I think I promised old gun sights last time, so old gun sights is what you’re getting…
Fun with gun books!
November 16th, 2023Obit watch: November 16, 2023.
November 16th, 2023Joe Sharkey, travel writer who cheated death once before.
He wrote a travel column for the NYT and also did some freelance work. On September 29, 2006, he was working on one of those freelance stories for Business Jet Traveler. He was a passenger in an Embraer Legacy 600 when it collided with a Boeing 737 at 37,000 feet.
Lawrence sent over an obit for Robert Butler, director. Other credits include the good “Hawaii Five-O”, “Columbo”, and “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes”.
Obit watch: November 14, 2023.
November 14th, 2023Michael Bishop, one of the great SF writers of our day. Lawrence sent over a Facebook link from Asimov’s, and Michael Swanwick has a very nice obit on his blog.
I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Bishop in person twice, once at a signing in Houston and the other at an Armadillocon (back in the day when I was still going to those). He always treated me with a great deal of kindness, which surprised me. But I guess it shouldn’t have: the word everyone seems to use when describing Mr. Bishop is “kind”. I think I made him smile when I brought breakfast tacos for an 8 AM Sunday morning science fiction poetry panel.
I didn’t know (as Mr. Swanwick points out) that he was a “sincere Christian”. We never got to the point where we talked about religion. But I think I’m going to ask my people to say a prayer for the repose of his soul Sunday morning. He was a good man. I liked his writing, and his passing leaves a hole in the world.
Officer Jorge Pastore of the Austin Police Department. He was killed during a SWAT standoff Saturday morning. Two apparent hostages and the suspected shooter also died in the incident.
Pastore’s passing was one of three deaths in total for the Austin Police Department over the weekend.
Two other officers died in separate incidents, one retired officer in a car crash and another officer died by suicide.
Peter Seidler, chairman and controlling owner of the San Diego Padres.
Firings watch.
November 14th, 2023I’m home now, and expect to get back to regular blogging soon. In the meantime, Ken Dorsey out as offensive coordinator of the worthless Buffalo Bills.
Seriously, Buffalo got pwned by Denver? Seems to be consistently the story of the Bills: every year, they’re expected to do great things and go places, and every year they finish middle of the pack.
Firings watch.
November 13th, 2023About to pull out and head home, but: Zach Arnett out as head coach of Mississippi State after only 10 games (4-6 overall, 1-6 in the SEC).
Firings watch.
November 12th, 2023Still away, but I just have time to note: Jimbo Fisher out at Texas A&M.
The move is expected to cost the school more than $76 million to buy out Fisher’s deal, which is nearly triple the highest known coaching contract buyouts at a public school.
According to the terms of the contract, Texas A&M will owe Fisher $19.2 million within 60 days and then pay him $7.2 annually through 2031. There is no offset or mitigation on those payments, and the annual payments start 120 days after termination.
45-25 in six seasons.
Coffee mugs.
November 11th, 2023“Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.”
–Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC
–Seabeecook.com, quoting an article from the August 1949 “All Hands” magazine
When we talk about the Navy, battleships, submarines, and aircraft carriers get all the love. And let’s fact it, those are sexy. Things like the LCS, maybe less so.
But someone has to support those ships. Somebody’s got to deliver fuel and mail and toilet paper and repair parts and coffee and a million other things.
Those people serve just as heroically as the folks on the sexy ships. Sometimes, they go in harm’s way as well.
Obit watch: November 10, 2023.
November 10th, 2023Frank Borman, astronaut (Apollo 8, Gemini 7) and later head of Eastern Airlines.
…
Gemini 7 took part in a pioneering rendezvous 185 miles above Earth when Gemini 6A, carrying Capt. Walter M. Schirra Jr. of the Navy and Maj. Thomas P. Stafford of the Air Force, caught up to it and flew alongside it in orbit. That kind of maneuver had to be perfected in order for a lunar module to descend to the moon from an orbiting command ship and later blast off from the lunar surface, then rendezvous and link up with the mother ship for the trip back to Earth.
The Apollo 8 mission, carrying Mr. Borman, then an Air Force colonel; Mr. Lovell, then a Navy captain; and Maj. William A. Anders of the Air Force, was only the second manned flight in the Apollo program. Several unmanned test flights had followed in the wake of the Apollo 1 disaster. It was also the first manned flight employing the hugely powerful Saturn 5 rocket for liftoff.
…
When the astronauts neared completion of their orbiting, they began their second and last television broadcast. The bright moon, in the black sea of space, was visible outside a spacecraft window. Mr. Borman described it as a “vast, lonely forbidding expanse of nothing, rather like clouds and clouds of pumice stone.”
The astronauts took turns reading from the Book of Genesis, telling of Earth’s creation. Mr. Borman concluded the telecast with the words: “Good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#112 in a series)
November 10th, 2023Still on the road, with limited time to blog, but: Marilyn Mosby convicted of two counts of perjury. (Previously.)
In the indictment, prosecutors accused Ms. Mosby of falsely claiming financial hardship tied to the coronavirus pandemic to withdraw money from her city retirement account. While typically a person cannot withdraw money from this type of account until retirement, the CARES Act permitted withdrawals for “adverse financial consequences” tied to the pandemic, such as the loss of a job or reduced work hours.
In 2020, Ms. Mosby requested funds totaling $90,000 from her retirement account, indicating on federal forms that she had been facing financial hardship. But government prosecutors said that Ms. Mosby was not eligible for the disbursements. Instead, payroll documents showed that, in her job as Baltimore City state’s attorney, Ms. Mosby continued to collect an annual salary of nearly $250,000 during the pandemic and had no reduction of her work hours. Prosecutors said that Ms. Mosby used the money to fund down payments for vacation homes in Florida.
She’s facing a second trial on fraud charges related to statements in the mortgage loan applications for the vacation homes.
Travel day.
November 8th, 2023Blogging will be as time permits for about the next week.
Firings watch.
November 6th, 2023Obit watch: November 6, 2023.
November 6th, 2023Peter White, actor. Other credits include “Crazy Like a Fox”, “Hardcastle and McCormick”, “I Want to Live” (the TV movie), and “The Bold Ones: The Senator”.
Evan Ellingson, actor. IMDB.
Robbin Bain (also Robbin Mele Gaudieri), former “Today Girl” and Miss Rheingold 1959.