History being made, SpaceX's Falcon 9 first stage makes first successful landing

That is just awesome, despite some naysayers stating it was fake (check out the comments on the video on YouTube), and even better that Bigelow Aerospace's payload will get to the ISS.

Thoughts on the current election climate

To me there just seems to be a lot of hypocrisy, hyperbole, and hysteria surrounding the election this cycle.

Donald Trump is most definitely a polarizing influence on the Republican side, one that makes most liberals apoplectic and sputtering in fury.  Even the mere chalking of his name on a college campus has sent the students scrambling for their so-called 'safe zones' and possible rumblings of further unrest.

Ted Cruz I personally like, but his baggage regarding his place of birth (he was born in Canada of an American mother and Cuban father), would no doubt hinder his chances of getting the nomination.

On the Democratic-slash-Socialist side, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are scary choices for all the wrong reasons.  Clinton for her seemingly cavalier way that she seems to approach obeying the law, and Sanders for his 'bread and circuses' approach to tackling economic and social problems.

I am looking forward to seeing if the Libertarians decide to renominate former governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson for their candidate for President.  In 2012, Johnson and his running mate managed to garner 1% of the popular vote, the best showing to date for a Libertarian Party candidate.  Although a long shot, further success would help with winning offices at the state and local level and make the Libertarians a more attractive choice to help break the deadlock between the two major parties.

Overall, I expect this to be an interesting campaign season this time around.

Happy Easter

Hope everyone has a great Easter Sunday, and I sincerely hope that the folks in the rest of the country do not act like these worthless fools.

A very educational day

As readers may be aware, I am currently taking an EMT course online, with various lab sessions scheduled periodically to allow students to get hands-on practical experience to reinforce what we read in the textbook.  Today I was at EMS Training Center to do some lab time, and though I thought I would do some patient assessment practice, turns out they actually had some ambulance ops and gurney practice scheduled, which turned out to be a very educational afternoon for me.

I was sitting in with the EMT Advanced class, catching the tail end of their covering soft-tissue trauma injuries which I happened to just complete, so it was a good review of what I had studied.  After they broke for lunch, they then quickly went through the next chapter and then moved on to a presentation on the do's and don't of proper ambulance driving (even including GoPro footage of good and bad driving of an ambulance).  Then we all practiced on operating the Stryker gurney (or cot, whatever term you prefer) as shown here.

Then the real fun began, as we then went outside to practice loading and unloading from a Type II van ambulance similar to the one shown below:

We practiced first with the gurney unloaded, then one brave soul from the advanced EMT class volunteered to be the 'patient', and I got picked by him to be one of the two handlers.  And although the weight wasn't too bad (he weighed about 180 and the gurney is about another 100 lbs), it still took a lot out of me, which drove home the need to work on upper-body strength and cardio.

Overall it was a good day, and my instructor congratulated me on my overall progress.  I am about 2/3 of the way through the course, and I plan on doing the two 12-hour ER rotations sometime either in late April or early May. 

The Lonely Libertarian: Well, this is awkward

The Lonely Libertarian: Well, this is awkward



ROFLMAFAO!!!

Some very weird logic from the gun control bunch

I came across this interesting post on Facebook today:

At this point, I feel just like Riker does.

Just what planet do these folks come from??

Black Tide Rising anthology is out!

Baen Books just released the long-awaited Black Tide Rising anthology.  View the reviews and sample chapters here.

I've already read through this twice, and I am really pleased on the selection of stories that they have included.
For those who want to explore the entire series, the books can be viewed here.