The Family Letter

I don’t know if you all recall me posting about the day at TBWMNBN when we paid respects to 21 fallen men and women in the space of just a few hours, as their bodies made their way home to the US.

That was a record week–and month–for such things at that base, and for the war as well.  It turned out to be the deadliest month for US troops since the start of the conflict in Afghanistan.

Reading CNN today I came across this.  As I said back then, it wasn’t a record anyone wanted to see broken.  Looks like it was, though.  *sigh*

UPDATE:  Apparently that link will change when CNN adds snapshots.  Page through the snapshots to the one with the soldiers, and it will make more sense.

87.5

Which isn’t bad, but doesn’t reflect the increase I’ve seen in prior years (every year has been up from the last, until now).  That would be an 86.x on the new standards, which start in a day or so.

That’s a short stones throw from 90.0, and since I definitely have room to improve on the crunches (missed my goal by a few this year, darn it), possibly do-able.

This will, henceforth, be the semi-annual report as the test is now every six months, unless you get 90+, in which case it is still annual.  I think I like doing it more often, though, as that keeps one accountable.  And I may repeat in four months to reset my clock to October and April, more temperate times of year out here.

In a world where we hear nightmare travel stories almost every day, with delays, cancellations, spending nights in airports, and so on, it is nice once in a while.  I’ve got a couple.

A few weeks ago I was making a bit of a last-minute dash from here to Pennsylvania.  In order to get there, and to not spend a fortune in the process, I booked one of those “bouncing all over” flights.  I flew from Oklahoma to Texas to Ohio to Pennsylvania.  I got to Texas just fine only to watch the flight to Ohio get delayed.  That wouldn’t have been much of a problem, until I noticed that my layover had turned into 10 minutes in Ohio.  10 minutes and one concourse away.  Oh, and the pilot announced after we all boarded that we’d be losing more time in the air to avoid a storm.

Did I mention that the flight from Ohio to Pennsylvania was the last one that day, so I’d either have to spend a night in Ohio or rent a car and drive to Pennsylvania.

Somehow that extra time we were going to lose turned into a 30 minute gain, and I had to wait in the boarding area a bit before getting on the PA flight.

My aunt had a similar experience.  She was flying up to PA from the southeastern US, and her first flight was either seriously delayed or cancelled.  She had three layovers, some less than an hour, so any delay would have cost her the trip.  The airline actually put her on a taxi, got her to an airport something over an hour away, and got her straight from there to her next-to-last connection, and she arrived on time.

Last one…  This past week I was TDY to a class at Fort Jackson in South Carolina.  Coming back I flew from Columbia to Atlanta and then on to Oklahoma, with a little over an hour in Atlanta.  Right after arrival at Columbia’s airport the first flight was delayed an hour, leaving us 15 minutes to get through three concourses in Atlanta.  Yeah, good luck.  Then it got pushed back another hour, so we’d be landing a few minutes after our connection took off.  We booked hotel rooms in Atlanta and figured we’d spend the night there.

The flight from Atlanta was also delayed while we were en route, but we were sitting on the ramp in Atlanta at the same time the next flight was scheduled to take off, so we still figured it was the hotel for the night.

We got off the plane and discovered that the connection was now four gates away in the same concourse.  Since we had to walk that way to get to the hotel, we figured we’d go to the gate.  The boarding door was open, so we asked: “Hey, is that the flight to Oklahoma?” “Yes, why, are you on it?” “Yes.” “Okay, hurry and board please.”

No. Way.

Not only that, the hotel refunded the room charges for us this morning, even though that’s not normally their policy for cancellations.

Nice to have it all work out sometimes!

Take a look as it approaches and hits.  Enjoy.

Well, it is that time of year again, and I’ve been spending far more than I ought[1] on putting plants in the ground and generally trying to spruce up the front of the house.  There’s no way in the outer circles of hades I’ll ever win the “Yard of the Month,” but I do like it to look neat… Or, at the very least, like someone lives here and the joint isn’t abandoned.

The theme this year seems to be purple and pink, with a splash of white and a little orange.[2]  Just for the heck of it, since these colors don’t tend to leap out, I’m trying to add contrast by going from brown to black mulch.  I just mulched all under the shrubs under the windows in front, and…  It’ll take some getting used to.  I think I still like the natural, uncolored mulch the best.  The black is better than that odd shade of red they have out, but still, I’m not sure if I like it or not.  To keep things consistent I’ll put some around the flowers, too, after they get a bit bigger.  Guess I’m stuck with it now.

I also cleaned up after myself a little, but the black mulch leaves quite the mess.  Hopefully the Impending Doom I see on the horizon will wash the rest away.  Thanks, God, for a hand in the cleanup!

God's Way of Washing Sidewalks

I think, given that weather picture, I’m done outdoors for now.

1. Especially considering I’m going to start flying again. [<--]
2. Miniature daylillies that come back every year. [<--]