FRI 09 NOV 2001

 Thought for the Day
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
-- Salvor Hardin

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Thought for the Day
"The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept."
-- John Gardner

Improving Response Time
As a man was going up to bed, his wife told him he'd left the light on in the garden shed -- she could see it from the bedroom window. But he said that he hadn't been in the shed that day. He looked himself, and there were burglars in the shed, stealing things. He called the police, but they told him that no one was in his area, so no one was available to catch the thieves. He said OK, hung up, counted to 30 and called the police again. "Hello. I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people in my shed? Well, you don't have to worry about them now, I've just shot them all." Within 3 minutes there were half a dozen police cars in the area, an Armed Response unit, the works. Of course, they caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the policemen said to this man, "I thought you said you'd shot them!"

The man replied, "I thought you said there was no one available!"

Thought for the Day
"Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, 'Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?'
The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, 'Death to all those who would whimper and cry'
And dropping a barbell he points to the sky
Saying, 'The sun's not yellow, it's chicken!'"
-- Bob Dylan, Tombstone Blues

 Patriotic Witch

We took this photo over the weekend in Person County.
What's next -- a redwhite&blue turkey?

War on Journalism
A journalist is intimidated by an armed soldier into destroying his own photographs. His notes are confiscated and inspected. He is detained on unspecified charges. Finally, after a lot of hassle and red tape, he is released and allowed to return home.

Where did this happen -- China? Singapore? Iran? Libya? South Africa?

Nope. Los Angeles. Read all about it.

And the Talibanization of America continues....

Dream: The Meaning of Life?
I dreamed that someone gave me a card on which was written, supposedly, the secret of the Meaning of Life. In the dream it struck me as a profound revelation, and I still remembered it after I woke up. Now, however, it seems more like a Zen riddle.

On one side of the card it said:

Life is a typo

I turned the card over, and on the other side it said:

Life is not a typo

Thought for the Day
"Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into wars, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labor, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television."
-- Lewis Thomas

 Update: New Rocket Section

The Silver Comet
(Pride of the Fleet)

Return of the Fat Boys
I've lost several rockets since I started launching them last spring, but I've since recovered two Fat Boy models I'd given up for lost. The first one was in August, when Tuck was visiting -- the bright orange one I'd built first and lost in early June. It was just the lower part of the rocket, and it was severely water damaged, to the point that it couldn't be made flight-ready again. But a couple of weeks ago, a neighbor found the second one, the red one, that I'd lost in early July -- this one complete, and in much better shape. It needed a new launch lug and some minor fin repairs, but I felt sure I could get it to fly again. And I did. Amazingly, it still worked fine. (I'd built a third one in the meantime, but it hasn't been flown.) Details can be found in the flight log, in the new Rockets section.

Big Surveyor Is Watching You
We visited Jan and Freddy yesterday afternoon, the weather warm and clear and pleasant, and Freddy and I went out on a four-wheeler through the woods and fields around their house. They're surrounded by about 60 or 70 acres of undeveloped countryside, not all of it theirs, but nobody much around to complain, either. The leaves are in their full autumn splendor, vibrant reds and yellows, though some are already browning, and a few are still half-green, just now starting to turn.

Freddy and I drove down a narrow dirt path through the woods, past a mean-looking German Shephard that barked and growled visciously but was fortunately chained up, and through a harvested cornfield. At the other end of the cornfield a heavy chain was strung across the path, and a "No Tresspassing" sign was planted right in the middle of the path in front of the chain. No problem. We just took a brief detour through the woods, went around the chain and back onto the path, which continued over a dirt dike between two ponds.

We stopped the four-wheeler on the dike to relax with a beer and a smoke. To our right was a shallow, swampy-looking pond studded with the high stumps of drowned trees; on the left side of the dike the pond was deeper and clearer, though its surface was several feet lower than the swampy pond on the other side.

That's when we saw the helicopter.

It was a military chopper, black-and-tan colored, mean-looking and bristling with weapons. It was turning toward us and approaching.

Since Freddy and I weren't doing anything more serious than trespassing, we just sat and watched it for a while, sipping our beers and smoking. It continued to hover like a menacing bug, and was presently joined by a second 'copter, which also turned to face in our direction. We leisurely finished our beers and cigarettes, both choppers hovering very low and pretty darn close, then started up the four-wheeler again. I waved pleasantly at our aerial observers. We crossed the dike and turned up onto a red clay embankment through scrub brush and small pines, then down another path toward another pond, leaving the helicopters behind. They didn't follow. We figured they must be guarding one of the local power plants -- there's one not too far north of Roxboro.

At the second pond we examined a beaver lodge, and saw the "slide" down the bank that the beavers use to move from the woods to the water quickly. Then on around the pond and straight through a field of broomstraw that waved and rustled as high as our heads, golden brown in the afternoon sunlight. We came out onto a small paved road and cruised down it for half a mile or so, where we turned onto a dirt road marked "Dead End". Shortly we passed another sign that said, "Road Ends 500 Feet Ahead." Freddy showed no sign of slowing down, though, and the dirt road narrowed further into a gravel driveway, and we were roaring along past a long sheet-metal building and several old tobacco barns that must have technically been part of someone's back yard.

The driveway continued for a fair distance, and as we were approaching a beat-up old trailer where it sounded like a party was going on, we turned off the driveway into what looked at first like just a field, but which shortly resolved itself into the oulines of an old road. Ahead, a stack of large rusted cylindrical tanks each several yards long and nearly as tall as a person blocked our way -- or seemed to. There was a small gap at one end, too small for a car but big enough for a four-wheeler -- and we raced through it, down the grass of an abandoned airstrip and then around back of Peaches' and Katie's house, returning to Jan and Freddy's place from the opposite direction of the one we'd started out in. Their neighbor Lora works for the power company, so Jan called her after Freddy and I got back with our story about the helicopters. Lora said they were just doing surveying work. Maybe so, but somehow I doubt that was all they were doing....

Yes, We Have No Anthrax
A hotel in Fayetteville was evacuated over the weekend because of an anthrax scare. Fayetteville isn't that close, but it's close enough to be unnerving. Fortunately, like a similar scare at the Raleigh post office a week or so ago, it tested negative. So we can all breathe easier, at least for now. Gods above, I hate this crap....

Thought for the Day
"Books and ideas are the greatest weapons against intolerance and ignorance."
-- Lyndon B. Johnson