A LONG story about a LONG flight

I usually enjoy flying. Today was an exception.

The first leg of the flight was great. Not many people on board and most of them were experienced, respectful fliers.

That all changed when we got to Birmingham ... apparently the local chapter of ROCKY (Really Obnoxious Children who's mission it is to Kill You) AND a highschool jump-roping squad thought it would be great fun to sit  together in one EXTREMELY loud, large mass using my seat as ground zero. 

One of the 50 babies/toddlers sitting around me was screaming as she walked up the aisle and entertained us all with mind- numbing screaming as we flew across Texas - Texas is a VERY wide state - the words homicide and suicide came to mind more than once.

I think the guy sitting next to the ROCKY kid bought it a shot of whiskey as the child has now been silent for ... I knew I shouldn't have said anything, WWAAAAAAHHHHHH! Oh, Miss, would you put a case of beer on my tab and deliver it to that kid, please? If not, do you know if a child placed on the depressurized toilet in the back of the plane would be sucked out when flushed? Just curious.

I'm looking out the window now wondering if a person would actually feel any pain at the moment of impact from a 35,000 foot fall. I think I can squeeze through this tiny window if I suck in my gut. It's worth a try.

The flight attendant just brought me a Dr. Pepper. I think I'll postpone the jump for now - life is good again. Now if they just had some Twinkies.

Now there's something you only see from 10 miles above the planet - we just flew over a river that looked like a pig eating a mashmallow.

If the plane turns upside down, does it have to fall to go up? So, in THAT case, falling would be a GOOD thing, right?

Airplane drinking cups are coated with clear Teflon to ensure that they WILL slip out of your fingers into your lap.

Airplane seats are designed to keep all spilled Dr. Pepper collected around your butt and off the cheerful cabin carpeting.

Shortbread cookies are deadly at 35,000 feet unless you can convince the flight attendant to keep a steady stream of Dr. Pepper coming to unstick your mouth.

The kid is screaming again - GIVE IT SOME SHORTBREAD COOKIES FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!

We'll be landing and changing planes soon - time for a short, heartfelt prayer: 

Heavenly Father, please do NOT let that child be flying on to Austin. Thank you, Lord. Amen.

Post note/prayer: 
Heavenly Father, thank you for sending the screaming child on to Fairbanks. But now there's a Californian, valley girl, self-made rock star sitting behind me that is not aware that the volume of her airplane voice should NOT be the same as her rock n' roll stage voice. Please, Lord, strike me temporarily deaf. A little decompression-clogged-up ear would work fine. Thank you again, Father.

The THIRD leg of our flight to Austin -  The right lens of my glasses just fell out and onto the cheerful cabin carpeting. The lady behind me can see it but can't bend down to get it because we're all strapped-in for landing. So I'm wearing only one lens and can't see shit. Probably just as well.

So I just spent the entire landing with my feet painfully pigeon-toed and stretched out far enough to catch my eyeglass lens should it slide forward when the plane hits it's airbrakes during landing ... the lens didn't slide - either that or my pigeon-toe trap didn't work and my lens slid forward 5 or 6 rows. Should I yell out, "NOBODY MOVE! I DROPPED A LENS!"? The Sky Marshall would probably just shoot me when he/she heard, "DONT MOVE..." Then I'd be blind AND dead. And all the other passengers would be sucked out of the pressurized cabin through the bullet hole in the wall. So in the spirit of love for my fellow passengers, I'll keep my mouth shut.

This trip can only go uphill from here.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!!!

Hang in there until after the credits run 1:36 mark.

Yes, my Dad DOES read my blog - it serves as kind of a "Forgive-me-Father-for-I-have-sinned-these-are-my-sins" kind of thing.

I used to be an atheist, I couldn't handle the punishing God, smash-you-with-His-Big-Fist-for-screwing-up, thing. So I just dismissed Him and put Him out of my mind for the next 35 years. But about 10 years ago, a wise man named Doug asked me, "Would your Dad help you if you had trouble?" Sure. "Would he listen to you if you wanted to talk and offer you advice?" Sure. "Does he love you regardless of what you've done?" Yes. "Then why don't you try thinking of God THAT way ... like your Father."

