?  Let’s just call that quality defect #1.  My next task was to locate which fuse to remove (with my own tool!).  The most obvious place to me would be on the fuse box panel – maybe a quick two word summary of what each fuse is for like interior lights or headlights or radio.

This was a big strike out, since all the cover had was 3 extra fuses (at least those were there) and although you cannot read it from the picture, it appeared to just have the fuse numbers on it – that of course is something I can obtain from the fuse itself and therefore completely useless to me (if it says something else, please enlighten me).  For the meantime,  I am naming it defect #2.  No worries I thought, I’ll break down and get the user manual… all .25 inch of it and use the schematic in there to selectively pull the appropriate fuse. Wait for it… wait for it… (hit the page jump)

Continue reading Another Fine Example of American Car Quality

That is One Steller Jay

The WordPress update effort has put me slightly behind, but nothing a quick jump back to the Yellowstone pictures can’t fix.  While we were out there, we came across this interesting bird.  This was actually the first time I have ever seen this particular variety and it caught me off guard when I saw it walking across a picnic table.  This is not my best effort in getting tack sharp photos, but it was a struggle to get it to stand still for even a second so I could zero in on it or attempt to focus through the branches.  According the trusty Audubon guide this is a Steller’s Jay and member of the Jay and Crow family.

According to the field guide, this bird is on the brash side and mostly omnivorous.  True to the description, it was indeed scrounging for food among the various groups picnicking in the area.  From a visual perspective, it is quite stellar looking with a bright blue back offset by a black plumed head…. somewhat woodpecker looking with a different color pallet.

From this particular picture it is obvious our presence was intruding on his foraging.  Okay, I admit it, my focus hand was shaking out of fear the bird was going to stab me with its beak and rip my eyeball out.  What, you do not believe me?  Take a look at this shot smarty pants and tell me if this isn’t one pissed off bird.

Oh yeah, his meat instincts are kicking into high gear.  I decided from that point on that all further pictures would stealth shots outside its vision.  Hit the jump to see a few more shots of this quite interesting bird

Continue reading That is One Steller Jay

Slob or Pure Genius

A few weeks ago Linda and I were picking up some dinner at the KFC out on Allen Rd.  For the second (and last) time, my experience was less than satisfying.  This time I had to question the cashier whether I could get the new grilled chicken in a sandwich (couldn’t find it on the menu) and basically had to beg for an explanation of what comes on it.  I ended up getting the sandwich plain.  Well plain was the request, when I got back in the car  on our way home, I pulled it out in order to finish eating so I could run when we got home.  Turns out this sandwich is about 2.5 bites big and sure enough had a giant tomato on it which I HATE.

But I digress from my original intent of this post.  As I was standing there waiting for my disappointing dinner, a young Generation Xbox kid comes waddling up to the buffet counter.  He then proceeded to badger the cashier as to whether there was dessert on the food trough.  She ended up telling him there was bread pudding available and he was satisfied.  Grabbing his plate, he quickly turned to go past me in order to get to the dessert.   Two observations hit me within a split second of each other.  The first is he had his shirt inside out.  I remember when this was the fashion trend, but generally it was on sweatshirts and not so much just plain t-shirts.  I quickly decided it he was a trend setter and just might give it that tipping point moment.  The other visual oddity that caught my eye was the fact he had spilled food all over the front of said t-shirt.  Now at the trough, the kid was visually upset because he was having difficulty locating the pudding which means he did not understand the “bread” part of her response since he was standing right in front of it.  Then my powers of reasoning kicked in and it occurred to me I could take this experience in two ways.

  1. The kid was a slob and the strong thumbs from the video controllers were now so disproportional to the fingers that the act of shoveling food into the mouth had become a challenge …. or….
  2. This kid is a total genius and was so aware of his potential to spill food that he purposely turned his t-shirt inside out allowing him to flip it right side out to hiding the  dirty deed.

I badly wanted to stay and get resolution to this quandary, but I had to get the running shoes on before the sun started setting.  I will never know for sure, but it has made me add a micro step in my observation methodology to see if other kids are now wearing their shirts inside out or if fat kids are making the trip to the bathroom for the switch before they order.  I will keep you posted on what I learn, but free to provide your own assessments or observations for discussion.

By the way, I just noticed I used this same guy in another post… can you locate it?

Another Successful WordPress Upgrade

Well, the sweating and sleepless nights are hopefully over for a little while now.  A few weeks ago, the WordPress community was informed there was a security hole in their toolset.  I just recently found enough time to dig into the upgrade process and get the blog protected again.  Based on my preliminary tests, this effort was completely successful and quite frankly not nearly as painful as I thought it was going to be.  In fact, it probably took me longer to create the graphic for this post than it did to complete all of the tasks.  Thankfully, I took the time to upgrade back in January which lined up well with the directions I had.  Kudos to the WordPress team for the quality in their documentation.  All of my plugins successfully migrated and my theme (the part I was dreading the most) came over without a hitch.  Now I can get back to making some posts, with this one (yes, I am counting this one) I have 3 more to hit my mark.

Hopefully the script kiddies out there will keep themselves busy with Windows 7 which is coming out soon and allow me to get some sleep although it looks like I need to spend a few minutes learning this new dashboard.

