Author Archives: Maria Langer

Alco to the Rescue!

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I’m surprised to find some needed computer cables at the local discount store.

When Alco came to Wickenburg, a lot of people — including me, I guess — were very happy. Finally, there was a place in town where you could buy the little necessities of life, like socks and underwear and bathroom towels.

I was a little disappointed, though. Alco also sold a lot of stuff I could find in two of Wickenburg’s three local hardware stores: small appliances, camping gear, etc. It also some of the same gardening stuff I could find at those hardware stores and at the two local nurseries. Sure, Alco offered a bigger variety of some of this stuff, but I wished it would have concentrated on the things you couldn’t get anywhere else in town, like clothing, craft supplies, books, music, and home linens.

Yesterday I went into Alco looking for something I didn’t expect to find — and found it! I needed a USB extension cable. That’s a USB cable that has a male connector on one end and a female connector on the other end. You use it to extend the length of a USB cable. In my case, I wanted the cable for the Webcam at KBSZ-AM so Pete could position it a bit further from the computer in a place where it would take in the whole studio without being moved. I was thinking of adding a corner shelf and putting the camera high up on that, looking down. (I was in Alco to find the shelf, too, but they didn’t have one.)

Alco’s tiny electronics department had all kinds of cables: USB, Firewire, and Ethernet. And accessories for iPods, which really surprised me. And other connections and add-ons for electronics. It also had the usual collection of telephone cables. I was surprised and impressed. I thought I’d have to go down to Surprise for a USB extension cable. But there it was, for only $6.99, right in Wickenburg!

Now where am I going to find the corner shelf?

You CAN Make a Living as a Writer

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Well, at least I can.

I just got my quarterly royalty statement from one of my publishers.

The only known about a royalty statement is the approximate time it will arrive and the period it will cover. The amount is always a surprise.

Imagine having a job and getting paid once every three months and not knowing how much you’ll receive. That’s the boat I’m in.

Of course, when I write or revise a book, I get advances on royalties. The idea behind the advance is that it provides some income for the author while she is hard at work. This is a good thing because royalties are usually paid two to four months after the end of the period they’re due for. So, for example, the royalty statement and check I got today was for the quarter ending June 30, 2005.

Advances are deducted from future royalties. So a book has to “earn out” before I get another penny for it. That means that if I get a $5,000 advance and I earn about $1.00 per book, the publisher has to sell 5,000 copies of the book before I see more money. I’ll be the the first to admit that I’ve written more than a few books that haven’t earned out. That’s partially the fault of the publisher, for offering such a high advance. Fortunately, I never have to give it back. But if I revise that book the amount that was overpaid to me is cross-deducted from the earnings on the revision. Books that don’t earn out are seldom revised. Why through more good money away?

Another thing that can eat away at royalties are returns of previous editions. This really hits me because so many of my books are revisions. For example, my Tiger book is selling very well and, according to the royalty statement, my Panther book (which is the previous edition) is also still selling. But my Jaguar book (the one before Panther) is in its return phase. Since that book no longer has net earnings, the returns are deducted from my Panther book. When that goes into returns, the returns will be deducted from my Tiger book. Get the idea?

The first book I ever wrote was co-authored with Bernard J. David. Bernard once said to me that I should sign books in bookstores as often as possible. Why? Because then they can’t return them.

But I’ve never had to guts to go into a Borders or B&N, introduce myself, and ask if I could sign books. Heck, what if they were on to that trick and said no? How embarrassed would I be?

Anyway, I got a statement from Peachpit today and it came with a nice check. A very nice check. The best check I’ve ever gotten, in fact. Cliff (my editor) said my Tiger book was doing well, but he failed to communicate just how well that was. Now I know exactly how well. And those numbers are three months old.

