Rocket Jones

February 20, 2004

Now to convince my wife that they're common and vulgar

Diamonds, that is. Terribly terribly not-precious anymore if these guys are right.

Thanks to Across the Atlantic for the pointer. Can you tell who the romantic is between the two of us?

Posted by: Ted at 07:18 AM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Says it all

When my wife was rid of her wheelchair and allowed to drive again, this is the custom license plate I put on her car (extended entry):

Posted by: Ted at 05:05 AM | Comments (36) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Electricity is smoke

As promised, here's another bit about the mysterious workings of technology. Once again, I found this on the newsgroup Rec.Models.Rockets.

I have found most electronic devices are powered by smoke contained in small black chips.

In fact, once the smoke is released from one of these black chips, the electronic device will stop working.

Next lesson: Gravity doesn't suck.

Posted by: Ted at 04:33 AM | Comments (38) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 19, 2004

Too much time on your hands

Taking a cue from the flea ethereal, here's a list of countries that have appeared on my visitor logs:

United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, South Africa, Italy, Sweden, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Germany, Estonia, Norway, Belgium, Spain, Finland, France, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, Austria, Denmark, Romania, Poland, Isreal, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Greece, Malaysia, China, Brazil, Iceland, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, India, Philippines, Portugal, Argentina, Slovenia, Nigeria, and the Russian Federation.

Welcome all, and thanks for visiting. And I know not all of them are countries, but they have their own internet country code suffix. And that, as my dad would say, is good enough for the girls I go with.

Posted by: Ted at 08:28 PM | Comments (38) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

What? Where's the damn couch?

My "Big 30" Psychological Profile, because everyone knows you don't need years of education in order to disect my soul and tell all about me, just 155 questions.

(in the extended entry)

I saw this one over at DeMythology, and Glenn talks about a different one that he took.

Posted by: Ted at 11:53 AM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Even NASA is going Atkins!

NASA has announced their new Atkins-friendly 'space food' tablet rations.

Posted by: Ted at 05:53 AM | Comments (38) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Probably not useful for Talk Show Hosts and/or Superheroes*

Tick Remover.

*or politicians for that matter.

Posted by: Ted at 05:38 AM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 18, 2004

Images from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Nifty pictures, and not one joke about "Black Hole Rips Unlucky Star Apart". Too easy.

Posted by: Ted at 08:49 PM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

*&@%#$!!!!!

The Washington Capitals sent Peter Bondra to the Ottawa Senators for a prospect and a second-round draft pick in 2005. The Sens are essentially renting Bondra for the rest of the season as he becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. The local hope is that Bondra can make a run for the Stanley Cup with the Senators, then be resigned during the off-season.

Whoever has Bondra on their fantasy hockey league team should prepare for a boost in his already good stats. Ottawa is a goal scoring juggernaut, and just got better.

Posted by: Ted at 12:59 PM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Air Force Blue (part 5)

Spoiler Alert – This includes the story of how I wound up on my back, being read my rights, with a police dog standing on my chest (#45 on my Cornucopia of Ted list).

After collectively graduating from our police "tech school" training, we were presented with our dark blue berets and given our orders for assignment. In the Air Force, you keep a form on file commonly referred to as your "dream sheet" which lists the top ten places you'd like to be assigned. Theoretically, when it comes time to send you to your next assignment, they start with your first choice and see if there’s an opening there for your specialty and rank, and if not they go to your second choice, and so on.

The main thing about my dream sheet was that California didn’t appear on it at all. I didn’t want to go back home, I wanted to see some of the world – well, some of the US anyway. I wasn’t ready for overseas yet.

I can guarantee you one thing though - Minot, North Dakota was not even remotely on my list of places to go. Maybe you’ve heard the standard joke: “Why not, Minot? Freezin’s the reason.” Uh huh, exactly.

Now the Air Force does something kinda cool at this point. In this room of brand new and entirely interchangeable newbies, you can trade assignments with someone instantly. Just find some sucker one else willing to do it, and it happens. Of course, nobody is going to trade for Minot, because the only people who want to go have already put it on their dream sheet, and you can bet that those people get their wish.

So I’m standing there with my orders, wondering where Minot is (and for that matter, where exactly is North Dakota?), when another guy comes up looking to trade. See, his girlfriend is going to Minot, and he’s going to Grand Forks, North Dakota, and he wanted to know if I would trade orders with him? Sure, what the heck. North Dakota is North Dakota. This turned out to be a huge decision, since I met my wife in Grand Forks, and the guy I traded with broke up with his girlfriend within a month.

Before traveling to the Great White North, I went home for leave, my first Christmas as a military man.

December 26th, 1977. Nice day in northern California, temperature in the 50’s, chilly enough to need a heavy windbreaker. At the airport Mom cried, Dad was proud, and Ted is off to live his life. I don’t remember much of the flight, but as we were descending into Grand Forks that night, the pilot mentioned that the ride was bumpy because of the blizzard just kicking up, and that we were lucky we hadn’t been diverted. I found out later that we were the last plane to land for almost three days.

