Little Known Naval History

February 13, 2008

This is probably old, but I hadn’t seen it before. Actually, I don’t even know for sure its true, but it did come from a former Naval officer. Even it its not true, it made me smile, so I thought I would share it with my readers.

The USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) as a combat vessel carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (fresh water distillers).

However, let it be noted that according to her log, ‘On July 27, 1798, the USS Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum.’ Her mission: ‘To destroy and harass English shipping.’

Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. Then she headed for the Azores, arriving there 12 November. She provisioned with! 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.

On 18 November, she set sail for England. In the ensuing days she defeated five British man o’ war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchantmen, salvaging only the rum aboard each. By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted.

Nevertheless, and though unarmed, she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing party captured a whiskey distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn. Then she headed home.

The USS Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February 1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, NO rum, NO wine, NO whiskey and 38,600 gallons of stagnant water. Now these guys knew how to drink!

Posted by Mr Papa | Filed Under Fun From the Net | 2 Comments

Everybody’s Famous For 15 Minutes (or more) on YawpBox

January 14, 2008

I had a goofy friend in college who thought Andy Warhol was the most visionary artist ever. My friends even cried the day he died. Maybe my friend was just as visionary, because Warhol’s famous saying that everyone is famous for 15 minutes seems more true today than ever. That saying reflected Warhol’s ability to see the beauty and art in common objects like soup cans and bananas. The website YawpBox provides a forum for users to create and display their own entertainment content. Members can post their own stories under a wide range of topics ranging from things like “Have you ever had a mullet” to “Tell us about the day your life went wrong”.

National Radio show hosts Lex and Terry also have challenges for viewers to either create original content or post others content. Challenges include things like “have you ever made headlines?” or “the best tattoo”. Lex and Terry will also be filming a YawpBox TV show that will include the user submitted content, videos and stories. They utilize their national radio show to give out their “home work” assignments to listener/members. They film the show before a live audience in Dallas, Texas. It will be different from other viewer content based show like “America’s Funniest Home Videos” in that the content will all come from member of the YawpBox social networking web site. Lex and Terry will add their quick wit and humor in the form of commentary on the videos and YawpBox members will have opportunities to appear in studio with Lex and Terry. It should be fun to see a TV Magazine show about ordinary people and not just the rich and famous.

My favorite video under “The day your life went wrong” shows a deer that has fallen through broken ice and and the helicopter rescue. They didn’t pull the deer from the water, but instead, once the deer got on a bit sturdier ices, used the helicopter to blow the deer across the ice to the shore.
It is pretty amazing footage.