Spiritual Stuff.

Odd.

So yesterday I wrote that I was looking for some normalcy to return to our life after the death of my father. It seems that this is not quite ready to come to fruition, as this morning when I arrived at work I received a phone call that my father-in-law had passed on this morning. He has been I’ll for a while; doctors had found spots on his lungs and my father-in-law opted to keep them undiagnosed.

Dad passed in his sleep this morning shortly before 8 a.m.

Earl and I are in Earl’s hometown near Philadelphia for the weekend. We had already planned on visiting this weekend to visit Dad. Now we are here to spend time with his family, reflect and share memories.

Surprisingly, I told Earl this morning that I feel more spiritually centered and grounded than I have in a long time. This feeling did not change after receiving the news about my father-in-law. I’m okay, I think we are both okay, but life does feel a little odd right now.

8 December 2011 by J.P. Spiritual Stuff. 5

Repost from Aug. 23 ’05: “Flying With Dad!”

This is a repost of an entry from Aug. 23 ’05.

Tonight I had the opportunity to do something I haven’t done in a long time. Dad and I went flying together.

My father has been a private pilot for a long time. I’ve complained about flying in the past, but those complaints are limited to flying the commercial airlines, mainly because they herd you like cattle through a shoot. I also have another beef, no pun intended, about flying commercially. I don’t know the pilot. And I can’t trust a pilot I don’t know.

I’ve been flying with my father since I was six months old. My grandfather was a private pilot, so we’d fly with him, and then my dad became a pilot in his late 20s. Where most people have blood flowing through their veins, my father has aviation fuel.

When I was growing up, we started off flying in the pilot’s association’s Cessna 150 (which is still going this day, I might add) and then a Piper Tomahawk. Later in the early 1980s, my grandfather and father bought a 1940 Piper J5-A that my dad stripped down to the metal and rebuilt. He had that for several years, before building the plane you see in the picture, his Acrosport.

The Acrosport is a lot of fun to fly in, but it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s open cockpit, so you get to wear all the Snoopy gear. I had the honor of wearing my grandfather’s pilot gear tonight. The passenger’s seat has the ominous warning: “PASSENGER WARNING: THIS HOME-BUILT AIRPLANE IS EXPERIMENTAL AND THEREFORE DOES NOT MEET FAA SAFETY REGULATIONS”. Who cares. It’s rare that I feel that free as when I’m sitting in the passenger’s seat of my father’s airplane. Just be sure to sit low in the seat so the wind doesn’t blow your sunglasses off!

Right after take off, the engine backfired a little bit and did a little sputter thing, just as we were banking to the right. My father straightened the plane to the horizon and it stopped. Another quick bank to the right to make sure it didn’t do it again, then a zip around 180 degrees to buzz (that means fly really low and fast) my sister and Earl, who were standing along the airfield watching us, both waving. Did the sputter worry me? Absolutely not. I was in the capable hands of my father, so that meant there was nothing to worry about. He’s been in worse situations and has never had even a close call. Nothing to fear.

The rest of the flight was awesome. We flew eight or nine miles to the west of my hometown to fly along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario a little bit before heading back home. I wasn’t ready to take the controls to fly yet, though Dad would have let me. I used to fly occasionally with the club instructor or my dad when I was younger, given the controls of the Cessna or the Apache. And I’m eager to try my hands at a Cessna 150 or 172, but not his Acrosport. Not yet.

Afterwards, we had a wonderful meal with my Dad, his girlfriend Karen and my sister Jennifer. Great conversation, delicious food and a flight down memory lane.

A wonderful evening.

You can click on the picture above for more pictures from the flight.

Connection.

First, I have to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support. The love from friends and family, far and wide, old and new, has been nothing short of amazing and it is with the most heartfelt words that I can express in a blog that I can say thank you. Thank you very much.

Secondly, I have mentioned before that I sometimes use this blog to express my thoughts in an electronic therapeutic endeavor. I know that when I feel uncertain about something, I want to know if anyone has experienced what I am experiencing or about to experience; for example, when I needed surgery a while back, I read blog entries from others that had experienced the same surgery and knowing what they experienced helped my experience. See, the powers of technology can be used for something other than automatically flushing a toilet, they can be used for good.

