Knit Sisters

It’s been a good week for the Ordnance and Weaponry Geek here Chez Mad Dog. First and foremost, the aircraft carrier USS JFK, which is about to be decommissioned, did us the honor of docking in Boston Harbor for the weekend and allowing civilians on board.

From a distance, she looked like this. If you will be so kind, please ignore the pole.

Unfortunately, we were not the only folks in Boston who thought it might be cool to go on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. When the above photo was taken, we were about, oh, two hours away from the boat. Not as the crow flies, of course, but in a line packed with our fellow citizens.

As we sailed through the security checkpoint, however, I noted with some satisfaction that the U.S. Navy—unlike our friends at the TSA—does not concern itself with blunt craft scissors. In fact, turns out that you can carry your knitting and all your accoutrements onto an aircraft carrier because there are soldiers with machine guns ceaselessly patrolling the dock and the ship’s decks.

If you attack these people with your blunt craft scissors and your Addi Turbos, you frankly deserve whatever you get. You are officially 2 stupid 4 words.

Ever been on the deck of one of these babies?

Skyline of Boston as backdrop.

Here’s where the planes land and are “trapped” in a miraculous maneuver that looks like threading a needle.

But with a fighter jet. And from the sky.

When they land, they go from 150 mph to 0 mph in less than 800 feet. The mind reels.

But that ain’t all. A catapult takeoff involves going from 0 to 200 mph in two seconds.

Beware of jet blast, propellers, and rotors. You betcha!

I knew a man in Berkeley who had flown fighter jets for the Navy. (That is, before he saw sense and gave it all up to become an historian of science.) He told me it involved a lot of vomiting. G-forces and so forth. For my part, I felt moderately nauseated just watching the planes take off and land on film.

There were certain restrictions about who could go on the aircraft carrier (no one under six) and what footwear was acceptable (no open-toed shoes or high heels). We were a little puzzled by all this until we got on the boat. But then…oh, ho, ho, no more mystery! In combination with all the ridges and indentations on the deck where you could easily catch said high heels and trip, here’s what you see when you step to the edge of the deck:

And you can step right to the edge of the deck, folks. Note the absence of a guard rail. And yeah, there are those absurd little nets, but if you fall over the edge…well…bon voyage, sailor!

See why three-year-olds and aircraft carriers don’t mix?

The older children seemed to enjoy the boat, however, and the many opportunities to gear up in various naval costumes:

Most fires aboard are fought by these tiny Martians.

Alex made an important phone call to his broker from the deck:

Sell!

I was windblown, but quite enjoying my brief stint in the Navy:

Time Out of Mind begged to go on the aircraft carrier and I simply didn’t have the heart to turn him down.

In other exciting news from the weaponry front, I was also accepted to give a paper at a conference in Las Vegas in a few months (yes, I know…back to Vegas!…I bet you can’t wait either! Whoo hoo!) and the pre-conference hoo-doo involves…are you ready?…a day-long tour of the Nevada Test Site.

Nuke geek heaven! Alex is incredibly jealous.

Minnie is looking good:

You can kind of see why the pattern calls this part a skirt, can’t you?

A little closer:

I’m getting fairly close to the part where I’ll start beading. Can. Not. Wait.

In other news, we’re making the slow adjustment to being a one-pet family. The shock of Zeno’s death is wearing off and we are better able to access joy than we were last week. Apropos of something else entirely, my mother reminded me of the old Roger Miller song in which he sings, You can’t drive around with a tiger in your car, but you can be happy if you put your mind to it…

We lost our tiger, but we’re trying to put our minds to being happy.

Back on Thursday. With any luck, it will involve beads…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Heavy sweaters, Minnie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.