You Should Give Him Fair Warning!

Ladies, one of my favorite shopping sites is Thinkgeek.com They can sell you anything from PC controlled robots to binary clocks to caffeinated bath soap, you know, just in case you need enough strength in the morning to make coffee!

Anyway, one of their flyers really caught my eye this morning. They are both funny to me but the bottom one really applies, so I thought I would share the love with you all...



Get yours here and you too can share the love- with fair warning!

Quickies...

Clearly my plan was followed correctly because I drug a major chunk of warm air back up north with me! Really, it’s nothing. Oh, it’s spelled R-O-B-E-R-T if you should decide to name your next child after me.

The weather system that brought all this warm air up north made for quite the wild plane ride Monday! It was seriously rough. Like hit your head on the wall rough! Scary rough! Of course, I mean scary for ‘normal’ people, I am far too manly to squeal in fear! That could never happen! :) (well at least not in an airplane, stepping barefoot on one of the cats “dead mouse” toys though is a whole ‘nuther story! )

Ok, as my 5 regular readers will know I have posted before about how frustrated I get with "amateurs" in the airport security system. You know, people who try to carry on shampoo, or don’t take their laptop out of the bag etc. You know, the WHOLE SYSTEM grinds to a halt every time some moron does not follow one of the (stupid and useless) rules we have had for years now.

So the line behind the x-ray machine grinds to a halt. I am standing there in my socks and holding my pants up with one hand because I don’t have a belt and I was thinking, Ok, what moron can’t handle the silly little rules and held us up all this time?

Then there was that sickening realization when they held my bag up and said, "Who's bag is this?" Oh, yeah, uh, that moron would be ME and my extra bottle of water that I stuck in my bag “just for a minute” because my hands were full then forgot all about!

So now I have to be nicer to all the other morons since I am now officially in the “the club”. You know, that plan I had of tattooing identifying marks on the foreheads of people who grind security to a halt is not sounding nearly as good today as it did last week!

The Quest Continues.

Base camp Charlie, day two, somewhere north of the Arctic Circle (a.k.a. the Mason-Dixon Line)

We lost a few Sherpas to the cold last night but the party’s spirits remain strong as we continue the quest to reach the summit of Mount Springfield.

We continue to learn new ways to cope with the harsh way of life these artic nether regions grudgingly provide to the warm blooded.

For example, I learned this morning that no mater how much slushy crap the car in front of you throws on the windshield DO NOT use the windshield washers when the temps are below zero Fahrenheit. Yeah, I know the bottle of windshield washer fluid SAID it was anti-icing but clearly they have a different definition of the prefix “ANTI” than I do or perhaps they just did not expect humans to live like this either.

Either way squirting your windshield in these temps is a bad idea! In a way, it’s quite lovely how the thin film of “anti”-icing fluid crystallizes as it quick freezes into a thin film of ice just barely thick enough to quite effectively block any forward vision. Those poor Sherpas! What a way to go, run down in their prime by a nerd admiring the crystalline structure of the ice film on his windshield instead of stopping and scrapping the ice off!

Northerners MUST be crazy!

I am in central Illinois this morning. It is -2 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill of minus 20. Since the legislators get all the good parking it's a about a four block walk from where I park to the capital.

I have on heavy cotton Dockers pants and it was like I was wearing a bathing suit. That wind just sliced right through them. It hurt to breath, my eyes were watering so bad I could not tell if it was safe to cross the street or not and I swear to God that nose hairs were freezing and snapping off. I could hear them going tink, tink, tink-ta-tink-tink as they broke off.

Clearly the guy who invented that nose hair trimmer thing in the Sharper Image catalog did not live up north because there could be no possible use for it here! It would take a least a year for all those dead hair follicles to re-grow!

You know, male pattern baldness my ass! It’s the weather, it freezes the hair roots!

I think that before I walk back to my car I am going to have to sneak into the women’s restroom and buy a couple of tampons out of the machine to stick in my nostrils. We will save what few follicles that are left!

One of the people who lives here (already established they are insane) heard me commmenting (whining) about the cold told me to man up and grow a pair. Shoot! I had a pair but they snapped off on the walk over! I think they are still on the sidewalk at 2nd and Adams!

Holy frostbite Batman! I am going to the southwest tomorrow so I will get some relief but how do you people live with this all winter?

No wonder you are all nuts! :)

Blanket Talk

Ok, I am a little anal. I realize how shocking this news may be to some of you but there it is, we all just have to deal with it through our shock.

