Paul's Beat

Summary of my political positions

2012-01-23T15:29:00.000-05:00

Summary of my political views:

-Guns: I have no interest in guns for myself. No problem with people who like them as long as they are responsible.

-Drugs: If we took the criminal element out of drug laws, the profit motive would go away and a lot of crimes related to drug wars would not exist.

-Gays in the military: What’s the problem? It’s only an issue for the people who make it an issue.

-My general attitude about government social programs: Educate the young and take care of the sick & elderly. Everyone else is on their own.

-Health care: Affordable health care should not be a political issue. No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.

-Welfare: For most able-bodied people, it shouldn’t be available. There are plenty of ways to help people get back on their feet.

-Public schools: Why not? They aren’t perfect, so fix the problems instead of advocating abolishing the whole system. Most of the problems are societal anyways.

-School extra-curricular sports programs: Should not be taxpayer-funded. They should support themselves, just as music programs do.

-School lunch programs: Keep meal choices available. Don’t try to enforce good eating habits; that’s a parent’s responsibility.

-Social security: I don’t see anything wrong with the concept..

-Illegal immigrants: There are legal ways to enter the U.S. Use them or you don’t belong here.

-U.S. involvement in “nation-building”: No. We should stay out of other country’s affairs.

-U.S. involvement in other wars: Only if it directly affects security of the U.S. mainland, Alaska, Hawaii and its territories. “No” to wars related to oil, other profits, and/or “pre-emptive” wars based on fear.

-Global warming: I believe it's caused more by nature than by humans. Actually, this shouldn't even be a political matter; it's all science.

-Cause of the Civil War: I've read the arguments of historians who say it was about slavery and historians who say it was about states' rights. I've concluded it was about slavery.

-Unions: If a group of employees wants to form or be a part of a union, there should be no laws restricting that freedom. All other details (membership, pay and working conditions) should be negotiated in the contract with the company or agency.

So, I Bought a Guitar!

2011-12-26T13:14:00.001-05:00

I sometimes think about how good I'd be now as a guitar player if I stuck with it the first time I took guitar lessons. That was in 1969, when I was in third grade! But like many elementary school children, I dropped out after not getting very far with it. My second time around was approximately ten years ago when I bought a starter electric guitar and amp combo. I signed up for lessons with George Collichio, but again, they didn't last very long. So I sold the guitar and amp.

In recent months the urge to "play melodies" has been biting at me. I took up rudimentary snare drumming 3-4 years ago because I wanted to be able to "play songs" on an instrument. The drum patterns that rudimentary snare drummers play, especially ancient martial beats, usually stand alone very well as drum solos when not accompanied by fifes, brass or wood instruments. So I've been very happily "playing songs" on my drum the past few years. Sometimes by myself, sometimes with dozens of other fifers and drummers. But I still felt like something was missing. I realized it's the ability to play melodies that's missing, and to do that, I'd need to learn a new instrument.

A couple of weeks ago I felt like I need to satisfy this urge to play another instrument. I began comparing various instruments based on a reasonable amount of ease in learning, portability of the instrument, how quietly I could get it to play in my not-very-soundproof apartment, and how much I enjoy listening to the sounds that the instrument makes.

I think I probably enjoy the sound of a piano more than any other. I have taken piano lessons in the past, again not for very long, and my family owned a Conn organ for many years, which I learned to plunk out tunes with my right hand by simply memorizing the pattern of the keys. I'm also intimately familiar with what keys play what notes, and when I think of notes, the vision of piano keys pops in my head. So piano was a strong contender.

On Facebook, I asked people for suggestions, with the idea that maybe something would jump out at me that I wasn't thinking of. Fife was a good and obvious suggestion, but it's too loud for my apartment. Let's face it, fifes were used to be heard in battle! Another suggestion made was harmonica. I own one and have messed around with it, but I just don't have the enthusiasm for a harmonica.

Through all the suggestions, the one thing that stuck in the back of my mind was acoustic guitar. Mary has a saying that if you flip a coin to make a choice about something, once that coin is in the air and you find yourself hoping for one of the two options, then you've made your decision regardless of how the coin lands. I found myself hoping people would suggest guitar. So my decision was made!

An acoustic guitar fits all the criteria of what I want in a music instrument. It can be played quietly in my apartment, it can "play melodies," I can play it for hours at a time and completely enjoy what I am doing, and most important, it is motivating.

Why now? What would motivate me after giving it up in 1969 and again around 2000? Quite frankly, my snare drumming. I was a rock and roll kit drummer for 35 years before I learned rudimentary snare drumming. For all of those 35 years, it frustrated me that I could never play snare drum the way I really wanted to play it. But I proved to myself in 2008 and 2009 that if I really put my mind to it and practiced every day for a minimum of 30 minutes, that I could be the drummer I always wanted to be. I did it! And now I want to do it with guitar!

The next step was to buy a guitar. I spent a lunch hour last week at the Guitar Center, just browsing around and checking out the various guitars. They have quite a selection there, but I didn't know how to compare the quality of their products. Some guitars are "el cheapo" and I didn't want to take a chance on getting a crappy guitar versus a halfway decent guitar at a bargain price.

Since I believe in supporting small businesses anyways, I decided to go to Stutzman's Guitar Center after work that day. I knew I could trust their products. When I arrived, I quickly narrowed down the acoustic guitars in my price range and then chose one because I liked the artwork on the neck. It sounded and felt good to me, so I bought it!

I'm very happy with this guitar. It's a used guitar, but it looks brand new. Either it was rarely or never played or Stutzman's lived up to their reputation and did an awesome job restoring it. In any case, Stutzman's does beautiful work. You can't go wrong there.

My goal is to be able to play songs on my guitar by myself. I have no plans to formally join a band. But the idea of getting together with other stringed instrument players for jamming is very enticing. I'm hoping for and looking forward to the day when I can do that.

Here I am with my new acquisition:

The Art of Drumming

2011-12-16T13:36:00.000-05:00

This blog post could really be called the art of playing any music instrument, but since I play the drums, that's what my focus is.

There's a motto that I learned recently that I've been thinking about a lot. "To have a good life, you need someone to love, someone to be loved by, something to do, something to look forward to, and a good BM every day." I'm intrigued by how much wisdom there is in that single sentence. Sure, there's humor, but who can argue the point of having a good BM every day? As for the rest of the motto, aren't we always in pursuit of a good, loving relationship? If you have that, then life is good. We all want something to do. Whether's it's to indulge in a hobby, work a job, see a show or watch TV or a movie, listen to music, take a stroll or hang out with friends or loved ones, we're happiest when we are doing something. No one wants to be left in a sterile environment, staring at a blank wall. And we all look forward to something: "I can't wait for my vacation! I can't wait for Christmas! I can't wait for the weekend!" If we have nothing to look forward to, then we may as well be staring at a blank wall.

I love walking through an arts and crafts store to see the various raw materials that people use to form their own creations. People will spend many happy hours working on a painting, a pottery project, a knick knack, a doily, or a refrigerator door masterpiece. I don't think it's so much the final project that brings someone happiness, but the act of working on the project. When finished, many of these items will be given away to appreciating or unappreciating relatives, sold at an arts and crafts fair, or set on display in their own home. Over time, some of these things will surive, but very often many end up in a landfill. The point of these objects isn't the object iself; it's the hours of joy that go into creating these objects that matters.

This is what drumming is all about for me. I love picking up a pair of drum sticks and playing patterns that form drum beats and/or songs. Whether I'm playing by myself or with a group of other musicians, it feels like the organized sound we are creating is something tangible that you can almost hold. You can't actually hold it, of course, but you can move to it, groove to it, be emotionally attached to it, or become mesmerized by it. While I am playing, I "have something to do." I can drum for hours at a time and be perfectly happy. I am creating something; it is art. But as soon as I stop playing, it doesn't exist anymore. I can't give it to you or sell it to you. It can't be placed on a shelf for display or thrown into a landfill. It was never really tangible to begin with. But yet it is there.

Yet, it is art. It is subjective. Like a painting, you either like what I played or you don't like what I played. It takes many months and years of practice for me to be able to play the way I do. I have a goal to be even better than I am. I would never be satisfied creating the stick figures of a child for the rest of my life; I'd want to paint a masterpiece. I am never satisfied playing the basic drum beats I learned as a beginner; I constantly want to challenge myself and be a better drummer. It is a satisfaction that I bring to myself for doing it. It is even more fun to do with a group of other musicians. Together we are painting that masterpiece. When we finish playing, the masterpiece doesn't exist anymore. To live the good life I described in the motto, we must continually get together to paint yet another masterpiece, time and time again. We look forward to it.

And when we're done, we go off our separate ways to have a good BM. :-)

Old Photos

2011-12-12T13:14:00.000-05:00

Several years ago, I decided to scan my entire personal photo collection and keep it on my computer, along with the digital photos that I've been taking since the early 2000's. The reasons for doing this were detailed in an older blog post. http://paulsbeat.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-i-sold-my-dream-home-and-went-back.html

Some of the photos are from my parents' albums. These are photos that I always knew existed but hadn't paid much attention to until I began scanning them. There is one in particular that really stood out to me. It's this one, of me sitting on my mother's lap in 1962 when I was a year and a half old, at a picnic in our back yard. I always loved taking baby pictures of my daughters, but it's a real treat to turn the tables and see myself as the baby, or toddler in this case. Since my mother has been gone nearly ten years, this picture means even more to me now.

Downsizing

2011-12-02T20:27:00.000-05:00

So I've decided to close my website hosting account. Most of my activity will be though blogger/blogspot.com, which is free, so all of my current domains are being reset to point to here. That's why you got this page. If you have any questions about content you had seen prior to my making this move, please contact me.

My Political Philosphy

2011-11-25T21:46:00.001-05:00

After one too many political discussions on Facebook, I have decided to go back to my policy of NOT discussing politics. I plead guilty to being actively involved, and in some cases the instigator of such discussions, but the end result is always the same: I do NOT enjoy those discussions. I know better than to argue with people who have extreme political views because nothing I say is ever going to change their minds. The one advantage to having political extremists is that they cause the political pendulum to swing back and forth a bit; in the long run, that's probably healthy for the U.S.

So for those who want to know where I stand on the political spectrum, the answer is Moderate. I believe in capitalism with reasonable regulations; I believe in a mixed economy. I believe in public education and social security. I believe welfare should be abolished. I believe health care should be available to all American citizens, but I don't care whether in the end it's run by the private sector, the government or a mix of both. Just as long as it gets done. I hear too many pundits blaming unemployment and lack of health insurance on lazy welfare receipients, etc. Sure, they are out there, but my own exposure has been to mostly decent, hard-working people who are unemployed due to no fault of their own. I believe people have the right to live their lives as they wish as long as it doesn't interfere with other people.

I find the polarizing talk shows and bigmouth one-sided pundits to be very discouraging and a threat to America's well-being. I admit to being a huge fan of Rush Limbaugh for a couple of years in the early 1990's. After awhile I started to realize that I was only hearing one side of an argument; the fact is there are always two sides to an argument. The truth lies somewhere in between. Hence my "moderate" status. I believe people who only listen to pundits on one end of the spectrum are doing themselves a huge disservice. I rather like the concept of "equal time," but with the proliferation of all media beyond traditional broadcasting, it's unlikely to be workable today.

There is no way that conservatives can be right all the time or liberals can be right all the time. Society, industry, technology, communication methods and transportation methods are always evolving. What may work in one era may not work in another era. While we must learn from history, we cannot set in stone that past methods will or won't work today or in the future. It is through true, honest DISCUSSION and not mudslinging and attacks that we will find compromise on these issues.

I am very proud to be an American. It may not be a perfect country, but it is better than any other country and there is no other place I'd rather live in.

Paul Pakusch

"Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays"

2011-11-25T11:15:00.000-05:00

Once again, I'm hearing the annual debate over "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays." I roll my eyes every time I hear people giving their arguments over what should be a simple, well-intentioned greeting.

I've been using BOTH terms since long before one group decided "Merry Christmas" was offensive and the other group decided "Happy Holidays" was offensive. For me, "Happy Holidays" was the simple convenience of lumping a Christmas and New Year's greeting into one phrase since both holidays come so close together. Whether I say one or the other is never a political statement; it's exactly what I mean it to be: "Merry Christmas" means Merry Christmas, and "Happy Holidays" means Happy Holidays.

America is a free country. If someone wants to say one greeting or the other because one has more meaning for them than the other, then so be it. The person receiving the greeting should accept the well-wishes and reply appropriately without taking offense. If a store or business wants its employees to use one term or another, then that is the businesses' prerogative. Likewise, if a customer really finds a greeting to be so offensive that they can't shop there, then they are free to go somewhere else.

It should be noted that Christmas, like any other holiday, is what people want it to be. It has evolved through the years with both secular and non-secular traditions. For some, it is a religious holiday and they treat it as such. For others, it's a day for family gatherings with no religious meaning. Others prefer to ignore it altogether. There is nothing wrong with any of these observances; like I said, America is a free country and people are free to celebrate holidays however they see fit.

If You Can't Say Anything Nice.....

2011-09-06T11:37:00.001-04:00

As an armchair weather geek, I first became interested in a Youtube video a couple of days ago of a tornado crossing the New York State Thruway. It was shot by a young woman who stopped at the Mohawk rest stop with the intention of waiting out the storm, which she said had quite a bit of cloud to ground lightning. As as a weather geek herself, she spent her time in the car getting video of the lightning. Perfectly understandable. I've done that myself. What caught her completely off guard was a tornado that suddenly appeared in front of her.

I was among the first 300 people to view this video on Youtube less than 48 hours ago. As of this writing, that video now has well over 120,000 views, and naturally, plenty of comments. What I find to be really annoying is the number of negative comments; people criticizing her repeated exclamations of "Oh, my God!", people criticizing her choice to stay in the car, and people just generally attacking her actions and reactions. I can't comprehend how these people can criticize someone when they are safely watching this video on a computer, hiding behind their internet anonymity, and not in the position that she unexpectedly found herself in: Inside her car with a tornado that appears to be about a half mile away from her (and thankfully not moving in her direction).

This is just one example of what I think is a disturbing trend of negativity, especially on the internet. I've experienced ridiculous negative comments myself with a couple of Youtube postings. Negativity is especially bad on political forums. I was involved with one political forum for several years and finally stopped my participation when I woke up to the fact that the regulars among the group didn't care what I said, whether I agreed with them or not. Because my political ideaology was different from theirs, their only interest was in personally attacking me on any topic. They have a lot of pent up anger. Probably because they spend too much time complaining among themselves that this country will never meet their extremist ideals.

