CYCLONE BOBCAT

CYCLONE BOBCAT was my radio call sign when I was senior advisor to the Black Panthers in Vietnam in 1968/69. It is also the name of the book I wrote about my Vietnam experience and the aftermath. The Black Panthers were an elite Vietnamese Army infantry unit; I was an US Army infantry officer, age 23.
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See picture.
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Recently, I finished the conversion and cleanup of the book: conversion from a relatively dumb software program to Word 2007, and cleanup of the typos, punctuation, etc. This little task took me about six years - although it could have easily been done in as many days. The original text flooded out of me like water from a burst dam, considerably more compelling than the task of going back to dot the ‘I’s and cross the ‘T’s.
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CB is headed for the Library of Congress where it will become part of the Veterans History Project. The book isn’t published and I do not intend to pursue publication - at least not in the traditional manner. I really should, and most likely will, look into online publication for easier access. It probably takes only a few minutes to do that - once I figure out how and where.
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Many of my blog readers have read the book already. If you haven’t read it but want to do so, let me know via blog comment or my msn.com email address; I’ll send it to you as an email attachment.

Denny, Laurie & Liza

                                          Liza
                                                      

                       Liza's neighborhood.


Our most recent houseguests, old friends of Trish's, reside in Anacortes, WA.  Denny's into sailing, boats of all kinds, and is a passionate birder.  He sailed solo to Hawaii a few years back, the very thought of which scares the crap out of me.  I'd be worried sick that some behemoth freighter would t-bone me in the middle of the night, sending me into the depths for a long term visit with King Neptune, and not even noticing the slight tremor caused by the impact.
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Laurie's up for nearly any activity, golfed with us a couple of times, took a bike ride with Trish.  Laurie plays scrabble and similar word games online or via smartphone, usually has four games going at once; I recently became one of her opponents.  We introduced D & L to Polish golf and pickleball and they enjoyed both - or seemed to anyway. 
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Trish and I spent a couple days in Anacortes last summer on our return from AK.  Denny wasn't home then, was down in the Gulf coordinating efforts to contain and clean up the huge oil spill - his occupation.  D & L are fun, upbeat folks, really enjoyed their visit.  They bought a gift for us (see pix) but didn't say a word about it.  We discovered it after they'd left, promptly named it Liza.

The Star Mangled Spanner

It so happened that I was in the kitchen at the time, dishing up chips and salsa and popping the top on a brewski.  So, I really wasn't paying much attention.  But I still heard it.  About halfway through, I commented to the others, "That sounds terrible!  Who the hell's singing?"
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"Christina Aguilera."
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While not being acquainted with her work, the name was familiar.  Familiar enough that I knew she'd been around awhile and was a professional.  Whoever selects the superbowl singers would not have selected some unknown for the job.  But maybe they should have.  Granted, the song is not at all easy to sing; I'd be embarassed to even try it.  The lyrics are great but oh my god - the melody.
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That said, I do believe Christina baby is capable of singing it well.  I'm not referring to the mangled and skipped words although that, too, was unforgiveable.  No, it was the delivery, the sound of two cats with their tails tied together and draped over a clothesline that pissed me off.  Again!  Same thing happened a few years ago with Roseanne Barr, with only one major difference: the cats were considerably chubbier.
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My patriotism is mostly the understated variety.  I don't wave the flag a lot, don't pound my chest and scream "God bless America!" at every opportunity.  Donating 4 years of my life to the cause - and if not for several miraculous near misses, it would have been life itself - is proof enough that I care.  So, this patriotic venting session is a rarity but vent I will.
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I've had quite enough of the Star Mangling, thank you very much.  It's high time the flaming idiots who select superbowl singers pull their heads out of their aggregated assholes and do it right.  Give the song the respect it deserves, choose someone who can sing the song the way it should be sung, and rehearse it until it's perfect.  I don't give a rat's ass how famous the singer is - or is not - as long as it's nicely done.
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I feel better now.  Thanks for bearing with me.  I'm going to send this to the superbowl organizers.  If you feel the way I do, please let them know about it.

Adam's Junk

Did (the original) Adam have testicles?
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As I understand it, women were something of an afterthought, were dreamed up later when God took a post-creation coffee break, started thinking about things, and decided Adam needed some company. That being the case, there was no reason whatsoever for Adam to have testicles as standard factory equipment; there just wasn’t any use for them.
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So, no doubt about it, Adam had to be retooled. No, that’s not really the correct term because it implies that there was a tool to begin with. Not sure what they called it back then but nowadays it would be termed a factory recall. Or, God may have done the alterations while Adam was asleep one night. I can just imagine Adam waking up one morning, glancing down, seeing this new thing hanging there, exclaiming loudly, “What the hell?”
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No, no, no: he wouldn’t have said ‘what the hell’ cuz hell had yet to be created, wasn’t part of the vocabulary. Anyway, he had to have been pretty startled - worried, too. In his place I’d be wondering just what kind of dangly thingy I’d find attached to me the following morning - and where it would be attached: armpit, earlobe, chin?
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My bible history studies in grade school skipped over this subject. It may have been omitted from the lesson plan due its adult nature. Seems odd though, that I’ve heard nary a word about it in the intervening years. I can’t be the only person in the world that wonders about human design and construction and dangly thingies.

