GREEN ! ! ! !

Going green is the new "thing" these days. It is all the rage, "everyone" is doing it, everyone except the "evil" conservatives that love digging coal, drilling oil, and killing polar bears.

Now let it be known I am a fairly conservative minded person, I believe in limited federal government and strong state rights. So being green is not on the top of my list. I have been hounded about "doing my share" and "saving our planet" by numerous tree huggers. This has been the tree hugger mantra for the last 20 years or so.

Well the tree huggers have been going about it all wrong. Most people are selfish and lazy by nature, so they won't go out of their way to recycle, or to use eco-friendly products. They have been pushing the whole "save the world", "save the polar bears", "save the owls" rhetoric.

What they should be doing is showing how when we recycle we can save money. For instance plastic bottles, if we don't recycle these things we have to make them out of petroleum. So the use of petroleum to make bottles drives the price of oil up, which in turn will cause the price of gas higher. And gas is to damned high now. (yes I know it is under $2.00 a gallon, but it is still to high.)

So, tree huggers stop trying to save the baby seals and start showing how we can save money.

Band of Brothers

I finally bought the DVD set of Band of Brothers. The impetus behind the purchase is my getting into the miniatures game Flames of War as stated previously in this blog. I really enjoy this series, it has great filming and excellent editing. I also like how each episode is from a different point of view. I think this was most evident in the episode named "Bastogne", in this episode we follow Easy companies medic during the Battle of the Bulge as he struggles to keep warm, find medical supplies and keeping his company alive. The imagery in the whole production is striking and the story of Easy company is told in such a way that you begin to feel as if you are part of the action yourself.

If you haven't had the pleasure of viewing this masterpiece, rent it, buy it, do what you must; but get your hands on this great film.

20 minutes to self destruct.

While sitting in my hotel room in the Houston suburb of Pearland, I'm watching the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Where Silence Has Lease". This is the episode where the crew of Enterprise encounter a conscience far above their own. The captain decides to destroy the ship and all its crew to keep it from being used as a laboratory experiment. Picard sets the destruct interval to 20 minutes.

While watching I began to think about how I would spend the last 20 minutes of my life if I knew it was to end at a certain time. Would I sit and contemplate my morality? Would I try to contact my family? Would I do things that are illegal? I really don't know what I would do.

How about you?

Spring has sprung!

Spring has sprung,
The grass has ris,
I wonder where the flowers is?

This little poem was taught to me by my granddad, one of the greatest men to have ever lived, in my not-so humble opinion.

This post is a just a little tribute to him.

James Havens Word was definitely a renaissance man. He was one of the most devout individuals I have met, but still was soundly in the corner of science. In his early years, living in Austin, TX he was a trouble maker and was constantly getting into trouble. For instance he took a skyrocket and laid into one of the trolly tracks on Congress Ave. and set it off. Well the situation started out fine, but it decided to take a turn for the worse when the rocket careened into the plate glass window of Christian Science Reading Room.

Another story about him was he and his buddies would climb to the top of the inside dome in the Texas Capital and drop a strike-anywhere match wrapped in bubblegum. They would try to get out of the building before the old Civil War vet who was a guard there could catch them. See thing about strike-anywhere matches and bubblegum is that when dropped the friction of the gum against the match when it hits the ground lights the match and creates a bubble in the gum. The bubble eventually pops and in the rotunda of the Capital it would sound like a gun shot.

Granddad claimed to the die he died that if it hadn't been for the Boy Scouts he would have been in the state pen by the time he was 18.

Instead the Scouts got him straightened out and he joined the Marine Corps. He had decided to be a sniper during basic, camping out every free moment on his sergeant's door step. That is until he found out that a Marine sniper had a very short life expectancy. He served his time in the Marines and came home to Texas and started a family. He moved to a small town on the Caprock of Texas called Floydada.

He became the Hartford Insurance man there and took care of the farmers and other residents of the area. The Boy Scouts meant so much to Granddad that he became the Scoutmaster for the local troop, even though he only had daughters and no sons.

He also became well known in the archeology community, with several major finds credited to him. Including Baker Cave in the Devil's River area around Del Rio, TX and his research into the travels of Coronado in the canyons surrounding Floydada. Anybody that has been involved in serious archeology in Texas in the past 50 years probably knows my grandfather, either by reputation or by having the privilege to have worked with him directly.

