Weekend Musings

Hello from a cloudy and surprisingly rainy Dallas. After 38 straight days of sunshine, we actually got a pretty nice storm last night (notice, once again the rain came at night.)  Booming thunder... driving rain... and all at 3:30 in the morning. Absolutely perfect... still nothing like waking up to the sounds of a storm. I slept content the rest of the night.

Not much on the agenda for this weekend. Today's the day we try out the new weekend editor. He should do well... great writer. That also means I mostly have the weekend off, although I'll still be on Sunday. Due to the new guy's schedule -- he can't work Sundays -- we're going to try something new, that should benefit everyone: My sked will be Sunday-Thursday, same as Pete's, which means he and I can hash out the podcast script together (I crib a lot of site content from this script). This also means the 20+ stories I do per day will post sooner on the site... with about 15 for the next day, and room for 5 or so in Real-Time. My mornings will then be more open... with the majority of my workload in the afternoon. I can live with that.

More importantly... I will now have two REAL days off... albeit Friday and Saturday (which has its advantages... Friday evenings are now free of job obligations). So, a victory.

Spent the morning paying bills. As always, it feels good to write PAID on bills and stuff them in the Tax drawer... I guess that comes from the post-Fresno days when I stuffed bills into a drawer WITHOUT paying them. I also celebrated the complete payoff of one of the January medical bills by buying a Dell DJ Ditty MP3 player... I figure it will come in handy on the upcoming airline flights next month -- SEA for Arlington July 5-9, and OSH July 24-30. (At least these flights aren't on Northwest...) I'm listening to Billy Joel's "12 Gardens" concert album as I write this.

Next up on the agenda... didn't I say three paragraphs ago there WASN'T an agenda this weekend? -- is housecleaning. With the warm, dry (for Texas) weather has come the closest thing to a bug infestation I've ever seen here. I killed my first cockroach this week -- a Texas-sized one, ugh -- the first one I'd ever seen here in almost two years. As this apartment is by no means a dump, I chalk it up as a (hopefully) rare, weather-related event. Lots of what look like potato bugs have found their crawly ways inside, too.

Tomorrow morning brings another filming mission with Monk, this one in Fort Worth. We haven't filmed in two weeks... and hopefully, we'll get it off without being rained out. Now that I think about it, we've shot a lot of footage under cloudy skies... which looks pretty good, as far as cinematography, but I'm hoping we can get some more "sunny" footage in, too, before the project is done. We're talking about heading to Austin to film, when Monk's wife goes down there for her massage therapy exam in September... that'll probably be the wrap to the project.

Let's see, what else... still fiddling with the digital camera, as you can see by the pics of the model plane I shot this morning. I'll probably head to Addison this afternoon (if I'm feeling adventurous, I may bike there) to try and catch the B-17G "Liberty Belle" that flew into Cavanaugh this week. It's been VERY cool, hearing and seeing a B-17 fly over the apartment... and while I'll see several of them next month at Oshkosh, it's especially cool having one so close, outside the airshow environment.

Not much else to write about... unless you want to hear about taking the GA to get its oil changed this week. So I'll wrap up for now.

East By Northwest

Phew. Nothin' like being on four airline flights in less than 48 hours to get your hackles -- and, evidently, your blood pressure -- up.

This weekend was an enlightening one. The ANN senior staff -- read, pretty much ALL ANN staff -- got together in Charlotte, NC for a powwow before Oshkosh. We have A LOT of neat stuff planned for the air show (which will also mark one year since I cast my lot with this crazy band of yokels... and I say that with affection) including expanded Aero-cast (podcast) segments. We've also tripled the number of staffers for this year... which means I will be doing less "on the field" duties, and more "in the office" editing and posting. I understand why the decision was made... but it will also suck that I'll mostly be in the office.

The good news is, my individual workload will be more clearly defined... and we've also built in time off for everyone to just go out and enjoy the show. THAT is a good thing... it will give me a chance to enjoy the Biggest Airshow On Earth, without necessarily Having To Write About It. (Although I probably still will.)

