Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Friday, August 06, 2004
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Kenneth and Colleen's engagement
This is my younger brother Ken (below).
Ken ask this lady, Colleen, in Ireland ( just last week ) who he knew since they were 16 years old and dated in high school to marry him.
Ken discovered Colleen's name on Classmates.com and wanted to reacquaint himself with the girl of his younger high school days. "The bell bottom beauty" of social studies 101. The first of those personal relationships in life. The puppy love of those bygone days .
Ken "E Mailed" Colleen in the modern way of doing things by the hunt and peck method of stroking the keyboard of his computer. The E mail arrived on Christmas eve in the Pan Handle of North Florida. Colleen was probably shocked or thought it was spam and didn't realize it was Santa's way of delivering the presents in this age of electronic messages.
(It was a happening that would change the remaining days and style of her life.
The timing was a blessing and Ken packed his bag and caught the next plane to meet this gal he lost contact with over thirty four years ago.)
From what I understand, and the pictures I saw.
It didn't take long for the reminisces of yesterday stories to cause the high school giggles and those forgotten memories to return. I bet they even smirked of the incidence of getting caught "naked, necking in the middle of no man's land" and as the story goes, the police had to notify my mother, a prim and proper lady from the upbringing of the nineteen twenties to have words with my brother and his girlfriend.
to continue,
As the story turns the page: Colleen ventured to central Florida. I bet she cooked one bowl of that Italian Spaghetti with the properties of an aphrodisiac (high starch content turns to sugar) and poured him some Italian wine (by candle light) till my brother Ken was mesmerized.
She knew what she was doing!
Ken was a TV dinner man by 100 watt light bulb with the company of his best friend, Lenin, a white feline Persian cat.
In my opinion, if you put a woman in some unknown kind of dress, sporting a bottle of Italian wine and sugaring the boy up with starches you know your gonna rekindled feelings.
Last month, I am proud to announce that my brother Ken with the intent of a marriage proposal and Colleen flew to our family birth place in Ireland.
More to the story:
In their travels of the Irish country side, Ken and Colleen had a head on collision because my brother drove on the wrong side of the Irish road (they survived with no injuries).
My brother continued the journey with a new car and learned a lesson of the European roads.
When Ken reached a mountain with a coastal view. Ken stopped the car and then like mountain goats (one chasing the other they climbed to the top of the mountain) where Ken got on his knee and proposed.
He gave Colleen a ring that was magnificent and sparkled in the Irish sunlight.
Colleen excepted his words of love and they are now planning a wedding for November 27th at their home in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
Ken ask this lady, Colleen, in Ireland ( just last week ) who he knew since they were 16 years old and dated in high school to marry him.
Ken discovered Colleen's name on Classmates.com and wanted to reacquaint himself with the girl of his younger high school days. "The bell bottom beauty" of social studies 101. The first of those personal relationships in life. The puppy love of those bygone days .
Ken "E Mailed" Colleen in the modern way of doing things by the hunt and peck method of stroking the keyboard of his computer. The E mail arrived on Christmas eve in the Pan Handle of North Florida. Colleen was probably shocked or thought it was spam and didn't realize it was Santa's way of delivering the presents in this age of electronic messages.
(It was a happening that would change the remaining days and style of her life.
The timing was a blessing and Ken packed his bag and caught the next plane to meet this gal he lost contact with over thirty four years ago.)
From what I understand, and the pictures I saw.
It didn't take long for the reminisces of yesterday stories to cause the high school giggles and those forgotten memories to return. I bet they even smirked of the incidence of getting caught "naked, necking in the middle of no man's land" and as the story goes, the police had to notify my mother, a prim and proper lady from the upbringing of the nineteen twenties to have words with my brother and his girlfriend.
to continue,
As the story turns the page: Colleen ventured to central Florida. I bet she cooked one bowl of that Italian Spaghetti with the properties of an aphrodisiac (high starch content turns to sugar) and poured him some Italian wine (by candle light) till my brother Ken was mesmerized.
