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Thinking Out Loud: a blog of sorts This is more of a running commentary on life than a blog. It is my chance to editorialize with no limits and no editors. I can even say sh*t, if I want to, but I won't. Well...not often. Who Is Budd Davisson? A blog bio
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THINKING OUT LOUD (Take note that this is a Temporary posting while I rebuild the site to make it faster and cleaner - Dec 2014)
11 April 2015 - Getting Our Lives Under Control (Good luck!) The human animal is a curious one. We have reshaped an entire planet in what amounts to the blink of an eye, yet, when it comes to controlling some pretty basic, personal behavior patterns, most of us suck. Me especially. I'm admitting this publicly in the hopes that it'll shame me into doing something about it. And may help others with the same challenges. I'm talking about minor stuff like controlling our weight or where our life is going. There's something about most of us that we'll put our heads down and charge into the unknown ready to take on any challenge. However, give us a little time and we seem to drift off course and forget where we were going. A classic example is how quickly the patriotic furor over 911 faded and degraded back down to the same divisive conservative/liberal way of thinking . Or, on a more personal level, how we go charging off determined to get in shape. Or, better yet, lose weight. Or clean the garage. Or whatever. We start off like a house afire, but in a fairly short period of time lose momentum and there we are…right back where we started. Granted, there are those amongst us who can pick a direction and maintain it, resisting all temptations to drift off course. But that's not most of us. In fact, I think I hate those people. You know who you are (kidding). I, for one, get pretty damned disgusted with myself from time to time because I know I'm not doing what I should be doing. And right now is one of those times. I look around at my life and ask myself, "What the hell are you doing? You're not even close to controlling your life, which is something you've always prided yourself on." I'm absolutely positive others feel the same way periodically. That we're letting events set our course rather than controlling it ourselves We're letting the winds fly our airplane, when we should be controlling what's going on rather than just reacting to what's happening around us. Why is that? I'm not talking about the big things like politics and the madness in our nation's capital. I'm talking about all of the smaller, day-to-day life-factors over which we have total control, but do nothing about. Sometimes we seem to let them overwhelm us, or they pick at us a little at a time causing us to lose our heading without our realizing it. Wait….! For all I know, I'm alone in this up and down, saw-tooth approach to life. Please don't tell me that the majority of you start on a project of some kind and keep fiddling with it until it's done. Please don't tell me you decided to lose 17 ½ pounds ten years ago, lost it and kept it off! That makes me think you're some sort of extraterrestrial because, in my experience, mere mortals can't do that. At least this one can't. I lost 33 pounds about five years ago and little by little have gained 20 of it back. And I'm seriously pissed at myself. But it goes deeper than that and I was made aware of similar losses of control while I was messing with my taxes this morning. Those of you who are in business for yourselves all have the same problem: since we don't actually know what we're going to make on a yearly basis we have to exercise a bit of self control and walk a razor blade path that lets us pay the bills, yet still have enough left to pay the taxes. I said that backwards: we plan to pay the taxes and hope we have enough left to pay the bills. Increasingly, taxes are the big wind that we have to control and, in the last few years that has become more difficult. But, this is just one of those control-challenged areas, like my weight, that I've lightened my grip on so this tax year is going to be a tough one. This morning, I found myself brow beating myself because I'm not doing the job of running my life as I'm supposed to be doing. On every front I've become lax. When that happens, what do we do about it? It's obvious that "lax" is a chronic human condition that I think lurks around the corners of our personalities and is always waiting to catch us in a weakened condition so it can lead us off the correct path. In so many aspects of our lives, we say "screw it!" and pry the top off a fresh quart of chocolate-carmel ice cream (which should be illegal, by the way), at the same time saying "Just this once. I'll only eat an inch of it now. I'll diet it off tomorrow." That NEVER works! Worse…we know it doesn't work, but we do it anyway. It is universally accepted that the human animal is a weak one. Yet, as a species, we manage to do some amazing things. Even more amazing, most of our accomplishments are for good. We're not the scourge of the universe some would have us believe that we are. Individually, however, we (more correctly "I") have difficulties controlling our own tiny universes. So, it's time for me to do something about that. Our current B & B/flying student is leaving in a half hour. Shortly after that, I'm rousting The AZ Red Head out of the sack with a hot cup of tea and we're going to sit on the patio, yellow pad in hand, and plot out a new course for us. How long the result will stay in effect is hard to tell, but one fact is absolutely true: if we don't make the effort, nothing is going to change. And I can't live life like that. Could you? bd
4 April 2015 - A Simple Life? This morning, as I was brushing my teeth, a conversation I had on a plane a while back floated through my mind. I don't know if I've recounted it before, but, if I have, I feel like talking about it this again this morning. I don't remember where I was going, but when my seatmate made his way to his roost beside me, his uneasiness was palpable. His eyes had a lot of age behind them but, as he walked down the aisle, they never stopped moving around the airplane. He studied the overhead storage, the way the bins opened, he glanced down into each seat as he passed and a finger rode the overhead rail keeping track of the seat numbers: he even stopped to read the defibrillator placard on the appropriate bin. This was a true airline newby. Actually, it was more than that: he was a stranger in a strange land. And obviously from a different era. I tried to guess his age, but couldn't. Everything about him said late 80's. Maybe even 90's. But, the quickness in his eyes made me think younger. His back was straight, his frame thin but wiry. His sun-darkened skin was the wrinkled texture of old, but well oiled, leather and he carried himself proud. He was old. There was no way to deny that. But he made old look good. He wore a faded, but clean and perfectly pressed, flannel shirt, with matching jeans, a big buckle from a long-ago rodeo and pointy-toed boots that he'd valiantly tried to polish, but their age and the miles showed through. He carried a small leather suitcase/bag like you'd see in an antique store in one hand and his Sunday-go-to-meeting, high-crown Stetson in the other. The hat had obviously been his traveling companion for a long, long time. Everything about the old gentleman said "cowboy." Not the kind you see on the Country Music Awards, or climbing out of a Cadillac with horns on the hood. The kind that part of your mind hopes still inhabits far corners of the American Experience carrying on a tradition that we know is dying and we hate that. He was the real thing and had been since before I was born. As he sat down, he fumbled with the seat belt and strained to see out the window. I introduced myself and stood up, insisting that he slide to the window seat so he could enjoy the entire experience. I helped strap him in and pointed out the overhead lights and the seatbelt signs. Initially, he was timid. Almost embarrassed that he needed help. I sensed an incredibly self-reliant man who was fighting old age as much as he could and didn't like the fact that he was so far out of his element that he needed help from a stranger. Still, he quietly expressed his gratitude and settled back for the take off, only slightly stiffened with well-hidden anxiety. His nose against the window, the airplane raced down the runway and rotated into the air. At about 500 feet, his head snapped around with a big grin on his face, his eyes on fire."Damn!" Then he was back to the new world unfolding before him. As the flight wore on, he relaxed and asked me where I was from. He called me "son", which I liked. Little by little, his story came out. He was born, raised and lived his entire life on a smallish ranch in the mountains east of Phoenix. This is an area that still offers the open spaces and challenging life that the general public associates with "The West." Few, however, partake of that life because there are far, far easier ways to make a living. As he described his childhood and the times that followed, I could see the ranch in my mind so clearly it was as if I had been there. It was nestled into the back of the foothills on the eastern slope where the wooded mountains fade into high-country plains. Some of the pasture area could be mistaken for western Nebraska or the Dakotas except it was an easy 4,500 MSL with the mountains and hill country much higher than that. This meant their winters were tough and their summers hot. Without even seeing them, I knew the simple house and barns all needed a coat of paint. Times had never been good, much less fat enough to allow regular painting and in many spots the wood had turned gray. His sons had moved to The City as soon as they were able. He was proud of them. One a mechanic, the other a physician's assistant. Oh, sure they visit as much as they can, but, you know…they have families. And business to take care of. His beloved Amanda is nearly a decade gone, but he's doing okay. The Gutierrez boys have acerage next door and they come over and help, when needed. He doesn't get TV, but the radio works real good. The telephone too. The big herd got to be too much, so he's only running about 50 head now. His immediate family is an old gray named George and a couple of dogs who love him dearly: Mable and Ernesto. His eyes lit up when mentioning the dogs and the lights stayed on, when he ran down the list of grand children, some of which had actually been out to the ranch. They seemed to enjoy it. At 92, he didn't think he'd see them too many more times. If at all. Some of the light went out of his eyes, when he said that. And, yes, this was the first time in an airplane. In fact, except for a few rodeos in Prescott and Texas, he'd seldom left the county. Except during WWII. He'd joined the Marines with a Navajo friend of his. He hated the Pacific and hadn't really known how to swim, when he stepped into the surf at Iwo. Dreadful place. Lost a lot of friends there. Some nights, when the light is low out on the back porch, he'll sit there smoking a cigar and see their faces. All of them are so young. So damn young! As I said good by and looked him in the eyes, I hadn't realized, until that moment, how much I envied him. He'd lived what most of us would judge as a simple life. But, it was his life, lived on his terms. And it was a good life. His years were guided only by the weather, the seasons, his health and that of his herd. And he'd kept a dying tradition alive. I know I've met lots of guys who think of themselves as cowboys. But, that day, I knew for a fact, I had actually met one. And I savor that memory. bd
2 March 2015 - Cities and Other Social Constructs There's a truly interesting character, recently deceased at 93, Pablo Soleri, who is a part of AZ culture in an unexpected way: a student of Frank Lloyd Wright (the architect, in case you didn't know), he spent most of his long life trying to redefine the concept of "city" and this weekend, The Redhead and I finally understood what he meant. And that understanding made me stand back and re-evaluate the way I look at life, in general. Trying to explain how Soleri looked at buildings and cities is difficult but I'll do my best (and I'll probably get it wrong). At the root of his design philosophy is the elimination of what he sees as waste: the waste of land, the waste of building materials, the waste of energy, the waste of the human experience. So his designs pivot around the concept of sustainability in which the key ingredient is low waste. When designing his buildings he seeks to take advantage of everything natural, both in the support of those buildings (heating, cooling, etc.) and in his construction techniques. So, rather than strapping on a ton of solar panels, he orients his buildings to the sun, shapes them to absorb sun, when it's needed, and repel it, when it's not. His construction is, for the most part, highly non-traditional. Rather than using conventional build-from-the-inside methods that result in a skeletal interior frame with a cosmetic covering, most of his structures have an exoskeleton, like a turtle or a beetle or a tilt slab building, in which all of the loads are carried by the exterior skin. The way in which he builds that skin is also about as non-traditional as you can get. He uses what some call the "earth casting" system: the basic shape of the building (usually some variation of dome) is sculpted in huge piles of dirt. The piles are dampened and tamped down so workers can sculpt designs and structural members into the dirt. This includes interior girders that appear as sculpted trenches in the dirt dome but appear as some form of artful arch inside the dome. Then the dirt dome is covered in concrete. Re-bar and steel screen run throughout the concrete, most of which is now sprayed in place (I'm assuming some sort of gunnite). When the dirt is excavated (which can be used again for another building), you have a form of sometimes-huge igloo-like structures. I like that concept, if not the philosophy behind it.
