Strange

Forgive me this momentary bout of introspection, Gentle Reader. But since this blog is my de facto journal I’m going to talk a little bit about a strange experience I had last night. From an e-mail I sent The Boys today:

Speaking of dieing... This isn't to alarm either of you, coz I'm fine this morning. But the strangest thing happened last night. I ate late...around 2300. I had nuked one of those Stouffer Flatbreads (steak fajitas...in name only), and had finished two of three slices when I was overcome...very quickly... with this strange "flushing" sensation in both my arms...down to my hands, which quickly spread to my neck and shoulders...on both sides. Then I got a ringing in my ears and became extremely dizzy. I quickly stood up...thinking WTF!??! And almost fell over. So, I sat back down. Then my vision began to blur and I got severe tunnel vision and was unable to focus on anything. All of this in the space of about a minute. I thought I was having a stroke. My vision almost went black, and I thought "Wow. So this is how it ends, eh?" In a rather strange sort of move, I decided it would be best to die lying down, so I moved to the couch and did just that...Laid down, that is.

As soon as I hit the couch I was overcome yet again, this time by a wave of nausea...severe nausea....violent nausea. I got off the couch, staggered to the bathroom as best I could (remember: tunnel vision) and threw up, violently, followed by about five minutes of dry heaves. My vision cleared almost immediately and the flushing sensation went away. I washed up, returned to the couch, laid back down, and immediately fell asleep.

I'm fine this morning. The only thing I can think of is severe, radical food poisoning. I base that theory on the fact everything cleared up after I threw everything up. I had NO pain, and my breathing was normal...aside from being a bit quick, because I was about as frickin' scared as I've ever been.

Weird, eh?

I’ve been thinking about this lil episode off and on all day. A couple of amplifications and clarifications are in order, though. When I said I had a “strange flushing sensation,” I meant flushing as in “warmth.” I got downright hot…which is why I described the feeling as “flushing,” as in being flushed. Second, I wasn’t all that frickin’ scared, in retrospect. I didn’t panic, I didn’t grope for the phone so I could dial 911. I did think exactly what I said to the boys in my note, i.e., “Wow. So this is how it ends, eh?”

And this is where the introspective bits come in. Why didn’t I think to dial 911? Why was I ready to just lie down and die? I’m not being melodramatic in the least, Gentle Reader. This was a serious event…with some serious danged symptoms, especially the progressive, yet quick, loss of vision and hearing. I’ve never had an episode like this in my life…nothing even remotely close. I was rational enough to eliminate the possibility of a heart attack (wrong symptoms), and rational enough to realize something was very, very wrong. Yet the only thing I thought was “so this is how it ends?”

I didn’t think about the event at all last evening after returning from the bathroom and laying down. I was simply glad my vision and hearing had returned, my temperature was back to normal, and the nausea was gone along with my dinner. My brief thoughts before falling asleep, which happened almost immediately, were about food poisoning. And that’s pretty much where I am today.

I got the UCR response from SN1: get thee to a doctor. And I will. I usually have my annual physical in my birthday month, but this weirdness will move that Happy Event up on the schedule. But I’m still perplexed over my reactions last evening.

Strange.

The Random Firing of Synapses

Apropos of exactly nothing…except for the firing-off of long dormant synapses… Here’s The Lovin’ Spoonful:

And those synapses of mine? Kind of a long story, but here’s the Readers Digest version. I was stationed at Vandenberg AFB back in ’65 when this tune was on the charts. I also entered a “DeeJay for a Day” contest run by the local radio station (whose call letters I’ve long forgotten) at that very same time. And I won that contest… drawing, actually…one of the very few things I’ve “won” in life, to be frank. “Do You Believe in Magic?” was the very first tune I played during that “DeeJay For A Day” outing. Which, to be frank yet again, was one of the most anti-climatic experiences in my life, ever. “DeeJay For 45 Minutes Sitting Alone In An Auxiliary Control Room Back-Announcing Records That I Sorta Got To Choose As Long As They Were On The Oh-So-Abbreviated AM Playlist” would be much more accurate, but I’ll spare you the details. Later on in life I became a real DeeJay at KBOK in Sinop, Turkey. Sorta.

