Time to review the checklists and then get some shut eye before the Mid-Watch tonight.

Review your email program contact lists…check all the commenters on your blog (extract their email addy), and shuffle through that pile of business cards in your desk drawer.

H-Hour is 290001 OCT 2007. $60K for the Navy/Coast Guard, but…$240K is the end game

The link to join a team, and/or to donate has been put up by the ever hard working Holly Aho, and assisted by Rusty Bill.

Grab your widgets and edit them into your site. Run out the guns and be prepared for a spirited run against the “other” forces. They have Chuck Z out at Las Vegas, banging the drum and you can bet he won’t tell the audience about any donate button besides the one for the Army. Mostly rude on his part, but…it’s all about the competition from now until midnite on the 11 of November.

The V-IT bulletin board is warming up and more players registering there. FbL has posted lots of general and specific info there, plus it’s a place to take potshots at the other teams/bloggers, as well.

Let’s ROLL!

John, the MilBlogs man of many arms has details of this year’s most anticipated competition to put laptops into the lives of those who have served us by their sacrifices.Read this post.There is prep work to be done and all hands (that’s a naval term meaning everyone) can join in. The USMC and Air Force seems “headless” this year to date, but I’m sure they have dark horses in the wings to come out and work towards the $240K (Yes, Twenty Four Thousand dollars – because we all had too much success last year) we’re looking to raise for my favorite project (as well as for many others): ValOUR-IT.Roll up your sleeves and come along for the ride from 10/28 thru 11/13/2007. It will be two weeks of thrills, spills, chills and possible carpel tunnel syndrome. All sorts of snarks flying while teams race to get their hands on The Most Exhaulted GoldEn Notebook (MEGEN) at the 2008 MilBlogs Conference, while filling the account to purchase laptops for those who need them.

I have cobbled together a phpBB set up as a bulletin board for general and team specific use. Register there and send me an email (see “contact us”) to let me know your team affiliation and I’ll set your permissions to the area you’ll need to chatter in.

The ValOUR-IT Bulletin Board is here.

Team leaders will have an area to cross talk. If leaders want a few moderators set to help manage traffic flow, pass that along so I can set those users in play. I have that set for anyone designated as a monitor to have full access there.

Each team will have Coordination, Marketing, Auctions, and Ideas forums to bat things around in.

A general forum is in place to list items actually put up for auction, which will be viewable by your family and friends and associates (hint: when things show up there, pass it along!).

A top level “H&I Fires” forum will be open game for issuing and responding to challenges or questions of family lineage of other teams.

I made a command decision to join the United States Coast Guard effort with that of the Navy’s. Watch for emails.

Suggestions welcome.

Oh, and for you non-USN/USCG types, this one’s for you (Click for a 8.5″ x 11″ sized printout image!):

It’s too early to cal to employ one for today, so I’ll draft one: SteelJaw Scribe.

I know I can count on him for excellent posts about the aviation world, the naval aspects in particular. Today he goes back to more details of “oddities” of carrier aviation, covering more details about B-25 Mitchells flying on (we know well of them flying off…) carriers, and more feasibility testing conducted with that airframe, which, while seemingly a non-issue, was actually an in road to the world of jets aboard CVs.

(Thanks, SJS!)

In the meantime, I am working on The.Next.Big.Thing. Also, it’s this time again.

Do you have your PayPal buttons close at hand? You’re gonna be needing them. Plans for such overpowering success as Team Navy enjoyed last year are in the works. If anyone knows a Marine/Marine related blogger who wants to get their feet wet (but we know that’s what Marines do best) making an assault this coming campaign, tell them to “STEP UP, MARINE!” and send their muster report. The Marine Blogger of 2006 ValOUR-IT fame, Villaineous Company hung up her keyboard a few weeks ago. In other words, the Marines in our midst are currently “headless.” What they should go looking for is one of those “strategic corporals” they have created with their world renowned training regimen and combat experience. If you know anyone interested, get them in touch with me (in comments or via email) and I’ll hook them up with the volunteer selector.

