Robert McNamara

A few months ago I watched The Fog of War, an interview with Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. It was a candid, riveting interview where McNamara’s explains in his own words the decision making that pushed country deeper into the Vietnam War. It was sobering, too, to hear him call it a “terrible mistake,” but as his critics have said, he was three decades too late admitting that. It was also shocking to hear him describe how trigger-happy General LeMay almost got us all nuked during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’m glad a cool-headed guy like McNamara was there to keep us from Armageddon.

McNamara died in his sleep this morning at the age of 93. While he’ll always be remembered for Vietnam, he also was the long-time president of the World Bank and worked for nuclear disarmament.

H&R Block has spammed me yet again!

After unsubscribing a half-dozen times from every H&R Block email list and talking at length to an H&R Block customer service rep, I thought I had seen the last of the H&R Block emails.

But, no. A new one came in today with the subject of:

July Digits: Are you making the most of your home?

Time to black hole H&R Block. Enough is enough.

Update 7 July 2009: Mike at H&R Block swiftly showed up and has pledged to take care of the problem. Thanks, Mike!

The power of Facebook

A little thing happened with Facebook today that made me appreciate one of the best things about it: the ability of my friends to make new friends through me.

Whenever I want my Facebook friends to know I’m still alive but I don’t have much to say, I’ll sometimes post a song lyric as my status. Here’s one I posted this morning:

Mark Turner is a detective down in Texas.

It’s a song lyric from the Steve Miller Band’s Take the Money and Run. It wasn’t long before my friend Jon Carnes chimed in:
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Raleigh’s Sewer Monster is clump of tubifex worms

OIn our way out of town Wednesday we saw a city sewer inspection team in our neighborhood, inspecting the neighborhood sewer lines with a robot camera. The crew chatted with the kids and me about their robot camera, showed us one of the cameras, and explained how it all worked. The kids loved it and so did I.

Little did I know that video from another robot camera was making waves just then on the Internets. A YouTube video shows what looks like a strange creature living in Raleigh’s sewers. Over half a million viewers have checked out this supposed creature as it lives below Raleigh’s Cameron Village shopping center.

It turns out the “blob” is actually a bunch of tubifex worms, according to the City of Raleigh’s website. Tubifex worms are amazingly hardy creatures.

One week left for Siteseers.Net

I’m retiring my long-time domain, siteseers.net, next week. I’ve had it since 1997, back when I used ISDN to access the Internet. While it will be sad to see it go, I don’t really use it anymore. I’ve got more than a dozen other domain names and this one is needlessly adding to the cost of annual domain renewals.

I’m going to park it at Sedo in case anyone is interested in buying it.

Shuttered

I spent part of yesterday afternoon at the former Army SIGINT base known as Vint Hill Farms Station, which is now a county park and office park development. Vint Hill reminds me of a similar base to which I was once assigned but is now also an office part development: Fort Devens in western Massachusetts.

As I surveyed the empty barracks and parade field, I realized that precious few of the places I’ve been stationed are still active military installations.

The only station from my military past that is still kicking is NTTC Corry Station in Pensacola. I was sent there after initial training in Fort Devens.

Makes me feel old.

Star Trek

Yesterday. I talked Kelly into seeing the new Star Trek movie with me so we ventured out to the movie theatre again for the first time in a long while. Happy to say we weren’t disappointed. There were a few things in the movie’s …. er, logic that left us scratching our heads and the fight scenes were confusingly hard to follow, overall it was a very entertaining flick.

Happy Independence Day

Happy Independence Day to all of my fellow Americans. Let us take time to reflect on where our country started and where we would like to go.

Gone forth for Fourth

We’re spending day three at Kelly’s parents’ home for the Fourth of July weekend. It’s been a fun one, with lots of bike riding (we brought them with us), bubble blowing, and just having fun. Our bike rack served us well in getting the family’s bikes to Virginia, with the kids’ bikes packed in the back of the van. Even Rocket was comfortable in the back of the van, with the seat down so he could actually see out the window. Never heard him actually wag his tail while in the van before.

The bubble blowing was the biggest hit, though. Kelly’s mom Linda found a recipe for “bubble juice” and made a big bucket of it. We’ve used sticks with straps on them to create enormous bubbles – some 3 feet wide by 20 feet long! It’s been so much fun that we’re going to get our own bubble kit when we get back home!

Today we’re heading to a friend’s stable so the kids can ride the horses. Then it’s off to the pool to cool off. The Virginia weather’s been markedly cooler than North Carolina’s but a swim will be just as welcome this afternoon!