Anyway. You don’t forget things like that.

Is This COOL, or What?

From the ever-popular Viral Videos...

Party On, Garth

A few random thoughts for starters… First (and second, and third…): I watched about an hour of the Terrible Triumvirate’s gab-fest in South Carolina last evening. It was pretty much more of the same, as I expected. The “debate” was on CNN, moderated by Wolf Blitzer, another one of those pundits/anchor people I love to hate actively-dislike. Just this on Blitzer: he sucks as a moderator, as in little-to-no control over the participants.

The situation got out of hand early, with Clinton and Obama cherry-picking negative items from each other’s voting records, past quotes, resumés, yadda, yadda, yadda, and beating the snot out of each other. Interesting, if you like that sort of thing. I don’t, and Obama got what few points were available (from me) last evening when he said “American voters aren’t interested in political sniping” or some such. The Breck Girl was feeling pretty left-out and let the audience know that, to moderate applause. Silky Pony got real old, real fast, proclaiming “eliminating poverty is my life’s mission” with every other breath. Somehow, the spectacle of a multi-millionaire tort lawyer proclaiming he’s on a crusade to eliminate poverty sticks in my craw. But his supporters eat it up, which says a lot about them, eh?

But. (heh) The biggest (heh, yet again) take-away from last night?

Hillary has a BIG ass. BIG.

That’s not a comment about Hillary the candidate, Hillary the Democrat, or Hillary the Anything Else. It’s just an observation. It’s been widely reported (although I can’t find a link) the Clinton campaign has put reporters on notice there are certain “prohibited camera angles” when it comes to photographing Hillary. CNN didn’t get the message, though, because there were several…many, actually…shots of the candidates from behind. Last night was the first time I’ve seen that camera angle, by the way, so I’m inclined to believe the “don’t shoot her from behind” stuff. To say Hill is “broad in the beam” is an understatement of massive proportions (ed: OK, enough, already.)…

Last: Watching the Terrible Trio’s repeated genuflections to MLK’s memory last evening (the debate was co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus) made me think of the Law of Unintended Consequences. It’s an unfortunate yet true fact that MLK’s memory these days serves primarily to warn out-of-towners which neighborhoods to avoid when visiting a strange city. As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen an MLK boulevard, avenue, or street in any American city I’d walk alone after nine o’clock in the evening. There ain’t no McMansions on said streets.

―:☺:―

The market is not doing all that bad this morning—much better, actually, than I thought it would. The Fed’s Emergency rate cut seems to be holding off the blood-bath. For the moment. The Dow is down about 140 points as I tap this out, with a couple of hours left in the trading day. As it’s said: “It could have been worse.” A lot worse, judging from the European and Asian markets’ performances these last two days.

―:☺:―

It’s been nearly six months since I put that NeoWORX widget in my side-bar…I’m talking about that “Are We Global Yet?” thingie that shows the number of visits one gets from all the different and various countries. It’s my favorite widget. It took about four months to break the 100-country mark, and the counter held at 95 countries for the looongest time, but we’re up to 110 countries at the moment. Being as how I’m fascinated with geography, the ‘net, and technology in general, I find it simply amazing that someone… anyone… from Djibouti, Estonia, Korea, or Romania would read my scribblings. But, to be real about it, they’re probably only looking for pissing stories. As I’m fond of saying: “Imagine the disappointment…”

―:☺:―

Interesting…

Some 3 billion fortune cookies are made each year, almost all in the United States. But the crisp cookies wrapped around enigmatic sayings have spread around the world. They are served in Chinese restaurants in Britain, Mexico, Italy, France and elsewhere. In India, they taste more like butter cookies. A surprisingly high number of winning tickets in Brazil's national lottery in 2004 were traced to lucky numbers from fortune cookies distributed by a Chinese restaurant chain called Chinatown.

But there is one place where fortune cookies are conspicuously absent: China.

Now a researcher in Japan believes she can explain the disconnect, which has long perplexed American tourists in China. Fortune cookies, Yasuko Nakamachi says, are almost certainly originally from Japan.

