Over the last 3 months I have seen firsthand what can happen if I love my spouse as much as I love myself.

I have looked inward and outward over the years and have noticed that it is so true that mankind is very good at taking care of self. I have watched the “spoiled brat” type person, who remains as selfish in motivation as an adult as they were when they were six years old. Then there’s the “elegant manipulator” who is so graceful and proper and ‘free of guile’, while moving a situation toward its desired outcome.

These are just two personalities but the more I observe, the more I see that we’re all selfish, we all want our outcome, we all feel that our way is best. Yes, there are levels of selfishness but across the board I see that all mankind has to struggle to desire as much for the guy next to us as for ourselves. We fool ourselves and think lofty but what about when someone prefers putting the toilet paper on the roll the other way? Those that see themselves as givers – and are from our perspective – have motivations that are in some way looking to benefit self, usually indirectly.

One of the keys to a successful and happy marriage is giving in so many and varied ways, giving and not expecting to get. Sometimes giving with no hope of getting.

Don’t hold back.

• Balao Class Submarine
• Keel laid: March 1, 1944, at Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, CA
• Launched: January 1, 1945
• Commissioned: March 29, 1945
• Displacement: 1,526 tons surfaced; 2,391 tons submerged
• Length: 311′ 9″
• Beam: 27′ 3″
• Operating depth: 400′
• Complement: 6 officers, 60 enlisted
• Armament: ten 21″ torpedo tubes, six forward, four aft, 24 torpedoes, one 5″/25 deck gun, one single 40mm gun mount, one single 20mm gun mount, two .50 cal. machine guns

On May 28, 1958, Stickleback was participating in an antisubmarine warfare exercise with Silverstein (DE 534) and a torpedo retriever boat in the Hawaiian area. The exercises continued into the afternoon of the next day when the submarine completed a simulated torpedo run on Silverstein. As Stickleback was going to a safe depth, she lost power and broached approximately 200 yards ahead of the destroyer escort. Silverstein backed full and put her rudder hard left in an effort to avoid a collision but holed the submarine on her port side.

Stickleback’s crew was removed by the retriever boat and combined efforts were made by Silverstein, Sabalo (SS 302), Sturtevant (DE 239), and Greenlet (ASR 10), to save the stricken submarine. The rescue ships put lines around her, but compartment after compartment flooded and, at 18:57 on May 29, 1958, Stickleback sank in 1800 fathoms (3300 m) of water.

Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet

Patch(es) were obtained from:
NavSource Online (Submarine Photo Archive).
Originally contributed by Mike Smolinski.

It’s that time of year again, time for our families annual trek (and sometimes more often) to our rental property up north. Way up north.

We arrived here at 2:30am an instantly it felt just like home – like that feeling you get AFTER a long vacation and you finally arrive home. Kind of strange but true.

I think I’ve caught up on the sleep and now it’s time to get into routine and do the myriad of chores that lie before me. Feels more like home than ever.

Can a father give police permission to search a password-protected computer kept in his son’s bedroom, without probable cause or a warrant?

There was not enough evidence to obtain a warrant after several months of investigation. Under normal rule of law a third party can consent to a search if they have “apparent authority” (i.e. a key to the item to be searched, normal access, etc.). Now here’s the kicker… the computer was password protected and the father did not know the password. Isn’t a password a digital key?

This is clearly a violation of the 4th amendment as it has been interpreted up to now.

Oh, did I mention that the father was 91 years old?

• Sargo Class Submarine
• Keel laid: October 18, 1937, at Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, ME
• Launched: September 14, 1938
• Commissioned: as USS Squalus (SS 192) on March 1, 1939
• Re-commissioned: as USS Sailfish (SS 192) on May 15, 1940
• Displacement: 1,400 tons surfaced; 2,350 tons submerged
• Length: 310′ 6″
• Beam: 27′ 1″
• Maximum depth: 250′
• Complement: 5 officers, 50 enlisted
• Armament: eight 21″ torpedo tubes, 24 torpedoes, one 3″/50 deck gun, two .50 cal machine guns, two .30 cal machine guns

On May 12, Squalus began a series of test dives off Portsmouth, New Hampshire. After successfully completing 18 dives she went down again off the Isle of Shoals on the morning of May 23. Failure of the main induction valve caused the flooding of the after torpedo room, both engine rooms, and the crew’s quarters, drowning 26 men immediately. Quick action by the crew prevented the other compartments from flooding. Squalus bottomed in 40 fathoms (73 m) of water.

