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Investigators in Maine are working to determine if a body found in a storage unit freezer is that of a woman who went missing 28 years ago after a fight with her boyfriend, police said. 

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The storage unit was rented to 80 year old Frank Julian who died earlier in October, and was believed to be the last person to see his girlfriend Kitty Wardwell alive in the summer of 1983, said Maine state police spokesman Stephen McCausland.

When Julian’s family members began cleaning out  his storage unit in Lewiston last Friday, they found the body and notified police. On Monday, the medical examiner’s office began work to identify it, McCausland said. Examiners plan to use DNA to try to identify if the body is that of Wardwell. Wardwell was reported missing by a friend in July of 1983.

According to a missing persons report on the state police’s website, Julian was reported as saying that he left Wardwell at a New Hampshire motel after the couple had an argument, and went home alone. Wardwell was 29 years old at the time.

Police did not expect autopsy results to be returned immediately.

Wardwell’s sister, who also filed a missing persons report for Kitty, has been notified, as has other family. 

McCausland said the case has remained open, as foul play had been suspected.

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• Kitty Wardwell Remains May Be Those Found In Freezer: Police (huffingtonpost.com)
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• Freezer body: Is it woman missing since ’83? (msnbc.msn.com)
• Body found in freezer might be missing Kitty Wardwell (100gf.wordpress.com)

Hair in a can, the Flowbee and ExtenZe.  How do they all fit together?  I’ll save you a bit of head scratching:  They’re products that offer incredible results, but generally fall flat on their faces in the delivery department… not that I’ve ever tried any of them.  Ever.  Ahem, moving right along.

As men with disposable income, we’re subjected to a near constant barrage of crap that will do anything from grow muscles, grow a “muscle” or cure us of some menial chore that only seems to be difficult for actors on infomercials.  Generally, it’s pretty easy to weed out the chaff and move on with our day.  However, what happens when you come across something that is cause for a bit more attention?  Something like one of the candies from a company called Snap Infusion?

Let’s say you were out one night until an irresponsible hour (I know, such a thing would never happen), and let’s say that during your nocturnal sojourn you imbibed more than your fair share of scotch.  The following morning when you wake up to go help rebuild the orphanage and rescue kittens from trees you may be suffering from a hangover.  Standard cure?  Pop two aspirin, pound back some coffee, take a shower and get yourself some bacon and eggs.  Maybe a hash-brown if you’re feeling frisky.  Some prefer a certain sport beverage hocked by their athletic idols, but really… you’re a grown man of refined taste, surely you can do better.  Which is when you reach for the jelly beans you keep on the nightstand.

Snap Infusion is selling itself as a bit of a candy-miracle-cure-all.  Here are a few quotes from the product’s website, and no, I’m not making these up:

“You could climb an entire mountain while chewing our Gum and have enough energy left to blow a celebratory bubble at the summit.”

“…its true calling is to help you run, jump, play, shoot and shred with an advanced degree of awesome.”

Personally, I’ve only got a B.A. in Awesome and could use the more advanced degree.  Are these the words of a modern day snake-oil saleman?  Each of Snap Infusion’s candies use “super science to squeeze massive flavor into a small space”.  I have no idea what that means.  That said, here’s some of what they boast:  all-natural ingredients, no HFCS, B-vitamins, electrolytes and antioxidants.  I dig it and maybe this isn’t just a passing fad.  Instead of popping an actual handful of jelly beans or gnawing our way through some caramel we can have a “candy” that gives a little back.

I don’t think that chewing on a piece of gum is going to cure a hangover, but neither will the shower, the bacon and eggs (regardless of quantity) or massive cup of coffee.  Time cures hangover.  What Snap Infusion is offering is a little bit of a boost to help you along the way.  Certainly something to consider before your next night out.

First there was this gun …

It was developed by General Electric, the “We bring good things to life” people.  It’s one of the modern-day Gatling guns. It shoots very big bullets. It shoots them very quickly.

Someone said, “Let’s put it in an airplane.”

Someone else said, “Better still, let’s build an airplane around it.”

