United We Fail

Here's how the last four cross-Appalachian trips have gone for your favorite blogger.

• May 4th, Columbus: The plane backs away from the terminal four inches and stops. The captain tells us that indications in the cockpit show that someone on the ground crew had disconnected a power cable too early, so they would need to Ctrl-Alt-Del, power down the entire aircraft and start from scratch. Meanwhile, we had missed our scheduled ... okay, I'm a space guy, I call it a launch window...whatever pilots call the time they can take off from the runway. 40 minute delay. Curiously, we land on time at Dulles.
• May 7th, Dulles: At this airport, passengers have no jetway to get to the little 50-pax express jets, and have to walk for a stretch outside. Which is normally not a big deal, except on this date, when there was torrential thunderstorm directly overhead. Plus, even though we could see them running around all over the place, we were delayed fifty minutes waiting for members of the ground crew to get around to stowing our checked carry-on luggage, which had been sitting out in the rain for twenty minutes until the captain himself had gone out and dragged them underneath the wing.
• May 26th, Dayton: Taxiing to take off, the captain tells us that we have to sit for thirty minutes due to "pop-up" t-storms in the DC area. Perfectly understandable. But once we land, we are told that an aircraft is at our gate, and it's taking on fuel. Thirty minutes later we move to another spot to get out of the way. Fifteen minutes after that, we are told the aircraft at our gate is having issues, and they are trying to find another gate for us. After a full hour on the tarmac, we wind our way to a gate that was empty when we first drove by it when we landed.
• May 29th, Dulles: I had e-checked-in the night prior to my flight, but for a lark before passing through security, I checked the board to see which gate I was headed for, even though I had done this a half-dozen times this year and knew the route by heart. Strange. Don't remember "Canceled" as being any gate I'd used before. A bevested ferrier of disgruntled put me into a long line to talk to a ticket agent, who told me he could get me to Cincinnati, "How would that work for you?" "It wouldn't." "We have a flight in the morning at 10:30 that will arrive at 12:15." Doesn't help with my 8 o'clock class, my homework assignment due for said class, or figuring out how to extend my leave and not be AWOL. "Is there NO other airline flying to Dayton this evening?" He checked, and found a US Airways flight leaving in three hours. Only it was leaving from National Airport. He gave me a voucher for the $55 cab ride across town, and I eventually got on board a flight that knows how to take care of people. I got two bags of pretzels. Two!

I am almost looking forward to flying to Russia, just for a change of paceski.

Fight Fire with Stomp

So another 3-star general called me a smart aleck yesterday. At least the rest of the auditorium thought I was funny. So my leadership style seems to have more of a Jacksonian Democracy tint than favoring a monacratic Georgian autocracy bent. Or something.

Busy day yesterday with a retired 2-star guest speaker in our small Strategic Leadership class; he had spent most of his 32 years in the space and missile career field and although our paths had never crossed, when I introduced myself, he said we had met. "Have we?" I offered, rather than flat out telling him that he was delusional and ugly. See? Not always a smart aleck.

He gave us a good speech that I appreciated consisting of his belief that success in leadership depended on being yourself. I've read more and more general biographies this term of so-called "mavericks" (including the AF's first Chief of Staff, General Spaatz) who might not have been the best academically or had those qualities you would have thought would have would lead to success, but they were stubbornly independent and always "themselves". Love that.

An active-duty 3-star lectured the entire class at 11, and although he seemed to be joshing with us, he didn't seem to appreciate my rejoinder, so we'll see if he recommends to my Commandant that I start selling shoes at Foot Locker even though (a) the Commandant laughed, too, and (b) I think it's stupid for people to spend more than six dollars for a pair of sneakers.

Found out that my bus-driving skills are going to be needed once more, for the Wright Brothers Lecture Series welcome reception June 7 at Hawthorne Hills, also known as the Wright Bros. Mansion (Wilbur died before it was finished, but Orville lived there until he died in 1948, supposedly fixing a doorbell.) I really wanted to go trip over the ottomans of Wright Bros. history, but due to size constraints, only primary WBLS staff and the guest lecturers were going to be able to attend. However, they recently found out there isn't enough parking for everyone, so they reserved a bus and asked if I wouldn't mind driving the entire staff down there for the reception. "Sure," I replied. "Do I have to stand outside like Hoke in 'Driving Miss Daisy' or do I actually get to attend, too?"
I'll be swapping melon balls with the muckity mucks.

