Race Day.....

A big race weekend for me with some amazing stories.

First, from Saturday morning until Sunday morning was the 24 hours of LeMans. One of my favorite races, it involves all manner of sports cars in several classes from the unrestricted custom built racers dominated by Audi variants through Corvettes, Porches, Panoz and this year great runs by Aston Martins. The big news was that an American team won the overall trophy for the first time since 1967. That fact stunned me. No American team has won in the 38 years since Dan Gurney and A.J. Foyt did so driving a Ford GT40. Fairly amazing really. 38 years ago, our own Chaparrals were running at LeMans.

The second and more remarkable story was the complete snafu of the American Formula One Gran Prix at Indianapolis. If you didn't catch the race, what was left of it, or haven't heard it was a complete bust. Only hours before the race was to begin, one of the two tire suppliers, Michelin, announced that the racing tires they supplied to most of the field were unsafe. A point highlighted by the crashes of several drivers at the high speed turn 13 during practice.

As controversy swirled, Michelin offered to supply new tires, the Indy race committee offered to modify the track to slow down traffic at turn 13 and the Michelin equiped teams said that they would not allow their drivers to compete unless the safety of their drivers could be insured. The Formula One Administration held firm to their rules that no new tires could be supplied and that the track could not be altered at the last minute. The outcome was that only the 6 cars supplied with Bridgestone tires started the race. The finishing order was a foregone conclusion as two of the six starters, the Ferrari's, were top contenders and the other four cars had been finishing at the rear of the ranks all year. And so it was.

The whole event was a fiaso and will not bode well for future Formula One events in the United States. It was a sad day for drivers, teams, Formula One in general and for the fans in particular.

Bookish.....

Here's a revealing little exercise I've received from Neo-NeoCon and the Red Falcon. It involves, as you can see, books.

1) Total number of books I own:

This is very difficult and if I knew I'd tell you, but my books are scattered all over creation. They are in seperate bookcases, shelves and warehouse units. I have books from my childhood, from college courses and all stages of adulthood. If I had to wager a guess on the total number of books I own, it would be over 600. I have gotten rid of at least that many.

2) Last book I bought:

My best guess is that I last bought a bundle of T.R. Fehrenbach's books several years ago when Julie and I went to San Antonio and had the chance to spend a morning with T.R. We took copies of "Lone Star", "This Kind of War" and "Comanches". T.R. was kind enough to autgraph them all for us.

3) Last book I read:

I know this one without doubt. I just this week, finally, finished Gene Cernan's "Last Man on the Moon". A great story of his personal life as an astronaut and the early space program. Gene autographed it for me.....through my brother.

4) Five books with notable influence on me:

a] "We Were Soldiers Once....and Young" by Joe Galloway and Hal Moore-- a big influence since I ended up becoming great friends with the author and many of the key characters in the book. Autographed by authors and numerous characters.
b] "Comanches" by T.R. Fehrenbach-- a great, detailed history of the region I live in. I have an autographed copy.
c] "Son of the Morning Star" by Evan S. Connell-- a great story told in an almost mystical manner.
d] "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien-- This would be on my list if it only contained the first chapter, the description of the things they carried. Some of the best prose ever written. Another autographed copy.
e] "A Rumor of War" by Phil Caputo-- A vivid personal journey of one young man's war in Vietnam. Autographed volume.

5) Five people to hand this meme off to:

The usual cast of characters mostly with a local flavor, some of which may have already been thru this bookish exercise. They can simply note the archive link!

Julie aka The Bride
George at Sleepless in Midland
Eric at the Fireant Gazette
Jimmy at Sticky Door Knobs
Lisa, far away at A Broad from Abroad

Friday Night....

Here I sit at my computer while the Bride sits 5 feet away at her's, the time made more cheery by the newly purchased Classic Moody Blues CD. "Once upon a time" is the track playing right now. I like the Moody's especially the very early tunes that really sound like a different band than what the MB's ended up being. The bride bought this Moody's CD and another "best of" album tonight, The Best of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. TJB hits stretching back to 1964, thru the easy listening 60's, a few from the 1970's and then a selection of Herb's hits from the era I call, "Disco Herb". Actually some of these are quite good, like "Rise" and although Alpert was obviously playing to the disco pop crowd of the time, these are more than just disco mania. More jazzy and just very artistic.