While the meetings went well -- and, from what I could see, Charlotte seems to be a nice town, with A LOT of trees -- the trip out there and back, well, sucked wind. I don't inherently dislike airline travel... but after writing about the travails of several major carriers these past several months, including bankrupt carriers like Delta and Northwest, I admit (here) some prejudice against operations that, in all honesty, have already proven to be incompetently managed and ill-suited to the needs of travelers. Which means I carry a chip on my shoulder in regards to both of those carriers... especially Northwest.


If only there had been enough room for said chip on the flights out to Charlotte Friday night... but there was little room for ANYTHING on the CRJ-200s Northwest sees fit to employ on those routes. These aircraft, to be blunt, are total shitcans: 50 passenger max, in a 2+2 seating configuration that gives passengers NO elbow room, and little legroom.

Oh, and to drive home the point that these 30-year-old Canadian planes are NOT designed with ergonomic considerations in mind, there's a large heating duct that runs along the lower cabin walls on both sides. Which means if you're stuck at a window seat, you have to bend your outer leg inward in order to rest that foot on the floor. Which means you can spend an entire flight sitting crosslegged, with little room to adjust.

I'd blame this on the fact the CRJs are regional jets... were it not for the fact that Brazil's Embraer sells RJs, too, that offer the same pax-carrying capabilities and equal (or better) efficiency for carriers -- while also offering something approaching comfort. Wisely, Embraer decided to forgo cabin width for length, which means a 1+2 seating configuration that offers just enough extra room to make the flights livable. Case in point, I flew an American Eagle E-145 last year, nonstop, to Milwaukee for Oshkosh. Three-and-a-half hours, on the right window seat (which meant I had someone sitting right next to me) with nary a cramp at the end of the flight. In comparison, by the time I landed in Memphis after 55 minutes Friday, my right leg wasn't speaking to me... and I STILL had one more miserable CRJ flight to go.

Things were slightly better for the flight out of Charlotte -- I was on one of Northwest's ancient DC-9s. Northwest operates the largest fleet of these Forest Lawn-aged airplanes around -- 148 of them, at last count, the newest of which was built while Reagan was still president and coherent. Age is not necessarily a bad thing with airframes, so long as they are maintained (the window I was seated next too had "6/2005" etched on it, so the plane had been in for heavy-line maintenance fairly recently)... but efficiency is, and these ancient "Mad Dogs" (named for McDonnell-Douglas, the company formed after McDonnell bought out Douglas Aircraft, original maker of the DC-9, in the early 80s) use equally ancient, loud, smoky, fuel-guzzling engines. Northwest can barely afford to fuel its own planes... but it can't afford to buy newer planes, either (the DC-10 trijets the carrier still flies transatlantic are even older than the DC-9s)

On the positive side, the DC-9 was A LOT more comfortable than the CRJs, and the flight to Detroit was something approaching enjoyable. Yes, I said Detroit -- a flight from Charlotte, NC to Dallas, TX was routed through Detroit-Wayne County Metro, in Michigan. It's Northwest's largest hub (Memphis is another, much smaller one) and, due to the realities of the hub-and-spoke routing system employed by most domestic airlines, meant I travelled nearly 1,300  miles for a trip that, point-to-point, is just over 800 miles.

Fortunately, I didn't have to actually SEE Detroit -- instead, we came in over Lake Erie, which was really cool and very pretty in the late afternoon light (woe is me that I left my camera in my bag, stuffed in an overhead bin five rows ahead of me). And, surprisingly, from what I saw of DTW, it's a very nice airport. Very clean, modern... very unlike it's host city.

Notice I haven't really said anything to justify my dislike for Northwest so far, however. OK, let me interject here what I saw on my four flights on this beleaguered carrier: baggage handlers throwing bags -- literally -- onto the ground while unloading another RJ in MEM; flight attendants, still haggling with NWA over their new, payroll-gouging contract with the bankrupt carrier, that acted like they worked for a bankrupt airline, and gave no smiles and little assistance to speak of on all four flights; and three out of four planes weren't just unkempt -- they were truly filthy, inside and out.

(A passenger seated behind me on the DFW-MEM run -- in the CRJ -- summed it up perfectly: "Welcome to Yokum Air." To which, snarkely, I added "We're bankrupt, and we show it. And if you'll look off to your left, you'll see a beautiful Continental 737 that you could have chosen to fly instead. Thank you for flying Northwest Airlines.. but may we ask why?")

