Category Archives: hero

BOOK PUBLISHED!

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Hey guys, my first trade paperback came out from Necro Press this week. Its a horror/military sci-fi work and I am shamelessly looking for reviewers.

Get with me if you would like to review it. (Also if you are a fan feel free to post the book’s info or a link back on you facebook page because you are just such groovy well-put together peeps!)

Thanks

The book specifics are as follows:
Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2012

“WELCOME TO THE END OF THE WORLD! Disease-K has decimated the world leaving its victims shambling homicidal maniacs. And nestled along the warm Gulf waters sits Gulf Shores…the last outpost of civilization. With looters and thieves preying on the shocked survivors, it’s up to the retirees and bank tellers, phone repairmen and charterboat captains to put the town back together. THE SHADOWS ARE GATHERING OUTSIDE OF TOWN! There, in the sands and marshes of the Gulf of Mexico, the citizens of Gulf Shores along with scattered military units, a downed Air Force pilot, and a lone Coast Guard cutter form the last line of defense against the amassing horde of the infected marching its way toward the sea destroying what’s left of humanity along the way. As summer gives way to the fall and the cold winds blow off the sea, Gulf Shores draws the line and prepares to make the… THE LAST STAND ON ZOMBIE ISLAND!”

Ebook: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/158565

Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Stand-Zombie-Island-Christopher/dp/1475210531/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336305497&sr=8-1

Total solid hero, in a unique way

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This old guy has spent $30k of his own money to support the troops in his own way.Of course, the world thinks a Hero is some kind of crazy sandwich…

MASSAPEQUA, N.Y. — One of the world’s most prolific bootleggers of Hollywood DVDs loves his morning farina. He has spent eight years churning out hundreds of thousands of copies of “The Hangover,” “Gran Torino” and other first-run movies from his small Long Island apartment to ship overseas.

“Big Hy” — his handle among many loyal customers — would almost certainly be cast as Hollywood Enemy No. 1 but for a few details. He is actually Hyman Strachman, a 92-year-old, 5-foot-5 World War II veteran trying to stay busy after the death of his wife. And he has sent every one of his copied DVDs, almost 4,000 boxes of them to date, free to American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.”….(rest of story here)

70 years after it crashed, a P40E Kittyhawk has been found in the Egyptian Desert.

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No major news outlet has picked up on this yet. But at the end of March a Polish team out in the Western Desert came across a P40 aircraft which had apparently made a forced landing, in which the undercarriage collapsed. The aircraft identity has yet to be confirmed but is believed to be from 260 Squadron RAF and it’s location suggests was lost around the time of the battle of El Alamein. Until the planes identity is confirmed, the pilot’s fate remains unknown, although an unused parachute pack was found alongside the wreck, very strongly suggesting he at least walked away from the crash.

Not bad for 70 years in the sand

The Egyptian authorities have been informed and the Egyptian Army visited the site and removed the ammunition from the guns. It’s hoped the aircraft will be preserved and recovered but nothing concrete has yet been made public.

The P-40E or P-40E-1 was similar in most respects to the P-40D, except for a slightly more powerful engine and an extra .50 in (12.7 mm) gun in each wing, bringing the total to six. Some aircraft also had small underwing bomb shackles. Supplied to the Commonwealth air forces as the Kittyhawk Mk IA. The P-40E was the variant that bore the brunt of air-to-air combat by the type in the key period of early to mid 1942, for example with the first US squadrons to replace the AVG in China (the AVG was already transitioning to this type from the P-40B/C), the type used by the Australians at Milne Bay, by the New Zealand squadrons during most of their air to air combat, and by the RAF/Commonwealth in North Africa as the Kittyhawk IA.

Specifications (P-40E)

Data from[citation needed]

General characteristics

Crew: 1
Length: 31.67 ft (9.66 m)
Wingspan: 37.33 ft (11.38 m)
Height: 12.33 ft (3.76 m)
Wing area: 235.94 ft² (21.92 m²)
Empty weight: 6,350 lb (2,880 kg)
Loaded weight: 8,280 lb (3,760 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 8,810 lb (4,000 kg)
Powerplant: 1 × Allison V-1710-39 liquid-cooled V12 engine, 1,150 hp (858 kW)

Performance

Maximum speed: 360 mph (310 kn, 580 km/h)
Cruise speed: 270 mph (235 kn, 435 km/h)
Range: 650 mi (560 nmi, 1,100 km)
Service ceiling: 29,000 ft (8,800 m)
Rate of climb: 2,100 ft/min (11 m/s)
Wing loading: 35.1 lb/ft² (171.5 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.14 hp/lb (230 W/kg)

Armament

Guns: 6 × .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns with 150-200 rounds per gun
Bombs: 250 to 1,000 lb (110 to 450 kg) bombs to a total of 2,000 lb (907 kg) on three hardpoints (one under the fuselage and two underwing)

Fingers crossed it finds its way in one piece to the El Alamein museum, near Alexandria!

