Hammond, Louisiana sits in the middle of South East Louisiana in beautiful farm country. The terrain is not so exquisite as some place I’ve visited before like here or here, or here. The recreation opportunities don’t look like this.

But sometimes the awesomeness of the sky makes up for it. Summer time in South East Louisiana means thunderstorms. It means huge cumulus clouds towering up into the sky in a riot of white puffiness and awesome light.

Here in the flat bottom land of the Mississippi River, it’s as if God created a canvas of open sky to create dazzle us from time to time.

One of my professors at film school used to have a quote on her emails that said “I don’t know how clouds are formed, but clouds know how to do it, and that’s the important part.” Point in fact she did know how clouds are formed, as should any fifth grader, (You listening Jeff Foxworthy?) as do I. Looking up at these marvelous wonders the science is insignificant compared to the spectacle.

Last week I wrote about my brother’s website Proximity Cast During my visit he figured out that he would bribe me to help him out with his project. He offered to buy me a Garmin Nuvi 350. This way it would be easier to upload photographs to his site according to the site requirements. Each photo uploaded to Proximity Cast has to have the geographical coordinates visible on the photograph. This makes it possible for users of Proximity Cast to locate a place of interest, load the coordinates into their gps, and travel easily to the location. Works like a charm.

I agreed to help him out, and as promised he ordered the Garmin for me. It arrived in a huge box. Sometimes I think that they’re in such a rush to get products out that they use the smallest box available that will get the job done. Sometimes that’s a pretty big box.

Inside this big box was the smaller Garmin Nuvi 350 box. The pretty one that’s designed to grab your attention in Best Buy or Target.

This is what was inside that huge shipping box.

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. Inside the box is the Garmin Nuvi 350, a mounting kit, cables, and a small getting started pamphlet.

I’ve enjoyed using the Garmin. Driving cross country I much prefer my maps, and watching the local road signs because the Garmin isn’t the greatest long distance navigator. It will make choices that don’t always make sense which can be frustrating and annoying. What I do like is the trip information screen. This tells me how far I’ve traveled. How far I have left to travel. How long I’ve been traveling. How long I’ve been stopped. My highest speed, and my average speeds. It’s interesting information to me.

Where this little gadget shines is getting around town locally. My car was in bad need of a brake job, I had hoped that it would make it to Hammond where I know a really great auto shop, however when I went flying with my brother’s friend it was clear that the brakes wouldn’t make it to Memphis, let alone Hammond. Dave gave me the coordinates to his friend’s shop and the Garmin took me right to it.

Garmin offers some mapping programs so that you can plan your trip on the computer. I get the idea that somehow I should be able to plan a trip on my computer, upload the information to the Garmin, and have the trip route available in the menu. If the Garmin does this I haven’t been able to figure it out. The most I can get are points of interest (POI’s) uploaded. This makes it easier, I number them and this way I can select each poi as I’m traveling. What would be better is to have routes in the system. For example when I want to travel from Hammond to Bend, Oregon I would be able to plan where to stop each day and select the entire route.

As we pulled up to the little grass airstrip a couple of young whitetail fawns were having a snack in front of the hangers. One flitted into the woods right away. The other took a couple of strides and then stopped. It seemed to be considering us for a moment. When I first spotted the little spotted deer I grabbed my Canon GL-1 video camera hoping that it would power up in time for me to get a shot. Typical, we were coming out to go flying and my plan was to shoot some video of John’s RV-6, not whitetail. The little fawn paused just long enough to tease me, then it too disappeared into the woods.

The RV-6 we were coming to see was inside the hanger behind us. A little white jewel shining like a diamond in the dust. Two small cub tractors and an ATV were parked next to the plane. John explained that the tractors were used to mow the airstrip. Said it takes him and his wife about an hour.

Walking around the plane looking at the workmanship I asked John how many hours it took him to build? He said he never kept track of the hours so I asked him, “how long from start to first flight?” To which he responded “thirteen years.” Who says thirteen is an unlucky number. This little plane is an exercise in diligence. John told me that he built it as he could afford it. Worthwhile goals may not be easy, but they’re usually worth it.

