Much Clearer Now

Some Tunes

Last Few Days on Oahu

Went flying, formation flight, around Diamond Head, in a DA40 Diamond Star. Flown by Kele, an outstanding pilot. The other aircraft had Nitai, another fine pilot, and my friend Pam.

Purpose of the flight was photography, which I'm hoping to sell to Diamond Aircraft. They've been very receptive of the initial few photos. I'm hopeful.

Here's a slideshow of what happened on that flight. Lots of photos, so double-click the slideshow if you just want to go look at one or two.

First Few Days on Oahu

Well, it's been a very exciting trip to Oahu so far.

Let's start with the alarm not going off for the flight. Should have been 4:00 am. Could swear I set it on my cellphone. Fortunately my backup plan worked just fine, that is, the TV came on at 4:00

Needed to run into work before the flight at 8:20, so I had to jam the pedal to the floor to make it all happen. Over the Tacoma Narrows bridge at high speeds, up the I-5, in to work, back to SeaTac, and arrived at 6:25 am. You'd think that would be OK, right?

Wrong.

Lineup immense at ticket booth. Confirmation number entered, machine says "no seat assignment has been made, seat will be assigned at gate...."; security lineup from hell, gate lineup from hell, but finally, on to the flight; five hours of snoozing, reading, watching the movie, and it's into HNL, to the baggage carousels. I waited. I waited. I waited. So, when everybody but twenty of us had come and gone, it was one last line, to fill out the baggage claim form.



Pam met me outside. Our first meeting. It was very nice. We went for lunch, down by the docks. It too was nice. Then, it was into the truck and out to the North Shore, through Haleiwa town. Into the surfer shops we strode, looking for the beach shorts, and flip flops and t-shirt that would get me through the night....... Stuck a few toesies in the water, then out to her house, which is very nice, a block off the beach.

Forgot to buy coffee. Went to find some first thing this morning, saw a brochure for a glider soaring operation at Dillingham Airfield, which is just a few miles from Pam's house. Thought that might be fun. But, since a purpose of my trip was to go to my company's flight training operation at the former Barber's Point naval air station near Pearl Harbor, I thought it would be a bit of overkill to think about soaring. I'd placed a few calls earlier last week, telling people at the flight training operation that I'd be in town.

Went down to the beach to fly kites and swim. Pam was working on her computer. My baggage had been found, and they were going to deliver it by 1:00 in the afternoon. My phone rang. It was Joe Kina, a flight instructor at Galvin Hawaii whom I'd worked with in Seattle last year. He said he'd be delighted to fly with me later in the week, but was working at his other job. I asked where that was, and he said at the glider soaring operation at Dillingham.

I figured that was too good to pass up, so at 3:00 Pam dropped me off, and Joe and I flew for an hour.

I'll admit to it being about as much fun as I've ever had flying. Fabulous views, real stick and rudder flying, and a fine pilot to show me the ropes.

Joe, if you've read this, thanks my friend. You were amazingly generous, and I can say without hesitation that I'd recommend that every visitor to Hawaii who's ever thought of being a pilot should give you a call.

I chose to start walking home, even though Joe had offered a ride, because i wanted to do some photography. As it turns out, there were a lot of kite-surfers, so I had to pause for some of that....

And then there was just the beauty of the North Shore mountains.

It's been a fine first two days.

More to follow, but check out the photos in any case.

Barnstormers

Have been spending a lot of time on barnstormers.com looking at aerobatic aircraft.

There's a type called a Pitts, and I was fortunate enough to have had a ride in one some few years ago.

Pretty much every pilot I've ever talked to who's flown a Pitts talks about the skill required to keep it happy on the ground, to keep the spinny thing up front pointing ahead, not backwards.

I can't possibly come up with any real reason why I want one, just that I want one.

Here's a video from a guy who's selling his, and if everybody reading this would just send me their spare change, then sooner or later I'll get to own one.

Early Fall Dawn

Was thinking this morning as I was heading out how lucky I am to have the morning commute that I have.

I wish I could adequately describe it. Let's start with, take a moment to walk out on the front deck.

Dead calm, low tide, pink and grey sunrise over the back side of Bainbridge Island. Southeast, God's morning message catches the east flanks of Mt. Rainier, glacier peaks glistening in the dawn.

On the water, wingtip whorls from two mergansers water-skimming; you can hear the synchronized wingbeats from two hundred yards until they pass by heading up Rich Passage.

