From: Aaron Thrush
Sent Sat 10/22/2005 4:55 AM
Subject: AFA/TCU on TV at 2:00 p.m. CDT
Be at the Connie Kay's Flight Line Cafe at 538 N. Eglin Parkway (across from Denny's) at 2:00 p.m. CDT if you want to enjoy a huge Falcon victory Saturday afternoon. Sorry about no musings last week, but it took a while to get over the 27-24 defeat at the hand of the Navy Middies. The Falcons finally put it together for an entire game when they destroyed UNLV by a 42-7 margin last Saturday. UNLV made it somewhat easier by netting only 2 (that's right, two) yards rushing for the game after a couple of shotgun formation snaps over their QB's head, four turnovers that included 2 fumbles after Air Force kickoffs and a total of 13 penalties for 88 yards. A disturbing statistic from the Air Force side was the fact of 5 fumbles, 3 of which were turnovers; a fourth fumble was picked up by QB Carney and taken in for the second TD of the game from within the UNLV 10 yard line. A new Falcon punter, Christopher Carp, had only one punt in the game, a 38 yard punt with a 3 yard return. There was also a new Falcon kickoff man and UNLV had only one 16 yard return from Air Force kickoffs. Coach DeBerry and his staff obviously made some necessary changes to their special teams personnel after the Navy game.
On to the Air Force/TCU game at 2:00 p.m. CDT to be played in Colorado Springs. In some respects the Falcons and the Horned Frogs are mirror images of one another. The Falcons have lost 3 games this year by a total of 7 points to Utah, Wyoming and Navy. Had they won those games, they would have a record of 6-1. Only the Wyoming game was played in Colorado Springs. TCU has a record of 6-1; they have won 3 games by a total of 11 points over Oklahoma (17-10), Utah (23-20 in OT), and BYU (51-50 in OT). Only the Utah game was played at home in Fort Worth. Air Force has lost games as a result of inconsistent play and have had 5 interceptions and have lost 10 of 22 fumbles this season. TCU is the top team in the country with 26 total takeaways, a +2.1 per game turnover margin and a total of 15 interceptions. Statistics like that are enough to make one wonder why the game is currently rated as even or even has Air Force as a one-point favorite.
Maybe it has something to do with the history of the two teams in competition with one another. They first met in the 1959 Cotton Bowl game when they played to a 0-0 tie on a frigid day on a field full of cold mud. Air Force finished the season with a 9-0-2 record and were known as the Cardiac Kids who also tied Iowa at Iowa by a score of 13-13 and defeated a Colorado team in Boulder by a 20-14 score. In 1998, TCU defeated Air Force by a 35-34 score in Fort Worth to prevent an undefeated season for the Falcons who finished at 12-1 for the season. So you might say that the Falcons would savor a victory over TCU who come into the game at 6-1 overall and 4-0 in the MWC and with plans to finish at 10-1 by defeating SDSU, CSU and UNLV in that order after the Air Force contest. The one game TCU lost was 21-10 to SMU in the week after they had upset Oklahoma 17-10 in Norman.
TCU will be led by a tandem of running backs in the form of junior Robert Merrill and senior Lonta Hobbs as well as junior QB Jeff Ballard. Ballard has started the last three games (after BYU) in place of senior Tye Gunn who has an injury. The offense hasn't missed Gunn that much as Ballard has completed 55 of 92 passing attempts for 673 yards and 7 TD's for the season. He's had only 3 passes intercepted. TCU has lots of team speed, especially in the person of junior WR Cory Rodgers. He is the usual kickoff and punt returner for TCU which is ranked 4th in the nation for kickoff returns with a 28.5 yard return average and 22nd in the nation for punt returns with a 13.2 yard return average. On defense, the Frogs are led by redshirt freshman LB Jason Phillips who has 44 tackles and 5 tackles for losses, but 16 of their defensive players have 10 or more tackles. Overall, the TCU defense has had 57 tackles for losses to include 23 sacks.
