Short trip home

I considered another philosophical rant this evening. I’ve definitely had plenty of deep thoughts lately. Most of them come to me as I’m flying around the world. I have a mix of time to myself, time to observe people in far away places, time to ‘sharpen the saw’ with others, time to read, and so on. It’s a good enviornment for a guy who thinks too much to exercise the noggin. Unfortunately, I don’t usually have the ability to write it all down as I’m thinking it. Some of it might be … scary anyway 😉

So instead, how about a personal update? Can I do that without getting philosophical? Probably not…

I’m in the middle of a whopping 4 whole days at home. And that’s better than it was supposed to be. I was originally scheduled for a second round trip to Shanghai, but that got changed such that I wasn’t legal to do it (thanks to the gummint) and they sent me home early.

I had to bid to work early June, though, since I really need to work early July also. And, again, thanks to the government, it’s almost impossible for me to work the end of one month and the beginning of the next. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d want to. I’d be out for around 4 weeks straight and that’s just too long to be away from home (I’ve done it a few times). So for the last few months, I’ve been working on switching around my scheudle and I finally got it done (whew!).

Next month’s trip actually starts this comming Monday. It’s more of the same stuff I’ve been doing. Taipei, Taiwan, and Shanghai, China to Anchorage, and one turn (or maybe two?) to Los Angeles. So far, my base (Los Angeles) hasn’t been assigned any of the Toronto flying. I’m kinda hoping…

And we had some Bangkok flying coming up but it appears that’s not going to happen now. It’s delayed for some unknown reason and, in the mean time, we’re hearing rumors that Air Canada is doubling the Shanghai frequency… gee, I wonder where our Bangkok airplane went??? 😉 Supposedly we’re out looking for more MD-11 Freighters, but there aren’t really any to be found on the market right now.

So while I’m home… We went to see Star Wars the other night. I *loved* it. Now I’ve heard mixed reviews here and there. There are basically two reasons I liked it. First, it bridged the gap in the story. That was interesting and all, and I guess I really did want to see how all that ‘stuff’ happened.

But second, it made me think. The whole Star Wars series has religious and political overtones (some fairly obvious, others less so). But this one in particular was extremely thought provoking. With each scene came an entire train of thought about something ‘deep’. Interestingly, I suspect people of other religious and political persuasions could have had similar experiences, though with different ‘ideas’ or conclusions. In that respect, I’d almost call it literature. Star Wars, literature? Maybe I’m just reading too much into it… 😉

One spoiler… the best line from the movie:

“This is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause”

I’m not a big movie buff (despite having just reviewed a movie right here in my journal), but I’m even less of a book buff. But now I’ve got a reason to do some reading. I haven’t read fiction in years, maybe decades (am I old enough to say that?). But I think I’m gonna have to read the Chronicles of Narnia (again… for the few parts I’ve already read once). And then, the movie… 😉

Tomorrow (errrr today, really), is ‘prep’ day. I spend most of a day before a trip doing laundry, paying bills, etc. etc. Tomorrow is Church and Jazz (the perfect combination???) and then it’s back to the grind… and the philosophy…

V-