So I’m going to write some things in this blog entry just to process things a little bit.

I have been the “family spokesperson” for the family. Because my dad died in a plane crash, the FAA and the NTSB are involved. I have spoken with the investigator leading the effort to find out why the plane went down. Since the plane was a private plane, there’s no black box or anything of that sort. Investigators interview eye witnesses and examine the wreckage as closely as possible to determine the cause of the crash. It’s going to take a while. The investigator from the NTSB is a really nice guy.

Also, because dad died in a plane crash, the news media wants to know things, so I have been answering questions with television reports, newspapers and the like. One of the local stations wants to do a interview with the family this weekend. I think that’s nice.

And because dad died in a plane crash, I’m never going to be able to see him again. No open casket, no viewing. That doesn’t particularly bother me, as I know Dad wanted to be cremated and his wishes will be honored, but I needed to feel one last feeling of connection before I could release what has been bubbling inside of me since hearing the news Thursday afternoon. I tried walking around his workshop in the garage where much of the assembly work of the airplane was done. Earlier this year I had given Dad one of my old school clocks from the collection to hang in the garage, I noticed that he had cleaned it up, replaced the stem used to set the time and had it running proudly on his wall. That made me smile. The garage/workshop was still just as he left it Thursday morning, where he had undoubtedly stopped before heading to the airport. I felt good things being in the garage but I didn’t feel the connection that my heart and spirit needed to feel. I needed to spend some alone time with Dad just one more time (that alone time still including Earl in the mix). So, despite the bad roads (it was snowing up there yesterday), I told everyone in the house that Earl and I needed to run out for a few minutes, stating that we’d pick up some groceries we needed, and we headed up to the airstrip that my Dad co-owned.

The inch or two of snow on the grown prevented us from driving into the sandy parking lot, so Earl and I parked along the dead end road that runs parallel to the runway and we hiked over to the hangers. Knowing how Dad buttoned everything down, I was able to squeeze into the airplane hanger and see his other plane, the one that he and I had last flown together in, his AcroSport. As soon as I touched the plane, I felt the connection that my heart was looking for. I put my hands on the engine cowl and then laid my head down on it, and that’s when all the emotions let loose. And that’s also when I instantly felt better about things and knew that everything was going to be okay.

The plane was all set for the winter. The open cockpit covered with the custom fitted coverings perfectly in place, cloth “socks” over both ends of the wood prop, protecting it from damage. The prop was perfectly horizontal, a sign of dad’s regimented, perfectionist behavior that permeated his entire life.The battery charger was in place, keeping the battery at the level it needed to be so it wouldn’t get damaged during the winter.

Walking around the plane I stopped at the tail, which bears the identification N number that contains his initials. I smiled. Coming around to the other side I paused and silently told Dad that I would make sure that the plane was well taken care of until we could find a new pilot to fly it.

Earl stood by my side the entire time and comforted me, he’s the only one that can occupy the space I find when I need to be alone.

I snapped a few photos of the plane on my phone so that I could carry them with me. When we returned to the house, I found a photo of Dad standing in front of that plane. I added that to my phone as well. I’m sorry that I will never be able to fly with Dad in the Tailwind as I really wanted to and had no hesitation to do so, but I’m so happy that I got to fly with him in the Acro. And I’m going to take good care of it until someone else can take it airborne once again.

Here’s one of the photos of the Acro Sport that I took yesterday.

And here is a photo of Dad in the Tailwind the first time it was taken out. If you look close you can see him at the controls. He only taxied it that day as he didn’t feel it was quite where it needed to be to go airborne. Though it met the FAA certification standards, he felt he had a little more tinkering to do to meet his own safety standards.

PB120072

I found out something about my dad yesterday that I knew but didn’t know he shared in this way. When asked why he was such a happy man, perhaps by a customer at the family owned business, he had a standard response…

“I’m a man that can fly.”

3 December 2011 by J.P. Spiritual Stuff. 3

Soar.

My first blog entry ever (04 Aug 01) contained this:

My dad is a private pilot and has built his own airplanes as well. Tonight was also the first night that I’ve ever flown in his new Acro Sport. WOW! It’s an open cockpit bi-plane (four wings instead of two) that cruises at about 110-120 MPH. He used to have a Piper J-5A from the 40s that cruised along at 80 MPH, so this one is really a rush. You get to wear the old aviator’s helmet and goggles and everything in this!