It follows on Facebook, too. I see certain people posting nothing but negative comments about our current President. Facebook is supposed to be social, isn't it? How can it be social when you're only using it as a platform to further demean our President? Based on these Facebook posts, you'd think Obama is 100% wrong in every single thing he does. I'm not saying I like everything he does, but geez, this is just nothing but pure negativity. I've already dropped several Facebook friends because of their constant political rants, and I'm very close to dropping others if they don't stop with their constant negative posts and be a little more "social."

Talk radio is a problem, too. Certain talk radio hosts, TV hosts, and column writers on both sides of the aisle base their entire career on trashing their political ideaology enemies. They get paid a lot of money for it too, thanks to the readers, viewers and listeners who they get riled up. If you are one of the people who take in a daily dose of vile from these one-sided hosts or regulars, I feel sorry for you. You are doing yourself a great disservice by listening to only one viewpoint. It's said that there are always two sides to an argument; the truth is somewhere in the middle. So, do your blood pressure a favor and stop listening to these anger-inducing bigmouths.

New bookkeeping business is officially launched!

2011-07-18T21:22:00.000-04:00

After four years of planning for it, tonight I officially launched my bookkeeping business. In May, I had set September 1 as the launch date, but after spending a lot of time crossing the t's and dotting the i's last week, I realized there was nothing holding me back. So I did a mental checklist of things that need to be in place and decided to launch it.

What does "launching it" actually mean? Simply that I'm now advertising it. On Facebook, Craigslist, LinkedIn, and the website, http://www.paulpakusch.com/.

Oh, I've been doing bookkeeping all along. More than 20 years as treasurer for my union local, treasurer for a couple other non-profit organizations, bookkeeper for the Henrietta Foundation, and now a degree in Accounting. It's just that publishing a website, networking through social sites and advertising on Craigslist make it all official.

Some people have asked me if I'm leaving my job at Channel 10. I have no plans to leave anytime soon. Bookkeeping will be on the side and will eventually be my "retirement job." But I have no specific date in mind.

And for those that have asked, yes I will be preparing personal tax returns. Seems like I got asked that question more often than any other question while I was taking classes for my accounting degree. There is a new requirement by the IRS that tax preparers must be registered with them, so I did register and I am all set to start in January.

Oh, how did I do in school, you ask? Very well, thank you! Got mostly A's in all my classes and graduated "With Distinction!"

Now to get the ball rolling, I'd appreciate any referrals, thank you very much!

Are You Prepared for New Advances in Computer Technology?

2011-06-21T11:19:00.000-04:00

I was reading an old message I had sent to one of my daughters about how much computers have changed in my lifetime. She was wondering if she'd be able to keep up with the changes in computer technology. My answer was designed to imply that no matter how prepared you think you are, technology is probably going to take a course that you're not expecting. Here's what I wrote to her:

"Well, computers have been around all my life, but in a nutshell, here's the progress of my experience with it: High School and college, we had mainframes and punch cards. To "talk" to a computer, you had to know BASIC language, which almost nobody uses anymore. PC's started coming around in the 1980's, and then DOS became popular, followed by a now-ancient version of Windows. Most PC's were sold with no software loaded; you had to understand the language (BASIC or DOS) and install it yourself. I initially used database programs that I could program myself and I got good at it. When those started getting replaced by "easier" programs that did all the work for you, I had a hard time with it until I finally allowed myself to completely change my way of thinking. And this was all before I was even 30! Computer geeks got together and connected with eachother through BBS's, then taught the rest of us how to use them on dial-in modems. Then one day in the early 1990's a friend showed me something called a "web site." I thought it looked cool but I couldn't comprehend how anybody was going to use it on a BBS. So I ignored it for awhile. Well, the internet took off in the mid 1990's and you know the rest. So that's a glimpse of computer technology over the past 30 years. That will give you some idea of what to expect for the next 30 years. What you see now bears little resemblence to what will exist 30 years from now. There's a lot of technology "fashion" ideas and fads out there, no one knows which route will survive. So, choose carefully and hope you pick the right route!"

Global Warming

2011-05-31T15:54:00.002-04:00

I've listened to a lot of arguments about global warming and have come to my own conclusion: Global warming, whether it exists or not, is a SCIENCE and should never be about politics.

Politics means you have taken a position that fits an organization's agenda and that your position is unlikely to change, unless the organization itself changes its position. The fact is there are WAY too many variables in the earth's atmosphere, its seas, various landscapes, and ever-changing climate and water patterns around the world to be able to say that humankind is causing the earth's temperature to rise. It's also a fact that the earth historically has gone through cold and warm cycles. It's also a fact that ocean levels have risen and fallen through the centuries. It's also a fact that there have been some massive volanic eruptions through the ages that have had a major effect on the earth's atmosphere; probably more of an effect than humans could ever achieve.

Maybe humans have an effect, maybe they don't. The earth has the capability to wipe out all of us in an instant if some cataclysmic event were to occur. The earth, therefore, has much more control over us than we have of the earth. Anyone seen any tornadoes lately? Oh sure, some of you are going to say that global warming is causing an increase in severe weather conditions that cause these tornadoes. My answer to that is, prove it. Prove to me that humankind is single-handedly causing more intense storms, and that el nino, el nina, climate cycles, ocean cycles, the jet stream, natural warming or cooling cycles, and two massive volcanic eruptions in Iceland over the past year have had no effect on the formation of these tornadoes. And leave political agendas out of your argument.

It's all about science! I believe that when it comes to global warming, people need to stop listening to politicians who have an agenda.

Watching Good Skills Fade Away

2011-05-03T15:58:00.000-04:00

I am a private pilot that has been inactive since the Fall of 2007. Prior to that, I flew Piper, Cessna and Beechcraft aircraft for 17 years. I was fanatical about my aviation hobby and spent all my time thinking about it. For anyone keeping count, I stopped a little short of 600 hours total time and I had an IFR rating. There were a myriad of reasons why I chose to give it up when I did, but that’s not the point of this blog entry.

I do miss flying from time to time, but what bothers me more than anything else about not flying is the fact that I am capable of doing it. Flying was a skill that I was proud to learn; one of my biggest accomplishments in life. Once learned, it was a pure joy to put those skills into action.

Other pilots will understand me when I brag about the finesse it takes to use light movements on the yoke so you don’t over-control the aircraft. I do occasionally play in my mind the routine of setting up a high-performance aircraft for landing: Setting the rpm, manifold and trim for the correct pitch and speed, and then tweaking as necessary to keep it there. Then flaps and further adjustments for different segments of the landing routine. The payoff comes when you find yourself smoothly gliding to your landing target on the runway, you reduce power and hold the yoke back until the main gear touch the runway. Then you keep holding it back until the nosewheel settles. Yeah, it’s a good feeling! Even better when you’ve mastered that in a strong crosswind and the pilot sitting next to you congratulates you! (Yes, I’ve been congratulated, thank you very much!)

Could I smoothly do it today, after three and a half years? I’d like to believe I could.

Then there’s IFR (instrument) flying. It’s another whole set of skills and rules that enable you to fly in clouds or other low visibility. I think that was the toughest thing I’ve ever trained for in my life. I never took it in stride because I know that if you mess up, the price could be your life. Here you need even more finesse with your control inputs to keep the plane heading where you want it to go at the altitude where you should be at. I was proud as hell when I passed the written exam with a 95% (I got a 96% earlier for my primary written exam). I had to retake one portion of the IFR flight test when I boned the NDB approach. In my case, the controller took me right past the final approach intersection and then I had to recover. I ended up too high to make a safe landing so we tried again. This time I messed up my intercept heading. Ugh. After some “additional instruction,” I did my final NDB approach a couple weeks later flawlessly and passed (pilots, are you having nightmares now about NDB approaches?). That was in 1998 and I have not done an NDB approach since then. No need to. They’ve basically been phased out in favor of GPS approaches. After passing that test, I don’t know if I was more thrilled or simply relieved.

My skills are slowly fading away. To some extent, they will always be there, like riding a bicycle. But the acquired touch and finesse will atrophy. That’s what bothers me most about being an inactive pilot. I was proud to earn my pilot’s license and IFR rating, and it was always a thrill to fly, especially to take people for airplane rides (I flew 112 Young Eagles!). But I hate seeing my flying skills go to waste.

Will I ever become active again? I honestly don’t know. Right now I just don’t want to spend the money on it. So we’ll see.

Sleepy Air Traffic Controller

2011-03-24T10:31:00.001-04:00

As is often the case, the media reports about the two jets who landed at Reagan National Airport without tower clearance are being blown out of proportion. The problem with these reports is that most people in the media do not understand how these procedures work. I'm a private pilot and I use the same procedures that the airliners use.

Airliners routinely file flight plans under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). What this means is that they will be in contact with air traffic control through all segments of the flight. Generally, you are cleared for takeoff by the control tower at your departing airport, you contact Flight Departure once you're outside the immediate control area (usually a 5-mile radius), then you are handed off to Air Route Control (ARTCC) for the high altitude portion of your flight.

You continue getting handed off from one ARTCC to another until you are near your destination airport. Then it works in reverse. You contact Flight Arrival for vectors into the airport, then during the last five miles you are in contact with Tower Control. It was the lone tower controller who was apparently asleep in this case.

In spite of all the hysteria about "airliners landing without control near Washington" being flashed in the media, there is no way these airliners could have gone as close to Reagan National unnoticed. They would have been in contact with ARTCC throughout their entire flight and Flight Approach would have guided them to the airport tower control area. The last communication from Approach Control to the pilots would have been something like, "Maintain xxx number of feet until established on the localizer, contact tower at xxx frequency." At that point, the pilots would have turned their radio to the tower frequency. They were ALREADY cleared to enter the tower airspace. They just didn't have clearance to land on the runway. It's a bigger deal around Washington because, unless you have prior clearance to come within 50 miles of Washington, you won't enter that airspace without setting off all kinds of security alerts.

It's a judgment call at this point. When you're on an IFR flight plan, the standard policy when you lose communications is to continue to the airport and land. Theoretically, the airspace would be "cleared" for you and air traffic control would be watching you until you land.

What I heard is that the pilots in this case decided to treat the airport as a non-towered airport. For that, the standard procedure is to follow a pattern around the airport and make radio calls at various segments of the pattern. The runway in this case was not indicated as closed either by a Notice to Airmen or by a lighted "X" indicating a closed runway. So they followed the non-tower procedures and landed. My initial thought is that this seemed like a logical thing to do. Perhaps they could have gone back to Approach Control or gone to another airport, such as Dulles.

No one got hurt and no security rules were broken that I'm aware of. Now let's watch all the politicians grandstand about this.

Exercise

2011-02-12T15:25:00.000-05:00

Did I ever say exercise was easy? If I did, I meant exercising is easy. However, getting MOTIVATED to get out and exercise....well, that's another story. Once I get started exercising, staying the course is easy.

The past couple of years I had done extremely well with exercising. I regularly did something an average of four or five times a week, which included bike riding (my favorite), using an elliptical, swimming, or simply going for a long walk, which includes marching in parades. Summertime has always been the best time for me because I'd do any of these activities a lot.

So I dread winter. And that's when the excuses come in. Except this winter it has been worse than usual. I could blame the cold or the fact that the Downtown Fitness Club closed its hot tub, which was always an incentive for me to swim first and then sit in the hot tub, but I really only need to blame myself.

"I don't feel like going out in the cold to get there!" Blah blah blah. For the past week I had a gym bag packed with my bathing suit and accessories, all set for the Fitness Club. I kept meaning to go there, but the idea of walking in the cold and then doing the cold walk from the locker room to the pool completely turned me off.

So today I got back to my best motivator: I packed my gym bag with sneakers, shorts and my mp3 player to go and use the elliptical. Boy did that rush of endorphines feel good! Music that excites me motivates me to exercise, and then exercising itself brings on the endorphines to keep me going! After a half hour of that, I had worked up enough internal heat to throw on the trunks and go for a swim afterwards!

I feel like I'm back in the routine again!

Heartwalk

2011-01-17T11:57:00.000-05:00

Mary and I will be participating in the American Heart Associations' "Heartwalk" again this year on April 9. It starts at the War Memorial in downtown Rochester and goes through Corn Hill. It's a nice 3-mile walk.

Mary is a two-time survivor of Sudden Cardiac Arrest. We are supporting the Heart Association's fundraising efforts for research. Our team is "Mary's Team." We would love to have people join our team for the walk and/or make a donation to the American Heart Association. Here is our team page:
http://heartwalk.kintera.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=424965&team=4033148

Mary was the "poster child" for this event in 2008. Here is the video they made about her:

Booze, Drugs and Fame

2011-01-12T15:30:00.002-05:00

I've been following the story of Ted Williams, the homeless guy with the golden radio voice. On the surface, it sure does seem like he just needs a second chance and yes, he is getting it. But I can already see he is dangerously close to ending up right back where he was. He has a substance abuse problem and that's not going to go away easily; especially if he is now dealing with fame and a sudden inflow of cash.

I know how tough it is to get over chemical addictions. I've seen several family members go through it, mostly unsuccessfully. Ted is showing the same characteristics that they did. They lie and make it sound like everything is going to be wonderful from now on. Then they slip right back into their old habits. I wonder what will happen if he falls off the wagon again. After a couple weeks of being on national TV shows, will he be tossed off to the side of a road again? Will the public reject him after they see what his nine adults kids see in him? Or will the public still love him?

Last night I happened to watch some Youtube clips of Judy Garland on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1968. One year before she died of a drug overdose. I've only seen her as a young woman in movies, acting out scripts, so I don't know what her real speech patterns were like back in those days. But the 46-year old woman that I watched in those Youtube clips sounded slurred to me. We now know how much she was addicted to drugs at that time. Yet the public still loved that slurring Judy.

Judy lived the appearance of a glamorous life, while Ted lived in homeless shelters. Both dealt with chemical addictions. Was Judy really any different from Ted?

Changed?

2010-12-21T08:56:00.001-05:00

A letter in today's Dear Abby column really hit home with me. The letter was written by a woman whose 20-year old daughter had been killed in a car accident. Many people had asked the usual question, "Is there anything I can do for you?" Two years later, the woman is saying what people can do is accept her for the way she is now. She has changed. Her relationships with other people have changed and so has her outlook on life.

This is where I can relate to her. I've had several incidents in my life which have changed my outlook on life. In some ways I may look more paranoid...or does it mean I'm just more cautious?