Soleri has two show cases for his architectural concepts here in AZ, one of which is Cosanti, a five acre tract about a mile from our house that was originally out in the desert but is now surrounded by some of the most expensive houses in Arizona. This was his student-supported architectural campus where he not only taught architecture, but based his bronze and ceramic bell business, which is also supported and operated by student labor. We love his bells/windchimes and anyone we know that's getting married can count on one being their wedding gift. Google them and you can buy them on-line. We highly recommend them. Even though we'd been exposed to Soleri for decades, we didn't really understand what he espoused until we finally stopped at his really major project, a utopian mini-city about 60 miles north of Phoenix, Arcosanti. We'd been past it dozens of times, but never stopped. We finally stopped this weekend and that's when we not only understood his concepts, but came face to face with our own concepts of "city" and "living."
In a nutshell, Soleri's concepts say that the major problem with cities is the car and the urban sprawl caused by the car. So, he thought we should all be in what amounts to huge apartment buildings that maximize energy conservation by not only using green systems but are within walking/bicycling distances of our jobs (he makes no provisions for manufacturing plants, etc). Cars wouldn't be allowed in the city-center. And that's what Arcosanti showcases: highly efficient use of space for large numbers of people who live in close proximity in a "harmonious way:" his concept also says people get along better if they share the same experiences and spaces. He apparently never met me, or the vast majority of people I know. My feeling about harmonious living can be summed up by a single experience, which I think I've mentioned here before, but is again apropos: my garage/workshop has a garage door at both ends and my primary work area is against the back one that opens into the backyard. I had that door open during one of my rare workshop sessions. Suddenly a head popped up over the cement block wall that surrounds our backyard (typical for Phoenix). The Head, was eerily reminiscent of the guy in Tim Allen's TV show "Home Improvement" that was always talking to him over their fence. The Head said, "Hi, my name is Sam, I just moved in. I like building stuff too. Whatcha working on?" At that instant, I suddenly realized I really don't like, or want, neighbors. I value my private time too much. And I'm certain I'm typical of a large segment of the population. What Soleri's concepts don't recognize is that there are lots of folks who don't function well, when hemmed in. They aren't necessarily anti-social, but very much want to control their social interaction. If those folks want other people in their lives, they'll invite them in. Otherwise, stay away. In fact, those folks want to control everything about their existence and don't want anyone else involved. They don't need anyone to provide anything but the basics: electricity and water. In fact, given a choice, they'd supply that too, if they could. That doesn't make them hermits. They just like things the way they like them, and aren't about to be pigeon holed. You won't find them sitting around a campfire singing Kumbaya and roasting marshmallows with the neighborhood. Personally, I applaud the majority of Soleri's techniques and innovations. In fact, I'd like to use some of them. But, his overall philosophy just ain't gonna work with a lot of folks. I did, however spot a gorgeous desert valley less than a mile from Arcosanti where I'd love to put a runway with a combination hangar/workshop/house snuggled into the cliff surrounding it. It would be a perfect application for Soleri's earth-casting building techniques. And it's far enough out in the boondocks that I wouldn't have talking heads popping up over my fence insisting I converse with them. Bah-humbug! bd
15 March 2015 - Grandbaby Again As I mentioned last week, my daughter braved her way through ice and snow to get to Memphis to await the arrival of her baby-to-be-adopted. It arrived, and yesterday, she came through with grandchild-four (granddaughter-three) and the granddad/Grammy thing became real again. At 6 pounds 9, this one, is, to me frighteningly cute and frighteningly fragile, even though she's not. First, it's been a helluva long time since I've been around a newborn (sitting on our patio, she was five days old!). Second, both of my kids were relative giants in the baby world: 9 pounds 6 and 9 pounds 3 respectively. So, I've never been around a baby baby like this one. I find it hard to believe that every single member of the human race starts out that incapable of taking care of themselves. That says a lot for mothers. Less for fathers. I couldn't get over the tiny fingers and the eyes that roam around that you know are basically seeing nothing. It's all about impressions of bright and dark, warmth and closeness. And eating. Her middle name is Presley, which I think is perfect and fits well. Mom is a hardcore Elvis fan (highly unusual for a 30's-something) and she and granddaughter-two had just been through Graceland a few days earlier. When mom asked her five-year-old what her new baby sister should be named, "Presley" popped out and, after some discussion, all agreed. Why the hell not? I love it! So, now, my daughter is the single-mom of two. A hard row to hoe, but she's made hoeing hard rows a specialty, so there's no doubt she'll be fine and the new one will be the exemplary human being her older sister is. Not many kids are that lucky. Not many moms would take on the single-mom role a second time. But, my daughter couldn't NOT do it. She was driven. As she always is. So, all is good. FYI - I was not aware of the incredible complexity of adopting children until my daughter went through it. I'm not sure if her experience was typical, but it was certainly arduous. You don't just fill out an order form for a baby and wait to be called to the front of the line. The birth mother "auditions" perspective parents. My daughter actually made up promotional brochures on herself to present to birth mothers in an effort at selling herself. And the process can be cruel: She was selected once, drove to the East Coast to do the adoption and, in the middle of the night, after spending a day with the new baby, the birth mother decided not to let it go. Nothing is firm until the forms are all signed. Like I said, it can be cruel. Then there is the role of granddad and grammy: we have two grand kids in NJ and now two in CA. And all are too damn far away. I know lots of friends who are constantly on the road visiting their grand kids, and I'm out and out jealous. But, those same friends are at least semi-retired. Most fully retired. We aren't. To say the least. I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I know for a fact, it's not about to change unless some health event intrudes and makes us slow down. So, we have to work our far-spread family in around a daily schedule. I'm eternally grateful that we got that hour or so with the new little bundle because it'll be a month before we make another screaming-across-the-desert trip to grandbabies' house. That'll give us a little time to wiggle ourselves back into new-grandparent mode. We can't wait.
27 Feb 2015 - Weather or Not As this is being written, my daughter is threading her way through freezing fog in south Texas on her way from Hollywood, CA to Memphis to adopt a baby. I'm sitting here flipping through weather maps and Interstate Weather sites trying to help her find the soft spots. But, I know full well that I can't do much more than advise. Frustrating! The weather has come close to knocking everything else off the front page. And there's a good reason for that. When you can't find your car beneath an unbroken field of snow, even though you know about where it was parked, ISIS, politics and global warming get pushed off to the outer fringes of your consciousness. Ma Nature has a brutal way of continually reminding us that we actually don't control anything. She just allows us to exist in the calm periods between her calamitous fits of behavior. When she's in a bad mood, everything else is irrelevant. And the immediacy of the Net and media makes us totally aware of the seriousness of the weather even though we're not even remotely affected. Being born and raised in flatland, blizzard country and then moving to lots-of-snow-and-too-many-people country (NJ), I've paid my bad weather dues. Still there are times, when I not only remember what's going on in the rest of the country but very much appreciate what we have here in the Southwest. One of those days happened this week. As I've mentioned before that one of our favorite events is the Single Action Shooting Society's national extravaganza, Winter Range. That has run for the entire week and provided us with a weather-reminder. For those not familiar with Cowboy Action Shooting, just picture the police tactical range training you see in the movies, where they are working their way through buildings and shooting through windows, etc. Now dress everyone in Western garb and take away the AR-15's and hand everyone a pair of single action handguns, a shotgun of some kind and a lever action Winchester or the equivalent. It's a bunch of guys playing cowboy with live ammo and steel plate targets. Also, there are tons of exhibitors purveying everything from firearms to Bowie knives, frilly dresses and hats for the ladies and all sorts of cowboy duds for the guys.
