Mike is on "Staycation" today, yesterday and tomorrow. Our regional recovery convention, The Conference of the Lakes, is taking place this weekend right in my backyard in the hamlet of Penn Yan. It's a large gathering with people coming from far and wide, some of whom are personal friends, many of whom are known to me, and all of whom are friends and fellow travelers even if I never saw them before.
A few bits 'n' pieces:
McCartney in Brooklyn: The Paul McCartney show is due to come to Brooklyn, New York, near Manhattan. Details here. (Thanks to Lex Stewart for this.) I have a feeling it might be more interesting to ordinary people than most photography shows, because he was an ordinary photographer, even if he was privileged to photograph extraordinary things. I'm toying with the idea of a road trip to see it.
Horrifying but...reassuring?! I mentioned aviation videos a few weeks ago, and a reader referred me to the Mentour Pilot channel. There, I saw this gripping account of Pakistan International Airlines Flight 8303 (the illustrations are computer-generated). Captain Sajjad Gul and first officer Usman Azam, apparently at odds with each other in the cockpit (with FO Azam being the more reasonable of the two) and ignoring commands from ATC, turned what should have been an utterly routine landing into a catastrophe, doing almost everything wrong that could possibly be done wrong. We can only shake our heads.
Part of the reason I was attracted to photography, long ago, after a start as a visual artist, is that I find great portent and richness in "the slap of truth." I tend to feel a great deal more drama in accounts of true events rather than from constructed fictional dramas. I'm aware that other people differ from me in this. I first learned that way back in 1979, when I almost fell asleep in a movie called Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, that was obviously greatly exciting many of the theater-goers all around me. For one thing, true stories say much more about real human nature and real human behavior than most fictional dramas do. I tend to get bored at movies that friends find absolutely thrilling and involving, and then I find deep drama and high suspense in videos like this one.
A special thing about this video is a comment from viewer @ScottGibbs, who wrote: "I want to pay you the highest compliment: I've been a very nervous flyer for most of my adult life (I require some liquid courage at the airport bar before every flight) and I genuinely believe your videos have helped me. I had to fly recently and it was the first time I can remember that I wasn't white-knuckle the entire time. Yes, I did enjoy some liquid courage beforehand, lol, but this time felt different. I was more at ease. Your videos are amazing and they've actually helped me understand how safe air travel really is and to understand things as simple as bumps in the air [and] what sounds the plane makes. Thank you!"
Interesting, isn't it? The story of a crash reassures a timid passenger, by showing him how unlikely it is for things to go wrong. Airliners, it turns out, are not on the verge of crashing all the time; in fact it takes persistent willfulness and incompetence to get them to do so.
Twister: The tornado in this photo, by @adamorgler on X, missed the home of Mike and Mrs. Plews by only about four miles. Mike is a longtime reader whose bouts with weather have been featured herein before. Weather in Iowa is an adventure.
Slow learner: I'm making good progress in learning how to touch-type. Yes, it's slow, but because of productivity issues I can't go whole-hog into the new method and do it 100% of the time. After 53 years of three-finger typing, without using my ring finger or pinkies* or my left middle finger, I notice that most of my confusions arise somewhere between my brain and those fingers. Even so, I've already gotten farther than I did the first time I tried this—and I'm enjoying it a lot more. It's almost like a soothing video game, diverting and strangely soothing. I like doing it while I listen to YouTube videos or music. The process of learning has been interesting for me.
Last time I did this, in 2021, I tried to learn Dvorak. This time around it's Colemak, which I'm liking a lot better. And it's more convenient: Macs, which I use, can be switched to Colemak at the click of the mouse. I find it most effective to switch between a number of different learning programs. I practice for anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours a day, averaging maybe half an hour. My biggest weakness is rushing—trying for speed—so I do best when I try to slow down rather than speed up, striving for maximum accuracy rather than speed. Counterintuitively, my speed when I try to type slowly for maximum accuracy is often higher than it is when I try to type fast.
Hopefully I will have all the comments to the previous post loaded before I leave for the Conference this morning. I'll plug away at it from now till then: because the more I try to go fast, the slower I go.
Back soon,
Mike
*"Pink" means "little finger" in Dutch, so properly it's just a "pinky" in American English, rather than a "pinky finger." This might be an excessively fastidious usage note, however.
Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)
Featured Comments from:
When I took a stab (short-lived) at auto crossing with our Miata, the best advice I received was "Go slow to go fast." Probably applies to touch typing too!
Posted by: MARILYN NANCE | Saturday, 27 April 2024 at 09:06 AM
I completely agree with you about fantastical movies. What is the saying, "Truth is Stranger than Fiction"? What I have found very interesting and am curious about, thinking of Ridley Scott - who I am very much a fan, are the couple of presentations of the negative side of (in)famous personages from history. Are Ridley Scott's portrayal of Napoleon and PBS's recent Julius Caesar a propitious warning about self-centered misogynistic would-be emperors? Is History about to repeat itself?
Posted by: Rick in CO | Saturday, 27 April 2024 at 11:15 AM
I do not know if you mentioned the 1998 ‘Wings of Hope’ movie by Werner Herzog in your previous aviation video post. It is a documentary about the sole survivor of a 1971 plain crash in the Peruvian jungle. It is available on YouTube. Image quality is not great and Herzog is taking it slowly. He revisits the site in the jungle with the woman who survived the crash. Amazing story it is.
Posted by: Willem | Saturday, 27 April 2024 at 01:11 PM
I'm an odd bod. Or odd fellow?
Either way, welcome to the club Mike!
Falling asleep during Alien. I'd hazard a guess that there were three people, globally, who managed that feat during that particular movie.
I tips me hat guvnor.
Posted by: Kye Wood | Saturday, 27 April 2024 at 05:52 PM
if you are interested in aviation safety stories told well and prefer to read, i recommend an online writer called Admiral Cloudberg
Posted by: Nicolas Woollaston | Saturday, 27 April 2024 at 06:08 PM
Airline accidents are big news because they are so rare. Automobile deaths are far more dangerous (common) but are seldom (if ever) national "front page" news.
Motor vehicle crashes are preventable, yet they continue to be a leading cause of death in the United States. An average of 36,791 crash deaths occurred each year (101 deaths each day) during 2015–2019 in the United States.
https://tinyurl.com/3ej3jyzv
(CDC)
Good luck with the touch typing. My father encouraged me to take typing in high school many years ago. Possibly the most useful class I took way back then -- so far back that we had only one electric typewriter in the classroom.
Posted by: Speed | Sunday, 28 April 2024 at 06:08 AM
Mentour Pilot is a good channel. Not only does he knows what he is talking about, he knows how to explain it in a very easy manner. If you want to see something really scary, don’t miss this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-IuOnDBoGA&t=439s
Posted by: David Lee | Tuesday, 30 April 2024 at 06:36 AM
This is a little late, but you mentioned thinking of seeing the McCartney exhibit. It first came to the US at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Va. I took the opportunity to see it three times since I live in the area. As a photographer, I expected to be entertained with a walk down memory lane (minus any particularly great photographic talent) but what I experienced was so very much more. McCartney is a good photographer—even as a young man. The photos were so humanizing—one can feel the maelstrom into which they were thrown, and sense their own incredulity of the situations in which they found themselves. It certainly took me back in time but not in any way I’d imagined beforehand—and much for the better. Minor disclaimer—McCartney willingly admits he was mentored by the professional photographer that accompanied them; quite a perk for a budding photographer and something few of us had the luxury.]
Posted by: William Cook | Wednesday, 01 May 2024 at 12:24 PM