Island Of Misfits

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Lookin' fer sumpin' else, and stumbled on this blurry pic of my Beautiful Scottish Witch:

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I have never met a more beautiful woman.

PS: She can fly.
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57F @ 67% RH, guagus, and predicted to reach 87F.

Semper Fi and thank you my fallen brothers and sisters, as well as those who came home bent and broken. Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!1

Breakfast out with Grayfox and a friend and I replaced the broken window pane at the rental.

I picked up another sirloin and Jalapenos on the way home and processed them both. I cooked the steak sous vide in aluminum beads and seared in on a panini press, for a perfect medium rare. I tried just chopping the Jalapeno and shaking in in the lemonade as was suggested by my chef friend, but got nowhere near the same flavor as previous methods.
 
My old man (left) in Egypt during the campaign against Rommel's Afrika Corp. I colourised it for fun.

He never spoke about the war. A while ago I decided to do something about that, so I researched his unit actions and wrote a novel, half set in 1959 and half in WW2. It's my fifth novel. Here is a little extract from the WW2 part:

The shelling continued for the rest of the night. Heavy stuff was still coming in when the eastern horizon showed a thin orange line. Gradually, the darkness lifted; the great red sun lifted itself into the sky, and the temperature began to rise.

The shelling eased off. I peered over the lip of the parapet. The enemy had got very close. Bodies lay not more than a cricket pitch away. A Panzer Mark III, with no turret, burned, its ammunition cooking off into the air, and several armoured cars, one almost completely destroyed, lay abandoned.

The shelling stopped. The continual explosions had made me deaf. John was saying something—I saw his lips moving—but I couldn’t make out the words above a shrill whistling that filled my head. I shouted, “What?” and moved closer.

John practically shouted in my ear, “They’ve lifted the barrage!”

I could see that. Anyone could. I wasn’t about to stand up to see if there were any latecomers, perhaps one with my name written on it; no, sir! But the sergeant was standing up, looking through a pair of binoculars.

He took the binoculars away from his eyes and shouted, “Look sharp! Enemy armour!”

I turned to the front, and sure enough, something was coming, judging by the clouds of dust. Diesel engines growled. Only the Germans used diesels.

The sergeant looked right and left. Evidently he wasn’t happy with what he saw. “Stand to, you lot!”

“That’s us I s’pose.” John repacked some small stones around the mortar’s baseplate. “Here we go, Buddy!”

Our field guns began coughing, followed immediately by the sound of twenty-five-pounders going over. Thank God they hadn’t been knocked out by the German barrage.

The crumping sound of explosions not too far in front of our position made me take a quick peek. Clouds of dust obscured the view, but then dark shapes appeared.

I saw bright flashes and ducked just in time as a hail of machine gun bullets tore through the air above my head. It wasn’t just machine guns, either; 20mm cannon fire meant those big armoured cars were in the spearhead. Tank shells began blasting the ground around our position.

I heard the sarge yelling: “Infantry following the tanks!”

“Buddy, what’s the range?” John asked.

I thought about what I’d seen moments ago and deducted fifty yards. “Maybe four hundred yards.”

“Right. Let’s have a go, then!”

I loaded, John fired. Despite the machine gun and cannon fire sweeping the parapet, sending chips flying, John peeked over the top to adjust his aim. Our bombs would give the advancing infantry a fright.

“Come on, Buddy! Keep it up!” John shouted. Residue stained his face, he’d caught some of the side-blast from the tube.

“I’m almost out!” It was true; all I had left were smoke bombs and illumination rounds.

“Use the rifle. I’ll be back.” And before I could utter a word, John leapt from the hole, made it across the couple of yards to the trench, and set off for more ammunition.

I grabbed the Lee-Enfield and put it to my shoulder, peering into the fog. There—dark shapes advancing. I pulled the trigger, and the rifle butt thumped me in the shoulder. The bolt was awkward to work but I chambered another round and fired again. And again.

John made it back. We began loading and firing, but the range was down to one hundred yards, and the situation looked grim.

The fire from either side of us began to lessen. Our Bren teams and rifle squads were being slaughtered, and I hadn’t heard anything from our twenty-five-pounders in a while. Where was our armour? They’d be too late, as usual. I just knew it. We’d be overrun. And once through our line, they’d roll us up.

John peeked over the parapet to estimate the range. With a sound as if chopping wood, his face exploded into gore. He fell back into the hole. One moment there, the next, gone.

I put my hand up to my cheek and felt a sticky mess. Oh God. I froze. Couldn’t move.

The growling sound of a German engine sounded loudly, in front.
 

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My Uncle fought in Africa. Against General Rommel. I don't remember him EVER talking about it. Not once.

Bubba
Yeah, so did my Dad. He talked about bombing Ploesti, but not Rommel. Wonder what that means.

I have thought Rommel was not that big a threat after European theatre, but I really don't know.
 
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My great uncle who is also my namesake , fought , died , and is buried in Tunisia Africa fighting for our freedom.

I visited the huge WW-II graveyard and memorial in Tunis, Tunisia when I was working over there and a lot of brothers and sisters died in those battles.

Dad survived 36 missions over Germany, but didn't talk about it, nor did his brothers. I didn't full appreciate what he went through until I obtained the 306th records for the bombing runs he made and saw the details of how many B-17's left, how many returned, lives lost, and what kind of condition the returning planes were in. He ended up with a Distinguished Flying Cross with four Bronze Oak Leaf Clusters, which he packed away and never spoke of them either.

Don't you mean the Naval Infantry?

We like to think of ourselves as the militaries wet nurses my brother. You notice who guards all the important stuff and has the prettiest uniforms, that the chicks really dig! Semper Fi!

66F @ 58% RH, gaugus and predicted to reach 95F. Wowza! That is blistering for around here, especially this time of year!

Much progress on my latest article and I whomped up two different spiced Asian pears sous vide in aluminum beads for desert last night. One using a variation of my standard recipe, and one using Amaretto syrup and white wine. Both turned out delicious!

I plan to adjust my individual sprinkler heads this morning to limit how much lands on sidewalks and the street. I meant to do it yesterday morning, but got busy writing and editing.
 
Morning Misfits. So, I got all veggies and flowers I'm the dirt....yes!!! But, we had a cold front move through and yesterday's high was only 57f. I noticed last night at dusk the humidity was dropping and the skies were clearing.....perfect conditions for a late frost. Weather man said the temps would stay in the upper 40's so I didn't think much about it.

Went to bed last night and the temp was still 52 so I went to sleep. Woke up with a funny feeling at 2:30 and checked the temp.....SHIT.....39!!! With the right conditions I have seen frost at 38....

Spent the next half hour covering everything with cheese cloth. Froze my ass off. Went back to bed wide awake now.....took 2hrs to get back to sleep. I wasn't about to loose all the plants and work to a late frost....

Woke up this morning and the frost never developed. So just disregard everything I just posted......
 
I have thought Rommel was not that big a threat after European theatre, but I really don't know.
If Rommel hadn't been stopped, he would have rolled over the British lines, gone on to Cairo, and taken the Suez Canal. And then the Allied war effort would have ground to a halt because the oil supplies would have stopped. Monty stopped him at Alamein, it was our final chance. Then American forces arrived in his rear, made short work of the Italians, and the Desert Korps was finished, rolled up to E and W. North was the sea, and south, the desert. The photo shows British colonial troops from India, in Cairo.
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