Hockey in the desert!

Las Vegas in the National Hockey League?

Vegas in the Stanley Cup in their first year?

This is truly amazing!  I bet the Phoenix Coyotes are upset.  Well probably not as angry as the Washington Capitals, who lost game one tonight.  Well,they play seven so we have to wait, watch and see.

I have to admit,it seems a little shady.  Vegas in its first year in the championship?

Stranger things have happened though none are coming to mind immediately.

I wonder how the Oakland Raiders will do once they move to Vegas.  Something to keep and eye on and maybe build that "shadiness" folder.

Hockey in the Sunbelt seems like a risk but many teams from hot climes have won the Cup....just not in their first year.  Vegas, next to Death Valley is clearly the hottest of all!  Seeing the Stanley Cup in Vegas....hosted by an actual team...is surreal.  Definitely very far removed from the pre-1967 days of the Original Six.

Gotta admit....It's pretty fun and I am enjoying the show!

Exploring the East

Michelle and I usually travel north and west.  There is not really anything interesting to our south and the east usually does not figure into our geographic worldview.  On the other hand, it is fun to go outside the box every now and again.


We went east towards the ocean.

It was interesting.

The first thing I noticed was a lot of water....a LOT!

There were a lot of little creeks and small bridges.  Lots of little lakes dotted the countryside, which tended to turn swampy at random intervals.  It seemed more prevalent as we approached the coast, which made sense if you thought about it....the Atlantic Ocean was there.

Many of the little towns along the way followed the same sort of template....small, agriculture and apparently shrinking.  I also saw large neighborhoods in the middle of nowhere and I wondered where they worked.  Actually, I wondered where they went at all?  There was truly no place to go!

Humans are all over the place in every environment and sometimes in places you don't expect.  Sometimes picking a random direction and going as far as you can be quite enlightening.

Watch out for the deer!

East coast or West coast, they are always around!

May 13, 1865!

On May 13, 1865, nearly a month after the surrender of major Confederate forces in the East, the last battle of the Civil War took place.  A few hundred feet from the Mexican border, the Confederate States Army won its final victory.

Talk about pointless.

I really feel sorry for the soldiers at the Battle of Palmito Ranch, fighting and putting their lives on the line for a war that was all ready over.  Private John Williams of the 34th Indiana was the last soldier to die in the war, the last of 620,000 Americans to die in the worst war in US history.

Nonetheless, the war finally ended and the horrific process of Reconstruction began.

It is a shame they simply did not just fire in the air three times and go home.

A half century later, Adam Gunther would be the last man to die in the First World War, in other words,history repeated itself.  The difference is that Private Williams died in the last battle of a war that truly ended.  We have not had a civil war since.  Private Gunther died in 1918 and the war resumed in 1939.

America learned in 1865 to let the Confederates off the hook early and the former CSA was reintegrated back into the Union by 1870, including the hotbeds of Southern nationalism, Virginia and Texas.

In 1919, despite the US attempts to get the Allies to moderate their approach to a defeated Germany, the Treaty of Versaillies was harsh and laid the groundwork for a worse war twenty years later.  Of course, it was easy for the US to call for a moderate approach to Versailles, especially since 10% of France was destroyed and Britain took major casualties.

Still,lessons of history slipped past.

Par for the course on planet Earth!

A great weeK!

What a great week!

The world is a sick place, on the heavily militarized, overly tense Korean Peninsula, two long time foes met and are discussing if not full reunification, at least a normalization of relations!  North and South Korea?

Shocking but true!

The Korean War is about to come to an official end and the Chinese helped the US behind the scenes.  Cooperation in Asia seems to be alive and well.  Now we move on to the rest of the world.

North Korea is promising to end its nuclear program and is talking about demilitarizing the border.  The fact that Kim Jong Un is even in South Korea is a shock.  Watching the Jong Un and Moon step hand in hand over the borer....North to South and South to North and back again...was surreal.

They won't solve everything in one meeting but the first step is always the hardest.  They have taken it and they are on the same path now.

Donald Trump Nobel Peace Prize winner?

Weird planet, man.

Hey, its better than Korean War 2.0

Syrian stuff

Syria has always been a trouble spot.  Actually, the entire Middle East has been a trouble spot.  You just change the names and dates.  Hittites vs Egyptians, Persians vs Greeks, Ottomans vs British etc...it never changes.

The US missile strike a couple of days ago has complicated an already complicated situation.

The Syrian government is backed by both Iran and Russia while a number of rebel groups are backed by the United States.  Some of these groups are fighting each other and a couple thousand US Marines are shooting up the remnants of ISIS.  There is the real potential for the US to be pulled into another Middle Eastern war.

This is the last thing America needs.  Afghanistan has been a live item since 2001, Iraq has been an ongoing problem since 2003 and Arab Spring has yielded a fractured Libya and a bloody civil war in Syria that is grinding into its seventh year and has featured the use of chemical weapons.

In 2013, then President Obama threatened to hit Syria with cruise missiles if Damascus used chemical weapons on its own people.  Assad did and Obama did nothing.  In 2017, the Syrians again employed such weaponry and President Trump hit 59 Syrian air force planes.  A year later, the same story unfolded.

Fortunately, the Russians had some warning before the missiles came down so we could avoid World War Three.  Supposedly the Syrian anti-aircraft defense system, modeled on the Soviet Interrogated Air Defense System (IADS), knocked down 70% of the incoming US missiles.  I have the feeling that the Russians were at the controls.

It is hard to predict what will happen, but the US is broke, both financially and emotionally.  Too many wars with no point.  It appears that Washington is looking for a middle ground, hitting Syrian chemical weapons facilities from a distance with cruise missiles while warning the Russians.

It is about as well as you can do in the Middle East.

Real Easter! :-P

OK, time to let the Fourth Crusade go....the Catholic Church apologized in 2004.

Easter is always a fun time.Lots of eggs and bunnies (Pagan rites?) and sometimes I wonder if it should be the real New Year.

Today is April 8, but tomorrow is a busy day!  The Mongols destroyed an army of German knights and Polish/Hungarian auxiliaries at Leignitz and allegedly cut off enough ears to fill up nine bags. 

Robert E Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia though his buddy Joseph E Johnston took his bloody time in Durham, NC to finally surrender a week later.

And US troops stormed Baghdad in 2003.

In 2018, Spring Break comes to an end and it is time to get back to work.

Just as well....it keeps me off the streets! :-P

Happy (Western) Easter!

Happy Easter!

Lots of jelly beans today!