MyBillJohnsonStory.com

The N&O’s John Murawski covers a Bill Johnson fan site, http://www.mybilljohnsonstory.com So now we won’t get just Jim Rogers’s and Bill Johnson’s version of events, but the people who worked with Johnson, too.

Call it the unofficial Bill Johnson Fan Club.

Current and former employees of Progress Energy and Duke Energy are posting their testimonials about the deposed utility chief executive on a web site created by a former Progress PR handler who considers Johnson a personal friend and mentor.

The site — http://mybilljohnsonstory.com/ — is reminiscent of a virtual memorial wall funeral homes create for the deceased, suggesting the sorrow Johnson’s firing from Duke Energy has engendered among his admirers.

Aaron Perlut, the architect behind the site, wanted to provide legions of Johnson admirers an outlet for their emotions.

via .biz – Bill Johnson admirers fill up virtual wall with testimonials | newsobserver.com blogs.

Letters to Grandma: 17 May 1990

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

This is an interesting letter in many regards. It shows my growing appreciation for world affairs.

It was interesting back then to read the intelligence reports that were coming in as India and Pakistan nearly went to war. At one point there was talk about being diverted to Mumbai for a week or two to help calm the situation down. Things calmed down before we could get there, however.

I cringed at reading the Bhopal reference. At the time, though, I was angry at both for nearly blowing themselves (and possibly other countries) up.

I also was quite prescient on Iraq, noting its aggressiveness three months before the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait.

As for returning with a “war hero” look, fuggedaboutit! Out of all the medals and ribbons I mentioned we wound up earning only the Sea Service ribbon. While we didn’t earn a Navy Expeditionary Medal, we did earn an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal (which, as you’ll note from its Wikipedia page, prevented us from earning the Humanitarian Service Award).

My ship never did earn the coveted “Battle E,” even with a skipper who went on to become a vice admiral.
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Letters to Grandma: 9 March 1990

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

A few months before this letter was sent, Rudy, the family Dachshund of 13 years, died while I was visiting on holiday leave (a post for another day). My parents soon got a Golden Retriever puppy from my aunt. Named C.J. (for “Colonel, Jr.”) he would be a faithful dog for a a half-dozen years or so before succumbing to cancer. My parents never got another pet.

I did get time pierside at San Diego but not the 18 months that I speculated about in this letter. Out of the three years I spent on the USS Elliot, over 18 months were spent on deployments and several weeks were spent doing donuts off the coast, leaving less than 18 months to be moored at San Diego Naval Station (or in the NASSCO shipyard next door).

Korea remains one of the coldest damn places I’ve ever been.
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Mr. Grump

I had a grumpy day today, start to finish. And it sucks. I should have felt better about things but I did not.

My work day started off with a bang as I discovered my laptop had a virus or two on it. I spent the majority of my workday carefully getting rid of those viruses and trying to determine how they got me. It made me curse the Windows laptop I have to use instead of the far more secure Linux one I’d prefer.

Though I finally got that problem solved, I spent the rest of the day stressing about all the other things I’ve got going on. This upcoming week has meeting after meeting and it’s got me looking ahead to next month’s vacation. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a big deal but the kids’ being out of school has upended our home’s usual schedule and thrown me completely out of my comfort zone. This is the first summer we’ve had two working parents in the family and it’s taken a while to work things out.

Tomorrow is another day, however. The sun will come up, and I will find reason to sing again. I always do, you know.

Letters to Grandma: 3 February 1990

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

This letter to Grandma was sent at the start of my first deployment. By “rocky start” I believe this refers to the loss of most of the ship’s freshwater making capability, leaving the crew showerless and shaveless for two weeks. I was dreading six months of those shenanigans but we got things patched up during our visit to Pearl Harbor.

What strikes me about this short letter is the enthusiasm it contains for what I’m doing. I believe I was sincere with my “getting paid to do this” remark. In spite of this, though, it’s clear I’m still looking forward to attending college, though returning after college as a junior officer was still something I was considering.

Saturday, 3 February 1990 [age:21]

Dear Grandma,

Thank you so much for your card for my birthday, and for Charlie’s letter in it. His handwriting is so much better than mine. I bet he’s really grown. I remember seeing the tape Dad took when the family was at your house last summer – but it really has been a while since he’s seen me.
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On the anti-government crowd

You’ve had your tax breaks for 10 years, where are the jobs?

I shared this provocative photo on my Facebook page on Tuesday and it sparked a spirited discussion drawing over 25 comments between my friends who see the value in government and those who don’t. I woke up with this on my mind and the whole debate drives me nuts.

I used to buy into the whole libertarian outlook over a decade ago and admit on paper it makes a lot of sense. One of the problems is that it assumes that everyone starts on a level playing field when they most assuredly do not. The other problem is that it’s predicated on some Pollyanna world where everyone can be taken at his word and as we’ve seen time and time again that does not match reality. Let’s take a look at the lying scumbags problem first.

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Letters from Grandma: 5 Nov 1989

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

This letter to Grandma came near the tail end of my 3 month deployment for PACEX 89. That was the first of my three deployments and included Japan as the sole port visit. Long after that deployment I marveled at how my ship seemed to leave a series of major earthquakes in its wake as it sailed counter-clockwise around the Northern Pacific.

The visit to Nagasaki, where the world’s second atomic bomb was used in anger, was heartbreaking. More recently I’ve come to understand just how fanatical many Japanese were during the war and that the invasion of the Japanese mainland surely would’ve resulted in a million or more deaths. There is no doubt in my mind about the insanity of nuclear war, but I don’t know if I were President Truman that I would not have made the same choice.

This deployment gave me a really good taste of sea life and I think I took to it. I would have two, six-month WestPac deployments ahead of me before I left the Navy.

Oh, and fortunately my shipmates were wrong about me being UNC or Duke material!
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