Posts Tagged ‘chuck’
596 items.
I have never worn night vision goggles. Now that I think of it, that should be on my bucket list, if I had one. It feels like that’s one of those things I would buy if I had the money, just because they’re awesome, and then they’d lie around like my regular binoculars. They’re awesome too (albeit on a lower and more affordable level), but I think I only ever really needed them once, to check on my roof tiles from the opposite side of the street after a storm. But, hey! Once is better than nothing! I’m sure NVGs would be handy to … uh, hunt for slugs in the garden at night or something. Ah, the unchallenging life of suburbia …
6 Comments
Can you guess which TV show I was watching when I had the idea for this strip? Oh, well, I guess I gave that away in the second panel. But since I mention the 21st century: Isn’t it awesome when you watch a show or movie that is set in the future, but the “future” is the year 1990 or 2012 or something? It’s really entertaining to compare futuristic visions from the past to current reality, and I wonder what the real world will look like when our time catches up with the Star Trek timeline. Probably as disappointing as the lack of flying cars and hover boards when we reached the year 2015. On the other hand it’s comforting to know that all the postulated apocalypses haven’t materialized either, so I guess we’ve got that going for us.
To come up with good ideas on the spot can be hard. To come up with good ideas at all is hard enough to begin with, but when somebody’s quick on their feet, mentally speaking, when they’re under pressure, is an impressive sight to see. I don’t often watch discussions, and I especially gave up on watching political debates, mostly because it’s always the same stuff over and over again. But I really enjoy watching two (or more) really smart people debate each other. I even appreciate smart and witty debating from people I totally disagree with. Nothing is more infuriating than watching people who are either stupid, ideologically totally entrenched, or just not good with words starting to resort to tactics such as raising their voices, ad hominem attacks etc. when they notice they cannot win with arguments. Loosing well is way more respectable, but alas, a very very rare skill.
Anyway, I’m rambling again … need to go paint that garden fence! Cheers everyone!
For those who don’t have a degree in helicopterology, or a brother who does: A chip detector is not a person who goes straight for the snack aisle in the supermarket, but a device that detects ferromagnetic particles (i.e. metal chips from a gear) in the engine’s oil, to provide an early warning of an impending engine failure.
Great, now I’m thinking about potato chips. I’m glad I don’t have any in the house! I find it almost impossible to control myself once I start …
Growing up is way overrated. Especially when you’re still a kid. I think, compared to others, I wasn’t overly eager to grow up, although I was definitely looking forward to it. But I guess I wouldn’t be able to do my current job, if I hadn’t staid in touch with my inner child. But, alas, grow up we must.
I wonder what it is that separates the wheat from the chaff, but when you’re an adult and you get all those responsibilities and pressures put on your shoulders, some people take it better than others. I guess being responsible and losing your inner child is better than being a man-child who can’t take responsibility, acts like a teenager at 40 years old and becomes a burden to others. But the optimal place is to be able to balance the two sides of being responsible where appropriate while still being able to be child-like when the situation allows for it.
Becoming a parent turns that whole dichotomy up a few notches to 11. On one hand you get the incredible, mind-blowing task of being 100% responsible for the survival, health and happiness of another human being, while on the other hand you’re starting to see the world through the eyes of a child again. And I don’t mean just seeing all the outlets, stairs, corners, edges and sharp things, but looking at a caterpillar or an anthill in total amazement and literally stopping to smell the flowers.
I can’t wait to witness the development of humor in my kids. My older son, who’s about 3,5 right now, started telling jokes recently. They are on the level of “A man walks to a house … but … but … the house … isn’t there!!” and absolutely hilarious because of the cheerful and enthusiastic delivery. My 1,5 year old boy is still on the level of peekaboo and funny faces. Well, anyway, a lot of fun is being had. And I’m looking forward to the years ahead!
There’s always a way to describe a perfectly safe condition that makes it sound threatening. One of my favorite jokes in that regard is to point out that something contains high amounts of dihydrogen monoxide. It’s the main component of acid rain, for example. I always laughed about the videos on the internet, where so many people don’t seem to know what it is. But I dare you to try it in real life among people you know! The results may be surprising, to say the least.
