Half Quarter

I keep getting these little signs and signals and hints of Spring. My friends are saying "I'm ready for Spring". But isn't it too soon to start counting the days and wishing our short lives away as we wait for something in the future which will be better than "the now" that we have? I am wishing for Spring, but by God, I'm enjoying the "now". I've got patches of green in the grass. And coming up though my cheap asphalt. Our cold house crisis we have every year has eased off. Temps are seasonal finally. I guess we could say that the worst of the winter is over. I suspect we'll get a big storm or two before it's all over. During the below average temperatures I worked on tightening up our leaky old farmhouse. I put bales of straw against the north wall. I blocked off two rooms for the winter. We had the electrician come last week and install two new 220 volt heaters. I'm building a door for the pantry. Wife sleeps with a GreatDane that weighs more than her. The dog is a bed hog and likes to cozy up, so at least wife is warm at night. But if I go in to kiss wife goodnight, the Dane puts her big head between us and gives me a little growl. It's OK, I can catch a kiss and hug passing in the hall later. My airstrip got kind of soggy and is slowly getting firmer. It needs no rain and warmer temps to really dry out. I have some nice plans for our garden this season and I plan to start early. I plan to celebrate Groundhog day. This is a serious holiday for a calender worshiper like me. It's what's called a "half quarter". It falls between the Winter Solstice and the March 21st equinox. This is a holiday as old as the rest of the seasonal feasts. A few years back I actually went to Punxutawney in PA for the celebration. It was damned cold. After being out in the snow and cold out at Gobbler's Nob or whatever they call it for a few hours, I really didn't give a s___ what the Groundhog did. While the tourists are freezing their asses off on the hill waiting for "Phil" the Hog, the locals are celebrating in the town, which is a few miles away. In town there are old hotels, and a bookshop, and cafes, and booths outdoors with ice sculpture, and music and ice skating. It's pretty small, and some of the locals kind of protest your being there, and some want to get your money one way or another, and some love to see you and are proud of their town's fame. I have a plan for my Groundhog Day. I will get up just before dawn. I will have a nice big pot of coffee. I will add some whiskey. I will bundle up and smile. I will take my dog Jake (he looks and acts a bit like a large groundhog) and I will go out and watch the sunrise. A large fire will already be laid in my fire pit. So if it's not raining I'll have a nice fire. We'll see whether Jake sees his shadow. After a few hours of winter fun, I shall go back to bed. Wake up for the lovely sunset and write here and tell you about it. Of course you are invited. Drive way out here on a Tuesday to be up half the night in the cold. But that's exactly what I did when I went to Punxutawney. It's kind of like Times Square. Everybody should do it once.
LLITTY :::::+:::::

Alphabet Groups

I was considering joining the AARP. It's the retirement organization. I'm retired, so why not. But I'm having second thoughts because of something I saw on Fox News. The guy was saying that AARP wants a big government option in the health care plan, so they can sell more "fill the gap" insurance to their members. He said AARP was no longer an advocate for old folks. Just another business who wants them as a customer. So I didn't join. I can see both sides of the health care question. I can see both sides of all the issues in politics today. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I wish the Congress would enact an Amendment limiting all terms of office to four years. With elections every 2 years. Let's stop having professional politicians. Also let's have each bill in Congress stand alone. One Bill, one issue. No piggybacking, no trading favors on another bill. Just the Bill on it's own merits. I digress. Back to alphabet groups. I was considering joining the ADA. That's the American Diabetes Association. I've never joined and I guess I never will. I suspect it's even dirtier than the AARP. The ADA recommended diet includes enough carbohydrates to put most type 2 diabetics on insulin. Their recommended diet will make a type 2 into a type 1 and eventually kill him. The ADA is actually promoting diabetes. Next is ALPA. The airline pilot's association. I was a proud member for 29 years. But unfortunately, once I retired, they dropped me like a rock. No paycheck to "check off" dues from, no union. Next, the CAP. Civil Air Patrol. I've been a member off and on and now mostly off. I was a "Cadet" member and got a lot out of that program. I got my start in aviation there. I owe CAP. But the last few times I've dealt with the program, there was so much red tape to become a CAP pilot, that it didn't seem to be worth the time. I want to take young people up flying though. That takes me to the next group. The EAA. The experimental airplane association. I was in this once and to me it was just a magazine subscription. I wasn't building an airplane and I never will. But the EAA has a program to fly young people. It's called "Young Eagles". If you want to help in their young eagles program you must obviously join EAA. So we have a hit. I gonna rejoin EAA. But I'm not crazy about them for other reasons. Next we have the AOPA. Aircraft ownwers and pilots assoc. I just sent in my renewal dues of $39. This organization is pretty big. A few hundred thousand members. A lobby to help General Aviation. I wish they had the "Young Eagles" program instead of EAA. I hope the AOPA isn't "corrupt" like the ADA and the AARP but I suspect AOPA is big enough to have that sort of problem. The NRA, national rifle assoc. has sent me very glossy and nice junk mail forgiving me for letting my membership lapse, and reminding me of what a powerful lobby they are, and offering me a nice tote bag, if I will only rejoin. We'll see. I have limited budget for dues. Next, the SSA. (the soaring society). If you fly gliders you are told over and over to join this. You must be a member to receive "awards" as you progress in your gliding career. When I took lessons, the school told me I "had to join" SSA or could not fly there. So I joined and it was a magazine subscription. Now it's long expired, but I still fly gliders. Some day I may take a trip out west and go for one of those awards. Called "Diamonds". If that happens, I'll rejoin SSA. I thought that the SSA was the nicest, most innocent Alphabet group. Just guys floating around in quiet little gliders! But it turns out a few years ago their Chief Financial Officer ran off with $140,000. They had to boot him and then re-boot the organization. Maybe I'm just not a "joiner".

