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David is an occasional blogger, software engineer, Nintendo fanboy, liberal, news magazine addict, voracious TiVo user, and bibliophile. He was born in St. Louis, grew up in southern Indiana, and returned to St. Louis to attend Washington University. He hasn't managed to escape yet. He's a fan of free wine tastings, too many tv shows to name, and eating out. David makes his living developing web applications used internally by his employer. He doesn't blog about work because he's heard too many stories about that causing workplace troubles. There's more on the about page. |
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29 June 2002 - 1:33 am
There's a big air show here in Evansville this weekend and there are planes all over the place. The Blue Angels are here along with planes from the Royal Canadian Air Force, and a bunch of private planes dating from WWII to the present. Everyone I know is really excited about all these planes. The guys at work spend their breaks outside looking at the planes*, and the only thing everyone wants to talk about are these planes. One of the guys in my dad's department even took a half day off from work on Thursday and sat in a lawn chair in the parking lot watching the planes all afternoon.
Everyone is excited about these planes. Everyone except me, that is. I've been outside on my lunch break and had the Blue Angels zoom right over my head about 100 feet up and been very unimpressed. I stood outside with a bunch of guys on break a few days ago, and while they were busy talking about planes and staring up at the sky, I was busy thinking about how hot it was outside, and wondering whether I should work some overtime that day. These planes just don't interest me. Yet I can find no one else who shares my opinion; even my parents have more enthusiasm than I do. I think I agreed to go to one of the air shows tomorrow, but if I happen to sleep through the show, it's probably all for the best.
*The Whirlpool building is uniquely placed to provide a good vantage point for watching all these planes. The factory is literally right next to the airport. During World War II the factory was used to manufacture P-47s, and as the planes rolled off the assembly line they would be pushed out of the factory and onto the runway, where a pilot would get in the plane and fly it off. And things haven't changed much in 60 years. When I walk from the north lot where I park my car to building 12 where I work, I am directly lined up with one of the runways of the Evansville airport, so it isn't uncommon to have planes come in to land or take off right above your head as you walk to work or out to your car. (To help explain all of this, I marked up an image from terraserver showing Whirlpool and a bit of the airport. I labeled Building 12 and the North Lot. The red line is roughly the path between the two. And just for reference, everything south of the road running horizontally through the middle of the picture is part of the Whirlpool complex. The picture is here.)
Posted by on 29 June 2002 at 1:33 AM
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