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.

 

IMG 1197

 

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 Food. 3

Black Friday.

So today is Black Friday. I think it’s called Black Friday because this is the day that the retailers fall back into the black on their All Important Ledger. Apparently they have been running in the red for the entire year up until today when they magically sell enough stuff to produce enough profit to fall back into the black. This pleases the Lord.

You can tell economic times are tough because the retailers are having to work extra hard at getting back into the black this year. Times are so tough for them that they decided to make Black Friday last more than 24 hours by starting up on Thursday night. That’s right, forget the time gathered around the post-dinner table engaging in discussion or a board game with the family, we are now suppose to bundle up and get ourselves to the Wal*mart before it’s Friday so we can get a head start on the deals that are arriving before Friday for Black Friday. Move. That. Money. Buy. That. Stuff.

I’m already entertaining requests from my fans as to what I want for Christmas. I haven’t really thought about it a great deal, though I think I may have suggested a few ideas to Earl over the past week. There is a rumor that I want an iPad2 and possibly an iPhone 4S, but there is a part of me that wants to go without getting a big ticket technology item for Christmas, just to say that I did it. Besides, everything I have works fine. My iPhone is able to distract me from real life without a problem and I can blog anywhere my heart desires with my first generation iPad. Ironically, I am using my MacBook Pro to blog during my lunch hour today, but that’s only because I left the bluetooth keyboard in the Jeep and that’s in getting serviced, so I’m driving the Durango and I wanted to be able to type on an actual keyboard instead of just a picture of one. I find it very hard to write blog entries on my iPad. I don’t think it would be an easier on my iPad2 since the pictures of the keyboard are identical. Damn me for learning to do something other than hunt and peck. What was I thinking?

When Earl and I dropped the Jeep off at the early-bird station at the dealership last night, we took the opportunity to swing through the Big Box Mecca to see what sort of lines were forming at the Big Box Stores. There was an encampment at Best Buy that went the entire length of that side of the shopping center. The line formed at the front entrance to Best Buy, at the end of the building, and snaked along the entire plaza beyond PetSmart, Salon Aida, some sort of dental clinic, a double-wide TJ Maxx and Michaels’. People were bundled up in their eskimo gear and sitting on lawn chairs. All to save $100 off one of two laptops (because there’s never more than that in stock) that’s probably going crap out and be so bogged down with “value added software” that you’ll want to chuck the thing out the window in a month anyway. The Wal*mart had setup some corrals out front but there wasn’t very many people to be seen.

This is what our Thanksgiving has come to, nothing more than a precursor to the more important Black Friday. It’s kind of sad.

I heard on the news this morning that one of the other Wal*mart Supercenters in the area (we have four within a 15 mile radius) had to summon the cops because of shoppers fighting over cell phones. There’s nothing that shares that Christian sentiment of “Merry Christmas” better than a good kick in the teeth.

Back to the gift idea requests I have been getting. I know that people want to give me a gift in the name of sharing a delight and the spirit of the season and that is very much appreciated. You know what I really want? A donation to the Ali Forney Center in New York. If you feel the need to give me something, give me a card with some nice words and a bottle of after shave or something. Don’t dazzle, just share.

If more people did that, I bet our hearts, instead of our wallets, would soar on Black Friday.

25 November 2011 by Ponderings and Musings 0

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:

IMG 3309

Earl knows how to make a good turkey.

And then it was consumed in this fashion:

 

IMG 3327

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 Spiritual Stuff. 0

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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