The Northward Contrail

A grand day off

Right now, I'm in the midst of a glorious few days off.  They are much needed. 

Why?  Because I tend to get a little too Type-A when it comes to work and my responsibilities there.  So much so that the last few weeks, it's eaten into my sleep.  There have been a few nights when I've awakened, it seemed, every hour on the hour because I was worried about oversleeping and being late (being late, no less, for my early arrival at the office). 

I think this is one of my biggest character flaws, especially in the line of work I'm in.  I very much have a technician's mindset: identify the problem and solve it, and keep the shenanigans to a minimum.  Give me a task and a deadline and leave me alone, and I'll move mountains.  (And, as much as I grumble when it happens, some of my best work comes against close deadlines, when my back's to the wall.) 

This, of course, does you few favors in academia.  Your entire life is about having to be patient: with students (at least half of whom, no matter how you try to persuade them to do something the right way, will happily do the opposite much of the time), with colleagues, with higher-ups.  Some folks adapt to it better than others.  In my case, I'm better than I used to be, but old habits die hard.  I have a troubleshooter's tactical mindset in a world that's more about a thinker's strategic philosophy.  I have to be, in part, a psychologist who gets inside the minds of my students in order to figure out how best to motivate them.

And I'm also a bit of a perfectionist, too.  I want things to go well.  But the classroom is a place where anything can happen.  I'm up there wanting to do my best.  The students just want to get it over with.  And, yes, sometimes comedy does ensue.  That makes things difficult for somebody who's not really a people person.  I'm not the most patient person when somebody tries to keep me from accomplishing what I have to get done, and it's probably where I have the most problems.  I'll be working on it, I guess, for the rest of my life.

The weekends are the only time I can really unwind.  The alarm clock isn't staring me down.  The noise of the office isn't awaiting me.  I'm not distracted by the "ping!" of my e-mail alert or the chirp of my telephone.  I can actually read things and give them my full attention.  (Well, more or less.)  And I don't have to put on the sociability for a good, long while. 

Monday, and the return to work, will be here too soon.  For now, at least, there's time for another cup of coffee. 

The Rodney Dangerfield of holidays

Today's Thanksgiving, and we're spending part of it with family.  Because of the Orgy of Consumerism that officially kicks off tomorrow (but really started several weeks ago, with the onslaught of the holiday commercials and with at least one station starting an all-Christmas format the second week of November, for crying out loud), Thanksgiving gets no respect.  I think it's one of the most underrated of holidays, and as the years have gone on, it's troubled me to see it get more and more lost in the shuffle with each year. 

That's sad.  There's something about Thanksgiving that would be enjoyable, if we'd just let it.  It's got this red/brown motif to it: roasted turkey, fallen leaves, pumpkins and pie, the bounty of the harvest as the circle of life starts to come back around for another cycle in another month or so.  It's getting cooler, the days are getting shorter, and it's a wonderful time of year.  If we'll just shut the racket up and enjoy it, that is.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.  Enjoy it.

Your DC-3 doesn't count as "legal counsel"

The other day I found this disturbing story.  Now, whether the authorities had a beef with this guy, or the nature thereof, isn't the issue, and you can argue all day (as some have) about the merits, or demerits, of code enforcement or serving someone on airport property. 

That's not the issue. 

What is the issue is any situation where an airplane might even remotely be used that way.  And I don't care what the authorities are there for: you stop what you're doing and you interact in as civil a manner as you can muster. If you want to contest what they're trying to do, and you're not getting anywhere with them, you don't pull a "tough guy" act.  Even if you're right and they're wrong, you're gonna lose if you get confrontational with the authorities.  Even if it is code enforcement.  Instead, shut your bleepin' mouth and get a lawyer.

This guy could have done that, and we'd have never heard of it.  (And if he could afford his own DC-3, he could certainly have afforded to seek legal counsel.)  Instead, he did something very ill-advised.  Not only did he get on the news for it, but I'd imagine there will also be career implications, and he's probably also jeopardized his pilot's license. 

