The good old days,

Is it possible they could be back for a while?

Thinking about the time that I was flying low over the tulip fields of Mount Vernon Washington;

And I know - it was totally a no-no - but we sure were having fun and I was following a Robinson B1 RD and we were playing follow the leader.  I had paid for a coworker to have a short introductory ride in ultralights.  Arlington Washington is just down the road from Mount Vernon Washington where there are thousands of acres of tulip fields.  Giant splashes of color as viewed from our ultralights.  Following one of the head guys of the Robinson's B1 RD's and my coworker we headed out from Arlington Washington for a short flight to the coast and over the Mount Vernon tulip fields.

The B1 banked and descended sharply and what fun that was to follow that move and in seconds we are in a low-flying formation only feet above the tulip fields.

Coming up to the end of the tulip fields was a few lines of electric and telephone wire on your typical telephone poles.  I had just watched the B1 RD pull-up and head for altitude and the coastline.  I firewalled the throttle and pulled back on the yoke, my little 40 horsepower 447 Rotax Super Cadet pulled me right up to 40 ft. above the telephone lines and the road and then seized.

Silence and 40 ft. instantly turn into 35 ft. and luckily I had hundreds of acres of flat farmland spread out in front of me to land.  And just like that -- what - three seconds at the most I went from good time flying to sitting in the cockpit of my little plane, intact and on the ground, stunned at the silence and stillness. Still watching B1 RD disappear into the distance I jump out of the plane and ran swinging my arms and my helmet hoping they will turn and see that I'm not behind them.  But it becomes clear in seconds that they're not going to hear me hollering or see me................ and I'm not alone.

All my jumping up-and-down and running and hollering had captured the attention of a small herd of dairy cows.  As an experienced farmhand, I had little concern for myself but mostly what those big old Holsteins could do to my airplane.  I took a last look at the boys in the B1 RD and by this time they were just speck in the sky.  And that herd of Holsteins was moving fast.

By the time I got to the airplane the cows were on me, easily overwhelmed by their size I was pinned between them and the airplane.  Suddenly I have cows sniffing my butt, rubbing their head in my crotch, sticking their wet mucus dripping nose in my helmet, then the big one stuck her head into that group right in my face.

She sends that tongue out and runs it up into one of her nostrils and I'm thinking oh no, isn't the engine quitting bad enough?  Then she sent that tongue out again and it went up the other nostril and I screamed -- not the tongue!  And in that startled dairy cow moment they blinked twice and I was gone sprinting for the fence line with a half a dozen heifers behind me.  My adrenaline sent me up and over the fence line and into the country road of, the tulip country of Mount Vernon Washington, where I had just buzzed the community's prize tulip fields.

One minute , you are on top of the world and looking down -- -- and then -- -- the next minute you are standing in the middle-of-the-road next to the tulip fields you just buzzed and with a bunch of dairy cows standing at the fence looking at you with hungry eyes.  It was a humbling experience to stick out my thumb that day.  It was 1987.

So here we are in 2008 and hopefully only a couple of weeks away from the test flight of my series one project.  Turning 60 this year and sometimes these days I sort of feel like I’m standing on the side of that road again wondering what the heck just happened -- got to go modify my carburetors to facilitate the new throttle cables.

The eyes are the window to the soul or so I have been told. And yet who among us has not seen the individual at his most impressive walking with stick or guide dog. A person who believes that they are living life to the fullest and have conquered their fears and knows the joy of that accomplishment.

Eighteen years post radial keratotomy operation with its glare night and day. A moon that has eight other quarter moons that are displayed to the top left and present themselves in a downward arc, propagating in a diminishing appearance until we’re back to the moon at the bottom center right.

Does that make any sense to anyone else who doesn’t look through eight radial keratotomy cuts? You never know what it’s like until it happens to you. It happened to me one eye at a time. Dr Morlege insisted that I try it first? Try looking through glasses with one eye healing from refractive surgery and the other hanging on to the old vision. The experience was some sort of half in half out the door visual experience that made it difficult to take a step off the side walk to the street. You can’t undo the cuts.

