About 1974 I went to Kobe Japan to start up a rolling mill at Kawasaki Steal for transformer steel. I flew on JAL from Lax to Hananda Airport in Tokyo. It was very pleasant nonstop flight. It was my first trip to Japan since leaving the Navy. I needed to take a ride to our trading company in Tokyo. I asked at travelers aid how to get to downtown Tokyo and was asked if I wanted to take a bus, taxi or monorail. Heck a long ride on a monorail just like Disneyland was my choice. I went outside to the monorail station and in a few minutes the monorail glided up. I thought to myself how these Japanese are so up to date with technology. As I boarded, I noticed a small metal plack that  said ALWEG Monorail Cologne Germany, built under license by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Tokyo, Japan. Well I guess that notion was flawed. 

After spending the weekend in Tokyo, I took the Shinkansen Bullet Train to Kobe. Kobe was a nice Japanese city. Not too big and crowded and not too small. I stayed at the Newport Hotel, a traditional Japanese inn. I slept on a tatami floor in a futon, A traditional Japanese bed typically consists of a futon set, which includes a shikibuton (mattress) and a kakebuton (duvet), laid directly on tatami mats. It was just like being back in the Navy.

On Monday morning, I walked down to the station to take the commuter train to the Kawasaki Steel mill. The train station is always crowded during rush hours like any other station in Japan. As I walked with the throng I once again became aware of being a full head taller than everyone else. I began to think of myself as The Occidental Giant.   

Being my father worked at at Republic's steel mill back in Cleveland I was right at home except this mill was an order of magnitude cleaner than the Ohio variety. The Japanese at Kawasaki were so export oriented that when the roll of steel came off of the mill there was no place to put it down except into the ship sitting at the dock. 

I was there to get the automatic control system up and running. The company that I worked for was known for their non-content Beta Gauges. The thickness of the plastic was measured by the intensity of the radiation from either a Krypton-85 or Strontium-90 beta ray source. For steel sheet we used a Gamma Ray Americium - 241 gamma ray source to penetrate the metal.  

Life in a Japanese steel mill was a far cry from an American mill. In an American mill if a foreman tells a union worker to pick up a hose laying on the floor, the worker will tell the boss that it isn't his job or to just tell the boss to go screw himself. In Japan the worker stands in front of the foreman and then bows. He then will pick the hose up, roll it up neatly and hang the hose in the proper place.

We have been led to believe that dogs are colorblind but they have a wonderful sense of smell. I pretty much agree with this but I'm wondering if they don't have an enhanced level of smell that we humans have no clue of. Sort of like a color degree of smell that we humans have never experienced. I read yesterday that the dog's sense of smell is 100,000 times more than a humans. I find this hard to believe. A hundred times better maybe but I have my doubts. A thousand times makes me question the person, or persons making these claims. How could they know? Do they count nerve endings in our noses? 

I make the claim that instead of 100,000 times the sensitivity there is a aspect of odors that we so called advanced apes can not comprehend. Imagine smelling someones butt as the dogs do and getting a 100,000 times the jolt. I think that would be more than simple sensory overload. It would knock us into next year. 

I make no claims of being a zoologist but I do posses a pretty strong common sense. Just sayin'. Maybe stuff like this doesn't keep you awake at night. Actually nothing keeps me awake at night but I know there are gangs of  worrywarts out there to take up the slack. So keep calm and carry on.

 

 I went up to our postbox this morning and I had three things addressed to us. The first was a letter from PBS stating that my credit card was no longer valid. Well I actually knew that because I changed cards last month. I do that about once a year to weed out any of those pesky auto payments. Mission accomplished. I know this is no big deal but like they say on TV, there's more. 

Next I got a flyer from Musical Theatre, sic, West. Long Beach's very own musical company. I'd make great gay man who loves musical theater except I'm not gay. But I do love musical theater, too bad I'm not gay. The show they are pimping is Into The Woods. It's a Stephen Sondheim show and I'm not a really big fan of Sondheim but the tickets "start at just $20". So it's not like the front row at The Hollywood Bowel and we should go to patronize our own group.

