--C.
Currently grooving to: Soup Dragons - I'm Free
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Back on campus
It's the first day of classes for everyone else but for me (and a good number of others) it's just a day to hang out and chill and watch everyone else go to class. Not that I have nothing to do... my list is amazingly long, and not as if I went to class previously. However, the record shows that I have no class and thus am the object of envy, anger and awe of many a person trudging to class at 8 AM.
--C.
--C.
Sunday, March 28, 2004
What's more fun than...
Having a big dog slobber all over your face. It's great, Herbie (Justy's dog) just loves me.
Photos to come.
Photos to come.
Why Cheng is an idiot and is saved by his brothers.
I'm an idiot (a fact not lost on many of you) and I apparently left my keys in the motel room. To make a long story short, Nick W, who was unable to drive me back up is still picking up my keys. Crazy.
--C.
--C.
Road Trip Part 2
So in the whirlwind of my life, I have, on pretty much a whim, decided to go down to SLO via Monterey with Stewart, Rose (E) and Mike; bus down to LA and get driven back up to Stanford with Nick W. Currently at the very start of day 3, Saturday, having spent a night at Stewart's friend's beach house, an afternoon on Cannery Row and at Monterey Bay Aquarium and a second night in a rather drab Motel 6 a few miles away from Hearst Castle. I seem to be working in images right now so I'm going to simply describe a few of these, mostly for my benefit.
The pounding surf at night. I've always loved the sound of the water and at night the waves looked so magnificent, white-crested and dark. It reminds me of dozens of novels that I've read, set in the ocean or with the backdrop of stormy, tossing waves. The lone lighthouse atop the rocks and the chilly breeze augment the image -- it could almost come from somewhere up in New England.
Hoards of whiny children in line at the aquarium. I don't know why this image is stuck in my memory but it is. I can deal with angry, upset, curious children and maybe a couple of whiny ones but large numbers of them are just too much.
At the aquarium, there are all sorts of cool things that I saw, but honestly, none of them stick out. I have plenty of photos, however, and that will definitely suffice.
Yeah, that's about it.
--C.
The pounding surf at night. I've always loved the sound of the water and at night the waves looked so magnificent, white-crested and dark. It reminds me of dozens of novels that I've read, set in the ocean or with the backdrop of stormy, tossing waves. The lone lighthouse atop the rocks and the chilly breeze augment the image -- it could almost come from somewhere up in New England.
Hoards of whiny children in line at the aquarium. I don't know why this image is stuck in my memory but it is. I can deal with angry, upset, curious children and maybe a couple of whiny ones but large numbers of them are just too much.
At the aquarium, there are all sorts of cool things that I saw, but honestly, none of them stick out. I have plenty of photos, however, and that will definitely suffice.
Yeah, that's about it.
--C.
Friday, March 26, 2004
Sorry Sorry Sorry.
I'm sorry I haven't blogged in what, 3 months.
E-mail me for the standard "Cheng's life summary".
This past weekend I spent at the airshow with Bernardo, who is extremely passionate about airplanes (understatement). I was there for the ride.
I wrote a little two page thing the morning of the second day but being the sap-ball that I am, it was extremely overblown and not worth posting. Instead I'll try to summarize it and add some insights that don't sound like they came from a Hallmark "Friends" card.
The practical details, for those of you who like concrete details of my life rather than fluffy handwaving, are as follows. I went to the airshow at the Lemoore Naval Air Station in Central CA (right near Fresno). There were a lot of cool-looking planes on static display as well as some nifty planes doing aerobatics. The Blue Angels were there which was really cool and the they had a few demos that were quite impressive. My memory recalls details like "loud one, red one, black and yellow one" etc. so if you want any sort of useful information on the planes shown go to Bernardo's webpage: here. Instead, I had a great time people-watching (as I am wont to do) and enjoying the sun (and getting a rather fierce farmer's tan).
But if you came here to read about the air-show I'm sorely afraid that you're at the wrong place. Instead, I'm making a second plug for Bernardo's website. I'm going to be discussing some thoughts about what I (as a non-avation-minded person) got from the show.
