Chopper Down

What a tragic story. 

The crewmembers were identified during a morning news conference as Darren Bean, a physician; Mark Coyne, a flight nurse; and Steve Lipperer, the pilot.

Preliminary reports indicate the chopper may have flown into a hill and/or struck some trees. The wreckage was found on a wooded hillside in La Crosse County four to five miles from the airport.

Mother’s Day 2008

Happy Mother’s Day!!!

A Hero Honored

Awesome.

The Navy’s newest guided missile destroyer was christened Saturday with the name of a fighter pilot who spent 7 1/2 years in captivity in North Vietnam, received the Medal of Honor and served as presidential candidate Ross Perot’s running mate. 

Four Medal of Honor recipients and seven former prisoners of war attended the ceremony at Bath Iron Works that marked a milestone in construction of the 9,200-ton ship named for Vice Adm. James Stockdale.

Stockdale’s widow, Sybil, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease and uses a wheelchair, let loose a champagne bottle propelled by rope that swung across the Stockdale’s bow. On the second try, the bottle exploded, the band broke into “Anchors Aweigh” and red, white and blue streamers filled the air.

Stockdale, who died nearly three years ago at age 81, flew 201 carrier-based missions before being shot down in 1965, becoming the highest-ranking naval officer captured during the war

First Jump

Look, Mummy.  There’s an airplane up in the sky…

Yup.  That’s me jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.  Here’s the rest of the trip down.

It was a fantastic experience. 

We went out there at about 2 PM today.  By “there” I mean here.  First off, kudos to the people who work at Sky Dive Milwaukee.  It’s actually a skydiving club and they do training and such to pay the bills.  They were all helpful, friendly, fun, and, perhaps most importantly, diligent about safety. 

We got there, checked in, and sat… and sat… and sat… We watched other people jumping and landing (all safely).  Finally, my name came up.  I was doing a static line jump.  That’s the one where there is a tether tied to the container (yes, that’s what you call it) that opens it for you when you jump out of the plane.  I wanted to do the static line instead of the tandem because it would give me the opportunity to steer and land by myself. 

So I went and got my suit on and was promptly told that I wouldn’t be on the next plane.  I’d be on the one after that.  So we sat some more.  Finally, it was really my turn.  I put my chute on, checked everything, got my helmet, put on my gloves, turned on my radio, and put on my altimeter.  When the plane pulled up, I walked the 50 yards or so to it and climbed aboard.  I was going to be the first one out, so I was the last to board.  I sat on the floor and we headed to the runway. 

My jumpmaster was great.  She tied my static line to the plane and had me tug on it to make sure I was comfortable that it was secure.  She walked me through my flight plan.  At 1,000 feet I needed to be at the corner of the landing site.  I’d travel downwind until I was at about 600 feet, then turn 90 degrees crosswind.  At 200 feet, I’d turn into the wind and line up for the landing.  At about 15 feet I’d flare and gracefully touch down.  Um… OK.  Sounds like a plan.

At 4,000 feet we opened the door.  I turned and put my feet on a little step below the door.  I couldn’t see the landing site because the wing was in the way, but I had a general idea of where it was.  I asked my jumpmaster again if my static line was hooked up.  She teased me for that on the ground and said that when my feet were out of the door was NOT the time to check that.  Touché. 

I have to admit, I was a bit nervous sitting there looking at the ground, which was now 4,200 feet below me.  My jumpmaster said, “whenever you’re ready.” I didn’t understand her.  I was expecting a thumbs up or a “GO!” So I looked at her and said, “now?” She said yes and I jumped.  It was that quick. 

I tried my best to do a perfect arch, but hey, I’m new at this.  My instructor told me to count to 6 and then look up to check my chute.  I got to about 4.  I had begun to tilt forward a bit before the chute opened and yanked me to an upright position.  I looked up and checked size and shape.  I was supposed to see a giant rectangle (not a circle, triangle, or anything else).  Sure enough, that’s what I saw.  Whew. 

The next step was a steering test.  Right about now, an instructor on the ground started talking to me through the radio velcroed to my shoulder.  I reached up and grabbed my toggles.  I pulled them both down.  Then I did a right turn and a left turn.  I checked my direction to make sure that my chute was flying straight without any input.  Then I did a flare.  That’s where you pull both toggles way down and it stalls the chute.  All was good. 

