Friday Odds & Ends

A friend lent me two hard science fiction novels, one sword & sorcery fantasy novel, and one Arthurian romance.

I thought I’d enjoy the hard sci-fi (and I do) but her brand new paperbacks are in such perfect condition I’m afraid to open the pages wide enough to read because I’ll crease the books’ spines if I do.  My solution is to buy and download the electronic versions to read on my Nook.

I’m trying to get into the sword & sorcery novel, but it ain’t happening.  Even though the author, Gene Wolfe, is often brilliant, the genre doesn’t appeal to me.  So … returning unread, along with the two sci-fi paperbacks.  I may as well fess up that Arthurian romance doesn’t interest me either, and just return all four books.  But hey, I’m still reading two of the four she loaned me, even though not the actual copies.

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My air museum checkout is proceeding apace, whatever that means. I elected to be a walking tour docent, which is the job requiring the most knowledge and interaction with the public.  I’ll be leading two 50-minute tours: the first will cover a general selection of aircraft from all eras of flight, grouped together in the museum’s largest hangar; the second will cover the museum’s selection of World War Two aircraft, spread out over two smaller hangars.

I’m at the point now where I have to put together my own tour.  Of course I have to know something about every aircraft in the three hangars, but I’ll be focusing on only a few.  My plan for today is to ride out to the museum and pick the planes I want to talk about, then ride home and start putting together fact sheets and talking points.  No, I won’t be able to read from those fact sheets when I’m leading tours; all that will have to be memorized.  This is turning out to be a much bigger deal than I initially thought it would be, and just between you and me, I think that’s great … I needed something to do!

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Speaking of things to do, I’m leading a bicycle hash this Sunday.  Yesterday morning I rode my mountain bike around the neighborhood and scouted out a trail.  After Sunday’s event, our hashing schedule will slow down for the summer … not only is it too hot for us, it appears other hashers feel the same way, because we have the hardest time finding friends to hash with between the beginning of June and the end of September.

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A friend is on a committee preparing a draft statement for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson.  The statement, which will be read by the bishop himself, is meant to spell out the church’s position on illegal immigration and immigration policy.  My friend thought the committee was wandering off the subject and asked me to take a look at the draft.

Here’s the fun part: my friend is a Jew and I’m an atheist.  So, anyway … the church is taking a humanitarian approach to the problem.  The bishop doesn’t want to break up families in the name of immigration enforcement.  Many illegal immigrants working on this side of the border have perfectly legal American families in Arizona.  The church also recognizes that Arizona agriculture relies on cheap immigrant labor, and wants immigration reform to include a program for temporary farm workers. The church doesn’t think Arizona should have stricter immigration policies than the federal government, and doesn’t approve of state and local law enforcement getting involved in immigration enforcement.  Hey for the church … that’s all stuff my friend and I can get behind!

So I took a whack at the draft, my friend forwarded my revisions and comments to the committee, and now the committee wants me to work with them.  I told my friend I’m a lousy team player, but he says we’re both critical to the effort … if the bishop says “Who wrote this crap?” the committee needs somebody to blame.  Who better than a Jew and an atheist?

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Donna made dinner last night and I took notes.  The recipes (with photos yet!) for paprika schnitzel and fried potatoes & onions are up at Crouton’s Kitchen!

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And with that, dear friends, it’s off to the air museum.  Have a great weekend!