Vice President Pence Visits the Schiffkraftwerk!

Oh wow!

I know, I haven't written in a month.  Over a month.  I've been so busy, and so tired, and I've been trying orchestrate a coup within the Peninsula Engineers Council (it failed, but by God did we get close.  So close we could almost taste it).

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But also is the news that Vice President Pence will be visiting the Shipyard this weekend to be keynote speaker at the INDIANA (SSN 789) Christening.  This is a big deal...normally the most high powered person to attend a submarine christening is the Chief of Naval Operations or his deputies, the head of Naval Reactors, and maybe a few Senators.  Powerful people, yes indeed.  But not nearly as powerful as the Vice President of the United States.
Wait.  Strike that.  Reverse it.  No one potentially as powerful as the Vice President of the United States.  I would argue that a high ranking Senator would beat out a Vice President, as a rook on a chess board is worth more than a bishop.  But then Vice President Pence, like a stretched spring or a boulder hovering above Wiley E. Coyote's head, is full of potential, just one too many buckets of KFC away from the most powerful position in the land, if not the world.

Of course, Vice President looked pretty powerful when he was in the DMZ last week, staring down North Korean guards in his totally sweet bomber jacket.  And, as Pence cannot actually land on the deck of a Submarine (at least this one, as it is currently inside the yard's building outfitting facility) much of speculation around this visit concerns that bomber jacket....i.e. will he wear it?

I know I'd be dissuaded from launching an ICMB with a look like that.

Probably not.  Typically at a Christening Cermemony if you are going to speak or be up on the VIP stage you really wear your best.  Not black or white tie, of course (who does that anymore), but The Navy Personnel on hand will be in their dress uniforms in full regalia, men wear their suits and ties and women wear dresses or....pantsuits.  Are we really still going with pantsuits?  We haven't come up with anything better?  Or at we at the point in our society where a suit is just a suit?

Anyway.  A bomber jacket would be a little out of place.  The toughness aspect of the thing would be welcome, but it really isn't in line with convention.  Pence is a pretty conventional guy, and I'd expect him to follow the rules.

But then this is an administration that doesn't really care much about the rules.  When Trump visited the USS Gerald R. Ford he didn't take his hat off inside the Carrier as he toured the mess decks, which is typically done.  He was in a place where hats, generally, are not worn; but there he was with a big old USA hat...in red no less.  Generally the Damage Control Department wears red hats so that you know...well, you know that something is going down if one of those guys goes running by.  So not only was he wearing a hat in a place he shouldn't have been wearing one, but he was wearing a color that generally should not be worn onboard ship unless you have a particular reason for doing so.

And then of course just last week wunderkinder Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, and Kid Rock toured the white house.  Pictures surfaced of The Nuge and The Kid in the white house, leering in front of a portrait of Hilary Clinton along with The Chick, with their hats on.  They were not ball caps, sure, but they were still hats.  And then another picture, of the trio inside the oval office with Trump, and those two paragons of patriotism still have their hats on!!  

 Now listen.  Wearing a hat indoors is bad enough.  I was always taught that inside of a building, any building, if you are wearing a hat you take it off.  Pure and simple.  I have lost a lot of hats this way, incidentally, as in college a few times I took off a ball cap, put it under my desk, and then forgot to put it back on my head again when I left.  Truly.  It wasn't screwed on, so I forgot it.  I'd realize maybe an hour later that I didn't have it, and when I returned to the scene of the crime it was usually gone.

But that is the price one pays for decency.  I know a lot of people don't follow that rule anymore, just as most people don't follow any rule anymore unless they feel like it...but I would think, the White House, where the likes of Lincoln and Roosevelt have sat and made monumental decisions that affected our country, one would at least have enough respect to remove one's hat, hat hair be damned.

All that is to say, simply, that if the basic rules of hat etiquette are out the window, than anything is possible viz a viz Mike Pence and the bomber jacket.  Of course, one problem is that in April it can get rather hot in Hampton Roads, and I wonder what these guys are going to do when it gets warm and they still want to look tough?  I mean, you may be as tough as balls, but if it's 90 degrees and 80% humidity, you probably aren't going to wear a bomber jacket.  If I have a guess, they'll go with a Motorcycle Gang style cut, leaving the arms bare and cool but still telling all your enemies that you mean business.  Plus, there is the added bonus of having plenty of room for patches.  The overall effect:  Don't fuck with these guys, or we'll pop some cruise missiles in your keister.

As the current forecast high is 85 degrees in Hampton Roads on Saturday, I'll put a box of donuts on Mike Pence showing up in this bad-ass Commander in Chief cut.