This time around the weather was the typical AZ afternoon: high 70's, clear blue. We were sitting there with a couple of good friends enjoying a BBQ elk burger, the sounds of firing all around us and everyone in sight packing at least one single action. The sun cast kind of a warm glow over us, the conversation with those around us was engaging and mostly hilarious, and you could almost feel the relaxation settle over you like a blanket. However, I was acutely aware that we were part of a very small group of people in the entire Nation that wasn't cursing Ma Nature. In fact, we were falling more in love with her every minute. The foregoing was definitely NOT being said to gloat. It was said to let those not as fortunate know that we very much appreciate what we have here. Actually, the break of getting out of the office and spending an afternoon in great weather, with good friends, doing something we really enjoy, was energizing. It was a long time coming and, as I now recognize, was necessary. We need to do it more often. To those of you to whom weather is an unrelenting enemy, hang in there. Spring will eventually get here and just know that those of us who have been in your shoes feel your pain. Of course, it's easy to say that when the sun is almost always shining. Still, we're thinking of you. bd
21 Feb 2015 - Random Thoughts 2.0 This has been a very confusing week worldwide. It has been hard to concentrate on any one thing because of all the important and totally unimportant things that have popped up on my radar. So, if you don't mind, I'm going to skip around and hit some random subjects, all of which include links that I think everyone needs to read. One is deadly serious, while others are amazing and fun. First the Fun Stuff There has been a You-tube thingie bouncing around the Web for a couple of weeks in which a young Dane takes the simple bow and arrow to new heights as a tactical weapon. His ability to put three arrows in three moving targets while he himself is running at full speed is barely matched by doing the same thing with an automatic handgun. And then there is the image of him splitting an arrow that is fired at him mid-flight. If you didn't see it on film, including slow motion, you wouldn't believe it. There's some good historical information included, as well. See below. As a comparison/counter-point, I'm including some links for the late Bob Munden, a six-gun speed shooter, which is also difficult to believe, but still not up to what the archer is doing. Ditto, Jerry Miculek, which some of you may know from TV. I have links below of him hitting a balloon from 1000 yards (yes, one thousand yards) with a 9mm handgun, doing some high speed shooting and hitting a target at 200 yards with a snub nose revolver while holding it upside down and firing it with his pinky finger. This is all impossible stuff but it's really fun to see how good people can get at something, when that's their focus in life. I'm including the full links so, just in case they don't work, you can cut and paste them into your browser. Archer https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914688&v=BEG-ly9tQGk&x-yt-cl=84503534&feature=player_embedded Bob Munden, speed shooter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcZHVspVIDs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsU5AMxvlKg Jerry Miculek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ3XwizTqDw https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=85114404&x-yt-ts=1422579428&v=0FbUMqoyjDw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIwVK_FxGZk A feel-good link In case you haven't seen this, you'll understand why I've included it, when you see it. I didn't want readers to miss it http://swf.tubechop.com/tubechop.swf?vurl=8k9Si28k0Fk&start=0&end=438.55&cid ISIS...again They are dominating the news and increasingly, we're hearing people who have a good handle on things saying that we're seeing the beginning of WWIII. And it's easy to see why they say that. First, if you read the link, http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02/18/former-libyan-dictator-made-ominous-prediction-about-islamist-militants-before-his-ouster-is-it-about-to-come-true/, which is just a news report of today's events over "there", skim it quickly on purpose. Don't slow down for the details. It's short and the impact is best noticed during a quick skimming: it reads like a newspaper front page that was printed in 1940, when the war in Europe was building on all fronts but we were still spectators. The running account of the various battles on the various fronts is essentially a template for what the news from overseas sounds like today. Country after country is being attacked with the battlefront stretching across North Africa with skirmishes throughout Europe in the form of terrorist attacks. Looked at in that way, we've had some guerilla action taking place on our own shores. The following link, http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/, is long, 32 pages, but it is hands-down the most important document people can read to put our current ISIS problem in context. Oddly enough, it is from the usually-liberal Atlantic Monthly, and the author did a superb job with the subject. Take your time with it: it'll give you a perspective on ISIS you won't get elsewhere. Essentially what the long document says (it's exceedingly well written and readable) is that when we use the phrase "Fundamentalist Islam" that's exactly what they are. They are so "fundamental" that they are taking the original version of the Quran absolutely literally and everything they do and think on an hourly basis is driven by that document, a document that was compiled from prophet Mohammed's oral recitations circa 635 AD. So, they are essentially a modern army with the goals of a medieval religion that allows zero deviation from the script. Zero! If you don't live a Muslim life, as dictated by Mohammed in the original version, to the letter, you are lower than scum and to be eliminated. That's why they thought nothing of burning 45 Muslims alive this week: being a Muslim isn't enough. You have to be their kind of Muslim or it doesn't count and is to be punished. The reason for the beheadings and burnings is because that's what their version of the religion, as dictated by Quran 1.0, requires. Every single action they have taken can be found word for word in that document. Their goal isn't really to convert the world to their way of thinking, although that IS their short-term goal. It's not their long view because according to their script, the "apocalypse" is coming and they want to facilitate it. And, to that end they will do what ever it takes to rid the world of those they consider unworthy. That's us, among others. And they'll take what ever time it takes. "We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women," Adnani, the ISIS spokesman, promised in one of his periodic valentines to the West. "If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market." Slavery, BTW, is distinctly mentioned and allowed in the Quran. As are beheadings, burning and rape. Think of the US, and the world in general, as a gigantic elephant. Now think of that elephant infected with fleas. He ignores them for a short time because initially they're underfoot and he only gets a bite here and there. The actual gestation of a flea from egg to full-fledged biting member of the flea clan is over a month. However, when several thousand fleas lay eggs, it's only a few short generations before you're seeing a new crop of fleas about every 10 seconds. In a short while, they are crawling all over him, biting everywhere. As soon as he snatches one off, another two or three are born and begin biting. Soon, even though they are tiny fleas and he's an elephant, he's totally covered and they're in every crevice and his eyes making it hard to see. They aren't going to kill him, but they are making his life miserable and become the focus of his existence. Right now the fleas are threatening our ankles and it's time to get serious about using every possible means at our disposal to kill them and keep them from even getting on the soles of our feet. When it comes to ISIS fleas, zero tolerance right now will keep them from crawling up our national butt in the not too distant future. They are NOT going to go away on their own. Enuff said? This really may be the beginning of WWIII. bd
7 Feb 2015 - ISIS/ISIL: a Global Threat Let's think about two concepts for a just a second: the first is burning a man alive. The second is videoing that event with high level production values and then spreading it across the world as a sign of pride and achievement. It's difficult to say which is worse: the hyper-savage act or their making a public relations spectacle of it. We have definitely entered a new chapter in world history. Or have we? If we look back through history we can find similarly savage acts. Shortly after the Vietnam debacle, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge wiped 1.5 million Cambodians, out of a total population of around 7 million, from the face of the Earth. The stories coming out of the various African countries like Rwanda and the brutal slaughter of Tutsi and moderate Hutu by the Hutu Majority where close to a million Rwandans were killed in barely three months. And then there were the Nazis. Nothing needs to be said there. There is, however, a marked difference between the way in which ISIL has hacked their way into history and the actions of perpetrators of similar tragedies. Seldom has any given group practiced their savagery for any reason other than brutalizing the population on which they were focused. Pol Pot was creating a classless, peasant society in Cambodia by eliminating anyone who didn't fit that category. Intellectuals, professionals, etc., were toast. The Hutus wanted anyone in their country who weren't radical Hutus gone. The Nazis sought to "purify" their nation by industrializing the slaughter of anyone who, under their definition, wasn't "pure." In the case of ISIS, however, their focus doesn't seem to be on a given group and they haven't limited their focus to Syria or Iraq. They seem focused on anyone worldwide who isn't hard core Sunni Muslim. Actually, even that isn't true. Jordan is predominately Sunni, not Shia (ISIL's sworn enemy, although still Muslim) so it can be assumed that the Jordanian pilot they torched was also Sunni. So, they are absolutely not above killing their own in spectacular fashion. Ditto the unreal photos that come out of Iraq, like the one in which a soldier is surrounded by a wall of human heads, every one of them Muslim (probably Shia) or the videos of shooting hundreds of Iraqi soldiers in the back. Not only do these acts show that their brand of Islam is apparently unique to ISIL and their affiliates, but they have made their violent actions into specific public relations programs to promote their cause. Showcasing their brutality is meant to cow their enemies but, at the same time, the videos are designed to appeal to individuals world wide who share the same thoughts as ISIL. And this is what makes ISIL dangerous to the US. If it weren't for social media and the Web, we really wouldn't know what ISIS/ISIL is doing except by watered down headlines in the papers that would appear long after the incidents. Technology, however, has given ISIL a world wide stage on which to display their brutality in real time and, in so doing, reach like-minded people on a global scale. Their on-line magazine, Dabiq, is as slick and as sophisticated as anything you'll find on any US newsstand http://www.clarionproject.org/news/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-magazine-dabiq. It is VERY well written and most of the prose very persuasive. It makes ISIS look like a winner and a hero to be supported. Combine that with their use of every form of social media and you don't have a physical army doing battle in a far away land. You have an ideologically-driven, virtual force that is essentially a guerilla army that exists in every computer in every den/bedroom/basement in the world. Their Web presence is what makes ISIL a real danger to the US, not the actual combat in the deserts. ISIL doesn't need recruits that journey to Iraq to join them in their fight against the infidels. They can create ISIL soldiers right here in suburbia, in the inner city and even on seemingly placid farms. The subject matter in the magazine often explains how to carry out lone wolf attacks and it is so well produced that it can convince weaker, or more fanatical, minds that ISIL's goals are just. Videos of beheadings and the even more stomach wrenching episodes like burning the Jordanian pilot are recruitment tools as much as they are aimed at warning others what can happen if they continue the fight against them. Radicals worldwide, Muslim and otherwise, are cheering those videos. They are seeing blows struck for what they see as the downtrodden of the world. They see ISIL rubbing our noses in it. Even though their videos have pretty much sickened the entire civilized world and turned that world against ISIS, has that really mattered? What has that world done to reverse the ISIL tide? At the same time, their propaganda machine has only to reach a few fanatics in each country for the terror that rages through out Iraq/Syria to reach right into our own neighborhoods via lone wolf fanatics. Because of the Web, no place is safe from ISIL. No place. Even worse, there is no way that ISIL can be completely put out of business. Let's assume the good guys (that's us, just to clarify) totally chases ISIL out of Iraq and Syria. Lets say we kill every single one in sight. That won't change the threat to the US and the rest of the globe. Only a half dozen ISIL confederates working out of a garage in Yemen/Germany/Brooklyn/anywhere can keep a web presence going including beheading videos and such. To those who think the ISIL threat is regional and exists only over "there" and we should let the locals fight it, you're wrong. This is a cancer in the process of metastising and the longer we wait, the worse it is going to get. As it is, this threat is going to be with us, in one form or another, for as long as the Web exists, which is another way of saying we'll be fighting it forever. ISIS has made terrorism a marketable product and has developed marketing programs to support it. This is the most sophisticated, devious, effective threat we've ever faced. We're entering a new chapter of American history. bd PS-King Abdullah of Jordan came out swinging after the atrocity committed to one of his pilots and, in no uncertain terms, let ISIS know "I'm coming after your a**!" (not his exact words, but close.). He's ex-Special Forces and a trained pilot. 'Never thought I'd be willing to vote for a king. I couldn't resist posting the below.
