My Arthritic Hip
The Casual Cynic

While watching the MTV Music Video awards something suddenly jumped out of the screen and nailed me in the gut so hard it took me an episode of Wheel of Fortune and several glasses of prune juice to recover. Old Age has struck, and what a blindside it was. As I sat and watched the endless unknown bands with their shoddy performances covered up by ridiculous dancers I realized that I have lost touch with pop culture. I knew none of the artists, and the odd thing was that I didn't feel like I was missing anything. I caught myself thinking, in a voice that sounded very much like my Dad, "How can they possilbly call this the best (whatever) of the year. I remember was when music was really music, and the bands could really play."

Once, long ago, I vowed that I would never become like those old people who have completely lost touch with what was in. Now all I can do is cringe as I scan the radio stations, and settle for "Performance Today" or "All things Considered." (And find it enjoyable and engaging.) Only old people listen to National Public Radio. I guess my desire to accept pop music died along with the alternative rock age.

When did this change occur. What happened? Since when is U2 considered "Classic Rock" material? Why is Nick at Nite filled with "The Cosby Show and Cheers?" Nick at Nite belongs to "I love Lucy" and black and white sitcoms, not ones I grew up with.

Do you want to know the really scary part - the thing that really made me sit back and take notice of my expired youth? I am okay with things the way they are. I don't recognize, understand, or even remotey enjoy pop music/culture, and I am perfectly content with that. The kids can have their fun and enjoy their dancing models, lip syncing to the "music." I know what real music is all about. Now, I guess I better run see if I can find my white belt with the matching velcro shoes. They've gotta be around here somewhere.

A chip on my shoulder
Rants and delusions

I decided that I don't like scraping paint. Today I started a project that I have been putting off for some time now. Repainting the house. Since I am currently unemployed and in desperate need of money I offered my landlord my services in exchange for a cut in rent. He agreed and now I have to scrape layers of peeling paint chips in order to get down to the now rotting wood underneath. It may be easier to live in my car.

In other news. I may not be unemployed for long. Sort of. LU physical plant here I come. Yes, I am that desperate. The plan is to work part time as an electrician. It sounds like I have the job. Beats sitting at home watching the debts pile up. I am still hoping that something else will come up, but I have currently exhausted all known leads.

Life in Kenya
Spare Parts and Leftover Screws

Week 1
Hello,

It is difficult to believe that I have been here for almost a week. So much for the slower paced lifestyle. I have yet to see that. I spent much of the weekend getting settled into Nairobi. The first order of business for Geoffrey and me was to buy a cell phone. This part of Kenya is not as primative as you may think. Of course the first one we bought didn't work as soon as we left the store, so we got to deal with the customer service.

The rest of the day was spent at a wedding. Unfortunately (or perhaps
not) we arrived Kenyan style, two hours late, and only caught the last two hours of the service. The reception afterwards was nice though.

I spent Sunday at a church where a lot of the missionaries attend. It was a nice service, not much different than here. They served me tea, and had a special welcome for me.

It has been good to get started at the airport. The airplane that I will be working on needs a lot of work yet to get it airworthy. It is only a stripped down fuselage at the moment. I have been working on getting the flooring ready to reinstall.

Trasportation around the city has been quite the experience. The buses aren't bad, unless it is rush hour. What is interesting is the mutatos. They are taxis about the size of the old VW vanagons. Only they think they can seat 15 to 20 passengers. I was in one the other day with about 15 others when the mass of bodies pushed the door off its hinges, almost sending the conductor out into the street. There are two rules to getting around the city. One - the car that gets there first has the right away. Two - This is true unless the other car is bigger. It is also preferrable to drive on the left.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to get out of the city and travel up country to work on a repeater station for a local christian radio station. They had been working on getting it on the air for 3 months now, and at 3 o'clock it is up and running. It will have a range of over 200 km. and will be able to reach a lot of the towns around the area.

Another member of my team, Ryan, is arriving this weekend, so you can be praying for his safety. My team leader, Paul, will be arriving at the end of the month.


Week 2
Habari zenu?

I have to show off my 3 hours of language training with the traditional "newsletter that begins in the local language." I have a vocabulary of about 15 words by now, none of which I can use in a complete sentence. I don't think I will master kiswahili while I am here.

First of all I want to apologize for the delay in correspondence.
Hopefully now everything is up and running and I can get e-mails out without losing them. This is a second attempt, so I am trying to remember everything that has happened.

First of all, the rest of my team is now with me here in Nairobi. My team leader Paul Weinberger arrived on Friday and Ryan Veenstra arrived last week. Housing worked out that we will all be living together with Geoffrey, the guy I had started out with. It has been a great set up so far.

