back to the family

Continuing from yesterday... Most of my father's family has been in the New World a looooooooooooong time. I'm talking mid- to late-1600s, here. That was before they even invented the word "revolution."

Let us now go back to my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Panwell Van Der Poest, born in 1550 in Arnhem, Gelderland, the Netherlands. Yessir. According to Ancestry.com, I'm Dutch. And Pop always thought he was all German! He is on his mother's side, perhaps (the High side...his mother's maiden name was Margaret Louise High). But not the Post line! We're from the Netherlands, it seems. At some point, Panwell emigrated from Gelderland to England and married an Englishwoman, Susannah Van Gelder (from the sound of her name, she might've been descended from Dutch immigrants too). They had a son, Arthur, in 1580. It was either Arthur or his father Panwell who changed their surname to Post, more likely to fit in better in English culture. This means, then, that I could be a wee bit English now as well as Dutch, German and Norwegian. I didn't see that coming (if it's true).

Arthur's son Richard Post (b. 1617) did something very naughty. I found a story, a written account on Ancestry, which stated that Richard committed some heinous religious act that made his father disinherit him. Given the time frame we're looking at here, I'd say Richard probably converted to Protestantism. Possibly he did it for love. I can just see it now: Richard's wandering down the streets of Kent with the foolish dreams of a young man in his head, when suddenly he sees a beautiful woman. She's calm, demure, strong, and absolutely gorgeous. She seems to float over the ground rather than walk. Her eyes could charm the beasts and her voice could soothe the swelling seas. She's everything he's ever wanted and more. He's smitten, consumed. He must have her. But she's a Protestant. No problem-o, says Richard to himself. I'll just convert to Protestantism. YOU'LL DO WHAT?! Arthur hollers, grabbing Richard by the ear and shaking him.

For whatever reason, Richard and his new wife Dorothy (née Johnson) packed up and headed for the New World soon after Richard was disinherited. After arriving in New York, they welcomed little John into their life in 1646. John sired another son named Richard, in 1684. Richard then begot Joseph Post in 1720. Joseph was the first Post who had the stones to leave New York. He didn't go far, though. He went to Pennsylvania, married Mary Smith, and had a mess of kids. One of these was named Jeremiah, born in 1769. Yep, one of my ancestors was named "Jeremiah Post." (Don't worry, the Post family name game gets even better.) As if that wasn't good enough, he lived at about the same time that Jedediah Smith was exploring the West. I wonder if Jeremiah's mother and Jedediah were related...? Anyhow, Jeremiah married a woman named Martha Craycraft (born 1776, incidentally) and sired Charles G. Post on her in 1800. Charles G. married Elizabeth Bryant (who was the daughter of David Bryant, a private in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War). And in 1832, Charles and Elizabeth had a son named— [SIDENOTE: Don't get the impression that my ancestors were only children. Most of the Post men were randy buggers, and had oodles of kids, just like Joseph did. Jeremiah, Richard, John, all of 'em had at least 7 kids or something. Joseph, however, appears to be "the Post with the most," if you take my meaning.] —Leonidas Hamline Post. You can't beat that name with a stick.
In 1875, Leonidas Hamline fathered a little junior Leonidas (with a mysterious woman named "Althea" whom I haven't been able to find any information on at all). It was Leo Junior who fathered my grandfather, Edward Post, in 1917. Edward went on to marry Margaret Louise High and have my dad, Timothy Post, born 1953. Tim met Beth Ann Fritz in Nevada, married her, and welcomed yours truly into the family in 1986. All other things being equal, my kids should start popping into existence in the 2020s. That's nearly 500 years of Posts. We went from the Netherlands to central England, to New England, to Ohio (Charles G. moved from Pennsylvania to Spencerville, Ohio), to Florida (where Grandpa Ed relocated) to Nevada (Dad loves it there) and then California (I was born in Auburn, up in Placer County).

Some of the information I've uncovered is almost too fantastic to be true: another Dutch ancestor on Dad's side was born in China. I surmised he might've been the son of a crewman on a trading vessel. The link between us is unreliably rickety, though. I do know that I have at least two relatives, one on each side of the family, who fought in World War I. Add in David Bryant and my grandfather, Harlan Fritz (who fought in the Korean War), and my family tree is starting to look rather illustrious, isn't it? (And I haven't even factored in the accomplishments of my female relations yet; who knows but that some were suffragettes, or revolutionaries, or entrepreneurs, or scientists? I have yet to find out.)

As I said before, I don't know how much of this is true and how much isn't. I'm relying on work that others have done, based on sketchy sources and vague census records. (By "vague census records" I mean "census records with names that are often flagrantly misspelled, and were probably collected by buck-toothed yokels.") But it's fun to believe that it might be true. It's the ultimate kick in the pants to muse on the nature of my family tree. The thought of who and what I might have sprung from dazzles me. I wonder what Panwell Van Der Poest looked like. Which ale he preferred. Where he liked to hang out after he got off work. What kind of father and husband he was. What made him decide to move across the English Channel. I wonder what kind of voyage Richard and Dorothy had going over the Atlantic in the mid 1600s, and what went through their heads when they saw the New World on the horizon. I wonder who that mysterious woman Althea was, what her family was like, and what possessed her to marry a man named "Leonidas." I wonder if Joseph Post whistled while he built his family a house in Pennsylvania a hundred years later, and if he did, what tune it was. I wonder if Martha Craycraft was proud that she was born the same year the Declaration of Independence was signed. I wonder if Jeremiah Post liked to proselytize, if Charles G. ever went exploring, how many other kids young Leonidas beat up for making fun of his name. It boggles the imagination, to say the least.

My work has only just begun. I've added so many relatives in such a mad frenzy that I shall have to go back and comb through them once again. I need to weed out the discrepancies (who were born, say, after their fathers and mothers died). That's only half the task, though. I should like to begin going back the other way and fleshing out the branches of my family. I want to expand my family tree sideways and forward now instead of back, and find out if I have any illustrious relatives in American (or even European) history. You want to know the real reason I began doing this? You'll laugh when you do. I want to find out if I'm related to Wiley Post. You know, the famous pilot. First man to fly solo around the world. Set a bunch of altitude and long-distance records. Died in 1935 with humorist Will Rogers when their plane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska. I just want to know, one way or the other. That's all. But the stuff I've found out since then is pretty neat, too.

Your turn, Ian.

immigrant song

Just so you know, I'm unsure how much of the following is true. Once I got back beyond the 1800s, I was cross-referencing other people's research instead of using our own recorded family history. But if what I found is true, then...

Well, let me tell you about it first.

This turned out to be a lot longer tale than I thought, so I've split it into two parts. This is the first, and will concern my mother's side of the family. I'll do Pop's side tomorrow.

It never seemed wise to shell out good money to Genealogy.com or Ancestry.com merely to determine the nature of my family tree. But I desperately wanted to know. Was it a poor, malnourished wisp? Or was it an oak, a mighty, spreading growth with roots which plunged deep into Old World soil and sprouts which soared across the waters? How illustrious were the branches? Were there any famous leaves, celebrated buds? To which twigs may I claim relation? Which blossoms have awed the world, if any? What blooms have made their mark on humanity, broken molds, shattered records, defeated obscurity, ground mediocrity into the dust of ages? Who, exactly, am I? And who am I related to?

I had almost no idea. Dad was under the impression that he was 100% German, and that his ancestors (formerly called the "Von Posts") came over on the boat in the 1840s. Whispered rumor suggests I'm distantly related to the folks at Post cereals, but not closely enough to warrant an inheritance. (Bummer.)

I knew even less about my mom's family. The word on the street was that one branch emigrated from Prussia, also in the 1800s. The rest of the family was already in the States by then. That's as far back as our written genealogy goes, so it was impossible for me to know exactly where the rest of my family came from. Or it was until Ancestry.com came along.

One rainy afternoon a few weeks ago, Mom and I finally broke down, bought an account, and started poking around. The rest of what follows was gleaned using Ancestry's records. Though I made use of official records as much as possible, I had to rely on other people's family trees for the most part. I have no idea how accurate this information is, if at all. But some of the things I found were rather amazing, regardless.