Then last night was the Humane Society Volunteer Appreciation "Open House" which was just as sad as everything else I've been a part of. A small room at the Holiday Inn, ten round tables, a bowl of chips, pretzels, cooked vegetable tray, and twelve Pizza Hut pizza cut into stamp-sized pieces. I think maybe twelve people showed up who weren't staff members; nine pizza boxes went un-opened, though there were stacks and stacks of certificates, maybe a hundred. Just don't think this thing was well advertised. Or mabye folks went to previous ones and realized what it consisted of! One table had "pre-drawn" door prizes, with names already next to them -- they were kind enough to "win" me a book written by the Dog Whisperer dude. I was going to sit by myself, but figured it would look silly, so I sat across from a couple ladies who said they like my Dogfather shirt. Seems 'Tiffany' and 'Melody' had been volunteering for years, mostly weekends, which is why I'd never seen them around. Liked Melody immediately; she couldn't immediately recall how many pets she has, especially with all the fosters she has currently. And she's the one who takes home the sad cases for a few good months in a loving environment rather than letting the Humane Society "eute" them. I told them who I was and that I walked dogs mostly. "Oh, yeah, I think Teddy told me about you."
"Oh really? Who's Teddy?"
"Long gray hair, works back in the kennel."
...*works*...right.
The Big Boss came in a half hour after it started and mingled with a few tables, but never ours. No speeches, no major thank yous. Just eat your cheese cubes, drink your pink lemonade, and see you next year.
But I asked Melody if she'd heard anything about my old friend Mickee, and she whipped out some photos. Said she hears from the lady who adopted her all the time, that she's doing great, loves her cats, and is getting fat and loved. She said I could even keep one of the pictures. One of them (that I didn't feel right in keeping) had Mickee licking the head of a cat curled up in a bed, and the writing on the back said that Mickee was comforting the kitty, who died two days later from kidney failure.

So I'm glad I went, and, because of Mickee stories, I'm glad I go.

P.S. "Chudo," I learned, is Russian for "Miracle."

Started to pack last night for the holiday trip home (it doesn't feel like three weeks is that long, but I haven't even been home since Ainsley started feeding Ryan food) and wrapped some anniversary presents. Watched the History of Heavy Metal on VH-1 and "Whose Line is it Anyway" which is seriously the most entertaining show ever. Got ready for bed a little after midnight, pouring myself a glass of water, and then my new neighbor, on the non-dog side, decided it would be a good time to start playing his drum set.

I just smiled. It was just so ridiculous. Boom boom TAT de boom boom TAT de CRASH de TAT de boom boom TAT? Really? At 12:15 a.m? Then he'd stop for a few seconds. I heard some music being played in the room next to his (I think I've mentioned we have thin walls), so I deduced that this guy was trying to tell his neighbor to turn his music down by playing his drums very loudly. By demonstrating how rude it was to play loud music by playing loud drums.

This is a funny little building.

I move out in three weeks.

Four Years HENCE, HENCE I say

Let the Sun Shine Out

After a couple weeks of rainy days (or at least afternoons), it's finally starting to look like Spring here in the bucktooth state. Because one of my classes is already done for the term (98.3 arbitrary average awarded by the prof), I now have Wednesdays off, so I rode my bike down to the Humane Society this afternoon to take some leisurely strolls with the poochers, as opposed to being stuck indoors due to the rain and getting clawed by the claustrophobic citties (though I did say hi to a few half-dozen at the end of the day).
No recent adoption news, even though Black Jack was featured on television, some random lady in the parking lot told me. I guess that media outlet doesn't work its magic as well here as it did in Colorado. Ben has been around for a while, but they finally have a photo.
Cotton had an Elizabethan collar a few weeks ago, but is better now. Lovely soft coat on her, but darted around like a fox outside, i.e., seemed rather wild, skittish, afraid of the noise of traffic. Seems more at home in her kennel, poor thing.

Brenda was another blonde (not pictured) furball who was just as sweet as can be. Shut her eyes in joy when you scritched her chest. So I'm getting her for Ainsley's parents for Father's Day. (Shh! It's a surprise!)
Degu I think is new-ish, and was very barky indoors, very aloof outdoors. Looked at me sideways. Perhaps I was pronouncing his name wrong. Perhaps he doesn't like his name. Perhaps he wants to be a "Charlie."

