vituperation

And now, off of the Pearl video and on to lighter things. Thanks to all who posted their thoughts in the forums.

Which is more lame, that ESPN was showing a Scripps-Howard spelling bee last night, or that my pathetic ass sat around and watched it?

And let me just say, those are some scary damn kids, with their "What is the root language of the word?" and "Is that arie from the Greek root meaning ‘fire’?" questions. Just plain creepy.

So two of my friends are both private pilots, having recently gone through the learning and testing process, and all their talk sparked a little interest in me in getting a pilot’s license of my very own. You can do this here for about four thousand dollars, not a small sum of money, but not a big sum, either.

Visions of day-trips to Gatlinburg, New Orleans, and Fort Walton filled my head, and I got very excited at the notion of getting my own license. Think about it for a second: I get up on a Saturday morning, work out, eat breakfast, then hop in a plane with Robyn and the spud to land in Pigeon Forge before everything opens at ten. Rent a car for $19, drive to Gatlinburg, and spend the day rubbernecking, eating, and doing all the things we enjoy while we’re there. Hop back in the car around six, drive back to Pigeon Forge, fly home, and arrive back at the house by eight.

This idea, my friends, is very appealing, because you can substitute “beach”, “French Quarter”, “Six Flags”, “Beale Street”, or any number of things for “Gatlinburg” in the above paragraph. Who wouldn’t want to be able to do that?

After today, I now know who.

This morning, the more avid flier of my two pilot friends offered to take me on a short flight around the area, so I could get a feel for what things are like up there in a small plane. After great hemming and hawing, and trying to call my wife (whom I could not reach, and as I write this still doesn’t know I went), I finally agreed to go. Originally, I’d planned to go to the "open house" at the flight club tomorrow, and fly for $15, but I had visions of freaking out on the runway and having to come back to the base without taking off.

This is not the sort of thing I wanted to do in front of hundreds of people.

So we drove out to the flying club place on Redstone Arsenal, and went for a flight. I took a camera, of course. I managed to take about 50 pictures in all, and I’ve weeded them down to eleven, which I share here. I wanted to take pictures of the M16-toting Army boys at the gate, but I thought that wouldn’t be prudent.

The sign pointing the way to the flying club.
Note the extremely uncool cactus-man on the antenna
of the Mustang we were in.

Inside the flying club.
Yes, those are plastic model planes hanging from
the ceiling on fishing line.

The Piper Arrow we flew in.
To the left, my friend is flight-checking the landing gear.

A stud, even in borrowed sunglasses.

We throw free the shackles of gravity.

The US Space and Rocket Center.

Madison Square Mall

Terrorists, this one’s for you: The Brown’s Ferry
nuclear power facility (upper center).

The edge of Decatur, where yours truly likes to fish.

Point Mallard water park, also in Decatur.

Coming home.

I didn’t like flying. I didn’t dislike it, I just didn’t like it. I never have enjoyed flying, but I thought this might be different. It wasn’t. A little more scary, perhaps, than a big jet, but not really all that scary, except for a couple of times when the plane and my stomach moved in different directions.

It’s simply not my cup of tea, if that makes sense.

But, this is a good thing, because if I look at this from a government-type perspective, I now have a four thousand dollar surplus to spend in a most frivolous manner.

Have a terrific weekend.