Tuesday we took a trip down to Key West. I’ve been there a number of times, but it doesn’t have the appeal to me that the rest of the Keys do. The attractions tend toward more seedy recreations (drinking, strip clubs, the “Overdressed Male Nudist” in a thong, among others). They’ve got a couple of nice restaurants and shops, but they don’t keep my attention for long. I go to the Keys for the fishing, diving, and boating, not the t-shirt shops.

Returning from Key West in the late afternoon, the weather took a turn for the worse. Inches of rain poured down all night and into most of the following morning. Thunderstorms and boats don’t mix, so we were confined^[1] to the house until early afternoon when we ventured out into the still-overcast outdoors. Our options were to attempt a Looe Key snorkeling trip, or ride up the Keys to Worldwide Sportsman and Robbie’s. We opted for the former, since it was our last chance to do any real boating before leaving Thursday.

We headed out beneath overcast skies, and the chop seemed only moderate considering the storm that had just passed. As we left the channel and reached the last marker, we took a heading of 180°, due south, where Looe Key was situated about 5 miles out. We set a course and motored out… And motored… And continued motoring for about 10 or 12 miles (estimated) without seeing a single semblance of any marked reef. After switching to our reserve tanks, we decided to scrap the idea and head back in before we burned too much fuel, now that we were out of sight of the shore. We reversed our heading and started in.

As we approached the shore, we passed what I eventually determined was a marker for a fishing spot about 3 miles due east of the Looe Key mark. We were completely baffled as to what we’d done, and ended up back at our spot from Monday to do some more snorkeling to salvage something out of the trip. Like the previous time, we saw little new, only a small moray eel and some good sized angel fish.

We headed back to the house to try to diagnose what had gone wrong, as we had no way of knowing without more information. I had joked that Admiral Nelson had more technology at his disposal than we did out there, while Nat remarked that our situation was like an episode of Seconds from Disaster. We tied up at the dock, and my dad immediately discovered that the compass upon which our whole fate had rested was about about 30° in error, tricking us into heading east of any target. Over distance that error was amplified by several miles, resulting in being completely out of sight of the marker. The whole ordeal, while sort of upsetting, ends up as a lesson in checking your equipment before your trip. It also makes for a better story than our hazy day, cold water dive at Looe would have been.

That was the end of our trip. We left Thursday morning early so we could be back in St. Pete by late afternoon. Colette had a bachelorette party to go to. We did stop at Robbie’s to feed the tarpon on the return trip, a Keys tradition. The only other notable happening on the drive back was the detour over the Card Sound bridge north of Key Largo. They’re doing some kind of construction on the stretch of US-1 between Florida City and Key Largo, so everyone got detoured up to Card Sound. Nothing fantastic, but I’d never driven up there before.

[1] I use the word loosely. I’d rather be “confined” in the Lower Keys than “free” at the office.

Some photos & videos, courtesy of Colette:

The Key West version of Man's Best Friend.

Dahli, my neice, drinking from dad's straw.

Day two was a little more exciting. We went on a snorkeling trip a few miles out to Newfound Harbor Key, a pretty decent reef and rock bed that’s protected from fishing and anchoring. There was nothing epic out there, but we saw a number of grouper, an arrowhead crab, huge schools of bermuda chubs, and some abandoned lobster pots (empty, however).

We’re planning to go to Looe Key either today or tomorrow. Looe is about 5 miles offshore, with clearer, deeper water, so we’re hoping for some more variety. Key West is also on the docket as well, but we don’t know when we’re heading down there.

The highlight so far has been Little Palm Island. Colette and I went down the street and hopped on their private ferry last night to take us out there for dinner. We arrived right around sunset and their hostess led us on a mini tour of the island facilities before seating us at a small table right on the beach. The breeze was cutting right over the corner of the island, preventing the typical Keys mosquito barrage at dusk. Colette had tuna, I had skirt steak, and we finished the evening off with some beignets for dessert. Colette got several good pictures from around the island even in the dark. The island itself is a marvel of engineering, it’s no wonder they charge a couple legs to stay in one of the bungalows or to eat dinner out there. I’d highly recommend the experience, regardless of price. It’s worth it.

A number of times through elementary and middle school, we’d go down and stay either in motels or a family friends’ vacation home in Marathon. Later on our trips migrated up to Islamorada/Tavernier, where we’d stay in our uncles’ family’s condo. Islamorada was always a popular family spot in our older years because of its lobstering and fishing community (we got more interested in fishing than in snorkeling in our teens), and of course Robbie’s and World Wide Sportsman. Going to those places was our idea of “sightseeing.”