My mom's family hasn't been in the country too long. Her mother's maiden name was Leitzen, and by all accounts, the Leitzens were big-boned, no-nonsense Illinois farmer folk. I don't know much about the family line beyond that. Mom's mom's mother's maiden name was Rhodes; I'm actually named after my great-great-grandmother's father, Andrew Rhodes. After him and the Leitzens, Ancestry just petered out on me. No hints, no records, nothing. Same thing with my grandpa's father's line, the Fritzes. That's about as German a surname as you can get. I can only assume that they were all emigres, early 20th or late 19th centuries, as assumed.

On mom's dad's mother's side, however, I got a little farther. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand introducing, Anders Hansen! Born in Gjerpen, Norway, June 24, eighteen-hundred and thirty-three! (P.S. WOW.) I don't know what the situation was like in Norway in 1833, nor what warranted his emigration. Maybe Anders was sick of freezing his butt off every winter. Whatever the case, he took his wife Mariah and split for the States. Upon arrival, Anders and Mariah changed their names. I'm not sure why they did this. "Hansen" seems perfectly easy to pronounce. But they changed their names anyway. They became the Sandleys. Anders also changed his name to given name to Andrew. Maybe he did it to fit in; maybe it was "fixed" by whatever passed for Ellis Island back then.

Either way, Andrew and Mariah Sandley entered the country sometime in the 1850s or 60s. Anders Hansen became the other grandfather I'm named for, Andrew Sandley. He and Mariah settled in Wisconsin and gave birth to a son, Ole Sandley, in 1870. Ole and his wife Amy (originally Amy Van Voorhis) gave birth to my great-grandmother, Ruth Sandley, in 1908. NINETEEN-OH-EIGHT. (P.S. DOUBLE-WOW.)
I actually knew her, too. She lived to the ripe old age of 99. She got that gene from her father; Ole died in 1964, at the age of 94. I can remember going to visit Ruth in Freeport, Illinois, many a time. First at her home; then at a nursing home; then at one of those rather sad places where the extremely elderly wait around to die, peeing their pants and losing their memories. She barely recognized us by the end. The last time I saw her was when I and all of my Fritz-side cousins had a big reunion at Grandpa Fritz's place. She was frail, wispy, thin as a stick, her voice faint and scratchy as an old phonograph record. Her hands were gnarled and wrinkled. But that didn't matter. I was always struck by some ineffable awe in her presence. It was the same of awe I felt in museums when I looked at well-preserved artifacts. This woman had lived almost an entire century. She had been born in 1908, the same year as Rex Harrison, Louis L'Amour, David Lean, Edward R. Murrow, Tex Avery, Ian Fleming, Mel Blanc, Milton Berle, and William Saroyan. The same year a massive asteroid exploded over Siberia. The same year Robert Peary set sail for the North Pole. The same year Henry Ford manufactured his first Model T. The same year Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were supposedly killed in Bolivia. My great-grandma Ruth was four years old when the Titanic sank. Six when World War I broke out. Twenty-one when the stock market crashed. Thirty-three when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Thirty-nine when Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. Sixty-one when man walked on the moon. Sixty-two when the Beatles broke up. Eighty-one when the Berlin Wall fell. Ninety-three when the Twin Towers were destroyed. This woman witnessed history. What impressed me the most about her, though, was how lucid she remained, until the very end. Her body was withering, but her mind was hale and healthy. Her voice quavered, but she spoke with conviction, intelligence, and wisdom always. I miss her a lot for only having seen her three times. And oh, the stories she told... I'll bet old Ole could have told a story or two himself.

That's your cue, Robert.

Wednesday solo and Thursday triumph

On Wednesday our cross-country flight was canceled, again on account of the wind. Sometimes this desert really gets on my nerves. So instead Harold had me solo to Barstow and back. Golly, it was a beautiful, calm day, and I got to fly over the horrendously gorgeous Granite Mountains. I did a few touch-and-gos at Barstow-Daggett Airport, practiced my short field and soft field landings, flew back (stopping over the barrens to try some steep turns), and then came home and landed. The next day was Thanksgiving, a real mother of a blowout. Man, it was good to have turkey and sweet potato soufflé and green bean casserole with Ma and Pa after five years of Thanksgivings away from home. I didn't fly Monday or Tuesday this week due to...that embarrassing thing that happened to me which I can't tell you about. But I managed to schedule a lesson for Thursday, December 3. And on that Thursday, the winds were finally calm enough for us to fly to 29 Palms. Was it ever a grand flight. 'Twas odd to finally be able to see over the San Bernardino Mountains behind my house without actually driving up Highway 18 to Big Bear Lake. They were all dusted with snow, too, and mottled with blue shadows in the low-lying winter sun. That was our southward view. To the north there lay the whole expanse of the Mojave Desert, with its stark mountains, rocky hills, dry lakes, and vast wastes of Joshua trees and tumbleweeds. It was a religious sight. After 20 minutes in the air, heading eastbound, we spotted an enormous gout of dust rising from the flats a few miles ahead. The 29 Palms area is well known for the rather large Marine base nearby; Harold peered at the dust and reckoned it was probably a tank platoon out practicing. If one more awesome thing happens on this flight, my subconscious mind whispered to itself, I'm gonna fire off and explode. The nearly 100 miles between Apple Valley and 29 Palms disappeared almost too quickly. We almost didn't find the airport. Even with the purple line on the GPS pointing right at it, the thing was darn hard to see. We were practically set up to land on a dirt strip before we spotted the actual, paved airport at one o'clock, off our nose. After that it was a piece of cake. We made a slight deviation to the south to avoid flying into the restricted airspace above the Marine base. Neither of us felt like being intercepted by jet fighters. We got back on track, flew over the town of Yucca Valley (it was so weird to see it from the air having been there so many times by car), set up for landing, did a touch-and-go, and were off again. It's a nice little airport they've got there. Small, dinky, and out-of-the-way, but that's how I like my airports. They've got an incredible view, too. The scenery's to die for. Kind of like this picture here, but quite a bit more panoramic (as viewed from higher up). The flight back was just about the same as the flight out, only in reverse. This time, however, since we were flying west, and I was in the left (and southernmost) seat, I got a better view of the mountains. That "something else cool" happened, too. I learned about Flight Watch. Flight Watch is a nationwide flight service, available on the 122.00 frequency, that gives pilots weather reports and advisories whenever they want 'em. Flight Watch can also help you if you're having trouble, or have gotten lost or something. Is that cool or what? It's like an omniscient aviation god, benevolently watching over its bio-mechanical supplicants. Harold called Flight Watch up on the radio. We contacted the Los Angeles branch; we were less than 100 miles away as the crow flies. Harold gave the responder a "pilot report": an up-to-date, eyewitness weather report, from altitude. He reported our position (over Yucca Valley again), the visibility ("unrestricted," better than 10 miles), the outside air temperature (40 degrees Fahrenheit), and the winds ("smooth ride"; no turbulence whatsoever). "It's just a nice day up here," Harold concluded. Harold also concluded, later, that the fellow we talked to at Flight Watch must've been lonely and bored. He didn't want to get off the line with us. He asked us if there was anything else we needed, and reminded us of some turbulence warnings that were slated to take effect later in the day (Zulu time). He finally thanked us for our report and signed off. Harold and I had been looking at each other and grinning all through the conversation, just from the inherent coolness of it all. Now we sat back and chuckled. The plane drew closer to home. Hold it! I'm almost done. I've got one more neat thing to discuss and then I'll let you go. If you've hung on this long uninterrupted (bathroom breaks and sandwiches notwithstanding), congratulations. Glance away from the screen for 20 seconds to rest your peepers. Finished? Okay. I finally got to fly over my house. It's true! I live on the way to 29 Palms from Apple Valley (though obviously closer to Apple Valley). On our return trip, we overflew my house, snuggled up in the San Bernardino foothills. I casually mentioned this to Harold, and he said this: "You want to circle it?" My mind screamed, "HECK YES!" My mouth said, "Can we?" Harold said, "Sure! Let's pull the power back here..." As we got closer, I asked Harold to note the time (so I could tell Mom the exact hour when I'd flown over, so she'd know it was me). Harold held up his cell phone instead. "You know, you can call her," he suggested. "ALRIGHT!" my mind hollered. "Okay, I'll do that," my mouth said. Harold took the controls while I fumbled in my flight bag for my own phone. I took off my headset (exposing my ears to the thunderous roar of wind and 150 horses) and dialed Mom. "Hello?" "Hey Ma, it's me!" "Hi!" "Guess where I am right now." "Are you over the house?!" (She heard the engine noise and knew I was still in the plane.) "Yep! We're coming in from the east, we should be overhead in a few minutes." "Fine! I'll come out." And there she was, just a tiny pinprick against the grayish-white swath of the gravel driveway, bouncing up and down and waving her arms for all she was worth. "Rock your wings," Harold said. I did, and the whole plane waved back. We finished the circle and flew back to Apple Valley Airport. Mom was thrilled. She'd been waiting every day to hear me fly over, but always my flights had been rescheduled or canceled. Finally we got our chance. Nice to know somebody on the ground knows you're in the air, and wants to wave at you. Thanks, Ma. Anyway, that was how we got to 29 Palms (or, as pilots often refer to it, "29 Stumps"). Whoo-ee. That was an ordeal, wasn't it? My life lately seems to consist of nothing but these frustrating-but-somehow-still-fun-cum-enlightening ordeals. Next, I should be soloing out there, and thus add another 1.8 hours of pilot-in-command time to my logbook. After that, Harold says, we just have to work on night flying (yippee, I can't wait!) and a little instrument work, and then I should be... ...finished. Wish us luck, lads.