Video of the plane here, http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/2109521/99668a7b/gevonden_in_de_egyptische_woestijn.html

Warship Wednesday May 2

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1866-1938 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  May 2

Mohawk as new, 1935, USCG photo

Here we have the USCG Cutter Mohawk

Built as the USCG Cutter Mohawk by Pusey & Jones Shipbuilders, Wilmington, Delaware for $499,800 in 1933, she was commissioned into US service 19 January 1935. For several yeas she operated from Cape May, New Jersey, and later Boston Mass.

Coast Guard Cutter Mohawk. Pier B Naval Station. Key West. 1940. Monroe County Library.

During WWII she served with the Greenland Patrol during the so-called Weather War. She sent the final weather update from the Arctic that Eisenhower used to launch D-Day in 1944. A sub-buster, the tiny 165-foot gunboat launched a total of 14 attacks against submarine contacts between 27 August 1942 and 8 April 1945.

Model of Mohawk, note the tubbyness of the design. Must have been fun rolling around the North Atlantic in her with 125 hardlegs on a 165-foot boat.

One of her crewman, Chief Gunner’s Mate Sieg, invented a breakthrough bullpupped 30.06 rifle that, while revolutionary, came too late for the war.

Mohawk was decommissioned 8 January 1946, and sold 1 November 1948 to the Delaware Bay and River Pilots’ Association, who operated the craft until the 1970s. Abandoned, she sat rusting at the dock until 2001 where she was saved through an effort that brought her to Key West Florida where she was operated as a memorial museum until the Spring of 2012.

The old Mohawk is gonna be sunk as a reef.

You can say the Country got their $499,800 out of her…

General characteristics
Type:     Patrol Gunboat
Displacement:     1,005 tons
Length:     165 feet
Beam:     36 feet
Draft:     12 foot 3 inches
Ice class:     ice breaking capabilities up to 2 feet
Installed power:     1,500 shp
Propulsion:     1× Westinghouse double-reduction geared turbine, 2× foster-wheeler 310 psi 200 deg superheat boilers
Speed:     13.5 kt
Range:     (max speed=1,350 miles)(economic speed=5,079 miles)
Crew:     124 enlisted 10 officers
Sensors and
processing systems:     Radar SF (1945) Sonar QCJ-3 (1945)
Armament:     3× 3″ 50 cal deck guns. 2× “mouse trap” mortars. 2× depth charge racks. 10× “k” gun depth charge projectors

Dont Bring a Knife to a gunfight

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As reported in Salt Lake City…it appears that an emotionally disturbed person came into an area grocery store and decided to start stabbing people. That is, until an armed patron intervened.

“…Police say the suspect purchased a knife inside the store and then turned it into a weapon. Smith’s employee Dorothy Espinoza says, “He pulled it out and stood outside the Smiths in the foyer. And just started stabbing people and yelling you killed my people. You killed my people.”

Espinoza says, the knife wielding man seriously injured two people. “There is blood all over. One got stabbed in the stomach and got stabbed in the head and held his hands and got stabbed all over the arms.”

Then, before the suspect could find another victim – a citizen with a gun stopped the madness. …”

Warship Wednesday April 25

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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1866-1938 time period and will profile a different ship each week.

– Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday,  April 25

Here we have the HMS Furious on flight operations in 1919.

Three Sopwith Camels are lined up on the deck of the HMS Furious. The hatch in the foreground leads to a hanger deck that held eight planes.

Using a wheeled trolley to launch these little canvas birds, …..

……they were caught by hand upon landing by officers who ran after the airplanes to keep them going over the sides.