It' a strange play on odds, too. It all started in the year 2000 when it was discovered that my mother had pancreatic cancer. She had always seemed healthy. What were the odds that she would have cancer? And for that matter, a type of deadly cancer that can kill you within weeks or months? But she beat those odds by living another two years.

We often hear the expression, "Drop dead." What are the odds of that happening to someone? Well, that literally happened when Mary had her Sudden Cardiac Arrest in 2006. We were in the middle of a conversation when she clinically dropped dead. She had no heartbeat for at least eight minutes. Although she was shocked twice with a defibrillator and survived the initial SCA, I was told her long-term chances of survival were about 5% and to be prepared to make a decision about pulling the plug. She beat those odds and now lives a mostly normal life. She had another SCA in December 2007 but this time was saved by her ICD.

Everyone expects their pet to live to about a certain age and perhaps have to deal with a sick pet when he's older. You accept the fact that eventually you may have to agonize over the decision to put him down. What are the odds that you'll take your pet to a routine vet appointment, only to be told that he has a massive tumor and has literally days or weeks to live? Yup. Happened to us. Advice was to take him home, say our goodbyes, and bring him back as soon as practical. Otherwise, he would be at very high risk of a horribly painful death. Our seemingly-healthy beautiful Chocolate Lab was gone in two days.

I used to have what I felt was an irrational fear of fire. I once never imagined living in an apartment building because I feared that neighbors' carelessness could set the building on fire. I reasoned that as long as I lived in my own house, I'd always be cautious and never have to put myself at risk in an apartment building. So in 2006 when Mary and I decided to sell our house and go back to renting, I reasoned with myself and decided the odds were in my favor. In an apartment complex with well over 100 units, what were the odds that a neighboring apartment would set my building on fire? Guess what. It happened less than two years after we moved there. Our next-door townhouse was heavily damaged by a fire. Thanks to a firewall, ours was fortunate to escape the flames, but the smoke left our townhouse uninhabitable for three weeks. Oh, well. Now that it happened, what are the odds that I'll have another apartment fire in my lifetime?

So am I paranoid now or cautious? I often worry about the odds of a loved one having a car accident. I worry about my daughters having cardiac arrests (we still don't know if the cause of Mary's were genetic or not). I worry about a certain someone's smoking habits and the kind of health problems smoking often brings. In general, when I am faced with decisions, I usually choose the less risky option.

These things have changed me. Maybe not so much as a mother who lost her child, but I do feel I am more cautious/paranoid and I am calmer about a lot of not-so-important things. I appreciate each day of life. You never know how the odds will work for you.

The Truth Behind Pi

2010-12-09T21:54:00.006-05:00

I have just uncovered the awful truth behind the number Pi, which mathematicians claim is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space. That is pure poppycock, designed to bring grief to generations of high school math students.

I now know that Pi (3.14159265...) is the multiplier used to determine the true cost and time that a home project will take. For example, you may plan for a weekend project to take 16 hours, or 8 hours both days over a weekend. Any home handyman knows, but won't admit, that any project he begins will not finish as planned. So take that 16 hours and multiply it by 3.14159265.... Include all the decimal places. Yes, I know that's a transcendental, or never-ending number, but home projects are never-ending, aren't they? Pi is supposed to have something to do with it being the value of the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius, but that fallacy is based on the fact that home projects just keep going around in circles.

Therefore, your 16 hour project multiplied by Pi will actually take 50.265481... hours. Much longer than a single weekend! A project you expect to take a week at 8 hours a day (going well into the night after working your regular job all day and commuting), will come to a realistic amount of 175.92918... hours. The good news is that these figures include the 3 or 4 extra trips you make to Home Depot to pick up the things you forgot, plus the time standing around chatting with your buddies who came over to help.

Pi is also used in budgeting the cost of a project. Think your weekend project is going to cost $500? When multiplied by Pi, it's really $1,570.7963.... Oh yeah, keep adding those transcendental decimals! Home project costs are never-ending, aren't they?

Again, there's good news on the cost, too because you won't actually spend $1,570.7963... of your imaginary credit card money on materials. This calculation figures in the beer consumed during the project, the gas wasted on those 3 or 4 extra trips to Home Depot, the Happy Meals purchased to keep the kids happy while you ignore them, and the propane used for the steaks plus wear and tear on the George Foreman grill.

So, there you have it! The truth behind Pi!

Carnival Splendor

2010-11-12T13:27:00.001-05:00

I've been very intrigued the past few days while following reports of the Carnival Splendor. As daughter Kristi said in a Facebook comment, I'm almost jealous that I wasn't on it. For those who were on board, it will be a story to tell for the rest of their lives!

Once the engine fire was out, it doesn't appear that anyone was in any danger. Fortunately they had good weather. If the weather had been such that there were large waves, then real discomfort would have set in as the ship would simply bounce around on the waves. As long as a ship has engine power, it can handle large swells.

I had said in an early Facebook post that I would have considered the experience to be an adventure. Apparently that's what a lot of the passengers called it. With no electricity, dark rooms and flash lights, it would have been more like a camping experience. It appears they had a lot of sing-alongs to pass the time; that equates to a camping experience!

It's been said that you can't always control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it. The reports coming back from the passengers are just that: Some people complaining how horrible it was while other people kept a good attitude and handled the situation as best as they could. I like the Navy guy who had spent years on military ships; he said he loved every moment of this! If I was on board, I would have walked up to the band and said, "Hey guys, can I jam with you?" I also think it would have been awesome to see the aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan up close while it was deliverirng food supplies!

I'm not deterred by any of this at all. I plan to do a lot of cruising during the rest of my life and I expect there will be times when things aren't as good as they should be. So be it. The good times will outweigh the bad and I will deal with whatever happens as best as I can.

As of this moment, I cannot wait to go on my next cruise!!

Radio

2010-11-04T21:08:00.001-04:00

I now have a new link above to "Paul's Mevio Audio." Here you will find recordings of some of my old radio shows from 1978 to 1986. There's only a couple there now but I will be adding more shows in the upcoming weeks.

Most of my radio shows were of rock and roll oldies. Except for a recording of a DJ show I did on the old WSAY. That one was a mix of old songs and adult contemporary of 1982.

Return to ASL

2010-11-04T15:42:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, I joined my daughter, Kristi in her American Sign Language class. It was an awakening for me because I had taken the class myself in 2006. What stood out to me most was how much I had forgotten! Yikes!

Taking that class in 2006 was my first college course since graduating with a BA in Communications in 1983. I was 45 and had no intention of going any further than just learning sign language. It was a short summer course; one that I call a "cram course" because instead of earning 3 credit-hours over a full semester, you cram everything into about 4 weeks or so. We met for a few hours each day several times during the week. Total immersion! Yes, that's the way to learn a language! And lest anyone think otherwise, ASL is recognized as a language and it is not any easier than learning a foreign language.

I did well with the class, earned a B+, and then began ASL 2. That was interrupted by my wife, Mary's sudden cardiac arrest. I dropped out, turned to more urgent matters, and for various reasons never returned.

A year later, I decided to go back to college for a AAS in Accounting. I've been taking those courses part-time and doing very well with them, thank you very much. I'm now taking my final required course for the program and have nothing left except for a co-op, which I will be doing for the spring semester of 2011.

Enter daughter Kristi. Earlier this year she had exposure to the Deaf world and fell in love with American Sign Language. She is now taking her first courses toward becoming a ASL interpreter. I told her I would take ASL 2 in the spring semester so we can practice together. Being hard of hearing, I have always wanted to know ASL but never had anyone in my life with whom I could use it on a frequent basis. Just like a foreign language, you have to use it or you lose it. Now Kristi and I can learn it together.

She asked me if I'd like to sit in on one of her classes and I said yes, so she got permission from the instructor for me to be there. Oh my! I can't believe how much I lost over four years! After watching the class for awhile, yes, some of it started coming back to me but I need to do some serious review before we start the class in late January! I'll be getting Kristi's textbook and DVD's, so that will be a start. Then we'll be doing some practice together in December and January. I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun!

As a footnote, the ASL 1 class I took in 2006 does in fact count towards my AAS degree. ASL 1 was the first class and now ASL 2 will be the final class!

How I Will Spend Election Day

2010-11-01T00:01:00.001-04:00

As has been the case for most election days in recent years, I will spend election day working long hours for my TV station. Our news crews, consisting of reporters and photographers, will be out among the candidates, interviewing them. My role is as part of the technical crew that gets them on the air live throughout the late afternoon and into the evening.

Normally I spend about half of my work days in the control room at WHEC and the other half in an office where I coordinate all the daily local and syndicated program recordings and playbacks. Our engineering maintenance team needs a couple extra bodies on election day to spread out among the locations where we'll be doing our live shots. I'm one of those extra bodies for election day.

We usually have a team set up at each of the Democratic and Republican election night headquarters, and occasionally a third party headquarter if there is a prominent candidate in that election. In Rochester, the Democrats are in the ballroom at the Hyatt Regency downtown, and the Republicans are at the newly-renamed Radisson Hotel, which up until last year was a Clarion. Old-timers still remember that it originally was a Holiday Inn. These hotels are right across the street from each other, so it makes our technical operations a lot more convenient than they would be if the locations were miles apart.

The ballrooms of the hotels each have a stage set up at one end with a podium for the candidates and party officials to make their speeches. Most of the room is left wide open so the party members and candidates can work the room. Additional platforms are set up around the edges of the room for the media. Each participating member of the media gets a platform with a table on it or next to it, with a full view of the stage. The TV stations usually set up one camera pointed in the direction of the stage so the reporter can be seen talking with the stage behind him or her. We usually have two microphones; one for the reporter and one up on the podium. And that's what I do during the live broadcasts; I turn the microphones on or off, depending on whether we want to hear our reporter, the speaker at the podium, or both.

My day will start at 12:00 noon. I will already have voted, of course. I will arrive at the TV station to help bring the last load of gear needed for both party's headquarters. The regular engineering staff will have already set up some equipment the day before election day. Due to the physical layouts of the buildings involved, the Democratic headquarters is more complicated to set up, so we start at the Hyatt. We set up our equipment on the tables provided, including audio mixers, an amplifier, monitoring equipment, and telephone/communications equipment to stay in touch with the control room back at the station. We run mike cables around and we run audio/video cables from the hotel ballroom, up several flights of stairs and through a hatch in the hotel roof where we set up a transmitter. The transmitter is how we get our audio/video signal back to the station. It used to be we'd run another 500 feet of cable from the roof of the Hyatt to a truck parked on the roof of the South Avenue Parking garage, where the transmitter was located. That transmitter was pointed straight at Pinnacle Hill, where our receiver is. Now, since we have new digital equipment, we can eliminate that step and just set up a transmitter on the roof of the Hyatt.

After Democratic Headquarters is set up, we go across the street to the Radisson and do a similar set-up in their ballroom. The difference is that we don't need to go up on the roof. Instead, there is a closet with a window next to the ballroom where we set up a small transmitter and point it to our receiver, on top of the First Federal Plaza right across the river. Much simpler!

There generally isn't much activity at these Headquarters until around 9:00 in the evening. Our newscasts begin at 5:00 and we do live shots from each location. Usually we'll get some party leaders to come in and talk about the election during those newscasts. My job during this time is to generally oversee our setup and to run audio during live shots. There's a lot of down time during the early evening hours. I'm usually assigned to Republican Headquarters at the Radisson. I enjoy the band that they hire each year and get an opportunity to chat with the band members.

The candidates and other party members usually start trickling in around 9:00 after the polls close. Each TV station shows live results as the numbers are coming in, so party members and candidates often congregate around the monitors of each of our stations to watch the numbers. The air becomes electric as some of the race results start to become obvious. You can see the excitement of the winners and the fake smiles of the losers. We often have live updates from Headquarters as the evening progresses, so there will be live shots from time to time. When final results are in, the reporters from each station scramble to try to get the candidates on their station first for a reaction interview.

We do a full newscast at 11:00 with live updates from all the party headquarters. This is usually pretty hectic. Most of the results are usually in by 11:00 and the party leaders know that everything they do at the podium at 11:00 will be carried live by all the media present. The producer back at the station must make instant decisions regarding which location we will be going to live. A lot of it is based on who the reporters can grab for an interview. Some years the 11:00 news is a half-hour show. This year, because it's both a heavily contested race and a Governor's race, we will be live until midnight.

The room clears out quickly after the coverage is done and the partying continues in private suites upstairs, where no media is present. Then for us comes the dreaded tear-down. We're already tired from a long day and we must gather up all of our cables and equipment, load it into vehicles, and drive it back to the station. If I'm lucky, I'll be home by 1:30 AM.

"Herman's Diary" - A Short Story

2010-10-31T00:01:00.001-04:00

Herman’s Diary

By Paul Pakusch

1945 - Rummaging through the debris of a bombed building, Army Air Corps Pilot Jim Meara was looking for German artifacts to take home as war souvenirs. He found a small vault, which had been blown open by the force of an explosion. Inside was a leather-bound diary written by a man named Herman. No last name was given.

Jim took the diary and read it on the return voyage to the United States. Herman had been a disciple of Albert Einstein, who fled Germany in 1933. The diary contained notes on a secret weapon; one that Herman originally had hoped to help make Germany the greatest country in the world.

The weapon was a time machine; Herman had documented plans, theories and tests of various components. The concept involved flying an airplane into a thunderstorm to harness its awesome power to propel the craft backwards or forward through time. With this flying time machine, Herman theorized that someone could change events to alter the course of history.

The diary entries abruptly ended in September 1939 with no explanation. “The German invasion of Poland,” thought Jim. “Maybe Herman disappeared for some reason.”

There was no indication whether the time machine had ever been built or tested or whatever had happened to Herman.

As a pilot, Jim knew that flying into thunderstorms was dangerous. A storm could suck an airplane into its belly and spit it out in pieces. But Herman had written down theories on how to build great strength into an airplane to hold it together.

Jim returned to a war hero’s welcome in his hometown of College Park, Maryland. A great party was thrown for him; he was an Ace who had also conducted some daring rescue missions in occupied France. His wife, Doris, embraced him and so did other family members and friends.

Suddenly, Jim’s eyes met the most beautiful face he had ever seen. His heart started racing as this young woman reached out to hug him. Haltingly, he reached out too, but she could see by the look on his face that he did not recognize her. Laughingly, she told him that she was his neighbor, whom he had not seen since the war started almost four years earlier.

Margaret! Of course! Now he recognized her. She was now 19 and had blossomed into a truly rare beauty. After exchanging some small talk to catch up, Jim turned to the remaining guests who were waiting to greet him.