The Bride purchased these CD's on our stop at Best Buy after dinner. At Best Buy we ran into blogger Jimmy Patterson. It was rather coincidental that after having spent Monday with two of the other active Bloggers in Midland, I had the chance to chat with a third on Friday. The meeting gave us a chance to talk about our defective, but hopefully mending hearts, and for Jimmy to update me on the idea that several of us will be blogging for the newspaper online soon.

All of this took place after Julie and I had a romantic dinner for two at a local eatery of some fame, Chez IHOP. We hadn't been to the IHOP in quite some time, and after having been to all of our favorite restaurants recently we decided that a pancake supper was in order. I had been gone from IHOP all too long I suppose for I discovered, with both joy and regret, that I now qualify for the Senior Citizens "Early Bird" Special, a free entree with any entree purchased between 3 and 6 p.m. I might add that the age at which the IHOP defines a "Senior Citizen" is ridiculously low. Somewhere Jerry Seinfeld is laughing.

Imaging....

I love photography and I think I'm most happy when taking new images, reviewing and reworking old images of mine, or as now, helping other people with images for their use. Three projects undertaken in the last several days. Most recently I've begun to work thru the shots Julie took on her recent trip to London and Paris. We have downloaded her digital shots and I've put a few of them up at our London Images website. More will be posted in the next several days, as she captured most of her images on 35 mm. cameras. Scanning and posting of those is coming.

Last night I got one of those "emails out of the blue" that happens when you have many photographs catalogued on the web. I received a request from a young man in Oregon who wants to use several of my Chaparral Racing photos on a website he is developing for a major game, Gran Turismo 4, played on PlayStation2. It just so happens that I have the GT-3 version of this racing game and he flattered me by saying I had the best Chaparral pictures on the web...so I OK'ed his usage of my images for free. It didn't hurt that he also has just gotten out of the army!

The third project is another one of those very interesting ones that I get to do through my good friend, author Joe Galloway. Last week I received an email from the producer of Mail Call, with Gunny R. Lee Ermey on The History Channel. Joe will be appearing on Mail Call to talk about the battles of the 1st Cavalry Division in the Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam in 1965. To go with his, and others, distinguised oratory they needed pictures. Since I handle many of Joe's digital image files, it was my pleasure to get the photos to the producers at Digital Ranch Productions. The episode will air June 24th at 9 p.m.

Bloggers....

Two "old pro" bloggers, Eric Siegmund [C] and Wallace Craig [R], get together with a rising star of the blogosphere, Burr Williams [L], to discuss a new website for Burr's organization the Sibley Nature Center. To my knowledge this is the first group photo of Midland bloggers. Burr has only recently started blogging but already has a good base of support at his interesting and colorful journal, El Llanero. The website that we discussed will be interactive and full of more useful information about West Texas.

Land of the Rising Sun...

I don't believe that I've ever had my picture [and that of the lovely bride] posted on a Japanese based website. Until today. Thanks to the guys at Chinpunbeifun we will be now be recognized on the streets of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka which is good because nobody pays much attention to me here. This brings me full circle as my association with the Japanese is long standing. When I was a freshman, our high school foreign exchange student, Takao Umino, was from Japan. When I lived in Hawaii, I regularly drank beer on Friday afternoons with many nisei and sansei gentlemen down at Sunset Beach. Later in life I loaded up on Japanese electronics.

It's rather interesting but I met the Chinpunbeifun bunch through the comment section of Roger L. Simon's blog. When they started their own online journal, Roger was kind enough to mention the new site which quickly drew me there. It was a treat having them display a few of my Japanese related aviation photos. Next I plan on sending picutres of some of my rather old Japanese woodblock prints.

And I'm very gratified to see that they had an interest in our new blog for Burr Williams and the Sibley Center. I think that Burr is going to be a hit in Blogville.

They're home.....!

