Oh, and by the way, happy equinox everyone. I've emailed all my friends with the YouTube thing that I think is the coolest thing I've seen yet. I'm sure you've probably seen it by now, but before the link get's broken I must say to all Trekkers and Star Wars fans this is a must see.

It is clearly going to be some time before I can get anything going with regards to my Web space. The FTP/Front Page issue boggles my mind at the moment. In the interim and out of boredom I set out to pursue my Flight Simulator interests. My first target was Mt. Rushmore, thinking "North by Northwest," or as it was orignally titled, "The Man in Lincoln's Nose," and here's what I came up with:


Now I realize that's not very artistic, but it was the best I could do at the moment. That little plane flying toward's Lincoln's nose is my Cessna Caravan Amphibian. Anyway, after a few shots of doing those flybys I wound up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, between Yellowstone and The Grand Tetons. There was a Snake river there which made me think about Lewis and Clark. So I thought I'd do a little more exploring. What followed was this:

“Clay, on Oakdale, his eyes uncovered!”
“Lewis and Clark, the Missouri behind.”
“The Snake beyond the Yellowstone”
“Lewis and Clark at the ocean.”

The above is, of course, a parody of the Star Trek episode “Darmok,” but it is fitting at the moment. In playing with my latest flight simulator journey I’ve done quite a bit of reading about the Lewis and Clark expedition and, by George, I think I’ve got it. When I was in Jackson Hole (via FS), I wondered about the Snake River passing by there. I thought there might be two. I mean, how many creeks are there in Texas that are called Clear Creek? Further research however has led me to think that the Snake River near Jackson Hole might be the same one that Lewis and Clark found as their downward waterslide to the Pacific, which makes Yellowstone (National Park) all that more interesting, as a historical reference.

They don’t teach it like that to us in school, or how else would it be that I (at 56) just now figured it out. I could be wrong of course, but I’ve studied up on this some and if I am correct, why is this not more clearly presented. Even if I am wrong, why isn’t the truth more interestingly explained for inquiring minds such as mine?

I went to Bozeman, Montana (via FS), so that I could study the terrain traversed by Lewis and Clark in their expedition, which I consider to be one of the greatest adventures Man has undertaken. As I zeroed in on the nexus of the journey, the “Continental Divide,” I wanted specifics that I found lacking in any maps I had looked at. Even the National Geographic presentation, which is very excellent, failed to satisfy my basic questions about the Snake River, but I think I know why that is.

Nobody really knows. Certainly, nobody writing at that time had any idea where they were. They were doing their best to keep records, as I do in journalizing my own chaotic life, but the frames of reference are often relevant only to the person making the commentary. I guess it’s an example of the “uncertainty principle.”

It is easy to imagine two different routes of this historic trip as presented by the record, but if one looks at the record of how history has named things surrounding the journey, there is no way to be sure which is correct. I like the Yellowstone version best, because that’s where the Missouri would have led, but then that’s only me as a writer wanting to make the best story. The northern trip doesn’t seem to me as convincing, or as exciting, but that’s just me. I don’t feel obliged to anyone to do anything but make the Lewis and Clark Expedition one of the greatest stories ever told. If I take a little literary license by taking the trip through Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons; well that will be fine with me. But that bit about Sacagawea’s brother; being the chief of that tribe! That’s hard to beat. Great story! I can’t believe it hasn’t been done yet. I want to do it right! Oh, and by the way, as I finished reading the National Geographic profile of that adventure this was the final post:

"On the morning of September 23 [1806], the Corps of Discovery entered the Mississippi River and at noon disembarked at St. Louis—two years, four months, and ten days after they had left. Gathered along the shore, the one thousand people of St. Louis greeted the returned Corps with gunfire salutes and an enthusiastic welcome."

Oh, and this is September 23, 2006. There seems a circular symmetry associated with the date, somehow. If Magellan had survived his voyage his fame would have eclipsed Columbus' by far. Lewis and Clark survived, but who knows who they were/are?