I spent last Sunday at a mnyama chuma (Goat roast). As far as social events, it is the "Kenyan Thing." It is pretty much like a Texas BBQ, a chance to get together with friends and eat a lot of meat. It seems that a lot of the social events are based around a meal of some sort. I am told that some can include over 12 courses, which leads to the saying, "Do not throw both your spear and your club at the rabbit, for the elephant is soon to follow." Meaning, pace yourself or you will be hurting. Having said that, the day to day meals may not be all that nourishing for many of the people. Ugali is the staple food. (Picture overcooked grits, and it comes close) This is followed by another food that I can barely pronounce let alone spell. It sounds like sakumawiki It is a weed, much like spinach that is boiled and eaten using the ugali.

Life in Nairobi is a very urban experience. It is sometimes easy to forget that it is another continent. Nairobi is much like any other city, only the two ends of the spectrum are much greater extremes.
Poverty, along with crime is a problem, and the traffic is as crazy as I've seen anywhere. Texas parking lots have nothing on Kenyan roundabouts.

I had the opportunity to go on a maintenance flight and see some of the flight operations. The departure out of Wilson Airport reminded me that the rules are a bit different here. Due to overlying Airspace the
climbout has to stay fairly shallow. This leaves the plane crossing a dip in the ridge at less than 100 feet above ground level. (I don't think the poor farmer in the house we buzz appreciates it very much.) After that it is a sharp left turn to enter a valley that opens up into a great expanse of scrub trees. It doesn't take long for civilization to drop off.

This past Saturday was spent at a home for AIDS orphans. It was really good to see some other ministries that were going on. We delivered a couple of boxes of clothes and made 32 friends in the process. The center supports over 150 kids, but there are only facilities for several dozen. The rest are scattered in foster homes throughout the city.

Week 3
Hello,

How can can .6 hours seem like a few seconds? Easy. Spend them in the left
seat of the best equipped and arguably the best restored cargo DC-3 in the
world. I had the opportunity to do just that last week. The DC-3 belongs to
Samaritan's Purse, and the pilot was a LU grad. I arrived at the airport at
5:30 to receive my captain's bars (for security reasons) and crawled over 40
bicycles on my way to the jump seat. Soon after we took off he offered to
let me fly for a while. We flew along the Rift valley on our way to northern
Kenya, so the scenery was some of the most beautiful I have seen while
flying. I admit, apart from a couple of steep turns (which I held to
commercial standards I might add), I was only holding the plane straight and
level, but it still felt right to be offered coffee while sitting left seat,
in uniform. We arrived, unloaded the bikes and reconfigured the plane for
twenty missionaries coming home from a refugee camp in northern Kenya.
On
the way home I got to try my hand as flight attendant, so I guess I had a

well rounded flight.

The project plane is coming along nicely. We started to prime a bunch of the
parts, and we are in the process of prepping the fuselage for painting.
We
are still waiting for some parts to come in before we can go too far in the
paint process. It can take up to 2 months for parts to arrive around here,
so you can be praying that they come soon. Otherwise, it may be sitting for
a while.

Some you you may have heard about a fireworks explosion in Kilgore, TX over
4th of July weekend. A warehouse that was holdind a collection of 6 shows
worth of fireworks, exploded on Thursday. One of the professors from LU, Mr.
Marty Donner, was killed in the blast while preparing for the show. He had
taught aviation maintenance classes at LU for almost 30 years and was very
involved with students there. I had him for a lot of my classes. The
funeral is this Wednesday in TX, and you can be praying for his family.
He
has a wife and two grown children.

This past sunday I had the opportunity to visit church pastored by the man
who ran the AIDS childrens home. It is in a section of town called Kibera.
At some 800,000 people, it is the second largest slum in Africa. It looks a
bit more like the stereotypical Africa. Average rent there is about 8
dollars a month, so you can get a picture of the type of housing that is
available.