1 Feb 2015 - Spectator Sports and Me It is the morning of Sunday, 1 Feb, 2015 and I know for a fact that a lot of you won't be reading this until tomorrow because the Super Bowl, or the Super Bowel, as I call it, is this afternoon. So, you're lost to the world until it's over. I know it's totally un-American for me to say this, but you couldn't pay me to sit and watch a ball game of any kind. And, if there were 100-dollar bills stacked on a free seat at the Super Bowl waiting for me, I couldn't force myself to fight through the crowds to get them. This, even though it's being played only about 15 miles from where I now sit. I fully recognize that I must have a break in my DNA because my genes shouldn't give me that kind of outlook on sports. I was born and raised less than 25 miles from the U. of Nebraska and went to school at the U. of Oklahoma (which, by the way, is a near-capital offense in Nebraska). Logically. I should be a football super-fan: there is no way I can adequately explain how football is closer to a religion than a sport in those states. So, I guess that makes me a football atheist. To put things in perspective: when my late brother was getting married, he and his bride had the bad sense to schedule it at the same time as a Nebraska football game. Throughout the ceremony, the Nebraska half of the clans in attendance, were clustered around a portable radio in the back of the room. They were not totally successful in muting their cheers and groans. I can't explain my outlook on sports, but I'm definitely sports-challenged. 'Don't know why. Just is. Even though part of my college career was spent living in an apartment directly across the street from the OU stadium, I never once set foot in it, except to visit the architecture school that was built under it. Given my point of view, you can understand why this weekend I'm not even going to try to venture out to the airport. Among other things, to get to my hangar, I would have to fight my way through unreal traffic and then would have to have a special pass to get on the airport, even though I'm paying a healthy chunk just to have a hangar there. And I totally understand their logic: The last time the Super Bowl was here in Phoenix, the airport was an unreal mess: 208 jets had to be parked on a fairly small (long but narrow) airport. They had 7 hours delays trying to get out the next day because the IFR traffic system couldn't absorb the traffic from all the Phoenix airports. So, this year every movement, coming and going, both VFR and IFR, is by reservation only. The reservations sound like a good idea except they didn't count on Mother Nature giving them the shaft. Ceilings have been at, or below, minimums for a couple of days (very Un-Arizona-like) and right now, 0800 on Sunday, the day of the game, I'm looking out the window at heavy ground fog, which doesn't happen once every couple of years out here. So, right now, their reservation system is going to go to hell in a hand basket: among other things, even though Scottsdale is supposedly in the top two airports in the country for corporate jet traffic, it doesn't have an ILS system. Mountains at the ends of the runway preclude it. Only the VOR/GPS systems let folks in with much higher minimums. Generally, that's no problem because true IFR weather happens seldom and usually lasts only a few hours. Not this week. I can't imagine the back-ups that have been happening for the last couple of days or how nuts the airport is going to be when the fog burns off this morning. There's sun above it, but a lot of jets are desperate to get in before the TFR (Terminal Flight Restriction) sets in shortly after noon. Oh, did I forgot to mention (visualize my big grin): while all the Super Bowl craziness is ramping up, the PGA Open Golf tournament is in full swing right at the end of Scottsdale's runway. The area is awash in sports nuts. We drove past a In 'n Out burger last night (Saturday) in that part of town and the line went completely around the parking lot and attendants were standing out amongst the cars taking orders. Team jerseys were in abundance and this was the low buck crowd. The high-rollers were congregating in every major venue in town and circus tents abound. Every big open space has been turned into Party Central. Given the weather, I imagine a lot of folks awoke this morning with a severe hang-over. Papillion Helicopters, normally serving the Grand Canyon, is down here operating a fleet of choppers ferrying folks from Scottsdale across town to the game. $600 per 12 minute (a guess) flight, which, given the current situation, sounds cheap. Even to me. All of this because people want to watch other people chase or hit balls of various descriptions. One looks as if it was extruded through a sphincter, and the other is round with severe cystic acne. Again, I know I'm in a tiny minority here, but I just don't get it. I'm going to spend the day wiring the license plate light on The Roadster and putting a Timney, adjustable trigger, on a 98 Mauser. When my day is over, I'll have something to show for it. Hmmmm! Maybe that's why I'm not enamored by sports. Apparently, in my mind, there's a difference between investing my time and spending it. bd
25 Jan 15 –"Manspirin" to the Rescue As I'm writing this, a few miles east from where I sit the Barrett Jackson car auction is having its biggest day of the week. It's covered on Discovery Channel during the day and Velocity TV at night. However, if there's one thing that should be understood about the BJ car auction it's that it's not an auction. It's an "experience." Yes, a lot of high and low-buck cars cross the auction block, and a bazillion dollars changes hands but that's not a reason for attending in person. First an apology: my main computer was down for three weeks, so this is late and this is a little out of date. Amazingly, although my start-up disc was a terrabyte in size, I filled it too full and it took major surgery to get me back on line. My total storage is now five terrabytes, three in the start-up disc. Amazing! Now, back to Barrett-Jackson: The last couple of years we haven't gone and, to be honest, I've been in some sort of pressure-funk for the last couple of weeks courtesy of a newly overhauled, 80-hour airplane engine that had to go back to be rebuilt again. Although they found nothing wrong, it still needed to be flown a minimum of three hours a day, every day, to break it in again before inbound students show up tomorrow (Sunday). Plus, magazine deadline alligators were cruising the moat around the house. So, the thought of fighting our way through crowds versus making headway on stuff that absolutely had to be done, didn't appeal to me. Which, by the way, pissed me off. How dare the world allow making a living become an obstacle to having a little fun! Damn! The Redhead, however, had other ideas. She got on my case and I soon found myself gritting my teeth as we pulled into the Barrett-Jackson parking lot. I was not a happy camper and was possibly the only person on the huge site with a tension headache (except for car sellers, you just know they were anxious). Then the experience of being at a major event built around a much-loved interest began to work its magic. Barrett Jackson covers a site that's about (this is a guess) two blocks by three blocks and that's not counting the really remote parking lots. At least half of the main area is under tent. It is frigging HUGE!! The atmosphere is a cross between carnival, circus and a car lover's wet dream. You name it and you'll find it in the five large storage/display tents where the cars to be sold are stored and then cycled across the stage in the huge arena where the actual auction takes place. How about a smallish, 1950's school bus restored to the smallest detail except that it sits about four feet off the ground on a four-wheel drive chassis pushed by a blown big block of some kind. Or how about the 1966 Super Snake, the 427 Cobra Carroll Shelby had built for himself. Phoenix uber-collector Ron Pratte paid $5.5mm (that's MILLION) for it a few years ago and this year he decided to dump his entire collection. The 140 car Pratte Collection included stuff I didn't know he owned. This even though his hangar and museum is just across the runway from where the maintenance on my airplane is often done. Among other oddball items he had was the Beverly Hillbillies movie car that just sold for $275,000. A porcelain and neon Harley-D sign went for $86,000! Money came out of the woodworks by the truckload. While the BJ cars are super interesting, after a while you get "car blind:" you've seen so many you actually start to lose interest in them. They have to be something really out of the ordinary to catch your eye. You can only see so many $100,000 '57 Chevy convertibles and sports cars so exotic you can't identify half of them. It's not long before you become overwhelmed. I was drawn to an Austin Mini station wagon that was towing a finely finished mahogany hydroplane. Also liked some of the oddball trucks folks had restored and were hoping they'd make money on, which, usually wasn't the case. I saw lots and lots of cars sell for prices that were about half of what it would cost to acquire and restore or modify the car. There were definitely some deals to be had on the field. If a guy had $20-$25k to burn, he could do quite well. Truth is, we go to BJ as much for the exhibitors as we do for the cars. At least half the tented area is a swamp of exhibitors hoping to cash in on the herds of high rollers that were cruising the grounds. There was zero ticky-tacky stuff being sold, but there was more non-car stuff than there was automobilia. Want 40 acres of land so high in the Rockies that your only neighbors would be mountain goats? How about $10,000 adjustable beds? Lots and lots of folks were selling workshop benches that were chromed and painted so nicely, you'd have a hard time not feeling guilty the first time you got them dirty. I broke down and bought a fairly inexpensive throatless metal shear that I could probably get cheaper at Harbor Frieght, but it was there, I had the $120, and they'd deliver it to the house for that, tax included. The net result of rubbing shoulders (and everything else) with the sweaty masses who were attracted to the car spectacle was that I was in a great mood. Of course, it's impossible to feel funky, if you've just bought a tool. That's a guaranteed "manspirin." bd 4 Jan 15 –2015: So far, so good
