Wow, did I miss something?

In the news today:

Financial crisis

I just loved this little excerpt:

Republican John McCain said Wednesday that he wants to postpone Friday's debate to deal with the nation's financial problems, but Democrat Barack Obama said "it's more important than ever" that the country hear from its next
president.

(Emphasis mine)

It's important that he calls dibs on the oval office, doncha think?

He goes on to cry that he started it.

Obama repeatedly stressed at his news conference that he called McCain first to propose that they issue a joint statement in support of a package to help fix the economy as soon as possible. He said McCain called back several hours later, as Obama was leaving a rally in Florida, and agreed to the idea of a statement but also said he wanted to postpone the debate and hold joint meetings in Washington.

(Again Emphasis Mine)

Honestly, if you boys don't settle down back there, I'm going to pull this country over. Don't think I won't do it.

For all you IDPA'ers out there

And by IDPA, I mean International Defensive Pirate Association. I give you the AAarrrgghhh15 lower.

Click to Embiggen..

It's really just an excuse...

Sorry for the silence over the weekend. Friday around noon-ish, my phone rang for a pop up trip. The conversation went something like:

Me: hello?
Dispatch: I've got a pop up trip to Wichita ASAP.
Me: Okay.... When do we get back by the way?
D: 4 a.m.

So, off I toddle. I grabbed the first bag I saw on my way out the door, which fortunately was my "long trip" bag. You'll understand why that was fortunate in a sec.

After I fight my way through lunch traffic to the airport and get the airplane staged for fueling, I finally struck me as strange that we were spending so much time in Wichita. This is when the trip started getting weird. The response I got was something along the lines of "didn't I mention it, you're picking up in Wichita and going on the Phoenix. Then back to Wichita and part 91 it home. (By the way, "part 91" is pilot speak for we're exceeding your duty day, but we get to use this excuse to make you do it.) Oh, and by the way, you're still on the trip Saturday, but because you're mandatory 10 hour rest period is getting in the way, just do a late show then and try to get everything ready in 15 minutes instead of 1.5 hours. Kthxby.

At this point, I run a mental check of what's in the suitcase. I've got my shaving kit. I'm relatively okay still.

But it goes on and gets better.

When we get to Wichita, dispatch calls and says the customer has changed his mind and wants to overnight in Phoenix and hop over to Las Vegas with a return on Sunday. At this point I realize I don't have an extra uniform in my bag, it got used on the last pop-up-out-and-back 3 day trip. Okay, that's why febreze is a pilots best friend.

When the customer finally showed up, an hour and a bit late, he had another change. Instead of just hopping from Phoenix to Las Vegas, he has to fly back to Wichita and then back west to Las Vegas the next day.

I'm so glad I got up early that day...

Anyway, Friday ended around 4 a.m. and then with just the legal minimum rest we flew out to Vegas for a quick meeting and a 12 hour sit then flew back to Wichita and home.

3 days on a out and back. Not bad. My record is still 10 days on a half hour hop. That trip was... a trip.

But, anyhoo, that's my excuse for not posting all weekend. You see I don't normally grab my laptop on a quick out and back. It's just too much hassle. I may change that though.

What really gets to me is I missed International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Is it too late for an Aaarrrrgggghhhh?

Breda's post

I just read Breda's I'm fed up post. I watched the vid and all I could think was, "way to avoid answering a question". It's not even a hard question. It's wasn't a policy question. It was a "make my feelings feel good" question. And I guess even that's too hard for a lib.

Can they only handle questions about their own feelings? Are they that disconnected with reality that they've created a universe of one?

He spouts off a basically canned response and the applause light goes on and like the good little drones they all stand up and cheer. It doesn't matter that he's confusing patriotism with communism. He's asking us to cast off the entire ideology that this country was founded on and embrace the Marxist/Socialist ideology that hasn't worked for the last 150 years.

By the way, the definition of insanity in this case is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

Burnin...

I didn't realize how much of a project it would turn into. But I finally got my CD's imported into my new piece of crap computer.

Yeah me.

I'm just sayin....

So, when they designed the Lear jets they figured the best way to do pressurization was to pump the air in the back and place the outflow valves below the feet of the pilots. So, when, say, someone, oh, I don't know, farts maybe, in the back seats, for instance, the flow will 100% of the time waft past the crew on it's way out.

Ah, the glamorous life of a pilot...

I'm just sayin....

Thoughts at 40,000 ft.

Yesterday I found myself sitting in the back of a Lear. Something I've never done before. It was at once an odd and serene feeling. It was a long flight back across most of the country flying between the remains of Ike to the south and a massive system stretching from New York to Colorado to the north. It was an unusually calm flight, neither turbulence nor traffic to intrude on our little universe in the sky. And in the tradition of countless men through the ages, I turned to bad prose to express my thought.

To dance and play among the thermals and winds near the earth is to know a joy only other fliers can grasp. The seeming effortless gliding at 40,000 ft., with no sense of speed and very little sense of time brings one to the alter of thought. With the feeling of unlimited possibilities of the mind and the one pure thought just tantalizingly beyond ones grasp. Crying for just one more fleeting instant to finally place it on your tongue. To be spoken maybe with the air of an afterthought to the ether around you.

Looking out at the cities below, creating odd shaped galaxies of light among the scattered isolated stars of farms and rural towns. I find myself gazing inward. A sense of stillness filling me like one sometimes finds laying on a grassy hilltop pondering the points of light set up in the heavens.

Below the ponds and lakes creating darkness's in the city/galaxies like motes in the eye of God.

Looking down or looking up, it doesn't matter. Both will find the minds eye turned inward. A quiet contemplation urging me to examine a life never fully understood.

I'm back

Right, back. Sort of. Still setting up this bloody computer and Outlook isn't cooperating. I'm considering waterboarding it.

I expect to be back posting Friday sometime. I hope

and the fun continues...motherboard is fried