A World War 2 Story
We begin and end the month with history stories. This one is about my grandfather, Lee Scott. I was surfing around the other day and found a few links to his World War 2 unit, the 27th Fighter Squadron. They flew P-38s in the Mediterranean theater, out of Italy when he was assigned to them.
Anyone have change for a dollar? Sure, you want this nickel?
This story has details of the missing 1913 Liberty Head Nickel that has been found. This is the nickel design that started life being counterfeited as a $5 coin, then was replaced in 1913 by the Buffalo/Indian Head nickel. Only someone forgot to stop making the Liberty Heads, and a grand total of 5 were produced in 1913. What’s more than a little disturbing about this story is that someone was willing to offer “$10,000 just to be the first to see it”.
I think it was Will Rogers that said “If you’re gonna collect something, it might as well be money.” Apparently someone didn’t tell Paul Montgomery that, otherwise he wouldn’t have offered that much cash. Of course, coin collectors (myself notwithstanding, of course) are an eccentric bunch. Some of them are willing to pay $47,500 for a mistake, like the State Quarter Sacagawea mule that was recently discovered. A mule, by the way, is a coin with one correct side and an incorrect other. In this case, it was a state quarter front and Sacagawea dollar back.
FLATEOTM for July
Quote of the month: “What was really amazing was the speed with which the Americans adapted themselves to modern warfare. Starting from scratch an army has been crafted in the very minimum of time, which, in equipment, armament and organization of all arms, surpasses anything the world has yet seen,” Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
My Silent War, by Kim Philby
There are some books that intrigue you with their subject matter but then go on to disappoint with their content. Such was the case with Desire of the Everlasting Hills and such is the case with My Silent War, by Harold Adrian Russel (“Kim”) Philby. He was the most infamous of the Cambridge Spies, high level communist agents in the British secret service during the 1940s and 1950s.
Congratulations Lance!
Lance Armstrong won his fifth Tour de France today, putting him in league with only 4 other riders in the history of the sport. There’s lots of talk of how things might have been different if Jan Ullrich had been a better rider, but what’s done is done. Lance is the better athlete, and he rode today with the graciousness that has marked his return from cancer.
That being said, I’d like to offer my little tribute…
Read more…
You’re not gonna believe this
Not your typical piece of spam.
from: tiesman@chiche.com
subject: Dimensional Warp Generator Needed pgxjk
Deutsche Dummk?pfe
There is a new poll out in Germany.
There are a few people who are outright pissed about it.
I just have this to say. Remember Jeremy’s Third Axiomatic Truth: people are deceived because they want to be.
Friday can’t come soon enough
Sometime between last night at 1800 and this morning at 0830 the world exploded and some kind soul put it back together again. Unfortunately, they screwed up when they reassembled our office. Everything was wrong this morning.
“I can’t send e-mail!”
“I can’t see the website!”
“I can’t run your software!”
“I can’t get my graphics card to work!”
Its been like that since Friday, when the new sales rep started working for us. Not that she’s the cause of all my pressure, but between getting the sales database running over the network, getting customers running, and verifying that our access problems are caused by Qwest and not our network hardware, I am looking forward to this Friday. Why? It’s System Administrator Appreciation Day. That’s right, we have our own pseudo-holiday. Not that anyone remembers. It’s sorta like Grandparent’s Day: a holiday to make people feel better and a reason for Hallmark to make a few extra card sales. We even have our own song.
Three aces and a B-52 beats four deuces
Did we get Uday and Qusay Hussein? Apparently so, according to CENTCOM. And on the day that PFC Lynch returns home, too. That makes 3 of the 4 aces in the bag, and cuts the list of wanted Iraqi leaders down to 19.
Random Gun Linkage
For your perusing pleasure, or boredom, or whatever.