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22 year old Frank Hayes had never won a race before, and was in fact not a jockey by profession, but a horse trainer and longtime stableman.
In 1923, he rode a horse called Sweet Kiss at the Belmont Park Steeplechase on Long Island. The horse, a 20-1 outsider, was owned by Miss A. M. Frayling.
During the latter stage of the race, Hayes suffered a heart attack and died. His body slumped over onto the horse, but remained in the saddle. Sweet Kiss finished the race in first place by a head, with Hayes still atop her back, making him the first (and to date, only) jockey to have won a race while deceased.
The real question is if they propped his corpse up on the podium when they awarded trophies.
I could be wrong, but there used to be a pretty popular nickname for the 30 mm Gatling gun the A10 is attached to.
I am talking about the GAU-8 Avenger.
Came up in a conversation, and I just can't remember the nickname to save my life.
I could be wrong, but there used to be a pretty popular nickname for the 30 mm Gatling gun the A10 is attached to.
I am talking about the GAU-8 Avenger.
Came up in a conversation, and I just can't remember the nickname to save my life.
I don't know about that one, but the one used on Navy ships is called R2-D2 with a hardon.
I remember being fascinated by the Phalanx system clear back in the 80's when reading (in the Tom Clancy novels) about their use on ships . The notion of spewing such an enormous volume of depleted uranium ammo such as to make a virtual shield against incoming strikes still blows my mind.
I remember being fascinated by the Phalanx system clear back in the 80's when reading (in the Tom Clancy novels) about their use on ships . The notion of spewing such an enormous volume of depleted uranium ammo such as to make a virtual shield against incoming strikes still blows my mind.
When we were teenagers, my friend Jon and I and I did a lot of, what for a kid in western Florida in the late 80s, passed for urban exploration.
Which basically meant that we spent a fair bit of time in the dumpster behind Storer Cable, managed to talk our way straight into the telephone company CO, amassed a small and coveted assortment of the keys used to open utility boxes, that sort of thing. We learned how to drive roadworks vehicles (steamrollers, graders, etc) which had been parked overnight with the keys carelessly "hidden."
One stands out in my memory, though. I'll never forget the night we snuck into the cat factory.
"Feline Assembly Plant #12" according to the small sign above the loading dock entrance door which had carelessly been left ajar.
Inside, it was dark. And I recall that we spent some time rummaging around in the repair department. The sound was difficult to describe; hundreds, perhaps thousands of soft mews, seemingly all in chorus.
But what I recall most was the warehouse area, where raw materials were kept. On one side of the floor was at least a hundred shrink-wrapped pallets, stacked 4-5 high, each with a thermo-printed label saying "SOFT, WARM LOVLIENESS" and a barcode and number. And on the other side was a small metal table with a measuring scale, a scoop, and a plastic bin. On the bin was a hand-written label (think sharpie-on-masking-tape kind of thing) which read "razor death-blades of horror."
This was way before hurricane Charlie, of course. Used to be located out on the far-east end of Jones Loop Road. I have no idea whether they rebuilt locally afterwards, or just moved inland.
If you say to a person in northern Florida that you are from "the west coast," this has one specific meaning. They assume you're a Tampon. Or, at least, Tampon-adjacent.
If you say this to a person in literally any other state in the CONUS, it has a different meaning entirely.
That took me a while to figure that out. Shortly after which I wound up living on the "west coast" which they had in mind. Like, about a mile from the Pacific.
Gods, I miss Carlsbad....
Fun fact: roughly 2/3 of all "Florida Man" crimes are committed within a 100 mile radius of Port Charlotte, FL.
There's nothing special or unique about Port Charlotte. It's just a little geographic oddity which happens to be located halfway between Tampa and Fort Myers.
Somewhere along the line, we (society) decided that we were going to call chicken seeds "eggs," and plant eggs "seeds" and act as though they were two entirely distinct things.
And now everyone just pretends to ignore this and act as though it's completely normal.
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