Letters to Grandma: 21 January 1991

[Note: Read this post first for an introduction.]

This letter was written while my ship was in the midst of a three-month overhaul in San Diego’s NASSCO shipyards. My Desert Storm experience consists largely of me watching it on TV and supplementing that knowledge with the secret knowledge shared on the intelligence wires. I did return to the Gulf to serve in the combat zone but only after hostilities had largely ceased.

During this time my uncle Jimmy passed away suddenly from a heart attack. Many more heart attacks would come to afflict the Turner clan (though I intend to take good care of my ticker – and have so far).

C.J. was my parents’ Golden Retriever, still a puppy at the time of this writing.

My dad did end up visiting that March. We spent a few days and nights sightseeing around my ship and around San Diego. It was a weekend spent with my dad that I will never forget.

21 January 1991 (my 22nd Bday!!) [age:22, duh]

Dear Grandma,

Sorry it’s been sooo long since I’ve written – I’m just taking the bandages off my writing hand, so to speak. As you know there has been a whole lot going on since you last heard from me.
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Lonely front porch

Jupiter the cat


I’ve been fighting this sense of dread ever since Kelly and I returned from our weekend at Hanging Rock. You see, Saturday morning I left out a bowl of food and water for Jupiter, the feral cat who adopted our front porch as his home. Upon returning Sunday evening the food was still there, completely untouched.

I haven’t seen the little orange fuzzbucket since Friday and now I’m seriously wondering if we’ll ever see him again. Though he’s always been a wild cat and only adopted us late last fall, the cat has become part of the family. The enthusiasm he always shows when he comes tearing across the yard to see me really brightens my day.
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Confused 911 caller outs NYPD spying in NJ

This is quite alarming. The NYPD was caught spying … in New Jersey! Be sure to listen to the 911 call for yourself.

A building superintendent at an apartment complex just off the Rutgers University campus called the New Brunswick Police 911 line in June 2009. He said his staff had been conducting a routine inspection and came across something suspicious.

“What’s suspicious?” the dispatcher asked.

“Suspicious in the sense that the apartment has about — has no furniture except two beds, has no clothing, has New York City Police Department radios.”

“Really?” the dispatcher asked, her voice rising with surprise.

The caller, Salil Sheth, had stumbled upon one of the NYPD’s biggest secrets: a safe house, a place where undercover officers working well outside the department’s jurisdiction could lie low and coordinate surveillance. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the NYPD, with training and guidance from the CIA, has monitored the activities of Muslims in New York and far beyond. Detectives infiltrated mosques, eavesdropped in cafes and kept tabs on Muslim student groups, including at Rutgers.

via “What?” Confused 911 caller outs NYPD spying in NJ :: WRAL.com.