Not even Winter Yet

Lakeland is about four months away. The days will start getting longer in only ten days. I was walking around by the airstrip and it's really soggy. A great sunset tonight and the winds died down. It's so wet that my cellar sump pump is running on and off, all the time. It's so wet that we have a new pond in the side yard. It sure looked pretty in the sunset. I want to get the M-10 Cadet out of here tomorrow to take it flying and show it to the guy who is buying it. The winds are forecast to be out of the west at 5 to 15 mph. I may take off downwind tomorrow to try to avoid the sloppy spots on the strip. I figure if the take off roll doesn't suit me I can just stop or I can hop on down to the east end and stop and take off back to the west into the wind. The strip looks pretty nice except for the soft spots. I don't want to make any new ruts. After I fly a bit, I think I'll leave the M-10 over at Cambridge. Wife can pick me up. Then I won't have to fool around with the strip till it dries out. Except I will be bringing the Cherokee back at some point. A couple of weeks ago I flew a sailplane around up at Smyrna. It was sunny and dry and calm wind and cool. I thought there might be some lift. Or a little lift. But it was a sled ride. A sled ride is when you just glide back down to the airport. You're a glider. I enjoyed the ride and asked my tow pilot mentor for another tow. This other guy Barry was there too. Barry took the glider up and he didn't find any lift either. So I took my second sled ride. It was great. Not much else in flying goin on here. I may do a flight or two to Carolina in the Piper. I'll do a Cadet flight to Easton for the transponder check. That's about it. So I'll tell a story or three in my coming posts. I guess about Dynamo Dave. And one about me checking out on the mail. And one about Garrett County. If anybody should ask me if I've done anything "Christmassy" I may reply, " Well I've had a sled ride or two".

Cimate Change E-Mail Scandel

I haven't read the famous e-mails that some "bad guy" scientists have been caught with. Apparently they were cooking the books to make Global Warming worse than it really is. I know almost nothing of the facts of the e-mails. I know almost nothing about atmospheric phenomena. But I must comment anyway. The first thing that popped into my simple mind was, "Why would a scientist scew his hard earned data"? If he does that, he's not a real scientist. And he'll eventually be caught in the lie because the next guy to experiment in that area will find him out. Maybe I'm naive, but I thought that all the fun in science was about satisfying one's curiosity. If you doctor the data, you won't learn anything. I can't understand the motivation. Why risk toasting your career? I gotta think there is more to this story, and the story has another slant to it, to defame the idea of man- made global warming. I can see why someone might want to cook the books to show there is no man-made climate threat. So they can keep the factories and power plants, and cars going the way they want. But why would someone want to falsify research to hide the good news that climate change is not as big a threat as we thought it was! Someone suggested it was because the scientists involved would be out of a job if they told the truth. They wouldn't be needed any more and they would have no more grant money. I simply can't believe that. The work they are doing is very important right now, even if they find out man-made climate change is negligible. I hope it is negligible. Remember my post about Creationists? They figured if they could just stop Darwin's work in it's tracks, by discrediting it, then we could all just go back to Genesis and forget all about it. So now, the status quo lovers at Fox news and the right wing Christians want us to know that the bad scientists are faking the data, so now lets just forget global warming and that wacko Al Gore and face the next ice age or drought as it comes. Just like when General Motors taught us back in the nineties that we can never have an electric car. I think that the sad flaw in this kind of inflexible thinking is that no matter how this scandal comes out, the scientists will keep studying the atmosphere. And keep learning. We'll find out. Even the skeptics will agree that we're in a warming era right now. Even if it's not man made. We need to keep working on it. And history has shown us, that once the Genie is out of the bottle, there is no turning back and putting our heads in the oil enriched sand. LloydLou ITTU :::::+:::::