I checked my altimeter.  I was at 3,000 feet.  I had to descend another 2,000 feet before I had to be anywhere, so I played around.  I turned and drifted.  I could see Lake Michigan in the distance.  I enjoyed the view and marveled at the oddity of looking beyond my feet and seeing thousands of feet of air between them and solid earth.  It was a FANTASTIC feeling to be floating through the air knowing that the only thing between me and a very hard landing was a sheet of nylon and the harness compressing my crotch.  Freedom.  Pure freedom. 

At 1,000 feet, with the help of my instructor on the ground, I was at my appointed spot.  I made my appropriate turn at 600 feet and again at 200 feet.  As I flew toward my target, my instructor said, “wait… wait… wait… FLARE!” And I flared.  I had my feet together and my knees bent - ready for a perfect landing.  At the last second, I caught a little cross wind that blew me to the right.  It freaked me out a little and my legs came apart.  I hit the ground relatively gently, but off balance and tumbled to a stop.  I rolled over to my back and laughed at myself. 

I got up, gathered up my chute, and waited for the instructor to talk the next guy down.  His landing was much better than mine.  Then we headed back. 

Overall, the experience was exhilarating.  Between the rush of jumping and the tranquility of being under canopy, it was simply fantastic. 

I hope to jump again soon.  Now that I’ve done it and know what to expect, each successive jump should allow more opportunity to enjoy the ride without having to concentrate so hard.

Thank you to the Sky Knights. 

Great Tits Adapt

Well, that’s good, I guess.

Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.

Sharpton Owes Back Taxes

It appears that Sharpton is a tax delinquent. 

The Rev. Al Sharpton has emerged over the past decade as perhaps the nation’s most prominent civil rights leader, a status that was demonstrated again this week when he led protests against police brutality that briefly shut down six of Manhattan’s major bridges and tunnels.

But he still carries baggage from his early days as a fire-breathing agitator: Government records obtained by The Associated Press indicate that Sharpton and his business entities owe nearly $1.5 million in overdue taxes and associated penalties.

Now the U.S. attorney is investigating his nonprofit group, a probe that an undeterred Sharpton brushes off as the kind of annoyance that civil rights figures have come to expect from the government.

“Whatever retaliation they do on me, we never stop,” he told the AP. “I think that that is why they try to intimidate us.”

Over the past year, Sharpton’s lawyers and the staff of his nonprofit group, the National Action Network, have been negotiating with the federal government over the size of his debt, which they dispute. The group has also been trying to pay off tens of thousands of dollars it owes for failing to properly maintain workers compensation and unemployment insurance.

So he’s been cheating on his taxes and has been screwing over his employees.  We’re supposed to consider this guy a leader?

Wisconsin Budget “Fix” Coming Soon

This doesn’t look good. 

MADISON, Wis. (AP)—Gov. Jim Doyle refused to discuss the state’s budget Friday as lawmakers appeared to be closing in on a deal to solve a $527 million shortfall.

Leaders of both the Senate and Assembly notified lawmakers to keep their schedules clear to be in session Tuesday through Thursday of next week. No details were released by anyone involved in the negotiations about whether there actually was a deal yet.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker’s spokeswoman Carrie Lynch said talks were progressing “very well” and senators would not be told to prepare for session for no reason.

Negotiations among leaders of both houses intensified Thursday and into Friday as they tried to reach a consensus on a proposal that Doyle would sign.

What whispers I’ve heard are that this is not going to be pretty.  Expect a bunch of budget tricks, tax hikes, and a show of spending restraint - but just a show.  The fact that Huebsch is quiet and Decker’s folks are out there saying that they are close to a deal telegraphs a significant cave-in by Huebsch. 

We’ll see, I guess.  It sure would be nice if they would share their plans sometime before the day of the vote to allow people a chance to read it. 

Barrett to Challenge Kind

I’m left to wonder…

Kevin Barrett, the 9/11 skeptic whose questioning of the official story of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon drew fire from politicians when he held a one-semester appointment as an associate lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is about to push back at the politicians.

