Poems, Prayers and Promises

My last day at home for break, Sunday had snuck up on me quicker than I expected. Church was awesome! Lafayette isn't bad, but I was so glad to be back at my home church. Probably the thing I enjoyed the most was the Sunday school class Pastor Johnson was reaching on the church. Even though we deviated many times from the main topic, we touched on many things that I had been thinking about recently, so it was really cool. I love the humility that he has when explaining what we think versus what other people think. I really strive to have that same humility. It was also kind of encouraging because what he was saying agreed with what I had come up with in my own study. There was a church dinner this Sunday, so that gave me a little more time to catch up with people.

Oh! I forgot to mention. We watched Hildago as a family Saturday night. It was a cool movie over all, the whole Indian thing got pretty corny, and I don't know that I buy the fact that his horse went from being near death to sprinting across the finish line, but it had some really good parts. Like were the stuck up lady was trying to seduce the Hopkins guy and It looked like she was going to kiss him and then he was like "Goodnight Mam" right in her face and then just walked out. How often do you get to see that kind of action in Disney movies?

So anyway, then Sunday night we went back up for evening service, which was also good. I was just trying to soak up the last moments of being back in familiar territory. After the CYA prayer meeting Stacy had a bunch of people over to her house to make some homemade pizzas. We'll never know how the frito one would have tasted since one of the girls got that piece and picked 'em off. After dinner we broke out the guitars and played some songs like "This land is my land" to which we all kind of sang ourselves silly. Ok, or maybe that was just Erick and me that sang to that point, but they checked the grape juice just the same.

So then I got back up to Lafayette about 2 AM last night and jumped in bed. Later that morning, I got back up, took a shower and launched off for a long day of classes. I had my final 727 sim flight check today and it went really well, so thanks to those that were praying.

Hey, I just got to share this cool thing God was showing me this week. This is what I started to mention at the prayer meeting and then just said to go read my blog. It's not really a new thing I guess. I've always kind of been worried, I don't think that's the right word, maybe anxious about trying to discern God's will for important areas of my life. Now I'm not talking about decisions like whether or not to go home this weekend, but more things like: what does God have for me to do after college, what wonderful girl does he have for me to spend the rest of my life with, and things of that caliper. Not that I was paranoid or obsessed about these decisions, but I was a little concerned that I couldn't quite tell from my current vantage point where God was leading in these areas. I still can't, but what I do realize to a better extent now is that the reason I can't see those things right now is simply because it's not God's will that I know right now. When it's time for me to know, he will make it clear. This takes an enormous step of faith from me because I like to "have it all figured out". But like it says in Isaiah 55:6-13 God's ways are better than my ways and not only that he promises like in Jeremiah 17:5-8 to bless the man who trusts in the Lord. This both gives me a peace about the future and presents for me a great challenge. Obviously the fact that God is directing my life is comforting, but at the same time learning to restrain my feelings and not get them confused with God's will can be challenging. I think this is a trap that many people fall into; the trap of wanting direction from God so bad that they begin to confuse their feelings about something with what God's direction is. This is something that I've had to continually guard against and I'm sure I will have to for the remainder of my life. It's easy to think that if we "have a good feeling" about something, then it must be God's will. Just something I had been thinking about. Like I said, nothing new, it's just so applicable to where I'm at in life right now.

