Long time ago when I lived in Champaign. I dont remember why they were they were there, but it was a crazy moment. I remember it being a difficult time. for a few days. He was a great Aggie and fun to be around.

Prior to moving to Saudi Arabia, my father built the tanker berths for the Valdez Marine Loading Terminal at the end of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

Lots of guys at the job site had different hobbies that you could do in Alaska. My father's hobby was flying and while in Alaska, he became commercial multi-engine rated. We used to fly a lot around South Central Alaska and it made sense because it was a 1 hour flight over the mountains and glaciers to Anchorage but a 6 hour drive by car around the mountains.

We went fishing a few times on shore but one of my dad's colleagues had a small boat and one day he took about 10 of us out on the boat and we did some fishing. I caught 4 fish that day in Prince William Sound but that wasn't the highlight.

The highlight of the trip was seeing Killer Whales swim around our boat and swim underneath it. I was 6 years old so as far as I was concerned, it was the coolest thing ever.

We were all wearing lifejackets but the conventional wisdom was that if you fell in the water, you had about 4 minutes to live before you were going to freeze to death. None of us wanted that to happen.

The adults kept freaking out every time one of the Orcas would swim under the boat. I had never seen adults panic before and I didn't understand what the big deal was. It wasn't like the whales where going to eat the boat or something. This wasn't JAWS for crying out loud.

Years later, as an adult, I realized that the panic was because it wouldn't take any effort for the Killer Whale to capsize our boat and knock all of us into the water where we would most likely freeze to death and possibly get eaten.

It was a beautiful sight that I'm lucky to have seen and thankfully I was only 6 years old so, I didn't really understand the risks involved.

Living in Los Angeles and hanging around the Rock and Roll scene with my rock singer neighbor afforded me the opportunity to meet the members of many bands I listened to growing up in the 1980s. Quiet Riot, Dokken, Ratt, Kiss, Scorpions and Dio just to name a few.

I've mostly met the drummers and bass players but every once in a while I did get to meet lead guitarists and vocalists. The pinnacle of course was meeting Ronnie James Dio backstage at a show in Irvine.

That's all great but the surreal experience for this thread was the first time I met somebody where I knew who they were before I was introduced.

My wife grew up in Clear Lake and had several neighbors who were Astronauts. James Buchli, Loren Shriver, and a few others.

She had told me about what it was like at Clear Lake High School when the Challenger disaster happened and that she knew the children of some of the Astronauts who perished.

Her mother hated me because I was going in the Military, wasn't in a Fraternity (very important for educated Yankees), I had lived in a trailer (therefore I'm trailer trash), drove a big loud redneck truck, etc., etc.

So much to my surprise, when her parents got an invite to an Astronaut post-mission party over at the Buchli's house, my girlfriend (now wife), had to work that day so, they asked if I would attend the party with them. I was shocked that they would bring me since her mother despised everything about me.

So we get to the party and they introduce me around like regular civil people do. Since they're neighbors, and not part of the Astronaut community, they didn't know that many of the attendees. After we'd been at the party and I'd met everybody under 40 and a few of their friends, I see some new guests arrive.

As I looked across the room, I saw a girl my age with a very distinctive appearance. Based on what my girlfriend had told me, and the fact that I was at an Astronaut party, I knew exactly who it was, what her name was, who her father was, etc.

Eventually, she worked her way around the room and we were introduced. It was the one of the most surreal feelings I've ever had because I knew who she was when she entered the room. I knew some stories about her, what sports team she was on, etc. I literally had chills because at that time, she was the closest thing to a celebrity that I had ever met.

I figured the best move was to treat her like a new person I'd never met and go from there, rather than start badgering her with questions about the Challenger.

First surreal travel story

Circa 1978, we accidentally entered Kuwait "illegally" in a Toyota Microbus with 2 Korean drivers and about 12 passengers from 3 British and American families. I was 7-8 years old at the time.

