Flying the B17

Geeks come in many stripes.

I am a flying geek. Sitting in a beer garden (as I was this evening at the north end of Boeing Field, aka Georgetown) when an aircraft flies over, seconds from touchdown, I can identify about 90% of the aircraft without looking up. I know what they sound like. "Beech Bonanza." "Cessna 210." "172." "Cirrus 22." "Caravan." "RV4." "RV6." Helicopters. Jets. It's sad - and yet I take a deep pride in my understanding. And this, of course, is the pathetic stank of a geek.

I am not a military geek, however. I have never gotten close to the minutiae of F14, F15, F16, F18, (why no F17 btw?) FA18, F22. And though I am naturally drawn to the massive aluminum that saved us from the Hun in WWII, I have never been a groupie. I know all the fighters of that war, but not to the gross depths that many do. I love the aerobatic, balletic talents of many, yet don't know their relative minute details as I do modernly available aircraft. And the bombers - while stunning in their brute bloody force - are left from my catalog.

All this having been said, there is something hypnotic about a B29 Superfortess rolling overhead. The beauty of the Beast has never escaped me. I just didn't get the nomenclature down. But stunning they are. B25, B24, B17, B12 (that's a vitamin, actually), the bombers. They didn't fight other airplanes, they depended upon fighters to protect them as they dropped ordnance...bombs on cities and rail lines and factories. And they won. Ugly, huge, built to carry explosive shit and drop it on other people and make them stop doing the bad things they were doing to us.

So... preamble to this odd moment. Today I went up in a B24. I'd always thought I'd never pay the money to do it, and now as a trusted Trustee of the Museum of Flight, I was offered the chance free of charge.

Having done it, I'd tell anyone, "You got $425 spare this week, go spend it on this ride... it ROCKS."

UNbelievable. It was so staggeringly righteous. It makes you realize the brute force war used to be. It makes you appreciate how AWFUL it must have been. How cold and hard and adrenaline-filled and fear and testosterone and faithful and faithless it must have been. It makes you understand how Brokaw refers to The Greatest Generation without smirking.

There were about 14,000 B24s built. I'm sorry - I said FOURTEEN thousand. About seven thousand were shot down. And after the war...the rest were crushed for scrap, so as not to screw up the burgeoning air business.

There are 12 flying today. Twelve.

Shall I shut the hell up now? Watch some video. I was cynic. I left...well, smiling. JHC it was fun.

Name That Baby

You get to call your baby anything you want. For (at least) the next 18 years every single thing you do in your life is based upon the needs of this person, so the naming is kind of the last thing you get to choose.

Yesterday's news held that a couple had named their child "Georgebush" (insert last name). But today someone found this gem from a few years back. The first name is apparently a mash up of "your highness," though I'm guessing there's a lifetime of waiting room call-outs for "yer heeeens?"

Announcing the arrival of a beautiful new baby boy at
St. Francis Health Center . . .

Urhines Kendall Icy Eight Special K

born to

Evelyn and Kendall

at 9:10 p.m.
Saturday, February 15, 2003
measuring 21 inches
and weighing in at 8 pounds 8 ounces

Vatican 10 Commandments for Drivers

The Vatican has issued "Ten Commandments for Drivers." The commandments include advising motorists to be charitable to others, to refrain from...

Wait.

Who gives a shit?

The house is ready

Just back from Chelan. New curtains (thank you Gail), new bed, mirrors, towels, tampax, toothpaste, soap dispensers, light bulbs, ice trays, y mas, y mas. And replaced the starter on the Jeep, so it starts now, with a key turn rather than a push.

Now, summer just needs to actually begin.