I had to make it work I had a new career as a locomotive engineer; it was an exciting time.

I had my own 12,000 ton coal train 115 cars, five locomotives, 15000 hp and 178 miles of mostly new track that ran through the harvest moon country of eastern Wyoming down into the Platte river valley through Wendover Canyon crossing over the North Platte River into Guernsey Wy.

After the R. K. surgery I could not be outside without sunglasses; cloudy day, sunny day, winter’s day or summer. The starburst and halos-night time glare either sprang from or surrounded all the lights in my night time environment and became a challenge I had to overcome. It was like a dirty pair of soft contact lenses had been permanently attached to my eye balls.

The worst that it got was on a double mainline with a long siding to one side or the other with three trains moving at three different speeds, in two different directions. During the day this is not a problem but at night the conflicting visual references induced vertigo or more commonly known in the aviation industry as spatial disorientation and could come on suddenly with all the panic and fear that vertigo can induce.

During instrument training and what they call under the hood pilot training, I had learned to shake off vertigo, to trust my instruments and their readings and conquer the fear and the feeling of loss of control. The lessons served me well in the nighttime running of a train with few outside visual references or when those that I did have were lost in star patterns and halo and glare from inside and outside light sources.

The railroads worked us 60 and 70 hours a week and fatigue, burnout, employee turnover and train crashes were acceptable losses to the management.

Then you have this informed consent paperwork that hangs over the experience to intimidate you and threaten to bring on the wrath of their lawyers if you even think of complaining. Ignorance is bliss to the corporate world that hides behind legalisms in their superior position in the modern world, insulated protected until finally the statute of limitations absolves them of any a liability.

Dissatisfied customer to say the least. Many of us should not have been picked as candidates for refractive surgery, regardless of the type, RK, PRK; lasik etc.

when I first heard of lasik my first thought was that I wished I had waited. That was 10 years ago now that I have found SE, I find that some people are still wishing that they had waited for a new and better procedure.

So where am I going with this? Those of us who have to live with an unsatisfactory result from Refractive Surgery could become lost in the statistics. Surrounded by the commercial hype, Government policy changes that could move millions into the RS market and a feeling that I could will be lost as the statistically insignificant.

A recent poster to the surgical eyes web site, after two pre-op examinations made the following statements,

“I doubt very much that many people really are capable of making decisions based on "failure rates". I know that I'm not, and I think the numbers game is a very peculiar way of achieving "informed consent". When making a decision there's much greater value, in my opinion, to be had by skimming the experiences of others and letting all that extra gray matter do its job. If you let numbers convince you to go against your instinct your misery is all the greater should the situation turn bad."

"The most unsettling item, however, is the observation that the doc I've been working with doesn't seem to see ANYTHING I say as a contraindication. Rather, my concerns are merely things which need to be patched up before we do the procedure. As many other messages on this board indicate, the LASIK practitioner's idea of "Informed Consent" seems not to be informing the patient of her/his specific risks and issues, but rather simply saying, "LASIK is really great and will solve almost everyone's vision problems, but really anything could happen up to and including total loss of vision and there's really no guarantee or way of predicting that it won't happen to you. So anyway, I've got an opening next Thursday afternoon; is Thursday good for you?"

IF you are a perfect candidate you will probably have Successful surgery, if - on the other hand there is any doubt - trust your feelings

Read the informed consent form of that is posted on the pages of the surgical eyes web site and remember the doctor is fixing what is not broke. 

The refractive surgeon’s motto “ FEARAIGH AGUS DOGH BUADH” -- the words are from Ireland 1000 years ago and was the rallying cry of a distant ancestor -- translation; cut and burn to victory.  If there is such a thing as Karma then I understand why someone would rather be the hammer rather than the nail.

Miles Mulloy

Tuesday, September 24, 2002

Railroad Management and the United Transportation Union part of the solution or part of the problem?

Definition: train, a locomotive with one or more cars attached.

Unmanned trains moving through the communities and rail yards of this country.

