YouTube of the day

[Little Corn Tom]

I flew on one of these many years ago from Marsh Harbir, Bahamas to Miami.....Mackey Airlines.
We were coming back from vacation with another family ...... 4 kids in total.
One of the kids was hand carrying a shoe box with him. We hit some turbulence over the Gulf Stream.
Box went flying into the isle and all of the live land crabs and shells that he had collected over 2 weeks went flying.
Talk about a cluster f......!
Most of the passengers took it well and pitched in to gather up the crabs....the kid was bawling but eventually got most of his pets back.
I know though, that there were still crabs on that plane after we left.....can't imagine doing that kind of a flight today....too bad too.

[KeyWestPirate]

An amazing plane.

I wonder how many are still flying ?

OK,, answer: 300

I used to hitch a fly on the C-47's that flew around Europe when I was in Germany in the early 60's. Frankfurt to Verona to jump start a leave, and then an Italian train for pennies to continue on.

After a tortuous few months listening to Warsaw Pact tank exercises, I scored the company clerk's position in our little world on the 5th floor of the IG Farben building in Frankfurt. The "company" consisted of me, a newly minted E5, Master Sergeant Murphy, and Major von Dach. We had some NSA GS-14 who was nominally in charge of the whole operation, but he was never there.

And a slew of miserable translators who worked 24-7 on scratchy and squealy tapes intercepted on the east German border and couriered with great urgency to Frankfurt.

Nor was Major von Dach present, after lunch. The most important part of my job was discreetly running him down at the Officer's Club if anything urgent came up to require his attention. It never did.

I typed up all the leaves and passes, and the odd "flash" memo from Major von Dach to NSA headquarters. Sergeant Murphy and I took alternate 3 day weekends,, with the proper paperwork, and although we only got 30 days of leave,, no one was keeping track.

Being the generator, recipient, and user of the leave and pass documentation, a lot of possibilities became available. Major von Dach was supposed to sign the paperwork,, but he had delegated that duty to Sergeant Murphy.

It was a great time to be in Europe. The gnarly old timers who had been coming back since the end of the war would wistfully talk of trading Hershey bars for sex "back in the old days" .

But, really,, why bother ?? We were quartered in an old German Kaserne around the corner from the Hauptbahnof, and Maxim's was just up the street. Beer was less than a quarter.

Who needed Hershey bars ?

[Daddy-YO]

And thus could have begun a chapter to a Catch-22 sequel. Though 20 years later the wheels of the US war machine turn pretty much the same. Only Milo Minderbinder's name has changed to protect operations.

So Pirate, wasn't that about the same time Elvis was there?

I used to hitch a fly on the C-47's that flew around Europe when I was in Germany in the early 60's. Frankfurt to Verona to jump start a leave, and then an Italian train for pennies to continue on.

After a tortuous few months listening to Warsaw Pact tank exercises, I scored the company clerk's position in our little world on the 5th floor of the IG Farben building in Frankfurt. The "company" consisted of me, a newly minted E5, Master Sergeant Murphy, and Major von Dach. We had some NSA GS-14 who was nominally in charge of the whole operation, but he was never there.

And a slew of miserable translators who worked 24-7 on scratchy and squealy tapes intercepted on the east German border and couriered with great urgency to Frankfurt.

Nor was Major von Dach present, after lunch. The most important part of my job was discreetly running him down at the Officer's Club if anything urgent came up to require his attention. It never did.

I typed up all the leaves and passes, and the odd "flash" memo from Major von Dach to NSA headquarters. Sergeant Murphy and I took alternate 3 day weekends,, with the proper paperwork, and although we only got 30 days of leave,, no one was keeping track.

Being the generator, recipient, and user of the leave and pass documentation, a lot of possibilities became available. Major von Dach was supposed to sign the paperwork,, but he had delegated that duty to Sergeant Murphy.

It was a great time to be in Europe. The gnarly old timers who had been coming back since the end of the war would wistfully talk of trading Hershey bars for sex "back in the old days" .

But, really,, why bother ?? We were quartered in an old German Kaserne around the corner from the Hauptbahnof, and Maxim's was just up the street. Beer was less than a quarter.

Who needed Hershey bars ?

[KeyWestPirate]

And thus could have begun a chapter to a Catch-22 sequel. Though 20 years later the wheels of the US war machine turn pretty much the same. Only Milo Minderbinder's name has changed to protect operations.