She knew what she was doing!
Ken was a TV dinner man by 100 watt light bulb with the company of his best friend, Lenin, a white feline Persian cat.
In my opinion, if you put a woman in some unknown kind of dress, sporting a bottle of Italian wine and sugaring the boy up with starches you know your gonna rekindled feelings.
Last month, I am proud to announce that my brother Ken with the intent of a marriage proposal and Colleen flew to our family birth place in Ireland.
More to the story:
In their travels of the Irish country side, Ken and Colleen had a head on collision because my brother drove on the wrong side of the Irish road (they survived with no injuries).
My brother continued the journey with a new car and learned a lesson of the European roads.
When Ken reached a mountain with a coastal view. Ken stopped the car and then like mountain goats (one chasing the other they climbed to the top of the mountain) where Ken got on his knee and proposed.
He gave Colleen a ring that was magnificent and sparkled in the Irish sunlight.
Colleen excepted his words of love and they are now planning a wedding for November 27th at their home in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
This is why I snore!
My excuse for snoring
In the days of the "Neanderthal man" (Homo-Neanderthalensis) during the Pleistocene age near the western side Germany close to the present Düsseldorf, along with the Cro-Magnon from the Southern part of France during the Paleolithic era, people lived entirely in caves during a period of time when vicious animals roamed the territories and valleys of the undeveloped earth looking for food.
Snoring was considered a means of protection for women and children.
Saber-tooth Tigers and other animals would not enter a cave in which loud snoring was heard. It was the unknown from the loud rasp sounds that kept them out.
Consider this:
If a field mouse was rustling in the leaves on the ground where you were camping in the uninhabited dark forests (somewhere in the world) your mind may become filled with some illusionary fright and you would consider something worse during the darken night. Possibly your thinking could be that a bear or a horrible creature that was outside your campsite.
Same theory:
What animal would attempt getting injured by the unknown noise except for the “modern man” or woman on psychiatric drugs?
Quit bitching:
Just because we have modern electronic for surveillance, 911, cellular telephones and street lights, guns, matches and flashlights doesn't mean that men do not have a purpose for snoring.
Human-Spirit
In the days of the "Neanderthal man" (Homo-Neanderthalensis) during the Pleistocene age near the western side Germany close to the present Düsseldorf, along with the Cro-Magnon from the Southern part of France during the Paleolithic era, people lived entirely in caves during a period of time when vicious animals roamed the territories and valleys of the undeveloped earth looking for food.
Snoring was considered a means of protection for women and children.
Saber-tooth Tigers and other animals would not enter a cave in which loud snoring was heard. It was the unknown from the loud rasp sounds that kept them out.
Consider this:
If a field mouse was rustling in the leaves on the ground where you were camping in the uninhabited dark forests (somewhere in the world) your mind may become filled with some illusionary fright and you would consider something worse during the darken night. Possibly your thinking could be that a bear or a horrible creature that was outside your campsite.
Same theory:
What animal would attempt getting injured by the unknown noise except for the “modern man” or woman on psychiatric drugs?
Quit bitching:
Just because we have modern electronic for surveillance, 911, cellular telephones and street lights, guns, matches and flashlights doesn't mean that men do not have a purpose for snoring.
Human-Spirit
A tale of the highseas for my nephew Tommy
Savannah Georgia
Back in the days of the wooden merchant ships that would harbor near ports of Savannah the local pubs would be the place to drink and meet a lady of your fancy.
The hormone raging boys and field hands would head to the docks to meet the ladies while the Captains of the large Gallon ships including the "Pirate ship's" were looking to secure a new mate to sail the seven seas.
Just a little bit of the ankle showing along with the wondrous smile of this pretty woman (serving hops and moonshine) would have the boys wanting to entice and gain her interests in them.
What male wouldn’t want to talk to a fair-haired maiden in a pretty dress wearing colorful beads that adorn her neck?