Here we have another story from the “not invented” books. We were ferrying a Skycrane from the Pacific Northwest to Texas. The pilot I was flying with was also a fixed wing guy who believed in going high and let the winds take us along. I am normally not a big fan of going really high up in a helicopter because if something breaks, you have a longer commute back down to the nearest field, but he was the senior captain and we had to cross some pretty high mountains as well, so I agreed to it.
We were roughly at 10,000 ft, when we suddenly heard a loud bang in the helicopter cabin behind and below us. (In a Skycrane the flight crew sits pretty high up in the cockpit and it takes some climbing to get up there). Our hearts stopped for a moment. A loud bang definitely gets your attention but since we were higher up as I liked to be it REALLY got my attention. We were looking all around to see what could have caused the noise and scanned the instruments for any indication of something going sideways. Then the crew chief riding in the back asked “Do you guys smell Cheetos as well?”
We had the exact situation happening to us that Chuck is experiencing in this strip even including a slight Cheetos dust. Turns out one of our “snacks for the road” blew up. Let me tell you, the smell of Cheetos at 10,000 ft is a relief as compared to, let’s say, hydraulic fluid!
I later told the story at the bar and one of our fuel truck drivers, who used to drive for a food company, told me that trucks with chips, yogurt, etc. actually have to drive certain routes to avoid the super high altitude passes over the Rockies so this sort of thing doesn’t happen. I had no idea. This is something you definitely don’t learn in flight school …
I think I still have a few “worn-out” Cessna ignition switches in my old toolbox. I am not sure if it was a manufacturer thing or if our many new students had anything to do with it, but we changed them very frequently. Of course you do turn them a lot more than a car ignition switch when you hopefully do your magneto checks. Also, it is 1970’s or earlier technology. We had a few keys break off as well. That one I was chalking up to either getting in and out of the aircraft funny, hitting it with your knee, or just being so tense on run-up that they muscled the key right off.
Of course ANY weakness in any aircraft immediately falls prey to Chuck’s lucky hand with technology and short attention span. In the Chinook we have a parking brake handle that immediately let’s go and slams into a very hard to replace micro-switch for the advisory light if you don’t hold on to it while you push the brake pedals. Obviously a weak point in the wrong hands. And in true Chuck fashion it didn’t take me a long time at my new job before that handle slipped out of my hand (it’s hard to reach from the left seat) for the first time. You should have seen the mechanic’s face! It looked just like Stefan draws Julio’s face when Chuck messed up. The switch was fine in that case (I was lucky) but beers were owed nonetheless.
At Aero last month, electrical flight was one of the big topics. They even had an airshow with an electric aerobatics plane! I’m curious to see how things will develop from here and if we’ll ever see electrical systems replacing the good old gasoline engines and turbines on a big scale. In the automotive sector, we’re not that far away, it seems.
Anyway, in this case, Hans is paying for the gas, so I guess it’s no big deal. But if he ever got wind of Chuck’s approach to fuel efficiency, he’d probably ask Julio to install an automatic start-stop-mechanism in the Cessna engine, haha!
Unlike many other men, I am not a car enthusiast. Which is fortunate, because with the income of a cartoonist, that would make me a very unsatisfied man. But maybe that’s part of a psychological trick that my mind plays on me, to not covet things that I would never be able to afford anyway. I am sure that if I won the lottery, I would buy a better car. Still, I’d probably go for a dad-mobile, like a minivan or something, where I could fit in the whole family, the bikes, the toys, etc. without having to play tetris.
The thing that I would probably enjoy most about having a good car is that it wouldn’t get so noisy when I’m driving on the highway. Anything above 100km/h and I can’t even have a phone conversation anymore.
Does anyone of you have a particularly noteworthy ride? I know my brother has one. Unlike Chuck, he drives a really old Toyota pickup truck which probably almost counts as an old-timer by now.
