๐บ๐ธ Peter Conover Hains is the only U.S. soldier known to have served on active duty in both the Civil War and World War I.
He graduated West Point in June 1861. His classmates included George Custer and Alonzo Cushing.
As a 21-year-old first lieutenant he commanded a detached 30-pounder Parrott at First Bull Run. The gun, listed with Battery G, 1st U.S. Artillery for the battle, weighed about 6,000 pounds and needed a ten-horse team. Around 6 a.m. he ordered the first Union land artillery shot of the fight.
He transferred to the engineers and became chief engineer of the XIII Corps during the Vicksburg Campaign. His earthworks and approaches helped Grant close the ring around the city. He was brevetted three times.
Hains stayed in the Regular Army after the war. For the next forty years he built lighthouses, helped select the Panama Canal route, and designed the Tidal Basin in Washington so the Potomac would stop flooding the capital.
He retired as a brigadier general in 1904. Congress made him a major general on the retired list in 1916.
When America entered the war he volunteered again. In September 1917, at age 77, the Army recalled him as chief engineer of the Norfolk Harbor and River District.
He was the oldest officer on active duty in the U.S. Army during World War I.
A younger man got to go to France because the old engineer took the stateside job.
Hains retired a second time in 1918 and died at Walter Reed in 1921.
56 years between the first gun at Bull Run and a World War I uniform.
Automotive technician story:
Dealership owner refused to call his "mechanics" technicians.
I once worked as a Nissan Technician in larger multi-brand dealership. The dealership got sold and was bought by a doctor/surgeon.
One day I overheard this doctor scolding our service manager for calling us technicians, He said were just mechanics and not technicians and to quit referring to us as such.
A few weeks later this doctor brought in his Nissan 300Z twin turbo car for an intermittent misfire problem. Car came to me being I was the only Nissan technician in the shop, the others were GM technicians. I briefly looked at the car and then told the service manager to tell the doctor that I could not fix it.
The good doctor them came to my work area a little upset and asked why I could not fix his car. That I was the mechanic and that it was my job, he shouted.
I politely explained that has car was a computerized fuel injected twin turbo model and was way too sophisticated and complicated for a "Gomer Pyle mechanic" to work on. That it would require a technician to properly diagnose and repair.
I then showed him my Master Nissan technician and Master ASE technician certifications. I then told him if he would agree to call me a technician, I would be happy to fix his car. He refused and told the service manager to let the other "mechanics" fix his car. The other GM "mechanics" knew little about Nissans and refused to work on it.
At the end of the day the good doctor relented and said if I repaired his car quickly, he would call me a technician.
I already knew what the problem was and repaired the bad injector connector in about 10 minutes.
Not sure if the doctor was pleased that day but our service manager was again allowed to call us technicians!
In the middle of the Second World War, the United States hid two aircraft carriers in Lake Michigan.
They trained nearly 18,000 carrier pilots in the cold freshwater.
Hundreds of aircraft crashed during that training. The cold water preserved them, and most are still down there.
This is the story of Lake Michigan in the Second World War..๐งต1/4
Sheesh.
While I like Arby's. I am not paying $21.00 for a fast food meal! To me, that's a little insane.
Guess I am cheap or old, probably both.
Half Pound Cheesesteak Meal
$21.09
A half pound of seasoned, thinly-shaved Angus steak with melted white American Cooperยฎ cheese and caramelized onions on a toasted sesame sub roll.
Mechanic story: The day I quit dealerships
It was raining hard outside when the service manager pulled a car into my stall. It was a nice fairly new Nissan and the driverโs side window would not go up. "Customer is waiting" says the service manager and he is not happy. As always, I logged onto the shop computer to check for any related bulletins or recalls but find none. So, I then found the electrical diagram and printed out the 10 pages of that and related information. While I was on the system, I also checked to see what warranty would pay for this repair. If the problem was with the switch I would get paid 3/10 of an hour to replace it. If the problem was the window motor, I would get 8/10 of an hour with no allowance for diagnostic time.
Using my trim tools I carefully pop out the window switch and using my test light I back probe the electrical connections for power and grounds to properly diagnose why the window would not go up. My diagnoses indicated that the window motor was inoperative. I then waited in a long line at our parts department to see if they had a new window motor in stock, they did not and said it would take two days to get a new one.
Knowing the customer was waiting, I then tried an old trick of smacking the side of the door panel while holding the power window switch to up position to see if I can temporarily make the window to go up. This works sometimes, but this time it will not. I now have almost an hour invested in this vehicle for a job that will only get paid less than an hour total when I spend another hour actually installing the new window motor when it comes in!
Took the workorder to the service manager and explained the issue and said that a new motor could not be had for two days. He then asked if there was some way I could get the window up, so the customer could drive his car in the meantime.
I said sure, that I could remove the door panel, unhook the window for the motor assembly, cut a piece of wood to prop it up and secure it so it stays up until the new part comes in. How long will that take so I can tell the customer he asks. About an hour I said. He said great, do ahead and do that, to which I asked about who was going to pay me for that hour of my time. Warranty will not pay for that and I am sure the customer isnโt going to pay for that either. I got the โold too familiar talkโ that I have heard many times about being a team player and we must take care of our customers and all that. I told him great, but being a team player will not put food on the table for my family. I then told him I would not do it unless I got paid for my time to do it.
