wuuh.. better, I think.

Slept and watched a friend's Deep Space Nine DVDs all day.

Feeling much better now.... just hope I don't have nightmares of Odo camping out in my sinuses. Bleck.. :)

blech.

Got hit by sick bug today. Sleep. water. Sleep. water.

News and such later.

Church Hopping

Between my work and meeting some wonderful new friends, I ended up hopping with them through three different Christmas Eve services tonight. Hence the being back at 3AM. Whoof.

Anyhow, it is an interesting experience to see such a breadth of approaches in a night. Surely "none are perfect, not one" - but so educational!

First, my church - a contemporary non-denominational one. Protestant in background but with no formal ties to a denomination. I admit I'm biased here, but I think in many ways it's closest of the three to the Church as it began - young, vibrant, growing like mad, and very active in the community. Not from a getting involved in lawmaking standpoint, but from a "getting out there and doing good" standpoint. It's not what I grew up with, and I'll admit I was skeptical as heck the first time I walked through those doors.. but there's something there. More on that another time.

Second was a contemporary Baptist service. Now I'll admit, growing up in the South I have always found the Baptist congregations I've known to be .. well.. more on the Pharisaical side than I've been comfortable with. Not that they're bad people at all - just that the Law itself can become as blinding an idol as any, and well.. that's the particular momentum of their branch of the family as I see it. So while friendly as they are, it's not a place I'd feel at home, but well.. they sure go all out on Christmas.

Finally to my friends' church, a Catholic service. It was the most interesting, if only because it was so unfamiliar. Some of the ritual forms surprised me with how.. well.. Jewish in form they seemed. It only makes sense given the history of course, but more than once during a call-and-response reading of the liturgy I couldn't help but think if only it were in Hebrew I could be back at my aunt's synagogue. Now I'll admit as a good Presbyterian-raised girl I got absolutely itchy with what seemed an almost idolatrous notion of saints as intercessors, but well.. that's an old family argument. No offense guys - I'm sure we've got notions they strike you as equally heretical. Oh well. What it did remind me of though was how an almost total lack of ritual can be disorienting- I miss the comfort of each message ending with the Lord's Prayer, as I grew up with.

Ritual, like manners, is often derided as pointless by those impatient to get to the quick of things. And like manners, it's something we dismiss entirely at our own cost. The sense of structure and setting a place apart - if only in the mind - for sacred things is a very useful tool. The counter of course is that it can become an end in itself. A delicate balancing act none of us ever get consistently right.

But then, we're imperfect. But isn't that part of the point?

Anyhow, time to get to sleep - finally. G'night all.

And Merry Christmas.

So, about that Nomex stuff...

So.. this flight suit they gave me is Nomex, right? Meaning if God forbid I'm ever in a wreck it wont get all melty and stick to my skin.

So... does that mean I can't wear synthetics under it, like a sports bra? Or that I can't wear them over it, like a jacket lining?

Or just not worry about it, since the odds are I won't get in a wreck, and if I do,well, fire will be the least of my worries?

Notes from the North

You know how they say "it ain't the heat, it's the humidity?" It's the same thing at the other end of the scale. See, when it's so cold all the water just freezes up out of the air and falls on the ground, there's a point where it just doesn't feel anywhere near as cold as it is.

I come back inside this morning from starting my jeep to let it warm up. Gramma sees me come in wearing a light sweater and no socks under my slipper shoes.

"You know, it's eight below outside. I hope you're not going out like that."

(Did I mention I love Granny Claus? :) )

Anyhow.. Wow.. I mean, it's nothing I'd want to go trekking across hill and dale in without good gear, but just standing out there it felt well.. not comfortable exactly, but not achingly cold either.

Neat! Dangerous I suppose if you're not aware of it, but neat nonetheless- a nice mercy.

Oh, and I'm finally getting a block heater put in today. Yippee! Poor little jeep needs it.

(More on jeeps soon)

What was that about private property and all?

Driving into town today, saw the local Ron Paul folks doing their demonstration thing on the corner of Northern Lights... waving a homemade banner that was a pretty base ripoff of the church youth group banner:




Uncool guys.

I mean, sure I think your guy's a little nutty, but he is one of the few to come along in the last hundred years who seems to have actually read our Constitution, much less stood up for it, so I'll give him that much. Heck, even if I don't like everything he has to say, and don't favor him in the primaries, I'd still take his flavor of nutty over most of the front runners we're being offered up from the Big Two. So I don't think he's all bad or anything.

