Today I was listening (as usual) to war coverage on the way to work. They were broadcasting a story on Lori Ann Piestawa, the woman killed in the same attack in which Jessica Lynch was captured. A teacher from Tuba City, AZ was talking about her 2nd graders' reactions to the war, Lori Ann's MIA status, and then finally, her death. One of Lori Ann's nephews is a student in this teacher's class.

I found myself choking up while listening. In fact, I've come close to it on nearly every story regarding either Lori Ann or Jessica. Each time, I sort of brush back anything that has escaped embarassedly and go on.

It's the same thing a lot of people are doing, I'd imagine. You temper your emotions with the knowledge that the old cliches are all correct. War is indeed hell, and people die in war, war is not a game, etc. At the same time, I don't want to be numb. I don't want to shield myself entirely from the sadness. What sort of person would I be if I shut off such sensitivities?

Even so, I was genuinely puzzled about what made those two peoples' stories so moving. At one level, the answer was embarrassingly predictable. I've been socialized to accept the fact that men die in battle. I'm accustomed to the idea that if there was a sufficiently large conflict, I could be called into service and die in hostilities. However unlikely, I have since the age of 18 recognized that fact and dealt with it. I have also seen men of my acquaintance go off to service and to war. But women...

When I imagine my wife, female friends, or even my daughter who won't be old enough for a long time going off in harm's way it sends a chill of urgency through my soul for their protection. Is this cheauvenistic? I'm ashamed to say that in some degree it may be, though perhaps not as some might expect.

I don't know how much actual hand-to-hand combat there is in war these days; but I think that's probably the only place where a man might have an advantage, and I suspect that a woman who can carry her pack, hike the distance, and shoot her gun could be as effective an infantry soldier as any man.

So I don't believe that women should be relegated to non-combat positions. I don't think they should be stuck in the maintenance divisions, hospitals, etc. I think they should allowed to drive tanks, fly fighters and chew dirt like the men.

What strikes at my heart is the idea that they're more valuable than we men. When I think of my wife and daughter, I can't help feeling that they're more important than I am. They should be protected from harm, from combat. That's the job of saps like myself. I'm a man. I'm more expendable. I'm a tool for certain jobs. I've known my whole life that I was born male and that these things were my lot in life. So when I see reports of Lori Ann, Jessica, or indeed Shoshana Johnson who is a prisoner of war, the sacrifice seems greater. I can't help it.

So what are the less obvious reasons for my reaction? In Jessica's case, her youth astounds me. I work with an Explorer Scout's group in town. I teach students aged 14-18 how to fly airplanes. So I'm not new to the concept of young people doing things that are generally considered the fare of older, more mature people. I myself went through the program and got my pilot's license at 18: so I'm also familiar with the easy dismissal with which the young person views the subject. There is a truth in that dismissal that we adults sometimes ignore.

And yet, Jessica isn't flying a Cessna trainer over the wheat fields of Kansas. She's shooting Iraqi soldiers and getting shot by them. She's getting beaten in captivity. Beaten and perhaps more.

The fact that she didn't actually die does not change the idea I have in my head that she gave her life for her country. Rather than throw down her weapon and surrender, she made the decision to fight to the death. The accident of her survival doesn't diminish that fact to me at all. And when I look at the 18 year-old Jessica in my ground school class, I can't imagine asking that sacrifice of her, this year or next. Rob, my last student, is now Jessica Lynch's age. It seems impossible that I, as part of our country, might ask him to suffer the pains of a hostile death.

If I look at my students in class, I can't help looking at their legs, arms, bodies. An older person like myself has had the use of these things longer. It seems more appropriate to ask me to surrender them, though I know that mine aren't as useful. How presumptuous we all are, to live life every day without a care in the world, oblivious to the sacrifices we've asked for.

Finally, the more personal aspect of my sorrow this morning stems from a feeling of connection, however tenuous, to Lori Ann.

I am not Native American. I don't live in Arizona; and yet, the desert southwest seems more like home to me than this town in which I was born and raised. As I watch the news teams descend on Tuba City, I think; "You are here for the week. You are interlopers in a society that you do not even wish to understand. Because the culture cannot be explained in 30 seconds." It is a culture that ties closely to the land. It is ancient in its knowledge of the land. You cannot trace its faith backward on a calendar to a beginning. It is ageless.

She was a Hopi, Lori Ann. And her homeland looks eerily similar to the place she died.