Meanwhile, Air Force has to hope that its two best fullbacks, senior Jacobe Kendrick and sophomore Ryan Williams will play well in spite of ankle injuries. Third string FB Scott Peeples did rush four times for 40 yards to include a 20 yard TD against UNLV. Shaun Carney and/or Adam Fitch will have to have impressive games as well. If the Falcons are to win this game and have real hope of a winning season and even a possible bowl game, they will have to avoid turnovers and big plays, either offensively or defensively, by the Horned Frogs. It will be a big order and TCU is unlikely to help the Falcon cause as did UNLV last week. Still, my hunch is that this Air Force team is ready to play their best game of the season and will win a squeaker by a 32-31 score.
GO FALCONS!
Aaron
From: Aaron Thrush
Sent Wed 9/28/2005 1:24 AM
Subject: USAFA/CSU, Another Thursday Night Game on ESPN
Once again you have the choice of watching the Falcons at home on ESPN or coming out to Connie Kay's Flight Line Pub & Cafe at 538 N Eglin Parkway (across from Denny's) to watch with a group of grads. The game will start at 6:30 p.m. CDT. The food is good; the prices are reasonable for both food and beverages. See you there.
The Falcons find themselves as 4 point underdogs as they travel to Fort Collins to play the CSU Rams. CSU started their season losing away games to Colorado by 31-28 and to Minnesota by 56-24. Last Saturday they took out their frustration by mauling Nevada by 42-21 at Fort Collins. Against admittedly easier competition, the Rams had senior QB Justin Holland completing 15 of 27 passes for 223 yards and 3 TD's with no interceptions. The CSU main receiving corps of David Anderson, George Hill and Johnny Walker had 12 catches for 212 yards. Sophomore RB Kyle Bell piled up 183 yards on 33 carries in his first starting role of the season. Defensively, safety Ben Stratton is a standout. Expect the Rams to try to establish their running game in order to make Holland's passing talent all the more effective.
With the Falcons coming off two close losses to Wyoming and Utah (both of whom are better teams than Colorado State) it's time for some luck to favor the Air Force to a greater degree. It will be a close game, but the Falcons should eke out a 35-31 victory if they can avoid the inconsistencies that have plagued them the last two weeks. Carney will need to come closer to repeating his accuracy from the San Diego State game when he was 10 for 12 and will need to take advantage of the height advantage of WR's Jason Brown and Greg Kirkwood versus the CSU defensive backfield. Adam Fitch may well see more playing time given his driving the Falcons to 2 TD's in the last 6 minutes against Utah. The fullback tandem of Jacobe Kendrick and Ryan Williams will also need to rush for 100 yards or more to make a victory more likely.
GO FALCONS!
From: Frank Mayberry
Sent Fri 9/23/2005 5:32 PM
Subject: Charitable Unit Trust
To: Class of '60 lawyers,
I want to donate Real Estate to the AOG for the formation of a charitable remainder unit trust. I have been working with the AOG, but they have recommended that I have an attorney to draw up the trust agreement. I want a classmate to be that attorney. Please contact me at FrankMayberry@hotmail.com if you can help.
Frank
Wow! Great idea. Good thing it's 5 years away. We may take that to do it right.
I've "played" with the capabilities you've listed, so I can picture getting our arms around the technical aspects.
But you're right . . . success will be measured by classmate participation and contribution.
You get a gold star.
Ace
From: LES QUERRY [mailto:lesquerry@starpower.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 12:47 PM
To: cholman@atn.org
Subject: Re: Note for class website
Thanks Ace,
It's a whole new ball game!
Andi and Rosie had the idea of doing a 45th reunion CD and had sent me photos for it. I think that they wanted to send a CD because not every classmate tunes in on our website, the photo quality is so much better and the long download times are avoided. And the website's previous file space limitations only permitted rather poor picture quality. My approach would be to do both a CD and a 45th reunion photo site. If an improved photo site becomes successful, we can try albums of other submitted photographs; such as "cadet days", other reunions and "over the decades" (with some editing, of course).
