Not So random Aircraft B-29

We have a very special visitor today at Easterwood Field. FiFi is the only flying B-29 in the world. She came in and flew over town a few times before coming in for a landing.

After landing they had to taxi into the ramp and cut two of the engines to conserve oil and maybe a little fuel.

Afterwards, I had a chat with one of the flight crew and have an appointment with the crew chief to talk B-29 Props. That is what we use here at the Texas A&M Low Speed Wind Tunnel as a driver for the air inside the tunnel. We are having a hard time finding replacement parts as you might imagine so I want to compare notes about any possible resources for spares.

These are three of about 200 pictures I took and I know there are another couple hundred from one of my tunnel mates. Have to wade through them all and pick out all the good ones. These were definitely the best of mine that I have found so far. Just need to get the chromatic aberrations out of the shots.

In-Laws Rock

Stopped by the mailbox yesterday to pick up packages from the In-Laws. Mine was a care package from FIL that included 20Lb melting pot, lubri-sizer, casting lube, flux, mold handles and a mold along with a variety of other assorted goodies. Pretty much everything to get me going on casting my own bullets.

Unfortunately, I just don't have time at the moment to do anything about it. Need to at least make time to try a batch out to make sure I am doing it right and have a usable product. Then I'll work onthe collection of lead like material.

Dead Six Review

Well, since Amazon are being Idiots I will post my review here. After reading, if you can find something in here that violates Amazons review guidelines please let me know as they haven't answered inquiries asking just that.

On that note, If you want to purchase this book, Skip Amazon, go to Uncle Hugo's and get one or more from them. They may even still have copies with bookplates signed by both Larry and Mike.

So, here is the review as submitted to Amazon,

I got hooked on this story line ChoughHack years ago on The High Road when Larry and Mike posted the Welcome Back Mr Nightcrawler thread. Being a big fan of action adventure, technothriller and mil thriller books I was waiting impatiently for them to stop that nonsense and put this into a book form and publish it. It took them long enough but is well worth the wait. If you like old school Tom Clancy Coonts, Kuntz, WEB Griffin, Larry Bond, Dale Brown, Clive Custler, Michael Crichton type of books you WILL LOVE this one.

This is a well written account of the same events but from two characters perspectives. Instead of a single author just writing the other persons lines, you get two different people writing two different peoples experiences. It flows well and sucks you in. By the end you may even find yourself feeling for the characters. Don't be surprised it can happen.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

So, let me introduce you to "tug".
Saturday mama presented a few times on and off but never got beyond front hooves and then retracted. Called the neighbor and he came over and we pretty well decided the calf was probably dead and needed to pull it to try and save mama.We got mama grounded and tied and set to pulling the calf out. Once we got the hooves and head out, the calf started to wag its tongue and blink its eyes! So, we quickly got her cleaned and set up so she could breath and got mom untied and stood up. Sunday morning, this was Tug with the rest of the herd up and walking around. She is still a bit wobbly but amazing considering her entrance into the world. She and mama hung out and she is definitely eating and mama is keeping an eye on her.

HAve iSomething, Love to shoot?

Well then, Watch HERE for the big news. Something is coming that serious shooters that have iThings will want. I'll even update here with a live link once it actually launches. Sorry, can't say more at this moment in time.

Sick Sux

Felt drained Tuesday afternoon and have been pretty much in bed since. Finally felt up to maybe eating something and watching a movie this afternoon. May very well end up missing a trip to the range Saturday if things do not seriously improve.

Dead Six IS ALIVE!!!

Muwhahahahahahahaha,
Larry Corriea and Mike Kupari Have written a military thriller that came out of their collaborative effort back on The High Road. It is a thriller that is written with two opposing characters perspectives. These two roll off of each other with an ease of two brothers locked in the back of a station wagon on a cross country trip year after year. (Damn that brings back bad memories!) They manage to seamlessly weave the story yet make it so you know it is in fact two perspectives and still keep the story on track and interesting. misbeHaven and I ordered multiple copies so we would have extra's to loan out to people to get them hooked. (First one is free, the rest will cost you)
Speaking of free ones first, you can read the first few chapters of his books for free to get a feel for how good they are.

We already have copies or Larry's earlier books from the MHI series and the Gimnoir Chronicles series. You can get them through Amazon or if you want autographed copies, through Uncle Hugo's.

Do yourself a favor, get this book, then get his older books because you will be hooked.

Besides, Larry is a really fun guy as well as a gun toter and NY Freakin Times Best Selling Author. This would be the man himself after signing one of the very limited numbers of his self published version of MHI. Back before he was picked up by Baen.

More Fires

So, the VFD is working a fire 3.5 Miles NNE of us. Already mutual aid tones have gone out and Texas Forest Service is en-route. Winds are SSW at an AVG of 1MPH so at least it is calm. They are reporting a Barn on fire along with a large grass fire. We'll see how this plays out.

UPDATE: TFS Airboss is on scene and has air tanker and helicopter inbound. He is also directing ground forces to where he can see things they can't. He sounds optimistic.

Go Ahead, I Double Dog Dare You

So, AD is the evil genius behind the Kilted to Kick Cancer fundraising campaign. He has started a little think on FaceBook that the person to makes the largest donation in the next 24 hours, gets a personalized autographed copy of his book. I already made our donation, I dare anyone to top it!

Go to his page, click on either the Livestrong or Prostate Cancer Foundation link on the left and then leave him a comment with name, amount and confirmation number.

Go ahead, I dare you!

Fire Danger

So we are under another red flag warning for the fire danger based on a frontal passage. Luckily for us the fire danger in our area has been downgraded from (/Monstertruck Announcer) EXTREME (/Monstertruck Announcer) to (/Stoner) Very High (/Stoner). I sure am glad they are not pushing a color code system too much for this. If they did, I think we would have moved from Cherry Red to Burnt Orange. We all know that is not a cool color in this neck of the woods. As it is, we are averaging 8MPH winds with mid to upper 20's gusts in the trees. Along with a humidity in the low 30's! Yikes!! That is not good juju.
So, we sit and watch and wait. Hoping someone doesn't pull a bonehead and light up a burn barrel or decide to grille today and torch half the county. That doesn't mean that we won't have one of the multitude of dead and or dieing trees fall on a power line and spark up a blaze back where no one notices for a while.
Damn, I can't wait for a seriously good soaking rain.

Welcome a new blogger

Madison over at Life of an Aggie has recently started blogging. She is also heavily involved in the Student for Concealed Carry on Campus in Texas. So, wander on over and say "Howdy"!

The new Calf is here! The new Calf is here!

So this is our newest calf. 3/4 black Angus, 1/4 Longhorn. I have named him Veal. We shall see but my plan is to fill the freezer with him next spring. That discussion is still ongoing and likely will continue till that time.

Seen at Lunch

A Peace Officer carrying:
A) a 1911
B) in Stainless hand engraved w/ hand engraved grips (Sunday Gun)
C) carried in hand tooled leather duty rig.

Granted this departments official uniform consists of Cowboy Boots, Pressed Jeans, White Stetson and Pressed white Shirt with Silver Start Badge. Fortunately, there was no riot nearby so he was able to enjoy his lunch peacefully. Which is why I didn't get pictures. I really didn't want to interrupt.

Today's other visitors

Well, in addition to Mz Napolitano being here, we had two F-18's stop in for lunch. They just took of and I managed to get them on video for the formation takeoff. Still would rather a formation takeoff of radials but this was still pretty cool.

DHS Visit

Please to make note of the tail number of the Coastie Gulfstream that just landed. That would be tail number 01 as in DHS1 as in Janet Napolitano arriving in College Station.