Spring Training 2010

Next to flying, one of my real passions is baseball. Fortunately, Cheryl shares this passion, and truth be told, she's probably a bigger fan than I am. When Cheryl suggested we treat each other to Spring Training for Christmas this year, I jumped on it. Although I have some issues with commercial air travel, American got us to Miami cheap. More on this later.

Let me say, if you like baseball, go to Spring Training. It's a totally different, and better experience. The players are accessible, every seat is like box seats at the major league parks, and the excitement is intoxicating. We went early to watch batting practice, and saw Mark McGwire watching over younger players like Colby Rasmus and Skip Schumaker. Our seats were six rows up from the bull pen, so we got to watch the pitchers warm up veteran and rookie alike. The wind was terrible, and we got some rain, but the game was great. A winner by the way 6-4 in the top of the ninth. It doesn't get much better. Subsequent games against the Nationals and the Mets were similar great experiences. We saw Legends such as Lou Brock and Red Schoendienst; hometown
heroes Mark McGwire, Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina; and of course the youngsters trying to make it to the biggs, such as Allen Craig, Bryan Anderson, Tyler Norrick and Franciso Samuel.


Past, Present, and Future, just like Aviation. If your older than 16, you've seen a lot of changes in aviation, both Commercial and General Aviation. Some good, some not so good. Take our trip to Miami. We got to the airport 3 hours early, just like they tell you to. We got through security relatively easy, and settled in to wait for our flight. And wait and wait. It turns out the flight in was 1 hour late, and since no one wants to carry their carry-on all the way to the back of the plane, they used all the overheads in the front, and all the people sitting in front had to put their carry-ons in the overheads in the back. This made loading the airplane take an additional eternity, and drives an ex-controller nuts. Adding insult to injury, we had a gate wait when arriving Miami. All total, almost 7 hours. We could almost get there that quick in the Cherokee. Such is the present state of Commercial Aviation.

In my next entry, I'll try and talk about the future of aviation, with a little inside information on the future of Air Traffic Control. Until then, Go Cards!!!!!