Note from the Editor:

The drive back to where I was born was a rather long one; I’d been conditioned for gruelingly-long road-trips during the military, but this was a solo op, and had me crossing half a continent on my own.  I was hauling more than I ever had during my time driving in the fleet, and towing a vehicle behind it all.  There were a lot of times when my GPS didn’t work quite right, and when I lost all signal.  I even ended up nearly stuck in winding country road down in a canyon alongside a river with no shoulders or guardrails, doing my best to keep the trailer wheels from sending my Jeep into the water, which would have tipped my whole truck on its side.

First, I was taken from Virginia during a very upsetting time (“child of divorce” and all), and only returned a few times for school trips (which were almost as upsetting/frustrating).  I never intended to come back.  I never wanted to go back.  Yet here I was.  The years approaching The Shift had a funny way of routinely shaking things up like that.  I suppose it was for the best; I had more freedom and options now, and wasn’t dealing with any of the creeps I did back then –all new ones!

So now… I was returning by choice (and completely able to leave in my own vehicle whenever I wanted to), I had my own schedule, I had pussy waiting for me, and it was a great “in” to the Naval stations here I’d always wanted to see.  It was a good-enough next-step.  I took it.  I always take the next step.

It would soon start occurring to me that I’d trained with the Army, and gone to a formerly all-Army university, then joined the Marine Corps, and done some missions with Army and Navy guys, among others, and was now getting balls-deep into an all-Navy experience.  I was getting to sample all the branches.  It started with the toughest ones, and seemed to be winding down into the older and more-relaxed services.  On that trajectory, after several more major ‘bumps’, it promised to smooth out into the best.

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Repulsine Advances:  their effect on water here, etc.  Repulsines, in case you don’t know, are a type of engine or ‘drive’ that uses magnetic components, and electromagnetism, to create what they call electro-gravitic effects; applying electricity to things that produce unique magnetic fields, they are able to, more or less, overcome the pull of gravity on this and other worlds.  In the beginning, this technology involved crude “flying saucer” hulls, with bulging dome-like devices attached under them, and spinning discs within.  Since, they have come to use mercury-based fluids that spin within toroid tubes, and gyroscopes that help stabilize and direct them.

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Poking Fun at Fake News:

A plane would make an emergency landing in the Hudson River this year, the report claiming birds had flown in one of its engines.  While the pilots may remember it that way (for various reasons, and I’m not discrediting them in any way), there is more to this story; airplanes in these modern times don’t suffer such major system failures from mere birds.  The most likely hidden truth (that even the pilots probably don’t know)… is that this plane was disabled and brought down in such a clever technological way… that it still has the U.S. leaders and military officers scared.

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