It’s been quite a week. For those of you
who may not have heard yet, Adele and I have a new member of the family.
No, not THAT kind of new member! On Wednesday morning way before the sun rose, I woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm which was set at 4:30am.
By the time I had taken a shower and gotten dressed, Adele was up too
and ready to drive me to the airport. Perhaps ready is not the correct
word. She was resigned to take me to the airport. We got there at about 5:30
and do you know, Southwest is already busy by that time of the
morning!?! Fortunately I had already gotten my boarding pass the day
before (exactly 24 hours before as anyone familiar with Southwest would
know) and didn’t have any baggage to check, so I was able to go directly
to the security line. That’s where the fun began. You see, the member
of the family is a motorcycle and the reason I was at the airport was
that I was flying down to San Diego to pick it up and drive it back
hone.
Even though I have TSA PreCheck (thank
you Apple) the guy checking the boarding documents looked at the helmet I
was carrying and then at me and asked: “You nervous about flying?”
“No,” I answered, “But one can never be too cautious.” He seemed to take
that at face value and let me through. Next I went to the x-ray machine
and placed the bag with my Motorcycle boots, armored gloves and riding
trousers on the belt along with my helmet and armored jacket and walked
through the metal detector. No beeps or bells was a good sign but the
belt going back and forth as the guys peered through my bag was not.
Finally they let my stuff go through but not before one of the security
people asked me; “You afraid of flying or something?” “No,” I said, “But
you never know…”
I arrived at the gate and
after a bit of time the plane was ready to board so I got in line and
when I reached the guy taking the boarding passes he took mine looked at
my helmet and asked: “Afraid of flying?” “No,” I replied again, “I just
like to be prepared for anything.”
So off I
went down the jetway and walked on board the plane. At that point the
flight attendant looked at me and at my helmet and started to say: “Are
you…” “Yes,” I interrupted, “Yes, I am afraid of flying. I really am,
and if I could have gotten it through security I would have brought my
brother’s parachute.” “Oh, uh, well…” the flight attendant replied,
“would you like a window seat?” “Thanks.” I said.
The
rest of the flight was OK, except that the flight attendants seemed to
be staring at me every time they passed by. As I was leaving the plane
in San Diego, the pilot was standing next to the door with the look of
“So that’s the guy.” as I walked up. “I hope my flying didn’t scare you
too much.” “No,” I said “Very smooth in fact." Holding up the helmet I
said, "I just bought this in case the person next to me was too chatty.”
And with that, I left the plane.
Since this has
already gone on too long, I’ll condense the rest. I got to the
motorcycle dealer in San Diego (Fun Motor Sports) signed all the
paperwork, got the key to my new motorcycle and took of on a really long
ride north. I stayed on I-5 for longer than I thought possible, turned
onto 152 and then 101 and 85 and made it home 14 hours and 500 miles
after I had left in the morning, thirsty, hungry, and with one of the
worst cases of saddle sore I had ever experienced in my life!
I hope that you all had a good week, too. I wanted to mention that the Spirit West Coast Christian Music Festival is coming up in two weeks from this Sunday.
It costs $19.50 for lawn seating and if you let me know that you would
like to go, I will order the tickets in advance. Adele and I and Veronica
and her family are going as well as Sudeep and some of his friends.
Please let me know as soon as possible if you would like to go so we can
get tickets and arrange transportation. The concert is at the Concord
Pavilion which is about and hours drive away. The concert starts at 4pm and is over between 10 and 11pm.
Some other events on the Calendar:
New Light this Friday at 7:15
Middle School Sunday School this Sunday
Kings Academy Senior Commencement June 4th
Spirit West Coast Concord June 12th.
Please let us know if you have any prayer requests. We really do pray for you guys!
Allen Cheung - avaliant@gmail.com
Sudden Gurung - sgurung2s@yahoo.com
Veronica Conte - mail4veronica@gmail.com
Duane Fowler - dlfowler@comcast.net
Also, you can find out anything you need about New Light and the youth program at: http://newlightnotes.blogspot.
Cheers!
Duane
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