As you could probably all guess from the absence of posts on my blog, I have been totally involved in enjoying this long awaited opportunity to be back with my family and friends at home. Although Purdue is great, the relationships that God has provided for me with my family and other people will always, in my life, far exceed the importance of school and career. So with that said, here is the happenings of the lest few days:
Tuesday after finally returning to my house in Lafayette from classes at around 6 pm, I tried unsuccessfully to muster enough energy together to begin packing for the trip home. I know that's a little late to start thinking about packing but it had already been a long week at just two days in length. I rested on the couch for an hour or so and then, inured to fatigue by the semester thus far, I got up and gathered the things I would need for the next several days into a big black duffel bag. After loading the bag, my bike, and my guitar into the truck I was sure that I had to be missing something as the truck still seemed mostly empty. Not being able to think of anything I had forgotten, I locked the door on the now singularly dark and quiet house, climbed into the familiar drivers seat of my truck, and began the trip home. I started out playing some of my music singing along with it occasionally to break up the monotony. After the end of my first CD though, I welcomed the silence as a time to be able to think about things that begged thought. Soon enough I was back in the familiar territory of home being welcomed by my family.
Wednesday my family was nice and went about their day while containing their desire to see me while I slept in till 10:30. That being the latest I've slept in for awhile it was much welcome. The rest of the day was spent catching up with the various family members. I really got some quality time talking with each one. I found out that Kathryn's love for books went way beyond what I had thought. I knew she enjoyed reading but once she got started on al the good books she had read and reread recently, I was amazed. I found out that Philip is going to do his first year of college back at IUPUI instead of coming up to Purdue as he had been thinking about doing. We also talked about many other things that just somehow don't make it into the phone calls home. Oh, and all the cooking. Mom and Kathryn were busy preparing all kinds of great stuff for the next day. Dad and I joked about how we would probably be recruited to help peel potatoes, and sure enough not thirty minutes later a request came from the kitchen to have the potatoes peeled. After some careful thought we determined that last year, we hadn't peeled the potatoes for the au gratin potatoes, and besides, that we liked it better that way. Mom rolled her eyes but did agree that they were better when not peeled, and we were saved from KP duty yet another year.
Thursday. Getting up a little on the late side again, I took a shower nearing lunch time and then joined in the preparations being made for our Thanksgiving day repast. It ended up that none of our relatives were going to be around this thanksgiving, so that really took a load off Mom's back it seemed. After eating, we got to spend most of the afternoon as a family. A family from church joined us for dessert in the evening.
Friday was a fun day. Philip, Kathryn, and I got up early and pulled together our bikes and some food in preparation for the long awaited mountain biking trip. Most of the people that had originally planned on coming decided against it due to the cold weather and the forecast of rain. The group that ended up going consisted up the three Filson sisters, Eric, Stacy, and of course my brother and sister and me. I was so glad that we made it down there. Even without the verdure common to the warmer seasons, the beauty was still overwhelming. Once we began moving it didn't feel cold at all. If fact, many of us had removed all sweatshirt and coats by the top of the first hill. The sound of the wind rushing through the leafless trees, the familiar smell of the earth beneath the leaves that now lay rotting on the ground, the briskness of the fall air, it was just great. I could have left my bike at home and had just as much fun. And that might not have been a bad idea. About halfway through the excursion, the brakes on my wonderful walmart bike decided that they were exhausted beyond use as the exact same moment that I was shooting down one of the steeper hills on that trail that had a hairpin turn at the end and a steep dropoff just beyond. I did what I could but before I knew it, I was bouncing off of trees, spinning in the air, and finally came to rest looking up at the now clearing sky. Nobody witnessed the accident since I was riding behind everyone, partly because I wanted to be able to stop and help anyone else that might have had an accident (seems I should have just been concerned about me) and also because a few jumps back the whole rear of my pant had blown out and the tear had just continued enlargening. Either way, everyone else was now on down the trail and out of sight. I started to crawl back up the hill I had partially slid down. There was a sharp pain in my leg. I had the sickening feeling that I had now joined the ranks of those that had broken bones. For a few moments I just sat there on the edge of the trail, afraid to investigate my injury further, and watched a little limpid stream that was slowly and peacefully trickling it's way along in the bottom of the ravine below as if to form contrast to the way that I had so rudely arrived at it edge. I grabbed my leg and checked the continuity of it's bones. Much to my relief, everything still seemed to be connected as it was before. Spurred on by this bit of good news, I hobbled painfully up on my feet, unbent a few necessary parts of my bike, and plunged forward to meet the others. That was the most painfully segment of the trail for the entire day, even though it was down hill. Once I caught up with the others, they all promptly made my lay down because apparently the pain of riding down had turned my face an unnatural white. Carrie went right to work with her field-hospital-in-a-bag. I think she was more excited about the prospect of having someone to use her fist aid kit on than the mountain biking itself. She took her time figuring out what the bandages would best fit the situation and exactly what the best way to apply them would be. I didn't mind this at all, as I welcomed the excuse to lay down for awhile. It was a good thing she had brought that kit with her though, as the biggest thing I had with me was a standard bandaid and that would not have come close to covering the the 3 inch gash in my leg. It was a deep one too. We were all speculating as to whether or not the white at the bottom of it was the bone or just more white flesh. If it wasn't for Carrie I would have been left to die of my fatal wound. Or not, but it wouldn't have gotten any where near the appropriate care. The rest of the trip went relatively uneventfully, I eventually became inured to the pain and was able to enjoy the remainder as if nothing had occurred. The trip home was great too. We got so many looks from people just because of the sheer number of bikes hanging off our vehicles.

