Friday, April 14, 2006

1, 2, Minga! Sibiliance. . .Sibiliance. . .

I borrowed Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes on CD from the library so we could listen to it in the car. We got to it sooner than expected since tape 9 of LOTR is busted. :-( We actually own the book. In fact, we own several of the "Shoes" books, but though we started Ballet Shoes long ago, we somehow put it down and never finished. This was not for lack of it being a good book. It's a great book, but I think we were just sucked into a different theme at the time. Anyway, the CDs are very enjoyable and are read by an English lady who makes them sound just right, EXCEPT that her "s"s are SO sibilant that it nearly hurts my ears. Now here's something you should know about me to give that statement a little more impact. I haven't wrecked my hearing yet, but I love loud noises (at least of the right sort.) When I worked on F-16s, sometimes I would sneak off my headset while the engines were running just so I could get the full impact. And when we were at a Red Flag (fighter war games) in Nevada, I adored the British Tornados (as in really loud jet fighters, not swirling vortexes of dust and dirt) because they were so loud you could FEEL the sound - they made the bones in your chest vibrate. And yet this lady's "s"s hurt my ears. How can this be? It must be a frequency thing. *shrugs*

I sometimes miss working on airplanes. The good parts anyway. Our unit had A-10s before F-16s and they're a lot more mechanical and less electronic, so they're not so temperamental. The downside to this (for crew chiefs) is that they can fly in more adverse weather. I don't miss days like the one when it was so cold that when I went to close the ladder door it had frozen open and I had to go drag a big gas powered heater over to thaw it out. But I do miss being out there on the hot tarmac, tar lines squishing up around my boots, waving in my plane and climbing all over it for the postflight, or engine diving in that glossy white tunnel (that one's missing the actual engine) where I was always slightly freaked out in a horrifyingly thrilling sort of way that someone would start the engine on me. Or diving the exhaust on a broiling summer's day, while the plane was still hot, and feeling that wave of heat still rolling out and just baking me, knowing the kind of heat and power that had been flowing out such a short time ago through the very place where I was crouching now, looking for nicks and missing tailfeathers. Or doing EOR - End of Runway inspection and standing there on the curved taxiway watching snow snakes slither across the pavement and then seeing the big birds come rolling towards us like ghosts through the blowing snow.

Well, this wasn't supposed to turn into an airplane post. And now I've forgotten what else I had to say, and dh is not gruntled because he wants to start the movie. Apparently I told him "just a few minutes" more than a few minutes ago. :-P That is all.

9 comments:

jlmack said...

Whoops, sorry, I accidentally posted a comment on the wrong post. As for posh Brits reading on CDs, Wayback Gwen and I used to spend half the Literacy class laughing ourselves foolish over the Oxford Reading Tree stories.
Especially when the story was told from Floppy the dog's point of view.
Sounds like a part of you really misses working on airplanes. I know that feeling...

Logophile said...

Tim Curry reads some of the Unfortunate Series of Event stories, that is good listening.
Airplanes
:D
I grew up on Whidbey Island in the A-6, EA-6B era, I love it too.
Twice I got to go on family cruises on carriers where we would stand on the flight deck and they would launch and catch a couple and do some touch and go-s.
ooooooo
I love feeling the roar of the engine in the breastbone too.
Arrr arrr arrrr

C said...

Jaichan - no problem. :-) I looked those up and they're pricey! But they look entertaining. You talking about laughing yourselves silly over it reminds me of the "Guten Tag" films in High School German class. Every now and then the actors would turn to the camera and say things verrrrry slooooooowly for us brain dead American students. The class inevitably erupted into sniggers and laughter. :-P Those were almost (but not quite) as funny as when our teacher mistook the word "shit" for a mundane English word like "poop" and kept using it to tell us how farmers would mix straw with "shit" to make the barn roofs. The first time she used it I think all our mouths dropped open. And then she kept saying it and we just died trying not to laugh because it was sooooo weird hearing a teacher using such a verboten word, LOL!

Logo - I LOVE the Tim Curry ones! (did you catch that 1,2, Minga a la Sunny?) His are better than the ones read by the author (sorry, Daniel, if you read this, I love your books :-) ) He has THE perfect voice for them. And sexy, too. Sigh. That should probably not be allowed for readers of children's books. Heh.

Dh says he was scheduled to go on one of those family cruises but the Nimitz broke. D'oh! I imagine it would be even better on a carrier with catapault launches. Oooooh! Arr arr arr indeed!

C said...

Where's the Wash? I was in the Air Guard at Truax in Madison, WI.

Faltenin said...

Hmmm.

A new facet of Candy... (takes notes).

What sort of AA missiles on those planes? :o)

C said...

I remember AIM 9s on the 16s. On the A-10s all I can remember are the Maverick air to ground missiles, but I'll ask dh what else they carried. Boys are better with those sort of toys. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Funny, I hate loud noises! Concerts are the only acceptable form, and that's just because it's fairly constant. I'm cool with helicopter sounds, though, which comes in handy.

I don't know much about children's books, but I remember Noel Streatfield's name from You've Got Mail. Sad, isn't it?

C said...

Kitkat - Loud bars drive me crazy, but loud concerts are OK. I've actually only been to 2 though, LOL! And yes, they do talk about the Shoes books in You've Got Mail. :-) I watched it again recently and then recognised a Fal quote from the movie. It was within day so of the post and was kinda strange. :-P


TG - LOL! OK, nowhere near WI, then. So whose A-10s were those? Yours? I know we've sold various versions of the F-16 all over the world, but don't know about A-10 distribution. I love those things. So ugly they're cute. :-) And that distinctive whistling noise as they come in. Ahh, memories.

Fal - I asked dh and he told me, but I'm too wineally influenced to remember what he said (blush), and now he's off picking up my sis from the train depot, LOL! But I know he said the AIM 9s were AIM-9Ms and I think he said the others we had were AIM 120s.

C said...

Ahhhh yes. A-10s are still one of my faves. :-)