I had been enjoying my day, though I was concerned that the way some of these dogs were acting, I felt like it was their first time outside all day, even though it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Some of these pups are trying their hardest, and probably painfullest, to be housebroken. So finally, we'll come to Joey, and another experience that makes me glad I'm leaving this damn town in three weeks.
He was practically stepping on his tiptoes, if you can picture a dog doing that, leaning against the front of the kennel. Behind him was a Leaning Tower of Poopa, and then a large pool of chunky brown liquid that I hoped was vomit and not something from his other end. "Are you sick, buddy?" I asked him, as he gingerly stepped into my leash. Outside, his tail was wagging, and he seemed spry and happy. But I wasn't about to put him back in that kennel. I took him back in through the front, and stood at the front desk until I could ask someone who among them was a kennel manager type person if one existed. I would clean it myself, I would tell them, if they would just tell me where to put Joey, and where their cleaning stuff was.
Just then, one of the employees came up and told Cruella de Beyotch that there was something wrong with Joey's kennel. So I sat on a chair while Joey whined at the rabbits, and she came back and said, "Yeah, he got sick. Someone must have fed him one too many biscuits. I cleaned it up."
"Well," I said. "Joey says 'thank you'."
And when I got back there, el steamo pile de grande was gone, but it looked as if the entire floor had been wiped twice with an old shirt soaked in gravy.
At least he had a path to his bed and to the outside.
But.
I'm hoping I'll have a chance to talk to the director when I let them know I'm leaving (he wasn't in today). Perhaps give them a few tips. Drop off a few Lysol wipes, per chance.

All set, Mr. DeMille.

7 months old, and already breaking hearts.

Honor

Our stellar guest lecture series continued yesterday, with a gentleman springing on to the stage with the vitality of a thirty-year-old to brag about his golf game, talk about how he circumvented general-officer flying rules, make fun of the navy and marines, and give us guidance for the future.

And also mention his six years in captivity at the Hanoi Hilton.

I've heard P.O.W.s speak before, and have been captivated, moved, inspired every time. But I recall one from my field training days as a junior ROTC cadet, sixteen years ago now, who was in a wheelchair, hooked up to oxygen. And here was retired 2-star general Ed Mechenbier, 64, who had just finished 18 holes of golf that morning, bounding around the stage telling us how they had taught their Vietnamese captors that the middle finger was a cool way to salute each other.
He recalled his time with grace and humor, thanking the north vietnamese for calling him a war criminal, because now he can check off forms here in America ("Have you ever been convicted of a felony?") that get him out of jury duty. But he spoke of living with spiders as big as your hand, rats twice as long as your foot, and showed sketches Navy Lt McGrath had drawn up after returning home that demonstrated their living quarters, communication techniques, and scenes of unbelievable torture. The General almost matter-of-factly said, "none of us can raise our arms too high ... my golf swing's kinda level, but it's good."
He was also disappointed that it took somebody three years to figure out that if you put your sandals on the edges of the "honey bucket" to go #2, it would be a little more comfortable on their skinny backsides.

Amazingly, his time in prison counted as "flight time", so when the Air Force told the General upon his return that he would have to transition into Command Post duty, he instead entered the Ohio National Guard ("so I could protect Ohio from attack from Kentucky and West Virginia") and then, when he figured he would retire as a Lt Colonel, a Four-Star General golfing buddy transferred him to the Reserves. In 2004, he made news once again:

Reserve Maj. Gen. Ed Mechenbier, the Air Force's last Vietnam-era former prisoner of war still serving, retired on 30 June, ending more than four decades of active-duty, Guard, and Reserve service. In June 1967, Mechenbier, flying an F-4C, was shot down over North Vietnam on his 113th combat mission. He would not return until 1973, enduring almost six years as a POW. When the Vietnam War ended, Mechenbier returned to the US on a C-141 StarLifter, affectionately named the Hanoi Taxi. On 29 May of this year, he flew that same aircraft back to Hanoi on his final flight, bringing home the remains of two service members listed as missing in action.

The general is featured in the documentary "Return with Honor" which I believe was nominated for an Academy Award recently.

Yesiversary

4 years ago today, My Wife Said Yes, She Absolutely Would, right here, by the phone, on the right, at a train station, in London, from where I'd called her, in D.C., six months previously, and started a whirlwind cross-continent tri-decade-culminating romance.
.
More accurately, she said, if you're being serious, for once, and you'd better be, you hairy oft-joking insensitive bastard who just gave me a broken potato chip as a substitute for a diamond ring and better not break my gigantic heart and you promise PROMISE to give me a beautiful baby boy then yes okay sure I'd love to organize your files with mine if we get rid of your papasan chair.

I was being serious, for once.

The Hunt for Warm October

While there are still four weeks left until graduation

well, three weeks, six days, twenty-one hours and thirty minutes until graduation

It is beyond time to start looking towards the future. So, I have bought a plot of land in Rhode Island for retirement.
Okay, not that far.

But I have already registered for my summer class in Norfolk, and have started the paperwork to get my Russian Visa for my new job at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. I had a question about one of the passport forms, so I made a quick call to the Army Major who had sent me the forms, and he told me that there was a good chance that after some training in September, I'd be joining a team for a trip over to the Federation in October. To do what, I know not. But I think we're going to Votkinsk, which is technically in Siberia but it's not NORTH POLE OH MY GOD SIBERIA Siberia but rather the red locale here, in the Udmurt Republic:

The only thing I know about Votkinsk is that it's the birthplace of composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and I only know that from a Victor Borge album from the fifties my Dad had, because a joke like this sticks with you:

"When he was a little boy, 'Pete' never had a chance to play in the streets of Votkinsk... like all the other little boys in Votkinsk...

