Saturday Bag o’ Updates (Updated 3/12/23)

I’ve been playing around with iPads, iPhones, and watches.

These are my three pilot watches, the Seiko 6139-6005 Pogue, the Breitling Chronomat, and the new Torgoen T9 GMT. Both the Seiko and the Breitling have Eagle time, so I posed them in front of F-15C cockpit photos, the very place they once called home. The Seiko logged well over 1,000 hours in that cockpit; the Breitling around 400. The Torgoen, being brand new, has none, so I posed it in front of an F-15EX cockpit, an aircraft I never flew (and never will). The only flying time it’s likely to get will be in the ass end of a 737, and then only if I’m carried aboard kicking and screaming. Being retired is generally a very good thing, but there are times I surely miss flying fast jets.

It’s Saturday morning in Tucson and already over 70°F. Quail are suddenly in the yard, as are ground squirrels. Spring has sprung, even though it’s a few days yet by the calendar. Fritzi’s been feeling a little low, but was eager to go for a walk with Mister B and Lulu today and seems to be bouncing back.

Arizonans love to brag about keeping the same time year round. While you all spring forward an hour Sunday, we laugh and make rude gestures in your general direction. What we don’t mention are all the appliance and audio equipment clocks that automatically spring forward and have to be set back an hour. With or without DST, we wind up resetting clocks. FML, am I right?

Our son Gregory turned 57 yesterday. By way of an inside family joke, I attached a childhood photo of myself to our Facebook birthday greetings post. Gregory and Beth were flying to Hawaii and didn’t see it until after they were in Kona, and then … he didn’t get the joke. Which is that as children he and I looked a lot alike. His son Quentin, our grandson, is even more of a mini-me (who happens to tower over both of us, but hey, work with me here). Maybe I should have posted a photo of him instead.

Daughter Polly will turn 48 next Thursday. For some reason that’s even more disturbing than having a son who’s 57. We sent Gregory a check; Polly picked out a watch and we bought it for her, and since she lives here and Gregory doesn’t, I plan to take her to an indoor range to give my pistols a workout … dad & daughter time, with bullets.

Even though I have just 230 followers on Instagram, someone took the time and trouble to clone my account and spam them. I don’t know if “cloned” is the right word; he/she/it borrowed my profile photo and claimed to be me, fooling no one. Alerted by friends, I reported the bogus account and changed my password, in the process discovering 40 Paul Woodfords on Instagram, all legit. That’s amazing, because while I was at it I looked for other Paul Woodfords on Twitter, where I found only six, and Facebook, where there are a mere four. What is it about Instagram that draws Paul Woodfords?

Update (3/12/23): Huh. I wasn’t using the Facebook and Twitter search function correctly. There are hundreds of Paul Woodfords out there. I will note, however, that my Twitter username, @paulwoodford, indicates I was the first to sign up there … all the others have numbers after their names.