little_old_man

Cool, thanks Loader.

Speaking of overpriced things our government does that never work right, the Navy's newest littoral combats ship USS Milwaukee broke down at sea and had to be towed back to port in Virginia while on its way to its new home port of San Diego. http://milwaukee.suntimes.com/mil-news/7/121/247609/uss-milwaukee-breaks-down-at-sea

I wore the same powder blue tux to my junior prom in 1976. Great pics loader.

I think some government military contractors are laughing all the way to the bank. We could have re-armed and modernized WWII era war ships and still beaten the pants off of any navy in the world. This is just typical wasteful spending, something our government does better than anybody else.

I swear your momma and I had strong feelings for each other that night in the back of my jeep at the bar where we met.

I knew somebody would notice that. He was always losing his pens, so he kept a lot of them close by. Still does to this day.

We hate to see you go, but we all have to do what we must. Best of luck to you and enjoy retirement.

That's a great piece of history you have there Loader. My dad's brother ran away from home at age 13 and joined the merchant marines. He was on many of those trip across the Atlantic to the UK before the US entered the war, then he enlisted in 1944 at age 17 and was shipped to the south Pacific to fight the japs. He died when I was a baby so I never knew him, but my dad said he was tough as nails.

As anybody knows who is over 30, fashion styles have changed a lot over the last 40 years. Not just clothes but hair has gone crazy in that time as well. Show us how you looked back then compared to now. Here is my entry. This is my brother and I in Georgetown/Washington DC in 1968. I was bad-ass even at 8 years old with the $5 wrist watch, cheap shades, and Converse shoes with no socks. This next one was 1978 a few months after moving to California. Yes it was the disco era with the wide collar unbuttoned low with or without gold chain. Wearing a brown 3 piece suit with flaired cuffs (bell bottoms), and longish hair parted in the middle. A mustache was mandatory equipment for any cool guy back then and it remained that way until the mid 80's. Yes, it was a scary time for fashion. Another one from 1979 sporting a full beard, and what wardrobe would be complete without an embroidered western style shirt and a big belt buckle? Now we move into the early 80's and I was 22. For some strange reason my forehead is getting bigger, and I was still oblivious to the hair terrors to come in the near future. Still proudly wearing my red stash with long side burns and open collar. Looks pretty metro-sexual by today's standards. And who could forget digital watches? My brother and I at work in 1986. The hair is really starting to go by this point, and I'm even seeing the occasional gray hair show up. The hair is falling off of my head and taking root on my back. My manhood is slowly fading away. By the early 2000's what hair hadn't fallen out was all gray and I am now completely emasculated, not to mention my slightly retarded kids always hanging around my neck. Now I have no fashion sense at all and only wear clothes that are comfortable. My forhead now reaches the back of my neck. These days I could care less what I wear or how I look. I fixed the hair problem by wearing a hat whenever I'm not in bed. No mess, no fuss. Just happy to wake up every morning and enjoy another day.

SCHWING!!!!!!

I grew up in a small (ish) town called Portsmouth Ohio between 1962 and 1977. I was born in Cleveland and two of my mom's sisters married two men who started an insurance business in Portsmouth and they asked my dad to join them which he did. Dad wound up being president until he left in 1977. Portsmouth was known for manufacturing everything from steel to shoelaces, and it is located where the Ohio and Scioto rivers meet and the Erie canal also ended there. The population peaked in 1932 at 42,000, and by the time we moved away in 1977 the population was down to about 24,000. Most of the industry had left as it has with so many other towns along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the town is slowly dying. The town was home to one of the first professional football teams the Portsmouth Spartans and they joined the NFL in 1930. The town was too small to support the team so the were moved to Detroit where them became the Detroit Lions. Branch Rickey was also from there and a couple years ago they made a movie about him staring Harrison Ford. Jim Thorpe played football there from 1929 to 1933. I grew up hunting, fishing and just enjoying the outdoors. I wish my kids could have experienced the same but living and working in small towns today isn't easy.

Don't ever be sorry RIP. Do whatever you need to cope with the loss, and if that means no gaming then find something else to help ease the pain. We will all be here if you need an extended family to talk with.

Congratulations Wildthing. You've earned it.

