Category: Blip on the Radar

Your very own scribe, shooting hell out of…. milk cartons A Blip on the Radar Part 14: On holding hands, keeping your shorts on, rotor brakes, and smoking Pot I have worked, on and off, for different charities. That doesn’t make me a saint, or better than you. It just makes me a Seeker, a…

Photo by Francis Meyrick A Blip on the Radar Part 12: No Man is an Island I have read stories and biographies that, in the final thrust, left me unable to identify, to connect, with the protagonist. It was as if the make-up team had been in. The dreaded publicist. Massaging the true writer away.…

A Blip on the Radar Part 13: The Lady in Blue I try hard, not always successfully, to live by my own maxims. One of these goes like this: never mock what you don’t understand. It has to do with respect I guess. Other people’s religious and spiritual beliefs may seem strange, unreal, but if…

A Blip on the Radar Part 11) Plastic, War, and Manta Rays In my little life, I have frequently witnessed distressing events, man-made, that made absolutely zero sense to me. No rhyme, no logic, no sense. I’d be left thinking… why on earth… do people do and say-such incredibly silly things? Do you have to…

A Blip on the Radar Part 10: “Burning The Garbage; Moggy, Moggy, what you DO?? “ Looking back, I know I elevated naivety to an Art form, truly worthy of the Guinness Book of Records. But I plead innocence. After all, I mostly meant well. That is probably what I shall be telling Saint Peter…

A Blip on the Radar We were all ship mates. In our own way, despite different nationalities, cultures and priorities, we often relied on each other. I was learning Chinese, and I often chatted for hours with the crew members about their lives, their homes, their goals in life. They showed me photos of their…

A Blip on the Radar Part 8 Fear and Panic: “Eyes of Dead Man “ Fear and Panic are two different beasts. A helicopter pilot does well to ponder the difference. And research, study, envisage ugly scenarios, prepare mentally for them, and try hard to never be surprised. In this last endeavor, believe me, he…

A Blip on the Radar Part (7) Routine and Sudden Terror: How to crash a Helicopter In the Introduction to “Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual ” I wrote this: “But if I had never had any help, never had any advice, never had mentors… I would be stone dead by now. I have waltzed -innocently- into…

A BLIP ON THE RADAR (6) Life and Death are real and immediate in the Tuna Fields. Men cope with the inevitable risks in different ways. Gallows humor, cruel and unkind to some, is an ever present fact of Life. No target is ever too sacred. Some would say it’s just a method of coping.…

    A Blip on the Radar (5) “Near-Miss “ Some stories are so extraordinary, that there is no need to invent, embellish, ‘dress up’ or exaggerate. The simple truth in itself is so staggering, that no fiction writer could possibly -ever- dream up such an extravagant tale. This snapshot describes an event that actually…