Nine days away from home. Seven full days in Los Angeles. A trusted friend housesitter to mind the fort. An expensive doggie resort to stash the dogs. A long term parking lot off the airport. A wake up at 4AM on departure day.
Day one: Travel. Get the roller skate rental car. Try to adjust to driving in L.A. Wife is pretty good because she used to drive in Bethesda. We go to our hotel. Then to see our son and his apartment. Then back to hotel and a jet lagged sleep.
Day two: Son and his roomate take us to Santa Monica. We buy them lunch on the Ocean. We walk to the end of the pier as a good tourist should. Rt.66. Then over to Venice Beach. Wonderful time. Hippies still exist. Out to the Burbank suburbs and dinner.
Day three: Son picks up his mother for touring of Beverly Hills, and shopping not at Beverly Hills. I take the rental car and the GPS and go out to the north across the Antelope Nat'l Park toward Mojave. I buy myself a fantasy flight in a glider over the mountains. I drive home over those mountains on the amazing Angeles Forrest Highway. It takes a couple extra hours but it is so worth it. A spectacular view at every hairpin switchback turn. Back at hotel wife and I walk to authentic Mexican eatery. And debrief our separate adventures.
Day four: Son picks us up and takes us to Universal City and we tour around. Then a wonderful driving tour of Santa Monica up the Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades, and Malibu. Wife and I go to our new favorite local Vegan restaurant.
Day five: Son picks us up very early and we go to CBS and wait in line and get processed to go to a taping of "The Price is Right". This takes all day and is fun for us because we visit with son all day. We enjoy the show. We eat a fine dinner with son.
Day six: We go to Warner Bros. and spend the day. We go to a nice studio tour. See the sets, the back lots and etc. We stand by for Conan, and just barely don't get in, but we had not waited in line at all. We went back to North Hollywood and went to our favorite restaurant.
Day seven: We hang out at the hotel and in the neighborhood in the AM and I eat street food which is fun. We go to the original "Bog Boy" at Taluka Lake, but we don't eat there. We eat at Marie Callender's bakery. Then back to Warner Bros. . We have tickets for live studio audience at the new Chelsea Handler sit com starring Laura Prepon. This taping takes over six hours but we enjoy it very much and are entertained by a great comedian in between "takes". We go back to our hotel on the Hollywood Freeway without needing the GPS.
Day eight: Son picks us up and takes us to a fine Indian restaurant in Sherman Oaks. We cruise Beverly Hills and head up the mountains to Griffith Observatory for great views of the area and the mountains. We say a big goodbye to son. Later wife and I go back to our favorite restaurant and I have tofu chicken yellow curry for the third time and love it.
Day nine: Travel home day. Wake up to beautiful weather. All nine days are perfect weather. Apparently this is normal, except for occasional acid rain and wildfires. We head out to LAX which is a Sunday madhouse. Dark comes soon travelling east and Baltimore has not the summer it had when we left. It is cold and the leaves are turning. We leave the long term parking lot in wife's Altima. I suggest a debrief at the Double T Diner in Annapolis. But wife wants to go to Outback even though she is a Vegan. We have a nice dinner. Then we are back in our own beds.
The Next morning: We sat in the sun on the front porch with sweaters on. The big farm across the street was a freshly disked and planted field of grooved brown earth when we left ten days ago. Now it was full of green virgin winter wheat that looked like a 200 acre lawn. We sipped coffee with the barn cats underfoot. They were glad mommy was back. We wished each other welcome home. LLITTY :::::+:::::
Thursday, October 27, 2011
This is How We Get There.