As far as the people there, I could divide them into 4 major groups:
Airplane fanatics, fans and people generally interested therein (and associated parents, wives, husbands, children and friends -- that's me)
Military and veterans and their entourage. (The airshow was dedicated to "The American Hero", and many of the honorees were present, especially those who fought in WWII and Vietnam)
Rednecks or people who were just there because it was something to do. ("I dun never seen nuthin' dat darn fast befo'")
And a small group of professional photographers because it was such a beautiful day and a lot of magazine-quality shots were possible. (Just look at Bernardo's webpage for something that a damn good amateur could do that day and think what a guy with a 30 lb camera could accomplish)
And then of course: pilots, owners, Navy, vendors and random people who keep the whole show running.
More importantly, I found it really interesting to see this many people and how they each responded to the planes. There were a few emotions that just showed really strongly on many faces: pride, excitement, joy (as well as boredom and no small amount of strain). However, I never realized until Saturday, just how much planes rely on trust and faith.
I'm hardly religious (no, that's not right) and I keep postponing my little discussion on religion to a later date, but it was still rather moving (bleh, I hate using that word) to see planes as an almost physical demonstration of faith. As the planes crisscrossed the sky, thousands of feet up, the pilots not only relied on their planes and their flying skills but also (in the instances when they just cut their engines) on a few simple laws of physics. Sure, we all take physics for granted, the laws of aerodynamics no different from the laws of gravity or inertia we use everyday; but these extra laws aren't built into our subconcious. Knowing that you're falling, tumbling through the sky and being secure in the knowledge that a quick pull on the stick in front of you will make it all work again, is really something else. Trusting that your altimeter says you're 5 feet above the other plane so that you don't crash as you fly straight at each other at over 1000 km/h, again is quite a lot of trust. The amount of pride and joy the pilots' faces showed when they safely touched down only demonstrates that a small miracle has taken place. I'm not getting all sappy about physics (meh!) but I do now have a greater appreciation for just how much strength of spirit it takes to pilot a plane.
The second thing I learned over the weekend is just how much the military is like a fraternity in it's best sense. This is not only beccause there is a degree of unspoken comradrie between the various soldiers. I've always thought the best part of Phi Psi was trusting your brothers. The Navy pilots show this well. Admitedly, the crews were all just doing their jobs; they also had a life/lives on their hands. What really got to me was the formalized acknowledgement of the help of crew when the pilots deplaned. I wasn't paying attention to what was going on in the skies and watched instead an Air Force pilot after deplaning, salute his ground crew individually. That small gesture says a lot. Not only did he place his life in their hands, but also he knew it.
Lastly, I saw a lot of people who are truely passionate about planes. Owners of various airplanes spend hours polishing up the nose cone to a reflective shine, days reconstucting parts of the wing to historical accuracy. One guy was a computer systems analysist but you'd never know that from the way he talked about such and such engine and such and such detail. This, you could see, was their entire lives. and yet they fly these things, risking it all "in one turn of pitch and toss" as they say. Among the fans, we had people whose eyes just lit up when the planes appeared, could name each and every plane from miles away; people for whom this was life. And it was contagious. I had a great time because, quite frankly, Bernardo did. He's probably disappointed, reading this, that I don't remember a thing he told me about the details of the planes; I just don't have a head for that kind of thing.
I did say I wasn't going to get all sappy and here I am effusing about grandiose topics of trust and passion. Ooops. I tried. Like I said, objective and intelligent comments are elsewhere.
More to come, I have no more excuses.
--C.
E-mail me for the standard "Cheng's life summary".
This past weekend I spent at the airshow with Bernardo, who is extremely passionate about airplanes (understatement). I was there for the ride.
I wrote a little two page thing the morning of the second day but being the sap-ball that I am, it was extremely overblown and not worth posting. Instead I'll try to summarize it and add some insights that don't sound like they came from a Hallmark "Friends" card.