So Pirate, wasn't that about the same time Elvis was there?

Elvis was there three years earlier, and we inhabited different worlds. Maneuver was not in my vocabulary. Checking the dates, I came across the Stars and Stripes online. This paper and coffee began the morning routine, if you could call most days spent doing little or nothing a "routine".

https://www.stripes.com/news/german-...ights-1.560317

The New York Times and the Herald Tribune both printed International Editions back then.

[KeyWestPirate]

And thus could have begun a chapter to a Catch-22 sequel. Though 20 years later the wheels of the US war machine turn pretty much the same. Only Milo Minderbinder's name has changed to protect operations.

So Pirate, wasn't that about the same time Elvis was there?

The world was full of Catch 22 in those days. It was the height of the Cold War, Berlin was still isolated from the rest of East Germany. The Warsaw Pact was constantly in maneuvers along the east German border. No one knew when they would coming roaring across.

Catch 22 : Another quick story and I'll move on. This was the heyday of reel to reel tape for hifi. All of our intercepts came in on 1/4 inch reel to reel. Major von Dach was a big hifi fan,, had some elaborate stereo that he talked constantly about. With a reel to reel player/recorder.

Unfortunately,, after the tapes were bulk erased (after they were transcribed),, they were still classified "Confidential" . They were then incinerated.

I did the monthly office supplies requisition, mostly pens, pencils, tablets, but Sergeant Murphy instructed me to order 20 reels of 1/4 inch tape every month. I put them in the supply room with everything else,, and they would disappear over the course of the month. We never talked about the tapes.

[bill_bly_ca]

Another Beato gem - Reminissing on the guitar chords of the past via session players

[Daddy-YO]

https://www.stripes.com/news/german-...ights-1.560317

"A red-colored Elvis singing with a microphone means stop; a green Elvis doing his famous hip-shaking dance means proceed" to shake whatcha got baby.


The Germans are quite opposed to seeing American troops pulling out - after 60+ years - on Trump's orders. They also refuse to join us in condemning the CCP's actions.

[bill_bly_ca]

The life of "Alfafa"

[bill_bly_ca]

Andrew plays with more heave equipment...

[bill_bly_ca]

JC does his little read of the local english language paper in Mexico

[bill_bly_ca]

Boss of the swap - Cam acoss this fellow last fall - He lives on a mountain in NH and has been making a nice little place.THis is a compilation of what they have done over the past 10 months.

[bill_bly_ca]

The Idaho folks start another project.

THis is not the first channel where I have seen the original purpose of the channel being completed and another secondary project being initiated to maintain (My guess) the revenue stream. But this looks like it will be a nice shop.

[bill_bly_ca]

Rick was actually was asked to talk to the Senate on copyright and fair use.

[bill_bly_ca]

History of the Soviet Artic transport...

[bill_bly_ca]

Biato dissects "If you can read my mind" by lightfoot.

I really liked this piece...

[bill_bly_ca]

Martin Plays Lumberjack in northern MN - Doing pretty good into his 70's

[bill_bly_ca]

Cowboy Kent does some Salmon

[bill_bly_ca]

Explaining computers goes high level overview for Quantum Computing 101 - Yes SkyNet is possible :-)

[bill_bly_ca]

Toying with buying one of these little pickups - 600cc motor - 4wd and most are under $500US at auction and about $5000 to my driveway.

[cookshow]

Toying with buying one of these little pickups - 600cc motor - 4wd and most are under $500US at auction and about $5000 to my driveway.

Someone around this area must import them, lot of them around, popular on hunting leases and gated lake communities.

[bill_bly_ca]

The Young fellow rebuilding the Fierro has a new episode...

[bill_bly_ca]

Alex P has a June report on flying in Canada



In parallel news Avianca has announced a Toronto San Salvador resumption on Oct 4. With that we would have some hope of a connection to MGA is the connection from there to MGA is back up and running. Not sure of Copa through Panama city yet or Aero Mexico to DF yet. But for sure they are not flying to MGA yet.

[bill_bly_ca]

So here it is - The Cummins Mustang... Absolutely ludicrous and Awesome...

[KeyWestPirate]

Why ??

Why not ?

[bill_bly_ca]

Hamburger helper is garbage food I know (At least what is in the packet) - But sometimes it is Oh So good... Need to try this twist..