Three of us had come out for rides. My brother David, his father in law Frank, and myself. We flipped coins to see who would go first and Frank had the pleasure of winning the toss. John explained to him how to get into the cockpit and strap in, and soon they were off into the wild blue of Arkansas’ yonder. I made sure to capture the take off on my video camera then went back to the hanger to chat with David. Presently the boys came buzzing the field in a spectacular fly over. I grabbed my video camera and ran out to capture the landing. It was my turn to fly, and I was excited.

Frank climbed out, we made a quick adjustment to the harness and I climbed in. It’s been over ten years since I’d been in a light plane, and this one was a sports car. John and I are both pretty big men so the fit in the RV’s small cockpit was a tad bit tight. This is a sport plane, not a luxury business jet. Soon we had taxied out to the end of the runway. Wind was steady at about 7 knots. John accelerated smoothly down his grass airstrip.

We lifted off easily and soon passed 1000 feet in altitude. My God this thing climbs like mad. The last time I was in a plane with this kind of performance it was an old WWII T-6 trainer in San Diego. I looked down to see the White River snaking its way through the Ozark Mountains. Time to shoot some video.

The RV-6 isn’t the best camera plane if you’re inside shooting out. I’d love to mount a video camera under the wing with a good gyroscopic remote. The RV’s low stall speed of 50 mph and it’s performance would make it an excellent camera ship.

John asked me if I wanted to fly… I think I might have grinned. A little. I dropped my video camera behind the seats, and took the flight controls. Tentatively I tried a small turn. Quickly I had us in a 45 degree bank and the little plane came around like it was on rails. It was a bit of a trick to keep the altitude level. The altimeter kept telling me that I was climbing. Once I’d come to heading and leveled out I thought I’d try a little experiment. Time for a 360. We were steady at 3000 feet. A quick look around for other aircraft and I put the stick over. At 45 degree bank with the nose pointed at the horizon I figured that we were in a tight turn flying level. The engine was singing beautifully. The g’s were pressing up on the seat of our pants. The altimeter was climbing. Climbing! How could that be? In the course of doing the 360 I managed to climb 1000 feet without even thinking about it. This was certainly no Cessna 150. Maybe we were in a thermal.

Into the Wild Blue Arkansas Yonder in an RV-6 from Philip Robert on Vimeo.

Flying down the river for a bit I began looking for our home field. I could see a paved airport not far away. I supposed it’s because I’m not used to grass strips. I couldn’t find it so I had to ask John. There it was nestled in between the river and a little mountain. A few more minutes, and I figured it was time to head back so David could go for a ride.

I would have loved to take the RV in for a landing. Instead I turned the controls over to John. It’s been 10 years since I’ve made any kind of landing, and longer since I’ve landed a tail dragger. John lined us up and brought us in. It felt like we were coming in high. I looked at the tree line in front of the runway. It’s better to be higher than the trees for sure. Once we were over the threshold John slipped the little plane down and we touched ground about halfway down the runway. What a rush! Flying off of a grass strip into the wild blue Arkansas yonder.

Today we celebrate our independence from England. We celebrate our independence, but we lose sight of what that means. More people today seem to desire that their lives be governed by a large government. Do they really desire a nanny state where everything is regulated by big brother? Where the government takes a huge portion of the money they make to give to others in the name of helping the less fortunate, in the name of fairness. Who gave them that right? Where is that written in the Declaration of Independence?

Slowly, ever so slowly so that we barely notice Washington is taking away the rights that our founding fathers committed treason to ensure. If you’ve been reading my blog you know what I think about politicians.

The United States was founded upon an idea of Limited Government, yet each day it seems that our lawmakers are working diligently to increase the reach of government.

THOSE PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON CAN’T DO ANYTHING FOR YOU!

Only one person can do ANYTHING to make your life better, and that’s the person you see every time you look into a mirror. YOU! You are an independent individual with the power to create any life you desire. Not only do you have the power, you have the responsibility. That is what the Declaration of Independence is all about. Your freedom to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Happy Independence Day America!

