Finally!

I hesitate to make any pronouncements because we are talking about New England but the snow finally seems to be receding. The edges of the lawns are starting to peek out from their snow cover and this will be the first week in the past month without a resident Nor’easter to contend with. I’m not making any plans to break out the sun tan lotion but it will be nice to be able to get out on the back deck to burn some steaks instead of creating a mess in the kitchen that I know I’ll have to clean up before my Favorite Panamanian returns. 

Snow Receding - Front yard This Morning

A guy I served with in the Army sent the following sample of bumper stickers seen on military bases. As I find myself surrounded by the most fantastically liberal state in the union in the People’s Republic of Taxxachusetts these caused me to harken back to the days when I wore a uniform. This past weekend marked the fortieth anniversary of first donning it:

Bumper-Stickers Seen On Military Bases

• 101st Airborne Division - “When it comes to Combat, we care enough to send the very best”

• “When in doubt, empty the magazine”

• “Sniper – You can run, but you’ll just die tired!”

• “Machine Gunners – Accuracy By Volume”

• “Except For Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism and Communism, WAR has Never Solved Anything”

• ” U.S. Military – Certified Counselors to the 72 Virgins Dating Club”

• " U.S Air Force – Travel Agents To Allah”

• “The Army – When It Absolutely, Positively Has To Be Destroyed Overnight”

• “What Do I Feel When I Kill A Terrorist? A Little Recoil”

• “Marines – Providing Enemies of America an Opportunity To Die For their Country Since 1775"

• “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Anyone Who Threatens It”

• “Happiness Is A Belt-Fed Weapon”

• “It’s God’s Job to Forgive Bin Laden – It was Our Job to Arrange the Meeting”

• “Artillery Brings Dignity to What Would Otherwise Be Just A Vulgar Brawl”

• “One Shot, Twelve Kills – U.S. Naval Gun Fire Support “

• “My Kid Fought In Iraq So Your Kid Can Party In College and Protest”

• “A Dead Enemy Is A Peaceful Enemy – Blessed Be The Peacemakers”

• “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But the serviceman doesn’t have that problem.”

• “The American Soldier does not fight because he hates who is in front of him; he fights because he loves who is behind him.”

The FBR almost didn’t want to talk to me last night, apparently she had her fill of me over the weekend, but she eventually relented when we got into a game of peekaboo. Later in the evening she placed her own call, without my daughter’s knowledge, to my wife down in Panama. Her abuela could not have been more pleased.

I checked out the sequel to Pacific Rim last night and really enjoyed it. Any blockbuster sequel has a hard row to hoe but this succeeds because it trusts the actors and they deliver, especially John Boyega. He continues to prove he is so much more than a reformed storm trooper and delivers the right combination of humor, panache, and charisma as the son of the last movie’s hero. Thankfully Charlie Hunam was jettisoned for a younger, more appealing crew of jaeger pilots. Jing Tian steals every scene she’s in, just as she did in The Wall. The kaiju are back menacing a rebuilding earth and Boyega along with Clint Eastwood’s kid are responsible for saving humanity. This movie puts to bed the notion that kaiju only fight in the rain and the CGI work was impressive as poor Tokyo is once again leveled by marauding mega-monsters. My only issue is with the climactic battle where the kaiju are so formidable that the jaegers are basically useless. Still it was pure popcorn driven fun with hardly a thespian utterance heard.

I finished the next book in RW Peake’s excellent series of a Roman infantryman’s experience in late Republican Rome with Marching with Caesar: Conquest of Gaul. The hero, Titus Pullo, finds himself in Caesar’s 10^th legion facing hordes of rampaging Gauls, Germans, and Britons. Peake’s excellent attention to detail brings the life of the ordinary solider from this era to life. It also highlights how much Caesar accomplished in the short span of time. He’s one of my favorite historical figures and it was so fun to see him viewed from one of his foot soldiers. A great read, I’m already on to the next book in the series.