Month: May 2010

Noticing Booone’s Avatar on the [SAS] forums, I can’t help but think their admins and moderators are collectively lazier than ever.

After much protest and being threatened, I finally completed my trip to the library on foot. The outlook for potential execution days being Monday, Thursday, or Friday. During work Tuesday, I noted the possibility, but ma’s errands were much to time consuming. My original pan for today, being to start out around 0830 or 0930 local time, and aim to be home cica lunch, but being prompted for more errands, it was already lunch time when I set out o/.

I made quite good time, carrying about a load of about 7 to 7 1/2 lbs: my laptop and associated items, just in case. The computerized card catalog is virtually worthless in my experience, and it’s simply easier to find books by hunting on shelves; much as finding good books with the old card catalog, usually was done by seeing what cards came up in flipping through to whatever you were looking for lol. So I made sure to setup an offline reference, to how the local library organises books. I really do not mind walking, so much as I mind Georgia’s driver’s. Only real thing I can complaine about, 10″ to 15″ brush can be a pain to go through at a rapid pace.

Aside from a few cars having a bit of a dual, basically driving in the left lane, and practically on the left side of the road,  things were fairly uneventful… should we say, I’m not easily squashed. The only real hiccup, was stepping on a screw along the last half kilometre: I could feel it pressing on the bottom of my foot, and ended up kneeling along side the road, trying to pull it out: in the end I had to use my wireless card to pry it out of the outsole. I think if I felt around on the inside, I’d probably find a pin sized hole in the insole to match lol. Not the first time something like that has happened to me over the years though. On the upside, if anything serious had happened, I was within limping distance of the hospital >-<.

While walking, I noticed that the ~200ml I had to drink before hand, wasn’t enough, but it made up for the mornings driving about. Fortunately as I remembered, the library has a drinking fountain in the main entry hall ;). Still, I would fancy being able to carry my canteen along :-/. For starters after arriving, I decided to head towards literature: something to sooth my mind rather than put it through its paces. I’m more interested in the science and technical sections >_>.

I sat and read much of the first act of King Lear, before deciding to start heading home; less HRP get to worried 8=). I also checked out the copy of the book; judging by the texts notes, it looks like it airs on the side of the first folio with elements of the first quatro being merged. There’s nothing special about the selection of King Lear, of the works on the shelf, it piqued my interest most; it’s also been on my list of things to find time for, in some decade or other. Checked out the book, so I could continue reading it… and to see just how much annoyance I’ll have to deal with in between marches.

The ability to read the classics, is minor: since I can do that from the comfort of my own computer; in fact, I have several stored for off line reading! However, being able to sit and read, in PEACE, is priceless! That’s one of the reasons I love libraries, you can actually sit an read without being disturbed a whole lot; excellent place to study.

As for the return trip, it was fairly uneventful, it just reminded me that I’m still out of shape lol. I ran a few 40-60m stretches of the trip, after that, I started to get fatigued a bit. This is what I get for working in the family business all these years, instead of enlisting when I still had a good chance. When I got home, I prompted drained a good 500ml of water before sitting down.

I’ve spent the last few hours, working on my tactics guide. I had decided to throw out what I did for my tactical compendium and start a new, as it would be much easier then stripping out the [SAS] parts. My tactical guide, is completely my own product, and a reflection of my operating experience.

So far out of about 2 1/2 days, there are about twenty pages covering stacking, breaching, entering, clearing, and searching rooms in great depth, as well as door handling, dealing with causalities, shot placement, securing contacts, and a lot more. Except for the P/L and comms sections, the material is already covers everything an seasoned NCO should know in their sleep. [SAS], eat your heart out….

Among my personal work, are over a dozen original illustrations that I’ve created to accompany the guides text. My favourite of which, serves to explain the strong/weak side thing:

I also sent that drawing to someone in [SAS], who was suitably and utterly confounded the ever loving hell out of on that particular issue. How he got so confused, was during the environment in [SAS] at the time, mostly created by the folks now holding officer ranks in NTF, or Sgts stripes in [SAS], and a rather sickening mess behind it. As to explaining the tactical matter: what’s so damn hard about strong/weak side…. it’s so simple that a child could understand it.

If having to pass time was an art form….

It’s funny, how Willow and Corky wrestle, and I look at Coco, and just say, “Someday we’ve gotta retire to our own island”, and she just stares at me, as if to say what the hell are you talking about lol.

This is part of an e-mail in my recent backlog, and thought I might note it here:

1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

13. Using a pen and made a mistake?  Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!

I wonder if the bit about the garden and hangover are true; someday, I’ve gotta try the stainless steel—it’s always a megapain to clean stainless steel appliances! Although for many cleaning tasks, I have to admit that baking soda is a little miracle worker in many regards, hmm wonder how that would work on steel…