Blog
Basketball
Some Hoosier Improv…
… as that one goes over. And the ball is stuck. We’ve got an issue now.
Now she’s GOT IT!! What a play! The cheerleader saves the day!
They did have an issue. A missed shot resulted in the basketball getting lodged between the top of the backboard and shot clock.
One of the referees stood on a chair and tried to poke the ball with a mop handle, but he wasn’t nearly tall enough.
So then someone had a bright idea! Get the cheerleaders….
Let the game resume…….. Nice Job!
/fl
Weather History
Remembering the 'Ash Wednesday Storm' of 1962
I was stationed at the Coast Guard base in Cape May, NJ when the storm hit. My first experience with adverse ‘ocean’ weather was one for the history books. The resident old-timer’s in Cape May still refer to it as the “Great Nor’easter." There is quite a bit of old home-movie footage showing the aftermath of that storm on Youtube. I have several 35mm slides packed away in a box somewhere….
While the diurnal tides here on the panhandle of Florida usually range around 1.5 feet, the semi-diurnal tides at Cape May commonly range 6 feet or more, and this storm hit during a three-day period of unusual high (spring) tides, which along with the onshore 60 knot wind, is what did the damage.
With some brief preparation, we were able to keep things anchored down and fairly intact at our Coast Guard base which was located at the edge of town near the inlet, but the boardwalk area and downtown got hammered big time. The old Beach Tower Restaurant (at 8:32 in the following video) was located near our base. My parents had visited a few weeks prior and had stayed at the "Stockton Inn", pictured at 12:06 in the same video.
Cape May, the Wildwood’s, Ocean City, and Avalon were wrecked, and the storm cut the old Steel Pier at Atlantic City in half. Some of the historic structures in Cape May, like the old Boardwalk Convention Hall pictured below (where I had attended an event a few days before the storm), along with the street that it was on— gone or wrecked beyond repair!
I have an old 15” bronze three-bladed propeller attached to a 16” length of 2” bronze prop-shaft that washed up on the beach during that storm; a 38-lb souvenir that is currently setting by my front door. A reminder of my initiation to the adventure of living on the Atlantic coast!
/fl
Navigation
When will Russia attack GPS?
At the risk of appearing to be just another “doomsday conspiracy theorist”, this is a matter that deserves some serious consideration...
In mid-November, Russia destroyed a retired satellite with a ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon. This created significant debris, which endangered other assets in low-Earth orbit, including the International Space Station (ISS). Two Russian cosmonauts were serving on the seven-person ISS crew at the time.
Two weeks later, Russia followed up the ASAT demonstration with the boast that they could destroy all 32 Global Positioning System satellites at once, blinding the U.S. and NATO.
While others see that as reckless and irresponsible, Russian officials almost certainly see it as an expression of resolve. That was actually another message. They were saying, “We are willing to endanger our own equipment and people.”
Translate that to their concern about keeping Ukraine from joining NATO and otherwise falling into the West’s sphere of influence. It might be, “We are willing to accept the pain in order to keep Ukraine from leaving our orbit.”
Unfortunately, I am not sure most Western leaders picked up on the “We are resolved” message.
Our reliance upon satellite navigation systems today warrants some “what if” thinking and planning. The fact is that accurate and precise navigation does not require GPS, but what would the average person do without GPS?
Being prepared to navigate ‘the old-fashioned way’ doesn’t require all that much time and effort. Though, just as with some of the other calamity scenario’s, the real problem with losing GPS would be having to deal with the multitudes that are unprepared.
Semper Paratus!
/fl