Abc News reports Armageddon!

I'm an alumni of ABC-TV. Years ago I worked at WBKB-TV (now WLS-TV) in Chicago. I loved it. So-o-o, I'm usually keeping one eye on things (pardon the CBS pun). Well...Last night they had a special hosted by John Stossell on what will cause the end of the world. Not exactly an uplifting thought, but Summertime TV is usually rank anyway. So, I turned it on at 9:00PM only to find out it was a 2 hour special. I missed the first half. I missed the Great Volcano that would destroy the Earth... Oh well!! Missed a few others too, but they went in reverse order anyway so I knew that I was going to see the highest probability Armageddon, and an hour of listening and watching how mankind was going to be destroyed was enough before bed time anyway!

The Giant Asteroid: Geez! Odds are we are going to eventually run into a really big piece of space rock. It'll make a huge spash in the ocean and cause a Sunami that will destroy all life on Earth (time to recall how to convert cubits into inches). OK...That's a possibility. Stossell interviewed an astronaut who had the only "viable" fix for this problem. We'd fly a space craft up next to this huge asteroid way out in space, and the gravitational pull of the space craft would change the course of the asteroid??? That's what he said! There are a couple of problems here. First, we don't have a space craft...Not even a design or a plan to build one. So... We'd need to find a very young (preschool) astronaut who believed in the project and start the design ASAP. Hopefully we could get something flying before our preschooler was eligible for retirement! By the way, Stossell did admit that you should not attempt to blow up the asteroid in space. That would give you thousands of various size pieces, possibly radioactive. Not a good idea. So much for Hollywoods plan!

Global Warming: It was really interesting until they broke out today's leader of the Global Warming campaign. None other that Mr. "I invented the Internet" hisself. Al Gore. He introduced himself as the man who used to be introduced as "the next president of the United States". Now that was a great line! Unfortunately, he continued talking. I remember when Mr Gore was interviewed during the beginning of the Kosavo battle. The "White House" was reporting that the Russians were holding ranks at the border until the rest of the UN forces could be staged. CNN was reporting that the Russians had already been on the move and now controlled the border. Later that day, VP Gore was interviewed and asked how and when he found out that the Russians were at the airport. His response was "I saw it on CNN". At least we knew then where the "White House" was getting the intelligence from. At the very least, CNN had video proof!! You've got to hand it to Al Gore. Nothing ever sticks to him, it's always over there or somebody else. He always knew how to (try to) pass the ball. They need a spokes person with some knowledge and without a political agenda. I get the impression that Al really does not like George. What say you??

Now I'm not the guy to argue that Global Warming is a problem or isn't a problem. But, it seemed a bit far fetched to me to use armadillos moving to the Northern States as proof... Or flowers that used to bloom in late August now bloom in July as some evidential matter. Or to blame the Bush administration for not acting on something whose trend is traceable over 50 years and use the "Inventor of the Internet" as the spokesman. Doesn't this cause the credibility to at least wobble?

Buried in the back of the news this past week was the result of yet another scientific study on the subject. This time scientists have proved that the Ozone layer has been getting thicker and denser. Front page was Pluto is no longer a planet.

I am so glad we prioritize the important news!

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Uh oh!!! It ain't over till it's over!! Now, the worlds Astronomers are divided into 2 camps. Those that voted Pluto into dwarf status, and those rebel astronomers who now protest. The rebels look like a really rough bunch too! The even have a petition:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/planetprotest


Just look at these militants! No telling how far they'll carry this protest. They are a rough looking bunch and they have anger on their side. Will they resort to spray painting the observatories?? Shaving cream on the mirror? Flashlight on the telescopes? Be sure to keep an ear open, because if Pluto remains a non-planet, I am sure that somehow life as we know it will change too.

Number of landings = number of takeoffs

From the time I was a small boy I wanted to fly. Somewhere in a box there is a letter I wrote to my Mom in 2nd or 3rd grade telling her that I'd be late getting home because I would be flying... I signed it (something like) "Chief Pilot Sgt O'hare". I drew a stamp on the envelope and dropped it in the mail box. The mailman delivered it! My Mom saved it and gave it to Rose...Rose had it framed. It's one of a thousand things still in boxes.

The Navy provided me a job in electronics and in part, a job working on BIG flight simulators and radar simulators. The flight simulators came in a 53 ft trailer. My work as a "Training Devicesman" included this big power hungry monsters, so we learned about them in school, and worked on them "in the fleet". All that to say, I flew a lot in the Navy...but it was only in flight trainers. The first ride in a small plane was a real eye opening experience. There was a real world out there with a horizon and everything...WOW!!!

Looking around small airports for something economical to learn to fly was a challange. The nice looking sky-hot rods were expensive, and since my flying lessons were going to be funded from my 2nd part time job, I had to go for economy! The picture is an Aeronca Champ. I accumulated 35 actual flying hours in one of these 740 pound marvels. It had a handle next to the tail assembly. Grab ahold of the handle and you could walk this airplane backwards anywhere. It didn't have a starter...or a battery...or a radio. But, those things didn't help you fly either, they were just "extra's".... You turned the magnetos on, pushed the throttle forward just a bit, grabbed ahold of the prop and gave it a spin. Oh what a joy! It would start and then you jumped out of its way, got inside and the sky was yours!!

7.5 hours of instructor time, and I solo'd. What a rush!! Get the extra weight out of the back seat of the champ and it flew like a balloon!

