Hmm, let's see. We're bombing Afghanistan, there are cases of anthrax in Florida,
the economy is in a recession, and I've been out of work for two months with no
immediate job prospects. You'll excuse me for strapping my rose-tinted goggles on
and writing only about good things or annoyances that are minor and
surmountable.
DI cut practice short because of lightning. It was
scarce and quite far away, and conditions would have been safe to keep rowing, but
I prefer this overcautious policy to his earlier tendency to send us out in
conditions that scared me. (There was one day when I was very near to walking out
on a practice because I was convinced the lightning, though far away, was coming
closer. As it turned out, I was right and we had to come in almost right away that
day.) Judging from his explanation about how this was all due to liability issues,
he may think by now that the current policy was his own idea, which is all to the
good.
Instead, I rode my bike to get in some exercise without
resorting to the torture of the erg. On Saturday, I offered to show
href="http://mechaieh.diaryland.com">Mechaieh how to use the erg, but she
wisely declined. Incidentally, I love having friends who can go out with a whole
crowd of people who are strangers to them and still manage to have a good time,
without needing to be babysat.
Recommendation: do not buy the special
Hallowe'en edition of Apple Jacks cereal. It's a cute idea, but the little jack
o'lantern cookies in there are nasty. In other food news, the box of pretzels I
just opened had the box flap tucked in instead of pasted down. The plastic bag
inside was still airtight, so I decided they were safe to eat. However, if this
space is not updated for the next several days, you may conclude that some fiend
injected noxious substances into my pretzels and then cleverly resealed the bag.
On second thought, at a time when we are on the alert for chemical and biological
forms of warfare, that's not funny.
Rudder volunteered last
night to pay for me to get an IFR (instrument flying) rating, now, while I have
the time though not the money. He'd like that because he has one and it would make
me a much better safety pilot, so he wouldn't need to go up with an instructor to
maintain currency. It would also make me a much better pilot in general.
Considering the job market, though, or lack thereof, I'm not sure that's the best
use of several thousand dollars right now. I've told him to take a couple days to
think about it. Whatever he decides, though, it's still an extraordinarily sweet
and generous gesture. I'm going to keep him.