Pretty Darn Cool

Have you ever learned something and been genuinely surprised?  As in, "I didn't know they ever did that!" kind of surprised?  I had one of those moments the other day about something I learned.  In the grand scheme of things, it isn't all that important, but I was certainly surprised.

Back in the late 1920's and early 1930's, the U.S. Navy had a small number of airships.  I won't go into all the details about them, but the two largest were the U.S.S Macon and the U.S.S. Akron.  I had heard of these ships before, but didn't really know much about them.  They both had a surprisingly large crew, and the ships themselves were pretty big.  Unfortunately, both were lost in accidents in the mid-30's (the Akron with significant loss of life).  Here's a picture of the Macon flying over New York City:

Now for the really interesting part (as if the Navy having large airships isn't interesting enough).  Last weekend, I was at my favorite local hobby store perusing the shelves, when I saw a model kit for the Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk fighter, a biplane fighter that was used by the Navy during the same time frame:

The box art for the model showed an airship in the background.  So when I got home, I did a little research, and learned that the Sparrowhawk was actually launched and recovered from the airships while they were in flight!!  In the picture above, you can see the hook assembly over the upper wing; this is what was used to "land" the aircraft on the airship.  Here's a video I found on YouTube that shows how it was done:

The contraption (for lack of a better word) that the Sparrowhawks would latch on to was called a "trapeze"; I guess, once the aircraft was secure, the trapeze was pulled up into the hangar bay inside the airship, and the plane was parked.

I don't know how many planes each airship carried, but there were several.  The airships never really got past the test phase before their accidents, but I believe they were going to be used for long-range reconnaissance.  After the Macon was lost in a storm off Point Sur, California, the Navy abandoned the airship program.  The only surviving Sparrowhawk fighter is at the Udvar-Hazy branch of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, near Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

I've probably walked by this plane a hundred times at that museum, and never knew the history behind it.

So...that was my "aha" moment.  I never knew that anyone, let alone the U.S. Navy, had ever successfully built and flown airships that served as aircraft carriers!  It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.  We're all accustomed to sea-borne aircraft carriers; those have been around for about 70 years.  But an airborne aircraft carrier?  That, my friends, is Pretty Darn Cool!

Stuff It

After venting my frustration last night, I made some yummy stuffed mushrooms.  There's a joke in this somewhere about "stuffing it" but I'll refrain.  Perhaps I should have just stuffed it yesterday instead of ranting on the blog.  Oh, but who am I kidding.

G eyed the mushrooms warily (wouldn't touch them with a 10-ft pole of course) and asked me, "So, do you just decide that it would be good to take a fungus and stuff it with a bunch of other things?  That it would somehow taste good?  How do these ideas come to you?"  I don't have the heart to tell him that people all over the world eat these delicacies every single day.  Some, for every single meal.  The idea, it is not mine.  But I will partake of the yumminess.

Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients:
Mushrooms
1/2 block cream cheese*
3/4 cup shredded cheese**
2-3 cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

Directions
Gently wipe off mushrooms with a damp paper towel.  De-stem them, and dice the stems.
Grease baking dish and place mushroom caps inside.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and saute the garlic and mushroom stems over medium heat until the garlic browns and the mushrooms begin to release liquid.

Pour into bowl and let cool for 5 minutes.  Then combine other ingredients and blend/stir until smooth.

Stuff those bad boys and bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until mushrooms are golden and releasing liquid.

Enjoy!

Notes
* I've experimented with the cream cheese.  I've used regular cream cheese, but last night I used the garden vegetable flavored kind.  Both taste great.

**Use any kind of shredded cheese that you want.  I've been using what I have on hand, but I'd like to see how goat cheese turns out, and also pepperjack.

***You could also use crabmeat or even bacon bits.  I haven't tried this yet, but I see many cooking combinations in my future...

Inconsiderate People, also known as Idiots

I saw this post going differently.  I had envisioned writing about the glory of a 3-day weekend, including a few random pics, and looking forward to a 4-day week instead of the ho-hum monotonous 5-day.  But I just had an experience in the gym that sent all that goodwill flying out the window and so you get this rant instead.

During the weeks, my workouts are usually crammed into 30 minutes each night, after work, after a minimum of 2 hours in the car that day, usually more, and before I take my carpool buddy home (or vice versa).  On the weekends, I try to take my time in the gym, and often this means grabbing a good book and spending an hour or so on the stationary bike.  Today the gym was fairly empty, and I sat amongst a few older people, all spinning away.  About twenty minutes into my workout (and my novel), a lady bounced over to the bike next to mine, chirping on her cell phone and proceeded to start working out.  Of course there are signs all over the gym that instruct people not to talk on their phones.  These signs include the words, "out of courtesy to others..."  I glanced over at her, she met my eye and kept chatting.  A few minutes later, I gave up and left the machine.

