Jim N Texas!

In my last entry I wrote the following:

I found myself wishing I had some kind of magic ability to hover without machinery. Something that would just suspend me silently in a transparent bubble at about 5000 feet so I could just absorb the sights.

I was just describing a sort of day dream I had while flying a Piper.

It turns out that up the road in Dallas someone is really working on making my day dream possible, although the hovering would involve a machine, and would occur at a much higher altitude than 5,000 feet:

It turns out that Armadillo Aerospace up in Dallas is working on a suborbital vehicle that might implement my hovering bubble idea. 

There are a lot of technical nits to pick with this concept, for sure.

On the other hand, there could not be a more ultimate ride than this!

I had gone a month without flying, so on the spur of the moment I did a short flight last night.

I went from Austin (KAUS) to nearby Taylor (T74), did a couple of full stops, bought gas, and went back to Austin. It was a cool night, the sky was perfectly clear, not a trace of mist or cloud. There was no moon. The stars that night were big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas!

I must have seen over a hundred airplanes. They were everywhere I looked.

I slowed down for a couple of minutes over Taylor and just tried to take everything in. I started to find the noise of the Archer’s motor to be bothersome. I actually considered shutting it off for a brief moment before sanity interposed itself.

I found myself wishing I had some kind of magic ability to hover without machinery. Something that would just suspend me silently in a transparent bubble at about 5000 feet so I could just absorb the sights.

There was so much to see! Police cars with flashing lights on the ground. Rotating beacons flashing in all directions. Airplanes of all sizes all around. And the stars and planets arrayed in their full glory.

I love flying at night. I know its dangerous which is why I rarely take passengers. But it can be magic.

Image courtesy Dr Moores, used under CC license

When I first heard that Ann Coulter was going to support Hillary over McCain my reaction was “The apocalypse is here!”.

But the more I thought about it, the more I see her point. McCain is an open borders RINO. He makes President Bush’s domestic policies look conservative. I think the one thing that pushed me into Ann’s arms was McCain’s crack in the recent debate that he ‘served for patriotism, not profit’.

Only an asshole liberal with no private sector experience would say something that stupid. Who does McCain think bought the several airplanes he crashed? Who does he think generates the ‘jobs jobs jobs’ in this country? It’s clear McCain completely shares Hillary’s view that the private sector is evil and must be crushed.

I think Ann nails the reasons for me to stay home next November if McCain wins the nomination:

If Hillary is elected then we face at least four more years of internal fighting, four more years of civil war just short of bullets. Hillary and McCain put Americans in one of two groups: supporters or enemies.

If we are to have a fight, I want the fight to be a clear cut battle between socialism and freedom. We can have that fight with Hillary.

If we elect McCain we still have a fight, but it will be desperate rear-guard attempt to slow the advances of ever expanding government tyranny.

I am desperately hoping for Obama to win the Democrat nomination. He’s just as left wing as Hillary, but I don’t think he hates those of us who disagree with him. I think he really wants to try and reach out across party lines and heal the country. Under President Obama I have dreams of a civil battle of ideas, rather than the kind of civil war that Hillary or McCain would incite.

Lastly, let me give Obama credit for having the best political ad I’ve seen since ‘Morning in America‘:

Hat tip: Captain Lex