RochesterRob

Probably about 20 years ago or so. The rain was so heavy and the lightning so fierce and frequent I just sat in the pickup which was sitting near the house versus making a run to the back door. It was that intense. Somewhat related is there is high voltage lines nearby and a dozen plus years ago they replaced a tower near my place. The top most metal had burn marks which had to be from lightning strikes over the decades the tower was in service.

Not really an open competition but in 1985 you had Vince Ferragamo, Bruce Mathison, and Frank Reich with the season showing that nobody had earned the right to be declared the incumbent. Should note Reich was drafted that year so no doubt he was not seriously considered for starter during camp. Maybe somebody who attended camp then can tell me otherwise.

Tim was an excellent ambassador for WNY. Also, an excellent newsman and moderator.

Pete Metzelaars' catch late in the no punt game at SF in 1992.

There's your "new wifey" thread.

I wonder if they can tell from the sample just what level of life the OM came from. Animal or plant? Did they not find evidence of bacteria having existed on Mars at some point in time?

Don't forget our Canadian friends as well. Star Trek's James Doohan lost two fingers to enemy fire on the beaches at Normandy.

Before I clicked on I thought you might be talking something real world. One place I go into for business lately the lady is a little on the friendly side for just business. People talk about guys being aggressive but anymore women are just as aggressive and it don't matter if you are wearing a ring.

This would be another situation where I would have to go find a book that I read decades ago to provide the details of what the author was trying to get across and his sources for which the opinion is based upon. Anyways, IIRC there were officers in the Japanese military that favored building aircraft as aluminum and rubber could be found much more readily in Eastern and Southeastern Asia. With the British and Dutch out of the way by the end of 1942 a string of airbases could be built in Indochina, Malaysia, and Indonesia with proximity close enough that a plane could leave Japan and receive service w/o a navy ship down to Singapore and points beyond such as New Guinea. It also seems to me that there were Japanese officers who felt that surface warfare aka battleship warfare was obsolete prior to PH. While 10KT carriers is definitely an extreme I think the US was well served by placing air resources over more ships especially when kamikaze attacks got to be prevalent. I don't mind going back through some of the old books but it is not something I can do in a day for the sake of discussion. Further, I want to say there was disagreement among the Japanese in terms of building the Yamato and her sister among larger battleships but Yamamoto's vision held sway. Others preferred limited steel going into carriers and subs.

Not surprising as Japan was most deficient in iron and sourced rather far away from home versus oil or aluminum which was as big a reason to develop air power as was the obsolesence of battleship warfare.

It should be noted that the conversion was not a "flip" decision by the navy but the result of complying with the Washington Limitation Treaty back in the early 1920's. It was a matter of recovering money invested in a ship that the US Navy could not use if completed in the original design. Same with Akagi for the Japanese.

Its been put out in recent times that it was very doubtful that American intelligence was good enough to know that a fleet was put together to raid PH. The benefit of the doubt in terms of the war warning was that our "detection grid" was so inadequate from the Aleutians south past Hawaii that some effort needed to be watched for even if it was a much smaller task force. Now where duplicity may have been seriously thought to exist was with the British who were thought to have a much better intelligence network in Eastern Asia and deliberately withheld information to the US in regards of imminent attack to draw the US into the war overall.

I'll have to find a copy of "Day of Deceit" and read it. It was a popular notion back during the 1980's that FDR set everything up for an encounter and the possibility exists for indirect evidence. Ambassador Grew was very aware of how the Japanese felt about the raw material embargo and in 1939 the movement of the Pacific Fleet from San Diego to PH which amounted to an act of war to them which no doubt the notion was conveyed to FDR.

Should be toe to toe. Fixed. I was listening to wife talk about her tough day at work the first time I posted so a little distracted.

Not sure if you are being serious or not. Short and Kimmel were issued a "war warning" in late November 1941 from Washington. The Americans and Brits totally discounted the Japanese ability to go toe to toe with them. PH was organized in a manner to thwart sabotage but never really seriously considered the possibility of an air raid. The Brits had seen what the Luftwaffe was capable of and then the advent of Taranto with Italian battleships sunk using air power. The Prince of Wales and Repulse did not stand a chance against Japanese air power.

I've only read accounts incorporated into books versus a direct USN report. I think what I stated squares with what you said as "in similar situations" would mean near heat sources or sparks which would be the same as "if they could be safely run without risk of electrical sparks." I don't have the book any more and probably was one that I checked out while at Cornell decades ago. I guess the next time I am in Ithaca I could try to hunt it up. I enjoyed World at War when it was run in syndication during the 1980's on a Rochester station. Usually on a Saturday evening around 7:00. It would be nice to pick it up as a DVD set someday.

