O How I hate to fly!

I'm sitting in the airport getting ready to enter a hollow metal tube and travel at outrageous speeds thousands of feet above the terra firma. I just keep telling myself that, even though this does appear to be impossible and quite dangerous; people do this everyday. I also repeat other mantras like: "the pilot doesn't want to crash any more that you do" or "the airlines don't want a lawsuit any more than you want to crash."

I repeat the mantras. I internally chant the mantras. I make them into little songs and sing them over and over again in my head. But just as the tension starts to leave my neck and I feel like I can remove my finger nails from the seatback that is in front of me, a little voice in my head starts to whisper,

"Even though people do this safely every day, sometime people crash".

So I switch to my second mantra, "the pilot doesn't want to crash any more that you do".

The voice whispers:
"What if the pilot is having a bad day? What if he arrived home after his last flight to find his wife in bed with another man? What if he had too much to drink before take off?"

My third, and last mantra: "the airlines don't want a lawsuit any more than you want to crash."

The voice returns:
"If the airline can cut enough corners, save enough money on expensive airline plane maintenance, things like cheaper bolts on the wings, running the jet engines into the ground, the profits would be worth the risk of a lawsuit. What if the airlines maintain their planes like you maintain your car?"
By now my neck is tense. My fingernails have found the vinyl seat back in front of me. The passenger next to me is asking if I'm all right. My skin is whiter than white. The flight attendant is rolling her eyes in my direction. She has seen this before. She signals her partner and they start to prepare the wet sheet they will wrap my in to keep me constrained. The last thing they need is a portly balding Presbyterian minister running up and down the aisles screaming.

Thankfully before they take the sheet from its compartment another voice says, "This is your captain. We will be landing in about 15 minutes."

I can hold on for another 15 minutes.

My Aunt Ruth

My aunt Ruth is dying. I'll be going to see her tomorrow. I think I'll spend some time writing about her on the plane trip.

Back packing blues

I didn't go back packing this year. I saw the group off at 6:30 AM. They loaded their packs in the trailer. We made a circle, prayed and sang the doxology. The hopped in the vehicals and left. I took off for Starbucks and waved as the turned on to Julian Street. All through the day I prayed for them and as i did I pictured what they would be doing. Driving, talking, laughing, pit stops, getting the permit and eventually strapping on their packs and taking the long hike up the hill. Sweating, eating dust, straining, groaning, pushing on and the end getting there! The lake, the trout, the camp fires, the long talks, pooping in the woods and drinking filtered water from the lake. I wish I was there. God bless the back packers!

Hmmmmm

To blog or not to blog that is the question. I thought that I would get into this - but I'm not sure.

Safari glitch rant

As much as I love Macs - the Safari browser drives me crazy. It doesn't seem to want to load pages from bloger.com. If you keep pounding your return button it finally submits and will load the page. I've had this happen on other pages also - Think different - build things that work.

LA DAZE

Teri, Steve, Melia, Micah and Micah in a car for 6 hours. Singing along with St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Drinking cucumber and lemon flavored water. Crawling over the grapevine. Jumping in the pool. Seeing old friends and the wedding. Cruising down Ventura Blvd. Pickles and onion bagels at Jerry's World Famous Deli. Melia, Micah and Micah meeting up with old friends at Universal City Walk. Teri and Steve crashing early in the hotel room. Donut shops on every corner in the valley. German sausage, 4th of July parade, fudge and ice cream in Solvang. Racing to get back to San Jose before 6:30 so everyone can catch the fire works. Traffic jam. We make it in time. Everyone goes to the fireworks except Steve and Teri, who crashed on the couch and missed the fireworks. But we have seen fireworks before...