Crossing strokes and dotting motions...

Considering the adventures of this trip, and despite the inconvenience involved, it just seemed right that I conclude the air portion of my trip by having Delta fly me to Albuquerque yesterday - yes, you guessed it - without my luggage.

In distinction from my outbound leg, where I spent time filling out customs forms in Moscow while my bag was an ocean away in Atlanta, yesterday in Albuquerque I was told my bag was "delayed," which is to say it was on a flight that was already in the air and scheduled to land in Albuquerque shortly after 9 pm. So, Galina and I left the airport, had a light snack not far away, and then returned to pick up my bag.

It was that, or have Delta entrust my bag to UPS, who would more than likely get the package to Pagosa no sooner than Tuesday, which is not my idea of an acceptable alternative, given DHS's insistence that airline luggage effectively be transported in an unlocked state (which is not to cast aspersions at UPS in particular, it's just that I have been the victim of theft from unlocked luggage, and the memory still stings).

We drove through the night and arrived home a bit after 1 am.

Galina and I violated the ancient principle of not doing business with friends (if one, indeed, wishes to retain such people as friends), and it looks like our friendship may suffer as a result. Our floors are still not completely installed, and Galina relates that she exchanged words with Mike. The whole situation is disappointing.

One of the orchid plants has developed a series of buds on a new branch, which is a welcome surprise. On the other hand, looking out the living room window, I note that the compost enclosure I bought a little while ago has been smashed flat, as if a truck had run over it. I'll look at it a little later in the day, but I suspect this job might have "bear" stamped all over it.

Time to go pour some coffee.

Cheers...

Trip photos...

A shot (actually two shots, stitched) taken of the White Cliffs of Dover, as our airliner flew north from Paris over England, on its way to Atlanta.

A larger version of this aerial image can be viewed here.

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Another stitched photo, taken of something called a Yangchuanosaurus, "stepping out" to greet passengers at the Atlanta airport terminal:



A larger image of this dinosaur can be viewed here.

Clicking on either image will take you to my flickr account, where I have posted some additional photos of my trip.

Cheers...

Knocked for a loop...

After Shiloh woke me up at about 6 am, I wandered around in a kind of daze, though I did get the new stove wired and plugged in (finding out, along the way, that the kitchen countertop installers were 1/8" short in their allowance for the depth of the stove, not to mention that apparently, the installation instructions for the stove call for the edges of the countertop to be "shaved" in certain places where they abut the stove).

Finally, I lay down to take a nap at about 1:30 pm, which turned out to be a mistake, because I apparently triggered my body into going to sleep (the way it did at about 11:30 pm in Moscow last week, which was the time my body evidently "thought" it was during today's nap). As a result, trying to get up at about 3:30 pm local time just did not work, so I went back to sleep until nearly 5:30 pm, but got up groggy anyway.

My current plan is to go to sleep shortly, or at least try to, but in any event, to stay horizontal until tomorrow morning. I have a barrowful of work to catch up on and to start.

* * *I really have not paid any attention, until today, to the crash of Air France 447, because I was aboard a different Air France flight on the same day, flying over the same ocean, which elicited a sort of there-but-for-the-grace-of-Providence kind of emotional reaction that found comfort in not knowing any details of the tragedy. Today, however, in an article published at InformationWeek, I learned the following:

But while most reports are focusing on why the sensors gave incorrect information (icing, an electrical fire. etc.), the more substantive issue is that the pilots of Flight 447 never had a fighting chance because their airplane's controls were never in their hands - they were in the hands of the on-board computers made by the likes of Northrup Grumman, Litton and Honeywell.

Flight 447 was an Airbus, which uses so-called "fly-by-wire" technology that relies entirely on electronic rather than hydraulic and manual systems. Boeing jets also use fly-by-wire, but allow pilots to override computers in an emergency - whereas Airbus systems don't.

A report from 2000 shows that, far from revealing an inadvertent design flaw, the difference highlights a real philosophical divide over whether computers or humans are best left to handle emergencies: It's essentially a question of what do you trust most, a human being's ingenuity or a computer's infinitely faster access and reaction to information.

The issue is deeper than that, I think.

The down side of all technological advances is that they have the unintended effect of basically, relieving humans of the need to do something we used to do "manually" (to use the term quite broadly). I've seen this with the use of calculators, which seem to have created a generation of citizens whose basic innumeracy has now been compounded by not being able to do simple math without electronic assistance. Forget about understanding the difference between simple and compound interest; there are entirely too many people out there who can't calculate 10% of 100 without a calculator.

And it's not as if this is some kind of new phenomenon. The rise of the printing press contributed greatly to the decline of memorization and the availability of processed and, more recently, fast food has left many bereft of the ability to cook a meal from scratch.

Cockpit computerization has contributed to a decline in flying skills (the old idea of "if you don't use it, you lose it" comes into play) and thus, perhaps, to the philosophy that if things go south in flight, it may be better to keep the human out of the loop and to rely instead on the skills of a team of software and hardware developers and testers.

I will hit the ground running tomorrow morning. I will.

Cheers...