Specialist

On the boob tube as I type this: "Hatari", starring John Wayne. They do not make movies like that any more. Dammitall.

Something about this story just doesn't add up. An airliner is at cruising speed and altitude after 15 minutes. The story doesn't say, but Bali to Guangzhou is a long hop, meaning that this had to be a jet, at least a 737 or A320, meaning cruising altitude is going to be 30,000 feet or higher. 180 passengers says the same thing. You're going to NOTICE an unsealed door VERY quickly at that altitude. It may be that the latch wasn't working properly, but air pressure was holding the door sufficiently. (You're talking about TONS of pressure on a typical airline door.)

I did the 30-minute hop and the 60-minute hop back in September. They're good. I did the Flying Club package, and then an additional 4-hour Flying Club block, in December. I don't recall the exact prices, but the block time works out to around US$160/hr, and includes the instructor pilot. To put it in perspective, dual instruction on a Cessna 172 will run me US$200/hr at home, and the 737 is a LOT more fun to fly. If your game-savvy 14-year-old likes airplanes, he will more than likely be in Hawg Heaven in the simulator.

My pleasure, Coss. I want them to get plenty of business. I want them to stay open, so they'll be there when I get back in a few months.

It is known that the 9/11 hijackers trained "at home" in the US, on Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Ekkamai Gateway mall, 2nd floor. Ride the skytrain to Ekkamai station, exit on the south side of Suk, walk into the mall, ride two escalators up. As you get off the second escalator, on the second floor, turn to your right and work your way around the atrium. You will see what looks like an airliner nose section. That's the entrance to Flight Experience Bangkok. Website The website has their old address, off Convent Road, but they moved to Ekkamai Gateway early in 2016.

STOLEN!

I landed at Swampypoom on 23 Dec, flew out on 4 Jan. During that time, I did the usual rounds. I also did something different. I logged 8 hours on a Boeing 737NG Advanced Aviation Training Device. This is a high-fidelity flight simulator, without a motion base. I originally heard about the company a few years ago, when we thew the Sunday afternoon get-together in the bar&grill on Convent Road. They'd since moved to Ekkamai Gateway mall. I was in there in September, flew a 1/2 hour and 1 hour casual session then. This time, when I went back, it was with the specific intention of learning to fly the 737. Seriously. They asked what I wanted to do, I said "stick-and-rudder flying, to master the airplane". They smiled and said "We can do that." I flew an hour a day every day for four days, and then I flew two hours a day for two days. You can't help but learn things on this schedule, and some of them will be things you never expected to learn. Things about leadership, and teamwork, and how you respond under pressure. I did things I never dreamed I would do. I learned things I never expected to learn, I made memories, with their help, that will last a lifetime, and then some. And I had more fun than I ever dreamed possible. At one point, taking off from Hong Kong, for a night hop to Macau with the company chief pilot, I was mildly surprised to realize that the takeoff procedure had become both familiar and comfortable. Once we were at cruise altitude and speed, sitting back, I realized just how incredibly beautiful a night flight in that part of the world could be. At another point, flying in the San Francisco area, still with the company chief pilot, he had me working harder than I'd ever worked in my life. I never would have believed I could handle that workload, and I would REALLY never would have believed I would be having the time of my life doing it. That man is destined to be one of the great flight instructors of this century. He has a gift, for knowing EXACTLY how hard and how far a student can be pushed. And that's another thing. Flying with him never felt like instructor and student. It felt like team, like very senior captain and very junior first officer, and part of the captain's job is to make the first officer a better pilot. And he did. The 737 is a beautiful airplane. She is demanding. She teaches you very quickly that you have to pay attention to her, learn to feel what she is feeling. She is also incredibly responsive and incredibly rewarding, and, within the above, both easier and more fun to fly than a Cessna 172. I will be going back next trip.

Actually, no, he won't go through 20 years of appeals. He hopped the border into Italy, and opened fire on a couple of cops. He wounded one of them. The other cop shot back, and killed him on the spot. End of story.

Take a look at what has happened with the crime rate statistics in Australia since they passed those laws. They have NOT gone down.

You don't even need that. You just need the Bad Guys to THINK you MIGHT have one, that you would not hesitate to use against them when and if they provoke you sufficiently, by e.g. breaking into your house obviously intent on committing Bad Acts against you and/or your loved ones.

Coyotes in Cactus??? The mind boggles. Yes, gravity is still working. I just checked.

I saw the same emails. It sounds as though the owners are doing a facelift and update and ... and they want new blood, or something. I'll be in town in about ten days or so, and will check it out.

The malaria strains found in Thailand are resistant to chloroquine and mefloquine. They are VERY susceptible to doxycycline, and doxycycline is CHEAP.

What they carefully don't mention is that many of those fact-resistant humans are "scientists" and politicians. In freshman physics, I was told "Physics is an empirical science." Along the way, I learned "One experimental result trumps a thousand theories and hypotheses." I also picked up the idea that "Simulations and models are absolutely worthless unless they can be validated against real-world experimental data, with all its warts." And I have to go run errands.

Nope. No mushrooms. I was about to see the inside of a hyperbaric chamber for the first time. For real, not a tour.

A recent eye exam says I need to get new glasses anyway. I'll talk to Top Charoen next time I'm in town.

Yes and no. First, it is human nature, once in a while, to pray, to say, if only to the universe at large, "Hey, I could really use a hand right now, or at least a sympathetic ear." At the same time, sometimes people in that position get an absolutely unequivocal, unmistakeable answer. "Don't worry. You're going to be all right. I've got this." That experience tends to get someone's attention, real dam' fast.

Nope. If you run the reaction as follows: C2H5OH + 3 O2 --> 2 CO2 + 3 H2O + energy what you are doing is burning ethanol. That makes a fire, releasing carbon dioxide, water, and heat. That's the definition of exothermic. Running the reaction the other way, using energy (and technology) to reform carbon dioxide and water into ethanol and oxygen, takes energy to drive it. Carbon dioxide is not easy to split: it takes a lot of energy. Water naturally dissociates into protons and hydroxyl radicals, but splitting the hydroxyl radicals into protons and ionized oxygen also takes a lot of energy. Then you have to transport everything and get it to reassemble into a relatively high-energy configuration, rather than the low-energy (CO2 and water) configuration you started with. You have to pump energy in to form the ethanol. That's endothermic.

2 CO2 + 3 H2O + energy --> C2H5OH + 3 O2 The process is necessarily endothermic, because running it the other way is burning ethanol, consuming oxygen, to release energy.

I'm remembering a Sunday evening in Dallas, many years ago. I was at Cabaret Royale This was during the first couple of years it was open, when it was a REALLY good place. I found myself talking with a Sweet Young Thing from Stuttgart. She taught me to drink Jagermeister.

When my old Canon inkjet failed, I replaced it with an Epson XP-630 combo: scanner/printer/copier. I like everything about it EXCEPT the internal paper trays. The Canon had a external feed that was a lot easier to load.

When I saw the first piece from that web page about all of Soi Cowboy being closed, I queried John at Cactus about it. His reply, while (predictably) unprintable, dissented. In a follow-up, he said he'd probably close for a couple of days out of respect. Somehow, I can't imagine the Arab closing down for very long...

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat eis. Resquiecat in pace. Amen.

Rodman's Revelation.