How Fast Do We Really Need Things?

I do not own a Keurig coffeemaker. I've thought about buying one, but decided against it. My friend, Terry owns a Keurig and loves it. And honestly it makes a pretty good cup of coffee.

I make coffee the old-fashioned way: Folger's Instant.  I think it tastes pretty good.  The entire process from boiling the water to first sip takes, what, three minutes, tops? I could put the cup of water in the microwave, but even that really doesn't save all that much time. And since I don't usually have only coffee in the morning, and there are always other breakfast things to take care of while the water heats up.

So I don't see a Keurig as a huge time-saver.

Not to mention the price. Well okay, let's mention it. The cheapest Keurig that Walmart sells is $50. The individual “K-Cup” pods are about $6.00 for 12, making it about fifty cents per cup. Add $0.25 per cup to cover the cost of the machine and it would take 200 cups to pay it off. So, $0.75 per cup of coffee that I make at home? I don't think so! Even fifty cents per cup is a lot when you think about it. Too much to pay for convenience? Yep.

Like I said, I buy Folger's Instant. I get about 100 cups or so out of the container which costs $5.72. About $0.05 per cup. Five cents.  

Even though I live in a house, kitchen counter space is limited. Having a Keurig would just take up too much space by a device that I would likely use only once a day, briefly at that. It doesn't make sense. The incredible popularity of this thing escapes me.

Who We Are and What We Do

What defines me as a person? A simple question, no? I've always thought so.  But recently my answer has been challenged.

For a long time I have defined myself as a pilot. It is not only what I do but who I am. They are inextricably linked, and I don't know why. They just are. I am a pilot. I fly.  I'm incredibly proud of being a pilot and doing it successfully for so long (i.e. without killing myself).  It makes me who I am.  ...I think.

I bring it up because my friend and fellow cabdriver, Terry and I were talking about this recently over lunch on the upstairs outdoor deck of a new restaurant called NOLA on Pensacola Beach.  "NOLA" is southern shorthand for New Orleans, Louisiana.  NOLA, the restaurant serves a pretty good approximation of the food you'd get in the Crescent City.

It was a good day...no, a great day! A Chamber of Commerce day. The sky was absolutely clear, the wind was calm and the water gorgeous. The view from the deck could not have been more beautiful. It was the perfect day to sit and eat shrimp po'boys and drink rum and Cokes and pretend we had N'Awlins accents as we pondered the meaning of life. It reinforced in Terry and me the reason why we live here and not where you live, nothing personal. Oh, and as much as we all love New Orleans, we're glad we don't live there either.

Terry and I were talking about some of the other cabdrivers we know. Admittedly it does not take a lot of...well, “smarts” to be a cabdriver. All you have to do is know how to drive and operate a Pulsar taximeter. Sadly, some of our cohorts have gone as far as they're going to go in life. They've risen to their personal top. For some of them, a cabdriver is all they're ever going to be.  And some of them aren't even good at that.

Terry does not want to be restricted by such limitations. He's a good writer, and a published author. He's a poet, a painter, a pretty good photographer and a damn good philosopher.  You can check out his work HERE.  He is a much better writer than I am.  He can convey in very few words what takes me pages.

But of all the things at which Terry excels, he is first and foremost a good Christian who lets his spirituality guide everything he does. And he bristled at currently being identified as “cabdriver” for that is not who he is.

"It's like with you,” he said. “You're more than just a pilot, aren't you? Being a pilot doesn't define you as a person, right? It's what you do, not who you are, right?”

Umm. Well...wow. He kind of hit a sore spot there. I had to respectfully disagree. A spirited discussion (let's not say “argument”) ensued.

I look at it this way: I am a pilot. There is no way I could ever not be a pilot. I was a pilot even before I was born....I believe. You see, my father had been a pilot for nearly fifteen years when I was conceived. So it's in my DNA. (It turns out that my grandfather had been a motorcycle cop, which might explain my unusual obsession with two-wheeled machines of the Harley Davidson persuasion.)

My friend Brandon Arago's father is a surgeon. Although he didn't follow his father into the medical field, Brandon flies with a precision that can only be called surgical. He is quite amazing to watch, and I love flying with him so I can do just that. Scoff if you will, but I believe that Brandon would've made an incredible surgeon. And by knowing the son, I believe I know something about how good a surgeon his father must be.

So do I mind being called “cabdriver?” I don't know. I kind of like the job, and it turns out that I'm particularly and not unsurprisingly well-suited to it. It might not have as glamorous a title as “pilot,” but the two jobs are not all that dissimilar. In fact, for years and years the FAA called the type of flying I've done all my life, “air-taxi” since we move people and things from here to there for money. Then my last full-time flying job was ferrying some rich guy around at his whim and command.  I was basically his airborne taxi driver..okay, “chauffeur” if you prefer because it sounds better.