My dad has aviator fuel for blood, and he’s happiest when he’s flying or working on his airplane. We used to fly a lot together, it was nice doing it again today. I imagine that I’ll become a private pilot someday as well.

I think that dad might have been at his happiest when he was behind the controls of an airplane. He learned on a Cessna 150, but his first plane was a 1940 Piper J-5A that he co-owned with my grandfather. He and I would go to small airports in the area for their weekly “fly-in” breakfasts. We’d chug along at 80 MPH. I loved flying in that plane with him. My grandfather would sometimes go along in his homebuilt Jungster. As a teen, flying with my dad is when I felt closest to him.

The plane mentioned in the first blog entry was his first homebuilt plane. It’s an AcroSport and he said that while it was fun, piloting it was like driving down the road at 100 MPH with the hood up, just because of the way the plane sat. He felt like he could never see where he was going. However, it was a solid plane and one that I enjoyed a few trips with him in. The plane sits at the airport up the road from his house, a grassy airstrip that he co-owns with a number of other pilots.

His latest project was a Wittman Tailwind W10. The plane received it’s tail number in September and after meeting all the necessary inspection requirements, a couple of weeks ago he took it up for it’s first flight. He called me the night of the first flight and told me about it. I could hear the excitement in his voice. I could hear the pride in his voice of again flying something that he had built with his own two hands. The plane was a lot faster than he thought it would be but he knew he would enjoy it once he got used to how it handled. When he built the plane he used the engine from my grandfather’s now decommissioned Jungster. Others had built the same type of plane using the same type of engine, so he wasn’t in any new territory here.

Today my father took the Tailwind for it’s second flight. Earl called me at work today to let me know that the plane had come down; news reports say the plane crashed about a mile from the airport where the plane was kept. My father did not survive the crash. This weekend, amongst all the arrangements and everything that is done in these sorts of situations, I have asked Earl to go with me to where the plane crashed and my father passed on.

My dad died today doing something that made him really happy. I really believe that the medical examiners are going to be surprised when they find aviation fuel in his veins, because being a pilot was what my dad was. His eyes lit up in an amazing way when he was behind the controls of a plane. You could feel that he was in control of his destiny. He was a wonderful man and a dad that a son could easily look up to. I stand in awe of my father and I’m sad that I’m never going to be able to fly with him again but I’m happy that he was doing what he liked to do right up until the end.

I have many pictures I would love to share and I probably will, but I quickly found this one from my 30th birthday. When this photo was taken, he had proclaimed to the crowd in attendance that he was proud of his boy.

The feeling was mutual. I love you, Dad. I’m going to miss you very much.

Jpdad 30

2 December 2011 by J.P. Spiritual Stuff. 16

Thanks.

So today is still Thanksgiving (since this is my second post of the day) and I have to say that I can barely keep my eyes open due to the large amount of turkey that I consumed around two and a half hours ago. Curiously, I’m a little bit hungry and quite frankly I am counting the minutes until 5:30 p.m. (it is currently 5:01 p.m.), the official time of the Serving Of The Cheesecake™.

Earl asked what the trademark symbols are about. I think they add to the Levity™ of the blog entry. The only thing I have trademarked is the phrase “Always White Trash, Always“.

I jest.

Our Thanksgiving feast went something like this:

Earl knows how to make a good turkey.

And then it was consumed in this fashion:

The meal was preceded by a prayer. I know that some gay folks find this odd but while we don’t necessarily believe the teachings of a specific religion, I think it is safe to say that all of us have some sort of spiritual faith, and this was celebrated by a prayer, which is actually the second verse of “All Good Gifts” from the musical Godspell.

We thank thee then, oh Father,
For all things bright and good,
The seed time and the harvest,
Our life, our health, our food,
No gifts have we to offer,
For all thy love imparts,
But that which thou desirest,
Our humble, thankful hearts.

There wasn’t really that much discussion about what we are thankful for, other than the fact that we were able to celebrate this occasion together and that we are lucky to have such loving families, both as a chosen family unit and our families near and far.

