I've been astonished, and humbled, by the concern about the blog by so many readers. Thank you. Moving from one platform to another has been, to say the least, rather disruptive. The traffic has declined, but not by so much as I might have thought. There's a hard core that has stuck with the blog, and it is quite gratifying to my ego. 

The blog has always tried to make sense of the world to the layman, and to give veterans a forum to share. We will continue to do that for as long as we can. 

Unfortunately, shifting platforms has proven quite expensive. And circumstances dictate that we'll have to shift platforms again in about 2 months in order to retrieve the archives. All of this costs money. Real money. Which, considering we are on what is essentially a fixed income, is a challenge. 

There's a couple ways you can support the blog. First, of course, is a donation via PayPal. It's quick, and easy. There's a donation button at the top of the right sidebar.

There's another important way you can support the blog. Just under the Paypal button is the link to my Amazon store. You can support the blog by starting your Amazon experience through that link. It adds no additional cost to you, and supports me. 

The other thing you can do to support the blog is to share with your friend posts you find interesting. 

We're going to hold off adding advertising on the blog until we shift to the new platform, but when we do, we ask that you consider whitelisting the blog on your adblock list. 

We'd like to see a fundraising total of around $500 for this round, and establish a baseline of income via Amazon to provide for hosting services in the coming months. 

Look, I know the Obama economy is tough, and that you get hit up for donations by a lot of causes, including many far more worthy than this. But do please consider contributing. Many folks were quick to tell me how happy they were to see the blog back up. And I'm happy to provide the blog. But there's a difference between the mental burden of trying to provide relevant content for almost 8 years, and the financial burden of having to host on a paid server. Every little bit helps, folks. And you can tell your friends and family what a great guy you are for supporting the entrepreneurial economy!

I love my readers and commenters. Thanks so much for your support and insights. And, of course, your contributions. 

The tremendous daily buildup of vehicle traffic at US naval installations represents both a critical safety and critical security vulnerability. Additionally, the backup and standstill of traffic obstructing the local neighboring communities is an impediment to the local economy. The buildup is not limited to any single element of the installations, infrastructure, or organization, but a combination of these elements. Ultimately, the question arises that if there were a major incident at an installation that required mission essential personnel to be rapidly recalled and available, could they affectively arrive at their duty assignment within a respectable amount of time? Innovative solutions must be sought and implemented to decrease the overall amount of heavy traffic at these locations, while sustaining the appropriate level of security measures.

via blog.usni.org

I lived exactly 12.5 miles from my company headquarters when I was stationed at Fort Carson and living off post.

But the delays involved with some 12,000 people trying to get to work in the morning meant that the commute was anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes.

Mind you, first formation was at 0630, and my duties as an NCO meant I had to be present no later than 0600.

Getting up at 4am sucked.

On Jan. 20, 2013, the Seawolf-class attack submarine USS Jimmy Carter left her home port in Bangor, Washington. Less than two months later, the submarine appeared at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii for repairs.

It was all quite mysterious. During her time at sea, we don’t know where Jimmy Carter was or what her crew of nearly 150 were precisely doing. The Seawolf class is one of the most secretive weapons in America’s arsenal, and information about the Navy’s “Silent Service” is difficult to discover … by design.

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We know Jimmy Carter was on some kind of mission, which the ship’s official annual history vaguely referred to as Mission 7. “Performed under a wide range of adverse and extremely stressful conditions without external support, this deployment continued USS Jimmy Carter‘s tradition of excellence in pursuit of vital national security goals,” the history stated.

In this vessel’s official chronology, the mission warrants as much mention as a picnic in July and the crew’s Halloween party three months later. But Mission 7 was enough to earn the sailors a Presidential Unit Citation, which rewards “extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy,” according to an official Navy description.

via warisboring.com

A PUC is a big deal. But you won't hear anything about what they did to earn it for years to come, if ever.

We can speculate, of course, but never know.

Working across the street from Palm Springs International Airport has its perks, and one of the biggest for me is the opportunity to see the comings and goings of all kinds of military aircraft and various commercial and private airplanes.

This past week has been about as exciting as it gets, starting off with U.S. Air Force C-17 military transport aircraft dropping off trunks full of equipment, supplies and the presidential helicopter – known as Marine One when the president of the U.S. is aboard – in the days before the president’s arrival.

via www.desertsun.com

I'm having fun listening to LiveATC.net controlling the jets as they depart from KPSP.

Palm Springs Airport really does get an interesting mix of aircraft in and out, and as I live directly under the visual approach, I get to see a lot of them.

Veterans groups who stood up to Donald Trump’s pandering to their ranks are now routinely bombarded with nasty messages from the mogul’s supporters, who want to punish them for daring to challenge their leader.  

Paul Rieckhoff, the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, learned this first-hand when he stood up to the Republican presidential frontrunner in late January, saying he would decline any donations from Trump’s charitable foundation if offered.

“We’ve gotten a flood of nasty attacks… many scary and threatening emails, [the] worst social media trolling I’ve ever seen,” Rieckhoff told The Daily Beast. “Showing what happens when you simply say no. This is the climate he’s created with his followers.”

via www.thedailybeast.com

Primary season is the worst, and people so passionate about their candidate that they smear and troll others need to step back, and reevaluate themselves and their support for their candidate.

During a recent television interview, Iran’s Defense Minister, General Hossein Dehqhan, announced that Iran will sign a contract with Russia for the co-production of an undisclosed number of Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30 multirole fighter aircraft, Fars News Agency reports.

Should the deal go through, Iran will be the second country in the world after India to produce a variation of the Su-30 fighter jet locally. However, as of now, it still remains unclear in what capacity Tehran will be involved in the aircraft production process.

According to a source within Iran’s Defense Ministry interviewed by Sputnik News, a contract could be signed as early as February 16, when the Iranian defense minister will arrive in Moscow to discuss the deliveries of S-300 air defense systems and the Sukhoi Su-30 aircraft.

via thediplomat.com

They're going to fund this with assets unfrozen by Obama's "nuclear deal" that isn't a deal, and does nothing to deter Iran's nuclear program.

At least 23 veterans, troops or family members who called the Veterans Crisis Line in fiscal 2014 were transferred to a voicemail system and their calls never returned, according to a Veterans Affairs Department Inspector General report.

The VA watchdog's investigation into the hotline's performance launched last year also found that the centers responsible for the voicemail errors, who were contractors hired to provide backup services when the VA-run Crisis Line is operating at peak, may not have trained their counselors adequately to answer calls from those experiencing a mental health crisis.

via www.militarytimes.com

As bad as this is, and it is bad, it appears to be more a matter of the system working so well that people are actually using it. And that means it is saturated.

Remember, it simply didn't exist prior to 2007, and usage from 2013 to 2014 surged by over 100%. Few systems are prepared to scale at that rate.

Oops.

Someone is going to have an interesting discussion with the RSO and Range Control.