Because when he was 7 years old, his parents moved to St. Petersburg."

Even the D.O.T. has it right

Come On Baby Let's Get Away

The stars, delivery truck schedules, and credit scores all aligned, and we are now the proud parents of a 2006 Dark Shadow Gray Ford Escape Hybrid which may or may not be called Lamont or Lola. Lamont because the 1930s pulp serial storybook/movie character "The Shadow" had an alias of playboy Lamont Cranston, and Lola because the Navigation System has a female voice that...uh...guides us over bridge..idas.

I'm taller than an SUV!

It is SUCH a cool car. Leather interior, heated seats, six-CD changer, two standard cigarette lighter socket-like power adapter thingies and one house-like 115v plug receptacle thingy, sunroof (it's only rained in our car twice, having forgotten it was open), sensors in the rear bumper that let the driver know if something is behind us, GPS, and of course the hybridiness of it all, which as a concept just never gets old. Although it frustrates the less patient in the household, being able to slowly drive from 0 to 35 mph on just battery power is fun, challenging, and rewarding in these days of $40 fillups.

I left it in Virginia for Ainsley to play with for a while (she drives it alternately with her Subaru, since she doesn't want it to "feel lonely"), giving me just a few more weeks with my Thunderbird, which, after just a couple days in the Escape (though not a big SUV by any means), felt like driving a go-cart, so wide and low to the ground.

Of course, falling in love with an "Escape" makes perfect sense, since for most of 1989 I couldn't look at Janet Jackson's "Escapade" video without thinking about Ainsley.

All smiley and sexy lips and cute cheeks, you understand.

I had trouble paying attention in college.

UOD

The Battle Dress Uniform, Flight Suit, and black steel-toed boots could take an official powder today, as Wednesdays this month have been designated "WBLS" committee member walking-mannequin days. To advertise next month's Wright Brother's Lecture Series, those of us on "the team" get to wear our WBLS polo shirts and beige accoutrements, with the embroidered WBLS logo on the chest proudly espousing the four pillars of AFIT's capstone military lecture series: Heritage; Warfare; Technology; and Nice Pants.

Himbo

While we are glad that the boy has taken on Ainsley's good looks, it seems that Ryan's, shall we say, 'quirky' characteristics all seem to have blame attached to my half of the gene milkshake for some reason. So far I am j'accused for his predisposition to hate sweet potatoes, to be a night owl, to be hot all the time, and to be fond of Ainsleys.

I wonder, however, if I was ever as big a flirt as Ryan is. As much attention as he gets from all walks of life, he seems to respond best and gummiest to the women in his field of view, to include doctors, office mates, cash register checkout people, and -- as we learned the other night -- Sophia Choi, from CNN's Headline News. Broke from commercial, there's Sophia's big face on the T.V., and Ryan breaks into a big How YOU dooin? grin.

Sheesh.

Hitchclockian

I admit that I've become citified. In my metal-windowed cement block of an apartment right above St. Clair Street between 3rd and 4th, I hear enough fire engines, motorcycles, and screaming drunk girls roar by that it was extremely awkward to be home this weekend and be sleeping with the window open and hear this weird hooting, peeping musical flutter outside.

Birds.

Loud, screeching birds. At 5:42 in the morning. No wonder Alfred hated them.

But the jolt from sleep was probably a good thing, because I was having a dream about having to take Ryan into the front yard with me to go shoot Margaret Thatcher and I remember feeling bad about him having to see that so I took him back to the back yard and told him he was a good boy in a happy "Barney" voice. As you do.

Tag Team

I'll be in a silver tube traveling 500 miles an hour tomorrow afternoon, so I rode my bike down to the Humane Society this afternoon instead. I was glad to see another volunteer walking dogs (a lady in her forties, big yellow shirt, big yellow hair, carrying her purse, but hey she was walking dogs so huzzah for Dolly), giving me more time to spend with Paddington the Ewok-like fuzzball, Banjo,
Cody,
and the rest. The good news is that Chudo had a sign on his kennel that said he was being held for adoption, so with any luck he'll finally be gone next week, after hanging out near the back of the kennel for near three months. I wanted to give him one last walk, but the kennel "staff" started locking up for closing at 5:52. The cat rooms had already been closed down, too.
Grr, I would say, if I wore a furrier man's clothes.

Soyonara.

P.S. Spellcheck didn't like "paddington" but offered "puddingstone" instead. Which would be a good name for a posh parakeet or a british county. not a dog.

as much as i love pudding.