I think that’s probably what I am most thankful for: family. I am lucky to have grown up in this life with a family that gets me and supports us. There are too many gay men and lesbians that are shunned by their biological family. I am so happy that we have experienced just the opposite.

Love is good, especially when it is shared.

24 November 2011 by J.P. Spiritual Stuff. 0

Big.

So today I am thankful for many things, with it being Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and all, and I’ll probably write a few blog entries (okay, possibly two) where I share what I am thankful about with those that stumble across this bloggy thing. This will make my mother happy, because she often shares what she is thankful about at Thanksgiving. In recent years, she has urged, actually insisted, no demanded, others to do the same during the Official Thanksgiving Dinner™ by not passing any food until someone said something that had some sort of meaning and another someone is sobbing in the mashed potatoes (or gravy, she’s not fussy) in an emotional turmoil because they have just shared what they are thankful about. My mother doesn’t just pull but she PULLS at heart strings.

I think I digressed.

Oh, and I sometimes write in an exaggerated manner and this could be one of those times, however, I most certainly assure you that yesterday’s blog entry was not written in an exaggerated manner and if I were to drive back to the hibachi grill right now, I would bet dollars to donuts (which I think has something to do with spending dough) that the woman is still banging on the ventilation hood and screaming for more sake.

Still digressing.

Oh, my mother is a lovely woman. I think of her as groovy. But not gravy. I’ll introduce you to her sometime, she’d like that.

Back to giving thanks. In a world where bigger is better, apparently, I am sometimes thankful that my grandmothers are not here to partake in the calamities of what we call the Present Time™ because quite frankly, I can’t see either grandmother trying to navigate themselves through a Wal*Mart (Always White Trash, Always). Grandma Country was a Pulaski Department Store kind of patron. The Pulaski Department Store was an establishment on one of the few corners “downtown” (I use that term loosely) in the lovely village of Pulaski, N.Y.1 that had everything you needed for your lovely country home. It was about 1/100th the size of a Wal*mart but I bet you could find anything there, just in a reasonable size. If she didn’t find it there, she’d make the trip to Watertown or Oswego and go to Westons or Woolworths, both big department stores for their time but mighty small in comparison. I guess she could have coped with a Wal*mart now that I think about it, but I don’t think she would have enjoyed the experience. She’d ask my grandfather for an assist. He’d yell and scare people. I like that approach.

Grandma City was about Ames (pronounced Ameses). Since she lived in the city she was more used to the larger department stores, but I don’t think she’d have an easy time navigating around Wal*mart. She found Wegmans to be big and that’s before Wegmans became big but they still sold things like shirts but they didn’t have a food court or anything. I mean, I could never see Gram hauling this thing back from the small Wegmans and having it sitting on the back of the sink in her kitchen:

Big

I mean, look at the size of this bottle of Ajax. This thing is huge. 33% More! Triple Action! The power of three! I feel Charmed!

Now I suspect that Scott purchased this during one of his clandestine trips to Wal*mart. We call these trips clandestine because he knows my feelings towards Wal*mart but he insists that there are things that he can’t get anywhere else so I look the other way when he breaks the house rule of going to Wal*mart without being inebriated. These trips usually take two people but one has to stay in the car unless the other is reduced to crawling. He usually goes under the cover of darkness.

When I see this bottle of Ajax on our sink back, I realize that Grandma City would have needed a bucket truck, or at the very least a small pickup truck or using one of the smaller cousins as some sort of winch, to pick up this bottle of dish detergent. And because she would never do such a think to one of her grandchildren nor does she know how to drive a bucket truck and it was Grandma Country that had access to the pickup truck, we would have ended up using paper plates for the Official Thanksgiving Dinner™, which would have been lovely in it’s own way but not really what we would have enjoyed though we would have smiled politely.

And for that, I am thankful that we all live in our own time, make the best of it and then move on to our great reward.

¹ Pulaski is pronounced with the ‘ski’ like a ‘sky’ (“big blue sky!”) and not a ‘ski’, which is in Virginia.

24 November 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings Spiritual Stuff. 3

Differences.

A friend of ours just forwarded a link on his Facebook account. The link includes a photo and a title, much like most links do on Facebook. I didn’t follow the link because the associated photo includes a picture of a bible and the link title said, “The bible is bullshit.”