That night, Jim and Doris made love for the first time in almost four years. Jim had not been totally faithful while based in England as some of the young native ladies were all too willing to satisfy the desires of American fighter pilots. Jim had hoped he could put that behind him as a wartime casualty and get a new start with Doris. But on this night, he could only see the face of Margaret.

Months passed as Jim resettled into life at home. Secretly, he studied Herman’s diary. He was fascinated at the prospects of traveling through time, but dared to tell no one of his possession. He bought a surplus Piper Cub and used Herman’s theories to build strength into it. This was a secret project; Jim had told no one about the diary. If it fell into the wrong hands, time travel could be catastrophic to the very existence of mankind. Using Herman’s theories as a guide, he wired the Cub with hidden electronic gadgets designed to carry the aircraft and its occupant into the past or the future.

The strength tests all appeared successful. Jim flew the Cub into mountainous areas on windy days to challenge its strength. It would need to be strong enough to survive the ripping forces of thunderstorms.

When the Cub was finished and its tests passed with satisfaction, Jim watched for the signs of a thunderstorm. On the day a cold front was coming through, Jim could see the distinctive anvil shape of thunderheads in the distance.

Launching his Cub towards the storms, Jim trembled. He was reminded of his first fighter escort flight into the thick flak over Nazi Germany. He tightened his seat belt and headed straight for the center of a cumulonimbus cloud, something no sane pilot would do. He turned on the switch for the time machine, which had been set for the year 1865. Plunging into the darkness of the cloud, Jim could no longer see anything outside the windows. The turbulence was horrendous. He could feel the plane shoot up hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet in seconds. Lightning flashed through the darkness and he was momentarily blinded. Was the Cub harnessing the storm’s energy? Was the time machine activating?

Suddenly, Jim was blinded by bright sunshine. The plane was in a spin. He recovered from the spin and looked around. Nothing but beautiful, white scattered clouds over a forested and rivered landscape.

He turned back to the College Park airport. It wasn’t there! And College Park was nothing like the small town be had left only moments ago.

1865 - In the distance, Jim could make out the shape of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington. He dared not venture there because he did not want to attract attention with an airplane. Airplanes did not exist in 1865.

Finding an open field, Jim landed the Cub and changed into some 1860’s style clothing be had purchased from a costume shop. He also had with him some vintage coins he bought at a coin shop.

Jim walked a good distance until he reached Washington. It was Good Friday, April 14, 1865, and the city was in a festive mood. The Civil War had ended only days earlier. Jim walked the streets, observing the differences between 1865 and 1945. Knowing the fate that awaited President Lincoln that evening, Jim purchased a ticket to see the play, “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre. He sat on the second level near the flag-draped Presidential Box. After the play began, President Lincoln’s party finally arrived and Lincoln appeared in the Presidential Box, with the orchestra playing “Hail to the Chief.” The audience rose for a standing ovation.

Jim paid little attention to the play. He kept glancing toward the door of the Presidential Box and the bodyguard standing there. Jim’s heart raced. History was about to be made and he was going to witness it!

The bodyguard left his post and went downstairs to watch the play. Suddenly, Jim felt the urge to run over and guard the door. But he resisted the temptation, knowing that he should not tamper with history.

During the third act, Jim observed a shadowy figure slip to the door, unnoticed by anyone else. As the audience, watching the play, burst into laughter, the figure swung the door open. A moment later, Jim heard a scream coming from the box. Impulsively, he jumped up and ran toward the door, just as a man with a smoking gun in one hand and a hunting knife in the other hand stepped out. The man hesitated when he came face to face with Jim, then turned back through the booth, jumped out the front and crashed onto the stage below. John Wilkes Booth struggled up, yelled, “Sic semper tyrannis,” and hobbled off the stage.

People began shouting and shoving for the exits. Even though had known what was about to happen, the moment still stunned Jim. Lincoln was carried to a house across the street and Jim followed the crowd to stand outside.

Jim realized that he had nearly interfered with history by standing in the way of John Wilkes Booth. He felt privileged to be able to witness history and vowed that he must not get in the way of anything in his travels through time.

Jim slept in a boardinghouse that night and had to wait for another thunderstorm before he could return to 1945. When he did, he set the time machine to return him to the moment he had originally left. That way, no one would know he had been gone.

Jim continued his time travels. He had gone back in time to witness historic moments and bad gone forward in time to see the future. His first visit to the year 1974 appalled him. He hated the clothing styles and longhaired men; He hated the music that was popular. Cars were ugly. The President of the United States was under investigation for covering up a crime. What kind of a world would he be living in when he reached the age of 54?

2007 - Jim emerged from his Cub in the year 2007 at the College Park airport.

Jim walked to Ford’s Theatre and stood on the front sidewalk. A disheveled, longhaired bearded man with ragged clothes walked up to him.

“Are you a tourist?” said the man.

“Yes, I am,” said Jim.

“This is Ford’s Theatre. It’s where Lincoln got shot.”

“Yes, I know,” said Jim.

Then he pointed across the street and continued, “And that’s the House Where Lincoln Died. I have some brochures here for tourists. I’m a Vietnam Veteran. For a donation to the Vietnam Vets, you can get this brochure and find all the attractions here in Washington.”

“You’re a war veteran?” asked Jim.

“Yes.”

Jim looked him over. From his trip to 1974, he already knew that the war in Vietnam had been unpopular, but why were its veterans dressed like this and reduced to selling brochures on the street?

“Here’s a donation,” Jim said, handing him a five-dollar bill.

“Thank you,” said the man. “Enjoy your visit to Washington.”

Jim saw the sights of Washington and ended up at the Air and Space Museum. He saw how aviation would advance through the years and that travel into space would be possible, even landing on the moon. It was all very exciting but he found it discomforting.

His own world, the late 1940’s, was ideal. The country was enjoying an economic boom that Jim knew, from his time travels, would continue through the 1950’s. He loved the music, the cars, the fashions, and the patriotic atmosphere that enveloped society.

Yes, there were to be difficult times, including the Cold War and the Korean conflict, but Jim had an unusual vantage point that showed him the United States would survive these times intact. Thus, Jim knew that he could enjoy the 1940’s and 1950’s worry-free.

Better yet, Jim would be able to profit from his foresight. He could make investments that he knew would shower him with huge riches. His investments would be totally risk-free. By using time travel, he could go into the future to determine which stocks would gain in price. Then he would return to his own time to invest in those stocks. He would continue to tell no one about his time travels or his process for choosing stocks. He would not tell Doris about his investments.

Jim was losing interest in Doris. He was no longer attracted to her. He could not stop thinking about Margaret, whom he had seen in passing from time to time, but she suddenly moved away unexpectedly in the spring of 1946. She and her parents had left town and put their house up for sale without giving a reason.

Jim formulated a plan for his life. He would continue his time travels in order to choose his investments, which would be used to quietly amass a huge fortune. He would enjoy his life through the year 1963. Then he would return to the year 1945, change his identity, and live through the 1940’s and 1950’s AGAIN! Since his body would continue to age, he would begin his second journey in 1945 and live through those golden years as a much older and richer 43-year old man. His older body would be his disguise. He could walk the streets under a new identity and no one would know he was the same person as the younger 25-year old Jim Meara. He would live through his beloved 1940’s and 1950’s twice and become very rich.

Jim thanked Herman, whoever he was, wherever he was, for writing the diary.

1963 - Jim helped Doris get her luggage out of the car and into the airport. She was going to visit some relatives. Doris gave Jim a kiss. “Have a good time,” said Jim.

As he stood there, an older man with a derby walked up to him and flashed a broad smile, then he turned and walked into the airport.

Jim waited and watched as the plane took off and disappeared from view. He looked at his watch. He drove to a diner and ordered a cheeseburger and French fries. As he ate in silence, he frequently looked at his watch.

“Are you waiting for someone?” a voice said. Jim was startled and he looked up. It was the waitress.

“You keep looking at your watch,” she said.

“Huh? No, uh, I just want to make sure I get home in time to listen to something on the radio.”

“Was your food ready fast enough?”

“Oh, it was fine,” Jim said as he took a last gulp of cola.

“Everything was fine. Even you were fine. In fact, you were great! The food was great, the service was great, and you were great!

Jim set a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “Here,” he said. “Keep the change!” The waitress’ jaw dropped. “But it only costs-...”

‘Don’t worry about it. Keep it!” Jim said as he dashed out the door.

Jim drove home. He unlocked the front door and walked into his house. He looked at a picture of Doris on the mantel and then he pulled out his wallet. He reached into a hidden pocket in his wallet and pulled out another picture. It was a picture of Margaret.

Jim turned on the radio, looked at his watch and sat down. Then he waited.

Jim was drifting off to sleep when the announcer interrupted the music with the news of a plane crash. It was the plane Doris was on. There were no survivors.

Jim had planned for this event. He no longer cared about Doris and wanted her out of his life. When she announced plans to visit relatives, Jim used time travel to find an airliner that would crash. Then he booked her on that flight. It was the perfect undetected murder.

In the days following the crash, there was a memorial service and many friends and relatives visited Jim to pay their respects. He feigned depression.

Jim had a large fortune in secret investments. It was 1963 and the world he loved was about to change; it was time to get ready to go back to 1945.

Jim had to sell his investments. 1963 investments would be worthless in 1945. He used the profits to buy old currency that had been printed prior to 1945.

At the airport, Jim loaded his duffel bag into the Cub. Its only contents were the money and Herman’s diary.

“You going flying today?” the airport mechanic asked. “There’s some pretty stormy weather nearby.”

“Yeah, I am. With Doris being gone, I don’t care anymore what happens to me,” lied Jim.

“Now, that’s not good,” said the mechanic. “If you’re feeling blue, you shouldn’t be flying.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right,” said Jim. The mechanic shrugged his shoulders, pulled the prop for Jim to start the engine, and Jim taxied to the runway. He was happy to have had this conversation. When his Cub disappeared into a thunderstorm and did not return, there would be no trace found of Jim Meara from 1963. The mechanic would state to authorities that Jim took off when bad weather was forecast.

1945 - Jim emerged from his Cub in 1945; this time he would be staying to relive his favorite years. Now he would be a 43-year old man instead of being 25 the first time he lived through 1945. He painted a different tail number on the Cub. Since he originally bought it in 1945, it now co-existed with itself and he could not have two Piper Cubs with the same tail number on it. He also planned to avoid running into his younger self and took on the name James Fisher.

To do that, he bought a car with the vintage 1945 currency that he brought with him from 1963 and drove to South Carolina. He deposited his cash in a new bank account and bought an old southern mansion that was once a plantation. With his knowledge of world events to come, he would continue to invest and build up his fortune. It would be the perfect second half of his life.

Months later, James drove to College Park to reminisce about his younger years there. As he walked into a restaurant for lunch, the waitress was Margaret! She was as beautiful as the last day he saw her in 1946 the first time around.

“Hello, may I take your order?” she asked.

“Your name is Margaret,” he said, looking at her name badge. “What a pretty name.”

“Thank you. Are you from around here? I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.”

“I come from South Carolina,” said James. “I own an old plantation.”

“Oh! I love those old mansions! Do you have a crop?”

“No, it’s just a lot of land these days,” he said. “I’m an investor, so I don’t need to grow anything. The only people working for me are some maids and gardeners.”

“I’ll be it’s beautiful there.”

“It sure is. There are rolling hills and meadows with plenty of large trees. In fact, if you want to see it, I’d be more than happy to take you there,” said James.

“Oh, my!” said Margaret. “That’s quite a proposition! But that’s awfully far away to drive, isn’t it?”

“Yes, well, I have an airplane. We could fly there.”

“An airplane! I’d love to fly. I have a neighbor who just bought one. I think it’s a Piper Cub.”

James winced. Margaret was referring to his younger self, who could be anywhere in town. “Ah, yes. A very nice airplane. I have a Cub, too.”

“This all sounds like fun! I’d love to visit your mansion. Would you like to order some lunch?”

James ordered lunch and they exchanged some more small talk. He made arrangements to fly her to his mansion about a week later. Their visits continued and after several months, James proposed to Margaret and she accepted.

James understood why he had never seen Margaret again. He was the reason he never saw her after 1946 when he was younger. His older self had married her! He took steps to be sure she would not encounter his younger self. He bought a new home for her parents in South Carolina. He managed to keep Margaret from visiting College Park.

James and Margaret lived a Southern life on their beloved plantation. He continued to invest and increase his fortune. They became world travelers. But as the years went by, James grew bored and lonely. He had too much time on his hands and too little too do. Life became too predictable. It was no longer necessary to read the newspapers because he had already seen it. He knew when the Korean conflict would end. He knew who would win the Presidential races. He knew what movies would be popular, what fads would occur, when celebrities were going to die, and what the new car models would look like. There were no challenges left for him. Any investment he made was a guaranteed winner because he already knew the results. Life became too easy.

Margaret was a beautiful woman, but he found that more and more he missed Doris. He came to realize that Margaret was only the object of his younger desires and that he had acted upon those desires by winning her heart and marrying her when he was 44 and she was only 20. Thrust into a life where she could have everything money could buy, she grew cold and distant. Material possessions were her passion.

James regretted what he had done to Doris. He had spent years ignoring her while building up his own paradise. He realized the object of his lust could not substitute the love and commitment he should have given and received from Doris. Even his time machine could not bring that back. Jumping through time was easy for him. But he could not change the biological aging that had taken place in his body.

1963 - James’ body was now 61 years old. He was depressed. He had lived the years

1945 through 1963 twice. He had murdered his first wife, who he now missed, and grown apart from his second wife, who cared only about the latest fashions and decor for their mansion. James had no desire to continue beyond 1963. He knew what world events, fashions and fads were to come and he did not want to live through it. He also did not want to return to 1945 to live those years a third time. Even with a time machine, he

could not turn back the clock and reunite with Doris. It was not possible for his older self to prevent the murder of her by his younger self and resume their marriage. He had already tampered with time enough; to do more could affect history in unfathomable ways.

Depressed, James decided to end it all. The date of the plane crash that had killed Doris was growing closer. He decided to book himself on the same flight.

“No one should tamper with time by traveling through it,” he thought.

To prevent anyone else from finding it, James took Herman’s diary outside, poured gasoline on it, and lit a match. He went to his Piper Cub and dismantled the time machine inside of it.

After his affairs were in order, he dressed in his best suit and put on his derby. He drove to the airport in Washington where the doomed airliner would be waiting for him.

Arriving at the airport, he parked the car and put on his derby. Then he noticed his younger 43-year old self saying goodbye to Doris. He walked up to his younger self and flashed a broad smile. Then he turned and walked into the airport and bought a cup of coffee.

