Month: June 2015

This morning’s column will be blissfully short (on your side, not mine) due to our plans to be off the ground by regular publishing time in order to airlift G-II down to Skydive Spaceland, also known to airmen as TE-88.

It shows up on aeronautical maps are a simple red ball with an R (as in restricted) in it.  And prior permission and coordination with the jump planes in the air is required.   I took care of getting the permissions to land on this private field.

Still, it’s not a bad little airport: About 3,500 feet, paved, and with a turn-around circle at the south end of runway 13.

To get ready for it, G-II and I went up and did a little flying work Wednesday morning after Peoplenomics and an interminable delay getting G-II ready.

The simple fact about flying in really small planes, where climb outs are slow, is that the best time of the day to fly is sunrise until noon.  The closer you get to noon, the more the (thankfully returned) Texas sun heats the ground differently and you get thermals.

The first landing yesterday was at KJSO (Jacksonville, Texas) and it’s an interesting airport that has the approach end of the runway sitting on something of a bluff.  The only other airports I’ve been into with bluffs to them are the one in Branson Missouri, and of course Tacoma Industrial up in the PNW.

These are good “mental discipline landings” because your eye has a tendency to look at the face of the bluff, rather than “the numbers” of the runway.  The idea is to land on “the numbers” despite the optics of it…although people get trained formally to look for “the aiming point” which seems to me like it’s a good walk from “the numbers” (the runway heading with the last digit lopped off) and a waste of good pavement..

But, as always, it was a fine landing, right on the centerline and then full power and off again..

Before departing we had a little father-son conflict…which happens even when son is 34 and dad is 66.

G-II wanted to suction cup the GoPro onto the windshield.

No dice.  “This is a see and avoid deal” I reminded the boy.

We went round about this for a couple of minutes with me stating the regs (and zealously guarding my visual scan area which would have been somewhat blocked).

His next ploy was to install the GoPro suction onto the dash.

No-go there, either.

The problem was, this alternate installation obscured the old man’s view of the exhaust gas temp (EGT) which on a warm day is something to keep an eye on.

Eventually, G-II finally understood that Dad wasn’t going anywhere with his vision obscured,. so G-II ended up using a head mount for the camera, which worked out fine and I have to say was pretty good footage.

The last landing of the day was perfect, on the numbers, and stopped in a hair over 350-feet. 

The two major learning points to share:  Parenting doesn’t stop at 18, 21, 23, or any other magical numbers.  Us old folks have to keep passing on knowledge until the end, it seems.  They don’t believe any faster as they get older, either.  And they do require documentation.

Second is that our kids are truer reflections of ourselves than we’d like to think.  G-II’s bullheadedness and determination to have his way reminded me of someone else I know like that.

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Thanks to a subscriber in Nebraska, and a call from my consigliore Monday, we have some important new concepts that are percolating around under the surface of economic discussions.

As you know, I hold that doom-sayers are often incorrect.  While it is tempting to listen to them, it is often disastrous, as well, when comes to preserving one’s lifestyle, financial assets, and happiness.

At the same time, however, embracing the future must be done carefully, as well, because if BitCoin is any model, the dangerous of excess optimism is what leads to buying BitBubbles much as it led to buying tulips back in 1634.

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Picking up G II (* my son, not be be confused with G2 – Gaye at www.backdoorsurvival.com) Monday at Dallas’ Love Field, was a simple example of what the coming world of chaos will be like when it finally gets here.

Fortunately – with more details for Peoplenomics™ readers, we may have a couple of years of peace and order left, but after that, all bets are off.

It started with me leaving the house a couple of minutes past noon for the ride up to Dallas.. 

My son’s plane didn’t come in until 3:50 on Virgin  Air, so it was supposed to be a simple drive.

It wasn’t.

Remember the note in Monday’s column from “warhammer” about engine software updates for Jets?

Well, maybe I should break down and  buy the updated navigation CD for our old Lexus, since the one in the car now is the original.  I may have mentioned previously on a trip a couple of years ago to the Colorado area, how the system would offer pronouncements like “In a quarter mile” turn right.

A quarter mile goes buy, and we’re hanging on the edge of a cliff with nothing but air and tree tops visible below and the (silicon bitch voice in the ) GPS says “Torn right, now!”

I should have learned something in Colorado…but did I?  Naw… $150 for a nav CD seemed a bit much when I can get a paper map (once free at service stations, but now $7.99 and $8.99 – or more at fill-it-yourself, we just want your money and to sell you pogey bait stations.).

Without the update in the GPS, I had the choice between following the GPS voice commands or trying to read the Google Maps print out – which seems somewhat risky…so GPS voice it was.

