Courtesy of a pilot friend on Facebook. People, it’s simple math!
Random.
I was messing around with my iPhone X the other night and took this shot around 9:00 PM. This was taken in portrait mode from the user facing camera using the timer. I should have used the better camera on the back of the iPhone. Balancing the phone on the floor of the balcony against the window ledge was a bit of a balancing act; I’m lucky the phone stayed where it was for the 10 second countdown.
Because everyone loves attention, I posted this photo on my Instagram account and it garnered quite a few likes, at least by the standards of my non-influential account.
My iPhone X is going on three years old but it’s still running along just fine. This is the longest I’ve had any type of mobile phone. I’ll probably upgrade sometime in 2021 if the battery starts to fail or something. Otherwise, as along as it does what I want it to do, I’m happy.
Georgia.
To the people of Georgia:
If you’re disappointed Georgia flipped to blue during this last election, and you really want Trump as President for the next four years, there’s still a chance.
During the special run-off election in January, write Trump’s name in for your candidate of choice. If there’s two blanks, write it twice. This will help turn things around.
I remain,
So Many Questions.
I believe in living life without regrets. I have no regrets. I have lived a very full and fulfilling life. I have done what I want to do, I still have things I want to do, and there are many more things I’m going to do. Things have happened the way they have because that’s the way they’re going to happen.
I have always wanted to be a private pilot. This is something I talked about casually but it wasn’t something my dad and I talked about a lot when he was alive. While I know he loved me very much and he was proud to have me as his son, I kinda know I wasn’t his favorite. That title went to my sister and I never had a problem with that. My relationship with my dad was great, it was just primarily unspoken. And we really didn’t talk much about things like flying airplanes and the like, even though we did it a lot together. I figure he just didn’t know how to process having a gay son in the 1980s. No worries, no angst, it’s just the way it was and it is.
I think of him at this time of year because my last phone call with my dad took place during the week of Thanksgiving in 2011. He had just flown his second home built airplane for the first time and he wanted to tell me about the experience. I can vividly hear his voice in my head; the airplane was faster than he expected, it kind of caught him by surprise, but he said he would learn it and he would eventually have fun with it.
At the time I wasn’t a private pilot. Starting in my 20s my plan had always been that I would become a private pilot but I would surprise my dad with the accomplishment. I would fly with an instructor, solo, get my ticket, and then show up in an airplane at a fly-in breakfast at the airfield where my dad was part owner. That was always my plan. Unfortunately, becoming a pilot is an expensive venture and it wasn’t until I was in my mid 40s that I was able to put together the budget necessary to reach this accomplishment.
After my dad’s crash and his passing, which occurred during the second flight of his second home built airplane, I never lost sight of wanting to become a private pilot, in fact, I was more determined than ever to reach that goal. With dad I had always flown in the right seat of the Cessna 150/152 or the Piper Tomahawk, the back seat of the Piper J-5A, or the front seat (where the passenger sits) in his AcroSport II (pictured above, photo taken in 2001). The only time I had sat in the left seat of an airplane was with Dad’s flight instructor in the Cessna 150, N7177F. After the day’s flight instruction was completed, the instructor would take my sister and me up in separate flights, him in the right seat, and us in the left seat, for a turn in the pattern. One time we did two turns because the first time I pulled back on the yoke too much and made the stall horn squawk on takeoff. I was probably 10 years old at the time. I can vividly remember the exhilaration I felt during that flight in the left seat of N7177F. When the stall horn squawked on take-off, the instructor said, push the nose a little bit and I did it. I think I nearly took the hat off a farmer working in a field off the end of the runway that day, but everything was good and we had a great time on runway 34 at 1NY3.
The NTSB report of my dad’s crash in 2011 talks about witnesses hearing “sputtering” before the airplane went down. It was my dad’s second time ever flying a Wittman Tailwind W10. He’d built it from scratch from plans. The airplane was powered by a Lycoming O-320. It had 150 horsepower and is basically the same type of engine that powered the Cherokee 140 that I flew for my flight lessons to become a pilot. That exact engine had previously powered my grandfather’s home built, a Jungster II. Gramps’ airplane was grounded when he was no longer able to fly it and no one was interested in taking over the airplane. I know Dad said on more than one occasion that he would never fly it; too challenging to be any fun. But the engine was of some value, so it was rebuilt to be put into the Dad’s Wittman Tailwind.
