Never forget!  God Bless America!

April 7th.

After much hoopla, I realized today was my birthday. I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and without much thinking I made the last cookie the largest. My wife decided it was good enough to be the cake.

And despite the Coronavirus situation and restrictions, I socially meddled over Instant Messaging with my siblings. Now that I am a senior citizen, I should be able to get in some of the special shopping hours.

UPDATE April 11th

The match went to five sets and lasted just under 5 hours.  It was epic.  It was thrilling.  It had everything in a match that a final should have.  Great shots.  Great saves.  Great volleys.  Great everything.  Congratulations to both players.  Nadal 7-5, 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4.

In a two set match, 19-year-old Bianca Andreescu became the first Canadian tennis player, male or female, to win the US Open today. She did it by taking down 23-time major winner Serena Williams 6-3 7-5. And, she made $3.85 million as the winner – same as the men’s winner Rafael Nadal. Serena Williams continues to hunt for her 24th major, which would tie her with Margaret Court’s record 24 total. Ah well, Williams reached the finals in 4 majors in the past 14 months and came up empty for number 24. Enough of that, can you imagine being 19 and beating the player she said she would like to beat in a major final. Go Bianca, congratulations!

Simona Halep had some big tennis today as she defeated 7-time Wimbledon champ Serena Williams in a surprisingly quick match of 6-2 6-2 to take the Ladie’s 2019 Wimbledon title.  Congratulations to her.

Seems I was watching the Wimbledon semi-final match between Federer and Nadal today. Federer won. I turned to my computer and searched “Wimbledon scores”. The following shows the returned web page with Google’s take on the search results and some suggested “Top Stories” for that subject. Well News18.COM seems to have not paid attention to the match and Google grabbed that info to show it to me as a possible next choice. Yeah, no, Nadal did NOT defeat Federer! The linked story from the “picture” does have the heading corrected to “Federer defeats Nadal …”. I propose a fine of $2,000 – payable to me.

The USS Lyndon B Johnson was christened this morning, April 27, 2019, at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Bath Maine.  The north gates opened at 9 AM and shuttle buses provided the transportation for us folks to travel to the south end of the shipyard where the ceremony was to take place.  A steady rain had fallen overnight and into the morning , but only a foggy mist remained visible in the distance and up around the shipyard crane tops.  Fortunately the ceremony went through without any rainfall.  The cool breeze was another matter – coming off the Kennebec River, it was a reminder that it was still spring in Maine.

The event was not without its controversy though, as a group  of protesters lined Washington Street near the north gate parking entrance.  It was reported that some were arrested for impeding vehicle traffic by lying in the road but when we drove through, that was not the case.  That’s what is great about America, one can voice one’s free speech rights in various ways, but in this case, lying in the road just might be pushing the envelope.

At any rate, once on BIW property, the hosts provided great service from assisting in parking in the tight confines of the North gate parking lot all the way down to the event itself.  Brochures and ship tokens were handed out after stepping off the bus, and friendly staff helped make sure we got to the seating area.  Ship hats and sweatshirts were available to purchase.  If you didn’t get it there, you can probably order it from the ship’s website.

Notable BIW employees at the event included, among many, Bob D, Mark B, Louise D, and Gary S.  Have a great retirement Gary (starting next week).  I will also note that I had worked with these particular folks a few years ago, so it was nice to see some familiar faces.  I also saw Bill C, but that was in quick passing (just too many people to stop at that point to strike up a conversation).

We sat in the green section using our blue tickets.  That’s one thing about rain the previous night – some folks don’t show up.  This allowed us to be 20 feet or so closer to the ceremonial tent, or whatever it is called, as compared to if we had sat in the actual light blue section based on our tickets.  That’s right we did that!

And off to the side was a nice looking VIP bus, which likely held the Ship sponsors and maids/matrons of honor(LBJ’s daughters and grand-daughters), the Maine congressional delegation, some Naval brass, and a couple other speakers.  They were inside while the several hundred of us Mainers braved the elements prior to the ceremony start at about 10am.  The speakers eventually made their way to center stage, introduced, and made their speeches.  It was actually nice to have Senator Collins, Senator King,  Representative Pingree, and Representative Golden give appropriately themed speeches.

The highlight speech of course was from Lynda Johnson Robb, LBJ’s daughter, the christening sponsor.  It was highly personal, as she referred to LBJ as “daddy”.  Somewhere about half way through her speech, she briefly held her gift to the ship’s prospective commanding officer – a hand-sized Texas long-horned steer ( a symbolic gesture of the LBJ ranch, and as she said it wouldn’t be appropriate to have brought a full sized real one).  I guess they put these things on the ship’s bridge!

And with the speeches concluded, LBJs two daughters Lynda and Luci, proceeded onto the ship and up towards the bow where they christened the ship by breaking two bottles of champagne on a white metal star which appeared to be about 3 feet in diameter and situated on a small pedestal.  I believe the star represents both the state of Texas and for the silver star LBJ was awarded during World War II.

And that officially concluded the ceremony with pomp and circumstance provided by the Navy Band.

Well worth the time.

 

 

 

Spring has arrived and all about the yard, things are abuzz with change that this time of year brings forth.  From these pictures you can tell such things are clearly happening as the snow melts away flowing to nearby seasonal brooks. This patio chair, for example, was blown by a winter storm a few months ago and became encased  in  the icy  snow  that  day.  Now, with a few more sunny days, winter’s icy grip will have melted away and the chair will be returned to it’s summer home a hundred or so feet away.  The larger area about here, or I should say below, is a snow covered seasonal pond used for ice skating.

 

Nearby, this bench attests to likely slow process of being freed any time soon – perhaps by mid to late April.  Then, it will be time to give it a little care before the wood becomes part of the lawn that grows about the area.

 

Moving west about 50 feet, this lone oak leaf has melted itself on a slow paced journey of a few inches into the lightly crusted snow.  All  its  leafy friends are  likely buried  a few feet below in the nearby drainage ditch or, more likely, in the woods a few hundred feet away where the nearest oak tree stands.  In my younger years this probably would not have caught my attention.

 

Time to have a Spring bonfire before the snow goes.

 

Closer to the woods, where this Chevy frame sits, a few bare sections of ground are visible.  Still brown though of course.  Hey look there are oak leaves out here.  This area will eventually just get mowed every now and then.  So I head back to the house knowing that this white stuff could still fall on occasion for another month or so.  But I do make a stop on the eastern side of the house, and the only color, other than my JD 410, are these plants starting their annual Spring surge as they shoot above the softer and warmer soil around the house foundation.

Eventually these become orange tiger lilies and some white daffodils.

So I guess things aren’t really abuzz that much just yet – it’s more of a slower paced journey until the ground thaws out more.  Once that happens – boom – mosquitoes, but that’s another story.