"Old" vs. Young - USS Indy get's bombed!

Mel pointing to the area where he was sleeping to DJ

On this date in in 1945,  DJ,s dad was sleeping on the tail of the USS Indianapolis when the ship was  torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.  The torpedo tore off the front part of the ship which acted like a huge shovel as if plowed through the water. The ship sank in 12 minutes.  300 men went down with the ship leaving 880 floating in the water facing exposure, dehydration and serious, hungry shark attacks. Mel says he could look down in the water and see sharks below their feet circling.  The Navy did not even know the ship was gone for four days and there were massive cover-ups and bone head blunders.  Of the 880 that made it off the ship only 317 were rescued 5 days later.

There is a fantastic book called In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors which has photos of DJ's dad.

I read a number of reviews and this one says it perfectly.

Mel - top right on the USS Indy

This is an outstanding book, very well written, on one of the most tragic events in US naval history, the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. The book is a "page turner" and you will barely be able to put it down. The events following the sinking of the Indy, are in a word, terrifying! I highly recommend this book to those of us baby boomers who grew up hearing the stories of WWII vets, and were fortunate enough to know some of them. The shear terror and horror, the sacrifices these men made will bring you to tears! It is an emotionally gut wrenching story, so beautifully and carefully told by the author, that I can highly recommend it to all WWII buffs, and people who may have not have lived thru the era, and wish to experience the huge sacrifices and selflessness these men showed during the waning days of World War Two.

When I finished reading the book which really is a "page turner" I just said . WOW, amazing!  The interesting thing is was that the caption was court-martialed and made the scape goat, he committed suicide.   

When Hunter Scott (12) was watching JAWS he became fascinated with the story and and decided to do research paper for his school.  He found zero information about the USS Indy at his school or at the University library.

Scott continued with his research anyway, and finally finished his project. It went up to the state finals but was rejected due to his project containing a spiral bound notebook, including memoirs from the survivors. Despite this rejection, Scott went on to the US Congress with survivors of the USS Indianapolis to argue that Capt. Charles Butler McVay III was innocent.

IN 2000, 55 years after the sinking, President Clinton and members of congress cleared McVay's name.
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The NFL is thinking about expanding from 16 to 18 games for the season taking two pre-season games away and making them . . "season" games.   I understand their idea - money - unlike Green Bay many NFL teams only get 15,000 tops to pre season games and no one watch's them on TV.  Heck - Green Bay sells out PRE Pre season games and they get 40,000 for a meaningless scrimmage.

I would hate having two extra games because it would mean two more Sundays during beautiful fall weather where I'm "forced" to sit inside and watch football. Of course if they moved the season back two weeks so in late February when there is no reason to even look outside I would have football . . . . that is a different story.

balderdash is thinking of going to Philly for the 1st Packer game vs. Philadelphia IN Philadelphia.  I've always considered Philadelphia one of the strongholds for the Taliban as they do not let woman attend sporting events unless they prove they have a certain amount of testosterone.

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Big Brother is basically just like Survivor, just indoors!  What happened last night is something that FINALLY happened on a reality show.  The guy getting kicked out, spilled all the secrets to the other contestants.  It is something I would do when I would have gotten booted.  No taking secrets to the grave, spill the beans and create utter chaos as you close the door behind you!  Too funny!  Hell, I would even make crap up as I left!

Speaking of Survivor.  This next season which starts Sept 15th is OLD (over 40) vs. Young (under 30) and Jimmy Johnson just got a little safer.  What guy would want to kick out Jimmy when he could talk football with the dude.

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New York Style Pizza - thin crust

The round, thin-crust stuff that most people in the U.S. think of as "pizza." It ,of course, originated in New York City in the early 1900s and it is wide, thin and foldable. New Yorkers generally fold it while eating. Also referred to in New York as a "regular" pie or a "regular" slice. The default regular slice is a "plain" slice, i.e., no toppings, only cheese. It is traditionally hand-tossed and light on sauce.

The most notable difference between New York style and most other American pizzas is its thin hand-tossed crust, made from a high-gluten bread flour. The flavor of the crust has sometimes been attributed to the minerals present in the New York City tap water used to make the dough. Some out-of-state pizza makers even transport the water cross-country for the sake of authenticity.