There are many great stories about my granddad, to many to tell here. He truly was one of the greatest men to have ever walked on this planet. There has only been a few men that have influenced my life to the extent he has. In no particular order, My granddad, my dad, my step-dad Bruce, Jesus Christ, and my drill sergeant, SSG James Ashwood.

Because of my granddad I have my faith, I earned my Eagle Scout largely to his credit, and my desire to learn more about my past can be, at least partially, attributed to him.

As for his question in the poem above?

Here you go granddad,

Happy St. Pat's Day

I know I am late, but it did get posted on the right day. But I was traveling for the last two days. For those of you who don't know, my company has me travel all over Texas to train our customers his to use our software. So I was scheduled to train in Kirbyville, northeast of Houston by about two hours. That is unless you get caught on IH-10 behind a multi-vehicle pile up that included haz-mat clean up. I was lucky last night, not so much today. Two days, two accidents, same place, same time, that strech is jinxed. Stay away from the Trinity River bridge on 10 any time between 3:00 and 7:00 in the afternoon.

So now I am sitting at Houston Hobby Airport waiting for the very last flight back to Austin. Just about ready to board, so I will post this and talk to y'all on Friday.

Posted from my kick ass iPhone.

I want my mummy!

Well last Saturday half of the 4Cs took a day trip to Dallas to visit mummy dearest. Cruft and his trophy fiance joined me and my sweet wife on an excursion that took us 190 miles north and 3,200 years into history.

The Dallas Museum of Art is hosting the King Tut Exhibit presented by the National Geographic Society. The exhibit opened back last November and will close and move on in May. This is an amazing show, and although we didn't get to see Tut's actual head piece or his sarcophagus but we did get to see some of his personal possessions that were buried with him. Such as one of his ceremonial daggers, the crown he wore while he was alive and a beautiful chest piece.

There was a sarcophagus and a "death" mask, those belonging to Tjuyu, Tut's grandfather. There were artifacts from other family members as well, wall carvings of his father, miniature sarcophagus of his still-born sister. There were also canopic jars of his mother's and various items found in his family's court.

I am still trying to wrap my brain around how old these artifacts truly are. These items are over 3,200 years old, remember the United States is less than 250 years old and Europe has only been aware of the "New" world for just over 500 years. And what is even more mind-blowing is that when King Tut came to power the pyramids of Giza, outside Cairo, were already 1,000 years old. We are talking OLD.

It was a terrific trip, and we will be going back to the Dallas Museum of Arts to see the other permanent exhibits. We are also planning a trip to the Witte Museum in San Antonio in April.

ZOMBIE ATTACK!!!

68%

TANKS !!!! Your welcome.

Well, technically they are tank destroyers, M10 Wolverines to be exact. I have finished my first platoon of my new Flames of War army.

The M10 was a pretty nasty surprise for the Germans in North Africa and continued to dog the PanzerKompanies though the rest of the war all the way to end, only surpassed by the M18 Hellcat after the D-Day landings in Normandy, France.

The main armament of a 3" gun using an armor piercing shell was devastating to the German tanks, being able to penetrate most armor of the Panzers of the time. Only after the Normandy landings did the Wolverines run up against tanks to tough for them to take head-on. The Germans had brought their Panther and Tiger tank companies from the Eastern Front to meet the Allied invasion. The M10s needed to find new tactics to continue to be effective against the more heavily armored tanks. They started to hide even more then before and wait for the enemy to pass and hit them from behind.

More than 6500 M10 Wolverines were built.

I think I did a pretty good job on them, being that I haven't done any real painting for quite a while. I am trying to be good and not start painting on my M4A1 Shermans until I finish my first platoon for my US rifle company.

I will post pics of the rifle platoon once it is finished, I just need to finish one more bazooka stand, and five more 4 man rifle teams.

So be on the look out for that post in the coming weeks. Because I really want to get painting my Shermans.

13 Days to Glory

187 brave men lost their lives 173 years ago this morning. The Texican defenders of the Alamo had valiantly fought off the Mexican Army's advances during the day and ignored the psychological attacks that came during the night for the past 12 days.