That pretty much brings everything up to date. It's definitely past my bed time. Please overlook any spelling, grammar, or content errors as I really don't feel like rereading it all right now.

I was told

I needed to use

paragraphs

every time I started a new thought.

So in order to expand

my

educational horizons,

I now start a new paragraph every time my attention is diverted to some other thought while typing this

post.

Yeah, so that was pretty stupid. Whatever. It's been a long day.

This post is going to be really short because I need to be studying for an ultra important test tomorrow; and besides that I just about lost my finger in turbines lab today so the typing is even slower than usual. This past weekend was pretty action-packed. Readers Digest version: replaced the water pump in Josh's car Friday afternoon so that he could drive home, watched a movie Friday night, came back to a house that was pretty quiet and empty with both my roommates back in Indy for the weekend, got up the next morning kind of slow, sat down with some hot chocolate to read for awhile, studied, met with my flight student, studied, studied, played Guitar until my D string broke, sat around depressed about the Guitar because I didn't have any spares, cleaned the house, studied, went to bed. Excuse me while I take a deep breath. Alright, then Sunday went to church, talked about how we should approach studying the bible, which fit in well with the Nav's ABC format, really cool, and then after church, I think it was Kara suggested that her and Andrew and I just load up the truck and spend the afternoon at Turkey Run. Sounded good. Why not? So off we went to Turkey Run after a very filling, at least for me, lunch in the dining court. I wanted to make sure I ate 8 bucks worth of food. So then after a great time hiking around Turkey Run, we stood on the suspention bridge while the sun set except that we were looking the wrong direction to see it because we were watching the fish in the water on the other side of the bridge. None of us ever claimed to be normal. Then we headed back to Lafayette to the strains of John Denver much to Andrew's dismay. Once we got back to lafayette, I found a new way to remove hair from my hand that involved fire and fashion magazines. Check out the pictures. Then we cooked up some marinated ribs and hamburgers on the grill. Kara and Andrew provided the entertainment as we went back and forth between Andrew's music and Kara's music. I wish we had got a picture of some of Andrew's facial expressions. It was great. I even threw a song or two in there. Fortunately I didn't have any issues with either set of music, so it was more like a silent movie with a great soundtrack to me. So all in all, it was a great relaxing weekend.

So that brings us up to today. Today I did something that I haven't done many times before, I went to take a test that I didn't study for at all. we'll see how that comes out. As I eluded to before, turbines lab wasn't so great. It started off with all my lab partners declaring that it indeed true that I was weird once they found out that I was homeschooled. Thanks y'all, I needed a little encouraging reminder that I was different. Then, while we were reassembling the engine we took apart a couple weeks ago, some smart guy in our group got the bright idea to spin the engine while I was working on the compressor. My right pointer finger brought an abrupt stop to the engine as it got stuck in the first axial stage. I was upset, but it's all good. I grabbed a bandaid out of my back pack and hurried off to the bathroom to patch up my finger tip that was now bleeding profusely. Thank God it got stuck in there like it did though, because from the look of this slice in the end of my finger, it wouldn't have taken much for it to just remove the entire tip, and that screws up the police's finger print file so that's bad. Or could be good. But anyway, when I got back, the same guy that just about decapitated my finger started asking me if he could use my wire cutters to remove his stitches. Obviously he was no stranger to doing stupid things resulting in injury.

Now y'all have to understand this, tools are a personal thing in the world of maintenance, or anywhere I would assume. So if you ask someone if you can borrow one of their tools and they say no, it means no. Top that off with the fact that this slacker decided that even though he was in the maintenance program up here and it's a requirement that you have your own tools, he was above buying tools because he could just borrow everyone else's. That really gets me. So anyway, he proceeds to rummage around in my tool box, big no-no, to try and find something to remove his stitches. Yeah, I wasn't happy; and for the record I wasn't smiling.