One of the things that annoy me is when the blankets don't line up. You know, the sheet is over your head but the blanket is below your shoulders kind of thing? Some hotels make the bed up that way on purpose and it drives me a little nutty.

So I have three layers on my bed. Sheet, electric blanket and bed spread. So how in the heck is it that keeping them even is next to impossible?

I get up in the morning and the sheet is WAY off to one side but the blankets are still in the center. The sheet is up over my head, the middle blanket has slid down to my waist but the bed spread is still at my shoulders? How is it possible for them all to move different directions? I mean since it does make me crazy I make it a point that anytime I move the blankets or get in and out of bed I make SURE I am gripping all three layers so they will move together. So how does a sheet move over a foot to one side but the blankets don't? I mean the blankets are on top of the sheet so how can the bottom layer move but not the top layers? How can the middle move in the opposite direction of the bottom layer? It just does not seem possible!

There is just no way this stuff could happen in the normal course of just sleeping! I swear there must be some kind of maniacal blanket elves that come in during the middle of the night and mess with my blankets just to hack me off! I mean what I have I done to so anger the blanket elves? Better yet how can I appease them? I mean I googgled "angry blanket elves" and I got nothing useful so clearly the angry blanket elves have already gotten to the Googgle staff! They probably tormented them into submission by rearranging their blankets too!

It's the end times people! Prepare!

Vampire vs. Frankenstien

Melissa at Hope for the Hopeless asked in part, "If you could be a vampire or Frankenstein which would you chose?"

This one took like two milliseconds to figure out! Who would pick Frankenstein over Vampire?

I mean c'mon, Vampires can fly, they are practically immortal with eternal youth, get to sleep all day and get all the sex they want with anybody they want. (other than flying they are strangely like cats?) I mean the only drawback to being a vampire is trying to comb your hair or for some of you, do your make up, without a mirror. Pfffft. You are going to get sex with anyone you want anyway so seriously, who cares about your hair and make up?

Now, compare that to being a strong but realy ugly, slow, clumsy, freak with a speech impediment, fast temper, a squinty eyed hunchbacked best friend, total psycho dad and a wife who screams (and not the good way) at the very sight of you.

I mean then, just to top it off you have to cope with the whole issue of angry villagers chasing your clumsy ass around at all hours of the night. Shoot, and you thought the Homeowners Association was bad? And seriously, one little windmill fire and you are toast! No thanks man!

Vampire all the way.

Be nice!

When I first got out of the Air Force the economy was having a rough time and the airlines were not hiring. I ended up taking a job at a little FBO. FBO’s are basically service stations for airplanes. I was officially a mechanic but since I was the most junior guy I was also the designated line boy; the gas pumper. “Check your oil sir?” and wash the windshield, you know?

Now, airplanes can get pretty pricy and frankly some (not most) pilots are pretty snobby, stuck up jerks. I would run into them now and again pumping airplane fuel and it was never fun. They could be very much like Merrill Streep's character in "The Devil Wears Prada"

So years later I buy my first plane. This is her, this was my baby. She was old and she was cheap but she was just what a first timer like me needed to learn with. We spent over 600 hours together in the air and she taught me a lot. Sadly, I traded her in for a younger much faster mistress who really eats at my wallet. :(

Anyway, once I became an aircraft owner I vowed I would always treat the line guys right since I remembered well the shit I had to take on occasion. Really, I just treated them no different than any other human. I don’t look down on many people. I would always laugh and joke with them and at Christmas I gave them all gift cards from the sports bar down the street. Nothing big though, just enough for a cheeseburger and a few brews.

So one hot summer day a sudden and violent storm just sprang up out of nowhere as they sometimes do in the hotter part of the Great Plains. The storm only lasted about 15 minutes but it was a doozy. I was on the 31st floor and I could feel the building swaying in the wind. I looked out the window and the trees were bent over and the hail was pummeling the cars on the street below!

My building was pretty close to the airport so I drove over to the airport real quick to see how my darling came through the storm. I pulled into the parking area and my plane’s parking spot was empty! Oh crap! My baby got blown away! Where was she? So I was looking around desperately and right then the supervisor of the line guys comes out in his golf cart and says, “Looking for your plane Mr. Johnson?”
“Yeah! Did the storm get her?”
“Oh no. We saw the storm coming so we put your plane in the big hanger”
Since this place had LOTS of customers and I probably had the oldest, cheapest plane there I was surprised, “Well thanks Don! I really appreciate that bud! How in the world did you ever find room for her in there?”
“Uh…see that blue and white Lear Jet there in front of the big hanger?”
“Yeah”
“Well”, Don drawls, “that guy is a huuuuuuge asshole so we pushed his plane outside to make room for yours. By the looks of all the hail dents he won’t be flying for a while, huh?”