A bunch of my other books paid out, too. Oddly enough, three editions of my Excel for Windows (2000, 2002, and 2003) are still selling briskly. (What’s very odd is that Excel 2000 is outselling Excel 2002.) And I got some royalties on translations of various titles to French and German. (My royalty statement from Peachpit is 53 pages long, with 29 ISBNs on it. Good thing I have an accounting degree.) So even if the Tiger book hadn’t done so well, the other titles would have pulled me through.

But my Tiger book is doing well. And I think it deserves it. This book, and the previous edition (Panther) are two of my best works. I worked very hard on both of them. They’re big, fat books with very reasonable price tags, giving readers a lot for their money. And I continue to support them by appearing at Apple Stores (I’m going to Tucson tomorrow), writing articles about related topics for Informit.com and the books’ companion Web site, and now publishing podcast entries with even more tips and tricks.

This is what I do for a living. I’m a writer. And I’m doing pretty well.

Fine Dining in Wickenburg

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One of the drawbacks to living on the edge of nowhere.

One of the gripes most people who didn’t grow up in Wickenburg share is its amazing lack of dining opportunities. You’d think that in a town with a population that swells to 10,000 people in the winter months, a town that’s the biggest thing around for the tiny towns within 20 miles of it, a town with people from all over the country and at all income levels — you’d think a town like that would have more than a few good restaurants. You’d think, right? Well, we have less than a few. I could count the ones I’d eat at on both hands; I could count the ones I actually like on one hand.

We have some friends who eat out all the time. It think it’s because Judith (the wife of this couple) doesn’t like to cook and Jim (the husband) probably can’t. They live in Wickenburg and money is not a problem. I know they’d love to spend money on a truly good meal — a meal that might appear on the cover of Sunset magazine or as a handful of recipes culled from back issues of Gourmet. Heck, I’d love to join them at that meal. At least once a week.

Anyway, they cycle among their favorite four or five restaurants in town, visiting each of them at least once a week on average. They’re regulars in these places. They go out to eat early and spend at least an hour on cocktails before ordering. Most of the restaurants understand this routine and cater to it. Occasionally, a new waitress won’t get it right away and Jim has to get loud. We’ve been with him when this happens and it’s kind of funny to see the reactions of other diners.

Jim and Judith recently invited us to join them at one of Wickenburg’s “fine dining” establishments. I put “fine dining” in quotes because that’s how the restaurant advertises itself. That’s not how I would describe it.

Mike and I had sworn off this restaurant several times. But without much variety in town, we always talked ourselves into trying it again. Midway through the meal that we’d come back for, we’d swear we’d never return. But four or six months later, there we were again, ordering overpriced food served by an under-trained waitress.

This is the same restaurant where I had my classic Wickenburg wine tasting experience. I tell this story to people who don’t understand what we’re dealing with here in Wickenburg.

I went out to eat with another couple. It was just me and the other couple at the table: two women and a man. The waitress brought menus and I asked for wine list. She brought it to me. While she was doing something else at other tables, I discussed the wine options (which were limited) with my friends. We decided on a bottle of wine. The waitress came back and I ordered the wine. I also gave back the wine list. The waitress went away. She came back a few minutes later with three glasses, the bottle of wine, and a corkscrew. She distributed the glasses, then opened the wine, placing the cork on the table in a neutral position. I can’t remember if I reached for the cork to examine it. She then proceeded to pour a sample of the wine into the glass in front of the man at the table so he could sample it.

The three of us were in shock. My friend tasted the wine, said it was okay, and then let her pour the rest. She went away. And the three of us put our heads together and talked about what she had done.

Now if you don’t know what the waitress did wrong here, you’re reading the wrong blog. You probably don’t get much about what I say anyway. This weekend, get dressed up, take your significant other, and go out to the nearest five star restaurant. Make sure you order a bottle of wine and observe the way it is served. Just for kicks, let the woman at your table (if there is one) do the ordering. Not only will you get a great meal prepared by a chef who knows what he’s doing and has a little imagination, but you’ll have great service. You’ll pay for both, of course. And you’ll learn how wine should be served.

