I wonder when I actually learned to swim. In my artifical and symbolic memory, I "remember" taking swimming lessons at the U.S. Marines base in McAlester, Oklahoma. The Marine who was giving us swimming lessons was annoyed that I always wanted to swim with flippers on my feet. He said something about how swimming with those flippers on my feet made me look like a snake going through the water because only part of my head was above the water surface. That's the first "memory" I have associated with learning to swim, but yet, it seems I already knew how. I think Thedia sent me there I would get proper instructions on how to swim. That would have been 2nd or 3rd grade. Other memories of that time was of getting in trouble for pouring a bucket of paint down a slide in the playground. Another time, Thedia was scared that my sister and I had been kidnapped. I liked to eat the C-Rations my step-father would bring home sometimes. I can't "remember" all of my friends names when I was going to school in McAlester, but I "remember" Karla Miller. There was also a big kid named Thibodeaux, not sure of spelling, that was always sticking up for me for some reason. That must have been 3rd grade. Seems like my sister was in 1st grade and I was 2 grades ahead of her. I can still visualize a parking lot on that U.S. Marines base and I was wondering if all the cars parked there belonged to Marines fighting in Vietnam.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Fri, 2/3/06 6:03 PM
Until I got back online an hour ago, I had completely forgotten even the month when I entered into this newest hobo warehouse. September 24th was my last post on HVOM so I guess that was when I left for here. That was almost 5 freakin' months ago!!
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Captain's sleep journal.
Sun, 2/5/06 9:21 AM
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Re: Sleep journal - 2/9/06
Only remember a brief part of my dreams last night. It feels like there was more dreaming but I can only remember what seems like the last part. This felt like a normal dream and not one that was what I consider "suggested" or "manipulated." This recent dream was of me sitting in a room with three other guys. We were all wearing U.S. Navy uniforms and it seemed to be some kind of waiting room. I was enroute to a new assignment, a ship somewhere. One of the guys seemed to be a CPO, another was a LT. The third guy was a buddy of mine from the Wainwright, except that the uniform he was wearing was only similar to a U.S. Navy uniform but really wasn't. I walked out of the room with someone that I don't think was one of the first group. I was walking down some stairs.
My sleep pattern has changed over the past few days since I haven't experienced one of the foreign dreams. I am sleeping later. For the first time in a long time, I didn't get up to watch the 5 a.m. news, which is a bummer, but in all reality is a silly thing to feel bad about anyway.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Sleep journal 2/27/06
There was a bunch of stuff in my dreams last night, but I only remember one part. I was also very tired when I woke up, but couldn't go back to sleep. The part of the dream I do remember is where I was walking down some stairs. It seemed to be outside, as in stairs leading down the outside of a building, a factory maybe. I am thinking it was at the end of something, a conclusion of something. I turned around after going down a couple of the stairs and was organizing some stuff, books maybe. I couldn't get them all together or something and I think I was going to have to make a second trip to bring them all down. Within the boxes and books, I pulled out a hat and put it on. It was a U.S. Navy Officer's cover.
Today I am also thinking back to that dream I had in my last days at Microsoft. I told a friend about it. I dreamed that someone had set off two bombs and I was watching the towering clouds from the explosions rising high into the atmosphere. I was baffled at how people were going around their normal business like nothing had happened. There was one person I recognized, a guy that was on the same team as I. I didn't understand why no one was concerned.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: "The Great White Whale"
Thu, 3/2/06 12:29 PM
[I went down to lunch here in the shelter and I picked up a cup for some milk. I reached around another person and without looking at it, picked up the cup and went to sit down. I turned the cup around and on it was printed "Canberrra World Cruise 1988" with an emblem on it of their travels through the Pacific and approaching the Persian Gulf. I looked it up here on the internet, thinking of how it seemed a Lost-esque messages in a bottle.]
http://www.sscanberra.com/index.htm
Canberra started her illustrious career in 1961, taking emigrants to a new life in Australia, but as global transportation and travel habits evolved, so did Canberra. In the early 1970's she was almost scrapped. The need for passenger liners diminished as both air travel and oil prices increased. A last minute reprieve saw the ship transferred to the growing cruising market. She never looked back.