boy, 5, dunks self in pond

XENIA, OH - An area boy nearly gave himself hypothermia following an accidental dip in a near-frozen pond in Shawnee Park. Andrew, 5, stated that he was running from his father during a friendly game of tag when, as he looked back over his shoulder, he suddenly found himself bobbing up and down in murky green water. Andrew's mother arrived on the scene to find her sopping son wrapped securely in his father's sweater, and Dad freezing his heinie off in the chilly autumn weather. I was originally going to steer clear of old personal anecdotes, partly because of my innate modesty, and partly because of my journalism training (all that stuff's "old news"). However, I have noticed these stories being employed to great effect elsewhere in the blogsphere. So I have amended my previous stance, as they say in Politicspeke, and am now going to start includin' 'em. I was born in Auburn, California. My folks moved around NoCal a bit before making the hop down to the Mojave Desert when I was 19 months old. That's where my brother Harlan was born. We moved east to Ohio shortly thereafter. One of the first places we lived in Ohio was this marvelous little town called Xenia. I wish I remembered more of it, but my memory does not serve me well. I basically remember only one thing from our time in Xenia, and that's the park. Magical sort of place, it was. Seemed to be all rolling hills, green fields, quiet streams, small ponds, stone bridges, and Canada geese. The geese were everywhere. They (literally) flocked to the place during their seasonal migrations. I can remember many lovely autumn afternoons spent watching these geese with my brother and my parents as we strolled through the park. One cold and sunny fall day in 1990, Dad took my brother and me to the park while Mom did the grocery shopping. She dropped us off and left us to our own devices. Soon enough, a game of tag broke out. Harlan and Dad and I were running all over the place, laughing, yelling, leaping about, and breathing the frigid air into our heaving lungs. This is what I remember. Dad had zeroed in on me, and I was doing my darnedest to outdistance him. At five years old, I didn't have much of a chance. I was looking back over my shoulder to determine how rapidly my lead was shrinking, when suddenly... I don't remember actually hitting the water. The last thing I remember is my foot coming down on empty air. The next memory I have is being submerged in one the park's numerous ponds, bobbing up and down on my back, staring at the concrete wall of the pond two feet beneath the surface. There was a metal pipe bolted to the wall; both were smeared with goose droppings. I don't remember being disgusted by this, even though I now knew why the ponds were always so green. I was in the water only a few seconds. Dad must've fished me out in a hurry. The next thing I remember is standing on a park bench as Dad wrapped his voluminous sweater around me. Again, I don't remember being cold. My memory is so poor that only the visual imagery remains. Dad, Harlan and I began to walk to the entrance to the park. Mom pulled up to see Dad, sweater-less and quite chilled, and her eldest son waddling along behind him, wrapped from chin to toes in a huge wool sweater. I must've looked like a tiny priest in a misshapen, oversize cassock. I don't remember anything after that. I didn't get hypothermia; Dad's sweater was huge (and pre-warmed) and thankfully there was no wind. My body temperature was likely already elevated by the spirited game of tag we'd been engaged upon, too. But Dad probably caught hell from Mom anyway, bless her. I know I took a lot of good-natured ragging from Dad and Harlan in the years that followed. Fancy being silly enough to accidentally run into a pond! I'm writing about this for a reason. While we're on the subject of false impressions, it might seem to some of you that I'm a competent person. I lived alone in Korea for a year, I'm learning to fly, I graduated college in 3.5 years (despite switching majors twice), and I've never fallen for any kind of scam or fraud. But nonetheless, these are the kinds of things that happen to me. Unintentionally dunking myself in ponds, I mean. On Saturday I misread the schedule and wound up at bartender's school on the wrong day for the wrong class. After an hour-and-a-half commute, too. I fired an arrow into the wall of my bedroom when I was thirteen, because, for some reason, I'd put it onto the string and was drawing the bow. In the house. Reminds me of a song.

In the days of my youth I was told what it means to be a man Now I've reached that age I've tried to do all those things the best I can No matter how I try I find my way to the same old jam — Led Zeppelin