The surreal part was figuring out that the guard shack that we had blown past with the two guys with guns was the Saudi-Kuwaiti border.

We didn't figure that out until after we went back to ask the "guys with guns" for directions and they said - "Kuwait this way (points north), Saudi Arabia this way (points south)". We said OK and kept driving south.

As we pulled away, we figured out what had just happened and all had a retroactive freakout because:

• Our employer had our passports, we just had our work ID cards.
• The "guys with guns" were under no obligation to let us out of Kuwait. They could have detained us which could have led to an incident and all the men could have lost their lucrative jobs and everybody could have been deported back to their home country.
• We were genuinely lost in the desert which doesn't work out well for a lot people.

In this era of border security issues, it's a trip to have a retrospective look at how casual that border crossing was.

This is almost exactly what the minibus looked like. A mid-1970s Toyota Coaster.

Second surreal travel story.

I used to have a job that required me to travel to Santa Clara, CA for two weeks, every 13 weeks. So I spent a lot of time bouncing back and forth between Sydney and California. Since I lived in LA before I moved to Australia, I would frequently add a day or two in LA so I could visit friends and do some shopping for things I wanted to bring back to Australia like a can of Herdez Salsa that costs $1.29 at Vallarta in Reseda but sells for $7 at the specialty import food store at Warringah Mall.

This leads to me turning in a rental car at LAX, taking the shuttle over to the terminal and checking my luggage which was 3 x 50lb bags or 3 x 70lb bags depending on the airline and my status at the time.

I get off the shuttle and start dragging my bags from the dropoff down to where I have to enter the terminal to check my luggage. Classic case of me buying too much crap to bring back for other people so my bags are heavy and I'm physically exhausted after the two week work assignment I just finished.

As I'm walking toward the United Airlines bag check, people start streaming out of the terminal. This is weird. I don't think too much of it until I see people running and screaming.

Next, I see three TSA agents run past me screaming - "Go! Go! Go!" and waving their hands for me to turn around and get out of there. I take a few more steps because my number one goal is to get my bags checked before the cutoff time and board my flight to Sydney.

I start to hear sirens and see a police response like I've never seen before. I start to hear people say that there's a shooter.

Of course I don't hear any shots fired. And if there were an active shooter, wouldn't there be a better option for the three TSA Agents who just ran past me rather than going out to the curb and running down the street?

The cops are now in front of the doors and not letting anybody into the airport and are telling people to get out of the area.

I walk back a good ways with my bags in tow and cross the street to the top of the parking garage so I can see what the police activity is all about. Police activity appears to be on the lower level. There are lots of cops who appear to be doing nothing.

While I'm standing on top of the parking garage and biding my time, three Middle Eastern men pull up near where I'm standing with my luggage and they start speaking in Arabic. As they're talking, they start laughing. It's probably just 3 friends telling jokes but, considering the police presence, the fact that they've cleared out the terminal and these three guys think something is funny has me a little concerned.

They wind up clearing everyone out of the terminal which takes about 90 minutes. I wind up making my flight but still have no real idea what happened for a few days.

Turns out, some Hollywood & Highland celebrity impersonator performer decided to go pick up his friend from LAX in full Zorro costume complete with sword. And apparently once he entered baggage claim, somebody decided he had a gun.

The costume sword becomes a gun, the gun becomes and active shooter when in reality, basically nothing happened. But, standing on that garage for an hour or so with three Arabic speakers cracking jokes definitely had me concerned. Am I going to watch the news, or am I going to become the news?

So who was the girl?

AgBanker said:

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So who was the girl?

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If you open up your American Passport to the last page, you'll find a quote from her father.
https://www.astronomicalreturns.com/2020/06/the-astronaut-in-my-passport.html

Looks like ESPN did a report about 5 years ago on the soccer ball he carried on the Challenger. The girl's name is in the article.
http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/23902766/nasa-astronaut-ellison-onizuka-soccer-ball-survived-challenger-explosion

Thanks for posting that. I never knew that story.

