For the longest time, I wondered if the beaches of Normandy were open to the public, if people used them for leisure and enjoyment, or if they were considered a place of reverence. I have my answer, and I see nothing wrong with this. I like to think the ones who fought and died on it like it the way it is now: children playing on it, no barbed wire, no machine gun nests or firing positions, no dead or wounded soldiers—just beachgoers, curious tourists, and old friends coming to visit.
The cemeteries and other memorials are for reverence. Although, I don’t think it would be prudent to wear a Surf Normandy shirt.
I wish I could wake up every morning like I did yesterday. I woke up slightly over an hour before my alarm but felt well-rested. Realizing the time, I laid my head back down and fell asleep for about another 20 minutes. Then, I woke up with so much energy that I got an early start to my day. Not being a morning person whatsoever, this felt great. I looked back at everything I did and ate the night before and wondered if that had anything to do with it. In that case, I’ll eat a quarter of a hamburger leftover from trivia night and a Drumstick an hour before bedtime.
I suppose there’s something sweet about France honoring the 80th anniversary of D-Day and then hosting the Olympics the following month. If I were to visit France, I’d much rather go to Normandy than Paris. But if I did go to Paris, the one thing I’d do would to pay my respects to Lafayette by visiting his grave.
I really enjoyed watching this documentary and how they used virtual reality, old maps, drone footage, photos, and satellite images to gain a good understanding of what it was like for a U.S. soldier on D-Day. It’s sponsored by a genealogy website I’ve never heard of, but in honor of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, allowing the public to view a lot of information for free – FindMyPast.com.
Zelensky appears awestruck as a U.S. veteran in Normandy grasps and kisses his hand, calling him the “savior of the people.” Zelensky replies: “No, no, you. You saved Europe.” pic.twitter.com/LKJAY6IORP
Here’s a Canadian D-Day story of the first house liberated that day. One part of the story that stood out was how much the beach has reclaimed this huge sea wall that stood in their way.
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on Your BagOfNothing for Friday, June 7, 2024
For those who never understood what the D in D-Day stood for, I hope this helps. The D in D-Day just stands for “Day.” It is the designation that the military uses on the start date of an important operation. The days before or after the start date of an operation are labeled with plus or minus signs. For example, two days before the start date would be D-2, while two days after the start date would be D+3.
The older I get, the more awe I get about D-Day. Moving 11,000 Allied aircraft, 7,000 ships, and landing craft manned by over 195,000 naval personnel and dispersing over 156,000 soldiers in one day is no easy feat.
In the ensuing Battle of Normandy, 73,000 Allied forces were killed and 153,000 wounded. The battle — and especially Allied bombings of French villages and cities — killed around 20,000 French civilians. The exact German casualties aren’t known, but historians estimate between 4,000 and 9,000 men were killed, wounded or missing during the D-Day invasion alone. About 22,000 German soldiers are among the many buried around Normandy.
Much is made of the young men who stormed the beach, but the oldest was 57-year-old General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who was in command of taking Utah Beach. He died a month later of a massive heart attack and was later posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Historians will remember his father and former president, was a Rough Rider. So, I thought it was cool his Jeep carried that name.
A part of the 80th anniversary of D-Day included a pre-dawn drone show.
I haven’t thought about it before, but it occurred to me that Lego sets are just three-dimensional puzzles. For instance, if you buy a Lego set to build a Death Star, you assemble random plastic bits to make a structure, just like you would put puzzle pieces together to make a picture.
I read a story about how the world is a step closer to male birth control. It works by a man rubbing a hormone-changing gel on his shoulders daily, which changes their hormone level in what I think will take a month. I’m unsure how comfortable young adult males who want to put off having kids will feel about using the product. Personally, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable using it. Especially a new product. I would fear that it would somehow permanently keep me from producing sperm or alter its creation. Women are born with a set number of eggs, approximately 1 to 2 million eggs in their ovaries. But a man has to produce sperm, and I doubt men want to risk the ability to create boys who can swim.
The Ticket had former Elvis (Presley)* stage manager Charlie Stone as an in-studio guest, and I was transfixed. I love hearing Elvis stories. Interestingly, Elvis never had craft services or any food backstage.
