"ROSEBUD"

The cool dude over on the other side of everything has posed another question of the week. Dave wants to know... What was the best Christmas present I ever got? I tell ya, it's hard to pick one, one particular Christmas jumps out in my mind.

I'll never forget walkin' down to the basement/den in our house in Kansas City, Missouri in about 1972 and seein' that sled, the biggest thing in the room aside from the tree. There were presents all over the floor, but that sled stood out.

OK, you guys know by now, if you've been payin' attention, that I'm a big boy. I've always been a big boy, so the run-of-the-mill sleds that all the other kids had just didn't cut the mustard. I'd be layin' on 'em with just my torso and have my ass and legs scrapin' the snow, with all sorts of crap goin' down my pants. Not pleasant. Mom and dad knew this and went out and found one that fit me. I was in bliss. It must have been 4 1/2 feet long, with red steel blades and wooden slats, and wooden handles to steer it with. It snowed a lot there, and there was a huge hill up the street that we used to slide down, skate down, bike down, all through the year. I posted about that hill a long time ago. Check it out.

We'd get goin' at the top of that hill and slide down reaching amazing speeds (always seemed faster because you were so close to the ground), and then shoot up a ramp made of snow at the curb at the bottom of the hill (it was a T intersection) into someones yard and then try to miss the trees in their back yard. Jesus, that was fun, and would probably be illegal today. Some kids mom would sue the folks when her little brat hit a tree in their yard. Anyway, those are wonderful memories, so thanks Dave for bringin' them back to me.

Now, check this out. Then I have a few questions.



Ok, that's cool, and I bet it would work. I got used to seeing those little R2D2 CIWS units on any number of the ships I taught on back in the early 1990s. Here's a shot of one of those, this one on a carrier.



They're cool as hell, used to protect ships from low flying missiles. In this new case they're trying to reconfigure them to detect and shoot down incoming mortar rounds fired at coalition troops in Iraq. Shooting and running is a favored hobby of the fuzzies over in Mess-o-potamia.

I understand why they're trying to protect soldiers from mortars. It's perfectly understandable. But in sprayin' lead into the air like that, aren't you putting a few other folks in harms way? I mean, our guys are usually based near towns and villages, aren't they? Where the hell are all those 20mm shells going? You know, the ones that don't break up when they hit the mortar. I'm just sayin'...

I always wonder that when I see these demonstrations in any one of a number of shit hole countries in the world. Their soccer team wins and they take their Kalashnikov out in the street and empty a clip in the air. I mean, I'd love to be able to do that myself. It looks like fun. But where the hell do all the bullets go?

Aw, I'm bein' a nit picker.