So that was bad. Now, feeling lightheaded and dizzy from my loss of blood and lack of food, I trugged down to the simulator building to fly the 727. It didn't go terribly bad considering the circumstances and the fact that I was wearing sandals because I forgot my shoes. Welcome to my morning, welcome to my day; as the song goes. It's a good thing this semester is almost over 'cause I don't know how much longer I can delay burnout. Have I ever mentioned that I don't really like Mondays? Well, on that depressing note, stay tuned for a less depressing post soon to come.....

Better look now, it won't stay looking like this for long. 

Well, the weekend is definitely over now so I figured it was time to update my blog since my last post was looking forward to the weekend. I am trying to forget Monday and Tuesday because of the hideous tests I had on those days, so I'll just totally skip those and move on to today. This morning I had my 4 hour aircraft systems lab that starts at 7:30. One of the girls in that lab had made some coffee cake and brought that in, so that really helped the day get started off right. The professor in that lab never really gives us any direction as to what needs to be accomplished in the lab and what we end up doing usually only takes about one of those four hours. So for the rest of the time the entire class went to the AT computer lab and made a collective effort on the homework for that class due later that afternoon. With that accomplished and 2 more hours of lab left, we went back out to the 727 and began exploring long forgotten corners of the aircraft. There is an air duct that scoops in air above the fuselage and ducts is down to an engine in the tail of the aircraft in line with the fuselage. That engine is missing in this aircraft so basically what it amounts to is a s shaped slide in the tail of the airplane that starts above the fuselage and exits out the tail. I had always wondered what it would be like to climb up into that duct, so my goal for the remainder of lab was to explore this overlook attraction. After driving the lift truck over to the tail of the airplane and opening the appropriate doors, I began the accent into the unknown. It must have been awhile since the last person got the wild idea to venture up into there, because the entire thing was covered in dust and grime. That just added to the challenge of making it to the top though, I would just about make it to the top and then I would start sliding back down. I finally made it, and of course once I had made it alot of other people wanted to try. So someone tossed a rope up to me to tie up there in the duct to help people climb up. After that, I got down and 4 other people crammed themselves up in into the duct at the same time. That was a funny sight in itself. About this time the professor made his first appearance of the lab and after viewing the chaos that was unfolding, just shook his head and walked back into the hangar. One of the people in the lab got pictures, so I'll have to see if I can get ahold of those.
After that lab, there were a couple boring classes, and then I headed out to Delphi airport. There's a girl in the maintenance program up here whose family has a little Cessna 140 and an ultralight out there, so a bunch of the manitenance students and I were going to go out there and do some "bomb drops" from the 140 for the fun of it. We dropped the "bombs" (sand filled balloons with streamers on them) at points on the airport from specific altitudes. We removed the doors on the airplane to make it easier to toss the bombs out, so we were glad it was a little warmer out today. It's amazing how it can be so entertaining to drop objects at targets from an airplane. Probably the most entertaining though was when we were turning to make another pass on the airport and one of the "bombs" flipped out the side of the airplane and started down towards a little lake that some guy was standing by. It hit on the shore on the opposite side of the lake from him, but we were kind of worried that he might have thought we were gunning for him. So when we landed I drove over to that guys farm to make sure he wasn't upset. He said he didn't even see it fall, but had heard a smack sound out there and just thought it was hunters out in the woods or something. He then proceeded to ask me all about the airport and airplanes and was really interested in it all, so I guess that's a good thing. Once I got back we had a pretty good laugh over the whole thing. After cooking some hamburgers on the grill and finishing up the tires on the ultralight, we headed back to Lafayette. I actually got some pictures of this whole thing so I'll have to post some of those. But for now, back to the ever present homework.

A very dark picture of the cookout in front of the hangar. 

Looking out the side of the cessna 140 with the doors removed. 