The practical details, for those of you who like concrete details of my life rather than fluffy handwaving, are as follows. I went to the airshow at the Lemoore Naval Air Station in Central CA (right near Fresno). There were a lot of cool-looking planes on static display as well as some nifty planes doing aerobatics. The Blue Angels were there which was really cool and the they had a few demos that were quite impressive. My memory recalls details like "loud one, red one, black and yellow one" etc. so if you want any sort of useful information on the planes shown go to Bernardo's webpage: here. Instead, I had a great time people-watching (as I am wont to do) and enjoying the sun (and getting a rather fierce farmer's tan).
But if you came here to read about the air-show I'm sorely afraid that you're at the wrong place. Instead, I'm making a second plug for Bernardo's website. I'm going to be discussing some thoughts about what I (as a non-avation-minded person) got from the show.
As far as the people there, I could divide them into 4 major groups:
Airplane fanatics, fans and people generally interested therein (and associated parents, wives, husbands, children and friends -- that's me)
Military and veterans and their entourage. (The airshow was dedicated to "The American Hero", and many of the honorees were present, especially those who fought in WWII and Vietnam)
Rednecks or people who were just there because it was something to do. ("I dun never seen nuthin' dat darn fast befo'")
And a small group of professional photographers because it was such a beautiful day and a lot of magazine-quality shots were possible. (Just look at Bernardo's webpage for something that a damn good amateur could do that day and think what a guy with a 30 lb camera could accomplish)
And then of course: pilots, owners, Navy, vendors and random people who keep the whole show running.
More importantly, I found it really interesting to see this many people and how they each responded to the planes. There were a few emotions that just showed really strongly on many faces: pride, excitement, joy (as well as boredom and no small amount of strain). However, I never realized until Saturday, just how much planes rely on trust and faith.
I'm hardly religious (no, that's not right) and I keep postponing my little discussion on religion to a later date, but it was still rather moving (bleh, I hate using that word) to see planes as an almost physical demonstration of faith. As the planes crisscrossed the sky, thousands of feet up, the pilots not only relied on their planes and their flying skills but also (in the instances when they just cut their engines) on a few simple laws of physics. Sure, we all take physics for granted, the laws of aerodynamics no different from the laws of gravity or inertia we use everyday; but these extra laws aren't built into our subconcious. Knowing that you're falling, tumbling through the sky and being secure in the knowledge that a quick pull on the stick in front of you will make it all work again, is really something else. Trusting that your altimeter says you're 5 feet above the other plane so that you don't crash as you fly straight at each other at over 1000 km/h, again is quite a lot of trust. The amount of pride and joy the pilots' faces showed when they safely touched down only demonstrates that a small miracle has taken place. I'm not getting all sappy about physics (meh!) but I do now have a greater appreciation for just how much strength of spirit it takes to pilot a plane.
The second thing I learned over the weekend is just how much the military is like a fraternity in it's best sense. This is not only beccause there is a degree of unspoken comradrie between the various soldiers. I've always thought the best part of Phi Psi was trusting your brothers. The Navy pilots show this well. Admitedly, the crews were all just doing their jobs; they also had a life/lives on their hands. What really got to me was the formalized acknowledgement of the help of crew when the pilots deplaned. I wasn't paying attention to what was going on in the skies and watched instead an Air Force pilot after deplaning, salute his ground crew individually. That small gesture says a lot. Not only did he place his life in their hands, but also he knew it.
Lastly, I saw a lot of people who are truely passionate about planes. Owners of various airplanes spend hours polishing up the nose cone to a reflective shine, days reconstucting parts of the wing to historical accuracy. One guy was a computer systems analysist but you'd never know that from the way he talked about such and such engine and such and such detail. This, you could see, was their entire lives. and yet they fly these things, risking it all "in one turn of pitch and toss" as they say. Among the fans, we had people whose eyes just lit up when the planes appeared, could name each and every plane from miles away; people for whom this was life. And it was contagious. I had a great time because, quite frankly, Bernardo did. He's probably disappointed, reading this, that I don't remember a thing he told me about the details of the planes; I just don't have a head for that kind of thing.
I did say I wasn't going to get all sappy and here I am effusing about grandiose topics of trust and passion. Ooops. I tried. Like I said, objective and intelligent comments are elsewhere.
More to come, I have no more excuses.
--C.