You Could Say That Again (3)

Ever notice how you tend to hear the same words over and over again when something big is going on? Here are some words that popped up a lot during 2008, either in national news or in local happenings:

Big Three, the: The three largest car industries in the U.S. Characterized by executives who choose to top off their corporate jets rather than put cash in their employees' pockets. This term appeared in the media a lot when Congress was deciding who should get the bailout monies.

Credit crunch: A crisis in which the ability is to borrow vast amounts of non-existent wealth is hindered. Brought on by people who think that owning plastic exempts them from paying for their goods. This cliche was a favorite term for reporters to describe the economic crisis that has come to define 2008.

Lawmakers: A bunch of guys who earn their keep by rescuing unfortunate industries, getting into heated arguments over who gets to dish out the bailout pie, and taking the longest possible time to get a task done. These people seemed to have been at the center of attention as of late, and you don't hear about the economic crisis without hearing what Congress is trying to do about it.

Merger: The joining of two companies. Often used to describe the absorption of a less powerful business by a more powerful one. Examples: Northwest Airlines and Delta Airlines merging, to come under the new name of . . . Delta. Also, Weimar and Amazing Facts (although officially they are "married", not merged). Weimartians heard a lot about this last spring when negotiations between the two ministries were underway.

Meet Microsoft Mom 1.0 (2)

The management is getting grand illusions again - or rather it's trying to create them. An article by Time magazine online highlighted the newest hair-brained scheme coming from the Pentagon: Design a computerized hologram that can take the place of parents who have been deployed. When a parent has to go off to war, he/she is often placed beyond the reach of email and telephones, thus preventing any contact with their kids. Some younger children are confused when a parent leaves and doesn't come home.

The brass at the Pentagon hope to improve soldier morale by improving emotional stability for families left at home. The plan is to make an artificial stay-at-home mom or dad that can say "goodnight," "I love you," and be capable to carry on a simple conversation with the child. To develop this technology, the military is looking at handing out up to $300,000 contracts to private companies with promising ideas.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, would be the key to creating the "illusion of a natural (but simple) interaction." Specially videos of the parent would be recorded before the he or she is deployed and be used to make the virtual version of the parent. Then lonely family members could "boot up" the computer and hold limited conversations with their electronic parent.

What will be next? A hugging machine?! We are living in the Information Age, with computers performing more and more tasks everyday. People are spending more time emailing, chatting, and texting than actually talking to others. This is the next step. I believe this illusion of family togetherness is exactly what it is - an illusion. Children growing up with technology like this will ultimately be unable to handle reality.

I don't think there is any real cure for upset families separated from their deployed loved ones. Better options might be real-life prerecorded video messages, support groups for the parents left behind, and perhaps better communications technology to link the soldiers with home. The article really puts the situation into perspective with its closing words: "It's obvious that the real breakthrough will come when the military can deploy parental holograms and let Mom and Dad stay at home."

What Was Great about O-eight (1)

I'm back again with a new semester of English class and those annoying numbers next to my post titles. It's good to be pounding the keyboard again, and letting my thoughts flow out onto the screen in front of me.

2009 has arrived, and with it, a host of New Year's "resolutions". Most of these vows end in failure after a few weeks, or some never get put into action. Instead of listing some ambitious plans for the year to come, I have been assigned to come up with 10 accomplishments from 2008. Sounds good, since often the best achievements aren't the result of some brave January 1st decision. So here are some of the success I experienced last year:

1. Became a Senior at W.A.
2. Learned to ride a horse (thanks Corey)
3. Got approval from Uncle Sam to start flying lessons (no relation as of yet)
4. Got in my 240 hours of work in the summertime so I could go to W.A. this school year
5. Finished my correspondence American History course before the deadline
   
6. Was published in Insight Magazine
7. Read Great Controversy
   
8. Learned how to land a plane (now I'm learning how to fly one!)
9. Overnighted on 9103 ft Castle Peak
10. Passed Ms Jenkins' Government/Economics class (whew!)

I didn't set out on January 1 2008 to do all these things ; they just happened as the opportunities arose. So here's my little piece of wisdom: Be thankful for past successes, don't plan your future failures, and take advantage of the opportunities that you already have.

