The photo of the day is a Pietenpol.

Brother Bob told me yesterday of another Back East follower of the blog. First wife Velma reads it almost daily. Welcome and thank you.
The bad news is that I think I've reached a new low. There is no energy, poor coordination, a stumbling gait and now I've got this new denture in my mouth. The only thing that works is meditation. Which raises the possibility of 'heading for Hawaii' and achieving a permanent meditative state. The insanity of considering that and the trail of ants that are still marching on keep me sane.
The photo of the day is a Pietenpol airplane under construction. This one has the engine mounted. The engine is a Ford four banger from the 30's. This is the engine originally intended for the plane.
Pietnepol airplanes being constructed assure me that we're all on this flight together..

Dick

I thought tomorrow was the 29th.

April 29. I thought tomorrow was the 29th. Because I had a dental appointment on the 29th, not tomorrow. Anyway I got my new denture. Ugh! Washington had dentures of wood so guess I can get used to this thing in my mouth. But it is pretty in an ugly sort of way.
Brother Bob is due to stop by soon so I guess I'd better get ready to pipe he and Dennis aboard.
Off I go.
Brand new dentures make me feell like we're all on this fllght together.

DICK

The trail of ants across the sidewalk is still there.

The trail of ants across the sidewalk is still there but getting a little thin. I still can't see what the attraction is (or was).
There was an unusually large number of airplanes passed over during my walk. Four planes, two going East and two going West. The significance? Who knows?
The author of the book I'm reading, "The Trouble With Physics" is winding up with a discussion of the sociology of physics. How focusing on one problem (String Theory) detracts from progress in other, equally promising avenues of investigation. But what struck me is the difference in educational emphasis has changed from open investigations to only those supported by from. In other words, if it don't make a profit, it ain't worth the time. Had those restrictions been in place in the 30's we would still believe the Earth is the center of the universe. What struck me was the coincidence of the change in the direction of physics research with the rise of Reaganism, where greed trumps all. But I'm not sure I can fully develop the thesis in a reasonable space. But it feels right in my gut.
Deep thoughts show us all that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

I set off the morning to get the Sunday paper.

The picture on the left is Scott Leefield, intrepid Pietenpol airman. He's looking down at his Sheltie which you cannot see. I've told Lee's story a few time in the past.
The picture on the right is the Flabob Express, Historic Flabob Airport's own DC-3, now operational. It flew Saturday. I'm not sure who owns the plane but thanks to them for preserving a piece of the past.
Oh boy! I read in the book on Parkinson's that one of the possible symptoms is dementia. So I set off the morning to go get the Sunday paper. I got half way there and I realized it's Monday! I leave It to the reader too define this. Now I remember watching the 60 minutes show about orphan elephants. Groucho Marx was right about getting old not being for sissies.
Seeing Flabob Express in the air proves once again that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

A morning at Historic Flabob Airport.

A morning at Historic Flabob Airport. Billed a a gathering of Pietenpols, only one was able to fly in yesterday. Another partly built Pietenpol was on display. Others were unable to make it due to high winds at their airport of origin. he picture on the left is of the one that flew in. The one on the right is of the simple instrument panel in these antiques. Although there were high winds around the area, Flabob was fairly calm.
I have a photo of Scott Leefield, intrepid Pietenpol pilot and contact with the LA Fire Dept who helped lift me to Deb's third floor for rehab. Photo tomorrow.
Flabob Express, the local DC-3 was returning from a flight as I arrived. I love those old planes. That's the way to go. Although 70- 80 mph isn't exactly breaking the sound barrier.
In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out how Matrix Theory fits into String theory. And how to control the Parkinson's.
Old planes are evidence that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Not much to report .

Not much to report this am. The walk is done, the paper read, breakfast is done. As soon as I finish here I'll get cleaned up and head for Historic Flabob Airport. There will be a gathering of Pietenpols today. Could be as many as 5 or 6.
The weather is 10 miles visibility and clear ceiling from here to Riverside. It should be a great day for flying.
Good days for flying are further proof that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

I've got some good news, some bad news and some good news

The good news is that I've got no bad news.. Ha!
and the good news is that the nodules on my thyroid have not grown in the past 7 months. Something must be working. It must be the meditation has the thyroid under control. No biopsy but I promised to return for another look in 6 months.
The walk this am reminded me of some of my favorite days living back East. The low overcast absorbed sound going up and the long visibility horizontally left nothing for the sound to reflect from. It was eerily quiet. Like freshly fallen snow. No animals and one airplane headed East.
Two days ago the yellow flowers at the bottom of the photo were just peeping over the top of the fence. And now......Wow!
Flowers just peeping over the fence are a picture of us all on this flight together..

