Author: Vic Socotra

Weather Report: Nibbling on the Dozen

Another exciting week in the world we share! OK, so we have the continuing NATO nuclear exercise- the one that started a couple weeks ago- and the Russian forces announcing their own version with an ICBM launch from a ballistic missile sub way up there where the waters are cold. The messaging is a little […]

A Wednesday Flurry

The work crew showed up a little early this morning, so the flurry of downsizing activity continues at Refuge Farm. It is exciting activity just watching it go. So there was a debate in Pennsylvania late yesterday between former media personality Mehmet Oz and Hulking John Fetterman. The latter candidate has some medical controversy with […]

Arrias and His Muse: Her Eyes

Sky Girl Editor’s Note: These eyes started looking at me on the Secretary’s hallway at the Department of Health and Human Services. She hung by the elevator bank on the 4th Floor as “Sky Girl,” and helped us focus on the SARS-1 epidemic twenty years ago. The one where Dr. Tony Fauci told us that […]

Arrias: Xi Capone

There’s a particularly brutal scene in the movie “The Untouchables” in which Al Capone (played to perfection by Robert De Niro), in front of all of his lieutenants, gives a short speech about “the team” and then beats one man to death with a baseball bat. If you haven’t seen it, go online and search […]

Life & Island Times: Wild No More

Editor’s Note: Marlow captures some of the emotion flying around. Some of the Salts have tried to follow the ground combat in Europe. It is a horror. – Vic Author’s Note: I spent the better part of the past several days reviewing longitudinally many months of Ukrainian-Russian battle maps, video war footage and reporting imagery. […]

October Surprises

As you know, we are retired. As individuals, and as a group. We gave up the partisan side of things, since it doesn’t appear there is much we can contribute to the discussion. We were participants in some of the previous surprises, so we retain an interest apart from passion. Those operations were only relevant […]

Weather Report: Attention on the Deck?

We had a minor squabble this morning. Had we actually sent the weather report this week? Our stab at amateur meteorology is part of another parallel project. Some day that one may someday show our progress along the road to perdition. As citizens, we can take a fairly broad view of it. For the Navy […]

Hole in the Ocean

They say the best two days of your life are the ones in which you buy and sell your boat. The days in between those two normally are filled with unsuccessful attempts to fill the hole it makes in the ocean with money. The topic came up due to discussion of seasonal arrangements for boats […]

Passing Times

(Nilo Ha Tien: A Novel of Naval Intelligence in Cambodia (Unabridged) by H.L. Serra) This was one of those bright Fall mornings in Virginia’s Piedmont. A front of crisp brisk air rolled in. The dawn fought with the remaining cold night air to bring an odd sort of tension to the small group smoking out […]