My more long-term objective, though, is to do a 50th Anniversary DVD to be issued at the 50-year reunion. We have an opportunity to do something that I've never heard of being done before, namely producing a class "yearsbook" 50 years after graduation to cover the period after graduation. Its like a " '60 after 50 ". Doing something like this would have previously been a horrendous and costly effort using paper photographs and text with a book to publish and mail. Nobody would have attempted it. But the DVD and digital photography make it very "doable". A DVD can hold over 50000 good quality photographs and is playable on a computer or a TV. And the cash cost is very small. The success of a project like this would depend on the degree of classmate interest in supporting it. Would they be interested enough to contribute anything? The gathering and editing of the material would be the major effort.
This might seem like an overly ambitious undertaking but "gluing" it together would be a hell of a lot easier than doing a book.
Here are some ideas of what the DVD could contain:
1) personal photographs and movie clips from classmates during our cadet years
2) personal photographs, movies and videos from classmates during their service years including;
- photos of classmate pilots with their favorite "bird"
- footage of "kills" during aerial combat
- career milestone photos; promotions, retirements, meetings with presidents, etc.
3) a collection of photos and videos from all reunions and mini-reunions (skiing, luncheons, etc.)
4) videotaped statements from the class officers
5) videotaped statements from classmates
6) all of Rosie and Chris' Checkpoint articles
7) images of memorabilia
8) George Lester's classmate biographies
and so on.....
From: Les Querry
Date: Thu 9/22/2005 7:39 AM
Subject: Note for class website
Hi Ace,
Hope that things have settled down for you and are getting back to normal. I had sent the following note on 28 August and 8 Sept. with the hope of getting it on the class website. Would you add it at your earliest convenience? Les
_______________________________
Class of '60:
Andi and Rosie have sent me photos taken during the 45th reunion that I will put on a CD for issue to interested classmates (or other reunion attendees). We would also like to include photos taken by other attendees who think that they have photos that others might enjoy. Anyone having digital photos that they would like to contribute to the reunion CD can send them to me on a CD for inclusion in a composite CD. Its easy to make a CD of selected photos if you have a CD burner or at Costco or Wal-Mart, etc. Anyone having just a few photos that they know others would love to see can e-mail them to me in compressed form. (Preferred photo size greater than 1600x1200 pixels and file size less than 500KB.)
Les Querry
371 Seltenhorst Lane
Bluemont, VA 20135
540-554-2416 From: Aaron Thrush
Date: Wed 9/21/2005 1:53 AM
Subject: You can watch the Air Force/Utah game at home this week on ESPN's Thursday night game at 6:30 p.m. CDT. As a result, Angler's won't be an option since they've found that it doesn't pay them to keep the upstairs Sports Bar open on Thursday nights. If you would like to watch the game as a group, I'll see you at Connie Kay's Flight Line Pub & Cafe at 538 N Eglin Parkway (across from Bangkok Cleaners).
Be aware that the Falcons are currently 7 point underdogs for the game to be played in Salt Lake City. If they play as inconsistently as they did last Saturday while losing 29-28 to Wyoming at home, the Falcons will be lucky to escape Salt Lake City and not having lost by double digits. Shaun Carney passed for only 53 yards on a 4 of 12 completion day with one TD and 2 interceptions. He also carried the ball 20 times for a net 78 yards. The Falcons also had 3 fumbles although only one was a turnover. They had a 16 yard punt that resulted in a Wyoming FG, and they missed their final PAT with 3:27 to play due to a bad snap that the holder couldn't handle.
Utah had its 18 game winning streak ended last Thursday at TCU when the Horned Frogs defeated the Utes 23-20 in overtime. Brian Johnson is an 18-year-old sophomore QB who is the successor to #1 NFL draft pick, Alex Smith. Johnson showed flashes of brilliance against TCU last week, but he also made some costly mistakes. Quinton Ganther who rushed for 656 yards in 2004 is the starting tailback. Defensively, Utah has Steve Fifita at DT, Spencer Toone at LB and Eric Weddle at safety as leaders. Utah will score 25-30 points or more against the Falcons. The question becomes one of whether Air Force can outscore the Utes. Unfortunately, I don't believe that they can. Look for Utah to win by 35-24.
