making a bug-out bag in Korea

Do you know what a bug-out bag is?

If you don't, follow that link and read the article. You'll need some context. I'll wait.

In case you're too lazy to do that, though, let me just give you the skinny: the term "bugging out" means evacuating your home due to fire, earthquake, poison gas leak, alien invasion...or war. A bug-out bag is an emergency kit, personally assembled by you, a forward-thinking human being, in case you have to be away from your home for 72 hours.

The only natural disasters that face Seoul on a regular basis are monsoons, fires, and maybe the occasional tsunami. (Japan does a pretty good job of soaking up all the typhoons and earthquakes that come this way, though.)

You have to remember, though, what's sitting just 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of this city.

That's right. North Korea.

On Wednesdays I have no class, which means I get to putter around doing whatever I want. Today even more so: I had no choice but to moon around the apartment all day waiting for the deliveryman to arrive with the Coleman waterproof matches I ordered from Gmarket. I bought myself a Stanwell beechwood pipe and some tobacco a month ago, but I've been dogged by the lack of proper lighting materials. You can't use a Zippo to light a pipe, 'cause the butane makes the tobacco taste funny. Moreover, you have to hold the lighter upside-down, and that singes your fingers. Wooden matches, however, neither taint the flavor of your smoke nor char the rim of your pipe. So I had my heart set on matches. After a fruitless search through every grocery mart, convenience store and bar in my area, I found them on Gmarket and ordered them. They were due to arrive today, and the deliveryman wouldn't just leave them at the door; I had to receive them personally. So I couldn't leave.

To pass the time, I watched the 2012 movie Red Dawn.

And suddenly I thought of a much better use for those Coleman waterproof matches.

The movie made me realize just how unprepared Miss H and I were for a disaster—of any kind. She and I have talked about preparing bug-out bags for months now, ever since we moved into our new place in East Seoul. We did all the usual stay-at-home preparations, like compiling our important documents, files, IDs, bankbooks and passports into one convenient and safe location, buying eight liters of emergency water, acquiring flashlights and lanterns and candles and a fire extinguisher, et cetera. But somehow we never got around to putting together a bug-out bag. Senseless, I know. A 72-hour emergency kit would be invaluable in case we had to leave the apartment (and, say, assemble at Jamsil Stadium for evacuation by the U.S. Army as North Korean troops overrun the DMZ).

So I resolved to fix this inadequacy this very afternoon. After taking delivery of the matches, I stuck six boxes into my Timberland® 20-liter backpack. (The other six boxes will go into my drawer with my pipe.)

And that was the start of it all. I hunted high and low through the apartment and located some other items to stick in:

• 2 cans of tuna
• Nature Valley® granola bars
• 2 flashlights
• a deck of cards
• plastic sporknife (yes, they exist)
• diarrhea medication
• multitool
• first-aid kit
• sunblock
• lens wipes
• 2 liters of water
• complete change of clothes
• Colgate® WISP™ toothbrushes
• lensatic compass
• Ziploc® bags
• vitamin tablets
• cash and coins

Noticing that there were several items on my list that just weren't in the apartment, I hopped the subway across the river to Cheonho and went to E-Mart. There, I acquired the following:

• Ottogi tuna (2 bundles of 3 cans, ₩3960 apiece)
• bowls of prepared rice (pack of 3, ₩3450)
• Diget chocolate biscuits (₩1580)
• Dr. You granola bars (2 boxes of 4, ₩3980 apiece)
• kitchen knife (₩2000)
• small paring knife (₩1000)
• folding knife (₩5100)
• hand saw (₩7900)
• folding trowel (₩7500)
• packet of quick-start charcoal (₩1360)
• camping rope (6mm x 10m, ₩2,900)
• duct tape (10 meters, ₩1350)

The items remaining on my list are:

• glow sticks (for when flashlights fail)
• hand-cranked radio
• ponchos
• tarp
• space blankets
• signal mirror (though I think I'll just use the small shaving mirror in my grooming kit)
• safety whistle
• camp axe

I'll have to get these either at Homeplus (which is a subsidiary of Tesco, and generally better stocked than E-Mart) or a camping supply store.

