A blog entry on FlyMachias about my latest flight adventure. This one was a big learning experience for me.
June 2014
Complicated.
Earl and I are sitting at a local pastry shop doing the thing one usually does at a Starbucks, except we are not drinking coffee and we don’t have a Starbucks within 45 miles of our home. Hence, we are sitting a locally owned establishment that has more pastries available than Panera. They also have a few more bugs in the display cases here but not to worry, the staff is so relaxed that they sip on their mocha-cocha-cha-cha-la-la whilst they’re taking your order. All that’s missing is a handlebar mustache.
As we were driving here, sitting at the randomly placed traffic signals, I noticed that two of our six of the drivers in front of me (at the various locations) were hesitant to make that all-too-scary Right On Red. Right On Red is a perfectly valid, permissible and legal turn to make in New York State, outside of the five boroughs of the Big Apple. Earl and I occasionally have a discussion about my observations of Right On Red hesitance; he reminds me that making that Right On Red turn is not mandatory, it’s completely up to the driver. I counter that Right On Red works no differently than a stop sign, and sitting at a red light, waiting to turn right for no other reason other than waiting for the light to turn green, is like sitting at a stop sign and waiting for it to dance.
Several years ago I overheard a co-worker telling another co-worker that she wasn’t going to let her daughter (who was learning to drive) make that all-too-scary Right On Red turn until she had her license. I had a silent yet demonstrative fit about this because this is counterintiutive to the learning process; when one is learning, one is building habits and confidence, and being essentially trained that Right On Red is something special and out-of-the-ordinary does neither to inspire confidence nor build good habits. It’s cowardice based on a perceived complication revolving around Right On Red and how scary it is.
A local community was recently Up In Arms about the fact that the Department of Transportation was looking to replace a traffic signal with a Roundabout. People came out in droves to protest the Roundabout, with the prevailing argument being that Roundabouts are scary and unfit for vehicle consumption. Someone should let the fine Ministries of Transportation throughout Europe know this, because European drivers seem to be able to navigate a Roundabout just fine and they even occasionally have to do it in the opposite direction of travel.
It really is a pity because as I become more proficient as a pilot, where you basically do everything as safely and as consistently as possible, I am finding that I have less and less tolerance toward the common motorist in the United States.
Maybe I need to become a driver’s license examiner or something.
Routine.
I’ve been pretty lazy for the past month or so. I haven’t been riding my bike as much as I usually do at this time of year and my body is feeling the effects of that. Sleeping in until I need to go downstairs for work has pretty much been my norm. While I have enjoyed the extra sleep, I have to admit that I haven’t liked the way I’ve physically felt during the day as a result of not doing some sort of exercise in the morning.
This morning I decided to change this.
After riding in the “Tour de Cure” at the beginning of the month, I discovered that the rear tire on my bike wouldn’t hold air overnight. It’d be fine for a short ride; I could go 10-15 miles and it’d be fine when I got back to the house, but I wasn’t comfortable with the fact that the next morning the tire would be completely flat so last night I decided to do something about it. Now, I’ve changed tires on the side of the road at least a dozen times, but I just could not get the tire back on the rim last night. A quick trip to Bikes and Boards, where they changed the tire in less than five minutes and I was ready to get back to my old routine this morning.
Even though I was working from home, I set the alarm for 5:45 a.m., did a quick check of my email and then I went for an 18 mile ride (in 80 minutes). The sky had that look of impending rain, but Mother Nature held off. The ride was enjoyable and more importantly, I felt amazing upon arriving home.
It’s all a matter of routine for me.
My challenge for tomorrow is to maintain the routine again and to resist the urge to sleep in until work time. I’m going to do it, but it’s going to be a challenge.
I’m looking forward to how I feel at this time tomorrow.
Rants.
Some random rants that are going through my head today:
1. I’m starting to hear chatter on the various media outlets of who Hillary Clinton will select as her running mate for her presidential campaign. Aside from the fact that she hasn’t even officially announced any such campaign, the media apparently wants to beat down any excitement held by the average citizen of a presidential campaign that is over two years away by speculating, guessing, lying and stating that which assumed as absolute fact. In my honest opinion, the media is doing its best to expedite the decline of this country all in the name of revenue.
2. I’ve ranted about this before, but I am really getting tired of everything being dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, especially since the lowest common denominator keeps dropping. A local city government decided to protest the building of a roundabout at a busy intersection because too many motorists find roundabouts too confusing to navigate. Unfortunately I’m not completely surprised by this fact since many motorists now find parking between two lines in a parking lot to be too time consuming or too difficult. Traffic moving at a slow pace in an efficient circular motion must be mind boggling.
