More flying stuff on the gallery. Mostly same-old, but this time there’s clouds!
Posts by Berck
She’s write…
I need to write. You’d think that since I’ve had almost nothing to do lately, that I’d be blogging more. But, alas, I’ve been doing almost nothing.
We’re winding up the end of the semester. No student I’ve sent to a checkride has failed which is a pretty good record. I’ve soloed a dozen or so students. None of them have died. There’s only one week of flying left, and I’m not sure all the kids are going to finish. Still, we’re running out of work. I don’t think I’ve broken 515 hours yet, which should give you an idea of just how little I’ve been flying.
Things have been changing at work. The chief flight instructor has left as well as program manager. So far that’s not amounted to much, other than the fact that the interim program manager is actually listening to my minor gripes.
The past two days have been entirely weathered out. 1/4 mile vis, mist, drizzle. In general, dreary.
I’ve nearly finished labeling our books with library of congress call numbers. I’ve cleaned. I’ve put the snow tires in the storage shed. I’ve been to one end of the internet and back. I’ve engaged in pointless political discussions. Summer flying starts June 1, but before then, I’m not going to be doing a whole lot. In spite of the fact that we’re running out of work, we’ve got to work tomorrow, a Saturday, for reasons that are too complicated to go into.
Squadron roll call was supposed to be today, but when I showed up, no one else was there, so I guess they postponed it since most people had left on account of the weather. I drove back to work for it simply because Joanna was still at work and there’s free pizza and beer.
I called Joanna to ask when she’d be home, a generally futile exercise. She failed to give me a satisfactory answer, an told me I should make pizza. I told her I didn’t want to, but decided to anyway when I got home. She’s not back yet, and it’s in the oven. Oh well.
With little else to do, I’ve been watching movies as fast as Netflix will send them to us.
The Squid and the Whale was wonderful. It get’s an A, easy. Figures, since it was written and directed by Noah Boambach, the same dude who wrote and directed Kicking and Screaming, although the two movies have little in common. I tried rent Kicking and Screaming, but it seems that Netflix doesn’t carry it. So I thought I’d order it on Amazon, at which point it became clear why Netflix doesn’t carry it. It’s only avialable on VHS. Really.
Let’s see. We watched American Pie, because it has Allyson Hannigan. It wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be. C+
We watched Half Baked because John Stewart was in it. It wasn’t as good as I’d secretly hoped it just might be. But it wasn’t awful. C+
Melinda and Melinda is definitely one of Woody Allen’s better movies. It’s quite literary, written something like a play, but could only be film. And quite funny. B+.
Quick Change is an old Bill Murray movie, which I believe has been recently remade in some fashion. We like Bill Murray, which is pretty much the only reason we rented it. It’s definitely entertaining. B.
Jonah’s back and the Pizza is ready.
501.6!
Sometime around 11:30 this morning, I broke 500 hours total time. Woohoo!
More Movies.
I told Joanna that I didn’t really want to see Unforgiven, but rented it for her anyway. What I didn’t remember is that I’d already seen it. Now that I’ve seen it twice, I can state that as far as westerns go, it’s a good one. As for as movies go– I don’t get the big deal. B-.
Boogie Nights, a melodramatic look at the porn industry in the ’70s wasn’t as good as we’d thought it would be. Amusing at the beginning, but thoroughly depressing by the end. C.
The Good Girl is yet another example of how bad a movie can be when people without a southern drawl try to adapt one. Is there really such a dearth of people with southern accents that they need to have people fake it? I make this comment not out of some homesick, prideful love of the South– I really dislike both the South and its associated dialect. Still, if you’re going to insist that your film’s dialogue be drawled– get some real southerners to do it. The movie showed some promise, staring Jake Gyllenhaal and John C. Reilly, even if they had a poorly affected drawl. Jennifer Aniston, however, takes the cake for the worst southern accent since Meg Ryan. I’ll give her this though– at least she was consistent in her awful affectation. To make matters worse, the film wasn’t even set in the South, but in Texas! The accents being affected were clearly patterned on the South, but Southerners sound nothing like Texans. As for the movie itself– the quirky plot seemed promising, but never really delivered. C+. The movie also featured, in a bit part, Zooey Deschanel (Jonah thinks she’s cute), who starred in All the Real Girls. In All the Real Girls she also affects a southern accent, but I managed to get used to it after awhile. About halfway through the film, I found myself feeling quite bored, and the feeling just got worse the longer the movie went on. Joanna didn’t like it either. C-.
After sitting through Boys Don’t Cry, Jonah intimated that I ought to have liked it because it was about lesbians. Only, it’s not in any way about lesbians– it’s about a girl who thinks she’s a guy then gets raped and killed. In response, I rented Kissing Jessica Stein which is an excellent movie with what I think is an exceptionally realistic view of human relationships and which features some lesbianism, but no rape or murder. It’s also made by a bunch of Jews who seem to enjoy poking fun at themselves. Joanna liked it as well. B+.
Finally, we just watched Crash, which I think is one of those few movies that actually deserved to win awards. It offers an intriguing view of just who is an American and how screwed up we are. It simultaneously reinforced and challenged my previously held notions about race. Joanna thinks it’s a great movie and, “People should have to watch it.” It’s one of those movies I think some people will view in a way that I consider incorrect, but still, I challenge anyone who claims patriotism to watch it and think a bit about who we actually are. On a small note, it seems to agree with the immigration policy that both Joanna and I both tend to support (i.e., let ’em in). Some folks have mentioned that the plot is difficult to follow, but I didn’t find it so at all. Because of those comments, I spent a lot of effort early on trying to make sure I knew what was going on (pausing, backing up, etc), but it turned out not to be very complicated at all. Joanna claimed at first that all of the characters are morally ambiguous– but I’ve since managed to convince her that this isn’t entirely the case. I think that many (but not all) of the characters had serious flaws– but I don’t know that I find ambiguity in most of their wrong deeds.
Out for a drive
I wanted to take jonah flying today as the weather was grand, but somone had reserved the only plane I could take all day. So we went on a 300 mile drive instead. Pictures at the gallery. We haven’t gotten sunscreen for the new glovebox yet, so I’m afraid we’re a bit sunburned.