Week 5
Hello,

This week has quite possibly been the most interesting of my stay here in
Kenya. The excitment began innocently enough on Wednesday when I was offered
a chance to fly with another pilot up to a town named Lokichoggio on the
Sudan/Kenya border. We were taking some supplies there in a Cessna 210 and
then continuing on into Sudan to drop off a missionary we were to pick up in
Loki. We left early Thursday morning through a cloud layer that was
reportedly the worst that the other pilot had seen here in Nairobi. I flew
there and had an enjoyable talk with the the pilot. After unloading the
supplies in Loki, we realized that the extra seat had not been put back in
the plane. This meant that I stay in Loki for the afternoon, until John got
back. Lokichoggio is a desert town right on the edge of Sudan, populated
mostly by the Turkana, a nomadic tribe. A Samaritan's Purse employee came
and showed me to a resturant where I could wait out the afternoon. We
had heard that there was some unrest in the area, but it was not until I arrived
in Loki that I heard the whole story. It is illegal in Kenya to own a
firearm, but in the desert regions (and really the whole country) it is a
struggle to enforce it. The day before I had arrived there was a police raid
on the villagers to disarm them. Apparently the word leaked out before hand,
and some 400 villagers skirmished with the police for a good part of the
morning. There were a number of casulties on both sides and the area was
still pretty charged when I arrived. Shortly after hearing this I got word
through the SP contact that the plane I had flown up in would not be able to
make it back that night. While landing at the location in Sudan, it had
experienced a runway induced mechanical failure - the nosegear became bogged
down in a very soft spot in the runway and caused a prop strike. This
not only ruins the propeller, but in many cases also causes quite a bit of
internal engine damage due to the sudden stop, etc. So there I was in the
desert, not knowing anyone except the man I had met that morning, not knowing
how or when I was to get home, and watching anti-personnel type tanks rolling
by. After a bit of quick praying on my part the SP man came back again and
let me know that the DC-3 with Samaritan's Purse was in the area and may be
able to take me home the next day. As it turned out, they were not only in
the area, they were spending the night in Loki. At least now I knew people.
The place I spent the night was very nice, and I was quite comfortable.
The next morning a plane arrived from Nairobi to refuel with a spare propeller
strapped down in the back. They took off shortly afterward to try to get the
plane in a flyable condition so they could get it out of Sudan. The
DC-3 had one more Sudan flight to make and arrived back in Loki at around 12:30.
I boarded and flew jump seat home to Nairobi and arrived at around 4:00
grateful to be back. It was very encouraging to see how God worked through
the whole situation. First He kept the extra seat from being loaded, keeping
me stranded in Loki instead of the interior of Sudan. The DC-3 was in the
area, (actually the same town) and was able to get me home. As far as the
mechanics that went to Sudan to repair the 210 could tell, there was no
damage to the parts of the engine they could inspect on the field and were
able to get it running that night. There was a church in the area that
assisted the crew in sudan and gave them housing while they were there.
The airplane made it safely back to Nairobi on Saturday afternoon. The list goes
on. I thank God for how he works. All that to say, I feel very secure in
where God has put me, and I know He is in control of my safety. It is
exciting to see first hand and be a part of how God is working through the
persecution and instability of some of the areas surrounding Kenya.

As far as other news...Last saturday I visited a gamepark and got to do the
Tourist thing. I saw quite a few animals, including an eagle perched less
than 10 meters away, lots of giraffe, ostrich, elan, gazelle, water buffalo,
crocadile, but unfortunately no elephants, lion or other cool cats. I also
missed the spectacle of the zebra migration by a week or two, which is
unfortunate.

I have been hopping around at work doing work on several airplanes, including
the DC-3, and the 210 that had the incident (before the excitement). It was
rewarding to find out the the DC-3 had gone out afterward on some flights
that ended up being medivacs. One was a young boy who had stepped on a land
mine and had the side of his body pretty messed up. I met a girl getting off
the plane in Loki who was bleeding pretty badly for some reason. Knowing
that I had helped that little bit to save those lives was a good feeling.

The project plane is coming along well. The control surfaces are painted,
and I balanced them and got them ready to reinstall. the only thing left
before some major reassembly can happen is to finish painting the fuselage.
I would really like to see it looking like an airplane before I leave.
The parts we were waiting for did arrive without causing any delay to progress.


Week 7
Hello again from Nairobi.

This week proved to be a bit more "normal" than some previous ones had been.
At least as normal as life in a large African city can be. Much of my time
was spent at the hangar working on the project plane. It is completely
painted except for the belly pod and we are now in the process of
reassembly. It is nice to see the process and to know that it should be
flying by the beginning of Sept.

I moved out of the house I have been living in and into the servant's
quarters of one of the missionaries at the hangar. It happened just when I
was starting to really enjoy the evening meal of chai and ugali. It should
make the transition back to the states a little more gradual. Kenyan cuisine
isn't the tastiest stuff in the world, but it's not bad. I'll miss Geoffrey,
my housemate even more. We got along really well while I was there.

This past saturday we spent the day driving over 160km out to a village to
see a building project that some of the missionaries are involved with.
The drive along the great Rift Valley was beautiful and I was dissapointed that
my camera was locked out of reach in the hangar. I wish you could see it,
but pictures don't do it justice anyway. The roads were in pretty bad
condition, and at some points it was smoother to drive along the side rather
than down the middle. We had more than one not so friendly race trying to
pass a bus in order to breathe without inhaling lungfulls of dusty exhaust.
The buses here are pretty crazy as well. They slam around at over 100 kph
over potholes that are almost impassable and have no concern for which side
of the road they are supposed to be on. (I think in Kenya it is the left,
but it is never really easy to tell)

Construction in Kenya is a bit different than any I have done.
Everything is made of stone to prevent the costly feeding of termites. The stones are all
handcut into blocks and then cemented together in a somwhat orderly fashion.
The wood that is used has the markings of being cut with a chainsaw and
anything that needs to be smoother is finished with a hand planer. Throw in
the more than occational chai time and any constrution project takes quite a
while to complete. The building we observed is going to be the new site for
the Cheyrl's Children's Centre that I have visited several times.

