"Rio"

070425-N-6536T-068 LOS ANGELES (April 25, 2007) - Intelligence Specialist 2nd Class Jarrod Fowler, assigned to USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), receives an autograph from Diane Degarmo (runner up in the 2004 American Idol season) after a special military appreciation show for American Idol Extra. Service members from all branches were invited to the taping where audience members interviewed this season’s top six idols, guest appearance from Sonjaya was made, and Diane Degarmo sang America the Beautiful. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elizabeth Thompson (RELEASED)

070424-N-5148B-065 PACIFIC OCEAN (April 24, 2007) - Commander, Carrier Strike Group (CCSG) 11, Rear Adm. Terry Blake, presents the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal to Engineman 3rd Class Robert Litterer during an Admiral’s Call on the flight deck aboard guided missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59). Princeton is deployed with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (CSG) in support of operations in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Sarah E. Bitter (RELEASED)

070426-N-0000X-001 PACIFIC OCEAN (April 26, 2007) - A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) is launched from the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70), during a joint Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Navy ballistic missile flight test. Approximately three minutes later, the SM-3 intercepted a unitary (non-separating) ballistic missile threat target, launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii. Within moments of this launch, the USS Lake Erie also launched a Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) against a hostile air target in order to defend herself. The test was the eighth intercept, in 10 program flight tests. The test was designed to show the capability of the ship and its crew to conduct ballistic missile defense and at the same time defend herself. This test also marks the 27th successful hit-to-kill intercept in tests since 2001. U.S. Navy photo (RELEASED)


JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Re: Journal June 12, 2006

I was thinking today about the remarkable similarities between a buddy from high school, Ronnie Alexander, and Tom Petty. I wonder if Tom Petty and I went to high school together? Early this morning, I suffered through about the first half-hour of Fast Times At Ridgemont High until I got bored and changed it. I was thinking about how I read they filmed it at Van Nuys High School. There was that one guy, I forget his name, who was an athlete in the movie and when he got out of his sports car, he had an image of a wolf on his jacket. I don't know if that was a VN HS logo, but I think they use the wolf as a school logo.

Damn, I am damn close to losing a filling in one of my teeth. That is going to hurt like a sonuvabitch.

Looks like Tom Petty is too old to have been in HS with me as his birthdate is listed as 1950. I feel like I probably know him though somehow. I have also been thinking for a few weeks about the name Ronnie associated with Randy Romine, Mom's husband before Denzil. But I don't think we called Randy by the name Ronnie so I'm not sure where that thought is coming from. Maybe it was Randy's father that was named Ronnie, but I am not certain. As far as Ronnie Alexander, I have been trying to remember the name of that other guy that used to run around with us, we were a three-person team in some kind of FFA state contest. I think his name was Francisco, but we called him something else, some nickname. Or Francisco was his older brother's name. I think his last name was Wadkins.

Of all this, probably the realization that I may be from L.A., a native even, produces some really unusal feelings as it is completely out of context with my memories of my youth and what is my perception of growing up in what I guess is a suburb of L.A. I do remember joking with Larry Smith on the Wainwright that I was from L.A., as in Lower Arkansas.

Oh, and when I was watching Fast Times, the synopsis on the tv guide channel reminded of something from high school. Tammie Hood, my close friend from the 11th grade, my close friend the red-head Tammie Hood, wrote in my yearbook something about sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. I remember thinking I didn't care about the drugs, but two out of three wasn't bad.

I thought of Tammie when I read something the other day about Tammuz.

There was also a girl at Microsoft a few years ago that told me she was from L.A. and I wondered about that. I believed that she could be from L.A., but something about it stood out in my mind. I liked her a lot, but unfortunately she was married. I have been thinking about the possible significance of her name.

That part from The Postman where Tom Petty says something about knowing Costner's character and that he's famous or something stands out in my mind for some reason.

March 24th is a day that stands out in my memory. I believe it was the day I started working for Ketterman's in Greenville, SC. As with my memories of boot camp, I got out of the Navy on a Friday and I was working there the following Monday. I was joking with someone later that I was out taking service calls in the field trying to find the bank branch that needed help but I really wasn't even sure how to get back to my new apartment at the end of the day.


JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Journal June 12, 2006, Supplemental