Everything you could conceivably want to know about fortune cookies… and then some. I used to save my favorite fortunes and tuck ‘em away inside my wallet. I was gonna quote you some of my faves, but I apparently went through my wallet and threw ‘em out sometime in the past. Probably around the time the fortunes proved demonstrably false, say 1998.

But, Hey! The article is interesting, and I still read my fortune(s). I just don't save 'em any longer.

―:☺:―

Today’s (From the Archives) Pic: The Second Mrs. Pennington will probably put out a contract on me for this, but…

That’s the lady as Rotary High School Exchange Student in Tokyo, circa 1972 or perhaps ‘73. She was a senior at the time and the fact she was required to wear a uniform really grated on her. And don’t she look oh-so-innocent? Heh. You should hear some of her stories about her and Best Bud Junko’s sub rosa exploits in Harajuku, Shinjuku, and other such points in Tokyo. As I said: heh. The girl knew how to party.

(Terrible Trio photo credit: AP)

Huzzah!

I’m surfing the ‘net this evening at these sorts of speeds:

Yep. My broadband connection, which I first mentioned back in March of 2006, is finally…finally! … a reality. I was loath to even mention the fact I had an installation appointment until such time as (a) Yucca Telecom showed up and (b) the installation was successful. I’m happy to report both (a) and (b) came to pass this afternoon. Yucca was on time, the installation proceeded successfully, and…

I am a Happy Camper! Yay!

No longer (hopefully) will I have to deal with stuff like this:

I know: never say “never.” But tonight I’m infected with joy and incurable optimism.

Thanks, Yucca. Better late than never.

Happy MLK Day

Hang on to your hats…it looks like the markets are in for a wild ride tomorrow. And it won’t be a fun sort of ride, either:

Global anxiety about the prospect of a recession in the United States triggered steep stock market declines Monday, pushing the Toronto Stock Exchange down more than 600 points, or 4.79 per cent, by mid-day.

[…]

The losses were felt across the board: In London, the FTSE 100 index plunged 5.48 per cent to close at 5,578.20 points. In Paris, the CAC 40 index lost 6.83 per cent to close at 4,744,45 points and in Frankfurt the DAX shed 7.16 per cent to close at 6,790.19 points, with both markets seeing the biggest single-day losses since the 9/11 terror attacks.

The European markets followed the Asian markets in posting steep declines.

In Asia, India's benchmark stock index tumbled 7.4 per cent, while Hong Kong's blue-chip Hang Seng index plummeted 5.5 per cent to 23,818.86 – its biggest percentage drop since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Ouch. The market is off nearly nine per cent already this year… and tomorrow looks like a bloodbath-in-waiting. Enjoy your Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, folks.

―:☺:―

In other financial news… I had my propane tank refilled this morning. Total cost: $31.34 for just a wee bit more than 11 gallons. Two weeks ago I bought eight gallons for a mere $22.00. It looks like it’s gonna be a long, cold winter. And it’ll be a more expensive winter, too.

―:☺:―

So. I’m seeing a lot of this sort of talk lately, as exemplified by Bill Quick:

I will not vote for any ticket headed by John McCain or Mike Huckabee. If McCain is the nominee, I won’t vote for any candidate. If Huckabee is the nominee, I’ll vote for the Democratic candidate. Yes, I would vote for BJ & Hillary Clinton before I’d cast a vote for that constitution-rewriting Christian reconstructionist theocrat in the making, Huckabee. In fact, I won’t vote for any ticket of which he is a part.

At the moment, probably the best I can hope for would be a Giuliani/Thompson ticket. I think that, absent Fred, Rudy would have the best leadership talents. My only problem is where he would try to lead us. But I’d vote for him. I’d vote, but with less enthusiasm, for a Rudy/Romney ticket, in whatever order, and I would vote for a Romney/Thompson ticket.

But McCain or Huckabee? Either one is a deal-breaker, and neither will get my vote. The only difference is that Huckabee will cause me to vote - for his opponent.

Which is only partly offset by this sort of talk, coming from William Kristol writing in The Weekly Standard:

Conservative editorialists, radio hosts, and bloggers are unhappy. They don't like the Republican presidential field, and many of them have been heaping opprobrium on the various GOP candidates with astonishing vigor.

