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• The April 8, 2024 Total Solar Eclipse will be here in 19 days. This is a reminder for all of you who want to view it safely using the proper eyewear to order them now before they are sold out and you are being price gouged. I ordered mine last week and received them yesterday. Make sure to get them from a reliable source like EclipseGlasses.com. If you prefer to find some on Amazon, here is a long list of Amazon Approved Vendors. No matter where you buy them, at a minimum, make sure you see “ISO 12312-2” on them.Destin from SmarterEveryDay has a great video to get you prepared. If you are interested in some science experiments, check out this part of the video. What I like is that he doesn’t just focus on the moment of totality of the eclipse but the partial phase phenomena, the time leading up to the eclipse and immediately after. For instance, you’ll learn due to air circulation why the ground temperature will decrease before the temperature 20 feet in the air. You’ll feel an “eclipse breeze.” As the cooler air is more dense, it will roll down hills.

  I’m going to be interested in animal behavior. I hear stories of the sounds of locusts or cicadas dying off and about ten or fifteen minutes before totality, the crickets will start, their sound will die off, and then you’ll hear the locusts or cicadas again. If you see a group of birds flying in the 15 minutes before totality, like they look like they’re going somewhere, that’s a behavior. They’re going to their nighttime resting spot.

  There’s a great app to help you experience the event, especially if you plan on taking pictures or recording it. Basically, you go to a location, pull out your phone, and hit your GPS location. The app does all the math for you and talks you through the experience. There’s even a practice video for all of you who really like to be prepared.

  Solar Eclipse Timer App iOS | Solar Eclipse Timer App Android

  This is probably the best review since it compares viewing the 2017 Eclipse without the app and then experiencing the 2019 Eclipse with the app.
  

• Yesterday, I wrote about the PV-1 Ventura plane my father flew when he served in the Navy. I mentioned that Dad had a story about his plane being shot down, the pilot landing on the water, and knowing from training he only had x-amount of seconds to get the life raft out before the plane submerged. Last night, I watched a video about the aircraft, and at this point in the video, it states, “The plane had poor buoyancy, and when forced to land on the water, it did not stay on the surface for more than 30 to 40 seconds.”
• The image at the top of today’s post is a painting of the PV-1 in action bombing a sub, which I mentioned was a mission of my father and his crew. I think I will purchase a print or canvas copy of it, but I can’t decide which one and what size.
• Years ago I had trouble finding any good information or pictures about the PV-1 Ventura. It’s still a little challenging, but one surprising source was Twitter. I found all sort of neat stuff about the aircraft on there.
• Today’s short dog-related Rumble video
• I saw a local story on one of the Regal Cinemas in the area in which the side walls of the theater also serve as a movie screen, but I can’t find it. But here’s stuff on it from Regal’s website what they call ScreenX. You can currently watch Dune 2 on it. This technology provides moviegoers with a 270-degree panoramic viewing experience by expanding the screen onto the side walls of the auditorium.
  

• For the last nine weeks, Apple TV has released an episode of Masters of the Air, the latest WWII drama series by the producers of Band of Brothers, so Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are associated with it. I purposely haven’t watched any of them so I can binge-watch them in one weekend, and that’s what I did this past weekend.
• It may not measure up to Band of Brothers, but I highly recommend it. I think it was better than The Pacific, which aired in 2010. Too bad this series wasn’t made earlier. Band of Brothers aired 21 years ago and had the emotional benefit of interviews before the start of each episode with the actual soldiers on which the book and series were based. Most of the vets are now dead. My guess is that at least 98% of them have passed.
• I would have loved to have watched it with my father. While he didn’t fly on the B-17 bombers the series was based on, he earned his wings in the Navy during WWII as a gunner flying in the PV-1 Ventura, which I have pictured at the top of this post. My father is in the photo below. He’s either the second or third from the left. I feel like this is something I should know, but I’m pretty sure he’s the one in the middle.
  • I remember renting the Spielberg film Always from Blockbuster in junior high, really enjoying it, and recommending Dad to watch it before we had to return it the next day. Blockbuster had those two-day rentals. I always thought it was a little sleazy that the day of rental was considered a full day. Anywho, I remember walking to the kitchen. Dad just finished watching the movie. We were always the type to be kind and rewind. Not to mention, we didn’t want to be fined. It was always our habit to rewind immediately after viewing. Dad was shedding a few tears, wiped his eyes, and called me “Boy” like he always did. He said something like, “Boy, you picked a really good movie. It brought back a lot of memories of my flying days. That plane was similar to what I flew in.” Up until then, I had no idea he flew while in the service.
  • In case you were wondering, the plane in the film was an A-26 Invader. And here’s another piece of movie trivia for you, it was Audrey Hepburn’s last film.
• After watching the last episode of Masters of the Air, I decided to go through a few of my father’s things related to flying days. Here’s his 1940 Bluejackets Manual and a flight log. His military career started when he enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor. After the war, he joined the Ohio National Guard and then went into the Army for the Korean War. He retired from the Army in 1968.
• Looking at the flight log led me to do a little research. For instance, I didn’t know what the “Character of Flight” column was for or its entries. Here’s what I found:
  • C – Training
  • Y – Nite Flying
  • G – Gunnery
  • J – Scout-Patrol Escort
  • O – Utility
  • V – Instruments
• I loved my father’s penmanship. 
• Searching for subs sounds cool, but may have been a little boring. Bombing certainly sounds exciting. Dad did have a story about his plane being shot down, the pilot landing on the water, and knowing from training he only had x-amount of seconds to get the life raft out before the plane submerged. I believe everyone survived, but they were lost at sea for several days and his parents were informed he was MIA. I noticed all the dates were two to six months after D-Day, June 6, 1944.
• Something that really stood out was “Rocket Practice.” That was a real head-scratcher. From my understanding, WWII aircraft didn’t have rockets or missiles. That technology wasn’t available until after the war. But then again, it wasn’t until five years ago I learned Germany launched rockets and bombed London. Heck, more than 500 V2 rockets would strike London between September 1944 and March 1945. And, I’m humbled again. Rockets were indeed launched from aircraft in WWII.
  • The High Velocity Aircraft Rocket, or HVAR, also known by the nickname Holy Moses, was an American unguided rocket developed during World War II to attack targets on the ground from aircraft. It saw extensive use during both World War II and the Korean War.
  • And they were indeed a part of the PV-1 Ventura: These aircraft could also carry eight 5-inch (127 mm) HVAR rockets on launchers underneath the wings.
  • From my understanding, in the military sense, a rocket has to be guided to be called a missile.
• I think only one PV-1 Ventura exists. One took 16 years to restore (without engines) and is on permanent display at the Orlando Sanford International Airport. I would very much like to see it in person one day, but it’s not presented in a way in which I would be able to view it very well. I learned in this video there are guns at the top and the rear. In the rear, the gunner would have to lay on his stomach, and I think Dad mentioned that.
  
