sherpa

My last Blue Angels/football related post, then I'm out. After my second cruise on Kitty Hawk, I joined the Pacific Fleet Adversaries. That is a squadron where you fight others. It's tough to get in, you kind of have to be invited, and you have to kind of prove your mettle when you get in. First week, the squadron is going to play in the annual Fog Bowl, a football game with the A7 replacement training squadron on the same base. Anyone who has lived in the Central Valley of California knows how bad the fog is in the winter. The Adversaries have about 12 pilots. The Fog Bowl is against the A7 replacement squadron, which has about five times more guys. Anyway, I agree to play and attend my first practice. First play, I'm lined up as a corner. I'm pretty sure I can compete, so my plan is to expect an out pattern, (the usual first practice route). My plan is to back pedal enough to bait the throw, then close on it and pick it. Out comes the wide out, one Curt Watson, call sign Griz, short for grizzly bear, because that's what he looked like. About 5'10" and 190. No worries. Play snaps. Griz runs a 7 and then cuts to the sideline. I take one more back pedal, baiting the throw, and I think I got this made. QB, who is another story, and very good, pumps and I jump the route. Griz turns it up and I'm thinking, no problem, I can cover the double move. He can't be that fast. The problem is he is gaining on me. I can't cover the guy. Fortunately the pass is a bit overthrown and hits the dirt, but I was had. At the end of this, I am quite impressed with Griz, being the new guy to the squadron and not knowing anyone, if he has played ball. He says yes, and I ask him where, and he says Green Bay. Turns out he was the leading rusher for Tennessee, and played two years for the Packers. We became fast friends and rented a ski place together in the Sierras before he applied and was accepted in the Blues. By the way, he was the guy that flew Tom Cruise when Cruise decided to do TopGun. Cruise wasn't decided until then, and Griz took him up and that was that.

Many, many weeks at Fallon as an aggressor, after having dropped tons of bombs and strafing their targets. I was about 40 miles from there on 9-11 as an airline guy when we got the message of the issue. My plan was to land there if we had an attempt, but made it back to San Francisco.

If interested, the best Blue Angels video from their perspective ever. It was from a final practice at El Centro Ca. The A4 was a better airshow airplane than the F-18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5PqVeex4QU

They talked about it, but I'm certain he was joking. One would never do a 7g pull with a novice in the back, and possibly break his neck. Neither were wearing g suits, as the Blues never do, but 7 would black out anybody not trained and ready for it. It is simply not possible to not black out at 7, actually 5 for most people. The most they do is 4 on these VIP rides. Pilot.

I did it 312 times. These VIP things they do with Blue Angel 7 are pretty calm events, but still a nice way to spend an hour on a beautiful afternoon. You can clearly see his anxiety at the beginning, and his pleasure having done so at the end.

I don't think it matters either, at least not this early. What did matter, and was a harbinger of things to come, was from Jets late training camp last year when during a scrimmage, their two defense dominated their one offense, and their two offense dominated their one defense. That was an eyebrow raiser, and foretold a very difficult September and October.

It's 3750 miles by air to Madrid with a six hour time difference. It's 2125 to Seattle with a three hour time difference. Additionally, because of the rules of the North Atlantic Track System, there are time restrictions to be followed when going east and when coming back. If not in those time slots, a longer route must be flown, or non optimum altitudes used, require more time. Of course they fly charters, but Madrid is more of an issue than London.

Certain places are better for certain things. I'd rather eat olives in Madrid, and I'd rather watch the Bills in Orchard Park.

There are lots of people who want to make money off of this kind of stuff. The "ex UFO investigator ," Luis Elizondo, is certainly one of them. Not a believer.

OJ Simpson. There was simply no player more physically capable in his first years, and those were largely wasted. He was on a different planet.

Because stock is ownership. If you issue more stock, you dilute the value of existing shares, thus reducing their value. Stock issuance dilutes value, stock buybacks enhance it.

It's run after catch, not run before catch.

Vinyl bird netting is incredibly cheap. I have over a quarter mile of it in my vineyard. You can protect those peas and beans for less than $20.

I'd go with the late drive against Arizona. Great thread, by the way.

It isn't "blood."

Tough to say. The slat damage can be repaired, but the wing spars, the spanwise structural components that run perpendicular to the fuselage will be X-rayed to assess non visible damage. If you hit something and you're not on the yellow line you're screwed. If you hit something and you're on the yellow line, you're screwed. But if you hit something, get on the yellow line. They were on the yellow line. Can't see the wing tip from the cockpit. The 777, a much bigger airplane, has cameras mounted on the horizontal stabilizer that you could display and see the nose and main landing gear because of the difficulty of taxiing. We weren't supposed to view it in flight, but I always did. It showed the immediate contrail formation behind the engines at cruise.

Tora Tora Tora. Doesn't give me a good a good feeling.

Knock off the wacky huge loss sacks and fumbles. Put the ball in the receivers hands where they don't have to break stride, reach too far, and otherwise disrupt their ability to run after catch. Thankfully, he seems to know that, as has mentioned it as an offseason goal, but it is an accuracy thing. That's one of the things about Brady. He puts it right on the numbers in the receiver's stride. Josh doesn't, but he usually gets it there. Weird thing, he usually nails the sideline routes like nobody I've seen.

I heard an interview with Thomas last year or so about that song. He said that in order to get the nod to do it, Bacharach and David told him to sing it without any "styling" input. Just do the song, or we'll get somebody else.

BJ gone? I just can't help believin'.

Very cool, and timely, as covid has spiked gardening interest.

Dak could have used a little "arm arrogance" when he threw that pitiful one hop swing pass against us on the fourth and goal Thanksgiving pass. A beauty that.

Not to weaken the astrophysicist's argument, but the Russians and Chinese already know a great deal about our F-18's radar and FLIR systems. They shadow aircraft carriers and have been for decades. It would far more valuable an intel "get" to find out they were operating drones off the SOCAL coast.

You're my aunt! Finally, after all these years, I found you.

James Harris, ex Bill, could get it there. Just always didn't know where "there" was. Kind of like a SCUD missile. Always get airborne, just not sure where it lands.