28 December 2004 04:05
definately up a little bit past my bedtime. but it's not my fault they didn't slate breakfast for until the ten o'clock hour...first of all, i'm cleaning house, and came across this from the third week in november...
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ahh, just cracked open a can of mug root beer. i paid dearly for it, but methinks it worth the price. that and a healthy serving of ben and jerry's coffee ice cream make up the entirety of my supper. sometimes one has to go with a sugar meal just to make sure you're getting the best of life ;).
i got home and dropped everything to take pictures of the city. there's a strong breeze tonight and the haze factor is down to zero. there's a massive frontal system hanging a couple hundred miles off the east coast stringing tstorms from newfoundland all the way down to the northern coast of south america. the winds were all backwards, turbulent, and strong, making flying my lines interesting, not to mention the approach. shifting from a ten degree left crab to a ten degree right is fairly major here, where despite all the cumulous things are fairly smooth. LA was consistently rougher than here. you'd get glass days, but far more airborne washboarding than here, i've only had one or two days here that i considered annoyingly turbulent. but then i cut my teeth in east texas, where you'd often get windshifts dropping below the treeline.
went to church at abrahms last week with the maranatha crew. i talked jesse into going too, and i think he even enjoyed it, although there was a large amount of physical discomfort involved. the drive over was great, early sunday morning is the time to be traveling here. made a 140km trip in 1:45, where it usually takes 2:30 with traffic. my timing was impeccable as usual, we got htere just in time to sit down to our second breakfast of the day (which was providential, since "lunch" didn't happen til after two).
then we piled into the rover, seven in number. not loaded at all by local standards of course, but sitting in the back was a bit awkward for those of us with lengthy legs. that and the close proximity of the ceiling kept things interesting. danny hit a few dips and bumps that brought on a flying sensation. he was close to perfecting the knack of bumping us airborn, then slowing down "for the bump"; in which case, we got up close in intimate with the back of the seat in front of us.
there were only two people at church when we got there, but things were better populated by the end. the ss teacher handed the ceremonies over to danny to be guest speaker. danny was expecting this from prior experience, but at the same time he was in the dark on the topic/passage of discussion just like the rest of us. it ended up being an exegesis of 1thess 4&5, rather well presented, lack of preparation or no. danny did an excellent job of including the audience, and he was helped by the erstwhile teacher, who would jump up face to face with danny (though separated by two benches, he managed to get pretty close) and happily shout questions to him.
his name was brother sonny if i recall right, and he was a six foot three stack of energy, going bald, but most likely from careening around at high speeds. there are two personality types here i've discovered. most (including 100% of the gov't workers) are extremely laid back and laconic. the remaining 10% are hardwired into hyper mode, never slowing down. my coworker chris is one of hte latter, he's forever trying to speed the security guards up as they open the gates slower than most automatic gates open by themselves. or he's making fun of the controllers for their wordy responses. i'll come up on frequence to report my position at the control boundary (like i'm legally required to do), giving my position, heading, altitude, etc. there'll be a lengthy pause as they put their tea down and reach for their mike, and instead of "fly five roger, no known traffic, report clear," (which is actually shorter than it could be) they'll come back with an extremely bored "roger".
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now back to our reguarly scheduled program...
on concrete roads, turbulence, and afternoon sunshine.
i was drowsing along a long sixty mile pass the other afternoon, westbound, with the sunshine pouring in. that's my pet cure for insomnia (not that i suffer from insomnia), sitting still in the warm afternoon sunshine. that's why i prefer to drive on long roadtrips at night, verses during the daytime, because i can actually stay awake better. but it occurred to me then how much i miss concrete roads. i think many people find the rythmic th-thmp, th-thmp, th-thmp annoying. i find it soothing.
unfortunately, concrete is losing ground to asphalt in most places. in the midwest it's better, because the concrete tolerates the cold/salt better. I44? headed from OKC to Wichita Falls was concrete, that was a lovely stretch.
then there's turbulence. I don't like it when there's turbulence on my dispersal flights. not because it makes me nauseous, but becuase it puts me to sleep. maybe it's the rocking chair effect, but light turbulence and afternoon sunshine combined are really hard on me. maybe if i didnt have to fly wings level in a straigh line :). it's just about boring enough to qualify on the same level as flying an airliner. i just had a three hour commercial flight yesterday. the thing took crazy forever, and i was even sitting in the back in a "comfortable" seat.
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