While the office of Homeland Security has accomplished a great deal towards ensuring that the nation’s transportation systems are safer and more secure than they were a year ago. The railroads have become less safe.

The management in the railroad industry pursues a policy that contradicts the office of Homeland Security efforts by implementing remote control operations and is a classic example of profits taking precedence over the safety and welfare of the general public.

In this past year terrorists have been captured killed and their infrastructure has been greatly diminished. But who among us doubts that this past year has also intensified the determination of those who survive and the newly enlisted who wish to bring harm to the United States and its population.

A locomotive operated by remote control leaves the unattended cab vulnerable to the terrorist person or persons, already on a suicide mission, who could take control with no more effort than to break the glass and enter the cab.

The fanatical person expressing an interest at this time in the railroad industry in training for the remote control operation technology would probably be welcomed with open arms by management desperate to implement the technology. Could the people recently arrested in New York State who had been to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan be refused training and employment in the railroad industry. Could there be others who have not been discovered. They hide with in plain sight, protected by what they intend to destroy.

Just as the aviation industry unwittingly trained the terrorists of 911, the railroad is just as vulnerable to that exploitation of our industry training, because it is provided at our colleges and junior colleges and technical schools around the country.

The proponents of remote control operations though no doubt well meaning and industrious employees in their particular role in the railroad transportation system are exposing the rest of the work force and the People living in the area of operations for these unmanned locomotives; that are connected to any number of cars and containing potentially hazardous materials [to an unnecessary risk]. The cars that they are pulling may contain the raw material for any number of industries that the local population counts on for jobs and their income.

It is not the engineer’s intention to hinder or suppress the technology but it is the responsibility of the engineers [BLE] for the safe operation of trains in their territory. And although the corporate world [ for the smallest gains ] would willingly expose our neighbors and friends to this unnecessary vulnerably at this uncertain time in America, the engineers of America have an obligation to bring this issue to the attention of the American public, their representatives and the people in government who can act in the interest of public safety.

A locomotive with doors and windows and an engineer’s control stand is vulnerable to anyone who can break the glass of the window and gain entry. Are there locomotives without an engineer’s control stand, yes there are. Those locomotives would expose the general public and the transportation infrastructure to much less risk when operated by remote control.

This issue goes beyond labor – management negotiations and should be handled directly by the people responsible for the Nation’s Homeland Security with the expertise of the Federal Railroad Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.

The image of the terrorist fanatic running around the country entering locomotives and sending them out of control pulling cars loaded with everything from our grains and produce of the harvest to the chemicals necessary for industries is of course difficult to imagine. What or who is to stop them, safety glass? The engineer is unarmed and however unlikely the scenario may seem, events of 911 taught us that the unimaginable is possible.

We would of course respond with overwhelming force and defeat the terrorists but at what cost? When we have the ability hard one through the trials of the terrible experience of 911 to make the right choices now and prevent the unimaginable from becoming a new reality.

The instructions for operating a control stand are on a placard that is riveted to the controls and on many locomotives. The terrorist would not even have to bring his cheat sheet from terrorist school.

To overlook that vulnerability and possibility would be irresponsible; when these issues are foremost in the minds and agendas of the people responsible for the public safety and the simplest and most adequate response at this time is to preserve the status Quo and not to allow the unmanned operation trains or locomotives.

Is the general public is to be put at risk for no good reason. The savings to railroads are insignificant compared to the risk involved. Would it be safe to have unmanned locomotives and trains operating through our towns and cities? If there had been no 911, if there were not a high probability of the terrorists fanatic willing to destroy himself in the process of causing harm to the America people the infrastructure of industry, transportation, government or just to gain fifteen minutes of fame on the 24 hour news channels for their fanatical religious views, It would at least be a less risky endeavor.

But in today’s world!

It’s a no brainer, either leave the locomotive engineers in the cab of the locomotive or remove the cab and control stands from the locomotive. Again it’s a no brainer common sense demands that unmanned operations of trains and locomotives for the foreseeable future are an unacceptable risk.

For no more reason than the profits of a very few, the many are asked to accept an unacceptable risk.

Semper Fi

Miles Mulloy