During a pleasant evening a little over a month ago I was sitting around a camp fire with a group of pilots. We were swaping stories. A 747 pilot mentioned that he had worked in the wrong end of the plane. I was perplexed.

I have always found pilots to be aspirational. They have a great view of the world. Pilots can make some good money. They get to play with some very cool machines, and they travel. Yes I am in awe of pilots.

A 747 pilot was close to the top of pilot hierarchy, and it showed. His camp was neat and simple with a touch of sophistication. Me, I bumbled about and muddled by trying to be comfortable. Neighboring campers were amused by my tribulations. Yet in the end I had a comfortable camp.

I have listened to many pilots. I have heard the stories of a Gulfstream G650 pilot, listened to what it is like to fly into Bagdad during war. I have even have chatted with a top gun pilot or two. Even the stories of the pilots of the most simple of ultralights bring me joy. I have always been in awe. When I look up into the sky and see a contrails it matters not the plane. I can check flight aware and see the type of plane. At some point I have chatted with a pilot that has flown one of those.

during all these conversations I have never encountered a conversation where the pilot wished he had a different job. The 747 is an absolutely magnificent aircraft. I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to fly such an aircraft. My mind is boggled.

Not all aircraft are filled with large groups of people or packages. Some time ago I was very surprised to learn some jets had fancy living rooms in the back. I was talking with the pilot of a jet that made a daily trip to California. I had thought It was filled with fresh produce as it was owned by a large grocery company. I was asking the pilot what type of produce was in the back, when he said it was just a living room back there with a couple of people in it. No he did not know what they did.

When people tell me they want to live in Cuba, I ask why would you want to live in Cuba. They will tell me something about free healthcare or free education. I will look at them perplexed and say “Rich people in Cuba will have a 50 year old car, rich people in America have jets” as much as I like a 50 year old car, I would rather know someone with a jet.

So when we were sitting around the campfire and my friend the 747 pilot said he worked in the wrong end of the plane, I had to ask why. He said the real money was made in the back. I was somewhat taken aback, yet to a certain extent I had to agree. But really, if I could afford a jet, I would want to fly it.

Still, there are people out there are just as happy to be in the back of the jet. That is OK, because they are actually paying someone to fly the jet. Additonally, there are many people that build and maintain the jet. For the most of them life is good. Also, for the vast majority of people that fly the planes, they think life is very good.

I receive emails with peoples desired pronouns in their byline. Students will ask me what my desired pronoun is. Typically if asked I will say old white guy. Yet that is not quite a proper answer.

When I was growing up being a guy was a bad thing. Men were the root of all evil. I was raised in a very liberal environment. Even having babies was a bad thing. Men made babies, men are bad.

So I do not really want to have the “He” pronoun. I do not really qualify for any of the others, yet I have been told I can fill out a web form and pick any one something like 78 pronouns. I am overwhelmed.

I really don’t get it. Yet I couldn’t find a pronoun for someone who doesn’t get any. Doesn’t mean I don’t want any, it just means I don’t get any. One way of describing that is it.

So for right now, it is my pronoun. That’s it.

Writing papers is a thing where I work. People write papers and have them published. They are peer review academic papers. They have references and structure. I have read a few of them.

I find this mildly humorous. I have been writing for years. I most definitely do not use references, sometimes I am intentionally vague. I do not want to incriminate any of my friends if I write about them, nore do I want to get myself into trouble. I am pretty sure there a bots trolling the web looking for keywords. We are not far from a time when you say the wrong thing there will be knock on the door.

I have no formal traing my writing is really just a thought bubble. So many times in the past I people have told me what I think. Of course they would be wrong, I do not think like that. Or I might mention what I thought about a past event. Then they will say I just made that up. So I started writing my thought bubbles. That way I could say I wrote it down back when. This could also be a bad thing. Numerous times people have told me they never said such a thing, when I clearly remember them saying so.

A couple of times when people have told me about their writing papers I will mention that I also write, I will say “I write about things you can’t talk about”. I am definitely coy about it. I might even mention that the Chinese like to read what I write. I have no problems with the Chinese, we collaborate on many things. I am actually a bit flattered. I do not mention that I write about politics.

Sometimes when I look at something someone writes all I see is words. I look at them and they have no meaning. Something like a bad movie plot. I often wonder if my words are like that. Words without meaning. As much as I desire dialog, minds are made up. Genetically incapable of listening as I say. So I was surprised to see on my stats page someone(s) has started reading my blog. Someone(s) from the United States.

I could save them a bit of trouble and simply sum up my hundreds and hundreds of thought bubbles into three words. “Politics is shit”. It is that simple, and I would not be wrong. Yet I write because I am truly interested in the digestive process. Yes I write to much, I write becuse I am inquisitive and want to understand how politics became shit.. I want to intimately describe the digestive process.

Writing is an art, words mean different things to different people. Writing can broaden horizons, good writing is beautiful. I used to paint, now I write. Yet when it comes right down to it, I write for myself. It helps clear my head in a strangly mechanical way. The best way for me to clear my head is to fly. At least it used to be. However it has been years since I have flown. So I write. Most likely I write to much, and here I use the I too much. Well it is my thought bubble, and I am a bit obsessive.

I am not saying my writing is the best. It is not. However the best writers, they are the artists.

Old Joe’s sniffer was in want of a tingle, so he asked his boys to pick up some used panties from that hot first lady. Of course old Joe was thinking of Jill. Of course you do not get to become a lackey to the world’s most powerful person by being submissively servile, you go above and beyond. So when Joe asked for the panties from the HOT first lady, the boys went to Melania! The boys know how to deliver.

Of course the above description is fiction. I have no friends inside the exclusive boys club. What we do know is an incursion took place. Depending upon your view of the law it was either justified or non justified. There are so many laws out there you can find one that suits your purpose. To our knowledge the incursion was unprecedented, that is why I am writing about it. Not only that, it has popped up unexpectedly in random conversations.

My first thought was there must be something that they really wanted. The assumption was that whatever it was they were looking for must have been really incriminating. Although it might have been a good movie plot, I really doubted that the nuclear codes were embroidered into Melania’s underwear with unobtaninum thread in the shape of a Trump logo. I wondered who might have been incriminated, and by what.

I was also somewhat perplexed they were looking for papers. We live in a digital world where the only people that are actually interested in papers are lawyers. Oh lawyers, of course. Papers is how they get rich. What paper could Trump possibly have that would get him into trouble, he practically lived in front of the camera, and talked about most everything except his tax return. A financial document possibly?

The swamp was not kind to Trump, the swamp employed some mightily devious tactics to bring him down. Maybe he had some interesting documents incriminating the swamp. Yes, the FBI and the CIA would be interested in retrieving those documents. Personally I give that a reasonable possibility.

Interestingly there is no specific allegation, the only allegation in print is the possible criminal use of secret documents. Or, the documents are wanted to see if crimes were committed. In the beginning it was alleged that nuclear secrets were compromised, hence my third paragraph paragraph above. Yet the only thing we know that was actually taken were passports. They probably should not have taken those, as they were returned.

So there may be there was nothing they actually wanted. The incursion was possibly just to get Trump back in the news, and vilified. Currently there is no more powerful political tool than hate. Trump is not innocent, he used “Lock Her Up”. What goes around comes around. Yet I do not remember her house being raided. There were major allegations about her misuse of classified documents. Wiping of hard drives and smashing devices to protect pay for play emails. If I rember correctly her lawyers were provided with lawyers. Trump’s lawyers were, raided.

So at the end of the day, what do I see. A warning, do not go against the DNC.