From that point on, I've had no trouble with the concept of God.

So thanks, Dad ... BOTH of you.

I LOVE YOU A LOT!!!

Folk art or pig joint - you decide

A moment of silence, please

IT'S HERE! Bloodhounds couldn't have tracked this thing better. I was up late last night searching for upcoming flights from the UPS hub in Anchorage AK, to Louisville KY. Drove myself crazy reading all the negative rep's about Apple's stalling this, UPS is stalling that, no, it's Customs that has things tied up ... all I know is as of 11:45 last night, my phone was still sitting in a cargo container in Alaska. I even looked on the map - Alaska is WAY FAR AWAY from here. Crap. This morning, however, the iPhone Fairies had done their work and shipping status showed that it was out on a truck for delivery at 4:15 am Louisville time. Louisville may have its negative points, but being a UPS hub isn't one of them.

Coolest thing - dumbest thing:

Coolest thing first: the front screen doesn't smear up with greasy fingerprints like the old ones. Very nice. Don't know how they did that, but it works.

Dumbest thing: I had it shipped to my office, but it's synced to my home computer, so now I have to wait for the day to end so I can go home and activate it. Cough. Cough. I'm not feeling well. Swine flu probably. Cough. Maybe I need to go home.

Jesus got a gun ... Satan's on the run

Austin Texas next week

Josh and I decided to wear matching outfits the first day we're there.

Josh, however insisted that he change soon after our arrival.

I agreed and will change into my costume so I fit in better with the locals.

Prince Corwin of Amber

When my wife, Sue, met me, this is exactly what I looked like - except the face. We met on stage at a Science Fiction Convention. No Spock ears for me, no siree. I was Prince Corwin of Amber. A hero from the Chronicles of Amber written by Roger Zelazny.

A good friend of mine and fellow artist, David O. Miller, asked if he could paint my costume. Sure. So here it is. This was back in 1987. Great illustration. Dumb geek wearing the outfit. The cape was made from a woman's velvet coat with the sleeves cut off and the fur color rolled over into the arm pits to give it that padded shoulder look. A capelette served as the ascot. The chainmail was fashioned out of a metallic silver dress. I had REAL chainmail on my hand which was not in the illustration. And I still have the Toledo sword, though the scabbard has been refitted by another friend with brown leather and brass - Corwin would NEVER wear anything other than black and silver. There was a silver rose broach clasped at my neck. All part of the character from the books.

I won first place in the contest. Sue won third. She was dressed as a barbarian woman. Her costume consisted of a chamois cloth. Period. It was love at first sight.

Our sci-fi convention days are over. But I'm still a geek.

Rolling Razor

If I use this razor, will my hair get all spikey like that?

My hand hurts today, but I can do this

I'm taking this Japanese thing too far...

Our office closes at 1:00 on Fridays so I was enjoying a sunny, pleasant afternoon working on my bonsai trees. I was working on the tree shown above, a San Jose Juniper and was adding more shari - a process where the bark is removed to simulate age. In the process, I stabbed myself DEEPLY (about 1 1/2" deep) in the hand with an Xacto knife and spent the REST of the day/evening getting stitches. And now I have to go see a hand specialist next week.

There is a no-longer-practiced Japanese suicidal method called Harikari (Seppuku), where a person disembowels him/herself with a samurai sword ... close ... just got my hand though.

Bonsai is SUPPOSED to be relaxing and it is. Most of the time.

All hail's breaking loose

As I write this, the weather reporters on TV are going nuts, the storm warning radio in the bedroom is honking and they're talking about possible hail - quarter-sized hail ... so I got to thinking ... how many sizes are there of hail and is there an "official" chart?