On that day, my friends and I agreed that either she should have let me taste the wine since I ordered it or she should have asked who would like to taste it. To automatically assume that it’s the man’s job to taste the wine is old fashioned, sexist, and completely uninformed.

But that’s what we’re dealing with here.

Jim and Judith go to this restaurant on one particular day of the week for their special. It’s the same every week: fried chicken. Yes, fried chicken in a “fine dining” establishment. So when Judith invited us to join them, I tried to focus on the social part of the outing. Jim and Judith are lots of fun. Jim talks helicopters, Judith grills us on our lives, and Mike teases them both about Junior Bush. We always have a good night out with them no matter where we eat.

Jim and Judith were there before us that evening with drinks in front of them. When the waitress came, she didn’t seem too happy to see us. Maybe she knows my reputation in town. (If I cared about that, do you think I’d be writing this?) Mike ordered a Tanqueray and tonic (always wise to specify brand name for alchohol in Wickenburg) and I ordered a martini.

“On the rocks?” the waitress asked me.

Now I fully admit that I don’t drink martinis very often and I don’t know very much about how they’re served. But I’ve never seen a martini served on the rocks. Usually, they’re put in shaker with ice, shaken, and strained out into a martini glass.

“Straight up,” I told her. “But very cold.” That was my attempt to hint about the shaker and ice. “With an olive.”

She brought Mike’s gin and tonic without a lime, which he had to ask for. And she brought my martini in the kind of glass you might see a Manhattan served in. It was definitely not a martini glass. But okay, maybe they were out of martini glasses. Maybe the dishwasher hadn’t gotten around to them yet. You can’t criticize a restaurant for the wrong choice of glass, can you?

At least that’s what I was telling myself when Mike’s lime squeezed onto my forehead.

I looked around the restaurant. “I’m the youngest one here again,” I told Judith. I’m forty-four. This was one of Mike’s complaints about the place — that only old people ate there.

She looked around. “You and me,” she said.

Funny how being the youngest person in the room still doesn’t make you feel young.

After a while, when Jim was ready to order, the waitress came back. Jim, Judith, and I ordered the fried chicken. Mike ordered the fettucini.

“The alfredo?” the waitress asked him.

He looked at her blankly and reopened his menu. “What other kind of fettucini is there?” he asked, obviously surprised that he’d missed it. After all there were only a dozen entree choices on the menu.

“Well, there’s another dish that has fettucini on the side,” she said.

He stared at her. “Alfredo,” he told her calmly, closing the menu.

The waitress went away. We didn’t talk about her behind her back. It just wasn’t worth it.

The owner came by our table for a visit. He was obviously very chummy with Jim and Judith. “Did you order the chicken?” he asked.

They told him they had.

“Good thing you got your order in. There isn’t much left.”

Then he disappeared back toward the bar.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Mike said. “It’s Swanson’s.”

We sat through the restaurant’s unusual salad ritual. The waitress comes with four plates of mixed lettuces and a cart with salad fixings. Things like cherry tomatoes, red onions, beets, croutons, and dressings. She then asks each person what they want on their salad. Whatever you say you want, she puts exactly two of them on your plate. Two tomatoes, two cucumber slices, two beet slices — you get the idea. I think she might be more generous with the croutons, but I don’t know — I’ve never eaten with anyone who has asked for them. She repeats this process for each person at the table. I’m pretty sure the dressings are bottled.

Did you ever eat at a Lowry’s restaurant? Its a rather nice restaurant that specializes in prime rib. I’ve eaten at Lowry’s in Chicago twice and Beverly Hills three times. They have a weird salad ritual, too. They come to the table with a cart that has a big bowl of salad on it. The salad bowl is sitting on an even bigger bowl of ice. While you watch, the waitress, who is wearing a plain gray uniform with a white apron and a very low cut neckline, spins the salad bowl on the ice bowl, pouring in the Lowry’s dressing (available for sale in the lobby) from as far up as she can reach. She then tosses the salad, dishes it out, and retreats.

