FAULKNER STATE SUN CHIEFS
Location: Bay Minette, AL
Division: NJCAA
Comment: This excellent institution was founded in 1965 and has additional campuses in Continue reading
Monthly Archives: July 2019
COOL-NAMED COLLEGE SPORTS TEAM: FAULKNER STATE
Filed under Cool names and cool logos
APOLLO 11 ANNIVERSARY PLUS THE 6 OTHER MOON LAUNCHES
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! America’s Apollo 11 moon landing gets all the attention, so in keeping with Balladeer’s Blog’s overall theme here’s a look at the six missions that followed that very first manned moon landing.
APOLLO 12 – Overall Commander: Charles “Pete” Conrad (not to be confused with Peter “Chuck” Conrad)
Command Module Yankee Clipper Pilot: Richard F Gordon, Jr
Lunar Module Intrepid Pilot: Alan L Bean
Less than four full months after Apollo 11’s successful mission the Apollo 12 crew provided a SECOND fulfillment of President John F Kennedy’s goal of landing men on the moon and returning them safely to the Earth.
The Lunar Module Intrepid touched down on the moon’s surface on November 19th, 1969 at 1:54am EST and lifted off to rendezvous with the orbiting Command Module Yankee Clipper on November 20th at 9:25am. Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean was on November 24th at 3:58pm.
The Mission: The Yankee Clipper was struck by lightning during its ascent from the Earth, knocking out all power but the back-up systems successfully restored all operations to normal. Apollo 12 made a perfect touchdown at its predesignated landing area, already improving on the previous mission, which had been very slightly off-course.
After landing at the Ocean of Storms Astronauts Conrad and Bean had to contend with a much more powdery surface than the Apollo 11 crew had encountered. The lunar dust and powder clung to the Astronauts’ suits and nearly clogged vital portions of the high-tech outfits. Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
KLONDIKE GOLD RUSH: GUNS & GAMBLERS FOR FRONTIERADO
Frontierado is on August 2nd, so two weeks from now blog posts related to that major holiday will wrap up for the year.
A neglected aspect of Wild West lore is the Alaskan Gold Rush. Klondike Kate was the only figure I’ve covered from the Yukon so it’s long past time for more. Think of dogsleds instead of stage coaches and instead of hot deserts, snow and temperatures so cold that whiskey freezes in the bottle. Think of winter storms of such magnitude that the entire city of Nome, AK was literally wiped out late in the Gold Rush. Boomtowns, gunslingers and gamblers are common to Gold Rushes in the frozen north AND in the continental U.S.
THE MONTANA KID – Dan Egan, before his Yukon fame, was a boxer during the dangerous years when the sport was illegal in many areas and boxing matches were subject to being raided by the police. He had only limited success and his career as a pugilist is distinguished mostly by his losses to THE Billy Hennesy.
Already called the Montana Kid, Egan lost to Hennesy in boxing matches from Leavenworth, KS to San Francisco, CA between 1888 and 1892. Beginning around 1896 the Kid was in Alaska and made a name for himself smuggling whiskey from Juneau and Skagway to Dawson via his notoriously fast dogsled team.
Egan became a legend from his escapades eluding Canadian Mounties and American authorities with his ever-expanding inventory of smuggled goods. The Montana Kid would spend his down time between smuggling runs drinking and gambling in the many saloons in the Gold Rush boomtowns.
When he was on a winning streak Egan would reward his sled-dogs with prime steaks from the best available restaurants.
