Date Night With Uncle Tim

Oh hi Bakey,

Well, as you know, you’re travel plans came this week. We’ll see you next month! Wow, that sounds nuts.

Things at work normalized this week. I think the stuff we worked on turned out well. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow as we have the event recap. Work stuff is boring.

As I reflect back on the week I think this will be a short letter. It’s still cool outside, it rained hard yesterday. They’re worried about flooding, there’s a lot of water up in the mountains waiting to come down, with the cool weather, it’s stayed up there. It will eventually warm up, then POW, it will be the spring of 83 all over again. They’ve started to pile up the mud that was deposited in the park when it flooded a few weeks ago. I’ll bet there’s 50 dump trucks worth of mud for them to clean up. Super interesting news, eh?

The fireplace is coming along nicely. I tiled it with the same tile we used on the back splash. It was pretty messy getting the tile and the grout up, but it turned out nice. It makes it look like the fireplace belongs here, rather than just something the builder slapped up. It’s fun to see something that came out your head come into reality. I think that’s why I do most of what I do. I’m putting up the trim now, my air nailer broke, I guess that’s why you need to pay more than $20 for a tool. I have had it since we lived in Lehi though, so I guess I got my $20 bucks worth. 

Right now Mom and I are watching this movie called Spanglish, this movie came out a long time ago. The only reason I wanted to watch it was because half way through the main character made this fried egg, bacon, and cheese sandwich on buttered sourdough toast, oh man, I want to eat one right now.

Saturday was pretty busy with the fireplace and stuff. I did have a date with your uncle Tim last night though. The Hill AFB Museum had a Pilot Talk by an F-117 Stealth Fighter. This guy was a complete legend. He commands the Test Pilot Program at Edwards AFB (like Chuck Yeager). he’s flown the F-117, F-16, and B-2 bomber. His talk was mainly about the development, technology, and operation of the F-117. It’s was super high tech in the 70s and 80s, but it’s easy to think of as obsolete now. According to his stories, it’s not. Then he told a story about a Russian mathematician who developed a theory and formulas on how to deflect radar beams through specific ways to design an aircraft. But then the Russians didn’t believe in it. After the war in Vietnam the US was looking for a way to decrease the losses of their aircraft. I guy at the Lockheed Skunkworks found that data and they proceeded to design a plane around those formulas. The results they ended up with were so good that the military didn’t believe that they were real. They brought in a radar expert from MIT to verify. He did a test where he glued ball bearings to the plane. He knew the radar cross section of the ball bearings and when he calculated the radar signature, it came back to equal the ball bearings, and no greater. With that verification Washington changed the classification to beyond Top Secret. It was such an important breakthrough that the current president, jimmy Carter, cancelled the B-1 bomber because it would be made obsolete by the new stealth technology. Ronald Reagan used that cancellation politically against Jimmy Carter and won the election. Then, reagan was able to end the Cold War over Russia by pressuring and intimidating them with the new technology. It was a really cool cycle that he described. He ended his talk by answering a few questions. Most of them were about the plane or his experiences. But one young serviceman asked a question about what advice he would give his younger self. I wish you had been there to hear it. He said that life is full of trials and pain. He simplified those into to kinds. The first is the pain that comes from discipline, from putting in the effort and sacrifice of making yourself better, setting your goals and working hard towards that goal. He was adamant that you do that now, that there will always be more time now than there will be in the future (think about a certain cousin that took nine years to finish at UVU). The other kind of pain comes from regret, I think we can all understand that for ourselves. He did make a point that other trials that life gives you are different, because everyone has to face those regardless of discipline or regrets. The whole presentation was amazing. I’m such a geek for these guys. With the exception of conference talks, these are the most inspirational talks I’ve ever heard.

On a really sad note, do you remember when we would take you guys to the outlet stores in Allen, Texas? There was a mass shooting there were nine people were killed, including children. Seven others were hurt. I police man saw the shooter and killed him, or it could have been much worse. I remember that place distinctly and I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to go from a casual day of shopping to losing you kid or your wife. I hate the evil that’s in this world that has become so common and I hate how politics has made idols of guns and put them above family. I know those horrible things happen in Mexico, but it seems more driven by cartels and such, right?

On another sad note, it’s been one year since Teagan Brown died. His dad gave a humble testimony. He’s going through my worst nightmare and I don’t even know what to say to him. 

Well, mom just made me a fried egg and bacon sandwich, so I’m going to eat it. I sure love you kid.

Pops