But does “cabdriver” define me? I agree with Terry: I think not.  And so if I'm not a cabdriver, maybe I'm not a pilot either.

Maybe I've been wrong all these years?  

RV Living

In my last post I talked about these people who live in campers or RV's full-time, with no permanent house or apartment. As I mentioned, I couldn't do it. I mean, I like driving...I like the outdoors...I even like traveling. But full-time RV living is just not for me.

And yet... For the last seven years I've been going up to Washington State for my “summer job” which often lasts six months. You guys may or may not know that when I go up there I usually stay in a company-provided motorhome - a relatively old, 27-foot Sonoma Class A. (The chart above shows the differences among the various types of campers/RV's/motorhomes.  My boss owns a selection of travel trailers, fifth-wheel trailers and Class A RV's.  

"My" Sonoma is powered by a little four-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine made by Isuzu. It gets comparatively good gas mileage, but it can barely get out of its own way. With a maximum speed of about 65 mph on a straight and level road, it's absolutely not suited for American interstate highways, except maybe the ones here in flat ol' Florida, “The Under-Construction State” in which every road is a traffic jam with old people in cars from somewhere else.

I can't believe Sonoma decided to sell this thing in the U.S. ...Or that my boss bought one – and drove it all over the place (probably slowly) when his kids were young. Truly, it's a turd on wheels. Driving the Sonoma, there is always a conga-line of cars with frustrated drivers behind you. It causes a traffic jam going up a freeway on-ramp. An added bonus is that it drives like a piece of shit, too! Strong crosswinds make you feel like you're going to tip right over. The way it heaves and rolls, steering it down the road is akin to commanding the Queen Mary through seas churned up by a hurricane. Let's just say it's not fun. It would have me heaving and rolling too.

Fortunately, I only have to drive it a short distance from our little airport on the Okanogan River up to the orchard owned by the customer for whom I work. This customer has put in a heliport for the two helicopters they rent from us for the cherry season. They generously installed three RV sites with full hookups that we can use for free. Once parked (in late May), the USS Sonoma stays docked right where it is until the cherries are picked and it's time to go home. I have added an external propane tank hookup, so we don't even have to leave to fill that up. I just throw the external tank in the back of the pickup truck and go to town.  Breaking camp, I untie the bow lines and half-expect a couple of smart fortwo cars to come and gently guide me out onto the main road/shipping channel.

Class A recreational vehicles generally have all the usual amenities you'd expect at home – like microwave and real ovens. Mine had a three-burner gas stove. And they're pretty comfortable, all things considered. The Sonoma had a decent queen-size mattress in the back. I'm not sure if it was standard or if the boss replaced the original along the way. RV manufacturers used to cheap-out on the beds. This one is pretty good.

Living in the thing is okay for one person. But it's cramped. I wouldn't want to have to share it with anyone; there's no one I really like enough to do that. The bathroom is tiny, and like on a lot of RV's, the rear wheel-well intrudes on the shower tub. It's only got one air-conditioner unit on the roof. The poor, overworked thing just cannot even keep up on 100-degree days, which is the end of June through all of July for us. Okay, remember earlier when I said it was a turd on wheels? Well it is, but it's also an oven on wheels too. In moderate climates it's fine, but when the temperatures hit the extremes outside it gets uncomfortable inside.

As I said, the customer rents two helicopters from us.  During the day, I'd leave the other, less-senior pilot to hang out on the property in his RV, which is a Winnebago Super Chief, which is bigger and had a better air conditioner than mine. (And yes, I could have pulled rank and taken the bigger RV. But I leave a lot of stuff in the Sonoma over the winter so I don't have to haul it back and forth every year. So I figured I might as well stay in it.)

When I was a kid, my family did a lot of camping...tent camping. And we were good at it! Oh, we sometimes fantasized about getting a little pop-up trailer. But keeping such a thing within the confines of New York City would be a problem. Plus, it would have to be towed by our faithful VW bus. With even less power than a diesel Sonoma, VW buses don't make great tow-vehicles. So my parents said ix-nay to any sort of camper.

Just as well. I still like camping – but in a tent carried on my back or in my canoe, not this glamping thing which is the act of going into the woods with every conceivable luxury and thinking that you're roughing it.

 I put up with the Sonoma RV every summer because it's private. Believe it or not I'm not exactly a sociable person. I like my alone-time. But at the end of the season, when the cherries are all picked and the rest of the crew have packed up and gone home, I move into one of the empty crew houses. How people stay in those RV's full-time is beyond me.