3. In case you’re curious about such things, I’m learning that general aviation aircraft mechanics are just as dubious in their ways as car mechanics. Our airplane has been in the shop for a required inspection for over 10 days, which is fine because making sure everything is running good is always helpful when you’re airborne. However, when someone says they’re going to call you or send you a bill or whatever, they should do it and not leave the customer hanging. Leaving the customer to second guess his schedule or whatever, all because the mechanic decided not to call you when he said he would, is just rude. I was hoping that the New American Way of “fuck the customer” would not be pervasive in the world of General Aviation, but apparently it can be.
4. Facebook is just plain shitty. Aside from the fact that you can’t sort the damn news feed into some semblance of a reasonable chronological order, there’s so much garbage polluting my news stream right now that I’m starting to dread even going on there. The problem is, more and more friends and family are starting to use Facebook as their sole contact outlet. I don’t know what’s going on with some of my friends and family unless I read about it on Facebook, which is nearly impossible to do after all of the quizzes about what toilet paper I should wipe my ass with, sage political headlines like “President Obama slapped Queen Elizabeth across the face with his Kenyan birth certificate” and “oh my god look at this, it’s a goldfish that sings the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ with bubbles in his mouth.” The ONLY thing good about Facebook is that there are people there, otherwise it’s an awful application, evil company and nothing more than a large ad whore.
Rain.
It’s raining today here in Central New York. I should say that it’s raining again, because after an absolutely stunning weekend, it’s been raining a lot. And it isn’t even interesting rain. There’s no thunderstorms, no howls from the weather radio, no remarkable weather, just rain. The rain is suppose to continue through tomorrow.
The weather has me bummed, kind of like the “it’s the middle of February” bummed, but my mind is a little confused about this because after all, it’s the middle of June.
I think the weather blues are being compounded by sleep deprivation. Our fine furry feline friend has decided that nighttime is no longer the right time for humans to sleep. He is content to yowl at loud decibels at all hours after midnight and when he’s not yowling he is trying to sleep on my head. He is no longer content to sleep between Earl and me, he wants to be on my head. As I am writing this blog entry, he is screaming at the door to go outside. I let him out and before I can make the three steps from the door to the chair, he is banging on the door to come back in. Perhaps he doesn’t like the rain. I know I don’t.
Always looking for the bright side of the situation, I should be happy that it’s raining this week because if the weather was beautiful I would be very frustrated by the fact that the airplane is grounded for maintenance this week. Here’s to hoping that the airplane gets finished and the weather clears up at the same time.
I told Earl this morning that I’m ready for an adventure of some sort. Normally I would do a little bit of retail therapy, but as I grow older I feign more responsibility, and retail therapy is not responsible right now.
I just need to see some sunshine.
Words.
The desks were arranged in a circle. This was a way for the teacher to foster an open dialog between the students in my junior year Ethics class. Being part of the accelerated Social Studies program gave me the opportunity to take the Ethics class. The other choice was an Introduction to Psychology class, but there was not enough interest in Psychology from my fellow students, so we all had to take Ethics.
I don’t remember how the class conversation steered toward basically evaluating one another and their odds of being successful in life, but that’s where we were at that moment.
30 out of 41 minutes left before the bell, and I was the first one that came up for conversation.
“John will never totally fit into society because of his mannerisms.”
“John will never be able to be President, or even the leader of a company, because of the way he is and the potential for blackmail.”
“The only thing that John could really do to be successful is pursue his talent in music, but then again, he couldn’t really teach in a school district because parents wouldn’t let him near their kids.”
These were things that were being said that morning in Room 113. The teacher let the students speak their piece, none of them were hostile. There were no raised voices. They were speaking with all the confidence of a 16 or 17 year old and there was an eerie calm about the conversation. No one jumped to my defense or point of view, not even the one other student in the class that I was sure was in the same “situation” as me (we kissed after school a year or so later).
I fought back tears. Nothing tears flowed from my eyes until after the bell rang. I remained silent. The teacher countered the conversation with a progressive point of view, but the words of my fellow students, sank, stayed and locked into place. Because I was a young gay adult, I shouldn’t set my hopes and dreams to lofty places. I was destined to do what society expected of gay men, and one of those things was to be artsy and teach others how to be artsy, as long as we maintained a huge distance between ourselves and those we would teach. The discussion had mentioned remaining in the closet. Perhaps that’s what I would do too.
But that just wasn’t me.
A lot of the words that locked into place that morning stayed locked into place for nearly three decades. I put artificial restrictions on what I could achieve because I didn’t think that’s what gay men were suppose to do (join the military, build roads, fly airplanes, be a leader). I know those words were wrong and while some may have been malicious, the other words were the result of naivete. I know better today. I can do anything because I am who I am. I shan’t break into song here.
I have no regrets, but I wish I had figured it all out many years ago.
