Monday, April 30, 2007

Rise Above

At the beginning of last night’s “The Simpsons” episode, there were two scenes where the scoreboard clearly contained 3-5-9.


Alec Baldwin is 334 days older than I am.

From 4/3/1958 to 3/3/1959 is: 334 days

Alec Baldwin (born Alexander Rae Baldwin III on April 3, 1958 in Massapequa, New York) is an Academy Award-nominated, Screen Actors Guild Award-winning, and a Golden Globe Award-winning American actor. The eldest of the Baldwin brothers, Alec Baldwin has starred in many movies and TV shows such as 30 Rock, and has hosted Saturday Night Live 13 times.


I thought a lot about this photo of the USS Taylor FFG-50 after I saw it. Especially because of the perspective of the photographer compared to my own artificial and symbolic memories. The USS Taylor FFG-50 is the first U.S. Navy ship I was assigned to in my artificial and symbolic memories. That camera perspective was also relevant to an experience when I was onboard this ship, which I have written about several times. The date on the photo was about a month after I quit Microsoft and moved out to Spokane Valley, WA. I was staying at a hotel named Crosslands at the time. I remember a woman at the counter at the hotel was talking to someone on the phone and she mentioned that people sometime call that hotel the “Crossroads.”

Crossland Economy Studios Spokane - Valley
12803 East Sprague
Spokane, WA 99216
P: (509) 928-5948
F: (509) 928-5941

The 3/9/2004 date on that photo was 5 years, 93 days, after 12/7/1998, my first at Microsoft while undercover. 5-9-3

From 12/7/1998 to 12/7/2003 is: 5 years
From 12/7/2003 to 3/9/2004 is: 93 days

040309-N-4374S-008 At sea aboard USS Taylor (FFG 50) Mar. 9, 2004 - The Oliver Hazard Perry-class ship USS Taylor (FFG 50) conducts a replenishment at sea (RAS) with the fast combat support ship USS Seattle (AOE 3). The guided missile frigate Taylor is part of the USS John F. Kennedy Strike Group and is currently taking part in a Composite Training Unit Exercise (COMTUEX). COMPTUEX is an intermediate level exercise designed to forge the strike group into a cohesive fighting team and is a critical step in pre-deployment training. During COMPTUEX, more than a dozen ships, and Carrier Air Wing Seventeen (CVW-17) embarked on Kennedy, conducted war game exercises using training ranges along the East Coast of the U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico. The exercise took advantage of existing ranges under the Navy’s comprehensive Training Resource Strategy (TRS). These ranges offer training facilities and realistic simulations, better preparing U.S. Navy ships and Sailors to participate in the Global War on Terrorism. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Michael Sandberg. (RELEASED)



JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Fri, 3/3/06 3:22 pm

This was a pleasant surprise. I was disappointed though when I first saw them that they were preparing to leave. I think this is the one at the link below. I love these ships. Who needs a parade when you can watch a U.S. Navy warship getting underway? If I could choose any ship I wanted for a personal yacht, it would be a Burke-class destroyer.

http://www.momsen.navy.mil/