I often hear or read stories of people with licenses and airplanes, and the money/ability to use them, doing ill-advised things.  And I don't know whether to laugh or cry.  I have all the desire in the world to fly an airplane and finish my license, but at the moment I don't have the spare time, or the means, to carry it through.  Meanwhile, I often hear of people who have the means and ability, and who often make a living in aviation, doing things that do nobody any good: risking themselves needlessly, jeopardizing careers without any forethought, giving aviation a black eye.  

None of this is good for anyone.  It's not good for the perception of aviation at all, not when everyday airline operations have lately become the stuff of late-night monologues.  It's like every time a professor does something ill-advised, it makes it just a little bit harder for the rest of us.

I don't know if I feel more like laughing or crying when I read something like this.  It'd be funny on some level, except that this guy has flushed everything I'd love to have worked toward myself. 

Instead, I just want to dope-slap him.

Keep watching the skies

Some things I've found while ambling about the aviation photo sites:

-- This picture is interesting for several reasons.  Yes, it has alternate-universe symbolism and all that good stuff.  But, on another, it's one of those little vignettes from life, that you think of some world or some position of responsibility being glamorous and exotic, and yet it's really no different and it has its own little bits of dirty, familiar work.  I remember sitting in a restaurant at Salt Lake City a few years ago, watching an MD90 crew at the adjacent gate doing this, and I found it a little more fascinating than I should have. 

(By the way, I know that some of the comments on that photo are depressing.  Believe me, I know about some of the attitudes out there about women in aviation, and I've suffered firsthand a time or two.  Here's another, more recent, example.  Notice the one commenter who mouths off about how he'd feel better with a male in the cockpit, and another who wants to see pictures of this captain -- would he make the same request if this were a male captain?  Holy crap.  Sometimes I feel that no matter what women manage to do in aviation, there's always going to be some jerk mouthing off about it.)

-- If you've ever seen a Boeing 777, you know it's just plain huge.  It especially looks huge if it's next to a 757 or 767.  But this neat picture somehow makes that big beast look nimble.  (And this one looks all mysterious, and it captures the airplane in mid-motion.  Nice and atmospheric.)

-- Similar gorgeous shot of a 747 freighter.

-- Part of why I love Alaska: I remember being up close and personal with this DC-3 when she was sitting lonely and seemingly forgotten at Palmer many years ago, chained to an old Ford pickup truck.  Now she flies again, and works for one of the most honest livings an old airplane can have.  

-- This picture is only 10 years old, but it's from another time.  There's so much in it that makes me wistful: TriStars (including one I flew on), 727s, Delta airplanes in the "widget" livery...(sigh)

-- And, from another site, an airplane and a place that make me very happy.  Ship 762 was never one of mine, and I never got the chance to ride the TriSaurus out of Anchorage, but I'll always wish I could have.  Oh, how I miss those beasts, and how sad it makes me to see what's become of some of them.

:: Yeah, I know the ol' blog's look has changed.  It's been a while, and I thought it needed something new.  I still don't have it the way I really would like it (there's a spiffy banner image I created long ago, with considerable effort and at great personal expense), but it's a little closer, anyway.

I'm on the list

A couple weeks back Roger Ebert posted this entry about one of the most well-known, yet least-known, gatecrashers out there.  It's fascinating reading, as are some of the comments.  (I especially like the one about the guy who won the baseball player's uniform and sneaked into the dugout at old Memorial Stadium.)

I don't know what grips me more about these stories: the astonishment that people will do this, or secretly wishing I had the guts/foolishness/the-heck-with-consequences attitude to try something like this myself.  It's part of the thrill of watching something like Catch Me If You Can or even an episode of The Rockford Files: watching and wondering if your roguish "hero" (well, Jim Rockford is always a hero, especially in my world) will stay one step ahead, or if he'll get tangled up in his own story.  And, if he does get caught, how he gets out of it.   

Could I do it?  Nope.  I am incapable of lying with a straight face.  It's all from my upbringing, that you never, ever lie.  And when I do tell one, I feel stupid.  There was an incident at a Starbucks a couple years back.  They always ask your name so they can write it on your cup.  I have one of those names that's frequently misspelled.  So I gave them another name.  When my drink was ready and they called "my name," I felt like such a schmuck, as if all of eternity was going to crash down on me because I'd lied to a barista.

(But, hey, at least it was a good drink.)