Thought for the day

Be not so busy
making a living
that you forget
to make a life

WISDOM FROM TRAINING MANUALS

'If the enemy is in range, so are you.'

- Infantry Journal-
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'It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.'

- US. Air Force Manual -
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'Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword, obviously never encountered automatic weapons.'

- General Mac Arthur -
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'You, you, and you ... Panic. The rest of you, come with me.'

- Infantry Sgt.-
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'Tracers work both ways.'

- Army Ordnance Manual-
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'Five second fuses last about three seconds.'

- Infantry Journal -
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The three most useless things in aviation are:
Fuel in the bowser; Runway behind you; and Air above you.

-Basic Flight Training Manual-
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'Any ship can be a minesweeper. Once.'

- Naval Ops Manual -
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'Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do.'

- Unknown Infantry Recruit-
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'If you see a bomb technician running, try to keep up to him.'

- Infantry Journal-
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'Yea, Though I Fly Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
I Shall Fear No Evil. For I am at 50,000 Feet and Climbing.'

- Sign over SR71 Wing Ops-
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'You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3.'

-Paul F. Crickmore (SR71 test pilot)-
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'The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.'

-Unknown Author-
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'If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage it has to be a helicopter
 -- and therefore, unsafe.'

- Fixed Wing Pilot-
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'When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane, you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash.'

-Multi-Engine Training Manual-
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'Without ammunition, the Air Force is just an expensive flying club.'

-Unknown Author-
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'If you hear me yell;"Eject, Eject, Eject!", the last two will be echoes.'
If you stop to ask "Why?", you'll be talking to yourself, because by then you'll be the pilot.'

-Pre-flight Briefing from a Canadian F104 Pilot-
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'What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots?
If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; but If ATC screws up, .... the pilot dies.'

-Sign over Control Tower Door-
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'Never trade luck for skill.'

-Author Unknown-
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The three most common expressions (or famous last words) in military aviation are:

'Did you feel that?' 'What's that noise?' and 'Oh S...!'

-Authors Unknown-
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'Airspeed, altitude and brains.
Two are always needed to successfully complete the flight.'

-Basic Flight Training Manual-
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'Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it.'

- Emergency Checklist-
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'The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you.'

- Attributed to Max Stanley (Northrop test pilot) -
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'There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime.'

-Sign over Squadron Ops Desk at Davis-Montham AFB, AZ-
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'You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal.'

- Lead-in Fighter Training Manual -
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As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, having torn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truck arrives.
The rescuer sees the bloodied pilot and asks, 'What happened?'
The pilot's reply: 'I don't know, I just got here myself

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(via Robyn Saunders)

A passage I can never get through without a sniffle.

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.
     I turned to go home. Street lights winked down the street all the way to town. I had never seen our neighborhood from this angle.
     There were Miss Maudie's, Miss Stephanie's- there was our house, I could see the porch swing- Miss Rachel's house was beyond us, plainly visible. I could even see Mrs. Dubose's.
     I looked behind me. To the left of the brown door was a long shuttered window. I walked to it, stood in front of it, and turned around. In daylight, I thought, you could see to the postoffice corner.
     Daylight... in my mind, the night faded. It was daytime and the neighborhood was busy. Miss Stephanie Crawford crossed the street to tell the latest to Miss Rachel. Miss Maudie bent over her azaleas.
     It was summertime, and two children scampered down the sidewalk toward a man approaching in the distance. The man waved, and the children raced each other to him.
     It was still summertime, and the children came closer. A boy trudged down the sidewalk dragging a fishing pole behind him. A man stood waiting with his hands on his hips. Summertime, and his children played in the front yard with their friend, enacting a strange little drama of their own invention.
     It was fall, and his children fought on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Dubose's. The boy helped his sister to her feet, and they made their way home. Fall, and his children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day's woes and triumphs on their faces. They stopped at an oak tree, delighted, puzzled, apprehensive.
     Winter, and his children shivered at the front gate, silhouetted against a blazing house. Winter, and a man walked into the street, dropped his glasses, and shot a dog.
     Summer, and he watched his children's heart break. Autumn again, and Boo's children needed him.

Want to know the Czech word for when the moon hides in the Earth's shadow?

interestingly enough, in Spanish, it's just 'Eclipse'

Saturday, July 3

Sitting in a KFC, which has wifi and cold Pepsi!

Did another first time thing this trip. We've seen this thing



...every time we've come to Prague, but we've never gone to see it. Turns out those little bumps on the towers are part of a sculpture.



It's called 'Maminka', or 'Babies'. Don't ask, I don't know. It's art.

It's a pretty view, too.



I had never noticed how all the blocks in the city are built around central courtyards before. The things you see when you alter your point of view....

Location:Jugoslávská,Prague 2,Czech Republic

it's Thursday, how did that happen?

Between night flights and time zones, and the normal vacation fog, I really lose track of days.

Let's see, we left Saturday night, arrived in NYC Sunday morning, did some wandering but not a lot, slept 12 hours that night, wandered for about 14 hours Monday, finally did MOMA for the first time,



wandered some more on Tuesday,



( OMG this makes me happy I quit, that WAS a special. I saw them as high as $12/pack. )
... and then did the terminal-from-hell at JFK, caught a 14-hour flight (by-the-clock) to Prague, spent most of Wednesday napping, and that brings us to today.

Always do one touristy thing that you've never done before. Today we took one of the boat-cruise-tour things. The guide was really good, made me want to go read some Czech history. ( *I* didn't know Celts migrated from here )








We had our wander from home down past the Charles Bridge, taking some routes we haven't before ( because getting lost is a GOOD thing when you don't have any where you need to be. ) had some dinner,



, ran into a cousin on the back home,



, went to 2nd dinner ( OK, we didn't eat again, we just kept company )



... and now we're visiting with our Aunt Katka, the sweetie who's watching me type this.





ok, it' Saturday that I'm posting this.. wifi isn't THAT easy to find.

On the flight, 3.5 hrs in... somewhere over the Atlantic...

We're on a flight with a 100-teenager choir, so I don't think we're going to be getting a whole lot of sleep. Probably the noisiest flight I've ever been on, but they're all kinds of cute.

They announced the first movie as, or at least I heard, "Ghost Rider". Turned out to be "The Ghost Writer" with Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan. Different movie entirely. No Nick Cage, no flaming skulls or Skeletor motorcycles at all.

I do not freaking believe that, at 2:30am destination time, they turned on all the cabin lights so they could do a spiel for their duty free shopping.

- sending Thursday evening. first wifi since the flight.