I must have had 50 model projects I wanted to do as a kid around the same time but for lack of money they did not get done. The school had a rocketry club that met after the school day had ended so I built a few Estes rockets. I learned the hard way the virtues of being patient with glue. Interesting and I had never read up on the finer details of damage control for the Japanese carriers. Damage control procedures doomed the Lexington at Coral Sea. She was fully operational including recovering aircraft when aviation gas fumes reached an area where welders were working blowing out the insides of Lexington. These fumes reached the heat because ventilation fans were active. The book was re-written on that procedure to shutoff the fans in future similar situations. The ramifications of Lexington surviving Coral Sea would have been interesting for both the Americans and Japanese.

Selleck before his trademark 'stache no less.

Yeah, one might think that the actor playing Adm Fletcher was overdoing it but Fletcher was known to be that way in real life. Midway was Fletcher's last big role as a commander as Nimitz never really trusted Fletcher after Coral Sea (losing the Lexington) and I suspect was put in charge at Midway only because Nimitz had nobody else readily available (Halsey was laid up with dermatitis).

Actually, I had little quarrel with the Nova's power. The wife managed to knock 3rd gear out of the 5 speed manual transmission (don't know how that happened but was the last time I tried teaching her a manual transmission) and thereafter until it died I shifted from 2nd to 4th with no issue. I drove the Thruway and 490 for a few years that way.

Despite its shortcomings I always enjoyed "Midway" for the blockbuster aspect and the star (or soon to be) power of the appearing actors (look for Gary Busey playing a radio operator in a PBY). I would not mind seeing a remake as the splicing of footage from "Tora Tora Tora" and "Battle of Britain" is hard to overlook nowadays. Even TTT had a clean look for the special effects. Anyways, one of the shortcomings was shoehorning Charlton Heston in with a lame romance angle concerning his "son." Yamamoto from his perspective had the right idea as he figured the Americans would tire of the war after extensive losses and had Midway gone against the US the 1944 elections might have produced politicians that might have sued for peace versus fighting a lengthy conflict. Midway and Hitler's blunder in terms of failing to supply and reposition his troops while deep in Russia gave the Allies the emotional lift they were looking for.

I put a locking fuel cap on both a GM pickup and car while working at one place of employment. The place employed a fair number of bitter souls about their lot in life so they were not above keying or other forms of car vandalism. The car was a 2000 Malibu which was a low mile student driver car when I bought it. Somebody did break a key off into the lock of the pickup, however. The worst breakdown was a timing belt going on an '86 Chevy Nova (Toyota Corolla) while on the way home from a friend's house during the winter. Had I not made for a long good bye I would have gotten home before it broke which still aggravates me to this day.

Hornell's economy used to be greatly dependent on the railroad business. An acquaintance I knew while attending SUNY Alfred had a father and grandfather employed in a RR repair shop there until sometime in the 1970's. The 1960's were a bad time for the privately owned railroads as they had lost their competitive edge versus trucking and locally Hurricane Agnes in 1972 was the last nail in the coffin for much of the Southern Tier in terms of RR. I don't recall seeing a train during my 2 years at Alfred back in the 1980's but I think there was supposed to be some RR activity. I think Amtrak ran through there and I believe some lumber and coal was coming through out of PA. Maybe somebody here knows more? I've never been through Fonda, NY but Churchville, NY (west of Rochester) is similar as the main lines cut through the town. I knew a college friend who was from there and I was warned about crossing RTE 36 over the tracks as the trains come up very quick. That track is also at grade with a bunch of country roads around the Rochester region as well.

I should note that the commander of the American air group responsible for locating the Japanese carrier task force was the Buffalo, NY born C Wade McClusky.

Interesting in a lot of respects and in particular some that a football fan can appreciate. Football can be a game that a matter of inches and seconds can make the difference for either offense or defense. The Americans of one flight group pushed to the edge of maximum in terms of fuel reserves to find the Japanese carrier task force. A less aggressive flight commander might have played it more conservative heading back to their carriers before making the discovery. Bombing was roughshod in some respects but one lone hit in the right area (more by luck than design) doomed the Japanese carrier Akagi. Some believe in superstition concerning football and the same held true as Admiral Nagumo commanding the Japanese carrier task force considered the appendicitis that his key subordinate Genda underwent just prior to battle as a bad omen of things to come.