My morning seagull sits on the rocks on the point, watching, no squawking, no noise, just an alert eye turned cautiously my direction. Low from the bay to the south a great blue heron swoops over the point, hovers for a moment, then steps down lightly on the rocks where the sea-otters play. Noticing me he gives his dinosaur screech and heads up Rich Passage too, following the mergansers by a minute.

In the garden, there's quiet stirring; leaves, moist from the dew, stretch toward the warmth; blossoms, hidden overnight begin to greet the day. Tomato plants thirst for sunlight, and strawberries drink dew until lunchtime looms.

But I'm off the deck, and it's been my morning sixty-second refresher. Need to get up ten minutes earlier, but for some reason I don't.

Up to the carport, fire up the motorcycle. Bending to strap on the chaps I catch a glimpse of my neighbor the morning runner. Absolutely buff, absolutely dedicated, absolutely ignoring me for the first two years I've lived here, I've now gotten to the pleasant "good morning' greeting. Slow progress indeed. I love running shorts.

On the bike, slowly into gear, slow on the throttle, for after all I live here, and it won't do to wake anybody if I can help it, though I'm told by another neighbor that even at my quietest he knows when I'm outbound to the ferry for work.

Heading up the hill into the forest land, catching the running neighbor, a wave, a glance in the rear-view mirror, a smile on my face. Around the corner and out of sight, now to the top of the hill and it's the pasture. One cow, two horses, one white, so I do the lucky-fingertip-lick-palm-touch-fist-in-palm gesture I've been doing since I was a child whenever I see a white horse. Hello Mom, long dead. Hello Dad, long dead, wish you were here with me this fine morning. Hope you're happy wherever you are. Thanks for giving me life.

Around the corner by the mailboxes, no dogs up this early to bark their way down the fenceline as they will on my trip home. Reach to the handlebars, grab my coffee mug, slurp quickly while avoiding the bump in the road that's spilled it on me more than once....and down to the first stop sign, by the farmhouse where my firewood for next winter sits piled, waiting for me to pick it up. Chickens are scratching near the barn, and the pigs are snuffling in their pen.

Nobody coming along Beach Drive, as usual, so I pull out, turning left, and accelerate hard through the first two turns, feeling the bike come alive, smashing the choke full forward; she's warm now, and ready to go, and the tires are softening as they should.

On the straight, there's farms, more pasture, more horses, and low fog. Today's the first day of the morning fog; a sure sign that fall's here, that my summer fun is fore-shortened, that I'd best make the best of what's left. Six Canada geese in formation flank me for a few moments up-sun, and I know for certain that fall's arriving. No honking boys, it's early still.

I look for the African camel, and the Asian camel. One hump one, and two humps the second, though I'm not sure which is which, only that they live near my home, content in the Pacific Northwest, and a long way from their desert homes. They share pasture with another white horse; a brief thought for my family long gone, and into the heavy braking for the next set of curves. I'm feeling for the line.

The line's important. If I miss the line, if I'm thinking about work, then it's hard onto the brakes to survive the corner. If I'm in the flow, then no brakes required, using every part of the allotted lane, but never touching the yellow double lines that define where unexpected death lurks. A glance at the rounded back-out-mirror on the high tree on the outside of the corner tells me I'm safe if I did make the double-yellow mistake, but not today. Today I'm flowing, and the line leads me on.

Past the first farm I stopped at the day I found my home. There's an old truck, and a Volvo. I forgive them the Volvo, because they have the truck, and because they were kind to me, welcoming me to Kitsap that first day. Across the road wood-smoke drifts from the chimney, and the massive flat-panel TV is on, the same as it is every morning at this time. Another set of curves coming up quickly, these ones always with gravel from the intersecting road. And later in the fall, black ice from Beaver Creek will get my attention in a hurry if I'm not paying it.

Into the chain-link fuel-depot high-speed quarter-mile curves; the Navy ships will drink well this day, for there's a tanker moored to the docks, waiting to head to sea with the aircraft carrier and nuclear submarine at the base behind me; but that's another morning this fall. The gate guards must hear me coming, must be vaguely amused, but I can't glance to see, because the hard left over the rise hides danger, and maximum alertness is required to hold the line; downshift to fourth, then to third, hard over left, hard over right, heavy acceleration and we're past the muskrat pond, past the sewage treatment plant, and heading into a two stop-sign town. Dogleg left and then right past the two taverns, the barber, the tax-man, the post office, the boat launch. There, over the water, is the Seattle skyline, the Space Needle pointing into the morning fog; grey, purple and blue Cascades in the background beckoning me to work.