This Wickenburg restaurant reminds me of that. But at Lowry’s the salad (and the rest of the food) is good.

The food came a while later. The waitress gave Jim and Judith nice looking plates with plump pieces of chicken and good helpings of vegetables. She gave me a plate that looked like the chicken pieces had been collected from other people’s plates. Okay, so it didn’t look that bad. If it did, I wouldn’t have eaten it. Mike’s fettucini looked like it was absolutely smothered in a thick white sauce. He asked the waitress for fresh ground pepper and she didn’t look very happy to bring it.

We were in the middle of the meal when the owner came back. He started chatting us up and I had a strong suspicion that he’d had a few drinks at the bar. Before we knew it, he was talking loudly about the 10 acres of land he owned in town, telling Jim he ought to buy it and build a house there.

“Not likely,” I said.

Jim and Judith have their house on the market for a cool $3.5 million. When that sells, I don’t think they’ll be spending much time eating fried chicken in Wickenburg.

The owner looked at Mike. “You’re a pilot, too?” he asked.

Mike confirmed that he was.

No one told the man that I was also a pilot. I don’t think he would have comprehended that anyway. A woman flying an aircraft? A helicopter? How could that be? She can’t even sample the wine at dinner!

He continued talking loudly about stuff that wasn’t important, passing an inappropriate comment about his wife hating him along the way. I concluded that he was drunk and hoped he’d go away soon. Maybe I sent him some silent messages that penetrated, because after a while he left.

The busboy (who was younger than me), offered to take Mike’s plate away. Mike said he wasn’t finished eating yet. I laughed a bit louder than I should have. I think I was beginning to lose it.

We finished eating and the waitress came over with the dessert tray. I’d been watching this dessert tray since we came in. It was on a stand not far from our table, just outside the kitchen door. The waitress would bring the tray to the table and, if you wanted something, she’d pull it off the tray and give it to you. Then someone would replace whatever had been taken with a fresh portion from the kitchen.

Now I had a serious problem with this. Suppose I wanted a piece of Boston cream pie. But suppose that no one else had wanted a piece of Boston cream pie all evening. So at 6:30 PM, I’d be getting a piece of Boston cream pie that had been put out on the tray at 4 or 5 PM when the tray was made up and had been sitting there all evening. One to two and a half hours, in this example. I wouldn’t eat Boston cream pie at home that had been sitting out that long. Why would I eat it in a restaurant?

None of us had dessert.

We left not long after that. Mike and I swore once again we’d never go back. I decided to invite Jim and Judith over for Swanson’s fried chicken one night.

Mike was up half the night, making trips to the bathroom. There’s something to be said about ordering the special.

Maria Speaks Goes Online

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I finally start publishing my own podcast.

Maria SpeaksI’ve been wanting to do it for weeks, but I just haven’t found the time. You see, I don’t want to sound like an idiot, so I need to compose everything I want to say in a podcast episode before I record it. So I need time to think things out, write them down, and record them. I suspect I’m not the only one who does this, although I’m willing to bet that a lot of podcasters skip the first two steps.

I published two back-dated podcasts this evening. One is an introduction to the podcast. The other provides information about my eBook on podcasting. I’m working on another one now, about using the Mac OS Command key. Maybe I’ll get that online this week, too.

Interested in podcasting stats? I found this information in the most recent issue of Technology Review.

  • By the end of June, there were over 25,000 podcast feeds. That’s up from less than 2,000 in January. Wowser!
  • The iTunes Music Store’s Podcast Directory listed about 6,000 podcast feeds with about 6 million subscribers as of July 18.
  • Most podcasts categories have more listings than views (percentage-wise, anyway). The notable exceptions include radio (such as KBSZ), News, Health/Fitness, Books, Hobbies, Games, Food/Drink, Travel, Art, Erotica, Environment, Variety, and Fashion.

Jeez, I love stats.

Want some more stats? Here’s a quickie: the KBSZ podcast I set up in August now has 20 regular subscribers. That’s not bad for a radio station on the edge on nowhere.

