Here's a parody of "Louie, Louie," about Louis L'Amour. It goes something like this:

"I thought I knew the macho way, I thought I'd heard all there was to say about bein' a man in this here time, until one night I was doin' time and found Louie L'Amour, oh, baby, yea, Louie L'Amour."

You see, My dad used to read his books all the time and I thought that was silly time wasting. When I found myself staying with him, and my mom, back in the summer of 1993 I wound up reading Louie, and the complete works of William Shakespeare (all the plays and all the poems!). I gained from that summer a new perspective and respect for the masters of what I aspire to do.

Today I learned about the next generation of Microsoft's Flight Simulator. Flight Simulator 2004 was aka FS9. This new version is dubbed FSX. It looks like I'm going to have to upgrade my PC. It ships on DVD, not CD. I have a DVD drive, but there are other things that I must check out. FS9 continually crashed my computer. Therefore I've basically stayed with FS 2002, since Supercar works so well in that program.

Generally speaking, I am not in to "games" so much. For a long time I took issue with people who referred to Flight Simulator as a game. There is no opponent, there is no scoring of points; one "wins" if they successfully land on the runway they are aiming at. That takes some skill within the confines of the program. For me it has been an educational experience. I've learned about aviation, geography and (via the Internet) the culture of the places I visited, viturally.

When it comes down to games, I normally say that the moment I find that I am in one, I leave.

Well, I feel good about having gotten that out of my system. I can't say enough about how I appreciate Professor Tate's work, or Gerry Anderson's inspiration. Suffice it to say I am grateful that they have led me this far. If you don't have Flight Simulator--buy it! And a joystick, btw. For $60 (joystick included) you will never find a better use of your entertainment dollars. Having said all of that I will really move on, unlike that inaptly named Democrat political apparatus, moveon.whatever, which does nothing but stay stuck in the past. They wish. Those of us that live in the real world have our real problems, but we try to deal with them realistically. One can not wish or dream or hope away things that are going on in Iran. Persia. You might be surprised at the way Persians discriminate racially against Arabs. I know I was surprised to learn that. I don't know any Arabs, but I do have some Iranian friends. Most people don't realize that the Iranian general populus is the most pro-American group in that region. That being said, and considering the learning bit about this blogging thing, let me end this entry with a pleasant joke. Either you're with Frank, or you're with the terrorists.

The "Ode to Supercar" continues. Supercar was created by Gerry Anderson who's name I have heard as an answer to a question on Jeopardy. Anyway, it was just a childhood fantasy that wouldn't go away. When I got my first real PC and discovered the Internet and Microsoft's Flight Simulator I was amazed to find that someone else had been so inspired that he created a model of that fantasy craft that would fly in Flight Simulator! Professor Austin Tate had taken our shared childhood dreams to new heights and I flew that car around the world.

Oh, it's not easy to fly. If you aren't careful, it will get away from you, but it is fun! U.S. law prohibits exceeding Mach over the country, but when you get over the ocean...enjoy! Cruising slow down the Grand Canyon, or driving down the streets, just like a car--unbelievable. It is a VTOL craft. It will hover and fly like a bat out of hell. Houston to Clear Lake, 6 minutes. Houston to Austin, 21 minutes.

I imagine going down the Gulf Freeway as traffic and wondering what other people might say, "Hey, that's a cool looking car, man...but it ain't got no wheels!" And then think of a cop pulling up wanting to pull you over because there's no license plates...well, you just lift off and fly away!

As promised, here comes my "Ode to Supercar." Perhaps I should write it in Word and paste it, but I'm still having problems with the Word applet. Besides, adding the links would pose more problems that I don't want to deal with right now. This is going to be tough, but here goes...

When I was 10 or 11 years old (1960-61) I was exposed to a kid's TV show called "Supercar." The actors were puppets (with strings attached) however the star of the show was the most amazing vehicle I'd ever seen--Supercar. It was the size of a mid-size car, but it had extendable wings in the rear section, and it could fly. It could also go under water. That craft captured my imagination. There were no wheels. It rose on a cushion of air from downward thrusts, long before there was anything like a Harrier.

For Christmas 1963 (I was 12) I requested and got a draftsman set, including a board, T-Square, triangles, French curve and a complete set of instruments with which I proceded to make a detailed drawing of how the craft should look on the drawing board. I came very close to what is presented below. (Boy, did I have trouble getting that posted!)



I will continue with this experiment and give credit where it is due.

I'm getting ready to write an ode to Supercar. That moment might not be now, but I'm still experimenting. Let's see what happens when I try to post a picture.

I had a very busy day at work today, so I didn't get to read very much online (which I sometimes have the opportunity to do during slack times). However, when I got home I found a couple of things of note. This article by Mark Steyn is very long, but I always enjoy his writing and recommend it, if you have the time. There is also this by Linda Chavez. And then there's Rich Lowry today. I'm starting to feel like Matt Drudge, just posting links--but I'm still experimenting here and hope to impart knowledge and stimulate thought among my friends and anyone else that happens to look in to this site. I'm trying to get set up so that comments can be posted in response to my experiment here. That feature may be operational now, but I doubt it. I think that is only an option for "members" of the blog, and I still don't know what's up with that. You can, however, Email me.

The workaday workweek world is now reengaged in full force. I'm glad there are only three days remaining. There was no particular news or political commentary that I found worth linking to this day, but I would like to share this which is a project a co-worker of mine has been working on for some time now. I find it inspiring in its scope and am pleased to see it proceeding to completion. Be forewarned that there are lots of photos in the download. If you are using a dialup connection, you might have to wait a while, but it's worth checking out. Also, I might add that last night when Cheryl and I went out to a Chinese buffet I got in to a conversation with the host about I Ching. He was surprised at my knowledge of the "Book of Changes." I have studied that ancient work since the mid '70s, when I was a fan of the Kung Fu television series. You might also find this interesting. It's all about images. Three lines make a qua (image, perverted by our Western heritage to translate as a trigram), two three line images form a hexigram. One image over the other. The lines are read from the bottom up. It's wild, and it's ancient...legends, lore.

Happy New Year! As we stumble into this next chapter of our shared lives I am caught up in a marathon of The Twilight Zone. There is also a Law & Order marathon on, but no Star Trek marathon. If you are a Star Trek fan, especially of the Next Generation, I would suggest checking out this. I know I am basically talking to myself here, but it is a start.