Russian Navy plans to buy the first batch of MiG-29K fighters set to be deployed on an aircraft carrier later this year, said a Navy official on Friday.

“This year we are planning to buy the first batch of several machines,” [...]]]> Vladimir Putin is a clever lad, but I think he’s mistaking expenditures for relevancy:

Russian Navy plans to buy the first batch of MiG-29K fighters set to be deployed on an aircraft carrier later this year, said a Navy official on Friday.

“This year we are planning to buy the first batch of several machines,” the RIA Novosti news agency quoted the unnamed official as saying…

A total of 24 MiG-29Ks will be purchased by the Navy in the next three to four years with an estimated cost of one billion U.S. dollars, said the report.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in late last September that one of the most import issues for the Russian Armed Forces was to recreate Navy in the coming decade.

Russia has always been a continental power, rather than a naval one, and Admiral Gorshkov’s imperial Soviet fleet has been something of a millstone hung around the Russian neck ever since the Cold War ended. A couple dozen Fulcrums will not change that.

Prestige navies are rarely affordable in the long term.

–

I have just about narrowed down my search for the airplane I will purchase when my lottery number hits. Which it is mathematically possible, or it would be if I played the lottery.

It will be a Mooney 252 TSE to get there quickly, economically (and compactly) without blowing the top off half way to major overhaul like a 231 might. Or else a Beech B36TC, to get there with friends. Or, perhaps a V35B to get there classically. Or a Super Decathlon to get there aerobatically. A Super Cub or a 200 HP Aviat Husky (I can not decide which) to get there slowly, but not have to much worry about where “there” is, so long as there are a few hundred feet of nice grass or a river bend. Or maybe a Vans RV-8 that I could build myself, if I could trust myself to build an actual airplane that I myself might fly. Safely.

The Flanker? Right out. Operating costs, you know.

So. I’ve got that going for me.

So, there you have it: Build me an IFR equipped, taildragging airplane that will cruise at 200+ kts for four hours on 9 gallons per hour, can clear the western mountains, carry four people plus a modicum of cargo and I’ll buy it.

Once, you know: The lottery hits.

–

Speaking of lottery odds, some in the GOP have convinced themselves that Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat might actually be up for grabs. Which I’ll believe when I see it, and anyway they’ll only change the rules so there’s no use getting het up about it. Health care reform is to be a “signature achievement” or summat like that. For your own good.

So just shut up and take your medicine.

–

Heretofore, these pages have been silent on the peccadilloes of the world’s greatest golfer, because frankly we don’t think about other things when watching a masterful ball smiter smite the ball masterfully. But with the news that Eldrick Tont Woods is all set to go to a sex rehab clinic – in Mississippi, of all places – enquiring minds want to know: Is this one of those 12-step things, or is it done cold turkey? Because if it’s the latter, a Dachshund puppy is cheaper it at $800 or so.

I speak from experience.

–

The Fort Hood shootings: Mistakes were made.

Mr. Gates cited poor communications about internal threats to the security of personnel, as well as a weak supervision by commanders, as systemic problems with implications that go beyond the single case of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the military psychiatrist accused of the shootings.

The formal report, released at noon by the Pentagon, found that “some medical officers failed to apply appropriate judgment and standards of officership” when dealing with Major Hasan, and that more attention should have been paid to his overall performance rather than just his academic record.

Round up the usual suspects, but for God’s sake, stop staring at that elephant in the room.

You’ll only radicalize it.

–

Air Venture 2009. I really have to try and make it one of these years.

Land on the Yellow Dot.

–

Well, it’s been a long week, so I’ll let you go now.

Have a great weekend.

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have [...]]]> This, actually, is not as bad as it sounds:

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat.

Used to be most of the malfeasance on the web was low-grade criminal stuff. But state actors have gotten into the game as well, occasionally blurring the line between basement hacker and national security cracker. The average (Windows) PC is connected on the web for mere seconds before the first automated attempts at hijacking occurs, and given the propensity of most folks to save their sheckels and hope for the best, the odds of a distributed botnet attack causing real denial of service problems given the right motivation approaches 1.0. Since much of the national security infrastructure rides atop the broader global information grid, it makes sense to find a way to temporarily turn threats off as they manifest themselves.