Wow, what could I say?

Karma dude, Karma.

The Right Stuff

I watched the movie “Space Cowboys” this weekend. Watching Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones flying the space shuttle reminded me of the time I got to fly a shuttle simulator.


Several years ago I loaded the family up in my Cessna and we flew down to NASA’s Johnson Space Center outside of Houston Texas. You know, the “Houston we have a problem” place! Hallowed halls! We stepped into the front door of the museum and in an alcove off to the left they had about a dozen Space Shuttle simulators set up. I immediately veered left as my son rolled his eyes. Even he knew that was as far as we were going until I got my fix!

There was a pretty good line in front of each simulator so I got in the shortest line. All told there are well over a hundred people in all the lines, it was popular attraction. (of course it was, this place is Mecca for nerds!)

Over each shuttle simulator they have a big screen TV so you can see how all the other people flying are doing while you are in line. I was watching and EVERY ONE was crashing! The computer would flash in big red letters “YOU DIED!” I kept watching to see if anyone could pull it off. Absolutley every one was crashing so I vowed I would be the first to land this thing in one piece. After all, I am a pilot I told my self without a trace of humility! :)

So I finally got my turn. They start you off at 20,000 feet and you have to fly the approach to the field and land. The flight director will tell you where to go and if you are on track or not. (just like a standard plane with the right equipment) So I was able to fly the approach very well because other than the glide ratio it flew just like my Cessna. I am getting very close to the runway and I am already mentally celebrating! No one else I watched made it this far! HA!

I was over the end of the runway but still at 200 foot and the flight director started telling me to pull up for landing. Planes almost always land with the nose in the air. I was thinking, no way! 200 foot was too high to get into landing position. I did not want to pull the nose up, run out of airspeed and stall it now! I’ll pull up in a few more seconds!

So, a couple of seconds later I did start to pull the nose up and then WHAM! I hit the “ground”! Since I did have the nose up and we were on the runway the computer said we lived but the shuttle would never fly again. So I was crushed that I did not land it successfully but I could take a little solace in that I did not get the big red YOU DIED message.

I figured out what went wrong pretty quick. In my Cessna I sit about as high off the ground as you would when you are in a pick up truck. However in the shuttle you are like 30 foot above the ground at rest and when the nose is up for landing you would be like 70 or 80 feet above the ground at touchdown. So the flight director was right! I should have started getting the nose up at 200 foot. I work on computers, so I don’t trust them at all but it was right this time!

Ok, I am getting back in line and with that tidbit of knowledge I WILL land the shuttle next time by God! I was still watching and no one else had landed without a YOU DIED yet so I still had a chance to be the first to make a landing where they could use the shuttle again!

I worked my way back to the front of the line and this time I pulled up at 200 foot and I set her down nice and dainty! The big screen flashed “PERFECT LANDING” in white over and over! I was looking around to make sure people noticed my perfect landing!

HA! I was feeling good! I was feeling cocky! I was doing a little celebration dance! Yeah buddy! I am the only one here who can handle this piece of equipment. I am the pinnacle of evolution! Yes, I have the Right Stuff! Yeee haw! (I am the alpha geek!) I can’t wait to hang out with Chuck Yeager!

Then a little reality set in and I told my self, “You know dude, you probably should not be too cocky. I mean, seriously, you are probably the only pilot here.... Well, OK, face it dude, you are the only adult here.

Who cares! IN YOUR FACE KIDS!

Plumb the depths...

Ok, you may not like it but here is a trip through the bizarre thought processes that are my life and how my mind jumps tracks from one topic to another.

I was out running errands today.

After the garlic robe post and all the comments I thought I should get a micro-plane while I was out. Then I thought if I am going to buy one I really should get it from Sauntering since she sells them. I mean I am the type of guy that will route business (even if it is small) though friends. Then the thought hit, well how would that work without her thinking I might be a creepy internet stalker dude?

