Ryu2.mind

A thought question that's been on my mind lately: If you weren't in your current profession... what would you be and why?

I always wanted to be an airline pilot, and had my vision been a bit better,perhaps I'd be jetting you guys all around the world by now. =)

It's not just the feeling of uninhibited freedom that flying entails,and the chance to indulge my innate nerd and play around with the coolelectronics that are the navigation and control system of a modernaircraft, but perhaps most interestingly, for me, aviation dovetailsnicely with my interest in geography, cultures, and the countries ofthe world.

Even without touching the ground, the actual flight from point A topoint B can be a cultural tour in and of itself. Case in point: when Ifly United, I always try to listen to Channel 9. Every regular UnitedAirlines customer knows what I'm referring to, but in a nutshell, itlets you listen to the air traffic control transmissions live throughthe audio system.

A recent flight to Shanghai had a especially interesting Channel 9experience, listening to a wide range of air traffic controllers. SFOground, to tower, to NorCal departure, and then onto Oakland Centerwhich became Seattle became Vancouver, became Anchorage, before gettinginto Russian airspace: Anadyr, Markovo, Magadan, Okha, Sakhalin,Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and then onto the Far East: Pyongyang,Incheon, Tokyo, Fukuoka, and then finally Shanghai (am I a geography nerd or what, spelling all these places?)

American pilots and controllers at nighttime when there's not too muchtraffic are a jovial lot, swapping sports scores, jokes, and the like.Listening to Channel 9 in Russian and Chinese airspace is alwaysentertaining for me, not the least because we're usually the onlyaircraft in the vicinity whom they're speaking English to. In SouthKorea and Japan though, everyone speaks English, but it's fun listeningto the fobby accents, usually by women controllers. Pyongyang controlon the other hand, sounded like what most Americans would imagine aNorth Korean to be: a male voice, conveying a no nonsense, withoutemotion, almost robotic atitude.

I guess there's always Microsoft Flight Simulator to live out my dream....

How about everyone else?

My favorite: travel without expectation, purpose or goal, just relaxing and soakingthings in, without an agenda or schedule and just letting the sp. lead...

No profound insights or revelations, but a lot of rejuvenation and renewal... and a lot of pictures to come too. =)