Rants and Revelations

Ok, let’s say you’re in a state that isn’t your home state. Just for example, say it’s New York State. And you’re on a major highway, say for argument’s sake The New York State Thruway. And you come to a toll plaza. At that toll plaza, you see 7 lanes that have green lights over them and long lineups, and one lane that has a flashing yellow light, and a sign that says “EASYPASS ONLY/NO CASH” and a much smaller lineup. What do you do?

• a) Assume that “NO CASH” means it’s free, and everybody is lined up at those other places because they’re really concerned about the budget deficit in New York and the shocking state of our highways, so you go to the EASYPASS ONLY/NO CASH lane.
• b) Assume that just because you have no idea what “EASYPASS ONLY” means, it probably applies to you because you’re special, and go to the EASYPASS ONLY/NO CASH lane.
• c) Assume that although you have no idea what “EASYPASS ONLY” means, if you stop and honk your horn, somebody will come over and explain it to you, so you go to the EASYPASS ONLY/NO CASH lane.
• d) Assume that “EASYPASS” just means that it’s going to be easier to pass than the others, so go there.
• e) Assume that everybody lining up at the other booths are just incredibly stupid for passing right by this obviously shorter line to go to the longer lines. And hey, reading signs is what the stupid people do, not you.
• f) Go to the longer lineups.

If you answered anything but ‘f’, like the fuckwit with the Florida plates ahead of me yesterday (who chose option ‘c’), stay the fuck off of the New York State Thruway. Forever.

On second thoughts, go back home and stay there, forever.

It was a nice day today, so I took the opportunity to go for a flight. First time flying alone since August. Mighty fine.
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The person poking around looking for unlinked information was a shy relative. Not creepy, just a little naive about what we would or wouldn’t notice. Now that she’s made contact, I’m sure her half-sisters will be happy to give her more information. Welcome to our web sites, Helli.

Somebody in Finland has been reading all our blogs. It appears that he/she/it started with Stevie or Laura’s, which isn’t all the surprising since they have a Finnish last name. And he’s followed the links from those blogs to Vicki’s and mine. Not a big deal - if we didn’t want random strangers reading our blogs, we’d make them private.

But now it appears this person has gone a step beyond. They are no longer just following links, they are fishing around for files that aren’t there. Looking at this IP, I see attempts to reference

/~rose/me
/~rose/lstevie
/~rose/mom
/~rose/dad
/~rose/home
/~rose/friends
/~rose/school
/~rose/my%20pictures
/~rose/my_pictures
/~laura/me
/~laura
/~laura/laura
/~laura/dad
/~laura/sis
/~laura/sys
/~laura/stevie
/~calsabon/me
/~calsabon/stevie
/~calsabon/laura
/~calsabon/mom
/~calsabon/dad

and I’m more than a little creeped out.

So whoever is at 81.197.2.111, listen up: Looking for information nobody invited you to look at is a violation of our privacy. Identify yourself or find your IP blocked and a complaint lodged with your ISP. And quit looking for things that aren’t there.

It took a few minutes for it to sink in, but I can’t believe how relieved I am to have my medical back. After I finished posting the initial entry to my blog, I almost cried. I wonder what it’s going to be like when I actually get the piece of paper. I can’t wait for a nice day to go up and remember what it’s like to fly alone again.

I just phoned about my medical again. It’s been granted! They put it in the mail yesterday, and with any luck I’ll be flying again after Christmas.

My latest assignment: write up a paragraph or two describing anything I did in the last major release of the product that might qualify as inventive, so that the patent lawyers can pick it over and decide what to patent.

Have I mentioned recently how evil software patents are?

