To Be A Fink

10.30.2002

For as long as I've known Jerry, he's called his sister "Fink". It's odd for him to call her by her given name. While surfing yesterday I cam across a link on Google for Christian Fink CV. Had Jerry's sister become more devout in her beliefs? Was she spreading her word throughout the net? What was a CV?

A quick click and I was dissapointed to find that it wasn't a site for Jerry's sister, but a doctor at Duke, evidently named after Jerry's sister. Some people just suck all the fun out of my life.

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Shazam!

10.29.2002

Back when I was a little kid (little being relative), I lived for Saturday mornings and superheros cartoons. One of my favorites was a live action version of Shazam. It was a little more exciting since it was real people and not just a cartoon.

Over the weekend, in the wee hours of Saturday mroning, I flipped past Nickolodean's retro tv moment (or something along those lines) and came across an old episode of Shazam. And I must say, it was horrible. Granted, it was the 70's, but it was horrible. Horrible I tell you. It was probably just the writing and the story, because I don't think they could really act that bad, but it was almost painful to watch. I watched enough of it to wonder why I enjoyed it so much as a child, then I decided to chalk it up to youthful ignorance. Ah well, another childhood memory shot down in flames.

After a little searching, I found that the actor that played Shazam, Jason Bostwick, is a native Alabama boy who still lives in Alexander City. It's a fun site to look at, if for nothing else a couple of the links that show how excitinig life in Alexander City can be.

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Granma Sugar

10.28.2002

This past Saturday, Jerry's Grandmother passed away at the age of 97. She had been in bad health and a nursing home for a while, so while still bad news, it didn't come as a complete surprise to everone. A small blessing, but one to count nonetheless.

I'll never forget the first time I met his grandmother. It was our high school graduation, June of 1987. Jerry's family is gathered round, and Jerry is pointing out anyone I may not know. He points to this little woman who looks all of about 4 feet tall. "This is my grandmommy" he told me, his maternal grnadmother. She was so little!

Jerry later told me that his grandmother had invested in a sugar company years ago, and had given Jerry and his sister shares of the stock as a gift early on. It wasn't anything to get rich off of (I think I saw one of Jerry's divedend checks once - it was about $5.00), but it was one of those thingsshe passed on to her grandchildren. He then told me of how, when she would go out to eat, she would look at the brands of sugar on the table. If the brand she had invested in wasn't on the table, she would make sure that the staff knew the proper brand to stock for her next visit. From that point on, I always referred to her as "Granma Sugar"

I think that started the trend of me renaming Jerry's things. First his grandmother, then years later his pets.

Goodbye Granma Sugar, we'll miss you.

-R

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Banned From SAIC

10.25.2002

In the continuing story of those darned r/c planes....

Steve went out to fly his plane yesterday. They were picking the cotton out of the cotton field, so he went to the soccer field between the Open Bio and SAIC buildings, where we first started flying. After a few minutes, Steve was greeted by the facilities manager of the SAIC building. From there, Steve was told that he was not allowed to fly his plane over SAIC property, and since the soccer field was maintained by SAIC, itws considered their property. It was fine for Steve to fly his plane somewhere else (say, the cotton field) but it wasn't to fly over the SAIC building, and if it were to land (or crash) on SAIC property, Steve would have to go into the building and sign in as a visitor before he could retrieve his plane (even if he passed the plane on the way to signing in).

It was one of those odd occasions that Steve was dumbfounded and at a lost for words. Instead of arguing with the guy, Steve just nodded, packed up his plane, and vaated the soccer field.

The irony is that a group of SAIC employees were watching us fly Wednesday, and now seem to be on the verge of joining our flying frenzy. I wonder if they could fly over their building?

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Tree - 3 , Me - 1

10.24.2002

After the bucket truck tree rescue yesterday, I waited a whole 4 hours before trying to fly again. Hopefully learning a lesson, I decided to fly over the vast cotton field adjacent to the building. The plane went up, I found I had no right turn capability, and the wind was pushing the plane toward the tree line (this way I could hit the trees from the other side). Saying a prayer and an expletive, I cut power and waited to see what would happen.

Of course, the plane landed in a tree. Luckily, it was only 6 feet up, so it was easily retrievable.

After that, I got far away from the tree line as I tried to tweak the plane to where it would turn right. It would eventually turn right, but it would be a long, lazy right. With the wind, it wasn't a good day to be tweaking. Luckily, I decided to stop before making it into any trees for a fourth time.

But there's always later today....

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