Notes From The War Room

Lately, a lot of the news is about the death of some guy in Rome.  I don't know anything about this person nor could I give two shits about him.  What I do know is that his organization is the worst evil ever perpetrated on mankind.

And 

Let's go back in history and have a look, shall we?

• Suppression of other religions, ancient texts, and scientific discovery

• The Inquisition

• The Crusades

• The Doctrine of Discovery - justification for the colonization and exploitation of non-Christian lands and peoples

• Wars of Religion (Thirty Years Wars, French Religious Wars, England’s War of Three Kingdoms, . . . )

• Support of Evil Regimes

• Forced Assimilation of Native Americans

• Handling of child abuse cases and protection of their priests

• Subjugation of women beginning with the defamation of Mary Magdalene as a Prostitute

This organization is about Money, Finery, Power, and World Domination, nothing more.  It is so far outside the teachings of Jesus, that it should never be called a Christian organization.

Sadly, Frank's "church" didn't die with him.

This is the High-505, based on Grit Coffee's High-Five. I made it this morning by pulling Espresso over a little raw sugar, pouring in a little steamed Half-and-Half, and sprinkling a little sea salt over the foam.

It smelled amazing, tasted fantastic, and "looked" really beautiful until I took a sip.

Now that I have perfected the taste of Espresso, Cappuccino, and this, I'll start learning to do Latte Art.

Come Visit.  Have a coffee with me.

Yesterday, rich people paid an exorbitant price (estimated at $28M) to ride a rocket on an eleven-minute ride to slightly above the Kármán Line into outer space and then free-fell back to earth, until the chutes deployed.  They didn't touch one control.

They did launch with a token scientist, Aisha Bowe, whose credentials are impressive enough to set her apart.

It wasn't lost on me that the group included two whites, one black, one asian, and one Hispanic.  

Now they want to call themselves The All-Woman "Crew" and "Astronauts."  They babbled about how this 11-minute joyride changed their lives and increased their love for Mother Earth.

Thankfully, they survived to experience the ridicule and backlash waiting for them back on Earth.  Had they not, songs of lamentation would have been sung for years.

Let's be clear, they were passengers or tourists.  They were not a crew, and they are not astronauts!  That's like saying I'm a Pilot if I ride in an airplane.

I have no time or energy to be mad about this, and I was not surprised.  I can imagine there is a good reason.

For months, I have dreaded the impending loss of my old friend, a 1930s Ford dump truck out in these woods.  New Housing is going up.  Now, I've lost the woods.

The land inside these signs leads to the construction but isn't owned by the housing developers.  Perhaps it is a safety thing.  Maybe another homeless person has pitched a tent.

I have other trails.  I'll just be sad.

I have proudly displayed this on the wall of The War Room or my Office for years.  Now, in my last days, I am taking issue with it.

In this document, I am called an "Honorary Member of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment."

The Secretary of the Army was Togo West, who only served in the Army for eight years, mostly as a JAG Captain.

COL Newman served as the 505th Commander from June 95 to July 97 - two years.  I remember him as a good commander and as a Ranger Regiment guy.  He jumped into Grenada with B-1-75.

I served in the 2nd Battalion 505PIR from 1996 - 1980, 1981-1984, 1985-1990 (88-90, I was in the Parachute Regiment, still assigned to the 505), and 1992-1995.  I was COL Newman's Brigade First Sergeant (1SG) from 1995 to 1996.  That's fifteen years, rising in rank from PV1 (E-1) to 1SG (E-8), until the Army selected me for Sergeant Major.  I count that as sixteen years, twice as long as Togo was in the Army and eight times longer than Clyde was in the 505..  Who the fuck are these twp guys to designate Me as an "honorary" Anything?

No, I am A Member of the 505th!

I loved this show and wished it would never end.  Taylor Sheridan finished Strong.  I loved the ending; tragic but moving.  I may have cried.

Who didn't love Spencer the Badass and Alexandra the Duchess of Sussex?  I hope the Duttons in Yellowstone share their bloodline.

If he's not going to take this tale to 1969, I think he needs to finish the 1883 story.  Just fill in the gap between 1993 and 1923.

I'm left with questions:

1. Was Jack's real name John?

2. What became of Jack's child with Elizabeth?

3. What's the story about Spencer, the Widow, and his boy by her?

4. Who in the Wide World of Sports are Ned and Chance (S1/E2)

Speak to me, Taylor Sheridan!.

