Memorial Day Pittance of Time

Pretty much says it all. I want to say again, THANK YOU.

Take a minute visit the veterans section of your local cemetery (if you don't have a national elementary local) and pay your respects.


Samuel Efurd

Memorial Day / Every Friday

I make no excuse for the fact that I reproduced this here in it's entirety. I believe that it should be known far and wide. I will be reposting it here for every Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

THANK YOU.
A MUST-READ for Memorial Day, 5/23/07

By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

It's that time of year again. Memorial Day weekend is the beginning of summer fun for most Americans, and as I've done before in this space, I want to pause to take note of the real reason there is a Memorial Day.

It's meant to honor and pay our respects to those Americans who've given their lives in service to our nation, who stand in an unbroken line from Lexington's rude bridge to Cemetery Ridge to the Argonne Forest to the beaches of Normandy to the frozen Chosin Reservoir to the Ia Drang Valley to the sands of Kuwait to the streets of Baghdad.

Over the last 12 months, 1,042 soldiers, Marines, sailors and Air Force personnel have given their lives in the terrible duty that is war. Thousands more have come home on stretchers, horribly wounded and facing months or years in military hospitals.

This week, I'm turning my space over to a good friend and former roommate, Army Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, who recently completed a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq and is now back at the Pentagon.

Here's Lt. Col. Bateman's account of a little-known ceremony that fills the halls of the Army corridor of the Pentagon with cheers, applause and many tears every Friday morning. It first appeared on May 17 on the Web-log of media critic and pundit Eric Alterman at the Media Matters for America Web site.

———

"It is 110 yards from the "E" ring to the "A" ring of the Pentagon. This section of the Pentagon is newly renovated; the floors shine, the hallway is broad, and the lighting is bright. At this instant the entire length of the corridor is packed with officers, a few sergeants and some civilians, all crammed tightly three and four deep against the walls. There are thousands here.

"This hallway, more than any other, is the `Army' hallway. The G3 offices line one side, G2 the other, G8 is around the corner. All Army. Moderate conversations flow in a low buzz. Friends who may not have seen each other for a few weeks, or a few years, spot each other, cross the way and renew. Everyone shifts to ensure an open path remains down the center. The air conditioning system was not designed for this press of bodies in this area. The temperature is rising already. Nobody cares.

"10:36 hours: The clapping starts at the E-Ring. That is the outermost of the five rings of the Pentagon and it is closest to the entrance to the building. This clapping is low, sustained, hearty. It is applause with a deep emotion behind it as it moves forward in a wave down the length of the hallway.

"A steady rolling wave of sound it is, moving at the pace of the soldier in the wheelchair who marks the forward edge with his presence. He is the first. He is missing the greater part of one leg, and some of his wounds are still suppurating. By his age I expect that he is a private, or perhaps a private first class.

"Captains, majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels meet his gaze and nod as they applaud, soldier to soldier. Three years ago when I described one of these events, those lining the hallways were somewhat different. The applause a little wilder, perhaps in private guilt for not having shared in the burden ... yet.

"Now almost everyone lining the hallway is, like the man in the wheelchair, also a combat veteran. This steadies the applause, but I think deepens the sentiment. We have all been there now. The soldier's chair is pushed by, I believe, a full colonel.

"Behind him, and stretching the length from Rings E to A, come more of his peers, each private, corporal or sergeant assisted as need be by a field grade officer.

"11:00 hours: Twenty-four minutes of steady applause. My hands hurt, and I laugh to myself at how stupid that sounds in my own head. `My hands hurt.' Christ. Shut up and clap. For twenty-four minutes, soldier after soldier has come down this hallway—20, 25, 30. Fifty-three legs come with them, and perhaps only 52 hands or arms, but down this hall came 30 solid hearts.

"They pass down this corridor of officers and applause, and then meet for a private lunch, at which they are the guests of honor, hosted by the generals. Some are wheeled along. Some insist upon getting out of their chairs, to march as best they can with their chin held up, down this hallway, through this most unique audience. Some are catching handshakes and smiling like a politician at a Fourth of July parade. More than a couple of them seem amazed and are smiling shyly.

