Ken Q

This seems like a very nice tradition. I'm surprised, not only that my family did not observe it, but that I've not heard of it before this. For most of my childhood I lived with my grandparents, both of whom were born in England (Southampton and West Hartlepool). We also celebrated the New Year 1991 in Beccles with friends, but no mention of this custom, either. Then again, we celebrated the turning of the year in the bell tower of the 14th century church where our friend was a bell ringer ringing in the New Year. Is this perhaps a more regional custom? But this is a wonderful story. Happy Birthday to your wife! (My mother's birthday was also New Year's, my grandmother's was Boxing Day, and my wife's is Christmas Day). Happy New Year to all! Ken

A Happy, and Healthy New Year, to you, Iain, and to.all my Forum friends! Ken

I use this site to follow Non Sequitur since the newspaper dropped it. Ken

I fondly remember Calvin and Hobbs. Other long gone favorites were Bloom County and Pogo. Today I have a few favorites. First, Wiley Miller's Non Sequitur. Then Zits and Mutts. Also Pickles has its moments, especially helping oldsters like us laugh at ourselves. Except for Non Sequitur these appear in the local newspaper. Non Sequitur got booted because the cartoonist failed to delete political marginallia but is available on line. (The strip is highly political, but does not name names. Except this once). I still subscribe to Newsday, the regional newspaper for Long Island, New York. But it has gotten very expensive. Sixty years ago I delivered this paper. I had a route of about thirty customers. It cost them a nickel a day, or $0.30 per week. I paid $0.22 for a week's run of the paper, and the rest was my pay, plus tips. So I earned about $2.40/week, plus maybe another $1.80 in tips. Living high on the hog! Ken

Sorry, Gumby. By the time I realized it, I couldn't get a reservation for the Air-o-doodle. They told me it was somewhere in the southern hemisphere, and I hope you'd have a chance. But then finding someone who could run the thing. Sorry, can't help with that. Ken

Any American kid who grew up in the 1950s, with a memory jog, will remember the Air-o-doodle from the "Howdy Doody" television series. The whimsical vehicle was part plane, part train, part boat, and part car. Just thought it would be just the thing to get Gumby from Tasmania to the Northeast U.S. most expeditiously. Of course one needs to able to run these different machines. I, at least, have a little experience in all of them. Car-obvious. Boat- kid growing up around various boats, plus 20+ years US Navy. Plane- Sim, of course, plus some training in the PA 24 Comanche. Steam locomotive training-Standard gauge: Connecticut Valley RR, narrow gauge: Cumbres & Toltec Scenic RR. Gumby, sorry you couldn't make. Merry Christmas to ALL! Ken

Gumby, here's what you need to get here in time for dinner-an Air-o-doodle: Use the boat function to get from Tasmania to mainland Australia. The car function to drive to the airport at Sydney. Fly across the Pacific to Los Angeles (KLAX) in airplane mode. Car function to drive down to the Southern Pacific Yard at Log Beach (pick up a hitch-hiker bound for New York on the way. Don' tell him the reason for your generosity-yet). Get on the tracks at the SP yard. (now you can inform your "passenger" that he will be shoveling coal for the next 3000 miles). With the steam locomotive proceed east and north via various Con-Rail railroads until reaching the Hudson River. The best place to cross used to be via the high bridge to Poughkeepsie, New York, but that has been converted to a pedestrian bridge. So swap your engineer's cap for the captain's cap and boat across the river. Join the old New York Central tracks southbound, the connect with the old New Haven tracks to Derby, Connecticut. Here you can drop your "passenger" of at the Metro North station so he can take the commuter train to New York City. Finding water for the engine should not be too hard; you can probably find fire hydrants along the way. But I don't know where you'll find coal. The coaling towers, with very few exceptions, were torn down decades ago. Now leave the tracks and launch into New Haven harbor and steam across Long Island Sound to Port Jefferson, New York. In car mode drive south on Route 112 (be careful not to snag any utility wires on the way). Proceed west on the Long Island Distressway to Route 110. Do NOT try to go on the Northern State Parkway. The Air-o-doodle will never fit under the overpasses. (Robert Moses deliberately designed the parkways so they could never be used by trucks or buses). North on 110 to the Walt Whitman Shops shopping mall. You can park the Air-o-doodle there (it would never fit on my street). Call me from there and I'll give direction on how to walk the remaining mile and a quarter.

Which of the three ships that are headed for Bethlehem are you going to hijack? No, I won't wait up! Ken

Sunday your time, or my time?