I haven't said shit all season.  I was afraid that if I did, I'd jinx the team.  I believe in Jinxes.

Coach Pearl and the Team had a great run.  They played their hearts out and asses off every game.  That's hard to do.  Am I disappointed? Of course.  Every Auburn Fan believed we would win.

Great Season, Tigers!  You made us PROUD!  I believe in Auburn and Love It.  War damn Eagle!

I figured out two new (and very useful) things in Photoshop Elements:

1. The easiest way to correct a "marginal" photo.

2. The fastest way to add your personal metadata to an image.

To illustrate, I chose an old photo from 1985 of Army Photographer Bob Ducette.  It was one of my first attempts at Available Light People Photos.  I love the shot, but it was never a great photo.

I discovered that you can open any image as a RAW photo and adjust it using the RAW Window in Photoshop. (File - Open in Camera RAW - choose your file - PS loads your image in the RAW Adjustment Window).

You have to try this.  It will convince you that you are a Wizard and should Always Shoot in RAW.

Next, protect your photo.  Add your Personal and Camera info to the metadata (File - File Info).  That's easy enough . . . but why do it every time?  Why not build a Template you can load to every photo?  Easier (File - File Info - IPTC Extensions - type in your repeating information - Template at the bottom - Export - PS puts it in a special folder for importing to your next image).

For this image, I watermarked, framed, shadowed, and saved it for the web to reduce the size and speed of browser loading.

Making a Water Mark in PS is super easy:

1. Open your Brand Image (white background)

2. Using the Horizontal Type Tool (T), choose your font in Black (000000), Type I

3. In Layers (Windows, check Layers), choose the image layer and adjust the opacity (top Slider) to show lots of contrast between the image and letters.

4. Save as PSD File

5. Create a Brush (Edit - Define Brush) Name and Save.  It'll be at the bottom of your brush list.

6. Now, with the Brush Tool, you can paint this anywhere on your photo, in any color, with a click of your mouse.

Protect Your Photos!

We all loved Polaroids, Right?  Yeah, the quality wasn't as good as our 35mm film prints, and the film was expensive, but we got instant feedback and gratification.  We could write in the margins and share with our friends.  Then came digital photography.

Kady and I had a Spectra, a fun point-and-shoot system with some cool filters that closed up into a package that was easily thrown in a bag for travel. We used it a lot. I sold it or gave it away.

We still have one.  Uncle Ed, the professional videographer, gave us an SX-70.  It is a top-of-the-line Polaroid produced in 1973.  Kim has tried it out but, of course, prefers her iPhone.  I need to have a go.

What do I miss most?  The Borders.  I loved the offset boarders we got with the Spectra.

Once again, digital comes to the rescue. As with everything, there is a Photoshop technique for every problem; I only had to learn how.  This photo is an example of what I figured out this morning.  It ain't hard or magic.

I adjusted the canvas three times (Edit - Resize - Canvas Size).  First, I used white by 3/4 (.75) of an inch and centered.  Next, I used white and added an inch to the height, oriented with the top arrow.  Lastly, I added .10 in grey to both sides, oriented with the top right arrow, using the erase tool in the top left and bottom right corner to create a "shadow."

I may use the shadow all the time.

You need to give David Nail a try. He's fantastic. His music is not really "country." I'd call it Americana. This lad is a singer-songwriter. You probably know his version of Red Light by Jonathan Singleton, released in 2009.

Listen to every song; there are great treasures here - Mississippi, St. Louis, Missouri, Sound of a Thousand Dreams . . . Hell, they're all good.

Start with his first album, I'm About to Come Alive.

You're Welcome.

When I got my first Android phone (Samsung S10), I loaded Sketch Guru from the Google Play Store.  It was a great app that let me turn photos into sketches.  I used it a lot during my first experiments with Instagram.

I once used it to turn a Brett Niles photo of me doing my Jump Master thing into a sketch.  This photo had been stolen from my website, turned into "Art," that the "Artist" was selling at his online Military Art Store.

Brett had recently died, another victim of the plaque decimating our particular species, so I took a real exception to this property infringement.

I contacted this asshole but never heard back.

I took Brett's photo, turned it black and white, adjusted it to look better than this guy's version, and used Sketch Guru to make it look like a sketch.

On his website and Facebook, I posted my art and told his friends and customers the story of the theft, adding that I had made a better print print from the original photo, which only took me 20 minutes, and that I would send it to anyone who wanted it, free of charge, postage paid, and signed by the Jumpmaster.

He removed it from his site, and I've watermarked my stuff since.