But kindly make up your own stuff please. Chris put a lot of heart and soul into building up the visual identity for his group, and just ripping him off ain't cool.

Daytime in Anchorage

The sun sits low in the sky in December up here, scarcely a hands breadth above the horizon at noon. It's odd, as from the angle of the light through trees and such it feels like it should look five in the evening or so - and yet the sky seems much brighter - not a summertime noon, yet not dusky either.

I don't know if that's just because my eyes have had months to slowly adjust, and what was dim now looks like bright daytime, or if we do get more light than the angle of the sun suggests.

Regardless... it's a little odd, yet cool.

The sun, close to the earth. Perfect for Christmastime. :)

victory!

Well, a win is a win. I didn't do as well on the Private Pilot written exam as I would have liked, just 'cause the random test bank threw a lot of stuff I'd spent less time on at me, but hey... still made it with room to spare, so it's all good. I'll just need to explain ADFs and lapse rates to my examiner when I go up for the practical next summer.

For now, I'm just glad to get my evenings back. Wheee!

Waiter, check please...

Donna is among the most forceful, hard-line Christians I know.

She also loves "His Dark Materials," which her sharp young daughter introduced her to. When the whole to-do came up over Pullman and all, she laughed it off. "That's not my God he's talking about," she laughs. "God is far too powerful for a little thing like that to bother me."

And really, I see where she's coming from - in a hundred years people will still be singing praises and saying prayers, while Lyra's adventures will be scarcely a footnote in an American Lit survey course - if that. Better writers than the current crop have set themselves up as God-killers, and I daresay the new will fare no better than the old. Besides, the guy honestly thinks he's doing the right thing, and I'm sure has had some hard knocks from the church to set him such a mindset. Heck, Christ himself had a few choice words about those who set up the Law as an idol to be worshiped over God himself.

Besides - what with the whole horror of intercision he describes, separating little ones from their souls.. he may well end up being - as more than one commentator has giggled - "of God's party without knowing it." Again, he wouldn't be the first.

God bless him.

But anyway... I kinda came at it from the other end of things I'm afraid.

I mean, I love fantasy - my old bedroom as a teen looked like Lothlorien, and yes I tried to learn elvish before elvish was (sorta) cool. Jareth melted my heart, and I could recite the lines of Phillipe the Mouse in my sleep. Knights and castles, damsels and unicorns, a world filled with magic - I loved it all. And I am still so much a sucker for a good fantasy story.

So that's why I was really looking forward to this Golden Compass movie. I mean, a fantastical looking world, intrigue, dark powers, airships, a rougish American, a spiffy steampunky lookin' gadget - it looked awesome! I was so there.

Then I had to go and read some of the Pullman interviews. I mean.... did you have to go and do that P? Dissin' the Lion and all? Sure the more recent interviews are more well.. polite, but still.

*sigh*

I feel like the waiter just brought out the most amazing dark chocolate rasberry torte, all purtied up on fine white china with the perfect garnish... then dropped his trousers and peed all over it before mockingly placing it on the table.

Yeah, so to heck with a boycott. I'm not going just because it won't be fun anymore. Bother.

Oh well.. at least Prince Caspian is coming up in a few months. Now that looks to be fun. I wonder whatever happened to that little gold-painted plastic chess knight I had as a kid? :)

-K

History, bleeding on the floor.

Oh my goodness.

I went into the kitchen just now to find a little piece of fruit or something before going to bed. There looking up at me on the counter was a thick envelope from the FAA. For a second I was confused.. my test wasn't until.. then I remembered.

You might remember some time back I was working on a model of N5156H, the little Piper Family Cruiser MAF flew in Ecuador once upon a time - the plane Nate Saint used to ferry Jim Elliot and the others to Palm Beach, where they met their ends and the whole culture was about to turn.

Well as an afterthought almost, I wrote the FAA asking if they still had an archive of the little Piper's records. They did.. and an envelope thick with photocopies just arrived to tell 56 Henry's story.

Wow.

There's the bill of sale - where Piper serial #14-166 was sold to Central States Aircraft for $4286.00 on October 13th of 1948. Then a series of transfers, one signed by Nate Saint himself. I'll tell you now, staring at his signature there, staring back at me was.. wow. It really was almost like meeting a legend face to face.

Even his alteration, adding an emergency fuel tank is in there!