Dick

I'm beginning to get a grip on matrix theory.

I have an appt with the endocrinologist this morning so I'll skip the walk to get ready. She will use her ultrasound unit to investigate the vagaries of my thyroid glands. I hadn't though of it until just now but the endocrinologist is of India Indian descent. She is tiny. Coincidentally, so was the doctor at the rehab center (a lady and tiny). I'm not sure what to make of it but I've never visited a doctor of Indian descent before. A report on my thyroids tomorrow if there is anything of interest.
I'm beginning to get a grip on matrix theory. It's really just a mathematical transformation with rules to be followed. It shouldn't take a genius, just perseverance. Now I have to understand how to get from one set of linear equations to a matrix. And which equations to use. And why do it in the first place?

Dick

Today the weather is misty.

The ant column I mentioned a few days ago is still travelling' on. It's been running across the sidewalk for about two weeks! Today the weather is misty with 6 miles visibility. Barely VFR. So no airplanes.. However, in the animal department were TWO cats. One all black cat was resting in the crotch of a tree next to the sidewalk. Very friendly. As I passed by she jumped down to say hello. The other watched from the safety of the front porch.
Once again my thoughts strayed to GWB. There must be something for me to learn if I place this much energy on someone with whom I will never intersect.
The photo today is of the neighbors mushroom patch. I thought this to be a nice grouping.

Summer came overnight.

Shorts and T-shirt weather at 7 am! Summer came to Fullerton overnight. Yesterday broke temperature records across the LA basin. It nudged over 100 deg in Fullerton.
I had new pair of shoes for the walk. The ones Kathy gave me in the rehab facility are dust. The new ones need broken in so they re still a little rough. But it was tough all the way around the block. I just didn't have it. I wonder how much is real and how much I'm blaming on the Parkinson's or the shoes. It really doesn't matter if the energy is just not there. Or is the mind that powerful? Whatever the reason, I'll throw the bike on the car and go for a bike ride in Huntington Beach.
I gotta go. Arlo Guthrie just started to sing "Alice's Restaurant." Probably the funniest (and longest) anti-war song ever written.
Bye for now.
The lyrics to "Alice's Restaurant" are just a reminder that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Sorry 'bout that.

Oh boy! I just realized that I didn't post yesterday. I totally forgot. Sorry 'bout that. I got tied up (figuratively) getting ready for the EAA Chapter One meeting at noon. I gave the Peitenpol rib jig back to Jim Pyle. It's become obvious I'll not get around to it. So in fairness... Besides my personal hygiene, which seems to take forever sometimes, there were a lot of details of which to take care. So ends that phase.
Next week at Historic Flabob Airport will be a gathering of Peitenpols. I'll drive out to to see Scott Leefield, Peitenpol pilot, who, you may remember introduced Deb to the LA Fire Department who then helped me up to the top floor of Deb & Rick's house for my recuperation. Thanks Lee, thanks Deb with thankful gratitude to the LA Fire Department.
Today's walk was accompanied by the baritone voice of U. Utah Philips, The Golden Voice of the Great Southwest. U. recently died but his music lives on. An inspiration politically and musically his music painted pictures as easily as does Kristofferson. One of the other songs today was Freight Train by Taj Mahal. In his introduction he tells of freight trains running past the door of Lizabeth Cotton who wrote Freight Train using an old guitar. Taj Mahal jazzed it up with electric guitar and saxophone. Even so the song transcended the noise.
Listening to U. Utah Philips ,The Golden Voice of the Great Southwest answers the question of whether we are all on the flight together... or not.

Dick

Morning meds and stuff.

I forgot to take my morning meds before my walk. The result is that I hobbled around half of my normal route. I went over to visit Shadow and feed him. Poor guy. All alone all day. He surely is friendly.
After I ring off here I'll see if anything interesting is going on around here. Tomorrow is Taiko! Later today I'll scan the Internet to see if I can find anything understandable about mathematical matrices.
Dogs like Shadow assure me that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Ants and Matrix Theory

For the last 5 or 6 days there has been a trail of ants across the sidewalk on my daily walk. It's about an inch wide and marches across the four feet of sidewalk. I can't see what attracts them from coming or going where ever they come or go to or from. But it must be an ants goldmine to keep tens of thousands of ants busy as little bees for severall days.
In the book "The Trouble With Physics" I'm at an impasse. They convert the mathematical operations (a=b+c+d) to Matrix Theory. I understand matrices and I can picture arrays of numbers but am unable to understand the physical meaning or how to transform ordinary math forms to a matrix array. What does it all mean? Could the secrets of the Universe be tied up in the intricacies of Matrix Theory? Or not....
Transforming to Matrix Theory proves that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

What the Hell am I thinking?