Another bizarre travel story was when one of my Army ROTC classmates was murdered by one of his soldiers.

I'm sure we all remember the outcome at the end of Animal House where they state that Douglas Niedermeyer was - killed by his own troops in Vietnam. Sounded really funny, right?

I was flying back to Sydney from Bangalore and while changing planes at Singapore Changi, I saw on the news that there had been a shooting at Fort Bragg. There wasn't much information but the story caught my attention.

8 hours later, when I landed in Sydney, there was additional information available and I found out that the victim was Roy Tisdale '92 who was one of my Army ROTC classmates. They initially reported him as Class of '93 but that eventually got corrected.
https://www.fayobserver.com/story/news/crime/2014/02/10/nine-soldier-crime-ring-linked/22163032007/

In the late 1990s, I had an incident with one of my soldiers where I decided that he could not be around my troops because he was toxic and there's no telling what he might do. That whole incident started with him telling me - "LT HollywoodBQ, get your **** Sir, I'm taking the Hummer and going home". To which I replied - Not with that .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the roof, you're not, SPC Dipstick.

I guess I could count it as a win that he had enough respect for me that he was offering me time to collect my personal belongings before his planned theft of my M1025 Humvee.

For a long time (and maybe even now), I was really unhappy with myself for not having the stones to deal with that guy the way he should have been dealt with. But on the other hand, the actions I took ensured that he got the help he needed and my troops, myself, and my family would be safe.

Even crazier in Roy Tisdale murder story was that the next week when they were going to have the funeral and burial in College Station, the Westboro Baptist Church idiots threatened to protest Roy's funeral.

My oldest daughter tells me about this story she saw on Buzzfeed that was happening at Texas A&M. They had a long maroon line of people who showed up to stop Westboro Baptist from protesting. I don't think she believed me when I told her that this wasn't just some random internet news story, I know the guy who was murdered, he was one of my Army buddies (I'm not saying he was my best friend or something but I knew him).

Another surreal travel story was when I found myself in the middle of the pro-Democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019.

In 2019, part of my job was to travel around Asia and train local channel partners on my company's product. I made several trips to India, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong.

There was a lot of unrest in Hong Kong in 2019 and there were frequent political protests. These weren't impromptu looting excuses like what we see in the USA. These Hong Kong protests were planned, scheduled and had a limited duration. Frankly, they were very well organized.

Where it gets interesting is the communication. They would announce when and where the protest would be so if you wanted to avoid the area, you could. Also, to prevent protesters from moving about easily, they would shut down the train line several hours in advance of the protest and leave it closed until well after it was over.

But, as 2019 wore on, there were more frequent unscheduled protests.

I wrap up a training session and head out of my hotel in the evening to find dinner. There was plenty of great quality American expat food available in Hong Kong.

I walk about one block away from my hotel in Causeway Bay and I hear a lot of noise and commotion going on. A tall building is masking my view of the main street but up ahead I see a group of people huddled around with umbrellas over them so that nobody can see what they're doing underneath.

As I walk closer, I see what they're doing is taking apart a paver sidewalk and removing all the bricks. This doesn't make any sense to me. What does this have to do with a protest?

As I keep walking, I see that the kids peeling up the bricks from the ground are passing them via a bucket brigade "hand bomb" type of supply chain to people on the far side of the road and people in the middle of the street.

I can see on the far side they're building what amounts to a fortified bunker out of the bricks. Seems strange but OK.

In the middle of the street, I see the kids taking the bricks and supergluing them together and then gluing them to the street. Honestly, this was very effective for stopping traffic.

Hong Kong Police are out with weapons and riot shields, helmets, baseball catcher's shin guards, etc.

As this protest looks to be escalating, I decide that it is in my best interest to turn around and go back where I came from.

