View From the Sidewalk

"A look at the perennial problem of homelessness from a unique perspective: from someone who is currently homeless."

In the blogosphere there aren't many blogs I've come across that I have read from start to finish. I was pointed towards View From the Sidewalk by Blogger itself and spent an hour reading the entire thing.

The author, Michael Brown, is a Greensboro, NC graphic artist who has recently found himself and is family homeless as a result of circumstance. The writing is clear, and the perspective is clearer--he gives you a first-person account of what, and how, he and his family are dealing with life on the street.

Well-worth the visit. And maybe it will make you think twice about passing that homeless person on the street next time without saying a word.

Expressions

Expressions of a Pilot

Flight is freedom in its purest form

To dance with the clouds which follow a storm

To roll and glide, to wheel and spin

To feel the joy that wells within

To leave the earth with its troubles and fly

And know the warmth of a clear spring sky

Then back to earth at the end of the day

Released from the tensions that melted away

Should my end come while I am in flight

Whether brightest day or darkest night

Spare your pity and shrug off the pain

Secure in the knowledge that I'd do it again

For each of us is created to die

And within me I know

I was born to fly

Gary Claud Stokor

Crash

I had been in the military for eight years before I knew someone personally who was killed in an aircraft mishap.

The details of this account are probably going to be sketchy, since the Air Force prohibits discussing details of accidents outside of the military. Everything I can relate is pulled from news releases that went out after the accident.

C was my formation partner at Pilot Instructor Training. He was what the Air Force has designated as a "First Assignment Instructor Pilot," or FAIP. These guys were usually disgruntled at having to stay in the pilot training environment after having been students there for a year already, but they were also generally really good pilots. Compared to me, who hadn't been in the cockpit of a T-37 for eight years, the guys who never really got out were stellar...

C finished PIT at the top of his class. He was a great guy, fresh out of college with a six month old kid at home and a young wife. We both arrived at Del Rio a little nervous to be flying with students but excited to be there.

On the 29th of January in 2002, things weren't going too sepctacular for the wing in general. The night prior, students in the supersonic T-38 (the aircraft students flew enoute to fighter billets) were performing their night solo sorties when one of them blew a tire on the runway, shutting it down. At the same time, T-38's were out in the training areas when one of them accidentally coasted through an area of heavy icing and flamed out one of their engines. They spent several thousand feet in efforts to finally get it restarted.

The next morning, the 30th, was a seriously windy day. On one of the first takeoffs of the day a student was performing a "wing takeoff" (when two aircraft take off simultaneously next to each other) when a gust of wind blew one too close to the other. The instructor took the aircraft and aggressively veered back, dragging a wingtip down the runway. Fortunately, the aircraft was only slightly damaged and the IP flew the plane back uneventfully. Flying continued.

Later in the day, I was flying one of my first student sorties when a call went out to immediately land all Laughlin aircraft. Traffic backed up and the pattern immedately saturated with planes all trying to get in line. By the time I had landed and shut down in the chocks, the skies were silent. Off in the distance a tower of black smoke reached int the sky.

C had been flying at our overflow auxilliary field about 30 miles away in a remote area of Texas. While in the final turn (a descending 180 degree turn to land) his aircraft was steeply banked and crashed into the ground. Niether he nor his student survived.

There were a million different theories as to what caused C to ride it in. Unfortunately there is no way to be 100% sure. The T-37 was made and designed to spin exceptionally. While this aspect makes training at altitude better, it increased the risk pilots faced while at slow speeds and close to the ground (like landing). We were trained extensively in how to handle this and to prevent it, and in 1200 hours I never once came close. Unfortunately the T-37 was never equipped with a "black box" flight data recorder, as the T-6 is. So any time there was an accident we had to guess what happened.

What I do know is that C left behind a young family. You don't hear about these types of things in the news much--there's no exciting enemy out there sometimes. Sometimes the enemy is just bad luck.

I'll never forget how eerie that was--a dead silent ramp that only moments before was filled with screaming aircraft.

We sat for a few days while they tried to determine the cause of the crash. Three days later we were given the green light to start flying again. The students were scared initially.

What I told them is what I believe, and what I would want if I ever were to die in an aircraft accident. "You honor them and their memory, and all pilots who have gone before, by getting back into that aircraft and taking to the skies again--knowing the risks that we all take. He's up there in heaven right now saying 'cleared for takeoff.'"

Blogroll

I've been randomly adding blogs that I like (not just ones to get links in return) ever since I started Desert Odyssey. What I haven't done is update it, so that's what I've been doing lately. I took out ones that haven't been updated, or have degraded into stuff that I just don't dig anymore. Along the way, I realized that I never introduced them. So here we go...

LUCKY'S DAILY

These are the blogs that I compulsively read, each and every day, first thing in the morning around 0500 or so. Super highly recommended.

The news blogs: Power Line and Pajamas Media for general news, and Mudville Gazette and Military Outpost for military. The best of the best.

