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Out on the beach with Lucetta, the whippet, on a windy Tuesday noon-time, a day that’s really too cold for this sort of thing. There must be 200 people or so down the length of the beach, each cluster spread out just so, assuring some privacy and a sense of alone time at the beach. I tried to walk a ways with Cetta, but the old girl just isn’t up to it anymore. Instead, she lies at my feet partially wrapped up in a blanket. There’s a great deal for her to see here, and to smell, these two senses being her final way to explore this beach wonderland.

Back to PPCs and PPGs, the abbreviations for the two aircraft types I am considering. I got an email from the man who took me up on Saturday laying out the price of learning to fly. Not sure I am going to proceed, but am leaning heavily in that direction. For the sake of this conversation let’s just say it will happen.

Let’s take a step back to the part 104 versus PPC for a moment, as I am still not certain about which path to take. My friend Dan considers the Sport Pilot path somewhat burdensome, filled with far too many regulations to be a reasonable path, especially when compared to the unregulated nature of the part 104 type. I’ll have to ask him to explain that a bit more, as the only bottom line difference I notice is the initial $1500 in additional training, and then an additional $100 a year for the bi-yearly check ride. That $1500 is nothing to sneeze at, as few of us have that lying around with us just looking for a way to spend it. The $200 bi-yearly check ride, on the other hand, seems money well spent, a small price to pay for training and regulatory updates. While these craft are pretty safe, it just makes sense to do all that you can to remain the best pilot possible.

Once you have gotten your training, no matter which path you take, you are still free to choose a Part 103 or a Sport Pilot license aircraft. One of the advantages of going for the sport pilot license is that it allows you to rent a two seat aircraft any time you want to take passengers up.

That actually seems like a pretty good path, Sport Pilot, only renting a two seat PPC as needed to take others up, allowing me to save considerable funds by purchasing a single seat aircraft for my own use. Let’s do the math on this. Let’s assume I would save $7000 on the purchase of a new single seater versus a new 2 seater. At $75 an hour in rental fees that $7000 would allow me more than 93 hours of two seater rental! The savings would be far less on a used craft, but I could still most likely pay for at least 40 hours of dual flight time. Assuming the purchased two seater would have resale value at the end, one might assume that much of that value would be consumed by maintenance and consumable costs such as gas and oil. Seems like a no brainer, though I am probably missing something as a newbie.

So why not rent a single seater as opposed to buying one? It may make total sense, too, but at they don’t have any of them to rent out at this point. Speaking of which, what if I bought a single seater and rented it out, thereby helping to pay for my purchase? It’s a possibility I guess, though it would take 400 and some rentals to totally pay my costs, not including insurance, which could be prohibitive if it is used as a rental.

So where does this leave me? At this point I would proceed with the training, not making any purchase until I lose the weight I have set as a goal, made sure that I am really interested, and then saved the money in order to proceed. That could be well over a year from now. If I saved $300 a month and combined that with the cash I have on hand now, I could buy a very nice single seater in two years. Sigh.

Clearly my interests have taken a new direction. Actually, I rarely have a new interest, as I have had so many in the last that I might call it interest recycling. For example, I was a student pilot about 27 years ago, making it to about 45 hours of flight time before my flight logs and all were stolen from my car.

If you are a reader of this blog, know that you can concentrate your reading on any category that interests you. Simply look for the category list to the right and click on the word that matches your interest.

Monday on the cliffs above Manzanita, alone, as Karen stayed in Seattle through the weekend, helping out with kid duties. Alex bought a truck for $400, a price that would explain the problems he was already having this morning. The battery was dead after he went for a spin, then he noticed the cooling fan wasn’t connected. Ah, youth. He was in such a hurry to get it and rather trusting of the seller. I’ve been there, and not that long ago!

Today’s ramblings…..

Should I pursue powered parachutes as a hobby, and if so, should I go for the sport pilot license or the part 103 ultralight licensing? This may seem way off topic, but I think the fundamental question applies to boats as well as to powered parachutes in that the answer is based, for me at least, on intent.