In those days, Grand Forks International Airport earned it’s name from the thrice-weekly flights to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Hey, it was ‘International’, how small could it be? As the plane stopped, the stewardess stood at the front of the plane and told everyone that once the door was opened, we should all closely follow in single file to the terminal, because visibility was really bad and they didn’t want anyone getting lost in the blizzard. Huh? What about rolling the little accordian thingie up to the door and walking down the ramp into the terminal? Yeah, right.

We filed off, struggling with our carry-ons into the wind and blowing snow (and I’m in a windbreaker!), and my mind is running a mantra, “…what the hell did I get myself into?… what the hell did I get myself into?…”, over and over again. Out of the darkness loomed a one-story building – the terminal. We hustled inside and stood around shaking the snow out of our hair and stamping our shoes (sneakers in my case) and trying to warm up. An announcement was made that our luggage would be coming in at the baggage claim at Gate 2 (there were only two).

We all shuffled over to Gate 2, and suddenly a big garage-type door rolled up and the blizzard was inside with us. Through the blowing snow you could make out two guys frantically heaving suitcases and whatnot through the opening in the wall, trying to get done as quickly as possible. Then the door slammed down and shut and everyone started rooting through the pile to find their luggage.

“…what the hell did I get myself into?… what the hell did I get myself into?…”

Half in shock, I located my stuff (everything I owned), and dragged it over to a chair. Now I needed to find a ride to the base, but for this I was prepared. Hell, they even had a courtesy phone on the wall to call the base taxi. Five minutes later I slouched back in the chair, totally dejected and resigned to spending at least the night in the terminal. It was going to be a cold hungry stretch, because the vending machines were all empty, not that I had change anyways. Concessions? Yeah, right.

Some guy, who’s name I don’t remember but who shall always be my hero, walked up and asked if I needed a ride to the base. Seems the person he was there to pick up didn’t make it (connecting flight grounded), so if I needed a ride…

This guy went above and beyond, and I later realized he was more than a little crazy. See, Grand Forks International is located almost exactly halfway between the city of Grand Forks, and Grand Forks AFB. Ten miles in either direction on US Interstate 2. So this good Samaritan, in what was working up to be a whopper of a blizzard, gave me the grand tour of the city first (not that I could see anything at all, let alone make sense of it – I remember him showing me the college campus), before driving back twenty miles to the base.

I told him I was a cop, so he took me to the ‘cop barracks’ so I could get a room. I unloaded my stuff from his car and thanked him with all my heart (and never saw him again) and went into the barracks. It was now about 11pm.

I found the day room where a bunch of guys were playing pool and watching TV. One of them was the Dorm Chief, and when I talked to him and showed him my orders his response was “I ain’t got no room.”

At this point, Leavenworth wasn’t looking half bad. I argued with him for a few minutes, and finally one of the guys playing pool told the Chief to put me in with him, since he didn’t have a roommate. Done.

I walked up to the 3rd floor with my new roomie, dumped my crap in the corner and crawled into bed. It had been a long, bad day, and I needed some serious down time. Suicide was not considered, desertion was…

Dog-breath. In my face, panting hot like a bellows. Opening my eyes, I stayed otherwise still and looked into a mouth full of yellow teeth. The teeth were obviously attached to a dog, but why was a German Shepherd in my room? In North Dakota, I remembered. And why was the dog standing on my chest? I realized there were words being spoken:

“…if you refuse this right anything you say can and will be used against you…”

And at this point I noticed an Air Force policeman attached to the dog by a leash, and as he read me my rights, the dog stood over me, breathing into my face.

My new roomie (forever blessed as well, but I’m not giving his name here although I do remember it), called out from his rack across the room, “Any drugs you find in the room are mine, he just got here!”

Whatta pal.

The cops tore the room apart while searching it. No drugs were found. My roomie was busted for having a sugar dispenser he stole from the chow hall. Roomie was trying to get out of the Air Force, and it was not an amicable parting. The dog probably never alerted on the room door like they claimed, the cops were just hoping to get lucky and find some drugs on him. I just happened to be there, they had no idea who I was.

That was my first day in tropical Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Posted by: Ted at 05:28 AM | Comments (42) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

In the interest of fairness...

I've been informed that lately I've made several posts that are rather... insensitive to women. To achieve more fair and balanced blogging, I give you the following "stupid men jokes" (thanks to Brain Candy).

How do you get a man to stop biting his nails?
Make him wear shoes.

What does it mean when a man is in your bed gasping for breath and calling your name?
You didn't hold the pillow down long enough.

How can you tell when a man is well hung?
When you can just barely slip your finger in between his neck and the noose.

Why do only 10% of men make it to heaven?
Because if they all went, it would be Hell.

Why do female black widow spiders kill the males after mating?
To stop the snoring before it starts.

Why can't men get mad cow disease?
Because they're all pigs.

Posted by: Ted at 05:14 AM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 17, 2004

A Day in the Life of a Martian Scientist

This link thanks to Doug Pratt of Pratt Hobbies. If you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see a picture of a young Dr. Rice, preparing to launch a model rocket. The photo caption reads:

Jim Rice at age nine, launching his lifelong dream of a career in rocket science.