For example: John McCain--with a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 82.3--is allegedly in no way a conservative. And, though the most favorably viewed of all the candidates right now, both among Republicans and the electorate as a whole, he would allegedly destroy the Republican party if nominated.

[…]

So the conservative commentariat should take a deep breath, be a bit less judgmental about these individuals--and realize that there is not likely to be a second Reagan.

[…]

So conservatives might think of John McCain as our potential TR, Mike Huckabee as our potential FDR, and Mitt Romney as our potential JFK. Support the one you prefer. But don't work yourself into a frenzy against the others. Let the best man emerge from a challenging primary process. And if there is no clear-cut winner, then the delegates at the GOP convention can turn on the fifth ballot to an obvious fallback compromise candidate, one who would be just fine with conservatives--Dick Cheney!

I like Bill Kristol, always have. His “take a chill pill” advice is good advice. People like Mr. Quick, who says he would vote for Hillary rather than Huckabee, amaze me. There is at least one Supreme who will either retire or die on the bench during the next administration, and two more who are likely to retire. An administration lasts eight years at the most, the Supreme Court lasts for generations. My “eight year” figure doesn't consider the Second Coming of the Clintons as a continuation of a previous administration, and I probably should, coz the “new” Clinton administration will be a continuation of the old. Aside from the “who will bring me more dead terrorists?” question, the composition of the Supreme Court is the second most pressing issue that will be decided this November. And people like Mr. Quick would prefer Bill and Hillary over John McCain?

You have to be shitting me.

I think Huckabee is out of it, so I won’t talk about him, specifically, and that sort of kills half my argument. But the members of the “I’ll stay home if McCain is the nominee” crowd, and that crowd appears to be substantial in size, would only be cutting off our collective noses to spite their own small-minded faces. And, the Supremes aside, I have another question for the people petulantly stomping their feet about McCain… who would you really want as Commander in Chief? Billary, who presided over one of the largest draw-downs of the nation’s military and intelligence organizations in recent times, or a bona-frickin’-fide war hero?

Oh, wait…I forgot. Billary ain’t a lock, now, are they? Well, given that we know hardly anything about what Obama would actually do… absent detailed plans, policies, and the like… are you comfortable putting the security of the nation in the hands of a guy whose platform is limited to “Change!” and “Trust me?” Hell, that applies to any Democrat, actually… but it looks like Billary and Obama are the only two left standing. Whatever. Both want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq, increase your taxes, ratify Kyoto (more accurately: its successor protocol), give us mandate a “single-payer” health care system a la the British National Health Service, and change the composition and tenor of the Supreme Court. So, if that’s your idea of what America needs, then go ahead and stay home if McCain is the GOP nominee.

Excuse me if I don’t think that’s real frickin’ smart.

―:☺:―

Today’s (From the Archives) Pic: The only photo I have… or rather, can find at the moment… of The First Mrs. Pennington in her youth. This picture is of TFMP and SN2 in our off-base apartment in Wakkanai, Japan…sometime in early 1969. Quite the sultry wench, isn’t she? (“Sultry wench” is the archaic form of “hawt,” and is in no way derogatory.) There really should be more photos from this time period hanging around somewhere, and I hope there are. About which…

SN2 and I spoke on the phone last evening and he’s going to poke around in the boxes he’s holding for me to see if there are any other photos, slides and the like lurking within. I cannot believe, figuratively speaking, all the stuff that’s missing from my photo archives. Literally speaking, it’s easy to believe… given the state of flux life was in when I collected, boxed up, and sent SN2 all that which I absolutely, positively wanted to retain. It’s entirely possible a lot of stuff got thrown out inadvertently. And that would be a shame.

On Any Sunday...

Well, it’s Sunday. Big Doin’s for NFL fans today and for masochists from all over the US, if not the world, who will tune into the NFC game just to watch people suffer. In a good way, of course. Hell, I might even watch. I watch the playoffs in nearly every other sport, but rarely pro-football. That might change today. There’s sure to be lotsa crowd shots of people in Green Bay whose sensibilities and/or sanity I question. Am I being redundant by sayin’ that? I mean…you have to be jes a lil bit “off” to live in that part of the world, dontcha?