Wife and I took a trip to California. We looked forward to it. And it turned out to be all that we hoped it would be and more. The most important and precious pleasure was seeing our son whom we had not seen in almost a year. We shopped in advance on line for the cheapest airfare. Hotel. Rental Car. Being a retired airline pilot, one might think I could have gotten a real deal on the airfare. But the real deal of employee discounts at the airlines is riding "space available". This means you only ride when there are extra seats. The airline industry has changed. There was a time that a full airplane was a rare event. If a flight canceled, there were seats on the very next flight. And tickets were refundable. Then government subsidies went away and fuel prices climbed twenty fold. The full airplane cattle car approach is now the norm. Even before 9-11 the experience of flying on an airliner had become drudgery. Where it used to be the best part of ones vacation or business trip. But since 9-11 the simple drudgery of full airplanes, middle seats, no amenities and no one being nice, has been replaced by a surreal nightmare of just getting there with your sanity. And your luggage. And a shred of dignity. I love to fly in any airplane, but I was dreading the travel days of our little vacation.
There was both good and bad on the travel days. Really, really noisy babies and toddlers during the entire flights both out and back. Oversized travellers who used part of my seat space both out and back. Full airplanes.
On the good side we flew non stop each way. Wife had a window seat and although her window was fogged on the way out to L.A., her flight home was clear all the way and she watched the entire country go by and with the prevailing wind the flight took a little over four hours.
We were on a 737. An airplane that used to barely make it halfway across the country. Now more efficient engines and airframes and winglets make the old venerable "seven three" a coast to coaster. I won't tell you the name of the airline we were on, but it's initials are AIR TRAN and it used to be Value Jet. Now I travel in spite of flying on an airplane.
LLITTY :::::+:::::
There was both good and bad on the travel days. Really, really noisy babies and toddlers during the entire flights both out and back. Oversized travellers who used part of my seat space both out and back. Full airplanes.
On the good side we flew non stop each way. Wife had a window seat and although her window was fogged on the way out to L.A., her flight home was clear all the way and she watched the entire country go by and with the prevailing wind the flight took a little over four hours.
We were on a 737. An airplane that used to barely make it halfway across the country. Now more efficient engines and airframes and winglets make the old venerable "seven three" a coast to coaster. I won't tell you the name of the airline we were on, but it's initials are AIR TRAN and it used to be Value Jet. Now I travel in spite of flying on an airplane.
LLITTY :::::+:::::
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Rambling Update
Today is Sunday. We've already had three beautiful days to make up for the rains. Now it is so nice I don't even know what to do. My wife has been sitting on the front porch lately about once a day. Her barn cats come over and sit with her. They run away when I come out to sit. They are semi "feral". The porch is in desperate need of a new floor. My wife doesn't seem to mind because it's all about the animals and they like the holes in the floor which give them instant access to the crawl space. I don't have the funds or energy for the new porch floor, but it would be a great fall project. We sit out there and drink coffee and watch the tractors work the large field across the street. That's when you know you are retired.
I am not a motor head. In one of my blogs I have a post about what a really bad mechanic I am. I have seven cars. One not running. One in California. I have two cars visiting that are not mine. In the last week or so, I have had three cars break down and wind up in various shops. Friday I picked up one of the cars from the shop. I drove it sixty miles and it broke down again. It is back in the shop. That was the second time in two weeks that I had two breakdowns in one day. I can't complain. There was a long period where all six cars just did their job. I'm bad about maintenance. I take them to Jiffy Lube, but that's it.