Here it is, the fourth day of the new year and so far nothing catastrophic has gone wrong. At least not in my world. I have, however, decided I'm not sure I like having our two major holidays on Thursday. I found myself reacting strangely to four-day weekends. Actually, looking back over the holiday weekends, here I am, just a few days after New Year's eve and I don't remember any of the holidays having happened. Somehow, everything being on Thursday left that uncomfortable Friday gap where I felt guilty, just as I did in highschool when I was ignoring my homework. I just knew a term paper was due and I wasn't working on it. Which definitely wasn't true. With no kids in the house, Christmas comes very close to being just another day with a big dinner at the end of it. However, for some reason, knowing that most of the world is taking the day off and unlikely to call me, I seize on the morning and most of the early afternoon to do something that lets me know I'm getting ahead. In this case it was writing an entire EAA article, a fairly complex one, in one sitting. Being able to write something beginning to end is almost unheard of in our house because of constant interruptions in the form of phone calls and business e-mails. However, the only way that happened this time was by turning off my e-mail, because so many other gray dog friends were in the same boat. Dozens of them were sitting at their computers chatting back and forth because, it seems that after a certain age, Christmas morning is pure dead time. No ball games yet. No kids. Dinner isn't until mid afternoon. So, many default to the computer, as most of us do, when life slows down. I had seen the two four-day weekends coming and I was determined to dedicate every available hour to making massive progress on The Roadster. So, with that in mind, I spent most of December getting all my articles done, getting Flight Journal finished and generally clearing the slate so I could indulge myself. However, as things slowed down on Christmas, and then New Years, eve, I quickly found I couldn't force myself out into the shop. I'm apparently not very good at indulging myself. After nearly 45 years of self-employment, I, like most people in my position, feel as if free time has to be earned. And it is earned by TCB (taking care of business). So, at least four to six hours of every day of both holidays were spent cranking out future articles, pitching publishers for new articles and planning out 2015. That however put me out in the shop by around 11 o'clock every day feeling as if I had earned it, so, yes, I did make, what to me, is huge progress on the little car. I'm definitely closing in on putting it on the road. New Years Eve here is always a traditional event: Marlene buys more clams, crab legs, shrimp and scallops than any ten people can possibly eat, fixes them and we spend the evening gorging ourselves. Then we struggle to stay awake long enough to watch the ball come down in NYC (2200 hours our time). We doze on and off in front of the TV for another half hour or so and then go to bed. Not terribly exciting but very comfortable and satisfying. I think it's interesting that, once you give up going out on New Years Eve, eventually a lot of us wind up starting our year on New York time, not local time, and watching that silly ball come down. Every year it's almost painful watching people standing around Times Square freezing their butts off so full of enthusiasm and hope. It's also amusing watching 20-somethings in their ridiculously skimpy dresses with boobs overflowing while braving the temps in hopes of getting face time on national TV. Oh, well, you're only young once. New Years day is a recovery period for most people, but it's a tradition with me to roll into the office no later than 0530. That's when I attack all the tiny, inconsequential stuff I've let slide (answering e-mails I've ignored, packing books for mailing that I have let pile up, clean my desk, etc.) and generally clear the decks for the new year. After about four hours of that, I'm even with the World and a load of guilt is off my back. But, having a Friday after that is awkward. I tried working in the shop but it felt unnatural, so I gave up and made it into a normal workday and didn't hit the shop solidly until Saturday. That felt right. Anyway, even though I barely remember the holidays, as we're standing here on the brink of a new year, I'm painfully aware of the way time is running away from us all. We have to make it all count in every phase of our lives. This includes nurturing and rebuilding family relationships where it's needed. Then we need to keep a watchful eye on our futures and prepare and plan so we're not caught unaware. This includes keeping track of what our leaders are, and are not, doing on local, state and national levels. However, we need to do this in a way that doesn't include self-induced heartburn. In that area, we're often our own worse enemies. The New Year in every life is a clean slate and it's up to us to write on it and make it read the way we want it to. bd
27 Dec 14 –An Honestly New Year
How was your Christmas? And how does the New Year look to you? Graydog Christmases don't have kids running around and being the focus of everything, so, the day is basically just a day. In some ways that sucks. But, not totally. We've pretty much stopped giving gifts to each other primarily because all of us, from my wife to my own kids, have pretty much anything any of us can ask for. My daughter, however, ignored that dictum and stole my day with two fairly simple gifts. One was a little 50-page photo book she created through Shutterfly.com in which four-year-old Alice acted out the 12 Days of Christmas in pictures. Besides being a major piece of production work, it showcased a granddaughter that we don't see nearly as often as we wish or should. It was absolutely killer and really showed The Alice personality and The Jennifer creativity. I love it so much I ordered two more. One for my office and one for my older sister. The other gift gives me the ability to say something not too many fathers can say: "My daughter gave me a stuffed bat for Christmas." I opened it (it has it's own glass, display bell) and start laughing immediately. Marlene summed it up perfectly with her first comment, "Well…she really knows her father." And, even though we have our differences, she does, indeed, know that aspect of me well. So, now I have two bats in my office. Doesn't everyone? I feel so blessed! J As for the new year, it's so unpredictable, I don't even know what to say on the national/international level. Between Putin, ISIS, our Administration and the administrations of just about every other country, the possibilities are endless. However, for whatever reason, I don't see any of them having catastrophic results here. Probably the most dangerous thing here is the way OPEC is countering the Dakota's oil shale effect by dropping prices to the point that the US oil boom might go into the red. Yeah, we're getting cheaper gas but it may cost us much more in the long run. This, however, I'm certain will sort itself out. Incidentally, I think it's almost comical what appears to be happening over the Sony cyberattack: it now appears it may not have been N. Korea, as the FBI swore it was, but a pissed-off Sony employee. Oops! Certainly one of the more upsetting trends is the anti-cop thing. The flames here are being fanned by the media and various organizations and…….. Dammit! You know what? I don't want to talk about this kind of stuff any more! I'm bone tired of it! There is so much BS floating around that it makes me feel as if I'm wading through quicksand, unable to make any headway because of all the stuff that I'm letting bog me down. That's simply not the way I want to start my year. I don't know if you noticed or not, but Thinking Out Loud is now downloading much, much quicker than it has been in the last year or so. That's because I built a new, corruption-free file and have been slowly populating it with blogs from the last year. I'm only a little way into that, but, in picking through the blogs to put up, I've found they are overwhelmingly political and down beat. They're not fun to read. And they're sure as hell not fun to write. Some of them are basically depressing and reading them is hard work. And, as has been pointed out by my kids and friends, I appear angry. And I don't want to be that way. I don't want 2015 to be an angry year for me. And, it's going to be, if I continue on this track. I need to start thinking about me, my life, my family and my friends and less about oh-my-God stuff that's over the horizon. I'm wasting the years I have left worrying about stuff I shouldn't worry about and I'm preaching to a choir that already knows every single thing I can possibly say in those areas. I want to go back to being happy, crazy and full of fun. There are lots of good things happening in the world, but I'm letting the politics and media blind me to them. And, if it's happening to me, it's happening to others. In fact, I think dwelling on the negatives has become an unhealthy national mindset and it's easy to see why: spend a few minutes surfing the news channels and see how many upbeat stories you see being covered. I'VE HAD IT and the resolution I'm making for 2015 (being mindful that I never make resolutions) is to try to focus more on the good and less on the bad. So…picture me smiling! There, don't I look better and don't you feel better? See, I knew it would work. Have a good one! bd
21 Dec 14 –Solstice Sensibilities
It's 0430 on December 21. Today the winter solstice occurs and I feel the need to sacrifice something to celebrate: 'must be that my English heritage includes a little druid. So, as I'm typing this, I'm sacrificing an open face turkey sandwich. Does that count? Will the Gods look favorably on that? 'Hope so because they've been screwing with us of late. We've had a two-week run of semi-overcast days. Some barely getting above 60. Gloom in the desert is not becoming. My newly overhauled, and very expensive, airplane engine continues to exhibit varying degrees of sickness requiring a mechanical physician's attention about once a week. Both of my kids have essentially disowned me because of what I've said in blogs. Marlene was standing on a plastic stool that died right at that moment, dropping her on to the driveway and chipping a bone in her foot, so she's hobbling around in a big boot thingie. Deadlines are eating me a live timewise so the Roadster no longer recognizes me. Super minor things, when measured against the big picture, but aggravating nonetheless. So, I decided to dedicate this sandwich's life to the Gods of Nuisance on this, the winter solstice, in the hopes of getting some respite. Then, I made the mistake of Googling "winter solstice" and realized I knew even less about my world than I realized and my sacrifice was probably in naught. Stonehenge, the Mayans and many other ancient civilizations that have miraculously constructed temples where two windows line up with the sun right at the moment of solstice, are basically full of crap. Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere is when the sun is at its lowest point and, because of the Earth's 23.5 degree tilt and changing orbital speeds, it almost never happens at exactly the same time. Moreover, it doesn't even happen on the same day every time, which was real news to me. So, the ancients weren't holding a celebration and sacrificing turkey sandwiches at exactly the same time, same day every year. There were probably herds of them sitting around in the grass, playing poker or whatever, watching the sun creep up on their Windows 1.0 sundial thingie and, whenever they saw the sun line up in the windows, someone blew a rams horn or threw a spear into the air and everyone started drinking, screwing everything in sight, yelling and screaming and generally behaving like a frat house. Considering that I'm a pilot and an engineer, I'm a little embarrassed that I assumed the solstices (summer and winter) always happen at the same time every year. I don't think I've ever really thought about it, but, when you do, you realize it only makes sense that the exact time wanders around a little. Oh well, at least I'm not too old to learn something that's obvious. Just FYI, here in Phoenix, the solstice will happen this afternoon, Sunday 21, 2014 at 4:03 pm. Do I have to eat another turkey sandwich at that time to make the sacrifice count? FYI-you can forget about using those times as any kind of guideline because next year it'll happen at 9:48 pm. The real head wrecker is that in 2040, it'll happen a day earlier, on the 20th at 11:33 pm. Somehow, I don't think I'll be worrying about sandwich sacrifices for that one. Go to http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/winter-solstice.html, so you know how to time your local sacrifices. Incidentally, for those who have thought about sacrificing a politician to the Gods, don't bother. Those never count because "sacrifice" means you're giving up something you value. I value a turkey sandwich. Politicians, not so much. So, while you're out there gleefully engaged in whatever pagan ritual befits your life style, just know you're probably doing it at the wrong time. Also, even us heathens recognize Christmas on the 25th day of the 12th month and, although we may not buy into the religious aspects of it, I, for one, am very glad the religion and the celebration around it exists. Anything that gives mankind a code of exemplary conduct and brings the family together is worthwhile. So, go to Merry Christmas for our best wishes to all of you. bd