The Bride and child are back from London and my joy is boundless! I missed them ever so much. Here's Julie as she descends the airport stairs with her friend Sue Ellen who accompanied Julie and Jack back from Houston. It was a poignant reunion and I had the opportunity to show the travelers all the things in Midland that had changed since their departure. Well, OK, nothing much has changed but the weather is much hotter than when they departed. I'm glad they're home, the dogs are glad they're home. Hopefully home for awhile.

Tidbits....

I haven't felt a strong urge of late to update this here journal. I think that the death last weekend of good friend and good blogger, Mike Reed, aka Bunker Mulligan, has drained my will to blog. Or perhaps it's the prolonged absence of the Bride and Child, aka my family. Never-the-less here are a few tidbits and actually some quite good news on several fronts.

--The Bride and Child are resting up in Houston after returning from London and will be home tomorrow. A much too prolonged vacation for me, but I know that they had a good time and what do they say? "Absence makes the heart grow fonder". Undoubtedly.

--While at the heart surgeons office today, my cell phone rang and it was none other than the former treasurer of Texaco. David retired from Texaco several years ago and now heads up a large investment group whom I have been talking to about funding a large project that my partner Del and I have been working on for three years. David wanted me to know that they are very interested, so much so that he wants us to conference call tomorrow with him and a very large pension fund he represents.

--Fun this morning getting a new blogger up and running. Local folks will be very familiar with Burr Williams of the Sibley Nature Center. Burr is probably the most knowledgable one person about the history, people, places and the plants and animals of our area, the southern Llano Estacado. He's a great writer, interesting person and rather a character whom I like very much. The blog will be in addition to his weekly newspaper article and hopefully we will have all his interesting stories from the past archived. His Blog will expand and soon be relocated to the Sibley Center's own domain, but for now pay a visit at El Llanero

Hopefully I can add more meaningful dialogue in the days to come, but you never know with the bride just back........

D-Day.....

It was 61 years ago today that the world's largest and arguably most important military operation, "Overlord", took place. It is imperative that we remember this anniversary each and every year. Soldiers who were 17 years old when they landed on the beaches at Normandy are now 78 years old. Most are older than that now and many are gone. My own dad, a veteran of the famed 45th Infantry Division, is now 82. He missed D-Day because he had landed on the beaches of Italy a year earlier. These men are leaving us all to quickly.

The most common visual image thought of today about D-Day is of the landing craft hitting the beaches of Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword. My favorite image, however, is the one above of the supreme commander, General Eisenhower, as he delivers a parting address to the airborne troopers of the 101st Airborne Division.

Having been an airborne trooper with many night jumps myself, I can only image the trepidation of these men as they prepare to jump into the dark knowing full well a goodly portion of them would never see home again. In those days of more primative communications, the best they could have done was to write a final letter home, having not heard the voices of their loved ones, in some cases for years.

As I think of D-Day 61 years ago, I think of all the men who fought all over the world all those years ago. We owe these men a tremendous debt.

Bunker Mulligan...

It was with extreme sadness that I learned of the death of Bunker Mulligan this evening. Bunker Mulligan was the Blogging ID of Mike Reed of Corpus Christi. His love for the game of golf showed in his Blog and his Blogging and generated the name he chose for his online journal. I thought it was a great one. Mike was a fine and interesting human being who made many friends on and thru the Internet. I am grateful to have been one of them. His postings generally cut to the core of the subject and he had a way of explaining things in an in-depth, yet simple way.

Mike was a military man, a retired Air Force officer. There is something about the military experience that binds people together, even Bloggers, perhaps that's why we became such good friends. And friends we were. Besides our Blog postings, Mike and I sent emails back and forth almost every week. Some commenting on weighty topics, most just about our families, friends and our life experiences. Mike has three sons, two in the military and one who is a police officer. He was extremely proud of them all. What a great legacy to Mike's life of service.

Mike apparently suffered a fatal heart attack on Friday, a fact made all the more poignant to me because of my recent heart troubles. Mike was one of the first to email and then phone Julie offering his support for me while I was still in the hospital and the first to telephone me when I got home. I appreciated that more than words can say. He called several times to cheer me up and then sent Hugh Hewitts book, "Blog" as a way of saying get back to doing what you were doing which in fact I have.