And that's why I help introduce kids to the hobby.

Posted by: Ted at 07:47 PM | Comments (34) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Old dogs and new tricks

We have two dogs, a two year old Toy Poodle named Trix and a ten year old Terrier named Sam. And although we've almost always had at least one dog (and had as many as three), because of being in the military, we’ve never had a dog long enough to get old before*. We’re getting into new territory for us when it comes to Sam.

If human grandpa gets old and cranky, you deal with it. Same with an old dog, to a point, because even though he’s part of the family, it’s still a pet. I understand people who spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on vet bills for an elderly or sick pet, but I wouldn’t do it myself. I think some people wait too long to put down a beloved pet, sometimes you just have to let go.

Sam is getting older. He’s still got a lot of play in him, and he gets around pretty good. He’s some years from the end, but he’s at the age where I’m beginning to think about it.

Lately, he’s taken to peeing on the floor in the house. He’ll go into the pantry and lift his leg against the garbage can, or downstairs in my workshop or the basement. Like a cranky old man, he doesn't take correction well, and it's getting worse. Why is he doing this? It might be the cold weather bothering his old bones, I don't know. He still goes out (we've got a doggie door to the backyard) during the day, so I'd almost think it was lazyness. Stubborn? I'd believe that before lazy.

Have you ever gone through this with a pet? How did you handle it?

*Rather than put our dogs into quarantine for some months overseas, we'd find him or her a good home before we moved. Hard to do, but better. We got Sam after I got out, and he was a couple years old when we got him.

Posted by: Ted at 11:56 AM | Comments (40) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Topical

Q: What do the Japanese do when they have an erection?

A: They vote.

Posted by: Ted at 10:34 AM | Comments (40) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

I just want to be your Teddy Bear

The wisdom of Elvis, as it applies in Ted's Universe.

Update: Work-safe, except for conservative environments. Happy now?

Posted by: Ted at 07:01 AM | Comments (40) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

It's a conspiracy!

Last week Mookie tried to kill me in the shower. This morning Sam the dog tried to finish the job. I walked downstairs into the basement, and right at the foot of the stairs he left a puddle, invisible on the linoleum. There was nothing graceful about the crash this time, and luckily nothing beyond my dignity was bruised. Sam did have the decency to stand at the top of the steps and look mildly concerned, but I suspect he was worried I wouldn't be able to make the walk into the pantry for his morning treat.

All of this brings up a question for all you pet owners and animal lovers. I'll see if I can make sense of it and post it at lunch. I'll be interested to hear your opinions.

Posted by: Ted at 06:36 AM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 16, 2004

Dark Suckers

From Michael M-B on the Rec.Models.Rockets newsgroup:

What is a Dark Sucker?

Many years ago Thomas Edison was experimenting with a method to remove the darkness from a room. By applying a electric current to a wire in a vacuum, he noticed the darkness in the room had vanished. Where had the darkness gone. He noticed around the wire a area of extreme Non-Darkness. He surmised that in fact, the wire had absorbed all the darkness from the room and concentrated it about the wire. When he removed the current from the wire the darkness returned to the room. Hence the invention of the Dark sucker!

Nowdays we have many types of dark suckers. Even portable Dark Suckers called flashed darksuckers, which remove the dark from a concentrated area a short distance away.

With every brilliant theory, there are those who disagree. In the world of Dark Suckers, these heretics believe that darksuckers are in fact not sucking the dark away but emitting photons (or light). Now all of us in the scientific world know this is falacy. The easy way to prove it to these heretics is the Sun.

The Sun's gravity in fact sucks all of the dark from surrounding space. Therefore making it not dark ( very bloody not dark in fact). And the dark is sucked so violently that heat is generated in place of the removed dark. Even Einstein knew this.

So next time you walk into a dark room and turn the switch watch how fast the Dark is Sucked from the room!

Next Lesson: Electricty is smoke.

Posted by: Ted at 09:26 PM | Comments (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Nightmare

I dreamt I met the Pillsbury Doughboy and went to poke his tummy. In a tragic case of mistaken identity, he turned out to be an albino midget sumo wrestler, and he kicked my ass.

Posted by: Ted at 08:30 AM | Comments (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

You will be missed

Oldsmobile, soon to be pinin' for the fjords.

The hottest car I've ever driven was a 1972 Olds Cutlass Supreme 4-door. Looked like a family car, left the line like a scalded cat and never looked back.

They knew how to name 'em too (in the extended entry).

Posted by: Ted at 07:03 AM | Comments (36) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 15, 2004

The red one and the yellow one refused to comment

Math Secrets of M&M's Revealed.

M&M sweets pack together more densely than perfect spheres when randomly jumbled in a container, scientists say.

Redefines the term "sugar orgy", eh?

Thanks to The Group Captain at Across the Atlantic for this.

Posted by: Ted at 08:23 PM | Comments (38) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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