The exception to most of those issues -- except for the grumbling FAs -- was the last leg of the flight, back home to DFW, in a fairly new and clean Airbus A319. Before that flight, I'd never been on an Airbus plane -- just Boeings, and various McDonnell-Douglas planes -- but I'd heard Airbus planes, as a rule, offers slightly wider cabins than their American counterparts (Airbus is a consortium between France's EADS and Britain's BAE Systems.)

They do. Whereas my shoulder rubs the wall when seated at the window of a 737 -- be it for Southwest, American, United, or AirTran -- I actually had about an inch of space between the seat and the wall on the A319. That made the plane feel positively cushy, although legroom was pretty tight. The trip home was by far the best flight of all of them. It was also the most scenic -- I got to see several other airliners sharing the skies with us (including an AirTran 737 that passed above us at 39,000 feet -- an RVSM-approved 1,000 feet higher than us. We even got bumped slightly by its wake turbulence.)

It wasn't all brickbats for Northwest, though -- they did manage to do a few things right, too. Three out of four flights were right on time, or early (the Airbus was delayed by 30 minutes for a maintenance issue) and Northwest has hit on a good thing by offering a snack box for $3. While I still feel you should at least get a bag of peanuts or pretzels when riding on a commercial flight, I will say that for $3, you do get a full meal... albeit one of snack food. Still, all the five food groups are covered -- raisins, meat, cheese, crackers, and... um.. Oreos. Yeah, those are the five.

Other news... Monday's appointment went OK, all is well.. except my blood pressure shot up since my last visit. Not sure why... weight is probably the reason, or added stress. Hmm... can I blame Northwest for that? 

Surrounded

Things have been pretty good for me lately. After some trying times last month, the ANN situation (more accurately, the ANN boss) has settled down, and things have returned to normal. I've been doing some pretty good writing lately, too, if I say so myself... on the site, and in the book ("That Which Will Never Be Finished" is now the working title, instead of "The Sum Of All Things") -- pretty much everywhere but here. I'm feeling pretty good, too -- I'm getting out on the bike more, nearly every morning (nothing quite like riding around just before the sun comes up, when the streets are fairly quiet) and the scale says I'm doing OK -- not great, but making progress. Good deal.

In fact, things are about as routine around here as they can be... so of course, last Thursday fate decided to throw me something of a curveball. I mean... you don't really expect to turn the page in the morning paper and see the smiling face of your first girlfriend, ya know? But there she was -- I'm pretty sure -- staring back at me from a Dillards ad.

Once the initial shock wore off -- more of a dumbfounded "is that who I think it is?" reaction -- it wasn't very surprising. She had been in a state beauty pageant back in 2000, after all, and had talked about modelling back in the days I knew her... which, my God, was 12 years ago.

"I was there when you shone as bright as Bethlehem from afar...

and I was there when you were young and strong and perverted

And everything that makes a young man a star... and you were a star"---Chantal Kreviazuk

You know how guys are about their first girlfriends (by now, my family and close friends are likely saying the same thing... "God, here he goes again.) Guys never forget them... Lord knows, I haven't. In fact, it is safe to say I've thought about her, at least in passing, almost every day since we broke up 12 years ago.  I view that as a sign of respect... which I really didn't have for her during the time we dated.

I thought of her as I was leaving Fresno -- and another relationship -- in 1998. I thought of her briefly as I turned base-to-final for the second time during my first solo flight in Belen. And for some reason, my mind flashed to her first... and received some comfort from the thought... when the radiologist told me back in January I had TC. That was probably because she once talked of becoming an oncologist, as a friend and classmate of hers had died from leukemia.

That's only one of the things I still remember about her. Her birthday is December 2nd. She has two brothers -- one adopted, who I once took to a car show in Albuquerque -- and a mother she didn't see very often and, frankly, didn't like very much. Her mom had divorced her dad, who had been in the Navy, a few years before I met her. She knew sign language... and loved unicorns. Her middle name is Elizabeth... the only middle name I still remember of any woman I've ever dated.

She was such a sweet, caring, unassuming person... and the only person, man or woman, I've ever known who not once displayed any hint of a hidden agenda. She wanted to be cared for, and loved, and that was pretty much it. She was also beautiful, to boot... the perfect first girlfriend.