In 1982 Canberra became an national heroine as she transported British troops into the war zone of the Falkland Islands. After the conflict, "The Great White Whale" as she had become known, returned home to a fantastic welcome in Southampton. After this, her popularity reached new heights and she became the country's favourite ship.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Rise Above
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/
As with the space shuttle video game from my artificial and symbolic memory, I doubt it is not a coincidence that I "remember" playing the game "Gunship" a lot. I was also probably constantly investigating these games for unauthorized disclosure of United States national security information.
The date of that first flight presents a 1-333 connection with the return of the last Skylab flight. I have been thinking that the Skylab series was the final stages of construction and/or training for my Project Orion space ship. I am undecided whether we constructed it in space or something else. It could be that the first Skylab launch, in 1973, which was unmanned, according to information on the internet, was one or more components of the Project Orion ship.
From 2/8/1974 to 9/30/1975 is: 1 year, 33 weeks, 3 days
1-333
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AH-64_Apache
Maiden flight 30 September 1975
The AH-64 Apache is the United States Army's principal attack helicopter, and is the successor to the AH-1 Cobra. The AH-64 is a two-seat attack helicopter powered by two General Electric T700 turboshaft engines. The crew sits in tandem, with the pilot sitting behind and above the copilot-gunner in an armored crew compartment. The AH-64 is armed with a 30mm M230 chain gun and carries a mixture of AGM-114 Hellfire and Hydra 70 rockets on four hard points mounted on its stub-wing pylons.
http://www.janes.com/defence/air_forces/news/jawa/jawa001013_1_n.shtml
BOEING AH-64 APACHE
Original Hughes Model 77 entered for US Army advanced attack helicopter (AAH) competition; first flights of two development prototype YAH-64s 30 September and 22 November 1975; details of programme in 1984-85 and earlier Jane's; selected by US Army December 1976; named Apache late 1981.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab_4
Launch: November 16, 1973
Landing: February 8, 1974
Skylab 4 (also SL-4 and SLM-3[1]) was the fourth Skylab mission and placed the third crew on board. It started November 16, 1973, with the launch of three astronauts on a Saturn IB rocket, and lasted 84 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes. A total of 6,051 astronaut-utilization hours were tallied by Skylab 4 astronauts performing scientific experiments in the areas of medical activities, solar observations, Earth resources, observation of the Comet Kohoutek and other experiments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Kohoutek
Comet Kohoutek, formally designated C/1973 E1, 1973 XII, and 1973f, was first sighted on March 7, 1973 by Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutek. It attained perihelion on December 26 that same year.
Kohoutek is a long period comet, with an orbital period of approximately 75,000 years. Kohoutek was hyped by the media as the "comet of the century" because scientists theorized that Kohoutek was an Oort Cloud Object. As such, it was believed likely that this was the comet's first visit to the inner solar system, which would result in a spectacular display of outgassing. However, Kohoutek's display was considered a let-down, leading some to nickname it "Comet Watergate". Infrared and visual telescopic study have led many scientists to conclude, in retrospect, that Kohoutek is actually a Kuiper belt object, which would account for its apparent rocky makeup and lack of outgassing.[1]
Because Comet Kohoutek fell far short of expectations its name became synonymous with spectacular duds. However, it was fairly bright as comets go and put on a respectable show in the evenings shortly after perihelion.
C/1973 E1 should not be confused with the periodic comet 75D/Kohoutek, which can also be called "Comet Kohoutek" (as could the comets C/1969 O1 and C/1973 D1, also discovered by Luboš Kohoutek as sole discoverer).
This comet was observed by the crew of Skylab 4, thus becoming the first comet to be observed by a manned spacecraft.