Some of you might scoff at the completeness of this list. "What do you need a hand axe for?" you'll ask. Good question. Hopefully, we'll never need it. But just in case the North Koreans come storming across that border faster than expected (or they bring some Chinese or Russian friends with them), I want to be ready. The worst-case scenario here is Miss H and I hiking through the wild hills of K-Land trying to get back behind friendly lines, or make our way down to Busan to catch a boat for Japan. If we have to rough it for a few days, at least I'll have the tools, ropes, tarps, and matches I need to make our campsites comfortable. Even if the North Koreans never invade (or the zombies never attack, it don't matter to me) we'll at least have a well-stocked supply kit for untoward exigencies.

One more thing.

You'll notice that I entitled this post "making a bug-out bag in Korea."

The emphasis was intentional. There are some items which I would normally include in my bug-out bag, but can't, because I live in Korea. The first one, obviously, is this:

A gun, stupid.

When disaster strikes, people go crazy. Ain't no denying that. I think K (Tommy Lee Jones's character from the Men in Black franchise) said it best:  "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." So when the crap hits the fan and looters take to the streets, I want to be prepared to defend what's mine: my life, my property and my loved ones. I have to be honest: as an American, I'm a bit uncomfortable living in a country that doesn't allow private gun ownership, especially when there's a militaristic regime lurking on the horizon.

The second item is this:

It's a survival knife, in case you didn't know. An Aitor Jungle King II, to be exact. I haven't really shopped around and chosen the survival knife that best suits me, but this is pretty much what I'm looking for: a straight blade with a saw-edge and a good long grip with a lanyard ring. A splendid knife for cutting branches, skinning game, or personal defense.

Korea has this thing about knives, though. Turns out that any pocketknife with a blade longer than six centimeters (a paltry 2.36 inches) is classified as a "sword" under Korean law, and requires a "sword permit." This means that the 10-inch Bowie knife I have in my footlocker back in California would get me chucked in jail over here. Bollocks. I'm not sure what the laws concerning non-folding or straight-bladed knives are like, but I have a feeling they're similarly restrictive. The three knives I bought today at E-Mart were an attempt to ameliorate this deficiency.

And there you have it! My Korean bug-out bag. Once I acquire those last few vital items (particularly the tarp and ponchos), Miss H and I will be well ahead of any disaster which fickle chance decides to throw at us. With any luck, we'll never need this stuff, but it sure will be nice to have on hand.

And if we want to go camping, we're already packed...

fires at midnight

I've spoken at length about this topic before, and I don't intend to repeat myself. But I'm going to say a few words in defense of my friend Jethro. 

Jethro Tull, that is.

I just downloaded their 1977 album Songs from the Wood from iTunes, and it is glorious.

Time was, I'd go to a music store (say Barnes & Noble, or Best Buy when they still had CDs). I'd pick a band I liked and listen to a few of the sample tunes on the provided headphones. If I found an album that had at least two songs I loved right away, I'd buy the album, take it home, and listen to it all the way through. Usually, on the second or third play-through, I'd start finding other tunes that I liked. Five or six of them, usually. Maybe I wouldn't like them as much as the original pair that had caught my ear, but they'd still be listenable. Customarily there'd be one or two tracks that I just couldn't stand, and I'd always skip over them on subsequent play-throughs.

I knew I had a winner in Songs from the Wood when every single solitary track tickled the pleasure centers in my brain. Every one. I've already gushed about this on Facebook, but every song on that album is a gem, unique and mellifluous and utterly addictive. It's only ten tracks, including the bonus items, but I've never spent $9.99 more wisely. I just can't get enough of that wonderful, wacky bard Ian Anderson and his restless flute. I was already familiar with the title track and "The Whistler," but they withstand the test of time. My particular favorites from the album are "Jack in the Green," "Cup of Wonder," "Fire at Midnight," and "Beltane."

"Fire at Midnight" is a particular love of mine due to its evocative lyrics. Listening to it, you can just feel the damp chill outside the door of your cottage, the warm crackle of the fire, the rich gold of the hot toddy on the mantlepiece, the soft rugs and wood floor beneath your feet. It just makes you think of cold spring nights and mist and quiet evenings and cheery conversations and delicious drinks and all the lovely intangibles that go with them.