So I am thinking yeah but I am NOT a creepy internet stalker dude but how would anyone else know that? I mean as Taj and Jules have repeatedly and gleefully pointed out I am just perverted enough to maybe be a creepy internet stalker dude.  :)

Then I realized I just don't have commitment, the drive, the sense of dedication needed to be a creepy internet stalker dude! I mean that would just be a HELL of a lot of work; traveling all the way to another city then hanging out waiting to just to maybe catch a glimpse. Then following her through traffic. Spending hours and hours sitting in darkened cars waiting for something to happen. Then horror of horrors what if she went to the mall? Like any creature bearing testicles I despise the Mall! What if I had to follow her around the mall for hours while she {gasp} "browsed"! Oh God the torture of it all!

Seriously, someone needs to teach stalkers time management. I mean the whole process is just incredibly inefficient. I think I could write a program that would effectively graph out the inherent inefficiencies in the process.

Then reality hits and now I am kinda bummed that I simply lack the drive and determination to be a successful creepy internet stalker dude. How conflicted is that? I mean I could be bad if I just was not so very, very lazy. :(

All of that mental waste sprung forth unbidden simply from thinking about stopping and getting a micro-plane. {sigh}

New Year, New Lesson

Life is an endless learning experience and I learned a brand new lesson today!

Big heavy floppy robes are like electric blankets. I never saw much use for them until I started visiting the vast tundra encrusted reaches of the Illinois winter wastelands. However, no matter how warm and fluffy my robe is I discovered it is about worthless for cooking in!



(Sorry ladies, I have my powerfully rippling keyboard muscles all covered up here. Bummer huh?) :) Like many things I tend to be a little anal about my garlic. I like it minced very fine so that the garlicky goodness permeates every molecule of the food!

So I have this nice little mound of garlic all finely minced up on the cutting board. I turn to get something and my big warm floppy sleeve gets drug right over the cutting board!

Would you believe that big sleeve absorbed about four cloves of garlic? Gone, just gone.

Oh, don't worry about the robe, I am sure that all the dunkings in the sink while I was washing dishes got it all cleaned up. (grrrrr)

I got carded!

Just a quick note before we head out. Last night I flew from Saint Loius to Dallas.

I ordered a beer at the Saint Louis airport last night and I got carded! I got freaking carded! Whoo hoo! The cute waitress was apologetic and my first response was to say, are you kidding? It’s the highlight of my week! I caught myself just in time though, lowered my voice and instead said, “No problem baby, I get carded all the time!”

When women roll their eyes that’s a good sign, right?

I Believe!

I am heading off on vacation with my son tomorrow so I may not post again before Christmas (depending on wi-fi access in Mexico and how much “fun” we have! :) ) so I wanted to post my Christmas story now.

One year when I was at about that age, eight or nine maybe, as Easter was approaching, I proudly announced to my parents that I no longer believed in the Easter Bunny. Since I was the oldest of the children my father said, “That’s fine son, just don’t spoil it for your little sisters, OK?”
“OK Pop”

So on that Easter Sunday morning when we all got out of bed there were only two Easter baskets in the front room instead of the usual three. Oh! So even then, being the little analyst, as my little sisters were tearing into their Easter baskets and I did not have one, I quickly began to re-think this whole not believing in the Easter bunny thing! :)

Fast forward several years; I was now 13 and it was December and Christmas was in the air. We were all gathered at the dinner table eating when my next youngest sister announced that she no longer believed in Santa Clause. I immediately jumped in and proclaimed, “Oh yes you do! You better believe in Santa Clause! He *is* real!” There was an uncomfortable silence that I did not understand and the topic changed rapidly.

Later that evening my father asked me to sit down with him. I could tell he was very uncomfortable which was unusual for him. He started off with, “You know son, you have, uh, reached, uh, an age where there are, uh, you know, uh, well there are things we need to talk about.”

OH NO! Suddenly it hits me! He is uncomfortable, stuttering, I am 13…OH NO! IT’S THE SEX TALK! I am NOT ready to talk about SEX with my Dad! My tummy curdles up, I start to panic and mentally I am huddled in the corner rocking back and forth muttering, “Oh no, oh no, oh no!”

Even still, Dad’s words continue to penetrate my panicked state, Dad is saying, “and you know, your mom and I are uh, getting worried because uh, frankly you, uh, you know, you are uh, just too old to believe in Santa!”

Huh? Santa? What? What the hell does Santa have to do with SEX? Wait a minute, calm down, replay that tape in your head, what did he say. OH THANK GOD! This is not THE TALK! Mom and Dad are just freaking out because they think I still believe in SANTA! Whew!