This style of pizza tends to dominate the Northeastern states, with many shops advertising New York-style pizza. It is sometimes also known as "Italian pizza" since it reflects the variety of pizza made most commonly in Italian-American-owned pizza shops.

Outside of the Northeast, many pizzas are described as "New York style" - including some by major pizza chains such as Pizza Hut. One large pizza chain, Sbarro, markets New York-style pizza, but cuts it into 6 slices, instead of 8.



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have a great weekend
Rod

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mmmmmm Pizza Napoletana

I was watching a program the other night on pizza, one of my favorite subjects. It was a battle between Chicago style pizza and New Your Style pizza.   Deep Dish vs. Thin Crust. As usual they had fire fighters testing both kinds.

What's up with firefighters and food anyway. All the food shows always test out food on firefighters!

Anyway - I put a poll on a rather busy forum and thought I would include you guys! You will notice on the right side is a Poll. Click your favorite style.

Did you know there are 21 different styles of pizza? I'll start to list them on the blog to get your appetite going first thing in the morning.

The first style is called "Neapolitan"  or pizza napoletana.  It's a small (about 10-inch diameter), thin-crust pizza made in a wood-burning oven. They usually have a puffy "cornicione" (lip or end crust) and use of the freshest ingredients you can find which are applied sparingly for a careful balance.

If you want to really get serious - According to the rules proposed by the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana, the genuine Neapolitan pizza dough consists of wheat flour (type 0 or 00, or a mixture of both), natural Neapolitan yeast or brewer's yeast, salt and water.

The pizza must be baked for 60–90 seconds in a  905 °F stone oven with an oak wood fire. When cooked, it should be crispy, tender and fragrant.

WOW - talk about getting a little nit picky! I have a hard time getting my over up to like 800.  Maybe if I wanted to I could "CLEAN" my oven and make a pizza at the same time.  I wonder how hot "cleaning" gets.
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I golfed last night and was never bitten by a mosquito! I had a couple land on me but they quickly went to mosquito heaven.   My game was not awesome for the first 4 holes and I knew I was in trouble when I managed to hit THREE DIFFERENT sand traps on the 1st hole.  That's never a good way to start.

It's funny because in golf you are with 3 other players but in reality, you are all by yourself in your own little hell!

My big thought process for the night was that I had to do better on par 5's, my course management was lacking because a month ago I was crushing my 3 wood from the deck 210 yards.  But, that seems to have been a anomaly.  So I was going back to actually being a smarter player. What did I do on the 1st par 5?  Hit a screaming line drive which hit a tree 140 yards away and landed 1 inch from the trunk.  I had to take a drop and lose a stroke!  So much for course management.

However - I recovered and while I took a 7 on a par five it was a good 7 (if there is such a thing). After that I was gold and was 3 over for the final 5 holes. 8 over on the 1st four holes, 3 over the last 5.
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I was at the Farmers Market yesterday and took a photo of some very happy sunflowers!  An interesting experiment is that I have two versions. One I cropped to get the 6 main sunflowers and one is basically the entire photo. The big difference is that the BIG photo I could not do the same processes as I did not have enough virtual memory for that size of photo.

And since I had to change things up - they are slightly different,  SO what is better - another poll on the right side. Cropping  #1 or #2.   And in Detail  #1 or #2

#1

#2

Jenny sent this to me this morning.

A POTATO CHIP WITH A CROSS IN IT!!! OMG!

WHERE'S ALL THE OIL!! LOL

That's the 2nd big news story of the day - the BIG news is that it seems OPRAH was not invited to Clinton's wedding!  WHAT? How could this be!  OPRAH not invited?  it must be a mistake as I thought Oprah was invited to ALL weddings!

But then there is the oil!  Where is it?.  Like the other oil spills it seems that mother earth microbes have gobbled up vast quantities of the oil, and in tests 80% of oil it can be eaten naturally within weeks. Evaporation has also played it's part.  I'm sure oil will still wash up from time to time but from everything I have read is looking like the worst is over.
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Weather is looking mighty fine for the next 10 days!!!! 