After church this sunday I had a chance to visit a lady in the Kibera slums.
She had recently lost 4 out of her 5 children and the 5 had been very sick.
The pastor had prayed for the girl last week, and she had recovered by the
time we saw her. In addition, the mothers husband wants had left her, but
has come back to the house and wants her out. He is involved in wichcraft
and leaves charms to try to scare her away. He arrived just as we were
leaving and one of the pastors stayed to talk with him. Needless to say, the
mother is a bit distraught and could use much prayer.

The Resurrection of the Site
Rants and Delusions

As I walked into my room the other day I noticed a spot on the desk that seemed dirtier than the rest. I leaned closer and discovered that it was a pile of dust that had obviously not been disturbed for some time. Pushing it aside, I could read "Compaq" on a black and gray box. Oh, yeah. My laptop. I used to open that thing. To write, even. Perhaps I should try it again.

I do have an excuse. I think it is a good one. Over the summer I am LAZY. I also spent most of the time in Africa, away from any type of reliable internet connection.

In order to recap my summer I am planning on posting my newsletters I sent out. I hope you enjoy the back issues.
I'll have to write some thoughts on the rest of the summer as well.

Jumping Ship
Spare Parts and Leftover Screws

Without a regular connection, it has been tough to motivate myself to keep this site current. And it isn't going to get better. This is the last of the sporadic posts for a couple of months. Tomorrow I leave for Nairobi Kenya for a stint as an airplane mechanic. I'll write about it when I get back, but until then...have a great summer.

Do What Feels Good
Rants and Delusions

"Do what feels good." I guess that is the new Diet Coke slogan. Sounds good. Doesn't really make me thirsty. Don't really see the connection.

"Do what feels good." That is the biggest crapload of horse manure I ever heard of. It is also the saddest way to live life. Life is not an amusement park of pleasure, set spinning around us for the sole purpose of our enjoyment. Nothing could be more directly opposite of reality. Not the reality that I live.

Emotion is to be enjoyed or merely tolerated, not obeyed. Life is full of tough choices and painful decisions. Obeying feelings cannot be a reliable guide. It does not feel good to feel something so strongly it is almost overwhelming, yet chose to let it go because it is right to do so.

Just something that has been running through my mind. No particular reason. Ok, maybe one.

Perhaps I will fill this in a bit more later on. I'm too tired right now. Sorry that there are more fragments that actual sentences. I just did what felt right. Grammar didn't.

The Newsletter
Spare Part and Leftover Screws

Yes, it is really here. A new post. Looking back at my posts I realized that the last time I posted anything was when the world was supposedly mad at the French. It's been a LONG time. It's been a long time since I've sat down at this computer. I can't say that I missed it much. So much has happened. It is hard to believe that school ended about a month ago.

Since my last post:

I finished up finals. The more semesters I take the less relevant they become. Finals fell so low on my priority list it is a wonder I was able to get decent grades at all.

I said goodbye to a bunch of people. It happens every semester. I guess each time there are more and more. That is what I get for going through school so slowly. Everyone beats me out. So long Cowboy. Glad you are doing what you want to do. See you Steve. It's been fun jamming, sitting through classes, and talking about airplanes, the future, and how they are going to fit together. To the girls in the Yellow Ghetto House - it's been great being neighbors. Sorry my home improvements caused such a headache.

I made the trip home in record time - for the longest trip ever. After being delayed two days waiting for my commercial certificate paperwork to go though I left in the mid afternoon to get stuck in a traffic jam caused by a combination of Friday night rush hour, a bridge, constuction on the bridge, and and accident on the bridge involving at least 6 cars. Fun stuff. Then I stopped at a hotel for the night and overslept. Then I got diverted 100 miles out of my way due to an accident closing my road and missing the exit back on the right one. Then I stopped to help someone who blew a transmision. (I let them use my phone to call a tow truck - something blew a hole in the bell casing in its hurry to exit the gearbox.) Then as I was pulling back onto the highway I heard a load bang, followed by the loudest 1.9 cylinder engine I have ever heard in my life. I limped off at the exit a mile down the road and discovered that the down pipe on my exhaust had completely separated from my exhaust manifold. In addition the hot gases had burnt through the vacuum line for my power assist brakes. (It was a bit of a surprise to realize I had to jump on the brakes to stop as I exited I-81) I needed to clamp the exhaust system back together, but there was no VW dealer even remotely close by, so some chick offered to call her dad to see if he could help. I asked him to bring a vise grips and a carpenters C-clamp. He arrived a bit later slightly drunk and very confused, but with the clamp in hand. I managed to get it clamped back together with the additional help of some baling twine and went on my way. I splice the vacuum line back together with a random bit of tubing I bought at the only open parts store in town and limped back into my driveway well into sunday morning. Pretty exciting stuff really.

