Late to a party to which he wasn't invited. Brought nachos anyway. Extroverted misanthrope. Pronouns: Up/Down/Charm/Strange. Capable of powerful drivel
A red county in CA
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MDub, Pete's humanⓂ️ retweeted
For 40 years, whenever Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson visited Neil Peart, he'd pour the three of them "two fat fingers" of scotch.
In the opening of No One's Disciple, they pour it again, a glass of his favorite Macallan 25, including one for the chair that's no longer there.
Alex calls him "the missing wingman." Rest in peace to Neil.
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MDub, Pete's humanⓂ️ retweeted
Ten years ago today, Vin Scully signed off the @Dodgers airwaves for the final time.
“You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know in my heart that I’ve always needed you more than you’ve ever needed me.”
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Somebody needs to examine the chain of custody on those "lethal" injections
BREAKING: Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike is still alive after two lethal injections, her lawyer says in a motion to again halt the execution. nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ahe…
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Tennessee DOJ has the chance to do the funniest thing right now
(it involves a large chunk of asphalt)
BREAKING: Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike is still alive after two lethal injections, her lawyer says in a motion to again halt the execution. nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ahe…
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"Pop the brute" in NYC used to mean something very different
@crankyuncle2
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MDub, Pete's humanⓂ️ retweeted
100 Israeli passengers vs One Muslim Pilot. What a completely disproportionate response from israel.
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Heard this story quite a few times and it never fails to entertain me
The SR-71 Speed Check Story from Major Brian Shul's book Sled Driver will forever be one of the hardest tales in aviation.
Here it is.
There were a lot of things we couldn't do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. People often asked us if, because of this fact, it was fun to fly the jet. Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane. Intense, maybe. Even cerebral. But there was one day in our Sled experience when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there, at least for a moment.
It occurred when Walt and I were flying our final training sortie. We needed 100 hours in the jet to complete our training and attain Mission Ready status. Somewhere over Colorado we had passed the century mark. We had made the turn in Arizona and the jet was performing flawlessly.
My gauges were wired in the front seat and we were starting to feel pretty good about ourselves, not only because we would soon be flying real missions but because we had gained a great deal of confidence in the plane in the past ten months. Ripping across the barren deserts 80,000 feet below us, I could already see the coast of California from the Arizona border. I was, finally, after many humbling months of simulators and study, ahead of the jet.
I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Walter in the back seat. There he was, with no really good view of the incredible sights before us, tasked with monitoring four different radios. This was good practice for him for when we began flying real missions, when a priority transmission from headquarters could be vital. It had been difficult, too, for me to relinquish control of the radios, as during my entire flying career I had controlled my own transmissions. But it was part of the division of duties in this plane and I had adjusted to it.
I still insisted on talking on the radio while we were on the ground, however. Walt was so good at many things, but he couldn't match my expertise at sounding smooth on the radios, a skill that had been honed sharply with years in fighter squadrons where the slightest radio miscue was grounds for beheading. He understood that and allowed me that luxury.
Just to get a sense of what Walt had to contend with, I pulled the radio toggle switches and monitored the frequencies along with him. The predominant radio chatter was from Los Angeles Center, far below us, controlling daily traffic in their sector. While they had us on their scope (albeit briefly), we were in uncontrolled airspace and normally would not talk to them unless we needed to descend into their airspace. We listened as the shaky voice of a lone Cessna pilot asked Center for a readout of his ground speed. Center replied: "November Charlie 175, I'm showing you at ninety knots on the ground."
Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the " Houston Center voice." I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country's space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houston controllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that, and that they basically did. And it didn't matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios.
Just moments after the Cessna's inquiry, a Twin Beech piped up on frequency, in a rather superior tone, asking for his ground speed. "I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed." Boy, I thought, the Beechcraft really must think he is dazzling his Cessna brethren. Then out of the blue, a navy F-18 pilot out of NAS Lemoore came up on frequency. You knew right away it was a Navy jock because he sounded very cool on the radios. "Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check". Before Center could reply, I'm thinking to myself, hey, Dusty 52 has a ground speed indicator in that million-dollar cockpit, so why is he asking Center for a readout? Then I got it, ol' Dusty here is making sure that every bug smasher from Mount Whitney to the Mojave knows what true speed is. He's the fastest dude in the valley today, and he just wants everyone to know how much fun he is having in his new Hornet. And the reply, always with that same, calm, voice, with more distinct alliteration than emotion: "Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground."
And I thought to myself, is this a ripe situation, or what? As my hand instinctively reached for the mic button, I had to remind myself that Walt was in control of the radios. Still, I thought, it must be done - in mere seconds we'll be out of the sector and the opportunity will be lost. That Hornet must die, and die now. I thought about all of our Sim training and how important it was that we developed well as a crew and knew that to jump in on the radios now would destroy the integrity of all that we had worked toward becoming. I was torn.
Somewhere, 13 miles above Arizona, there was a pilot screaming inside his space helmet. Then, I heard it. The click of the mic button from the back seat. That was the very moment that I knew Walter and I had become a crew. Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: "Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?" There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if was an everyday request. "Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground."
