by dawn67 | Aug 1, 2014 | #weeMcFee, About Dawn, The Wrights
After being “locked” up and pounded by upperclassmen and academics for a full year, we in the Doolie class of ’67 were ready to leave the Academy for a long trip visiting Air Force, Army and Navy bases around the US. It was early July and we packed our B4 bags and waited underneath the Vandenberg Hall, 
the cadet dorms, waiting for buses to take us to Petersen Field to board the MATS aircraft that would transport us around the country. We were flying on the predecessor to the current AF workhorse, the C17 Globemaster that we so often see in news reports. But back them, many of the Air Forces’ aircraft were still piston-powered prop planes. (more…)
by dawn67 | Feb 27, 2014 | #weeMcFee, About Dawn, The Wrights
I have enrolled in a MOOC on Coursera, Duke University’s Data Analysis and Statistical Inference. I’m having to learn a new (to me) programming language, R, that is frequently used in data analysis. I had forgotten what learning a coding language was like. It’s fun and is allowing me to build some new synapses, of which I am in dire need 🙂
by dawn67 | Jan 22, 2014 | #weeMcFee, About Dawn, The Wrights
image http://thesmartness.com/gangsta
I clicked once too many times and did it: I linked myself to “gangsta” and I don’t know how to unlink. It all started innocently enough; I was reading my Twitter feed when I noticed one of my friends made an interesting tweet about the Sherman (think Seattle Seahawks v 49ers last Sunday) flap. The tweet pointed out that Sherman was not a stereotypical “dumb” football player; rather he was very intelligent, having graduated from Stanford, which is no slouch of a college. She said he was articulate and could speak “gangsta” as well as “Stanford.” For some reason, that got me thinking about the current sagging pants style adopted by many teens and young men.
I knew there was a name for that style, but I couldn’t place it and wondered if “gangsta” would mean a new, less sagging style would be adopted. So I did (more…)
by dawn67 | Dec 24, 2013 | #weeMcFee, About Dawn, The Wrights
In April of 1961, my date and I were lucky enough to get tickets to see Jerry Lee Lewis perform at the Birmingham Armory. My date was the sibling of a close friend with whom I had a friendship but no deep feelings. Jerry Lee was on top of his game and sang his hit tunes from the stage in front of about 1000 fans who were all standing – no seats even then. Jerry Lee, if you don’t remember, arrived on the music scene just after Elvis Presley and did a lot to convince our parents that Rock and Roll was truly devil sent. Although Jerry Lee’s new song, Great Balls of Fire, was topping the charts, the fact that he had taken as his third wife a girl of just 13, (more…)
by dawn67 | Dec 22, 2013 | #weeMcFee, The Wrights
Snoopy and Woodstock.
the cadet dorms, waiting for buses to take us to Petersen Field to board the MATS aircraft that would transport us around the country. We were flying on the predecessor to the current AF workhorse, the C17 Globemaster that we so often see in news reports. But back them, many of the Air Forces’ aircraft were still piston-powered prop planes. (more…)
