Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

Too good to pass up:

At practice Tuesday, Miami Dolphins” rookie defensive tackle Manuel Wright broke down in tears after getting a stern talking-to from head coach Nick Saban (you Tiger fans may remember Mr. Saban).

This would be a fun story regardless of the kicker: Manuel “Weepy” Wright is a rookie out of none other than the University of Southern California. Yes, he”s a product of that very tough school in that very tough conference.

I guess he had few reasons to cry back in college, especially when looking at schedules such as this one.

Dolphins Rookie Breaks Down In Tears During Practice

With the Space Shuttle - the AMC Pacer of orbital vehicles - blasting off today, I decided to capture NASA TV”s coverage of the event. Cool stuff.

As many of you may remember, the last time NASA sent a shuttle up, it didn”t come back - at least not in one piece. The Columbia disaster was caused by stuff coming off the big external tank and smacking the shuttle, so the rocket scientists decided they needed to keep a closer eye on what happens during launch.

And thus we have the Space Shuttle External Tank Cam. It rocks.

For the benefit of Wisdom readers, I took the liberty of burning out some QuickTime movies of NASA TV”s external-cam launch replay. The links below will get you the full show - from liftoff until the tank is jettisoned out in the cosmos. I”m giving you three flavors:

[editor"s note: sorry - videos no longer available. That"s life.]

- Normal speed. This version is in a smaller window, because even at this size it”s 28 megs. It”s about 8 minutes long and things unfold pretty slowly, which is kind of funny since the shuttle goes from 0 - 17,000 MPH during this time.

- 15X speed. It”s 27 seconds of high-speed, high-quality viewing pleasure.

- 15X backwards. Yeah, what the hell. Throw that bad boy in reverse and drop it back on the pad.

It should be noted that these bits were created with great ease using my Dish Network 721 DVR, Mac Mini and Elgato EyeTV 200. All three technologies come highly recommended by The Cap”n.

In fact, if you have a Mac and like TV, you should buy an EyeTV. From Amazon. By clicking this link.

If you don”t have a Mac, you should get one. From Amazon. By clicking this link.

Real-world pals of The Cap”n & Wife know we dig our Hyundai Santa Fe. Great truck, great price.

And next year, Hyundai is upsizing and upgrading the Santa Fe. Photos of the new Fe are starting to come out, and I like what I see.

But there”s a problem. The new Santa Fe is not going to be crafted by our hard-working friends in Korea. It”s going to be made at Hyundai”s new plant outside of Montgomery, Alabama.

Now, I know it”s possible to make good cars in America, at least if the company making them isn”t an American car company. And I know Alabamians have been making Mercedes minivans for several years [editor"s note: for any of you who may own a Mercedes M-Class and believe yourself to be driving a high-performance German SUV, you"re actually driving a minivan made in Alabama. Deal with it].

But I also know the history of car plants opening in the Deep South. Nissan had a hell of a time getting their Mississippi plant to produce anything other than rolling scrap metal, and I can”t imagine the workforce in “Bama is much ahead of its neighbor.

So I”ll pass on the “07 Santa Fe. Maybe I”ll take a look at an “08 if the quality numbers from the Montgomery plant look good after a couple of years” worth of production. But for now, the only thing I want to buy that”s made in Alabama is a plate of Dreamland ribs.

Congress has reached a compromise deal that will extend daylight-saving time in what is questionably being thought of as a way to save energy.

Yeah, whatever. It means a month more of after-work sunshine, which is all fine by me.

But I love this quote from Sen. Fred Upton on the fact that Halloween will now happen on daylight-saving time:

“Kids across the nation will soon rejoice,” said Upton, because they”ll have another hour of daylight trick-or-treating.

OK -

a) Trick-or-treating is supposed to be an after-dark activity. Otherwise it would happen on a Saturday afternoon.

2) Kids across the nation don”t watch CNN or notice anything that Congress does.

c) Do kids still “rejoice”? Seriously.

From The Advocate (the Baton Rouge daily, not the national gay newspaper) this morning - an autopsy has shown that an LSU student found dead in his apartment with “strips of duct tape on his head” died of asphyxiation.

Now, the story doesn”t say to what part of his head the aforementioned duct tape was affixed, but I think it”s safe to assume that it included the parts of the head through which one breathes.

What I love about this story is how The Advocate treats the cops” statements about the potential circumstances of his death:

Police spokesman Sgt. Don Kelly said that, while detectives have not ruled out the possibility of homicide, there are other possibilities for the death.

And that”s all the story says about it.

I have no doubt that crack Advocate reporter Mark F. Bonner asked Sgt. Kelly a question along the lines of “what might those other possibilities be?”, yet no other possibility is mentioned in the story. Nor does the story say the cops would not elaborate on those possibilities.

That, given my experience with Baton Rouge and The Advocate, leads me to believe police may think the death involved acts of a sexual nature.

Baton Rouge, you see, is a pretty conservative place - at least by Louisiana standards. And The Advocate has a long and proud tradition of dancing around the reporting of unsavory things such as bizarre sexual practices.

Of course, if I lived near the kid”s apartment (and at one point I did live about a block away from there), I”d want to know if I should be on the lookout for a duct tape killer, and if the police have a good reason to think I shouldn”t, I”d like to know that, too.

But for The Advocate, apparently, it”s more important to not offend the old ladies out in Bocage than it is to report details of a mysterious death.

Not surprising, of course. I just thought I”d mention it.

I like Peter Case”s blog, partly because I dig Peter Case and partly because he writes good and interesting stuff.

Peter Case, since you probably don”t know, was/is the driving force behind The Plimsouls (remember the movie Valley Girl? Punko Nick Case took the VG to a “punk” club - the band playing was The Plimsouls. And if that”s what makes you remember who they are, shame on you.)

Anyway, Peter wrote a small little bit on his blog about a show he just played, and some dude who was at the show commented back with a bunch of questions. Chief among them:

I noticed that your axe of choice was a Squier Black & Chrome Telecaster? Guitar snobs snort that you can”t gig with a Squier unless it”s been heavily modded. Is your Squier stock?

Most of you doubtless also don”t know that Squier is the low-end, cheap version of Fender guitars. The Cap”n rocks a Squier Tele, for instance, mostly because The Cap”n does not rock hard enough to justify buying a real American Fender.

So it”s actually a good question as to why an American Rock Legend such as Peter Case would rock a Squier.

Peter”s response was pretty simple:

That guitar is stock, right off the rack…its all in the fingers, Skully…the price is right on those things : I”m not paying 6000 bucks , you know what I mean? Its the telecaster twang, spank, whatever you call it…

Part of me likes that P.C. is comfortable stepping on stage with the gear of the common man. And you have to take it as an endorsement of the sound quality of Squier (Fender, of course, would never want to have a rock star saying he can get away with the cheap version).

But on the other hand, aren”t rock guys supposed to get free gear and stuff? I know P.C. is no Carlos Santana, but wouldn”t Guitar Center or somebody hook him up in exchange for a sticker on his amp or something?