Memorial Day 2011

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Life and Death

Air. Water. Warmth. They make life possible.
But they are also the food of the monsters that come down from the thunder and stride the earth without mercy.

These images were taken today outside Piedmont, Oklahoma.  But no photograph or video can capture the feeling of fearful wonder at the power evidenced by the broken landscape.

Stately trees and fields of ripening wheat are stripped of leaf and grain, leaving only spindly stalks that point like accusing fingers toward the source of their doom.

PS - I found it an interesting coincidence that a town called Piedmont is also a key site in The Andromeda Strain, a novel about a form of life that transforms energy directly into matter.

Doubleheader

More pretty pictures to make up for missing last Sunday.

Sunday Photos 5/15/11

Yeah, I skipped a week.
These were taken in Pleasant Hill, MO.

The good stuff is at my photo website. 

What's It Take?

Love. Joy.   

  Nowadays when inquiring about your vocation people will usually ask, "What kind of work do you do", instead of the question more common from my youth, "What are you?"  But although the question is different now, many times the answer is still couched in the old terms. "I am a doctor." Or in my case, it was "I am an Air Traffic Controller."

Peace. Patience. 


  Air Traffic Controller is one of those jobs that, when people find out what you do, usually leads to several more questions.  The most common one is, "What airport do you work at?" (Given the average person's limited understanding of the profession the question is not unexpected, but it's annoying none the less to the thousands of us that work in, or retired from, an en-route center.)  Other common themes are stress, and particularly recently, sleep.  Something else I've been asked a couple times this week is "What kind of people become controllers?"  I answer that there are many kinds of folks doing the job, but we all share a rare and hard to define aptitude for the work.

Kindness. Generosity.


  The casual conversation usually ends there, but I began to wonder about the details.  What traits are encouraged and rewarded in a controller?  I suppose it seems self-evident, but 'control' is the name of the game. One has to truly command the sector to be successful. Everything is black and white. Mental agility is a must, but decisions are quick and compromise is not tolerated.  We develop a 'my way or the highway' attitude.  So it should come as no shock to learn that a room full of people like this, doing a fairly stressful job, might have disagreements now and again.  Or have trouble dealing with people anywhere that seem to fall short of our standard of 'perfection is normal'.  It was my increasing inability to deal well with these feelings that largely led to my decision to retire early.  I came to realize that I hadn't just developed a short fuse, I had no fuse at all. Just a 'pin' that got pulled all too often.  My year away from the job has helped tremendously, but in many ways I still think and act in the ways I did for 22 years at the radar scope.

Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control.


  This all came to mind again yesterday when I was asked to reflect upon what kind of person I wish to be remembered as, and if I was living that kind of life.  Don't get me wrong. I am proud of the work I did and my service to the country.  But I wonder about what it may have done to me as a human being.  I wonder how much of my success as a controller was due to what I brought to the job, and how much I changed to adapt to it.   I wonder how much of the nine traits listed between the paragraphs above are a normal part of my existence. I do know this: If the job did change me, I can change again.  And if the job only served to let the real me come out, well, I can work on that too.  Just hope I get a ways down that path before it's time to 'remove strips' on my flight plan.

Sunday Photos 5/1/11

A couple from my location scouting today for an upcoming portrait shoot.

Stagecoach Park, Olathe, KS

Arboretum, Overland Park, KS

Don't forget to visit me at vortacphoto.smugmug.com