Posts by Berck

On Friday I decided to do something nice for Jonah. When we moved in, I put shelves over my desk, but none over hers. She claims this is the cause of the absurdly massy accumulation on top of her desk. I’m not kidding about the absurd– the stacks generally were taller than her monitors, with her keyboard and mouse being the only level parts of the desk. She’d stack stuff in front of the keyboard as well, creating a sort of fortress should one peck the keys over. So if I wanted to leave something on her desk, putting it on the keyboard was the only way she’d notice.

So, now that we’re planning on staying in the apartment for the foreseeable future, I decided to rectify the situation. I hopped in Arthur while Jonah was still at work and drove to the Home Despot in search of plywood. I spent a long time surveying the options. Generally, for shelf construction, I go with 19/32 5-ply BC Pine. It’s cheap, thick enough, and I can generally arrange the B face so that it’s the one you see. This time, however, there was no BC pine. There was a bunch of exterior grade stuff, then some really, really, high quality birch and oak plywood. In fact, plywood with a much higher quality than I’ve seen in since I was kid. Usually I buy 5-ply, with 7-ply being available *sometimes*, but rarely. My Dad has oft lamented the demise of decent plywood. I was astounded to find 11-ply birch plywood for the amazingly affordable price of $39/sheet. A bit more expensive than I usually bought, but it was the cheapest that made any sense. And nice-looking. I grabbed a sheet, and hauled it over to the plywood saw, where they were nice enough to rip it into four 1×8 shelves. As he was making the final cut, I realized that I’d completely forgotten my wallet.

I left my cart in the lumber isle, figuring no one would bother with it and returned home to get my wallet. As I put my foot down on the clutch coming up to a stop light, it didn’t feel right. I put the transmission in neutral and took my foot off the clutch. It only came up about halfway. I pulled it back up, but it fell back down. I barely got it into gear, and pulled into a parking lot. By now the clutch was totally non-functional, and I turned the key off in order to come to a stop. I noticed a crack in the clutch linkage that simply wasn’t going to be fixed on the side of the road. I decided that I would try to make it home without a clutch rather than pay someone to tow it preemptively.

I managed to make it home, by starting the car in first gear whenever I wanted to go. Unlike modern transmissions with good syncros, there was no way to shift this one without them. I couldn’t even get it OUT of gear without a clutch. So as I came to a stop, I had to turn the car off, then restart it into a bucking frenzy at each stop light. In between, 20mph was as fast as I dared go in first gear, but I made it home. Eventually. There was a woman who followed me, at 20mph while blabbing on her cell phone, not passing me. I think she was just absolutely clueless.

Since I’ve done it before, I know I can carry 1×8 shelves in the Miata. As I approached the car, I noticed the left rear tire was flat. Absolutely astounding how these things happen all at the same time. Fortunately, I was able to pump it up just fine with my cheap little electric pump and collect my items from home depot.

And that’s how Jonah got some new shelves.

Dear Mrs. Nachzen,

My name is Joanna Brenner (alias “Jonah”). I just became a junior at the University of Mobile and am currently majoring in political science. Before I started my college career, I homeschooled. Our family began this practice when I was in the sixth grade after moving out of state. There were many advantages to homeschooling that we discovered along the way, but the most valuable, in my mind, was the love of learning it gave me. I guess it also socially isolated me in a way because during my first week at college, I was rudely awakened by the fact that most of my fellow students were not interested in learning for the sake of itself. This made me very cynical toward other people, even when I ‘met’ fellow bulletin board enthusiasts my age who seemed to enjoy knowledge. A couple of months ago, I guess, I came in contact with a newcomer to this board. Berckums and I immediately started a conversation about Stephen Hawking. As we sparred over the posts, I discovered that this individual had a lot of knowledge and was fun to converse with (putting prepostions at the end of sentences is about the extent of my rebellion against authority; everything else is accidental). We began exchanging e-mail and discovering that we had a lot in common. I’ve never experienced someone who is so much like me. It’s scary. I was shocked to find that he was only 14. Could this much wisdom and maturity be coming from someone so young? I thought. It facinated me. So, anyway, each of us wants to meet the other, face to face, to see what we’re really like. Electronic impulses only tell you so much about a person. As a post script, I wanted to mention that I think it’s wonderful that you’re considering homeschooling next year. That’s great. Berckums is definitely the sort that would benefit from that kind of education. He is obviously a self learner/teacher. The freedom to study what interests him at his own pace can only nourish his love of learning. It certainly did mine. I hope to some day meet the woman who has reared such an interesting son.

Jonah

Today I went to a Mesa Airlines open interview thing. I considered it highly unlikely that they’d be interested in me, given my very low multi-engine time. Four people showed up, and one of them didn’t even have an instrument rating! (He wasn’t seriously applying, just wanted to find out about the company.) I had twice the total time of the other two guys, but they had twice the mutli-engine time. After a short written test, then a short interview, we were offered conditional employment. The condition being we pass FBI background checks, and the chief pilot signs off on us. The thing that seemed to worry the interviewer the most? The fact that I have 6 speeding tickets. This strikes me as absurd, but apparently demonstrates that I’m a lawless, dangerous person. Which is silly. I’ve never broken an FAA regulation, ever. Anyway, I think it’ll be a couple weeks before I find out for sure, then I’d have to wait on a class date. I was initially excited about Mesa because I thought I could be Denver based, but they’re only hiring for Jets right now, and there are no jets in Denver. So, good side is– I’d be flying jets if I get it. Down side is– I’ll likely be flying out of either Chicago or New York, which is a long drive to work:) No, I wouldn’t move, at least not while it means making Joanna quit her job that pays twice what I’d be making.

I’m making progress. I just took the Airline Transport Pilot written exam, and scored a 96% which is nice and high. This exam is a prerequisite for the ATP checkride, which I’m not qualified to take yet. But airlines and others like to see the ATP written completed for some reason, so I did.

I also got a job. Sort of. Instructing at the aero club, which will probably be more or less part time and won’t pay very much, but it’s something to do while I’m searching. So that’s good. Only, it doesn’t start for a couple weeks.