One airplane headed East, one cat on the walk and Budda has taken to balancing himself on one of my smaller tables. I still can't correlate Budda's strange behaviour with natural disasters.
I was accompanied on my walk this morning with my iPod by Kris Kristofferson and his gravelly voice. That man is a true poet, using words to generate images. And makes it rhyme.... and then sets it to music. Mystical!
With regard to yesterday's entry, I have come to terms that in some universe, somewhere there is a George W Bush who is an altruistic hero of the people. But in my heart I know the probability of that universe being real is infinitely tiny, even vanishingly small the probability asymptotically approaching zero. All this making String Theory more real.
Taiko Drums this Sunday in Monterrey Park.
The prepositions in that sentence about the IPod are strange enough to show that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Sharon Stone and George W Bush, a Goddess and an A---hole

The picture you see is of my shadow framed by two large palm trees.
On another topic... last night I watched as Larry King interviewed actress Sharon Stone on the electric TV At 50 years surely one of the most beautiful women alive. They talked mostly about her humanitarian efforts around the world and her work against AIDS. As they talked her haircut, gestures, phrasing and speech patterns sounded familiar. Then it dawned on me. I could have been watching old friend Kathy! Physically and spiritually alike. Bless 'em both.
On the down side I had a thought which threatens the very foundation of my world view. I have written in the past about the reality of infinite universes. If true, in one of them George W. Bush is a revered hero, the pillar of integrity. That thought is so inconceivable to me as to threaten even the very thought of such folly. Yet it remains a small but finite possibility I am forced to accept.
If GWB is a pillar of integrity, I must question that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Boy! I'm a lousy patient.

A real nice day for a walk. How come I never walked before the incident? I visited the dentist this a.m. to make a cast for a denture. I gagged. Boy! I'm a lousy patient. But she did comment on how healthy I look although I don't feel it.
A few weeks ago brother Bob thoughtfully suggested a book on Parkinson's. When the neurologist first made the diagnosis I thought little of it. What will be will be. A little shaking and not much else. The book assures me that is not true. All of the symptoms I have ascribed to the incident turn out to be symptoms of Parkinson's. Reading the book is almost scary! Very useful, but scary.
Daily meditation assures me that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Income taxes. Ugghhhh!

Two airplanes and one helicopter passed over during my morning walk. It is interesting to note that all of them were headed West.
Today is my day to file with the IRS. So I'm off.
When I file my income taxes I wonder if we're really on this flight together.

Dick

Taiko drums will be in town next week.

Today's photo is another in the list of recent mushroom photos. They have all been of the same species but taken at different times in their growth. Here the top is in full bloom ready to drop its spores to start the next cycle.
Hooray hooray! Taiko drums will be in town next week in Monterrey Park. Saturday and Sunday. Taiko is right up there with Bluegrass. Worth any effort to get there. In the meantime the walk today went well but my energy is drained. If Jack Lalanne can do it, I should be able to. Hell, there are guys my age who run triathlons.
No animals and no planes on today's walk but the weather is warm and clear.
Who can listen to Taiko drums and dispute that we're all on this flight together?

Dick

A deep philosophical thought.

I had a deep philosophical thought on my walk this morning I forgot it before I reached home. Oh well, it's the worlds loss. I've got more. As the Parkinson's progresses it will become all I have.
The picture is of the airplane in which Melissa, the beautiful blond flew her aerobatic routine at the Riverside Airshow I don't think I've shown before, the plane that is. It's an Extra with a 540 hp engine. The dark gold flames don't really show.
Philosophical thoughts make it clear that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Dead ants, Parkinson's and String Theory.