Then he purchased a ticked for the ill-fated flight and boarded the airplane. Doris was already seated. Being much older than her, she did not recognize him. Soon the flight would take off and they would die together.

James walked to the rear of the plane and took an empty seat next to a distinguished looking gentleman with gray hair, a goatee and a mustache. James sat down next to him and fastened his seatbelt. The man smiled and Jim smiled back.

“Jim Meara?” the man asked.

Startled, Jim said, “Yes. How did you know?”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jim,” said the man in a German accent. “My name is Herman.”

Learning Styles

2010-10-30T00:01:00.027-04:00

I'm taking Intermediate Accounting and I just got a quiz back that I seriously thought I may have failed. It turns out I got a 100% on it! I have a love/hate relationship with this class and it got me thinking about learning styles. Through the years, I've put myself into various intensive learning situations and have developed my own theories about learning styles.

In grammar school through college (1966-1983), I generally averaged about a C+ or B. I was never happy with those grades and always had low self-esteem about it. I suppose my self-conciousness about those grades drove me to excel in other areas of my life. In retrospect, I believe a lot of it was due to my hearing loss. It wasn't until later in life that I came to realize how much I was missing. During those school years, no one really gave me the kind of attention a kid with hearing loss really needed; mostly I got yelled at if I didn't do well.

In any case, my first "post-college" class was in 1990 for private pilot ground school. I didn't feel like I was getting the best instruction in the class, so I made it a point to work hard on my own and study hard. It wasn't just about a grade; I knew that if I didn't know the material well enough, it could come back to haunt me at the worst time while I was flying an airplane. The hard work paid off; I scored a 96% on the FAA written exam!

Seven years later, I began studying for my aviation instrument exam, only this time I didn't take a ground school or even a course of any kind. I simply bought the books, drove myself crazy studying for it, and scored a 95% on the FAA written instrument exam. After the stress of that experience, I swore I'd never take any kind of a class again.

Well, that changed in 2006 when I took American Sign Language at Monroe Community College. It was only for myself; I was not enrolled in any kind of a program so I had nothing to lose, no matter how well or poorly I did. This class was all visual, with no verbal communication. For the first time in my life, I was in a class where I didn't have to hear anything. I did very well with that and got a B+ in the class! The only issue was that I had trouble remembering a lot of the signs. Age-related memory issues?

Memory did become an issue a year later when I decided to enroll in an accounting program at MCC. My Accounting 101 class required a lot of memorization and I feel like I spent more time trying to memorize formulas and journal entries than I did in understanding the material. The material actually came easy; I had a wonderful teacher who fully explained each problem, and she would keep going over it until she was sure that everyone understood it. You could tell how good her repuation is because her classes are always the first ones to fill up.

As I continued the Accounting program with more courses, I've had teachers who were OK and teachers who weren't as helpful. I feel that one was downright stubborn. He said right on the first day that he didn't care for the textbook and was going to teach Cost Accounting his way. As it turned out, "his" way didn't work too well for me. Rather than going with the conventional way of explaining the procedures of how Cost Accounting works, he came up with challenging algebraic formulas that he felt were supposed to help us understand the Cost Accounting flow "backwards, forwards, and sideways." Well, it didn't work for me. I even complained about it. Instead of trying to help me find a better way to understand the material, his answer was, "I've taught it this way for years and it works fine." I got a C in the course. If it wasn't for the fact that I have a B+ or A in everything else, maybe I'd believe his defensiveness.

I'm happy to brag that my GPA has been hovering around 3.8. I've consistently been on MCC's honor roll since I started this program. It's definitely a different experience when you go back to college mid-life as opposed to what it was like when you're around 20. I took Accounting 101 back in 1982 and failed it. But with a good dose of life experience behind me, a fresh look on my goals at this point, the fact that I had good hearing aids, and a good teacher for Accounting 101 in 2007, it was a whole different scenario.

In terms of memory, I've found it challenging to memorize drum parts that I need to know for my fife and drum corps. I've discussed this with other "older" members who have run into the same situation. But yet we watch the young kids soak up the material with ease. I've found that I just need to constantly repeat playing some of the more challenging drum parts consistently over the course of several weeks before it really soaks in.

I'm currently taking Intermediate Accounting on-line. I've been spared the need to memorize things because all of the quizzes and tests are essentially open book. But what's missing in this course is the opportunity to see a problem worked out. I have written material that describes what needs to happen, but I've found that some of the material is quite challenging. Often it does not make sense to me until I submit my homework, full of mistakes, and then get to see the answers after the homework deadline passes. Sometimes I still struggle with parts of it because this teacher does not fully explain the homework answers unless someone asks. Even then, she often just points to the place in the textbook where it is explained. Often she just posts the answers with no explanation. I find it very annoying and I don't feel like I'm getting the full benefit of taking this class. So that would explain why I got a 100% on this latest quiz when I felt I may have failed it. I'm correctly putting the numbers in the places where I think they should go, but not necessarily understanding what it is I'm doing and why.

So, those are my thoughts on learning styles. I know that I'm a visual-type learner who often needs to see things worked out in order to get it. But I also will push myself to the limit on my own to work on something until I'm satisfied that I got it.

Jury Duty!

2010-10-29T00:01:00.001-04:00

I served on a jury approximately ten years ago, give or take a couple. The day I reported for jury duty was a Friday. I brought a book with me and expected to go back to work the following Monday. Upon entering the courtroom, however, I "won" this lottery by being the second person to have his name pulled out of the box! I sat with the other "lottery winners" in the jury box as the lawyers from both sides questioned us. I was not one who was dismissed. My fate for the next week was sealed! Judge Andrew V. Siracuse announced that the trial would begin on Monday and would wrap up the following Friday.

On Monday, I was seated as juror #4, a position given to me because I am hard of hearing and they put me in the spot closest to the witness stand. We had 8 jurors altogether, two of whom were alternates. Six were needed for this case.

This was a civil trial for a medical malpractice case. A doctor and a hospital were being sued by the family of a severely obese man who died following complications of gastric bypass surgery. From the opening statements, we learned that the man had been unsuccessful in prior attempts to lose weight and turned to this doctor for gastric bypass surgery. After he had been home for recovery, he had a pulmonary embolism and died. The plaintiff was claiming that the doctor used an older, outdated method of gastric bypass surgery. The defendants were claiming that yes, the method was older, but there was nothing wrong with that method and it didn't cause death. A pulmonary embolism is a risk of any surgery.

Over the next couple of days, the plaintiff called witnesses to the stand, including the man's widow and step-daughter. They told the story of how he came home from the hospital and had trouble with the liquid diet that he had been put on. Other witnesses included other medical experts who testified as to why this bypass procedure was the wrong one.

One witness, another doctor, had brought with him a poster-sized graphic representing the man's innards, which he had intended to use for his testimony. But the defense objected to this piece of artwork; the judge asked him if he had produced the graphic. The doctor said no, he'd had it professionally done. The judge threw out the evidence and told the doctor to make the drawings himself with a marker on a large flipboard. I was actually amused when I saw how flustered this doctor became at being told to do that, when he obviously wasn't mentally prepared for it. I figured he must have been a paid witness.

There were other times during the trial when the lawyers approached the bench over procedures. The judge always turned to the jury and told us to disregard those arguments, as they were about court procedures and had nothing to do with the testimony we were listening to.

It was about halfway through the week when we came into the courtroom and were told that the hospital and the family had reached some kind of a settlement. We never found out what the terms were. It was just to let us know that the hospital representative and its lawyer would no longer be there.

During the defense testimony, the doctor was called to the stand. While giving his testimony, one argument stood out to me was over the dead man's liquid diet. The doctor had said that the amount of liquid the widow was feeding her husband was way more than it should have been and here in court was the first he had heard that. He seemed very agitated about this and wondered why she never told him of the problems he was having. It sounded to me that neither party had made a very good effort at communicating with the other during the home recovery.

During the week, I had opportunity to have lunch with all of the other jurors at one time or another. I remember two of their names: Gil, the owner of a Convenient Store, and Beverly, an elderly woman. Gil couldn't really take time off from work for this. He was going in at 4:30 in the morning to take care of the books and then coming to court. Beverly was concerned about her dog; she said her dog missed her while she was gone and she couldn't wait for the week to end so she could get back into her regular routine. We also had a jeweler and a downtown business man. The downtown business man worked a few blocks away, so he also put in some time in the morning before coming to court. It turns out that the businessman began escorting Beverly to her bus stop each day after court. I'll tell you why these details matter shortly.

On Friday morning, both sides gave their closing arguments. Judge Siracuse charged the jury with deciding whether the doctor was negligent, leading to the man's death. If we did find him negligent, we were to come up with an amount of money to be awarded. The two alternate jurors were thanked for their service and dismissed.

I believe we entered the jury room around 11:30 or so. Lunch was brought in for us, which we enjoyed before we got down to business. We had to choose a foreman. Since there is no science to choosing a foreman, we chose the downtown business man simply because he was the last to arrive each day! Then we set about asking for a few pieces of evidence that we would be allowed to study. I don't remember what anyone else asked for, but I wanted to see some of the medical records and a photo of the man. I was already quite convinced I was going to vote in favor of the doctor, so I wanted the family to know that at least someone on the jury had enough heart to want to see his picture up close.

So then it came time to go around the table and give our first impressions. It wasn't even official, as we had hardly discussed the case yet, but it was unanimously in favor of the doctor. Then for the next hour or so, we reviewed the evidence that was in front of us and discussed the case. Being that this was the first time we were allowed to talk about it, it was interesting to see that we were all thinking the same thing. Yes, some of the doctor's follow-up care was a bit lacking, yes it was sad this man had died, but no, the doctor's medical procedure did not cause his death. It was the risk that any surgery brings, a pulmonary embolism, that caused his death. So, our verdict was unanimous, even though we only needed a majority.

I believe it was around 1:30 or so that we told the court deputy that we had a verdict. It took a little while longer to get everyone back in the courtroom again, so we had to wait in the jury room until we were told they were ready. Our foreman, Mr. Downtown Businessman, had the duty of standing up to give the verdict. Since he was right next to me, I actually was able to hide my face from the widow behind his body a bit. I felt bad for her that this was the verdict we brought, so I felt like I couldn't face her. But the law is the law and that's what we decided. The jury was not asked to be polled, but the judge did ask if it was unanimous and we all nodded while the foreman answer, "Yes."

We were thanked and sent back to the jury room. A short time later, Judge Siracuse came in and sat with us to chat about the trial. Someone asked him if we made the right decision. He said, "What you decided was the right decision. I know some facts about this case that we couldn't tell you."
By the time we left, all parties of the court had left. I went home and finally told my wife what the case was about.

A couple of years later, I met Gil again at a party. Gil told me that he had stayed in touch with the jeweler and Mr. Downtown Businessman. And now, "The Rest of the Story." Mr. Downtown Businessman was walking Beverly back to her bus stop. She obviously was happy this was over and was looking forward to getting back home. As they walked, Beverly suddenly collapsed and died on the sidewalk! Mr. Downtown was able to summon help from an ambulance that happened to be standing around the corner, but it was too late. She was gone. He went back upstairs to tell courtroom personnel what had happened so they could call her husband. Her beloved dog never saw her again.

My First Passenger

2010-10-27T00:01:00.002-04:00

I wrote this in 1991 right after I passed the test for my pilot's license:

I had just earned my private pilot's license in September, 1991, and it was an awesome feeling to realize that I could now take a passenger flying with me.

During the course of learning to fly, a student pilot is not allowed to carry passengers when he or she flies solo. I wanted to do some flying for fun in my two-seat training airplane, a Cessna 152, before checking out in a 4-seat aircraft. Therefore I could take one passenger with me: My first passenger!

Since my wife and I were at 39,000 feet aboard a DC-9 en route from Rochester, New York, to Orlando, Florida for our honeymoon in 1984 when I became bitten by the flying bug, I had long wanted her to be my first passenger. Besides, she was just as affected by the expense of flying lessons as I was, so I figured it was only fair. But since then we had had three young children who would now need a baby-sitter during that flight. No baby-sitter was available.

My wife suggested the alternative that was already on my mind: She would stay home with the two younger girls while I took Kristy, age 5, as my first passenger. "It will be something special," my wife said. "Besides, she loves to fly."

It's true. Kristy was a real pro at being a passenger for her age. She had flown a jet round trip from Rochester to Seattle at three months (she claims she remembers the trip!), a sightseeing ride in a small plane near Lake Placid at age two, a seaplane ride in Inlet, New York and a helicopter ride age three, and another ride in a four-seat Beechcraft Sundowner once on a lesson with my instructor.

Kristy was thrilled when I asked her to go flying with me. I told her we would fly to Darien Lake, an amusement and waterslide park between Rochester and Buffalo that we had been to about a week earlier. I told Kristy we would circle around the park a couple times and that she would see the roller coasters, the waterslides and some of the other big rides.

Kristy had never shown a fear of flying. I suppose that's normal for young children, because to them, sitting in an airplane is not all that different from sitting in a car.

But Kristy did have a fear of loud noises. She knew that jets taxiing near us at the airport and taking off from the runway would be loud. She had kept her hands over her ears during our entire helicopter ride. I did my best to relieve her fears before we got out of the car.

After getting the keys for the rented Cessna 152, I bought her a set of earplugs to wear inside the plane. They were the spongy kind held together by a plastic string. They didn't work too well because they kept falling out of her ears. I told her she could just hold them up to her ears if she wanted to use them.

I took Kristy to the airplane and let her touch the wings. Then I helped her inside and told her I needed to take a few minutes to check the outside of the plane to make sure everything was working OK. I told her the "steering wheel" would move around in front of her when I moved parts of the wing and tail. She was intrigued by that!

When I finished the preflight and climbed into the seat beside her, she already had her hands up to her ears in anticipation of the engine starting! She did this several times as I finished my preflight inside the plane and I promised to warn her just before I started the engine. I also told her the engine would get "loud" during the run-up and during the take-off.

I did as I promised and we taxied to the runway. What a feeling to have my sweet little daughter sitting next to me instead of my flight instructor or the flight examiner!

Kristy kept her ears covered and head hunched down during the run-up. When we were told by the tower to enter the runway and then wait for further clearance, I had the opportunity to tell her, "It's OK to keep your ears covered, but make sure you watch out the window because that's the best part of flying!"

She did, and at the moment we broke ground she became enthralled with the view. After leaving the control area, I took off my headset. She was singing! That meant she was very relaxed and enjoying herself!

