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The complaint:

"Question of the day for Luke Air Force Base: Whom do we thank for the morning air show? Last Wednesday, at precisely 9:11 a.m., a tight formation of four F-16 jets made a low pass over Arrowhead Mall, continuing west over Bell Road at approximately 500 feet. Imagine our good fortune! Do the Tom Cruise-wannabes feel we need this wake-up call, or were they trying to impress the cashiers at Mervyns' early-bird special? Any response would be appreciated."

The response:

Regarding "A wake-up call from Luke's jets" (Letters, Thursday): On June 15, at precisely 9:12 a.m., a perfectly timed four-ship flyby of F-16s from the 63rd Fighter Squadron at Luke Air Force Base flew over the grave of Capt Jeremy Fresques. Capt. Fresques was an Air Force officer who was previously stationed at Luke Air Force Base and was killed in Iraq on May 30, Memorial Day.

At 9 a.m. on June 15, his family and friends gathered at Sunland Memorial Park in Sun City to mourn the loss of a husband, son and friend. Based on the letter writer's recount of the flyby, and because of the jet noise, I'm sure you didn't hear the 21-gun salute, the playing of taps, or my words to the widow and parents of Capt. Fresques as I gave them their son's flag on behalf of the President of the United States and all those veterans and servicemen and women who understand the sacrifices they have endured. A four-ship flyby is a display of respect the Air Force pays to those who give their lives in defense of freedom. We are professional aviators and take our jobs seriously, and on June 15 what the letter writer witnessed was four officers lining up to pay their ultimate respects.

The letter writer asks, "Whom do we thank for the morning air show?" The 56th Fighter Wing will call for you, and forward your thanks to the widow and parents of Capt. Fresques, and thank them for you, for it was in their honor that my pilots flew the most honorable formation of their lives.
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Of course, I thought this was just another email urban legend...

Until I did some Googling...

and found the following: http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/wakeup.asp

And no, I don't believe everything I read on the Internet, but when Google returns this many hits to a query, my confidence level increases.

Reminds one both of the sacrifices that are made to protect our freedoms and way of life, and just how easy it can be to put one's foot in one's mouth.

Jeanie found it to be well acted and thought provoking. She said it was probably the only Woody Allen movie she ever really enjoyed.

I thought it was plodding. The only redeeming value I found - for the part I was awake for and what Jeanie related of the rest of the movie - was the exploration of / contention of the part that luck ultimately plays in our lives.

I don't discount that hard work, focus, practice, etc. can provide a strong advantage. As a former boss often said, "The definition of luck is when opportunity meets preparedness." The bottom line though is that luck still depends on opportunity. And opportunity, and therefore luck, is usually simply a matter of timing. Ultimately, some of us have good timing, and some of us don't...

I found it rather formulaic. Jeanie thought it was okay.

There was one great Harrison Ford line: "I'm going to get my dog!" It doesn't make sense out of context like this, but if you watch the movie, you'll know it when you see it, and for an instant, you'll flash back to the Harrison Ford of the original Star Wars or Air Force One.

To me, it seemed to be just another thriller that wasn't very thrilling. It was better than watching TV re-runs, and since we re-upped for the Blockbuster Movie Pass program which in effect made the rental "free," I guess it was worth the price.

and slept, and slept, and slept.

I got up to eat, and I watched a little TV, but basically, I pretty much slept the entire day.

Man, I needed it!

after more than a year living within miles of the ocean, I finally went "all in."

Sunday morning, I slept late, not arising until ~8:30, which gave me just enough time to throw on some clothes and drive over to the airport for the Sunday morning coffee.

After an hour or so of drinking coffee, eating donuts, and somewhat aviation related talk, I returned home to pick Jeanie up for breakfast and errands.

We drove to Sandy Bottoms and had a less than good experience.

We arrived at 11:01 AM, and were informed that they had stopped serving breakfast. Jeanie and I were both disappointed, but decided to stay and order lunch - hamburgers in both our cases. A couple of minutes after we were seated, another couple sat down at the table next to us, and also indicated that they wanted breakfast. They had a different waitress, who, after hearing her customer's desires, went into the kitchen, checked with the staff, and came back with breakfast menus. Jeanie and I debated whether to have our orders canceled so we could get breakfast, but decided that since our food was already being cooked, we'd just stay the course.

Five or ten minutes later, we decided to move inside due to a combination of it being hot and muggy outside, and the cigarette smoke from the next table. We informed our waitress, who had not bothered to check on us since originally bringing our drinks.