As I do this, I see 4 European guys standing on the side of the road watching it all and they seem to be pointing and critiquing the students work with the bricks. Weird.

I have wondered what would have happened in Hong Kong in 2020 if they had been able to ride the momentum that was building in 2019. But, as we all know, the China virus put a stop to everything in Hong Kong.

Anyway, it was crazy just accidentally walking through a major political protest.

Alamo Heights winning the state football championship. Not golf or tennis, but football.

Sitting in a restaurant right now, and I just notice a teenager, at least 15-17 years old, 6 ft tall, put his foot up on a chair. His mother then gets on her knees and starts tying his shoe, while she's talking on her phone. He's got his EarPods in while he's bopping to his beat on his phone. Then he changes feet and she ties the other one for him. This was not a special needs kid either. Just today's youth and parents I guess??? .WTF??????

Hwy30East said:

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Sitting in a restaurant right now, and I just notice a teenager, at least 15-17 years old, 6 ft tall, put his foot up on a chair. His mother then gets on her knees and starts tying his shoe, while she's talking on her phone. He's got his EarPods in while he's bopping to his beat on his phone. Then he changes feet and she ties the other one for him. This was not a special needs kid either. Just today's youth and parents I guess??? .WTF??????

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What? No photo?

Of we are using things like that, I saw a woman using her 7 year old girl as her photographer at a park in league city complete with circle light and everything. Sad and pathetic.

Sea Speed said:

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Of we are using things like that, I saw a woman using her 7 year old girl as her photographer at a park in league city complete with circle light and everything. Sad and pathetic.

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Another one of these???

The powers that be do NOT like us accusing Miami folks of being Barnes

I watched a Michael-Jackson-esque baby dangling this morning at church. Grandma on the second floor dangling the kid over the rail to look at people downstairs.


Years ago a workmate and I stopped at an all night diner at like 3am. We walked in the door to see the waitress screaming at the cook and the cook was flinging eggs out the order window trying to hit the waitress. Looked like this wasn't gong to wrap up anytime soon so we dipped.

Up in Montana saw a semi change lanes into a one-ton ford truck. The ford went into the center median, hit a crossover road and flew a good hundred feet, maybe 10 feet in the air. Everybody was going 80+. Ford never slowed down, gunned it and forces the semi to the shoulder, presumably to have a little discussion with him about road safety.

On a motorcycle trip in the hill country came upon a bike accident. Guys right arm is mangled. His buddy that was riding with him said it was like that before the accident! Turns out this guy wrecked a bike, lost the use of his right arm, rehabs for years, buys another bike and modifies it to be ridden one handed, then crashes it on his first ride out. He was velcroing his right hand to the grip, and doing everything else with his left.

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Central African Republic, and had a post way out in the sticks; very isolated. One Mother's day Sunday - yes, they celebrate Mother's Day there- I was travelling by bicycle to a very small village to visit some of my fish farmers who had invited me to the festivities that day. I'm biking along and see Fr. Irene' saying Mass under some mango trees by the side of the road, so I stop and attend Mass. Somewhat surreal experience number 1. It's just cool that Mass is the same the world over, and that particular day, participating in Mass under the mangoes, it really hit home.

I hop on my bike, and continue along the path to the village, and as I pass a small house, I see a young toddler, bare butt, stop, squat, and unload a stream of poo while a small dog was behind him lapping it up. It was maybe the strangest thing I saw, and oddly didn't even seem gross or disgusting at the time. It just was. And that was surreal incident 2.

I finally get to the village and find all the men in the village are dressed as women, and cooking this big meal. I was given a mu mu like dress and all the men paraded through town while the women and kids hooted and laughed and sang songs. That was surreal incident 3 on the same day. Felt like I was in the twilight zone that day.

My Buddy and I had a similar experience out hunting but looked up and saw a meteor. It lit up the night sky brighter than a full moon.

My guess is that is what you saw.