Things were going along well until the consarned machine told me to take Exit 43 A off what I thought was 35-E northbound.  After a couple of chandelles, a wingover, a legal U-turn, and a merge back onto…  The GPS rode me in a complete circle, only to get back on the freeway one exit before where I can gotten off.

In programming, this would be like getting stuck in a GOSUB loop (if anyone remembers BASIC).

After laying plans to get me again, the GPS finally directed me to exit onto Inwood Road and promptly got me stuck at the intersection of Inwood Road and Lemmon Avenue, not far from Love Field.  This is where a traffic  light was on the fritz,  being worked on.  So it took 15-minutes to get through that intersection.

I really didn’t have a choice, though:  There was a Bank of America on the corner that I needed to stop at, so stop and slow traffic to make it up to the light.

It was 2:30 by the time I made it this far, and the line in the bank was backed up all the way to the door.  And there was a grand total of  1.5 tellers on duty. 

I say 0.5 for one of them because rather than wait on people, the tellers were running off and bringing papers to people – I have no idea what that’s about, but I think it has something to do with welfare payments.  I was one of three people in line that didn’t look like I was getting some of this paper that was being passed out.

After a 20-some minute wait, I finally get to one of the tellers and asked “Kinda busy for a Monday, isn’t it?”

The line had filled in behind me and was still to the front door.  Again, more people with this mystery paper.  Mayb e it was welfare somethings.

“Oh, no, this is about normal now.  Someone in corporate made a decision to reduce us from five tellers down to two, and it’s like this most of the time now.”

Seems there was some remodeling being done on the drive-through, too, but I didn’t see how that would help things.

But it did bring up a spectacle in my head about how to cause bank runs to appear in America.

Simply have people in cost accounting of all the big banks keep shrinking down the teller count – which they are doing anyway – and the next thing you know, the bank lines will extend out of the front door.

And in all seriousness, public and banking officials will declare there is no such things as bank runs.  Could it be that we’re getting “conditioned” to the idea of lines right now?

After that, my next task was to get to the airport.  Never been to Love Field before.

Parked in the parking garage – which had almost invisible signage – and eventually (no thanks to the lack of signs) found my way to a sky bridge to the terminal and that was that.

The next 45-minutes was spent waiting for G-11’s plane, and he managed to be the last one off, having drawn steerage in the seating lottery.

It worked out OK for him, because he came off the plane all bubbly about the cool onboard chatroom that Virgin Atlantic has been phasing in.  .

“It was really cool…I chatted most of the trip with a hot chic in 18-C” he proudly reported.  “Then we had a shot at the bar when we got off…and I got a kiss and an email….”

We finally left the terminal after 10-minutes of going everywhere but out (again the signage was lacking while my son kept asking “You OK, dad?” I was fuming. Big cities stick in my craw anymore.

This is what Chaos and Bank Runs will look like when they arrive:  Banks will have insufferably long lines, city services (like stop lights that work) will have all been hacked, and the world will look for all intents and purposes “normal” but it won’t be.

Or it will…still scratching my head about this one.  Has the world slipped over some edge while we were out in the sticks?

2-hours later (of unbelievable stop and go traffic on  35E, 30, 45, and finally 175), and we were back out here to “Deliverance Country.”

There’s a whole world full of people who have never known a meal without an electric dishwasher, a microwave, and Lucky Charms cereal.  These people live in cities and line up for everything.  I  HATE lines.

I’m going to go have a chat with Zeus the Cat and explain to him how good life really is out here in the boondocks.  And if I don’t see another human all day (except family, of course) that’d be just fine with me.

Al least I won’t be in a damn line for something.

My biggest gripe this morning is the red tailed hawk is screaming and ZtC is meowing at the door reminding me not to get wordy since it’s holding up breakfast.

Somewhere in all this is a clear explanation of why witches prefer their familiars to the company of other humans, too.

I swear to you I wasn’t anti-social until Inwood Road and Lemmon Avenue.

Properly Shamed

Oh-oh.  Another column has landed me in hot water with a reader…and I should apologize:

” A “memorial page” sounds a bit maudlin,…”

My Grandson (18)died of leukemia in January. There is a memorial page enabled by the funeral home that is still up.

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Pull up a coffee, boys and girls, old cynical George is gonna read you the latest fairytale hot off the press and full of data mumbo…

“Personal income increased $59.4 billion, or 0.4 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $48.8 billion, or 0.4 percent, in April, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $2.6 billion, or less than 0.1 percent. In March, personal income increased $4.0 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, DPI increased $0.5 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, and PCE increased $65.6 billion, or 0.5 percent, based on revised estimates.

