Talk Like a Pirate Day!!!

Pirate?! I spent the whole day talking like a Parrot!!! Dang!

Hypoxia

This post by Instapundit has reminded me that Fighter Pilots and Scuba Divers have something in common: they're both fanatic about their air supply. The disclaimer on the Re-breathing apparatus is enough for me.



There are some differences in what happens when oxygen is scarce, but the outcome is disaster for both.

From my first introduction to military flying, I was indoctrinated in the use of supplimental oxygen. We had to attend "Altitude Chamber" training before we were ever allowed in a plane that could exceed 10,000ft altitude.(the T-37)

This training consisted of two days of classroom activity followed by the "chamber ride" itself. Since then, I got "refresher" rides every three years, for twenty years. This has resulted in an obsessive-compulsive attitude about having enough air to breath.

(When my daughter was born, there was a moment before the docter arrived, when the babies heart beat dropped alarmingly, the umbilicle cord was around her neck. The head nurse instructed her assistant to give the mother oxygen. When the assistant asked her how much oxygen, I blurted out, "A hundred percent!")

The fact is there are no fighter pilots that smoke. It interferes with the hemoglobin. I still have to deal with potential hypoxia in my job today.

Anyone interested in the effects of oxygen deprivation can get an idea of how non-responsive a hypoxic person can be , watch the plight of Jill in this very controlled environment.

Quote of the Day

Since this life here and now is all we can know, our most reasonable option is to live it fully.

– Paul Kurtz

Of Passing Interest

Inside the Factory Door

Two Eugolies

In the early sixties, C and I started going steady. It's what you did in high school. Yes, we're high school sweethearts. When I first met her family, her mother was working as a clerk in the local, very small, grocery store in our very small town in East Texas. Not long after we were dating, her mother got a job in the town's only bank. By the time she retired, she had become the President and CEO of the bank, loved by the bank's customers and the town's residents that new her. In fact, she and my own parents were close friends. Heart trouble caused her to have bypass surgery in her later years, and that led her to give up smoking. We think giving up smoking added about eight years to her life. She died around Christmas in 1991 of cancer. The smoking finally took it's toll.

I would have said she was a unique person except that we came to know someone who was cut from the same cloth. Ann Richards was so like my mother-in-law that her death was an additional blow to C. She symbolized her mother. C's mother supported Ann's campaign for governor. One of her cherished memento's is a photo of her mother and a beloved cousin, taken at Ann Richards Inaugural Ball after her campaign for governor. I had occasion to meet Governor Richards professionally and arraigned to let C meet her long enough to get the photo autographed.

It was Ann that said George W. Bush was "born with a silver foot in his mouth."
Smoking finally took it's toll with Ann, too.

Thank you, both, for what you did for your communities.

Living Flat Out

For brief moments in my life, I've transcended my common sense and done something that could have ended disastrously, not just for me, but for my comrades as well. It was like a switch was thrown, and I didn't care if I bent my plane or not. I was not going to let the situation get the best of me. Looking back, it was when I did my best flying. It was when I learned something new about myself, something I didn't even know was in me. I'm not proud that I risked other lives, but I'm not ashamed either. We all knew the risks and accepted them. My only defense is, it didn't happen often. Maybe it didn't happen often enough. I've known pilots that were able to get that impulse under control and manage it. They were much better pilots than me, geniuses really.

Steve Irwin reminds me of some of them. I would watch Steve on TV and think, "Man, you need to get a grip, or you'll kill yourself." The deck was stacked against him, and he stacked it himself! I could only watch him in small doses. But I understood. He was in that moment always. Like an addict, he couldn't step out of it. We seek that kind of passion, but something holds us back; fear, common sense, inertia. At least he showed us that there is another choice. My condolences to his family, Australia, and the fans that loved him all over the world, but I don't feel, like many, that he threw his life away.

Here's to you, Steve.

Test Your Reaction Time

My best time was about 0.22 sec, but I'm old.