Wheels within Wheels

I was heading to my old house this evening after work (still getting the place ready to sell), and I almost had to divert elsewhere. The police were at the bottom of my block, and had the next block to the north and the one beside it to the east isolated: taped off, pairs of police cars in each intersection, and police officers with AR-15s patrolling each intersection and keeping everyone out.

The action (not that there was anything visible) appeared to be at the far end of the block to my north; there was a larger concentration of officers in the front yard of the house there, and when the police lines came down about an hour later, an ambulance showed up there.

According to one of my neighbors, the police had been there for probably three or four hours total. Be interesting to see what it was all about - radio news had nothing on it.

… or that the rate of posting is expected to change much, but I’ll be attending the WorldCon for the next few days. Probably not very heavily, though … I really want to get into my new house.

Mr. Andrew Borden died.

Got passed by this guy on the way to work the other day. I thought of a number of appropriate post titles for this Austin Powers wannabe (”Your goolies aren’t that groovy, baby!”), but you can only use one. I guess this would probably fit over at Tacky Raccoons, where Bunk has an entire category devoted to cars apparently intended to attract women. This one certainly looks better, apart from the license plate.

As is usual, click for larger.

So, my daughter took me out for dim sum this morning, and then to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Silly and stupid, but fun. I do have a slight problem with one of the actors - every time I see his name, I think of this guy. It’s only a resemblance in the sounds of their names, but …

I spent the rest of the day packing - I’ll be moving soon. Not leaving the Denver area, just buying a different house.

Via The Line Is Here, we have photos of President Bush’s appearance as the graduation speaker at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy when I was in high school. My father was career Air Force (enlisted), and I had the idea that I wanted to be a pilot. As things worked out, I went to Annapolis and eventually served on a submarine, but I got to stay in the dorm one weekend when I was part of the contingent that attended an away Navy-Air Force football game. That’s a somewhat-amusing story I haven’t thought of in years; maybe I’ll tell it sometime.

Graduation from a service academy is a pretty exciting occasion. Apart from throwing the hats in the air, which is common to all of the academies, I don’t know what traditions USAFA has concerning graduation. Navy has a number of them, one of them being to give a dollar to the first person who salutes you after you’re commissioned. I still remember Gary Bennett standing up in the middle of the seating area of the field and saluting John Theeuwen. John had selected the Marines as his service option, and the Marines were commissioned first during the ceremony.

Be that as it may, the Daily Mail staff reporter who wrote the article considers it to be “bizarre” behavior on the part of President Bush, but I think it’s great. These young people are celebrating a major accomplishment in their lives, and they’ll have the memories of the president “letting down his hair” and joining in their celebration for the rest of their lives. I’m certain GWB got a kick out of it, too.

The speaker at my graduation was Nelson Rockefeller, who was vice president at the time. I have no distinct memory of anything he said or did at graduation, although I do recall one of my classmates doing a back somersault off the front of the podium. My main memory of “Rocky” himself involve the stories about his death. What is it about New York politicians, anyway?

… that make the big media concerns more professional than bloggers. That’s why, in this ABC story, scramming a nuclear plant is referred to as “scrambling” it (that’s part of a direct quote, but I wonder which word Ballard actually used), they “hone in” on a debris field, rather than home in on it (gotta keep those debris fields sharp, I guess), and a link to a related article refers to the “Titantic,” as does the headline of that article:

Click image for larger.

Other than that, it’s an interesting article.

All is well.

Via Ghost of a Flea.

Dick Martin is dead at the age of 86.

I remember one of the skits on Laugh-In had Dick Martin as a wine connoisseur who had become a drunken bum who was on his last legs. He got involved in a wine identification contest (at the behest of Dan Rowan’s character, I believe) and won it. According to Dan Rowan’s character, he identified the last wine after his death. I doubt that Dick Martin’s real last words were anything like that.

I couldn’t find the skit, but there’s some good stuff here.

I remember the old Bensen gyrocopter ads in the back of magazines. I used to want to build one. I wanted Little Nellie the moment I saw her. Somewhere, I have instructions for building a gyrocopter kite.

Which lets you know why I want a Magni.