A while back, after our fly-in, a good buddy of mine made me an offer. This unnamed buddy, let's just call him Dempsey, had an idea. He suggested I let him base and store and work on his little sports car in my shed and he in return would work on my "Brittish piece of sh-t". Well, I have never been able to afford a mechanic to work on a hobby car. So I took him up on it. My little Brittish car is called a TR-6 and it was way not running. It could not even move with it's rusted brakes locked. It had not been driven in about 13 years. I have had it eight years and kept it high and dry in my shed and in 2003 I had patched the floorboards so it would not be like a "Fred Flintstone" car. Our first day of working on the thing was just getting the bees nests out of it and making sure the snakes would not come back. About three weeks after our "deal" I found myself driving the crazy little thing down the runway at 50 mph with no brakes. Fueled by a soda bottle full of 100LL aviation gas run through brand new fuel lines into a new fuel pump into the unknown carburators. We had robbed a battery out of my jeep. I was amazed the starter and the clutch and for that matter the engine itself, mostly worked. It was a long way to come from a "dead" car. After that drive I was happy and telling Dempsey he was a "genius" and a "wizard". And he was and is. But there is a long long way to go. Last Saturday we nursed the car about thirty miles on back roads to a "Wings and Wheels" fly in. Dempsy drove the TR and I followed chase in the Ford pick up. We had a great time. Saw two B-25 Mitchells, a Corsair, a T-28, T-6's and many others. And so many beautiful cars. You know. You've been to car shows. If you saw any one of the cars in a grocery store parking lot you'd be blown away. But when there are 200 of them you barely have time to give them a look. I coveted a beautiful cream white Studebaker Avanti parked along side it's show mate, a cherry Hawk. There were 60's convertables, Corvairs, which my mechanic and I both like. Antiques like Model A's and T's, rat cars, etc. you know. But there was my little Triumph on the front line by the planes. Yes it was a rat. No top. Primer patches, bondo patches, no carpet, every single thing on it needing some kind of attention. Yet as I sat in my lawn chair by my car as if I had an immaculate 1957 T-Bird, I talked to passers by who said things like "Oh yes, I know exactly what this is. There was only one at my High School. I love these" My car was a hit. And we had fun because we knew some of the aviation folks too. I owe it all to you Dempsey. Thank you.
LLITTY :::::+:::::
I am not a motor head. In one of my blogs I have a post about what a really bad mechanic I am. I have seven cars. One not running. One in California. I have two cars visiting that are not mine. In the last week or so, I have had three cars break down and wind up in various shops. Friday I picked up one of the cars from the shop. I drove it sixty miles and it broke down again. It is back in the shop. That was the second time in two weeks that I had two breakdowns in one day. I can't complain. There was a long period where all six cars just did their job. I'm bad about maintenance. I take them to Jiffy Lube, but that's it.
A while back, after our fly-in, a good buddy of mine made me an offer. This unnamed buddy, let's just call him Dempsey, had an idea. He suggested I let him base and store and work on his little sports car in my shed and he in return would work on my "Brittish piece of sh-t". Well, I have never been able to afford a mechanic to work on a hobby car. So I took him up on it. My little Brittish car is called a TR-6 and it was way not running. It could not even move with it's rusted brakes locked. It had not been driven in about 13 years. I have had it eight years and kept it high and dry in my shed and in 2003 I had patched the floorboards so it would not be like a "Fred Flintstone" car. Our first day of working on the thing was just getting the bees nests out of it and making sure the snakes would not come back. About three weeks after our "deal" I found myself driving the crazy little thing down the runway at 50 mph with no brakes. Fueled by a soda bottle full of 100LL aviation gas run through brand new fuel lines into a new fuel pump into the unknown carburators. We had robbed a battery out of my jeep. I was amazed the starter and the clutch and for that matter the engine itself, mostly worked. It was a long way to come from a "dead" car. After that drive I was happy and telling Dempsey he was a "genius" and a "wizard". And he was and is. But there is a long long way to go. Last Saturday we nursed the car about thirty miles on back roads to a "Wings and Wheels" fly in. Dempsy drove the TR and I followed chase in the Ford pick up. We had a great time. Saw two B-25 Mitchells, a Corsair, a T-28, T-6's and many others. And so many beautiful cars. You know. You've been to car shows. If you saw any one of the cars in a grocery store parking lot you'd be blown away. But when there are 200 of them you barely have time to give them a look. I coveted a beautiful cream white Studebaker Avanti parked along side it's show mate, a cherry Hawk. There were 60's convertables, Corvairs, which my mechanic and I both like. Antiques like Model A's and T's, rat cars, etc. you know. But there was my little Triumph on the front line by the planes. Yes it was a rat. No top. Primer patches, bondo patches, no carpet, every single thing on it needing some kind of attention. Yet as I sat in my lawn chair by my car as if I had an immaculate 1957 T-Bird, I talked to passers by who said things like "Oh yes, I know exactly what this is. There was only one at my High School. I love these" My car was a hit. And we had fun because we knew some of the aviation folks too. I owe it all to you Dempsey. Thank you.