I received a $2,000 anesthesia bill from a surgery I had last April, so I called Cigna to talk to a representative to have it reprocessed since I knew I already met my deductible. I don’t know who designed their phone routing system, but I could choke them. I understand what they are trying to do to make things more efficient and effective, but they haven’t fully thought this through. They think that if they provide a bunch of information that I can already access on my computer without the option of speaking to a representative, my needs will be magically fulfilled. In my case, after I was verified and the system understood my call was about a claim, it asked for the day the procedure was performed. In most cases, a customer will just have a single claim for a day because only a single procedure was performed. But since I had surgery, I had something like 13 claims that day. They designed the system to read each individual claim without giving the customer the option to skip or advance to another menu. I had to listen to all 13 claims, the dollar amount, provider, and status before it would let me choose an option to speak to a representative. You’re probably thinking all I needed to do was press #, zero, or a bunch of random buttons, and then it would kick me over to a real human being. Nope. I tried. I was forced to listen to all the claims, and only then did it allow me other options.
I saw Prince William serve as an usher at a friend’s wedding. I’ll be honest; I didn’t think a person next in line of royal succession could be an usher, that there is some sort of protocol or decorum. An usher is one of those lower-ranked roles in a wedding, one that you often give to someone you’re not all close with but still need to fill a spot. I know; I’ve usually been asked to be an usher. I’ve only been a groomsman once. Was this an honorary role? Did he escort people to their seats?
I’m sure many people will be talking about the news out of Wisconsin today. A white father jumped on stage at his daughter’s high school graduation and prevented her from shaking hands with the Black superintendent by grabbing him by the arm and pushing him. You can see the video here. It’s important to note it’s been reported that it wasn’t a race issue with the father, but he’s been upset at how the superintendent has handled a bullying problem. However, it’s important to note this Wisconsin high school was in the news in 2018 when a bunch of its male students decided to take a photo doing a Nazi salute.
What a way for me to end this post. It started with D-Day and ended with a Nazi salute by American students.
*I know there was no need to make the obvious distinction. I’m just being goofy, and it made me laugh.
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on Your BagOfNothing for Thursday, June 6, 2024
It was surprising to hear about the death of Larry Allen. When he left the Cowboys to play for the Niners, I thought it was a classy move of him to call his Mark Tuinei’s widow and ask permission to wear his number to honor his late teammate. I used to see Allen around Coppell and Lewisville from time to time. He lived directly behind the Ace Hardware in Coppell, which used to be owned by former teammate John Gesek. I only had one interaction with Allen. One Saturday night, we were walking to our cars in a dark Barnes and Noble parking lot. He was wearing an oversized FUBU basketball jersey. We parked directly in front of each other, head to head. As we both opened our car doors, we made eye contact, smiled, and gave each a head nod without saying a word. I’m sure he was thankful I was there to protect him.
I took DogGeedingII and OtherDogGeedingII to the vet for a well-check visit. It was a little embarrassing because they had a lot of flea bites. But the vet was sympathetic, saying they have been really bad this year, and she has a flea problem at her house despite not having any pets. I learned a few things about fleas I didn’t know before, like you can’t just immediately get rid of them because of how they lay eggs. Flea collars don’t work well except for the Serento brand, and the market is flooded with counterfeit collars. And there’s a pill they can take monthly that keeps fleas off them.
Flea collars make me think of one of my favorite Simpsons moments. They take in a lot of dogs and Marge puts flea collars on the kids because it’s just easier that way.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say the WNBA planned for that hard foul on Caitlin Clark to happen just to draw up interest. They are slowly adopting the WWE approach.
Pixverse has a new tool that’s easy for you to play with. You can now take a still image in a photo and make it move in any direction.
I can’t remember who I heard this from over the weekend, but it has stuck with me, “My time here is short. What can I do beautifully?” With that in mind, I think I may have gotten closer to finding my dream job. If you’ve been a long-time reader or know me well, you might wonder why I haven’t thought of it sooner. I need to find a job at the LBJ Library on the University of Texas at Austin campus. Y’all know I love presidential history, that my politics lean left, like to teach, and I’ve always been a fan of UT. I checked their website for jobs, and nothing was open unless I wanted to be a janitor. Maybe that’s where I will spend my retirement years. I suppose I could try to get a job at the George W. Busy Library if I wanted to stay in the Dallas area and beef up the resume.