Heavy acceleration up the long hill, hugging the double yellows to give me that last second warning of the guys pulling out of their driveways, down to the Mile Hill intersection, with the sand-cliff that hides the oncoming traffic if you choose to run the stop-sign, which I have only done once, and almost died as a penalty....

Glance right, quick left, downhill fast, through the cathedral grove, deep hanging gloom pierced by bounced-yellow rays from the water on the left, heavy downshift and into the left hand corner at 75, over the wooden bridge with a wry thought for the railing, glance at the boat hull mired in the muck upstream, the abandoned storefront, the church with new landscaping, now to the tide-flats, smelling them before I see them, knowing they're going to have high-school kids wakeboarding late in the afternoon when I'm chasing the rest of the motorcycles off the ferry heading home.

But now, nobody, a jogger, a dog-walker, no cars, no school buses, no transit bus. Downshift at another post office for the Harper Pier corner, the cigarettes-are-welcome-here restaurant with the fading for-sale sign, heavy acceleration into the four curves past the baseball field, one last left, and into the roller-coaster hills on the straight to the ferry. Horses stamp in the fog. Cars and bikes in front of me pop up and down like an Ikea Volkswagen ad.

A stop sign, a corner store with fried-chicken and bananas, one last post office, and it's swipe my pass at the ticket window, a quick g'mornin greeting to the ferry worker, a high five to the second ferry worker, and into the lineup of fifty motorcycles who have preferential treatment to board the ferry. Engines silently ticking, we wait the loader's signal to fire up and move-em-out.

It's 5:55 a.m. and my day is launched, and we haven't even gotten to the boat ride yet.

God I love where I live. Thank you.

Racing Sports Cars

Well, it seems that I've found a completely new way to burn money I don't have.



A young friend who works in the automotive business, who drives an older BMW, and who's been lusting after my Z3, told me that there was a practise session last Sunday at the Bremerton Motorsports race track, which is one of the abandoned runways at the Bremerton airport. I've flown over it many times, looking down on the events transpiring, but had never been in the gate until Sunday.

Got there bright and early in the morning, registered in the novice class, and walked the line, looking at the broad array of vehicles. Everything and everybody was represented. It was very cool.

Had the driver's meeting, where we got the safety briefing. Had the tech inspection, where I removed all the extraneous gear, except for the Starbucks cup, and got ready to run.

Walked the course, twice, eavesdropping on the other drivers as they discussed the best line, the best braking techniques, the tire pressures and all those things that I'd been vaguely aware of but had never integrated.

Began to really regret losing the soft leather BMW glove that I had dropped out the door of the car some months ago, and which I've not yet replaced....

Walked way out onto the track sides and became a course worker, watching the first grid of cars work their way through the cones. Found out how easy it is to be distracted, and how simple it might be for a course worker to be killed. Watched some cool cone runovers, watched some spinouts, watched some fine driving.

Then it was my turn.

Sat at the start, took a deep breath, visualized the first five gates, stomped on the gas, stomped on the brakes, swerved and skidded, missed all the cones, didn't miss any of the gates and posted a pathetic 78 seconds when the big boys were running 65's. But it got better from there, to 75, then 70, then mid sixties and down. Meanwhile, the big boys were running high 50's, so I was still a consistent five to eight seconds slow. However, that's just fine with me, as I was learning all the time.

And, I sat in the sun, had some fun, burned some rubber off my new tires, felt like a true participant, and it didn't cost much at all.

I'll be back....

Full Moonrise At The Shack

It's an interesting dilemma. I can never seem to get all the resources, people, time, and luck, together at the same time. In pretty much every circumstance, I seem to have three of the four. Now, that's a pretty good batting average, so this is not in the nature of a complaint. But just once in my life I'd like to have all four ducks lined up....that's not too much to ask, is it?

Take last night, for instance.

Full moon, scheduled. Weather, which has been crap for so long that fleeting thoughts of suicide/homicide were'nt easily laughed off; not really, but you get my drift....Seattle's weather this winter has been horrid. Anyway, the weather this past weekend was HOT, and everybody had themselves outside for a tan.

Now I, having managed myself poorly during the week, found that I had to go to the office, to complete a bid that should have been done by Friday afternoon, and was due in Hanoi at dinner Sunday night....