It ain’t pretty. But it also isn’t your father’s network.

–

Krauthammer looks into the health care future, declares the public option dead, disparages quasi-governmental bodies dispensing end-of-life guidance and predicts inevitable rationing.

In the same paper, Ezra Klein – who reminds me altogether too much of “Scrubs” J.D. Dorian to take him seriously – responds that we already ration health care.

Reason’s Roger Bailey reminds Ezra that that word? It does not mean what he thinks it means:

It’s not rationing if an individual decides to spend his money on a 16-ounce steak—but it is rationing if he can only purchase a USDA prime rib eye when he has a coupon issued from a government agency. In other words, true rationing occurs when individuals are forbidden from spending their money on products or services they want to buy.

Imperfect as private health insurance markets are, if a customer [or his employer] doesn’t like the decisions made by Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente, or Golden Rule insurance bureaucrats, he can look elsewhere for his health insurance coverage. But if the government health care scheme becomes a monopoly, when the bureaucrats at the new Health Benefits Advisory Committee decide that a treatment should be withheld, that treatment will be withheld. That’s rationing.

I believe you have to be of a certain age to remember what governmental rationing really means. Or else live in Britain.

That’d work too.

–

Were you aware that you could buy a piston twin for less than $100k?

I was not.

Still, there you are.

Still made of unobtanium for a guy sending his daughter off to college out of state.

Found myself wondering about the time and expense of building a Glasair III. Three hundred horses under the cowl, 284 turbocharged knots at 18K, a 2000+ FPM rate of climb, aerobatic and 1000+ miles of cross country range. What’s to hate?

One of these days.

And you know what question I ask myself, when I get to the point where it’s all paid for and I can just go somewhere: Then what’ll I do?

And then I answer: Just go somewhere else.

Because you can.

–

This sort of thing? It’s not supposed to happen here.

In Austria maybe. But not here.

This is not a capital case, of course. Although for the life of me, I can’t imagine why. A life was taken here, the life that Jaycee Lee Dugard should have had. And obviously, there are special circumstances.

I guess there’s a reason why I’m not in charge.

–

Sherlock homes could solve a crime by noting the dog that didn’t bark. It’s left to us to ponder what other echoing silences might mean.

De mortuis, nil nisi bonum.

Dicendum est.

–

Yeah, well. That’s it for the now. Supper beckons, and the Hobbit will not be denied.

If you’ve got any sense at all.

Y’all have a great weekend.

–

Up early this morning, and down to the NAVNET (naval networking) breakfast in Mission Valley. The breakfasts start at 0700, and I hadn’t been to one since I experimentally dipped my toe in [...]]]> This is one of those days when I don’t have anything to say, so I’ll go ahead and say it anyway:

–

Up early this morning, and down to the NAVNET (naval networking) breakfast in Mission Valley. The breakfasts start at 0700, and I hadn’t been to one since I experimentally dipped my toe in the water last year, before I retired. The notion is that there are a lot of folks looking for jobs, and a lot of folks who have them. Hiring inside the gene pool you know is not a bad way to go. And with unemployment running nearly 12% here in California, a little networking can’t be a bad thing.

I went to hire somebody to replace a co-worker who had gone over to the government dark side. We got a couple of eager nibbles, and I have to tell you that – even given all the aggravations that go along with work – it was better to be supplicee than supplicant. Young officers leaving the service with bright eyes, good ideas and slim resumes. Older fellows that admit quite frankly that they’re “between things.” One even went so far as to say that he was unemployed. “In transition” is, I believe the word of art. “Unemployed” has such a weighty connotation. I wonder how long you have to be “in transition” before you ‘fess up to being unemployed.