first solo

I spent an uneasy evening yesterday judiciously reviewing the checklists for the Cessna 172M (particularly those regarding emergency procedures). During this, I somehow managed to avoid the temptation to listen to Europe's "The Final Countdown" on YouTube. Following this, I got up at my usual 6:30 this morning and drove down to the airport for my (gulp!) first solo. Perhaps I should provide some explanation here for any visitors who might be unfamiliar with the process of learning to fly. After a certain amount of dual instruction—where your flight instructor is sitting right next to you in the plane—you start to do "solo flights," which, as the name suggests, you do entirely by yourself, alone in the airplane. Sounded a bit spooky to me when I first heard of it. But I was ultimately surprised by how not-nervous I was when the big day finally rolled around. I got up this morning, had an onion bagel with cream cheese, and got my flight gear around like it was just another day of practice flights in the pattern. I attribute that to Harold, who, as I mentioned before, is a superb instructor, and makes me feel very relaxed and cool and groovy about this whole flying gig. The only difference in my preparation between this day and any other, in fact, was that I had to fill out a "rental agreement" for the plane I'd be flying...seeing as how I'd be flying it by myself and all. I wasn't even nervous that my mom and dad were going to be there. Mom and Dad, always supportive as all get-out, both made special trips to the airport to see me fly (Mom in the truck with me, Dad from work). Mom shook Harold's hand, then she adjourned to the picnic tables outside of the airport building. Harold and I went right out onto the tarmac to good ol' N42126 and did a quick preflight. Then we saddled up and took off. We did a couple of touch-and-gos together to practice first. Harold said they were really nice. It was a beautiful morning: calm as you please, with hardly anybody else out there. Mary Lou was out somewhere to the south in her Piper Warrior, and during the second pattern entry a helicopter flew by us heading north, but that was it. As we flew, Harold briefed me on what we'd do. He said he'd have his hand-held radio with him on the ground as I flew, but that he wouldn't talk to me on it unless he needed to advise me of traffic or runway problems. He also said that the minimum for a first solo was three touch-and-gos, but that if I wanted, I could do more. If I felt like it, he said, I could also leave the pattern after the last touch-and-go and fly south over town for a bit. Then he added, "If you don't want to solo today, that's fine. I like to give people the option, just in case they feel they need to practice more." I mulled that over for only a moment. The stars seemed to align. I'd been pumping myself up for this all weekend. I'd studied, I'd practiced, it was a beautiful day, and I figured I was about ready to give it a shot. I said as much, too. And then I landed, taxied to the ramp, and shut off the engine. Mom and Dad were now standing on just the other side of the chain-link fence. I said hi to them quickly, then prepared to take off again—alone. Harold signed my logbook, endorsing it with his signature, signing me off to solo. Then he said he was going to go get his hand-held radio so he could listen to me calling out my pattern movements ("Apple Valley, 42126 turning left downwind, runway 18" for example). Then...it was time. Climbing back into that left seat, I felt rather like a fighter pilot going out to combat a veteran enemy ace one-on-one. The cockpit seemed awful big without a second body inside of it. I clapped my headset back on, ran through the start-up checklist, pumped the primer once (since the engine was already hot), and cranked her up. The 150-horsepower Lycoming engine flared to life immediately, with a few burps and a boom. I adjusted the throttle to 1000 RPM, snapped on the GPS and radios, made sure the frequencies were correct and that the transponder was on standby mode, made a radio call to announce my taxiing to the run-up area at 18, and then... ...and then... ...I began to taxi. By myself. It was about here that the theme from the movie Clash of the Titans started playing in my head. Taxiing went fine, just as if Harold was sitting next to me. It was silent in the cockpit; all I could hear was the near inaudible hiss of my operating headset, and the dulled roar of the engine outside. I taxied all the way down to the end of runway 18, turned into the run-up area, and got out the checklists again. I made sure my seat belt was secure; checked the flight controls; adjusted the instruments and the mixture controls; ran the engine up to 1700 RPM and tested the magnetos and carburetor heating system; checked oil temperature, vacuum and ammeter; ran the power back down, set the transponder to squawk 1200 (visual flight frequency)...and then inched myself up to the runway. I stopped at the hold-short line (a series of solid and dotted yellow lines painted on runway entrances, indicating where to stop for incoming traffic), looked right, looked left (squinting against the golden morning sun), and then called out on the radio, "Apple Valley, 42126 departure one-eight, stay in the pattern." That was it. I was cleared for takeoff. I took a deep breath. The trumpets and drums playing in my head kicked up a notch. Then I pulled onto the runway, punched the throttle all the way in, and started rolling down runway 18. Those testimonials I had read online last night weren't kidding: without 200 extra pounds of human in it, the Cessna climbed like a homesick angel. I jumped off that runway at 65 miles per hour and was zooming past the airport building (and my folks) before I knew it. I was proud of my takeoff: I'd managed to keep the nose wheel stuck fast to the center dotted line. Now I was climbing out at 80 miles an hour, just like Harold and I'd practiced. At 3500 feet mean sea level (about 400 feet above the ground) I turned left and entered my crosswind leg, calling it out on the radio, keeping my right foot planted squarely on the right rudder pedal to keep the ball on my slip/skid indicator centered. I stuck to 80 mph, too—just like we'd practiced. There were a few moments when I let it slip by accident, and we got up to 100 mph, but not many. A few seconds later I turned left again (making another radio call: "Apple Valley, 42126 turning left downwind, one-eight"), and was headed back parallel to the runway. At 4,000 feet MSL I leveled off and throttled down to 2,000 RPM. The weather was beyond perfect. The sun was shining, the Cessna was handling like a swallow (where it had handled like an albatross), there wasn't a breath of wind aloft, and I began to think to myself, Hey, this isn't so bad. And still that bombastic orchestra kept thundering away between my ears. Abeam the runway numbers, I pulled the throttle back, lowered the flaps a little, turned on the carburetor heat, and began to descend. I stuck to what Harold had gently drilled into me: descend at 500 feet per minute. At 3800 feet MSL, turn left base (the second-to-last turn before the final approach), adding more flaps. Don't forget to call out on the radio that you're turning left base. After turning left base, lower airspeed to about 70 mph, continuing to descend at 500 feet per minute. Then turn onto your final approach, adding a last bit of flap, making a radio announcement, and then... ...well, land. I did all of this, if you don't mind my saying, pretty near flawlessly. I turned left base at 3800; pulled the throttle out some more to descend properly; watched my airspeed; made the appropriate radio calls; and lowered the flaps further, all pretty much simultaneously. When the time came a few seconds later, I turned final, added more flaps, made the last radio call, and started my approach. I kept my eyes on three things as I came in for that first touch-and-go landing. First, I watched my airspeed. Final approach speed is 65 miles per hour, the lower bound of the green (safe) arc. Too fast and you'll bounce when you hit the runway. Too slow and you won't even reach the runway. To help make sure I was doing okay and would reach the runway right when the airplane reached the ground, I kept my eyes on the VASI lights on the left side of the runway. I forget what the acronym stands for, but VASI lights are a brace of bright beacons that inform pilots if they're too high, too low, or just peachy to land. Too high and both lights appear white. Too low and they both glow red. If you're at just the right height, however, the left-hand light turns red, and the right-hand light shines white. There's a nifty mnemonic device my previous instructor Mike taught me (which most instructors inculcate their pupils with) that helped me remember what the VASI lights' colors mean. "Red over red, you're dead." "White over white, you're outta sight." "Red over white, just right." Every time I looked, I was red over white. Perfect. I also kept my eyes on the runway itself. What with all the landing practice Harold and I have been getting in, I've gotten pretty good at eyeballing how far I am from the runway, and how high I am away from it. Because of this, I know just when to pull a little power (to decrease altitude) or add in some more (to increase altitude) when I need to. See, that's the weird thing about landings. Normally, your pitch (how far up or down the nose of your plane is pointing) determines your altitude, and the throttle controls speed. When landing, this is reversed. With the flaps down, you use the pitch to control your speed (pointing the nose down to speed up, and up to slow down) and the throttle to control your altitude. Lucky for me that I have such a good instructor in Harold, and that he and I hit landings so hard the past few lessons. It was a piece of cake to get myself lined up with the runway (even if I did turn a bit early for my final approach), keep myself at the right altitude and airspeed, and just come right on in. I flared a few feet above the runway, floated a little while (the Cessna was remarkably light, after all), and touched down in a decently smooth fashion. Yes! I straightened myself out, popped the carb heat off and the flaps back up, pushed the throttle back in, and took off again. And that was all there was to it. I did that twice more, and the sunniest of grins began to spread over my mind (if not my face, which was still set in concentration). Hey, I thought again, this is nothing. This is actually pretty easy. This is GREAT! I came in for the fourth and final time for a full-stop landing, having successfully kept my eye on the Stinson that was taking off, and Mary Lou, who was on the ground fueling up her Warrior for most of my touch-and-gos, but who took off again right before I finished. I landed, popped the flaps up, adjusted the throttle to 1000 RPM (taxi power), taxied right off the runway, shut off the carb heat and set the transponder to "standby" once again, made one last radio call ("Apple Valley, 42126 is clear of runway one-eight, taxiing to the ramp") and taxied to the ramp. Mom was smiling and bobbing up and down and flashing me an enthusiastic thumbs-up when I came wheeling in and pulled to a stop right by the gate in the chain-link fence. Dad walked through the gate and stood just off the high wing of the Cessna (well clear of the whirling propeller) as I shut off the avionics, pulled the mixture control all the way out (idling the engine to shutoff), switched off the ignition, and shut off the master switch. And that was the end. I took off my headset, laid it on the dashboard, leaned back, and took a breath. The symphony in my head drew to a soft and satisfying close. Later, there would be congratulations, and hugs, and handshakes, and pictures taken next to N42126, and logbook signings, and more congratulations (from Debbie, Apple Valley Aviation's receptionist, who'd come out to watch me), and a congratulatory second breakfast of burgers and burritos at Skidmarks Cafe just inside the airport, but at that moment, as I stepped out of the plane back onto solid ground and breathed in some of that cool desert air, I was on Cloud 9. And I haven't come back down since.

the Apple Valley Airshow and other desert doings

Not much has happened over the past few days, and yet so much has. That is to say, by readers' standards, what's been going on is rather humdrum. By my standards—seeing as how it's my life and all—quite a bit has happened. I'll tell you about it anyway, shall I?

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first. Saturday, October 3, was a red-letter day in Apple Valley. There were two events going on, the Equine Affair (sort of a rodeo-cum-horse show open to all livestock owners in the area) and the airshow. We stopped off at both. We went into town about 10:30 to get some stuff done, and since the Horsemen's Center is right off Highway 18 on our way into town, we had a gander at the Equine Affair. It was mildly interesting—all the feed stores in the area had set up display booths, as had the farriers. Other parties had brought horses, so there were a bunch of people in cowboy hats riding about on beautiful paint and quarter horses. There were also some neat miniature horses standing by for people to cuddle with.