Rode the bike over to Seattle, then home, to a lovely evening on the deck. But, moonrise was obscured by a haze, drifting in over Rich Passage. And, and this is the point, I was alone. There was no lovely woman sitting with me to enjoy the calm of the evening.

And a lovely evening it was. The kind of evening where arrowheads of geese and mergansers skim across the water, wingtips not touching but wingbeats causing little vortex ripples on the water....and you can hear the noise of the wings thrumming. Amazing.

There IS a lovely woman, and she's no where near Seattle. So instead of sitting with her on the deck, I sat with her on the phone, which is the next best thing, but so far behind first place as to be invisble....

More on the lovely woman as I get to know her better.....

But for now, here's the photos I took for her, to show her what we were sharing....

Musical Fantasies

So it finally happened that today I found somebody to play music with. It was amazing.

Through a mutual group of friends I had met Nancy a few years ago. Once she had given me a CD, of John Martyn, and I'd liked it. I'd liked it in the seventies too.

Lately, whenever I've run into Nancy she had suggested some music I might want to listen to. And today her husband and family allowed her to take the afternoon off and come over to my house and play guitar and sing songs.

Now, that's more or less normal. Aging rock-star wannabees. But, it was FUN! And, we instantly hit it off musically. She plays guitar at about the same level as I do, which is to say at a minimum we're fairly competent finger-pickers, and we both have a musical ear, so we can find tunes almost immediately. And there's that certain sort of musical chemistry that allows us to fall into harmonies instantly, no preparation, just right after the first four beats.

It was magic for me, and I hope for her. I've been waiting thirty years for this.

So, we put together some basic tunes, found that we could perform well together, and now we've got a musical future out in front of us that looks like a ton of fun.

More to come.

Here she is sitting by my fireplace..



Thanks to her husband and children for the trust, and the afternoon.

Instrument Rated

Right, and who would ever have believed that I would hold an instrument rating? For the longest time, not I.

There'd been many a delay, most all of which were related to the possibility of ice in clouds. I did NOT want to be a pilot killed by icing, and more reasonably I did NOT want to be a pilot who, upon lifting off the runway on his checkride, discovered the examiner jotting a note on a page and turning to me saying something like "you may return to the airport, you've taken off into known icing conditions contrary to the regulations in......" or something like that. It's happened to other guys.

So, the morning of the eighth scheduled checkride dawned clear, cold, and not a cloud in the sky, the same way as it had been for about three days. I knew that this would be my lucky day. So, I was up well before dawn, and on a ferry heading for Boeing Field. And checked my email. To discover I was being dumped....

Not the most auspicious start to the day, but best for the both of us, that's for certain. And maybe it WAS good luck. Not yet sure.

Got to work, ride scheduled for 1:00 pm, having learned the lesson about morning flights. Had a phone call from the designated pilot examiner, with whom I'd built a very friendly relationship during the previous seven cancellations, whether they'd been in person or on the phone..... He told me he was in LA, but would be back by lunch, probably at Boeing Field a bit late, maybe 1:30. No problem.

Imagine then my surprise as, while out on the ramp pre-flighting at least an hour in advance of the scheduled time I heard a voice saying "there's reports of a cloud in Oregon, so we're going to cancel due to icing, right?". Nice sense of humor there boyo. Got me laughing, and nudged me in the ribs for my caution.

But, caution is what keeps pilots alive, and I have no need to apologize for the cancellations.

Ride went just fine. Hate it when you look over and see the examiner jotting notes, but they were all minor points, things he most definitely wanted to point out in the de-brief, but not ball-busters.

It's a wonderful thing, to know that now I have a chance to fly with the big boys.

Very grateful to my flight instructor David Cowan, my DPE Johnny Summers, and to all the people at Galvin Flying who helped and encouraged me, as well as to my pilot buddies Mark, Christine, Steve, Rob, Scobie and all the others who understand how important this is to me.

Maybe Seventh Time Lucky?

So, I've been playing at working on my instrument rating. In the late summer, I was getting ready, but aircraft availability and instructor issues meant that I cancelled my checkride. In the late fall I went at it with some diligence, and finally got to the point where a CFI signed me off for the checkride.

That was six attempts ago. All cancelled due to icing and crappy weather. I'm getting discouraged, and feel like there's never going to be the right day. But, January 22nd is the seventh scheduled day.

Made it through the oral, but it expires after 60 days, so I'm running out of time.

I'll let you know.