A Flyover Blog

Happy Halloween

"Halloween wraps fear in innocence, As though it were a slightly sour sweet. Let terror, then, be turned into a treat..."

- Nicholas Gordon, PoemsforFree.com

Red Friday - October 30

A glow-in-the-dark golf ball awaits the final putt at the Lone Star Golf Course during a night golf tournament aimed at raising awareness of suicide and suicide prevention on Contingency Operating Location Q-West, Iraq.

 U.S. Army photo by Maj. John B. Herd

Ghost Hunting Tips

It's finally here, Halloween week. I don't know when it became such a big holiday, but it is. I've never really liked Halloween, probably because of all those traumatic homemade costume incidents I had as a child. My mom was very creative so we celebrated every holiday enthusiastically, whether we wanted to or not. 

The latest trend in all-things-Halloweenie is ghost hunting. While I love watching Grant, Jay and the team from SyFy's Ghost Hunters, I'd never consider grabbing the old EMF detector and heading off to the graveyard in search of the paranormal. That sort of danger risk is akin to running with scissors; makes no sense to me. Lots of folks apparently do it though, so I thought this might be a good time to share these ghost hunting safety tips from CNN. Yes, CNN actually published this article.

If you do decide to go on a ghost hunt this weekend, let me know if you encountered anything... odd. As for me, I'll watch the pros on tv. I think there's a Ghost Hunters "best of" Saturday night. That's as close to a haunting as I care to get.

Fear

FEAR is an acronym in the English language for "False Evidence Appearing Real""

- Neale Donald Walsch

Red Friday - October 23

U.S. Army Cpl. Michael Tacker provides security inside the new building for the Mahsaab High School in the Kohistan District, Afghanistan. Tacker is an infantryman assigned to the Kapisa-Parwan Provincial Reconstruction Team.

 U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Teddy Wade

Don't Rush Through Autumn

"Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn."

- Elizabeth Lawrence

Red Friday - October 16

A U.S. Marine maintains security with a pair of camels during a partnered mounted patrol with Afghan National Army soldiers in Nawa district, Helmand province, Afghanistan. The Marines are assigned to Regimental Combat Team 3.

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Gunnery Sgt. James A. Burks

The Best Moments

 

"The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times... the best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a vcoluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."

- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Red Friday - October 9

 

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Travers Brake, left, thanks Mohammad Ahmed, one of the elders of the Zwaynat village southwest of Baghdad, for meeting with him, Sept. 16, 2009. Brake met with Ahmed to check on the well-being of the villagers since explosives were found in the area a week earlier.

 

U.S. Army photo by Spc. Ruth McClary

Could We Please Stop Peddling This?

I love October. Absolutely love it. Cool weather, changing leaves, fireplace smoke - it's fantastic. Two things annoy me about October though, and they're getting harder to ignore each year. The first is the excessive amount of Halloween merchandise clogging stores. I mean, come on, who needs more than one very large pumpkin on the doorstep and a white sheet for a costume? I know, I'm old school.

Only one thing irritates me more than the Halloween junk and that's the Pink Junk. That's right, I'm talking about all the merchandise labeled pink for breast cancer awareness. I haven't spoken about this before because I thought I was the only Pink Grinch out there.  I have quietly been boycotting pink labelled junk since it hit the market back in '93. I go out of my way to avoid it, to the point of buying a competitor's brand. This year I decided to speak up, after finding this story in the Boston Globe.

My mom died on September 13, 1985 of breast cancer. She was only 48. Her mom died two decades earilier from the same disease. She was also 48. Several of my friends have also battle this disease. I know the supposed purpose of all this sickening pink crap is to raise money for breast cancer research. Okay, that's fine. Then just send them a check. There's a ton of money changing hands in the breast cancer industry. I'm tired of seeing this disease peddled for the sake of making another lousy buck, a buck that will probably never see a research lab. It'll go to pay someone's bonus or pad a travel expense account, or buy some lovely office furniture (that will most likely not be pink!)

Enough already. Find a %@!& cure. Retire the pink and let's move on.