Air-Minded: PASM Photoblog VIII

I try to stay out of the restoration volunteers’ way at Pima Air & Space Museum, but curiosity overcame me yesterday, so I borrowed a golf cart and drove through the fence like I owned the place, armed with a selfie stick and my trusty iPhone. A few months ago a fleet of flat-bed semis […]

Wednesday Bag o’ Sit

Or Shack o’ Sit, if you prefer. Cleverly vulgar signs and business names are funny the first time you see them, but the humor wears out fast. Used to be, I’d see photos like this on Facebook and instantly share them with all my friends. These days I try to exercise restraint … and yet here I am leading […]

Attack the Enemy When He Is Unprepared

Wasps love our pool. They light on the water, float on surface tension for a few minutes, then fly off to their nests. They’re drinking, as anyone would in this heat, and I suspect storing a little extra water somewhere to deliver to the nest. It’s normally live & let live at Woodford Manor, but […]

Wednesday’s Child Is White & Privileged

Poor Maxie. I called her Schatzi this morning. I don’t know if she noticed, but I did, and it set me back a little. Donna’s away again, though not far. She’s at a retreat with fellow members of the local American Sewing Guild. Every year about this time they hole up in a Tucson resort hotel with their […]

Air-Minded: the Golden Age

The golden age of air travel dawned with the advent of pressurized commercial airliners that could fly above the weather and turbulent air closer to the surface, flourished under FAA control, and ended in October 1978 when the Carter administration deregulated the industry.

Air-Minded: Influencing the Future

In 1979, when I was stationed at Soesterberg Air Base in the Netherlands, Prince Claus and two of his boys came to visit. I was on air defense alert that day with Jim Kellogg. We were pretty sure the Dutch would arrange a scramble for the royal family. Sure enough, the klaxon went off and five […]

Friday Bag o’ Solitude

Donna’s been visiting family in California since the 12th. She returns on the 25th, next Tuesday. I’m over the hump now. Today, Friday, is the last long day with nothing on my schedule. Saturday morning I’m going for a short bicycle ride with friends; Sunday a longer ride with local Hash House Harriers; Monday of […]

Air-Minded: PASM Photoblog VII

Is it time for another batch of photos from Pima Air & Space Museum? Let me check. Yes, my overflowing Flickr account says it is! First up, our newest exhibit, a Supermarine Spitfire Mk XIVe recently acquired from the RAF Museum in Hendon, London. The Mk XIV is a late-WWII model of the original Spitfire, […]