I think it was the forty-two knots that I liked the best, so accurate and proud was Center to deliver that information without hesitation, and you just knew he was smiling. But the precise point at which I knew that Walt and I were going to be really good friends for a long time was when he keyed the mic once again to say, in his most fighter-pilot-like voice: "Ah, Center, much thanks, we're showing closer to nineteen hundred on the money."
For a moment Walter was a god. And we finally heard a little crack in the armor of the Houston Center voice, when L.A.came back with, "Roger that Aspen, Your equipment is probably more accurate than ours. You boys have a good one." It all had lasted for just moments, but in that short, memorable sprint across the southwest, the Navy had been flamed, all mortal airplanes on freq were forced to bow before the King of Speed, and more importantly, Walter and I had crossed the threshold of being a crew. A fine day's work. We never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. For just one day, it truly was fun being the fastest guys out there.
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MDub, Pete's humanⓂ️ retweeted
The Norm entrance jokes on Cheers were famously tough to write.
George Wendt delivered 200+ of them over 11 seasons. As the show’s popularity grew, so did expectations. Writers said the real genius wasn’t always on the page; it was Wendt’s physical comedy, delivery, and timing.
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MDub, Pete's humanⓂ️ retweeted
Charles Howard had built one of the most successful automobile dealerships in American history — Buick cars, California. Howard became wealthy beyond most people's imagination, and he seemed to have everything.
In 1926, his fifteen-year-old son Frankie was killed in a truck accident on the family's ranch in Northern California. The grief split Howard's world in half. His marriage collapsed.
He eventually remarried and began buying horses — not as a pastime, but as something to rebuild himself around. And in 1936, he paid $8,000 for a young horse that almost nobody else wanted.
The horse was Seabiscuit. His grandfather was Man o' War, one of the most celebrated racehorses in history, which meant the bloodline was extraordinary.
His legs were oddly shaped. He had raced 35 times as a two-year-old, winning only five, and when his original owners put him up for sale at a claiming price, nobody bothered to claim him.
Howard's trainer, Tom Smith, had spotted something no one else could see. He simply understood animals with an accuracy that bordered on instinct. He told Howard the horse was worth buying.
Red Pollard had been surviving on the margins of the sport for years. He was too tall for a jockey. He had grown up in Canada, left behind at a racetrack by his family during the bleakest years of the Depression when they could no longer afford to keep him.
He'd spent his adolescence and early adulthood riding at small tracks, sleeping in barns, taking any mount that was offered.
He was also blind in one eye. A rock had struck him during a race and destroyed the vision on his right side. He hid it for his entire career.
When Smith introduced Pollard to Seabiscuit, the horse — usually difficult with strangers — walked directly toward him and stayed. Smith watched and made his decision.
By 1937, the three of them together were winning races across the country. Crowds turned up in numbers that track officials hadn't seen in years. And those crowds weren't the wealthy patrons who had always followed racing.
They were ordinary working people, who stood at the railings and watched a short, ungainly horse dismiss the horses everyone had expected to win.
In 1938, a match race was arranged against War Admiral — a Triple Crown winner, sleek & dominant, the son of the very same Man o' War who was Seabiscuit's grandfather. War Admiral's owner dictated almost every condition.
Red Pollard was recovering from a shattered leg suffered when a horse threw him earlier that year. George Woolf, a brilliantly composed jockey they called The Iceman, took the ride instead.
On November 1, 1938, an estimated 40 million Americans gathered around radios. The largest crowd in Pimlico's history filled the Baltimore racetrack. War Admiral broke fast and clean. For a moment it looked like the skeptics had been right all along.
Seabiscuit caught him. Then passed him. He won by four lengths and set a new track record.
Early in 1939, Seabiscuit ruptured a ligament in his foreleg. Pollard, still mending, was also sidelined. Both of them went to Howard's Ridgewood Ranch in Northern California to heal — horse & jockey, neither career looking likely to continue. The general verdict from racing circles was that both of them were done.
Howard and Smith refused to accept that.
Through 1939 and into 1940, they brought both back slowly. When Howard announced that Seabiscuit would attempt the Santa Anita Handicap — the sporting press was skeptical. The horse was seven years old. He had been off the track for nearly a year.
On March 2, 1940, Red Pollard rode Seabiscuit into the starting gate at Santa Anita. 78,000 people were in the stands. The horse carried 130 pounds — a penalty weight assigned by officials.
He won anyway.
He retired that day and never raced again. In 89 starts he had won 33 times and earned $437,730 — a record. He lived out his final years at Ridgewood Ranch, visited by thousands of fans,
until he died peacefully in 1947.
Made with AI
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Sooo...
Tripping is the intentional act of initiating bodily contact to make somebody else fall down. The entire point of football.
HOW IS THAT A PERSONAL FOUL?
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The one weekend a year I know I'll be pulling for the Ducks @NorCalDuckz
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Huzzah! GloomyDave was wrong
Today's #GloomyDave prediction:
Devious Michigan beats Iowa by using every underhanded trick in their book, from illegal spy drones to magic second-adding playclocks.
The Lovable Scrappy Underdogs of the Corn Belt 0
The Ann Arbor Terrorist Evil Empire 666
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Two things left for me to watch this remainder of the MLB regular season:
The race between the Phillies and Dbacks for the final wild card spot
The race between the Angels and their gross incompetence to avoid their FIRST 100-loss season
Nails will be bitten
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