And I dumped her... and I did so cruelly, calling her and her family names to boot. I was an arrogant asshole -- likely why I tend to have a short fuse with others like that today -- who thought since he'd managed to score a home run at his first time at the plate, surely he could do better in the future.

Admittedly, that's the "kicking myself" version of that tale -- it would be more realistic to point out that most people NEVER stay with their first loves, as by definition they aren't the lasting ones. And it is cliche that most people have a better appreciation for their first loves looking back, than they did at the time... once they have some life-experience under their belts.

Standing here today, in the emotional aftermaths of the relationships that came after... that's an understatement.

I was there... c'mon, tell me I wasn't worth sticking it out for

I was there, and I know I was worth it

'cause if I wasn't worth it that makes me worse off than you are

After the end in 1994, I saw her intermittently over the next several years. She came into the restaurant I later worked at -- owned by a mutual friend -- with a friend of hers from work. She later came in with her new boyfriend. I suffered through it... although by that time I had also dated other girls.

The last time I saw her was in March 2002. I was working at DMC -- just promoted to Shift Manager -- and had to do a new once-a-week pickup at a bank I hadn't been able to put on a regular route yet. So, I did it, not thinking anything of it other than I've been working nonstop for the past 12 hours, and I really want to go home, take a much-needed shower, and crash.

So, of course, when I walked into the bank, my eyes went immediately to an office that had her name on the door. Nah, couldn't be... I thought.... but just to be safe I turned away, pretending to be interested in a home-equity brochure...

"Rob?"

She was wearing a white dress, black belt, looking for all the world like a professional career woman... which made me very aware of my courier-service attire, and my current lot in life. We traded awkward small talk for a few minutes, and I remember next to nothing about our brief conversation... except, wow, she was still with the guy she'd brought into the restaurant eight years before.

Not married, though.

I left the bank feeling... embarrassed, for many reasons.

Things, of course, are better for me today... like, A LOT better. Even the recent brush with cancer can't change that. I'm living a pretty nice life... albeit single... but I'm blessed with a lot. The bills are paid, the car runs (never a certainty with GM) and the roof over my head doesn't leak. I'm now living my life with purpose and direction, something I didn't have on that Friday afternoon in March 2002. That would start five months later, when I flew to Farmington on N591DM.

I can't help but wish she could see me now, though... ya know? I'd love to have that conversation with her -- "So, what's happened with you in the past dozen years?"

But that would rile things up, things that are best left in the past, I'm sure. Fairly sure... reasonably sure.

And now it's all around me, all around me... I'm surrounded

And now it's all around me, all around me

You surround me like a circle.

Forced Perspective

This weekend was a good one. It got started Friday night at the Crow, where I caught up with some former coworkers on the goings-on in their lives and job. Good dinner, good company... and a chance to rag on Ego Boy, which is always good for some laughs.

Saturday, I drove out to Fort Worth NAS for the Thunder Over Texas airshow. I went there last year, too, and saw the Blue Angels perform for the first time since I was a kid. This time around, though, after about an hour of walking around, looking at some aircraft (including a C5 Galaxy, photo left) and watching a jet-powered glider swoop within inches of the runway, I decided I'd had enough, so I headed back home.

Part of that was due to the fact I'd already seen the Blue Angels last year (as well as the Aeroshell Aerobatics team at Oshkosh and Sun 'N Fun... something about seeing T-6 Texans performing some of the same maneuvers as the Angels is more awe-inspiring) -- but most of it came after I'd spent a half-hour getting into the show (after the hour-long drive to Ft. Worth) and the memory of being stuck in traffic for 3 1/2 hours trying to get home last year.

The airshow wasn't worth the hassle. I begged off after about an hour and a half, got home, did some writing and then went to ADS to watch the kind of planes I'm more familiar with. I got some good shots, too... including the one below, of a Bellanca Decathlon that seems to fly every time I go to watch planes at Addison.

Sunday, I did some more filming with Monk, out in Mesquite. Brought the bike, too, so I could keep up with him through some of the filming venues. Those weekend bike rides are becoming a nice diversion... one that I have to keep up on weekends we don't film, as well as during the week.