The captain of the wooden Pirate ships (sitting in the corner of the pub) would nod his approval of the boy to the fair haired beauty of many smiles if he sized up the boy as a strapping male with muscles that could pull up the ropes for the white sails for his ship sporting the skull and crossbones flag.
With that nod of the captains head, the maiden would place a knock out powder in the boys drink. As the boys wobbled and stumbled she would lead them to the back supply room of the tavern to rest on a dirty cot with a stained pillow.
The ground powder of the knock out drug would eventually close the boy’s eyes and while unconscious the boys would then be carried from the pub to the ship by a black, patch-eyed crew-member.
(It was unpaid manual labor for sailing against the boys will, while the lady of the pub with the wondrous smile would receive her gold coins and a pat on her ass from the captain of the Pirate ship.)
She wasn't a harlot. She was just a woman that needed to make money for her family. A woman of greed. No heart.
They say those boys shanghaied would often returned to the same port of call ( if they were lucky and if they didn't walk the gang plank) after several years of sailing on the high sea with no gold coins for their labor and only bad memories from working the wooden ship sporting the black flag and cross bones.
As learned from history, If the boys sailed with a generous captain, they were left with silver and gold coins jingling in their pocket for a beer in the pub or maybe even a plate of hot food in some port located in some desert islands of the south seas. ( I can see the bare breasted Ho la dancers wearing grass skirts.) Otherwise, the boys were left with bruised spirits and as poor as a lonely ship mouse hiding behind a barrel of rum.
With the wisdom learned on those lonely days of adventure on the high seas along the storms that brewed in their minds from their kidnappings, the boys traveled home to those love ones that they haven’t seen in a long time...their families.
I guess with hormone change resulting from the absent of food and beatings for their forced labor, the boys didn’t seem as interested in the pubs and the bars and the whores that reside around whiskey, beer and wine.
My guess is that they went home and found a girl of some substance or went on to finish their education. Maybe they became a merchant sailor so they could be the captain and sail the high seas and capture all the gold coins and jewelry for themselves.
No one really knows but they learned a lesson of the high seas.
Uncle Dennis
Back in the days of the wooden merchant ships that would harbor near ports of Savannah the local pubs would be the place to drink and meet a lady of your fancy.
The hormone raging boys and field hands would head to the docks to meet the ladies while the Captains of the large Gallon ships including the "Pirate ship's" were looking to secure a new mate to sail the seven seas.
Just a little bit of the ankle showing along with the wondrous smile of this pretty woman (serving hops and moonshine) would have the boys wanting to entice and gain her interests in them.
What male wouldn’t want to talk to a fair-haired maiden in a pretty dress wearing colorful beads that adorn her neck?
The captain of the wooden Pirate ships (sitting in the corner of the pub) would nod his approval of the boy to the fair haired beauty of many smiles if he sized up the boy as a strapping male with muscles that could pull up the ropes for the white sails for his ship sporting the skull and crossbones flag.
With that nod of the captains head, the maiden would place a knock out powder in the boys drink. As the boys wobbled and stumbled she would lead them to the back supply room of the tavern to rest on a dirty cot with a stained pillow.
The ground powder of the knock out drug would eventually close the boy’s eyes and while unconscious the boys would then be carried from the pub to the ship by a black, patch-eyed crew-member.
(It was unpaid manual labor for sailing against the boys will, while the lady of the pub with the wondrous smile would receive her gold coins and a pat on her ass from the captain of the Pirate ship.)
She wasn't a harlot. She was just a woman that needed to make money for her family. A woman of greed. No heart.
They say those boys shanghaied would often returned to the same port of call ( if they were lucky and if they didn't walk the gang plank) after several years of sailing on the high sea with no gold coins for their labor and only bad memories from working the wooden ship sporting the black flag and cross bones.
As learned from history, If the boys sailed with a generous captain, they were left with silver and gold coins jingling in their pocket for a beer in the pub or maybe even a plate of hot food in some port located in some desert islands of the south seas. ( I can see the bare breasted Ho la dancers wearing grass skirts.) Otherwise, the boys were left with bruised spirits and as poor as a lonely ship mouse hiding behind a barrel of rum.
