Sunday, June 27, 2004

Tornado!

I've had the coolest weekend! On Friday term finished (woohoo!) and after work I drove up to Dundee to spend the weekend with a very lovely man who I met recently. He works in the Airforce, and on the Saturday he took me to see the base where he works. This weekend I sat in the pilot seat of a real live jetfighter - neat eh? I wouldn't have pegged myself as someone who'd get excited about a fighter plane - I'm pretty resoloutely pacifist for a start, but exited I most certainly was.

There's something very cool about being with smart people and talking with them about what they love: that's exactly how I spent Saturday afternoon - looking at these bewildering mechanical marvels with a man who knew them inside-out, and who wanted to share that with me... I couldn't help but be awe-struck by the powerful elegence of these aircraft, but the guy enthusiastically explaining all about them* was if anything even more impressive.

Dundee was (predictably) far less impressive than the airbase, but happily the company was first rate and all in all it's been a particularly memorable weekend - I'm really lucky to live a life that lets me meet such engaging people and have adventures like that...

*OK, not quite all about them - some bits were classified. It's a little disconcerting when someone says "I could tell you that, but I'd have to shoot you" and you know they're actually being serious.

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