NS13Jarhead

There are many a night when I have a beer upon coming home from work, a glass of wine with my lovely bride at dinner and then a wee nip of single malt to relax after dinner. That way I'm hitting all classes of the tasty adult beverages in an evening.

Goodness, where to begin? I typically drink single malt scotch, but other liquors in order of preference: Scotch: Cragganmore, Laphroaig, Glenmorangie, Balvenie Double Wood Bourbon: Maker's Mark Rum: Tortouga, Mount Gay Tequila: Don Julio Reposado Vodka: Stoli, Three Olives Gin: Bombay Sapphire

That's why I've always referred to it as the "Fat Field Grade Uniform". BTW, there's no belt (just suspenders) and there's elastic at the back of the cumberbund. You don't even have to unbutton your pants like you do at Thanksgiving dinner.

Dress blues are designed for looks versus comfort. Form fitting dark blue (almost black) heavy wool uniform coat with a very tight collar. Once you reach a certain rank you can purchase an Evening Dress uniform that only has the tight collar, but the rest of it is fairly loose and open (see second picture with me and John Glen).

Personal opinion: Keep it voluntary. I served with many volunteers who realized they didn't want to be there. I could only imagine the leadership challenge of directing a bunch of draftees who were forced into service and are now only concerned with ticking off days on their short timer's calendar.

Drunk Marine?!? Causing Chaos?!? I never heard of such a thing!

I'd love to see them. My son has got about five cubic yards of Legos in my basement - I'm sure I could build something with them.

And if you head just a little south of DC (30 miles +/-) you can hit "My Museum" - the National Museum of the Marine Corps. It can't really compete with the Smithsonian for numbers of aircraft, but it does have a JN-4 "Jenny" and a deHavilland DH-4, as well as my name on a big bronze plaque near the waterfountain. Free admission, open 9:00 - 5:00 every day but Christmas. Oh, yeah, did I mention it has a bar on the second floor!

Sort of OT, but the recoilless rifle was carried to it's ultimate and somewhat excessive conclusion with the M-50 Ontos. It carried SIX 106mm recoilless rifles.

Ah, the beer I grew up on - Yuengling (pronounced Ying-ling) made near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in America's oldest brewery, established 1829. I know, by Olham's standards, that brewery is just an infant, but that's the best we can do here. Olham, I'm a fan of Warsteiner, too. Broadside, when I lived in Kaneohe, I prefered Steinlager, even if it was a Kiwi import. The only "local" beer at the time was Primo, with King Kam. on the can.

Darn it, I just want my flying car that Walt Disney promised me in the '60s!

I thought I had read once that the Immelmann originally had a horizontal component to it. I'd imagine (but havent' tried to prove it in BHaH) that if you put in a little aileron first to go to a 15 degree bank before pulling back on the stick, that would approximate what was done to compensate for to the roll characteristics of the E.III - that way when you get to the roll portion at the top, you can use rudder and aileron. Just a theory, though.

It comes from when I used to play MechWarrior 4, MW4 Black Knight and MW4 Mercenaries online. The "NS13" comes from a MW4 "Clan" I belonged to - NukeSylo13. The "Jarhead" part comes from a nickname for US Marines. Since I spent 27 years in the Corps, I figure it fits me. I still use the full "NS13Jarhead" for registering because unless you are one of the first 50 or so people on a forum, the plain old vanilla "Jarhead" is usually taken. Attached is my Sig from the MW4 days. FYI, "LBX" is like a 105mm shotgun for giant, fighting robots.

Congratulations, CJ, that's quite an accomplishment! Take that saint of a woman out for a nice dinner. I've been married 25 years, myself. 10 years to the first wife and 15 to the current one. However, I am concerned when "Dash two" refers to me as her first husband.

