Captain Slog

Well as usual it's been a long long time since I wrote anything in here. I really have been working flat out both at my day job and on the Buffet Buffet site not to mention the ever present rally. There doesn't seem to be a time when I'm not thinking about jobs still to be done and the deadlines are drawing nearer.

ahh command.. yes that mirage that disappears just as I reach the oasis having torn my last fingernail off in the scrabble across the first officer desert.

Avid readers will remember my post from 26th Aug ( about 3 weeks ago ) where I wondered what the tree outside my window knew that I didn't. It turns out that the tree was exceptionally prescient. We've been released from the unending heat of the 3rd floor in the PP for nearly two weeks and as the photo below shows, it's a very autumnal view that greets me in the late mornings when I get up.

Finally my application to Swiss can go ahead. I have received my extract of criminal record. I should have had it two weeks ago but apparently someone around here decided I don't live here anymore and returned my mail.

Flying a 152 with Sami on a beautiful evening in Zurich.

First time I've flown a Cessna 152 since I was 17 getting my PPL. It's not quite the first aeroplane I flew but it's the first powered one I went solo in. Lovely to go back to those happy days when flying was one big joyous adventure. It was really quite a pleasant surprise to find out how small planes fly again. 500 feet per minute climb rate if you're lucky ( OK it was 27degs and two adult males ) but so much time to do everything and so little to do. Just push power and point it where you want to go. So easy to fly, so relaxing, so enjoyable. Although I was reminded how small we are when we had a little trouble with wake turbulence from a preceeding 737. It wasn't the wing tip vortices that gave us grief it was the remnants of his jetwash... lucky I wasn't flying an F-14 or I might have had a flame out, got into a flat spin heading out to sea and had my RIO killed by the canopy during the ejection! phew!

I finished work yesterday in a real "funk" as the americans would put it ( despite the fact that funk is actually pretty upbeat music ). I was tired, miserable, fed up, generally weary of everything. I hate it when I'm in that mood because nothing seems to help. Tori bravely said hello on the chat and offered to smack Dan in the head as if that would make me feel better which was very kind of her ( although Dan has nothing to do with anything) and the sheer randomness of it made me smile but still no real mood change.

Even typical brains are the result of asymmetric contributions from Mom and Dad. Higher cognitive function seems to be disproportionately controlled by Mom’s genes, whereas the drive to eat and mate is influenced by Dad’s.

So there you go Mum.. it's not just strange little toe toenails that I got from you :-)

B

I just idly looked up out of the window and for the first time noticed that the leaves on the maple tree are turning colour. I can't believe it's that time of year already. It doesn't feel like that here in Zurich yet. I'm still suffering in the sauna that Swiss calls a room, the window is wide open and it seems to make no difference. So what do the trees know that I don't?

I'm on standby today and have spent just about as much time studying CSS and Drupal theming guides as I can take. There is so much more to learn but for the moment I'm having some mental downtime and watching the BBC iPlayer. A marvelous system which works ( unlike CH4 On Demand which refuses to stream to me). The rally is ever present and occupies my thoughts almost constantly unless I can push it out of the way with study of some other kind. I'm lucky at the moment to have had a decent run of off days and standby, the off days to let me recover and the standby to keep me chained to Kloten leaving me no option but to work on the things that must be done.

So much for the intro.... my little amateur philosophy sessions are usually not based on only one thing or another but the coming together of thoughts of mine and evidence from the outside world. That's what happened today. I was watching Being Human on the iplayer.. I can recommend it. It's about the lives of twenty somethings, one is a werewolf, one a vampire ( but knows it's wrong to kill people ) and the third a ghost, all trying to be human. The opening of this episode began with a monologue:

"We meet people and fall in love, and when we part they leave marks for us to remember them by. Our lovers sculpt us, they define us, for better or for worse. Like a pinball we slam into them and rebound in a different direction, propelled by the contact, and after the parting we might be scarred but stronger, or more fragile or needy, or angry or guilty but never unchanged."

For everyone following our progress on the Africa Rally there is now a dedicated site with a snappier URL! Change your bookmarks to point here:
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http://africarally.sprooce.co.uk
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Thanks for your interest and hopefully your support for our charities. I'm posting fairly regularly so check back or click on the button under the "Syndicate" title to get an RSS feed into your browser. It'll show you quickly if there's something new here ( or rather there now).
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Bruce out.