OK, I know she had flown several times before, but it had been over a year since she last flew. That's a long time in a five-year-old's life. I guess I was just a nervous dad concerned about how his daughter would react to this situation.

Why, to her it was just like riding in a car except that "The cars look like
toys!" she exclaimed. "And I see a swimming pool!"

I was beaming. This is what I had dreamed of for seven years and it had finally come true: Just going for a nice, leisurely cruise in an airplane with my loved ones.

I looked at Kristy watching the view below. What a vision of repose she was! Singing softly to herself, commenting on the view below and totally enjoying the ride. I asked her if the engine noise was bothering her anymore and she told me it wasn't.

Darien Lake Amusement Park was not shown on the aviation map, so I had a compass heading to take us to the town of Darien. I knew the park was just a few miles away from the town.

When we were near the town of Darien, I told Kristy she could help me look for the park. Then I spotted it in our two o'clock position about six miles away.

"There it is!" I told Kristy. "Do you see the Ferris wheel?"

We had to get a mile or two closer before she finally said, "I see it! I see the Ferris wheel! And I see the roller coaster!"

On our visit to Darien Lake a week earlier, I had noticed helicopters for sightseeing rides. My concern now was to watch out for those helicopters if they were still there, so I stayed higher than they would be flying. It was by now past Labor Day and the park was only open on weekends for the rest of the season, so I doubted the helicopters were there. But still, you have to watch out.

My practice in doing circles around a point paid off here as I made two circles around the park so Kristy could get a good look. I was pleased as I maintained my altitude almost perfectly while watching out for traffic.

Kristy had a ball as she called out the park's attractions that she recognized. Then I asked her if she wanted to fly near the lake. She said yes.

I chose a heading that would take us near Rochester when we reached Lake Ontario. That would give us a few miles of flying along the lake shore before I needed to contact the controller again.

It was a very smooth and pleasant ride from Darien Lake to Lake Ontario, a distance of about 30 miles over mostly farm land. By the time we reached the shore, Kristy seemed to be getting bored. She was fidgeting with her earplugs, trying to get them to stay on. I've read that no one makes earplugs that fit children. Maybe it's about time that someone did.

I established communications with Rochester Approach Control and we headed for the airport. Since we were back over suburban and city congestion, Kristy had more to watch on the ground. I was pleased with my landing and pleased overall with the flight. I now felt like a real private pilot and could take passengers!

In the following weeks, I was able to take my wife flying (we found a baby-sitter!) and a few more relatives.

Why I Love Cruising

2010-10-26T00:01:00.002-04:00

Original post date March 2, 2009

I took my first cruise in 2004. We left New York City on Royal Caribbean's "Voyager of the Seas" and spent nine nights cruising to Haiti, Jamaica, Grand Cayman and the Bahamas, along with four full days at sea. I love it SO much that I wanted to be a part of the travel business. I sold travel for a few years and concentrated on cruising.

So why do I love it so much? I love the concept that I can get on a magnificent ship, unpack once, and be in a different part of the world each day. My ship is my floating resort; I have access to unlimited food, beautiful views both inside and outside the ship, dozens of activities, entertainment, swimming, exercise, mini-golf, and so much more. While I am enjoying this, we are travelling. I can pause at any time to watch the sea, watch the weather, watch the sun moon and stars, watch the clouds, and watch the wake from our ship. I am not cramped in a car or an airplane; I have plenty of room to move around, walk, jog, dance and more.

While on a cruise, we are treated like royalty. Stewards clean our cabin twice daily. Meal service is quick. In the dining room, the waiters waste no time in getting our food and drinks. They bring you as much as you'd like to eat. The food is good!

I love being able to walk around and find live music to suit my mood: jazz, strings, rock, pop, disco, and classical. I like them all! I love the fact that my family can do things together, or do things separately and then come together. We are never far apart from each other.

I love the fact that we can wake up in the morning and find ourselves in a different part of the world from the day before. We can take an excursion if we wish, or we can simply step off the ship, walk around for awhile and then get back to our "resort." The next day, we'll step out of the "resort" again but in a completely different location.

The world of cruising isn't limited to large ships that cruise the oceans. There are river cruises and niche cruises as well. River cruises are wonderful because they are a slow pace through historic cities and magnificent scenery. The number of passengers is a lot smaller, so it is a more intimate experience, but DO include most of the activities you find on a larger ship. Niche cruising is oriented to specific interests: ecology, specific cultures, special interests, and often on smaller ships that can go places the larger ships can't.

Here's a short video about cruising that Mary and I made during our 2009 cruise aboard the Caribbean Princess:

Living in Charlotte, New York

2010-10-25T00:01:00.001-04:00

Here's another from my series of columns that I wrote for Deaf Rochester News in 2007:

Passive and Active Hearing

2010-10-24T00:21:00.001-04:00

A few years ago I wrote a monthly column for Deaf Rochester News. Here is one of those columns:

General Aviation in Rochester

2010-10-23T00:01:00.003-04:00

I recently added a new tab above called "Paul's Vimeo Videos." Vimeo is similar to Youtube except that it is generally better-quality stuff and there is no 10-minute time limit like there is on Youtube. So far, I only have one video posted in Vimeo.

http://www.vimeo.com/13595323

It is called "General Aviation in Rochester." It's a one-hour video I produced for cable access TV in 1991. Obviously this is dated by now, but it is a snapshot of what general aviation in the Rochester, NY area was like at the time. It includes a description of generation aviation, what it takes (or took) to get a pilot's license, a look at some local aviation organizations, and some flying footage from a Lake Renegade. The organizations featured include the National Warplane Museum (based in Geneseo at the time), EAA 44, and the Rochester Flying Club.

Something you can enjoy over this weekend! I hope you enjoy it.

Our story gets around!

2010-10-22T00:01:00.002-04:00

I found this press release on the internet a few months ago. It was for a CPR course in Reading, Michigan back in June! It's gratifying to know that our story might make a difference in someone else's life:

Mary Pakusch and her husband were standing in their kitchen when Mary suddenly collapsed with no warning. In the words of her husband, Paul, “I immediately dialed 911. After getting pertinent information, the emergency dispatcher started talking me through CPR. I had never had any training prior to this. While waiting for emergency responders to arrive, Mary had no heartbeat and was not breathing. She was turning purple. For over 7 minutes, the dispatcher had me go through a whole list of steps in CPR. I felt TOTALLY inadequate and VERY guilty that I had passed up so many opportunities to learn it prior to this.” Miraculously, Mary survived. “I was VERY lucky to have a CPR-trained dispatcher. But I would never count on it again – LEARN CPR!”

Would YOU know what to do if a cardiac arrest happened to your loved one or a close friend? Did you know that performing life-saving CPR can double or even triple a victim’s chance of survivial? The American Heart Association is encouraging at least a million people to learn CPR as part of National CPR and AED Awareness Week, June 1 – 7. Reading Emergency Unit’s Hillsdale Training Center is

partnering with the association by offering a FREE cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) class. This free class will take place on June 5, 2010 at the Training Center located at 30 Monroe St. in Hillsdale, Michigan. For a full 24-hour period starting at 8:00 a.m. Saturday, June 5 until 8:00 a.m. Sunday, June 6, instructors will be available for CPR training. Both adult and infant CPR will be taught, rotating adult and infant class every 2 hours. Anyone interested in participating may call 517-283-2856, ext. 40, for more information. Registration is encouraged, but not required.

“One or more of our instructors will be available the entire 24 hour period. Whether there be 1 person or 21 in any given time block, it doesn’t matter. Even 1 person knowing CPR can save a life,” said Executive Director, Charla VanDyke.

Sudden cardiac arrest can strike anyone, anywhere. And when it does, a victim’s survival depends on the people around them. Said Karen Merback, “I performed CPR for the first time at the age of 15 years old when my father collapsed in our living room over 35 years ago. 911 had not been implemented in our community and AEDs had not been developed. I had just learned CPR in school and when I began the steps of CPR I heard the instructor’s voice in my head telling me what to do. I am now a CPR instructor.”

Every year, EMS treats about 300,000 victims of out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest. More than 92 percent of people who suffer cardiac arrest outside the hospital will die from it. Without immediate CPR, the chance of surviving out-of-hospital cardiac arrest drops 7 to 10 percent for each minute that passes with without adequate CPR or defibrillation. Unfortunately, less than one third of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest victims receive bystander CPR. This means that by the time EMS personnel arrive on the scene it could be too late.

In addition to taking a class, anyone can help the association reach its goal by:

-Watching the Hands-Only CPR video at cprweek.org
-Training on CPR Anytime, a self-directed, at-home CPR kit. Kits can be ordered at cpranytime.org.

-Watching the Hands-Only CPR video at cprweek.org

“CPR and AED training are critical to saving lives,” Michelle Colson, Reading Emergency Unit’s CPR/1st Aid Training Coordinator said. “CPR Week is one way we hope to increase awareness about cardiac arrest as a significant health problem and get teens and adults to take action so more lives can be saved.”

For more information about CPR Week, visit CPRweek.org.

About the American Heart Association

Founded in 1924, they are the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary health organization dedicated to building healthier lives, free of heart disease and stroke. To help prevent, treat and defeat these diseases – America’s No. 1 and No. 3 killers – they fund cutting- e edge research, conduct lifesaving public and professional educational programs, and advocate to protect public health. To learn more and join them in helping all Americans, call 1-800-AHA-USA1 or visit americanheart.org.

"New Blog and Home Page"

2010-10-20T13:31:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, I trashed my old blog and I also closed out my web account with Godaddy.com. I guess I was in a sort of "cleansing" mood at the time, but it led to me making some new choices about my web presence. With all of the free accounts available these days, I decided to take advantage of them rather than pay for web hosting space.

Oh, sure I know it's all advertiser-supported and they're probably reaching their spindly tentacles into the darkest corners of my computer to profile me and decide what to try to sell me, but I figure it's a small price to pay. All that really matters is whether I want to buy something or not.

I decided to make my (free!) blog account my home page as well. I figured out how to add links to it in places where I want links to be. Now this page is a catch-all for all my public web accounts, including this blog, my Facebook page, my photo albums on Picasaweb, and my videos on Youtube. I will also add my Vimeo video account shortly. Vimeo isn't as popular as Youtube, but they don't put time limits on videos. The links to those are all above, just below the banner. On the right side, you will see a list of more links that interest me, including family and friends' blogs and websites, other interests, and places where I like to find news on the internet.

I wanted to come up with a name for my blog that reflects who I am. Yeah! I'm a passionate drummer, so getting something about drums in there was important. Hence the word, "beat." I also wanted it to be a name that can be incorporated into my other activities and interests. Writing and photography are something I enjoy posting on the internet, so I can create my own "beat" in doing both. Now we have my journalism/commentary/news-according-to-paul beat and my photography beat. I pulled out some definitions to the word "beat" and posted them in the banner to back up my claim of the word "beat." Paul's Beat. Of course, I'm always marching to my own beat!

After choosing "paulsbeat.blogspot.com," I decided to look up "paulsbeat.com" and see if it was available. I was surprised to see that it was! So I purchased it and pointed it to this blog. Now you can get to this blog either way.

Learn Life-Saving Skills

2010-10-17T00:01:00.002-04:00

I was surprised to learn how easy it is to make a difference in someone's life. To learn the basic skills of CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, or anything that can save someone's life when seconds count is not that hard. You may forget some details...and you will need refresher courses...but having some knowledge of it is better than knowing nothing at all.

You never know who you're going to end up saving. It could be your spouse, your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your child, a cousin, an aunt or uncle, a grandparent, a granchild, your best friend, your co-worker, or even a perfect stranger. Maybe you would even save me some day. Things happen; and they never happen at a convenient time. It's usually when you least expect it and things happen fast. It doesn't take long to learn life-saving skills.

I feel extremely lucky that Mary survived. I had never taken a CPR course because I figured I'd never need to know it. I can't emphasis how helpless I felt when she was lying on the floor, not breathing, her face turning color, and no sign of a pulse. Mary beat some incredible odds by surviving with no apparent brain damage. But if she had not survived, or if she had been left brain-damaged, I can't imagine the grief and the guilt I would have felt at not being able to rescue my own wife. I sure know how I felt while she was in an induced coma in the hospital, not knowing how or if she would wake up. I have since learned some very simple skills that would get me through the first few minutes if I'm ever put into a situation like that again.

"I saved a life." It sounds kind of bizarre for me to be thinking that way, but most people I talk to won't let me think it any other way. I'm too modest.

The morning of Saturday, July 15, my wife, Mary and I were standing in our kitchen, having a conversation. With no warning whatsoever, she suddenly collapsed. It was immediately obvious to me that she was unconcious.

I did what anyone would do. I immediately picked up the phone and dialed 911. While help was on the way, the 911 operator asked me to check whether she was breathing or had a pulse. I could find none. As the minutes ticked by, Mary's face began to turn purplish red and I was convinced I had lost her. I was kicking myself that I had never learned CPR. But the 911 operator talked me through some basic CPR.

The paramedics arrived, intubated her and shocked her twice with the paddles to get her heart on a normal rhythm again. I later found out that Mary had had a heart arrhythmia, or sudden cardiac arrest. It was completely unexpected; that's how you know what it is. She wasn't dizzy, had no history of any cardiac problems and had never abused drugs.

Statistics show that 5% of people who suffered what she did make it to the hospital alive. Although it looked grim, she made it. Of those, only 10% recover with no brain damage. She beat those odds, too. After 10 days in the hospital, she came home, physically healing but mentally in one piece. Absolutely a miracle!
I credit the emergency response team and the fantastic staff at Park Ridge Hospital. People tell me I saved her life by the fact that I happened to be with her when she collapsed, my quick response to call 911, and my attempts at learning CPR on the spot. I guess I can't argue with that; luck was with me, but I really did save my wife's life.

-Paul Pakusch

Living in the 60's

2010-10-16T00:01:00.001-04:00

Original Post: Sunday, January 25, 2009

If you read virtually any history of the sixties, you will think that every young person was a hippy and went to Woodstock, everyone protested the Vietnam war, and everyone was listening to psychedelic rock. That’s not how I remember it.

I was born in 1960, so this period accounts for the first ten years of my life. I was doing what kids that age typically do. I occasionally saw long-haired teenagers called hippies, but most of what the sixties are known for was not a part of my life. Superman, Batman, comics, Bewitched, Adam-12 and the NASA rocket launches and recoveries were. I had a cool 5-speed Stingray bike hat I rode constantly all over the neighborhood. I loved climbing trees; we had a couple of awesome trees in our yard for climbing. Eventually we put a rope swing on one. My parents listened to country music of the day and so did I.

