As a long-time contributor to aviation safety (Western Michigan College of Aviation, The Boeing Company, FlightSafety) I’d like to THANK the VP’s of flight departments, line check airmen, flight instructors, support staff, and most of all, THE PILOTS of US-based airlines who work long hours in the worst conditions imaginable to bring our grandparents, moms, dads, kids, neices, nephews, etc. home to us safely each and every day!

THANK YOU


Brendan Savage from the Flint Journal reports:

FLINT, Michigan — The youngsters who take the ice Saturday afternoon for the first practice of the Flint Inner-City Youth Hockey Program won’t be the only novices at Perani Arena.

They’ll be joined by another first-timer — basketball star Mateen Cleaves.

Cleaves, the former Northern High and Michigan State star who went on to play in the NBA, has agreed to don a pair of skates and take the ice to show the youngsters that it’s OK to take a chance and try something new even if you might look a little silly at first.

The program is still looking for youngsters interested in participating. There is no cost and all equipment will be free courtesy of Perani’s Hockey World. No experience is necessary.

Registration forms are available at Perani’s Hockey World or the Flint Generals offices inside Perani Arena. Program founder Rico Phillips said pre-registration is important so players can be fitted with properly sized equipment.

The program is open to boys and girls aged 7-13 who live in the city of Flint.

Saturday’s workout is from noon-2 p.m.

I’m a New York transplant, first got to NYC 13 years ago, been here off and on, but now a longtime permanent downtown Manhattan resident. Perhaps this will sound a little odd, but I go out of my way to befriend native New Yorkers (I’m giving one such native a hard time in the photo, with the typical
“Why me?!?!” response). New York natives are the reason why I moved here in the first place. There is just something about them that makes NYC, well, more authentic NYC. New York-specific accents that don’t seem to be going away:

1. Hil-LARRY-ous
2. Hiz-TARA-cul
3. Shtreet instead of street
4. Waiting on line instead of in line (I once asked someone if they were on line and they said, after a puzzled look, yes and that I could go in front of them if I wanted! (It was a long line too).
5. Train instead of subway
6. Even Manhattan itself is said MunHATTAN

I’ve noticed that if I turn on the accent (it’s easy), and add a little Bayside, Queens Italian shoulder shrug here and there, adopt a little Brooklyn Jewish animation, I find that the city makes room for me: on the train, in restaurants, and in general, people automatically give me respect… strange as it sounds, it’s absolutely the truth. I turn the accent off and revert to my native nasally Michigan accent, and I’m trampled upon in every way possible. I might as well be invisible.

HOW you say things here in NYC – from my observations – can absolutely alter the kind of experience you have in the city.

90 Year-Old Grandfather Tells Story of Turning In Lost Wallet Containing $12,500 from Shawn Chittle on Vimeo.

My Grandfather, Robert K. Chittle, WWII veteran, of Flint, Mich, found a wallet in a parking lot in 1947. It contained $1,300 – which in today’s dollars is $12,500. He managed to find the owner and return the wallet and the money.

The man who lost the wallet was a UAW member, and the union wrote my Grandfather a thank-you letter.

In this video he recalls the events from over 65 years ago.

I got pretty choked up when I read the letter and heard him tell the story first hand, which I think caught him off guard and thus he got a little choked up too.

It’s one of the greatest stories I’ve ever heard.

Well, you can’t, really, but you can fake it real good. Youtube works great, but I really like Vimeo which sadly is Flash-based and does not work on the iPhone. But you can instruct your Wordpress blog post to swap out the Vimeo video for an MP4 version of the video that does work on the iPhone.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Encode your video and output an MP4 iPhone compatible video. Upload it to where you host your files. I use Quicktime Pro and the default settings.

2. Download the EXEC-PHP Wordpress plugin. This will let your posts interpret PHP code without any hassle.

3. Add a new post. Click the HTML tab, and paste this code in, changing the values accordingly.

<?php
if(strstr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],’iPhone’) || strstr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],’iPod’)) {
print <<<END
<embed src=”http://pathtovideo.m4v” width=”XXX” height=”XXX” href=”http://pathtovideo.m4v”>
END;
}
else {
print <<<END
*****VIDEO EMBED CODE*****
END;
}
?>

Thanks to Eric W. and Michael Moore for posting my Flint/Haiti article on the front page of MichaelMoore.com today. I’m humbled and honored…