The next week I solo'd again. This time I had an engine failure at 300 ft taking off. I made it back to the airports cross-wind 1650 ft gravel runway and found a new way to stop an airplane on the ground...I flipped it over on it's back. It stopped.... and....I didn't fly again until that afternoon. A friend of mine bought an identical plane (Aeronca Champ), and we ferried it back from Elgin Illinois to Lombard where I had the accident that morning. I learned 3 things that day that are important to every pilot:

1. Keep the pointy end going forward.

2. Keep flying the plane until the last piece stops moving.

3. A good landing is one you walk away from...A Great landing is one you walk away from and can use the same airplane again...right away!!

What do I wanna be when I grow up?

That's a question I have asked all of my life... "What do I wanna be when I grow up". Of course that follows a basic assumption that I reall do "wanna grow up". Truth is... I really don't! At least not if I must shed the wonderment of youth, where some things are just bigger than life itself. It's a time to recognize and appreciate toys. If I must loose that...forget it! I'm never going to grow up! I wanted to be a cowboy...just like Hopalong Cassidy. That way I could keep our neighborhood safe! Airplane pilot...that'd be cool!! Fireman, policeman, etc, etc. Just like every other kid on the block!

Growing up on Chicago's NW side, my earliest memories involve sidewalks, streets and vacant lots. I was born in September 1941, just a few months before the start of WW2. I roller skated, played baseball down at the end of our block in a small group of vacant lots, walked 8 blocks back and forth to the grammer school that my cousins and sister graduated from. They were the "good" students.... I remember the milk man when the dairy wagon was drawn by a horse as was the junkmans wagon. The difference was that the milk man came down the street in the front of the house. The junkman came down the alley behind the house. The fuller brush man knocked on the front door to sell his wares as did the coffee man. I still have a red stool that my Mom bought from the coffee man. It has been my workbench stool ever since I can remember.

It was Christmas of 1949, and I'm guessing that my folks did a bit more for my sister who was 6 years older than I.... This particular Christmas I was 8 years old. Regardless of how it came about, a few days after Christmas my Dad took me Newark Radio at 223 W. Madison St in downtown Chicago. He bought me a Hallicrafters S-38C short wave radio. We left there and went straight to Allied Radio and bought a Knight 10-in-1 lab kit. From there, we went directly home. Little did either of us know then, but that day changed my life forever. It wasn't long until I knew that I wanted to work with electronics for the rest of my life.

In a few years an amateur radio license followed as did an after school job at Bob's Radio and TV Service. I was hot stuff...at 14 I had a real job in a TV shop. Well, a job anyway. I swept floors, cleaned the counter glass, stocked tubes, emptied ash trays and occasionally Bob gave me a radio or phonograph to work on. At home, I built lots of different circuits found in the monthly ARRL magazine "QST". Sometimes the circuits worked, sometimes they didn't. I lacked the basic knowledge of the component parts, so when something didn't work I really had a problem. I still have the office chair that came from my Dads office in the Field Building on LaSalle St back in the mid 50's. It was the chair I used as my "operating position" for my radio's.

There was a ham on the next block. He was an older guy (perhaps 50), married but no kids. He worked full time as an audio engineer for CBS-TV in Chicago. He was my mentor. I drag my bucket of parts to his basement, and he would figure it out, set me straight and I'd be on my way home with the same bucket, but this time the parts actually did something.

I still get the QST magazine today! And, a half a century later I can look back at that S-38 and Bob's TV realizing that I accomplished a most unusual goal. With the exception of an 18 month diversion to the chemical storage industry (had to feed the family) I worked my entire career doing exactly what I wanted to do when I was 8 years old. And, along the way I did pretty well as did my employers. I recently saw a product advertized that I had designed in the early 1970s. Talk about product life cycle! And, the industry I wound up in was emergency lighting. These are products classified as Life Safety equipment. There is a "feel good" to designing that kind of equipment. It helped people get out of a building under the worst of conditions.

Amateur Radio played a huge part of my early years. I was first licensed in 1954, and by the time I was in 8th grade, I spent most of free time in a basement workshop that my Dad and I built into one corner of the concrete wall and floor subterranian structure. The basement! On the positive side, the worshop space was my area. On the negative side, my sisters bedroom was directly above the "Hamshack", and she being 6 years older than I never shared the wonderment of radio operating or building things with hammer and saw.

Amateur radio played a major role in qualifying for my Navy Schooling and work. It was always the interest that drove the thirst for knowledge. That was the key to staying employed in an electronics environment, and the force that provided raises and promotions. That was the income that provided the means for a marriage, a home and a family.

Has anyone seen my best friend?

Has anyone seen my best friend? We were walking along hand in hand just a short time ago when someone called out "Rose...I need you to come home". Now she can't come out and play, and I can no longer walk. My canes gave way to a walker and a wheelchair some months ago.

I call out to her every day..."Rose...Will you come back and play". But she can't. She has to stay in her new home now...But I know she waits for me.

Rose finished her mission early. Me?? Well I am a procrastinator, so my mission continues. There are things I have to finish first, then I can go and be with my Rose again. This time we will not be separated! And I know exactly what I'll say when I see my Rose again.... I'll say "Rose Marie, will you PLEASE marry me" (for the umteen millionth time)...And she will smile that smile of all smiles, make me wait for the answer, and then with that melody voice of hers she'll say "Yes Tom Burnet, I'll marry you again and again"... That's my Rose!