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In this morning’s orthographic misadventures, we find the hulk of an old man staring at the clock and  calendar, lost as to what’s going on with the world. Are we becoming digital do-do’s?

Such introspection is common just before the arrival of one of the kids.  This is the awkward age, when the kids take their payback.

“Son, pick up your room” of 20-years ago is now likely to morph into “Dad, pick up your room…focus on just a very few projects and do them well…and let the other stuff pass by…”  I can hear it all now.

To be sure, there is a generation gap.

Until yesterday, I didn’t know there even was a alt-J (?) – Fitzpleasure (Official Music Video) –on YouTube. 

To some, who are going post-trance, post rap, there really is some interesting cross-into music coming along and this isn’t bad…just different.

Seems like everything about today’s youth is distorted or carried to some extreme, or other.  And, they seem to suffer the effects of  time compression, as well.  A hobby like free-falling (skydiving) may eat up some clock hours, but the actual “rush” is seldom longer than 3-5 minutes.

That compares with the old adventures (like going fishing in Alaska) which could be three weeks of pretty much non-stop new.

Part of the problem is no one has any time, anymore.  The deadlines are tighter, the work more intense, the problems of flow and and coordination are up many-fold, too, from our early days on a much emptier world.

I was born  in 1949.  At that time, world population was a measly 2.5 billion.  Today, we are stuffed with 7 billion people.  Put another way, compared to 1949, nearly three times as many people are vying over…everything.

There’s no urgency to couple or marry, perhaps partly as a response to this.  The problem is not that everyone looks at child- bearing as a somber and reasoned decision.  There are several religions in the world that are (to put it frankly) screwing their way toward world dominance.

And that’s quite worrisome.

Whatever…this afternoon I pick up my son in Dallas for a week and we will have (since the rain has stopped) a couple of days of dad time and I expect to see my truck go down the road to Skydive Space Land, or I will get suckered into running Ure Air Cargo’s little single engine down to the drop zone.

“Dad, we have two GoPros…we should be able to do some real quality movies!”

Another symptom of the future.  Technology – the problem we got into over on the Peoplenomics™ side of things this weekend.

In 1949 the idea of a personal movie was vastly different.  If people shot movies, it was 8 MM and usually shot-edited onto the camera.  Maybe a touch-up splice, or three.  No sound track.

By 1965, as our age group was wandering through high school, the media of the day was Super 8 Movie film – introduced by Kodak.

Which gets me to this morning’s first neuron firing:

Kodak’s remnants are still around today…but except for specialized applications, the world has passed them by.  Oh, sure, they are in the digital camera space, but with a different attitude toward the future, the company could have been a mega-giant, even today.

It’s not.

Rather than reaching into the future and pulling it forward – serving up massive innovations to a tech-hungry public, the company managed to “steal defeat from the jaws of victory.”

I expect that if Kodak had invented better/cheaper film, Fuji would not have gotten so big.  Or, if they had rolled on with the idealization of the camera, outfits like Pentax and Canon would have been hard-pressed.

There’s a genius to dominating market share – and Kodak didn’t understand it.  For a long while, they rested on their laurels, optimized film profits, and then when film went away (mostly), they were left like new kids adrift in the world of technology.

The “Brownie” camera is in everyone’s phone, 60% of phones can probably shoot a better resolution movie that Super-8 and those cumbersome hand-blocked video film cutters…Well, not much of a market for them anymore.

A couple of weeks back, I pulled Elaine’s camera out of the storage room and this whole revolution in photography ran  me over like a train.

She had a Minolta XG-7 with an assortment of lenses, auto-winder, and so on.  Since we have been trying to eliminate unused (old) tech, I quickly hit eBay to look up the price.

About $35 bucks, is what it looks like.  Not a very good return on investment, I’d say.  Especially because neither one of us is big movie or picture collectors.  Those great images in life are carried around between  the ears.

When we get around to making a couple of video’s this week, it will be Corel video editing software, a custom voice-track from the studio, and whatever else comes to mind. 

Television is another area where compression of technology has taken its toll:  Things like Time Code are quickly going the route of quantization error in sound recording.  In other words, the problems are going away.

Automatic reformatting and sample conversion software ends the time code issue and in audio, trhe quantization nightmares of 8-bit audio disappear above 32-bit A-to-Ds.  Oh, sure the problems may still technically exist, but their impact on humans is gone. The human neurons are only so refined, and after that, all you can do is keep whacking away are resolution which is why 4K is coming and 16K will be here one of these days.

All of which is changing the nature of the arts.  I don’t mean just Fitzpleasure, or any other piece of music to drift out of a studio.

I mean film, as well.  When we were watching Alfred Hitchcock black and white movies, the director was an incredibly important part of the mix.

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