Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

Normalcy.

So I’m sitting in the Jeep at lunchtime, after a morning’s worth of work. I had a good number of emails to catch up on when I got in and reports for November were due before close of business today. I’m happy to say that I was able to still beat the deadline.

Everyone is expressing their condolences with me today and they are all much appreciated. I thanked my supervisor for the cooperation of the company during this difficult time. He said it went without saying, I still think it’s nice to say thank you. I also had to let him know that my father-in-law is not doing well and that I might some additional time off to be with my in-laws. He was perfectly understanding.

As an avid people watcher, there is a part of me that was fascinated by the folks that I shook hands with and hugged during my Dad’s calling hours Monday night. Each human being is so unique. No two people said or did the same thing. I love that.

So today I work and do what needs to be done. I find comfort, satisfaction and enjoyment in doing this.

I even find myself smiling from time to time.

7 December 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 1

Family.

My sister and brother-in-law just left after an afternoon visit. We spent most of the time going through the family photo albums looking for photos of my Dad to display at the calling hours and memorial service. It’s not easy to summarize 64 years in 40 photographs. We made a decent attempt.

I haven’t left the house today. Everyone at my dad’s thought I needed downtime today because I’ve been going non-stop since the crash answering phones, answering questions and coordinating things. If this were to happen again I guess I would need an assistant. On second thought, my family here at home has been very helpful. Scott spent the day adding to the outside Christmas decorations he put up yesterday. They look beautiful. Jamie scanned all the photos we selected. He was kind enough to crop out my ex. That made me happy.

Even though I haven’t left the house today I am exhausted. Oddly, the blahs that I felt a few months ago have not returned. This should be a good thing. My sister remarked that dad smiles a lot in all the photos. I need to remember that and follow his lead.

It was nice to visit and reminisce today. I feel centered. I’m ready for the services tomorrow and Tuesday. There is comfort in knowing that I feel ready.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

4 December 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 1

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

Angry.

There are some things in this world that make me very angry, even though I have no connection to these things, that it makes me want to spit nails. One of these occasions have occurred. I wasn’t going to write about this, but I feel that I need to.

There is a teacher in the Mystic Valley Regional High School (in Massachusetts) named Kevin Hogan. Well liked by his students, Mr. Hogan is a sports coach and I believe an English teacher. Earlier this week, Mike Beaudet (Twitter handle = @channel_mike) from Boston’s Fox affiliate, Fox 25 went “Fox Undercover” and confronted Mr. Hogan, on camera without warning, about a couple of gay porn videos he had participated in a few years ago. Apparently these videos were released to the public last year. Caught completely off guard by this confrontation, Mr. Hogan denied everything but was then put on administrative leave from MVRHS after the news story ran on the Fox affiliate. The reporter was kind enough to share some clips from the videos during the newscast. The teacher has never exposed his students to porn, by Mike Beaudet gleefully exposed the world to it by sharing it on the Fox News broadcast.

Here’s where I get angry:

1. The teacher has done nothing wrong as a teacher. He hasn’t been inappropriate with any of his students and no sort of accusations of this sort have come forth. He is well respected by students and faculty. Because of this, his life is now destroyed. What is gained by this?

2. The reporter is painting this behavior in the same light as the recent sexual allegations at Penn State and Syracuse University. THAT IS BULLSHIT. The teacher had sex with a consenting adult. Nothing illegal happened, there were no goats involved and everyone was well above the age of consent. The man had sex with another man; it just happened to be in front of a camera. Has anyone noticed that most pedophiles are not gay men but rather heterosexual men? Why doesn’t anyone ever notice that.

3. The teacher has never discussed this part of his life with his students nor was he recruiting anyone to become a porn star. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. Some argue that a teacher must uphold a higher moral standard. Show me a teacher that smokes and I’ll show you someone that doesn’t meet my standard. It doesn’t mean they’re unfit to teach. Having sex with a consenting adult is far less damaging to a person than smoking is.

4. This was a ratings stunt, plain and simple. A man’s career was destroyed in the interest of garnering higher ratings. THIS IS WHAT AMERICAN MAINSTREAM NEWS HAS BECOME. Every time I read or hear something like this, a little part of the American inside of me dies, because we are drifting so far away from what made this country great it’s not even funny. American mainstream news does this all the time. They’re after ratings to generate more ad revenue. Accuracy and solid facts have little to do with the story.

I have retweeted a couple of the thousands of comments to the news reporter on my Twitter feed. Dignity is preventing me from formulating my own tweet and saying how I really feel about the reporter. Many are calling for the firing of this reporter and the support for the teacher far overwhelms the “shock and outrage” of the teacher’s past.