We stayed only long enough for Dad to locate a heavy equipment dealer who our neighbor Sharon knew. She'd told him that Dad was a gunsmith and he had expressed interest. Dad found him and they exchanged contact information, and then we were on our way again. We hit a couple more places, and then (as I'd been eagerly hoping) we turned down Dale Evans Parkway to the Apple Valley Airport, on the northern outskirts of town. A tiny general aviation airport, the place is even smaller than Cheyenne Regional. But that day it was packed. People of all ages and sizes were going back and forth from the dusty lot where their hundreds of cars were parked onto the apron at the airfield. 



The first thing I noticed after we paid the $2 admission fee and walked in the gates was a Rockwell Commander parked with its door thrown open, inviting people inside. I would've killed to get inside and sit in the cockpit—but that would've involved infanticide. The plane was a hit with the little kids. I never got a chance. Oh well, I got a photo-op with the Predator drone at least. 

Moving on, we discovered that Apple Valley Aviation, the flight school I hope to attend, had hauled out its fleet onto the tarmac and was displaying them for the public. I looked over their Cessna 310K, which I'd be using for my multi-engine rating, and perhaps my commercial license as well. 

The rest of the airshow passed in the blur of whirling propellers. I saw a P-51 Mustang, a P-47 Thunderbolt and a P-40 Tomahawk, all great favorite World War II fighters of mine, do flybys—and come taxiing down the runway after landing. This one's the Thunderbolt. 

I'm particularly proud of this photograph, just so you know. Ain't that a beautiful piece of machinery? You should've heard it roar as it flew over. I'm 75% German, and I got a strange urge to duck.

We walked further along the flight line and saw a life-size replica of the Red Baron's triplane (with a life-size replica of Snoopy in the cockpit).

I got to peek inside one of the California Highway Patrol's nifty Eurocopters, and meet one of the pilots, with a .45 automatic holstered at his waist (cool!).

Finally, I got to drool all over the B-25 Mitchell parked in the center of the flight apron ("Photo Fanny"), and be blackly jealous of its pilot, who would be flying it out of there at 4:00. The B-25 is a seriously cool airplane, folks. I dig warbirds, and have ever since the age of 14, but the Mitchell has always been one of my favorites. What a sexy beast! 

We wandered out, and went over for a bite at the Phoenix House. It's a Chinese restaurant on the corner of Navajo Road and Bear Valley that has been there since I was in high school. And get this—we haven't been in to eat there since we left for Wyoming three years ago, and the old proprietress recognized us. She remembered us perfectly. It was like we'd only been in the week before. She couldn't believe I was 23 already. She asked me if I was married yet, which made me go red (she's a past master at making me blush). What I should've said was "You got a daughter?"

We ordered up our old favorites: hot-and-sour soup for starters, followed by three-flavor delight (Mom likes this, a blend of pork, beef, and shrimp with assorted vegetables over rice), Szechuan chicken (Dad's favorite of course, being hot and spicy) and sweet-and-sour pork. Normally I go for the shrimp with lobster Sauce, but this time I decided to shake things up a bit. It was a lovely day, I'd found my old safari jacket packed away in a box in my room, my beard was actually longer than an eighth of an inch for the first time in my life, and I was feelin' mighty fine. We ate and departed with much good cheer. That was Saturday.

Later that afternoon, the winds were howling along at forty miles an hour, gusting to sixty. The Santa Ana winds had kicked up with a vengeance. With the worst timing possible, a wildfire sprung up in the San Gabriel Mountains, near Wrightwood. The ferocious winds fanned the flames and blew smoke throughout the entire valley. It was a disorienting thing to wake up Sunday morning and see a perfect river of smoke flowing through the sky thousands of feet overhead, heading northeast, following the path of the jet stream.

In that howling wind, Dad and I flung ourselves under my '95 Jeep Cherokee to fix the hoses. Remember, while my Jeep technically passed its smog test, it still couldn't be registered, because the filler and vent hoses were leaking and needed to be replaced. The repairs would have cost me $450. Dad figured we could do it ourselves instead, so I simply ordered up the parts through the mechanic's shop and took them home. The morning of October 4—and those ghastly winds—found us prostrate under the Jeep's rear axle, making earnest repairs. At first we figured we could simply unscrew the metal bars holding the gas tank in place and drop the tank only part of the way, in order to be able to access the hoses on top of the tank. No such luck. Quarters were so tight that we had to drop the tank all the way down. I thanked Our Lady of Internal Combustion that I had only about a quarter of a tank of gas at the time of the repairs; if I'd had a full tank the task would've been flatly impossible. As it was, Dad and I had a devil of a time wrestling the tank out of its slot and lowering it onto a makeshift platform—while laying flat on our backs under it. But we did it. We took out the old hoses (which were chewed and worn through in places), slapped the new ones on, somehow hoisted the gas tank back into its proper place, and screwed it back in. Whew!

It was then time for some beer and some football, no doubt about it. Too bad the Chargers lost to the Steelers 28-38. That was a real letdown. I almost thought they'd pull the rabbit out of the hat, seeing as how they were down by 28 points through most of the game. But no, even Darren Sproles couldn't make up for the deplorable holes in the defense. Shucks. Next game's October 19. Double-shucks.

On Monday the fifth, I finally, finally managed to get my Jeep registered with the state. (You remember what a hassle that's been, right?) I drove the Jeep down to A-Action to have it re-tested. It passed. I came straight back home to get my registration paperwork (which, in retrospect, I should have taken with me when I left in the first place; it would've saved me a trip). I retrieved it, and since the hour was still reasonably early (as I thought) I decided to try to hit the DMV and get it registered that very same day.

I'm not going to go into a lengthy description of the California Department of Motor Vehicles. I'm sure many of you reading this are familiar with the DMV in your own state and can identify with me, and those of you that aren't have gotten an earful already. So I won't describe the mile-long, 'round-the-building lines, or appointment schedules months backlogged, or the rainclouds over the heads of the people on both sides of the desk. Suffice to say that, when I drove down to the Victorville DMV, the line was going around the building, twice. I went there merely on a whim; I suspected in my heart of hearts that the crowd would be prohibitive.

So I swung away, got on Interstate 15, and drove to Barstow. Barstow is this wonderful little town about 30 miles north of Apple Valley, right in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It's about as crappy as Victorville and Apple Valley on a per capita basis, but since the population is drastically lower, the crappiness is not as noticeable. Plus there's a neat little gem store there where you can buy all sorts of cool rocks, and a Sherman tank in desert camo set up at the entrance to the downtown area. It was that downtown area to which I drove, exiting the highway, turning left on Barstow Road and hanging a quick right down Virginia Way, whence lay the Barstow DMV.

Now, customarily, the Barstow DMV is far less crowded than Victorville's. This is—or was—a well-kept secret, and for years a furtive legion of tri-city residents has been sneaking up to Barstow to get their vehicles licensed and their driving tests taken.

No longer. Somebody squealed. When I pulled into the parking lot there was a line out the door and along the windows of the Blockbuster Video next door. Only a fraction of the lines at Victorville, certainly, but still an inconvenient wait.

Oh well, I thought to myself as I parked and clambered out into the 70-degree sunshine, I came all this way so I might as well stick it out.

And I'm glad I did, despite the two-hour wait I endured. The façade of the Blockbuster was decorated with faux-stucco pillars. In one hour, I had moved approximately three pillars, or about forty feet. It took another hour to round the corner and get in the door, and about 20 minutes to get from the door to the counter...about twenty-five feet or so. That was the only downside. I had a very interesting conversation with a short, swarthy, craggy-faced Barstow man who was registering his vehicle as well, and was worried that they wouldn't take ATM cards. Better yet, I managed to get all of my stuff done: I not only completed my registration, but I also applied for a California driver's license. (Both should be mailed to me within two weeks.)

I stopped by a Valero station on the way out of town to grab a snack (an awful gas station roast beef sandwich, some Sun Chips, a Nutri-Grain bar, and some Tropicana orange juice; it reminded me forcibly of the kind of meals I subsisted on when commuting three days to college every August and January).

