I entered the terminal on the West side, the gate that I needed is on the East, so after the 15 minutes of TSA rhetoric I started walking, and walking, and walking and wouldn’t you know it, my gate was at the very end of the concourse so I put in my mile for the day!

I had just over an hour to wait to board so I sat down in what I thought was a full service restaurant, they had a waitress and a menu, the menu consisted of 2 items, both sandwiches, I chose the Turkey and Cheese rather than the Ham and Cheese, add a diet Coke, total before tip 15.36!

Walked over the waiting area and watched the clock tick to the magic 30 minutes before departure and instead of the, Ladies and Gentlemen let’s get ready to rumble it was, due to an air traffic stop in the Chicago area, we’re not going anywhere, sit back, relax and we’ll let you know more once we know what’s going on. So before I cried (Bravo Sierra) on this, I pulled out the laptop and queried the FAA website and sure enough, the message below was on the screen, so atleast they were honest.

Bottom line, I got to Chicago, 4 hours late and still had to drive 30 miles to the part of town I would be meeting in all week, but no sooner than I left the airport I saw my personal MECCA, there on the right was a White Castle, so 4 Cheese sliders, a box of fries and a diet Coke made the next 30 miles just fly by!

BTW, if you ever want to know the latest status for an airport and you’re stuck in a terminal with no information, go here: http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp you’ll get a map and you can click on the field of your choice to see what’s holding you up.

About a year ago I caught something at the end of Two and a Half Men that had me running for the pause button on my remote, instead of a studio logo or “Sit Ubu Sit” I saw what read more like a blog or diary that could only be read if you had a DVR. Seems that I stumbled on what I have since found to be a phenomena, the Chuck Lorre Vanity Card. At the time I wasn’t aware these have been a running gag since he was a producer on Dharma & Greg but after some 200+ cards, there are blog sites about these cards and last week a mainstream article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

If you’ve never had the pleasure, the mind of Chuck Lorre is genius, before you hit the remote at the end of one of his shows on Monday nights, wait for the end and get ready to pause, if you don’t have a Tivo or other DVR, you can read all his cards on this web site: Chuck Lorre and Link to WSJ Article

Congratulations to “JJ” Jimmy Johnson #48 on another PIR Victory!

USE	DESIGNATION	FREQ (mHz)	FREQ (mHz)	FREQ (mHz)
TV	TRACK TALK	454.5000	454.7000
TV	FAA Fly-Over	455.1000	455.2250
TV	Commentary (IFB)	450.0625	450.1000	450.1375
TV	Commentary (IFB)	450.1625	450.2625	450.7250
TV	Commentary (IFB)	455.1375	455.3000	455.4625
TV	Commentary (IFB)	455.6375

Driver Frequencies Follow -

For the last 2 years, since moving into my home in the west valley of the Phoenix Metro, I have been tormented by a low flying agriculture helo spraying the fields directly across the street from my home. The spraying usually lasts for 2 hours and it usually starts after 10pm, even at 2am!

Today, they sprayed early, before sunset, which has never happened and I was finally able to get a tail number and some pics. I doubt that I can do anything even reporting this to the FAA as a noise complaint but the pics came out really nice so there they are.

The “Helicopter Man” as viewed from my back patio deck. Click any pic for full size image.