Have a great Thursday
Rod

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Bugs and BP

So you think mosquitoes are bad now? Just wait. According to the UW Bug guy we should have a new hatching of flood mosquitoes in about 3 days. Not the big slow not very hungry kind but the small stealthy hungry ones. SWEET!!!

So since I have to golf in a swamp tonight I went to Walgreen's to buy more bug spray and it seems they had a big sale and ARE ALL SOLD OUT!! OF EVERYTHING!

At least we had another 1/4 inch of rain last night bringing our two month total to 18.95 inches of rain.

I was in the garden last night and saw two monarch caterpillars.  I think my gardens, which were a few weeks ahead of schedule, are ending a few weeks early also.  I've been keeping track on when things have flowered with a spreadsheet (of course).  This way I can tell if things are on time or late or whatever from year to year.  I'm also going to mark where all my plants are so next spring I won't start pulling "weeds" to find out they are not weeds!  

No sign of the Jap Beetles but I'm sure they are regrouping.  I think I might make a FAQ sheet about how to combat them and distribute them to our little area.  If everyone used Milky Spor we would soon be rid of them.  They really chewed up a River Birch a few houses up the hill!
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Big fire in Columbus last night and you can read about it with some good photos at this link - Big Fire
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I tried a new App for my iphone called Dragon Dictation.  You speak into your phone and it types out the words, then you can email it to  . .whoever.   Not 100% perfect but I would say 90%.  I tried it today and it was pretty nice.  AND - it's free.

It seems a lot of people with iPhones complain about AT&T so there was a survey done of smart phone users.  The average rating of all smart phone users and their providers was 69% approval rating. AT&T was at 68%. So when you hear that AT&T sucks . . .don't be alarmed,   AT&T is not any different then any other provider. 
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On March 30th I predicted this blog would have it's ONE HALF OF A MILLIONTH page read on August 2nd.  I think it's going to be pretty pretty close. 
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There is a website called Baby Steals . com  and every day they have a new item for a baby at 50% off. Pretty interesting stuff (if you have a baby).

Also - I see that some of you get the blog emailed to you and you do not see the Youtube stuff. So I'll include the URL.

The one you have to watch is Tom Tom Darth Vadar which is hilarious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ljFfL-mL70

Yesterday was the airport madness at St Maarten

http://tinyurl.com/3xr5tzx
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Did I mention that Josh and Jenny are EXPECTING YET ANOTHER BABY?  WHOO HOO!!! Soon Josh might have a son to help him bail the basement, dig trenchs, chop down trees and put up Christmas decorations.
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I was looking through old folders at photos I had taken and then skipped over.  I have a lot of those folders.  And I found one I missed.  It's from the wedding in Chicago.

BTW - I'm lookin for a part time job early next year - if you hear or have anything for a retired dude that needs 10-15 hours a week - I'm your guy!!

On this day in 1943 Allied forces dropped 2,326 tons of bombs in 43 minutes on Hamburg Germany setting the entire city on fire.  I mention this as a friend of mine grew up near Hamburg and showed a book of photos of current Hamburg to me.  It is one of the most beautiful city's I have ever seen! 

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An interesting thing is happening in the Gulf of Mexico - the oil is vanishing much faster then expected.  This is actually not a huge surprise. There was a "spill" a number of years ago in the Gulf of Mexico MUCH MUCH bigger then the BP "spill".  Americans did not really hear about it because . . well . . . it was of no concern to us but it was way bigger.  Anyway - what happened was that the oil actually evaporated in many places and while it did kill birds and fish at that time both came back as strong as ever.

The earth is pretty good at taking care of what man does to it.  Not that man should not be careful but it's not ALL doom and gloom.

The biggest problem I see with the BP spill was not environmentally but financially.  America  (and Obama) were/are in a pretty precarious situation. Economically teetering on the edge and just as things were about to stabilize ever so slightly, disaster hits the Gulf closing all sorts of businesses that would normally be pumping $$ into the unstable economy!  Bad bad timing.  It think it's the British that were trying to destabilize America because they still hate that we beat their ass's.

Just my Wednesday morning thought!  I could be wrong.

Rod

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