Don't know if it's true or not, but it's a great idea! A Well-Planned Retirement - From The London Times: Outside the Bristol Zoo, in England, there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 coaches, or buses. It was manned by a very pleasant attendant with a ticket machine charging cars £1 (about $1.40) and coaches £5 (about $7). This parking attendant worked there solid for all of 25 years. Then, one day, he just didn't turn up for work. "Oh well", said Bristol Zoo Management - "we'd better phone up the City Council and get them to send a new parking attendant . . . " "Err . . . no", said the Council, "that parking lot is your responsibility." "Err . . . no", said Bristol Zoo Management, "the attendant was employed by the City Council, wasn't he?" "Err . . . no!" insisted the Council. Sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain (presumably), is a man who had been taking the parking lot fees, estimated at £400 (about $560) per day at Bristol Zoo for the last 25 years. Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over £3.6 million ($7 million - or $280,000 every year for 25 years)! And no one even knows his name.

We had one of those little things on the bridge of a Navy ship I was on. I stopped looking at it and started looking for a life jacket when we hit 45 degrees during a storm!

I'm partially with Gimpy on this one if you can't/won't build your own. But I'd recommend going with a local "geek store" (not BestBuy) rather than an online one like IBuyPower. I have bought an IBP machine before and thought it was a pretty good bang for the buck, but the local guys (I now use http://www.gtcomp.com/) can actually talk to you and find out what you want and make rational recommendations. These guys actually take pride in crafting a fast machine that goes beyond what you're looking for, because they're computer enthusiasts, too. Also, I thought this human interaction was more satisfying than clicking on a bunch of pull down menus. And as an added bonus, they didn't install anything other than the OS and a free, full version of Crysis. No AO-Hell, Norton, McAffee, or other "free" trials that you have to de-crapify off of your machine at a later date. Just a very neat and clean install. And when the motherboard had a bad capacitor about six months later, they not only replaced it for free, they upgraded it to the current standard board by that company (Abit IP35-E to IP35-P).

While it is not a history of the Great War, "To the Last Man" by Jeff Shaara is a pretty good book. It is historical fiction, where the story is set against real events, with real historical figures, but with hypothetical dialog. This type of story telling was perfected by Jeff's dad, Michael Shaara, in his book "The Killer Angels" about the Battle of Gettysburg. Anyway, about Jeff's book, it follows four main characters, three of them real, one of them purely imaginary: Raoul Lufberry, Manfred von Richtofen, Gen "Black Jack" Pershing and a fictional US Marine, Roscoe Temple. It's a great read and you get a sense of what these folks went through. I'd highly recommend it.

Hey! Someone shot off the bottom two wings on your Dr.1!

So, a newcomer to WWI simulations. I was doing Wings on my Amiga 1000 before there was an Amiga 500 (actually, before they called it a 1000). Seriously, welcome aboard and I hope you enjoy OFF as much as I have. But here's a shot for old times' sake:

I'm with Hasse Wind - IMMERSION! A couple of months back I flew a balloon busting mission as "dash two" (flight lead's wingman) and as we approached the target, the flak started flying. Then all of a sudden "boom" a big cloud erupted in front of me, right on top of my flight lead, and he disappeared. As soon as that happened, all the hair on the back of my neck stood up. And for a brief moment, I felt as if I had just witnessed a real person's death. Now THAT'S immersion. Bravo, OBD

Hey, Unc, Do you think that the Firepower "Little Boy" could be dropped by the Phase I Zeppelin?

I love scramble missions! None of that lollygagging around waiting for a chance encounter. I usually can get four or five kills per mission. The key, I've found, is to wait until the enemy makes the first pass and then go airborne, extend in the opposite direction, gain altitude and THEN come around for the fight. The biggest problem I have is my own gunners shooting me instead of the enemy when we pass over the field. You just have to pretend you're Ben Affleck in "Pearl Harbor". I know, it's the wrong war and not as historically accurate as "Flyboys", ( ) but it'll have to do.

Great description of the gyro effect! I almost understand it now. Thanks WF2.

Digeridoo. It's the only musical instrument I'm moderately good at. No notes, no chords, no scales. Just ppppttttttthhhhh into a big, hollow tube. The hard part is inhaling and exhaling at the same time!