Anyway, if you want to subscribe to my Podcast, here’s the URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/mariaspeaks — just pop that URL into iTunes or another Podcast client to tune in. Or use your Web browser to access the RSS feed and click the title of an episode to download it.

Weird Flying

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I fly over 7 hours, doing weird stuff with my helicopter.

No doubt about it: this was the weirdest weekend of flying I’d ever had.

Weird Flying 1: The Camping Trip

It started with the camping trip drop off on Saturday.

Jason and his girlfriend, Becky, had planned a trip to Red Creek, a tiny dirt airstrip on the Verde River. Jason flies a Citabria and has flown and out of there many times. Becky has come with him on several trips, but this was the first overnight trip they’d planned.

They arrived at the airport, where I was out on the ramp cleaning dust out of the inside of Zero-Mike-Lima. I hopped in my golf cart and rode over to Jason’s hangar to say hello. Becky was excited about the trip. She talked animatedly to me while Jason loaded their camping gear. I told them that I was planning a flight out that way, too. I was just waiting for someone to show up at the airport to come with me. I told her I’d rather fly with someone else than alone. She suggested that I stop by their campsite for a visit. “There’s horseshoes there, you know.”

I should mention here that even though Red Creek’s airstrip is extremely difficult to get to by wheeled vehicle, over the years, pilots and others have added amenities like a horseshoe pit, picnic table, fire pit with grills, lawn chairs, water jugs, etc. You can find all that near the strip on top of a small mesa overlooking the river. But my favorite camping amenity is found closer to the river itself: shade.

I agreed that I’d come visit and I hopped in my cart and put it away in my hangar. Then I went back to cleaning dust out of my helicopter.

A while later, I heard an airplane engine start. It may have sounded rough — I don’t know. To me, all airplane engines sound a little rough. It ran for about three minutes, then shut down. A minute or two later, it ran for another minute. Then silence.

I was wiping dust off the inside of the cowl near the hydraulic fluid reservoir when I heard my name called. It was Becky.

“Jason’s plane isn’t running right,” she told me. “The needle is going up and down. He says it might be the spark plugs. So I was wondering, could we charter you to take us to Red Creek?”

I thought for about two seconds. “Sure,” I told her. “It would be fun.”

We loaded all their gear into the helicopter. It fit under the seats and on one of the rear passenger seats. We put Jason up front because he’s tall and his long legs wouldn’t have fit comfortably in the back. I started up, warmed up, and took off. It was Becky’s first helicopter ride and she let out multiple squeals of delight as I climbed up over route 60 and back toward the east. I showed them my house from the air and continued toward Red Creek, adjusting my course slightly to overfly a waypoint north of Cave Creek that I’d already programmed in.

We talked the whole time. I showed them the abandoned mansion overlooking Lake Pleasant and they were surprised to see it — like most local pilots who understand the joy of flying low and slow, they’d explored quite a bit of the area in Jason’s Citabria. I was going to show them the ruins on Indian Mesa, but they’d already seen them. So we continued over the Agua Fria Arm of Lake Pleasant, climbing as I flew over I-17 in preparation for the high mesas ahead.

I saw a mesa that seemed broken off from the main mesa and pointed at it. Jason said, “Yeah.” In the back, Becky was fiddling with my iPod.

We were nearly up to this mesa when I said, “Wow. Doesn’t that mesa look like an island in the sky?”

“Yeah,” Jason agreed. When Becky didn’t reply, he added, “Look, Becky. Doesn’t that mesa look kind of cool?”

She looked. “Yeah,” she agreed. But she didn’t sound very interested.

“I bet the views from up there are great,” I said, starting to slow down. The mesa offered excellent views of Phoenix, Scottsdale, Cave Creek, Carefree, and Deer Valley to the south. “The lights at night must be incredible.”

“Yeah, this is a really great spot,” Jason said. “I think we should camp here.

