Category: Fourre-tout

A little bit of everything

The rules of the game

If you ever win anything, don’t gloat. It is not nice and if you do, it will eventually come back to bite you in the “derrière”.
There is no better way to antagonize and make enemies than by taking a malicious pleasure in somebody’s miseries.

Look at the elections.
Obama won, but he didn’t gloat. He is too smart for that and he knows that soon or later he will have to deal with those he defeated.
He even acknowledged his opponent in his victory speech.

Mitt Romney whose political fortune took a turn for the worse on Tuesday night also played nice. But he couldn’t gloat.
Reluctant at first to admit defeat, he finally came out, and with a frozen smile on his face, he congratulated Barack Obama on his victory and wished him the best.
He might not have exuded sincerity but there was no other way, for nobody likes a sore loser.

Gone are the days when the victors crucified their enemies. Nowadays it is much smarter to treat them with humility and respect than humiliate them publicly.
It is also wise to remember that the bite of a humiliated foe is worse than the bite of a king cobra.

So, even on the pétanque field, don’t ever gloat. Even if you “fanny” the other team. At the end of the game, modesty is always in good taste.
Tell your opponents how lucky you have been and how well they played.
No need to upset a recoiled king cobra, don’t you think?

If you absolutely must boast, do it in the privacy of your own home or go to some Latin America country where machismo rules.
In California, avoid showing off in public. Nobody likes an egotistic braggart.

To conclude, it is far wiser to remain humble in victory and gracious in defeat rather than to gloat like a flea on a dog.

Alain

 

Le Petit Cirque

I just finished reading a book called “Le Grand Cirque” (the Big Circus).
It was written by Pierre Clostermann, a young Frenchman who enlisted in the RAF at the beginning of World War Two and scored 33 “kill” between 1942 and 1945.
In his book, he describes the fears and exhilaration of a fighter pilot engaged in almost daily dogfights with the enemy.

So, it is all pumped up that on November 4, I boarded (parachute, oxygen mask, regulation Smith & Wesson, Escape Envelope*) a 4 seat, single engine Piper PA-28-161.

Our pilot is Volodia, a family friend and a cool, skinny young chap in his mid-thirties.
The plane also carries his 7-year-old son (who, through regular flights with daddy, knows more about flying than most of us) plus Tamara and myself.

The Gnoss Novato field doesn’t have a control tower and I am surprised to see airplanes landing and taking off without seemingly any kind of supervision.

We strap ourselves to our seats.
Our pilot hands us a set of headphones so that we can all communicate with each other, and most importantly with some guys on the ground who are keeping track of our position in the big blue yonder.

Cockpit drill. BTFCPPUR (Brakes, Trim, Flaps, Contacts, Pressure, Petrol, Undercarriage, Radiator) and after a very short dash on the runway we are airborne.

“Hello Filmstar, Yellow and Blue climb and attack fighters above. Pink, Black and White engage Huns below. Filmstar Red diving for strafe… Go!”

Actually, we are flying at about 80 mph and climbing unhurriedly. It seems that we are moving slower than in a car.
The day is beautiful, with lots of sunshine, and very soon it becomes fairly hot in the cockpit.
I look above and under but cannot see what is behind us.
Careful, “the Hun is always in the sun”.

Very soon we are at 2000 feet flying leisurely at 120 mph.
We are heading toward San Francisco. We are flying over Marin County, San Quentin, Sausalito, Alcatraz, the Oakland Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge and finally over San Francisco.

The pilot occasionally tips his wings to give us a better look at some famous landmarks and allow us to take photographs. Unfortunately the yellowish plastic canopy of the plane prevents us from taking clear pictures of the ground.

Coming over San Francisco I am surprised to discover that a plane is allowed to fly over such a densely populated area.
I am expecting any minute to see the back venomous mushrooms of ack-ack guns exploding around us.

We are loitering over the city for a while and follow the coast up to Stinson beach.Things look amazingly different seen from the sky.

We spend about 45 minutes over the Bay Area and head back to Novato.

