I’ve worked with enough pilots to understand they are the harshest critics of their own kind when it comes to accidents. I already know what they will be saying about Randy Brooks, pilot of a light plane that crashed into Lake Powell last weekend, but UNCoRRELATED has language standards so I won’t repeat opinions here. This is what happened, according to Rulon Gardner (yes, the Gold Medal Olympian):

Randy, who according to Gardner has 3,000 hours of flying experience, decided to drop down close to the water. Too close, as it turned out.

"Hey, watch your wheels!" Leslie told his brother, a split second before the left wheel struck the water.

The plane veered left and skipped off the water again, this time stopping the propeller. The plane struck the water again and came to a stop.

"We went from 150 miles per hour to zero in about one second," Gardner recalled.

I only got three hours of stick time but I know enough to not put my gears near the water. If a pilot wants to be foolhardy by himself, that’s one thing, but they have an obligation when they have passengers to use their heads. I am surprised they weren’t killed in the initial crash. The fact that they spent a couple of hours in forty degree water then spent the night in below freezing weather is a testament that God looks after babies and fools.

Sometimes.

Early in my career I worked with a fighter pilot, a Lt Col by then, who told me of a young lieutenant killed in Vietnam when his F-4 collided with the ground. The Colonel told me he was the one who had to write the letter to the young pilot’s parents to tell him about how well he served his country. What he couldn’t tell them was this pilot was trying to air drop COOKIES to a buddy at an Army post. I don’t know how you do that with an F-4 and apparently the lieutenant didn’t either.

Well the US let me in. i was cautious coming in on the visa-waiver program to vacation with my family while still an applicant immigrant. As my internet access is mostly from a truck parked in western Maine near a store with an insecure router here's a miscellany:

1. Mick Stockinger and Ann Coulter have this in common - they misspell words with 3rd conjugation latin roots such as "repellant" and "tendancy." What would Shakespeare say? He'd say "It only matters to a grammar nazi. What counts is intelligibility and accuracy" so I'm a pedant, but there it is.

2. Hallelujah that the immigration balloon has gone down in flames.It was an almost pure fight between the political establishment and MSM versus talk radio and the conservative blogosphere. Who won is almost as significant as what won.

3. Maine loons are striking striped waterfowl with black eyes in black heads - ie eerily eyeless.

4. I'm reading about the car bombs in London today. They're in streets I walk regularly. My anger is aimed mostly at the UK government for appeasing Islam. The first act of a sane government would be to halt the spread of this inherently dangerous philosophy within the UK.

Interesting chart from Captain Capitalism. Anybody got an explanation why teenagers are backing off the job scene?

My first paycheck paying job was in 1977, earning a dollar an hour working in a backshop on the Clark Air Base (Philippines) flight line. It probably wasn't minimum wage, but I figure the U.S. wage laws didn't apply outside the country. I checked out tool boxes to Air Force aircraft mechanics and we stored passenger seats and flare dispensers for C-141 aircraft. The job was part of a program set up by the Air Force and my high school to provide part-time jobs to Air Force dependents. Being overseas, we couldn't go off-base and work. The commander was also motivated to keep idle teenagers out of trouble on his base. Jobs were limited to 120 hours and were allocated by lottery.

I don't know why the teenage labor participation rate is dropping now. Most of the teenagers in my neighborhood get jobs, so the rate must be tanking elsewhere.

As Mark with a "K" notes, I'll pass on the drunk blogging. Being the designated driver has it's advantages.

I'm escaping the snow and cold in Mesquite Nevada. Earlier my wife and I drove to Las Vegas to see Bodies, the Exhibition, It's an amazing anatomical display of the human bodies and their inner workings. Water and fats are replaced with colored plastics to preserve the specimans. It's something my wife has wanted to see for a while. If you come to the exhibit in Las Vegas, be prepared to walk the casino gauntlet.

I'll try to post something a little later this evening.

Greeted with birdsong and Aaron Copland this morning, on the anniversary of his birthday, on a sunny spring morning in Chicago. The daffodils have just burst out the last few days. If you haven't heard Appalachian Spring in a while, here you go.

Oh, and yeah, it's Earth Day. To a resilient and freedom-loving Earth. This from a former intern of Sen. Earth Day himself, Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. That was in my formative years. And he too wanted to be president.

This is Holkham beach, Norfolk, UK, scene of the last shots of a favourite movie, Shakespeare In Love. The beach stands in both for the New World to which duty and her father drive Gwynneth Paltrow away from Shakespeare and love and for the coast of Illyria in Twelfth Night, which Shakespeare is just imagining. From the film script by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard:

My story starts at sea,
a perilous voyage
to an unknown land.
A shipwreck.
The wild waters roar and heave.
The brave vessel
is dashed all to pieces,
and all the helpless souls
within her...
drowned.
All save one:
a lady...
whose soul is greater
than the ocean,
and her spirit,
stronger than the sea's embrace.
Not for her a watery end,
but a new life beginning
on a stranger shore.
lt will be a love story,
for she will be my heroine
for all time.

I leave for America in 40 minutes.