Best of all, I got to come back home on the 247.

Beautiful, ain't it? It's old Highway 247, which turns into Barstow Road as you come into town. It's the back way out of and into Barstow from Apple Valley. After some winding turns across the stark beauty of the desert, and one pass over a 4148-foot mountaintop, it dumps you out on Highway 18, right in the middle of Lucerne Valley, hardly a stone's throw from my house. From someone who lives where I do (off Milpas Road) it's a sweeter deal than coming back on I-15 and having to bulldoze my way back through Victorville and Apple Valley traffic. Not to mention that it's scenic as all get-out. I thoroughly enjoyed the 40-minute drive back in the cool autumn air. And that was Monday.

Tuesday (today) I went into town with Mum to do something I should've done a long time ago: get my own bank account. Mom and I have had a joint account ever since I first opened one in 2000. Now that I'm all done with college and have gotten back from abroad, it's high time I took charge of my own finances. So we did that, closing my old student account (with the help of a lovely Wells Fargo representative, Dori) and reopening another one.

And you want to know something scary? On this new account, I pay $75 every month into my IRA. I'm only 23, for cryin' out loud. Yeah, I know that the sooner you start, the more you'll end up with, but still, it's a scary thing to be thinking about this so soon. Yikes. I'm not ready for this. I never really figured I'd retire anyway. I always thought I'd keep flying and tending bar until I drilled a hole in the ground or got shot. Strange to think of saving for retirement now...

Ah, but how callous of me to worry about things like my personal finances, waiting in lines, and the state of San Diego's defense, when there are poor people in Wrightwood whose homes burned down! Sadly, the Sheep Fire, which I mentioned earlier, eventually spread to 7,500 acres and burned several homes. The entire town of Wrightwood had to evacuated, and it was only today (the sixth) that they were let back in. All today, while out and about in the valley, Mom and I could look up at the slopes of Mount Baldy and see the smoke wafting up from it, gradually dying down. The fire is now under control, last I heard. Once the Santa Ana winds died, the firefighters had things a lot easier. The cool autumn temperatures helped, too. Thank goodness that's over. Lord knows we don't need any more fires this season.

Oh yeah, one more thing: last night I sat down on my bed, comic books, various novels, CDs, cell phone, glass of water, USB drive, and reference volumes scattered and piled close at hand, and took an enormous chunk out of the novel. I banged out 7,500 words (the same number of acres burned by the Sheep Fire—how's that for a spooky bit of coincidence?). In so doing, I took care of the climax. Now all that's left is the denouement...which I'm about to start working on now. That means I could have this novel of mine—my very first—finished tonight. Tonight. After having worked on it for nearly a year, and various other versions of the same story since I was 19 years old. Finished. Completely.

Now that's scary.

the quarter-life crisis

Let me just say, here and now, that I did not come up with that sardonic title by myself. It's actually a phrase coined by a friend of mine, David, whose plight is somewhat similar to mine. (He didn't get dismissed from his last job, though, I'm pretty sure.) Well then! Nothing's written in stone yet, but I have a good idea about what I'm going to do now that I find myself, a 23-year-old unemployed college graduate living in my parents' house, unemployed and living in my parents' house. My friends have been wonderfully supportive, my parents and grandparents have given me some good advice, and I'm feeling largely at peace with what's happened. My pride still stings a little, but as soon as Mom bakes some cookies I'll get over that in a hurry. As you'll recall, it says "aviation" up at the top of this page. Thus far, there hasn't been much in this blog concerning aviation, except me prattling on about my flight-related ambitions. This is because you have caught me in the interim. I completed ground school in the spring of 2008, shortly before I went off to Korea. Between then and the time I departed for the Orient, I took flying lessons at Cheyenne Regional Airport in Wyoming, and racked up about twelve flight-hours. I started this blog up in March of 2009, and only just returned to the United States in July. I haven't resumed my flight training yet because, well, I've been working part-time and trying to save money, and since lessons cost roughly $200 a pop... Excuses, excuses, I know. If you're a veteran pilot or a halfway serious student you're probably castigating me as unenthusiastic or cowardly. But it isn't true. It's been heartbreaking for me to be stuck on the ground so long, believe me. But I felt I had to accumulate some savings before I embarked upon my grand quest to become a commercially-licensed pilot with multi-engine, complex, high-performance and seaplane ratings. That takes some doing, you know. And some serious cabbage. Getting dismissed from newspaper has changed all that. I'm now free to move around and do things again. And I've decided, borrowing my mother's wisdom and my grandfather's counsel, to start moving toward my dreams in a more definite manner. What I really mean is, I'm going to not work at all and start flying a lot instead. Good plan, eh? Yes, you read that correctly. I'm going to start hammering away full-time at getting my piloting qualifications. The nice thing about this flight school here in town at the Apple Valley Airport (Apple Valley Aviation, it's called) is that they do both multi-engine ratings and commercial licensing. That's half of my airborne ambitions right there. If I can get that taken care of, then wherever I go from here I'll have the qualifications to work for pretty much any small regional cargo airline there is. Sure, I'll be green. I won't have a lot of flight-hours racked up. But I'll have the basic credentials, and that'll be something. But wait! There's more. There is another prong to my chase-down-dreams plan. As you might have guessed from my cocktail reviews and my ardor for all things boozy, I am something of a liquor enthusiast. I'm an amateur bartender, a newly-minted professor of mixology if you will. I mix cocktails for my parents most every night, and I ran a cocktail bar out of my apartment in Korea for some months. I've always wanted to try my hand at being a bartender. There's something so romantically human in it: me, behind the bar, in a dimly-lit room, shiny bottles arrayed behind me as I methodically polish a glass, two or three regulars sitting on bar stools, getting smashed, getting a load off their chests, the pungent aroma of spirits (alcoholic and human alike) in the air. I've been told I'd be good at it. Not to brag or anything, but people do come to me with their problems. I'm not much good at comforting them, but I like to think I give them some perspective. Sometimes that's all it takes. And anyway, as long as things didn't get too hectic, I think it would be the neatest thing to mix drinks and pull pints for people all day. Great potential for philosophical debate, that's for certain. I don't want to have a hoidy-toidy, hippy-dippy bar, you understand; I really want to work in (or own) a pub. Quiet place, not too big, kind of old-fashioned, lots of dark wood...a cozy, comforting, intimate venue. But to do that, I need a liquor handler's license. And if I'm going to go to the trouble of getting that, I could do worse than go the whole hog and just go to bartender's school. There are some good ones pretty close to me, down the hill in Riverside and San Bernardino. I'd get some practical training, I'd get an insight into the most popular drink recipes, I'd learn to navigate behind the bar, and most importantly, I'd get certified. That means I should be able to get work at any respectable bar, anywhere. Wherever I go from here, then, I'll have those two notches on my belt. Not only do I have my journalism degree and a little experience along with it, but I'll have my commercial pilot's license and a bartender's certificate. Think of it as an epistemological hat trick. If I go to Australia, I don't have to depend on finding writing jobs, which could be really scarce. I could work in any of the myriad bars in Sydney or Perth or Adelaide. Heck, I might even find a job as a bush pilot in the outback. (Gee, wouldn't that be swell? It makes me tingly just thinking about it.) The same would be true if I went to Anchorage: I'd have two trump cards up my sleeve, two fun ways to make a living in a new place. It seems like a good idea to me. It's a bit embarrassing to be acquiring this dual education while under my parents' roof, but they're kind and generous, and living here is drastically inexpensive. Here is the best place to base my educational expeditions with fully reserved capital. So, to that end, I shall pursue knowledge relating to two of my favorite things: booze and airplanes. And in so doing I shall finally fulfill the promise of this blog, that aviation should be one of the topics discussed within it. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Swedish farriers and so on

This weekend was somewhat...odd. I had a Swedish man in my living room the whole time talking about horses' hooves.

His name was Ove Lind, and he was a farrier (somebody who works on horses' hooves, clipping them and making sure they're healthy). He's attracted the attention of a well-to-do horsewoman in the area named Melissa who is busily showing him around. He lives out of a van somewhere in Nevada and gives talks on his revolutionary new method of hoof care and feeding. These techniques are supposedly guaranteed to extend the life of the hoof (and thereby the horse).