Squalus was initially located by her sister ship, Sculpin (SS 191). The two submarines were able to communicate using a telephone marker buoy until the cable parted. Divers from the rescue ship Falcon, under the direction of the salvage and rescue expert Lieutenant Commander Charles B. “Swede” Momsen, employing the new McCann rescue chamber, a revised version of the Momsen diving bell that Swede had originally designed, along with the Momsen escape lung, were able to rescue all 33 surviving crew members from the disabled submarine. Four enlisted divers earned the Medal of Honor for their work during the rescue and subsequent salvage.

The submarine was refloated using cables passed underneath her hull and attached to pontoons on each side. After overcoming tremendous technical difficulties in one of the most grueling salvage operations in Naval history, Squalus was raised, towed into Portsmouth Navy Yard on September 13, and formally decommissioned on 15 November.

The submarine was renamed Sailfish on February 9, 1940.

Sailfish was awarded nine battle stars for service in the Pacific and received the Presidential Unit Citation.

Naval Historical Center

Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet

Patch(es) were obtained from:
NavSource Online (Submarine Photo Archive).
Originally contributed by Don McGrogan, BMCS, USN (ret.)

• Skipjack Class Submarine
• Keel laid: August 20, 1958, at the Electric Boat Division, General Dynamics Corp., Groton, CT
• Launched: December 19, 1959
• Commissioned: July 29, 1960
• Displacement: 2,880 tons surfaced; 3,500 tons submerged
• Length: 251′ 9″
• Beam: 32′
• Depth limit: 700′
• Complement: 8 officers, 75 enlisted
• Armament: six 21″ torpedo tubes, forward

Disappearance
In late October 1967, Scorpion started refresher training and weapons system acceptance tests, and was given a new Commanding Officer, Francis Slattery. Following type training out of Norfolk, Virginia, she got underway on February 15, 1968 for a Mediterranean Sea deployment. She operated with the Sixth Fleet into May and then headed west for home. Scorpion suffered several mechanical malfunctions including a chronic problem with Freon leakage from refrigeration systems. An electrical fire occurred in an escape trunk when a water leak shorted out a shore power connection. One man was overcome with gas when he investigated the problem.

Upon departing the Mediterranean on May 16, two men departed Scorpion at Rota, Spain. One man left due to emergency leave and the other enlisted man departed for health reasons. Scorpion was then detailed to observe Soviet naval activities in the Atlantic in the vicinity of the Azores. With this completed, Scorpion prepared to head back to Naval Base Norfolk.

For an unusually long period of time, beginning shortly before midnight on May 20 and ending after midnight May 21, Scorpion was attempting to send radio traffic to Naval Station Rota in Spain but was only able to reach a Navy communications station in Nia Makri in Greece, which forwarded Scorpion’s messages to SUBLANT. Six days later, she was reported overdue at Norfolk. Navy personnel suspected possible failure and launched a search.

The search
A search was initiated, but without immediate success. On June 5, Scorpion and her crew were declared “presumed lost.”

The search continued, however. A team of mathematical consultants led by Dr. John Craven, the Chief Scientist of the U.S. Navy’s Special Projects Division, employed the novel methods of Bayesian search theory, initially developed during the search for a hydrogen bomb lost off the coast of Palomares, Spain in January, 1968. At the end of October, the Navy’s oceanographic research ship, USNS Mizar (T-AGOR-11), located sections of the hull of Scorpion in more than 3000 meters (10,000 feet) of water about 740 kilometers (400 nautical miles) southwest of the Azores. Subsequently, the Court of Inquiry was reconvened, and other vessels, including the bathyscaphe Trieste, were dispatched to the scene, collecting a myriad of pictures and other data.