The day of the crash witnesses heard the airplane sputter before it went down. I know Dad had lost an engine during flight before, in fact, shortly after he rebuilt the Piper J-5A, the two of us were on downwind for runway 16 when he lost the engine and the prop promptly came to a halt. We glided in safely. I was never scared. I was never concerned. I knew he could handle it and because he never had a radio in any of his airplanes, I just heard a faint “huh” after he lost the engine and glided onto the runway in a fairly elegant 180º decent.
It was probably Dad’s unfamiliarity with the Wittman Tailwind, and specifically the airplane he had just built, that prevented him from doing the same when he apparently lost his engine the day of the crash. And as a private pilot, this is why I have so many questions I wish I could ask him.
You see, Dad and I never had the chance to have a conversation “pilot to pilot”. I’ve never been able to fly with him in the right seat as I flew us someplace for a rubber pancake or whatever. Do I regret this? I don’t; things on our timeline happen when they do because they were meant to happen then. But I really wish I could talk to him “pilot to pilot” and ask him some questions about his flights and why he made the decisions he did leading up to the flight. I think the Wittman Tailwind W10 with 150 HP engine may have been the fastest airplane he’d ever flown. I don’t find anything in his logbook indicating he went up with an instructor in that airplane, or anything like it, before his test flights. Perhaps he was more confident in his abilities as a pilot than I am in mine.
A couple of years after he passed my sister and I went to a medium, who immediately asked “who is John and why is he saying he fell from the sky”? My sister went back to the same medium a year or two later and my dad had a message for me: “you can’t be afraid of the airplane and you always have to put it where it needs to be; if you’re afraid, it’ll put you where you don’t want it to be”.
Good advice, for sure.
When our parents have passed on I’m sure we all have questions we’d like to ask if we had just one more chance to talk with them. I have no doubt that he’s happy I’m a pilot and that he’d approve of my skill as an aviator.
I just wish we could have that “pilot to pilot” chat we never had.
Sunset.
This is a capture of sunset from our balcony. I feel like my iPhone X didn’t quite capture the spectacular beauty of Mother Nature’s efforts, but the colors are still enjoyable, nonetheless.
I’m ready for the country to settle down a bit. Things have been too hectic for too long. It’s wonderful that our planet can keep showing us its natural beauty.
I occasionally need the reminder.
Mini.
So a few weeks ago, during one of their recent announcements, Apple unveiled their latest addition to the Apple complete home, the Apple HomePod Mini.
I was very excited about this.
We’ve been rocking the home automation vibe in our home for several years, both back east and here in our condo in Chicago. When we moved to the Windy City, I decided to go all in on Apple’s HomeKit automation, and for the most part it has worked very well for us. One of the issues with this approach, however, has been the price of Apple’s HomePod. We have two of them in the house and they were both purchased when on sale at Best Buy. The sale doesn’t come up often.
To provide full coverage throughout the house and to explore other options, we’ve also entertained both Alexa and Google Assistant in addition to our HomePods. Having dissimilar systems is rather maddening, you don’t know who to talk to when you enter a room. Is this an Alexa room or a Google Assistant Room? Should I be talking to Siri.
Earl asked me to get things under control and when Apple announced the smaller, and cheaper while still quite capable HomePod Mini, I was sold. I ordered one as soon as they were available and it arrived in the mail ahead of schedule.
I love it.
Like it’s bigger sibling, the sound quality of the HomePod Mini beats anything else in its class. Setup is a snap. You literally plug it in, hold your iPhone near it for a minute, and then let it do its thing. That’s it. Even though it’s a small device reminiscent of the Amazon Echo or the Google Nest whatever it’s called, the sound quality is amazing. It rivals the sound quality of the original HomePod. The only noticeable difference is less bass, and that’s to be expected due to the differences in size of the unit.
I have the HomePod Mini in my office and it has been working well since installed. While others have issues with interacting with Siri, I rarely have issues when working with the voice based assistant, perhaps I just “speak Siri” or something. She seems to know what I want when I want it and she is properly responsive 98% of the time.
At a $99 price point I’m not disappointed in the purchase at all, in fact I’m delighted. I’m looking forward to adding one more to the household when the funding department permits it.
It’ll be wonderful in the bathroom for music while I’m getting ready in the morning.
Go For It.
Folks in the neighborhood have begun decorating for Christmas and surrounding holidays. Initially this struck me as odd, because honestly my head is still stuck in March when the whole pandemic kicked into high gear. I find it very weird when I hear Christmas Sale ads on television; it just doesn’t feel anywhere near the season to me.