I’ve been to Key West a number of times, but aside from there, the only place below Marathon I’d ever really visited was Bahia Honda State Park. Next week we’ll be staying in a house on Little Torch Key, one of hundreds of small islands that make up the Lower Keys. There are a lot more little islands to explore down in that part of the archipelago, with more variety that what we’re used to. Up north of there in Islamorada, you’ve got the Atlantic on one side (deep with nearby reefs offshore) and Florida Bay on the other (sandy, shallow and flat, with not much to do other than fish). Little Torch and its surroundings will mix that up a little more. Nearby you’ve got shallows, numerous small islands to explore, deep channels, dropoff walls for diving on, reefs offshore, and all a short boat ride from the house. It’s only about a half hour drive to Key West, too, for shopping and whatnot.

Colette and I have a reservation to eat dinner on Little Palm Island, a “private island getaway” and the self-proclaimed “most romantic place on Earth.” They’ll pick us up in their boat and taxi us out there for the evening, so that should be pretty darn nice.

We’re excited to do some more photography. The Keys (especially with my family) always offer plenty of hilarious memorable moments. I’m just stoked to get to take enough time off to possibly get to relax for real.

Who am I kidding? It’s going to be non-stop action and by Thursday I’ll be exhausted.

Grayson laying into some nearly-captive tarpon at Robbie's.

Discovering Party Down a few weeks ago was an amazing thing, and “discovering” is really the only way to find this show. As an original series on Starz, there’s essentially zero promotion or advertising for this show, but thanks to The Internet, I found it!

Party Down follows a crew of caterers from the company of the same name as they try (and usually fail) to entertain and serve some event in the Los Angeles area. And being set in the LA area, naturally its characters are strugging entertainers of different sorts. The Players are:

• Ken Marino as Ron Donald — The hapless, naive team leader of the catering crew, constantly digging himself into holes he can’t get out of. Marino puts on great mannerisms for the character. He’s sort of the “Michael Scott” of the group, but not near as slapsticky and cartoony as Steve Carell’s character. And the flat-top has me laughing pretty much every time he’s on screen.
• Adam Scott as Henry Pollard — An old friend of Ron’s and one-hit-wonder commercial actor who’s decided to give up on his dream. His sarcasm and self-deprecation draw a lot of the laughs and Scott’s serious “straight man” tone and attitude make all his interactions with his co-workers hilarious.
• Lizzy Caplan as Casey Klein — A smart-ass comedian who becomes the primary love interest to Henry. She and Henry make up your basic “Jim and Pam” duo.
• Jane Lynch as Constance Carmell — The inept “mother figure” to the team. Her long history of failure in Hollywood gives her a hilarious perspective on things. Plus she always mentions “how crazy the coke was back then.”
• Martin Starr as Roman DeBeers — A pretentious “hard sci-fi” writer who constantly points out others’ shortcomings and is a general a-hole to everyone, including guests. He also thinks he’s great with women.
• Ryan Hansen as Kyle Bradway — The seemingly most successful one of the bunch, at least as far as having acting jobs is concerned. A hammy pretty-boy actor who knows next-to-nothing about his art. He and Roman are foils to one anothers’ douchebaggery.

The format is single-camera and documentary-ish, with filthy, sarcastic comedy. Each episode the crew caters a different event, like a Sweet Sixteen party, a high school reunion, and an investors dinner. This of course gives the writers the opportunity to switch up the setting, the characters’ roles, and to have fun guest stars each week. They’ve written a set of characters that play wonderfully together, and have created a setting in which they can interact organically (and with the guests) without just shoehorning them into a small office (or a hospital).

Drama isn’t out of the question on Party Down, either. In recent episodes, the relationship between Henry and Casey is going somewhere, and usually once or twice per episode were made to feel sympathy for Ron, which he generally squanders within the succeeding few minutes. But that drama is effective while it lasts and, like Scrubs, the drama tempers the comedy with a realistic edge, giving subtle “regular person” qualities to the show’s absurd characters.

It was just renewed for a second season (Thank God), so you should go give it the viewership it deserves.

If you’re a Netflix customer, you can stream all of season one, if you’re into that.

The main narrative of the book follows the US Army Rangers, Delta Force operators, and Night Stalker helicopter crews and their mission to capture two advisers to Mohammed Farah Aidid’s Habr Gidr clan — one of several missions collectively known as Operation Gothic Serpent. After initial success and capture of the targets, the crash of the Black Hawk SuperSixOne forced the soldiers to mount a search-and-rescue mission to go after the downed crew.

What follows is a story about soldiers, the jobs they are assigned, and the “stuff” these soldiers need to achieve victory.