Although Dr. Craven has received much credit for locating Scorpion’s wreckage, Gordon Hamilton of Columbia University was also instrumental, not only in acquiring the acoustic signals that were used in locating her, but also in analyzing those signals to provide a concise “search box”, wherein the ruined Scorpion was finally located. Hamilton had established a quasi-legal listening station in the Canary Islands, which obtained a clear signal of what some scientists believe was the noise of her implosion as she passed crush depth. A little-known Naval Research Laboratory scientist named Chester “Buck” Buchanan, using a towed camera sled of his own design aboard the USNS Mizar finally located Scorpion after nearly six months of searching. (Buchanan had located the wrecked hull of the USS Thresher in 1964 using this same technique.)

US Navy photo 1968 of the bow section of Scorpion, by the crew of Trieste

Cause of the loss
Although the cause of her loss cannot be determined with certainty, the US Navy’s Court of Inquiry listed one possibility as the inadvertent activation of a battery-powered Mark 37 torpedo.

Several other hypotheses about the cause of the loss have been advanced; some debate whether an explosion ever actually occurred. Some have suggested that hostile action by a Soviet submarine caused Scorpion’s loss; there was even speculation that the loss was somehow connected to the Bermuda Triangle.

Naval Historical Center

Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet

Patch(es) were obtained from:
NavSource Online (Submarine Photo Archive).
Originally contributed by Mike Smolinski.

A “minor” day set aside to honor those that are and have served in the U.S. military. It’s not minor at all, without all those that serve in our armed forces, our freedoms as we know them would not exist. Did you know that most calendars don’t even mention it, but they’re sure to note groundhog’s day or arbor day.

Most people don’t even know the day exists, but one small little town in northern California still proudly waves the flag and honors those in the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard that have sacrificed day in and day out in ways that those not in the military cannot even understand.

A salute to you men and women in uniform that are currently and have served!

Hundreds Click on Google Ad Promising to Infect Their PCs
Best white hat scam of the month: security researcher Didier Stevens bought a Google ad six months ago that said, “Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here!” 409 people clicked on the ad — people who would have been owned up or infested with malware had Stevens been a true scammer instead of a security geek with a weird sense of humor.
Wired – Monday May 14, 2007

Granted this was over a 6 month period – but the question is, “Who are these people?” Odds are that they are the ones that send out “boycott gas stations” every six months and the “artificial sweeteners kill ants” that I find filling my mailbox. If we removed these 409 people from the Internet I’ll bet that all propagation of virus would come to a halt.

Just a thought.

Things are quiet on the blogging front due to two opposing factors.
1. I am very busy preparing to wrap up work responsibilities prior to several much needed weeks of vacation.
2. I am contemplative about suggestions about what my future may hold.

On the second, two weeks ago a close friend suggested that I look at the possibility of moving toward schooling in Christian counseling if I am looking to continue my education. I don’t really know what to think of that. It just seems out of line with the direction I thought I was moving. It’s not opposite, but it is definitely a “Y” intersection. I will continue to mull this over and be open. Guess that’s all I really can do.

Always, things to think about.

One of the qualities for someone to share deeply (those inner struggles we all wrestle with at times) is that they require deep caring in return. There is more that needs to be exchanged, but caring is a significant part. Usually the caring comes first, but not always. Caring comes in all those non-verbal’s, as well as the verbal’s, that are communicated. Caring is not judgment. Caring is friendship and compassion, mercy and a hand to get out of the pit. If our hand is rejected, friendship is patience and love.

That someone would share their most shameful qualities and attributes with me is an honor. It compels me to care even more deeply. Why would someone expose themselves in this way? Maybe, confession is the beginning of the path toward healing, a way to release that torment of the soul.

This I do know. Without the caring, sharing, then caring in return cycle there is no way I can encourage someone to be all they can be.

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply from the heart.
I Peter 1:22 – New International Version (NIV)

It is a blessing to be such a friend.