As you can see in an earlier post, I am thinking of pursuing powered parachutes or paragliders. To start off, let’s lay out some of the groundwork, for example what’s the difference in those two types of craft? A powered parachute is a tricycle with a motor and propeller on the back, hanging from a square parachute. The directional controls are most often foot bars which, in turn, are connected to the back edges of the chute, allowing the pilot to warp the wings to turn. Paragliders are basically a parachute with a motor strapped to your back, where instead of jumping out of a plane, you run like heck until you are going fast enough, with the assitance of the motor on your back, to fly. The parachute is much more agile, and therefore less inherently stable, then the one used on a powered parachute, and the wing is most often warped via hand controls, just as is done in parachutes worn when you jump from planes.

powered paraglider

There is no doubt that I am too old to be running at break neck speed with a motor strapped to my back, as I would clearly fulfill the promise and break my neck.

But there is now a class of paraglider that is clearly a combination of the two kinds of craft, offering a cart, greatly simplified and downsized, but with all the other features of it’s type, such as hand controls and elliptical chute.

What is an Ultralight Trike Buggy? — powered by eHow.com

From that description the hybrid paraglider would seem the obvious choice, but not so fast, as there are some regulatory issues to consider. A paraglider requires no license, no inspections, no training. You can get inspections and training, but they aren’t required. As a result, if you are flying under the part 103 guidelines of a paraglider you are not allowed to take up passengers. In order to do that you must get a Sport Pilot license from the FAA, and once you get it you must be updated every other year with two hours of instruction, and have done three take offs and landings within the last 90 days. There’s an initial flight test, written test, and an oral quiz from the flight examiner, and those bi-yearly check rides will set you back about $300. With the part 103 flying you can, either in small single seat powered parachutes, known as PPCs, or in the foot or wheel launched single seat paragliders, fly within a handful of hours of instruction. Any future training is up to you, your sense of safety, and your pocketbook.

So the answer could seem clear, go part 103. If you want to be extra safe, go with part 103, but get as much training as you consider appropriate. It’s safer, it’s faster, and the single seat aircraft cost 30 to 50% less than the two seat PPCs.

Here’s where the connection with boating comes in, one I’ll address with a question: Why do we build boats? It’s not to save money, as in most cases it is cheaper to buy used than to build, especially these days. For me there are two reasons. First, I can’t buy the kind of boat I’d like to own! My Escargot is, for the time being, the only one in the state, perhaps only one of 6 or fewer in the country. If I want a boat like Escargot, I have to build it. But there is another reason, and this is where the connection to aircraft comes in. It’s the thrill of learning, and doing, the unknown and the uncommon. Every time I have tackled building a boat I have tackled far more than I really knew how to do. Throughout the project I made mistakes, and then found solutions. I’d get discouraged, and then make progress. It was a journey, a challenge… and ultimately it was discovery and adventure.

It was also something I shared, with my wife, my daughter, my son, my neighbors, even other builders seeking inspiration. I’ve enjoyed going out in the boat myself, in fact lately I’ve done it more alone, as my family is so busy. But part of the thrill was in sharing.

In flying part of the thrill would be in sharing, not just with others in their own machines, but also with my family and friends, those who wouldn’t fly otherwise.

And all the extra work required to take someone up, all the work, time and hassle? I say it’s all one of the most valued parts of the journey.

I was going to work on my boat while down here, and did do some of it, but I forgot a saw, and when I asked Alex and Karen to bring it down today, they forgot. That means I’m stuck on boat building. In it’s place I have been reading study materials for my Sport Pilot test, certainly putting in well over 12 hours so far. And it’s been fun.

The mistake I’ve made in some of my past “adventures” is that the itch was scratched and fulfilled too quickly. When I bought a three wheeled car I enjoyed the search, the learning and the driving, but after a handful of miles there was nothing left. It’s the same with many purchases… a flash of fun, then this exciting new adventure quickly becomes a boring old toy of the past. With the right attitude I am sure one could make the single seat, part 103 flying, a lot of fun, but why not go with the full meal deal, the brass ring of adventure? There is a cost difference, but if you have the money the cost could be worth it.

Listen to this as you read.

The rain has been falling all day, though it’s the mists clinging to the cliff that seems more a factor in setting the mood for the day. It’s not oppressive, on the contrary, there’s a certain enveloping beauty to it, something just as lovely, though in a different way than those sunny times a few days back.

I missed sitting outside writing, and really wasn’t able to get anthing going until I took my Alphasmart, my Kindle, and some sparkling water out to the car with me and drove down to the beach.

There’s an emergency vehicle out on the beach and two jet ski type boats in the water. Their behavior looks more like training than rescue, as they seem to be darting about with no purpose other than to bounce about in the surf. They are loading up now, backing some small vehicle into the surf.