The initial battle plan called for Delta Force teams to capture the targets with ground protection from the Ranger “chalks.” A convoy was to arrive just as the captured men were brought outside for swift extraction before the local militia converged on their location. Speed was everything. The mission was supposed to take less than one hour. Things began to go awry even before SuperSixOne was rocketed out of the sky. The extraction convoy was held up by abnormally heavy resistance from the Somalis and was repeatedly given false direction and instruction from its airborne overseers, due in large part to the confusion of Mogadishu’s streets. By the time the Delta teams had linked up with the convoy, the first chopper had gone down, so the majority of the ground force immediately responded. Not long after the first of the Rangers had arrived at the crash site, Mike Durant’s SuperSixFour was shot down several blocks away. In response to the second crash, which the ground teams could not effectively reach in time, Delta snipers Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart roped in to defend the crash site. Not long after, they were overrun. Everyone was killed except Durant, who was held hostage and passed around between the feuding militia groups — and eventually released.

The confusion of the battle comes across appropriately through Bowden’s narrative style. Rapidly shifting among the perspectives of the Delta teams, convoy, Matt Eversmann’s Ranger chalk, the Black Hawk crews, and the commanders, the writing gives the sense that no party on the battlefield was privy to all the pertinent information. Command in the air didn’t know where the soldiers were, soldiers on the ground had no easy way to transmit their location to command without blowing their cover to the enemy. Prior raids run by the same men in the previous months went so swimmingly that no integrated communication was needed for them to get in and out without trouble, the missions were accomplished before anyone could think twice. They went in without enough water, no night-vision goggles, and most of the D-boys wore little plastic hockey helmets, instead of the safer — yet clunkier — kevlar standard issues. Ease of previous missions certainly contributed to a level of overconfidence that led to lack of preparation and communication issues (primarily between the raiding parties and the ground convoy, initially), snowballing into a situation leaving them massively outnumbered, surrounded, and with no effective contingency plans.

After reaching SuperSixOne’s crash site, the soldiers proceeded to disassemble the downed bird’s kevlar armor to create a makeshift shelter to hole up in and wait for extraction. Others took cover in nearby homes. They secured a perimeter and laid in wait while the Little Birds provided covering fire, keeping the crowds at bay throughout the night. In the early morning hours, a convoy of over 100 vehicles blasted its way to the pinned down soldiers, rescuing them just as the sun rose. With no food, no water, and almost no resupply throughout the night, they were able to keep most of the wounded in good shape until loading them into the APCs.

The unexpectedness of a lot of the ground force’s problems served to illustrate the gulf of difference in skill between the Rangers and Delta operators. How a soldier handles himself when faced with difficult scenarios sort of divides the “men from the boys,” as they say. Following the first crash, the Rangers and Delta were forced to work closer together than the original mission had intended. And the account of the D-boys’ response to the initial confusion shows the skill level of a so-called “professional soldier.” The Rangers, who are an impeccably trained, elite unit themselves, were still completely outclassed by the older, more experienced D-boys. Rangers were young, well-trimmed, stolidly beholden to Army tradition, while the older senior NCOs that comprised Delta wear beards and long hair, have heavily customized weaponry, and place less importance on rank and military courtesy.

One thing Bowden handles well that the more widely-known film version utterly fails at, is the capture of the events from the other side’s vantage point. He splices into the battle narrative miniature stories told by a number of different Somalian militia members and civilians he interviewed in the mid-90s, showing us America’s intervention from a native citizen’s perspective. Many Somalians saw the Rangers as nothing but violent intruders. Propaganda doled out by Aidid and his militias helped that sentiment along, of course, but so did a number of botched operations in the months leading up to the battle. Not to say that US and UN goals in Somalia weren’t well-intentioned, but it is true that our grandiose schemes to help save the bullied from the bullies are sometimes lost on the citizenry. They may be completely ignorant of their own subjugation. Bowden’s writing makes it clear that UNOSOM’s shift into a nation-building operation was a major factor in it’s failure to garner support from the Somali people.

The political situation surrounding the battle is as fascinating as the battle itself. Bowden does a good job framing the battle within the greater context of the events of 1992-93 in East Africa. Ostensibly, the mission was a benevolent one: a UN task force would provide protection for humanitarian aid missions into Somalia following the breakdown of civil order. The transition from UNOSOM I operations to the UNOSOM II mandate altered the mission of of the task force from one of “upholding the ceasefire and monitoring aid operations” to using “all necessary means to establish a secure environment for humanitarian relief.” This slight change in the M.O. permitted the use of more troops as well as extended operations into Mogadishu to flush out weapons caches and militia strongholds, since the militias were seizing and holding hostage the relief packages. As the months went by (and after Aidid’s forces ambushed a Pakistani force), the mission became more about capturing Aidid and his cronies at all cost than anything else.