In surfing the net I recently came across an article about the chemicals (pheromones) released by ants as a means of communication. When an ant dies, a few days later it releases a blast of skatol, the odoriferous agent in feces. After the release, the next ant in line throws the dead ant on its back and carries it off to the ant graveyard and throws it on the heap. The scientist decided to try an experiment. He would drop a small amount of skatol onto a live ant in the line and see what happened. Sure enough, the next ant in line picked up the 'dead' ant threw it on its back and carried the ant kicking and screaming pheromones and dropped it in the graveyard. The dead ant tried to get back in line but had not cleaned off the skatol, so the next ant in line picked it up and threw it right back on the heap. I Googled 'dead ant skatol' but couldn't find it. It really is hilarious.
Last week when brother Bob was here he suggested I check out a book called Parkinson's Disease. Since I have a real interest in the subject, off I went to the library. I found it. But serendipitously I found a book by Lee Smolin, a particle physicist titled, "The Problem With Physics". It questioned the scientific basis of String Theory! So I brought it home. I'm only on page 15 and am getting the sense of his argument. Really, his complaint is that String Theory cannot be verified experimentally and probably will not be in the foreseeable future. Maybe he'll show me something new.
String theory, quantum gravity. It just goes to show that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Waffles for breakfast.

Ahhhh. Waffles for breakfast.
It seems that I get positive reinforcement from brother Bob when I display certain types of photograph. I think it is the more 'artsy' photos that do it. Bob appears to be excited about bright flashy objects. Very Rainman like it seems. Well, here is a pic with Biblical implications. The Burning Bush (not the ex-pres). It appears to be flashing bright orange in the morning light because of a light coating of dew.
I had a doctor appt. today that got cancelled at the last minute. Can I charge them for that?
So instead I'll haul the bike down to Huntington Beach and try again.
Burning Bushes show me that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

My to do list for a day.

A shortened walk this morning just because. The weather was nice but I was dressed for warmer weather. It was still pretty cool at 7am. Two planes flew by headed East. No animals.
Six months ago a I promised the doctor I would return in six months for a check up of my thyroid glands. In return she didn't insist on a biopsy. Since I talked to Deb about biopsies, I conclude they are not fun. My religion prevents me from doing a lot of things that one would classify as no fun. Anyway I'm due for the check up tomorrow. What's the worst that could happen? If the Parkinson's don't get me something else will.
Concerned doctors are assurance that we're all on this flight together.

R

Model planes at the Riverside Airshow.

Another day in Paradise. Weather is CAVU.
This picture is of the model planes which performed during the lunch hour at the airshow. Models have the advantage that since the pilot is on the ground he/she is not subject to the effects of higher G forces. Experienced pilots can fly to 9G's with proper equipment but cannot remain conscious during higher G forces. So the models can twist and turn faster than 'real' planes. But this pic is for the myriad of color schemes.
The myriad of model airplanes indicates once again that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

The wing walker.

The airplane of the day is a Stearman biplane. This was used as a WWII intermediate trainer and later were converted to crop dusting duties. Look carefully at the top of the wing and see the pylon sticking up. In flight the wing walker climbs out of the cockpit and uses the pylon to hang on for dear life as the pilot goes through the usual loops and rolls. The pilot even has a back up wing walker in case the first one is ill. The pilots head is visible in the rear cockpit.
The walk this morning was cool and weather was clear.
Women who walk on wings assure me that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Queen of England and I share a common convenience.

Today's airplane is a 540 horsepower Pitts biplane. This plane has been the mainstay of American aerobatics for the past decade.
On my walk this morning I left the jacket home and was quite comfortable. Moving off to Arlo Guthrie singing "Alice's Restaurant" I was reminded that the Queen of England and I share a common convenience, an i-Pod. Not that I read anything into that. I doubt that she listens to the same things I do. When I was in the hospital, daughter Deb loaded her i-Pod with technical talks about quantum mechanics , Einstein and the like along with a well chosen selection of folk and country music. In retrospect it was just what I needed.
That the Queen of England and I use the same equipment has to be proof that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Ercoups are aesthetic.

Ercoups are aesthetic. With the twin tail and clear canopy, this has to be one of the prettiest airplanes ever designed. A competitor with the P-51 and the Twin P-38. This one could use a nicer paint job but it's the plane that flies not the paint job. The Ercoup was designed to be unable to stall it. This one showed up at the Riverside Airshow. I never flew one of these.
Another gloomy day but I meditated early so this is written before my walk.
Bye now!
Writing before my walk proves that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

It's the day after April Fools Day

If you look to the left across the field one can see a few horses with their riders on the airport
It's the day after April Fools Day and the weather is gloomy Too gloomy to write any more so this is all you get today.

On April second I am reminded that we're all on this flight together.

Dick

Everyone has enough.

HOO YEA! There are no more hungry. Everyone has access to clean air and water. Every person is fairly represented in our government. Everyone has enough. And this Russian built Antonov ain't yellow.

APRIL FOOLS.

So many fools conclude in April that we're all on this flight together that they must be right.