Oh yes. I believe in fires at midnight. Here, I'll show you:

Yes, I added text to this picture, but the original image isn't mine. Boo-yah.

If you want my advice, go to YouTube (or better yet, iTunes) and look up that song. "Fire at Midnight" by Jethro Tull. Give it a listen. Click on the image I've provided (to expand it to full size) and stare at it while the music plays. You'll wonder why all your day's stress just vanished in smoke. I dare you not to make yourself a hot toddy or go stargazing or pen a few romantic verses afterward.

Double-dare you.

"Tom Petty needs to learn to drive a stick"

I came slowly to myself on the morning of Thursday, November 5. I remembered immediately where I was—Room 245 in the Motel 6 in Yuma, Arizona—but it just didn't seem like a good time to wake up yet. Thirty minutes later I gave up the ghost and creaked out of bed. The motel mattress was firm enough, but sometimes sleeping in strange places stiffens me up. I shuffled to my suitcase, retrieved my kit bag, lurched into the bathroom, and showered, emerging to find John already awake and watching one of the Final Fantasy movies on TV. I'm not sure which one it was. The premise involved asteroids, and aliens, and ray guns, and an insane amount of jumpsuits. By and by we got road-ready. We hoped to hit the Grand Canyon with enough daylight left to set up a tent, and possibly an entire working campsite. At this time of year, that involved getting there well before 5:00 p.m. We needed about seven hours or so to drive to GCNP from Yuma. That meant departing no later than 9:30 a.m., if possible. At 9:48 a.m. we were pulling out of the parking lot, threading our way through copious amounts of road construction, and weaseling back onto Interstate 8. A few miles out of town we stopped for gas. As we were filling up, we're reasonably certain we saw Tom Petty pull into the parking lot, blasting his own music out of the speakers of a bright yellow late-model Ford Mustang. He parked, ran inside, came back out, got back in, pulled jerkily out of the parking lot (working the clutch inexpertly) and drove away. Finished staring, John turned back to me. "Tom Petty needs to learn to drive a stick." The Yuma-Phoenix run wasn't quite as scenic as I'd hoped. Extreme Southern Arizona turned out to be little better than Extreme Southern California. It was flat as a pancake, and whatever hadn't been bleached bone-white by the sun had been turned into mangy farmland with copious amounts of water. After a few hours, we came into the environs of Phoenix. Oh boy, I thought. I've never seen Phoenix, really. All I've seen are a few tantalizing glimpses outside the big plate-glass windows of Sky Harbor. Now I'll finally get a good look at the place! Yeah, right. This is what my "look" at Phoenix consisted of: Interstate highway interchanges can go take a running jump. That's all I've got to say about that. Fortunately for my mood, the scenery improved greatly once we emerged on I-17 north of the city. Not bad, eh? The first thing I noticed were the saguaro cacti. I'd seen them before, but not for about, oh, ten years. They were far more impressive in person than I recalled. So of course I badgered John until he pulled onto an off-ramp and we could have ourselves a photo-op. As we continued on, the scenery rolled by like prickly waves on a greenish ocean. We traversed the Prescott area (where we saw the smoke of an enormous brush fire, which stayed in sight for more than an hour), and moved onward, ever upward, growing nearer to Flagstaff. Flagstaff was actually nothing like I remembered. I'd been there once before, at the tender age of 13, during my family's epic move from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to Apple Valley, California in 1999. All I remembered were a lot of rocks and pine trees, and a few bright yellow WATCH FOR ELK roadsigns. There were rocks, yes. There were pine trees, yes. There were plenty of elk-related notices. But the layout of the town of Flagstaff was completely different than I remembered. The place seemed bigger, too. Either my memory was truly atrocious, or the place had undergone some changes in the last ten years. Either way, it was still pretty: the most beautiful stony hills surrounded the town, arching surprisingly high into the ethereal blue, coated with trees and reddish rocks. We made a brief stop in Flagstaff to—you guessed it—drop by the Best Buy. John claims to have some kind of morbid, work-related compulsion. He says he has to go inside any Best Buy he sees, just to compare it to the others he's worked at. I think he might be jerking my chain. He did have some rather excoriating things to say about the level of customer service represented (or rather, not represented) by the Geek Squad at the Flagstaff branch, however. Apart from that, our purpose in Best Buy was clear: John had to buy another kind of cable. I contented myself with poking through the store's R&B music section, which is my morbid Best Buy compulsion. I was, for the nth time, unable to locate the Black Keys album I've been questing for, The Big Come Up. (It stands to reason; that's probably their most popular album to date.) I struck gold in the next aisle over, however: Led Zeppelin III. Laden with yet another mysterious cable and some succulent classic rock, we paid our money and made our egress. At John's suggestion, we gassed up on our way out of Flagstaff. Then we got down to the business of being confused about which route to take. John had been showcasing his lovely Garmin GPS system all day. It worked well, and had a multitude of useful user-friendly features. Unfortunately, like MapQuest, it occasionally had a debilitating tendency to send us on nastily circuitous routes. The only difference was that John's GPS sent us on these nastily circuitous routes in an irritatingly calm, feminine voice. After realizing that we were not on I-40 (which connected up with Arizona State Highway 64, leading to the south rim of our destination), we turned around and returned to that interstate. We turned onto the 64 at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Now it