I'm not sure how many of you have noticed, but over the last few months the news has been dominated by stories of college students and their sensitive feelings. Most of the coverage revolves around the black lives matter movement, but they are far from the only ones who are shutting down portions of their universities because they don't want to hear any kind of opinion that's contrary to their own. Much to my surprise, the Washington Post did a piece today talking about it, and I just happen to agree with almost everything that was said. Most media outlets wouldn't touch this story with a 10 foot pole for fear of offending somebody in this hyper PC world we've created. This doesn't have anything to do with politics, so please don't lay blame on anybody. It's been a huge change in the fabric of our society, and now we are seeing how these spoiled brats that were never told "NO" growing up are turning out as adults. Enjoy........... For thin-skinned college students, we have nobody to blame but ourselves The Washington Post Kathleen Parker It would be easy to call protesting college students crybabies and brats for pitching hissy fits over hurt feelings, but this likely would lead to such torrents of tearful tribulation that the nation’s university system would have to shut down for a prolonged period of grief counseling. Besides, it would be insensitive. Instead, let me be the first to say: it’s not the students’ fault. These serial tantrums are direct results of our Everybody Gets a Trophy culture and an educational system that, for the most part, no longer teaches a core curriculum, including history, government and the Bill of Rights. The students simply don’t know any better. This isn’t necessarily to excuse them. Everyone has a choice whether to ignore a perceived slight — or to form a posse. But as with any problem, it helps to understand its source. The disease, I fear, was auto-induced with the zealous pampering of the American child that began a few decades ago. The first sign of the epidemic of sensitivity we’re witnessing was when parents and teachers were instructed never to tell Johnny that he’s a “bad boy,” but that he’s “acting” like a bad boy. Next, Johnny was handed a blue ribbon along with everyone else on the team even though he didn’t deserve one. This had the opposite effect of what was intended. Rather than protecting Johnny’s fragile self-esteem, the prize undermined Johnny’s faith in his own perceptions and judgment. It robbed him of his ability to pick himself up when he fell and to be brave, honest and hardy in the face of adversity. Self-esteem is earned, not bestowed. Today’s campuses are overrun with little Johnnys, their female counterparts and their adult enablers. How will we ever find enough fainting couches? Lest anyone feel slighted so soon, this is also not to diminish the pain of racism (or sexism, ageism, blondism or whatever -ism gets one’s tear ducts moistened). But nothing reported on campuses the past several weeks rises to the level of the coerced resignations of a university chancellor and president. The affronts that prompted students to demand the resignations include: a possibly off-campus, drive-by racial epithet apparently aimed at the student body president; another racial epithet , hurled by a drunk white student; a swastika drawn with feces in a dorm restroom. Someone certainly deserves a spanking — or psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud had plenty to say about people who play with the products of their alimentary canal. But do such events mean that students have been neglected, as protesters have charged? Or that the school tolerates racism? Concurrent with these episodes of outrage is the recent surge on campuses of “trigger warnings” in syllabuses to alert students to content that might be upsetting, and “safe spaces ” where students can seek refuge when ideas make them uncomfortable. It seems absurd to have to mention that the purpose of higher education is to be challenged, to be exposed to different views and, above all, to be exhilarated by the exercise of free speech — other people’s as well as one’s own. The marketplace of ideas is not for sissies, in other words. And it would appear that knowledge, the curse of the enlightened, is not for everyone. The latter is meant to be an observation, but on many college campuses today, it seems to be an operating principle. A recent survey of 1,100 colleges and universities found that only 18 percent require American history or government, where such foundational premises as the First Amendment might be explained and understood. The survey, by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, assesses schools according to whether they have at least one required course in composition, foreign language at the intermediate level, American government or history, economics, science, mathematics and literature. Coincidentally, the very institutions where students are dominating what passes for debate also scored among the worst: Missouri, D; Yale, C; Dartmouth, C; and Princeton, C — all for requiring only one or a few of the subjects. Amherst scored an F for requiring none of them. Such is the world we’ve created for young people who soon enough will discover that the world doesn’t much care about their tender feelings. But before such harsh realities knock them off their ponies, we might hope that they redirect their anger. They have every right to despise the coddling culture that ill prepared them for life and an educational system that has failed to teach them what they need to know. Weep for them — and us.

Intense gaming is hard on people with good eye sight. How about gaming with the bad eye covered? Maybe if your brain wasn't trying to compensate you wouldn't get the headaches. Sorry to hear about the stroke baldie. That has to suck but at least you survived.

Loader was born a woman. Sorry bro, I had to tell somebody.

Why that's touching Painsponge. I kind of choked up.

Take care of yourself DW. Get things straightened out we'll all be here when you're ready to return.

Sorry for your loss DW. Sounds like he had a good and long life, and was lucky to have you.

I hope you play tonight so we can give you a proper birthday bashing. Happy birthday Logan.

Looks like you're good to go Joe. Thanks for straightening this out.

Thanks for the advice, but we'll handle it from here.

Ok, cut out the wise crack Scrotus.

I seem to recall you having the same problem 2 or 3 months ago, right? Somebody came in using your name with tags, then switched to the name "dickfag mountain". As I recall it got banned probably for the name and then later removed. The admin system shows everything is ok, but the fact that you're still banned is a mystery to me. I'll send a PM to SittingDuc and ask if he can help. Hang in there.

You mean Bama doesn't want to end up like Charlie Sheen.