A Long Way to Go

This morning I got up and had my usual cup o’ Joe and started browsing through the Sunday morning headlines.

One particular headline caught my eye in the Dallas Morning News. It read, “Northern Iraqi Women Increasingly Attempting Suicide” with the byline, “Feeling hopeless about life, some women in Iraqi Kurdistan set themselves on fire, then suffer through survival.”

It was a pretty powerful headline for early morning reading and so was the article.

A couple of blogs back, I posted a link that highlights some of the policies that have actually been successful for the president in 2007. The troop surge is one of them.

Now that stability is finally taking hold because of that surge, it seems that humanitarian aid programs need to be increased through (dare I say it) the UN. The DMN article highlights a glaring need for it.

With their jobs nearly complete, the big guns of the 1^st Calvary and other divisions in Iraq are drawing to a close, but the humanitarian efforts will continue for years to come. I hope that we put as much attention and effort into the mission that is the Iraqi people as we did in dismantling an oppressive regime.

We gave them a new beginning. It’s our job to make sure they have the opportunity to live it.

DMN Article: Northern Iraqi Women Increasingly Attempting Suicide

ER

Funny Quote

I was on a forum this afternoon catching up on current events and opinions when I came across the quote below. It's probably not as funny as I think, but I found it amusing none the less.

If you have a friend that's a midge, I apologize in advance.

Quote: Support the 2^nd Amendment. The Democrats can have my guns when midgets rule the earth."

ER

A Very Good Year . . . Sort of

Back to politics for a moment, it seems our president had a decent year, minus the approval ratings of course.

Washington Times: Bush’s Very Good Year

ER

TFA: Deadliest Catch Redux

I’ve always had respect for the mountains. They’re beautiful, majestic and exhilarating at the same time. At the age of seven, I remember standing at the peak of Mt. Engineer in Colorado with my dad’s jacket on to keep me warm. It was an amazing view that I barely remember. Ever since then, my love for the mountains has been imprinted on my soul.

The ocean on the other hand is a different story. I was indifferent. Other than the footage I’ve seen on various Discovery Channel shows and the tranquility of walking on a beach, I really didn’t know what to expect.

When we departed Norfolk for Fort Lauderdale in early April, it was a cool, crisp and calm afternoon; it wouldn’t stay that way.

Later that night around Cape Hatteras off of the North Carolina coast, we would be hit by a late season cold front that we knew was coming but wasn’t sure what kind of weather it would bring.

At about one o’clock AM that morning, we found out.

Asleep in my rack, I awoke to the knocking of loose items and the slamming of open doors. I found myself levitating above my bed like Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters. When I stood up, it took every muscle I had to keep myself from running into walls and people.

It became obvious we were unprepared and the boat was a mess to say the least.

After stumbling through hallways and dancing up a flight of stairs, I finally made it to the bridge. I wanted to ask the captain how long we would be in these conditions, but just as I was at the top of that mountain twenty-one years ago, I was stunned and awestruck by what I saw.

Looking out the front of the bridge toward the bow of the boat, images of Deadliest Catch immediately came to mind. With the flicker of lightning reflecting off of the waves and the sharp, cutting beam from the spotlight on the mast above, I would watch the bow ride up a wave only to come crashing down and meet the next one head on. Waves would overtake the deck, and mist from the waves crashing into us would fly over horizontally in a left to right motion driven by a driving, howling wind.

It was a humbling experience for someone who had never been to sea before and a new respect came from it.

Thankfully, the remaining four days were quite pleasant, but that night is definitely one I’ll remember for years to come.

ER

The Floridian Adventures (TFA): A Feather in the Window

I found out about the Planktos opportunity (or challenge) in mid-March earlier this year. It seemed like a wonderful opportunity. Create the computer infrastructure for the Weatherbird II, travel the sea and see all these exotic places we were to travel to boot. Who wouldn’t turn it down, right?

So, at the beginning of April, I accepted Planktos’ invite.

Planktos bought my ticket on this initial interview. I would join the crew in Norfolk, Virginia and go through a five day trial run that would take us to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Now, when I fly, I’m a Southwest loyalist. In this particular case, I didn’t have a choice and thought nothing of it until I saw the ticket stub in my email inbox. AirTran Airlines was the carrier I would be flying and before this point, I had never heard of them.

Before I departed DFW, I told a friend of mine what carrier I was using. She looked at me with a crazed look and said, “What? Are you f*****’ crazy? They’re the Wal-Mart of the skies with the worst safety record possible.” (Note: To validate her point, I came to find out later that AirTran buys a majority of their airplanes used from the major carriers like American and Continental which translates into cheaper prices).

Cautious, but not deterred, I obviously took the flight anyway. This flight happened to stop over in Atlanta where I would board a connecting flight to Richmond, Virginia.

The flight from Dallas was unremarkable and round one was over when we landed in Atlanta. Round two of the trip however would be a completely different story.

After boarding the McDonald-Douglas MD-80 that would take myself and the other passengers to Richmond, it was obvious the plane was showing its age. Resolved, I found my window seat anyway, sat down and continued reading my Time magazine I bought in Dallas. When we started to push back from the gate, I put my magazine down, buckled up and turned to look out the window.

Now, when you look out an airplane window, you expect to see a wing, the tarmac or vehicles running around, hurrying to their destination. Well, not this window.

On most aircraft, the windows have two panes - an inner pane, and an outer pane with a void of air separating the two panes. In this particular void, there wasn’t just air. There was a whole, unblemished bird feather resting at the bottom of the window.

After staring in amazement, I began to ask myself how the hell a feather got there and what is wrong with this plane?

By this point in my stunned awe, we had already taken off and ascended into the clouds. Five minutes passed with me staring at the window when I was brought back to reality by the Captain coming on the PA system:

“Uhhhhhhh, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t want to alarm you, but the aircraft is doing some odd things. It just came out of maintenance last night and seems to be having some odd mechanical problems. Because of this, we’re going to turn back to Atlanta. We’ll give you updates when we get on the ground.”

And with that, the plane veered hard to the left, did a 180 and flew back to Atlanta.

When we got back to the airport, I found a nice little bar where I parked it and had some well deserved glasses of Scotch.

I eventually made it to Richmond, but I should have heeded that feathers warning. It was an omen of interesting things to come.

ER

The Floridian Adventures

As many of you know, I had a unique opportunity this past year to travel to Florida and install a computer network on a research vessel. It was interesting to say the least and over the next month or so, I’ll be posting some of those stories with the abundance of time I seem to have on my hands right now.

I’ll preface all these stories by saying when I initially showed up on the research vessel Weatherbird II, I thought I would be diving face first into a computer project that would take the better part of a summer.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

With the budget problems of a start-up company (Planktos) and the misconceptions of a job title, it was an adventure to say the least.

The stories are yet to come, so stay tuned.

ER