Welches ist jene?
“I dunno, but it was something FAST!” – Bill Cosby

Something about having to back off the throttle at 230 mph due to road conditions…and that was…ummm…56% power…

If Lex can’t manage to find his chestnuts and get a non-military jet flying job, despite several offers, maybe he can consider one of these as a 2D substitute. Then, for the ValOUR-IT 2007 fund raising drive, he could take a lucky high bidder out for a spin in the desert near his house…How ’bout it, Lex? Feeling charitable?

And who would say NASA isn’t useful for something?

H/T: Wired Magazine – Sep 07 Edition

SJS sends another photo, taken on his wanderings, for our analysis. I guess it’s supposed to be as plain as the nose (wheel) (on) in our face, right?

Where art thou now? All the (Milblogging) world wonders… Looks like it was taken on the 14th of the month. It wasn’t in Texas, ‘coz it’s not raining and there are no puddles in the frame. I’m guessing it’s the nose wheel of a P-3 variant, based on the shadow showing the port wing Allison turboprop engine nacelle. I’d also say the corrosion control crew hasn’t happened by in a while, either.Near a base gate in Brunswick, ME?AW1, chime in, if you’re not busy at a secret Milblogging Mini-Conference with Pops, I think you’re the answer man here… Update 08/18/2007: I’m close, but on reflection, I realized a P-3 wouldn’t have a single tire on the nose wheel or the main mounts…So I got thinking F7F Tigercat…big engine on straight wing, but the main mount setup isn’t right either. I’m drawing a blank. Sights around Norfolk are more my forte….All I can think of up that way is NAS Brunswick, and a Marine only aircraft would be out of place at a former USAF and now Navy air base….

Update 8/19/2007: SJS couldn’t take it anymore….he gave the answer in the comments section…It’s a P-2V Neptune….and it was at NAS Brunswick. ME.

Steeljaw Scribe is on “vacation.” He not only graciously took his family along, but MEGEN of ValOUR-IT fame is being taken on a leisurely ride around the north east of this great Nation.

Now, besides getting pics of MEGEN along the way, he left his blog in the hands of some rather “youthful” writers, who are acting like teenagers left behind at home when Mom and Dad go out of town. You know, they ask all their surly friends over and begin defacing the place with abandon, while making derisive remarks about the advanced age of a retired Naval Captain. Take a look at the quality of SJS’ “apprentices” to get my drift. They aren’t hard to find. Maybe they’ll get a trip to the woodshed upon the “Old Man’s” return…

In the meantime, SJS forwarded these picture via email, from a located business center where he was on the 14th of August, with the question: “NOW Where’s MEGEN?” The single text based hint is “it ain’t in NoVA… ;).”
I don’t recognize much more than the machinery room, most likely in a basement, near a diesel generator. How about the rest of you? I can assume (and we all know what that means) it’s related to something Naval in origin…

Any guesses where MEGEN is?
The one visual hint sent along is this:
MEGEN’s surroundings for a hint (click for larger image)
Leave any guesses in the comments. Maybe SJS will pop in after a bit and let us know who’s been where MEGEN has been…and I sure hope he locked up the virtual beer tap before waving goodbye in the driveway.Update 08/18/2007:

It seems SJS continues to tell his best friend he’s going out for ice, but then comes back with the mostly liquid version after visitng the business center of the temporary lodgings…but he has informed us the SJBill is the one who figured out the location of the picture:

SJBill | [email protected] | IP: 75.35.74.155

Howabout up in Maine? Mebbe the FV Sherman Zwicker? The schooner was built in Nova Scotia back in the 40s.

-SJBill

Aug 17, 10:27 PM

BZ, SJBill, for the refined eye needed to figure it out….