LLITTY :::::+:::::
Monday, August 29, 2011
Irene Sunday Cyclone
Yesterday was a long day. Filled with excitement, concern, anticipation. Filled with dramatically bad weather. And dramatically good weather. Oddly our electric power stayed on through the cyclone's visit. So I was able to watch TV and look at the storm's progress on the computer. Until the down cable took those things away. The eye passed abeam our house at 2:45 AM yesterday morning. It was forty miles from us. I got a few hours sleep. I got up at dawn and went out in the high wind. Wind as strong as anything I'd seen leading up to the eye. Maybe worse. The eye at dawn was now 50 miles north of it's abeam latitude but the winds were not subsiding. But I now knew it would get no worse. I stayed out of the house and in the weather from dawn to dark. At nine AM the winds had not let up and I hung out in the pole shed/hangar/lean to. The rain had stopped. But the wind made "rain" as it blew water everywhere. The wind sock was standing straight out and shifting in all directions. At ten AM the windsock showed little signs of bending down and swinging less. By 11 AM the sock had steadied to a less gusty west wind. The eye was now 90 miles north. My wife was going back and forth to the barn and pointed out a narrow band of blue sky on the southwest horizon. I stared at that for a long time. I was soaking up the sea change. The natural feeling you get when you feel the weather and you've been in the pace of the system. The altimeter I had sitting on the kitchen table showed the air pressure had gone up another tenth of an inch but I knew what it was going to say before I read it. Hour by wonderful hour and minute by minute the weather got slowly and steadily better. And I watched it and felt it. I started to pick up limbs. And branches. And twigs. I filled the pick up truck and emptied it several times. The wind was still blowing but ever lessening. At about 4 PM even the thin high cirrus overcast was breaking apart and the sun was shining. I sat down in the hangar on the couch in the "man cave". I slept for an hour. I had had six hours sleep in the last forty eight. When I got up from my nap, the sky was clear except for a band of cumulus low on the horizon out toward Ocean City. A final band of Irene to remind me of her immense size. The wind was calm. The sun starting to set. I opened hangar doors. I got out mowers. I got out cars. I got out the golf cart. I got out the big trash can. I did some mowing and a lot more picking up of sticks. It was one of the prettiest days I had ever seen. Before it got dark I went down to the ditch that runs as a stream thru my property. The state calls it a "branch" as it connects to the Choptank River. In the morning after the eye had passed the water in the ditch was just barely below the footbridge. Now before dark the water had dropped to about a foot lower than the bridge. My farm is saturated but not flooded. If another storm comes anytime soon, I will be flooded.
Now today as I write, I can't wait to get back outside. Into the refreshed atmosphere, the sunshine, the light breezes. I'll walk the airstrip and see how soggy it may be.
My wife invented a dessert called "hurricane cake". It was fabulous and we finished it off quickly. She is now making another one. It's time for our second pot of coffee. There is so much more I could say about the troubles of big Irene. But I probably won't.
I hope all you fellow east coasters fared well.
LLITTY .. .. :::::+:::::
Now today as I write, I can't wait to get back outside. Into the refreshed atmosphere, the sunshine, the light breezes. I'll walk the airstrip and see how soggy it may be.
My wife invented a dessert called "hurricane cake". It was fabulous and we finished it off quickly. She is now making another one. It's time for our second pot of coffee. There is so much more I could say about the troubles of big Irene. But I probably won't.
I hope all you fellow east coasters fared well.
LLITTY .. .. :::::+:::::
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Late Summerness Now.
Hihowareya. I love this time of the year. The late summer is just excellent. Yes, storms can be severe. And there are hurricanes down south. All our critters are a bit pumped up because it's easier to move around now that the heat waves are mostly over. Today is so pristine I may just sit on the deck and bask in the breeze.