And then, the final notation. A letter from the corporation that legally owned the plane:




Gentlemen:
Please cancel U.S.A. registration N5156H which has been assigned to Piper aircraft model PA-14, serial No. 14-166.

This aircraft was recently damaged beyond desirable repair in a ground attack by hostile Indians in the interior of Ecuador. The aircraft has been abandoned in an unairworthy condition at the site of the damage.




Then the following government form closing the record. All the ordinary checkboxes are ignored, a new one penciled in at the botton..



Wow.

Who knew a simple pile of photocopied government forms could tell such a heartbreaking, soul-lifting story?

No human life can be squeezed into the pages of a book. Nor really can even the tale of an assemblage of steel tubing and stretched fabric be fully told in a pile of FAA paperwork.

And yet.. there you go. The markings of one little part of His story, there to read.

G'night all. We're in good hands.

-J


PS.. Should any of Mr. Saint's family or friends ever read this... thank you.
I know the ache of loss never really goes away, no matter the blessings that follow. So for all that it's worth.. thank you for sharing your beloved with the world.

Let's study up...

Just reserved my FAA exam for Monday morning at 9. Looks I know what I'll be up to this weekend. Sporty's here I come...

One step in front of the other...

Well, I think I'm actually finally cool to go up in a CAP plane - I just did the last "are you sure you know the regs" online test, and got a shiny PDF of a "completion certificate." W00t!

So now I get to start work on filling in all the little "but have you done this" checkboxes on the advancement sheets.

In other news, just one more class period left in ground school. Yay! It'll be nice to have some unoccupied evenings to get caught up on web stuff coming up. Then come spring, the actual flying part starts up again.

Small progress, but progress nonetheless.

Walking down another's memory lane...

Since I don't think my gramma Maow is reading this ol' diary, it's prolly safe to spill the beans here. For Christmas this year I just bought her one of those neat electronic picture frames. Obviously more than half the fun of a gift like this is giving it to her full of pictures already, so it was the perfect opportunity I had to go through a bunch of old scans I had of her old family pictures, mostly from her growing up days in the 1920's-1940's.

Gosh how times have changed. Oh, I know there were all kinds of problems then to. Lord knows I wouldn't want to see segregation again, or have the twin spectres of Fascism and Communism with their death tolls in the tens of millions ahead of us rather than all but lost to memory already. And yet.. this was bad boy chic of the day - here's grampa Big Da with his fly ride -



Seems outright wholesome in comparison, don't he?

Yeah, for all the problems then I can't help but miss a time when - at the very least - we weren't constantly being told we should be ashamed of ourselves for being Americans. When the "can do" voices were so much louder than the whining.

Does it just seem like that because way back when, we won? Is it just nostalgia, where the bitterness and acrimony is forgotten and just the good remembered?

No, I don't think so. Somewhere along the line, this awful self-hatred metastasized into our national identity - where once we had Bugs Bunny playing Teddy Roosevelt to brass and drums, now we have dancing penguins and dying fairies telling us that the world is coming to an end, and it's all. our. fault. And we hate children and brown-skinned people to.

Bother. Yeah, I know we weren't - and aren't - perfect. But weren't we just talking about redemption last week? That we don't have to be perfect?

Well enough of that. Now and again, a little just plain nostalgia is nice.
Maybe I'll go find some Big Band to put on while I study this week.



Thanks Big Da. Thanks Maow. Thanks for carrying such a heavy load.

Back to the books I guess, we got our own work to do these days.
As much as you sacrificed for your posterity, I just pray we can be worth it.


God bless, all.

A lesson in vision

A while back in ground school, the instructor mentioned the "off center viewing" technique of scanning for traffic at night. Essentially it's based on the design of the eye, and says that when viewing dim objects it's best to look a little off center from it. Something about rods and cones and which are better at picking up dim objects and where they're concentrated in the eye - anyhow, I kinda filed it away for the test bank but didn't really think about it much.

Until last night, as I turned out the light and lay down to sleep. Right out my bedroom window, between two trees, was a single dim star. Or was it? Every time I looked straight at it, it vanished! Then I could look a little off center, and "bing!" it popped right back into view. Yeah, I prolly entertained myself for twenty minutes like that. There. Not There. There. Not There. Wheee!

And yet that tiny little speck of light my eyes couldn't even reliably pick up was really some huge fusion furnace a gajillion miles off. Bigger than I could truly conceive of, more powerful than I could truly comprehend... and I can't even trust my eyes to tell me it was there.

There's a lesson in that somewhere I think.