It's Always Sumthin...

Mystery explained…sorta. “Mystery” in the sense of why all those hits yesterday from LockMart on the F-15 situation. There was this lil blurb in AFA’s Daily Report this morning:

Juggling the Numbers: Building F-22s at a faster pace is one option under review as the Air Force mulls how to mitigate the impact of having about 40 percent of its F-15 air superiority fighters sit idle, reports the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Maj. Gen. Mark Shackelford, director of Global Power Programs in USAF's acquisition shop, told the newspaper that one possible course of action is to consider "should we or could we accelerate the rate at which we buy F-22s." He added the caveat, however, that it remains "too early to speculate" on the decision. USAF is in the midst of a multiyear contract with Lockheed Martin for three annual lots of 20 aircraft that will bring the fleet size to 183 in 2011. But the Air Force's leadership has been clear that the service would like permission from OSD to buy more-ultimately 381 F-22s. To acquire the remaining Raptors would cost about $40 billion at a rate of 20 per year and keep the production line active until 2019, the newspaper said. Conversely, boosting the rate of manufacture to 32 aircraft annually would cost about $5 billion less and keep production going until 2016, it said, citing Air Force figures. One impediment to continued Raptor production beyond 183 aircraft remains Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, the newspaper states in a second article. England is regarded as a staunch proponent of the F-35 over the F-22 because the former features newer technology, the newspaper said. Need we say that the two are different platforms for different roles?

I really should have made the connection last evening, which all goes to prove one shouldn’t attempt any sort of analysis after having a few. Which, of course, doesn’t mean I was physically impaired, Gentle Reader. Lord knows we would never drive under those circumstances. Now that we’re grown up.

By the way... AFA's Daily Report is available to the general public, if you're interested in newsy notes about your United States Air Force. Just go here.

―:☺:―

So, apropos of not much… I pour my first cup of coffee this morning, fire up the ‘puter and check my Site Meter stats. When I went to bed early this morning SM said I had a total of 170 visits yesterday; this morning SM sez I had 37. 130+ visits just went missing, including nearly all of the LockMart visits. WTF? Is this evidence of the black helicopter gang at work? A real, live, bona fide conspiracy? The military-industrial complex covering its tracks?

Not quite.

I fired off a trouble ticket to Site Meter and had an answer within a half-hour, to wit:

Hello,

Thanks for writing. We are having a problem with the services that handle your account. We are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks for your patience and patronage.

Andy
SiteMeter Support

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: MND-895780
Category: Technical Issue
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed

Yeah…they are having problems. The missing visits re-appeared, my traffic stats have been re-adjusted to what they were when I went to bed this morning, but SM isn’t tracking today’s visits…at all. But Hey! It’ll be fixed in short order, of that I’m sure. And being a former IT guy, I know all too well that “stuff happens.”

I’ve been using Site Meter since December of 2005 and I’m pleased as punch with the overall level of service, not to mention their responsiveness. SM is the standard of the blogging world…for good reasons.