The Cessna 140 

This isn't going to be a long or terribly interesting post 'cause I've got alot to get done yet tonight unfortunately. Andrew and I went to watch Bourne Supremacy Friday night at the Stewart Center. Everyone else was either off doing other things, claimed the movie was bad even though they hadn't seen it, or thought it was too cold to go any where. Well y'all missed a good movie I'll tell ya that. It didn't play too much on the first one so you weren't totally lost if you hadn't seen it or couldn't remember it. This one had a major girly side to it though. Where the first one was all about him trying to find out who he was and piece his life back together, this one was primarily about him trying to find out what was going on so that he could figure out who killed his girlfriend. It was still good though. Some car chases, people sneaking around, cool guns, etc. But I won't ruin the movie for y'all. Then today I had and extra 727 sim session at 9:30 AM (ugh) and then sent my student on a cross country after lunch. While leaving the airport after signing my student off, I drove out across a couple harvested bean fields to get to this far corner of the airport where I could watch the airplane towing banners for the game in action as it switched off banners. That was cool. Then I just randomly drove around on my motorcycle for awhile before cutting back through campus to go home. I felt like I had driven into some kind of third world country when I was in campus. I got caught up in the surging mass of people that were going to the game and wasn't able to do more than kind of scoot along. A couple of random girls came up and were getting kind of friendly as I was sitting there waiting for people to get out of my way. They were all like "hey guy" and I was just like "sup". They were here supporting the buckeyes, what do you expect I guess. I'll just think of them as the crazed natives in my third world country. They must have been pretty desperate or pretty drunk 'cause I'm sure I wasn't a pretty sight sitting there on my circa 1980 motorcycle with my carhart sock hat pulled way down over my eyes and 4 layers of coats and clothing. But whatever. So I got back and then Josh's family took him and I out for taco bell for his moms birthday, and then I did home work for the rest of the day. End post.

Brazil Says It Will Shoot Down Suspected Drug Planes
Starting this week, the government of Brazil joins Colombia in empowering its air force to shoot down suspected drug planes. The policy is meant to staunch a growing commerce in cocaine using airstrips hidden in the vast Amazon forest. The Aviation Crime Prevention Institute (ACPI), based in Ormond Beach, Fla., warned last week that the policy could increase aircraft thefts, because drug smugglers will seek to replace any lost aircraft. So far this year, nine single-engine Cessnas have been reported stolen, four of those in Baja, Mexico, the ACPI said. Authorities in Brazil said they have careful procedures in place to ensure that no innocent flyers are shot down. Planning a trip? Brazil's government distributed 100,000 pamphlets and 10,000 posters at airports and fueling stations to inform pilots about what to do if they are intercepted, and also is broadcasting warnings by radio. Opponents to the policy say it is equivalent to the death penalty, which is banned in Brazil. Peru reversed its policy of armed attacks after two innocent people died in a missionary aircraft shot down in 2001.


I though some of you might find this interesting. I have read about the missionarys that were shot down in 2001, it's a real gripping story. This move by Brazil just makes it that much more risky for missionary pilots.....


I wrote this massive story/post tonight so that I would actually have something worth reading on my blog, but I ended up creating something that I'm not exactly sure that I should post lol. I really got carried away. Nothing bad, just....well if I ever post it you'll see lol.

Josh claimed that my room had a slight pink hue on his blog, so I posted this picture of his room to prove that if indeed my room is pink, his room is pinker.

 

Communion is coming up this Sunday and no one has brought that topic up yet, so I'm going to. Why not right? But first I've got to tell y'all about the attack gate. I'll keep it short, though, because according to Josh I say way to much on my blog and no one reads it anyway. So ok, I'm down near hangar 6 (the main flight ops hangar) and my student and I are standing in the parking lot lamenting the fact that another good flying day is passing us by and he once again wasn't able to fly. While I'm standing there talking to him, this firetruck pulls up to a automatic gate in the chain link fence, the gate goes up and the firetruck starts going through. Nothing unusual they go out and practice in corners of the airport all the time. Now this gate is kind of weird; a whole segment of the fence hinges up on one side and swings up and out of the way. As the firetruck was passing slowly through the gate, it began to lower onto the side of the truck. As soon as the gate hits the truck, they stop as if to get out and asses the situation. At this point both my student and I had turned to watch and were just kind chuckling at the situation. Next thing we know, whoever was driving the truck gets back on the gas and continues forward with the gate scraping down the side of the truck, rupturing some line on the truck that started shooting fluid straight up and bending the gate way back. I think I said something like "well that was interesting" and I know I was glad I wasn't the one that had to explain that one. Your tax dollars at work.