President Clinton’s response to the battle’s unfortunate conclusion was a complete halt on operations against Aidid. Within six months, US forces had withdrawn from Somalia, save a small force of Marines stationed offshore to assist with emergency evacuation missions. No matter what your political persuasion, such rapid abandonment of an operation at the slightest roadblock should leave a sour taste in your mouth. And in the scope of military history, the battle was far from a failure. Actually, when all the factors are taken into account, it was one of the most decisive victories in American history. The soldiers were completely outnumbered, trapped in an unfamiliar urban environment, without supplies, and stranded for an exceptional length of time, yet were somehow able to make it out with (only) 19 killed. An estimated 1000 Somalis were killed in the battle. Any pill this difficult would have been too much for the Clinton administration to swallow. They couldn’t withdraw gently, and they couldn’t stick it out until the mission was accomplished. Saving political face seemed more important. Contemporary America has a tendency to lean this way when the going gets tough. We criticize decisions long before having a chance to act and give up on actions before we have results.

The political fallout from the Battle changed US foreign policy in ways still felt well into the 21st century.

The resultant shift has affected American response (or lack thereof) to a number of situations since the early 1990s. What would have happened to the million Tutsis slaughtered in Rwanda if our perception of what was worthy of sacrifice had remained unchanged? How about the thousands of Kosovar Albanians killed in Yugoslavia? Or the people of western Sudan?

Toward the end of the book, Bowden visits with several of the Rangers involved in the battle, years later. Most of them are busy with typical lives; kids, jobs, and the like. But the most affecting stories involve the typical response they get from everyday people when they talk about their experiences in Mogadishu. A typical response to the statement “I fought in Somalia in 1992″ might be something like “We fought in Somalia? What were we doing there?” This speaks, for one, to America’s general ignorance of what their country does internationally on a routine basis, and also raises a question — What were we doing half-way around the world in East Africa? Without the context of 1990s geopolitics and the knowledge of some East African history, that’s a difficult question to answer. Black Hawk Down, while primarlily a “story of modern war” like the cover indicates, also deftly handles the explanation of the wider context in which the battle took place. It’s a profound book, and leaves you with a better appreciation of both the burden of the modern soldier and the complexity of third-world politics.

The book was based on a series of articles that Bowden, then a staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, had written for the paper in 1997, all of which are featured on their website for further reading.

After moving into our new house, painting, buying furniture, assembling the furniture, painting the furniture, reorganizing, and finally, setting up the rooms, I was anxious to get everything in our new home office set up the way I’ve always wanted it. One of the biggest problems for myself in a home office is the epic amount of tangled cables, computer equipment, and downright crap all over my desk. After some thinking and internet searching, I set off on a project to get all this equipment properly organized.

I found couple of articles on the interwebs about installing cheap pegboard on the bottom or back of a desk to keep cable- and device-clutter to a minimum, so I decided to hack together my own solution inspired by these examples.

Materials:

• Pegboard – 24″ x 48″ section
• Steel eyes – Qty. 4 (for my table, YMMV)
• Wooden dowels (if you need them) – small enough to fit through the eyes

Tools:

• Saw
• Sandpaper
• Drill
• Pliers (if you have a hardwood table)

You could probably get by with less that this, but these are the tools I had and used.

The first step in this procedure would be to cut the pegboard down to a proper size that’ll fit your table. I was lucky enough to be able to find a precut section of pegboard that fit snugly underneath my 48″ x 60″ hardwood table (which serves as our desk).

Next you need to take your pegboard and put it up under the desk to measure where you’ll make your cuts. The idea is to cut small slots for the eyes to fit through, then slide the dowels through to hold the pegboard up under the table. This way it’s securely mounted, yet not permanently so, allowing you to take it down to mount new devices or cables to it.

Mark your slots and now it’s time to cut ‘em.

I just used a drill to create the slots by drilling a series of holes along the slot, then moved the drill from side to side to connect the holes forming the slot. I know, this is inadvisable for the sake of your tools, but the MDF pegboard is relatively soft and the cuts we need to make are few.

After cutting the slots, I held up the slotted pegboard under the table to mark the locations to screw in the eyes. This might be a two-person process, unless you have more than two arms. Once that’s done you’ll want to pre-drill some holes if you’re working with hardwood. With a softer wood like pine you could probably hand-tighten the eyes. I grabbed my drill and a drill bit, put a small piece of electrical tape on it to mark the depth, and started drilling away. In short order, I had all the eyes installed under the table. As you can see in the picture, my table’s got support rails installed underneath. A perfect feature to mount on.

I then cut my dowel pieces into small sections with a saw and sanded them down nicely. This part’s easy.

Once I had the dowels cut, I mounted the pegboard. I’ve since discovered also that I could just turn the eyes 90° to the slots to support the board, but either way works just fine. Below are some picures of my devices I mounted underneath. I installed a power strip, cable modem, router, and an external hard drive with some 8″ tie wraps. That procedure took me about an hour to get it all installed cleanly. But our carpet is now rat’s-nest free!

(taken with Flip Mino HD)