Lisa, the gearhead . . .

. . . drove my hotrod today.

I was not locked in the boot, as someone suggested.

This is not an easy car to drive. It has manual steering, manual brakes, and a fairly obscene amount of horsepower. Somewhere north of 430, I believe.

She did more than fairly well at it, except for shifting the transmission. Although it is an automatic, it does have seven different detents: Park, Neutral, Reverse, and four forward speeds. It also has a separate grip lever to prevent inappropriate shifts - like second to reverse. The grip lever has to be operated in a certain sequence which she did not have time to learn.

She negotiated through the neighborhood and down a rather winding rural road. I never felt the slightest concern.

There was a brief flashback, though, when she asked about a turn. I said "turn right here," and suddenly remembered the first time I said that. On that occasion, Right here happened to be between a lamp post and a mail box and into someone's front yard.

The "Mystery Shifter"

Nagasaki, Japan . . .

. . . 09 OCT 1945, 1110 hours.

Fat boy most likely saved my father from a trip from Guam to Japan.

It also gained freedom for J. S. Gray, the husband of my cousin Aylene Swayze Gray. J. S. survived the Bataan death march, imprisonment at Cabanatuan, a hell ship trip to Japan, and several years as a slave in the Yokkaichi copper mines. He weighed 202 when captured, 108 when released. His POW number was 260, and that was how his captors addressed him.

When he and his fellow prisoners were told to destroy their American flag, each one of them took a star. When the Yokkaichi POW camp was liberated, they took the stars they had kept for almost three years, and reconstructed the flag.

Footprints . . .

. . . are important to me.

Many people leave footprints, too many leave none. Some are vivid, some are faint. Most footprints add to the common good. Unfortunately, others do not. Some even detract from that common good.

Artists may consider their paintings or sculptures to be their footprints. For writers and poets, it's books, poems and stories. For parents, it may be children. For engineers, it may be buildings, highways, bridges or pipelines. I guess that's why I became an engineer. I always hoped to leave footprints, and I have. I now have one more.

When I began working for the U. S. Navy in 2002, my assignment was to plan for the facilities for five new helicopter squadrons. That's ALL facilities. Hangars, training buildings, parking aprons, runways, helipads, fueling stations, armories, warehousing.

Since Uncle has very detailed planning and execution processes, it takes a while to results that you can touch and feel. After six years, my first footprint at Naval Station Norfolk is a reality. This building houses flight and weapons simulators, classrooms and offices for the folks who train our helicopter pilots.

To most who drive by, it's just another building. It's not. It's a piece of me.

Iron Chef Bulldog . . .

. . . requires harmony in the kitchen.

Tonight, I'm cooking Mandarin orange beef with vegetables for Mrs. B, Lisa and TLK. I've also gathered rice, sushi springrolls and a touch of FuKi plum wine.

To ensure harmony, the ingredients are becoming acquainted before preparation. The beef is excluded to prevent diversion of the karmic flow . . . either that, or I forgot to set it out.

Nihonto and hachimaki are not required for Chinese cuisine.

Baconjutsu sensei to yondekure . . .

. . . or words to that effect.

Lisa, Mrs. B and I had BLTs for dinner this evening, and there was simply no other way to prepare them. TLK had, well, whatever TLKs eat, plus watermelon.

Window peeper . . .

. . . pun intended.

This little guy was staring in our back window last evening. We don't have nearly as many songbirds hanging around as we did in Kansas City. That's probably because the subdivision developers around here clear-cut the trees, and we live in the middle with only saplings in the yards.

Since Jane asked, I chased him down on Google. He's a male Carduelis tristis, aka the American Goldfinch, wearing his summer breeding plumage.

We also have some hummingbirds hanging around, but I haven't been able to capture them on film . . . er, I mean chip yet.

Why is it impossible . . .

. . . for a woman to wrap up an extension cord?