It makes me wonder. Did Lori Ann see that, too? Was there time for such thoughts? Did she see the mud brick homes at the edge of Iraqi towns and think of the scrub desert and adobe structures of New Mexico and Arizona? If she did, did it make her feel grounded in that strange environment, or was the task at hand too demanding? Were the blowing sands at all reminiscent of home, or the endless sky, the sparse beauty of the arroyos and brush? Did it give her comfort?

She was Hopi, Lori Ann. Did she see the Kachina in the sands of An Nasiriya?

I hope that she did.

I hope that she rests peacefully.

"46P, Billard Tower. Taxi into position and hold on runway 18 for IFR release."

What sweet words.

I'm cured (at least for now) of entry 2's flying woes. The minute I called ground and got "46P, Billard Ground. Taxi to runway 18, hold short of 13, wind 150 at 4, altimeter 30.00. Your IFR clearance is on request" I was cured. You're doing the pilot thing at that point.

Almost any moron could plan a flight, especially an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) trip with a GPS on board. But they only let the people who have taken the tests and proven themselves move the airplane around. That's when you start to feel just a little bit better than the rest of the herd.

4 hours later, I made a very smooth landing on runway 30 at Albuquerque. It was so smooth that nobody took notice of it. Those are the best. My wife and 2 year-old daughter were blissfully ignorant of the beautiful work I'd just done.

It's not unlike being a sysadmin in that respect. You tend to live in /dev/null. No matter how much output you produce, nobody sees it. It's only the occassional report to stderr that anybody notices, and then there's hell to pay. I remember about 15 years ago, when I was a new pilot, a controller asked me if I was familiar with the airport I had just landed at. I responded "roger" when technically, I should have answered "affirmative." The controller repeated the question, and after getting the same incorrect response from me, chewed into me like I was a piece of steak right off the grill.

I did, however, learn when to say "roger" and when to say "affirmative."

Back to ABQ. Vacation was great. ABQ has a really good zoo, and good aquarium, lots of shops, great restaurants, y mucha cultura.

The only problem we had in ABQ was a cranky little girl. She seemed dead set on being pissed off about something at any given time. On Tuesday, we headed out from the hotel to ride the tram up to Sandia Peak. It's a fun ride and I expected us to have a great time. As we pulled out of the hotel parking lot, however, my wife said "You know what we forgot? Pink Bunny."

Immediately from the back; "I want Pink Bunny to go with us." And that started the big blowout. People with kids will understand both sides of this little story. I told her that Pink Bunny would have to wait in the hotel room for us, which really pissed her off. But I stood firm. It's important for her to learn how to deal with things because, in the end, I can't satisfy her day to day. She has to learn to be satisfied; and that comes only from learning to deal with life's little issues... like Pink Bunny staying in the hotel.

Others will understand the viewpoint my wife expressed: that it wasn't that far back to the hotel, and that it would be a simple enough matter to just go back and get it, and stop the crying and complaining.

Still others will say "She's a two year-old. It's a little early to be teaching life's lessons."

Everybody is correct. I chose to stick it out for the reasons I mentioned earlier. And as for her being too young, somebody call me on the morning that she's suddenly prepared to learn life's lessons.

So, the only downer was a cranky baby, which was bad enough that we considered just coming home. But we stuck it out, and things got a little better.

The flight to Alamosa was great. Beautiful mountain scenery along the way. Fun flying. Density altitude was at 8500 feet when we landed. The Piper Comanche 260 kicks ass.

In Alamosa, the Sand Dunes gave me that long-awaited sense of calm and peace that I had so been looking for. Albuquerque was fun; but it wasn't the relaxation I had wanted. The Sand Dunes gave me that. Nobody was using cell phones. Nobody had a pager on. It was beautiful to sit and watch the mountains from the dune tops, and to listen to the wind blowing through the pinon. There was no blinking cursor to demand my input. This was the world. The shell prompt isn't real. It's busywork that we've made for ourselves. Sand brought down from the Sangre de Cristo mountains by waters for thousands of years: that's the world. That's real. There's nothing virtual about that at all.

There was also nothing virtual about the coronary I thought I was going to have hiking to the 700 foot top of the tallest dune. Oy. What the hell was I thinking?

Finally, I had the best steak of my life at the Grizzly Bear Inn Cafe in Alamosa. It was cooked to order, smothered in a red chile sauce, and covered with cheese, lettuce and tomatoes; and served with beans and rice. It was delicious. I'd kill for the recipe for that chile sauce.

The governor of Colorado is eating there this week. He's in town for a rotary club meeting at the Griz. I hope he tries the Steak Ranchero. He may just leave Denver.