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna started the siege in the afternoon of 23 March 1836, ultimately sealing the fate of these brave men. On the 24th Col. William Barret Travis wrote, the now famous, letter addressed To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World. The letter was printed all over the United States and Europe, many historians consider it one of the best examples of American patriotism.

The siege continued for another 12 days until in the early morning hours of March 6th when the Mexican Army made its final push and broke into the plaza of the Alamo. The hand to hand fighting was brutal and unrelenting. The battle was finished almost before it had begun. In the end all the Texican combatants were killed, the women and children that sought shelter in the north side of the chapel had been spared and allowed to leave with the message of the Battle of the Alamo.

They may have not won the battle but they did provide General Sam Houston the time to consolidate his forces and choose the time and place to face Santa Anna. Finally, after more than a month of retreating east Sam Houston met Santa Anna on a gently sloping field in combat. With the cry "Remember the Alamo, Remember Goliad" the Texicans fell upon the Mexican army during their siesta time. Fifteen minutes later Texas had won its freedom that the Defenders of the Alamo had died for those many weeks earlier.

REMEMBER THE ALAMO!

UFOs are Landing at the Triangle

WOW!!!!!

That is all I can say about the Flying Saucer in the new Triangle shopping center. What seems like another pretentious cookie cutter bar along the lines of Planet Hollywood or Hard Rock Cafe on the outside is a pure treasure on the inside. This place offers over 200 different beers from all over the world (most on tap) with nightly specials on various types of pints.

What about the food you ask? Well all I can say is that not only super-delicious but fairly reasonable, two people can easily get out of there for less than $30.00 dollars if they don't go nuts on the beer. And as I said it is super-delicious. I had the Bratwurst Plate. All I can say is YUM! This dish includes 2 different type of brats, warm german potato salad and sauerkraut. The brats were grilled to perfection, and the potato salad was out of this world. Along with the sauerkraut, the potato salad had bacon in it, this was a pleasant surprise and frankly a quite good addition in my opinion. My partners in crime, Clay and Cruft, both decided on the Brat con Queso. Talk about the melding of two cultures that work. Take your standard Chili con Queso and add sliced, grilled beer brats and mix it in, I can't think of enough different words to tell you how tasty this is. It is New Braunfels meets Brownsville all in one long bowl.

I can't say enough good things about this establishment. If you like a light atmosphere, good beer and great food, try it out.

Oh, did I mention the Beer Flights? for around 10 bucks you get about a half dozen 5 oz glasses of different beers you can taste test.

Amazing place.

1500 pts of US Infantry goodness

So I have worked out a preliminary list for my Mid-War US Infantry Company. I present it here for your perusal and scoffing.

Co. A, 1/141st Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division

1x HQ section 20 pts
1x CinC Carbine
1x 2inC Carbine

2x Rifle Platoon 260 pts
1x HQ Rifle section
3x Rifle Squad
9x 4 man Rifle section

1x Weapons Platoon 135 pts
1x HQ Carbine section
3x Lt Mortar section
4x LMG section

1x Machine Gun Platoon 100 pts
1x HQ Carbine Section
2x Machine Gun section
2x HMG

1x Ammunition & Pioneer Platoon 130 pts
1x HQ section

1x Pioneer supply truck
2x Rifle Squad
2x 4 man Rifle section

2x Bazooka section

1x Tank Platoon 345 pts
3x M4A1 Sherman

1x Self-propelled Anti-tank Platoon 240 pts
1x HQ Carbine section
1x Jeep

1x AAMG
1x Carbine section
1x Jeep
2x M10 3” GMC

2x AAMG

1x Field Artillery Battery 165 pts
1x HQ section
1x Staff Section
1x Observer team
1x Jeep
2x Gun section
2 x M2A1 105 mm gun
2x 2 ½ truck

1x AA Artillery Platoon 105 pts

1x HQ section

1x Jeep

4x M1 40mm Bofor gun

4x 2 ½ truck

Company Total 1500

TEXAS INDEPENDENCE DAY

Remember the Alamo!!!

Remember Goliad!!!

Happy Texas Independence Day every one. On this day, 173 years ago, the Texicans decided to shrug off the shackles of oppression thrust upon them by the Mexican President for life, Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, also know as General Santa Anna.

LONG LIVE TEXAS!!!

May her flag wave free for many years to come.