This week marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, and I’ve been reading and watching a lot of related material. For instance, this YouTube video shows some never-before-seen footage, and you see how well Band of Brothers got things right. This anniversary is pretty significant because, with major commemorations held every five years, organizers and government officials concede that this year’s event could be the last to involve living veterans. This article pointed out some unique preparations for the event:
Approximately 150 American veterans are expected to travel to Normandy – about two dozen of whom actually fought on D-Day. The youngest is 96.
Most veterans travel with an entire phalanx of medical personnel. US-based charity the Best Defense Foundation is bringing three doctors and 10 nurses. Each veteran will travel with a personal caregiver – typically a family member or a friend.
They have been holding rehearsals and timing wheelchair runs for the French-led international ceremony. They are also considering having veterans enter at the same time as heads of states and other dignitaries to reduce their waiting time.
American and Canadian organizers will seat veterans last at their respective national ceremonies to keep them comfortable. The general public at the American event, for example, may need to be seated about an hour in advance due to security precautions.
With so many heads of state in town, the security measures in place are intense. A massive contingent of 12,000 security personnel will be deployed.
North Korea launched 720 balloons filled with trash, cigarette butts, and other litter across the border with South Korea on Saturday night, just four days after it sent an initial wave of 260 refuse balloons on Tuesday. That brings the total amount of trash balloons—a surprise which Kim Jong Un’s little sister called “sincere presents” for the South— to about 1,000 launched last week. Thankfully, the South Korean military dispelled initial reports that there was poop in the balloons, although some appeared to contain compost.
After the Mavs eliminated the Timberwolves, Luka Doncic offered his MVP trophy to his rookie teammate Dereck Lively II. For what it’s worth, and I don’t think it’s related, but On April 12, the day of the final regular season game, Lively lost his mother, Kathy Drysdale, after a battle with cancer. Lively is only 20 years old, and his mother lived with him to help him adjust to adulthood. She was a star playing basketball at Penn State (more than 1,200 points and 700 rebounds) and later worked for the 76ers for 13 years. At one point, she coached his basketball team. What about his dad? Lively saw heroin claim his father’s life in their living room in 2012 when he was seven years old. From that moment, she decided to be Lively’s mother, father, disciplinarian, and best friend. Her battle with cancer started in 2014. Imagine breaking that to a ten-year-old who already lost his father. She estimated that $2 million was spent on her treatment. When he was in college, he used his Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) to provide for her. So, for all you NIL naysayers who are upset at how it’s going to “ruin” the college game, take something like that into consideration. Here are some random tidbits about Lively I found in this great Washington Post article from last July:
Seeing how his mother and father suffered, he considered himself to be a curse to his parents.
His first love was swimming, though, and his arms were so long that his knuckles would scrape the lane lines when he used the butterfly stroke.
When she was his team’s coach and chewed him out once, she told him, “I’m not Mom, I’m your coach. You can wait for Mom in the car.”
He’s modeled much of his game after former Mavs champion Tyson Chandler, who has worked with him.
Want to see something heartwarming? Check out this moment between Lively and his mother when he was drafted.
And yes, his mother was on his mind (constantly) when the Mavs won the Western Conference Finals, in which he set a record. His 16-16 field-goals is the most without a miss for any player across a series in NBA Playoff history. Not bad for a 20-year-old rookie.
As much as I admire Lively, he does have a major flaw: he’s a Philadelphia Eagles fan. But this is when I officially became a Lively fan. At the end of an interview that lasted almost a half-hour, he could have said nothing and walked away, but he made the most out of this opportunity. And I’ll be honest: when I first heard it, I felt he was talking directly to me at the time. Join me in rooting for this guy.
At the end of every 1-on-1 interview, I ask the person if they have anything else they’d like to say or add.
Over the weekend, I sat down with Mavericks rookie Dereck Lively II.