On that subject, Monday's monthly checkup went well. Last week's CT scan checks out, and the bloodwork should be fine, too. Dr. B spent some time chastising me about my weight, which was a concern of mine since last year... but has really shot up with the combination of forced bed rest earlier this year and a relatively sedentary lifestyle since. See above, getting out on the bike... that will help a lot. As everything else is progressing well, he says now is the time to work on that, too. Okay, doc.

What happened next was kind of cool. Dr. B asked me about my job... which turned into a 10-minute chat about airplanes, which was neat. This was a new side of my oncologist -- who's previously been very thorough, very clinical, but not very chatty in the past. I appreciated his effort to become more personable. I think he could see my nerves -- though improved significantly since my last appointment, I think -- were calmed further by talking about something I was familiar with. We also both agreed that today's Delta, well, sucks.

One last thing about my appointment: while my weight has gone up four pounds since last visit, my blood pressure has returned to near-normal for the first time since it was measured last December: 122 over 80. It was as high as 133/90 in February, right after my surgery... which gives me some sign that changes I've made to my diet have helped, at least. Now, more exercise.

And, more focus on my job, and my future. I've been in a holding pattern for awhile now... but I can feel myself getting antsy again, which I think is a good thing. I'm growing impatient, the way I was last year when I started at ANN. Time to kick my future plans into gear.

Waiting For The Storms

Kinda weird... but as I'm writing this post (which was supposed to be published last night, long boring story there) in which weather plays a prominent role, there's a Tornado Warning in effect about 50 miles north of here, near the town of Anna. Something scary about Texas weather, is that big storms tend to come in at night (it's 11 pm now) -- when people are in bed, and not watching TV or looking out the window.

Well, most people, anyway -- as lately, I've been staying awake to watch as the storms roll in at night. For the past 10 days, North Texas has had a cold front stuck over it, which has been nice as far as temperatures during the day... but as warm fronts move in from the west and south, the skies over Dallas have opened, and put on some spectacular light shows as well. And, for some reason, I've felt the urge to stay up and watch as they move in.

It's not because I'm scared. In fact, I usually fall asleep soon after I hear the first crash of thunder, and I've always gotten almost perverse pleasure from being awakened by the sound of thunder and heavy rain. I also fall right back to sleep afterwards. (Same thing with hearing a loud jet coming over, like the Cherry Air Lear that blows in right at 5 am almost every night.)

No, instead I think the instinct that draws me to the storms, is a phenomenon similar to what Albuquerque Journal columnist Jim Belshaw once wrote about in his book "Semi-Native," back in the days when he still went by Jim Arnholz. He called it "ditch-watching," and that's exactly what it is: going outside to watch as rainwater -- overflow from city streets, or water running down from storms over the mountains -- fills the concrete channels that run through Albuquerque and most southwestern cities. People are drawn to the relative novelty of water in the desert.

When I lived in the North Valley, I was fortunate enough to have a little house right by an irrigation channel ("acequia") that, from late March through October, was filled with water from the Rio Grande. Properties along these channels could tap into the water, and use it to flood their fields (the traditional -- and inefficient -- way of irrigating). My landlords, the Pachecos, did this very thing... and their grass was always verdant green, so who am I to argue.

Anyway, I remember the feeling I got the first time I saw water in the channels each year. It was An Event, something worthy of walking up to the gate crossing over the ditch so I could sit and, well, look at the muddy water flowing slowly by. Waterbugs skimmed along the surface; dogs tentatively stepped down the banks to fetch a drink, although they had clean water in their bowls less than 100 feet away.

In the fall -- just before the air began to cool -- the ditches would run dry. It took less than a day after the Rio Grande authority closed off the gates for the ditches to empty, leaving behind the trash the water gathered in, as well as a lot of mud and large puddles. Those puddles were filled with tons of crawdads... some the size of your fist... that, as the puddles grew smaller, would battle to stay in what little water remained. Inevitably, everything dried out... leaving the crawdads to wither and die, or be eaten by dogs or coyotes. Or captured by kids.

It was creepy, almost otherworldly to me... and I found it fascinating. Still do. I love rushing water... it represents power, strength, and a force that can either spur creation or destroy vast areas. Same thing with the storms... they represent the always-dominant power of nature, that sometimes feels the need to remind humanity that "you ain't all that."

Maybe that's the feeling I can relate to. I dunno, maybe I'm in a place right now where I enjoy being humbled in the presence of larger forces. That's the theory I postulated to Monk Sunday, as we were driving back from filming in Fort Worth.