I'm in a life transition. I'm adjusting to not having my companion "Jake the dog". I'm adjusting to not having my airman medical. I'm adjusting to changes in medications that will improve my blood sugar control from sub optimal to near optimal. That control doesn't come easy because it's not all about medication. I have to do the tedious work of testing, exercise, and diet. I am a believer in low carb as a diabetes treatment. Many "experts" think low carb is dangerous.
I walk through these adjustments and I watch summer end toward Labor Day. My strongest emotion now is thankfulness. I have some wonderful events coming up in the future and they are certainly worth looking forward to. In October, wife and I are going to California. We shall visit son. Wife shall do L.A. things. I shall sneak off for three days to do some sailplane flying.
But I'm not going to wait my life away thinking about the future. Because I learned from my dog Jake that "now" is where life is. Now is typing to you. Now is feeling better. Now is enjoying wife and friend in the house with me. Now is the blue unhazed sky which looks like fall except with green trees. Now is today and the now- future of the deck, a little mowing, working on cars for fun with friend, birthday dinner with wife.
It's therapy to be in the now. It's therapy to be thankful. I'm thankful for the now.
I'm in a life transition. I'm adjusting to not having my companion "Jake the dog". I'm adjusting to not having my airman medical. I'm adjusting to changes in medications that will improve my blood sugar control from sub optimal to near optimal. That control doesn't come easy because it's not all about medication. I have to do the tedious work of testing, exercise, and diet. I am a believer in low carb as a diabetes treatment. Many "experts" think low carb is dangerous.
I walk through these adjustments and I watch summer end toward Labor Day. My strongest emotion now is thankfulness. I have some wonderful events coming up in the future and they are certainly worth looking forward to. In October, wife and I are going to California. We shall visit son. Wife shall do L.A. things. I shall sneak off for three days to do some sailplane flying.
But I'm not going to wait my life away thinking about the future. Because I learned from my dog Jake that "now" is where life is. Now is typing to you. Now is feeling better. Now is enjoying wife and friend in the house with me. Now is the blue unhazed sky which looks like fall except with green trees. Now is today and the now- future of the deck, a little mowing, working on cars for fun with friend, birthday dinner with wife.
It's therapy to be in the now. It's therapy to be thankful. I'm thankful for the now.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Tonight is for Crying
The sad end came for my beloved dog "Jake" tonight. He hid himself in a corner under the kitchen table and would not move. I crawled under there with him. He would not eat a dog treat. He would not eat tuna fish out of my hand. He would not drink water. His panting had turned to a kind of coughing. He looked at me and his eyes said he was tired and he was done. My wife called the vet's answering service and the doc called us back immediately. It was about 8PM. We took him to the vet's office. I had to carry him to the car. He had never let me pick him up before, except when he was a little puppy. I petted him and talked to him all the way to Easton. We put him on a stretcher at the office and carried him in. The Doc was very kind to us and to Jake. As Jake went to his final long sleep I petted him and talked to him the whole time. The doc said he was gone. I couldn't move or talk. I just kept petting him as my eyes filled with tears and my throat lumped closed. He was the only dog of my own I had ever had. He taught me love, devotion, and loyalty. I will never ever forget him. I've been grieving here for the last month because I knew he was dying so I am OK and I was prepared. But my heart is broken tonight. And maybe forever. Goodbye Jaker. I'll never again get to lie on my bed with you and watch tv. Or give you treats you love like McD's Mcdouble plain. Or walk with you on the airstrip while you wander across both sides following old scents and scaring up new ones. Or see you bark and darn near nip at every single person except wife, son, and me. Or see you on the back deck waiting for me for hours as I mow and when I finally come in you howl to scold me for leaving you so long. I tell you a treat will make it better and you wag your tail. You loved riding in the Subaru which you rode in tonight. But you loved the pickup even more. You would watch the road for bunnies and foxes, then lay down with your nose on my leg. No matter where I was, you were there. Always. Thanks for teaching me real love. Thanks for loving me when I was being a jerk and no one else would. From now on I will address my journal entries to you Jake. To keep you up to date on Daddy. You will never be really gone to me. Remember when you were a puppy Jake? I told you every day that mommy was going to get you all your shots, take you to the vets, give you your worm medicine, and fix it so you don't have to sleep under that ole trailer anymore.