was a straight shot to the Grand Canyon. After all the stops we'd made and electronics stores we'd criticized, I never thought we'd make the national park with any sort of light left. But we did. Following a deliciously scenic drive down the two-lane AZ-64, during which I almost broke my neck craning to look at a Lockheed C-121 Constellation parked outside the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Valle (more about that in the next installment), we pulled up to the park entrance sometime after four. John stumped up the $25 entrance fee, and we made a beeline for the nearest campsite: the Mather Campground near Market Plaza. Fortuitously near Market Plaza, as it happened. We turned down Juniper Loop and began scanning either side of the lane for a suitable campsite-cum-parking spot. We chose one a ways in, a little too near an elderly couple's RV, but suitably close to the Dumpsters and lavatories. It had a flat expanse of ground for a tent, a wooden picnic table, and a fire pit. After clambering out of the car and donning an extra layer against the cool Northern Arizona evening, we promptly busted the tent out of the trunk and set it up. Our practice run on Tuesday night paid off. We managed to erect the thing with little trouble. While pounding the tent stakes in, we encountered a frustratingly wide patch of bedrock at the southwest corner; but with the aid of my military-surplus entrenching tool, I discovered its boundaries and was able to find a decent spot to embed the stake. We threw the pads and sleeping bags unceremoniously into the tent as the dusk gathered and then turned to the more interesting idea of dinner. We had a stove to cook on, but both of us realized that it really wouldn't be camping without a campfire. And we had no wood. And there were signs all around saying NO WOOD GATHERING. Well, shoot. John got back in the car and manfully found his way to Market Plaza to get us some flammable materials. I bustled about the camp, installing batteries in the lantern, setting out the cooking utensils, and generally organizing the campsite. I called John on my cell phone (there was barely enough signal to be heard) and requested that he bring back some more water. He agreed. I also hunted around for the triple-A batteries. I couldn't find the darn things anywhere. We'd picked up a few in Lucerne Valley along with the groceries, intending to use them in the fancy LED headlamp my mother had loaned me, but they'd disappeared in the meantime. Oh well, the heck with it. I had my Doomsday flashlight, anyway (one of the ones you charge by shaking). The darkness quietly completed itself as I worked (and searched fruitlessly). After a time, there was little to do but sit at the picnic table in the small white patch of illumination thrown by the lantern and hum a little tune as I waited for John to return. I didn't look up during this waiting period. It's a shame I didn't. I was missing out on quite a show. In due time, John returned with fire-starters, lighter fluid, bottled water, a six-pack of Stone Brewery's Levitation Ale, and three bundles of split cedar logs. He set the water on the table and the rest alight. The cedar wasn't well seasoned, and was more fond of smoldering and smoking than actually burning; but after moving the logs closer to one another and throwing a few more fire-starters on (and a few liberal squirts of lighter fluid), we soon had a cheery blaze going. Then we got down to brass tacks. John set up our new camp stove, pulled out a saucepan, opened a couple cans of Dennison's Chili, and set them to warm. Soon, we were chowing down on hot chili, crusty French bread and beer, with the quiet night all about us and the fire crackling away, sending fragrant cedar smoke over us as the breeze swung to and fro. "Marvelous" isn't quite the word for that meal. John and I chatted away as if we hadn't recently been separated for three years, joking and chuckling. The smoke curled away, up into the night. Our feast concluded, we cleaned up the dishes with the aid of icy water from an old-fashioned water pump near the lavatories. (Only the next day would we discover that there was a sink for dishes at the rear of the building.) Then we pulled up a cooler by the fire and watched the stars, which we'd just noticed. I don't want to sound trite, but they were glimmering like diamonds. Off in the distance, a couple of campsites over, a solitary flute began to play. The flautist was undoubtedly a novice; his or her repertoire was limited to the major scales, and a few lilting notes in no particular order. But the effect was stunning, especially in that darkness, especially in that strange and majestic place. Less than a mile from the Grand Canyon, under an adamantine sky, warm fire-glow and cedar smoke filling the air, a delicious meal in our stomachs and beer in our hands, John and I listened to that tinkling flute filter through the trees with a visceral reverence. It was the perfect complement to an evening of subtle splendor. "It's Ian Anderson!" I postulated. There remains little to tell. We secured whatever belongings we weren't going to sleep with inside John's car; disposed of our trash in the proper receptacles; and adjourned to the tent with flashlights, cell phones, and warm pajamas (sweats and long-sleeved shirt for me, a polypropylene body glove for John). John attempted to read a few Bible verses by the light of the lantern, but pronounced the illumination too dim. I was more stubborn. I laid awake for another half-hour with a flashlight in one hand and my new copy of Alcott's Little Women in the other. Between paragraphs, my friend Allison administered the daily grammar quiz via text messages. (The word was "gravid," I believe.) After an engaging electronic conversation, she signed off. I stayed conscious just long enough to finish the chapter, then put the book aside, switched off the flashlight, and laid my delightedly weary head to rest. And upon the morrow rested the golden promise of the canyon itself... I'd like to conclude by adding that I considered entitling this piece "Canyon dig it?" but I thought better of it.