14Dec 14 –Ashes to Ashes
I've been sicker'n crap and working my butt off for nearly two weeks. A miserable combination. There, that's my excuse for missing last week. In the midst of all this Marlene and I somehow started talking about what to do with our ashes, when this whole deal is done. That's a weird topic that brought up some unanswered questions that I'm betting a lot of folks think about. The first question for us was one you don't hear often in these kinds of conversations: "Do we include Meezer?" Meaning, do we include his ashes with ours, the way we will the rest of our furry kids? We both said, "sure", he finally came around. Meezer is a big Siamese that we inherited from Marlene's oldest and was a first rate gangster initially. He would have nothing to do with anyone, showed a ton of attitude and absolutely brutalized Smoki Joe, the huge, soft-hearted, gray that has zero self confidence. Meezer was a Siamese through and through. However, the more he saw the love that blanketed the other cats, little by little he became more human and now is constantly begging for scratches, insists on sleeping on top of us and leaves Smoki pretty much alone. Just shows that enough love conquers even the most sinister of characters. We've always said that we want our ashes mixed together along with those of all the loving, canine/feline kids who have shared our life with us. I don't believe in heaven, but eternity is out there and we can't imagine spending eternity without all of those little characters that have made our life what it is. Each one of them has a corner of our collective heart and we want to hold them close forever. There are, however, other thoughts that surround the above, the first being what do we have done with the ashes? Marlene and I don't see eye to eye on this one. She thinks everyone should leave something that marks their having been here. Specifically, a tombstone others can visit. I disagree. Marlene's brother, Tom, has a tombstone here. He died in the most improbable form of accident you can imagine while in the Army (flew Snakes in VN, but died from peritonitis when a litter fell and pierced his fresh appendectomy incision here in the states). He has a widow and a kid or two locally, however, Marlene is the only one who ever visits him. It's a Memorial Day ritual with her. My folks and brother are buried back in Nebraska and, whenever I'm there I visit, but that's only about every five years. I have no one locally who cares enough to visit and I absolutely guarantee that neither of my kids will visit even once. Grand kids neither. So, why spend the money on a tombstone or plot? As for leaving a mark that you've been here, I figure my students and my words will have to be my legacy. A marble slab isn't needed. I originally had high ideals about where my ashes would go, including a pinch being mixed with the smoke oil in a Pitts doing a show at Oshkosh. Seems fitting and I'd still like to see it done. Otherwise, I'd just as soon I was spread out over the Arizona high country, preferably over an Indian ruin. Spirits meeting spirits and all that. Also, there's the thoroughly practical side of the combined-ashes thing: will a cemetery even let two people's ashes be buried in a single plot? Will they let animals be buried in their sacred, but very expensive, ground? I'm betting they wouldn't be too crazy about a stone that reads:
The Davisson Family: Eternally United Budd Marlene Nizhoni Sha´hn-deen Corki Abigail Smoki Jo Meezer
And the list is bound to get longer. I'm fairly confident it's going to be a decade or so before anyone will have to make any of these decisions, but I'm the king of worrying about things that don't need to be worried about. Just part of my wiring. I was also an Eagle Scout at a time, when that meant something, and our motto was "Be Prepared." So, just bear with me. bd
30 Nov 14 –Thanksgiving got the Crap Knocked Out of it
You know what? Just being alive in America is really tiring me out. It seems as if once a week (sometimes twice) we have a new crisis to deal with. It didn't used to be this way. Yes, we'd have problems here and there but our news channels weren't delivering an almost daily offering of new stuff that to most of us makes no sense and can be pretty damn upsetting. This has been one of those weeks. Between BHO's new immigration Executive Order (EO), also known as a monarch style mandate, and Ferguson, both of which appear to be specifically designed to further dismantle the USA, my brain is ready to explode. Thanksgiving came and went almost unnoticed. It is, however, so very American that news of Black Friday shopping (how did that get past without being branded racist?) knocked some of the other crap off the news channels…temporarily. About Ferguson, let's get something absolutely straight: if a 6'4", 290 pound, 18-year-old "kid" roughed up a cop while he was sitting in his car and then appeared to be charging him (according to the more valid witness statements), he'd be dead regardless of what color he was. No one, cop or otherwise, would have behaved any differently. Ferguson-the-event wasn't about race. It was about dealing with a "perceived threat" that was the result of questionable physical behavior. It's an absolute tragedy that a kid died, but, Brown had 80 pounds on the cop, who was also 6'4", and, if he hadn't been stopped, it was going to end badly for the cop, I don't care how well trained he might have been. I'm guessing that anyone reading this would have reacted the same way in the same situation. And the color of the assailant would have no bearing on the outcome. Incidentally, reading the trial transcript you have to wonder why perjury charges weren't brought against some of the witnesses, some of whom changed their statements, because they were out-and-out lying. Especially the "shot him in the back while standing over him", type that forensics didn't even come close to verifying. Regardless, this thing wouldn't have blown up the way it has were it not for 1) on-site aggravations in the form of professional race-baiters like Sharpton. He is doing the black community so much more harm than good that it's hard to believe. The input of the DOJ didn't help either. And 2) the presence of news cameras, which, in some cases changed the "protest" into violent kabuki theater where the attitude was, "You wanna see violent? Watch this!" Not once do I remember seeing footage of those protesting peacefully and, believe it or not, there were plenty of those. Most of what went on wasn't protesting. You only have to watch the footage of the market/liquor store being trashed to know that those involved weren't protesting anything. They didn't even appear to be angry about anything. They were having a great running off with bottles of booze and anything else that wasn't nailed down. They weren't protesters. They were looters, criminals-at-large doing nothing more than taking advantage of the situation. Incidentally, why weren't storeowners standing in front of their businesses with shotguns? I'd heard rumors that the police had told them not to do that, but that was never verified. And a few business owners did mount a guard and it worked out well for them. Looters will always take the low hanging fruit and are never going to mix it up with even the most fragile form of guard detail. And then there's BHO's immigration executive order and some unintended consequences hidden therein. At least I "think" they were unintended. In essence, one of the things the new EO does is give business owners a $3,000 incentive to hire illegals who are being granted work permits over US citizens. This is because it will now be legal to hire an illegal immigrant, but, since they don't qualify for Obamacare, the business owner can't provide them health coverage AND the company won't be fined for not doing so. If they hire a US citizen and don't give them coverage, they pay a $3000 fine for each. If they hire an illegal that's carrying a nice, new work permit they avoid the $3,000 fine AND the cost of health car. THIS IS NUTS!! Further, even though the EO supposedly applies only to those parents of legal permanent residents or citizens (their kids were born here) and have been in the country illegally for five years (this is a reward for being crafty enough to successfully avoid being caught for that long) it's not going to work out that way. There are already well-established underground businesses that produce difficult-to-spot phony rent receipts, utility bills, etc. So, as it stands now, someone has only to make it across the border to one of these document factories, waltz over to the INS and declare "Hey, I've been here five years and can prove it. Give me my work permit." If you don't think that's going to be a HUGE magnet to future immigrants, you've been drinking the Kool Aid too long. And then there was Thanksgiving and just a little respite from reality. It was in the low-80s here in Phoenix (about 5 degrees above normal) and I had the back garage door open, a little breeze coming in and classic rock and roll coming out of the shop radio. I was whittling out little parts for the roadster (steel grommets for where the shoulder harness comes through the rear bulkhead). And I couldn't have been more relaxed and satisfied if I tried. Regardless of the tons of BS coming down and an overall lack of trust in the government, we, as a nation and as a people, have a HUGE amount to be thankful for. So, I guess the best we can do is periodically turn off the news and glory in the lives we each have built, love our family and friends, and soldier on. One way or the other, we'll survive. bd
23 Nov 14 –On Surviving a President
Oh, Gee: I wonder what Budd's going to talk about this week? Could it be the weather? Could it be Syria and/or Iraq? Hmmmm! Do you think he'll touch on Obama's little Wednesday night message to the proletariat (us common folks) over which he rules? Damn straight Budd will. He/I can hardly ignore it. First, let it be said that as much as I'd like to be able to wave a magic wand and have every illegal person in the US magically transported to their homeland, that just ain't gonna happen. The reality is that the numbers are too big to be dealt with by deportation. It is logistically impossible. 