Creation vs Evolution

Creation vs Evolution. I don't believe in either one. And they are apples and oranges. No rational man could believe in either one. Evolution has little to do with "creating" something. If something evolves, then it's already been created. "Creation" is a story in Genesis. It's two pages in the bible. That's it. That's the body of knowledge that Creationists have to work with. "Creation" is not something to be chosen as opposed to something else like Evolution. The creation story is either believed, or it's not believed. So there's not much to discuss after that. The theory of evolution is updating as we speak. Darwin is a founder, a contributor, a namesake. Evolution is just one small part of biology along with Genetics. Genetics. Genesis. Biology is just one small part of Biological Science which is part of science in general, etc. There's a strategy that Creationists use that has always surprised me. The strategy is to debunk Darwin. Most of Darwin isn't opinion or postulation. It's research he did on a boat someplace working very hard. So one could only debunk parts of Darwin's work, not all. And modern science admits Darwin's flaws. But modern science is well past Darwin. Let's say Darwin is completely debunked. What could the Creationists get out of that? No one would start believing in Creation all of a sudden. I don't believe in the creation story. The reason I don't believe in the Creation story is because I believe it is a myth. It's not because I have another better or truer story of how the "world" began. I don't know how the world began. Oddly, that doesn't bother me. I also don't know what will happen to me after I die. That doesn't bother me either. That doesn't mean I don't cling to life like the rest of you, my fellow survivors. I want to grow older. When I stop growing older, I die. LLITTY :::::+:::::

Glow Ball warming

I'm kind of confused about the "Global Warming" controversy. I know some of the reasons why it's confusing me. I'd like to find for my own satisfaction why there is a controversy about it. The disagreements over global warming keep reminding me of the the long unsettled controversy of "Evolution vs Creation". The dialog is vaguely and strangely familiar. I think the "Creation" folks would side with the " global warming is a false theory" folks. I think the "evolution" folks want to team up with the "global warming is now and dangerous" folks. "Creation" believers think it's wrong to study the planet and the cosmos too much. They don't think man should meddle into God's beautiful creation. They don't believe man could affect the planet. They believe the planet is about 6000 years old and that the dinosaurs are either a fake, or lived concurrently with man ala "Flintstones". The "Evolution" people think man evolved from lower primates and all life evolved from a Hydrogen primordial soup. They think that man with his "greenhouse gasses" is destroying the planet. As I write this and you read this we all agree that this is a generalization full of presumptions. But stick with me here. I'm not so sure how I want to make my point. I'm going to try to make it in one sentence. Here goes: The conflicts in both of these arguments arise out of beliefs, not out of knowledge or facts. That's it. LloydLou ITTY :::::+:::::