I’m sorry. I don’t think that a teacher’s past should be held against him, especially when it has no bearing on who or what he is today. Shame on Fox 25 and especially on Mike Beaudet, the “investigative reporter”. This is blatant homophobia under a thin veil of disguise. And quite frankly, it disgusts me.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

1 December 2011 by J.P. Gayish. Ponderings and Musings 1

Alarm.

So last night the fire alarm went off during the NBC Nightly News. Brian Williams, the anchor, was the perfect professional as the alarms went off, barely missing a beat with his story on the bankruptcy of American Airlines. As the alarm went off the second time during the newscast, he calmly reminded viewers that they knew they were in no danger and that’s why they were no evacuating. Watching the video on YouTube, I was very impressed with the way that Mr. Williams handled it, knowing that he wasn’t in danger and how he just continued on without losing it on the air. As a former broadcasting professional, I probably would have been distracted and my voice would have sounded funny as I tried to compensate for the extra noise. That’s why I don’t anchor NBC’s Nightly News.

Since this story has been all over the place this morning, I noticed some of the comments that folks made over on Huffington Post. It’s not often that I go over to that site, I really don’t like their style of journalism over there and I can find more balanced news elsewhere. I was surprised at the number of people who said that Brian Williams set a bad example for the public by not immediately leaping up and running out of the studio with his hands failing. I say I was surprised by these comments but I guess in reality I’m really not. Some people enjoy hysterics. Mr. Williams, a former volunteer fireman, does not. Plus, as he stated during the news broadcast, they knew they were not in danger because they were testing the fire alarm system.

I got to thinking about this a little bit on the drive into work. I have been in several places over recent years where the fire alarm has started blaring in a public space, for example, the local mall. No one flinched, no one looked for an exit, everyone continued shopping as if nothing was going on. Blaring klaxons, flashing strobe lights, automatic closing doors; all of these were ignored because people were on a mission, they were shopping, they didn’t see flames so they continued on. I must admit that I did the same. Like much of the American public, I think I have been desensitized to these alarms because the damn things ring a false alarm on so many occasions.

Earl and I made a trip to Wisconsin a few years back and on each of the first three nights of this five night trip we had to evacuate the hotel (which was a different hotel each time) because the fire alarms were going off for no reason. People get used to these things. The blaring sounds, the strobe lights, they’re all for naught when they cry wolf so many times. I remember fire drills back during my school days. Those bells never rang unless they meant business (a fire or a drill). We didn’t have flashing strobe lights or slamming doors or announcements coming over a speaker, the fire bell simply went clang clang clang clang clang (pause) (repeat). It was rare that you heard that clang but when you did you got your butt out of the school in an orderly fashion. The same goes with the Emergency Broadcast System. If the old-style two-tone alarm wasn’t proceeded by “This is a test…”, then you figured that the local nuclear plant was melting down and you got under your desk and covered your neck to ride it out. People made sure that these alarms didn’t ring for no reason. False alarms were avoided. It’s not until we upgraded to the latest and greatest technology that we started to tolerate false alarms. Because we put up with bugs in our computer programs and crappy, tinny sounding phone calls over a our cell phones, we expect mediocrity from the devices that are designed to save our lives because they “cry wolf” more than anything else.

Now I know that I’m somewhat contradicting myself in this post. I praise Brian Williams for keeping his cool and continuing on while the fire alarm blared and I make fun of the people that say he should have evacuated immediately while on the other hand I scold folks for not leaving when the mall fire alarm went off. This is all a product of our conditioning. We are being conditioned to stock up on milk and bread and flail our hands in the air when an alarm is needlessly fired off to warn us of a “winter storm” (when much less than a foot of snow is expected) and on the other hand, we hear so many false fire alarms in public spaces today due to poorly manufactured and executed equipment that we just ignore the damn things. How do we turn this around? No clue. I’m hoping that the fabled reboot of civilization at the end of next year will give us some answers.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

30 November 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 4

Memory.

So I have this habit of coming up with some brilliant topic that gets me all fired up and knowing how I’m going to express this brilliance in the blog. These flashes of inspiration usually occur in the early morning hours when I am getting ready for work. I try to remember to write down what I am thinking so that I can formulate them into a coherent dialog when I write my blog. I use electronic gadgets to keep track of all of this for me; I usually jot something down in Evernote or OmniFocus, since I use both software packages for personal and business needs. I tend to use Evernote as a bucket to catch whatever is falling out of my head.

This morning I neglected to do this. And now all I can remember is that I had two things I could have written about. I can’t tell you what they are, though. They’ll probably manifest themselves as a blog entry later in the week and I won’t even make the connection. I’ll be too busy engaging my ADD elsewhere.