11 Million people would be the equivalent of shipping the combined populations of 12 states (WY, VT, DC, ND, AK, SD, DE, MT, RI, NH, MN HI), out to a wide variety of destinations. If illegals wanted to really screw with our heads, they should all just show up in the Washington Mall agreeing to be deported. What a mess that would be! At the same time, there's no way in hell we should be giving them a short cut to citizenship any more than we should be giving them benefits for just being here. Let's not forget: they broke our laws to be here and we are, if nothing else, a nation of laws. We don't reward people for breaking them. Further, we are a "republic" not a democracy, which means we have this do-not-disturb guidebook called the Constitution that pretty much spells out how everything should be done. Or at least it did until Wednesday night. I have to admit something right up front: I was prepared to ignore the speech and not watch it because I figured it would be so much BS. But, it turned out to be so much more. At first, I was taken by BHO's ability to appear to speak from the heart and some of the content of the speech. Like providing a pathway for the parents of kids born here at least five years ago (citizens by birth…we're one of only two or three countries that allow that), to first get working papers and then work their way towards citizenship. Bring them out of the shadows, as he put it, and make them tax paying contributors. He stopped deportation on that class of individuals. An estimated 5 million people. Then he said deportation would only be aimed at felons and other bad people. In fact, under his program people with skills that could contribute to the national well-being would NOT be deported, regardless of when they arrived. A theoretical mathematician could wade across the Rio Grande tomorrow and be guaranteed of staying. So we're going to have thousands of people streaming across the border claiming to be theoretical mathematicians. BHO had it pretty much worked out who he would deport and who he wouldn't. As he talked I heard myself saying, "Hey, some of this makes sense. It's a beginning on sorting out the immigration mess." Then, he droned on and on about how compassionate he was and how the country had a long history of compassion and how this affected a kid he knew, yada, yada, yada. If he had shut up right after making his points it would have taken longer for me, and so many others, to realize that we'd just been had. He is so good in front of a teleprompter that we were taken in like every one else, when it was just more of his super-slick, condescending rhetoric. It was during the rambling, sophomoric closing that a a brilliant neon sign lit up in the theater of my mind that said, "Just a damn minute! He can't do the things he just suggested! The Congress can, and, to one degree or another, probably should, but he can't." He was altering and making laws even as he stood there staring into the teleprompter that surrounded the camera. He was talking like a king making decrees that he was certain would please the most mentally challenged amongst us. He was on camera less than 15 minutes, and, in the process. proceeded to absolutely shred the Constitution. He stood up in front of the American people and, in so many words, said that he wasn't going to follow the rules. He wasn't going to respect the governmental framework of checks and balances that insured no single branch had enough power that they could do what they wanted. Every branch (executive, judicial, legislative) could reach out and slow the others down. But, not him. He was going to write his own rules and run his own game. Never mind what he said about immigration. The focus should be on the way in which he plans on putting those ideas into motion. People continually point out that both Reagan and Bush used executive orders (EOs) on immigration matters. What virtually none of them realize is that in both cases Congress had already voted on the issues and presented a law that the presidents were expected to put into action, which is the President's job (something BHO mentioned dozens of times in recent times). So, an EO put those versions of amnesty into action. BHO quite literally ignored the process and acted as if Congress had no say in the matter. "They" also say that the Senate passed an immigration bill several years ago but the GOP House refused to vote on it. However, according to the Washington Times, Monday, Nov 17, that's not the whole story. Senate Democrats keep own immigration bill from House, urge Obama executive action By Stephen Dinan - Senate Democrats say Republicans could head off President Obama's immigration plans by passing the Senate's own immigration bill — the only problem is the Democrats still haven't sent the measure to the House for a vote. Known as S.744, the 1,200-page bill has been bottled up by Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, in a bit of legislative gamesmanship that has clouded much of the debate over the past two years. Now, that bill has become the centerpiece of last-minute chiding as Democrats say they have exhausted all alternatives except for having Mr. Obama go it alone.
Again, ignoring what he says he's going to do, think of the motivation behind his actions. Why do it now? Why do it in such an arrogant, even petulant, manner? He looks as if he's spoiling for a fight and is sticking out his chin inviting us to swing the first blow, thereby becoming the bad guy. I pray that some of the GOP hotheads don't take the bait. We have an opportunity here to make our case stronger or destroy it completely and it's going to require balancing on a razor for two years to make it work. He is obviously going to go out of his way to make the GOP's life even more miserable than it is already and the challenge to the GOP big wigs is to prove to us that they are as smart as they think they are. And are smarter than BHO gives them credit for. Some serious blows need to be dealt but somehow they have to appear to be hugs and caresses aimed at making the Country better.
BHO's speech was nothing more than the opening gun in what is going to be an unbelievably nasty, complex, drawn-out battle. The way in which it is handled is going to decide which party wins the golden apple in 2016. Unfortunately, I don't have a good feeling about any of this. I hope I'm wrong.
At the very least, it's going to be interesting and will provide a true WTF moment for future historians to ponder. bd
16 Nov 14 –The Hotrod Gene
Yesterday was Good Guys car show day: a gathering of those individuals who, like me, see everything mechanical as something to be modified to our personal taste. In this case, the final result is rods and customs, vehicular genres totally unique to America. And, I think they are indicative of some kind of specific gene that exists in only some people. First, let me say that much of what I'm about to say is based on my own feelings about "stuff," especially mechanical stuff. Which is to say that there are very few things I can look at without seeing how I would change them. Or how I would build something similar from scratch that would better suit my specific tastes. This applies to firearms, guitars, knives, etc., etc., but especially cars and especially older ones. BTW- "Older" is defined as something from the '80's on back with pre-70's cars being of particular interest and pre-48's reigning supreme. But the same thing applies to just about anything I'm associated with, not just cars. Let's take rifles as an example: for $500 I can buy something new, like a Mossberg MVP that is reputed to be a tack-driver right out of the box (although some apparently aren't). But, as much as I admire highly accurate rifles, I can't just buy one. I have to start with something inferior and worn out. Generally it's something ex-military and old. I'll totally rebuilt and modify it and, even though I know it'll cost at least twice as much as something I can buy over the counter, will take several years to complete and it may not be as accurate as the store bought version (accuracy is often elusive no matter how much you spend), I'll do it anyway. I can't even begin to explain why I have a lifetime of the foregoing. It makes absolutely zero sense. But, right now I have about a dozen M98 Mausers of many varieties (WWI and WWII), all of them basically junk rifles (non-original) going all the way back to 1900, awaiting custom barrels, stocks and all the other hotrod goodies that will make them into rifles that reflect my taste. Going to the Good Guys car meet is delving into another, but better recognized, orgy of modification. The Good Guys meets are held all over the country and each will attract over 3,000 cars, trucks and whatever. Every single one of those vehicles has had far more time and money invested in making it unique than is rational. Yet, not one of the tens of thousands of spectators on the grounds questions the rationale behind the cars they're viewing. Even though the majority of attendees wouldn't even dream of devoting so much of their lives to creating/re-creating a vehicle, they nonetheless admire the result. They understand the need to modify, to re-create something that matches the image someone has in their own mind. What got me thinking about the modification gene was a comment my current Pitts student made. He's a car guy (and airplane guy, obviously) from England and he said, "…however, I really prefer to see cars restored to what they were when they came out of the factory." And I couldn't disagree: I very much admire fully restored cars. But, I can't do it myself. And I think I'm typical of that part of the car culture, the hotrod/custom part, that seems uniquely American. Lately, because my airplane was down for two months I've had weekends off, so I've gotten a HUGE amount done on the roadster. In fact, I thought I was going to have it ready to go to Good Guys in an unfinished form. Unfortunately, the pressures of making a living intervened, when the airplane came alive again. But, I'm close. In the process of working on it, from time to time I literally grin, when I hit an snag, search around the shop for a piece of this or that, that I can cobble together and solve the problem. I love solving problems and I'm free to do what I want to the car at any time in any way. In restoring a vehicle to original, there are basically only two problems, both of them potentially huge: beating rust and finding original parts. Hotrodding, original hotrodding where you take something you've found in a junkyard or ditch, not in a catalog or website, and make it perform a new function, shares the common enemy of rust. However, there is nothing that constrains us to use any specific part in any application. We can do it any damn way we please. There are no rules and few conventions. These days, even the conventions that sometimes vaguely dictate the style of a given class of hotrods, e.g. highboy and low boy street roadsters, are being ignored courtesy of the rat rods and rat rigs (funky, modified big trucks). And I love it! While I could never bring myself to discard craftsmanship in favor of oddball creativity, as with rat rods, I enjoy the hell out of them. I enjoy that you just never know what a rat rodder is going to build. As I typed that last sentence, I realized that some part of my rifle-building brain is that of a rat rodder. Years ago I bought a badly beat-up Mexican built 7mm Mauser (M98, small ring) that had a really long barrel and the much-abused stock was broken clean through right under the action. I glued it back together and shot it some because I admired its tenacity: it had obviously lived a hard life, which the barrel unfortunately showed. But it had survived. And I can't bring myself to destroy the patina and signs of struggle by restocking and refinishing it. So, right now I'm getting ready to put a new, long barrel (26 inches) on it and leave the funky, I've-been-there look alone. But, the new caliber 6.5 x 55 is a tackdriving round and I'm installing a super accurate, but well worn, receiver peep sight on it and a finely tuned trigger that will be invisible from the outside. To complete the image, I'm finishing the barrel to look old. My goal is to take a crappy looking rifle that will group at less than 1 inch at a hundred yards to the range and amaze people. It's kind of a rat rifle that will make absolutely zero sense and not be worth a dime to most people. This is okay with me. It's just something I've built to match an image in my head. And that's all that matters. Sometimes, when it comes to things mechanical, change for change's sake is impossible to avoid. It's in our genes. bd 7 Nov 14 –Let The Mouse Do it