GO FALCONS!
Aaron
From: Ken Alnwick
kjalnwick@cox.netSubject: Third Annual Redneck Rivera Reunion Update
Date: Mon 7/18/2005 7:47 AM
Ace,
Sorry to report that Hurricane Dennis CNX'd my plans for travel to Fort Walton Beach and the third R3 (Redneck Rivera Reunion). Should have called or e-mailed the info, but we had to scramble to save our vacation--which we did in grand style in Hilton Head S.C. I even got to see the Harbor Town light house and golf course --although I played on another.
We survived the blow pretty well in FWB and hope to resched the R3 for next year. Killer (Wayne Kendall) will be back to SeaSpray in October and perhaps we can run a practice session then.
I hate to say it, but as much as I love you, I was really hoping that Dennis would stay its course and smack Mobile instead of us. Oh well, maybe next year.
More to follow.
Cheers,
Ken
From: Frank Gorham
Subject: Hurricane Dennis
Date: 7/11/2005
Good show mate. Take THAT Pensacola!!!
-------------------------------------
From: Charles Holman
To: 'Frank Gorham'
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 11:03 AM
Subject: RE: Hunker down!
Ppiftt! I spit in your eye, Dennis. You are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and in the end, fizzles out . . .
Ace
------------------------------------------
From: Frank Gorham [mailto:frankgorham@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2005 8:35 AM
To: cholman@atn.org
Subject: Re: Hunker down!
Excellent,
And as we were writing, Dennis was moving due North so maybe the prayer beads in your area are beginning to work better. That, and we are just getting our first electric power surges so somewhere in the net Gulf Power is already being hit.
Drop us a line when all is clear and power is back up!!
Cheers, Frank
------------------------------------------
From: Charles Holman
To: 'Frank Gorham'
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2005 8:27 AM
Subject: RE: Hunker down!
Thanks for thinking of us. We're hunkered down on high ground with kids and grandkids and pets.
Regards, Ace
-------------------------------------------
From: Frank Gorham [mailto:frankgorham@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2005 8:01 AM
To: Holman, Charles
Subject: Hunker down!
Charlie, Weese:
Well it seems your Mobile/Pensacola karma gods have once again won the hurricane lottery. You need to stop feeding that cat, maybe it will go away before the next storm.
Seriously - not looking good for your vicinity again. We hope you come thru as unscathed as last time.
Oh, the good news is that we are shipping several million tons of newly pumped sand from our beaches to yours. Take good care of it.
Cheers, Frank
From: Les Querry
Subject: Air Force - Navy game, 8 October 2005, Wash. D.C.
Date: Fri 7/1/2005 6:13 PM
The DC '60 group will try to expand upon the activities available to those planning to attend the Air Force - Navy game in Washington on 8 October 2005. In addition to the game and the usual Lalime-Mobile at the game, we will have our 2nd DC '60 "Falcon Roosting" the day after the game on Sunday, 9 October, at our mountain home, about 1 hour west of D.C. We also plan to have a "winedown" at our home after the game for interested and available persons. The Sunday gathering will be held early afternoon to permit late travel on Sunday.
This will provide additional activities for classmates who have come some distance for the game and an opportunity to meet many more classmates since not everyone goes to the game.
Other activities can expand back into Friday and forward into Monday for those interested, possibly for Udvar-Hazy Air and Space museum visits, golf matches, other museum visits, etc.. Gerry de la Cruz is a docent at the National Gallery of Art and has offered to give a guided tour to interested persons.
If you are planning on visiting the DC area during 8-9 October and wish to attend events other than the game, please let us know.
Notice: DC '60 is in no way trying to compete with CS '60 with their marvelous handling of events surrounding the Army and Navy games held at USAFA. They are Nulli-Secundus. We only want to make the visit here a little more eventful for classmates traveling to the local Navy game (and get to see them a little bit longer).
Les Querry '60
lesquerry@starpower.net