Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Flight Delays

Betsy's parents arrived by car today from Pennsylvania with few difficulties except an hour delay at the border crossing. Her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, however, have had to deal with airport delays. Luckily, I found a very cool website for tracking virtually real-time flight information. FlightAware.com uses real-time data from the ATC (Air Traffic Control) network to provide very detailed flight information. You can even see a track on a map based on transponder and Radar plots made every 60-90 seconds. As I write this I know that USAir flight 1782 is flying at 424 knots climbing through 23900 ft. At least, that's what the airplane's transponder is telling Air Traffic Control. They even overlay weather radar data on the track, so I'm curious to see whether they actually fly around some of the nasty weather in the region.

Today was a long day. Did some stuff at work, then came home to help Betsy get the house ready for family. Some of the finishing touches include hanging pictures that hadn't been hung since we moved in, installing a toddler gate to help keep our nephew managed, hauling in firewood, hauling out garbage, fixing the legs on the sofa, assembling some Ikea furniture Betsy bought today, installing a child seat in our car, etc., etc. Good thing we got so much done yesterday.

Did I mention that I had to adjust the tension for one of the belts in the engine of the car to stop it from squeaking? Doing it as the sun set in the cold was no fun at all--especially when a certain beautiful lady who shall remain nameless managed to drop the socket into an out-of-reach part of the engine compartment. Of course, she redeemed herself by making a tool to retrieve it. In the mean time, the next door neighbor lent me his socket set to complete the fix.

On mind, the Toronto Star article. Should be in tomorrow's paper. Today they asked me for a headshot. I retrieved one. I hope people like it. I worry that some people will feel that I either didn't do enough to defend Christmas from the creeping tide of secularism or just the opposite, that I failed to relate Christianity to the concerns of the wider culture. Actually, I tried to avoid both Scylla and Charybdis on this one by pulling a Hegel: two extremes always give rise to a synthesis that is both and neither. In other words, I tried to abide above the fray. "The Dude abides.. I take great comfort in that" (The Big Lebowski).

Anyway, enough philosophy for tonight. If people like the article I'll be pleased. If they don't, I'll try to be pleased with that, too.

-t

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