Other than handing the Democrats their asses, what else went on this week? Quite honestly, I can think of almost nothing because my life has been eaten up by watching political coverage (actually, I think I just like Meghan Kelly) and dealing with a newly overhauled airplane engine that refuses to behave. Oh, and one other thing: I discovered what I think is a way we can save our country. Last Friday I worked and flew my butt off then jumped into my car and rocketed to LA. By 0700 the next morning I had met my daughter and granddaughter at our Disneyland hotel, checked in and was standing at the gates of Walt Disney's orgy of organization, creativity and fun. Because we were staying in a Disney hotel, we could get in at 0700, an hour ahead of the common folk, the sweaty, unwashed masses, which usually includes me. Looking through the gates at a totally empty, seemingly abandoned amusement park made me feel as if I was Clark Griswald and I'd just arrived at Wally World not realizing it was closed. Eerie! What I didn't know was that I was about to become part of a mouse-driven machine that would impress me at every turn. This started right at the turnstile going in. A sweet, middle-aged lady ask me for my hotel key and a photo ID. She ran the key through a card reader and clicked what looked like a cell phone in my face. From that point on, every time we changed parks or went through some sort of Disney-guest-only function, they'd take a second (no longer) to scan the key and my face would pop up on their little handheld card reader verifying that I hadn't strong-armed some pink-haired old lady out of her room key. This process didn't come close to slowing anything down. It was totally seamless. The system would work perfectly for voter ID. If, of course, that wasn't racist. Same thing could be tied to credit cards to cut down credit card fraud. From that point on, every time I turned around I saw overwhelming evidence of the Disney organization's ability to do things right and make monstrous amounts of money in the process. First, my two-day pass was about $190 plus $40 (I think it was) so I could hop back and forth between the two parks. That was a choker for me, but, as I looked around there were tens of thousands of folks that just looked like normal working stiffs from the area. There were also a huge percentage of kids, 17-22, I'm guessing, that were there having a helluva good time. I was astounded at how many normal-looking families were there with multitudes of kids, each of which cost a fortune to support for the day. Who knows? Maybe the economy actually is recovering. However, you couldn't prove that from my personal point of view. Of course, these could also be people either living up their foodstamp money or they'd given up, said "screw it" and are having one last fling. The quality of the parks, the quality of the thousands of employees staffing it, the overall complexity of the whole thing was nothing short of overwhelming. Incidentally, I've been to Disney World in Florida probably a dozen times, when I was still living in the East. However, I hadn't been to Disneyland since probably the 60's. I'd forgotten how the entire thing is crammed into what amounts to a fairly small area so it took a lot of imagination and planning to squish everything together yet make it feel as if you actually had a lot of room. I couldn't stop myself from looking at details like how the hand rails were constructed and the massive amount of planning, engineering and manufacturing, it took to build just one ride or amphitheater and there were dozens and dozens of everything. I should also make mention of the fact that Disney REALLY hires to a profile in a lot of their positions, but it's most obvious in picking the young ladies (and guys) who play some of their well known characters on the streets. They had to be some of the most beautiful, perfect behaving young ladies I've ever seen in one place. Little by little, as I wandered through the never ending, overarching quality of the experience, I couldn't help but think what a mess the country was in by comparison. Here was a massive, really huge, operation that was working like a well-oiled machine. However, virtually everything in which our government gets involved turns into an oversized, bloated, slow moving ox cart that continually breaks down and costs ten times what it should. It also almost always moseys aimlessly across the landscape and quite often winds-up moving in circles. But, I have a solution. Let's hire Disney run America. Here is a company that really has its finger on the pulse of America. They make it their business to really know and understand the population and what it wants because, if it doesn't, it's not going to make a profit. This, of course, is true of every business of any kind, from the local cupcake vendor in Keokuk, Iowa, to giants like Microsoft. They can only survive if they make a profit and they can only turn a profit if they read their market correctly and satisfy its needs accordingly. This is not true of a government. A government is a business but it runs on other people's money and doesn't have to worry about a balance sheet, much less a profit. And, of late, they've apparently decided they don't have to operate on a budget either. They seem to think taxpayers are a bottomless piggy bank that will always be there for them to dip into. It's a mindset that would put them out of business in a heartbeat in the real world outside the beltway. If more politicians had come out of the private sector, rather than politics, the lawyer community or academia, they'd understand how a government is nothing more than a special kind of business and would recognize how important efficiency is to stretch the supposedly limited resources they have. But, of course they don't. The solution is to farm the country out to Disney. Let them run it and their pay would be a small percentage of any surplus created. They'd be constrained in terms of being given an exacting list of services they have to provide. Also, I don't think we should let them put a mouse outline on top of either the capital building or the Washington Monument. Maybe put it on the five dollar bill or something. In my eyes, a Mouse is probably good for America. So, now that the GOP is the temporary top dog in town and it looks as if BHO is going to dig his heels in and flaunt his power, what do we do? I think we're in for the craziest ride we've ever seen in our history, in terms of a President running amuck while he still has a lame duck congress. And even more so for the next two years. TWO FRIGGING YEARS!! This is going to be nuts! No matter what happens, it's going to be hard to maintain our emotional balance. So, I suggest we all take a couple of days off and hit Disneyworld or Disneyland. Hey, it can't hurt! If all the politicians were to go, they might learn a thing or two. However, neither BHO or Biden would be allowed to wear mouse ears. They'd be redundant. bd
7 Nov 14 –Alone
As I'm writing this, it's 0800 and Marlene's flight took off about 15 minutes ago. She'll be gone for a week visiting her sister and I already feel incredibly incomplete. This is really a strange feeling, mostly because I don't think she's ever been gone for more than three days since we got together 22 years ago (married 16). It's even stranger considering that I usually hit the office around 0530 so on a normal day it's at least three or four hours before I even know she's in the house. Right now, however, I can sense her absence. Some part of me knows she's not there. It's interesting how all mammals form some sort of psychic connection with another and often know when that connection is broken. How else do you explain the number of times a dog will sleep on his master's grave? Or a child will know when a parent has died thousands of miles away? A wife subliminally senses when her warrior husband has departed this life? On a more positive side, I'm guaranteed to choke up, or even have tears running down my cheeks, when I see some of the videos about men/women returning from overseas and surprising their mates at home or their kids at school. There is something so tangible about that connection that it touches us all. However, I'm not sure which touches me the most, the human connections or the unspoken, hard to explain connections between dogs and their owners. We can easily enough explain the family connections between kids and parents, husband and wife (well, no, we can't really explain that either), and between friends, but the bond between dogs and humans is simply unexplainable but so wonderful it adds a warmth to life that is unavailable from any other source. Even from a baby. Maybe it's the unquestioning love and devotion a dog will show. So, this week, it's just me, Sháhn-deen and the cats. So, I won't be alone. But, you know that's a lie, don't you? Watch the below and if you don't get choked up at least a couple of times, drop me a line. I'm pretty sure I won't get a single e-mail. bd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzCaA6IazFA http://fox4kc.com/2014/07/25/dog-whines-with-joy-nearly-passes-out-when-owner-returns-home-after-2-years/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC5DXGIC8s8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzwJ70dYqKc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKBcs9tNWg8 PS We were concerned enough about putting Marlene on an airplane, given the ebola situation, that she has surgical masks in her purse and, if she doesn't like the situation, I'm certain she'll use them. She's already paranoid about everything she touches, thanks to the news coverage on the disease.


text:
Does LablTk have a future?
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Date: | -- (:) |
From: | Jon Harrop <jon@f...> |
Subject: | Re: GUI for OCaml (was: Re: [Caml-list] Does LablTk have a future?) |
On Tuesday 30 August 2005 15:14, Richard Jones wrote: > Lablgtk2 is a pain, but I think the pain comes from Gtk itself, not > any shortcomings in lablgtk2 or ocaml. Yes. My understanding is that lablgtk does a lot to hide the hideousness beneath. > > However this is a huge task. [...] > > It is a huge task. Depending on what exactly we're talking about, I think it is entirely tractable for one person, let alone a team. > I'm not even sure what a "functional" API for a > GUI toolkit would look like. Ideas? Example code snippets? I think the GUI code should be split into definition (i.e. how the widgets are laid out) and execution (i.e. what functions are called for GUI events). The former should be functional in style because it is easier to write and more succinct and the latter should be imperative in style because it is essentially poking a state machine about. The functional definition could be a data structure that is folded over to accumulate the widgets needed by the subsequent event code. For example, consider a searchable list with a labelled search box, a scrollable list and a button to add new entries (off the top of my head): let gui = `Frame [`Frame [`Label "Search: "; `Entry]; `List; `Button "Add"];; let rec make parent accu = function | `Frame l -> List.fold_left (make (Frame.create `Top parent)) accu l | `Label text -> let widget = Label.create ~text parent in pack [widget]; `Label widget :: accu | `Entry -> let widget = Entry.create parent in pack [widget]; `Entry widget :: accu | `List -> let parent = build_frame side fill expand parent in let list = Listbox.create ~width parent in pack ~side:`Left ~fill:`Both ~expand:true [list]; let scroll_bar = Scrollbar.create parent in Listbox.configure ~yscrollcommand:(Scrollbar.set scroll_bar) list; Scrollbar.configure ~command:(Listbox.yview list) scroll_bar; pack ~side:`Right ~fill:`Y [scroll_bar]; `List list :: accu | `Button text -> let widget = Button.create ~text parent in pack [widget]; `Button widget :: accu let [_; `Entry search; `List list; `Button add] = make top [] gui;; You'd want to add a call to "pack" after each call to "*.create" and you'd want to have HBox and VBox instead of Frame but the basic idea is there. I can't see a good way to statically type such code in general so I've left it with an incomplete pattern match. Perhaps we should start by writing such a wrapper that can target either labltk or lablgtk? -- Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd. Objective CAML for Scientists http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists

subset: commoncrawl