Alright, Communion. It's really not that controversial and I'm not going to make an exhaustive list of my view points here, but it might be interesting to discuss. I don't even know if anyone disagrees with me. Communion is a continual public reminder of the sacrifice Christ has made for us as well as the commitment we have made to Christ. Not too many people debate why we have communion, so I'll just skip to open vs. closed communion because that seems to be the gray area for alot of people. The Idea of closed communion is to prevent those that aren't in Christ and a part of the body of believers from bringing trouble onto themselves by participating in communion and suffering the consequences, which it is made clear in the bible exist. This is done by the session of the church talking to whoever wants to join in the communion celebration to make certain that they are in a position to do so. If it is found that they are good to go, they are "invited" to the communion table. This is done as opposed to open communion were someone not meeting the requirements to join in communion could unknowingly bring punishment onto themselves. I'm really sorry if all this seems kind of scattered, but I'm down here at the airport with no bible and just writing what I wrote kind of off the cuff. So I reserve the right to revise this later. Let me know what y'all think.

Well, I found one of my two posts from Sunday. Not the one on psalms but the one that is a failed attempt to be entertaining with sound bytes. Oh well, it was late. Apparently it had somehow become dated 1999 and showed up as an archived file from this time except back in 1999. Weird. Maybe it had to do with all the Twilight Zone sound clips.

Alright, so on Sunday I had typed up this really awesome post just to have blogger nuke it. The one time I wasn't saving as I went. I mean, it was going to be a good one too, because I started to talk about the whole Psalms/ instruments thing. But I don't have the time nor energy to retype all that so you'll just have to wait unfortunately. Sim went real well tonight! I broke my 3 sim streak of bad flights tonight by pulling off an almost flawless flight and putting my sim partners to shame. Even though they studied all afternoon for it and I had class from 11 till the 5:30 sim slot. Sorry, I have to boast when I can. It doesn't happen often and I was really excited about that. If you want something to read check out my comments to a post about yesterday's sermon. Ryan 100 is clear the active.

This will be a short post because I have a really important date with my bed in about 3 minutes. Sleep sounds better the older I get lol. I got to see the inside of the Stadium dining court for the first time since it opened Friday night. Josh and I went over joined the dorm dwellers for dinner. I started having flashbacks to freshman year as I grabbed my tray and silverware, filled up 2 or 3 glasses of coke ( the glasses are bigger now, so I didn't have to get the usual 10) and piled my plate high with all you can eat almond chicken Chinese stuff. It actually wasn't bad at all. For dorm food. But it's all you can eat so what can I say? It may not taste the best but you can really tank up. Which, the whole point of eating is to get full right? So anyway that was real cool. I don't know if it would be worth the 8.40 they charge non-residence, but one of the people we were eating with swiped us in which was awesome (Thanks, we'll owe ya one!). So then I went to the train club with Andrew, which actually ended up being more interesting than I expected, and then finished out the night and most of the next morning with homework, guitar, and reading some random articles online. I finally got in bed around 5:30 and slept till 11, when I got up and made failed attempts to finish some homework. Garrett (one of the other flight guys) came over to my house for awhile to hang out and because he wanted to ask me about some of the outdoors/ gun places around here. So that pretty much finished off Saturday, and today so far all I've accomplished has been going to church and then buzzing by the airport to once again not be able to send my student on his cross country. If you can't tell by the discontinuity and incoherence of this post along with the fact that I have once again started to add random sound bytes to my text, I'm pretty tired and I think my three minutes are up so, that's all for now folks!