With the wisdom learned on those lonely days of adventure on the high seas along the storms that brewed in their minds from their kidnappings, the boys traveled home to those love ones that they haven’t seen in a long time...their families.
I guess with hormone change resulting from the absent of food and beatings for their forced labor, the boys didn’t seem as interested in the pubs and the bars and the whores that reside around whiskey, beer and wine.
My guess is that they went home and found a girl of some substance or went on to finish their education. Maybe they became a merchant sailor so they could be the captain and sail the high seas and capture all the gold coins and jewelry for themselves.
No one really knows but they learned a lesson of the high seas.
Uncle Dennis
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Final moments of Alaska flight 261
Last voice recording from Alaska flight 261 <(click here)
Alaska Flight 261 Pilots Awarded ALPA Gold Medal
Air Line Pilot, March 2001, p. 22By Chris Dodd, Staff Writer
Two Alaska Airlines pilots who fought until their last moments to regain control of their MD-80 despite an inoperative horizontal stabilizer have been honored with ALPA’s Gold Medal for Heroism in a special ceremony in Seattle.
Capt. Duane E. Woerth, ALPA’s president, presented the medals posthumously to the families of Capt. Ted Thompson and First Officer William Tansky on January 31, the first anniversary of the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261. Capt. Thompson, First Officer Tansky, and 86 others—a number of them employees of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air—died in the waters off Point Hueneme, Calif., on a flight from Puerta Vallarta to San Francisco.
Capt. Cress Bernard (Alaska), an ALPA executive vice-president, noted that ALPA’s Gold Medal for Heroism is a rare honor, awarded only upon the unanimous vote of the Association’s Executive Council and only on 11 other occasions. In the case of the Flight 261 crew, Capt. Bernard said, "This decision was easy."
As the two pilots tried to identify the source of the problem, they asked to take the airplane over water to protect those on the ground and had the cabin attendants ready the passengers for an emergency landing.
A catastrophic failure of the jackscrew assembly ultimately rendered their MD-80’s horizontal stabilizer useless, but the pair used superior piloting skills and textbook cockpit resource management to try to control the airplane.
Using novelist Ernest Hemingway’s definition of heroism as "grace under pressure," Capt. Bernard said the two men demonstrated, as the plaques received by their families said, "exemplary courage, consummate professionalism, and heroism" in trying to save the lives of their passengers, fellow crew members, and those on the ground as they struggled with the disabled airplane. They showed, Capt. Bernard said, "amazing grace under unbelievable pressure."
Capt. Woerth concurred: "Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.’ Nothing could better exemplify this than the extraordinary bravery these pilots demonstrated in the final five minutes, even the last few seconds, of their final flight."
After the catastrophic failure and with the flight controls compromised, the airplane pitched over uncontrollably and rolled inverted. "Even in this unimaginably difficult position," Capt. Woerth added, "the two pilots worked as a team in an unflagging effort to right the aircraft and stay airborne.
"What these heroes have done reflects on all of us. Their gift to us, their legacy, is a majestic testimony to our profession," ALPA’s president said.
Capt. Bill Wolf, who served as the coordinator of the ALPA team participating in the NTSB’s investigation of the Flight 261 accident, noted in his remarks that several persons associated with the Safety Board’s investigation reviewed the cockpit voice recording from the fatal flight and "relayed that they had never heard a more professional crew from start to finish.… Safety and concern for their passengers and crew were always first and foremost for the two pilots. Their extensive experience and training were evident and well utilized. They never lost their focus in trying to recover the ailing aircraft."
Capt. Wolf noted that a special memento had been prepared for Flight 261’s investigators, based on a Bible passage from the book of Luke whose chapter and verse corresponded with the time of the accident. The passage, translated into Athabascan (a language indigenous to Indians in Alaska’s interior), expressed a simple but eloquent sentiment: "Let us not forget."
