Moonset over White Pocket

White Pocket Formation
Vermilion Cliffs National Monument Wilderness
Arizona

(If) Only You Could ..

I am 50 miles from JFK in a Boeing 777, and ATC sends me to a holding pattern ..

ATC: "Pan World 123, hold southeast of NEPTUNE intersection, left turns, at 15,000 feet. Expect further clearance in 55 minutes."

Capt. DemoTex: "NY Center, Pan World 123, I understand hold NEPTUNE, left turns, at 15,000 feet. Sir, why are aircraft holding going into JFK?"

ATC: "Pan World 123, JFK down to one runway due to snow removal. We have lots of jets ahead of you for landing."

Capt. DemoTex: "Copy"

DemoTex to co-pilot: "This sucks, Mitch. I have a hot date with Stormy tonight. What say we declare a low-fuel emergency and jump to the head of the pack going into JFK?"

F/O Mitch: "I'll support you in that ill-conceived, career-ending decision Captain D.!"

Capt. DemoTex: "NY Center, Pan World 123, I'll tell you what. I don't like the terms or structure of your holding clearance, so I think I'll just declare low-fuel emergency and request immediate landing clearance at JFK."

ATC: "Roger, Pan World 123. Cleared direct JFK, expect straight-in approach with no delays."

Capt. DemoTex: "Roger suckers .. er I mean NY Center. Thank you. This is really not an emergency. I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster."

Iconic Florida Gulf Coast bar burns to ground this morning

The Red Bar (left, in my photo of 2017) burned to the ground this morning (2/13/2019). The iconic Grayton Beach bar/restaurant was in an old building steeped with Florida Panhandle history.

Van Butler's general store occupied the building for decades. Butler's was more than just a hard-to-find little store, located off a once-desolate section of now-toney highway 30A. It was a honky-tonk, a dance hall, a pool hall, and an ersatz community center.

My mother, and several of her sisters, celebrated the end of WW-2 at Van Butler's. In the 50s, we would ride with our dads down the short stretch of oyster-shell road that was the old FL-30A, from Blue Mountain Beach to Van Butler's store at Grayton Beach, after rent-house suppers on hot August nights. My dad and uncles (all WW-2 veterans) drank beer, and we kids - cousins - would play pool and eat ice cream.

Too bad. It makes me sad not so much that a mediocre bar is gone, but that the avaricious developers - circling like vultures for years - can now swoop in and make old town Grayton Beach yet another Gulf Coast playground for the ultra wealthy.