Let's Take It From the Top

Much has happened during the weeks since my last post. My mom and I took our vacation in Washington and enjoyed the relaxing effect of being away from the bustle of our workplaces. After getting back, I finished my remaining hours of work for my school bill and got a few extra in for the pocket. And now, with registration only 2 1/2 hours away and my dear sister four months away, I'm taking the last few moments of summer to type my last post before the school year starts.

Vacation time this year found my mom and I driving north through Oregon on our way to Young Disciple Camp in Washington. Our first night on the road we just managed to find our campsite in the middle of the barren wastelands of eastern Oregon long after sunset. Internet directions, we found, didn't always provide the exact mileages. After having supper on a picnic table that collapsed under us before we were done, we went and enjoyed the main attraction of the campground: hot springs.

We arrived in Inchilium, Washington several days later, having visited some old friends on the weekend and seeing some of Idaho. I settled into the rigors of YD camp, having fun in canoeing class taught by my distant relative Matt Boyd (yes he was there too), gobbling the food - including an unscheduled dose of cashew sauce -, playing my trumpet in orchestra, and deep-frying plantains in Mr. Arnold's Missionary Adventures class (shhh, don't tell anybody!). I also gained some valuable insights from the Deep Bible Study classes taught by Mr. Prewitt.

Mom and I stayed a few extra days visiting my cousin and then we headed back to the Golden State, with Mr. Boyd riding in the backseat. On the way we saw the giants of the Cascade range - Rainier, Jefferson, Adams, Bachelor, Shasta - and we stopped by the gorgeous Crater Lake.
Finally we rolled back onto campus close to midnight and spent the rest of our vacation time recuperating.

So there's the scoop. School starts tomorrow and I'll be on final approach for graduation. This shouldn't be the last you hear of me, as it's likely that Ms. Chi will give us blogging assignments again. Then those funny little assignment numbers will be back on my titles. Changes continue to occur and you never know, maybe in a year or two I might need to change the name of this blog to The Flying Yankee. We'll see.

For now, best wishes, and over and out.

The Flying Dutchman.

What Does That Say?

With every new job comes new skills and experiences. For my summer job, the draft board assigned me to Grounds for two hours in the morning and the Weimart for the rest of the day. A week after getting out of school, I reported for duty and began learning the ropes.

There is always a challenge involved in starting a new job. Grounds work is a bit more self-explanatory, but creating invoices, stapling the right papers together, and knowing just what to say to an upset customer who's order I had nothing to do with was a bit trickier. But after a couple weeks of shipping orders, cashiering, and talking on the phone with long-winded customers I felt reasonably settled in.

I survived inventory and store work finally started becoming routine. One day I set to work on filling a row of bulk containers. Setting the half-empty jar of baking powder on the counter I cast my glance about the room searching for the refill. Ah, there's a sack with the brand name EnerG. I unhurriedly scooped the white powder into the container while I remembered the unpleasant sour taste that the EnerG baking powder had imparted to a batch of waffles. Closing the lid on the very full jar, I turned to seal the sack. My gaze rested on the product name just below the brand: Egg Replacer. Oh no! Five pounds of mixed egg replacer and baking powder was now headed for the trash can.

More recently I was getting ready to bag some bulk foods, so I diligently set about preparing the bagging area. One of the store workers keeps a spray bottle with grapeseed extract for disinfectant instead of a chemical cleaner. Grabbing a spray bottle on the counter I carefully scrubbed down the work surface, not noticing the powerful odor rising into the air. I set down the bottle, ready to get to work when I happened to see the label scrawled in red marker. Not again. As I frantically scrubbed the counter with water, my boss walked by and asked, "Did somebody spray the Deer-Away?"

I can take away one good lesson from these two incidents: Always read the labels. There is absolutely nothing that can be lost from double-checking. At the very least it will save me from ruining someone's baking or trying to clean with a rotten egg base deer deterrant. In spiritual matters the same lesson applies. Sometimes what appears to be something good may be a close counterfeit. And maybe the only clue exposing its true identity is written on the label.

Look! An Airplane

The Flying Dutchman has been at it again! I'd finally had enough of being stuck to the ground, so I scheduled another intro flying lesson at the Auburn airport. (I had already taken two one-time introductory flying lessons.) But I was getting desperate. Finding a good excuse to spend the money turn up in a grade report from W.A., I headed down to the airport with my two sisters and a friend.

