Category: Rant

My Aviation Medical

I called the FAA today to see about my medical.

For those of you not following along, all pilots need to be medically certified before they can fly airplanes. (There are different rules for gliders, balloons and ultralights). My special issuance medical expired around the end of August, and I sent in the paperwork (doctor’s report, blood tests, etc) to get a normal class III medical at that time. At that time, the Aircraft Owners and Pilot’s Association (AOPA) web site warned about huge backlogs (12-14 weeks) due to the war in Iraq.

I’ve been hoping to get my medical back soon, because I’ve got some travelling to do next month, and I’d like to do it by plane. I called them, and the people who work the phones there at Oklahoma City are extremely nice. They told me that the doctors who went to Iraq are all back now, and the backlog isn’t all that bad now. They’re supposed to be back to their normal 90 day maximum turn-around. The second person I talked to said not to worry, it should show up soon.

Man, I hope so. I haven’t logged an instrument approach in a while, and I need to knock the rust off.

Art in spammer subject lines

I was grepping my spam collection to see all the spam I’d gotten from the spammer who evidently has problems with his substitution script and leaves “%RND_UC_CHAR[2-8]” in the subject lines of all his spams. And I was struck by a curious poetic quality of the random words on the rest of the subject lines. Here’s what I have collected:

grep RND_UC_CHAR Mail/yes.spam
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], moment only because
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], anyone his passport
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], the master held
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], poured water into
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], of haze before
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], under a black
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], lengthening the shadows
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], each other only
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], felt cold under
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], he quite simply
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], he quite simply
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], dont know about
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], having got nowhere
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], is there beer?’
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], seeing someone come
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], face was half
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], that he would
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], apollonovichs young relation
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], but he gave
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], made one more
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], made one more
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and yet each
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], a thunderclap right
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], the interpreter deftly
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], i’ve been sent
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], put his head
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], as luck would
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], ivan nikolaevichs apprehensions
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], the bell started
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and here some
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], turning the barmans
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], good god!’ riukhin
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], good god!’ riukhin
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], he asked: yeshua
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], here it comes
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], at the same
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and once more
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], woland is simply
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], balls always assemble
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], a finnish knife
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], possible to make
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], investigation was going
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], many hanging about
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], who is this
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], here styopa turned
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], the same tone
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], crowds of guests
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], brilliant numbers will
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], finally the century
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and here’s something
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], he had looked
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], what had happened
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], wearing only black
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], beyond the housing
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], had already been
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], to the hairy
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], the investigation appeared
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], military chlamys with
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], anyone his passport
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and the first
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], and the most
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], fifthstorey window three
Subject: Re: %RND_UC_CHAR[2-8], glass; street sweepers

Not as good as “The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed”, but it’s getting there.

Sad end to a beautiful bird

The Beech Starship is no more. Yeah, I know, it was too expensive, too heavy, didn’t carry enough, didn’t go far enough, all that stuff. But it was so cool looking. Whenever anybody would start to say “I saw this really weird looking plane, do you know what it was?”, you could answer “Beech Starship” without even letting them finish, and be right 90% of the time.

Here’s a picture of the last of them sitting on storage at Pima.

Great timing, assholes

Today, the wind was gusting up to 55 knots, and we’re getting the first snow of the season. So what does Kodak do? They have a fucking fire drill. And because it’s fucking cold and wet and blowing, it takes forever to empty the building, so therefore those of us who got out reasonably early have to stand around freezing our asses off.

One major reason why it was taking so long to empty the building was some fat ass dipwad cockbite was standing in front of one of the two double doors at our exit, and wouldn’t move out of the way even when I tried to push the door open. And if you’ve ever tried to push a 400 pound lump of congealed grease who is actively pushing back, you’ll know it’s not easy.