I started work. It's always a change to switch hats between school and work, moving from shooting approaches to pulling wires, from airplanes to houses. It's great. Almost therapeutic. I was getting burned out with airplanes to the point where I didn't want to set foot in another one for a very long time. Now it is great to got to work and come home at the end of the day with nothing else to think about until the next morning.

I am preparing for my trip to Africa. The latest development there is that we have to find a new way to get there. Last week British Airlines received terrorist threats against flights into Naroibi Kenya. They stopped their flights and my ticket became a bookmark. They are working on other possibilities. I'll keep you posted.

That's been my life the last month. Hope yours has been as good.

The French and the Pitot Tube
Spare Parts and Leftover Screws
The Limey Brit got me thinking about how aviation would be different if we followed the same vane as the rest of the world's effort to bring politics into everyday language. Here's to a patriotic de-frenched version of aeronatutical terms.

Empannage - French for "Feathers of an arrow." English equivalent - You can't get too fancy with a tail and get away with it.
Pilot - French for "steersman of the ship". English equivelant - I'm the one in charge so I can call myself whatever I want
Fuselage - A weaving term for a spindle with thread wrapped around it. (Only the french could make that connection) English equivelent - Very expensive place to sit out the ride.
Aileron - "little wings." The English call them flippers. How about "freedom flippers"
Nacelle - French (and in Latin (Navis) "ship" English equivalent - Conquer cowling?
Mayday - Taken from the french "m'aidez" which means "help me" They need it. English version- "Holy crap - I'm going down."

Christian Potpourri
Rants and Delusions

As I walked the aisles of the store, I was amazed at the wares they were hawking. They had everything. Books lined one side, self-help manuals the other. I passed aisles of household trinkets that would have made Martha Stewart proud and rivaled Pier 1 for selection. They had sections of CDs, DVDs, and every other form of home entertainment I could ever want. I saw posters and post-it notes, decorative mirrors and door mats, breath mints and those little inspirational potpourri candle things that cover the scent of yesterdays garlic bread. My head was spinning. Then, as I turned the corner, I remembered why I had come in the first place. There under the bestseller spotlight was the "Prayer of Jabez" display. It was a Christian Bookstore. I had come for a book on Godly living. They were out of stock.

Welcome to the world of cultural Christianity. I spent the last several years watching it grow with much interest. Sometimes I find it very amusing. Other times I border on concern for how far it has gone.

I remember going to a weeklong church convention and being amazed at the variety of "God Stuff" that has worked its way into the act of worship. I walked into the foyer and was immediately greet by dozens of stands, each selling their own method of worship. I passed tables of tambourines, rows of multicolored ribbons, various displays of banners, tables of every type of worship CD imaginable, highly polished rams' horns, and prayer vests. Prayer vests? $100? They were handmade. Oh-I see. It made me thankful that the Person interceding on my behalf doesn't require it to be a "black tie only" affair. I made my way through the foyer (with my wallet still intact) and entered the auditorium. There the pianist was praying for the power of the Holy Spirit to enter the room. First, I wondered where He had gone and then looked over my shoulder hoping that He came back it wouldn't be with whip in hand, looking for some tables to tip.

What has brought about the big business of Christian Potpourri? I think John Fischer best described the reasons behind cultural Christianity in a poem he wrote. He used a play on words to describe the reaction to Christ's commandment to be "in the world, but not of it." He explains that many people have taken it to be "of the world, but not in it." Think about it. He is right. We have taken the world of materialistic commercialism and made it our own. We justify our desire to fill our life with things by giving those things a message. I see two very real problems with this mentality

First, we have removed the Christian message from the world by creating its own category. Music can no longer just be music. It is either Christian or secular. In our effort to create an identity of Christian art we have taken artists who are Christians and forced them into the box of Christian artists. In doing so we have lost the ability to find God in anything other than Christian things. Is God not in everyday life? Then why can't we find Him unless it has a Christian label?

Second, if is Christian then it must be so obviously Christian that we blunt the power of honest expression. There is no room in a Christian record label to express anything other than an "everything is always okay now that I know Jesus and you should know him too" attitude. We surround ourselves with inspiring pictures of lighted houses and pithy sayings. We barricade ourselves behind a wall of Christian T-shirts and WWJD bracelets. Thomas Kincaid, in describing his paintings, admits that he paints the world without flaw. It is not reality. Is that really surprising? The reality of the Christian life does not always neatly fit on a poster. The truth of my walk with Christ does not fit on a refrigerator magnet. I am a liar every time I reach to put on a FROG (Fully Rely on God) bracelet. We can't live up to that. Filling our world with more reminders doesn't make it easier.