Short time later the dealership owner came to me with a scowl on his face. I understand that you are refusing to repair a customerโs car, he said loudly. To which I said โNo sirโ I would be happy to do that window, I just want paid for my time to do it. I already have an hour invested that I wonโt get paid for and now you want me to invest another hour that I wonโt get paid for. Well, this is a good customer, he buys a lot of cars from us. We must take care of our good customers, he says.
I looked him in the eye and said let me explain something to you. When this car was designed, the designers and draftsman and engineers made a lot of money off this car. The assembly line workers made money putting this car together. Nissan made money off of this car when it left the factory. The truck driver made money delivering this car to your dealership. The salesman, you and the dealership made money when you sold this car to the customer. The only person in this equation who did not make money off this car was me, the mechanic. Yet for some reason I am the one expected work on it for free to please this customer. Please explain that. He then looked at me and said, okay you made your point, I will see that you get paid for your time.
I blocked up the window for the customer so he could drive his car and then locked my toolbox. Handed the keys to the service manager and told him I would be back with a truck in a little while to pick up my tools as I was quitting.
Before I could get to my car, the dealership owner flagged me down saying that we needed to talk. He asked what the problem was as he had said that he would pay me for that window job. I explained that was just the point. That I was just so tired of having to so often fight to get paid for my time and that it should not be that way. I have over 40 yearsโ dealership experience, 80K invested in tools, have all automotive certifications as a Master technician, yet I still must so often fight to get paid.
I shook his hand and said โno hard feelingsโ but that I was going to find a job that valued my experience and work ethic and simply paid me for my time with no hassle involved.
It was the last time I worked in a new car dealership.
๐จ#BREAKING: Outrage is erupting in Charlotte NC after a man who planned MASS SH00TINGS at FIVE Charlotte NC schools was JUST LET OUT OF JAIL...
...just FOUR DAYS before those schools open for the year.
Read that again.
His name is Drew Owens, he's 31 and he's been arrested 6 times in Charlotte NC alone.
Back in February 2025, police say he sent threats to five CMS schools, Hawk Ridge Elementary, Community House Middle, Ardrey Kell and West Charlotte High, and Garinger High. Investigators say he laid out actual mass sh00ting plans for them.
He was charged with five felony counts of threatening mass violence on school property.
On Friday night, he posted bond and by Saturday morning, he walked out.
Charlotte school kids go back to class on TUESDAY.
One mom said it was her number one fear: "If he gets out, when will he get out, and will we know?"
Well, he's out, and it gets worse.
His OWN FATHER went to police.
He said his son had been harassing family, neighbors, and friends.
Sending threatening letters.
Sitting outside their homes.
His father even said Owens went to West Charlotte High and photographed his car, police believe to try to lure him out.
His own father took out a restraining order against him.
One neighbor said she is "constantly in fear for my life."
WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?!!!!!!
WE DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!
American soldiers brought hundreds of thousands of Japanese swords home from the Second World War.
Some were mass produced military weapons. Some were 700 year old family heirlooms.
Most are still in American basements today.
This is what happened to the swords of Japan..๐งต1/4
Every automotive technician working flat rate in a new car dealership should be paid for every hour they are on the clock! They are required to be there primarily in case a vehicle under manufacturers warranty needs a repair. So pay them for being there! There I said it.
On this day in 1781, George Washington bet the entire war on a single roll of the dice. He pulled his army away from the enemy's main stronghold, pointed it south on a 450-mile march, and gambled that everything would come together at a place in Virginia called Yorktown. If the timing failed, the Revolution might fail with it.
For years Washington had been fixated on retaking New York City, where the main British army sat. But in mid-August a letter arrived that changed everything. The French admiral de Grasse had written to say he was bringing his enormous fleet from the Caribbean to the Chesapeake Bay, and he could only stay for a few weeks. Cornwallis, meanwhile, had conveniently dug his British army into Yorktown, right on the water. Washington saw the trap in an instant. If the French fleet sealed the sea and the combined armies came down by land, Cornwallis would be caught with no way out. But the window was tiny, and Yorktown was hundreds of miles away.
So around August 20, Washington and the French general Rochambeau started their combined armies moving. And the genius of it was the deception. The British commander in New York, Henry Clinton, could not be allowed to realize the target was Virginia, or he might reinforce Cornwallis or strike the marching column. So Washington played an elaborate trick. He had roads improved toward Staten Island, ovens built as if to bake bread for a long siege, and false messages leaked, all to convince Clinton that the allies were preparing to attack New York City.
It worked beautifully. While Clinton sat tight, guarding against an assault that would never come, thousands of American and French troops slipped across the Hudson and swung south through New Jersey, marching hard for the Chesapeake. By the time Clinton understood what was happening, the allied army was too far gone to catch.
The risk was staggering. Washington was marching away from the main British army, trusting that a French fleet he could not see and could not command would arrive at exactly the right moment, hundreds of miles away, and hold the bay long enough. So much of it was out of his hands. But the pieces fell into place. De Grasse arrived and beat off the British fleet at the Battle of the Chesapeake, the armies converged on Yorktown, and on October 19 Cornwallis surrendered, effectively ending the war.
None of it happens without the decision made in these August days of 1781, the moment Washington turned his back on New York and started walking toward a victory he could only pray would be waiting for him. It was not a battle. It was the gamble that won the whole thing.