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When was the last time you did this? Can you remember a time in the recent past that you simply stopped to think about all that God has done for you? I’m not just talking about the obvious fact that God has chosen you or me to have our sins totally covered over, but what about all the daily reminders of his firm, loving oversight in our lives. Like the fact that he allows us to live yet another day, no matter how bad the sim session went. Ok, so that might sound hokey and a little fundamental, but you know, I am learning more and more not to take even this for granted. Every day, the world gets out of bed, if it ever made it there, and grudgingly begins another day, taking for granted that it even began for them. People don’t think about death. For non-christians obviously it’s not something they want to think about because they don’t understand it and are therefore afraid of it. My Mom summed this up in a cool color photo she took in college. In the back ground was the Indiana State Fair’s midway, with all the colorful light and frivolity at full intensity; but in the foreground was the dark cemetery she was taking the picture from, with headstones reaching up as if grasping towards the otherwise unaware people in the midway. No one was in the cemetery (well, except my Mom and her wonderful boyfriend, now husband, that went with her to keep her company) but the midway was full of people “having a great time” But for Christians, we can happily thank God for another day, acknowledging the fact that life will end and knowing that death isn’t so bad itself because for us, life after death is a better prospect than life before death.
I bring this up because over the last week I have had several reminders of the brevity and fragility of our lives on earth. Last week I came back from the co-rec to find out via a message on my cell phone that my Dad had been hospitalized because he was showing signs of an impending heart attack, and then I couldn’t get a hold of anyone to find out how he was. Just a little scary. At the time they thought it was just an allergic reaction, but come to find out it was his immune system fighting his blood pressure medicine and that was causing all of his blood vessels and heart to swell, which made him unable to speak and start feeling numb. Apparently if they hadn’t got him to the hospital when they did, his heart would have swollen to the point where it would have been unable to keep beating. This was all kind of sudden and scary because over all, he’s in really good health. So yeah, he’s not on that BP medication anymore.
Then there was an older Christian couple up the street from us. We knew them real well, Mom had know them her entire life, and they had always lived in our neighborhood. We would go up and shovel off their drive when it would snow, and when it was nice out they were always sitting on their front porch and were always ready to pull up a chair for you if you wanted to come over to discuss deep issues or just talk about nothing at all. As far as I was concerned, they seemed like a permanent fixture and a great addition that street. And then, last Sunday evening, on their way to a reformation service at their church, an unmarked government vehicle in a high speed pursuit slammed into the side of their car, killing her in a bloody accident and putting him into a coma that the doctors aren’t sure he’s coming out of. We are definitely going to miss them, but are thankful that we know where they are going.
So in light of these reminders of God’s grace to us, we have a lot to be thankful for. The next time I start to complain about how hard school is or how little money I have or how I don’t like being out in the rain for my four hour lab, I need to stop and thank God for what he has done for me and the opportunities he has given me, like coming to school. Easier said than done I know. Will I ever be able to constantly praise and thank God as I swim in chest deep mud and dodge crazed drivers to get to class? Maybe not, but I can strive to be more Christ like and realize that unfortunately I won’t be perfect till the mud and crazed drivers kill me.

Monday, again. I've said it before, and so now I'm just shamefully repeating myself, but I don't like Mondays. At least this semester, because I have 8 hours of back to back classes, including a lab and finished off with goods ol' 72 sim. Tonight in the sim we were shooting the NDB to runway 14 right into O' Hare, um, translation: we were flying an approach...um....lining up with the runway to land using just a little needle that points to numbers on a dial and tells you where the station is in relation to the airplane, and while we were flying this approach we reached our missed approach point, um, the time when you decide if you are going to land or not, and there was no runway or ground or anything. Not totally unusual because that does happen sometimes when you don't break out of the clouds, but according to the instructor we were supposed to see a runway this time. Every single person in the sim (three crewmembers and the instructor) just kind of gave each other bewildered looks. Finally I (since I was the pilot flying at the time) decided that I just must be that bad of a pilot to totally miss the runway in a no wind condition, so I gave the order to go around and shoved in go around thrust. The airplane rolled it's eyes and slowly began it's climb skyward. The instructor was still sitting in the back mumbling something about how the runway should have been there while playing with all of his buttons and stuff in the back. Finally he figured out that he had forgotten to turn on the visual displays and that was why there was no runway, or anything, out the window. Meanwhile were still flying the missed approach and then all of a sudden he resets the simulation and we go from being at 5000 feet and 250 knots to being smack on the end of a runway and at 0 knots. Strange thing happen in that simulator building. I almost expected to here the music from "The Twilight Zone" start playing as Rod Serling welcomed me to, the simulator zone. do DO do do do Do do do. But anyway. So then earlier in the day in turbines lab, we spent like half of the lab time trying to figure out why it smelled so bad around our engine work station. One dead bird and a definitely dead mouse later, we still hadn't found the main source of the smell. So instead of hanging around there we went over to hanger 1 and got to run a PT6 from the Beech Starship in a test cell. Lot of noise, lots of power. So that was fun. After that we braved the smell in the engines lab and started watching one of those Computer Based Training CDs about the Allison 250 that had your typical guy-with-the-really-boring-voice on it. But we brought a couch out of the library and stuck it in our work area so we had something comfortable to sit on while we watched the CD. Actually none of us were really watching the CD because we were all sitting around discussing things like women's place in the workplace (there's one girl in our group), marriage, and other such controversial topic. So just kind of picture this: four people, three guys and a girl, just kind of sitting on this couch in the middle of a huge hanger surrounded by engines, propellers, a variety of other aircraft parts, and dead animals, discussing all kinds of weird topics. It was interesting, and no I wasn't the one that brought up the topics I mentioned. Alright so I forgot whatever it was I was going to post about because I started playing with this "twilight zone" websight to find sound effects. I forgot how cool that show was! Also check out this link that has a power point presentation on the DHL jet that got shot with a shoulder launched rocket. http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/181-full.html