The result is that the rest of the world sees right through it. Take the "Prayer of Jabez" for example. I do not deny the message of asking God to expand our opportunities for service is a good one. However we have taken that and created a frenzy that is nothing short of laughable. Do we really need "Prayer of Jabez" stationary? Is it more spiritual to write the need for toilet paper on "Prayer of Jabez" grocery lists? Give me a break. The result is seen in a T-shirt I saw on Andrew Duncalf's page. What was its message? "I prayed the Prayer of Jabez for 30 days and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt." Well said. Taking the power of prayer away from God and creating a marketing opportunity out of it only creates scenarios that are laughed at on the latest "Saturday Night Live."

Effective evangelism is not in marketing a Christian Label. Anybody can see through that. It depends on the honest interaction of individual people. When was the last time you sat down to watch Christian TV? The world depends on us to be real. The love of Christ cannot be expressed on a doormat. It takes more than a picture of some footprints by the beach to convey the Hope of knowing Christ. A breath mint never saved anybody. The answer is not in things.

I guess that leaves me. If only I didn't have a headache from sniffing all that potpourri.

The End of an Era?
Spare Parts and Leftover Screws

Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago ordered midnight sneak attacks on Meigs Field , using bulldozers to carve massive "X"s into the runway. The cowardly act has left the aviation industry outraged. He has used the false pretense of homeland security to close a historic and beautiful airport, and prompted a backlash from AOPA, the FAA, the state legislature, and the general aviation public. It is a sad day, and, yes, I'll admit to being sentimental toward a piece of land.

Lady Wisdom Gives a Dinner Party
The Casual Cynic

I have spent the past couple of weeks trying something new. A friend gave me a copy of the Message this past Christmas, and I have been reading its version of the Proverbs. I found them to be very amusing and at the same time quite effective. It was like reading a letter from my Grandfather. They are very down to earth and express the truths in an incredibly matter-of-fact way. While I would not delve too deaply into theology with this book, it is interesting what a little rearrangment of style does. Here are some of my more amusing favorites.

On work:

Make hay while the sun shines - that's smart; go fishing during harvest - that's stupid.

On wealth:

The rich can be sued for everything they have - but the poor are free of such threats.

Banks foreclose on the farms of the poor, or else the poor lose their shirts to crooked lawyers.

On wisdom and the fool:

The wise accumulate wisdom; fools get stupider by the day.

Knowledge flows like spring water from the wise; fools are leaky faucets, dripping nonsense.

A quiet rebuke to a person of good sense does more than a whack on the head of a fool.

The words of a fool start fights; do him a favor and gag him.

And finally:

To ask a moron to quote a proverb is like putting a scalpel in the hands of a drunk.

Weapons of War
Rants and Delusions

It has been a while since the last post. Most of the blame falls on the weather. It has been far too nice outside to sit in front of my computer inside, and I have been to lazy to actually unplug all the appendages and actually use the laptop for its intended purpose - mobility. I need to get me one of those cordless network things so I can take my house's DSL to places that are worth sitting to write.

Despite my failure to write, the world continues to turn. We have declared war on a nation. "Operation Iraqi Freedom," I think it is called. I watched the news for a couple of hours last night to see what would happen. It appears as though there could have been a chance to end the war before it started with an early decapitation attempt that ultimately failed. It is indeed a different time when it is altogether possible to turn on CNN in the morning and find the world a completely different place. I haven't done it yet this morning. Some things I prefer not to know until I am fully awake. Some things I prefer not to know, ever.

I remember the first time we made a push towards Bagdad. I was all of 11 years old. I watched the Iraqi anti-aicraft fire from TV and tried to comprehend all that was going on. I don't think an 11 year old ever understands the fullness of war. I don't think a 23 year old does either. Or a 99 year old for that matter. About that time in my life I had a couple of posters of F-14's on my wall. I loved those planes. My father didn't. He was and is a pacifist and we had a couple of conversations about those scraps of paper. I loved the power that they possessed, the ability to take off from a bobbing flight deck, fly faster than anything a preteen could imagine, and slam back home after a successful flight. My father told of stories of listening to planes fly overhead during the cold war heading toward some missile crisis with some sort of bomb that would bring an end to civilization as we knew it. He spoke of the fear it evoked. I couldn't understand that.

Perhaps that is the biggest difference between us. My father is still afraid to fly. I watched the F-18E Superhornets take off last night and wished it were me in the cockpit being hurled out over the water. I love the machine. Both of us hate the destruction to humanity they can cause. Were that me in the cockpit my enjoyment would end with the release of munitions. War is not a training excercise. It is not Top Gun. It has real and devestating consequences.

War, as horrible as it is, is also sometimes necessary. I haven't made up my mind about this one yet. I guess the only way to know for sure is to look at the life of an Iraqi 10 years from now and see if we made the difference we now hope we can. My hats off to all those over there right now doing all they can, each in their own capacity, to somehow make the world a bit better. That is the only way this thing can be successful.