Barrett plans to announce soon that he will run as a Libertarian candidate against U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, the La Crosse Democrat who has represented western Wisconsin’s 3rd District since 1996.

“I’m planning a ‘truth-in-politics’ campaign that will milk that oxymoron for all it’s worth: Call everything exactly the way I see it and let the chips fall where they may. It will be an interesting contrast to the standard campaigns with their timidity, hypocrisy and mendacity,” says Barrett, a convert to Islam who has argued for a number of years that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon “had nothing to do with Islam” and that “the war on terror is as phony as the latest Osama bin Laden tape.”

How would he differentiate himself from Kind? 

Personal Protection

Heh.

On the weekend after Zimmermann’s death, Maternowski’s father drove over from Milwaukee and brought his daughter three items for personal protection inside her apartment: a black Louisville Slugger baseball bat, a 2 1/2 -foot metal pipe and a can of industrial-strength wasp killer.

You know what would work better?  A gun.  A good gun coupled with a lot of range time and training is far more effective than a bat and a can of bug spray.  For those of you who think that a gun would be “uncivilized” or something, please explain to me how bludgeoning an attacker with a bat is more civilized. 

Dead Woman Found on Toilet

Sick.

Tammy D. Lewis, 35, and Alan A. Bushey, 57, both of Necedah are each charged with two felony counts of causing mental harm to a child, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday. Lewis also faces one count of obstructing police.

The two, who are also known as Sister Mary Bernadett and Bishop John Peter Bushey, along with the dead woman, Magdeline Alvina Middlesworth, were all part of a small Bible-based church led by Bushey, Juneau County Sheriff’s Brent Oleson said.

[...]

According to the criminal complaint:

The sheriff’s office was asked on Wednesday to check on Middlesworth’s welfare by the woman’s sister, Bernice Metz, because Metz had not heard from her in “some time.”

When a deputy arrived at the home, Lewis initially claimed Middlesworth was on vacation, but after her body was discovered told the deputy that she had been dead for about two months.

Lewis said she had been helping Middlesworth put on an undergarment when she passed out in her arms and she had left her propped on the toilet after Bushey, whom she referred to as her “superior,” said to leave her on the toilet and pray.

Lewis told the deputy that “God told her Alvina would come back to life is she prayed hard enough.” Bushey told the deputy that “Lewis was obedient and served the Lord just as she should.”

The 12-year-old boy later told investigators that after Middlesworth died, Bushey told him her appearance “was the result of demons attempting to make it appear that Alvina would not come back to life. The boy also reportedly said that Bushey told him that if Middlesworth’s death was discovered, he and his sister would have to go to public school and get jobs because the woman, whom the boy referred to as his “grandmother,” was paying the bills.

Data Recovered From Columbia

Wow.

Jon Edwards often manages what appears impossible. He has recovered precious data from computers wrecked in floods and fires and dumped in lakes.

Now Edwards may have set a new standard: He found information on a melted disk drive that fell from the sky when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003.

“When we got it, it was two hunks of metal stuck together. We couldn’t even tell it was a hard drive. It was burned and the edges were melted,” said Edwards, an engineer at Kroll Ontrack Inc., outside Minneapolis. “It looked pretty bad at first glance, but we always give it a shot.”

[...]

Most of the information was radioed to Earth during Columbia’s voyage. Edwards was able to recover the remainder, allowing researchers to publish the experiment in the April issue of a science journal, Physical Review E.

Body Snatchers Muscle Found Guilty

Good.  The jury got it right.

A Milwaukee County jury has convicted Donald Cooper of suffocating a man to death with a plastic bag and burying his body under concrete and of torturing a different man with hot chicken grease.

Cooper, 42, whom witnesses called the muscle in a criminal organization known as the Body Snatchers, was convicted of 1st degree intentional homicide, kidnapping, aggravated battery and cocaine dealing.

He faces life in prison when he is sentenced by Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Wagner on July 14, a week after Michael Lock, the purported head of the Body Snatchers, is set to go on trial.

Monticello

Here are a few photos I took at Monticello while I was TDY to Charlotteville, VA, this week.  Click to enlarge.

Chopping Broccoli

Obama’s 57 States

I’m sure he can spell “potato” though. 

Hat tip TAM.