My company prolly isn’t big enough yet, but I couldn’t help thinking that it’d be neat to have an internship program. Charge the government a half man-year, bill four hours a day of scut work and spend the other four hours getting up to speed on the acquisition, systems engineering and program management courses. After six months or a year you’ve got yourself some real human capital, familiar with the play book and the players, ready to hit the ground running.

But what do I know?

–

An ugly Friday, compared to all the rest of them. Brought unwelcome news about a program slide, dependencies not under our control having shaped our destiny. All you can do is present the facts unemotionally, recommend courses of action, enumerate the risks. So that’s what I did.

It’s kind of like briefing and debriefing a four-ship air superiority sweep. Without the flying part.

Even Peter Pan grew up, I believe.

–

Spent the late afternoon looking at more resumes. You can put all the job requirements against a position you’d like, people will send you “fleet” bullets that really don’t much apply. It seems like obvious advice, but here it is to mah bruthas and sisters in khaki: Decide what you want to do, where you want to do it. Then prepare yourself.

It’s competitive out here too.

–

SDA Kate has the gouge on a old idea whose time has apparently come ’round again:

Last year, bureaucrats at the VA’s National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, “Your Life, Your Choices.” It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA’s preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated “Your Life, Your Choices.”

Your life, your choices. Our guy in the white coat.

Thanks for your service.

Oh, and while we’re on the topic of white coats do at least follow the Charles Krauthammer link. Say what you’d like about his politics, the doctor knows something about living with a burden.

–

Unpaid advertisement:

Dear Lex

I am really excited to announce that as part of our Support Our Troops program, we’ll be offering 1-cent shipping to any APO and FPO address when you order Jolt Energy Gum online! I hope you might be able to spread the word.

The past few months that I’ve spent working on showing our support for the men and women of the armed forces has been really gratifying, and I’ve enjoyed every minute!

You can learn more about the program here: http://joltgum.com

Best,
Catherine

If you can’t get beer (see also, General Order Number One), you might as well get some caffeine in you, sojer.

–

Remember this?

It’s closer than you think.

Now if they could just get busy on those light sabers for liberty in Hong Kong, we’ll be good to go.

–

Well, it’s been a ruther hellish day, so I’m taking the rest of it off, maybe.

Hope y’all have a great weekend.

Welcome Ace of Spade readers! Consider signing this petition to name the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier after  a fighting ship rather than a politician!

–

The North Vietnamese were cruel tormentors of the American POWs that came into their [...]]]> The flotsam and jetsam from things that have come into my scan. Updated throughout the day, maybe.

Welcome Ace of Spade readers! Consider signing this petition to name the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier after  a fighting ship rather than a politician!

–

The North Vietnamese were cruel tormentors of the American POWs that came into their grasp. Some of the latter delivered petty torments of their own:

One morning in late December 1968, we heard the customary hiss as the loudspeaker system began warming up for what we anticipated would be the usual propaganda session from radio Hanoi. To our surprise, however, at 8 a.m., instead of radio Hanoi, we heard a man with a British accent say, “This is the BBC Hong Kong. The American astronauts become the first human beings to come under the gravitational influence of another celestial body.” And then the radio went dead… An hour later, we were taken out to wash. The first man out of our cell was Air Force Capt. Kenneth Fisher. We had not rehearsed what happened next. Ken looked up and could see the moon in the clear winter sky. He came to a stop, snapped to attention and saluted the moon. Instantly, the rest of us caught on. As each of us left the cell, we came to a stop, snapped to attention and saluted the moon. The guard who was on duty in the guard tower leaned out to see what we were saluting. He had to lean so far that his pith helmet fell off. He almost dropped his rifle and, for a second, we thought he would fall out of the tower himself. Navy Lt. j.g. Ted Stier went up to one of the guards and pointed at the moon and spoke the Vietnamese word for the United States, “Hoa Ky.” He then pointed at the ground and said “Vietnam.” He then made a pantomime as though he were operating a very large piece of artillery. Pointing at the moon again, and again speaking the Vietnamese word for America, “Hoa Ky,” he began rocking back and forth with his imaginary artillery piece while crying out “boom, boom, boom” to show that American artillery, if placed on our moon, would have the range to hit North Vietnam. Ted walked away while the guard continued to stare doubtfully at the moon.

