Tiny Reflections

The number one trending search term on Yahoo this morning was for “deadly cucumbers.” At first I thought hat would be a joke. What could possibly be deadly about cucumbers? If you buy them at the sto and scrub them when you get home, there should not be anything poisonous about a cucumber that you slice up and put on a salad. I do it all the time.

Then I saw another headline about cucumbers have killed 16 people and made more than 1,150 people sick in at least eight European nations. The worst hit was Germany, followed by Sweden. There have not been any cases reported in the U.S.

Many people are looking suspiciously at the farms in Spain who exported the cucumbers. But evidently tests by health officials at the various farms in Spain have not revealed any contamination there. So it is still a mystery about where the contamination occurred and therefore they do not know how to stop it.

For a couple of days I had some trouble being online at home. It wasn’t a big deal, because some days I don’t do much online except check Facebook and email. But last night I decided to play an online game with some friends and the damn router quit working on me. So now I have to go buy a new router and hook that up tonight. Oh, joy.

How funny that I was just talking with someone about internet security and all these hackers and viruses bothering everyone. And then I find out this morning that some jackoff had hacked into my email and copped all my contacts. I was lulled into a false sense of security, I guess. None of the antivirus and malware programs bothered to intercept the hacker. So they got the emails of 200 of my closest friends. Fockkers.

This is a very busy weekend. Not only do we have the Tennessee Renaissance Festival, but the Great Tennessee Air Show, The Iroquois Steeplechase, The Kentucky Derby, my friend Sandy’s college graduation party AND Mother’s Day.

I am in a real spot trying to figure out how to squeeze in the best of the choices and making it all work out. I’m sorry to admit that I will probably not even get to do half of it all.

The event I will regret missing the most is the Kentucky Derby. I have watched that legendary horse race ever year since I was 18 years old. It’s known as the most famous 2 minutes in sports. But if I do any of the above mentioned activities tomorrow, I’ll miss the Derby.

You should note the name of the mastermind behind the Osama Bin Laden raid that lead to the death of the terrorist. He planned the Navy SEALS raid and is our greatest hero since the attack on New York and the Pentagon almost 10 years ago: Vice Admiral William McRaven.

In 1995, Vice Adm McRaven wrote a book that has become compulsory reading for special operations commanders,  titled “Spec Ops.”  In his book, he analyzes 8 military special operations from history, mostly from World War II.

The author, identifies 6 principles for the success of SEALS missions:

1. simplicity,
2. security,
3. repetition,
4. surprise,
5. speed, and
6. purpose.