Sketch Guru is no longer available. I did the photo on the right with Photoshop Elements. I loaded the image, cropped it, adjusted the brightness and contrast, layered it, crosshatched it, blended with opacity, and flattened the layers. Tada! A Sketch!

  I am reluctant to post this.  I'm not looking for sympathy or prayers, though good and positive conversations are welcome.  This post is to let you know what's up with me.

Bottom Line: I've got some medical shit going on.

In November, we found that I needed a bypass.  My doctors tried a stint, but the blockage was in a place where they couldn't.  I was lucky.

In the preoperative work for surgery, they found a mass in my upper left lung.  They also noted some nodules on my Thyroid Glands.

One thing at a time, lads!

The bypass was damn tough.  I was in the Cardiac ICU for a week.  I recovered through Christmas.

Now, it was time for more tests.  We did another CT Scan, a PET Scan, and three Byopsis.  The biopsy on my thyroid glands came back normal.  My PET Scan and robotic biopsy came back inconclusive.  The direct biopsy showed a highly-aggressive but treatable form of cancer.

Sooooo . . . I'm doing Chemo.  Chemo sucks.  I have done two infusions and will do two more after another CT Scan.

Hey!  If little kids have to suffer Chemo, I can.

Next will be surgery. The type will be determined by how well the Chemo works.  They'll either remove the tumor or do an upper lobectomy.

Whatever.  Let's Go!

I am confident that I will be on my way to full recovery in June.  I have fantastic doctors and confidence that they'll fix this and set me up for a few more years to hang out here on Planet Earth.  I have family things to do, beaches to visit, stars to watch, photos to take, and trails to walk.

As Robert Frost wrote - I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.

If you haven't watched this movie on Netflix, get to it. Watch it with your kids. It stars Chris Pratt, Millie Bobby Brown, and Stanley Tucci. It's a fun and comical movie about the fight between good and evil.

The cast playing the robots is unbelievable.

Highly Recommend.

Yesterday, I thought, I'll go to VMI's New Market Parade this May.  I recovered quickly.

I miss the Cadets and the great Southern Military College it once aspired to be, but I don't miss the politics, the entitled alumni, the professors, or some of the staff.

The school pissed me off when they buckled under the whines of a few alumni and liberals to remove the Statue of Jackson in front of Jackson Arch, agreeing by doing so to the rewriting of history that labels Stonewall a traitor.

And I thought this school was a bastion of Southern Conservatism and truth.  I was wrong.

Will it recover in this time of backlash?  Nah.  Probably not.  "Higher" education is all about the money

Exactly what I said was going to happen in Russia's Kursk Region is happening.

In my 11 August 2024 Note, I compared the Ukrainian incursion in the area to Lee's Invasion of the North.  It was not a good idea or political gamble and was likely to fail.

Well, it is failing exactly how I said it would.  Russia isolated the over-extended Ukranian force and attacked from three sides.

They have already begun bombing the single supply route and are close to surrounding two main pockets of resistance.

They'll go into Sumy next, on a direct route to Kyiv, with very few Ukrainian forces to stop them. Think Jubal Early's campaign on Washinton.

They could turn south and roll up the flank of the Ukrainian force in the southeast.  I'd go with this option.  This is a Little Roundtop moment.  Whoever wins Sumy may win this war.

A while back, I got an email from a former cadet asking about a memory of a Fake Colonel coming to VMI and messing with Cadets.  I confirmed and gave him all the details I remembered.  Yesterday, he sent me a story he wrote from the Rat perspective of the incident.  It was good.

Today, my daughter-in-law came over for coffee. She wanted to show me what she had found about her people on Family Search. I set up a Family Group so she could see and edit my tree. She's already working like a little beaver, building on my strawman for her side of the family.  Finally, a member of my family is interested.

I miss teaching and working with young people.  I need a budding photographer to mentor.

Mirra Andreeva!  She's going to be a big thing and will be My Favorite Player once she turns 18;  I don't want to be "creepy."

Update: She just came back from losing the first set, to win Indian Wells against Sabalinka!  Hokie Smokes, It was amazing.

My Dell XPS8930 finally died right in the middle of watching Reacher.  She won't turn back on.

Miriam was a hell of a girl.  For seven years, old age in computer years, she was a beast - i5 processor, 32GB of RAM, two mirrored 500GB SSDs, running Windows 11 Pro.

I was prepared.   I hooked up my new laptop to my big monitor and that's all it took to do things like always.

