THE Away Mission

Short post today, but, for me, a momentous one.

So, most of you probably know I love Firefly about like my friends Geoff and Carie like Star Wars, or Jye and Shawn like Star Trek.



Today I drove over to Orlando to meet Jewel Staite, known to Firefly fans (Browncoats) as Kaylee.

She is the first member of the cast I have gotten to meet thus far, and she was gracious enough to take a photo with me and sign one of my Firefly posters.
She's an amazing young lady and I got to chat with her a bit, and even got to question her in the public Q&A session, where she mentioned she "Finally Got the Guy" when I mentioned how I loved her and Sean Maher in their cameo episode of Warehouse 13, and that she "Is still waiting on a call from Castle" when I asked if Chuck or Castle had called her or if she would want to be on either show.



I also got to spend some time with John both in and out of the two panels he hosted on Firefly topics. The smartass even dedicated a #Tebowing to me before the first panel. I love how all my friends are sarcastic....definitely doesn't let things get boring! While at the panel, and throughout the day, I met and got to spend time with Maryann, a fellow geek and pretty cool lady in her own right!



Also, I of course managed to find an Orion Slave Girl to get a photo with for my Trekkers :P


That's all for me today folks........hope all of you had HALF as good a day as I did!

Welcome to Miami, Bien Venido a Miami

This past weekend, one of my oldest friends, Steve, and I went down to Miami to watch my Denver Broncos play his Miami Dolphins at Sun Life stadium.

We got to the Miami area around 10pm Saturday night, where we wandered around the suburbs for a bit looking for a motel. My GPS led us deep into the ghetto, then we turned around and found a place called the Melrose Park Motel, which was in Plantation, a place that the lodgings' owner was proud to point out was "The last southern bastion of white people until recently". He showed us around the cramped room, telling us that it had been Newly Renovated....then proceeded to pick a booger off the wall with his finger and state that the worthless maid must have missed one.

After nodding politely till he gave us the keys and left us alone, Steve and I started wondering if our KKK recruitment packages would be waiting outside the door for us in the morning.



That would turn out to be the least of our worries, as the window-unit air conditioner made a hell of a racket, which wouldn't have been so bad if it wouldn't have been for the fact that the damned thing would make a racket to raise the dead for 15 minutes, then be quiet for five or six before starting again.

We had to yell at each other just to be heard.

By about 2am, with many unsuccessful attempts at sleep, we were getting punchy.

Air Conditioner "Brrtrrrtttrrrraaaahhh."

Me: "I think I'm starting to hear secret codes in the buzzing."

Steve: "Hell, its been telling me to kill you for an hour now."

Eventually, we turned the fucking thing off and, on the paper thin sheets and blanket and stone-hard beds, finally got about an hour or so of sleep.

We left the mo-hell by 9am, grabbed breakfast at Dunkin just outside the stadium, and were among the early crowds by 10:00.

Sun Life Stadium, and the JumboTron promoting the game


Steve and I wandered around a bit, then headed into the stadium proper to watch the pregame warmups.


Matt Prater practices field goals. He would miss 2 of the 3 he attempted in the game.




Opening Ceremonies

For any football fans out there, you already know what happened.

For those that don't follow the sport, the Dolphins pounded on us like re-headed stepchildren until the game was 15-0 with about 5min to go in the fourth quarter. It was positive that both our teams were going to be 1-5 after this game and the Dolphins' first win would be against my beloved Broncos.

Then, my team remembered how to play football, scored a touchdown, kicked the extra point, recovered an onside kick, scored ANOTHER touchdown and our sophomore QB trotted into the endzone for a 2pt conversion. As time ran out on regulation, the score was 15-15, and we were headed to overtime.


Tebow chucks the ball......

.....and Demaryius Thomas hauls in the grab for the Broncos' first TD of the 4th QTR


The onside kick and recovery



Daniel Fells runs into the endzone for the 2nd Broncos TD of the 4th Qrtr


Tim Tebow takes it in for the 2pt conversion, tying the game


After some back and forth, Denver kicked a field goal to end the game and come away with a victory.



Prater makes the only FG that counts. In the second shot, the ball is, perhaps ironically, dead center in front of the guy in the Gators Tebow jersey.