Even in this light rain there are kids playing in the sand on the beach, not many, but there are some, and families walking as well. Most are bundled up, but more than one family looks to be dressed in such a way as to make it clear they were expecting nicer weather. There is a girl wearing capris, and since I can see her shivering from 300 years away, her look must be more important than her comfort. I would scoff, but my choices in cars is much the same, or was, as I often preferred cars such as a King Midget or a three wheeled Reliant Robin, over anything more contemporary and comfortable. That I am sitting here in a non-descript Chevy Malibu Maxx is as sure a sign of getting older as the pain in my knees.

At this point there are three reasons why I write. First off, a handful of people have expressed interest in wanting to learn more about my boat projects as they progress, rather slowly at this point, I must add. But honestly, the feedback is often rather sparse, to put it mildly, rare enough to make that reason rather suspect. What drives me to write is more the sense that writing opens me up, acting as something of a conduit to thoughts that seem to burst out as though they were under pressure, I’d say like a fine champagne once opened, but not only does that sound full of conceit, it just isn’t the feeling I get. It’s more than by the mere expressin of these thoughts I am given the chance to finally work them through, to finally get some sense of understanding of all that’s come before.

A side thought. As I write this I am listening to Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, by Vaughan Williams. It seems a perfect fit for a rainy day on the Oregon coast.

Smeday I’d like to organize these thoughts, to share them with my children.

I wish I’d brought the camera with me on this car outing, as it would be fun to take some video and set it to this beautiful music. The weather is supposed to improve tomorrow, and then get better each day until I leave, on Wednesday. I wonder what music will fit at this time tomorrow?

These cramped quarters are starting to hurt my knees again. Sadly, I’d better go back home where I can stretch out my legs a bit, which certainly seems to help.

More later.

Its 7pm back on the cliff above the ocean in Manzanita. When I left the Arlington airport this morning it was almost uncomfortably hot, but here on the coast the clouds have rolled in, a light mist is falling, and it’s cold enough that even I debate staying out here on the deck.

There are surfers in the waves on the ocean below, though compared to when I was here Friday the waves are mere ripples. I know the kite boarders must be frustrated, as there is no wind to speak of. All of this makes no difference to the birds around me, as their songs, calls, and scoldings surround me.

Scratch that comment about the waves being ripples, they just seem much more variable now.

Next morning

I just wasn’t in the mood last night, tired from my 5am wake up call! Today I woke up to thunderstorms, so there will be no writing on the beach today. In addition, I have horrible knee pain. I don’t know if it’s caused by gout, or by some other sort of arthritic pain. It’s severe enough that it’s a bit hard to concentrate. Ugh.

It’s crazy, but I drove 5 hours yesterday so that I could make it home, go to sleep, then wake up at 5am to go on a powered parachute flight. Total blast. Better than I recalled. Here’s a video

Now, to drive 5 hours again to get back to the cabin. Call me crazy. I’ll stay at the cabin until Wednesday.

Bryan

Steller Jay

A beautiful afternoon on the cliffs above Manzanita, Oregon. I’m sitting on the second floor deck of this three story house which is built right into a steep slope, perhaps 60 degrees steep, nestled in amongst the trees, ferns, and undergrowth. It’s clearly a haven for birds, as I’ve seen at least a dozen species from the deck alone, ranging from hummingbirds, to crows, to the magnificent blue and black Stellar Jay. There are few sounds of people up here, just a rare faint shout of a child playing on the beach a few hundred feet below. Mostly it’s the birds, especially the jays, a bird whose call is as harsh as their feathers are beautiful. They seem to have a full range of sound, but their favorite seems to be a rat-a-tat-tat sound, which to human ears seems to be their sound of supreme irritation. Then there is a bird with a high pitched sighing sound, a simple sound that is almost painfully loud from maybe 40 feet away. It starts unbelievably high and on the western scale falls about four notes in two seconds. Underneath it all there is the rustling of leaves in the wind and the constant crash of waves against the shore below.

Cetta is staring at me from her bed at my feet, something she only does when hungry. Apparently the pangs are mild, as she hasn’t gotten up to scratch my leg yet.

I’ve been wanting to write about my daughter for quite some time, as she has been virtually absent from the pages. I know there will come a time when she will find these pages, and she will certainly notice how out of balance the family comments are, most of them clearly dealing with my son.

On the surface, the reason is obvious, as Alex has had 11 operations, she has had none, academics seem a relative breeze for her, while he required so much assistance in school that supporting him seemed a full time job.

