White Dog

Try that.

The Billings Gazette is reporting that Evel Knievel thinks he's looking at one wall he won't clear.

Renowned for his death-defying stunts, Knievel has now landed in major medical trouble. He says his doctors give him three to five years to live.

Knievel suffers from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a condition that scars the lungs, replacing the air sacs with scar tissue. As the scars form, the tissue becomes thicker, reducing the lung's ability to absorb oxygen. There is no cure.

"I feel pretty good, but there just isn't enough air on this Earth for me compared to you normal people," Knievel said.

The daredevil joins about 200,000 other Americans with the disease. There is no known cause, but researchers believe it may be caused by a genetic predisposition, previous injury to the lungs, viruses and pollutants. Knievel says he has never smoked, though he did work in a copper mine in Montana before making it big as a stunt entertainer.

Yeah.

I had the shit.

The 'stunt-cycle' , the chopper, the funny car,  the goddamn van.

ALL of it.

Saturday afternoons on the floor.  Waiting for ABC to hurry the fuck up and get the Wide World of Sports coverage out to whatever line of shit he was going to try and jump that week.

(I will admit - I had to be too young to remember Caesar's Palace - had to be - but everyone has seen it...they have seen it so often they would swear they were there, or at least saw it on TV on their way to Woodstock...)

You know he thinks it must be close -

While rumors about the daredevil's failing health have been buzzing for a few years, his friend Alma Barry in Twin Falls didn't believe them until Knievel called and asked for a gravestone he left in her care to be shipped to him in Butte.

The white marble marker was created to generate publicity about his Snake River Canyon jump more than 30 years ago. Alma Barry and her family got to know Knievel in the seven years he took to build the ramp and plan the jump. The Barrys owned Volco Builders' Supply and helped him build the ramp and press box.

It sat in a stockroom for more than 30 years.

While he got famous for the jumps he didn't make, I think he stayed famous for his attitude towards trying the stunt again, and imagining even bigger ones. It was hard-core American, pure and simple.

Imagine something.  Then do it.

At least fucking try it.

And then, if it doesn't work out, try it again. 

Or think of something better.

And try that.

TRY that.

Evel Knievel.

FReeper recollections.  Remebering stuff you forgot decades ago.

Scotty beamed up this morning.

James Doohan - Scotty from Star Trek. 

Died this morning.

He was 85.

"..here's to ya, lad."

This from the BBC -

Doohan, whose role was immortalised in the line "Beam me up, Scotty", [a line I believe was never used in the original series...WD] had been suffering from pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, his agent said.

Wiki -

At the outbreak of World War II, aged 19, he joined the Royal Canadian Artillery, and was eventually commissioned as a lieutenant. His first combat assignment was the invasion of Normandy at Juno Beach on D-Day. Shooting two snipers along the way, Doohan's unit made its way to higher ground and took defensive positions. At 11:30 that night, he was machine-gunned, taking six hits: four in his leg, one in the chest, and one through his middle right finger. The chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case; he would later generally hide the amputated finger on screen. Despite his wounds, Doohan remained in the military, trained as a pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force, and flew an artillery observation plane, though he was once labeled the "craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Forces".

James joins DeForest and Gene now. Part of a crew that is probably responsible for inspiring more kids to become engineers, scientists and astronauts than any other reason, especially after the Apollo program was defunded in the early '70's.

Unlike the majority of those kids, he will actually get to go to space - for real.

Life Lessons.

All you need to know in life, courtesy of Firefly.

If you think some of those little snippets are weird, you just aren't paying attention to real life.  One Scott Akin however, was paying attention.

It started out as an innocent trip to Vegas. (ok - as innocent as a trip to Vegas can get...) You will notice here that the fence to the yard is  w a y  back there...

Of course, the first transgression is supposed to be the hardest, so it was nothing to go back for more detailed pictures.

As of his last post tonight, they are much closer to tracking down the owners to try and salvage the thing to refurb.

========
If you're not familiar with Firefly, here's a few links. I missed the original run on Fox but caught the entire thing from downloads. The series DVD was released last December, and a feature film is due September 30.

Firefly - DVD   |  Serenity - The Movie   |  Firefly - Wiki

Chinese Translations  | Firefly - SciFi Channel run

The SciFi Channel will re-air the series starting this Friday, the 22nd.  In a brilliant marketing move, SciFi is apparently going to run the episodes IN ORDER. Something Fox failed to do on the original run. Oh, and I guess SciFi will also air ALL the episodes that were shot. Something else I guess Fox didn't seem to want to bother with - to the tune of 3 or 4 shows.

Coincidence...?

Bloggers...and guns.

Guns!...and bloggers.

hmmmmm...

A collection:

2 unexploded bombs / 37  50+ dead / 700+ injured...

- Classic AQ crap -

Checking in:
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
Boy, are AmSpec readers loyal! Half a dozen have already e-mailed to me knowing I am in London for the Spectator of London's annual party. They want to be sure I am all right. I am.

Collecting: Rob checks in -
Yeah, I read about the bombings in London this morning, but I didn't post about it. There's plenty of other people who had better and more cogent things to say about it than I did. You can find a lot of them right here.

Personalizing: - IowaHawk -
It was no surprise when my kids rendered their verdict on the train back to Heathrow: "London is the best city ever." Today, it still is. And I look forward, more than ever, to returning.

May God bless London, the entire UK, and our nations' enduring kinship.

Simplifying: Bill Whittle

Not the original...

Not the original -
but the locals here will get it...

Wild Faces -

Added a new TypeList - Art -

Just for a new blog.  Mona Majorowicz. (Don't ask me...)
 

It doesn't belong in the blogs section though, so it gets a new category...

Power and Passion - Belgian Team

'...great plan, Field Marshall Von Sundance...'

IowaHawk has a special contributor today...he is understandably upset at being compared to the American leftists...

See, I didn't spend the last ten years crawling in the sand at jihad training camp, getting my knuckles thwacked by an Imam every time I forgot a Quran verse, and living in smelly Baghdad safehouse just to get compared to a bunch of trucker-hat AltWeekly motards from Austin and Seattle.

Me, like the American Left? I mean, are you fucking joking me?