And for Steve and I??? Yeah...we met the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders ;)

да товарищ, я знаю, как говорить на русском языке. И очень хотелось бы плавать под их аппаратной

Ok, quick, go get the "Hunt for Red October" soundtrack and put it on.

Playing?

Turn it up. Sing along a little.

Good, NOW you're ALMOST ready to get your mind blown.

You remember a post here about Shaba, Psycho, and Valder possibly infiltrating a Soviet airbase?

Well......it happened.

Let me lay it down for you:

8 October 2011
1100hrs local
BFE, Texas.

Two cars, separated by twenty miles, drop off the interstate and take the poorly maintained back roads past burned pastures and light woods.

The lead car, a red Pontiac, holds the advance team of Psycho and Valder, who are scouting ahead for the white Chevrolet in trail. They had come in from different parts of two states for this meetup.

The men in the Pontiac had, the day before, laid down some prep work on the other side of the city, looking over some similar but older hardware.

Upon arriving at their destination, once they met up, the three men were confronted with a series of innocuous looking generic fold-front hangars lined up in a row. Once there, the three men are met by a mixture of former military personnel. Former Bulgarian, Polish, East German, and USSOCOM personnel, that is.

Once inside, the men were introduced to a host of Cold War-era Soviet Bloc aircraft, built in the USSR, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Hopefully you'll enjoy the photos a fraction as much as the three men enjoyed learning about and looking over the aircraft themselves!


PZL Mielec TS-11 Iskra

Mil Mi-24 Hind-Ds getting serviced in the hangar

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23UB Flogger-C very similar to those flown by the Red Eagles in the 1960-80s

Below the Flogger's nose

Looking forward over the Fresco

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21US Mongol-B in an unusual almost Me-262-like scheme

MiG-15UTI Midget

That Mongol again


Two of the Mi-2Ts in the hangar

Shaba checks out the Mi-24 Hind-D gunner pit

under the Hind's nose

Mil Mi-2T Hoplite doing an engine test.

Under the nose of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17F Fresco-C

MiG-21UM Mongol-B and MiG-23UB Flogger-C

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21UM Mongol-B

Hind-D doing engine runups

Buddy Jesus in the Mi-4T cockpit. You have to love these guys' sense of humor.

Dallas Days one and Two

Dallas, Day One

Thursday I flew from Orlando to Houston, which was fine, then from Houston to Dallas which was.....not so much. The flight gave me a whole new perspective on the early days of air travel, let’s put it that way. That puddle jumper (A Bombardier DHC-8-Q200 for those curious), was tiny, cramped, and, once the engines started, vibrating. The twin turboprops when at full song set off a harmonic vibration of the aircraft’s skin which was loud as all hell AND made the whole aircraft shake. I guess some people pay good money to get vibrated like that, but I’ll pass, thank you.

After landing at DFW, I wouldn’t say I ran from the plane….but I wouldn’t say I dallied, either.

(And just so you know, Sadie is my co-author on this post, so if it starts rambling about food and squirrels, I blame her).


Shawn met me at the airport, and we proceeded to goof off for a while, while waiting for Lisa’s flight to land about an hour later.

After picking up Lisa, we headed to the house, where Lisa did some work and we abandoned ship so as not to distract her too much.

So we headed downtown to Dealy Plaza.

Yeah, THAT Dealy Plaza.


I’ve read and watched a lot of the stuff on the assassination, and know the conspiracies, but……being on the ground gives you a whole new perspective.



I’m not saying Lee Harvey DIDN’T do it, I’m just saying the route, open-topped convertible, and going to Dealy at all was kind of a dumb move. There are SO many places to get a great line of sight while still maintaining concealment there. As you can see.



If you were curious, the reason there are no photos from inside the Texas Schoolbook Depository, now the sixth floor museum, is that they don’t allow photography inside. Which I kinda get, but at the same time….dammit.

Day Two

Nothing to see here, move along ;)

***ALERT*** ***ALERT*** ***ALERT***

We have learned through clandestine sources that three people associated with the 137th, The ETF, are planning to infiltrate a Soviet base sometime within the next week.

Unconfirmed reports state that Johnny "Psycho" Sechsen, Matthew "Shaba" Hunter and Aaron "Valder" Fieldman are the operatives involved.

More news as we get it, folks.