new job, new followers

One of my favorite movies is a little-known Howard Hawks project named Hatari!

Made in 1962, it chronicles the adventures, love triangles, drinking and chain-smoking of a game company in East Africa. This "game company" is a group of expatriate specialists who catch African animals and ship them overseas to zoos and circuses. The methods by which they accomplish this feat are rather novel. They jump into cars and trucks and Jeeps and go out and chase these animals all over creation, lassoing them with ropes on poles. Here, look:



The movie contains vicious animals, skyrockets, sultry Italian girls in the bath, fisticuffs, baby elephants, high-speed pursuits, a whole lot of drumming, romance, a bit of chauvinism, and John Wayne. What more could you ask for in a movie?

Hardly anybody I know has ever heard of it, though. If anything, the score became more famous than the film. This is where Henry Mancini's iconic "Baby Elephant Walk" first appeared.

Hatari! has thrilled me since I was in grade school. I was once convinced that I would do exactly what I saw good ol' Red Buttons doing up there on the screen: drive a beat-up pickup truck at ridiculous speeds across the African savanna while John Wayne sat on the bucket seat up front and roped in wild critters. The film exerted a more powerful influence on me than even I know. It was about this point that I began to wear chiefly khaki and neutral colors (as the characters in the film do). Red Buttons's character, Pockets (my favorite, if you hadn't guessed), inspired my love affair with cargo pants. I still buy and wear them regularly.

Man, this introduction is getting lengthy. Maybe I should do a movie review about this film later on, huh?

To get to the point, Pockets is in love with one of the female characters, Brandy. But he's shy. He doesn't know how to approach her. One day, when he's helping John Wayne's character (Sean), Pockets falls off a fence. Brandy runs up and kneels down next to him, all concerned. Pockets sees his chance. Actually unhurt, he acts as if he's dying. Brandy insists that Sean carry Pockets into the bungalow while she runs ahead to prepare a sickbed for him. Sean (who knows Pockets is playing 'possum) asks "What are you trying to do?" Pockets replies, "I don't know, but whatever it is, I'm doing it right!"

Over the past few weeks, the number of people following this blog has quadrupled. It seems like only last month there were just eleven or so faithful minions hobnobbing here. As of last Saturday, the total was up to 40.

To say that I am shocked, stunned, flattered, abashed, grateful, excited, pumped, pleased, and amazed by this would be a gross understatement. All I can say is "thank you." Thank you, those faithful few who have been with me from the very beginning, and stuck with me so long. Thank you, those of you who have only recently signed on, and have decided to see where this goes. I hope I don't disappoint; I shall do my utmost not to. Thank you one and all, my followers. I'd likely be blogging anyway, even if you weren't around. But you guys make it that much more groovy around here. Thanks for feeding my voracious ego.

And now for a little news. As I mentioned earlier, I have a job at last. I am no longer unemployed. People don't have to buy me drinks whenever we go out on the town. (But they still do anyway; I have a host of friends.)

What is this job, you ask? The one I hinted about so delicately before? Full-time, decent pay, benefits, and flying-related?

I chase UAVs. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. I keep my eyes on them, the skies near them, and that little black collision-avoidance box. The one with the two yellow concentric circles. As long as there isn't more than one yellow dot on it, everything's golden. That's my job. I sit in the passenger seat of a small plane and make sure the UAV doesn't bump into something. Or vice-versa. In between flights (one in the morning, one in the afternoon) I sit down somewhere comfortable, switch on my benighted laptop and attempt to further my writing career. (Results thus far have been mixed.)

I'm enjoying the heck out of it. The chasing thing was the easiest to learn. The hard part has been trying to figure out what to write, how to query, and where to submit during my off-hours. That'll get better, though. And in the meantime, as long as I don't eat anything greasy for breakfast, I can avoid airsickness, which is the only downside to flying for a living. We've pulled some pretty hectic maneuvers in that little plane, following the UAV. My boss, the pilot, used to fly F-15s for a living, which explains his facility with aerobatics.

That's the run-down for the moment. I could explain more, but that would make this post even longer, and it's already stretched a bit far. Maybe I'll tell you some more later. Some interesting tidbits about the airplanes we're flying, for one thing. They're Mooney M20s. Mooneys are...interesting. Quirky, some might say.

Stay tuned...