What Goes Around…

Posted on Sat, 21 October 2006 by Chris Penningroth

    Apparently Anderson Cooper (Host of Anderson Cooper 360o on CNN) has joined the other side in the war on terror.  Showing American troops about to get sniped ranks up there with al Jazeera showing Americans getting beheaded on their websites.

    If you’re not for us, you’re against us.  I’d appreciate it if Cooper would resign now and take up a job where he would be of no further help to anyone’s cause. 

    I would in fact like fries with that, Mr Cooper, but I’ll be watching to make sure you don’t spit on them.   

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Declaration of War?

Posted on Sat, 21 October 2006 by Chris Penningroth

    I’ve got Lou Dobbs’ running in the background.  His show tonight is titled The War on the Middle Class.  In his opening, he stated Congress has declared war on the middle class in America.  

    Notes to Mr Dobbs:  1)  You don’t know what war is if you think anyone besides al Qa’ida is at war with the American middle class or any other American.  2)  Congress doesn’t declare war anymore (last time Congress declared war was 8 Dec 1941).  3)  I’m pretty sure you can’t decide someone else has declared war.   4)  If you’re concerned about the plight of the American middle class, you might try taking on banks that give out what amount to predatory loans and try to convince ordinary folks that excessive credit is bad; then get them to start saving instead of spending. 

    I’ve never been very impressed with Lou Dobbs.  Maybe it would be even more accurate to say I’ve rarely been impressed by Lou Dobbs.   CNN has gotten a little bit better in my view since they got rid of Eason Jordan.  Axing Dobbs would go even further to make that network more palatable to me.
 

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More Technology

Posted on Wed, 18 October 2006 by Chris Penningroth

    I’ve started using Skype and a new IOGear Bluetooth headset to make international phone calls.  I put about $12 on deposit with Skype a month ago, and haven’t gone through all of it yet.  The only thing I cannot do so far is call my wife’s cellular phone.  

    I also managed to get a local telephone number back in my home city.  If I’m online, my folks can call me for free.  Skype includes voicemail, so if I’m not online, I still get the message.  That service cost $40.00 per year, and it goes into the Yellow Pages as a commercial number.  Most of my voicemails have been from AT&T trying to get me to sign up for an 800 number.

    I’ve talked to my elderly grandmothers this way a couple times now.  Trying to get them to understand that I’m walking around my living room in Japan while connected wirelessly to my laptop in the kitchen through my  wireless fiber-optic Internet connection is quite the challenge.  Once they understand, they’re probably chuckling to themselves about my connectivity problems and thinking we’ve come a long way since the party line.

Posted in Internet | 2 Comments

Exercise, Exercise, Exercise

Posted on Mon, 16 October 2006 by Chris Penningroth

    The one bright spot in an otherwise ugly exercise day was running into my old friend "Cash."  

    Have you ever had one of those days when you make a wrong call, and then your next judgment call gets second-guessed, even though you’re in a gray area and both your opinion and the boss’ are equally valid, except you’re wrong because the boss says so? Yeah, that’s the kind of day I had today.  Argh!

    Only two more days of ALARM BLUE, MOPP 4. . . . 

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The Other Church of Satan

Posted on Sun, 15 October 2006 by Chris Penningroth

    I caught a few minutes of Fox News Watch this morning.  In the segment where the topic was whether or not journalists ought to be allowed by their corporate employees to donate to political campaigns, I caught a comment that raised my hackles.  Neil Gabler, while siding on the half that believed journalists should not be allowed to donate, by way of explanation said that journalists "Are a Priesthood, a priesthood of truth. . . ."

    ?

    Even if journalists got everything regarding a story correct 50% or even more than 90% of the time, referring to them as a priesthood of truth is patently ludicrous.  I would agree with "A Priesthood of Fact-publishers," although even that would be a stretch. 

    I’m going to start referring to fighter pilots as "A Priesthood of Peace."  It makes as much sense. 

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The Red Horseman Approacheth

Posted on Sun, 08 October 2006 by Chris Penningroth

    Revelations 5:4 (NIV) — Then another horse came out, a fiery red one.  Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other.  To him was given a large sword.

    Okay, so a nuclear weapon isn’t necessarily the latest sign of an impending apocalypse.  Still, methinks it’s not a good sign.   

 11/0515L Oct 2006 Update:  Doubts surface as to the veracity of North Korea’s claim.  But on the other hand, the "Chonger" seems to be volunteering to test another one more openly.  Notice he doesn’t bother telling publicly where he plans to launch his missile.  I suspect that if he’s weaponized a missile, he’ll probably have it launched into the ocean for a spectacular airburst.  I just hope he mentions where its going so we can divert sea and air traffic! Of course, this brings up the possibility of testing the ABM system as well. . . .