You hold on to what you must, and get back what you can.

–

Our military defends democracy at home and abroad. Perhaps it’s time we give them the opportunity to participate?

The brave men and women of our military are the most disenfranchised group of voters today. Literally. The Heritage Foundation has published the results and analysis of research performed by Hans A. von Spakovsky, a legal scholar and a former Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, and by Eric Eversole, a former active duty officer in the Navy JAG Corps and former lawyer in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The authors assert that members of the military have traditionally been disenfranchised at both the state and federal levels due to the unique circumstances and situations in which soldiers find themselves (i.e. war). Spakovsky and Eversole also conclude that unless Congress does something about this injustice, “military personnel will continue to be the largest group of disenfranchised voters in the United States.”

Maybe it’s just me, but if it were a more favored being denied a chance to vote – the UAW, NEA or trial bar lobby for example – I think we’d see quicker action.

–

The UK Telegraph has a pitcher post up showing a series of troop formations back in the day. The statue of liberty photo took 18,000 men – 12,000 in the torch alone, since it was furthest from the camera lens. Weeks to set the outlines up, but a mere 30 minutes to muster for the photographs themselves.

Which is probably how they sold it to them sojers, and you can tell that to the Marines.

–

Speaking of soldiers, Teflon Don has the tale of a wounded vet that needed a bit more help that we gave him.

You’d think we’d have this sort of thing covered by now.

–

Two v. Three the hard way. The eagles win again.

It’s unwise to bother the eagles.

–

In the heath care fight, Nancy Pelosi has found the enemy and it is private industry, specifically the heath care industry. One of the most heavily regulated industries in the country, by the way.

“It’s almost immoral what they are doing,” Pelosi said to reporters, referring to insurance companies. “Of course they’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure,” she said, adding, “They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening.”

If only government ran everything. Give it time.

Speaking of time, that whole “get it done before the August recess” folderol? That was the media’s fault, as it turns out.

–

Today’s French lesson for the Norks: S’il vol, il est mort.

–

Most unfortunate headline. Evar: Boeing P8-A Poseidon promises intelligence for the Navy

Promises, promises.

–

Ciao, for now.

It is to laugh.

–

The WSJ has an interesting post up about the Capping Trade legislation being pushed through Congress. The tide seems to be [...]]]> Under the heading of “politicians are funny, some funnier than others and some not in a ‘ha-ha’ funny kind of way,” our girl Sara responds to John Kerry’s Sanford/Palin joke.

It is to laugh.

–

The WSJ has an interesting post up about the Capping Trade legislation being pushed through Congress. The tide seems to be shifting:

The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Credit for Australia’s own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published “Heaven and Earth,” a damning critique of the “evidence” underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist — and ardent global warming believer — in April humbly pronounced it “an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence.”

If the pols are going to get on with hamstringing the economy and placing US productivity at a competitive disadvantage for arguable scientific reasons, they’d better hurry up.

–

Diversity musings – I was going to put up a separate post on this, but am simply to worn out over it. I’ve been around the block long enough to know when a train has left the station. But anyway.

Professor Shawn Bediako, professor of English at the academic powerhouse University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus responds to USNA Professor Bruce Fleming’s Annapolis Capital op-ed. In short, he says that “you owe us this,” and whatever impact differential applicant scoring has on officer corps quality is just tough. Suck it up:

If we assume that 35 percent of next fall’s Naval Academy class is comprised of seats that should have gone to qualified, deserving whites, then that is simply the price we all have to pay in order to move toward an egalitarian society where people will eventually be judged by their merits – and not by the privileges they have received based on the color of their skin.

I hope that, in due course. Professor Bediako will inform us when we have moved sufficiently towards the egalitarian social ideal that we can, in to paraphrase that noted civil rights obstructionist Martin Luther King, judge people by the content of their characters rather than the accidents of their birth.