blown out

Baseball games get rained out. Cricket games can get rained on, but that just means all the players get to stop for tea. But what happens when the wind leaps up and prohibits you from doing something? Does that mean you were blown out? (Here I go with my bad puns again, sorry.) Tuesday morning I got up at 6:30 (translation: I woke up at 6:30, punched buttons on my wristwatch until the tinny alarm stopped ringing, and rolled over). I was frothing with anticipation for my flight lesson. We were going to fly to another airport. I've never done that before. I've never ventured farther than 10 miles from any airport I've taken off from. This was going to be quite the adventure, with charts, and navaids, and flight computers, and maybe even some airspace clearance if we decided to get really wild. I couldn't wait. Unfortunately, the wind had other ideas. The Santa Ana winds had packed up and shipped out for the year, so naturally I thought we were done with big blows. That was dumb. I looked out the window Tuesday morning and noticed that, paradoxically, a strange thick fog seemed to be coinciding with ferocious gusts of wind out of the southeast. The entire town of Apple Valley was obscured. North of Lucerne Valley, the mountains were hidden by odd, low cloud cover. I began to wonder if I'd be flying today. The fog was dust. Low atmospheric pressure had developed overnight, and a vast wodge of air was busily moving itself into the space the previous vast wodge of air had vacated. This happens on a near-daily basis out in the Mojave Desert, but winds this high were rare. They were clipping along at 35-40 miles an hour, gusting to 60. I remembered Harold (my flight instructor) saying something to me about how he usually didn't fly if the winds were going faster than 30 knots, or nautical miles, per hour. But nevertheless, I assembled my gear, got into the Jeep, and drove down to the airport. I began to suspect that I wouldn't be flying that day when I pulled up to the intersection of Dale Evans Parkway and Corwin Road and was unable to see Bell Mountain for the dust. Bell Mountain sits, like, I don't know, 300 yards away from that intersection. Visibility was a little low. Sure enough, when Harold pulled into the tiny airport parking lot and climbed out of the truck cab clutching his camouflage baseball cap (which, I noticed, had the Wyoming state logo on it, a cowboy on the back of a bucking bronco), my suspicions were confirmed. The first words out of Harold's mouth were "Yeah, I don't think we're flying today." The evidence was on his side. Visibility had only worsened. I could barely see runway 18, barely a hundred yards east—even though, by this time, the sun had risen above the dust clouds and was shining with subdued but definite force. Not to be denied, Harold and I went inside anyway and did some ground school while the wind howled outside. This was good, because I've pretty much forgotten what most of those myriad little lines, dots, symbols, letters, numbers and stuff on aeronautical charts mean. (I had done a little review session the previous night, but I was tired, and a little light-headed from the cigar I'd smoked earlier.) Harold and I pulled out a sectional chart of the area and reviewed for a while. Bit by bit, I got my groove back. I remembered that isogonic lines represent the amount of correction for the curvature of the Earth which you have to subtract from your true magnetic heading, for example. Around here there's about 13 degrees and 30 minutes of correction for any course you fly. We went over the different classes of airspace, too. There are six of them: A, B, C, D, E, and G. I don't have to worry about Class A airspace right now, and neither do most general aviation pilots. It only exists above 18,000 feet, where the big boys like 747s and corporate jets fly. All flying up there is done by instruments (because you're too far above the ground to navigate using landmarks). Class B stands for "busy"—that's the airspace that typically surrounds massive airports like LAX, McCarran, O'Hare, and all of those other nightmarishly congested places. It's shaped like an upside-down wedding cake hovering over the runways, extending 30 miles in all directions. Perhaps the bottom (or in this case, top) layer will have a ceiling of 9000 feet above ground level, and a floor of 8000; the next layer in will have a ceiling of 9000 feet and a floor of 5000; the next layer down will have a ceiling of 9000 and a floor of 2000; and so on. Class B airspace is strict. You need a radio, a working transponder, and clearance to even enter it. Even then, if you're not landing, you'll need to stick to a tight corridor when passing through it. Stray outside of that corridor, and incurring the wrath of the air traffic controllers will be the least of your worries. You might get run over by a jumbo jet. Class C is a bit better. This is also controlled airspace (meaning that everything you do is monitored by air traffic controllers on radar, and you need clearance to taxi, land, and take off), but