But life isn’t lived at the surface, and while she knows the challenges Alex has faced, there were challenges for her as well.

I want to conclude before I even get started by saying she is also much more private than Alex. With that in mind I have left her off these public pages, respected her desire to share her thoughts as she sees fit in other places. I hope she knows that she is always in my thoughts and will always have my love. Her hopes and her fears, her challenges and her triumphs are as important to me as Alex’s, my love and respect for her as strong as any I have ever felt. I know there are times that her needs have placed second to those of Alex, to say otherwise would be a lie, even then, she was in our thoughts.

So much more to say.. but I’ll try to tell her in person instead.

Skip the first minute, then pay attention to the lyrics. So beautiful, and a perfect melody for it as well.

My friend Dan of the Virtual Joli project sent me a note the other day with a simple question… why do we want to build boats? He already has two canoes and a sailboat. I already have… oh man, I don’t even want to go there.

One of my high school teachers, Bob Freund, showed us a video called WHY DOES MAN CREATE? At the time the movie, shown on an old projector as this was prior to the world of VHS, seemed rather fun, perhaps silly, yet I have thought of the movie often. As I sit here 35 plus years later I think the answer to that question becomes obvious if we phrase it in a new way.. what if we didn’t create? Our drive to create is what moves us forward, really to such a degree that one could argue it has shaped our lives as much as our sex drive.

So why do we build boats? For most of us, our day-to-day lives are mundane, devoid of creativity, devoid of opportunities for that other great force that seems joined at the hip of creativity, the desire to learn. What we find missing, we create for ourselves… a chance to learn, to create, really to explore and grow. Be it through the divine will of God, or natural selection, it’s clear we have within us a force that wants to push and forge onward in a new direction. Like the sucking reflex of a baby, it’s hard wired into us, keeping us alive… alive in so many ways.

Another thought has been fighting for recognition deep within me, built upon my earlier post talking of rejuvenation at the beach. Why? Why do we find ourselves renewed and recharged at the beach? Just now I was cutting up some cheese to put on my dogs dish, as I do each night, I spoil her, don’t you know. But this time there was no hurry, nothing I had just rushed from or to… for once. It was a different experience, as silly as that sounds, and it struck me that this was the transformative power of vacation… time. Time to think… time with family… time to notice. It’s a time to set aside the must do elements of our lives and to turn instead to those things we want to do.

I started reading a book on the Kindle last night called Solitude, Seeking Wisdom in Extremes. Inside all of us I am certain there is at least some tendency toward succumbing to the siren call of solitude, though perhaps in the romantic sense of the word, as few of us ever really are alone. Karen and Jessa just drove off with Callie, Jessa’s friend from school. They left with Cetta, but in spite of the bath I gave her the other day she smelled so badly that they came back with her, knowing that my sense of smell runs at about 50 percent efficiency. So I am alone, alone with Cetta, alone for the last hour typing on my Alphasmart in the shade of Peter’s deck far above the ocean.

There were times in my life that I found the solitude insufferable, a time when I felt so alone I drove for an hour searching for a pay phone so that I could call and connect with someone. But that was a time in my life when I was psychically alone, my heart longing to connect, to trust, to love, and it just wasn’t happening. Indeed, that was a time in my life when I had never dated longer than a few months, never known the deep connection that true love can bring. My discomfort of solitude, encountered on a week long vacation at a mountain top cabin, had its roots deep within, it’s tendrils in a cancerous intertwining of all that I was.

A quick detour in thinking here. While shopping in Cannon Beach yesterday, actually while reading the Kindle on the sidewalk while Karen and Jessa shopped, a fragment for an opening line for a book popped into my head, and with it an idea for a book. “On the day my father died I learned my Mother had killed her sister, and with that came an understanding of generations of pain, pain sure to continue into future generations as well. It was suddenly so clear, clear at least that this moment had meaning, the full extent of which would not become clear for at least 30 years.” But the rest of the book will have to wait, as the 30 years hasn’t passed yet.

But back to solitude, and this moment in the broken sunlight above the sea, solitude now two hours old. I have a video camera trained on the sea, an effort to capture this moment in time for some future sleepless night. It’s a clip I’ll upload to YouTube, an action that seems totally at odds with the moment, and with the quest. Another honest indication of my troubled sense of solitude, as long as I am being honest with myself, is that my computer’s web cam is trained on the ocean as well in the off chance that a friend would connect to my Yahoo Chat. I wouldn’t converse, and indeed wouldn’t know they were there, but I did feel some sense of wanting to share the moment, certainly a feeling that battles with solitude.