Dinky Little

I’ve been spending a lot of time on my knees of late. No, it’s not what you think: I’m not expressing thanks for having seen the light or being saved (as far as I know, I’m still going straight to hell), I’m not praying for rain, and I’m not begging forgiveness for my numerous transgressions of a biblical nature - or even those of biblical proportions for that matter.
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It’s the grout don’t you know. For whatever reason, be it settling, earthquake or faulty installation, a lot of the grout in the tile floor of the house has cracked and has to be replaced. So, one area at a time, I’m using a hammer and a dinky little chisel to break up the old grout so I can pry it out with my dinky little screwdriver. Then, I remove the remaining loose debris from the dinky little grout crack with the dirt-sucker, aka vacuum cleaner.
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If you’ve done tile and grouting projects you know the rest of the routine. But not everyone has, so I’ll finish the story. To do it right it's best to use a trowel-like hand tool called a grout float to force the grout into the dinky little cracks, and a grout sponge to do the finishing touches to the grout. After you’ve thoroughly cleaned your crack(s), you mix up a dinky little batch of grout, wait ten minutes for it to slake, and fill the cracks with the grout. Then you can take a dinky little break, say 15 minutes, before using the grout sponge to gently smooth and shape the grout so it doesn’t look too amateurish. The final step, which must wait a day or two for the grout to dry and harden, is cleaning up the grout residue from the tile.
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Actually, no; I misspoke ..... uh make that misswrote: the final step is mixing a dinky little drinky.

Asteroids, Cenotes & Virgins - the rest of the story.

Rainwater seeped into the cracks in the limestone cap after it was cracked by the asteroid, and, over millions of years, the water carved huge underground caverns and hundreds of miles of channels. The world’s largest underground river system was thus created. In many places, the roof collapsed, allowing the underground water to come to the surface, creating crystal clear ponds of fresh water. These ponds are called cenotes and were considered holy places by the Mayans; the word cenote is derived from the original Mayan name for these ponds.
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The Mayans used to toss the occasional virgin into the cenotes for good luck but history does not reveal the efficaciousness of this practice, which to the best of my knowledge, has been discontinued. My long standing position on this practice is that it was a tragic waste of virgins, definitely not their highest and best use. Besides, I’ve found no objective evidence that virgin-spiced cenotes improved the corn crop or ensured a victory in battle - and really, who wants a bunch of half-rotted virgins floating around in their drinking water? Makes the coffee taste funny.
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These days, cenotes are popular tourist attractions, especially for snorkelers and divers who use them as doorways to the vast underground cavern/channel system. The ponds, some of which are hundreds of feet deep, contain many types of fish and other fresh water critters.
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We visited a cenote, a relatively small and shallow one as it turned out. Trish was prepared to jump in and go for a swim but was put off by the fish and floating debris and large, rough, user-unfriendly rocks on the bottom. I forget to pack my swimsuit, ain’t much of a swimmer anyway.

Puerto Morelos, Mexico

We recently returned from a week in Mexico. Puerto Morelos is a small seaside village, population about 3000, some 20 minutes southwest of Cancun. We stayed at a rental condo 4 miles south of PM, in an area known as Playa Secreto.

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It rained off and on the first couple days but that didn’t dampen our spirits much. However, the extremely humid weather did dampen our clothing, bath towels, you name it - and kept them damp pretty much the entire time. Going from the AZ dry to Mexico sauna-esque is quite a transition.
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How many of you have seen a cenote? For you gringos, that’s pronounced sin-OH-tay. Let’s see a show of hands. Really? Nobody? Okay, guess I better broaden your knowledge a bit. Once upon a time there was a sizable asteroid that very much wanted to become one with a planet. It searched for just the right planet for a few million years and finally found one that was just right. And that planet was - you guessed it - the very same one that we live on. Mr Asteroid finally realized his dream and became one with planet Earth in a violent manner, punching into the limestone cap that covered the Yucatan Peninsula.  The high velocity impact shattered the limestone cap like a rock shattering a car’s windshield.
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Golly gee whiz, Mr Science. Did anyone get hurt when the asteroid hit?
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No, Jimmy. You see, this happened 65 million years ago and human beings weren’t around yet. Sorry, but that’s all the time we have for today. Be sure to tune in next week to find out what happened after the asteroid hit Yucatan.

               Chatting up Senorita Anorexia, Playa del Carmen. 

                                          Pool at condo.

                                  New furry friend, Playa del Carmen

                           The condo complex where we stayed.

  Our good friend and neighbor, Lucy Croc, lives in a lagoon across the road.

            Hot chick, cold beer, sandy beach.  Si!  Muy bien!