This is the Marrian web site. Sad to relate Mrs Marrian wants nothing to do with it. Her watercolours are beautiful but she's shy. She has many talents but she's still shy. She can't get away from the brilliance of her school though
I'm asked: why do you want the world to read about you? I'm even asked this by people with Facebook pages and lots of friends. It's a good question and I sometimes wonder myself. With social networking sites, you can control who partakes of your offerings; here you can't. But, I don't want to select who might or might not read these pages. The world is full of unknown people. There is stuff here; admittedly, it is my stuff or assembled by me but some of it might be helpful to somebody, or of interest. This is how I communicate. I don't like socialising; I'm no good at it; never was one of the boys. I used to like listening to the grown-ups talk; still do; just listening, not talking. The fact is, though, that nobody reads these pages; that's what the stats tell me; it's not that they come here and never return; they just never come here; it's the serendipity of it that I like. But most of all, I'm open to the world because it disciplines me; the writing, such as it is, is more considered, more thoughtful and better for that. It is cathartic. It is not for nothing that every page has at the top "include yourself amongst those you love". I must learn to love myself and being proud of what I write helps me to do that
My son is listening to the exchange between me and the controller and wants to chime in on the conversation. I said to my son, "Just hang on; I will give you a chance". I never should have said that because now he is all excited to talk on the radio. As I start to turn inbound on the turn, the approach control said "Contact tower when established on the localizer". So I told my young Padawan Learner: "OK, when this needle gets here on the dial, push the radio button and tell the tower that 93 Romeo is inbound on the localizer".
Now imagine this, I am giving basic instrument instruction to a nine year old; I cannot get adults to say this during training. But before I can give him something simpler to say he keys the mike and says
"REBEL BASE, THIS IS RED 5. WE ARE STARTING OUR ATTACK RUN ON THE DEATH
STAR".
Good God!
Now this is post 9/11 and before I can key my mike and say anything, the tower jumps on and says "RED 5, YOU'RE CLEARED FOR THE APPROACH TO THE DEATH STAR. REPORTS HITS AWAY"
...
So you see. This is why I own my own aircraft. You cannot beat this kind of quality time with your kids. And there is no way you can put a price on that.
Jeff Bryant, Southwest Regional Director, Beech Aero Club.
[1975 X-Wing Fighter Model B-19, N6993R]