I have a long way to go in figuring out how the Web is woven. Maybe I should have read that book about Charlotte that my sister liked so much. In any case it seems that in dealing with Road Runner one must choose between FTP and Front Page. I have my problems with both formats, and I certainly can't afford to pay someone else to do the work for me, so I must study. I'm 56 years old, I don't want to study! Still, there are methods of communication that I want to facilitate and therefore I feel compelled to pursue. At this point I will say I have a great empathy with Rush Limbaugh. He and I are the same age, we both have had backgrounds in radio and we are of almost identical political persuasions. Yet he has taken his passion and made millions for thinking and feeling the same as I do. Am I jealous? Envious? Not exactly. No. I say, "Good for him!" He had a focus I did not have. To this day I lack that focus. I am so cynical I can't get behind any cause, whether it is saving my country or my fellow man...I feel helpless. Hell, I can't even hold the one woman I consider the most important being I know! Nevertheless, I will plod onward through the fog (as they say in Austin) and do my part to contribute some particle board for others that to post their feelings...feelings? Exactly what that means I don't know, but it will be coming to a Web site near you soon... It will be something like, cabbie's can be pundits, too.

As I recover from the darkness that was this past summer (btw, it's the first summer I can remember in years when the temperature never got to 100 degrees in Houston--global warming and all that), I have decided it is time to move on (and not in the sense of that terribly misnamed Democrat blog that does not move on but stays stuck in the past). It is time for me to move...let me say, "forward." Long, long time ago, in a Website faraway I tried to establish a posting point for my stuff (fiction and so on) with links of interests to me and from friends, including my wife. Well, that project didn't get very far. I'm giving thought to trying that approach again. Don't get me wrong! I'd like nothing better than to show off pictures of the grandkids, but the rules at Road Runner have changed and I have to relearn the FTP and Front Page protocols. I also want to broaden the scope and perhaps, if I'm hip enough, get a Domain name. Right now I'm toying with stupid stuff like "Cabbies can be Pundits, Too," and "driversspeakout." By "drivers" I don't want to limit that to cab drivers, bus drivers, or delivery drivers, but any driver. Hey, we are all drivers, right? If you don't drive, click the back button. I have gone so far as to stake out a space on the Web via Road Runner, but I haven't yet been able to do anything with it. All I've been able to post there so far is the picture posted above--which, by the way, was my first ever computer generated art.

The summer of my discontent is now over. It is time to move on, and in doing so I want to acknowledge a flashback that I experienced yesterday while reading posts on a Flight Simulator bulletin board. There were several posters sharing questions and comments about their experiments and experiences using small aircraft to make around the world journeys within the confines of various versions of the Microsoft program. I related very well and was amused to read the discussions about problems that I myself had dealt with, long ago. It seems my enthusiasm for such fantasy is not so unique, after all. I felt I had pretty much "out grown" the "game," but those reads rekindled a spark in my imagination and I found myself pondering that for a while. I'm still thinking about it.

I may yet write a meaningful piece about the whole FS relevancy, as I see it...but not today. For the moment I'm going to content myself by picking up my blog with this entry. It seems Blogspot has made some improvements and I need to study those to see how best I can utilize them.

In the meantime, inspired by the posts I read yesterday I took of on a flight from Houston to Tahiti, using a Gulfstream V. I left rather late (3:45PM CDT) and arrived around 9PM, Tahiti time. I don't expect much to come from this journey, but it was something to do. My version of Flight Simulator (FS2002) is the best I can do with my current PC. I'll have to do a major upgrade before being able to handle FSX, which is due for release later this year. I don't know how I'm going to afford that, maybe I can get lucky and scavenge parts from my job.

I would like to do more to share the FS world with others that I think might benefit from the program's particular form of escape, but for that I will need to revisit and finally learn to utilize the Web space provided by Road Runner. Right now that seems to be a task that would require more energy than I have today.