I spent some time this morning responding to a ridiculous story on Slashdot. The story claimed that Wall Street Journalists regarding an Al-Queda laptop that was “found.”

Anyway, I took the time to make an important comment saying the story was full of too many holes. Rather than get it modded up, it was virtually ignored. Time to dust off Reliable Sources and start analyzing news for real.

During this morning’s commute I became annoyed at how slowly my car was moving. It wasn’t just traffic – I could’ve been going 85 MPH and it still would’ve seemed slow. The plane ride has spoiled me!

Walking into my building, I remembered how I fought to stifle a grin as Bill and I walked into the Johnston County airport building for soft drinks. Left unchecked, that huge grin would’ve surely given me away. Flying is in me now.

Well, the flight went fine. We arrived at RDU Airport about 4:15.I was surprised at how fast Bill went through the pre-flight check. What seems like a long checklist to a student pilot must be pretty routine to someone who’s been flying for years.

Bill seemed to be anxious to take to the air – he told me afterwards that he needed “to get his fix.” Other pilots I know have the same feeling. Gravity sucks and they’re going to do something about it.

We taxied to the runway and watched as a Continental 737 took way too long to take off. An incoming American jet had less than a mile to go before winding up on top of the Continental. If I was a passenger on the Continental flight I’d have been raising cain. This is why passenger windows in planes face the side.

We took off and got to our cruise altitude of 3500 ft. I had suggested we head to Johnston County Airport, by way of my house. We rose to 2000 feet, called departure and dropped radar coverage, and settled over the “practice area” near my home. Bill banked the plane right over my house, just skirting the controlled airspace at RDU.

After seeing my house from 2500 feet, we headed over to Johnston county, where we landed, purchased gas, and then took off again. I was impressed by the airport at Johnston County. Nice long runway and fewer planes competing with you for it. Also, not too far from our home.

The approach to RDU was routine. We flew over Umstead Park, a dark swath of trees near the airport. Lining up on Runway 32, Bill skillfully put ‘er down with barely a bump.

It may be a while before I can land as gently as that!

Time to get a plane, methinks.

Finally! I now have a voice on the web. I’m using bpblog to run my web log.

So now I won’t have such a boring, static, yucky webpage anymore. I can run wild with my Internet postings. And for great justice, too!

Writing on the web has appealed to me for some time, but now more than ever. You see, I am a lazy man by nature. One day it dawned on me that the reason I kept a bookmark file full of news and commentary sites was because I was looking for a voice that matched my own. That way, I could have an opinion on the web without being bothered to do it myself!

Needless to say, this was a fruitless search. There are a lot of sites I admire, but few can speak for me. So, this weblog was born.

This achievement took a few days to put into place. I was basically bored at work, so the finishing touches filled up my day here.

Now I will go about putting some nice touches on it before the end of the day. Then, my boss – a pilot – will take me for a spin in his Cessna 172. I’m confident this trip will reignite my interest in flying. All that, and there’s an open house at the local flight school!