As mentioned in previous blog entries, I’ve been without an aviation medical since the 1st of September. At the time, the Aircraft Owners and Pilot’s Association was saying that 3 of the 7 FAA medical examiners who deal with cases like mine were with their reserve units in Iraq, and to expect a 12 to 16 week delay getting your case reviewed. Then, a month after that, I phoned the FAA Aeromedical people to see what was happening, and they assured me that the 3 medical examiners were back, and the backlog had been dealt with, and my case was already under review. That was October. October came and went, and in December I phoned again, and was told that yes, it was currently under review. They also suggested I phone every week so my file will keep near the top of the pile. So here I am, phoning for the third time this month. And there is still no fucking news. I’d get angry, but the people on the phone are always so gosh darned nice. I suppose that’s why they located the Aeromedical branch in Oklahoma City instead of Washington DC.

If I don’t get my medical back soon, I’m going to have to go back on the anti-depressants for FAA-induced depression.

Dakota paint job.

Probably not of interest to most people (like the rest of this blog is? My capacity for self delusion is amazing sometimes even to me.) but this is daily views of the Rochester Flying Club’s Dakota getting repainted.

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage

Early days in the campaign, and the Bush campaign is already going to their strengths - telling all out bold face lies about their opponents. What a surprise. I don’t know which is sadder - that they have so much contempt for their supporters that they think nobody will see through the lies, or that their supporters are so contemptably stupid that the lies work.

I haven’t posted to the blog much because I’ve been so consumed with grief and anger over Maddy’s sickness, and then her death. First I was spending what little energy and time I had posting updates and improving Maddy’s blog. After she died, I set up a memorial blog. I was hoping friends of Maddy would post their favourite memories of her, pictures and the like. People are posting these memories to her favourite mailing lists and newsgroups, which is disappointing to me because I was hoping they’d all be collected in one permanent place.

ajc.com | News | President Bush to visit N.C. celebration of flight centennial

I think it would really suck if a couple of F-16s had to shoot down the Wright Flyer for violating the 30 mile Temporary Flight Restriction that surrounds the president at all times.

Especially since they probably wouldn’t be able to get a Sidewinder lock and have to go to guns.

For years now, Vicki has been dragging me out to school events. I dread the Christmas season and the late spring, because it seems like every day there is another boring concert or interminable award ceremony in a stuffy school auditorium in uncomfortable chairs. My knees hurt just thinking about it.

Today, I just felt too overwhelmed by everything, and begged off of going to one of Laura’s concert. Vicki wasn’t pleased, but I wanted to do my tiny bit of Christmas shopping (ordering some stuff for my mother and brother) and I have about 4 things on my CoPilot to-do list that I wanted to start tackling.

As soon as the car pulled out of the driveway, I started thinking I made a mistake. There aren’t going to be too many more of these things before the step-kids are all gone, and this one was going to be a good one. I probably only get one ‘bye’ this year, and I wasted it on a concert that was actually not going to be too bad.

And now that Vicki’s come home and shown me the tape, I’m doubly sorry I didn’t go. Laura sure is turning into quite a woman. Gorgeous, confident, intelligent, and a great singer. I bet she intimidates the hell out of the boys, though. First it was Stevie, then it was Laura and Liane. Soon it will be Alyssa, and then all these little girls will be confident young women.

When I was Laura’s age, I sat next to a very pretty girl in biology class, and for the first 4 months of class I couldn’t even look at her. On the rare occassions when she said something to me, I would just stare straight ahead and answer in clipped one and two word sentences. I was just too shy to do more. I never said her name, not once. “Luckily”, if you refuse to look at a person, use their name or talk in complete sentences, they don’t talk to you much. I remember what an accomplishment it was when I discovered that I could talk to the guy on the other side of her, and sort of look at her out of the corner of my eye, and how that eventually led to three way conversations that included her. So when I talk about being intimidated by girls, I’m kind of an authority. I’m the pathetic geek’s pathetic geek.

Not only is my job to help deliver those evil advertisements that pollute your movie experience, but now my name is on a software patent application. On the plus side, now that I’m evil, I won’t have a moral dilemma if the only jobs available after this one are producing porn web sites or (shudder) working for the Republicans.

Yeah, this one I don’t put any quotes around the word “emergency”. It was scary, it was real, and I’m happy to be on the ground again. And I will never, ever, ever skip the run-up just because I flew the plane for two hours a mere 15 minutes ago.
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