The weekend is starting a bit early this week, at least around these parts. Somebody needs to tell the weather that though, it's rainy and dreary enough outside for it to pass as a Monday. I know 
I have a hard time getting excited about weekends, I spent too much time working in the service industry. I'd always end up working the weekends and being off on Mondays & Tuesdays, which is not quite the same. Ever try to recruit people for a little hellraising on a Monday afternoon? Not too many takers. . .
Friday means it's #fridayfreewrite time! This train of thought is about to go off the rails!
I've already managed to stumble down a couple Wikipedia rabbit holes but that ended up being rather interesting. Somehow I ended up reading about submarines that were lost during the Cold War and two were particularly interesting, the USS Scorpion and the Soviet K-129. They were two of the four subs that disappeared in 1968 and even if you're not of the suspicious, paranoid mindset the secrecy and goings on related to the two is enough to make one wonder.
Somehow I segued from that to reading about Soviet/Russian active protection systems for tanks. These are systems that act to intercept/destroy incoming anti-tank rockets and missiles and for the most part make for rather dry reading. There was one sentence about the initial Drozd (Дрозд) system that made me have to back up and read it again.
Although reported to offer an 80% increase in survival rate during its testing in Afghanistan, the radar was unable to adequately detect threats and the firing of its rockets caused unacceptably high levels of collateral damage.
To translate from military newspeak, the system injured/killed/damaged too many friendlies to be worth saving the tank 🙄. With friends like that, who needs enemies?
Aside from the train photo, all the photos in this post are from Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake in Utah. I'm still not sure how the island got its name, I saw plenty of bison there and nary an antelope...
Speaking of bison, they've got to be the noisiest chewers ever, this one woke me up having breakfast at the foot of my sleeping bag. I didn't have any issues with them but a couple years after my visit I came across this BBC article about a couple people who did. Still not sure if that amounts to bad luck or bad choices...
That's probably enough rambling out of me for one day, y'all enjoy your weekending! If you're looking for a little music to help enjoy it check out TK & The Holy Know-Nothings new album The Incredible Heat Machine which just dropped today!