But... now we're home. We touched down on runway 31 just about 2:00 on Saturday. What a disappointment. Back to the office. Back to /dev/null. Back to busywork.

If I were younger and single, it'd be park ranger time.

Oy, I can't wait for Friday. I need the coming vacation.
    About a month ago, N and I upgraded the SDD (subsystem device driver) software on one of our 2105 IBM ESS storage units (sharks). This was necessary because the backup system had already been upgraded during an outage/crisis. This, of course, is the way of things. You upgrade when the machine faults on something. Anyhow, we upgraded the SDD, and reconfigured the vpaths. Everything looked good. We rebooted and smiled beatifically as we watched the filesystems mount, and got the all-clear from the DBA's.
    The next day the DBA's were having problems. While they looked at changes they had made to the database ("One change at a time," I told them) we started looking at the machine itself. Sure enough, we were missing some paths.
    It was really screwed up. Not only were an odd number of paths missing (you would expect the number of paths missing to represent a number of datapath device times the number of disks attached to it/them); but one of the volume groups had decided to go mixed (some hdisk, some vpath).
    Needless to say, a lot of dinking around was done to no avail. This last weekend, I removed the dpo, and reconfigured all of the crap during an outage that hadn't gone so well for DBA's (did I mention that I told them "One change at a time"?) Anyhow, my work turned out to be the bright spot in things that day.
    While I was working on it, all I could think about was flying. I'd been out with a student in the morning. It was gusty as hell. I was trying to demonstrate soft-field takeoff and landing techniques; but it wasn't happening. It wasn't a day where he'd learn anything. It was all about survival in the little 150. So we went to the practice area and did some hood work.
    While I was doing the vpath work, I kept thinking about flying and how I hardly get to do any of it anymore. I'm always instructing, so I don't get to actually fly the thing much.
    The next day, I went up with my student again, and while he was flying, I couldn't get those damned sharks off my mind. I kept mulling over what had happened, trying to figure out how to prevent it the next time. Meanwhile, T is really nutting it in on the touch and goes because I'm not coaching him as attentatively as I should. "There you go. Start your flare. Hold it off... hold it off... hold it off... oof! Hold it in. Hold it in. Hold it in."
    This really disturbs me, as I have always been very good at forgetting everything else but flying when I got in the airplane. While others worried about flying when they had too much stress in the world, flying has always been the great relaxing force in my life. I not only have an excuse for forgetting all of my troubles and responsibilities, I have an obligation to do so.
    I've worked very hard on those sharks and S80s. I've babysat them, tuned them constantly, made them purr, so to speak. And now I'm going to turn them over to R. R has no real motivation to take care of them. W will. He'll be okay; but R bothers me. He shoots from the hip, or actually, from the lip. R's a talker. W's a doer.
    I suppose it will be okay. After all, R knows everything. Just ask him.
    So I'm ready for the coming vacation. I'm off to the Great Southwest. I'm loading the airplane up Sunday and flying off to someplace that doesn't have cell or pager coverage. The hot searing desert is my sanctuary. It's a place that doesn't care about computers. It has no release schedule. There's no maintenance, no support contract. There's just the same elemental forces that have worked on the world since its birth.

Mixture - rich
Electric fuel pump - on
Prop control - full rpm
Flaps - takeoff
Trim - takeoff
Autopilot - off
Pager - OFF

So I'm slugging it out today with every script in the world that decided to encounter some unforseen condition and like some stupid cow in the herd, all I can really think about is what I'm going to scavenge from my two co-worker's cubes. "N" was moved, "A" was laid off in part of what has become a 6 month MTBL (mean time between layoffs) cycle. I'm a lot more jaded than I think anybody ought to be. I guess I figure that if I get laid off, I can get by. Hell, I can do anything... right? I'm intelligent, adaptable, a good student. If I get laid off, I'll slug it out somehow either in this industry or another. This gets me to thinking about those folks who get laid off and spend 6 months at home on unemployment waiting for their old job to come back. They kind of piss me off. Nobody promised you a desk job (apple orchard). Some have gone back to school. Great idea. I applaud those people. Others are just waiting for the same job they had to come by again. These are the people who piss me off. I'm paying for them. I may be waiting tables, or pounding nails, or pumping gas when I get laid off; but I'm not going to simply go on the dole and expect the world to take care of me while I wait for my little office chair to suddenly reappear under my ass. Unemployment insurance was made for people who are having trouble finding a job... not for people who are having trouble finding the same job they left. There's a difference.