Farewell, Good and Faithful Friend.

Update: I ordered a new Dell.  When will I ever give up on the Chrome OS Idea?  It just doesn't work for my hobbies.

Dark Winds, Season 3, just started on AMC.  If you liked Longmire, you'll like this.

Zahn McClarnon plays a tough Navaho cop, very much like his character in Longmire.  It took me a while to get into Season 1, but I'm hooked now.

Great series!

The best SciCom Podcast out there is Ologies by Alie Ward.  I've said that before, I know.

No walk is complete without my Alie Time.  She's clever, funny, knowledgeable, sometimes "colorful," and unafraid of asking dumb questions.  She interviews top experts in each field, choosing a new 'ology, each week.

She covers serious subjects and hard science, but fun enough to cover witches for Halloween.  Even the beat of her theme song is the exact cadence of my walking pace.

Listen!  Pick a subject that interests you.  You will not be bored.  You will learn something you didn't know before.  Guaranteed.

When I returned home from my 1985 assignment to Türkiye, the 1985 BBC series In Search of The Trojan War by Michael Wood, was released on American TV.  You can still watch it Here.

I return it to it often.  I'm not sure what it is about this series but it brings on an emotional response in me, every time.  Perhaps it is the music or Michael's wonderful ability to tell a story.  Is it my love of history and archaeology, or that I have stood in many of the places he visits?

Most likely it is my way of returning to my beloved second home, Türkiye.

Troy was the first place I visited during my second and third NATO tours of duty.

During those tours, I took my soldiers to Troy, telling them the story on the bus and walking them around the site.  I had our UH-1 Pilots make a detour over Hissarlik as we returned to Izmir from a NATO Exercise in Keşan.

My search for Patrick took me down a rabbit hole, into his life before the war.  He was part of the Corrupt Coterie, a group of young, affluent, intellectuals held together by The Viscountess of Norfolk, Lady Dianna Manners.

Almost every man in The Coterie died in World War I.

Lady Diana was considered the most beautiful woman in British Society.  I found her fascinating and picked up her book, Autobiography; The Rainbow Comes and Goes; The Lights of Common Day; Trumpets from the Steep.  It is a good book that depicts her struggles for independence from her parents, her life during the war, the loss of her friends, and her life married to Duff Cooper.

Like all the boys in The Coterie, I fell a little in love with her.

I displayed the cameras from my youth in The War Room for years.  After retirement, I gave most of them away or sold them.  I kept my Canon A-1 and Uncle Ed's Mamiya-6.  I have Dad's 35mm Rangefinder.

The guy in the Stanton camera museum is cut from a different cloth.

I went there yesterday.  This is not a museum but a huge collection of film cameras and equipment.  There were so many cameras that the place was cluttered, resembling the inside of a hoarder's house.  It was hard to navigate.

405 E 45th St, New York, NY 10017

Oh, how I hope this happens in my lifetime.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, introduced bills in the Senate and The House called DEFUND (Disengaging Entirely from the United Nations Debacle) to get us the hell OUT of this evil international organization.  

If this happens, we can stop propping it up with American dollars, remove the largest purveyor of foreign intelligence inside our country, and free up a large office building in downtown NYC, right on the East River.

I'm for it.  I've always been for it!  Do it NOW!  Then expel all of the UN Ambassadors and their Lackies.

You Go, LeeRoy!

That's right, I said it.

Last August, in my 2024 Notes, I said this little girl would be special.

Mirra Andreeva (#12) just beat three Grand Slam winners, Rybakina (#7), Vondrousova, and five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek (#2) to get to the Dubai Final.  She defeated injured Tauson 7 - 6, 6 - 1 in the final.

At 17, she is the youngest to win the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and championship in a WTA 1000 event.  She'll probably be in the Top Ten next week.

I may have found my new player.

"Microsoft’s new “topological qubit” is not based on a solid, liquid, or gas. It is another phase of matter that many experts did not think was possible. "  ~ NYT Article, 19 February 2025

My son sent me this with an exploding head emoji.  "I'm Smart," I thought.  I read the article.

Huh?

I read a few articles.

Uh?

I sent back -"This is so beyond my ability to understand it's crazy.  I'm going to file it under Magic." 

I remain convinced that we humans are unfocused.  What if we took the same amount of time, effort, brain-power, and money spent on new and better cell phones, faster gaming computers, going to Mars, and killing each other, on more important shit like saving the only home we have? What if Microsoft streamlined its OS, dumped Edge, and stopped breaking File Explorer?