I was already a bit perturbed, and got really upset when I saw the other table's waitress bringing out their breakfast order, while we still awaited our "settled for" hamburgers.

Jeanie decided to take action, and walked out to discuss the situation with our waitress. The waitress had a "I couldn't care less" attitude, and suggested that if Jeanie were unhappy, she could take it up with the manager. Jeanie decided to do just that. After the manager went into the kitchen and had a heated discussion with the staff, Jeanie learned that our order hadn't even been started yet. The manager sent a different waitress to our table with breakfast menus. By this time, I was so upset, that I had lost my appetite. We decided to leave.

We ended up going to the new Home Depot shopping center, and had lunch at What-A-Burger. The service was extremely quick and friendly.

After lunch, we went to the Home Depot to pick up a new toilet handle and a new doorbell transformer. I was quite impressed with the Home Depot. They seemed well stocked, and well staffed, unlike the (closer) Lowe's which never seems to have enough staff.

After returning home, I replaced the toilet handle, and installed the new doorbell transformer. The handle worked, the doorbell still didn't.

Since the transformer didn't fix the problem, I went to the next step in the troubleshooting process and checked the doorbell mechanism itself (we had already replaced the button, so we knew that wasn't the problem). Sure enough, it appeared that the striker mechanism inside the doorbell was cooked - literally. We decided to go the Lowes, both because it was so much closer, and because I needed to "get back on the horse that threw me." See, I hadn't been back inside that Lowes since my thumb got injured.

As we were deciding on a new bell, Jeanie once again gently suggested that getting a wireless doorbell might be a better alternative. After I had disconnect the bell unit, I had checked to see if there was a short in the wiring going to the transformer. While there didn't appear to be a dead short, there was a deflection in the ohmmeter which there shouldn't have been considering the circuit should have been open. I decided that Jeanie's suggestion was the better alternative, as it would be much easier to change the batteries on the button/sender unit every now and then, rather than try to track down the short in the wiring.

We purchased a kit where the bell unit plugs into an outlet anywhere in the house, and the button/sender installs over the hole where the old button was. Installation was quick and painless, and after a year, we now have a functioning doorbell. And, Jeanie didn't even remind me that she had made that suggestion a year ago.

After completing our modest projects, we decided to take the dogs for a walk on the beach.

We drove to American Beach, and parked on the sand. When we were looking at a new vehicle for Jeanie six years ago, we debated whether we should get a 4x4 or just a two wheel drive. Prior to moving here, we had only used the four wheel drive a few times, and then not because we really needed it, but more just to exercise the gear case, except for once or twice when it snowed. Little did we know then how much of a benefit having the 4WD would be living in a place where it never snows!

Anyway, we had a nice walk, and I had toyed with the idea of going for a swim prior to leaving - enough that I had brought my flops and a towel, just in case.

After the walk, I decided to go for it. The water was just the right temperature, and there was just enough wave action to make it interesting without beating me up. While I won't say that I "went swimming" per se, I did get my head wet diving through the waves and attempting to body surf a few of them in.

Now that I've taken the plunge, I think I'll be more open to capping off our walks with a quick dip.

I never thought I'd be a beach person - I always fancied myself more of a mountain person - but...

I noticed that a pattern was developing on the calendar for this month, and I wanted to keep it going.

I guess sometimes you have to reach a bit for something to justify taking the time to write an entry.

While I'm here, I should mention that I did update the wonderful CoPilot palm application from Laurie Davis this week. I also updated my waypoints database using the equally wonderful CoPilot Waypoint Generator from Paul Tomblin. If you don't know about CoPilot, as Laurie describes on his CoPilot home page "CoPilot is a software application program for Palm OS handhelds that performs general aviation flight planning calculations -- the calculations that you would usually perform with a ruler, a protractor and an E6B calculator. CoPilot stores the data for flights so that you can refer back to previous trips (or modify them for new trips)."

It wasn't quite what we'd consider a festival, but it was nice to get out of the house and go off on an adventure.

The Blueberry part was fairly disappointing. We had expected lots of different blueberry dishes - sort of like at a state fair. There was only one vendor selling baked goods, and two vendors selling blueberry bushes and fresh blueberries. We did end up buying two quarts of blueberries some of which Jeanie turned into delicious blueberry pancakes for dinner.

The BBQ was a little better. Jeanie got a rib dinner and I got the BBQ sampler which consisted of medicine cups filled with nine different BBQ contest entries. All were "pulled pork," and it was interesting to see how different they were. Of course none of them could hold a candle to eastern North Carolina BBQ, but, when in Rome...