In Need of a Quick Calculation

Quick Calc at Menards

My summer task for this year is to finally do some clearing on my lot in order to highlight the scenic stream that runs through the middle of the woods.  This task may just kill me (now down over 10 pounds since my Steamboat Race and a mere 3 pounds away from my college graduation weight.  Fortunately, this is the kind of thing I love to do so even though it is hard work, I am smiling the entire time.  Part of this endeavor is to build a bridge so I can actually get to the back portion of my lot without getting wet.  My oldest brother is thankfully helping out with the design which is proving to be very interesting since it is over 49 feet across and I am unable to place a support structure in the middle due to the water and rock bed.  After trying all options to get a mechanical hole digger (nothing viable under a $600 rental fee) I decided to dig the footings and pour the concrete by hand.  So with my hands, a spade, a post hole digger, a 4′ chipping bar and a significant amount of sweat, 8 four foot deep by 12″ wide holes were dug.  Thankfully the new chipping bar (best $35 ever spent) made it through the roots and hardened sandstone.

The next stage in this endeavor was pouring the footings.  This consisted of hauling 64 of the 60lb bags of concrete and 8 of the cardboard pillar forms from Menards to the construction site.  For the record, a Menards’ employee managed to help load 16 (most my truck is rated for) of them into the truck – all the rest were loaded, unloaded and hauled through the woods with an ATV (5 at a time).  On the 3rd trip to Menards, I purchased the remaining four 12″ tubes for the job.  Now these tubes are 12″ nominal with a +- of 0.5″.  You might ask why they would bother with the size variance in today’s precision machinery era.  I am not sure if this is intentional or not, but this variance allows you to insert the tubes inside each other (depending on the variance of course).  I should also point out that the next size down had an 8″ diameter.

With that background in place, we are at the heart of this post.  Two of the four tubes fit inside the third, the third and fourth were the same size and purposely both at the large end of the tolerance.  While checking out, I informed the cashier there were four tubes in total and they were all 12″ in diameter.  The cashier then proceeded to look at the two exposed tubes with some confusion.  Noting that, I informed him that there was a half inch tolerance.  Without a doubt this resulted in math fog and I could tell he did not understand how that statement resolved the two inner tubes.  Keeping my peripheral vision, I proceeded to the credit card swiper.  Sure enough, he took the two tubes out and checked their labeling to make sure they were both 12″ as I had previously informed him.

I can understand the employees need to protect the company’s assets, but two things intrigued me about this event.  The first is an employee at a home improvement store having difficulty judging a half inch tolerance, but more importantly the 8″ tubes are CHEAPER.  Why would I willingly pay more for the extra two tubes?  If they were 8’s I would have pulled them out myself in order to save a few bucks.  Maybe lifting all those concrete bags impacted my powers of reasoning, but there is definitely room there for some lightening math skills.  By the way, the book used in the image is fantastic for those who like to improve their mental calculation abilities.  I was taking the picture of the ruler and noticed the binding on my bookshelf and felt it was a good fit.

Now time to go eat something.

An Annoying Rip

Medical Shredder

I recently went along with my wife to her doctor’s appointment.  I tend to dread this event because of one key element.  Her particular doctor never holds his schedule … EVER.  This is not a 10 or 15 minute inconvenience.  If you actually see him under an hour past your schedule slot, you might as well go play the lottery because the planets are aligned.  On this particular day, it was not the schedule issue that caused my major portion of annoyance.  Instead, as Linda was checking out with the receptionist, the doctor’s accountant caught my attention.  To be honest, my life runs at a pretty hurriedly pace.  This includes my walking pace, my reading pace, my speech cadence and my inability to actually just sit down and watch a TV program.  Linda classifies this as an O/C disorder but I view it as getting the most out of each and every day.  This disorder (if you must) causes me to be more sensitive to inefficient actions of others.  This particular accountant was standing over a desk and reading pieces of paper.  Once read he would proceed to slowly rip it lengthwise into about 7 strips.  Then he would take each strip and tear it again into about 10 pieces.  Once a strip was completed, he would then gather up each of the pieces and stack them neatly on top of each other until he had a neatly organized pile of paper.  Imagine this at a pace of 10 seconds for each long strip and another 10 for the cross rips.  Once stacked he would slowly place them by hand in a garbage can and then start the whole process over again.  I watched 3 of these cycles which literally felt like fingernail scratches on a blackboard (does anyone actually know what a blackboard is anymore?).  Linda completed her business and we exited the office.  I explained to Linda what she forced me to go through (prompting the “disorder” label again) and explained how Office Max has ads about every Sunday for shredders which are a) faster and b) far more efficient especially if you get the cross cutting ones.  The bright side of this was I completely forgot about the hour delay in seeing the doctor.

While I am on the subject of annoyances I have a survey question.  Who is the more annoying marketing spokesperson?

  • Paul Sherman (from the Sherman Store)
  • The Mac Guy
  • The Progressive Lady

In case those marketing organizations are reading, I refuse to even watch, much less purchase the product, based on their condescending tone.  Guessing I must not fit their target demographic.