I love you Santa

Santa Claus vs Jesus Christ. The eerie parallel between Santa and Jesus is rarely spoken of. In fact, it may be in bad taste. Taste is kinda subjective isn't it. My wife gave me something to taste the other day. She was making ginger snaps from scratch. She had cubes of raw candied ginger. It smelled great. She offered me one. I popped it in my mouth expecting a new Christmas delight. In about three seconds I was spitting the stuff all over the kitchen floor. She was laughing and I thought it was because she had tricked me. But no. It was just funny to see me gagging. She does actually like the stuff. I don't think I'll ever try a sugar plum or a chestnut. Taste is subjective. Let me cut to the chase. Everything is subjective. Including my statement: "Everything is subjective". So what is this eerie parallel between J.C. and Santa? I don't have to tell you do I? Believer or non-believer, you know where I'm going here. First, and most important: Santa Claus and all Christmas magic only work if you believe. Christianity only works if you believe. Next, the historical parallel. There are lots of Nicholas's in history. Legend suggests that our Christmas Nick was St. Nicholas of Patara, Turkey born around AD245. He became the Bishop of Myra. The name "Myra" comes from the resin myrrh. He performed many miracles and became famous. His most famous miracle was the saving of three maidens from a life of forced sin as their poor yet noble father could not pay their dowries. The Saint delivered enough gold for the dowries to the shabby castle by dropping a sack of gold down the chimney. Ever after, the townfolk, hoping to pick up a stray nugget, would put their socks under the chimney. The date of his death December 6 was celebrated with a golden feast. His character was melded into Christian tradition as the saint of children and sailors and merchants, and teachers and students. You know the rest about the British, French and mostly Dutch. Now Jesus. Jesus was 245 years earlier than Santa. Jesus has this huge book about him, the New Testament, and his fame is huge. There's not much historical stuff about Jesus. Mostly legand. Like Santa only more so. So he's bigger than Santa, yes. But actually, that is the parallel I'm going for here. Santa is maybe in that group of the most famous personalities in the world. You got Buddha, Mohamed, and Confucius and pretty soon Santa comes up on the list. He's in the same time era and fame size as many of the big "gods". So both Santa and Jesus are real people, but they're so hugely bigger than life. Because legend and custom have followed them through lots of oral tradition, then somebody got around to writing some of it down. Gee, do you think any of the early story tellers and later writers ever made anything up that was interesting and threw it in? Or took a real character who had great stories told about him, and melded that character in to our Nick or J.C. Would they have done that? This all happened over some 1500 years mind you, before any common man could have access to the legends, other than oral lore. Look... 1500 years is a long time. None of us know exactly how legends of St. Nick or Jesus came about. Let me give the 1500 years a perspective we can identify with. When I was five years old, Davy Crockett was my favorite person. The Disney series was on and I watched every week. Fess Parker, Buddy Ebsen. I believed in both Santa Claus and Davy Crockett. I had a children's book, a "Golden Book", about Davy. In the first part of the book there was a part about Davy fixing the world after a deep freeze. It was the great ice age. There was a picture of Davy in his coonskin cap hammering against the "Gears" of the world to get the world moving again. And he did it. He killed a bear when he was three years old. He knew every tree in Tennessee. His father could "lick" any man in Tennesse and he, Davy, could lick his father. He was a US Congressman. So there's a few legends for us. And that's a lowly mortal, not a God!. And it's not 2000 years ago. It's what 180 years ago? And a studied historian would tell us that they don't know what happened exactly at the end of the siege of the Alamo. But if you ask me I know that David Crockett, standing beside Jim Bowie, was one of the last men killed and he was swinging his Kentucky long rifle by the barrel at a horde of Santa Anna's men. It's folly to try to tell me that it could have happened any other way. It's a legend. But it's also a "meme". It exists in the culture. Here's a scenario for you. Maybe the legends about Nick grew and grew into the guy we now have as described by Clement Moore. The legends were just made up. Gosh, I believe in Father Christmas and I wish you wouldn't say he was made up. He's a real, historical person. But apparently in the case of Jesus, the New Testament story is exactly true. It has never been changed even once during the 2000 years it has been told, written, canonized, translated. Even though there are dozens of historical "Saviors" whom, if we read about them, we would find many of the same stories that are attributed to Jesus. That can only be coincidence. The exact record is in the bible and even if the bible contradicts itself, the story of Jesus is not in one iota legend. Wow. Talk about faith and miracles. OK. I'll get to the point. You say Jesus walked on water, turned water into wine, was the son of God. I say Santa can deliver presents to one billion households in 48 hours (he flies with the earths rotation, and his sled can warp into a time machine to keep him in a relativity cloud). And he can transport into any living room through pure magic aided by nano technology. It seems to me we both have an equally viable claim. After all, it's about belief and faith. Now one more thing. It makes more sense to believe in Santa. If you're going to have a subjective "belief" in something, than you can choose the belief. You can believe you're going to be the next Tiger Woods. Ah, bad example. You can believe world hunger will be gone in one year. Or that ice cream will become a perfect health food. You can believe something good and wholesome and happy. Like the reality of Santa Claus. Why by virtue of simple common sense, would you believe in a God like the father of Jesus? He condemns you as a horrible sinner from the day you are born. Due to a Creation error that only he could be responsible for! You need a Savior because of him! He has the power to fix the world and save you. But he does not. I believe in Santa Claus. It's nicer. It's saner. More positive. Healthier mentally. I'm gonna e- mail him right now. I've got a few Christmas wishes. They require miracles. Except for the one material thing I want. It will be easy for S. Claus. It's just a metal detector, Santa please. He has a lovely Elf to help him in my part of his route. Merry Christmas!!! ..... .... LloydLou ITTY :::::+:::::