Author: geoff

A bit of history: down the chute at CDG

I was sorting through some old (paper) files this evening and came across some photographs from about 15 years ago. They were of an event that, as you can imagine, I’ve never forgotten: evacuating an airliner by going down the emergency chute. Since several people have bugged me about this over the years, I thought it was worth posting the pictures.

In brief, what happened was this. I was flying home from Paris on a wet and windy November day: CDG-BOS on a TWA L-1011. We taxied out and started the take-off run, but just below V1 we lost the #3 (starboard) engine in a sheet of flame. Maximum autobrake but no reverse thrust, of course; the runway was wet, the plane was heavy, and we barely stopped at the end of the runway. As we turned onto the taxiway, several passengers reported smoke coming from under the starboard wing. We’d blown several tires and they were smouldering. Fire in close proximity to a wingful of fuel is bad news, and we evacuated via the port slides. For some reason I was sent down first to help to catch people as they came off the slide. A fire truck (visible in the second picture) extinguished the smouldering undercarriage, and eventually we were bussed back to the terminal.

Before they could make alternative travel arrangements for us we had to retrieve our baggage and carry-on items. So we were bussed back to the plane, and were allowed to re-enter (in small groups, under the watchful eye of the airport police) to recover our things. It was after I’d got my briefcase (and two bottles of the nouveau Beaujolais), while I was waiting for the remaining passengers, that I remembered that I had a camera in my bag. Standing in the drizzle under the nose of the L-1011, I used my last bit of film to capture the scene.

The first five thumbnails are the pictures that I took. I scanned them in and used Arcsoft’s PanoramaMaker to stitch four of them into a composite. The original photos were a bit scratched up, but I hope you enjoy them.


Cultural dissonance

While the U.S.A. is getting its knickers in a twist over gay marriage, children’s TV depicting a kid with “two mommies”, and books by gay authors, DER SPIEGEL is reporting that “there is a very real possibility that Germany’s next government will be a coalition between a woman — who will likely become Germany’s first woman chancellor — and a gay man”. Right on!

Wind, rain, floods, trees

A huge storm has been pummelling New England for the last couple of days, and isn’t going to move out until later tonight. (There’s a low of around 995 hPa that’s been stuck just south of Nantucket, blocked by a Greenland high.) The folks at the National Weather Service office in Taunton, MA, say that it’s the most severe storm in late May since 1967. Just down the road there’s a huge tree (a London plane, Platanus x acerifolia) uprooted, leaning at 45 degrees and resting on the roof of a house. This means that my street is blocked off while things are cleared up. Elsewhere around the Boston area there are numerous reports of flooding, power outages, trees down, and other storm damage. In our neighbourhood, we’ve had about 3 inches of rain; last night we experienced sustained winds of over 35 MPH, with gusts around 50 MPH.

A good day to work at home, I think.

Liverpool! Liverpool!!

GO REDS!!!!Liverpool What a stunning performance by Liverpool tonight in the Champions League Final. 3-0 down to Milan at half-time, they looked crushed. Then in the second half they came back to make it 3-3 at full time. They survived several near misses during a goalless extra time, and won the penalty shoot-out 3-2 to win the title. Sheer determination. Congratulations!

(And now as the officials prepare for the medal ceremony, the Liverpool fans are singing “You’ll never walk alone”….)

Blogspam: good news and bad news

I just checked out the Activity Log for my blog. I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the MT-Blacklist module that I installed back in February has been doing its job. The bad news is that in that time it has detected and blocked 5,109 trackbacks and 854 comments. (In the last 30 days alone, it’s nailed 1,012 and 60 respectively.) Just think about the bandwidth involved, and then remember all of the unprotected blogs out there….

A conservative admission over the filibuster issue

Professor Stephen Bainbridge (a law professor at UCLA) points out, correctly, that “The filibuster is a profoundly conservative tool. It slows change by allowing a resolute minority to delay – to stand athwart history shouting stop. It ensures that change is driven not ‘merely by temporary advantage or popularity’ but by a substantial majority.” That, certainly, is conservatism as I understood it – the conservatism of Burke (who would probably have felt that today’s neoconservatives have more in common with Jacobins than with true conservatism).

But Bainbridge’s key point is this: “BTW, any honest conservative must admit that the only reason we’re having this debate over filibusters is because of Orin Hatch’s changes to the Judiciary Committee rules and procedures on matters like blue slips, hearings, and so on, which deprived the Democrats of the tactics that the GOP used to bottle up a lot of Clinton nominees in committee.”

Of coure this merely provokes the hard right into accusing him of being a traitor and allying himself with “Demo-Rats”. Yet another example of what Andrew Sullivan has described as the tension between “Conservatives of doubt” and “Conservatives of faith”.

(Via Sully – to whom I offer best wishes – see Me and my virus.)

How do you find interesting new single malt Scotches?

Over the years I have gradually expanded my horizons where single malts are concerned. I started with Macallan, went down-market with Bowmore Islay (excellent value), then ventured into the salty mysteries of Laphroaig and Talisker. Glorious! And I’ve tried various others, never straying far from familiar territory. A few were disappointing, but none were undrinkable.
Last week I was in my local liquor store picking up gin and tonic, and I decided on a whim to get a bottle of Springbank, a 10-year old Campbeltown. I naively expected that a Cambeltown might be comparable to an Islay: peat, brine, a hint of iodine. After all the two are practically neighbours.
It was AWFUL: a cloying, honey-like sweetness that just wouldn’t let go. I tried with and without water: it was no good. So yesterday I picked up some Laphroaig and started looking for recipes using whisky. Any suggestions? And how do I avoid this embarassing mistake in the future?

Whither Pat?

One of my favorite ex-Sun execs seems to have been ousted by her new employer, Salesforce.com. The Register reports Prez Sueltz leaves Salesforce.com: “One source said Sueltz was ‘devastated’ over the parting of the ways with Salesforce.com. Sueltz joined the firm believing she would be groomed for the CEO position. Sueltz did not return our call seeking comment.”

Although I didn’t work directly for Pat in Sun Software or Service, our paths crossed frequently; several of the Town Hall meetings that she held here in Burlington turned into Geoff’n’Pat shows. During the stressful uncertainty that accompanied the big layoffs at Sun in the years after 9/11, I always felt that Pat understood the human side of things better than any of her colleagues.

When Pat first joined Sun, I was a little surprised (and a bit concerned) to see that she was was less confrontational and assertive than some of her peers (and certainly less than her predecessors – anyone remember JanPieter?!) Gradually I came to appreciate how effective she was in working behind the scenes, achieving her goals by patient persuasion, loyalty, and coalition-building. In talking with her it was clear that, despite her relatively low-key style, she cared passionately about what she was doing. I hope this latest event is only a temporary setback.

UPDATE: Looks like I was slow on the uptake – this story hit two weeks ago. I guess El Reg only just picked it up.