In all honesty, I will regret for the rest of my life not having met Mike in person and spending time with him. Blogging, for me, won't be the same without him.

Mike, mission accomplished, and well done!

Hell-o London....

If you notice the date/time stamp below you'll see that this message is being posted at the genuinely awful hour of 3 a.m. About the time I went to bed this night the thunder and lightning made it's appearance. Around here that means two crazed dogs, so as I lay in bed anticipating their panting, shaking and low guttural whining I struck upon the idea of calling Julie in London. At 2 a.m. here it is 8 a.m. to the Limey's.

Using the phone in our office I was able to get the infamous hotel telephone answering tree as described below. Once again I hit #6, "other lines" and was caught in the perpetual motion machine of message replay that had frustrated me earlier in the day. Desperate to talk to the bride, after missing her this afternoon, I grabbed the cell phone and went thru the same procedure. Voila within in minutes I had the sweet bride on the line, sounding sleepy but as clear as if she was in the next room. How wonderful it was to hear her voice and as the thunder boomed in the night in Midland hear of their adventures in London and Paris. All is well with them, but they are sore and tired from the excursion to Paris and the climb up the Eiffel Tower. We spent about 45 minutes on the phone, cost unknown, but cost is no object when you have not talked to your beloved in 5 days. The longest I've ever gone without hearing her voice.

Explanatory note: I had tried several times to call Julie at the hotel using our office phone. I could dial thru to the hotel, get into the menu tree but when I selected #6 "other lines" I would go back to the main menu. I finally have decided that we have a defected #6 button on our office phone though it appears to work fine on other direct dial numbers. The phone tree just doesn't like it!

Mystery travelers reappear.....

The bride, child, mom-in-law and entourage left Atlanta on Sunday night. I spoke with them after they had boarded the plane for London and were awaiting takeoff. I was glad for this one last chance to speak with them and was left with the promise of a phone call upon their arrival at the hotel in London.

Four days pass.......

There has been no phone call nor email and frankly I had that gnawing kind of worry. What if? I think that Julie's Dad had the same feeling as he called last night in his common jovial mood, but after the "how are you's", his first question was, "well have you heard from them". I think that he had that gnawing feeling too.

So last night I was very relieved to see that the bride did find the time to post an entry in The Yellow Bug News of their gay adventures in London and Paris. Along with the news was a note for the husband, that's me, to call the hotel. Having thought of this, I had done so, but the number for the hotel I was left with turns out to be the reservation phone number which consists of a robot phone tree and no exit to an operator. So off to the hotel website for a phone number. They should be scolded, the only number listed is the ubiquitous phone tree line. I spent 30 minutes "googling" around and finally found another website for the hotel that does have an email address. I have emailed and requested a main desk number with an operator attached. No reply as of yet.

It could be that if I ever talk to them I'll get bad news, having read the line in Julie's post... "but it would be great if this was home". A comment designed to not give much encouragement to husbands left in what was thought to be the "home". Perhaps I'll use my next week of solitude to rethink my future.

Update: as coincidence would have it, Julie was on the computer in London at the same time I was posting the above. Having read her "comments" I decided to give the phone tree line one more shot. Miraculously, this time when I hit #6, other lines, I got thru to the main desk loud and clear. Unfortunately there was no answer in the Craig or Dulin rooms so I am still without verbal commo. But glad to know they're having a good time and all is well.

The Memorial....

The photo above was taken by Joe Galloway at LZ XRay, in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam, on either the 14th or 15th of November 1965. I do not know the name of the dead soldier being carried in the poncho, I'm not sure Joe does either. There were 78 other American soldiers carried out in ponchos during those three days of combat and three times that number wounded. Almost double that number died 2 days later at LZ Albany. I have cropped this photo and what you don't see is a row of dead American 1st Cav troopers who have done their duty, paid the ultimate price and are awaiting their turn to go home. This is why we celebrate Memorial Day.