later

New York PostOctober 28, 2004

The Myth Of The 'Missing Explosives': A Shameless Lie

By Ralph Peters

Should the United Nations decide who be comes our president? Sen. John Kerrywouldn't mind. He's shamelessly promoting the lies that the U.N.'sInternational Atomic Energy Agency is telling about Iraq.A devious IAEA report suggests that 400 tons of explosives were spiritedaway by our enemies under the noses of our Keystone-Cops troops after thefall of Baghdad. The document just happened to be released in the closingdays of our presidential election. Purely a coincidence, of course. Broughtto you by those selfless U.N. bureaucrats who failed in Iraq and are nowfailing in Iran.Since Kerry's willing to blame our troops for a scandal invented byAmerica-haters, let's look at the story the military way, by the numbers.
One: The IAEA claims its inspectors visited the ammo dump at Al-Qaqaa onMarch 9, 2003, and found the agency's seals intact on bunkers containingsensitive munitions. Unverifiable, but let's assume that much is true.
Two: Faced with an impending invasion, Saddam's forces did what any militarywould do. They began dispersing ammunition stocks from every storage sitethat might be a Coalition bombing target. If the Iraqis valued it, theytried to move it. Before the war.
Three: Members of our 3rd Infantry Division - the heroes who led the marchto Baghdad - reached the site in question in early April. Despite thepressures of combat, they combed the dump. Nothing was found. Al-Qaqaa was avast junkyard.
Four: Our 101st Airborne Division assumed responsibility for the sector asthe 3ID closed on Baghdad. None of the Screaming Eagles found any IAEAmarkers - even one would have been a red flag to be reported immediately.
Five: At the end of May, military teams searching for key Iraqi weaponsscoured Al-Qaqaa. They found plenty of odds and ends - the detritus of war -but no IAEA seals. And no major stockpiles.
Six: Now, just before Election Day, the IAEA, a discredited organizationembarrassed by the Bush administration's decision to call it on the carpet,suddenly realizes that 400 tons of phantom explosives went missing from thedump.
Seven: Even if repeated inspections by U.S. troops had somehow missed thisdeadly elephant on the front porch, and even if the otherwise-incompetentIraqis had been so skilled and organized they were able to sneak intoAl-Qaqaa and load up 400 tons of Saddam's love-powder, it would have taken aTeamsters' convention to get the job done.
Eight: If the Iraqis had used military transport vehicles of five-toncapacity, it would have required 80 trucks for one big lift, or, say, 20trucks each making four trips. They would have needed special trolleys,forklifts, handling experts and skilled drivers (explosives aren'tgroceries). This operation could not have happened either during or afterthe war, while the Al-Qaqaa area was flooded with U.S. troops.
Nine: We owned the skies. And when you own the skies, you own the roads. Wewere watching for any sign of organized movement. A gaggle of non-Coalitionvehicles driving in and out of an ammo dump would have attracted theattention of our surveillance systems immediately.
Ten: And you don't just drive high explosives cross-country, unless you wantto hear a very loud bang. Besides, the Iraqis would have needed to hidethose 400 tons of explosives somewhere else. Unless the uploaded trucks arestill driving around Iraq.
Eleven: Even if the IAEA told the truth and the Iraqis werestealth-logistics geniuses who emptied the site's ammo bunkers under ournoses, the entire issue misses a greater point: 400 tons of explosivesamounted to a miniscule fraction of the stocks Saddam had built up.Coalition demolition experts spent months destroying more than 400,000 tonsof Iraqi war-making materiel.Our soldiers eliminated more than a thousand tons of packaged death forevery ton the United Nations claims they missed. Does that sound likeincompetence? Why hasn't our success been mentioned? Can't our troops getcredit for anything?
Twelve: The bottom line is that, if the explosives were ever there, theIraqis moved them before our troops arrived. There is no other plausiblescenario.Sen. Kerry knows this is a bogus issue. And he doesn't care. He's willing toaccuse our troops of negligence and incompetence to further his politicalcareer. Of course, he did that once before.

Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."