"There are families with them as well: the 18-year-old war-bride pushing her 19-year-old husband's wheelchair and not quite understanding why her husband is so affected by this, the boy she grew up with, now a man, who had never shed a tear is crying; the older immigrant Latino parents who have, perhaps more than their wounded mid-20s son, an appreciation for the emotion given on their son's behalf. No man in that hallway, walking or clapping, is ashamed by the silent tears on more than a few cheeks. An Airborne Ranger wipes his eyes only to better see. A couple of the officers in this crowd have themselves been a part of this parade in the past.

"These are our men, broken in body they may be, but they are our brothers, and we welcome them home. This parade has gone on, every single Friday, all year long, for more than four years."—(Copyright 2007 by Robert Bateman; reprinted here by permission.)

Thanks, Bob, for this Memorial Day gift.

———

ABOUT THE WRITER

Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/galloway/story/16478.html

Reworking the website again

Just got done reworking my images galleries on the website. Now you actually get a real web page instead of the php gallery. This makes it easier for you to navigate inside the site should you choose to. Anyway I need to give a big shout out to my "little" brother for figuring out the code used, and how to modify it to suit my needs. Thanks Dude!

Anywho go check it out here Samuel Efurd Galleries


Thanks for watching

Samuel Efurd

Ambulance Driver needs linky help

A while back "THE Ambulance Driver" Kelly Grayson had some REALLY Bad customer service at a place called Cycles and More. It was bad enough that Kelly decided to blog about it. I mean it got him really worked up, and he is usually a pretty easy going guy.

Anyway I read him religiously, and he is an excellent author. He asked for linky love getting his post talking about the service he got back up to the number one spot on google. Here it is AD!

Also here is the request for linky love. http://ambulancedriverfiles.com/2010/05/well-now-we-cant-have-that/

To honor the Patriot Guard Riders

This is a part of a documentary that is being created to honor the Patriot Guard Riders. These Men and Ladies go to great lengths to attend the funerals of Fallen service members when invited by the family. Their efforts are necessary because of the LUNATIC fringe groups that have decided that protesting a funeral is acceptable. The Guard will form a human wall around the family to prevent the protesters from coming into contact with them. These Men and Ladies have earned my respect and I thought I would pass that along.

Along with a heartfelt Thank You.







Samuel Efurd

BUMP!

BUMP!


Samuel Efurd

Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't

That was interesting. When I went to go look at my site and make sure everything was working It wasn't!

Turns out that as long as the pages were in the root directory everything was alright. However most of my pages are in directories to make it easier to keep it organized. Therefore the pages didn't have the sidebar!. Problem! Not a real big deal, I just had to change the include command to reflect the position of the sidebar folder. Done now and everything is updated, and now uploading!

The above was written at 10:09PM on 5-20-10

This is written at 0134AM on the 21rst. News flash just cause it works on the root level doesn't mean that all of it works, and it's ready for prime time. But hopefully I have it all whipped, and everything is working.

Seriously if you run across a broken link at my site let me know.

Thanks
Samuel Efurd

Using PHP include command

My website is slowly growing. As I add more and more content the page count goes up. I am using Dreamweaver to maintin my site and it does a wonderful job, but, however. . . As the man says it was beginning to be a real pain to wait for it to upload the 100 something pages that are now in my site. The solution? The Include command.

The include command is sued to "bring in" another document. If you open up my site www.samuelraileyefurd.com and look at the right hand side you will see a menu of sorts. When I add content I generally have to update the menu. Now thankfully I don't have to update each page individually, thanks to templates, but I did have to wait for the update and upload to occur to make sure that I hadn't broken something. That was what was taking so much time. That sidebar is not actually part of the page that you are looking at. It is a separate document that I can update and then will become part of each page as you the browser request it.

The icons on the bottom of my header are graphical representations and links to all of the sites that I "belong" to and attempt to interact with. Somewhat successfully sometimes.

Anyhow that's the latest.
Samuel Efurd

An ATM machine in a trailer?

OK I was in Panama City Beach last night with a wonderful Lady, and I see a little single axle trailer sitting in the parking lot of one of the little bars down there. The words ATM work written across the side. It struck me as odd so we turned back around and I took a good look at it and decided to take a few quick pics.

I really would hate to know that I was desperate enough for some cash to put my debit card into something like this. Turns out it was powered and probably owned by the bar that the parking lot belonged to, but man would this be risky.