it's far less anal retentive stringent than Class B. You still need radios and transponders, but needn't clear the runway so fast, nor be on the lookout for massive airliners that might mow you down in mid-air. Traffic isn't nearly as heavy; regional airlines may operate out of Class C airspace, but usually not major carriers. Class C airspace is shaped like an old-fashioned keyhole: it's circular, but there's a rectangle of territory extending beyond the circle (usually in the same direction as the major runway) for instrument approaches. Class D airspace is just like Class C, but minus the radar. There's no radar service. Airports under Class D airspace might have control towers, but then again, they might not. If they do, pilots follow standard procedure, establishing and maintaining two-way radio contact with air traffic control when entering or conducting operations within that airspace. However...control towers might not be open 24/7. If they aren't, then suddenly the airspace isn't Class D anymore. It changes to Class E or Class G, or some combination thereof. Class D airports are good ones to learn to fly at: usually quite calm, out-of-the-way, and not congested or clogged or busy. Cheyenne Regional Airport in Wyoming (where I began learning to fly) sits in its own personal bubble of Class D airspace, extending from the surface up to 2600 feet above ground level. When the radar is in operation, however, a swathe of Class C airspace extends an additional five miles beyond the airport. Class E airspace is pretty much everything in between airports. It's still technically controlled, but you don't need to get clearance from towers or controllers or anything to fly in it. Be that as it may, if you're going to fly anything but visual flight rules (VFR) in Class E, then you need to file a flight plan, be certified to fly on instruments, and get clearance from air traffic control. Class G airspace is (yippee!) uncontrolled. You don't need clearance to fly in it, and you don't have to ask anybody for permission to do whatever you want to do in there. Class G extends from the floor of Class E airspace, usually about 700 feet above ground level (AGL) to the ground. (That can change depending on time of day or night, and the weather.) As long as you're not doing something reckless (like buzzing people's sheep or getting tangled in power lines) or annoying (like mowing people's lawns with your propellers or jolting them out of their beds with engine noise) you can pretty much do what you like. Harold and I also had a look at some of the airports in the area and determined, just from the little numbers and symbols printed near them, which ones offered fuel and services, had beacons, maintained runway lighting...even what size they were and what radio frequency to contact them on. We also talked about a few things I'd never even heard about before, like "tire tracks"—the lumpy zigzag lines that denote higher-than-usual floors of Class E airspace, for example. There are quite a few military airbases around here, so we discussed restricted areas and MOAs (military operations areas). Restricted areas can be flown through, but not often: you have to get special permission from the airbase in question, and you need a darn good reason to do so successfully. It's also unwise to be flying around in restricted areas because that's where the military tests all of their goodies: fighters, bombs, missiles and so forth. It's kind of like taking a stroll through a gun range. There's a cruise missile corridor just south of here that goes from Vandenberg all the way into Twentynine Palms, or something. You couldn't pay me to fly through there. Well, you could, but it'd cost you. You can fly through MOAs without asking permission, but you have to keep your eyes peeled for military aircraft if you do. The perpetual dust/wind storm continued unabated for the rest of the day. I couldn't figure out why the dust was such a strange color (gray instead of brown) until I heard on the news that the wind had picked up all of the leftover ash from the Station Fire and was blowing it all over creation. What lousy timing! And I was so looking forward to flying somewhere new...[impassioned sob]...but I had a proactive day regardless. After ground school concluded, I came back home, grabbed a USB drive, ran into town and got my novel manuscript printed up at Mojave Copy & Printing. (I like them. The printing was quick and inexpensive; the woman in charge let me run down to the bank to get cash without making me stump up collateral; and, after I expressed concerns, this same lady frankly assured me that neither she nor anyone else would try to steal my story or keep any record or copy of the printing.Yes, I was worried.) I ran a few other errands and then came back home and got to editing as the wind whistled and the dust blew outside my window. Later on that evening, Mom started a fire in the old wood stove. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. So what if I got blown out? It's warm in here and there's work to be done...