"You can get so comfortable in your life," I told him, trying to put into words aloud what my mind had been wrapped around for the past several days. "You get content, complacent... like this cold front parked over the state. But then outside forces come in and rile things up... boom, bang, thunder, rain. Suddenly, there's drama... and I guess I just enjoy that."

Monk looked at me kind of funny at that. "Okay, maybe not so melodramatic," I said. "But changes happen... and maybe I feel that forces are working to push me in a certain direction, and while that's happening I'm feeling... unsettled. Like the storms."

I don't pretend to understand that.

Live Your Life

First off, sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Things have been busy since I returned from Florida last week... mostly because my parents arrived two days later for Easter, which gave me just enough time to stock up on groceries and vacuum the apartment one final time before they got here Wednesday night. It's been great having them here.

Backing up a little... for the most part, Sun 'N Fun, well, Sun 'N Sucked. Early April might seem to be a good time to hold an airshow in central Florida on paper, but in reality it was akin to about the sixth or seventh level of Hell. Which, I might add, will probably wind up being somewhere in Florida (have I mentioned how much I despise this state?) Hot, muggy, bug-infested... mostly mosquitoes the size of AH-64s and caterpillars that resemble angry centipedes. (Or maybe they actually were centipedes... in any case, they love climbing on people as they sit and listen to yet another droning presser.)

A couple of cool things, though: one, I got to fly the StingSport light sport aircraft on a somewhat balmy Wednesday evening. It was only a 45 minute demo flight, but it still represented the first time I've been at the controls of an airplane since last July (just before Oshkosh.) While I was already a Sting fan... it's the most "real" looking of the LSAs available to my eyes... the test flight showed me three things: One, it's not hard to have A LOT of fun in this airplane; Two, boy, is it a lot smaller than a C172; and Three, have I mentioned how much fun it is to toss this plane around the sky?

Something else that was pretty cool, too, was that fellow ANN'er Kevin O'Brien -- call him Hognose, he doesn't mind -- flew in formation with me on a demo flight of his own. He snapped some pretty neat shots, one of which is below.

Oh, and the other cool thing about going to Florida? AirTran's $50 upgrade-to-business-class promotion. I blew $100 of my own money for the luxury of added legroom, a positively cushy chair and free drinks... which I partook of on the flight home. My rationale was, I've just spent eight days in central Florida, I've earned the right to attempt to fry some memory cells. Oh, and the onboard XM radio (at every seat, not just biz class) is a treat, too. If this sounds like an AirTran promotion, it is... this airline really impressed me. Just try to forget that little ValuJet snafu in the Everglades 10 years ago... (AirTran merged with ValuJet in 1997.)

Now, though, I'm back... and reality once again sets in, as it usually does around this part of the month. I had my monthly follow-up appointment on Monday, and I'm waiting for the blood test results now. They should be fine... in fact, everyone -- including my oncologist -- would be surprised if they weren't. In the meantime, those "changes" I alluded to in my last post still have me a little freaked out... OK, a lot freaked out, as my friends Monk and Quinn can attest to.

(A definition of "friendship" you won't find in Websters: those people who listen patiently, over an otherwise normal, friendly, fun dinner at a nice restaurant, about how you're freaked out about how your one remaining testicle is growing bigger... and do so willingly, with no sign of awkwardness.)

I asked Dr. B to examine the... situation... during Monday's appointment. He reiterated that all was normal. Yes, it's gotten bigger -- as he said it would. It's now doing the job for two, after all -- a SuperBall, if you will. But I was still nervous, as he could tell.

"OK, tell you what," Dr. B told me. "I'll write a scrip for you to have it ultrasounded before your next appointment. It will tell us that all is normal."

Dr. B then did something that, in the brief time I've known him, was unusual. His voice -- usually very clipped, very clinical -- got softer. "Robert, you're OK," he said. "I want you to live your life. You're fine... and if you ever aren't, we'll take care of it and THEN you'll be fine."

After the checkup was over, he went out to the waiting area, where my folks were. He introduced himself (he'd already met Mom in February) and then reiterated "your son is fine."

"Whether he thinks so or not," I added shakily.