Even though I can’t remember what I wanted to blog about this morning, I can tell you that I remember thinking that I am starting to become a bit of a morning person. I think this is why I have these blogging ideas in these early hours; it’s because I am turning into one of those older people that goes to bed at 9:00 p.m. and wakes up in time to see the sunrise. I used to be one of those guys that stayed up all night and went to sleep with the sunrise, but this is definitely changing. I must be getting old.

I can also tell you what I dreamed about last night, but it would make everyone involved blush. I know the dream took place in my old stomping grounds of Jamestown, New York, but the rest of it needs to be filed away in the dream journal and out of sight. I have always had this small fear of people figuring out what really goes on inside my head and sometimes dreams are just too revealing. So instead I show little bits and pieces here, well within the censorship range I have arbitrarily set.

I’d be such a hoot on an analyst’s couch.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

29 November 2011 by J.P. Ponderings and Musings 1

Goals.

Now I know that last week I was getting rather cranky about the fact that I didn’t feel that people were properly observing the Thanksgiving holiday. It seemed to me that people were anxious to skip right over the holiday. They couldn’t slow down long enough to be thankful on the day that is set aside for such thoughts and were more concerned about the great deals they were going to get on Black Friday and it’s newer predecessor, Thanksgiving Day (I still have a beef with that).

I am going to admit right here and now that I am now guilty of a similar line of thinking.

You see, it is officially the Christmas Holiday Season. Christmas, and all of it’s equally important holidays that share the same sentiment, are the next holidays up on the schedule and this is something to get excited about. I am feeling the holiday spirit in that I’m in the mood to do nice things for nice people (and even nice things for some cranky people), but it doesn’t really feel like it’s the Christmas holiday time of year because I am going all out to avoid Christmas music and more importantly, it is currently 62 degrees (F) in these parts. Usually we have a foot of snow on the ground by now. The weather for the week is calling for mild temperatures right through Friday. It’s just weird to me to put up Christmas lights when it’s this warm out.

Because of the warm weather, I am actually looking beyond the Christmas holiday at New Years’ and accordingly, I am already compiling a list of goals for 2012. I think I am ultimately looking ahead to the spring of 2012 and setting milestones in my head as to where I want to be. As per the norm, my focus is on my health and fitness practices, but I’m also looking at career goals and where I want to fit in the world as contributor overall.

The fitness part is rather easy. I’ve done it plenty of times. I have want to be at a certain weight and mindset by date A and then farther down that road by date B. I want to do it honestly without resorting to quick weight-loss pills and the like. To begin this latest segment of this continuous journey I have decided to eliminate my lunchtime Dunkin’ Donuts iced tea. I opted for a refillable bottle of water instead. By not having the iced tea I am not tempted to get a cookie or other treat, and thus I am eliminating some caffeine AND some sugar. That’s a good thing. I also worked out this morning, the second day in a row this week, so I think I’m off to a good start. I have my own rewards built into this attempt, and they’re a personal thing that is not expensive, it’s just the joy of knowing that I am making a valid attempt at remaining healthy that will keep me going.

The career goals are a little more complex because I have this slight uncertainty as to where I’m going to fit I the corporate food chain at any given moment. So to tackle this I have set my sight on improving my work habits a little bit; increasing my organizational skills, trying to remain focused on one task instead of letting my natural ADD tendencies kick in. Self discipline is the name of the game here, and I figure if I improve myself in this area, the rest of the corporate niceties will follow suit. Let’s hope.

My last area of my goals is where I want to fit in in the world. The road geek in me has made some suggestions to the Department of Transportation over the years. These suggestions have been implemented in the interest of improving motorist safety. It feels good to try to make the world a better place in a tangible way and I’d like to do more of that outside of roads. It breaks my heart that our world needs a place like the Ali Forney Center (a organization for homeless LGBT youth in New York) but on the other hand I am thankful for such places and I want to do what I can to contribute to this cause. Beginning with awareness is my goal here; awareness of the organization and awareness of what causes LGBT teens to become homeless in the first place.

So while I am guilty of thinking ahead of the current holiday, I think it’s for good reason. And I guess trying to become the best person I can be is in the spirit of this holiday season.

28 November 2011 by J.P. Fitness. Ponderings and Musings 1

Reason.

Some may think I may have married my husband for his cooking abilities. When I bit into my turkey sandwich at lunchtime today, his cooking ability was definitely one of the millions of reasons I married him.

Turkey on rye with a helping of stuffing and cranberry sauce for garnish. Perfection.

Burp.

25 November 2011 by J.P. Food. 3

Normalcy.

Family.

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

Connection.

Soar.

Angry.

Alarm.

Memory.

Goals.

Reason.

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