There are two features of Proximity Cast that set it apart from other websites of this sort. Proximity Cast provides you with a photograph of what the establishment looks like. This reduces confusion when you arrive because you’ll be able to recognize the location. You’ll have already been there through Proximity Cast. The second is that each photograph of each establishment has the geographic coordinates. This enables you to enter the latitude and longitude, the geographic coordinates, into your GPS. The advantage over an address is GPS accuracy. Addresses may be similar, and this can confuse the GPS. Geographic Coordinates do not suffer this problem.

Have a visit at Proximity Cast. It’s still in beta and if you’ve got any suggestions I’m sure that David would appreciate them.

Happy travels.

I’m lying in a hammock inside my friend’s home reading. Safe, warm, and comfortably protected from this ferocious storm. The violence of the night is pleasant only because I’m not in it. This is a night for stories, for sharing life with one another, for holding your darling love close. Hearts beating harder than the thunder. A lover’s storm.

I am happy in my hammock reading my book. All is well in the world, and the storm passes leaving a memory of southern thunder.

I found this site by accident, and the concept is mind boggling. If you thought that gull wing doors were cool this will change your paradigm.

Link: sevenload.com

In the Navy there was a myth that career sailors had a way of dying within five years of retirement because they no longer had a sense of purpose. Another example of an emotional drop.

I’ve felt this drop many times in my life, and have been most conscious of it in my last relationship. As we were getting to know each other most of our interaction would be at clubs on Saturday night. Saturday night was the best night of the week for me. I was with a smart, sexy woman, and we were enjoying ourselves. Sundays were the worst. The party was over, and I wouldn’t get to spend time with my darling love for another week. This went on for several months and then suddenly I was living with her. I wouldn’t feel the drop again until we broke up.

It’s taken a couple of years to get over that drop, and I’ve learned to avoid the drop by having more than one thing to focus on and work towards in my life. When you’re sitting by the phone waiting for something to happen your mind will take you down all sorts of paths. Some of them may be ok, most of them will be paths of fear. Fear is the crux of the drop. You’re psyche will create its own data when presented with no data. The downfall of this for most people is that our psyche’s usually create negative data based upon fear. We are naturally afraid of the dark because we don’t know what’s out there.

Taking action of any kind will usually dispel this fear. Taking action of any kind will help build our confidence giving us courage to take more action.

So why am I writing about this now? For the past week or so I’ve been feeling that ugly drop because I’m in Arkansas. No it’s not Arkansas that’s causing the drop… Arkansas is a wonderful place. I’m feel this because during the twelve days that I took to get here I was on a wonderful adventure driving through some of the most beautiful countryside in America. Now I’ve arrived at my destination twenty days before my family reunion, and now I’m just waiting.

Waiting with very little to do. Very little to focus upon, and as a result I’ve been experiencing a bit of a drop. I had forgotten about this for a moment. I had forgotten to give myself a new assignment while I’m here in Fayetteville waiting for the reunion. Time to get back on track. Time to take action. Time to go do something cool, outrageous, adventurous, and fun.

Don’t let circumstances keep you in a funk like the drop. Take action, do something, anything, and then do something that will make a difference in your life. You control your own destiny. Learn out to take control and learn how to help others take control.

My computer crashed today. I’ve been working up a post about my recent road trip from Ashland, Oregon, to Fayetteville, Arkansas. The posts along the way were fun, but now that I’ve been sitting still for more than a few days I wanted to go over the trip in more detail. Talk a little bit about the great malt in Shady Grove, Oregon at Phil’s Frosty or the root beer float from Boise’s Westside Diner.

Instead I’m contemplating computercide. After spending hours putting together a map of my travels on google maps I was just about to import the images into photoshop so that I could put them all together into one wonderful picture. Then everything locked up. When I tried to restart I just got a grey startup screen. No icons. No Happy Mac. No spinning gear. Not good. I’ve tried starting up from the system disk without success. I’ve tried resetting PRAM, Firmware, using a remote boot drive… no luck.

After doing some research online I’m pretty sure that my hard drive is fried. Fortunately I’ve not lost anything thanks to Leopard’s Timemachine. If it is the hard drive then once I install a new one I’ll be able to restore everything from my back up on Timemachine.

There you go. It’s not a matter of if your computer will fail, just a matter of when.