That got Becky’s attention. “Here?”

“Yes. What do you think, Becky? Should we camp here?”

By this time I was circling, looking for a good landing zone.

“No!” Becky yelled, sounding a bit frantic at the thought.

I almost laughed into my microphone.

“Red Creek is better. It has horseshoes.”

This time I did laugh.

“We can go to Red Creek anytime,” Jason said.

“That’s right,” I said. “But you can’t land a plane here.”

“But…”

“I want to camp here,” Jason said firmly. His tone of voice suggested that when he really wanted something badly enough, Becky usually gave in.

“It’s a really nice spot,” I added. “And the views are great.”

“Well, if we’re going to camp here, then maybe we can find Skeleton Ridge and camp there,” Becky said. “Or someplace where there’s indian ruins. Let’s find someplace with ruins.”

“We can’t tie up Maria all day,” Jason said.

By this time, I’d found a spot to land and was just waiting for the cue to start my approach. Becky gave it.”Okay,” she said.

I made my approach to a spot near the middle of the mesa. When I set down, I was less than 100 feet from the waypoint I’d programmed into my GPS that morning.

They unloaded their gear. Becky wanted me to shut down and hang out with them, but I’d been experiencing intermittent starter problems and did not want to get stranded on top of Black Mesa with them. So I left the engine running and held the controls while they unloaded. I told Jason to stand back when I took off, wished him luck, and lifted off.

Of course, I was in on the whole thing. Jason had called a month before to reserve the drop off and pick up dates with me. He’d sent me GPS coordinates, a map, and this photo only days before. He was planning to propose and to make the event more memorable, he thought a helicopter drop off and pick up at a remote location where no one would bother them would be ideal.

Photo

Who says men can’t be romantic?

From Black Mesa, I headed up to Prescott. Oddly enough both the folks at Guidance Helicopters and I had golf ball drops on Sunday: we were hired to drop golf balls out of a helicopter onto a target. The closest golf ball(s) win a prize. Its a fund-raising event. Theirs was for Special Olympics. Mine was for Wickenburg Youth Football. At Prescott Airport, I got a chance to see the device the Guidance folks had rigged up for the drop. It was very impressive. Guidance never does things halfway. Of course, it was not the kind of thing Mike and I could whip up in two days. We’d have to come up with a different solution.

While I was up there, I hopped in my old Toyota MR-2 and took it to the malls. As usual, that little car started right up and seemed eager to roll. I hit a few pet store places, bought a coffee pot for my Braun coffee machine (which I’d broken the morning of a dinner party, forcing me to buy a piece of crap coffee maker in Wickenburg to make coffee for my guests), and bought a bunch of fish for my big fish tank, which I’m just getting restocked after the fish from hell ate all his companions. I came back to the helicopter, loaded all my purchases under the seats, and buzzed back to Wickenburg.

I left the helicopter out on the ramp overnight. I had to fly it the next day.

On Sunday, the first order of business was to pick up Jason and Becky. I was late getting to the airport, primarily because I had to stop at my office and pick up a few things I’d need later on. Although my fuel level was lower than I wanted, I decided to pick up Jason and Becky first and get fuel afterward. I didn’t want them waiting on top of that mesa in the sun, wondering when I was going to get there, when they were expecting me at nine.

I made excellent time flying right to the mesa. At first, I didn’t see them. But then I spotted them on the north end of the mesa, right where it narrows to join the larger mesas to the north. There was an excellent landing zone nearby: level and rock-free. The only catch was that there was only about 10 feet of mesa in front of me and thirty feet behind me — beyond that were sheer, 500+ foot cliffs. A real pinnacle landing. I made it without trouble and was comforted by how firmly the helicopter sat on the ground. I frictioned-up the controls and got out to help them load. Becky showed me her engagement ring. Not only was Jason romantic, but he was generous and had excellent taste. The ring was a real beauty.

