Finished Early

Not many people here in good ole Europe might have noticed, but today the last specimen of the most advanced and most senseless fighter plane that humanity - a small elite part of the US engineering elite part of humanity that is - has built so far, rolled of the assembly line. And most probably nobody will build the like of it again for the forseeable future. It is simply without sensible application.

Requiescat in pace, F-22 Raptor. You were and are one hell of a dangerous an' expensive toy 4 far 2 few.

plink, nix,    praise or blame!
 

May you find peace, Steve Jobs, †

He was the greatest marketer the last decades of the old and, even more, the first of the new century have seen, which surely is no small feat with so many trying so very hard in that field.

Steven Jobs was a man of impeccable taste as it seems and stamina for many. In the end he even virtually beat his eternal frind-foe-rival Gates at the stock exchange game.

He also seems to have been sort of an asshole. For one so early on searching for peace in India and other places, from the evidence we have it does not look like he found it while on this planet. "It's not binary. You can be decent and gifted at the same time", Wozniak tells Jobs in Danny Boyle's movie. Who knows.

It seems in his last years Jobs tried a least a bit to become a more decent person. May you find peace where ever you are, Steve. After some meditation we now can write this from our hearts.

Premature Death

While, out of St. Mary's Parish, we really try to follow events in Northern America, due to ressource restrictions we are always late and never timely.

3 days ago, on August 22, Her Majesty's Canadian Loyal Opposition leader since earlier this year Mr. Jack Layton passed away at age 61. By the order of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a state funeral will be held the day after tomorrow, August 27, at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto.

Mr. Layton was a member of an endangered species, the good old style political class. We liked him because he mostly gave the impression of Paul Newman sitting on a city council.

There they go and, by gosh, we just dunno if anything better is coming after them. Still, as sure as ever, a day of mourning will be followed by days of enjoyment.

Temperature is going up to 32ºC here in Jamaica and 35ºC for our dear friends in Vienna Austria, so after work it will be sailing and swimming on both sides of the Atlantic.

Qomolangma, Las Islas Abaco and The New Yerushalayim

Aaliyah Dana Haughton died on August 25^th two days after I bought her latest album. Peter Ganner, distinguished member of the AES and head of ORF studio technology died on May 23^th at 27,890ft on what we call the Mount Everest and the Tibetans call Qomolangma.

I read of Aaliyah's death while surfing the web and heard of Mr. Ganner's death while listening to my voicebox on vacation in Triest.

While I knew Ms. Haughton only through her music and the movie "Romeo must die" and knew Mr. Ganner personally from working together and against each other, it took me about a week to think and feel anything. Death is a harsh thing for the ones who stay alive.

Now as far as I know Aliyah meant to go up and Peter Ganner had walked up as far as anyone can. I think I do not like physical death in people I know any one way. Not at all.

Still if there is more than eternal sleep, I hope both of them found the New Jerusalem. I will keep good memories of these two people.

How it happened

Carlos Soria compartía permiso con un argentino, Juan Benegas, y un austriaco, Peter Ganner, que murió al descender por la Cara Sur: "Subía un poco detrás de mí y le ví llegar al Balcón. Luego no le volví a ver y me enteré de lo que había ocurrido cuando llegué al Campamento. Peter Ganner se cayó en el Escalón Hillary cuando se volvía sin haber llegado a la cumbre. "Fue muy trágico porque no murió, pasó allí la noche y, al día siguiente, alguien lo encontró todavía con un poco de vida".

"U.S. singer and actress Aaliyah was killed along with seven other people Saturday when a small Cessna passenger plane crashed and burst into flames shortly after taking off from the small airport at Marsh Harbour, the main town in the Abaco islands (Bahamas) bound for Miami, police said early Sunday. The singer was returning to the United States after completing filming of a music video in the Abaco islands, which are about 170 miles (270 km) east of south Florida."