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.

Revelations 4:1

After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this."

I know what I should be doing. What I should be doing as I write, which I am most definitely not doing now, is asking myself the same questions that it's recommended every journalist ask himself when writing up an article. How does this affect the reader? Why should the reader care about this? What can the reader get out of what I'm writing? If the answer to these questions is something along the lines of it doesn't/they shouldn't/nothing, respectively, then I shouldn't be writing in the first place. What I've failed to realize, selfishly, is that writing a blog is really not that much different from writing for a newspaper or a magazine. In order to be appealing, interesting, useful and engaging (and therefore justify my existence in the blogsphere), I need to be putting stuff up here that is appealing, interesting, useful and engaging, not just for me but for others. Up to this point I haven't been doing that. The crap that's been posted to this blog hitherto has been partially for your imagined enjoyment and mostly for the massage of my own ego. How else can I explain the literature reviews, the endless blather about cocktail-mixing, the endless stream of inane personal updates and opining? Well, no more. I'll still review, and still for my own enjoyment, but I'll try to do so more accessibly. I'll still pontificate, but I'll pontificate in a way that's entertaining and relevant. I'll still post updates about my life, but updates such as I hope will be relevant to the reader, entertaining and enlightening. I'll still write about aviation, travel and literature, but in less of a indignant, hectoring manner and more in an engagingly didactic vein. (It'll be both educational and fun, instead of whiny.) And I still intend to keep up the inclusion of current events at feasible junctures. (An article in the Los Angeles Times today stated that the Station fire was now 38% contained.) And now for a quick update: I just want to say that my temporary position with the local newspaper is getting a whole lot better. The past two days I've made no major mistakes whatsoever and have been keeping up a steady level of output, mainly obituaries and news briefs but with a few genuine articles scattered here and there. An article in the Review published on Tuesday contained a piece of mine about the man who won the Apple Valley Chamber of Commerce's 2009 Samaritan of the Year Award; today my article about the Inland Empire Report on Business ran; and tomorrow there'll probably be something about the three leopards, three cougars, three tigers and two lions that were relocated from the Wildlife Waystation in Sylmar (and the path of the Station Fire) to the Hesperia Zoo temporarily. On a related note, my article about Seolnar in Seoul that was accepted at Real Travel Adventures (a free online travel e-zine) finally ran! It's on the website as we speak: www.realtraveladventures.com. Not much else to report. The valley is still smoky, despite the containment being reported, and as a result it's miserably hot. But I'm not complaining; there's been over 60 homes lost to the fires at last count, and those poor people who've lost them have more of a right to feel hard done by than I do. Signing off. From here begins a new era.