―:☺:―

Before I move on to (arguably) “bigger and better” things…there’s this… Best comment on a blog I read yesterday:

· Comment by happyfeet on 1/19 @ 7:06 pm #
Is that different from muesli? I like muesli. Kashi is kind of like muesli plus you get interracial lesbians. Yay!

Yes, it really is a comment. There’s a link hiding up there.

―:☺:―

So, it’s Sunday. And once upon a time, in another world, another time, another season, and another life, I would be doing this:

The pic is of YrHmblScrb and several dedicated competitors on the starting line somewhere in the wilds of Hokkaido, sometime in the summer of 1969 or perhaps 1970. The time period is before motocross caught on as a Big Time Sport in the US, and is exactly the point in time when the Nipponese fielded their very first purpose-built MX bikes. Up until about 1971 (or so) if you wanted a competitive MXer you didn’t buy a Yamaha, a Honda, or a Suzuki…you bought a CZ, a Maico, a Husky, or maybe a Bultaco. European, in other words. Or…you could do as most of us did (at least those of us who raced in Japan), you bought a stock dual-purpose bike, tore it down, and rebuilt it with factory “race kits” and after-market items. Like my friends and I did with Yamaha’s immortal DT-1, an example of which I’m sitting astride in this starting line shot.

Motocross in Japan was interesting, to say the very least. Especially in Hokkaido, where the races were generally held on ski slopes, which made for fine MX tracks… what with the changes in elevation, off-camber corners, and relatively wide open straights. That was just the physical aspect of the racing…there were also cultural differences which made for some “interesting” times, not to mention great good learning experiences. And lots of drunken evenings with the local club(s) after practice on Saturday. First and foremost, though: the Nipponese were fierce competitors, and they were competitors with a great sense of honor. There was very little, if any, “dirty” racing; we were all in it for the fun of it. The “fun of it” is pretty much the way amateur racing is anyway, no matter where you go.

Lotsa fun. And lots of memories, too many of which have faded away, unfortunately. One memory that sticks in my mind, though, is of the evening my friends and I were at the public bath in some small Japanese town after either a hard day of racing or a hard day of practice before the race. Japanese public baths are segregated by gender, with the larger baths having separate facilities for men and women. The smaller baths, however, usually only had a partition (think: movable wall) that separated the men’s and women’s areas in the large soaking bath. And that partition was less than effective. If one really wanted to look into “the other side” from your side…well, it wasn’t hard to do.

So…there we were…several of us Yankee GI bike racers, soaking in the bath, and there she was…on the other side of the partition, doing the same thing, yet coyly coming into our view every so often. And she was pretty well-built for a Japanese woman, who are generally not known for being…um…well endowed. One could NOT help but notice, and we were certain she was noticing us, as well. But nothing was revealed, really…until one of us, and I really, truly, do not remember who…stood up and gave the lady a lil show of sorts. And she reciprocated, knocking us back on our collective asses, figuratively speaking. It wasn’t blatantly erotic or meant as a come-on, or anything else in that space…just an unobstructed 360-degree view of the “goods,” so to speak, and such very fine goods they were, too. And just as quickly as it began, it was over. She exited the bath with her towel wrapped around her and a big smile on her face. Made our day, she did.

(I’ve told this story elsewhere on the blog, but damned if I can find it…and I looked, too.)

So, anyway. I continued my racing career for a brief time after returning to the US (to Boron Air Force Station, a great assignment for a dirt biker!) and here’s a shot of YrHmblScrb after a Hare and Hounds somewhere in the great Mojave desert. The pic was snapped immediately after I pulled into the pits, and I’m exhausted…which is fairly plain to see.

My racing days came to an end when I (a) got assigned to Turkey for a year and (b) got old and slow. MX is essentially a young man’s game, although there are classes for “Over 40” and “Seniors” and the like. But that ain’t me. It was a LOT of fun at the time…but times change.

By the way…that woman with the captivating smile behind me in the mud picture? That’s The First Mrs. Pennington. Lovely, isn’t she?