The Golden Rule In Action
Spare Parts and Leftover Screws

I guess it was only a matter of time until an FBI Plane is Mistaken For Terrorists

Captive Across Texas
The Casual Cynic

I spent the weekend, and much of the past week for that matter, traveling around the state of Texas. Most of it was done from a sterile veiwpoint of thousands of feet above the landscape, but this weekend I had the chance to traverse the countryside the old way. I drove. There is much to be seen and heard on a trip to the southern portion of the state. The trip to San Antonio did much to reinforce the notion that Texas is an entity all of its own. Perhaps the most persuasive argument for this conclusion is the sounds that can be heard across the airwaves.

I grew tired of my selection of CDs and decided to try something I hadn't done in a while. Timidly I punched the "scan" button on my radio. First there was nothing but the standard worn-out, classic rock and whining country music coming out of my speakers. Then there was something that caught my ear. Something I had never heard before. I listened wondering what in the world was going on. How can someone write something so spastic, so unusual, so ... "interesting." The song finished and the DJ explained that his station, 104.something - "The Ranch," played the very best in...Big Band, Western, Swing. Wow. This was definitely a new experience. I decided to stick around and check out this mutation of music, and found myself questioning, "If you're so smart, how come you ain't rich." It sounded like Marty Robbins suddenly woke up wearing a zuet suite and playing a trombone. The selection was followed by the financial advise, "You gotta sell them chickens (before they die, and the eggs before they hatch.)" I didn't know what to do. Should I break out in a swing move or a two-step. Fortunately I was strapped to my seat and the steering wheel kept me from getting to crazy, and I had to settle on pointing at the stereo and laughing like Nelson, the bully on the Simpsons. It made me want to find a hip holster for my tommy gun. It was like flagpole sitting at a rodeo. It was crazy. It entertained all the way from Corsicana to Temple. Texas truely is a state like no other.

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Can you Hear me now? Good.
Spare Parts and Leftover Screws

I have spent the last several months browsing the banter and reading the essays that have been posted via the keyboard. It has been quite enjoyable and refreshing. I remained largely quiet, keeping my thoughts and opinions to myself. However, a sponge can only soak up so much without a means of release. An undisturbed wet sponge is nothing more than a square chunk of mold. It is time to escape from the dank corner and stretch my brain for some active thought.

The process of publishing blogs is an entirely new experience. It is a process and a challenge that I welcome and I am excited about the opportunities it will provide. I don't pretend to have incredible insight into the meaning of life (although the word on the street is that it is 47) or even an interesting life. I realize that writing will never be a breadwinning skill, and that my attempts to wield the pen have the same results of a drunken monk using chopsticks to eat his soup. That is why I am studying to be a bus driver. However I hope this page will provide a perspective that can be beneficial to someone, at least occasionally.

Please feel free to respond to my page with thoughts, comments, derisions, and suggestions. I am encouraging you to respond to what you see here. Any suggestions about format, etc. is also appreciated. Let me know that you are out there. Thanks for stopping by and I’ll do my best to make it worthwhile to come back.

Snowballs Replace Bullets as Snow Hits Holy Land
Spare Parts and Leftover Screws

Ripped from the News...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Witness to centuries of bloodshed, the ancient walls of Jerusalem's Old City saw only white Tuesday as Palestinians and Israelis traded snowballs instead of stones and bullets.

The exchange -- between Palestinian youths and Israeli passersby at the ancient Dung Gate -- came in celebration of a rare heavy snowstorm that brought much of the Holy Land to a standstill, offering a respite from 29 months of fighting.

"This sort of thing gives everyone perspective. It makes people focus on what they have in common rather than politics," veteran Israeli meteorologist Danny Roup told Reuters.

Across the West Bank, the strongest cold front in a least a decade brought snow as deep as 12 inches, almost unimaginable in a region better known for balmy winters.

In Israel, snow blocked palm-lined highways and only a few vehicles dared to venture out as the Mediterranean country's tiny fleet of snowplows went to work.

Most of neighboring Lebanon and Syria were also snowbound, with the main Beirut-to-Damascus road blocked and dozens of mountain villages isolated.

In West Bank cities that have been largely reoccupied by Israeli forces, the winter whiteness masked the scars of almost daily Israeli-Palestinian clashes.

Palestinian youths who on other days might play deadly games of cat-and-mouse by throwing stones at Israeli patrols or putting up nationalist posters made do with tamer pastimes.

Snowmen went up in Ramallah''s main square, indistinguishable from those made by Israeli children only a few miles away.

In Bethlehem, the town revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus, snow dusted church steeples and mosque spires.

"People are out and about. There is a sense of relaxation and joy that comes with snow -- children and even young men throwing snowballs at one another," said Sami Awad, a Christian activist who promotes nonviolent resistance to occupation.