So they did. And “they” were the Fairchild-Republic airplane people.

And they had done such a good job with an airplane they developed back in WWII …
 
…called the P-47 Thunderbolt, they decided to call it the A10 Thunderbolt.
They made it so it was very good at flying low and slow and shooting things with that fabulous gun.

But since it did fly low and slow, they made it bulletproof, or almost so. A lot of bad guys have found you can shoot an A10 with anything from a pistol to a 23mm Soviet cannon and it just keeps on flying and shooting.

When they got through, it looked like this …

It’s not sleek and sexy like an F18 or the stealthy Raptors and such, but I think it’s such a great airplane because it does what it does better than any other plane in the world.

It kills tanks.

Not only tanks, as Saddam Hussein‘s boys found out to their horror, but armored personnel carriers, radar stations, locomotives, bunkers, fuel depots … Just about anything the bad guys thought was bulletproof turned out to be easy pickings for this beast.

See those engines. One of them alone will fly this puppy. The pilot sits in a very thick titanium alloy “bathtub.”

That’s typical of the design.

They were smart enough to make every part the same whether mounted on the left side or right side of the plane, like landing gear, for instance.

Because the engines are mounted so high (away from ground debris) and the landing gear uses such low pressure tires, it can operate from a damaged airport, interstate highway, plowed field, or dirt road.

Everything is redundant. They have two of almost everything. Sometimes they have three of something. Like flight controls. There’s triple redundancy of those,  and even if there is a total failure of the double hydraulic system, there is a set of manual flying controls.

Capt. Kim Campbell sustained this damage over Baghdad and flew for another hour before returning to base. But, back to that gun …

It’s so hard to grasp just how powerful it is.

This is the closest I could find to showing you just what this cartridge is all about. What the guy is holding is NOT the 30mm round, but a “little” .50 Browing machine-gun round and the 20mm cannon round which has been around for a long time.

The 30mm is MUCH bigger.

Down at the bottom are the .50 BMG and 20×102 Vulcan the fellow was holding. At the bottom right is the bad boy we’re discussing.

Let’s get some perspective here: The .223 Rem (M16 rifle round) is fast. It shoots a 55 or so grain bullet at about 3300 feet/sec, give or take. It’s the fastest of all those rounds shown (except one). When you move up to the ..30 caliber rounds, the bullets jump up in weight to 160-200 grains. Speeds run from about 2600 to 3000 FPS or so.

The .338 Lapua is the king of the sniper rifles these days and shoots a 350 grain bullet at 2800 FPS or so. They kill bad guys at over a mile with that one.

The .50 BMG is really big. Mike Beasley has one on his desk. Everyone who picks it up thinks it’s some sort of fake, unless they know big ammo. It’s really huge with a bullet that weighs 750 grains and goes as fast the Lapua.

I don’t have data on the Vulcan, but hang on to your hat.

The bullet for the 30×173 Avenger has an aluminum jacket around a spent uranium core and weighs 6560 grains (yes, over 100 times as heavy as the M16 bullet, and flies through the air at 3500 FPS (which is faster than the M16 as well).

The gun shoots at a rate of 4200 rounds per minute. Yes, four thousand. Pilots typically shoot either one- or two-second burst which set loose 70 to 150 rounds. The system is optimized for shooting at 4,000 feet.

OK, the best for last.

You’ve got a pretty good idea of how big that cartridge is, but I’ll bet you’re like me and you don’t fully appreciate how big the GA GAU-8 Avenger really is.

Take a look …

Each of those seven barrels is 112″ long. That’s almost ten feet. The entire gun is 19-1/2 feet long.

Think how impressive it would look set up in your living room.

Oh, by the way, it doesn’t eject the empty shells but runs them back into the storage drum. There’s just so dang many flying out, they felt it might damage the aircraft.
 
Oh yeah, I forgot, they can hang those bomb and rocket things on ‘em too, just in case.  After all, it is an “airplane”!

Like I said, this is a beautiful design.

 
I’m glad it’s ours!

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Are you working hard? Does this picture relate with you? I hope not.