About last week

By lex, on October 31st, 2007

Sorry about that. Wasn’t trying to be a drama queen and wasn’t fishing for sympathy votes (although I do appreciate your many kindnesses) but I’d suddenly realized that I wasn’t entirely in control of my environment.

Which is a hard realization for a pilot to make, but one we’ve been trained to respond to: Controls release, throttles idle, speedbrake in.

As mentioned, I plan to be back in battery come tomorrow, albeit at a somewhat lower duty cycle. The fact is that time is the fire we all burn in, and this was taking a great deal more time (and effort) than could responsibly be supported.

So. I know that was a long walk to a small house. Those who’d want to know more are free to follow the jump.

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A Death in the “Family”

Posted by lex, on December 17, 2008

 

We’re friends here. Those we’ve met, and those we’ve yet to meet. Those whom we agree with, and those we set at hammers and tongs.

Jim Cannon was a friend of ours. Guy Cannon’s son. He wrote at least 191 times here to share his viewpoints with us, under the flag of “Jim C.” The last time was four days ago.

Hosted a blog of his own. One of his last entries went thus:

Well, after a lengthy stay in the hospital I’m finally home. I spent about two weeks on the ventilator.  It’s going to be a slow return to normal posting. Please bear with me.

That was on the 8th of November.

Tonight I got an email from Kris, in New England:

Lex – thought you might want to know that blogger Jim Cannon – of Thinking Right – and a frequent commenter at your site, passed away suddenly yesterday the 15th.  He had recently been hospitalized for Guillain Barré Syndrome problems (he wrote about them on your blog in a comment some months ago) and had emailed me over the weekend that he was working hard and fighting to get back to health again.  He was in his early 30s.

Grieve with us.

 

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Little Things

Posted by Lex, on October 3, 2008

 

I have been much entranced, in my off moments, flying the odd instrument approach here in the San Diego region on my laptop computer, using the X-Plane 9 software I’d recently purchased. Feeling a tetch rusty on the gauges, I was, what with my ATP check ride receding in the distance and nothing but the occasional VFR hop about to keep my hand in. Never having been entirely comfortable with that whole dual VOR gas, nor all those flip-flop com/nav stacks. Having been raised on TACANs at first, liberally augmented over time with digital moving maps and GPS-aided inertial navigation systems.

Farewell to all that.

AAR

May 7th, 2007 by lex

Wordsworth once wrote that “poetry is moments of emotion remembered in tranquillity.” This will not be poetry I’m afraid, because in my heart I am not quite yet tranquil, for reasons which are difficult to capture, far less to convey.

How do you remember things? Some people can quote at length passages from books that they have read years past. Others have a genius for linking names to faces, people they haven’t seen in decades. A friend of my father’s had a special capability: You could pick out any day in his life – he was well into his 60’s when I tried this with him – and  he could tell you where he was and what he was doing.

Life’s all about the details

I’ve had a few things to post peculating in my head, but OTOH we are at 86% of our allotted space for this particular plan, and Hizzoner gets priority. I’m combing through the Wayback Machine seeing posts we missed from our official archives and I have to say, he left us an embarrassment of riches. He had both a keen sense of humor, and a keen sense for geopolitics.

I have been posting (now, and scheduling) what was at the time current events –   and whether history will prove him  right or wrong his process of getting to where he arrived is worth noting –

Anyway –

That whole transition thing

Posted by lex, on January 7, 2008

I’m willing to admit my lack of expertise in this at least: I haven’t had a civilian job since I was shoveling ice cream at Baskin-Robbins at age 17. That too will change in time, tic-tock, but over at The Flight Deck, Kris asks what it is that leads to a successful military-to-civilian transition – and her interest is not just academic:

I’m calling out to all of you who are active, retired, reservists – anyone with a military background who at some point has tried to secure employment in the private sector.  I’d like to know what worked well and what didn’t.  What were your interviewing experiences like?  How do you think your military background affected your ability to get a job?

Here’s a chance to help other vets, and as Kris says, the possibilities are exciting.

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Diet and Exercise

By lex, on January 7, 2007

 

It’s very nearly a week gone since the 1^st of January came and went, bringing with it a pair on New Year’s resolutions and a stupefyingly painful headache. The latter is now gone, while the former are still in play, which – given your correspondent’s track record over the course of the last several – is not to be sneezed at.

So I decided last week to pull out all stops and actually change my dining habits. A diet, yes.

Yes I know. Radical indeed.