On Chuck Yeager

Friend Gregory Johnson remember Chuck Yeager, the great test pilot, who died at 97 on Dec. 7th.

Have a memory etched in brain pan of walking in early morning fog at Kissimmee Airport in Florida amidst a whole runway full of WWll P-51 Mustang fighter planes parked nose to nose for the annual Gathering of Warbirds. I was looking for my cousin Dick's P-51, Donna Mite, nobody around and then hearing some muffled conversation behind one of the planes, I rounded the corner of a parked plane and there was Yeagers, his squadron mates from WWll, Bud Anderson and worlds best, mustachioed, aerobics pilot, Bob Hoover. They were huddled by the wing root of Yeagers P-51 Glamorous Glennis, named for his wife, having a pleasant conversation, looked my way, invited me over, told them I was Dick's cousin, that I was building an RV-6 and warmly invited me to join in with them. I just slipped into that familiar casual all things aviation conversation with them, these three well known fighter jocks with a lot of accumulated history and felt accepted as an equal in the fraternity of flyers going back to the Wright Brothers , Montgolfier, and all the others that dared to break the bounds of earth for an aerial view and perspective. Truly a memorable moment.

Chuck Yeager Wikipedia page

Seven years ago today

We arrived in Bali. My my. It's been that long? Maybe someday get back to Amerika Serikat as it's called here formally. When asked where I'm from I say California which has a good reputation and thought of as a happening place - though some country folk won't know what California is so I just say Amerika. Miss you. - dc

Poles melting

 

Shift to a Not-So-Frozen North Is Well Underway - NYTimes

Another use of "Happy birthday."

In Buitan on the way to Candidasa, Tanya and Lempot's son Jodi turned twenty-one. I said, "Happy birthday," to Jodi. Katrinka did the same. Then she said, "Happy birthday" to Tanya. Tanya told me later that no one else including her son recognized her role and that it was a birthday for her too. I'd never thought of that and told her that from now on I'll say happy birthday to mothers. And then today as I write this post I remember my sons' births and think I'll say happy birthday to both parents - mother first. So to catch up - happy birthdays going back to the first to all mothers, and happy birthday to you fathers too, acknowledging our lesser yet necessary role. Oh gosh and now I think about the parents of adopted children and don't want them to feel left out. Gosh and now I get a vision of all beings begetting all beings constantly, all that is - being reborn continuously. Mother Earth. Mother Cosmos. But all that is too grand for me to grok. But the woman who gave birth I know. So she stands for it all. Happy birthday to you.

More Booooooooooring News

 Humanity is waging a 'suicidal' war on nature, UN chief warns

Tech Note

Dropbox paid accounts now have a feature which is so useful for me that I'm giving it a free ad here. That feature is Smart Synch. I have a two terabyte hard drive on my main laptop. There's an old backup one I use when I have to like starting Friday when the new ASUS goes to the shop to get a new touchpad installed just in time to catch the last month of the two year warranty. It always bugged me that I'd put files and folders in my Dropbox folder that then would synch with my Dropbox in the sky and so I had to have those files in two places on my laptop - unless I used Selective Synch which eliminated the file or folder on my laptop. That didn't work well with me. With this new feature I can choose to have the file.folder local and online or just online. It appears there are local files and folders but they're just placeholders. They can be retrieved or added to without taking up any space. That brings me a bit of digital relief and comfort. - DC 

A Celebration

 

of the Bali dog - by Ibu Kat

Ibu Kat has written hundreds of columns and published books on Bali.