Between Natchez, MS and Nashville, TN runs a 444-mile-long road called the Natchez Trace Parkway that is listed as one of the most scenic roads in America. The entire length of the Trace is a narrow two lane road and it features towering trees on all sides, open fields, swamps and other landscapes. Naturally, Wikipedia has a much better description of it so I suggest you read up on it there. I got onto the Trace at it’s nearest approach to Columbus, took it south to Jackson, MS and took pictures along the way. At one point I about got stuck in mud… two hours from home and without a tow rope… but my truck was able to pull out of it after kicking it into 4H and slinging mud everywhere. Pictures below. Read more…
I’ve done a lot of reading about HDR photography in the past and have always wanted to see what I could do using the technique. The only problem was that I hadn’t owned a tripod (pretty much mandatory for this sort of work) until yesterday. So today I took off on something of a sight-seeing tour of northern Mississippi. I took a lot of pictures, but most didn’t turn out nearly as I had intended. Consequently, I’m only sharing the four above. The first image was taken along US-45, the highway that runs through Columbus on down to Meridian, MS and then to the coast. The other three were taken on the west bank of the Stennis Lock and Dam just west of Columbus. Read more…
In the early days of aviation, barnstormers would often drop into county fairs and charge people “a dollar a ride” for the opportunity to sit in the front seat of the aircraft and experience the thrill of aviation. That slowly evolved into what is commonly known in military aviation as the dollar ride. The basic premise is that the student is given a no-threat introduction to the plane he’ll be flying for the next phase of his career, it’s handling characteristics and it’s general performance capabilities. You really just break the ice and the instructor’s expectations of the student are almost nonexistent. Upon the completion of the flight, the student owes the instructor pilot a dollar for the privilege… and the student should decorate the bill somehow.. choice phrases, names, dates, et cetera. Some squadrons have expanded the tradition to include the donation of a bottle of the IP’s favorite alcohol (as the 48th FTS has), but that is probably the exception to the rule. Today was my first flight in the T-1A Jayhawk, my second dollar ride and certainly not my last of either. Read more…
Each March, Air Force pilots the world over resist the urge to shave their upper lips and grow the gnarliest, nastiest mustache they can muster. Wives and girlfriends then declare March a celibate month and most Mustache March participants seem to be okay with that. This March is no different and my class currently has full participation. No one is shaving… not everyone is growing. I’ve been documenting everyone’s ’stache on Fridays and include those images below. Read more…
Around the world unsold cars are piling up. Thousands upon thousands sit at distribution centers, ports and test tracks the world over. And apparently an airbase in England that my parents used to be stationed at. The runways at Upper Heyford RAF Base are covered in new, unsold cars. The Business Insider has documented the overstock. As the recession/depression continues and vehicle prices come down, it makes me wish I had waited to get my Tacoma.
After warnings that there was a chance of snow in Columbus (which I dismissed), I woke this morning to snow on the ground. Two inches, maybe? It had all melted by midday, but nevertheless… snow in March. I wish I had a garage.
This documentary was released in 1996 and has served to be quite prophetic. It discusses how money is created, how inflation works and how the money systems of the world are based entirely on debt… no debt means no money… period. A quote from the film:
The ancient goldsmiths discovered that extra profits could be made by “rowing” the economy between easy money and tight money. When they made money easier to borrow, then the amount of money in circulation expanded. Money was plentiful. People took out more loans to expand their businesses. But then the money changers would tighten the money supply. They would make loans more difficult to get. What would happen? Just what happens today. A certain percentage of people could not repay their previous loans and could not take out new loans to repay the old ones. Therefore they went bankrupt and had to sell their assets to the goldsmiths for pennies on the dollar. The same thing is still going on today only today we call this rowing of the economy up and down “the business cycle.”
Does that sound familiar? It is imperative that people understand what money is and how it works in order to correct the problems with our current system (called the fractional reserve system) or, better yet, eliminate the world’s fractional reserve systems and implement something sustainable. Watch Money Masters: How Bankers Gained Control of America and then watch Money as Debt. Yes, that will be four hours of video, but that will be four hours VERY well spent. Your money is your life. Watch the videos. If you have questions, I’ll help to answer them.
Some interesting numbers regarding the United States’ military spending versus that of the rest of the world:
- America spent $711 billion on its military in 2008. The rest of the world spent a total of $762 billion.
- 44% of the US government’s tax revenue in 2008 went towards paying for the military.
- When adjusted for inflation, the money requested to fund the US military in 2007 was greater than the average request during the Cold War years despite our current forces being 1/3 of their Cold War numbers.
Source.
Today is Track Select for my class. We’re T-6 Complete as mentioned in a previous post and tonight we will be finding out which track we’ll be headed down… T-1s for heavies, T-38s for fighters/bombers, et cetera. I put T-1s first so it is something of a foregone conclusion that I will be flying that plane instead of the others. I didn’t fly well enough to put myself into a -38, but that’s alright. Those guys are getting shafted on assignments right now. So it’s probably for the best. Read more…
I flew my final flight in the mighty T-6 Texan II on Friday. It was my formation checkride and I passed without issue. I flew that ride with Capt Zack Fennell in the backseat and Matt Miller as my wingman. Aside from being “rangy” during the extended trail exercise, my downgrades were all a little queepy. So I feel pretty good about the flight overall. In celebration of my accomplishment I fell asleep at 10:30pm and slept through the night. Kinda anti-climatic, eh? I had been flying my butt off all week and it just caught up with me that night. I’ll write more about Phase II later… stuff about Phase II in general.