I went over to a set of treadmills, thinking I could walk at a medium speed for a while and continue reading.  As Murphy's Law would have it, I ended up next to a lady who stood still on her treadmill's belt and talked on the phone for over ten minutes.  I counted.  On a still machine in the middle of a whirlwind of movement, there she was, cackling and just chatting away.  Just standing there.  I don't know if people don't know the rules, don't care about breaking them, or just don't think they apply to them personally.  All I know is that it's not even 4 p.m. and I'm cracking open the wine bottle.

I harped to G for a while and he nodded vigorously and approvingly at my outrage.  He chimed right in and together we threw out an alarmingly long list of offenses, often involving people who should be watching their kids, but aren't, or who shouldn't be talking on their cell phones, but are. 

And even as I type these words that I want to make more scathing, I know that I fall into multiple categories that send other people into the loving arms of alcohol before dinner time.  But I just want to say that you don't find many more loyal rule-followers than me.  I'm the person who finds myself dumping (accidentally) a buggy packed with groceries onto the 15-items-or-less counter and then cowering in shame, smiling meekly at those behind me in line, and pointing out to each of them that I am, in fact, an idiot.  Let me get on my high horse and declare firmly that you would never find me on my cell phone in the gym.  If you did, I would not be talking about cake mixes at 7500 decibels.  I would be skulking somewhere in the back of the locker room, or worse, in the frigid parking lot, probably still whispering and rudely hurrying the person on the other end of the line.

I should be ranting and raving about real problems:  world hunger, poverty, injustices that span the globe of this fallen world we live in.  It's a sign of my extreme privilege that I would even peck out a post in annoyance at a pet peeve so small and insignificant.  It's just that I don't find it insignificant;  I find it yet another sign, in combination with daily signs around here, that people see themselves as fully entitled to their own convenience, often at the sake of others' inconvenience, and I think that's a sign of growing narcissism and greed.  One person's lack of courtesy for another person says, "I matter more than you do right now," and from there it's a slippery slope to, "I'm better than you."

I heard a Timothy Keller sermon once on Creation in Genesis.  We know that we are made in God's image, but we often forget that so is everyone else.  Even non-Christians, even people who believe very strongly in things we don't.  Even people who deny God.  To be a human means to be created by a Being so loving and powerful that He bestowed His very image onto us.  And that is why we should never call our "brother" a "fool" or the nitwits in the gym idiots.   And I know this.  But God help me because they sure seem like idiots to me.

Remedy: Violence on Ice

Another remedy to combat the monotony of The Long Winter is to go to a hockey game.  For Christmas, we received tickets for some truly great seats and we went to a packed game last night (and the Caps won!)

This is how close our seats were!  Taken with crappy phone camera and no zoom!

I'm not much of a sports fanatic but the thing I appreciate about hockey is how crazy fast it is.  I can't believe that huge guys can skate that fast and still have the where-with-all to whack a puck with a little stick.  I spend half the game wondering what the puck is going on.  And, yes, I've been looking for a place to use that line!  Another fun thing about hockey is the replacement cuss words.  People yelling, GET THE PUCK OUTTA THERE!  I get that they mean it literally - get the puck to the enemy's goal and away from our own - but come on.  Gotta love replacement cuss words.

A shirt in the gift shop.  G rolled his eyes and walked away as I guffawed and pulled out my camera.

A final note:  this is how we know we're getting old.  On a Friday night, at a boisterous hockey game, G leans over to me and says, "This is great, but kind of loud.  I feel old saying this, but I could use some ear plugs or something."  I was all, "What?  No, the noise is great!  It keeps me from getting sleepy."

Yikes.

So, a merry christmas to us, and GO CAPS!

TGIF, people!

Bright Spot

I went to the dentist yesterday morning.  They still haven't named the building after me but I figure it's only a matter of time.  While I was waiting in the lobby, I saw this beautiful blue orchid.

Also, I heart Instagram.  It's a free photo app for the iPhone and allows you to share pics and stuff via all kinds of social media that I don't take advantage of.  And I ended that sentence with a preposition, so there.

I'm not known to have many (um, any) apps on my phone.  A friend was telling me that it's better than the phone camera and I was like, "My phone has a camera?"  Just kidding, I'm not quite that bad.  But I've been tooling around with it some, trying to bring out my creative side.

One of my faves:  We call it The Christmas Bun

The Vintage Bun

You get the idea.  Maybe one of these days I'll get a real camera.  And some real photography skillz.