I asked them if they minded going to Deer Valley for fuel before I took them up to Peeples Valley. No problem. I lifted up, added forward cyclic, and gave us all the incredibly unsettling feeling of falling off a cliff. (For sheer thrills, a helicopter flight off the edge of a cliff can’t be beat. Unlike amusement park rides, it’s real and passengers must wonder whether they’re going to come out of it alive.)

Deer Valley wasn’t busy but the folks at Cutter were. They were terribly slow. I bought 15 gallons at $4.06/gallon. It took nearly 20 minutes to get and pay for it. Then we were on our way, first west per the controller’s instructions and then north toward Peeples Valley.

It was a pleasant flight: nice and smooth. I showed Jason how my traffic reporting system works. I also told them about how the helicopter works. Jason wants to learn, but not unless he could buy a helicopter. “That’s the tricky part,” I told him. “Anyone with time and money can learn to fly a helicopter. But to buy one isn’t quite as easy.”I showed them the canyon where the Weaver cabins are. We couldn’t see them from the air. Then we hopped over the top of East Antelope Peak and the town of Peeples Valley was before us. I descended down to the runway Jason had carved into a pasture at Becky’s house and landed. Becky’s parents came out. I told Becky to give her mother the news while I helped Jason unload.

It was a happy scene and it felt great to be part of it.

Weird Flying 2: The Golf Ball Drop

From Peeples Valley, I flew back to Wickenburg, where I topped off the tanks. Mike and I rolled the helicopter back into the hangar so we could work on it. We still needed a golf ball dropping solution. But Mike wanted lunch first and I needed to run home to get the golf balls we had for experimenting. We wasted about an hour on all that. Mike took the fairing off the pilot side front skid leg so it wouldn’t get damaged when we dropped the balls. But we couldn’t come up with a solution. In the end, we decided to use whatever bag or box the group provided.

We did take off and drop a bunch of balls out in the desert. I wanted to make sure that the balls wouldn’t bounce up if they hit the skid. They didn’t.

We flew back to Wickenburg and landed at the golf course, right on the fairway near the green where we’d be dropping the balls. Mike got out to watch my tail while I cooled down and shut down. It was a good thing he did. Three young boys came running toward the helicopter’s tail while it was still spinning. Mike’s loud whistle and hand motions stopped them in their tracks and got them into a retreat.

Up at the event, things weren’t nearly as busy as I’d expected. Christie, who I was working with, greeted us and showed us the duffle bag the balls were in. We decided that we’d put the bag on Mike’s lap, strap them both in, and let Mike just dump the balls out. We had some iced tea while we waited. Then, at 1:50, we went down, put the Mike and the balls in, and started up. A few moments later, I was airborne, moving into position about 200 feet above the green where they’d marked a silly little target.

We did the drop. I circled around. We’d hit the green but pretty much missed the target. When I landed to give back the bag, they asked me to do another drop. Mike said no, but I said okay. All the kids who had been watching sprung into motion to gather up the balls. Within two minutes, all 1,000 of them were back in the bag. A man helped Mike load the balls back into the helicopter on his lap. Then I took off again. This time, a bunch of the balls were inside the target. Enough to award prizes. We dropped off the bag and left.

Weird Flying 3: Follow that Car!

Back at the airport, we put on the helicopter’s doors. I didn’t even bother shutting down. We were due at a proving grounds an hour away at 3:30 PM for my last weird gig of the weekend. It was already 2:20 PM. I punched a waypoint into my GPS and we took off.

My flight path took me over Glendale Airport. The controller there was cranky. We listened to him scold a pilot before calling in. He instructed me to cross over the airport at 2600 feet. Nosebleed territory for me. I obeyed, wondering whether I’d be punching into the bottom of the Phoenix Class B airspace. As soon as I was clear of Glendale’s space, I dropped back down, closer to earth.

We passed over the proving grounds on our way to a nearby airport for fuel. They were spraying water alongside a road for a landing zone. I waved to the folks who looked up and continued to the airport.