Still, the Navy’s effort seem to be bearing fruit, as the service has been named one of the top 20 government agencies to work for by career publications Minority Engineer and Woman Engineer. So we’ve got that going four us.

Which is nice.

Because diversity makes us stronger. Except, you know: Where it doesn’t.

Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, is very nervous about the release of his new work. Understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating impact on social capital, the fabric of associations, trust and neighborliness that create and sustain communities. In the short to medium range, that is, because in the long run, new communities and new ties are formed, Putnam says. What he fears – correctly – is that his work on the surprisingly negative impact of diversity will become part of the immigration debate.

His study found that immigration and diversity not only reduce social capital between ethnic groups, but also within the groups. Trust, even of one’s own race, is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. The problem is not ethnic conflict or worse racial relations, but withdrawal and isolation. Putnam writes: “In colloquial language, people living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down,’ – that is, to pull in like a turtle…”

Diversity does not produce “bad race relations,” he says. Rather, people in diverse communities tend “to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.” Putnam adds a crushing footnote: his findings “may underestimate the real effect of diversity on social withdrawal.”

Well, we can all afford to be patient. Wait for the long run, and its likely benefits.

In the meantime, please embrace the orthodoxy.

–

File this one under, “kinda creepy no matter what you attribute it to,” but an 11-year old boy claims to have settled things with man he was 65 years ago.

Reincarnation does not happen to fit in with my own world view, but my recommendation to future generations is avoid coming back as Lex if you can at all manage it.

–

So, with the window closing on a health reimbursement arrangement sponsored by his employer, your host took the plunge and got his eyes looked at last week, with the intent of purchasing for his use a pair of Scheyden spectacles. They are ret pricey, but a benefit is a benefit until it’s gone, and then it’s just another lost opportunity to stimulate the economy. And, having lost the ability to focus on things close to hand – while retaining 20/17 eyesight at a distance – I thought it’d be nifty to have flip up shades that’d allow me to see without squinting on a sunny day of flying, and retain the option to read checklists and approach plates and so on in a shaded cockpit. Because flying an airplane while fumbling around between sunglasses and reading glasses is not more than I can bear, but rather more than I’d like to.

So, down to the local, where they’ve got it down to a science. The frames are thus and such, the inspection a little more. Coatings and cuttings and the bill became breathtaking. Especially when you consider that all I really needed was reading glasses, with a sunshade.

I got neither, since the only solution the local offered were these magnetic clip-ons that I could see causing a problem in the plane. Playing the fool among the rudder pedals, or throttle quadrant or some such. Even if they hadn’t been polarized – which they were – and so unsuitable for duties involving actual control of aircraft, at least to the FAA.

An attractive professional woman of a certain age nevertheless steered me through the process, knocking down nascent objections as they arose, ensuring me with authentic-sounding “oohs,” that one particular frame was exactly right for my face and also matched my skin coloring. I swallowed it hook, line and sinker of course.

I’m only a man, after all.

She talked me into “progressive” glasses, softly emphasizing the phrase “progressive” over and over again, and singing the merits of eyeglasses that will help me read things close at hand, focus clearly on things in the intermediate distance and view with eagle-like clarity things at range. “Progressive,” she would breathe to me, as though it was some kind of incantation that would lead me to a higher spiritual plane.

Picked ‘em up yesterday, she fitted them to my face with every semblance of admiration, explained how the “progressive” thing works and how it would take me time to get used to them. You look through the top of the lens to see at a distance, the middle for the intermediate and the very lowest bit for up-close reading. You have to turn your head to see things clearly rather than your eyes. Everything on the border of your peripheral vision is hazy, swimming out of focus in a way I found slightly nauseating. When I read with them, I’m forced to tilt my chin in the air, taking on, I suspect, a rather pedantic air of superiority. I lower my head like a pugilist to see things on the horizon. Only in the middle distance, where the consequences are non-immediate can I relax.