I remember President Johnson. I didn’t really understand who he was or what he did, just that “President Johnson” had a nice ring to it and couldn’t imagine saying “President-anybody-else”. I was too young to remember Kennedy. I once asked my mom what I was doing when the word of his assassination came on TV. She told me I was playing in the living room. She remembered Walter Cronkite breaking down on TV, so I guess I must’ve seen that. On November 22, 1963 I was a few weeks away from my third birthday. I do remember watching the episode of Bewitched in 1968 that was interrupted by a news bulletin about Martin Luther King being shot. Before then, I didn't know who he was. I also remember watching the long train ride of Robert Kennedy's funeral and my mom crying.

Just to see how the music of 1968 compares to today’s version of history, here’s the top 20 hits of 1968 according to Billboard Magazine:

1. Hey Jude - The Beatles
2. I Heard It Through The Grapevine - Marvin Gaye
3. Love Is Blue - Paul Mauriat
4. Honey - Bobby Goldsboro
5. People Got To Be Free - The Rascals
6. (Sittin' On) The Dock Of the Bay - Otis Redding
7. This Guy's In love With you - Herb Alpert
8. Mrs. Robinson - Simon & Garfunkle
9. Love Child - Diana Ross & The Supremes
10. Tighten Up - Archie Bell & The Drells
11. Hello, I Love You - The Doors
12. Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) - John Fred & His Palyboy Band
13. Grazing In the Grass - Hugh Masekela
14. Harper Valley P.T.A. - Jeannie C. Riley
15. Green Tambourine - The Lemon pipers
16. (Theme From) The valley of The Dolls - Dionne Warwick
17. Young Girl - Union Gap featuring Gary Puckett
18. Those Were The Days - Mary Hopkin
19. The Horse - Cliff Nobles & Company
20. Born To Be Wild - Steppenwolf

-Paul Pakusch

Confessions of a Former Travel Agent

2010-10-15T00:01:00.003-04:00

So, you think travel agents get all kinds of perks and free travel? Yeah, some, but it's not as glamorous as you'd think it is. The pay is horrible; I've heard it said that if you're in it for the travel, you're better off getting a good-paying job in another field and then just paying regular price for your travel. After experiencing it, you'd have no argument from me about that comment. On the other hand, if you love giving service to people and are ready to work hard, practically around the clock, then being a travel agent might be for you.

In 2005, I got into it part-time, figuring I could gradually work my way into the travel business and eventually make it my "retirement career." Then I could work as little or as much as I wanted to and enjoy all the perks of the travel business. I do get excited about other people's trips and I'm always interested to hear where people are going and how their experiences were when they get back.

To get some education, I signed up with a prominent college that is well-known for its on-line work-at-your-own-pace courses. I received textbooks and course material in the mail and took the tests on-line. Much of the material focused on geography and what people could expect in various places of the world. There were videos, too, of many of these places. Then it got into the history of the travel business, an overview of the business today, and then into specifics about how to do things. I thought most of the course was quite informative and helpful. About the only thing I found useless was a section on how to write airline tickets.

Yes, I did say "write" airline tickets. By 2005, everything about airline tickets was on-line and I thought this part of the course was a complete waste of time. But then we got into Sabre and Apollo , the two systems that almost every travel agency uses for issuing tickets. As a student, I had a choice of which one to train for. This part was very good. It made me employable should I decide to work for a travel agency.

But my goal was to work for myself. My next step was to decide how I was going to access my travel suppliers. I learned that the most popular way to do this in 2005 was to work with a host agency. I'd still be working for myself by paying for my own expenses and earning by commission, but I'd have someone to guide me along and give me access to literally thousands of travel suppliers. The relationship I'd have with them was as an independent contractor. I would book travel for customers using their resources and then we would split the commission.

After an exhaustive search, I chose a host that happened to be on the west coast. They were a fine host agency, but if I were to do it again, I'd pick one within driving distance of my home. I found at times that it would have been very helpful to be able to go to their office in person.

Paradoxically, the internet is driving many small travel agencies out of business, but it's also making the life of a home-based travel agency a lot easier. A lot of my training with my host agency and with the travel suppliers themselves was by watching and participating in on-line seminars. I could "attend" these meetings by sitting in the comfort of my own home. They would set up a time when many agents would log in on their computers, and then dial in to a conference phone call where the speaker would discuss what we were seeing on our computer screens. The internet is also helping home-based agents because most of the travel suppliers have set up portions of their booking websites for travel agents. Once they have the credentials, agents can log into these sites, book travel for the clients, and then collect the commission.

My host agency had a list of "preferred suppliers." These were generally suppliers with whom they had arrangements to pay out higher commissions. If I used one of those suppliers, I would get a higher percentage on my commission split with the host. If I used a "non-preferred supplier," my split would be less.
The arrangement worked out fine. Initially, I had wanted to be a full-service agent meaning I would sell any kind of travel at all. This included airline tickets around the world, cruises, trains, resorts, all-inclusive vacations, tours, Disney, group trips, etc. I did sell a respectable amount of travel for someone just starting out in the business. I thoroughly enjoyed receiving commission checks!

I also found out that I could bid for business. My host had arrangements with a website where travellers could specify what they were looking for, and then travel agents could respond with an offer. To do this, I would contact the traveller and get details about their wishes, then contact suppliers to put together a package for them. I'd call them back with an offer. But I found that this was extremely time-consuming and I never won any bids.

Group travel is a money-maker for travel agents. It's another process where clients tell you what they want to do for a group trip, which would usually involve more than 10 people. I'd call airlines and make a request .for proposal, contact hotels and any other suppliers that the group trip would involved. Again, this was a time-consuming process and I never succeeded in any of these either.

What I was beginning to learn was that each time I was to work harder to please a potential client, the more I had to drop the price, and ultimately my commission, to remain competitive. So I was working more to earn less. There is another way to earn more money when you've dropped the price, which I shall get to shortly.

After awhile I started to feel like I wanted to change my focus. Instead of being a full-service agent, I felt I should concentrate on selling the type of travel that I had the most interest in: Cruises and Disney. I had gone on my first cruise in 2004 and had fallen head over heels in love with it! I had also been to both Disney World and Disneyland multiple times and felt I knew the parks quite well.

By concentrating on these two areas of travel, I felt I could spend more time learning about them and be of better service to customers who wanted more information. First-time cruisers have no idea where to begin. There are dozens of cruise lines, hundreds of itineraries, and thousands of destinations around the world. They would want to know what cruise line best fits their interests, their family, their lifestyle and their budget. This was something that I knew I could be good at. The same with Disney; I was already very familiar with both U.S. parks and could give a lot of guidance to first-time Disney clients. In both cases, a travel agent would want to give good service so that these first-timers to Disney and cruising would become repeat customers.

I did not renew my annual membership with my host agency. Instead, I decided to get my own agency credentials and book directly with the cruise lines and Disney.

To become a Disney expert was easy. Disney offers an on-line course to travel agents to learn more about the parks and booking travel for the parks. I took the course and passed. I received a certificate which I was allowed to display to clients, showing that I was a Disney expert. Yes, there are some limited perks to Disney for travel agents and I was able to use one once. My daughter and I were able to stay at the Pop Century Resort for half price.

To become a cruise expert was a bit more involved. I had to become familiar with dozens of different cruise lines. I joined an organization of cruise lines and travel professionals called the Cruise Lines International Association, or CLIA for short. Since I no longer had a host agency it was through this organization that I received my travel credentials in the form of a CLIA card. The card is recognized by most travel suppliers and allows agents to set up accounts with them, book travel, and collect commissions. To earn this card, I had to pay an annual fee plus take travel courses that were offered by CLIA. Once again, many of these courses were offered on-line, so it was easy to complete them at home.

CLIA also hosts an annual convention where cruise agents can take courses in person and tour cruise ships. The convention is held in a port city where a number of cruise ships would be in port. They make arrangements with each cruise line so that agents could take tours of ships. That, for me, was the most exciting part of the convention. The idea was that agents could see the ships for themselves and then go back home and tell their clients what the ships were like. The ships I was able to tour were Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas, the Star Princess, Holland America's Westerdam, Costa Mediterranea, and the Queen Mary 2.

The courses at the convention were seminars on various travel locations or ways to improve your selling technique. I enjoyed the ones about the travel locations; I especially enjoyed one about a ship that is both a cruise ship and a cargo ship and stops in multiple ports on the shores of Norway. I'd love to do that some day. The seminars about selling were all about being a salesperson. I think this is where I began to realize that selling travel was not what I enjoyed about being an agent.

To be successful as a travel agent, you really have to be willing to get more money out of people than they are willing to part with, and you have to do it in such a way that they feel like they are benefitting from it. The idea works like this: You sell a cruise for a low price to get the client committed to it. Then you start working on upgrades, excursions, and all the other extras that go with a cruise. That's where they get your money. Upgrades are generally for more expensive cabins, i.e., "Oh, for only $10 a day more, you can upgrade to such-and-such a cabin!" Yeah, that's $10 a day, per person in the cabin. On a 7-day cruise for two people, that's another $140.

What's the point of upgrading an interior cabin? There's no window looking outside, so no matter where your cabin is located, the view is the same: Nothing! So, why pay a higher price for an interior cabin on a higher deck?

Here's the part that really irritated me as an agent: The cruise lines wanted us to sell excursions and on-board services such as massages, but they don't pay any commission for those! For that matter, the cruise lines have latched onto a concept of "non-commissionable" fares. That means that a certain portion of the fare you pay to go on a cruise will not earn any commission for the agent.

That's just a couple of examples of how I feel like the cruise lines are ripping off travel agents. Agents work many long, hard hours to book clients for cruises, yet cruise lines are doing everything they can to take business away from those agents so they don't have to pay the commissions. The cruise lines know they can't eliminate the agents, because agents still book about 90% of cruises.

All those hours worked do not guarantee you're going to get paid for them. I had one young woman contact me because she wanted to surprise her husband with a cruise. They had been on a couple of cruises previously, but those were booked by him. She wanted to book one herself, so she contacted me and I spent several hours working up a nice trip proposal for them. She liked my proposal and then surprised him with it. His response was, "I can find one cheaper than that!" So I lost the deal.

Cruise lines try to get agents to book exclusively with them. They offer higher percentage commissions for the more cruises you book. So, it's possible that when you talk to an agent about a cruise, they may be looking out for their commission more than which cruise line would be the right fit for you. This is an area that I prided myself on. I did not want to be "married" to any particular cruise line. I was willing to take lesser commissions by becoming an expert on ALL the cruise lines. I wanted to hear what clients were looking for and then recommend what I thought would be the best cruise line, based on their budget, their personalities, and what they wanted out of a cruise. I had hoped to build up enough of a client base that the repeat business from them would make up for lower commissions overall.

And, by the way, airlines stopped paying commissions on airline tickets years ago. Airline tickets were once the bread and butter of travel agents.

I was a home-based travel agent for about four years. I recognized that I really didn't like feeling responsible when trips didn't go as people hoped. Airline cancellations, reservation mix-ups, personal property being lost are all things that my clients experienced. Although none of these were my fault, I couldn't help but get the feeling that they somehow held me responsible for some of it. I felt stressed every time I knew one of my clients was on a trip and either looked forward to hearing their stories when they came home or dreaded the stories.

The travel business isn't what it used to be, either. When I was at the convention touring the ships, we often had to wait in line a long time before boarding. While waiting in one of those lines, I listened to a bunch of long-time agents complain about how the business was going downhill. A lot of points they made stuck with me.

So I finally decided to leave and move onto other pursuits. Nowadays, travel for me is just for fun. Especially cruising. And I keep an eye on the bottom line. I know that when I book a cruise, I don't need to buy a lot of extras. The dinners are included with the price, so there is no need to buy a dinner in one of the ship's specialty restaurants. I often walk around a port without paying for any excursions. I don't need a $170 massage; I get my massages from local community college students for $20!

What about using the services of a travel agent? If you want someone to make recommendations, coordinate all your reservations, and give you advice for your trip, then go for it. On the other hand, the internet has made booking all kinds of travel extremely easy. You can easily book cruises, airline flights, cars, vacation packages, Disney, bus tours, etc. right on the internet.

One other point I'd like to make is about trip insurance. If you're going overseas or on a cruise, I highly recommend it. Yes, it's generally just a money-maker for the insurance company and the agent who sold it, but it is REALLY handy if you get sick or have other unforeseen circumstances happen to you. Just to be airlifted off a ship by helicopter, for example, could cost you $10,000 if you don't have trip insurance. Most health insurance plans don't cover you if you get sick overseas; trip insurance does. And if you're sick and miss your flight home, trip insurance will cover that, too.

-Paul Pakusch

Why I Sold My Dream Home and Went Back to Renting

2010-10-14T00:01:00.003-04:00

In 2002, my mother passed away after a long, heartwrenching illness. While cleaning out her home to put it on the market, I started thinking about all the items she had collected and stored through the years. While I would never judge anyone else for what they want to keep or discard, I thought about my own possessions. I admit to being a pack-rat for most of my life. But, I wondered, what am I keeping that I seriously expect to use again? What do I own that anyone would care about when I'm gone?

In 2005, my oldest daughter got her first apartment in Baltimore, where she had moved for a job. While visiting her, I started thinking about the simplicity of her lifestyle. Her home was not crammed with "stuff" packed away in every nook and cranny. She did not have all the responsibilities of home maintenance, upkeep and repairs. She did not have to deal with contractors, painters, driveway professionals, or lawn care workers. All of that was covered in a single monthly rent payment.

It brought back memories of my own young adulthood: The dreams of getting married, owning a home and starting a family. Those dreams were well under way by 2005 and it was getting near time to start thinking about an empty nest. The lure of a simpler lifestyle was growing stronger.

By 2005 we were nearly 20 years into home ownership. We had our third home in a location that I had always dreamed of: I had always wanted either water or woods in the back yard. We had woods that were deemed "forever wild." It was a 4-bedroom house in a moderately upscale neighborhood, with a woodburning fireplace in the family room, an enclosed porch in the back looking into the woods, a wooden deck in the back, and a basement that was unfinished when we moved there in 1998. I built a soundproof room in the basement where I could play my drums without bothering anyone. I also built two smaller hobby rooms for two of my daughters. We had invested in a new roof, new driveway, paint job, a pool, had some wind-damaged trees taken down and cut into firewood, a 2.5-car garage, and ample storage for all of our "stuff." What more could we want?