This kind of bothers me.

I haven’t really talked about overtly spiritual stuff on the blog lately. If you dig deep into the archives, you’ll probably stumble across some entries where I struggle with organised religion versus spirituality, finding your own path versus following something prescribed by others, etc. I still question these things on a daily basis and the one thing that I can say for certain is that I am not an atheist. To think that the human being is the greatest thing this universe can come up with strikes me as arrogant in some ways. I feel too much “something” occupying this vessel we call the body to think that they’re one in the same. When I die I know that “the me” will depart the vessel and move on to the next adventure. That’s one of the reasons that I struggle with funerals and memorial services. They’ve moved on and we should too. Some find that to be harsh.

I think the thing that bothers me about the aforementioned link is the harsh words used to describe their feelings on the Bible. I find it disrespectful. Just as I don’t ever want someone more religious than me to try to change me, preach to me or bang me over the head with their beliefs, I don’t believe that we should give others the right to explore their spiritual or religious beliefs as they see fit, and they should be given the same respect that we expect. If you find spiritual fulfillment in planting a tree, I’ll help you plant the tree as long as we’re not trying to change anyone or harm anyone. If you find that your path is fulfilled by standing on the stove and hoisting a box of Stove Top at the air, then I’ll make sure you don’t fall down. Give me respect and I’ll give you respect. It’s as simple as that.

I think some visitors to our home are surprised if/when they join us for a meal because our little family (Earl and me, Scott and Jamie) join hands and we say a prayer. We are thankful for whatever force got us to that moment and we are thankful for that. It’s acknowledgment of love and positive energy. Our recent wedding ceremony was comprised of many of the same themes. It’s what works for us on our path.

I was taught that religion and spiritual beliefs are a private matter between you and the higher power you have found on your path. I find atheists that tell me how wrong I am to “believe in magical voodoo” to be just as offensive as the folks that told my sister and me (back in elementary school) that we were going to hell because we were “sprinkled instead of dunked” when we were baptized.

Do I believe and subscribe to ever word the Bible contains? No. My own thought processes and subsequent determinations prevail on that. But for those that do, I hope you find the strength in the words that you hold dear and I will give you the respect to do just that.

Harsh words just bring on more harsh words. I think folks forget that from time to time.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

18 October 2011 by J.P. Spiritual Stuff. 0

Vision.

My first time using a computer was when I was a freshman in high school. The school had obtained a dozen or so Apple ][+ computers and, surprisingly, our French teacher had written a program to quiz us on our building French skills. Part of our assignment was to sign up for some time in the computer lab and to run these skill testing programs she had written. They were well constructed programs, so much so that she was able to sell the programs to a software company who incorporated them into their Computer Based Learning curriculums. I always thought that was kind of cool.

The Apple ][+ setups were on the high end for the era; two floppy drives sitting side by side on top of the computer case. On top of the that sat the monitor; which was really a glorified television that was missing a tuner. The program that were to run sat on a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk. For some reason I remember sitting down to run the first program, which coincided with chapter 3 of our text book. The same book that had started out with “Michel? Anne? Vouz-traveillez? Non, nous regardons les television, pourquoi?”

HOME RUN SPORTS

That was the first two lines I ever typed on a computer. In less than four weeks I signed up for more computer time and started writing my own programs. My first program emulated the cash registers at the local Ames. Cash registers were the first computerized pieces of equipment I had seen in action. Soon I was writing other little programs and then I got time to use the brand new Apple ][e which seemed faster, relocated the RESET key and had the capabilities of using lowercase letters.

I was HOOKED.

An Apple product in our home was outside of our budget, so I wrote programs in Apple BASIC at school and Commodore BASIC (on a VIC-20) at home. This probably helped my budding programming skills more than I would realise, because I was writing cross-platform and didn’t even know it. I always wanted an Apple ][e of my own though. Who knows, maybe I’ll find one on ebay.

I had some time to kill my senior year of high school so I signed up for two computer classes. One was Computer Programming. In that class we learned to write in LOGO and then in BASIC. I aced the class. I loved it. I always got extra points for making my programs more user friendly. For example, we had to write a routine that did city and state lookups by zip code. My classmates would write orders like:

INPUT CITY? INPUT STATE?

whereas I would write

Please enter the city and state and press ENTER

There’s no reason for a computer to sound like a computer. Not even in back in the technological stone age.