Since I was so relieved this was not THE TALK I blurted out, “I don’t believe in Santa Dad!”
“What? Well what was that thing with your sister tonight?”
“Oh... OH! Well, when I told you I did not believe in the Easter Bunny any more you stopped giving me Easter Baskets right?”
“Yes.”
“Well shoot Dad, Christmas is the big time, I was not going to mess with that and I did not want my little sister to miss out on it either!”
OK, so now Dad looks, shocked, guilty and relieved all at the same time. He said, “Oh son, you really had your mother and I very worried, we were really concerned that you were having mental problems still believing so forcefully in Santa at your age! I see what you were thinking now.” I can see the guilt in his face.

So, first off, crises averted! No sex talk! Second, I got what I wanted for Christmas that year, a gun steel blue 10 speed “English Racer” (I rode that bike until I bought my first car!) third, I did not have to pretend to believe in Santa anymore and best of all, the next Easter morning I had an Easter Basket with my sisters again and each Easter thereafter. Yeah baby!

In fact, a few years later I joined the Air Force and my mother continued to send Easter baskets to me at Air Force bases wherever I was stationed. All the guys in the barracks would always razz me about my "Easter basket from Mommy" so I always had to explain to them how important it is to believe!

Upsell?

Since several of you liked the insurance on one tire thing I thought I would quickly share another one along the same lines.

You know how when you get your hair cut and the stylist is always trying to sell you $50 bottles of shampoo or gel or what not and it is all ridiculously priced?

For me it was always a quandary, it does not take a genius IQ to realize you should not annoy the person or cooks your food or cuts your hair so my normal sarcasm super powers are rendered inert in those situations. Yet those stylists could be so darned pushy!

So I finally hit on the perfect solution. When they start trying to push all that pricy stuff on me I just say, "Sure I’ll take it all but I have one question first, do they test any of these products on animals?"

They will almost always feign shock and say, “Oh no! Jeanie Michelle has a very strict animal testing policy! They would never test their products on animals!”

Then with a perfectly straight face I will say, “Well, if their products are not good enough for a dog they certainly are not good enough for me.”

That's the end of the conversation every single time!

(Yes Melek, I really do say that! :) )

Tire Store Scam

Stephanie over at Stephanie’s Soap Box made a post that reminded me of a story yesterday. She mentioned how she was sick of car shops trying to rip her off because she was a girl.

Now don’t get me wrong, they certainly do that. I remember last winter when our other room mate came home literally in tears because the shop said the noise she was hearing would cost $5,000 to repair and she was crying because she had no idea where she would get $5,000. She only paid $9,000 for the whole car!

Long story short I got involved and it ended up costing her $85. So I know it happens.

Still though, those unscrupulous bastards will try it on any one not just women! Before my now glorious career as a computer nerd ;) I was an aircraft mechanic and machinist. You can hand me most any aircraft part and I can duplicate it, no blueprints needed. Since many airplanes are pretty old there are many parts you just can’t buy anymore. That’s no problem if you have a Rob and a machine shop handy! :)

So, at the time of this story I worked for Braniff Airlines. Anyone remember them? They used to be a pretty big name. I used to volunteer to work the midnight shift since you could escape the Texas heat that way. I got off work at 8:00 AM.
Braniff also provided uniforms, dark blue pants and a light blue shirt with white ovals over each pocket, You know, one oval said “Braniff” and the other oval said “Rob”.

So my car needed new tires. I enjoyed working on airplanes for a living but it did not pay that well so I watched and waited and finally a big name tire store had a good tire sale. 30,000 mile all season radials for a mere 29.99 each! Oh yeah!

So after work early in the morning I am at the tire store just as they open with the sales flyer in hand. Since I just got off work I am in my ‘uniform’ and I am dirty and a little greasy. I mean this getup screams “mechanic” right?

I tell this guy I want these tires in the ad right here.

“Oh you don’t want those 30,000 mile radials what you want are the 80,000 miles radials for $90 each.”
“Well, the old T-bird already has 130,000 miles on her so I think 30,000 miles tires are all I will need.”
“Well, you know the 80,000 mile tires have lots better traction and maneuverability, blah, blah, blah” That was a lie because the harder, longer wearing compound does not grip the road as well as the shorter life tires do. Still I did not want to go down that road with him so I was still polite but I already had him mentally tagged as a liar. “No thanks I want these tires right here”

He just will not give it up! He just keeps trying and trying to get me to buy those higher cost tires. I finally had go, “Dude, NO, this is what I want, these RIGHT HERE”
“Ok, I see you are man who knows what you want, so can I interest you in a road hazard warrantee, only 14.99 per tire.”
“Why would I pay $14.99 insurance on a $30 tire?”
So we went round and round on that until I got fed up and said fine, “I’ll take one.“
“One?”
“Yes, I want to insure one tire.”
“But how will you know which one to insure. “
“It will be for whichever one is flat”
So he decided to drop that topic.