let's date this thing

One of the things I reckon I should be doing in keeping this blog is not merely rattling on about myself, but tossing a few current events in here and there to inform readers (present or future) and date this blog for future reference. In other words, I have a feeling that this blog, should it survive until my death at the ripe old age of 89 in 2075 or early 2076 (or even longer), would be more enlightening and stimulating for its future readers if it contained some hint of the historically significant things were going on in the world or nearby at the time that I wrote it. So! To that end, I'll be trying to include bits of news in future posts, should something strike me as being significant. Right now, as I write these words, the Station Fire is raging some miles west of here in the Los Angeles National Forest between Acton and Altadena, all over Mount Wilson and the surrounding hills. It's slowly creeping down the slopes toward settlements in the valleys. Some homes have already been lost. Worse, the fire has already killed two firefighters; their car rolled down a hill. The Station Fire has grown steadily from 13,000 to more than 30,000 square acres in just two days. Yesterday's news reports said that the fire was only 5% contained; but the L.A. Times this morning has stated that the fire doubled in size last night. It's called the Station Fire because it started near a fire station. Even this distance away (my parents' house sits on the most extreme eastern fringe of Apple Valley, halfway between that principality and the tiny burg of Lucerne Valley to the east, in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains), I can look out my window and see the effects of the fire. For the past two days the entire valley, horizon to horizon, has been coated with the yellowish-brown haze of drifting, dissolved smoke. You can smell it in the air. The gigantic plume of smoke obscured the western sky at first, three days ago, then spread out and covered the area thinly but definitely. It weighs on the spirits like a cloudy day, not just from the sickened appearance it imparts to the countryside, but the knowledge of its origin: the devastation it has wreaked and is still wreaking among the plants, animals and people of the national forest to the west. Just a few days ago, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy died at age 77. His funeral was all over the news networks for two days. Though I was no fan of his political views, nor his history with women, I still did not wish for his death. The Democrats have done two things in the wake of Senator Kennedy's passing: they have either mourned it as the passing of "Camelot," as the Kennedy Administration in the 1960s was known (Ted was the last living member of the immediate Kennedy family, a dynasty that has been active in American politics for decades)...or they have tried to parley his death into a sales pitch for "Obamacare," as Obama's much-hyped and controversial health care plan has come to be called. Some senators insist that "this is what Senator Kennedy would have wanted," while the conservatives and even some in the media blast them for using Kennedy's death for political agenda advancement. Judge as you see fit. I'm just glad the media has made as big a stink over Senator Kennedy's death as they did over Michael Jackson's death a few months back. I don't deem anything regarding Michael Jackson fit to print here, so we'll move on. There remains little to tell that is not old news. Some months ago former president Bill Clinton flew to North Korea in a surprise visit to that totalitarian nation's martinet of a dictator, Kim Jong-Il, to negotiate for the release of the two Korean-American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were captured near the Korean-Chinese border five months before. (Which side of the border they were on remains the topic of much debate.) Even more surprisingly, Clinton negotiated successfully and quickly, and the two journalists were flown back to the States and reunited with their families within the week. I was most intensely relieved to hear this. I shudder to think of what the two women could have been in for (they had been sentenced to twelve years' hard labor for entering the country illegally and "malicious acts against the state"). I was glad that they had been rescued. I'm no fan of Bill Clinton but I applauded him for this. There were some, though, who blasted him for stooping to negotiate with a belligerent tyrant like Kim (and I can definitely see their point), but the main thing was just to get those two American civilians home. The only really big thing that I can think of that's happened recently is that Barack Obama was elected president back in November of 2008; but that was five months before I started keeping this blog, so we'll let that one go.