Tag: Reagan

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Hail to the Chief

Since I am talking about my bathroom, here’s another thing that I want to get to complete the picture. There’s this gimmicky “stolen” White House towel.

Well, you know, it’s a fact that Clinton’s staffers stole a bunch of crap from the Air Force One and White House (including many “w” keyboard keys). I was hoping that some real towels would show up on eBay, but it looks like White House bathrooms have paper towels (which makes sense, right?)


Item description:
“Last time being offered here. LOW RESERVE! Plain and simple. I was in the Oval Office, meeting the President, (President Reagan), I used the bathroom and these were in there. He’s getting on in years, 92 this year I believe. A fantastic Reagan piece of Presidential memorabilia. You’ll never get this anywhere, probably ever! They were used and thrown away. Now they are all gone. I kept mine. I take PAY PAL, check and money order. Check to clear before shipping. Winner to pay shipping. Own a very unique piece of American history from a President that is ill and almost 92. Thank you. “

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ACH! BONJOURRRRRR! You Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys!

A while back I finished an absolutely amazing book about Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. It’s by Ben Rich and it’s called “Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed“. I’ll write more about that book later.

Here’s an amusing little anecdote from Lt. Colonel William Burk Jr., an SR-71 Blackbird pilot.

“In the fall of ’82, I flew from Mildenhall on a mission o Lebanon in response to the Marine barrack bombing. President Reagan ordered photo coverage of ill the terrorist bases in the region. The French refused to allow us to overfly, so our mission was to refuel off the south coast of England.”
…
“We completed our pass over Beirut and turned toward Malta, when I got a warning low-oil-pressure light on my right engine. Even though the engine was running fine I slowed down and lowered our altitude and made a direct line for England. We decided to cross France without clearance instead of going the roundabout way. We made it almost across, when I looked out the left window and saw a French Mirage III sitting ten feet off my left wing. He came up on our frequency and asked us for our Diplomatic Clearance Number. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I told him to stand by. I asked my backseater, who said, “Don’t worry about it. I just gave it to him.” What he had given him was “the bird’ with his middle finger. I lit the afterbumers and left that Mirage standing still. Two minutes later, we were crossing the Channel. ”

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Mmmm, nucular ..

The spirit of adventure is alive and well in me. Today instead of just eating my Atkins bar, I decided to nuke it in a microwave for 15 seconds. Well, it became much more edible!
Guess I was not the first one to figure this out.

Speaking about nucular. One of my favorite magazines, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, had a very funny article about mispronunciation of “nuclear”. Homer Simpson is not the only offender in this matter. Eisenhower , Reagan, Bush-I usually said something like “NOO-kyoo-lur”, “NU-kyuh-ler” or “NU-cu-lar”. Carter, in a class of his own, liked to reminisce about being a “nu-KEE-ar engineer” (I wonder, was he the only engineer among American presidents?)

One of my favorite FIDO origin lines from was “I put instant coffee in the microwave oven and almost went back in time.” I don’t advise it, even for time traveling :)