Tycoons and Typhoons
I figure all of you, my little circle of friends, have read about the "new" concept of libertarian islands that are currently being started and funded by billionaires. They are going into international waters and putting up oil rig style platforms on which to live unencumbered by the rest of the unpleasant world and the unpleasant people in it. No one will be able to dictate restrictions to them. They will be "free". Free from taxes. Free from the FDA. They can make any miracle food or drug they want. No building codes. No pollution laws. No gun laws. No sex laws. No socialism. No poor people. Free. Rich and free. It sounds pretty good to me. It sounds good to all of us. If they get it going I want to visit there and see what it is like if I would be invited or allowed.
I know, I know. We are all already thinking of all the new problems that would crop up as the old problems go away. Typhoons, pirates, marauders, terrorists with air forces, jealous folks, the need to regulate within the new little family country.
I don't really want to talk about what a great concept it is. Nor do I want to tear the idea apart, which is fun and easy too.
I want to talk about this as being a new idea. It is so not a new idea. Remember in Star Trek that funny fat pirate guy was in several episodes. He had his own utopia on his own planet. He had an android replica of his ex wife that he could activate and listen to her whine just for the pleasure of saying "shut up" and deactivating. Ayn Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged" had all the best men in the world in a secret hideaway in a bowl of mountains in the Rockies or someplace where they could own their inventions without having to give them up to the government which would equally distribute the ideas to all companies to be "fair". This book was in the fifties. Who said "No Man is an Island" John Donne ? He knew centuries ago that you can't opt out. What about grizzly Adams? R. Redford. They had to beg him to come back sometimes to save the folks who couldn't get thru the pass. But if he got sick, or broke a leg he could die without help from the mean cruel civilization below. I remember a book from senior year high school. You could only read British authors for your book reports. It was James Hilton's "The Lost Horizon". The guy finds himself after a crash in "Shangri La", a mountain utopia. Even closer to home, there was a James Bond movie where the guy had an underwater world where he could plot his evil undisturbed.
So the media can tell me all about what these smart, rich, superlative men are doing in their off shore Xanadus. I'm highly interested in the tech and bio and sociology. But please don't tell me it is a new idea. And don't tell me it is happiness or freedom either. I challenge you to even imagine in a fantasy a perfect world. You may find it impossible.
I know, I know. We are all already thinking of all the new problems that would crop up as the old problems go away. Typhoons, pirates, marauders, terrorists with air forces, jealous folks, the need to regulate within the new little family country.
I don't really want to talk about what a great concept it is. Nor do I want to tear the idea apart, which is fun and easy too.
I want to talk about this as being a new idea. It is so not a new idea. Remember in Star Trek that funny fat pirate guy was in several episodes. He had his own utopia on his own planet. He had an android replica of his ex wife that he could activate and listen to her whine just for the pleasure of saying "shut up" and deactivating. Ayn Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged" had all the best men in the world in a secret hideaway in a bowl of mountains in the Rockies or someplace where they could own their inventions without having to give them up to the government which would equally distribute the ideas to all companies to be "fair". This book was in the fifties. Who said "No Man is an Island" John Donne ? He knew centuries ago that you can't opt out. What about grizzly Adams? R. Redford. They had to beg him to come back sometimes to save the folks who couldn't get thru the pass. But if he got sick, or broke a leg he could die without help from the mean cruel civilization below. I remember a book from senior year high school. You could only read British authors for your book reports. It was James Hilton's "The Lost Horizon". The guy finds himself after a crash in "Shangri La", a mountain utopia. Even closer to home, there was a James Bond movie where the guy had an underwater world where he could plot his evil undisturbed.
So the media can tell me all about what these smart, rich, superlative men are doing in their off shore Xanadus. I'm highly interested in the tech and bio and sociology. But please don't tell me it is a new idea. And don't tell me it is happiness or freedom either. I challenge you to even imagine in a fantasy a perfect world. You may find it impossible.
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