It will be 40 years this November that this young man went home to his family for the last time. He would probably be 59 or 60 years old now. Think of his family, his wife if he had one, his friends and his community, because undoubtedly they are thinking of him and their loss this weekend. They are thinking of the pride this man had in his unit, the patriotism that took him to fight far from home, the burdens that he bore with dignity, they wonder what his last thoughts were. They are thinking of what might have been. This is why we celebrate Memorial Day.

--------------------------

The things they carried...
From, "The Things They Carried"
by Tim O'Brien


"The things they carried were largely determined by necessity. Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C-rations and two or three canteens of water.....

The carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery. The carried lice and ringworm and leeches and paddy algae and various rots and molds. They carried the land itself--Vietnam, the place, the soil a powdery orange-red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces. They shared the weight of memory. They carried what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded and the weak. They carried the sky......

For the most part they carried themselves with poise and a kind of dignity. Now and then, however, there were times of panic when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die."

Well Blimey...!

The bride and child have jetted off this morning for foreign lands. Julie and Jack, along with her Mother, one of Jack's cousins and her friend, are off to merry olde England for a week or so. They left for Houston this morning to meet up with the traveling cousin, visit her brother and then they depart for London on Sunday.

I chose not to go for several very valid reasons revolving around paying for home repairs rather than a week at the Kensington Hotel, London. While in London they will be doing the usual tourist things like attending the Pakistan vs. Britain cricket matches. This will be little Jack's only chance for entertainment of the type he enjoys as the remainder of the tour group are all women....and you know what that means. I had a long talk with him at the airport about achieving the proper perspective on all this as well as maintaining his sanity while touring with 4 women. I think he'll come back a better man for his experiences.

Along with the activities in, and around London, they'll be making a day trip to Paris via the "Chunnel" to climb the heights of La Tour Eiffel along with a short stop at Le Louvre. Hopefully while in London they will be able to hook up with our blog friend Lisa of A Blog from Abroad.

It has only been 2 hours since I saw them off at the airport and I miss them terribly already. I like my alone and quiet time, but an overwhelming sense of sadness has enveloped me at the thought of two weeks without the sounds of their activity in the house. Thank God for two dogs who will help to fill the void.

It's Me, it's Me...it's Ernest T!!

I would be very remiss if I didn't mention the passing of Howard Morris, one of the great character actors of the golden age of TV sitcoms. Howard played the amazing Ernest T. Bass on the Andy Griffith Show and was the bane of Sheriff Andy and Deputy Barney Fife. One of Barney's classic recurring lines concerning Ernest T was...."He's a nut". And he was whether tossing bricks thru windows or pining for his beautiful mountain dreamboat "Romena".

Most people are shocked to know that Ernest T. appeared in only five episodes of the Andy Griffith Show, so powerful was his character that many think he was one of the regular cast members. Howard Morris bore little resemblence to the moronic Ernest T. He started out on broadway and had been a featured star on the original TV comedy, Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and later directed a variety of TV comedies including later episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. He appeared in numerous movies and did voice overs including the starring role in Atom Ant. His peers described him as a genius. It took a genius to play the deranged Ernest T, and he will be missed.

Visit New Mexico...

At 105° it's a little too hot to write much at all so I'm just going to direct you to the last in my quadrilogy* of New Mexico pictures taken over the last several years. These were taken just about one year ago, over Memorial Day, in Lincoln New Mexico and vicinity. Lincoln is an historic town best known as the home of Billy the Kid, Sheriff Pat Garrett and the Lincoln County War which precipitated their fame.

Lincoln is a gem of a place principally because it's a somewhat undiscovered tourist spot and looks today much as it did in the 1880's. The Sunday morning we were visiting there were probably no more than 4 or 5 other tourist types in town. And...there's a great Brazilian bar-b-que lean-to for lunch. I'd say restaurant, but lean-to more adequately describes it. Try Lincoln, you'll like it.

Lincoln Photos

*If a trilogy is three in a series, then a quadrilogy must be four.

Congrats....

