Pilot's Log

In the 1976/'77 scholastic year, I was a C student.  Except for my two worst subjects: Handwriting and Art, in which I was a D student.

Space. The Final Everything.

This month NASA announced their latest Astronaut candidates (they won't earn their wings till they go to space)...and gave some insight into the qualifications for the position.

Applicants must have a Bachelor's Degree or better in a "hard science", plus three years of experience in their field. (Of course, I don't meet either because I only made it to Associate's...and have zero experience in my own field!)

But let's go to an alternative continuity to another version of Stephen Bierce. His parents were more successful and more affluent (Jane made the Times Best Seller List, for a possibility) so he got to finish secondary education with a Bachelor's in Astrophysics, then went into the military (probably Air Force, tho' perhaps his mother's cousin the commander of a Top Gun Tomcat squadron could have lobbied him for Navy) for two tours. Maybe he'd have seen action in the former Yugoslavia or the Shock-And-Awe phases of Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Then, he'd apply for NASA...

...And even now, still be waiting, as it nominally takes TEN YEARS for an application to go through all the checks and cross checks. And furthermore, the odds of success are a measly 0.2%. One in 500.

Some "Space Age" this is.

Alas, poor Emerson twenty-inch television set with integral DVD player, you shall function no longer. Thus Master Horner, technician of Morris Towne, doth declare, remarking that thine circuitry is irrepairable. And so, Rather Manor's forced transition from analog signal and ray of cathode to digital over air and screen of flat is complete.

The fate of Emerson's carcass is yet undetermined. My first thought is to donate it to the Tech School's electronics program, but I expect they have no lack of such material. Every January Knoxville holds an e-waste drive, so it will probably go there if no better alternative presents itself. I'll find out tomorrow.

If any among you still require a digital converter box, the one we used with the Emerson is still in fully operational condition, and I have re-set it, its cables and its remote, into the packaging in which it had come. Contact me privately if you want it.

FP

My overnight dream was that a brewery staged a fait accompli act through a school board bureaucracy to enable a Beer Day at a high school, wherein all the students at the school would get a free 12-ounce bottle of beer from the brewery.

I'm still not sure what it means.

I still dream of my mother just about every night. I guess she still weighs heavily on my subconscious mind.

Earlier this afternoon my internet connectivity refused to work properly so I decided to go to the area flea markets just to browse around. I pulled into the parking lot of one and in the slot next to Moonshine's there was a station wagon--and a helium balloon rested on its interior ceiling. Sure enough, I noticed a kid on his father's shoulder on his way back to the vehicle after their shopping.

Turns out today is Ascension Sunday, which commemorates the return of Jesus to Heaven following his Resurrection. Both it and Pentecost (next Sunday) are often excuses for church congregations to celebrate by releasing balloons and giving balloons to the children; since it usually coincides with the end of the secular school year it's often the end of the Sunday School year for the kids too.

I guess we're getting into a time of year I used to look forward to as a child, the transition from Spring to Summer. As an adult, that has lost a lot of meaning for me. Maybe that's the point of this "random encounter". For me, times need new meanings.

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Aviation Management. Totally useless in my career. For the first ten years I had zilch experience. Then the next ten, some work experience but none in my field. Now, I'm both underqualified AND obsolete.

One of my "someday" projects was a 1/72nd scale aircraft carrier model based on the Colossus--class paper model from Poland. Well, it turned out that another company also made a carrier model--the nuclear-powered Enterprise, as she looked after her mid-life refitting. So I downloaded that model as well. Of course, I have a titanic task if I try to upscale it to 1/72...800 legal-size pages of printout! (As opposed to a mere 270 for Colossus!)

On Wikipedia's entry for the Enterprise, it said that five other ships in the class were planned before the design was superseded in favor of the Nimitz-class, which was much more efficient. Still, that sparked a "What If?" question in my mind...what would be the names of such ships if they had been built? I did a little research, but really couldn't find a good answer as such. Instead, I looked to my own life for my own naval names. Specifically, I looked at where I went to school and their concepts for mascots.

* USS Thames. My first school was United Scioto in Chilicothe, Ohio. Their mascot is the Sherman Tank (yes, their football team is the Tanks!); naming a ship for General Sherman was possible. But the Shawnee Indian chief Tecumseh was from the area too, and he was defeated at the Battle of the Thames.

* USS Fort LeBeouf. Waterford, Pennsylvania. LeBeouf was the site of a battle in the French & Indian War that was important in the career of George Washington.

* USS Lancer and USS Trojan. Deer Lakes district, Pennsylvania; and Saint Petersburg College, Florida, respectively. Good names for Revolution-era ships, but never actually used by the U.S. Navy.

* USS Bald Eagle. Springstead in Spring Hill, Florida. At the time, the Royal Navy had ships named HMS Eagle, so specifying it as "Bald Eagle" made sense to avoid possible confusion in fleet maneuvers.

http://www.awiatsea.com/Privateers.html
http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/index.html

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As I'm not a student now, every hour is Recess. Wish I could enjoy it more, tho'...and had playmates to share it with.

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I would have my younger self take Algebra in 6th or 7th Grade--if not earlier. That way I probably would have gotten myself on a track to Graduation in High School, at the very least.

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of January 6, 2011

"The heart is forever inexperienced," said Thoreau. He believed our feeling nature is eternally innocent; that no matter how much we learn about the game of life, sadness or lust or rage or joy hits us as hard the thousandth time as it did in the beginning. But is that really true? Are you as likely to plunge into mind-exploding infatuation with your fourth lover as you were with your first? Are you as susceptible now to having your world turned upside-down by flash floods of emotion as you were at age 15? Over the years, haven't you acquired wisdom about your reactive tendencies, and hasn't that transformed them? I disagree with Thoreau. I say that for the person who wants to cultivate emotional intelligence, the heart sure as hell better be capable of gaining experience. What do you think, Sagittarius? If you're aligned with my view, 2011 will educate and ripen your heart as never before.

In theory I'm still working on Love #1. Yes, there was that girl named Helen back in Grade School--but that was Grade School. Nobody understood anything and a lot of that foolishness was peer pressure and trying to be "cool". When I had to move I gave up on her and didn't even feel bad about it because I was beset by a multitude of new traumas and disasters.

And again I should repeat that my later growing-up years were completely devoid of the romance that pop culture mythos usually lavishes on them. From then on I was living in places where there was nobody I wanted to go out with...and now I'm at the age where most prizes are already taken and I'm no prize myself.

Mum last week told me about two of her married relatives and how much they loved each other and I told her back how much I wish I could "understand". But what right do I have to ask for it now?