Yep, there is: NOAA, the National Old Aardvark's Association (or whatever NOAA stands for) says THIS is the official list:

NOAA Chart
Hail Size Chart
Hail Dia....Description
1/4"........Pea
1/2"........Plain M&M
3/4"........Penny
7/8"........Nickel
1"...........Quarter
1 1/4"......Half Dollar
1 1/2"......Walnut/Ping Pong Ball
1 3/4"......Golf Ball
2"...........Hen Egg/Lime (I thought hail was round)
2 1/2.......Tennis Ball
2 3/4"......Baseball
3"...........Teacup/Large Apple
4"...........Grapefruit
4 1/2"......Softball
4 3/4"- 5"..Computer CD-DVD

Then there's a not so official list:

Hail Dia....Description
0.10".......bb ball bearing size hail
0.25".......booger size hail
0.50".......rabbit turd size hail
0.75".......horse fly size hail
1.00".......prune size hail
1.50".......eyeball size hail
2.00".......raw oyster size hail
3.00".......stink bomb size hail
4.00".......fat mouse size hail
5.00+"......cow patty size hail

Someone else already did what I was trying to do:

http://www.chiprowe.com/articles/hail.html

I found so many variations on hail sizes I gave up on this article and switched over to YouTube. I wouldn't blame you if you left here now and did the same thing. I'll save you the time, just click here: www.YouTube.com

A Touching, Classic, Short Film

When I was a wee little artist back in design school, my instructor showed us this film. It's every bit as good today as it was back then.

Cold turkey - Day 1

It's been a little over 6 hours without my iPhone. I had it for 27 days and returned it to the store this afternoon because I didn't like the camera ... sure, on the 19th I get a NEW 3GS with video, double the hard drive space, twice as fast, much better camera ... but for now, cold turkey. Pacing the floor. Pacing. Can't sit still. Can't think. Still pacing. How will I ever make it 10 days without it? Must focus. My old iPhone's empty leather case is sitting here in front of me. It's taunting me ... giving me an accusing look like only a empty, leather, iPhone case can give. QUIT STARING AT ME! Must go to bed.

Same weekend, yet ANOTHER story

These things really did happen. I'm not making this up. After you read this, read the two stories below. They all happened within 24 hours of each other.

AFTER the boat launching story, but BEFORE the fishing story, we were all walking down to the lake. My friends had a big, dumb, gold dog. A great dog. But dumber'n hell. He decided to dig up a ground hornet community, or some such pissed of flying, stinging, insect herd. And they attacked. Not only the dog but anything moving, including US!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH! We had to RUN to the dock and hurl ourselves into the lake to get them to stop stinging us. OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!

Little did I know, there was more weirdness to come that weekend. Read the next two stories. Chronologically, the next story happened first, and the last one last ... this first story was actually second ... but you're reading backward because blogs are upside down ... story-wise. Confused? Welcome to my world. Read the next two. If you don't like them, you can have your money back.

Same weekend, same lake, different story

Same weekend as the one in the story below. This happened BEFORE the actual fishing story.

First we had to get the boat IN the lake! No problem. I was used to launching my father-in-law's small boat, he would back the trailer into the lake as I stood on the truck bumper and then I'd release the winch and float the boat off.

Uh, not this time. This wasn't my father-in-law's boat, it was my friend's and HIS trailer had rollers on it so the boat would roll off by itself. I didn't know this. But I faithfully got on the bumper and he TOOK OFF backwards! Then he slammed on the brakes just short of the lake - the kind of "fling-the-boat-in-the-lake-method". I wasn't aware of his game plan so I was still holding onto the rim of the boat when he slammed on the brakes. The rollers on the trailer did what they were supposed to do and I had to make an instantaneous decision - go with the boat or stay with the truck. I chose the boat. (I didn't know there was a rope attached to it so I was going to heroically "save" the boat.)

Engghhhh ... WRONG! It drug me off the bumper, into the lake. I was still hanging on for dear life as the boat propelled backward away from the trailer - AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! He jumps out of the truck and casually picks up the rope that was tied to the boat. I'm submerged from the chest down, clinging to the boat. But I can't haul myself into the damn thing because I'm laughing like a maniac. He reeled both the boat and I in and saved the day.

And that's how idiots drown. Or get run over by a truck. Or both.