The Heinrich Show

Last week I went to Monticello in Virginia. My ladyfriend and I are fans of Thomas Jefferson. While we were down there, we visited an old Navy buddy of mine, John Schmidt.

John has a farm in Cullen, VA and he’s got quite the life. Goats, guns, cows, chickens, fresh air, and chilling on the back porch.

We showed up, semi-unannounced, and John had his sister-in-law and her husband visiting them as well, so it was a full house. John was a super gracious host, and quickly poured us some of the FINEST MOONSHINE YOU EVERY DRANK.

Seriously, this stuff was beyond smooth. We all got real drunk, real fast.

John and I, as Navy men, began to remember our Navy days… and John told a Hutch Story that I remembered, but had since forgotten. But I’ll tell it now, so it will be remembered forever.

At NavFac Brawdy, we had an “Admiral’s Inspection”. This meant that a flag officer was coming to check us out, and we had to dress our best and clean everything.

To be honest, it was a royal pain in the ass.

James “The Hutch” Hutchens was the duty tech when the Admiral arrived in the Maintenance Area, and thus the task of showing the Admiral around fell to him. “The Hutch” is the coolest cat you’ll ever meet, and even if the Admiral showed up with Jesus, Mohammed, and the Easter Bunny, Hutch wasn’t going to bow and scrape for this Admiral. After all, this Admiral was the reason we had all been cleaning and running around in the first place.

As the Hutch is giving the Admiral his tour, he is pointing out the disk drives and the computers and the various systems and what they did.

Suddenly, the Admiral sees perhaps one of the LEAST important devices in the equipment room. It was a vacuum system for sucking up the printer paper particles. The Admiral turns to the Hutch and says, “What is this system?”

We all knew what it was, but since it was non-electronic, we really never paid it any attention.

The Hutch leans over and turns his head sideways to read the name plate on the device.

“This is a SPENCER TUBULAR BAG SEPARATOR, sir”, said the Hutch.

The Admiral is incredulous, “I CAN READ Petty Officer Hutchens!”

Not missing a beat, the Hutch says, “Admiral, I just wanted you to know that we enlisted can read as well.”

Recently, I had a chance to fly in tiny plane. And I flew thru a cloud.

It was cool.

See for yourself.

If you have a nook and would like to have a “lending buddy”, I am that buddy!

Here is my e-mail address…

Send me an e-mail first and I’ll let you know if I am interested.

I just finished “Game Change” and the book was phenomenal! Now that the summer is here, I’d like to get more reading in.

Here is what I have that is “lendable” (not all books are lendable, for example, “Game Change” is not lendable) that I am willing to lend you!

• Devil’s Casino, Vicky Ward
• The Skull, by Philip K. Dick

Anyway, let me know.

We all carry around little USB keys. They are great to move files around quickly. I put my .AVI movies on them, and pop them in my Xbox360, and watch my movies that way.

Most of the time we never think of them, until they break.

I had a SanDisk 4GB Cruzer Titanium that I used for years. Last week, it simply failed.

Instead of buying a new one, I called SanDisk. The unit has 5 year warranty on it, let’s see if they honor it.

The customer rep was nice and took my information. It was obvious that she was reading from a script, but she got thru it and gave me an address I could send my defective product to, including a UPS drop ship label.

I shipped it off and today got a new unit. Honestly, it looks a bit like a refurb, since they do not make those units anymore. But I don’t care, since it’s just a USB key, and I don’t care if it’s pink with feathers hanging off it, as long as it does what it is supposed to do.

It seems that my theory about who attempted to bomb Times Square was incorrect. But I am fine with that… it was a wild ass guess. My crystal ball was in the shop being repaired.

The alleged bomber is a 30 year old naturalized American citizen originally from Pakistan.

Amazingly, this guy was ON THE PLANE and they called the plane back to have a wee chat with the lad. They also found a gun in his car that he had left in the parking lot.

Oh my.

I hope this guy likes prison food, because that is all he will be eating for the rest of his days.

There is another problem here. It seems American-Pakistani’s keep getting into trouble.