Lastly, the big Kahuna. Jamie, she's a registered Orange County Voter,  got a flyer from Tony Strickland asking her to vote for "A fighter in Sacramento". Tony is, God forbid, a member of "the Republican Party of Orange County". He is endorsed by Michelle Steel US Represtative (Ret.), Don Barnes Orange County Sheriff, Stephanie Klopfenstein Mayor of Garden Grove and Janet Nguyen County Supervisor all Republicans. Has good old conservative Orange County swung back to the right? Whether or not you knew it, I am nether a Republican or a Democrat. I am a registered Libertarian but if I can't see a Libertarian winning I will vote against whomever is the incumbent who these days in The People's Republic is a Democrat. 

I also consider myself  as a Patriot.  

Speaking of patronage, The Bay theater in Seal Beach is now open after too long a time. You do owe it to yourself to enjoy an old time movie theater. Also try The Art Theater on fourth street. It's the last remaining independent  cinema in LB. 

We got a new boat.

 In the event you haven't been in touch with us for awhile, we bought a new boat. She is a Lancer 44 Motorsailer. Kind of like Imelda Marcos said one can not own too many shoes, we said one can not own too many boats. Actually that is bullshit because as of this moment in time, we do own too many boats. Three for you who are keeping score. We have a 38 foot Trawler powerboat, a 30 foot sailboat and now this 44 foot motorsailer. By all definitions three boats is too damned many. We are now trying to cut that number down to one boat.

We named her Catherina Rae the middle names of our two granddaughters. She has two 200 HP turbocharged diesel engines and is capable of doing 18 knots on a plane which she will never see under my con.  After almost ten years of life on a stinkpot, I just had to become a real sailor again because I yam what I yam. I can sail her from the inside helm and all sheets and halyards are led to the steering station except for the jib sheets. Both the mainsail and jib are roller furled so I can enjoy the best of both worlds. 

I hope to be ready for offshore sailing fairly soon. If you can read this come join the fun. 

AMF

The other Donald

ROCKET MAN

 For the last several weeks I've been watching the rocket launches from Space Force Base Vandenberg. The launches are scheduled at www.spacelaunchschedule.com/. 

I have been a associated with rockets and missiles since 1960 when I was a Guidedmissileman later renamed to Missile Technician for eight years in the Navy. While in the Navy I participated in over 50 launches of which I only actually witnessed maybe four launches. The reason I only watched so few launches I was busy manning he telemetering ground station. The only launches I saw was when the bird was carrying a live warhead. The telemetering package replaced the explosive warhead. 

A few years ago on the occasional Thursday evening around sunset one could watch a launch coming up from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The chance of seeing a live launch was spotty at best as The USAF didn't post any schedules.

Well times have now changed. Vandenberg is now a Space Force  base and most of the launches are SpaceX launches and Elon Musk makes sure all launches are public notices. Typically we now get a four day heads up. 

About two years ago I was in a supermarket parking lot in Palm Springs and realized that most everyone was looking up at the sky. They were watching a launch from Vandenberg and it was spectacular. Even way out in the desert. One by one my neighbors are finding out what some of us are watching and they also become addicts. 

You just don't get such action in Cleveland.

 

Bud

Way back in the twentieth century, 1990s, I had a satellite shop in Elkhart Indiana. I had rented a small house and commuted back and forth from LAX to Saint Luis and then from STL to South Bend on a puddle jumper. I was married at that time to a TWA flight service manager and flew for free on TWA with my employee family card. The card was just like a credit card. It was made of plastic and was the same size as a garden verity credit card but had no bank affiliation.

Every two to three weeks I’d take the red eye to STL. From STL I’d fly on TWE, TWA express,  to SBN, South Bend. Normally I’d stay in Indiana for a week to ten days and fly back to LAX. From STL I’d fly standby on a TWA Boeing 767. More often than not my friend Bud was the pilot. The 767, or six seven, in pilot talk is a wide body jet that carries 269 passengers verses a 47 which carried 366 folks. Both airplanes are wide bodied planes with 7 across seating. The airlines really loved the 67s because they only had two engines verses the 47s four engines. Do the math. TWA eventually went out of business but at that time they were still in the fight. One of the tricks that thy used was they took delivery of a bunch of  13 airplanes that Boeing  had leased to Aeroflot, the Russian airline. The Ruskies had defaulted on the planes and Boeing had to repossess them. By the time Boeing got them back the planes were in pretty sad shape. They had minimal maintenance and a lot of the on board electronics were made in the Soviet block.  My wife used to tell me about the troubles that she and the other flight attendants had to cope with. Worst of all were the Bulgarian built VCRs that showed the onboard movies. The pagers for service seldom worked and the interior lights were prone to regular failure.

