Valder's Musings: August 2009

A quick glimpse at a short portion of the revamp of Metamorphosis. This is the "Tron" character's introduction. More to come ;)

Also, Kate, if you still want the job I have a few thousand handwritten pages that need typed...I write about 7-25 pages a day 4 days a week and type about 40 a day 2 days a week...it's a losing ratio, lol

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January 2, 1989
El Centro, California
1122hrs local

Terry “Tron” Carson pulls to a stop at the base gate, showing his United States Marine Corps ID card to the somewhat amused-looking guard standing duty.
He is used to the look. It isn’t unusual, and he knows it isn’t directed at him.
It’s directed towards his car, and happens almost every time he goes somewhere
Terry just quit caring what other people think about his mode of transport within a week of having purchased the vehicle.
Terry winks conspiratorially at the guard and states, “The chicks dig it”, while he takes his ID, which shows his active duty rank of Captain on it, back.
The guard chuckles, then snaps Terry a salute, ushering him through the gate.
Saluting back half-heartedly, Carson presses lightly on the gas pedal and releases the clutch in first gear.
The car’s PRV, or Peugeot-Renault-Volvo, 2.8 liter V-6 grumbles while he pulls onto the base, the silvery buffed metal reflecting the sunlight.
Twelve feet and ten inches long, the car is unpainted, the designers had decided to build the vehicle body entirely out of stainless steel. This proved extremely hard to paint, so the vast majority of the cars were left unpainted.
The car Terry drives is all flat panels with sharp angles where those panels meet up, looking anything but sporty, though it is indeed a sports car.
The car originally came with 130 horsepower, but Terry had been tinkering with the engine for a few years, and it can no longer be considered “stock”, since the V-6 now puts out nearly 220 horsepower.
Watching the car pull past him, the guard shakes his head in amusement when the gull-winged, stainless steel bodied vehicle enters the base.
Once Terry has pulled past the guard, he turns his radio back up.
It is another of the non-stock items in the De Lorean, since he has torn out the factory stereo and installed a new CD player in the car’s dashboard.
Turning the knob on the radio, Megadeth’s “Liar”, from their most recent album So Far, So Good…So What!, fills the DMC-12’s cockpit.
Carson’s head bobs in time to the music while he maneuvers the 1982 DMC-12 across the base, returning waves and acknowledging the occasional point or chuckle aimed in his direction.
He knows his vehicle is outlandish and always begs for attention, but to Terry, and to many in the entertainment and automotive industries, the only car ever built by the De Lorean Motor Company is a cultural icon.
It is also truly a unique vehicle amongst those owned by the team, either ETF or the team he is approaching now, in its own right, being the only vehicle of any of the group’s collective garages built in Ireland.
Terry drives the buffed-metal sports car past the “museum”, where examples of many of the Blue Angels’ prior aircraft have been retired.
In fact, though painted to be depicting the Number One jet, or Boss’s Bird, the McDonnell Douglas A-4F Skyhawk II in the park is actually the same Skyhawk that Terry had flown as opposing solo during his first year with team, back in 1982.
He had then returned to the team in 1985 to fly left wing on the ill-fated team that year. That Skyhawk had ended up being sent to the AMARC, or Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center, outside Tucson, Arizona, at the end of the 1986 season, when the team had transitioned to their new jets, the F/A-18A Hornet.
He had flown right wing for the majority of last season with the team, his first in the Hornet.
This time around, in his fourth stint with the team, he will fly the slot position, widely regarded as being the second most difficult position, after being Boss.
Terry nods a silent salute to his former aircraft, as well as the examples of the Grumman F-11F Panther and McDonnell Douglas F-4J Phantom II standing solemnly in the park.
After passing these three retired Blue Angels, Terry smoothly accelerates the De Lorean up to the base speed limit of twenty-five mile an hour, and heads towards the flight line to take a look over the Hornets.
Terry knows it will be one of the last moments of peace he will have for at least the next two months, and, in reality, probably up until the end of airshow season in November. This is because, after a brief orientation and flight suit fitting today, he will be going nonstop Monday through Saturday from 0430 until dark re-learning the Blue Angels’ flight routine and helping teach the three new team members.
Terry Carson pulls the stainless steel DMC-12 onto the flight line and parks it just under the nose of what will be his bird for this season, Blue Angel Four.
Terry pops open his car’s gull-wing door after shutting off the engine, and the V-6’s purr fades away into the California afternoon.
Terry emerges from his car and looks down the line of Hornets, smiling.
The Marine aviator stands at five-seven, and, though short, has the solid build typical of most Marines. Terry’s blue eyes are crystal clear, and tell of his quick wit and above-ordinary intelligence, when he takes off the red-lensed, black-framed mirrored sunglasses that normally cover them, that is. However, Terry refuses to wear his hair in a buzz cut. When let to hang loose, Terry’s light brown lair hangs to the middle of his neck, though the sides are shaved underneath up to the top. He usually stuffs his hair under a ball cap to not annoy the brass any more than he has to.
In fact, he is stuffing his hair into a Denver Broncos cap as he emerges from the De Lorean, pushing his hair under his hat out of habit while looking down the row of Hornets.