I suggest a “victory roll” over the airport to Volodia. Surprisingly he nixes the idea.
From the co-pilot seat, I can see the landing strip approaching, but very soon the nose of the plane obscures the runway and I cannot see the ground anymore.
I trust Volodia who swore on holy icons that he already landed a plane more than twice.
The landing is extremely smooth. Spassiba Volodia!

On the ground again.
Time to go to the officers’ mess and gulp a few beers while bragging about our encounters with nasty Focke Wulf 190 and even nastier Messerschmitt 109.

Alain

PS: I was not really carrying a parachute, oxygen mask, regulation Smith & Wesson and Escape Envelope, but it sounded much better that way. Don’t you think so?

*The Escape Envelope contained 20 000 French Francs, 5000 Belgian Francs and 1000 Dutch guilders. Its purpose was to facilitate the escape of a pilot shot down over enemy territory.

***To look at pictures of this event, turn the sound on, click on the “Home” link at the top of the page, and click again on “My photos” located on the right side of the page.

 

Up up and away…

Birthdays are (most of the time) rather dull affairs. A cake, candles, a few cheers, and that’s it.
To celebrate my domestic partner’s red-letter day, I decided to take her for a ride… a hot-air balloon ride that is.
The first thing to remember about hot-air balloons is that (unlike bats) they take off shortly after sunrise, when there is a minimum of atmospheric turbulence.

For her birthday, I had told my mate to take the day off, without giving her any specific details about my intentions. I added a little later that on that day we would have to get up early.
How early, she asked?
5:00 a.m. I said. Holy mackerel, she exclaimed (I assume) in Russian.

Sunrise on Saturday October 26 was around 7:20 a.m. and I had been asked to report at the departing location at 6:30 a.m.
The distance from San Rafael to Yountville is about 40 miles, or 50 minutes by car. This means that we would have to leave San Rafael at 5:30 a.m. This also meant that if we wanted to have any kind of breakfast we’d better get up before 5:00 a.m.
So we did, and after a light snack, we left San Rafael around 5:30 a.m. and arrived in Yountville around 6:30 a.m.

There, we were briefed about hot-air balloons.
We were told that a balloon consists of a large bag called the “envelope” and a “gondola” (or wicker basket) that carries passengers. An experienced pilot would steer the craft. There was never any mention of parachutes.
All of us (about 30 people) were subsequently assigned a balloon. Ours was called Tango.

After this brief meeting, we were led to the adjacent parking lot where the beasts were being groomed and inflated.
It was an impressive and noisy operation. Heated air (by the means of a giant fan) is forced into the balloon to make it buoyant, and like a sleepy colossus, it rises majestically.

Four balloons were inflated at the same time and were readied to take off. Some carried 4 people, some 6 and ours the largest of them all (250 000 cubic feet) carried 12 passengers, plus the pilot.

The takeoff was almost imperceptible. We rose slowly and gained altitude without ever having the feeling of moving.
To my surprise, I discovered that the sky above the Napa Valley was filled with balloons, or at least 20 of them. They floated and rose silently past us us like giant pumpkins.

We drifted through the Napa Valley for about an hour while being steered and entertained by a very chatty (too chatty) pilot.
He flew his contraption with the greatest of ease. He lowered and made it rise seemingly at will. To spur its steed, he intermittently fired a kind of giant flame-thrower that pushed hot air into the envelope, and the balloon rose obediently.
While flying the beast he was in permanent radio contact with earthbound roadies that were following us with a van.

After about one hour aloft, the pilot set his sights on a landing spot. He told his crew about it and summoned them to an open area.
Once there, he lowered his craft and threw a line to his men.
They grabbed it and like Lilliputians they pulled the balloon down while the pilot was busy deflating the envelope. Something not unlike a Zeppelin landing.
We touched ground around 8:30 a.m. Mission accomplished! One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

So, how did you like it, I asked my significant other.
I loved it, but I could have stayed up a little longer she said.
OK. Since you like it that much, on your next birthday I’ll send you up on a balloon around the world for eighty days. That should cool your jets for a while.

Alain

PS: To look at pictures of this event, turn the sound on, click on the “Home” link at the top of the page, and click again on “My photos” located on the right side of the page.