Thanks, Don. A Merry Christmas to you, your family. And a Merry Christmas to all our Forum friends and families. Ken

I also don't have much of a sweet tooth. My wife likes to bake, and she does have a bit of a sweet tooth, so she's been frustrated for all these years since I am a reluctant consumer of her creations. My favorite dessert after Christmas dinner is a nice platter of different cheeses and crackers, along with a little brandy and coffee. Ken

Now, unfortunately, it's just the two of us. But we still follow the same pattern my family has always had. A nice dinner on Christmas Eve. Then we serve at the midnight Mass, which at our church starts at 10:00 PM Christmas Eve. Once we get home we exchange gifts; at our age not that much. Sleep late Christmas morning. Then a nice dinner later. It's my one day to get roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Now the challenge is finding a small enough piece of beef. Ken

Thanks, Iain. And to all my friends on the Orbx Forun, a very happy Christmas and New Year! Ken, Karen, and Chessie (the VP of Rodent Control).

I join Gumby on this. Rodgers TWMT series has turned a bunch of guys from around the world who happen like Flight Simulator into a group of friends. Well done, and thank you, Rodge! Ken

A few years ago we bought a new dishwasher. After a couple of weeks it stopped working, so of course we called the repair man. He took one look and apologized: the repair was not covered by the warranty. The wires had been chewed by an animal. So $150 later we had our dishwasher back, but we had no idea what had caused the damage. A couple weeks later it happened again. This time we determined to find the source before trying again. A couple of days later our vice-president-of- rodent-control detected the culprit behind the firewood carrier in the living room. But we couldn't catch the elusive critter. Be we at least knew we were dealing with a rat! We called the exterminator. He sealed up every possible opening in the house, and set traps all over the basement. Over the next week or so we heard the beast in the walls, in the crawl space, and in the basement. Occasionally we got a sighting, but no luck in catching it. Then one day I was in the basement doing laundry, and Chessie our rodent control expert had come down to use his litter box, and the rat slowly sauntered by. BATTLE STATIONS!!! I pursued the rat into the space between the oil burner and the work bench, while Chessie cut off his route of escape behind the oil burner. Trapped! But now what? No way was I going to touch this thing, and Chessie was of the same mind. At my left hand though was a plastic paint pail. Plot! We got him! Nearby was a "Homer Bucket" (A large orange pail sold by The Home Depot). I put that over him too. The the wife came down with a galvanized steel ash can that she uses to store flour and such. That went over too. I called the exterminator company. Happens that their duty man was on the next block, so he was here in five minutes. We slid some stiff cardboard under the whole thing, turned it over and got it outside where the exterminator "eliminated" the rat. The hero of the story: Chassis Cat. Without his teamwork we'd never get him! But unlike Graeme, we were not about to touch that thing, not with those teeth. Ken

Unless we count the posse of squirrels that formed a "welcoming committee" in the Boston Common, I guess snakes would do it for me: 1. Many years ago my then girlfriend, my friend/roommate and I were in the kitchen when the cat brought in a (garter) snake and proudly dropped it at our feet. My roommate panicked! My girlfriend wanted to study it! The cat wanted to play with it, and I just wanted to get it outside. An episode of Keystone Cops! 2. Where I work, several years ago a snake took up residence under a window inside the blacksmith shop. At times it came out to sun itself on the window sill. We sort of made a pet of it. 3. Speaking of pet snakes, Theodore Roosevelt's daughter had a pet snake she named "Emily Spinach." She named it after two things she hated most: her Aunt Emily, and spinach. Until he died recently we had a Theodore Roosevelt impersonator named Jim Foote. One year when he was working for us during the Long Island Fair he had a garter snake named Emily Spinach which he carried around in his shirt pocket. Now about those squirrels. While not exactly exotic, they're not house pets either. But this bunch, on seeing my friend (the same mentioned above) my wife, my mother and i walk by the Common, they came bounding across the lawn right up to us. One then climbed up my leg and stuck his head in my pocket. Such a look of reproach I got when he didn't find any treats in there. Obviously, when walking past the Boston Common one must pay a toll to the squirrels, at least according to said squirrels. Ken

I have followed Steveo for years, and have always enjoyed his videos, and learn a lot from them. Steveo's employer has recently sold the TBM, so Steveo is temporarily out of a job. I also enjoy Josh Flowers' "Aviation 101" channel. Josh is a young CFII, and his videos are very professional, with both great entertainment and instructional value. Another one I enjoy is Stevie Triesenberg's channel. Stevie owns a V-Tail Bonanza and a Cessna 140. She is based at Camarillo, so flies her planes in much of the same region as I fly the Sim. Ken

After month two you can fetch your own water. Also, the beer is on you. Look up what Ben Franklin (in Poor Richard) said about fish and visitors. Ken

OK, Gumby. I'll order a tent for the back yard. They are talking about an El Nino winter, so there shouldn't be too many below 0 nights (it's the middle of winter "up here") I'll gladly provide buckets of water. I set out several of full ones, as well as an empty with holes punched in the bottom. That way you may shower as often as you like. K