They may not be the Skyhawk, but they sure are fun He thinks as he looks over the seven jets of the demonstration team, fondly remembering the maneuverability of the nimble little A-4Fs, in his opinion the best aircraft the Blues have ever flown. Of course, between his two years on the Blue Angels and his time spent as an Aggressor and instructor at the Topgun School out of Miramar, it is no wonder he likes the diminutive attack aircraft. He also quite possibly has the most time in the airframe of any pilot in the military.
Terry runs his hand down the nose of his McDonnell Douglas F/A-18A Hornet, feeling the sun-heated warmth of the dark blue-painted fuselage beneath his hand.
He keeps his left hand on the aircraft’s skin while doing a cursory walk-around of the fifty-six-foot long aircraft.
Once he is satisfied that his jet is in the perfect condition that is normal for the blue jets, Terry moves on to look over the other jets lined up on the tarmac.
Walking up and down the line of aircraft, Terry revels in the feel of the sun on his face and hands, and the beauty of the aircraft before him, their deep vibrant blue with golden yellow accents a stark contrast to the multiple brown tones of the desert around him.
He is under jet number Seven, the press ride aircraft, which is the team’s only two-seat F/A-18B, when he looks back down the line towards his own aircraft and his De Lorean sitting beneath it, and gets an idea.
Terry strolls back to his gleaming silver car and opens the trunk.
Since the DMC-12 is a rear-engined, rear-wheel drive automobile, the trunk is actually in the front of the car.
Terry reaches into his duffel bag in the storage compartment and gets out his Cannon AE-1 35mm camera.
Terry then closes the trunk and walks back about fifty feet from the two machines, his F/A-18A jet and DMC-12.
Looking through the viewfinder, Terry centers the Hornet in the picture, with his De Lorean parked haphazardly in front of it.
Something about the picture doesn’t look quite right to him, and he looks at the two metal machines for a moment.
Then it strikes him.
The car looks a little funny with only one of the gull-wing doors open. Both doors should either be closed or open.
Nodding to himself, Terry wanders back to his car, popping open the passenger door. While he is at it, he also grabs the camera’s tripod from the trunk.
The tripod is an extendable metal one, and stands about four and a half feet tall when fully extended.
Terry extends all three of the support stand’s legs and screws the base onto the bottom of the camera.
He sights through the viewfinder again, zooms in a little, and then tweaks the focus to bring the two vehicles into sharper definition.
Terry snaps off a pair of shots of the technological wonders glinting in the sunlight, then grins when another thought pops into his head.
He sets the ten-second timer on the camera before jogging over to kneel under the Hornet’s nose.
Even from fifty feet away, he can hear the click of the camera’s shutter when it takes his picture. It is just that quiet in the desert.
That won’t last long, Terry thinks, for as soon as the blue jets fire up and start practicing, the tearing across the cloudless blue sky, the serenity and silence of the desert will be shattered by the thunder the aircraft create, and it will be pure music I’ll be making up there, too.
He has just finished collapsing the tripod and stowing it and the camera back in the De Lorean’s trunk, when a voice floats towards him across the tarmac.
“Tron, I should have figured that was you, what with that gull-winged metal monstrosity of yours. You know we’re not supposed to mess around with the jets. What kind of example are you, a veteran Blue, setting for the newbies?” The familiar voice mockingly asks from behind him.
Terry grins, recognizing the voice, and keeps the grin on his face when he closes the trunk and turns around.
“Don’t tell me I have to deal with you for another year, Boss.” Carson comments in a facetious tone.
“The feeling is mutual, Tron, trust me.” Navy Commander John Cutler, in his second year as flight lead, replies, also smiling while extending a hand towards the other aviator. “Welcome back.”
“Good to be here, Boss.” Terry comments, sincerely, and out of instinct. It is a common phrase heard among the Blues.
The Blue Angels require an almost superhuman amount of commitment and an almost non-existent social life, but even with all that, it is a truly amazing and rewarding experience.
Terry wouldn’t trade his years with the Blues for anything in the civilian world, and very little else outside his time with the ETF has been as personally gratifying to him.
Every weekend from March to November, Terry and the rest of the Blue Angels get the chance to entertain, and educate, hundreds of thousands of people at every event they attend.
He has also been told it is a good recruitment tool for the Navy.
“You, Hook, and I should probably take a shakedown flight this afternoon before we brief the rookies.” Boss comments to Terry, while hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the base’s barracks building, where the third Blue Angel from last year’s team is leaning casually against the wall, arms across his chest.
“Sounds like a plan, Boss-man. We have time for chow first? I’ve been driving since 0500.”
“That’s where Hook and I were just headed. Feel free to come along.” Cutler comments as he starts to walk towards the barracks.
Terry closes the passenger door of the DMC, climbs into the driver’s seat, and fires the engine up. Within five minutes he has his gear stowed in the barracks and is walking to lunch with Boss and Hook, the three men talking animatedly with their hands as they discuss some of the fine-tuning they would like to try on the maneuvers the team flew last year.

