The Beav according to Beav

Still crazy after all these years.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Requiéscat In Pāce

I found out today that a man in my NCOA class (though not in my flight) was killed last week. He was a Pararescueman, and his helicopter went down in Afghanistan. It's a sobering experience - a very odd experience - sad, and a little detached.

Power on, Scott. We'll keep bringing 'em in.

--Beav

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Wednesday, February 14, 2007

What, Again?

It seems like I do this every year. (Wait, I do do this every year.) Again, I'm on my March of Dimes WalkAmerica drive. So, if you've ever wondered what the "My WalkAmerica Page" link on the right is all about, here it is.

The March of Dimes was founded to combat and cure polio. And they did (sweet). Following that success, they expanded their view and took on all birth defects. They're currently focusing on premature birth: why does it happen? how can we stop it? But they won't get far without the money we raise in WalkAmerica (they're biggest fundraiser).

What does this mean? It means I'm walking 5 miles along the Virginia Beach Boardwalk in late April, and trying to get people to sponsor me for it. But I'll add a little incentive to help. If you donate, and make a request on my WalkAmerica page, I'll record myself singing a song for you and e-mail it. So let's work together and save those babies!

--Beav (In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the Beaver sleeps tonight)

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Thursday, February 08, 2007

Like what now?

I got this e-mail forwarded to me at work today. I won't speculate to its veracity, but it made me actually laugh out loud at work. Enjoy!

"Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country, speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up."


I do have one tip of the hat and one wag of my finger (Thanks, Stephen!) to give here. Wag of my finger to #9 which is a blatant rip-off of Douglas Adams ("The ships hung in the air in much the same way that bricks don't."); and a tip of my hat to #6 which I thought was a particularly clever way to make that point.

--Beav (laughing like a father who's been forced to watch The Lion King over and over and has been driven into a maniacal worship of Ed)

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