Financial freedom, to travel the world, and a simpler living style. That's what more we wanted. With three daughters, we knew we were facing college costs that we hadn't adequately prepared for and weddings in the not-too-distant future. We also knew we had some large home maintenance expenses coming up, including a new driveway, a new roof, the furnace was aging, etc.

In 2004, we took our first cruise and fell head over heels in love with cruising. This is what we wanted to do in our post child-raising years: Travel the world on cruise ships. I loved being able to sit on my back porch, sipping a drink and looking at the trees, but I now desired to sit on the deck of a ship and look at a different port in the world each day while on a cruise.

While weighing the pro's and cons of home ownership versus renting, we considered our daily habits. We recognized that we were actually using a small portion of our home on a regular basis. Mary has a favorite chair with a good view of the TV and she keeps the things she regular uses handy and within reach of that chair. I had a favorite chair in the family room that had a good view of another TV. We were working split shifts at the time (Mary was on days, I was on evenings), so it really didn't make sense to have two separate locations to watch TV. I tended to spend most of my time in the combination family room and kitchen. We are not big entertainers of guests, so having large amounts of space was not necessary. We recognized that most of our activities could be confined to a minimal amount of living space.

In 2006, we decided to do it. We put our house on the market and found a townhouse that we liked. Well into their teens, the two remaining girls agreed that it would work for them. We completely filled our 2.5 car garage TWICE and had two separate garage sales. Everything went cheap and we got rid of it all. My theory about garage sales is to sell cheap so that nothing is left. If we sold stuff for what we thought it was worth, we'd still have half of it left anyways and would then have to find a way to dispose of it. But by selling cheap, literally EVERYTHING went! Bargain-hunters did the work of disposing for us! I even posted a sign on our refrigerator saying "cheap, but you must move it yourself." So, the buyer put down a deposit and came back with the equipment and manpower to move it. I didn't have to lift a finger. Ultimately we made a lot of money.

It's not easy to undo packrat habits. At first I found it tough to let go of certain things, but the more I got into it, the easier it became. Of everything we sold at the garage sale, I can't think of anything I miss or anything I regret selling. It's still an ongoing process. As of this writing, we have actually lived in three different apartments since we sold our house. Each apartment has had less space than the one before it. Each time we've moved, it meant getting rid of more stuff. Each time, it gets easier.

Although I used to be a packrat, I'm not much of a collector of anything. The only two things I've really accumulated through the years are music and family photographs. Both of these items required a fair amount of storage space; space which needed to be significantly reduced or even eliminated in order to fit our remaining belongings into apartments. In both cases, today's computer technology has helped me with changing how I collect these items.

At one time, I had several hundred albums. I've never wanted albums for the sake of collecting them; my interest has always been the music itself. I know people who are big time record collectors and I think it's an awesome hobby for them. But that's not what it was about for me. I enjoy hearing the way the music is played and I don't care what medium it's coming from as long as it sounds good to me. I made the decision to sell off all of my vinyl records and keep all my music on mp3 files or iTunes. I kept a few albums that have special meaning to me, but my vast vinyl collection is otherwise gone. It amazes me that what once took up several bookcases worth of shelves can now fit into a space that is about 2 cubic inches!

My vast collection of photo albums has also been dismantled. For the past couple of years, I've been scanning all of my photos and categorizing them by year into folders on my computer. After I had purchased my first digital camera in the early 2000's, I had come up with this system of filing my digital photos. The more I looked at the amount of space all those photo albums took up, the more I wanted to get those photos into computer files as well. I spent many months deliberating whether to do this or not; finally I decided to go for it. It's a long process, but I am very happy with the results. I have not thrown away any of the prints; I keep them in a couple of boxes, available for any family members who need them for any reason. At least this way they take up a lot less space.

I have everything backed up in three places. I keep them backed up on an external hard drive, on flash drives, and on an on-line storage site. The flash drives make it easy for me to share photos with family and friends; all I have to do is put it in their computer and they can copy what they want.

I've never been much of a collector of movies or books. I tend to like to watch a movie once and then I'm done with it. So watching one on HBO, Movies on Demand, or a rented DVD works out just fine. I don't normally buy books; I like to borrow them from the library. This leaves us with just a small collection of favorite movies and books taking up a minimal amount of shelf space.

One issue that I had to deal with was how to practice my drums. This is an issue that has continued to evolve after we began renting. First of all, a drum kit takes up space, and secondly, apartment neighbors wouldn't be keen on hearing me practice my drums. In 2006 I was still playing gigs in a rock band. My first plan was to keep my drums in storage and bring them out when I had a gig. I would practice on a set of drum pads in my bedroom. The practice set was a metal stand that had 4 adjustable arms, each holding a drum practice pad. It worked out OK, but the truth is I was starting to lose interest in playing in a rock band anymore. I spent some time looking for something else, but I didn't know what that "something" was. Ultimately, I found a Fife and Drum Corps to join. This would complement very nicely a similar type of drumming I was doing with a firemen's marching band. I realized that I wanted to move away from playing a drum kit and take up rudimentary snare drumming. Now, instead of dragging pieces of a drum kit to and from gigs, setting them up and then tearing them down, all I need to do is harness up one snare drum and I'm ready to play. I got rid of the 4-armed practice set and picked up a single practice pad. It can be set on a table anywhere. So, my newfound interest in a different type of drumming actually solved my storage space and practice issues that came with living in an apartment.

We came up with a 5-year plan to eliminate all of our debt. With one year remaining on that plan, it looks like we will come close to reaching that goal! Then we will use cash for everything we want while continuing to invest in our retirement. This, to me, is true financial freedom. People can dream all they want about winning the lottery or somehow making millions of dollars, but the idea of being debt-free and without having cumbersome assets that tie up our money is very appealing and within reach for us! It will enable us to live comfortably well within our means and to be able to travel.

What about those who say owning your own home is a great tax advantage? It's true we no longer have the credits and deductions that go with home ownership, but what we are saving in the long run far outweighs what we have lost in tax advantages. And for that matter, we no longer pay property taxes. What we previously paid per month in property taxes is only a couple hundred dollars less than what we are now paying for rent.

For those who believe we have lost the investment value of home ownership, there are other ways to invest your money and we have pursued those methods. One thing we will never have to worry about is the loss of our home, which as everyone knows, has been a major problem for many people over the past couple of years. If where we are living is not working out for any reason, we simply need to move at the end of our lease.

These days we are spending much more time on pursuits that make us happy versus keeping up on home maintenance and cleaning. Our apartment can be thoroughly cleaned in about a half hour. We have no responsibilities for maintenance inside or out. Our expenses are way down. Sometimes, while riding my bike through middle to upperclass neighborhoods, I look at the size of those homes and just imagine what the heating or air conditioning bills must be. Then there's the property taxes, the mortgage payments, the maintenance, in some cases the 3- and 4-car garages and all the vehicles being stored there, and I would imagine the credit card debt associated with all the "stuff."

It makes me happy knowing that I am no longer a slave to my dream home. These days, the world is my home! We live comfortably in a nice apartment and we have plans to travel to many places. If we want to sit by water or woods, we can go to a nice park. There is a beach within walking distance of our apartment. What we've done may not be for everyone, but it's working very well for us!

-Paul Pakusch

Going Home

2010-10-13T00:01:00.008-04:00

Originally posted October, 2009

I bike ride on average about 4 times a week. A few nights ago, it was twilight when I set out. Since I don't have lights on my bike, I do not ride in the road when it's dark. I stay on the sidewalk.

Very often, I do not have a route in mind when I set out to ride my bike. Usually I head into the wind so I can pump hard the first half of my bike ride, then let the wind push me a little while I ride back. On this evening, I don't know where to go. The wind is coming out of the west, so I simply head west, into the wind.

As I ride along, I start to think about the route I used to take from home to school. My current home is about a mile from the house where I grew up, and by staying on this road, I will ride past the old neighborhood. I lived there for 17 years.

The route to school is slightly over a mile from my old home, so it is a little over two miles from where I live now. Even though I drive this route frequently today, it's not very often that I use the sidewalk next to the road. And that sidewalk is where I spent 8 years of my youth.

I ride past my old neighborhood. From the side street where I used to come out to the top of the prominent hill where my old school still sits, I once knew every single crack, hill and dip of that sidewalk. I stepped on a lot of cracks in those days; my poor mother's back!

As I ride along, on the right is the public school where I spent the second half of my kindergarten year. We moved into this neighborhood in February, 1967 when I was 6. The old donut shop next to it was there for a long time. Sometimes I stopped there on my way home from school. Now it is a pizzeria. I also remember the steak house that used to be in the same plaza. Other businesses have come and gone so many times I've lost track. Next to that is a bowling alley. I was in a league in my youth; my 15-pound bowling ball was torture to carry this far and back!

Next is the only major intersection I had to cross. If I took a right here, I'd be in the neighborhood where I once had a weekly paper route. After crossing the intersection, I look to the right and see the empty lot where a popular pizzeria and deli once stood. It burned down years ago. Weeds now grow through the cracks of its concrete foundation. On the left is a creek where a brick bank building once sat on the shore. Nothing but grass on that spot now, overshadowed by the plaza beyond that has expanded since then.

After a slight dip, the long climb up the hill begins. My modern 24-speed Trek eases up most of the way with little effort on this Fall evening. Back then, my 5-speed Stingray was a chore to pump up the hill. But the climb isn't constant. The sidewalk levels off here and there, and there is yet another dip to coast down before the ultimate and steepest climb begins. Oh, how I looked forward to flying down that hill at the end of the school day!

Here it is mostly residential. Most of the houses look pretty much the same as they did years ago, but with new paint jobs or siding. One very large piece of property has been broken down into several lots with new homes. Across the street, an old apple orchard still exists, but its trees are old and spindly.

After crossing a side street, I now reach the final, steep stretch. Most of the time I'd get off my Stingray here and walk it to the top. Occasionally, I'd pump hard, knowing that when I reached the driveway, I'd make a left turn and be able to enjoy a ride down a slight hill. This evening, my Trek makes the grade in no time flat, and next thing I know, I'm riding down that driveway. Past the old convent and into the church parking lot behind the school: The site of many recesses and phys ed ball games, sometimes with the boys playing "shirts" against "skins." I'm sure that's illegal for schools to do these days. And yeah, in choosing team members, I was one of those where they saved the best for last! LOL!

From the church parking lot we go behind the school building, where the younger kids' playground was. It was always pavement; the two swing sets, the slides, the monkey bars, the carousels caused many skinned knees! The lot is empty now as I ride through it, up to the iron grille where I used to lock my Stingray. The grille is still there! Bent, painted over many times and showing some rust, it's the same one!

I look across all the windows and pick out my old classrooms. This is a parochial school and I was here from first grade through eight grade. Grammar school and junior high. There was no "middle school."

From here I ride past the big windows of my old first grade classroom and reach the front parking lot, which back then was the bus loop. This is from where I got my biggest thrill as a bike rider to school back in those days, and I am about to relive the moment: The ride down the big hill!

I start building up speed as I intersect the sidewalk out front. I stop pumping and let gravity do the rest. Faster I go, the wind blowing across my body. It blew through my hair then, but I have a helmet now. I watch carefully for traffic coming out of the side street at the bottom of the steepest part; I have never forgotten the day that the brakes gave out on my Stingray and I was unable to stop the roll down the hill. I nearly collided with a school bus that had stopped there. The bus moved out of my way just as I reached the street. It could have been ugly. So tonight, I give the brakes a quick squeeze and make sure there is no traffic before I continue downhill.

It is well past sunset now as I continue the route back to my old neighborhood. Past the orchard, the creek, the bank, the deli's old foundation, across the intersection; I roll past the bowling alley, the restaurant, the pizzeria, and the public school. This time, I turn down the side street to the training grounds of my youth: Where I learned to ride a bike in the street for the first time.

I ride past the homes of schoolmates and friends I grew up with. A few of their parents still live here. I pause by the home where I grew up. I moved in there as a 6-year old and moved out the day I got married at age 23. The living room's two front windows are illuminated by the glow of a TV that sits in the same spot where our old Zenith console once sat. That TV's innards were tubes; color tubes! It had a loose connection in it somewhere that caused the picture to turn to snow a lot. Stomp your foot on the floor and the vibration would jolt the picture back again.

I look up to the dormer that was my old bedroom. When we moved into that house, the upstairs was unfinished. My dad, a carpenter, finished it. I was always proud of his carpentry. He was very good at what he did. Moving into that room was my 9th year birthday present. I wonder what the current owners have done with my "secret room." It was an attic that was only accessible by going through my closet and opening the sliding half-door. You had to crouch down to get through it. My "secret room" was my little hideaway. Years later as a tall teenager, I wondered how I ever fit into that little crawl space!

The route of my school journey is complete. It's another mile back to my current home. As I continue riding through the neighborhood, I pass the house of one of my sisters. She recently moved back to this neighborhood and her back yard is only several hundred feet away from the back yard of our old house. At the time we moved there, her current house didn't exist. In fact, her entire street and the next street down didn't exist, either. It was all woods, with a creek running through it. It was a young boy's delight to have that creek and the woods. The times I swam in the creek, my friends and I picked up bloodsuckers. And how I loved to climb trees!

Yet it was actually a thrill when the woods were being bulldozed over, conservation be damned. This young kid loved tractors. I watched as Drott backhoes dug the basements of dozens of these homes. On evenings and weekends, my friends and I crawled down into those rectangular pits and threw around the freshly-layed stones meant for a foundation. We played in the wood frame rooms of many unfinished structures. Only one time was I ever chased out; a friend and I just happened to be in one of those homes when the future family showed up to see its progress. We were caught. The father simply said, "Don't go in there again." After they moved in, they became among my family's closest friends to this day. A 40-year friendship that endures!

I ride out of the old neighborhood and stick to the sidewalk. It is dark now as I head back to my current home. I had no plans for this evening's bike ride. I simply headed west, into the wind.

Paul Pakusch

Just Like Starting Over

2010-10-12T15:48:00.000-04:00

Yeah, that's the name of a John Lennon song. But it rings true for me. I've gone back and forth from blogs to other ventures and back to blogs again, but the bottom line is it seems I like to write. The latest venture was that few weeks ago I tried to make a long-time dream come true by starting up a cartoon strip here on blogspot. Two weeks in, it fell flat on its face. I'm just not into drawing the way I thought I might be. But the itch to write has been burning all along. So here I am again. Paul's Beat. Yep. Named after my passion for drumming. And I'm always marching to my own beat.

So for the rest of this week I'll be bringing back some oldies but goodies from my old blogs and reposting them here. Just for posterity. Then I'll get on with the new stuff.