  

• Yesterday was just a very off day. Actually, most of the week has felt off. Maybe I’m having trouble dealing with the time change.
• I’m ignorant of more things than I like to be, and my vocabulary isn’t as rich as I’d like. I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “sublime.” Of course, I’ve heard of it, but I don’t think I ever used it in conversation or a paper. I’ll be honest, I thought the word dealt with something blah or underwhelming, equivalent to “meh.” I think that’s because of this album cover. I heard someone use it yesterday to describe his experience with gratitude and how he went from feeling happiness to joy and ultimately sublime with God. Confused, I looked it up. I wish I had known the meaning of it earlier: Sublime is an adjective that means something is very beautiful or good, and causes strong feelings of admiration or wonder.
• Unexpectedly, BoyGeeding came over for a few hours yesterday. I don’t get to be with him as much as I’d like, so I often express things to him that most parents would keep to themselves. For instance, yesterday I wanted to let him know he was awesome. So, I said, “Son, how did you get to be so awesome?” I didn’t expect him to answer, but he replied, “Well, Dad. It’s basically because you’re my dad.”
• Late last year, one of my childhood friend’s mother died. I wasn’t healthy enough to go to the funeral, which was frustrating, but I for sure sent flowers. Within that last year, two of my closest friends’ mothers developed a form of cancer. One responded well to treatment and is in remission. The other’s outcome is not favorable. I hold her in high esteem, stayed in touch with her, and felt she treated me as one of her own many times. That got me thinking about her funeral and how I should be able to make it because I’m now in good health. Not to be macabre, but I try to plan ahead for stuff like this so I can easily take time away from work. But, for some reason I’m not able to attend, I will definitely send flowers. Then an epiphany slapped me across the face. Send her flowers NOW so she can enjoy them when she’s still alive and know that she’s loved. I tell you all this in case you are in a similar situation. No one can feel your love or appreciate a gift after they are dead, so do what you can to let them know you love them today while they are still alive.
• Today’s short goofy dog Rumble video.
• I’ve followed the life of local resident Paul Alexander, one of the last humans to live most of his life in an iron lung, for a long time. But I haven’t been too impressed with the coverage of his death by the national media. Most, like this CNN article, don’t even mention where he spent most of his life. This NBC News article only states he caught polio in the Fifties in Texas. None of them described how an iron lung worked and why his life couldn’t have been made easier with the advancement of medical technology. This 2020 article by The Guardian does the best job of describing his life outside of the contraption and compared what was going on with COVID with polio. The Dallas Morning News did a great video segment on him years ago, but it also lacked coverage of how he spent time outside of the device.

And though he had to think about every breath, he got better at it. Once he could breathe reliably for long enough, he could get out of the lung for short periods of time, first out on the porch, and then into the yard.

Although he still needed to sleep in the iron lung every night – he couldn’t breathe when he was unconscious – Paul didn’t stop at the yard. At 21, he became the first person to graduate from a Dallas high school without physically attending a class. He got into Southern Methodist University in Dallas, after repeated rejections by the university administration, then into law school at the University of Texas at Austin. For decades, Paul was a lawyer in Dallas and Fort Worth, representing clients in court in a three-piece suit and a modified wheelchair that held his paralysed body upright.

At a time when disabled people were less often seen in public – the Americans With Disabilities Act, which banned discrimination, wouldn’t be passed until 1990 – Paul was visible. Over the course of his life, he has been on planes and to strip clubs, seen the ocean, prayed inchurch, fallen in love, lived alone and staged a sit-in for disability rights. He is charming, friendly, talkative, quick to anger and quick to make a joke. At 74, he is once again confined to the lung full-time.

• https://twitter.com/peytonyager/status/1768353128473149619
• https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1768379955698885110