One day I was flying back to LA on a flight from Saint Luis in a window seat. The lady sitting next to couldn’t get her reading light to work so I pivoted mine over to her to use and settled down for a mid afternoon nap. I asked her  if she had complained to the captain and she said that she hadn’t.  Just as I was nodding off, I heard Bud’s voice. I opened my eyes and there was Bud standing in the aisle in his TWA captains uniform complete with all of that gold trim. He said he had paged me on the intercom to see if I made it aboard his flight and I hadn’t responded. The downside of flying non-rev was after the paying travelers were all seated the non-revs got what was left. Flying from TWA’s hub in STL to LAX always flew fully seated. Fortunately for me my wife Nancy had a high seniority  number.  I told him the intercom was nonworking and this poor lady sitting next to me couldn’t get her reading light to work. I suggested he should write these things up on his Aircraft squawk sheet. He suggested that we grab a bite to eat when we got back to Long Beach.

When he headed back to the flight deck, the lady next to me said “You weren’t kidding about complaining to the captain were you”.

Bud

 Way back in the twentieth century, 1990s, I had a satellite shop in Elkhart Indiana. I had rented a small house and commuted back and forth from LAX to Saint Luis and then from STL to South Bend on a puddle jumper. I was married at that time to a TWA flight service manager and flew for free on TWA  with my employee family card. The card was just like a credit card. It was green and made of plastic and was the same size as a garden verity credit card but had no bank affiliation.

Every two to three weeks I’d take the red eye to STL. From STL I’d fly on TWE, TWA express,  to SBN, South Bend. Normally I’d stay in Indiana for a week to ten days and fly back to LAX. From STL I’d fly standby on a TWA Boeing 767. More often than not my friend Bud was the pilot. The 767, or 67, in pilot talk is wide body jet that carries 269 passengers verses a 47 which carried 366 folks. Both airplanes are wide bodied planes with 7 across seating. The airlines really loved the 67s because they only had two engines verses the 47s four engines. Do the math. TWA eventually went out of business but at that time they were still in the fight. One of the tricks that thy used was they took delivery of a bunch of  13 airplanes that Boeing  had leased to Aeroflot, the Russion airline. The Ruskies had defaulted on the planes and Boeing had to repossess them. By the time Boeing got them back the planes were in pretty sad shape. They had minimal maintenance and a lot of the on board electronics were made in the Soviet block.  My wife used to tell me about the troubles that she and the other flight attendants had to cope with. Worst of all were the Bulgarian built VCRs that showed the onboard movies. The pagers for service seldom worked and the interior lights were prone to regular failure.

One day I was flying back to LA on a flight from Saint Luis in a window seat. The lady sitting next to couldn’t get her reading light to work so I pivoted mine over to her to use and settled down for a mid afternoon nap. I asked her  if she had complained to the captain and she said that she hadn’t.  Just as I was nodding off, I heard Bud’s voice. I opened my eyes and there was Bud standing in the aisle in his TWA captains uniform complete with all of that gold trim. He said he had paged me on the intercom to see if I made it aboard his flight and I hadn’t responded. The downside of flying non-rev was after the paying travelers were all seated the non-revs got what was left. Flying from TWA’s hub in STL to LAX always flew fully seated. Fortunately for me my wife Nancy had a high seniority  number.  I told him the intercom was nonworking and this poor lady sitting next to me couldn’t get her reading light to work. I suggested he should write these things up on his Aircraft squawk sheet. He suggested that we grab a bite to eat when we got back to Long Beach.

When he headed back to the flight deck, the lady next to me said “You weren’t kidding about complaining to the captain were you”.