Air Power

There are fighter jets zooming around downtown in preparation for the air show this weekend. It's kinda cool. I can't see them, as the lab is stuck under a lot of buildings, but I can hear them roar by every now and then.

Flashback: 2002

I hadn't left California yet, but was steadily going broke on a combination of lack of work and... well, that was pretty much it. I decided to clear my mind and go for a long drive. At the time, my long drives were day-long experiences (which means that when I sold that car, it had 170,000 miles on it). I drove out to Death Valley, and just was perched on an outcropping overlooking the valley. Over the mountains on the other side of the valley, I saw two fighter jets flying around, almost as if they were playing. This was just after the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, so I assumed that they were flying from there back to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave desert (at least that would have put them roughly on this course). I'm a guy, so seeing two jets flying around is really cool to me, so I thought I'd stick around and watch them. They seemed to be getting a little closer, which was cool, and I continued to watch. Before I knew it, however, one of them was bearing down on me. The guy must have flown by about 300 feet away from me. That was cool. Too late, I remembered I had my camera in my car, so I turned around to go back to my car, and there was the other guy, maybe 100 feet from me, just passing behind me. Practically blew me over with the shock of it. He was even tilted over a little, so I could see into his cockpit. I probably could have made out facial details if he hadn't been wearing his helmet. They went on, and kept flying, but that was cool to have been nearly strafed by two fighter jets.

Ah, memories.