After refueling, we landed on a road at the proving grounds. That’s when the really weird assignment began.

I’d been hired by a carmaker to take a photographer around to video a car on the track. That’s not so weird. Yet.

The video crew was not from this country and spoke very little English. Since I had four seats, they wanted to fill them all. But I’d been told that there would be only one cameraman and I’d topped off the tanks, so I couldn’t take three passengers, especially when I may need all the power available to me. So they settled on the director and the cameraman. They wore harnesses and we strapped them in with the cameraman behind me and the director beside me. All doors were off. The cameraman’s camera was rigged to a viewer that the director held in his hands, so he could see everything the cameraman saw. The director also wore two headsets: mine and his. Mine was attached to the voice activated intercom system and his was attached to a radio in his pocket. He held a push to talk switch for that so he could talk to the driver. One headset’s ear cup was on one ear and the other’s was on the other. But every time he talked to the driver, I could hear him because of the mouthpiece on my headset. That didn’t matter much because he was speaking their language and I couldn’t understand a word of it anyway.

I took off and began flying in formation with…well, a car. It was a bright blue car that’ll probably never be sold in this country. I don’t know much about it and even if I did, I couldn’t tell you. Mike signed a nondisclosure form for me and I’ll accept that as binding. It doesn’t really matter anyway.

First the car drove clockwise around the track. Since the cameraman was behind me, I flew on the outside of the track, following him. The entire time I flew, I heard words, commands, and conversations in that other language with the occasional “faster,” “slower,” “higher,” “lower” thrown in for me. The track was easy to follow, but there were some obstructions: a tower on the one corner was the first concern. Later, as I flew lower and lower for them, I worried about telephone poles with wires and other larger obstructions. I surprised myself with the amount of flying skill I had. We did flybys and other shots that amazed me. My favorite was this. I’d hover about 3 feet off the track while the blue car raced towards us. Then, when it was about 20 yards away, I’d pull pitch and rise 20 feet straight up. The car would pass beneath us.”Beautiful!” the director would exclaim.

So this is what the helicopter pilots who flew movies did. Cool. I could do this.

The cameraman only puked once. He was obviously very experienced at this. He puked right out the helicopter and didn’t get a drop of it inside.

This went on for over an hour. My right wrist was getting sore from the deadman’s grip I had on the cyclic. And I think I built new muscles in my left arm from manipulating the collective as much as I did.

The director called for a break and I went back to the landing zone where I shut down. The crew guzzled Diet Coke. I drank water.

We put three of the doors on, leaving the front passenger door off for the cameraman. The director sat in back. The director wanted to put a third person in again but I said no. With the kind of flying they were asking me to do, less was better than more. Then we took off to do the dusty part of the filming. The car would drive on an inner dirt track.

It was more of the same with a bit of out of ground effect hovering thrown in for good measure. No playing chicken this time; there was too much dust.

The sun got lower in the sky. I told the director it would set in less than 20 minutes. They got a few shots from the east with the sun shining through the dust churned up by the blue car. Then the sun was down. Now we chased the car around the track, videoing its red taillights in the dust.

I think we would have done that all night if I didn’t pull the plug. “I can’t see the wires anymore,” I told the director. That was a lie, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to see them in another 15 minutes. And I wasn’t looking forward to flying back to Wickenburg at night, without a moon to light the way.

I landed and they got out. I calculated the charges for this extravaganza. Over $1400. My contact, who spoke perfect English, gave me a credit card.

Everyone was happy. Even I was happy, although I was exhausted.

It was about 40 minutes past sunset when Mike and I took off. We had plenty of light for the first dark part of the flight but it was pretty dark by the time we got to Glendale. It was 7 PM by then and the cranky controller had gone home. I overflew at 2000 feet, turning the pilot controlled lighting runway lights on just to watch them light up as I flew over. When the last light of the city passed beneath us, I shifted to the east to follow the lights of Grand Avenue the rest of the way to Wickenburg. I set down on the pad, locked up, and went home.