Customers are lined up behind me and they are getting frustrated waiting while I argue with this non stop champion of high pressure BS!
Then he starts in on high tech digital balancing for $10 a tire. It took 5 minutes to get him to give up on that. Then he started trying to sell me these super duper valve stems for like 8 bucks each. On each item he will not take no for an answer! Finally I started getting little anger dots floating before my eyes and I growled, “No, no no! Here, just throw the tires in the trunk and I will get someone else to mount them!”

So he FINALLY gets that I am not going to buy all that extra crap and he drops all the extras and just writes up the basics like I wanted to begin with. Seriously, this all took 10 minutes! People were lined up behind me and this doof took up their time when clearly I was not buying.
So, as I always do when I get new tires I wanted a front end alignment so he added that to the ticket.

“In about 15 minutes old slick called me back up to the counter. “Uh, Mr. Johnson, we have a little problem with your front end alignment”
I am already leery and weary so I said “Yeah?” with as much skepticism as I could put into the word thinking he may get the hint. Nope.
Oblivious he goes on, “You see, Ford built your car so that the front end was not adjustable. So in order for us to do your alignment we have to replace some parts so that your front end will be adjustable. It will run about $300”
Oh the anger dots are swimming now. Man I hate being lied too!
“Listen Slick, I have 130,000 miles on that car. Do you really think this is the first time the front end has needed alignment?”
Completely unfazed he flows right into anther line of absolute crap.
I finally said LOUDLY so that all the other customers could hear me, “Jeez man, LOOK AT ME! I am dressed in a mechanics uniform! Why don’t you save your clumsy lies for someone who does not understand EXACTLY what a liar you are? Forget the alignment - I will get it done at a reputable shop.” He is still not fazed! I saw him take in a breath to argue some more, can you believe it? Before he could speak again though I said with menace in my voice, "Do not say another word, ENOUGH!" The manager had heard me, (as did everyone else) so he came over and called off his attack dog. I told the manager the same thing, “Look at me! Why would you lie to someone dressed like me? Why? What is wrong with you?”

That was the most stressful money I ever saved.

So Stephanie I can really relate; if you do not know he is a liar that nonstop all encompassing BS must be persuasive, it must get to be overwhelming. If it is that stressful when you know precisely how much he is lying then I can only imagine how much worse it must be when you don’t really know about cars?

10 Things About Me Meme

Whelp, I was tagged by CrazyMama (Julie) to do a 10 random things no one knows about me meme.

I am not sure if some of these have slipped out or not but here goes anyway.

1) I sing or whistle ALL the time. If I can't do it out loud (like in a meeting) it is still going on in my head. Things in life make me think of certain songs so I will start playing them in my head. It’s like my life has a soundtrack.

2) Sometimes I get a little OCD with a particular song. It can get stuck in my head for days or even weeks. I was on a “Music is My Boyfriend” loop for a while (from that damned IPhone commercial!) Then I was seriously stuck on a “Sweep the leg Johnny” loop for about two weeks! At the moment I am currently loop free! (but still loopy!)

3) I don’t talk about it much here on the blog because there are already other online places to feed this obsession but I am crazy about airplanes and aviation.

4) I have insomnia a lot. I tend to think, think, think about things then I forget to sleep.

5) On that note- While I am thinking I tend to design things in my head. I have a full product line of aircraft designs up in my brain from a basic two seat, very low cost “first plane” to a very high performance higher cost aircraft oriented towards business travelers. Airplanes cost too much so most of my design emphases centers on cost reduction. I have created two different construction techniques that I think could radically lower the construction costs of airplanes.

6) Someday I would like to start an aircraft company and turn my designs into reality.

7) I am utterly amazed that people read my blog.

8) Sometimes I feel very, very alone. (this is normal I suppose)

9) I really enjoy my work. Which makes sense because I just played with computers for a few years before I decided to get a degree in them and do it for a living. (I will NEVER forget the thrill of POWER when I ran my first BASIC program on a Commodore 64. The machine bends to MY WILL! Bwuh ha ha ha!)

10) I swing from introvert to extrovert. Sometimes I just HAVE to be alone. Other times I just HAVE to be around other people.