A Uninvited Twist of Homeland Security Part II
Rants and Delusions


Ripped from the News...

The Transportation Security Administration has suspended the airman certificates of two Saudi Arabian Airlines pilots and restored the flying privileges of two others. The Saudi Press Agency said airline lawyers are appealing the suspensions of Moen Hassan Zarie and Tarek Hassan Jifry under the recently announced rule that allows the TSA to order the FAA to suspend airman certificates if it believes those holding them pose a security threat. The airline was apparently able to convince TSA authorities that Nabil Mohammed Adawi and Khaled Fahd Al-Olayan were not security risks, and their certificates were returned Jan. 22, the Arab News reported last Saturday. Zarie and Jifry continue their battle. The still-suspended pilots appealed to the NTSB's chief administrative judge but, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal, he rejected the appeals because of the way the act creating the TSA is written. The judge said the 2001 Aviation and Transportation Security Act compelled him to assume that the TSA is correct in considering the two pilots security risks. The pilots are taking their case to another NTSB judge but he apparently said there can't be a hearing until the TSA makes public its now-classified evidence against them. That same act allows the TSA to keep the evidence secret for security reasons. We wouldn't even know this much about the case if the pilots hadn't taken their case to the NTSB, which still conducts its proceedings in public.

A Post to Valentines Day
Rants and Delusions

Women have been compared to a lot of things. I heard it said that they are the Devil, Satan's gift to men, etc. Someone once attempted to convince me that there is nothing that you need in a woman that you cannot find in a dog. I never quite figured that out, but he was pretty sure of it.

I would like to add another comparison at the risk of sounding like just another crazy guy who has nothing better to do than complain on Valentines Day. I would dare to venture that of all the comparisons that are out there, there is none more truthful, more painfully accurate, than the similarities between a woman and an airplane.

1. They are both incredibly expensive. Looking back over the years, either directly or indirectly, I have spent more money on women than I paid for my current car. With the amount of money I have spent flying airplanes I could buy a nice car. Perhaps a Corvette, with enough money left over to buy a Mustang on the side.

2. They both take an incredible amount of maintenance. Airplanes by nature are a high maintenance item. They are required to undergo routine periodic inspections, maintenance, and repairs. Women...also high maintenance by nature.

3. Both airplanes and women can be difficult to handle. Airplanes can be unpredictable. You can be flying around in smooth air when all of a sudden, there is a big of clear air turbulence that nearly throws you from your seat on the way to an unusual attitude that, if not corrected, will send you screaming toward the ground. Women are just as unpredictable. They can come out of nowhere and send you reeling wondering if you are ever going to recover. Airplanes, especially tailwheel aircraft, can be very touchy, especially on simple matters such as taxiing. Women can be just as sensitive over crazy little things.

4. There is always a bit of a mystery as to how they really work. Airplanes produce lift by using a combination of Bernoulli's principle and Newton's 3rd law of Thermodynamics. However, these theories do not completely explain all the effects of lift and drag, etc. There is always some uncertainty as to how a airplane will perform until it is actually flown. Nobody has figured out women. There is no theory on earth that explains how they operate.

5. There are both beautiful airplanes and airplanes that make you wonder what the designer had to drink while at the drawing board. Women...

6. They both make watching a sunset an unforgettable experience. There is nothing like watching the sun slip under the horizen from a solitary perch on the top of the world. Except perhaps, watching it with an woman by your side.

7. Life would not be the same without them. It would be much simpler, less stressful, less painful... Less exciting, less fulfilling, and a whole lot less to talk about.

Staring at the Screen
Rants and Delusions

Right now I am spending my time with one eye one the sky and the other on my computer, praying that the clouds don’t drop 300 more feet. If they stay where they are I have something to do today.

I haven’t been this bored in a long time. I thought I would enjoy this semester. It should be nice to have free time to do what I want, when I want, and for as long as I want to. I conceived plans to read new books, think new thoughts, study new interests, and ENJOY life. I wanted to spend more time with friends, be more active in church, and generally be more productive to society.

Instead, I am stuck in a rut, a rut with a big rain puddle laying on the bottom. I’ve done a bit of everything I wanted, but not to the extent I had dreamed. School has become an afterthought. Classes threw nothing at me to make life interesting. It doesn’t help that I am only taking 16 credits. That is certainly not enough to fill a day. Work is a nonevent. I spend my time pulling inspection panels off, only to put them back on the next day. If only I could hurry up and get my certification. (That is an entirely different story - How Jon Got Screwed) I have read a couple of good books. That has really been the only bright spot of the semester. I read some Orwell, some Dante, and just finished one on Thoreau. Some were interesting; One made me think.

I need a challenge. Right now I am coasting through life with nothing to grab my attention and motivate me. This has been on of the hardest semesters to get going.

(Nuts…Received phone call informing me that I lost my plane…All dressed up and nowhere to go.)