Normally I’m all about enjoying Thanksgiving first and then decorating for the holidays. However, with the pandemic and all, and people desperately seeking joy wherever they can safely find it, I’m all about decorating any way you want to decorate. If you want to put up Memorial Day flags in November, go for it.
I’ve seen a lot of Christmas trees going up in front room windows all over the place. These far outnumber the number of outdoor decorations thus far. I’m certain this will change after this weekend.
Find the season to be merry. No judgement from me in this fun year of 2020.
Lockdown.
Yesterday I told my mom and that we weren’t traveling for the holidays this year. This is not a decision I made in haste. With new lockdown restrictions and advisories snapping into effect all over the country, coupled with the fact that transmission of COVID-19 to any family member could potentially be a real possibility that turns deadly, it’s safer for us to stay at home and exchange holiday pleasantries over video chat.
This is not an ideal situation. It will not be the same. But 2020 has not been an ideal situation. It has not been the same.
I am hopeful after reading the news about promising vaccines and especially since the research for the Pfizer vaccine has been outside of U.S. government funded efforts. I know the government has to be involved in some way, but anything being pushed hard by the government during this administration makes me cautious; are things being rushed for political gain? I feel more confident of independent research.
I’m thankful that work allows us to carry over unused vacation time into 2021. We’ll be doing a lot of traveling after the vaccines start being distributed to the masses.
Wind.
It’s very windy at the moment. Converting the wind in knots at O’Hare to the more civilian miles per hour in the United States, the wind is currently blowing at 28 to 50 miles per hour.
It made for an interesting walk through the neighborhood.
As a weather geek and an amateur storm chaser I have always been amazed and fascinated by strong wind. Wind at this time of year is very magical for me. It’s like Mother Earth is clearing out the Northern Hemisphere to settle down for her winter’s nap. Bursts of wind were swirling leaves and such around the neighborhood as I walked over four miles this afternoon. Luckily, my flight jacket kept me warm and I was able to shield my eyes from the debris blowing around. The “roar” of the trees was magical.
While others were bundled up bustling here and there on their errands or walking their dogs, I was out for a nice Sunday stroll in 50 MPH winds. Sounds about right.
Big Sur.
Earlier this week Apple had their third product announcement event in as many months. This week’s even focused on the Mac and provided more detail on the company’s move from standard Intel-based CPU chips to their own design, dubbed “Apple Silicon”. During the event Apple talked about impressive bumps in computing speed and, probably more noticeable to the average consumer, battery life. There was talk of some Mac models lasting nearly 20 hours on one charge.
That’s impressive.
Apple also announced the final release date of their latest version of macOS, dubbed “Big Sur”. Originally announced in June at WWDC, “Big Sur” is the first version of macOS to not be a “10-dot-something” since the year 2000. Big Sur incorporates new design elements that are somewhat more relatable to the iPhone and iPad users and is designed to run well on both traditional Macs with Intel CPUs and then new Macs running Apple Silicon.
As an iOS developer, I’ve been running macOS Big Sur for a couple of months. I jumped on the beta in mid August and it has been surprisingly rock solid for the entire experience, to the point that I forgot I was still running a beta. I jumped onto the “Gold Master” or release candidate earlier this week. It has maintained its rock solid status for both me and for my husband when I updated his MacBook Pro on official release day.
There’s plenty of reviews and guides and videos and the like around the details of the new operating system scattered all over the Internet, so I shan’t bore you with the intricacies of what’s changed, but I find the Big Sur experience to be very comfortable, pleasing to the eye, and a slightly faster version of the “same old, same old” I’ve been enjoying on my 2015 MacBook Pro since, well, 2015. Yes, it has a fresh look to it but it works and functions like it always has and that’s what we have, right? Advancements? Maybe a little. Revolutionary? Not at all. Evolutionary? Maybe a tad. Apple likes to play it safe with these things.
The thing is, I don’t find anything else out there to be as polished or as reliable as macOS, at least anything that offers some sort of flexibility for both the casual user and the technical diehard. On a recent Linux podcast they were celebrating the fact that one Linux desktop can now control Philips Hue lights from the computer, something we’ve been able to do for many years on a Mac. I like what Linux is trying to do, but it feels like it’s lagging behind. Google’s ChromeOS locks me into a web browser all the time, and Windows 10 is, well, pretty much the same Windows as Windows 2000. (Much like macOS is a lot like the Mac OS X released in 2001).
I watch “Star Trek” and see holograms and people waving their hands at projected desktops and the like and I wonder if we’re ever going to get there. Probably after I’m dead. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy what I have.