This amiable but deadly man was a frequent participant in the marathon, multiple-day card games held at the Bank Saloon, along with equally colorful Klondike figures like Silent Sam Bonnifield, One-Eyed Riley, and the gambler known only as the Oregon Jew. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
TRANSGRESS WITH ME: JULY 19th
Balladeer’s Blog remains the only site on the web that equally criticizes both of America’s rival gangs of white collar criminals: Democrats and Republicans. Here’s the latest round of Transgress With Me. (As ever, WE NEED THIRD PARTIES)
*** Democrats believe that disagreeing with any of them on ANY issue, IN the office or OUT of it, is a firing offense.
*** The clueless buffoons who run the Republican Party apparently think their beloved “Free Market” (LMAO) means corporations are free to impose political conformity on their employees as a condition of employment. (After all, it’s not the GOVERNMENT doing it, they masochistically whine …) Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
DEVILS RIVER WHISKEY FOR FRONTIERADO
It’s no secret that Balladeer’s Blog is a Lifestyle Brand. (I’m KIDDING!) At any rate the Frontierado Holiday will be here Friday August 2nd so before you know it, it will all be over for another year. Here’s another brand of booze that I like to drink either straight or mixed in my Cactus Jacks: Devils River (1840).
This Texas Bourbon is created with water drawn from Devils River (Devils is plural, so no apostrophe) and is 75% corn, 21% rye and 4% malted barley. As usual I prefer Barrel Strength – I’m slamming down a 117 Proof bottle as I type – but naturally you’re free to make your own selections.
Remember, to be a Frontierado Whiskey it’s got to have incomparable taste PLUS be strong enough to let you blow flies out of the air right after you take a drink. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
COOLEST CANADIAN COLLEGE FOOTBALL TEAMS
College football season is just over a month away in the divisions covered here at Balladeer’s Blog. To whet our appetites here’s a look at The Coolest Canadian College Football Teams.
MONTREAL CARABINS
Location: Montreal, QC
Comment: My Canadian readers tell me Carabins are a military unit which wields Carbines, making this name virtually unique.
OTTAWA GEE GEES
Location: Ottawa, ON
Comment: GG originally stood for “Garnet & Grey” so it was combined with Gee Gee, slang for a racehorse, hence the horse on the helmet.
ACADIA AXEMEN
Location: Wolfville, NS
Comment: The name Axemen still sounds cool, despite its use in the title of a few reality shows in recent years. Continue reading
Filed under college football, Cool Helmets, Cool names and cool logos
“FARMER” PEEL: NEGLECTED GUNSLINGER
The Frontierado Holiday is coming up on August 2nd. As always, the holiday is about the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality.
FARMER PEEL – Gunslinger Langford Peel got the nickname “Farmer” Peel through the same sense of irony that earns some tall people the nickname Shorty and some fat people the nickname Slim. Peel was always well-dressed and smooth-tongued and the furthest thing away from the image of a Farmer that you could get among the high-stakes gambler/ gunslingers of his era.
Peel was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1829 but his family moved to America during his childhood. In 1841, at the age of 12, Peel was accepted into the U.S. Army as a bugler. Buglers and drummers could indeed be enlisted into the service as company musicians with their parents’ consent. Education in their intended musical instruments was part of the bargain.
David Robb would have made a great Farmer Peel
The young Langford Peel was shipped off to Governor’s Island, New York and then Carlisle Barracks, PA for his military and musical training. After 13 months he was discharged at Carlisle on October 24th, 1842 but chose to reenlist. Come 1845 the 16 year old blonde was with Company B of the First Regiment of U.S. Dragoons at Fort Atkinson, IA. (Yes, this would indeed have made him the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B when he was first posted there. I’m kidding!)
By the spring of 1846 Peel got his first action against Native Americans, bugling and fighting for his unit in what is now Pawnee County, Coon Creek and along the Arkansas River. Already skilled at gunplay, Langford notched 3 kills in his first battle and became even deadlier in the future, seeing a great deal of action against the Great Plains and Mojave Desert Tribes.
NOTE: Some sources say Peel served in the Mexican War of 1846-1848, but others say that’s a fallacy. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
KILLRAVEN EIGHT: THE DEVIL’S MARAUDER
FOR PART ONE OF BALLADEER’S BLOG’S EXAMINATION OF THIS OLD, OLD MARVEL STORYLINE CLICK HERE The revisions I would make are scattered throughout the synopsis below. Marvel still rules current Pop Culture.
