Monday's Missives

Quad .50 caliber half track. My dad was on a twin .50 that had a 26mm gun in the center while he was air defense in WWII. I asked if he ever shot down any German planes, Nah, never directly shot any down, but 5 or 6 left trailing smoke pretty heavy. Is there some old German great granddad who tells stories about strafing an American column and getting shot up by some half track that wouldn't quit and limping his ME109 or Stuka back to base?

• Manchester Orchestra: Simple Math. A sweet and simple video for the same kind of song. I love these guys.
• I ran ops in Europe with Canadians from Princess Patricia's Light Infantry. They were huge- all of them. Are they are all corn fed like that or are their infantry guys chosen somehow based on size? This wasn't just my observation- it was obvious and everyone commented on it. I still have one of their berets with the unit flash. Their wet weather gear was terrible and they would trade for ours in a heartbeat.
• I think often of the lady who ran the restaurant that more or less catered to Americans right off our post in Bad Hersfeld Germany. Is she still in business- still alive? She was kind of a motherly figure. She was very sweet to everybody, but her husband whom she kind of tormented. I think he may have drank a lot though. She loved country music and was thrilled to find out I was from Texas. She had her doubts about my truthfulness though when I told her I did not own any horses and had never seen a gunfight.
• Her name was Mary.
• Zac's tent has this springy tunnel coming off of it that you can fold up. I bet you could make a cool one man tent out that concept by increasing it's size dimensionally and covering it in Goretex and putting some flaps on the ends. It would take about 2 seconds to set up.
• I'm a genius.
• It's why I'm so rich.