Dubious Wonder, to which I can't understand why I am addicted
Michelle Malkin, one of the reasons I got into blogging in the first place, who along with
Dooce are the queens of the blogosphere
Michelle Agnew, whose daily questions get the mind rolling


The Good Ones

Blue Gal in a Red State is always good to see how the other side thinks
A Little Cheese With That Whine, Mommy Bloggers, and Dusty Clodfelter give me relief that parenting isn't hard just for me
Chickenhawk Express is a right wingnut
Cowboy Blob is one of the best photoblogs I've seen (not exactly art, but entertaining)
D-Man Bites Dog is from an opinionated New Zealander. He takes a pretty humurous look at world affairs
David Drake is a sarcastic Minnesotan who takes some good pictures. Or at least modifies them.
Don Suber is a close runner-up for Lucky's Daily. He scours the blogosphere for his "daily best," and he's usually right.
Doney Depot is Marcguyver's blog--a regular commenter to the Odyssey.
Far East Cynic is a blog from one of my Alumni brothers who lives in Asia. Hysterical.
Freedom Folks - A collaborative effort by Jake and the ald Chick.
Hog On Ice is a great read by a really good writer. The only thin g keeping it off the LD list is that I get the feeling that it's too big for it's britches.
Karen's Korner - Musings from a conservative Christian.
Kevin Sites - as if he needs an introduction.
No Angst Zone is a good blog in support of the military.
Not Quite Off the Deep End is a family guy who works as a trucker for FedEx.
One For the Road is by the angel of my deployment, Richmond, who sent cookies to the CAOC after reading my blog. She has great daily puzzles, too :).
Random Stuff is just that...my favorites are how she responds to letters she found from her younger days.
Redneck's Revenge - A biased international current events and political newsblog.
Sharp as a Marble - another hysterical random thoughts blog.
Sysiphean Musings is a self-proclaimed center-right blog that is remarkably calm in dealing with political and military issues.
Soldier's Angels New York and Holly Aho need no intro for the work they've done supporting the troops.
The Opinionator is a decent political blog.
The Chefinator is the boyfriend of Dubious Wonder's Trouble in Shangri-La. A good blog--although more man-flesh than I need to see.
Velvet Sin is decidedly leftist, but she's a great and passionate writer (know thy enemy...).
Writer's Blog Alliance is a garden-spot for aspiring writers and bloggers. Good stuff.
Yesterday's Future is the blog of a world-travelling activist trying to make life better.


Military / Milblogs

USMC: Michael Yon
Army: Wordsmith at War, Soldier's Perspective, Guidons Guidons Guidons, 365 and a Wakeup (the King)
Navy: Live From the FDNF, Captain's Quarters, Chaotic Synaptic Activity
Air Force: Dude Where's the Beach?, Linked in USAF
UK: In Training
General: Blackfive, Blogs of War, Miltracker, CENTCOM, milblogging.com, Patriot Voices, Threatwatch, VFW NC


The stuff that's just cool is just that--cool ways to waste your time.

Whew! Won't be doing that again for another year...I think I need to slim my blogroll down a bit.

Today's Fortune

Your Fortune Is

He who fishes in another man's well often catches crab.

The Wacky Fortune Cookie Generator

Tucson Sunset

I carry a Nikon D70 camera with me everywhere I go in my back pack. Superwife thinks it weird, but I have a miniature tripod that I carry in there, too.

Here's why:

These were taken after I flipped out on Princess for chucking sand in her brother's eyes for the third time this week. Calmed me down quite a bit.

I just pulled over to the side of the road and started snapping as fast as I could before the sun went down.


Sunsets like this happen pretty much every night in Tucson. The people, crime level, service, and traffic kinda suck, but the weather and scenery rock.

Great Cindy Rant

Robin over at Chicken Hawk Express posted an awesome rant about the Shee-witch the other day:

Sheehan plays kissy-face with Chavez in Venezuela while he calls President Bush
a terrorist. She shows up at the State of the Union Speech for more publicity
but had a premature exposure of her anti-war t-shirt. Sheehan posed for Vanity
Fair by lying on her son’s grave, which is still without a headstone. She called
the terrorists in Iraq “freedom fighters” while working with Code Pink, the
organization that gave money to the “other side” in Fallujah. Sheehan claims our
soldiers are committing genocide and murdering innocents.

It's a good blog--check it out.

Alliance

I am considering joining an alliance (cue "Survivor" theme).

I didn't even know these things existed. But seeing as how dependent blogger's egos are on getting links, I'm surprised there's not more of them.

The one I'm looking at is an anti-Instapundit alliance called the Alliance of Free Blogs. It's a satrical blogwar against the great guru of the blogosphere, the Instapundit himself. Seeing as the only time I get a massive influx of readers is when he posts on his Military Outpost site (oh, and when Terry linked me on eDodo), maybe that's not the best of ideas.

I'd start my own, if I thought people would join (hint).

Dean Strikes Again

My favorite raving lunatic governor, Howard Dean, has once again shown his complete lack of a solid grip on reality. He gave a speech at the Annual Conference of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs (what, you didn't know that was going on??) which he apparently revealed that he has the master strategy for the United States:

"The Democrats have a better idea. First we will conclude the negotiations with the Chinese and the North Koreans to disarm North Korea. Secondly, under no circumstances will a Democratic Administration ever allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Three, we will kill or capture Osama bin Laden and four, the authority and the control of the ports of the United States must be retained by American companies."

Oh--THAT'S what we've been doing wrong!

What a boob.

Cindy Circus

For my mental case Cindy Sheehan supporters who like to do drive-by's on here to take pot shots:

Smash has a transcript of a town hall meeting she attended and demonstrated her true capacity for the truth. Again, I truly feel for this woman for her loss--but I strongly believe that she never intended things to go as far politically as they have. My theory is that there are some pretty big people, both politically and with other motivations, that are behind her and compelling her to do and say the things she does...

Her inability to keep her facts straight leads me to conclude that she is either an outright liar (which I don't think she is), or she has gone from being a regular mom to celebrity without the resources to handle the publicity. As a result, I really do think that she has a lot of people using her as a figurehead to advance their own political agenda, and saying things that she may or may not agree with in her name.

The evidence that the statements she made were out to lunch was pretty clear, I think. I pity her for her loss, but I also pity her for being vaulted to a position that I am not sure she realizes that she is in.