There must be some reason to these thoughts I was having awhile back about the opening scenes to the upcoming movie HALO. I was thinking of how the story goes behind the military person that inspired Master Chief. It begins with the real MCPO arriving at his post on some planet. It is an isolated post in some kind of wasteland, desert, mountainous region. He arrives, talks with a few people, walks around. The structure is some kind of pre-fab building with a lot of walkways and observation positions, a lot of defensive positions. You can hear the clanking of deckplates and gratings as people walk around. MCPO finds a place to sit down his gear and look out over the land. He places a photo of an attractive blond woman, a weather forecaster, on a ledge in front of him and wistfully remembers better times. After awhile, he is sent on some kind of recon mission and climbs into an aircraft that is sitting on a landing pad a few levels above the other troops. The aircraft is some kind of advanced vtol craft and you can see some similarities in the window structure to a Seahawk helo. as MCPO pilots the craft up and starts moving out, he sees a large threatening group of one of the planets native species approaching. They move in a long, herd-like stream and he can tell that at their speed, they will definitely over-run the station. He immediately lands back on the pad and runs, with deckplates clanking, but leaving his weapon in the aircraft, and runs down to the main level and jumps over the ledge to the ground. He grabbed a couple of flares on the way out and starts trying to distract the herd towards him and away from the station. They are large cow-sized rat-looking creatures, that are fast, but at his peak speed, he can out run them but he isn't sure if they have greater endurance. He runs out and away for a while and then runs into a cave system that turns into a maze. He has some near-misses from the lead rats, but he manages to leap up onto a ledge and run in another direction although they manage to keep following him. He finds his way out of the cave and sees the station in the distance, thankfully he has bought them enough time to bring all the defenses online and there is a pretty chance they will be able to fight off the herd. As he run towards the safety of the station, he finds himself with one leg hanging over the ledge of a deep gorge, having almost run over the edge. He turns around that the herd is running flat out lemming-style towards him. He curses the rat-bastards just as the first one slams into him and drives him over the ledge along with all of them to their death a thousand feet below. Later, a group of marines venture out to dig him out from under that carcasses of the rats. One makes an off-hand comment about how he thought MCPO was invincible. The scene moves around MCPO as he is lying on the ground and you see a similarity in the shape of his helmet to the look of Master Chief in Halo. Then, the scene changes to the construction of Master Chief. I don't know what MC is constructed of, but if his smallest compenent are nuts and bolts, that is how this scene begins, of his smallest components being brought together through an automated process of construction. The musical theme is some form of classical music but I don't know of any work that would fit. It should match the crude start of his contruction and them progress into some form of elegant theme, an artful dance. After MC is finished, he steps out of the construction chamber, the perspective changes to show that 11 other cyborgs, whatever they are, were being constructed at the same time. As the music score dramatizes the movements, they all step out, then the focus returns to MC. He turns his head to look into the camera and says "I need a weapon." Later, it is revealed that the camera recording all this construction of the cyborgs was actually one of the bad guys recording it all, a spy that had snuck in to the construction facility. The is a subtle difference to the scenes that can later be recognized as being seen through the eyes, or ocular devices, whatever, of the bad guy. It is only later that it is revealed that they special scenes were being seen by the bad guy and that you realize there were earlier scenes where he was watching. The scene changes to some military office. A company officer, I think that would be considered a Major, wants to see an Admiral. The Major appears to have just come from a battle or something, he has mud on him and his uniform isn't really presentable. He is arriving after enduring 12 hours of being trapped in an overcrowded, dark bunker with a blistering, fierce mortar barrage from the enemy outside trying to break the bunker and then he is on a transport, some kind of windowless conveyance that is also overcrowded and hot and filled with the maddening and endless quietly blaring Muzac while the civilians around him are blathering on with moronic idiotic conversations that he can't help but overhear no matter how much he wants to tune them out and there is a communication panel where he wants to send a message to his family because he can't remember the last time he talked to any of them but some moron is doing something moronic on it. He eventually barges into the Admiral's office and the scene is reminiscent in certain artistic elements to an ancient Admirality environment, that type of environment that reminds me of HMS Pinafore, although I don't think I haven't actually seen that play. The Admiral and someone else are sitting around in some kind of stuffy, formal meeting, maybe even sipping tea with their pinky fingers extended, that seems to be a waste of time to the Major. He is frustrated because he lost several men in some kind of battle earlier. The Admiral doesn't want to be lectured because, as he points out to a machine across the room that is stamping his signature on death notices for next-of-kin, he is well aware of the loss. He tells the Major then that they are receiving a Master Chief unit in a few days to help turn the tide in their losing conflict. There are only 12 units so they are sent where they are most needed.



JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Re: Journal, June 12, 2006, Supplemental

Larry Johnson was that guy's name on the Wainwright, actually I think, instead of Larry Smith. I think I've gotten that wrong before. I remember that he didn't have a middle name. He had been given a middle name, but his mother removed it after she and his father divorced because it had something to do with him. The navy made him write "nmn," for "no middle name" in forms that required a middle name. I think Laron Smith was the name of my senior year physics teacher. The previous he taught us Chemistry, and I think the year before that was Biology.

In the movie Officer And A Gentleman, it is interesting that the main character is named Zack Mayo. That first episode of Battlestar Galactica in the 70's featured Apollo's brother, and if I recall correctly, his name was Zack. I was reading the other day about the family names of Burgess and Mayo in the history of the area around Annapolis.

I was also thinking today about something I remember from the Taylor. I remember this qualification that gave an enlisted sailor the Surface Warfare designation, which was appened to your rank as SW, as in FC2 (SW). I remember someone telling me when I was on the Taylor that I could study for and take the assessment exercise by the qualified crewmembers while on the Taylor, but if I passed, I couldn't actually wear the SW device until I attained the rank of Petty Officer. The SW device is worn above the ribbons on the uniform and is somewhat similar in appearance to the Navy aviator wings. I believe this memory represents me qualifying as a Navy aviator while a midshipman but that I could not wear the aviator uniform device, or "wings," until I was commissioned as an Ensign. I'm thinking I went through the aviator training while on a summer break, obviously prior to 1981. Not sure how long that training last though, I would have figured at least a year, maybe two. But I wonder if all those model airplanes I remember constructing as a youth actually representing flying lessons before I graduated high school.

I think it is important too that Larry Johnson was from Alabama, as I think he was the first one to say something about being from Lower Alabama. I can't remember the town name, but I think it was south of Montgomery. I want to say it was Muscle Shoals but I'm not really sure about that. We affectionately called him "Pumpkin Head."

Nah, that's not it, that's in North Alabama.