I wore them for the better part of four hours yesterday, and they sit on the desk beside me now, unused, unloved and in fact cordially despised. Suitable for niche use such as driving to work and checking your watch, but not at all the thing for serious work. They cost a great deal of other people’s money, force you look at the world in a restricted way and perform much more poorly than I had been led to believe.

Probably because they’re progressive.

–

Well, that’s it for now. More later, maybe. Scribble, scribble and that.

–

“Worked” from home today. Had lunch at the UTC. “Miami Grille,” it was, and a lovely Churrasco Chopp. Latin music, and that. Grilled, marinated steak, saffron rice, black beans, romaine lettuce, tomatoes topped with chimichurri sauce. Fried plantains for garnish. I forwent [...]]]> This is going to be short, he said. And she nodded, knowingly.

–

“Worked” from home today. Had lunch at the UTC. “Miami Grille,” it was, and a lovely Churrasco Chopp. Latin music, and that. Grilled, marinated steak, saffron rice, black beans, romaine lettuce, tomatoes topped with chimichurri sauce. Fried plantains for garnish. I forwent the green onions. I’d do it again tomorrow.

Macy’s was having a lovely sale on men’s stuff. Things up to 65% off!

Horrible things. Things that make you ask yourself, what in God’s name was the designer thinking? Splashy logos screaming of wretched excess. Hideous colors. Dangling gewgaws.

I bought some anyway, and don’t feel the least bit ghey blogging about it.

It’s for the gardening, like.

–

Speaking of ghey, ‘a was a woman by the Apple store asking passersby whether they supported ghey rights. Aye, says I, after a moment. I do. Because gheys are human, and I support human rights.

Sixty seconds of your time, she begged, looking at me quizically. The hint of a frown.

I thought it might take less, in the event. I was right.

I’d like you to sign this thingamabob, said herself. It carrying an ACLU logo at the top.

I won’t, I replied.

You won’t, she asked. Why not?

Because I don’t support the ACLU, I replied. For trying to extend the protections of the US Constitution to those who would seek to destroy it.

Right waspish she got at that moment.

This isn’t about that, said she. It’s about marriage, and such. As a fundamental human right.

Do you have a fundamental human right to drive a car, I asked.

What’s that got to do with anything, she replied.

Well, do you?

I’ve got my license, said she, querulously.

Ah, so the state can regulate your driving privileges?

Um, yes. I suppose. If they have a reason!

What inalienable right – as opposed to a conceded privilege – do you own that the state can justly choose to grant, or not grant, a license to?

I don’t know what you’re talking about!

You must have a license to marry in the state of California. You must ask permission. Is that a right, or is it conditional upon the state’s approval? That approval contingent upon the laws approved by the voters and their delegates.

We’re done here, she said.

And it was true. We were.

–

So, I’ve started back into the CrossFit thing again, after a bit of a layoff. Down to an actual “box” in town. And have been feeling cruelly brutalized ever since. Something there is that refuses to be last, in a group workout. Some lingering ember of competitiveness.

Not that I’m going to beat the 20-ish hero at chest-high pull-ups or 155 pound thrusters. But that I’ll work as hard as he is, given the constraints of age, and keeping all proportions constant. I’m fairly blown out by the end of it. Sore like you read about in books. In a good way.

I’ve got a lingering bit of damage to my left ankle from an old motorcycle injury. A vicious sprain that has never quite healed. The coaches zero in on it during squat drills, for when I sink past a certain point, I run out of left heel on the ground.

We’ll fix that, they say. Give us six months.

Good luck, says I. It’s been near 16 years, and what cannot be cured must be endured.

I was due to go back to the gym again today, but time ran on mucking around in the back end of the new WordPress install. Things not all being exactly as they ought to be in a more nearly perfect world.

At short while ago the Hobbit appeared at the door, announcing that the hour of 5 had arrived, and this being a Friday, herself was carrying a vodka martini, up and dry, with a twist.

I’m going for a workout, I protested.

Are you, she asked.

No, I replied. No I’m not.

Did I marry up, or what?

–

Have a great weekend!