Originally designed as a Courageous class Battle-cruiser carrying 18-inch guns, she was commissioned     26 June 1917 at the height of World War One. She was converted to one of the Royal Navy’s first aircraft carriers. During World War Two, Furious was a key player in the Norwegian campaign and took Spitfires to Malta. She later helped with the attacks on the battleship Tirpitz.

sailor aboard HMS FURIOUS chalks a message on a bomb slung beneath an aircraft due

In her career she carried in turns, Fairey Flycatchers, Blackburn Blackburns, Avro Bisons, Blackburn Darts, Hawker Nimrods, Hawker Ospreys, Blackburn Ripons, Blackburn Baffin, Hawker Hurricanes, Fairey Swordfish, Fairey IIIF, Fairey Seal, Blackburn Shark, Supermarine Spitfires, Fairey Albacore torpedo bombers and reconnaissance aircraft, Blackburn Skua, Blackburn Roc, Fairey Barracuda, Grumman Hellcats and Gloster Sea Gladiator fighters.

HMS Furious (That’s a lot of wood)

Specifications:
Class and type:     Courageous-class aircraft carrier
Displacement:     22,500 long tons (22,900 t)
26,500 long tons (26,900 t) (deep load)
Length:     735 ft 2.25 in (224.1 m) (p/p)
786 ft 9 in (239.8 m) (o/a)
Beam:     88 ft (26.8 m)
Draught:     27 ft 3 in (8.3 m)
Installed power:     90,000 shp (67,000 kW)
Propulsion:     4 shafts, 4 Brown-Curtis geared steam turbines
18 Yarrow boilers
Speed:     30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Range:     4,300 nmi (8,000 km; 4,900 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Complement:     738 + 468 air group (1932)
Armament:

10 × 1 – BL 5.5-inch Mk I guns
6 × 1 – QF 4-inch Mark V AA guns
Armour:     Belt: 2–3 in (51–76 mm)
Decks: .75–1 in (19–25 mm)
Bulkhead: 2–3 in (51–76 mm)
Torpedo bulkheads: 1–1.5 in (25–38 mm)
Aircraft carried:     36 (usually less)

She was one of the oldest aircraft carriers in the world in 1945, at over 30 years old. While most ships of her type were brand new and carried 3-4 times her airwing, Furious was obsolete.  The ship was paid off in April 1945 and used to evaluate the effects of aircraft explosives on the ship’s structure. Furious was sold in 1948 for scrap, and had been completely broken up at Troon by 1954.

Marion Hammer, former NRA president

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(CNN) — Marion Hammer was 5 when she first held a gun in her hands. Her grandfather handed her a .22 bolt-action single-shot rifle and told her to hunt down a rabbit or a squirrel for dinner. She practiced first, aiming at cans lined up on the wooden fence.

(Not a bad article)

Decomming the Shuttles…sniff…sniff

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The Atlantic has an amazing and very sad photo essay on the decommissioning of the Space Shuttle Fleet

April 12, 1912…a Hundred Years Ago

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On April 12, 1912, all that you see here was taken more than two miles down to the bottom of the ocean.
RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. She was the largest ship afloat at the time of her maiden voyage. One of three Olympic class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line, she was built between 1909–11 by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. She carried over 2,200 people – 1,316 passengers and about 900 crew.

Her passengers included some of the wealthiest people in the world, such as millionnaires John Jacob Astor IV, Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidor Strauss, as well as over a thousand emigrants from Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere seeking a new life in America. The ship was designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, with an on-board gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants and opulent cabins. She also had a powerful wireless telegraph provided for the convenience of passengers as well as for operational use. Though she had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, she lacked enough lifeboats to accommodate all of those aboard. Due to outdated maritime safety regulations, she carried only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people – a third of her total passenger and crew capacity.

The pictures you see here were taken just days before she sailed on her maiden voyage.

She would have no other, and everything you see now rests on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, at a depth of 12,415 feet.

“Eternal Father, strong to save,
whose arm has bound the restless waves,
who bid the mighty ocean deep
its own appointed limits keep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea. “

In the USAF you can get a Bronze Star for Accounting

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Not making this up.

http://www.randolph.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123294964

 

“An NCO from the 802nd Comptroller Squadron earned the Bronze Star March 14 for her actions in Afghanistan…distinguished herself by meritorious achievement as the NCO in charge during a 365-day deployment, January 2011 to January 2012. While in Afghanistan, she accurately executed operational funds across eight remote bases, providing commanders with flexibility in support of counterinsurgency efforts. G—– trained 68 operational fund teams, reviewed 34 projects and funded 280 joint acquisition board packages enabling critical base sustainment.”

 

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