We want to congratulate Lynn and Darryl James on 25 years of marriage by showing the happy couple at the party given in their honor this Saturday afternoon. This is also a clever editiorial device giving me, the editor, a chance to feature myself and The Bride in a rare snapshot of us together here on Streams. The Bride is on the far left, moi on the far right.

Darryl is a Vietnam Vet and was in our vernacular of the times a "LOACH driver". A Light Observation and Control Helicopter, pilot. The story of how I came to know Darryl and then Lynn is an interesting tale of the digital age. Darryl and Lynn live just around the corner and up a few blocks from The Bride and Me, but our meeting came by way of Washington D.C. and an email.

A few years back I was working on a Vietnam related project thru the CAF. In trying to round up participants to speak on Vietnam aviation, I got a phone call from buddy Joe Galloway in D.C. saying that he had received several emails from a pilot in Midland who might be interested in helping with the seminar. It was when I contacted the pilot, who turned out to be Darryl, that I discovered that he lived just around the corner. Upon meeting him we discovered more commonalities. Darryl is a consultant for Key Energy who we use on many projects and his wife Lynn is a banker who actually arranged financing for my partner Del Sloan on one of his gas projects some years back.

It's interesting how small the digital neighborhood is sometimes!

The Galloway Award.....

Congratulations to my good friend Joe Galloway for a new journalism award named in his honor....

WASHINGTON - In a first, Military Reporters & Editors and Knight Ridder Newspapers have teamed up to create a $2,000 annual award for outstanding journalism. The winner of the Joseph L. Galloway Award for Distinguished Journalism will receive the cash prize at the fourth annual MRE Conference in Washington, to be held this fall.

"I want to thank the officers and members of MRE for naming their annual award for distinguished service for me, and Knight Ridder Newspapers for donating the prize money that goes with that award," said Galloway, who is based in Washington, D.C. "I only wish there was an award honoring the hundreds of friends and colleagues who have given their lives in search of the truth in the most dangerous places on earth."

MRE is the official association of military journalists. It was formed at the University of Maryland in the wake of 9-11 in large part over concerns about access to troops in war zones. Our contest, inaugurated last year, also will pay homage to reporters working in Iraq, the world's most dangerous location for journalists. The Baghdad Press Corps Award recognizes news organizations and Iraqi journalists throughout the country. It is given to journalists reporting from Iraq, where 19 reporters and 12 media assistants were killed in 2004. We honor all of them, men and women, embeds and independents, foreigners and Iraqis, who risk their lives daily to tell the most important story of the year.

All entries in the contest's print category are eligible for the Galloway award. Though it is the only cash prize now given, MRE hopes to fund the photography award this year and all other categories when it marks its inaugural Chicago conference in 2006.

Galloway, a veteran war correspondent and co-author of the book, "We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young," is Knight Ridder's senior military writer and a nationally syndicated columnist.

A native of Refugio, Texas, he spent 22 years as a foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International. He also logged nearly 20 years as a senior editor and senior writer for U.S. News &World Report.

Galloway's overseas postings include tours in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow in the former Soviet Union.

During 15 years overseas, Galloway served four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam, covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War and a half-dozen other combat operations. He reported on Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1990-91, riding with the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) in the assault into Iraq. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "the finest combat correspondent of our generation - a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."

Galloway and retired Army Lt. Gen. Hal G. Moore wrote the bestseller, “We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young." The book later was the basis for the critically acclaimed movie, "We Were Soldiers," starring Mel Gibson. Galloway also co-authored "Triumph Without Victory: The History of the Persian Gulf War" for Times Books.

He is a rare exception among war correspondents, having been given a Bronze Star Medal with V (for valor) for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. Galloway also received the National Magazine Award in 1991 for a U.S. News &World Report cover story on the 25th anniversary of the Ia Drang battles.

"Joe has a long resume of reporting in foreign conflicts, and that in itself would be enough for us to name an award in his honor," said MRE President Sig Christenson, a veteran Iraq combat correspondent for The San Antonio Express-News and Hearst Newspapers. But this award is as much about the man and his heart as it is his career. It symbolizes not only the many stories Joe has filed at home and on the battlefield, but his insistence on integrity and an unending sympathy for the combat soldier's constant struggle to survive and return to loved ones back home."