Our neighbor, Sharon, was supposed to host one of his talks at her house, but it seems that her domicile is ill-suited to large groups and prohibitively hard to reach. Our house being lower down on the slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains, easier to find, and larger, Sharon convinced Mom to host the event. In return, Mom and Dad didn't have to pay the $150 admission fee.

All the previous week Mom and Sharon were out at Smart & Final buying up the necessary supplies: buns, lunch meat, mixed vegetables, fruit salad, potato salad, tortilla chips, plastic forks, paper plates, and all that lot. They moved all the furniture out of the family room and into the living room (where the computer is) and unfolded all of the tables and chairs Sharon rented. Then, all Saturday and all Sunday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (and even after), Ove stood in the front room with a projector and some hoof bones and talked. And talked. And talked.

A refreshingly different and charming accent he may have had, but even that got to be wearing after the first six hours; especially all the endless jive about coffin-bones and foundering and ionized silver. Honestly, the man didn't know when to quit. There were occasional breaks for snacks and lunch, which was the only time I budged from my room and greeted the half-dozen or so Apple Valley horsewomen who'd come to our house to hear Mr. Lind speak. The rest of the time I stayed in my hidey-hole and read comic books, or wrote, or fooled around on my computer, or blogged. It was nice having all that time to myself, but it became hideously boring all too soon.

On a lighter note, the weather's been lovely: for some reason, yesterday, the sun was mild and the breeze almost cool, so that it never strayed much above 90. Then in the evening a truly temperate sea breeze began blowing and the temperature dropped further. It got down to 54 last night, and it didn't get above 80 today. Yippee! Mom and I took a glorious walk in the cool wind with Maggie and Harriet. It was glorious. Feels like fall's already here.

This weekend was also opening weekend for NFL football season. Normally I've had only a passing interest in sports, but I've decided to follow football more closely: particularly my favorite team, the San Diego Chargers. Tonight's game was San Diego vs. Oakland: my most beloved team versus my most hated adversary. The Raiders play so dirty and their fans are so ill-mannered and disreputable that everybody in the western conferences hates them. When I finally got tired and left during the third quarter, the score was tied up 10-10. The Chargers were having a horrendous time on defense, and despite decent showings in offense, including a couple of brilliant catches, the Raiders kept turning over the ball. I'll see what the score is tomorrow morning. It had better be good.

In current events, Saturday was September 11th: the anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers. Of course there was a humongous memorial celebration in New York, with live music, speeches, and an impressive cluster of spotlights whose combined beams imprinted the ghostly images of the World Trade Center on the damp night sky. There were a few news stories here and there about 9/11-related charities and political rehashes...and of course, the obligatory slew of documentaries. Apart from that, the day was just like any other day.

...except that I got called into work unexpectedly early. Mark, the editorial assistant, phoned me at 9:06 a.m. He asked if I could come in. I said I'd be there at eleven when the Pastor was scheduled to come in and talk to me about his Life Changing Mentor Program. Mark said the sooner I could come in, the better. I put down the phone, sighed, got ready, and left. I arrived at just after ten, and got some obituaries done. Then the Pastor (from Ontario) and his Victorville counterpart sat in Ron's office and gave us the rundown on their program. I scribbled notes like mad, trying to keep up and not look like a fool in front of the editor. I think I managed to be pretty thorough. I paid close attention to the questions that Ron asked the pastors, to try to get an idea of the news values involved in such a situation as this, as well as which story angles Ron places the highest priority on. Afterward, Ron assigned me to write an article detailing what Life Changing Ministries was doing up here in the High Desert (starting up the mentor program), what they needed most right now (volunteers and partner organizations), and any upcoming events (a talk given by the Presiding Judge of the San Bernardino County Juvenile Court, Marsha Slough). I think I did pretty well on it. I'll find out tomorrow.

Wish me luck, William Zinsser.

and so, the long-awaited cabin fever sets in

It's 102 degrees outside. The Internet wasn't working until 10:30 a.m. because I went over the bandwidth limit yesterday downloading the Anniversary Edition of Ad-Aware. I'm having a homemade fruit smoothie every day. The most exciting thing I have to look forward to tomorrow is getting up at 7:00 to paint the shed, which I am actually looking forward to. I dug through at least four hundred article titles on the Demand Studios website, and I only found one that I thought I could successfully do ("Advantages of Renting a Car"). I've got a lopsided, half-deflated blister on my right heel that I desperately want to pop. I've run out of fresh reading material; what I do have are somewhat dense books like Keith Sinclair's A History of New Zealand and a load of self-help books regarding writing. My resolution to quit picking my nose, sworn in my parents' hammock under a sparkling canopy of stars late last night, lasted barely eighteen hours. And, oh yes! I've got five weeks until I find out whether I can leave for Alaska or not. I love my parents and it's nice being back in the States, but man...I've got to get out of here.

momentous decisions: an addendum

As an addendum to that last post: My folks have been pressing me lately to stay here in Apple Valley. This is not because they're clingy (although they wouldn't mind having me around). Mom figures I could stay at the house (and pay monthly rent), work in the valley (perhaps at my old job at the paper) and save up oodles of money. If I stuck around for a year, I could rack up a sizable amount. Plus, that would then give me time to bug my friends about coming to Australia with me, and also give them time to finish whatever they need to get done beforehand. If I go to Alaska now, Mom says, without prospects or patience, I'll burn up another huge chunk of what I saved in Korea, one-quarter of which has been sunk into my new car and all the related maintenance and insurance fees. This is true. I've given myself three or four months to find a job up there before I quit and return to the lower 48, and if I'm unsuccessful, that'll be three or four thousand dollars gone, not including food and expenses. Here, I have friends. Here, I have contacts. Here, I have cheap accommodation. Mom and Dad's suggestion is a sound one; I could save a lot, have plenty to spend on an Australian or European sabbatical (Jeff and I had talked about meeting up in England in the summer of 2010, six months before Adam and Elaine's wedding)...and, well, what-have-you. The only problem I have with that is it means that I'll have to wait to go to Alaska. I'll have to wait on flying...I'm not sure if they give flight lessons at the dinky little Apple Valley airport. I'll have a journalism job, perhaps (if I move fast), but I sense that I'll be unhappy doing it. I've worked there before and I know how hectic it is, even for an intern or an entry-level reporter. Perhaps most dismaying, however, is that I'll be living in my parents' house. I love them, and it's nice and easy and fun to live there, but my pride and independent spirit are niggling at me. How come you're sitting on your tucus in your nice parents' cushy house when you could be out gallivanting around the Arctic after a week of driving through the Western United States and Canada? Why are you still sitting here when there's sheep waiting to be herded and beautiful thirsty chicks waiting to be served cocktails in Australia? What's with you sticking around in Apple Valley when there are dozens of open teaching jobs in Japan and Greater Asia? I know I'm sounding like a stupid, flaky whiner, but those niggling feelings are undeniable. Running off to Alaska without carefully laid plans (or abundant capital) somehow just seems like the thing to do. I'm letting my heart rule my head here, yessir. But there've been people throughout history who have done that and made it big, haven't they? Give me a few minutes to think about it.