I never fully understood why that was my nickname, but, so it was.

I hadn't thought about it for many years until one day last week when one of my coworkers remarked that "you should have been a professor." He went on to explain that I reminded him of a professor because I tend to attempt to be very precise in what I do and say.

I don't know if that was the reason, or because I sometimes have a tendency to spout or lecture.

Jeanie and I flew up to visit her Mom and Dad today.

This was my first significant cross country flight since I resumed flying a little over a year ago.

I spent part of yesterday doing the flight planning and studying up on filing/opening/closing a flight plan. I also focused on reviewing radio procedures and cross country navigation.

We left around 11:30. The trip to McRae was pretty easy - we flew direct to the Alma VOR, and then direct to McRae. There is an NDB at McRae which made things even easier. We had originally filed for 6500 feet, but ended up having to climb to 8500 feet to stay legal, given that the bases of the cumulus were right at 6000 feet, and the tops were around 7500. Flight time was 68 minutes and the air was really smooth at altitude.

Jeanie is a great navigator. Today was the first time she ever acted as my co-pilot / navigator, and she did a fantastic job. I did learn one good lesson - ground references that might work really well at 2000 feet - things like towers and roads, don't work so well at altitude.

Jeanie's dad met us a McRae and drove us back to their place, where we had a delicious lunch with Jeanie's parents, her aunt Margie, and her cousin Judy.

After lunch, I hooked up their new DSL modem, and after getting the high speed connection working, removed Norton anti-virus and replaced it with Avast, and installed a bunch of Windows ME updates.

The flight home was more challenging. The trip back to Alma was okay, but I did not do as good a job writing out the times/landmarks for the way home, so the navigation was more challenging. Flying an outbound radial is more challenging too - it shouldn't be, but we ended up about 15 miles north of where we should have been. Unfortunately, there aren't any good navaids right here, and the Archer I rent has only one VOR, so getting a cross fix is really challenging. The Archer does have a GPS, but it is really old and small, and doesn't really help in navigation. To add an extra layer of challenge, right as we got near the coast, the ceiling lowered to 2500 feet, and got somewhat threatening, which made things a bit stressful for me. There is a prohibited area near the home airport to the north, and a class C airspace to the southeast, so there isn't much room for error, especially when you can only fly at 2000 - which is below the ceiling for both the prohibited area and the class C airspace. The trip home was closer to 85 minutes. The one highlight of the trip back was a super smooth on-the-centerline landing in gusty conditions with a cross wind.

Work hasn't let up since the last post - which is why the last post was so long ago.

That, and I haven't had time to reload SharpMT on my work laptop, although even if I had reloaded it, I wouldn't have had time to post.

I think for the last month, I've averaged over 70 hours worked per week.

And not only has there been lots of hours, but lots of stress. I did spend about three hours last week doing something work related that was really cool and enjoyable - one of those "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this cause I'd gladly pay to get to do it" kind of things; unfortunately, I can't talk about it.

Last weekend, I ended up missing a day's worth of CAP training because I had to work on Saturday. I did manage to get in a bit of flying in the rental Archer on Sunday - just enough time to break 100 hours total time.

Hopefully, a respite from the work grind is in sight - I think I will get a bit of a break in another two weeks, at least until the client decides whether we will make the final cut.

My thumb still isn't doing great. I ended up with a thick scar which hurts and limits my ability to fully flex my thumb. There appears to be an accumulation of fluid under the scar which is causing some pain. I can use the thumb, it just hurts now and then, and is a bit of a bother. Not the end of the world, just annoying.

I worked most of yesterday, but I did manage to get out to fly a sundown patrol. I really enjoyed the flying. I've been reading a new (to me) book on flying which stresses the concept of control pressures rather than control movements, and I think last evening, I finally started to "get it." I also finally started to "get" the concept that there is a lag between a control input, and the aircraft's response. This all added up to me flying much more smoothly, which was very nice. My landing left a bit to be desired in terms of smoothness, but overall, it was a great evening of flying.

I haven't been exercising lately. I also haven't been getting enough sleep. Because I'm tired, and busy, I end up eating more / bad stuff to try to get some energy. Needless to say, the scale has not been kind... I know I need to get back to exercising, as this would increase my energy and reduce my appetite, which would stop the weight gain. Get that whole positive cycle thing started again...

Maybe today was the first step... I took a break from work, and Jeanie and I went for a walk on the beach. Now if I can just force myself to keep it up...

Well, I guess I'd better get back to work... no rest for the weary...