Links and Stuff

This is kind of Interesting. Since I'm a member of the Civil Air Patrol, although I don't ever do any search and rescue operations, especially now that I'm here in Switzerland. This article in Air & Space Magazine describes the search for Steve Fossett.

I have recently found the FAIL blog to be worthy of repeated visits. . I also find daily amusement with the Shipment Of Fail. "A Fail so Epic, it is a Win!!!"

Speaking of Fail, I found this web clip which seems to reinforce the idea that Europeans have -- think that Americans are dumb. After seeing this video, I have to agree. http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZaN6Rx8X6_I
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A friend sent me this video commemorating the 25 Years of DNS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqHcrZKc-jU

All of my fellow Ex-pat co-workers have made it back to the US for a visit, and they all crow about how great the Mexican food is. There is a Mexican restaurant in Geneva I might make a trip to visit -- to see if it might help out that craving for a burrito that won't go away. Still no Taco Bells, Baja Fresh or Chipotle here in Europe from what I can tell.

I have recently been on a mission to get caught up with old high school, college friends and co-workers. I have rapidly expanded my LinkedIn profile, to help keep in touch. If anybody ever did a Google search for me, I would be pretty easy to find. The fact that I don't get a lot of random emails from friends probably means that people aren't thinking enough about me to bother doing a Google search. (I guess I should take the hint?) Anyway, I was recently looking to get in touch with a high school friend named Henry, with whom I had kept loose contact, the last I had heard from him in 2003. Well, unfortunately, he was killed in a tragic car crash last week.

Civil Air Patrol National Flight Academy

From June 23 through June 29, I attended the Civil Air Patrol National Flight Academy Encampment, in Mattoon, Illinois.

I take a week off work to go give flight instruction for the week. I got to fly one of the the USAF's Air Force Academy's old 2-33 trainers. It was in pretty good condition, but was pretty clear that it had a long lifespan of injuries and repairs. All of the repairs were nicely done, but I've never seen a 2-33 with so much empty weight (and so tail-heavy too!)

Even though I paid my own air-fare to the event (A flight with Jet Blue to Chicago O'Hare, plus a one-way rental car trip from Chicago to Champaign, IL), I enjoyed the event. They paid my room and food expenses, and I got to concentrate on teaching 8 students to fly gliders.

The amazing thing is that within 7 days of instruction, I turned several students from having never seen a glider before to being able to do all aspects of the flight without any intervention, hints or help from me.

There were 24 students at the encampment, six flight instructors, three towplanes, and 9 tow pilots. We got to borrow a nice big hangar from the CIA. Not the US Government agency, but Central Illinois Air. It was quite easy to cram all the aircraft into the hangar when a big storm came through.

The weather?! Terrible! It rained or was cloudy every day of the encampment. It was quite amazing that we actually had any flights at all. Every day was ruined by weather, and most of the students did not get a flight higher than 1200 feet until the last few days of the encampment. This was by far the worst weather that the encampment had ever suffered. All the farmers were happy for all the rain, but the pilots were miserable.

When I was in New York City earlier this year, United Airlines lost my luggage for three days. During that time, I was forced to get some short term laundry at the lcoal tourist trap. I bought some I heart NY tee shirts, some I heart NY boxers (several pairs), and a nice Borat Tee shirt saying "Sexy Time!" I wore this tee shirt one evening, (while we were all out of uniform) and the cadets, who apparently all had watched the movie many times over, all loved the tee shirt. Of course, the kids all said "Sexy Time!" (just like in the movie), every time they saw me. One of the cadets loved it so much, I gave it to him at the the end of the encampment. it was like the old Coca Cola commercial when Mean Joe Green gave the little kid his work-out towel. (yuck).

Here are the pictures from the event. [Picasa Album Page] [Slideshow]