Oscar has been growing at an astonishing rate, he is still the best pet you could ask for.  He is a man about town, with lots of friends (most of them we don't even know).  He has a bzillion toys, but loves his tennis ball best, and lately has been able to (sometimes) retrieve specific toys by name. 

 

March found Q off to Korea for a two week active duty stint in a place called Pusan.  If you look at a map of Korea, Pusan is on the very southeast tip of the peninsula.  It is a huge port and is strategically very important...in fact if you look at the ebb and flow of the Korean War, you will see that when the commie hoards had taken almost the entire country, Pusan never fell into their hands...I enjoyed Korea tremendously...not having ever been to the Far East, I didn't know what to expect, and had a preconceived notion that Korea was a sort of second rate Japan (don't tell them I said this, nothing pisses off the Koreans more than being compared to Japan, not to mention unfavorably).  What I found was an ancient, vibrant culture that basically created and exported (or was pilliaged) art, music, scholarship, etc to her more powerful neighbors who basically stamped their names on it and called it their own...China and Japan are you listening?  Koreans also don't fit the racial stereotype I had placed on "Asians."  They are big, loud, raucous, adventuresome crazies.  Sure there is the standard Confucian influence and all that, but generally, they were pretty cool.  Pusan looks like Seattle, and everywhere you look is work, industry, and ambition.  All in all, I was very impressed.

 

I returned to Chicago for a 36 hour layover and then was off again, this time to Savannah, GA.  This time, I was in training for my new job as a Gulfstream IV-SP copilot for McDonald's Corporation.  That's right, I work for the clown.  I was in Savannah for nearly a month, working my heinie off.  The big deal here was, in addition to a tremendous amount of pressure applied to myself by myself, learning how to fly "glass."  Glass is the term cool pilots (are there any other kind) use to describe a network of various computer systems in modern airplanes.  Up til now, I was basically as advanced as a WWII pilot, flying with steam gauges (that look like your old alarm clock) with the only digital thing in the cockpit being my wristwatch.  When I left the Navy, I actually took a huge leap backwards in the 727...not only was I a flight engineer who didn't actually fly, but I was basically building generators and running a lot of the systems manually.  WEIRD.  The most complex thing in the airplane was the Flight Attendant's coffee pot.

 

So now, instead of "stick goes down, houses get bigger; stick goes up houses get smaller"  I am trying to learn how to negotiate with the computer system to get it to do what I want it to do...like anything with computers, the main source of errors is misprogramming, but the kicker is, your engine can still catch on fire, so while you are doing all this magic programming crap, you still have to fly the airplane. 

 

All in all, despite the difficulty in learning a new way of aviating, I LOVE GLASS.  It is a powerful tool (used correctly) and is my future in aviation, so I am eternally grateful I am learning how to do it now (sooner rather than later is good).  I am actually flying for MCD's now, and I love it...I sit in the right seat, and run checklists, typical new guy stuff, but lately, when nobody is around, late at night with no passengers, sometimes they let me land it!!!  I am happy to report that I am exploring the world of flared landings, and it seems to be going well...still would love to prang it down (a hard landing is a safe landing folks) but the comfort of the passengers is important (If I keep telling myself this, I will eventually believe it...)

 

Chris is doing extremely well...April was a crappy month for him as well as he had to prepare (i.e. stress out) for his oral examinations.  We have not gotten the official results back, but he felt really good about it...a good sign.  When he receives his board certification, he will be able to work in any emergency room in the world.  Of course the boards weren't very realistic (what standardized test is?) but it is a necessary evil.  He is considering beginning to moonlight somewhere here in Chicago as he needs to see more extreme cases than he gets in the Navy ER to keep current on his skills and knowledge. 

 

Check out the wedding page, sign the guestbook, explore the FAQ...

 

Love and Peace,

Q