Ahira's Hangar

That law sounds good to me!

I'm only taking a week off for the Xmas break. I had more vacation days left, but didn't want to be away too long given the uncertainties in the company move.

Well, scratch the Avatar movie - it's been blowing snow all day here. Not stepping into that!

We have been lucky here. We missed most of that huge east coast blizzard last week - just got brushed by it and got only an inch of snow. Now the huge plains blizzard which sounds like it might be heading up to get Moonwatcher is just brushing by us to the west and we're only getting rain and wind. We were supposed to get an ice storm, but only got rain I feel bad for the people who have been nuked by those two monster storms, but am relieved that they missed us!

Lots of excitement around here today - a jerkface terrorist tried to blow up a jumbo jet as it was landing at Metro Airport, which is not that far away from here (we're not part of the usual take off and landing patterns which are over New Boston and Dearborn depending on which runways they are using, but sometimes when a jet is in trouble for whatever reason they bring them in right over our house, and we can hear the landing gear coming out as it passes over - that happens once or twice a week on average and always makes us jump). So anyway, thank goodness the bomb (or whatever he had) didn't work, the other passengers and flight attendents took him down, and the authorities hauled him to Ann Arbor to the University Hospital to be a patient in the burn ward. That's just a bit down the street from where I work. At first they wouldn't say which hospital in Ann Arbor they took him to or why and my poor kids were freaking out thinking they might have taken him to where I work since it is a federal hospital and possibly more secure than a regular hospital. But when the news finally said they were treating him for third degree burns, I was able to reassure the kids that he must be at the U, and indeed he is there. And of course, we all freaked out a little on what might have happened if this had been one of those rare jets they bring in over our neighborhood, and having the bomb go off...

Other than that, we have had a peaceful holiday, though we all have a rotten shared cold. My younger son has been helping me set up my new I-Pod, and he has been loading it up with all sorts of heavy metal from bands I have not heard of before.

I read about that terrorist incident just a moment ago. Glad, of course, that he didn't succeed with his plot and only managed to hurt himself. If he dies from his injuries, well, good riddance - one less psycho to worry about. But it just shows that if a terrorist is determined enough, he'll find some way through, regardless of how tight any security system supposedly is. Ultimately, it was still up to the other passengers on that plane, putting their own lives on the line, to stop that guy. I'm sure people are now asking exactly how he managed to smuggle a bomb on board - or the ingredients for the bomb. I just wonder at what point airport security measures become so personally invasive that many people simply won't fly - or won't bother travelling at all. But that still won't stop nutcases from trying to blow up people and planes. We the regular law-abiding citizens are being victimized - made suspect - for the random acts of terrorists. In this sense, the terrorists are winning. [rant over]

Yeah, a huge amount of snow fell on us yesterday. I just came back from some Boxing Day shopping - it was all white out there, which added to the traffic chaos around the malls.

Have fun with your new iPod, duchess! I only dabble in heavy metal myself, and stick with big names like Metallica. Much of "metal" is simply noise to me, like rap. (Let's not get started on rap metal!)

You are braver than I am to hit the stores on Boxing Day! I have been staying at home loading CD's onto itunes and watching a Band of Brothers marathon on TV. I will have to go shopping tomorrow to get bread and toilet paper.

I fell really sorry for the employees at the U Hospital today. The security must be very tight there, probably to the point of impeding normal work flow, and news crews have got to be camped out there 24-7 right now. Poor sods, having to work the holiday, and now this on top of it.

Watching the news, it looks like the jet was making a normal approach to Metro, which means it was probably coming in over Dearborn Heights and Dearborn. Those are two cities where a lot of Muslim people live in tightly packed little starter ranch houses. If that thing had blown up and the jet gone down, it probably would have killed a bunch of completely innocent Muslim civilians (as well as completely innocent non-Muslim civilians) on the ground (as well as all people on the jumbo jet), celebrating the holiday in their homes. (Yes, here in America non-Christians also often sort of celebrate Christmas - not as a religious holiday, but a chance to eat a nice meal and spend time as a family together when the adults are off from work for a day).

Well, it just goes to show that all the security measures in the world can't be guarantees. Reminds of what the IRA said to Margaret Thatcher..."We only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky all the time."

--A

They moved the terrorist from the hospital to a fairly low security federal prison only five miles from my house today. YAY [/sarcasm]. My kids used to play youth soccer in a park across Sanford Road from that jail - you could hear the jail PA system sometimes during the games.

At least the UM Hospital employees will be spared the trouble of hosting him - and perhaps some local businesses like the coffeehouse, Coney Island, Big Boy, bakery, and the two little motels might pick up some business from all of the reporters and camera crews camped out by the prison.

edited to add:
is where they have the terrorist. Hopefully they move him someplace more secure soon.

Sucks, I think they have the guy pretty much secured.

In the meantime here's some very nice introspective stuff to help get you to 2010 (wow! ):
Septhen Still's Manassas bridges the gap from the Byrds to FireFall.

I'll have to listen to that later, danlo (given that I live in Manassas, VA ).

The thing about this "war on terror" is that we're always protecting ourselves against the last attack -- which frees up the bad guys to think creatively about what else they can do to us. I agree that at some point the restrictions will be so onerous that fewer people will fly. Given that the airlines are already hurting, that cannot be a happy thought for them.

Already, given the choice, I'd take Amtrak over flying....

Luckily the ridiculous new restrictions didn't affect our trip to see Batty and her girlfriend in Denver last week -- although the weather did. We missed both storms, flying out on Monday the 21st and back home on Christmas Day. But we hit delays on the way back due to the snow in Dallas the day before. Anyhow, we got home safely, so that's all that matters, I guess.

Back to work today. It's a short week -- we get New Year's Day off -- but it was still hard to get up this morning... Duchess, as a former broadcaster, I feel your pain about working holidays. Usually, wherever I worked, we would rotate Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's days among the staff to make sure everybody got at least one of the three off. I only had to work Christmas Day once in 20 years but I almost always worked the others.

You'd think with all that seniority you'd eventually get weekends off, but i guess it doesn't work that way with the Fed Guv'ment, eh?

I read that they just arrested a number of suspected al-Queda in Yemen. How convenient. Someone needs to tell Obama and the CIA "Hey do something about all the frickin' terrorists being trained in YEMEN!!!!"

Jeebus, danlo, don't bring that up -- we'll end up in yet another war!

No, it's what I've said all along-send the concentrated forces that are going to be deployed in Afganistan strait to the Afgani/Pakistani border, rout out the terrorists there and come home immediately, then get everyone out of Iraq and Afganistan immediately. Didn't mean to sound war-hawkish as far as Yemen is concerned but terrorism is an international problem so now it time to put severe international pressure on Yemen. What I meant by the CIA was to work harder watching Yemen and work harder coordinating with INTERPOL, G-5 and all other international security agencies.

Phew! Okay. I can get on board with all that.

Hey, where's your current sig at the Watch from? I keep checking the GI thinking SRD said something to that effect there. Just curious about who suggested he's dead...