When I write programs and/or websites today, I still strive for the human element. I know I owe that focus to Steve Jobs. I want the computer experience to be as simple and effortless for the user as possible. My endeavors get the job done but they do it in the most intuitive way possible. Using a computer, for whatever reason, should be an enjoyable experience. And that’s why I love Apple products. It’s bringing the wonders of technology to the masses in ways that everyone can understand.

I was in a programming class a few years ago when the instructor said something that made perfect sense to me. “A computer can do anything. If a programmer tells you it’s not possible, it’s because they’re just too lazy to figure it out.”

That’s one of the reasons I mourn Steve Jobs’ passing today. He brought the wonder and excitement of using a computer to the masses by focusing on the human element. ‘How is the user going to want to listen to his music’? Because he had a vision and the fortitude to pursue it, I have my entire music library in my phone or any other device that is smaller than an index card. I am able to see my lover, who is working 300 miles away, on my cell phone while I am getting ready to call it a night. I can type this blog entry using a keyboard that is sitting on my lap and a touch-based tablet-like device that had only been seen on Star Trek before five years ago. Sure, I go on about Linux from time to time, but it’s the fit and finish that Steve insisted upon that always brings me back to Apple products. Linux does some amazing things but it always feels clunky. Windows gets the job done, but there’s little in the way of style or class. Steve’s vision and insistence on perfection raised the bar for all technology companies.

And for that, I say thank you.

6 October 2011 by J.P. Geek Ponderings and Musings Spiritual Stuff. 0

RIP Steve Jobs.

RIP Steve Jobs. You were a true visionary for the technological generation.

Thank you for your substantial contributions to our world.

Steve jobs

5 October 2011 by J.P. Spiritual Stuff. 0

Meditation.

I once had a friend who would sit in a quiet place twice a day and meditate for 20 minutes at a pop. He used this quiet time to calm his mind and find peace in the chaos. He could find the places to do this in what I would consider the oddest places; for example, he could meditate on a crowded airplane. I don’t know that I could do that. I usually want to yell or something. Commercial flight makes me crazy.

While I have taken some meditation classes and I have found ways to calm my mind by simply sitting, I tend to wonder if I am truly wired that way. My true meditation involves movement. If I go on a car ride by myself I find my inner self quieting down. Things that niggle at the corner of my concerns seem to find a way of presenting an answer to a problem when I’m driving on a back country road. My mind goes into a happy place when I’m riding my bike outside of the city limits. The movement allows me to escape.

Each day when I sit in the Jeep at lunch time, relaxing as I sip at my iced tea, I try to quiet my mind a little bit. These purple flowers have recently made an appearance near one of my favorite parking places, and they remind me that I can find solace in the slightest bit of movement. These flowers dancing in the summer breeze help me find the calm amongst the chaos.

My mother called last night. I think she felt compelled to make sure that I was okay after posting my blog entry about the serenity prayer I had posted on my monitor at work, though she didn’t come right out and say it. I think she just wanted to touch base with me and make sure I was firing on all thrusters. She said I sounded tired. I was tired, but her call was very much appreciated.

One of the cool things about technology is that we can now share with many others what grounds us. By relaying these experiences through blogs, tweets and the like, we might help another find a way to sort the calm from the chaos going on. I recently read a blog entry from a friend who mentioned that while he knew he was capable of high grades back in high school, he was bored and settled for the lesser grade. This made me feel good in a way, because I did the same thing. Many proclaim that we should always achieve to lofty heights and how we should do it, but in reality some of us find different ways to reach our own goals. A broadening of the mind isn’t always accomplished the same way.

Purple flowers gently swaying in the summer breeze. I now feel ready to tackle another afternoon of conference calls.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

17 August 2011 by J.P. Spiritual Stuff. 1

Spiritual Stuff.

Odd.

Repost from Aug. 23 ’05: “Flying With Dad!”

Connection.

Soar.

Thanks.

Big.

Differences.

Vision.

RIP Steve Jobs.

Meditation.

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