The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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oh, damn! a marine corps pilot had a little problem with gravity and a lack of power a little while ago. he just missed the high school, didn't miss the houses. felt the boom over here while i was walking over to meet the kid for lunch. lotta nasty black smoke, choppers in the sky everywhere. hope all got out alright, but when a F-18 goes down, chances are that somebody didn't.

I read about it on Google News, Nan and thought about you immediately. How sad for them, but how happy I was to come home to your post.

Merle

thank you.
but very sad for some families. i was thinking it was going to be elderly people, or stay at home moms with small children. looks like it was a combination. they are still missing one, haven't located the remains yet. three they found, but they're not saying who they are. supposedly it was two young kids, a mom, and a granny in the house. supposedly also the dad had just spoken with them by phone. sad.

at least it was quick.

I read some of the story. I was saddened by one person's comment about the pilot. That pilot is going to have a hard time living with what happened, but I get the impression that there was nothing they could have done better. The fact that they finished up in a tree, in the neighbourhood, testifies to the fact that they probably ejected mere seconds before the impact.

Yeah, really. There are always jerks who just have to say something nasty about the pilot in these events. And those who'll start screaming "force the military out, look at what happened!" (neglecting to consider that the main airport here has a LOT more housing nearby....)

He pushed the eject button quite literally only a few seconds before the plane hit the ground. There were a ton of witnesses who saw it all very clearly. He'd been steering the F18 towards an open space after the second engine went out, apparently. He was short of reaching it by the distance of a house, the width of a residential street, and another house. Another 200 yards, from what I can guess, and he'd have been clear and it would have hit in the canyon that the pilot ended up hanging from the tree in. Given that no matter which way he turned he'd have been over a highly populated area (housing, the University, or a packed shopping mall).... He had one engine go out just as he got over land and then the other one failed shortly thereafter. He was gliding for the last bit, with no power. What else could he do? It's amazing that so little damage was the result - the smoke was pretty spectacular. My boss's kids were in the daycare play yard and the plane went literally right over them on the way down - they saw the pilot eject. The neighbors helped the pilot out and gave him a cell phone to call the base. He kept saying that he hoped nobody'd been killed. Other than that, and some minor injuries, he's supposed to be ok. In his 20s.

Looks like it was a young mom at home with a newborn, granny who'd come over from Korea to help out, and a toddler who were in the house. They haven't found the toddler yet. Red Cross intercepted the father when he drove up to the house at the end of his workday. That must have just been a nightmare for all involved. They'd only moved into the neighborhood a few months back.

Pilot was lucky he had the tree to break his fall, because at that altitude the parachute was pretty much useless.

That's going to be one hell of a recurring nightmare.

It's not just the pilot...Those machines give themselves a hell of a beating when they are in the air. For each hour of flight they need at least a hundred hours of maintenance, too many hands too many chances for mistakes to happen.


You really want to see something rotten, look at what the Governor of Illinois was trying to do....
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008 ... stody.html

yeah, that's pretty amazing, isn't it. a guy who knows he's been been wiretapped and watched, and he is egotistical enough to just .....

wow. what else can you say, but wow. what a jerk.


we just got back from driving around a bit (with gas at $1.65 a gallon we can do that a little more) looking at christmas lights. checking to see if the "seen from space" house was all lit up again this year (not so far). had some hot-chocolate and was driving and found a house that was blinking, then realized it was blinking in time. they had a sign in their yard what fm station to tune to. danged thing was programmed. doing the usual manheim steamroller christmas stuff. we watched it for a while, then were driving away when it slammed into pink floyd.... the lights literally went berserk!

had to bang a yewie (make a u-turn) and go back to watch it. good thing the kid doesn't have seizures induced by lights, cause ... well, da-yam! that thing definitely could have caused it. they should get some kind of award for "over the top".

before their neighbors lynch them.

can you say "Gary Hart?"



http://www.americanheritage.com/people/ ... ndal.shtml

Just read it. Yikes!

A jerk and a half....Wire-tap warrants against public officials aren't given out lightly....
This guy must have been pretty blatant about his activities.

Where is everyone? Was it something I said or did?

busy - we went last night to the christmas festival over in la mesa. it's on again tonight, we may go again. they cordon off six or seven blocks of the main street, where all the antique shops are, and have bonfires and hot cider, carolers, free popcorn, pony rides for the kids, a couple of belgian draft horses pulling a cart, local choirs, kids' dance troupes, etc.... and all the antique stores are open. i love looking through them. and am amused when i come across things that my parents or grandparents or ~I~ had and used and that are now labeled "antiques"! !!

we're due for our version of a "winter storm" here either later tonight or tomorrow. that equates to rain (a proper rain) and 30mph winds, with a temperature drop down into the upper 30s-40s. doesn't sound all that bad, but remember, it never rains in southern california and the walls of my house are plywood covered with stucco, with an air gap in between that and my interior plasterboard walls. no insulation. and the windows rattle badly. (it also means the streets will be dangerous as the idiots who live here have no idea how to drive in anything ever remotely resembling precipitation!)

so, we'll be in one or two rooms with the heater on, snuggled under shawls and sipping hot chocolate/tea most of this weekend. if we don't put on some warm clothes and go back over to la mesa. which we might, as the crowds will be almost nonexistant. we could only stay for a little while, last night. got there just as it started and it was nice, but it rapidly got REALLY crowded so we had to leave.

anybody heard from postie? i hear his part of the world got hit with a really, really bad ice storm and something like a million and a half homes still don't have power?

i wish they'd put this back on tv, along with the bbc version of the lion, witch, and wardrobe...

not quite the same on youtube, but at least it's here. when the kid was little they broadcast this in segments on tv at this time of year, giving us something to look forward to in the evenings.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afnDJLKY1XU&feature=related[/youtube]

And for those who have forgotten (or who never listened to pop music back in the '60s and '70s):

You know it never rains in Southern California,
Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before,
It never rains in California,
But girl, don't they warn ya
It pours,
Man, it pours...

Seems only the North Central Counties of PA and parts of Upstate NY and the New England states were really socked with ice...
Last Wednesday it got almost to 70F (sudden warm-ups trigger migraines Ouch!! !!) and then dropped back down to the 30s and 20s...
If it is only 20s here in the Susquehanna Valley then it must be much colder where Postie lives...