Samuel Efurd
www.samuelraileyefurd.com

New Video at YouTube

I finally got around to getting the video done on the portable burning bar setup. Go check it out. Here

Hopefully in the weeks to come I will get the detailed descriptions up. Thinking of doing on actually showing the assembly of the bar segment. What do you think?

Oh and for those that don't know am doing some link work and that is why you see my name up in different fashions.


Love ya'll

Samuel Efurd

Mothers Day or to my Mother, Marthe Efurd, the Saint

OK I know that this is late and God knows that I do not have the gift of the muse, but I read Kelly's repost about his mother and I decided I had to say something.

My mother is a SAINT. I want to thank her for standing by me and supporting me through my trials and tribulations. I want her to understand that even though I can be self-centered, I understand how difficult I can be to be around. However, this post is not about me. It is about Mom. My mother who is one of the strongest people I know. She is also like the willow that bends before the wind. She is capable of switching between the two in ways that I will never understand.

She has the ability to turn common household ingredients into art. One of these days I will talk her into letting me host her collection of pictures of the cakes and candies that she has made. She is self taught, and in the midst of taking care of all of us managed to create marvels in the kitchen. I can remember one from back in the 70s where she made a cake in the image of a bull. Standing on all four legs. You know like you had modeled it out of clay, except it was iced and edible. There were the innumerable wedding cakes that she has made over the years everyone different, and everyone of them giving a little piece of herself. The Eagle Scout cakes that she made for my brother, all of my cousins, and me. Each rank badge eight inches high, and perfectly detailed. The groom's cake for Loggerhead, a Lieutenant with the Jackson County Sheriff's office, that had the star on it covered in gold leaf. I love my Mother's artistic skills, but that is not what makes her special.

The thing that I admire the most about my Mother is her ability to make each and every person she meets feel special. She is the type of person that brings a smile to your face. Everyone just enjoys being around her. I suppose that is because she is always smiling. Always. I don't know how she does it, and when she tries to explain it always comes down to her Faith. See my Mother has Faith in the Lord. Faith with a capital F. Always has and always will.

And there my limited gifts fail me. I know that there is much more to write, but I am at a loss as to how to get the words on paper, as it were.

I LOVE you Mom. Thank You!

PUT the Beverage DOWN Before You Read the Story

I haven't laughed this hard in I don't know when. Seriously GO READ

It starts out with paragraphs like this:

Studies have shown that motorcycling requires more decisions per second, and more sheer data processing than nearly any other common activity or sport. The reactions and accurate decision making abilities needed have been likened to the reactions of fighter pilots! The consequences of bad decisions or poor situational awareness are pretty much the same for both groups too.

The you get this:

Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels can take care of themselves!

I am not going to ruin it or tease out spoilers, but SERIOUSLY GO READ it HERE

After you get done come back and tell me if it doesn't bring visions of Ray Steven's Mississippi Squirrel to your mind. Here is a link to that song video

Amazing what you can find on the intrawebs

Nasa's Landsat 7 satellite has it's realtime video stream broadcast over the net.

Check it out here. It is literally real time and there is no way to capture it, other than a screen shot, but it is still pretty cool. Resolution is 250 meters to the pixel.

Oh and here is linkage to when I graduated nursing school. Can you believe it's been almost 6 years ago?

http://www.chipola.edu/public_relations/Chipola%20This%20Week/Apr%2026%202004.pdf

Do Search in there for Samuel, or page three right hand side middle of the page under Marianna. Man

OK New Content Up at My Site

OK I have finally gotten my first "tale" back from my "editors" It is about a truck that I repossessed, back when I did that for fun.

Check it out here.

O'Pry Racing's Secret to Success

Your crack investigative reporting team has determined that proper tool usage is critical for top performance at the track. In a photo discretely taken at the secret test and tune facility for O'Pry Racing one of their secrets was discovered. It is these type of secrets that are responsible for cutting more then 2 seconds off of their ET!!

Click photos to Enlarge!!



















This second photo shows a clearer view of the secret weapon. It was in use by none other than Broward O'Pry himself!




















That Ladies and Gentlemen is a Gerber MultiTool. Unbelievable!

We have our ace reporter Samuel Efurd to thank for these thrilling shots.

For a video of this beast in action check out 1957delivery's channel on Youtube.

Until next time he gets the goods for us this is Railey signing off!