a new car and semi-employment

We went car-hunting as a family unit last Friday. Dad is working a contract position for the state, and for some strange reason he gets every Friday off. So we all piled into the truck and went cruising around downtown Victorville looking for a vehicle for yours truly. We passed by the large dealerships on 7th Avenue without really meeting with much success. Number one, they didn't have what I was looking for: an inexpensive, medium-sized truck or SUV. Number two, they were all closed. (We weren't out that early, jeez.) However, right when we were about to give it up for the day, we happened upon a small dealership on Palmdale Road called Eagle Motors. Sitting in the parking lot was a white, noticeably undamaged four-door 1995 Jeep Cherokee SE. Missives like "$2995" and "LOW MILES" were scrawled on the rear windows. We parked and did an inspection. It seemed mechanically sound. There was a dent on the right rear fender, but that didn't bother us much. There was no noticeable oil leakage. The interior was old, but not overly worn or shabby. There was a slight amount of rust on the body, but nothing significant. All in all, it seemed a good deal. While we were inspecting the vehicle, a swarthy fellow with slicked-back hair and a polo shirt came out of the office. His name was Sal, and he was one of the salesmen. We talked with him, but he had little to say apart from a glowing description of the vehicle in front of us. At Sal's urging, however, Dad and I climbed in and took the Jeep for a ride around the block. I was pleased with the way it handled. It was a zippy little number (totally unlike a massive Ford Expedition which Dad and I had perused earlier in the week). The power brakes worked zealously well. We told Sal we were interested in the car, but we'd like to have it inspected by our mechanic first. He bucked and snorted a little, but finally agreed. We said we'd think it over. Later that day I called him and arranged to come pick up the car at ten on Monday and take it over to A-Action Automotive on Hesperia Road, near Bear Valley Road. And so I waited the long weekend, the Jeep growing on me the whole time, slightly worried that it would sell before I could go back on Monday and pick it up. With bated breath I drove into town that Monday morning. Whew! The Jeep was still there. Unfortunately, Sal wasn't. I had to explain everything to the proper owner of Eagle Motors, Carl, an old man with a stern glare, salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin, and a beer gut like a small porpoise. In spite of his imposing appearance, he was a decent ol' stick. Once I communicated the situation to him, he accommodated me quite cheerily. Since only he and his wife were in that day, there was no one to ride with me to the auto shop. So I offered to put down collateral. Carl asked for a hundred bucks and some contact info. I slapped both down (one on the desk and the other on a piece of paper) and drove the car over to A-Action. Steve Coultas, the proprietor and head mechanic of A-Action Automotive, also has a beer gut...but his bright eyes, sandy hair, big hands and jolly booming voice lend him a more congenial first impression. We filled him in on the situation, and he told us he'd give our car the kind of inspection that he himself would perform on a car he was about to give his own daughter. He said it'd be about an hour and a half. We thanked him and left. Mom (who'd followed me into town in the truck to pick me up from the mechanic's after I dropped off the Jeep) and I didn't know what to do with ourselves. We were in the downtown area, sure, but neither of us felt like traipsing around the Mall of Victor Valley for ninety minutes. We didn't have library cards, either. So we called up Dad at his office and told him we'd pick him up for lunch. We drove over to his office and then went to the nearest Farm Boys for burgers (well, I had a chicken club; I'm trying to cut back). Man, that was nice: just to be able to sit down in a burger joint and have some true American cuisine with people speaking English (and some Spanish) in the background, and the familiar stucco buildings with their red tile roofs glimmering in the hot Mojave sun outside the windows. Reverse culture shock is gradually turning into warm nostalgia. After that Mom and I dropped Dad back off and we went over to the Victorville post office to mail my brother Harlan a package. The line was hideously long, putting things into perspective for us Apple Valley residents. The good thing was, however, that between the burgers and Harlan's package, we'd used up the entire hour and a half. Or we thought we had. Upon returning to A-Action we'd noticed that the Jeep still hadn't moved from its parking space out front. Upon entering, we discovered that the shop was a bit backed up that morning and they'd be getting around to us in a little while. It'd probably be another 45 minutes, Steve said (as he frantically hurried around the office checking work orders). So, Mom and I just sat around in the tiny office (with its three AC Delco chairs and its piles of Drive magazines) and waited it out. Well, Mom did. I paced. Burns calories, you know. I telephoned Eagle Motors to apprise them of the delay and received a green light. I wondered if I should've given them more collateral. I walked back and forth between the wooden door of the office and the sliding glass doors across it (only two or three paces). These glass doors were blocked by large blue metal cabinets that had been placed across them to enclose the waiting area of the main office, but I was tall enough to peek over them if I stood on my toes. And stand on them I did, every four or five revolutions or so. Dale, the co-owner of A-Action, said I looked like an expectant father in the hospital waiting for his child to be born. "That ain't a bad analogy," I said. "I'm waiting to see if he comes out deformed." After about an hour or so, the affair was finished. It turned out that the Jeep didn't have quite so clean a bill of health as Sal had suggested. The brake rotors were below the legal limit for thinness. By law they'd have to be resurfaced and refurbished. The same was true of the inoperative blower in the ventilation system. As a matter of maintenance, Steve suggested we replace the serpentine belt; there was also a minor oil leak in the oil pan and the coolant system could have used a flushing, but those were minor details. The two major repairs were the rotors and the blower. Steve said we could either demand that the dealer fix those two problems himself, or else lower the cost of the car. He encouraged us to do the latter. Otherwise, he warned, the dealer would go with the cheapest fix and we'd come off the worse in the long run. That sounded like a good idea. Steve was nice enough to print up estimates for all the repairs on an individual basis, so I had some paper evidence to wave in Carl's face if necessary. In total, the two major repairs would cost about $250. On Friday we'd talked Sal down from $2995 to $2795. I decided to try to get Carl down to $2595, subtracting $200 for repairs. So we drove back to Eagle Motors. My heart was thumping in my chest. I'd never bargained for anything (successfully) in my life. The most experience I'd had was haggling for cab fare in Korea. I'd never even approached something like a car before in any previous transaction. But I was determined to do it. Mom and Dad had done most of the talking on Friday and I had set my face against them doing it again. It was high time I continued standing on my own two feet, irrespective of the fact that I was living in their house and eating their breakfast cereal at nine o'clock every morning. ...and it came off. I looked Carl dead in the eye, told him about what was wrong with the car (skipping the minor stuff) and told him I'd take the Jeep if he knocked the price down to $2595. He considered for a moment, then agreed. That warm, slow feeling of elation (the one that comes after accomplishing a nerve-wracking task) trickled through my torso and legs as we went through the motions. Carl took my information, entered it into a computer program, then printed it onto a bunch of forms, which I then signed. I then paid him $2800 (that was all the cash I had; plus tax the bill came to $2974.50, but Carl was kind enough to let me come back later and pay the difference). And then...after Carl scraped the "for-sale" epistles off the windows with a razor blade, I drove my new Jeep Cherokee off the lot. I stopped and put thirty bucks' worth of gas into it on the way back, but apart from that the drive was fun. Today I took the thing into A-Action again to have those major repairs done. They had to completely replace one brake rotor that was completely worn down (which upped the price by another thirty dollars), but they were successfully resurfaced. The blower now blows for all it's worth and the serpentine belt has been replaced. (Dad looked under the car yesterday and said the oil leak wasn't worth worrying about, and that the two of us could flush the coolant on the weekend, so we passed that over.) The bill came to $360. So, sports fans, that means I have blown one quarter of the twelve grand I saved up in Korea...but also that I am now in full possession of an operative, low-mileage, tough and capable automobile. Now I just have to insure it. In California. Yippee. So! On the employment front, I've heard absolutely nothing from any of the six or eight reporter's positions (ranging in location from Arkansas to Connecticut) I've applied to. I finally got up the gumption to call New Northwest Broadcasters' Anchorage branch, but was told that they had no on-air openings whatsoever. They requested my information and told me they'd contact me if anything came up. (And you know what that means...that's a polite way of saying 'Thanks, but no thanks.') I've gotten no bites in TV, radio or print. However...I have been officially accepted as a freelance writer for Demand Studios, based in the L.A. Basin. They're a sort of information-gathering firm that posts article topics on various subjects on its website (home, culture, art, travel, pets, sports, leisure, science, education, what-have-you). A large staff of freelance writers claims the topics, writes them up, and submits them. Demand Studios takes these results, packages them, and disseminates them to various online databases like eHow. It doesn't pay much; $5-$15 per article, usually, or royalties, but still, it's better than nothing. At least somebody accepted my help. Anyway, I wrote my first article for them today, a nice little "strategy" piece (which, according to their style book, means a 50-word overview and then a series of chronologically-organized paragraphs, separated by subheads, offering tips on something). The title was "Tips on Learning to Play the Piano." I figured seven fruitless years of piano lessons made me, at the very least, unequivocally qualified to explain that. I adhered the best I could to their style and formatting guide; we'll see if it gets accepted. Currently it's under review. I'll keep you "Posted." So, now I have a car and semi-employment; more updates as events warrant. Oh yeah, and someday soon here I promise I'll get around to uploading photos of my Jeju/Gwangju getaway. You'll love 'em.