Here’s the “award” statement, with added context of the place where MEGEN was:

Steeljaw Scribe | [email protected] | steeljawscribe.com | IP: 71.114.62.189

…and SJBill wins the ceegar! 🙂 The one and the same, built in Lunenburg at the same shipyard that built the famed (and my personal favorite) Bluenose and Bluenose II fishing schooner. The Zwicker is part of the exhibit at the Maine Maritime Museum and from which, you can see the latest Arleigh Burke DDG being built in drydock over at Bath Iron Works.
-SJS

Aug 18, 7:23 AM

Note the time stamp…I hate to think what he’ll be using the ice for this early in the morning…maybe to awake the younger generation from their “they need their sleep” sleep.

Hey, it’s the 11th of the month again. Why is that important? It’s important because I have chosen to highlight the ValOUR-IT project on the 11th of each month. It could have been any day of the month that I do this, but I chose it because of Veteran’s Day, as it is a project that very directly benefits the veterans of today.

A few days back, I linked to the most recent news on ValOUR-IT from FbL’s report of the Circuit City, that is using it’s economic muscle to make sure the donated dollars are stretched further. Toss in the San Antonio Area Foundation grant of $150K….it’s getting better each day, but not without effort.I do have a bleg for the day: Bloggers, please pick two things. One is a troop support charity that resonates with you, and two, a day of the month to make a post about the program. That link to charities is one I try to list the ones I run across, and there are certainly more of them, but start somewhere finding one!Patti Bader told us at the 2007 MilBlogging Conference that every time Soldier’s Angels is mentioned, money moves into the charity. How about helping to reduce the friction to make the funding flow by helping to remind people of great ways to help out?You just never know when that random visitor who has never heard of your charity might wander by your blog that day of the month you took a few extra minutes to make one of 12 posts during the year.

FbL has the after action report of the Soldier’s Angels Conference in San Antonio, TX, specifically on the ValOUR-ITfront. Can you believe it? In 2 years, 1200 laptops have been passed out to those needing them? Take one wounded geek, put in a blog blender with a school teacher and push the “liquify” button. See what happens in two years:

Last weekend was the 2007 Soldiers’ Angels Conference, and the highlight of the event for Angels was a party at the Brooke Army Medical Center’s (BAMC’s) Fisher Houses in which 78 Valour-IT laptops were distributed to wounded Soldiers and Marines. This brings Valour-IT’s total laptop distributions to over 1200 in two years, and an additional 22 laptops are on standby at BAMC.

Valour-IT was able to distribute the 78 laptops at once thanks to a $150,000 grant [warning, PDF file] from the San Antonio Area Foundation (SAAF), which is by far the largest donation Valour-IT has ever received. The money must be used exclusively in Texas, but that will free up other donations to be applied to locations around the country. SAAF has five million dollars to distribute and this was the first round of grants. Valour-IT received the largest grant of this round (about $80,000 of it remains at this time).

In related news, Circuit City has been working with Valour-IT for some time now, helping us to stretch our donated bucks. They negotiate with their major suppliers to get the best dealer incentives and bulk rates available at any given time and pass that savings directly on to us.
[…]

Read the rest of the story, for there’s plenty of great things happening around the SA/ValOUR-IT program! and…if you have a few spare bucks, I bet there’s a service member support charity that might appreciate them!

It’s taking a little time, but I think I have the flow for the photo-editing.

So far, I’m working through all the pictures of MEGEN Pinch took on his Norfolk, VA area tour. You can see them here.

Suggestion: Download them, print them out on a full sized piece of paper, then “pose” your favorites around for others to see, and also for photos of your own “Virtual MEGEN.” If you take some, contact me for the FTP site to send them to me.

I’ll keep at at and will get on AW1 Tim to ftp me his shots from Bath/Brunswick, ME.

At the USS IOWA Turret Nr 2 Gun Crew Memorial in Norfolk, VAIt seems “Pinch” Paisley was on a road trip and took some time to get pictures and publicity for the ValOUR-IT project the week of the 4th of July, while doing some active duty time…Stay turned for more outstanding naval settings where MEGEN has been showing up at!

Update 07/16/2007: Pinch has posted an entire set of great photos of MEGEN, in the company with ships a and planes and at memorials. Not only are they fun to look at, but they are great to copy and send around to your friends, complete with an explanation of the ValOUR-IT program!