Search Mission

Expect the unexpected. About 4 p.m. as I was taking a break from getting ballot access signatures and walking through a library with my wife, I got a call from the Squadron Commander. They needed a pilot to fly a mission for an "ELT" search. My plans went out the window. This would be one of my first as a certified "Mission Pilot" pilot in command. My observor was a first class pilot Capt. Paul Nelson, who plans to fly over Australia this summer with his wife who can't fly but is a terrific plane spotter. Our scanner was the small but dyanmic D.J. Barfield - a nonpilot.

An ELT is the device that goes off when an aircraft or ship goes down, but often they malfunction and the Air Force doesn't know if its a real crash or a false alarm. We have to fly them anyway and find out. The signal will keep bouncing off the Air Force satellite until the device is located and turned off. So we flew a mission to find it.

Not so simple. It turns out ELT signals are hard as hell to trace - today the Incident Commander thought maybe the signal was traveling down a highline to give a false echo somewhere else 100 miles apart.  The radio equipment is still simple stuff, just a direction finder and "beep, beep, beep" sound over the headphones. We ended up flying 50 miles west of Houston, then back and to the Ship Channel on the east, locating signals in several areas - from daylight to dark.

It's a year round job the Air Force turns over to its Auxiliary, the Civil Air Patrol who also fielded a ground team, also volunteers. 99% turn out to be false alarms, but you never know which one is the 1%, so all are treated the same. The sooner you find an ELT at a crash site the better.

This one is still unknown. Lowering clouds dictated we return to base, leaving it to the ground team. It's nealry midnight and need to sleep some -except my wife, who got laid off a couple days ago, had a fire in the microwave roasting some Beignets and the house is still smoky. That's what I call getting fired up over Beignets!

Tomorrow it's back to trying to make a living in a tough economy, and watching the new Hamas leader threaten America, the President, etc.

I read a young Iraqi woman's blog I've referenced before to find out what is really happening in Iraq. From her journal it sounds like they still need rescuing...expect the unexpected. More later.

KICKOFF

We kicked off our Petition drive last weekend. Above are some photos from it - everyone loved the beignets. Then Saturday night we had a fundraiser in Sugar Land - when it ended the place was PACKED. 

I found out today that we even had a volunteer police officer providing security out front of the meeting room last night. People in my church today were in the restaurant and saw the officer standing by my sign, as did my wife (who came in later and saw him).  Kind of a mystery, because he was not there eating. Someone is looking out after us.

Press conference scheduled for tomorrow for my first big endorsement from a group that normally would endorse a Democrat - a coup for the independent Texan. More later....

 

Campaign whirlwind - Surprise Meeting with Bush 41

It's has been such a blur over the weekend. The tragedy in Spain in the middle of waves of people coming in for our petition kick off sign up, and a full weekend of events. 

Yesterday I went from dawn to nearly midnight --from our church to watching our local Rabbi give an interfaith talk at St. Laurence Catholic church--the biggest in Sugar Land (well received), and I ended up at a Muslim school event until late. It was an interfaith Sunday quite by chance. More on it later.

Got to run. Memorial today for the Spanish people killed by Al Qaida striking Europe for the first time. The Spanish people were so mad that the government withheld evidence that this was Al Qaida's first European target for backing Bush's war against Muslim Iraq that it got the boot. There is a Memorial today.

Later...

3:15 p.m. Amazing. Went to the Spanish consul to sign the book of condolences - and while waiting to sign in walked former President George H.W. Bush (Bush 41). 

Since he was about a foot away and no one said anything, I said: "Welcome, Mr. President."

Consul General Montesino, the former President and I ended up in a discussion of recent events as the President kindly waited his turn to sign the booik.

I've got to run again, but here's a couple photos - Aura Rodriquez, the Venezuela consul general was so kind to use my camera to take these, and I thank her.

It ended up that my entry was the first to follow President Bush's...Got to run again.

Spain's 9 - 11

I've been to Madrid, many years ago. When I heard about the horrible terrorist attack on its train station, I remembered a city that is both old world and new world. The new Madrid had buildings that looked like modernistic oil cans which could be in Houston or Seattle. The old city had triangle shapped stone buildings with beautiful sculpture.  The buildings elevators didn't have inner doors, so you pushed a button and stood back as the floors went by.

It all changed on March 11 when 200 people were killed by the series of backpacks exploding in its trains within minutes of each other. The authorities blamed ETA, the Basque group, but they had never done anything like this. ETA killed 200 in a year, not in a day. Today they arrested some Moroccan and Indian suspects.

I think Al Qaida is now declaring war on any ally of the U.S. who supported the war in Iraq - Spain, Japan, Britain and Poland primarily.  After 9 11, the French headlines read: "We are all Americans." People in Madrid call their city 'La Villa' (the village). Perhaps our headlines should read: "We are all part of 'La Villa'." 

What a day. Met one of our future astronauts, Lt. Col.  Michael Good at a space function.

Wife has severe pain. Must go...

Driving at Night with a Full Moon

Just got in from a day meeting at Austin. On the way back the sun went down and a orange Full Moon rose over the horizon. It was stunning, even as it finally went behind a shroud of thin clouds as I drive east through the country before re-entering Houston space.

"Henri" just came in and is bugging me, although he went out for a couple breaks after I got hom. Maybe he's mad we didn't take him to the Moscow Ballet's appearance at little Stafford's new convention center on Saturday night - or to my wife's grandmother's 100th birthday party earlier that day. Or maybe he's just being Henri and is jerking my chain, because he just gave up and is sprawled on his stomach on the rug.

Primary voting is in 2 days and I'm glad I'm not in it like before. It's too short of time. No one is thinking its time to vote, it's March! I don't know how the heck I got 20% against a 18 year powerful incumbent without funding -- and less than a month to campaign (after I got back on the ballot after they booted me off in 2002).

Enough action for now. Later..