Three Hours Later

The pre-flight briefing and pre-visualization walk through out of the way, through which the three new Blues had looked a little uncomfortable and fidgety at first, but had eventually gotten into the flow, the three veteran Blue Angels walk in lockstep out of the locker room and across the tarmac.
With the three newbies looking on enviously, Boss, Hook, and Tron, resplendent in their blue flight suits, although still with last year’s numbers on them for Tron and Hook, march towards their fighters.
Boss turns off from the trio when they arrive at the nose of Jet One, commenting “Later, boys” to Hook and Tron.
The two men reply “See ya, Boss” in unison as they continue on past the next two jets, Tron splitting away from Hook at the Number Four jet.
“Keep it tight.” Tron smirks to the taller man.
“Watch your paint.” Hook replies with his own grin as he continues on to Jet Six.
Terry salutes his jet’s crew chief before clambering up the F/A-18’s boarding ladder, his crew chief right behind him.
While Carson settles into his fighter’s ejection seat, his crew chief tightens down his straps and hands him the Blue Angels’ distinctive yellow helmet.
Once Terry is all strapped in, he gives the thumbs-up to his crew chief, who taps him on the helmet in a gesture of good luck.
Terry makes sure that his crew chief is clear, the boarding ladder is folded back into the jet’s LEX, or Leading Edge eXtension, and that no one is near the engine intakes.
He then fires a look over at Boss and flicks him a thumbs up, noting Hook doing the same from farther down the line. Boss returns the gesture, and all three pilots fire up their McDonnell Douglas-built aircraft.
With a low whine, each Hornet’s dual General Electric F404-GE-400 turbofans spool up, the six engines of the fighter trio soon roaring with power.
Terry glances quickly around the HOTAS, or Hands On Throttle And Stick, cockpit to bring his caffeine-pumped senses back up to a suitable comfort level with the controls.
With his left hand resting on the throttle handle and his right on the flight stick, mounted on the floor and rising between his legs, Terry relaxes, becoming a part of the machine, and at the same time feeling the fighter become an extension of his body.
He grins happily.
Being in the cockpit is a great feeling, he thinks, one of the best feelings you can have with your clothes on.
“Throttle up.” Comes Boss’s voice in his headset, interrupting what was sure to become a diverting reverie, since Carson is starting to think about one of the few things he enjoys more than flight.
This last weekend comes back to him at the thought, the memories involving passion and flesh, he had left an amazing redhead’s bed at five this morning to start coming here to El Centro.
Shaking himself slightly to clear the vision from his mind, Terry inches the throttle forward, and the Hornet beneath and around him rumbles in glee.
Normally, this is exactly the kind of vision Terry would love to have occupying his head, but having it while piloting a multi-million dollar air superiority fighter through and exacting set of maneuvers would not be good for the precise concentration he will need to use.
“Release brakes, line taxi.” On the word brakes, Boss, Tron and Hook take the pressure off their toe brakes and the three gloss blue and yellow jets roll forward in perfect synchronization.
The three F/A-18As line up nose to tail and taxi to the runway, where Terry pulls up on Boss’s left wing, and Hook on his right.
“Smoke on, full throttle.” Boss calls, and, as one, the three fighters rumble down the runway, trailing smoke from the smoke canister between the jets’ twin engines.