Huh?

Come on Neely!  What nonsense!

". . . no kindly thaw shall melt the snows of age." ~ Robert Burns, The Winter of Life 

It's snowing again today.  So far, it's not a lot and isn't sticking to the roads, but it's supposed to accumulate an inch an hour till the wee hours.  

I'm ready to get past this crap.  I'm ready for Spring.

Yawn.

It was over in the first quarter and all downhill from there.  This year's "Super" Bowl was anything but.  M'Homie couldn't get anything going until the second half.  By then, it was too late.  The problem was his protection; The Eagles Defense was all over his ass and the Chiefs didn't adjust.

Conversely, Jalen and Barkley were solid and the rest of their team wanted the Title and the Big Ring.  They smoked the Chiefs.

As bad as the Chiefs' performance was, the halftime show was worse.

A 1970s high school football player (I forget his name) marched around a stage, mumbling unintelligible words, amidst formations of people marching and bobbing their heads.  I was bored.  

This is How it's Done, you little Wanker

Supposedly, a retired tennis player danced for a few seconds.  I missed that and I couldn't care less.  Even the commercials were forgettable.

I must admit that the synchronization of the marching head bobbing was spot on.  I wish I had been able to get that kind of precision out of the Corps of Keydets.

In the Second Half, the Chiefs outscored the Eagles 22 - 16.  It didn't matter.

My Player, Simona Halep, retired from professional tennis yesterday.  I am not happy about it.

The way I see it, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) screwed her over, blowing a trace amount of a drug in her system way out of proportion, suspending her for four years.

About a year and a half later, the Court of Arbitration in Sports reduced Simona's suspension and fined the ITIA 20,000 Swuss Francs.  The suspension was wrong and everyone knows it.

She never recovered from the time away from competing.  She trained hard but no amount of practice could replace competition to keep up your game.

Simona retired from pto tennis after losing 6-1, 6-1 to Lucia Bronzetti in the Transylvania Open.

Though I am sure we'll see more of her, It's a sad day.

Late nights in Fayetteville/Fort Bragg, from 1978 until I left the army in early 1980, I listened to WQDR out of Raleigh.  WQDR was our preferred Rock radio station and one of the first Album stations in the nation.  My car radio was permanently set on 94.7 FM.

When I rejoined the Army in 1981, I went right back to WQDR.

The DJs for the station were super.  They introduced their listeners to the Real Rock Stars, refusing to play hard rock or heavy metal.  We never had to listen to the repetitious "Top 10 Hits" played on other stations.

The night DJ, Daniel Brunty, played great music introduced by his smooth-as-silk voice.  He turned WQDR's listeners on to Bruce Springsteen.  Daniel was a self-professed Springsteen Fanatic. Many nights he'd play nothing but The Boss.

I became a fan of Springsteen's old music listening to Daniel's show.  Some of those songs are still the base of my favorite tunes.

It all ended in September 1984 when WQDR went to a Country format.  I stopped listening to the radio when I returned from overseas in 1986.

I missed my calling!

I love listening to podcasts while walking.  Two of my favorites are Radiolab and Ologies.  I liked the old Radiolab episodes before they turned the show over to young people.  Once I could listen to balanced science shows there.  Not so much anymore.  I see the problem as Laziness.

Radiolab did an episode called The Argentine Invasion.  That episode was my first and what got me hooked on the old Radiolab.  It was about Argentine Ants taking over the world.

Ologies just re-released an old episode called Myrmecology - The Study of Ants.  I listened to it yesterday on my walk.  It is a great episode and pairs well with The Argentine Invasion

I highly recommend both, found wherever you listen to podcasts.

This year is going to be . . . uh . . . exciting.

The Playoff games have been hit or miss.

Texas!  What the hell?  I do not see you getting past Ohio State.

Oregon!  Did you not know this was a single-elimination playoff bracket?  Embarrassing!

Boise State!  You're like the Cinderella team who never makes it to the Ball.

What happened in New Orleans was Horrible.  What kind of a coward runs happy people down with a truck?  Props to the cops who ran to the sound of gunfire and killed the son-of-a-bitch..  The videos on X were terrifying.

That they rescheduled the game was both respectful and prudent.   We're going back to Bourbon Street, the Sugar Bowl will go on, and you're dead, Asshole.  Didn't you learn from 9-11.  Attacking us only pisses us off; it doesn't change a thing.

Georgia!  Please beat Notre Dame.  I think you are the best hope for the SEC.