Month: October 2003

Flying and the California Fires

I’ve only been flying out of the Los Angeles basin for about six years, but in that time I’ve been witness to some unusual stuff. September 11th comes to mind. I recall standing outside the fence at John Wayne Airport and listening to the sound of complete silence. The Southwest jets normally found on the east side were replaced with… Read more →

On Crime and Punishment

I’ve never been one of those people who believes that God strikes people down with a bolt of lightning when He’s unhappy with them. After all, if this were the case I would have been burned to a crisp years ago. No, I think His method is to allow organizations like the FAA or IRS to hound people like me… Read more →

“Real” Flying

One fine summer afternoon, a tiny Cessna 150 was flying in the pattern at a quiet country airfield. The instructor was getting irritated at the student’s inability to maintain altitude in the thermals. Just then he saw a twin engine Cessna zoom by 5,000 ft. above him and thought “Another 1,000 hrs of this and I qualify for that twin… Read more →

Camera For Sale

Anyone need a cool digital camera, cheap? A friend sent me this message: “I’m selling a friend’s digital camera. He’s in the hospital now, and will probably be there for a while. He needs the money to pay for medical bills – it’s a great camera, see the attached last picture he took to see the amazing photo resolution &… Read more →

Who’s the Boss?

Congratulations, Governor-elect Schwarzenegger. I’ve never been a fan of Gray Davis, but I have to admit he gave a very graceful concession speech. Not that there were many options open to him. The results were so lopsided that it would have been tough to blame the loss on hanging chads or voter disenfranchisement. Nice to see that he’s smart enough… Read more →

Zoom-Zoom!

Those kooky Brits. If I tried anything like this in the U.S. I’d lose my pilot certificate faster than you could slap that annoying little “zoom zoom” kid from the Mazda commercials. Maybe they have a get-out-of-jail free card for anyone who flies a Spitfire… Read more →

The Wild Card Governor

Only a few more hours until the polls open for voters here in California. Thankfully, the House of Rapp has been under construction for most of the recall campaign period. This has spared you and 300 million of your fellow Americans my thoughts on people like Gray, Cruz, and Arnold. But since the Age of Web Site Construction is over,… Read more →

The House of Rapp is back!

Well, after talking about it for something like two or three years–maybe more–this site has finally been revamped, redesigned, rebuilt, and relaunched. So what do you think? There are a lot of new features. The biggest change (besides the new design, of course) is that everything is dynamically generated. Many of people are using the same software I am, but… Read more →

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