Yeah, You Blend

Geek

1. A socially inept or uncomfortable person.

2. A carnival performer who performs wild or disgusting acts.

Well, okay. Embrace it.

I'm a geek. No, not the second one. The first one, sort of. Specifically, I'm an "avgeek," which I understand is a known and collected sub-species. The reference is clear - "There are two kinds of people. Those who look up when an aircraft flies overhead, and those who do not." I'm one of the former.

We lived for a while in Commerce City, CO. Before you locals go "Eeeewww, Commerce City," two things. First, that odor near the refineries? That's what a money printing press smells like. Second, it was Reunion. It's more like Southern Brighton.

Anyway, we were directly in the flight paths of DIA. Sometimes departures, sometimes arrivals, depending on the wind. Frontier A-319s make a sound like a roller coaster going downhill (but, no screaming...that we could hear) when the engines throttled back. The Lufthansa 747s (headed either to Munich or Frankfurt) made a deep whooshing sound as they climbed, weighing nearly a million pounds.

It is inherited, and manifested itself into middle age when my good friend John and I drove to Oshkosh, WI for the annual fly-in there. He is a pilot - a damn good one - and we spent the better part of a week poking around the grounds, watching airshows and soaking it all in. My first novel - Out of Ideas - began there. It was a bucket list trip, one of the best.

So, WTF?

I pay a fraction over a soy latte at Starbucks every month to be a member of Big Jet TV. It is a streaming service based in London. Two guys - two wonderful, goofy, loveable guys - go to airports in England (and Germany and...sometime in 2018, San Francisco) and do 90-120 minute sessions watching planes take off and land. No...stop, really there is a point to this. They stand on the roof of a compact SUV with a fairly expensive set-up, do video and provide running commentary. They really are geeks, unabashedly and unapologetically so, about commercial aviation. I totally love it.

Today, they got...nicked? Yes, that's it. They were contacted by the local police and told to pack up their shit. It began innocently enough - sirens and a report by Jonny that there was some police activity in the area. It turned out they were the police activity. Apparently someone, possibly a pilot or three, had called them in as suspicious and even a hazard to aviation. Bloody hell!

The initial responding officers accepted their explanation, their credentials and a laminated letter from the property owner that they were allowed to be where they were set up. Of course, that didn't last long and the broadcast ended rather abrupt, like. Brilliant.

Aviation fans of Jonny and Jerry weighed in from all over the world (seriously, the whole world) with the usual "Don't them coppers have anything better to do?" I, myself, a fan of Jonny and Jerry (especially since they gave me a shout out last week...oh, you didn't hear it? A pity) weighed in and blamed it on command staff. But, my plane spotting unsated, I nipped about the morsels still available and happened upon a photo.

Jonny and Jerry are standing on the roof of their SUV, directly adjacent to final approach. They are wearing bright yellow jackets. Their vehicle is in the middle of a field, acres of barren ground surrounding them. Whenever a plane flies (a few hundred feet) overhead Jerry waves madly at the crew.

Okay. Maybe...