75th anniversary of trans pacific flight

Im back from the air museum.
Its been quite a day.

We made over 240 contacts from the special event station we set up there.

They fed us lunch & dinner. Dinner was really something.
Lamb, veggies, rolls, salad, strawberries, wine, coffee & desert.
Henry teased me a bit when I managed to perfectly drop a strawberry into a votive candle.
"I cant take you ANYwhere!far more omnivorpous than most people.
So when Neil poured me some coffee and managed to fill the saucer in the process, I got "the
business" all over again.

Normally, I dont care for squash or sweet potatoes.
In fact those are amongh the only foods Im picky about.
Im far more omnivorous than most people.
The veggies were a mix of peas, carrots & sweet potato.
It wasnt half bad. In fact I liked it, sweet potatoes & all.
In hindsight, I should have spoken to the caterers.
Getting me to eat sweet potatoes was an accomplishment on their part.
I should have said something, they deserved credit.

Had a great chat with some of the QUANTAS brass, son of the pilot from the
"Southern Cross" flight, and the Australian Consul General.

The consul General of Fiji made quite the interest.
He was accompaied by 2 warriers in traditional atire.
They were invited to place the Fijian flag with the others at the end of the stage.
The ceremony was simple & silent & dignified.

We borrowed the truck from the Marin Radio club. Its an old news truck, complete with the
pump up mast etc. We mounted a 20 meter beam antenna and an 80 meter inverted vee.
It was cool. We showed off the truck to some of the interested parties. In addition to the truck,
we had another tower & beam next door on top of the FAA building.

I was bummed that we didnt rasise anyone from Sydney, especially Waverly Amateur Radio Society.
The event was almost over by the time signal propagation finally opened to the South Pacific.
It was totally weird. We started out with the antenna pointed west. All the signals we could
hear were coming in from the rear of the antenna and off the sides, in short all the least sensitive
parts. NOTHING was coming in from the sensitive part.

Quantas has the 75th anniversary of flight logo oin the side of a 737-800. After the afternoon
festivities, a small group took off in that plane to retrace the original route. I was surprised
they let us stand outside the executive terminal during take-off. No security or anything.

We were unable to contact them for the 8:30PM scheduled contact.Around 9:15pm we hooked up with
a scheduled contact in Suva Fiji, where the original flight refueled. The fun part was getting
the son of the original pilot on the radio with the guy from Fiji and patching that into the sound
system in the hall. I dont think the audience could make much from the voices
(single sideband makes everyone sound like "Donald Duck") but they did realize that something
significant was going on.

Sadly, a major portion of the people in that hall tonight are old enough not to still be with us
in 10 years. For some this may be the last "do" of their lives. Its a scary thought. I hope we
did a good job.

My feet were in mortal pain at the end of the day.
After I took my left shoe & sock off, it began to bleed.

During the break between afternoon & evening programs, the radio crew got a tour of the flying boat.
WOW! They REALLY knew how to travel then and that thing was built to be repaired even en-route.

I was reminded today how much I miss Sydney, by all the "Ozzie" accents.

Im nervous about upcoming interview.
I may have more work to do for Steve "WS" on Monday.
Prolly only $50 for the day but it beats nothing.

Ive exhausted my 1st federal unemployment extension and Im waiting to see if Im allowed a 2nd.
Its still costing me $800 more than unemployment brings in to keep everything together.
If I can just unload that damned mass spectrometer, then I can cut my burn rate by another $290.

Its 2am SUn. Im tired, nervous, depressed, etc. (Does this make me a goth ?)

echoes from BayCon

Keith wrote. This is SO GREAT!

Heres what I told him :


When did I tell you I modeled ?
I dont mention it much, but yea, I did back when I was still young & cute.
It was fun. I didnt do a lot of print, I was a runway guy.

Im not sure anything from my modeling days exists anymore.
My portfolio was lost when the Bianca Agency went under, including
my "spares" box that had pics not included in the portfolio box.

I should find some casual stuff from that period and get them digitized.
I think your mind would be blown if you saw the pic of me with my ex at
the console of the Chicago Theatre Wurlitzer.

It was a happy time. I could turn heads by walking in a room.
I hope I was never as big a tease as you are, although I probably was.
I am definitely reaping what I have sewn.
Instead of being the heartbreaker, I am the one whos getting broken.

In the last year Ive been losing weight, but Im still not going to be able to regain that body.
At least I am not carrying my belly around in a wheelbarrow.

Martin is still alive in the Indianapolis area.
He is still a professional organist although he chain smokes now.
Ironic, I quit & he started. We havent spoken in over 10 years.
Not that there is any animosity, he has chosen to leave that part of life behind.

About 5 yrs ago, his lover decided he wanted to play the field and Martin was crushed.
There was nothing I could do for him. Our mutual friend Donna is his main lifeline.

Martin had it pretty hard. He was adopted and "came out" during college.
around the end of college, when his parents realized they could not change him, they dumped him,
thus returning him to orphan status.

Life has been pretty lousy both before and after BayCon.
The con was a nice escape from reality, but reality has returned like a vengeance.

Your return message has invoked a bittersweet emotion in me.
Im thrilled you replied.

I also realize that you are unable to feel about me the way I feel about you.
This is painful to accept. Its not your fault. You were built to a different set of blueprints.
I realize that you are (among other things) afraid I may "take you over to the dark side".

So on 1 hand I was thrilled you wrote, on the other hand having you reply and having you do so
nicely, brings a certain amount of pain.

Ill tell you more about BayCon later. Im still digesting the experience.

(no subject)

Its been a sleepy day. Its been warm and I dozed much of it away.

I finally coaxed the cat inside for the night. Leaving her out for the night is a bad idea.
The racCoons around here are pretty nasty. I have seen them tear up some of the meanest dogs.

Warm balmy evenings make it hard to get the cat inside.

Dial surfing has brought me to KFOG. Instead of the usual rock music I was pleasantly shocked to
hear "The Girl From Ipanema" playing. Apparently they are playing some special on international
pop music from the past. Now they are playing some of "BraZil-66". Weird but a good weird.

Looks like I got a 1 day moving gig tomorrow. I still dont have the feet back in shape.
Tomorrow will be a killer.

Dad & I picked up a couple trellises today at the Home Depot. They didnt have natural wood so we
settled on ones painted white. Now we will have to paint them ourselves. I couldnt believe the
staff couldnt tell us when they would have more. Dont these kids know ANYthing ?
What kind of store staff doesnt know what they have in stock and when they will get more?

Shifted radio over to "Music From Heart of Space".