The Fog's Liftin' , The Sand's Shiftin'

 

 

Passing the Terengganu Crude Oil Terminal en route to Tender 9

Many a time I've wondered whether nurturing this blog is relevant.

I've been made to acknowledge that people no longer bother with reading blogs. There is no time to yield for the purpose. Micro-blogging stole the show for a while and its flavour is now a mere aftertaste.

Outrider

Corporate restrictions become more and more a reflection of the nation's muzzling regime, rendering even one's simple and private pleasures of self-expression painfully constricted.

 

However, to paraphrase Billy Joel, even "if you said goodbye to me tonight, there would still be music left to write".

 

And therefore, here I return after nigh a year of sporadic blog posts and absenteeism.

Post-monsoon surface streaks: looking more like scum than plankton

I have had an alteration of job description.

 

I now hold a secondary post in the base as Base Flight Safety Officer.

 

As a result I have to do an amoeba split between flying and safety management.

 

I have done this before. Back in my RMAF days ( rings of Fowler, doesn't it?), I was either Squadron safety Officer or Base Flight Safety Officer, bang from the start of my flying duties. This time around, the familiarity of taking on a job shunned by everyone else is an ample serving of same old, same old.

 

It's a year now since I took on the appointment. I've reached the borderlines of hypertension and diabetes. My intake of coffee has spiked tremendously in direct correspondence to my blood sugar and cholesterol while sleep apnoea startles me into unwelcomed wakefulness at odd hours of the night.

 

I feel old. Too little butter scraped over too much bread?

Cruising past the ever distinctive Tapis Romeo

However, when I do get to fly, I feel human again.  The self awareness that age is no longer on my side makes each hour I am airborne all the more a treasure to be savoured. Forget what Hollywood has done, having the laity believe that flying is romantic. The grotesque spin-off from this is the ever ubiquitous notion that pilots are sexy. I work with a lot of pilots, and uuurrghhhh, they are NOT!!!!!!!!!! The fact is, some of them are barely sensible, let alone clever.

 

Then when management starts prowling around like ravenous carnivores to ensnare those desperate for career progression to keep their families fed, you discover whole new world of deceit and loathing, mostly towards others and sometimes self, when you catch a glimpse of what you've turned into as you pass an importune mirror.

 

Anyone who is a mere link on the chain of employees cannot lay claim to knowing fraudulence if he's not had to sleep with upper management.

You think translations form Oriental languages are funny? Meet Hai Yang Shi You....later!!

Back to Billy Joel, likewise, shall I continue this labour of love, which is to do what I love: writing. It is not for popularity that I started this, but rather that my mind needs to empty itself periodically and for all I know this hammering away at the keys is what tempered my blood pressure for the many years I have been involved in the mired career of aviation.

Tracking outbound through Lane 4, Kuala Kerteh below.

And as ever, the sights from the cockpit are an unfailing reward.