Journalists in small and large markets in the United States and abroad are eligible for the Galloway award, as well as other categories – one for photographers. Information on contest rules and fees can be found on www.militaryreporters.org

Knight Ridder will contribute $1,000 this year, while MRE and several private donors provide the rest. The Galloway award will highlight each year's contest.

Other competitive categories are:
- Domestic reporting - small market/large market
- International reporting - small market/large market
- Photography, domestic and international – small market/large market.

Entries are for the calendar year ending Dec. 31, 2004, and should be mailed to MRE, c/o Michelle Riley Pendleton, 1325 G. St. NW., Suite 730, Washington, D.C., 20005. The deadline for submission is July 15.

Listen to the music....!

From Mike over at Bunker Mulligan I received a little Blogistical musical challenge. I don't normally pick up these "meme" challenges on my own, but Mike is a good friend and he asked me to participate. Actually, ever since I received that Vietnam Era Music website several weeks ago I have been in a musical reverie mode anyway. So here goes...

Total volume of music files on my computer:
Zip, nada and none on my home computer. I do have a couple on my office machine including "Chico and the Man" by Jose Feliciano. This one is linked on my desktop so I can play it often and annoy my partner.

The last CD I bought:
That's a tough one as I don't buy many CD's anymore. I think it was the Doobie Brothers, "Doobies Choice" which was handy because not long afterwards I met the Doobies and had Pat Simmons sign the cover.

Song playing right now:
I'm at the office and decorum states that I don't play music [yeah right!]. I can turn on Chico and the Man if you like.

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:
Tough one, there are many I listen to alot, mostly Doobies, just ask the Bride. But here are five as directed...

Listen to the Music, Doobie Bros
Takin' it to the streets, Doobie Bros
Girl from Ipanema, Stan Getz and Astrid Gilberto
Beautiful, Gordon Lightfoot
Free Man in Paris, Joni Mitchell

Five people to whom I’m passing the baton:
Some local, some around the world....

Eric, Fire Ant Gazette
Julie, Yellow Bug News [aka "the Bride"]
Slatts, Slatts News
Lisa, Blog from Abroad
The Red Falcon, The Steiner Aid

OK, there you have it. Groove on.....!!

Sprechen Sie Deutsches...?

No I don't speak German, but I feel as if I should in the last several days. Someone I know, or more specifically who knows me, has been a naughty little computer user and has contracted the w32.sober.p@mm virus. Someone I know is on the cutting edge of virus susceptability for this new variant of the old Sober virus which was just noted by McAfee and other security agents today. I've been getting 20 or 30 virus generated emails for the last two days.

As far as I've read the virus is particularly virulent, but not particularly dangerous. Like so many of these "trojans" this bug generates emails from the infected machine, using email addresses it picks up off the host computer. Thus, my two semi-private email addresses residing on some friend or acquaintance's system are fair game for these fascinating messages......in German. Translating them on BabelFish I learned that they all have a political message with a link to one of many German news sources. The emails have no infected attachements so are nothing more than a big nuisance. The method of infection, I suppose, is by downloading some little gem from an infected website.

When I first started receiving these messages my first thought was that someone with a political agenda had "hacked" the website of German blogger David at his Medienkritik website and somehow gotten access to commentors email addresses. But today, as the German tiatribes continued pouring in to my mailbox I did a little research on Google by typing in some of the text from a spam email and sure enough I got a match which referenced the new virus strain.

So, if you are reading this and have my email address on your machine you might think about checking to see if you have contracted this dread German virus. I, and others would appreciate it. If your virus program is hopelessly out of date or you don't have one, you can go to McAfee.Com and download their "Stinger" tool which will take care of 53 of the most common viruses including the Sober p@mm.

Here's what the message looks like. I got this one while I was typing this report, although this is just one of many versions some with considerably more text, but all with a link to a German website..

Lese selbst:
http://bz.berlin1.de/archiv/041115_pdf/.htm