That sense of wanting to share the experience does seem to be solitudes first casualty for me, the first thought creeping into my mind once I am alone. It’s not that I seek company, rather the experience seems lessened by my inability to share it. If solitude happens in the forest, and nobody but me is there to hear it, has it really happened? I know the answer, but this drive, this sense of sharing, is the first evidence of monkey mind in the journey alone.

Cetta, the dog, the beautiful whippet in our lives, is asleep in her bed across the deck from me. I haven’t a clue as to the thoughts that cross her mind on this day. Her life is centered on solitude, and if she has even the slightest awareness of what that means, it’s a state of mind where I hope she finds at least some comfort. I hope she isn’t aware of the changes I see in her of late, indications that her time with us is short. Her enlarged heart can be seen beating against her rib cage, the heart medicines only able to hold off the inevitable, and bringing with them side effects that include a profound loss in hearing. There are no walks on the beach for this old girl any more, as a simple walk around the block has been out of reach for months now. For a dog, for this dog, walks were one of her reasons for being. This is the downside of time.

It’s clouding over now, almost too cool to be outside typing, even for this warm, I should say hot blooded writer. For me heat kills, and cool is just right, virtually the opposite condition my wife,for that matter most women experience. More later. Lunch now.

Written on my alphasmart down at the beach…

My first true day of vacation, a slow start, as is fitting for vacation, though it was interrupted by a call from work. Nothing too important, though.

The day is partially cloudy, with the forecast calling for a 30 percent chance of rain today, 20% tomorrow, with temperatures in the mid 60s. Sitting on the beach, should I ever do it, could be on the cool side of things.

Later

On the beach, which in spite of the forecasts, is actually quite sunny, warm, and wind-free. We brought down two green plastic garden chairs, setting ourselves down near a little river in the sand, clusters of families spread out across the beach… couples walking, most our age or older.

My mind is rarely at ease, even on the best of days, the clarity of Buddha mind mostly far beyond my reach, my mind unsettled. I wish it weren’t so, but total happiness always seems around the next corner, my mood most often labeled as a seven out of ten. Total depression is rare.

At the beach my mind drifts back to the past, mostly the distant memories of my youth on the Oregon coast. I see ghosts of my past in the families, in the dogs, in the children playing in the sand. I look for clues in the slow walk of the fathers and mothers walking by, mostly the fathers, and in them I see hints of the feelings my father must of had as he searched the beach for agates while I played in the sand, oblivious to any thoughts of my father having any feelings at all. He’d spend countless hours looking, at the time I thought for clear rocks, but now I think he was looking for a little peace, and perhaps some sort of explanation as to how his life had gone the way it had, and how he could nudge it in a new direction.

But life gets away from you. Those agates he collected and carted home in our run-down 1960 Plymouth Valiant? He saved them through the years in a cardboard box in the garage, clearly with some sort of plan for their use, perhaps in a mosaic in the cement of some garden walkway. They were there in that box when he died at age 62, tucked away in the corner of a garage he’d built, next to the house he’d built, his biggest source of pride, other than his family.

Within a few years of his death it was all gone, the house, the garage, the box of agates, all destroyed by the destructive forces of time and progress. Actually, virtually every tree, every twig, is gone now, his home and his property clear-cut by a rich pilot building his mega-mansion, leaving no stone unturned, no shred of the lives of those who came before, no knowledge, memories, or thought of the two generations who lived and died before. My father once found what he claimed was an arrowhead from island residents a hundred years or more before us. So many have come before us, gone now with hardly a trace. Even the prized arrowhead is missing. The name of the family before ours died with my parents, just as ours will die to the family there now, if it hasn’t already.

So this all began with agates, memories of time at the beach so long ago, summers at Oceanside, Oregon, time at a small cabin called The Gitchy Goomie. Memories that run both warm and chillingly cold.

Karen’s memory of the beach? It’s of our time here with our family, including time with Alex after his surguries, memories of him running to the ocean with the antiseptic goo in his hair, oozing from the incision and stitches running across his head from ear to ear. Her memory is one of renewal, of a young boy and his frightened parents coming alive again on a carefree, sunny day at the beach, dreams of the future replacing nightmares of the past.

The beach is certainly a place of renewal.

I glance up at the clusters of families about us. Grab those memories, change will come, time will pass.

More later.

Bryan