Two days into a mini-term, and the first exams are already coming up.

I managed to get away from a two gun shows this last weekend without pissing away too much money. I found a few old used Eastern European clip bags in a bin for a dollar each and plunked down $20 for an old, early model AK-47 bayonet in Austin on Saturday, and got some good Jim Bowie brand peppered jerky in Ft. Worth on Sunday. I also got to watch the fun when my buddy bought himself a new Ruger .357 magnum revolver and some ammo to go with it. He was walkin' away from it and looked at me and said "What the hell. It's only money right?" You know what my answer was. He got to cross off another gun from the list. That's always fun to do, even vicariously.

He took a few nice pictures of the F-35 and it's chase planes last week. I include a few here for your amusement. I mean, you're buyin' these beauties with your tax money. You might as well get to see what you're payin' for. At least in this case it's goin' for somethin' tagible. Click on these to see the high resolution images.


The take off. Note the F-16 chase plane in the upper right.


Flying overhead, this almost looks like it's hovering. One version of this plane will have the capacity to do that, to replace the AV-8B Harrier in Marine service, but I believe this is the Air Force version. There will ultimately be three different versions of this plane, so that each service will use it. It's very stealthy, and has thrust vectoring and a super cruise capability, so it's hot shit and should last well into the century in the inventory.


Nice tandem shot, F-35 on the left, F-16 chase plane on the right. They make both of these planes in Ft. Worth at Lockheed-Martin, which used to be General Dynamics back in the day. The F-16 was designed there and won the Air force contract in the mid 1970s when my family had just moved to Ft. Worth from San Antonio, where my dad had retired from the Air Force. They're still building them there, thought the project is winding down, and now the F-35 contract means lots of good jobs for another generation or so. Don't ya just love the Military Industrial Complex at work? I miss the hell out of seeing and hearing those jets all the time. Tanks and APCs are cool, but I'm an Air Force brat and jet junky from way back. It never gets out of your blood.

I started a mini-semester Monday, with a History 1301 (first half of U.S. history) from 8am to noon, and then a Govt. 2301 (first half of state and federal) from 1pm to 5pm each day. We'll have three day weekends for Christmas and New Years, but other than that it's every day. After two days I've taken the history class from the Ice age to about 1690, and in the government class we've gone over all the rudimentary definitions of things and have gotten about half way through the process of drafting the constitution in 1787. It goes very quick in this format. Four hours a day, four or five days a week, for three weeks. I jolted the government class today when I told them that their first exam would be Thursday rather than Friday. I realized as I was finishing up today that I've got about two hours worth of lecture left before the first exam, so I had to lower the boom on 'em. We'll do a good review before the exam, but I wouldn't be too shocked if half the class bombed it. It's a doozie. No fuckin' prisoners.

My sister called today and told me about the plans she's concocting to celebrate our parents 57th wedding anniversary, which is this upcoming Christmas day. We're gonna get a nice carrot cake and flowers, and we're gonna take dad to get mom some baubles. Sis had some nice writing put on the cake, "Happy 57th, To The Love Of My Life". She says dad came close to breaking down when she told him about it. He's a big softie in his dotage. We're all getting there.

I'm watching "The Bad Seed" on Turner while I type this. This flick is amazing. The evil little girl just set the handyman on fire and her mom is losing it while the brat plays this insane tune on the piano, faster and faster. Jesus, they really knew how to make a flick back then. The end of this thing is classic. Check it out.