Young Daughter goes hog wild!

So, over the weekend Young Daughter revealed that she has been a motorcycle rider and owner for about the last three months. Figuring that I would worry significantly about her riding a motorcycle she delayed telling me but the story had to be told eventually so she let fly with the information during a phone conversation with her mother.  At the appropriate time the Missus said to me that YD had something to tell me.

I'm glad she told me (finally) and yes I am worrying about her now but she is an adult and able to make her own choices in life.

Young Daughter followed the Goldilocks approach to motorcycles.  The Suzuki was too small, the Honda was too big, and the Harley Davidson is just right - for her.  She looks good on it and the bike's exhaust isn't loudly obnoxious but still has the Harley chug sound to it.

Young Daughter says riding her Harley is the most fun she's had in  a long time.  Please, everyone, keep your eyes open and leave her some room on the road!

Ignition - contact!  Oops, that is what you say when starting a Sopwith Camel

Young Daughter in charge and ready to ride

Citizen Grouch sees "Edge of Tomorrow"

The Missus, Young Daughter, and I went to see "Edge of Tomorrow" yesterday for a pre-father's day celebration.  The movie starring Tom Cruise was great and lots of fun.  The title is dopey and doesn't do anything to make someone want to see it.  In case you know nothing of the movie, it is a sci-fi adventure that merges "Ground Hog Day" with "Starship Troopers".   Some time in the near future the Earth is battling an alien invasion in Europe; Tom Cruise's character is a O-4 Major PR flack detailed by the Eisenhower of the day to be in the first wave of the modern D Day invasion from the UK to France to roll the invaders back. He is supposed to 'sell' the planet on the success of the invasion.  Being the cowardly sort he declines to go, gets busted to Private and sent off in the invasion force the next day with no training where he is killed; only to wake up at the exact same spot 24 hours earlier and goes on to replay the day over and over again, each time getting a bit further along.

It was a lot of fun to watch and great performances from one and all.  Just a few quibbles as a military type guy:

1. There didn't seem to be any pre-landing artillery or missile prep of the battlefield.  The infantry just got dropped right on top of the enemy at the beach.
2. I didn't see any AFVs, just masses of soldiers.
3. No air support except for what looked like a couple of Apache type attack helos
4. No crew served weapons or individual AT type weapons capable of taking out really large and bad aliens with one shot.  All they seemed to have was a full auto 5.56mm rifle and grenades.
5. With the amazing capabilities that the aliens showed in the movie, what had confined them to Western and Central Europe?  They should've overrun the entire continent by the time of the movie.

The mech exoskeleton was a nice touch and something that the Army is working on right now.

All of that said it was exciting, funny in some spots, and enjoyable to see Cruise's character grow from the panicking guy only worried about saving his skin to a modern day Audie Murphy who has plans to save the world.

Fours Stars!

Dogs 'n Pills

So our three dogs all get pills of some type or another with their meals.  The Missus' approach is no nonsense:  she pries the dog's mouth open like a lion tamer preparing for the stick-your- head-in-the-lion's-mouth routine at the circus but in her case it is about to be her hand.  Then the hand and the pill go down the dog's throat, seemingly past her elbow, the hand is withdrawn and the dog is left with a dazed look on its face wondering what had just happened.

I don't have the time or inclination to do that act, so at each meal I lace the food with the required pills.  One of the dogs get a glucosimine pill, one gets the glucosimine pill and a baby asprin, and all three have been getting an anti-itch allergy capsule.  They are allergic to something and spend the better part of the day scratching depending on the season of the year and the capsule is supposed to solve the itching.

Kerby, our youngest dog who is a rescue Australian shepherd/Border Collie mix has an amazing talent:  without the use of hands she is able, while eating, to seperate out the capsule from her food and spit it out, unchewed, onto the floor.  I find the pill laying on the floor after she is done and marvel over this talent of hers.  I pitch it back into her bowl where it is probably consumed by Roscoe our senior dog, who feels it is his duty and his right to visit each dog's bowl and lick it for any remaining flavor for easily 5 minutes or until I tell him to knock it off and move on.  He always looks at me reproachfully and wanders off to wait until I leave the room to resume his bowl licking.

Kerby's ability to separate the pill from her food has never been observed, only the result.  In practice this is reminiscent of the mysterious sliding rocks of Death Valley that move across a dry lake bed under unknown and unseen locomotion, leaving a trail in the dust but not seen by human eyes to move. Who knew that we have a similar mystery in our very house, the unseen separation of the pill from the food!

Young Son heads to D.C.!

So, the Missus and I just saw Young Son off at the airport for his summer internship with the U.S. State Department.  It was a hard thing for us to do, but as the Missus said, at least he wasn't leaving for basic training.  We'll get to see him at the end of next month when we pass through D.C. on the way to two family reunions.

We miss him already!

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof heats up the old home town

So, last weekend the Missus and I went to see "A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" at the local repertory theater.  The play was ok, the actors were good, especially the actress playing Maggie who was spilling out of her costume through much of the show.  We gave it an overall 'not bad'.

Imagine our surprise today when we read in the local paper that a heckler was harassing Big Daddy during a performance of the play who then confronted said heckler and had him physically ejected from the show.  Wow!  That is amazing on a couple levels, the first being that many of the typical audience at live theater in our area are in the Greatest Generation demographics.  Envisioning one of these super-senior citizens heckling a cast member is something that would be beyond interesting to see.  Secondly, the guy playing Big Daddy looked the part for sure, not someone that I personally would want to annoy to the point that we stormed off the stage and on a collision course with me (if I was a heckler, which I'm not and wouldn't be).

The story was good enough that it made my favorite news story compiler, the "Drudge Report" who in turn linked to the story from our local CBS affiliate.  Read it below:

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/06/02/show-pulled-after-actor-jumps-off-stage-to-confront-gay-slur-heckler/

Glad we saw the show sans heckler!