At the airport.

10 minutes later, my phone blew up.

“you OK?”

“Was it you?”

“Was that your plane that crashed?”

I appreciate their concern, but it was a Piper, and I fly a Cessna.

Sadly, the dude in the crashed Comanche died.

Eyewitnesses (One of my instructors from my flight school was on final and one of the A&P guys who take care of my airplane was driving up as it happened) said he had just taken offon rwy 9  and he turned to the left sharply a couple hundred feet up before diving into the ground. I’m guessing departure stall….but I really don’t know for sure.

Winds were variable (but more or less easterly-ish) at about 8 knots, so that’s likely not the cause.

A Comanche is a lot of airplane for a pilot who had just gotten his license 3 months or so earlier.

My prayers for his family. 

A cop actually turned another cop in for punching an unarmed man.

There are, apparently honest cops…cops willing to turn another officer in for misdeeds.

“The report does not match the video of the incident” Shocking, I know.

Of course, what with the whole “Blue Wall” thing, I have to figure that (current) Officer Frederick Dominguez has plans to work and, especially,  live somewhere else….probably another state. 

So lessee here.

You are the CEO of a company that sells outdoor gear. Clothing, fishing, hiking, hunting and other such accessories…….

You decide to SJW yourself into feeling better about selling firearms.

So you do stupid things….actions that make no difference, but look good to your (also SJW) friends at cocktail parties…..

And in doing so, you insult the folks that are the core of your business…

Perhaps you did not realize that the Venn diagrams of hunters, fishermen, target shooters, hikers and other outdoorsmen are mostly overlapping? That these folks are the major buyers of the products you sell?

That you actions are a repudiation of their lifestyle? That you have insulted the majority of your customer base with your shortsighted SJW action?

And you are surprised when they take their (considerable) buying power elsewhere?

Corporate Gun Control Fail: Dick’s May Have to Close 35 Stores Across 18 States

The fact that the stockholders haven’t tossed Edward Stack out on his ear is surprising.

Hope that Social Justice Warrior posturing was worth it….

This is like the CEO of Ford claiming all Ford truck owners are inbred rednecks….and then being surprised that they buy Chevy and Dodge pickups instead….

HERE

(at least, the forecast weather for yesterday) is here today.

And I’m keeping my promise to an acquaintance, and taking him and, most especially, his 10 year old son up for a flight to lunch at another airport.

skies clear, visibility in excess of 10SM, winds easterly(ish) at 2-6 knots along the route of flight.

A great day(if a bit cold) to fly.

If Amazon realizes the types of folks they have delivering their packages these days…..I mean the non-UPS and non-USPS folks.

‘Cause so far, In the past 2 weeks, I’ve had a really derelict-looking white guy who needed a bath, a shave and a week without drinking MD-20-20 driving a clapped out and rusted out Mazda pickup, a Heroin-thin looking wild eyed (“The CRAZY is STRONG with this one, Luke”) chick driving a minivan with no two body panels the same color, and a very fat black woman in a do-rag who was obviously not comfortable in a predominantly white neighborhood (I scared her when I opened the door, but did offer her a can of soda in apology, which she declined before scurrying off), and an old man in shabby clothing and a Gandolf beard who was barely able to get up the driveway (I have no idea what he was driving, it was dark…I only saw him because the motion lights came on as he approached).

These folks are delivering Amazon packages, but they sure don’t have that professional, clean cut look of the UPS folks….

So yesterday, I called Pilatus Fight Services to get an outlook briefing, as I was gonna try to take Midwest Chick to see her sister in mid-Michigan…And their prediction matched the other aviation forecasts….as well as Weather Bug and the local TV prognosticators…

Forecast was for broken clouds in the 2000-4000 until 6 AM, then clear or nearly clear for the rest of the day.

So I planned a flight for Saturday morning about 8 AM.

Yeah, not so much. In the following 12 hours, the forecast for the area changed DRASTICALLY to overcast at 2000-3000.

The clear weather was off to the west about 60 miles. At best, MVFR conditions all day for me and points north and east….all day. The clear weather didn’t move as predicted. Folks in Mid-Illinois are experiencing the weather predicted for me. So I cancelled the (short) cross country flight. 

If we can’t predict the weather 12 hours out on a micro scale, how can we believe that anyone can predict what conditions will be on a macro scale a year from now? 5 years from now? 10-20-50-100 years from now?

Yes, I know, climate is not weather…except it is…..just on a smaller scale. Clouds are clouds. Fronts are fronts, Clouds and Fronts make weather, which makes climate. If your models are so poor that they can’t do a decent job 12 hours out, why should I trust anything you claim for periods a hundred or a thousand or more times distant? 

But today is Pearl Harbor day.

Take a moment.

Used to be, 8 hours working outside in freezing weather didn’t bother me…
I can dress for the temperature hat boots etc. My core stays warm.,.,.

But my hands…..

Oh my god… They don’t work as well, and they get painfully cold way too fast. Must be too many incidents of frostbite…

Either way,  I can’t work outside all day any more. I gotta go in and warm up more and more often…

I’m thinking that’s why folks move south as they get older….

Seems that in some professional circles, the word is to “avoid women at all costs“

All those MeTOO accusations showed that too many women are sensitive fragile flowers that should not be let out without a keeper…..and that all too many others are evil, nasty, vengeful bitches.

The above women have, however, because their own sisters chose to support them rather than smack them down, damaged all the “normal” hard working women who simply wanted to work hard and earn advancement…..and the Movement is going to harm professional women for a generation or more. Bet on it. For men in power or positions or authority, interacting with women can be fraught with danger.

Pence looks smarter all the time, doesn’t he?