disoriented

Ducks Hanging in the Window

The dis-oriented author is Chinese. I am actually only 1/4 Chinese, my grandfather was from China. This week I an in San Francisco and tonight I was in the mood for Chinese food.

When I am in San Francisco, I typically buy a MUNI passport so I can ride the buses and the cable cars. Tonight, I took the Powell and Market cable car to Chinatown. I was looking for a Chinese restaurant and I had only two criteria in mind:

It had to be full of Chinese patrons and there had to be Ducks Hanging in the window.

I got off the cable car in Chinatown and walked down the hill. Halfway down, I walked through and alley to the New King Tin Restaurant. Like many Chinatown restaurants, there was a hawker out front  trying to get diners to stop in. I walked up to him and looked in the window. The place was full of Asian faces and ... there were ducks hanging in the window.

I went in and sat down. My daughter studied in China last summer but I don't speak a word of the language. Fortunately the menu was bilingual, English and Chinese.For $6.50, I ordered half a roast duck with steamed rice and hot tea. The duck was perfect — I love Chinatown.

Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot, Starr Smith and Walter Cronkite

The dis-oriented author is a Jimmy Stewart fan. I know that my younger readers may not know who he is. Jimmy Stewart  won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1941 for Philadelphia Story. As an actor, Stewart was known as a self-effacing everyman. The closest modern equivalent would be Tom Hanks. What I learned from Smith and Cronkite's Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot is that during World War II, Stewart volunteered for service in the legendary VIII Bomber Command that flew heavy bombers into occupied Europe and Germany.

Jimmy Stewart was not just an actor — he was a patriot and a hero.

Jimmy Stewart is probably best remembered for his role as Clarence George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life. I especially enjoy his performance as Glenn Miller in The Glenn Miller Story. Of course Miller was the legendary swing band leader who volunteered for service in the Army during World War II. Miller's airplane disappeared on his way to entertain troops somewhere over the English Channel. Miller was a hero but until I read this book I did not realize that he was played by a hero.

I do not use the word hero lightly. Stewart did not have to join up. In fact when he tried to enlist he was too light! Eventually he put on enough wight to pass the physical. Already a private pilot with a commercial rating he volunteered for the Air Corps. He eventually qualified in B-17s and became an instructor pilot. He could have spent the entire war stateside but Stewart pulled some strings to get sent to the European Theater of Operations. He arrived in England in time to join the VII Bomber Command. At the time the British were doing night bombing raids over the continent. The Americans were doing much more dangerous daylight raids. All told the Might Eighth performed over 10,000 raids with just over 4,000 losses.

Stewart was a pilot and eventually a Squadron Commander. He ended the war as a Colonel and retired from the Air Force reserve as a Brigadier General. He even flew in an observer role in a B-52 mission over Viet Nam.

With his fame, the Army would have preferred to use Stewart in a public relations role. But he felt his duty was to go to war just like every other able-bodied American.

This is an excellent book about an extraordinary man.

Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot  gets 5 of 5 dis-oriented smileys

Purchase Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot  from Amazon.com.

Segway — Nothing New Under the Sun

The dis-oriented author watched with interest in 2001 when inventor Dean Kamen unveiled the Segway. The Segway is a two wheeled, self balancing scooter. If you listened to the hype, Kamen suggested that his device would revolutionize transportation all over the world. The Segway has not lived up to the hype. It does, however, represent original thinking and some pretty clever engineering.

Recently I was in Amish country near my home and I discovered that the Segway may not be as original an invention as Kamen suggests.

This is a picture of an Amish Segway near Fairbank, Iowa. Apparently it runs on hay and oats.

One of the common uses of Segways is to run tours in tourist spots like Paris or San Francisco on Segways. I guess you could use these to tour Amish country.

RAGBRAI XXXVI

The dis-oriented author rode his first RAGBRAI in 1977.  RAGBRAI stands for Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. Ragbrai is a bicycle ride across the state of Iowa. It lasts seven days and averages just over 400 miles. My first ride was RAGBRAI IV and this was RAGBRAI XXXVI. I have ridden about 12 complete rides and parts of another 15 or so.

Bicycling is one of those sports that I had put aside in order to raise my family. Now my youngest children are old enough to ride with me so I am on my bike again. The real joy of riding now is spending time with my 12 year old son. Like every other twelve year old, he has his moments but when we are together on our bikes he is nothing but smiles.

We are going to keep riding together.

As my picture shows, I am obviously an overweight middle-aged cyclist. But, as country singer Toby Keith says: There was a time, back in my prime ...

My son is getting to be a better and better cyclist. He still leaves me behind on hills (he has less mass after all!) But by the end of a day he begins to drag a little. We chose Tuesday, the ride from Jefferson to Ames. It was a mainly flat day with great weather. There was only one big hill. We rode about 56 miles. Next year we will ride more of the week, perhaps the whole thing.

I love the riding but there is nothing to compare to the experience of sharing it with my son.