Capt. Thompson and First Officer Tansky received additional accolades in February from Aviation Week & Space Technology, which named them among the recipients of its annual Aerospace Laurels. The awards committee, citing the pair’s calm demeanor and attention to correct procedures despite a rapidly deteriorating situation, praised the men "for their extraordinary demonstration of professionalism and bravery in the face of certain disaster."
http://web.insidevc.com/special/crashanniv/annstories/361278.shtml
Alaska Flight 261 Pilots Awarded ALPA Gold Medal
Air Line Pilot, March 2001, p. 22By Chris Dodd, Staff Writer
Two Alaska Airlines pilots who fought until their last moments to regain control of their MD-80 despite an inoperative horizontal stabilizer have been honored with ALPA’s Gold Medal for Heroism in a special ceremony in Seattle.
Capt. Duane E. Woerth, ALPA’s president, presented the medals posthumously to the families of Capt. Ted Thompson and First Officer William Tansky on January 31, the first anniversary of the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261. Capt. Thompson, First Officer Tansky, and 86 others—a number of them employees of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air—died in the waters off Point Hueneme, Calif., on a flight from Puerta Vallarta to San Francisco.
Capt. Cress Bernard (Alaska), an ALPA executive vice-president, noted that ALPA’s Gold Medal for Heroism is a rare honor, awarded only upon the unanimous vote of the Association’s Executive Council and only on 11 other occasions. In the case of the Flight 261 crew, Capt. Bernard said, "This decision was easy."
As the two pilots tried to identify the source of the problem, they asked to take the airplane over water to protect those on the ground and had the cabin attendants ready the passengers for an emergency landing.
A catastrophic failure of the jackscrew assembly ultimately rendered their MD-80’s horizontal stabilizer useless, but the pair used superior piloting skills and textbook cockpit resource management to try to control the airplane.
Using novelist Ernest Hemingway’s definition of heroism as "grace under pressure," Capt. Bernard said the two men demonstrated, as the plaques received by their families said, "exemplary courage, consummate professionalism, and heroism" in trying to save the lives of their passengers, fellow crew members, and those on the ground as they struggled with the disabled airplane. They showed, Capt. Bernard said, "amazing grace under unbelievable pressure."
Capt. Woerth concurred: "Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.’ Nothing could better exemplify this than the extraordinary bravery these pilots demonstrated in the final five minutes, even the last few seconds, of their final flight."
After the catastrophic failure and with the flight controls compromised, the airplane pitched over uncontrollably and rolled inverted. "Even in this unimaginably difficult position," Capt. Woerth added, "the two pilots worked as a team in an unflagging effort to right the aircraft and stay airborne.
"What these heroes have done reflects on all of us. Their gift to us, their legacy, is a majestic testimony to our profession," ALPA’s president said.
Capt. Bill Wolf, who served as the coordinator of the ALPA team participating in the NTSB’s investigation of the Flight 261 accident, noted in his remarks that several persons associated with the Safety Board’s investigation reviewed the cockpit voice recording from the fatal flight and "relayed that they had never heard a more professional crew from start to finish.… Safety and concern for their passengers and crew were always first and foremost for the two pilots. Their extensive experience and training were evident and well utilized. They never lost their focus in trying to recover the ailing aircraft."
Capt. Wolf noted that a special memento had been prepared for Flight 261’s investigators, based on a Bible passage from the book of Luke whose chapter and verse corresponded with the time of the accident. The passage, translated into Athabascan (a language indigenous to Indians in Alaska’s interior), expressed a simple but eloquent sentiment: "Let us not forget."
Capt. Thompson and First Officer Tansky received additional accolades in February from Aviation Week & Space Technology, which named them among the recipients of its annual Aerospace Laurels. The awards committee, citing the pair’s calm demeanor and attention to correct procedures despite a rapidly deteriorating situation, praised the men "for their extraordinary demonstration of professionalism and bravery in the face of certain disaster."
http://web.insidevc.com/special/crashanniv/annstories/361278.shtml
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