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The Other Longest Day

Posted on Thu, 05 October 2006 by Chris Penningroth

    How’s this for a trip? Start with a two-hour ride in a car (luckily a BMW 7-series, about the size of a Chevy Impala) with four other people, one of them being your wife and practically sitting in your lap (not a complaint by any stretch).  Stop at the airport to drop off some family comparatively early, meet some other family on their way out for the next five hours.  Spend too few tender moments with your new wife, watch as she and your new in-laws drive away.  Then go back into the terminal and wait another hour to board, then wait 20 minutes on the airplane.  Spend 12 hours on the airplane, catching only five hours of uneasy nap-time (but catch a couple movies while trying to fall asleep).  Arrive in Tokyo, find your luggage waiting for you for a change, then scamper off to find your train to Tokyo station.  Board train with only four minutes to spare.  Get to Tokyo station, try to decipher your tickets enough to figure out which Shinkansen you need embark.  Make the train with four minutes to spare.  Ride the bullet train for three hours, get off to switch trains, get to the last one with four minutes to spare.  At the four minute point, realize that you got there with eight minutes to spare, hold a short, private celebration.  Disembark, and try with your extremely broken Japanese and the cab driver’s extremely broken English to explain to him where you live.  Get home dog-tired and yet unable to sleep anyway, which is good, because while you were away for two weeks, the main circuit breaker for the apartment tripped, and everything in the refrigerator has spoiled.  Spend an half-hour taking out the trash.  Finally nod off at about 1 AM.

    Then the alarm rings at 0630.  Then your wife calls because she knows the alarm clock didn’t really wake you up and if she didn’t, you’d hit snooze for the next three hours.  Turn on the shower, and after two minutes realize that the water’s still really cold because when the power went out, the electronic control for the water heater also went off.  Put your robe on and go turn on the water heater.  Praise Jesus and the inventor of the flash-heater, because if this had been another home in another land, there’d have been no hot water that day! Run to the base to get BK for breakfast. 

    It didn’t actually get problematic until the post-lunch coma, actually.  Until then I was doing quite well.  After that, no amount of coffee seemed to keep me alert.

    The fact that this sort of thing is almost normal to me now is one of the things about my life that make me happy.  Yes, you read correctly.  I actually kind of enjoy my life!

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Gone to the Chapel

Posted on Mon, 02 October 2006 by Chris Penningroth

    Christina and I celebrated our ceremonial wedding yesterday with a mass/service at her parish church.  The officiating priest was a retired Bundeswehr chaplain who lived in the States from 1986-1991.  He performed most of the excellent ceremony in English, for the benefit of the five out of about a hundred people (one of them being the groom).  It was entirely beautiful.  I think the last time I was exactly that happy was the day I graduated from pilot training.

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Side Projects on Weltanschauung

Posted on Tue, 26 September 2006 by Chris Penningroth

    It’s not that I’m not blogging.  If you look over to the right, you’ll see "Pages."  For a very long time, the only one there was "About the Author."  I thought maybe it would be a good idea to hang some other useful information over there.  I’m going to primarily work on my world travel pages.  I’ll get around to talking about the Air Force and the F-16 sometime later.  

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New Coins

Posted on Sun, 24 September 2006 by Chris Penningroth

    There are a few relatively new issues from the U.S. Mint I thought worthy of a short discussion.  The first was the 2006 American Buffalo one-ounce gold, the second was the American Eagle 20th Anniversary set. 

    After missing the 2001 Silver Buffalo at offering time and price and continually underbidding for them on eBay, I finally found a couple at a coin shop and paid about six times their issue price earlier this year.  So when the Mint offered what I thought would be a repeat performance, this time with a gold version, I snapped it up immediately.  Unfortunately, where the 2001 Silver Buffaloes had sold out within about a week after first offering, I see that the 2006 Gold Buffaloes are still available at the Mint almost two months afterward.  This doesn’t bode well for future price appreciation.  On the other hand, gold itself has gone way down from it’s 52-week high of about $730 in May 2006, so it’s possibly not being viewed as a good intrinsic investment.  But if that’s the case, that doesn’t completely explain what happened with the new Eagle sets.

    Now, the 2006 20th Anniversary American Eagle sets come in three varieties.  The Silver set and the one-silver-one-gold sets are still in stock at the mint.  The one that I didn’t order (because I couldn’t afford the $2,610.00 price tag without the help of plastic platinum) is the three-gold-coin set.  I presume this one sold out so quickly because the third coin is reverse proof.  According to the Mint, it’s the first time the gold Eagle has ever been offered in reverse proof.  Frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a reverse proof coin at all.  In any case, there will be 10,000 of them floating around out there, and I can almost guarantee they’ll show up on eBay for way more than $850 each!

    Since the rest of the commemorative coins I’ve bought haven’t budged the way the 2001 Buffalo did, I will probably have to rethink my strategy of purchasing at least five of each commemorative issue.  That way maybe I’ll have the cash to grab the next enormously expensive but rare issue (like the 20th Anniversary Eagle 3-Gold Coin Set!). 

    I wish I had more time to check out the other mints of the world.  I haven’t been to the Canadian, Austrian, French, or UK Mint sites in at least a year.

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