In March, a Pakistani-American man, David C. Headley, pleaded guilty to helping plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. And last December, five young men from Virginia — two of them with Pakistani backgrounds — were arrested in Pakistan on accusations of plotting attacks against targets there and in Afghanistan. At his news conference, Mr. Bloomberg warned against any backlash against Pakistanis or Muslims in New York, saying, “We will not tolerate any bias.”

(N.Y. Times article)

I am worried that Fox News and others may use this persecute Pakistanis unfairly.

I have a theory on who made the car bomb that was left in Times Square.

There is a percentage of the US population who believes in the following:

• The 9/11 attacks were co-ordinated by the US Government
• Taxes are unconstitutional
• Barack Obama was born in Kenya/Singapore/Moscow/Jupiter
• The Government is looking to build concentration camps.
• The Government is looking establish socialism/communism/rule by the UN.
• Jews control EVERYTHING.
• Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O’Reilly are telling it like it is.
• White people are a threatened minority.
• Sarah Palin would be a good President.

If you look at this percentage of people, there is usually a few extra super kooky ones who are ready to kill to make their point.

Timothy McVeigh was one of them. His attack on a Federal Building left 168 people dead and 450 injured. Nineteen of the victims were small children and babies in the day care center on the second floor of the building. McVeigh never expressed remorse to the killing of innocents.

I think the person/persons who left this bomb in Times Square are some Right Wing-Neocon kooks. They probably think, “Let’s attack New York! It’s not really America! It’s full of welfare mothers and Wall Street bankers!”

We can only be thankful that these idiots were too stupid to build a really good bomb.

We can only hope that they are quickly caught by the FBI or blow themselves up making their NEXT bomb.

In Nov 2008, I joined Facebook. I had been avoiding it for a while, but I figured I’d give it a try. Today, I am a daily user of Facebook. This is not to say that I like everything about Facebook. I don’t.

Some GREAT things about Facebook:

• I have been able to re-connect with old friends who I haven’t seen or heard from in years. I am thrilled to be back in touch with some of the great people I served with in the Navy.
• I can “keep up” with my friends. I REALLY do care that my friend Tom Hampton is playing gigs in Pa. I REALLY want to hear about Scott Wilson’s CD coming out (Scott, you have to name the next album “Mind Control Dog”). I REALLY am happy to see Judy’s and all my other friend’s pictures.
• My friends can keep up with me, and I can share the adventure that is my life.

Some SUCK things about Facebook:

• All the stupid games. If you want to play games, get an Xbox 360, or Wii, or something else. Worse, do not POST your game stuff as your Facebook status because NOBODY CARES that you lost a panda, or got a new tractor.
• It can get a little TOO personal. When I broke up with a gal who was a heavy Facebook user, within minutes of breaking up with her, she “unrelationshipped” me (which was fine) and then Facebook set my status to “Single” and ANNOUNCED it to the world. Immediately, my friends began chiming in that they were HAPPY FOR ME, and offering words of support. Naturally, when the gal saw this, she flipped out and began screaming at me (in real life).
• Chat. Seriously, the chatting on Facebook is a disaster.
• People who post the dumbest things as their status like, “If you believe in God and the Easter Bunny, post this as your status. Some won’t, others will, yakkity yak yak YAK!”. If you are going to post personal religious stuff, be prepared that your personal religious views might NOT be shared by others.

Happy Man

To my regular readers, I apologize for my lack of writings as of late.

I’ve been busy.

Work, school and an active social life have put much of the writing of the “Heinrich Show” on hold.

But I will say this.

I am starting a new life. I am not waiting for New Years, or my birthday to start something new. I am starting to slowly change my life…. for the better.

And I have never been happier.

I wish I didn’t have 12 billion things to do today, otherwise, I’d be watching ALF on Hulu.com.

http://www.hulu.com/alf

For those of you who missed the video where Alf speaks German, it’s here and it’s still really funny (if you understand German, it’s REALLY funny)

http://www.iheinrich.com/blog/?p=766