“Rotate on three….two…one…” Boss’s voice drones in his monotone voice, something he has practiced to make sure his commands sound the exact same every time they fly.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have liftoff. The Blues have cleared the tower.” Terry comments with a grin while flipping the lever to retract his landing gear.
“And the crowd goes wild.” Hook adds, making cheering noises over the radio.
“Though I share the sentiment, gentlemen, knock it off. Keep the chatter to a minimum. But it’s good to be back. Gimme a split and show them what you’ve got.” Boss comments before he pulls his lead fighter into a climb and zooms for the heavens.
Grinning tightly, Terry snap rolls his maneuverable F/A-18 through two hundred and seventy degrees before pulling back hard on the flight stick, his right fist touching his stomach as he does so, crossing above and in front of Hook’s jet, who started his roll in the opposite direction of Terry’s a split-second earlier.
The two jets pass within five feet of each other, and Hook continues straight to the left of their original heading, whereas Terry continues holding his stick to his stomach, keeping the Hornet in an incredibly tight turn.
In the turn, Terry is pressed into his seat, grunting and tightening his abdominal muscles, to keep the blood flowing to his head as the maneuver applies 8Gs to his body, or eight times the force of gravity.
Through it all, Terry remains grinning, his mind shouting with exuberant joy.
Finishing his turn, Terry “Tron” Carson feels more alive than he has in months, and rolls the blue and gold-painted F/A-18A Hornet wings-level, roaring back towards where the newbies are standing, rocketing less than fifty feet above the desert.
He can see Hook’s jet about a half mile up ahead, and his grin gets broader while he pushes the throttle forward with his left hand, kicking in the twin F404 afterburners.
The Hornet fairly leaps ahead, racing to catch up with Hook’s Number Six jet, the blue-tinted plume of the afterburner barely visible against the cloudless sky.
He overtakes the Lead Solo pilot almost exactly at the same time they pass the new Blues below, Boss’s jet catching them from a power dive a moment later.
The three jets dance across the sky for the better part of an hour in formation and solely, wringing out the cobwebs in both the pilots and the jets, in addition to giving the new pilots below a taste of what they have signed on for.
By the time the flight is done, Terry is drenched in sweat, but still euphoric.
He has to force himself to unstrap and leave the cockpit after parking the jet, with help from his ever present crew chief, and knows he has used the equivalent energy that a distance runner would have gone through, competing in the Boston Marathon in eighty-five degree weather.
And damned if it isn’t the best kind of exhaustion He thinks to himself, and on top of it all, I get paid to do this, every day, for the next two months, and every weekend for the next eleven months. Life doesn’t get much better. Carson thinks while climbing out of the blue jet.

Valder's Musings

Saturday, August 29, 2009

One door closes.....

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Intro-duce, Intro-spect

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Looking Forward

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A couple of things to take a looksie at.....

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The antics of Paladin and Jedi

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Revamp: Terry "Tron" Carson

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