AMAZING ADVENTURES Vol 2 #25 (July 1974)
Title: THE DEVIL’S MARAUDER
Synopsis: Don McGregor is beginning to really click as the writer for this post-apocalypse series, so my revisions will be very limited this time around. Rich Buckler is the new artist, further improving the series compared to the past few issues.
Somewhere in the ruins of Indiana, like most of the Earth, nearly leveled in the war against the alien invaders 18 years earlier, a stolen Dyna-Glider flies through the skies. Aboard are Killraven and his Freemen: Hawk, Old Skull, Carmilla Frost, her creation Grok and M’Shulla, who pilots the craft.
REVISION: My Freemen roster is the same except for Grok, who would instead be Deathlok, Carmilla Frost’s creation. I would have Carmilla piloting the aircraft since she is the scientist of the group.
The Freemen spot a Martian tripod pursuing a human who fled their enslavement at the nearby Martian testing grounds/ proving grounds for their war machines: the old Indianapolis Speedway. Piloting the Tripod is Skar, a mysterious inhuman figure who works for Earth’s alien conquerors but who makes it clear he is neither human nor Martian. (NOTE: His exact nature will be revealed during a future clash with the Freemen.)
REVISION: As always, I would have dropped the ridiculous Martian angle along with the tenuous War of the Worlds connection and just had it be regular aliens – Zetans in my revisions – who had conquered the Earth. Skar is such a bland name I would have livened it up a little as “Warscar” or “Battlescar” or something similar.
Killraven foolishly leaps from the Dyna-Glider to attack Skar’s Tripod. He is defeated and left for dead, since Skar considers all humans beneath contempt. He pilots his Tripod back to the converted Indianapolis Speedway.
REVISION: I would, as ever, have the Tripods really be Triphibian craft and the Dyna-Glider would have been shot down by Warscar/ Battlescar after he thought he killed Killraven. The explosion in the distance would make him assume all hands were dead and he would return to the Speedway. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
POLITICAL CARTOONS: JULY 16th
Up first we have the latest hilarious hypocrisy from the hatemongering, race-baiting demagogues of the Democrat/ Ku Klux Klan Party. They spout non-stop hatred but snivel when they get any kind of pushback. (Note, too, the usual Democrat insinuation that to be black means you MUST obey the Democrats or else you’re not a “black voice.”)
THE ODD SQUAD DEMOCRATS: Next we see the Four Hatemongers (Pressley, Omar, AOC & Tlaib) both WITHOUT their Klan robes on and WITH their Klan robes on.
This next one is a great reminder of how Democrat-run San Francisco and other spots in Democrat-run California have streets literally filled with human waste from all the illegal immigration and homelessness. But Californian politicians think they know what’s best for the whole country.
Then there’s this reminder (left) that de facto Third Party President Donald Trump has done more for the poor and the working class of ALL colors than any other president in my lifetime.
And he’s done it while fighting BOTH the crooked Democrats AND the crooked Republicans.
Next we have a reminder of how the Techno-Fascists at Facebook, Google and Twitter need to have their companies made public utilities to stop their flagrant partisan abuse of their influence.
And there’s THIS reminder that the default position of Democrats in office is always to call EVERYBODY AND ANYBODY a (yaaawwwwn) “racist” or, even more absurdly, “a white supremacist.”
The Four Hatemongers express their animosity toward Jews:
Filed under humor, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: JAYHAWK CONFERENCE MEDIA DAY
There is plenty to talk about concerning Jayhawk Conference football this year.
The 2019 Football Media Day in Wichita, Kansas is scheduled for July 26.
The event will be held on the Newman University campus. It will be in the Roths Alumni Lounge of the campus library, just off US-54 in west Wichita. Continue reading
Filed under college football
Balladeer's Blog 