Spring Potpourri

It is 0630 on Sunday and I’ve been up for an hour. The lure/dread of sitting down to write something before my self-imposed Sunday evening deadline has driven me from my warm and comfy bed to the mancave, as I have a full Sunday ahead of me and I have not been particularly assiduous. In a couple of hours, I will join a group of gentlemen for their monthly outing to shoot “sporting clays”, something I’ve never done before. I am told that it is something like “golf with shotguns”, and the informational video I found on YouTube seemed to confirm that. The “course” is about a half hour from here, and lunch is reportedly involved.

Sea Air Space 2024

I’ll be back home for a few hours and then will hop into the car to drive 90 miles or so to the site of the Sea Air Space 2024 convention hosted by the Navy League of the United States. Keen-eyed observers will note from the program that I have been added to a Monday afternoon panel on Modern Shipboard Defense, yet another example of a role player always being ready when the coach calls his number.

A bit of a kerfuffle arose on the interwebs yesterday, one that I am not sure has been settled. The ink-stained wretches at Politico (sadly, subscription only) reported that a great many scheduled Navy speakers had suddenly found something more important to do than appear at Sea Air Space, as they had previously agreed to do. A Navy League official responded thusly:

Putting aside for a moment the facts surrounding the organizer of the event (he is right), it appears there is a bit of misdirection going on here. The marquee players that he cites do appear to be following through on their appearances, but for the trade press, a good bit of coverage arises from “on the record” presentations given by spear carriers at levels far below the CNO and SECNAV. It is at this level that officials have suddenly noticed the need to wash their hair or re-arrange their sock drawer. This strange case of “Booth Flu” has hit Sea Air Space in the past when Navy leaders (sometimes uniformed, sometimes civilian) want to tamp down information flow, and it generally does not go well for the Navy. Something about “taking on someone who buys ink by the barrel” or something like that.

Coming close on the heels of a strange Navy semi-release of dirty laundry pertaining to pervasive shipbuilding delays and the ongoing scandal that is Congress not forming the Commission on the Future of the Navy that it created, one is tempted to question the purpose of one’s chosen profession. In fact, one does:

The bottom line is this folks—the Navy is doing extraordinary things on the edges of the empire right now, things about which you and I and Navy leadership should be justifiably proud. But there are troubling signs that present performance should not be taken as an indication of future returns. The nation is simply not resourcing seapower sufficiently for the things we ask of it today and the things we expect of it tomorrow. Navy leaders are playing an increasingly dangerous shell-game driven by both this lack of resourcing and the willful ignorance of Biden Administration national security political appointees who go running for the shelter of carrier strike groups when the shit hits the fan, even as they aggressively assert their obsolescence in order to fund their latest techno-wish. Winter is coming.

More of this at a dandy little podcast I appeared on the other day.

Shifting of the Clothes (cont.)

Long-standing and attentive readers (looking at you, Jack Henneman) know that I have written of the unique arrangement I have with my wardrobe (here, here). Even though Eastern Shore weather has been its characteristic March/April self (dog poop), I looked at my upcoming schedule and determined that I really needed to get the spring stuff back into the rotation. So I marched a few bins over from the garage and then marched them back full (but less full) when I was finished.

I take some pride from the fact that I have a trash bag full of excess articles to deposit in the little acceptance site located at the closest gas station to me. I was pretty ruthless this time, and a great many articles of UVA swag will now find their way back into circulation. Additionally, I sent off a few pairs of pants that require me to be considerably less dense than I am currently. These pants were the prideful purchases of a man at the low end of two separate excursions downward in weight, and while they are fetching and characteristically stylish, the likelihood that I will one day again wedge into them is outweighed by my desire to simplify. Don’t fret though, I did put a stack of about eight pairs of (stylish, fetching) pants into a little corner of the closet that are more in the “about 15 more pounds” category, well within a spring/summer of discipline. I’ll keep you posted.

Zuzu Update

Zuzu in the morning haze

Having lost her big brother recently, we have been watching our sweet Zuzu closely for signs of depression, a task for which I am somewhat unsuited, as I am not terribly adept at noting the signs of it in my own species. I fear that I am guilty of projecting my own feelings on her, generally.

She is at times, the energetic 11 year old she was when he was about. But there are a few signs that his loss hit her—new sleeping spots, reticence to enjoy the relative new freedom we’ve given her by removing some of the doggie impediments we’d deployed to keep Baloo from eating the cat food and cat poop. I think she’s sorta like we are—taking it day by day.

NCAA Basketball

We are getting the final we deserve, and that is one featuring what have been the two best teams all year round, UCONN and Purdue. I really enjoyed NC State’s run this year and would have been thrilled if they had made it to the final, but I have a real soft spot for Purdue.

One CBS analyst tried to make the point that Purdue did not have to win the title to expunge the demons of last year’s loss to a #16 seed, that simply getting to the title game had accomplished this. Nonsense. The only thing that will make the pain stop for Purdue fans (my choice for the best fanbase in America) is a title.