Arriving at the Auburn Municipal Airport, a small airport stuffed full of private airplanes, I led my companions along to the flying school and let myself soak in the experience. I met my instructor - the third I've had - and let him pore over the whole 1.3 hours of flight time recorded in my logbook. I asked him the fateful question.

"Could we work on patterns today?" I queried.

"Sure. We'll go down to Lincoln to practice takeoffs and landings because it has a longer runway and less tricky winds," he replied, apparently unphased about letting a kid with almost no flight time try to land a plane with him in it. I beamed and off we went to preflight the Piper Warrior and get airborne. Peter, my sister's friend climbed in the back seat to take video. Several minutes later, the Hobbs meter (a sort of mileage counter that adds up minutes instead of miles) was running and we were in the air.

After I took the plane off, I followed my instructor's directions to the Lincoln airport. As we got close, Dennis my instructor took the controls and did one touch-and-go to show me how it was supposed to look like. Then, putting his hands in his lap he gave me control of the plane.

"Now it's your turn." Peter, you have no idea what kind of a ride you're in for. And you'd better be recording! Flying downwind, I followed the instructions Dennis gave me and began preparing the plane for landing. Throttle back. A notch of flaps. Turn to the base leg.

"Keep the nose down so the airspeed doesn't drop." Forward on the yoke. Another notch of flaps. Turning on final, the beautiful sight of the runway came in front of me. Last notch of flaps.

Moving the controls back and forth, I tried to keep the plane aligned with the runway as breezes shifted my plane back and forth. Another hundred feet to go. Dennis came on the intercom again, telling me just what to do to put the plane on the ground smoothly.

"Start looking at the end of the runway now and level off. Now pull the throttle out." I flew several feet above the runway and let the engine idle. Hold it off, hold it off. Thump! I had landed a plane for the first time.

"Good. Now steer back to the centerline and we'll take off again." Three landings later I was taxiing back to the ramp at Auburn Municipal. After refueling the plane and letting poor Peter back into the fresh air, we walked back to the flying school. I presented my prized logbook to Dennis and I watched happily as he jotted down the figures: climbs, descents, turns, pattern work, 4 takeoffs and landings, . . . 1.0 hour. He signed the entry, and handing it back to me he remarked, "You have a natural aptitude for flying. Not many students are out there doing touch-and-gos on their third lesson!"

Those words put a perfect end to a perfect day of flying. It's still awhile until I earn my wings, but a lesson here and there makes the wait much more endurable. This is the Flying Dutchman descending for landing on his bed. Goodnight.

To Meet Once More

I am a natural pack-rat, saving each and every item that I "might need" later on. Recently I was going through my letter collection in an effort to free up some more closet space. Opening the box, I began wading through mementos dating all the way back to my eighth birthday. This was my second time through the box and I was having a lot more success. Envelopes, cards that only had the sender's signature in them, and old subscription offers from Plane & Pilot magazine - all found themselves in the waste basket.

As I opened one particular christmassy card, I noticed the signature on the bottom. The card was from my first boss, a kind lady who had offered my friend and I a job after seeing our ad for trash hauling. Starting when I was about eleven, my Stephan and I weeded her yard, took out her trash, and made fresh vegetable juice each morning. She was always fond of us and though we were paid by the hour, she never failed to through in a bonus at the end of each week.

Then her visits to Rhode Island grew longer and finally I found out she was leaving for good. My boss was dying of cancer. One last stay and then she left, this time taking her cat. Several months later she died.

As I glanced over the card, remembering the fun times Stephan and I had working for our boss, the first sentence in the message jumped out at me. Hope to see you again quite soon! The words, written to let me know she was coming to visit, suddenly took on a deeper meaning. Jesus is coming soon. Sin and suffering don’t have much time left to do their damage and soon Christ will return. We will be reunited with loved ones and friends and this time it will be for good.

In that moment, the greatest event in the universe’s history seemed so near. God wants us to remember that our time here is really short. His words blend with my boss’s words as they echo the hope-filled reassurance, Hope to see you again quite soon!