I guess it's normal to be freaked out... but this has developed into full-blown paranoia, I admit. It's just that after four months... it's finally set in how scary this all has been. In the absence of action -- we're now in "wait and see" mode that will probably never detect anything abnormal again -- my mind is working overtime. Worrying. Obsessing. I have to stop that... I guess I can be comforted by the fact that, yes, it WILL eventually get easier.

It hasn't yet, though... but it will. In the meantime... I have to live my life. And fly more airplanes.

The Eagle And The Hawk

Another time change, another trip to Florida... this time, I'm heading back to Winter Haven to help cover the "Sun 'N Fun" airshow in neighboring Lakeland, FL, which goes on from April 4th to the 10th. The timeframe isn't the only thing that's kind of weird about this airshow -- which has been accused in the past of several safety oversights and of inflating its attendance numbers to the nth degree (a trend not confined to SnF.)

What promises to make this trip most interesting, though, is that my boss, Jim Campbell, has been the most vocal critic of Sun 'N Fun... to the point that he has been banned from the show grounds for life. The ban doesn't extend to Aero-News staffers, and from what others have told me wearing an ANN shirt does not necessarily mean a bullseye is painted on my back. Still, though, this should be interesting.

To read about the Sun 'N Fun saga, you may begin here.

Apart from that, there really isn't anything new to report. I'm already freaking out a little about my next observation appointment, on the 17th... I guess it's because right now, having just gone through such an ordeal, I'm pretty much looking for constant reassurance that yes, really Rob, you're OK. (Or, conversely... something new has cropped up, but it's good we caught it RIGHT NOW.) Granted, it's unlikely anything significant will suddenly pop up in the four weeks between observation appointments, and even if it does it's very treatable. All looked good on my last appointment, too, at which time my oncologist even bumped off my scheduled CT scan (every other month) from this month to the next.

Still -- my body is still adjusting to its new... equipment complement... and as such, some of those changes take a little getting used to. The doctors have all said this is normal, and it's completely normal for guys to freak out a little when those changes happen, too. At this point, though, I'm going to be paranoid..

The 'rents (and Abby... who was featured in ANN's recent April Fools edition) are coming down from ABQ for Easter, too, which will also help to calm my nerves a little. They'll be here for the next appointment, too.

Having said that, yesterday brought a positive development: I got on my bike, and rode it longer than I think I have in years -- following my friend "Monk" (name has been changed to protect his cushy corporate gig) through the streets of downtown Dallas to help shoot his latest skating project. Ride a little, shoot some video of Monk falling off the board (not always... he's pretty damn good, and a stubborn perfectionist to get the trick exactly right, which is also good), get chased off by security guards and/or city workers, ride some more, repeat. In all, I think we covered about three or four miles, on a circuit from the Farmer's Market, through the Federal District, past the Arts District and through the West End -- areas I'd only driven to/through before.

Being on the bike gave me a new perspective on downtown -- it's very cool to see the skyscrapers from different angles at sidewalk level (especially with the tops of the tallest buildings shrouded in fog off the Trinity) but you're also much closer to the blight that continues to plague the city's downtown area. It was an experience. It was also, again, the most pedalling I've done in years, and my body is feeling it today.

As I now log off to finish packing (and run to Wal-Mart for, of all things, socks) before I head to DFW, I'll wrap this up with the lyrics to one of John Denver's perhaps lesser-known songs, "The Eagle And The Hawk."

Say what you will about his musical style, but Denver had a lock on the mysticism and magic of nature and, I think especially, of flight. An accomplished pilot, Denver was sadly killed in a Long-EZ plane crash several years ago.  Investigators believe he was distracted by switching a nonstandard fuel valve in the airplane (located behind and above him) which he had just purchased, and that caused him to become disoriented.

It's kind of poetic, albeit in a morbid way, that he died doing something he loved, even though the crash was tragic. Most pilots I talk to speak of Denver with something approaching reverence, though... because they feel that Denver got it. This song sums "it" up pretty damn well:

I am the eagle, I live in high country
In rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky
I am the hawk and there’s blood on my feathers
But time is still turning -- they soon will be dry
And all of those who see me, all who believe in me
Share in the freedom I feel when I fly

Come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountain tops
Sail o’er the canyons and up to the stars
And reach for the heavens and hope for the future
And all that we can be and not what we are

Amen, brother...