Monthly Archives: May 2023

05.22.23
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I Saw a Rocketship Today!

I went diving today, my first day of the year. Hid from the wind on my first dive, then the wind calmed down and I wound up going in circles. Low production. Had lunch, moved to another spot and jumped in, much better shells here, did pretty good in a short while. Helped make up for a slow start. Still a light wind, low current, and it’s hard to keep yourself where you know you are at when it’s like that.

Anyway, came up from my second dive after getting 2 pretty good sacks. As I got in the boat I saw an ENORMOUS sea capable boat motoring upriver. I knew I HAD to get a pic of this thing. I had 2 sacks in the water still, had to get them in the boat, one of the pics you can see one of my floats, which has a bag of shell tied to it.

So, I’m supposed to grade my shells and dump the culls back where I find them. But I HAD to get those bags in the boat and chase that thing down for some closer pics. It was moving in the direction I had to go to get to my truck anyway, so I pulled the bags and got moving. It was moving at a pretty good clip, it had gone a fair distance by the time I was ready to chase it down. That ship I figured it every bit of 300′ long, 90′ wide and probably 50′ from the waterline to the bridge. It’s huge.

I caught up with it and managed to get a few pics. When I was close enough I could make out the name.

Rocketship.

This was what I saw when I came up from my dive. My float lower left. Click on the pics they will enlarge.

This was coming alongside. Crappy phone pics…

And this is a bow shot. That’s my bimini top at the bottom, stowed. You can barely make out the name on the bow of the ship. That guy in a chair there just above the life boat, we waved at each other 🙂

For such a huge vessel the damn thing was easily running 25 mph. and not even breaking a sweat. The wheelwash, (agitation of the water from the props, a.k.a screws,) was minimal, which was I thought unusual. I could tell it was a twin screw, but very little wheelwash at all. Also for a monster of a ship, this thing was not peeling off a huge wake. I was very damn impressed. I see 30-40′ pleasure cruisers all the time, those assholes don’t give a damn about a diver down flag, or any other boat on the water, or how the enormous wake they are peeling off will affect us badly. One of them sum bitches sunk me once. When I was down! Long story. I don’t recall doing an Old Diver Tales on that… Maybe I did? Need to look lol.

So, I got home, first thing I had to do was look this vessel up. Bingo! She is an aptly named vessel. This rig hauls rockets used for space launches! How cool is that?

https://www.ulalaunch.com/about/rocketship

05.22.23
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Difficult to Please

I don’t know if it’s getting older being the problem. Or a result of having some age and much experience in life is the issue. But I have noticed I’m much harder to please these days, or perhaps my expectations are just too high?

Case in point, we had an early appointment to make a week or so back, we slept in a bit and skipped breakfast at home. So after my mother in law (whos appointment we were seeing that she got to,) was taken home, I decided to take the wife to one of our breakfast preferences, Taco Bell. (We don’t treat ourselves to town food often, except maybe pizza a couple times a month.) They have a crunchwrap thing which is pretty decent for fast food breakfast, we pay a bit extra for steak, comes with a drink, plus a couple of little cinnabon things that hit my sweet tooth just right. So we went there. It was 9:30 AM. The doors were locked, sign on the door says open at 10:00.

Why in the HELL have a breakfast menu if you are going to open at 10:00 AM?!

A few years back my dad was here to visit, he and his wonderful wife, no not my mom, asked me where was a good place in town to eat. (They always book a motel when they come, I get it.) After a moments hesitation, I told them it really doesn’t matter, all the food in any restauraunt in town, comes off of the same truck. But I pointed to one I knew was decent fare at the time.

So that’s where we went next.

Well, we seated ourselves. I always do a cursory look in a public space, reading the room, and I sit where I can see the door. We figure out what we want off the menu, just sausage and eggs over medium for me, and an omelet for the wife. Both meals come with pre fab biscuits and packet gravy, yum!

I, having much experience in restaurants all over the country, asked the waitress if the cook knows what an over medium egg is? She seemed to think so. So we wait.

I’m looking around, oh gee there’s a 10 commandments plaque on the wall. Oh! And a pledge of allegiance plaque on the wall. And our table, no EVERY table in the joint, is plastered with adverts from every biz in town. Plus a bonus babble quote too! Sweet freaking jeebus… Get me the fuck out of here.

Our orders come and first thing I notice is the eggs were BARELY over easy. Nowhere near over medium. This happens to me no matter what city or state I’m in. Every damn time. No matter, I can eat them this way, begrudingly, but I can manage. Hmm, the sausage is overcooked to the point of lightly burnt too. This day just keeps getting better.

I did mention pre fab biscuits and packet, or perhaps canned gravy too didn’t I? Absolutely, positively, a crappy breakfast from hell, in a babble addled shithole. Cost me 20 bucks and two cents, plus a tip I left, despite being disgusted with the place. It wasn’t this bad several years back, I don’t know what happened…

Yeah. Difficult to please.

05.20.23
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Wow!

I hope this means I can alter my genes and grow scales as my eyebrows!

https://www.unige.ch/medias/en/2023/ecailles-ou-plumes-tout-se-joue-quelques-genes-pres

Seriously though, what this clearly shows is, a few minor genetic differences is all it takes to change feathers to hair, or scales to feathers. All they let out of the bag is, an unnamed molecule was the trigger for change. But out here in the real world, we are all a mutation or two from having feathers instead of hair.

Evolution for the win.

Creationism, schmee-ationism.

05.10.23
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eeny meeny miny moe

Catch a monster by the toe

If he hollers, make him pay

5 million dollars every day

Now when I learned that little “counting out” rhyme as a kid it was quite racist. Of course being a young child at the time I had no idea then what racism even was. A mix of young and dumb mixed with some white privilige I suppose. But as in many things in life I managed to grow beyond my upbringing.

I have no idea why this rhyme popped into my head this morning. Haven’t thought about the counting out rhyme in years. But when it hit me, I knew what I had to do.

Post it on the internet of course!

For those of you who may not get it, and I’m sure my regular readers will get it (don’t let me down!) it’s about the orange idiot and his loss in court yesterday. 😉

Oh, and the version I knew also had an add on that went “my mother told me to pick the very best one and you are not it.” Which meant you were “out.”