It is my pleasure to invite you to join us for Christmas, Gumby. But it is a bit of a trip! Ken

Because I like the ATC service of PilotEdge, I haven't flown the SIM in my home area for a few years. Rather I've been out on the West Coast, spending more time in Rodger's area than my own. So I'll do both. For my virtual flying world, I'll say a flight to Catalina Island (KAVX) from either Santa Barbara (KSBA) or Palm Springs (KPSP). The first is mostly over water, and so not such interesting scenery. The second has to deal with overlapping Bravo (LAX) and Charlie (SNA) airspace, but at 6500 feet its below the shelf of the first, and above the second. Beautiful scenery, fairly relaxed, and approaching the Island is spectacular. (But I've still never seen the buffalo). From where I live, near KFRG, I'd again choose a flight to an island. In this case there are a few good choices, Block Island (KBID), Martha's Vineyard (KMVY), or Nantucket (KACK). At this time of year these are all very sleepy destinations since all the tourists have gone home. I'll choose Nantucket. Indeed, I'm planning on a real world flight with my friend Bill in his Comanche in the next few weeks. Ken

We still do some Christmas decorations, but like Rodge and Trudy, it's just the two of us now. Some old favorite decorations, including the wife's Christmas stocking she's had since she was five, decorate the mantle. Back in the fifties my mother was into ceramics, and she did lovely angels and a beautiful Nativity Set. Those come out every year. We now get a small tree which goes on a table since we can't reach the bottom branches any more if it's on the floor. We have decorations, some dating back to even before WW2, that we love to use. We like a Victorian themed tree, and now use individual battery powered LED candles. As for when, that depends on the work calendar. This year is especially bad, we work evenings from the Thursday before Christmas to the Thursday after, with only Christmas Eve and Day off. But with church obligations we don't even get those really off either. So this year it will probably be the Tuesday before Christmas. We keep them up through the 12th Day (Epiphany, Jan 6). Early wishes for a Merry Christmas or a Happy whatever Holiday you celebrate! Ken

Speaking of all hours- I forgot about a job I had shortly after leaving active duty in the Navy (the first time) in 1973. For several months I worked the graveyard shift.(10:00 PM-6:00AM) tor Jay Printing in Warwick, Rhode Island. This was not your local print shop, but rather a large factory specializing in retail packaging. They printed the cards, vacuum molded the blisters, and inserted the product into the resulting package and heat sealed it all up. This type of packaging is ubiquitous, but I actually worked at doing it. I did a few different operations, but the most fun and rewarding was setting up the vacuum molding machines. It wasn't in my job description, but the boss taught me how to do it, and so I did. I also got to run a fork lift. Incidentally, the factory was on the east side of T.F.Greene Airport (KPVD) with runway 5 just a few yards away. Got to watch planes landing and taking off. Incidentally, one Saturday morning, after having worked these hours all week, I had to take the GRE (Graduate Record Exam) for admission to Grad School. Off work at 6:00 AM, report to Providence College by 8:30 AM to sit for a three hour exam upon which hung my future. But I did alright, obviously. Ken

Paper route and odd jobs as a kid. First job after high school was as wood shop counsellor at a summer day camp. Then two years active duty in the US navy, followed by 19 years of Navy part time as a drilling reservist. This concluded with a seven month recall to active duty in support of Desert Shield/Storm (Naples, Italy and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). During some of those years I was in graduate school, finally earning the Ph.D. in 1986. During grad school I also taught literature, composition and advanced writing courses. In here I also attended four years of seminary. My intention was to get a teaching job at a college or university, but that didn't happen, so I went for my second choice, a career as a museum educator. I started on that path by enrolling in a Museum Studies program, and soon landed a job at our regional Living History Museum. In 2011 I retired after 21 years. Then five years later I went back part time, this time with my wife working beside me (well, next door). The beauty of museum work is it operates on different levels, and one can simultaneously have a profession and a trade. My profession is a Museum Educator, and currently my trade is a Hatter. But over the years I've been a farmer, a blacksmith, a cider maker. While it doesn't pay as well as my first choice, it pays well enough and has great fringe benefits. I've been happy, and have no regrets. Ken

Thanks very much, my northern friend. Now as a "Yankee" (not the baseball team) I don't consider ourselves "Southern" but all things are relative. My wife's paternal grandmother objected to my wife's father's choice of a bride because she was a "Southerner." The bride, my wife's mother, was from the "deep south state" of Illinois! But Grandmother was from north central Minnesota, so as I say, all things are relative. For our chums elsewhere on this globe, by no stretch of the imagination is Illinois a Southern State. But apparently Grandmother disliked Easterners just as much, and (Oh the horror!) her granddaughter married one! But nevertheless Grandmother adored JFK. Go figure! I never met Grandma Stennes. My bride didn't want me to, and besides, she passed on just a couple of months after we were married. Ken