As you can see, I have been enjoying my visit to the USA.  It all got delayed just a bit when the visa office in India informed us that we had to leave together since Karen was an accompanying spouse.  She was still having some dental work done so I delayed my departure until she was done.  We left early on Thursday morning, April 4.  This will be our last business class travel deal since my new contract doesn't allow for that. We did enjoy our fully reclining seats and slept most of the way to Los Angeles, via Dubai. Dubai to LAX is 16:20 so that's a long flight.  Once we got to LAX, we split up and Karen went to visit her family in Las Vegas and I continued to Arizona, where I was having a big alumni get-together at my high school.  For me it was 42 years, but another alumnus and I had planned a big, off-campus party at a local hotel that would allow all the alumni to get together, regardless of year, for an off-campus meet and greet.  We had arranged for a block of hotel rooms and also a large hall for the party. Even with a $15 cover charge, we had 140 people show up and it was a wonderful get-together. I saw some people that I hadn't seen since 1970.  It
was a great time.  Even the school principal and some of the teachers showed up at our party, much to my surprise.
Then, I headed for Tennessee, to see my son Brad and his wife, Jessica.  They have a 3 year old Sadie and now have added a two month old, Lucy.  They are such amazing little girls and so much fun to be with.  Sadie is just full of personality and Lucy is so little and it's great to see her start her life's journey. I am always amazed at the small fingers and toes on these babies.  Miraculous.
Following a wonderful week in Tennessee and some golf with my son, I headed up to Chicago and rented a car to drive over to SouthWestern Michigan, where my daughter and son-in-law live now that he is in graduate school.  Shayna has found a nice job with an Optometry office about 45 minutes away.  I went over to her office with her and had my eyes checked and ordered some new lenses.  It was great to see her in her office environment, even though she didn't appreciate it when I told the office staff to take good care of my little girl. LOL.  I have been busy at their home, helping them with the fixer upper project which involved removing the old wallpaper.  If you have ever done this, you have a lot of patience.
Just before I left India I got a call from my old company and they decided since I was an instructor pilot that they wanted me back.  Of course, there was a little money fight involved and this was because I was probably the pilot flying the smallest jet and being paid the most.  Once they got all the other expat pilots hired for less, I was in a position of vulnerability.  Oh well, I have a slightly adjusted contract now, but still way better than I can get just about anywhere else in the world.  I had joined a couple of job sites and sent off some resumes.  Got some calls, but nothing has developed into an actual offer.  Anyways, it would have been hard because of the monetary difference between USA flying and international flying.
Now that I am with the kids here in Michigan, I finally got all the paperwork required from the Indian employer and have sent in the papers to the visa outsourcing agency in New York.  Its a waiting game now. I sent in 21 pages of paper.  They might want 22, as this is the Indian way.  We'll see, but if everything checks out then I will have my visa back by the middle of this week and will be on a non-stop flight from Chicago to New Delhi by the end of the week.  I am actually legal to fly as of today, by Indian rules, I had to wait for 6 weeks after my surgery.  The medical staff at the Air Force Base said I could come back and pick up my medical on April 22.  I will get it as soon as I get back.  There is lots of other paperwork to do so it will probably be a few weeks before I am flying again, but there will be whole staff of people working on getting me back in the air.  My cats will be glad to see me and it will be nice to be home again, if only for a short time.
I have a feeling that we are going to change locations for the airplane because of our parking
issues at Mumbai. I might be based back in Delhi again, who knows.
Take care, my friends, and I will keep you updated.

Dan

Dan big changes

Hello my friends.  It's been forever since I put anything up on this blog page.  Just so much other stuff happening that I haven't gotten around to it.

I had my 60th birthday in February and that meant that I had to go to Delhi for a big Air Force medical exam to check what's going on in the body.  They always require a sonagram and that showed a gall stone.  The doctors here don't like gall stones as they can be debilitating in flight so I had my gall bladder out by laparascopic surgery on the 9th of March.  It's only been two weeks and I feel just fine, able to do anything I want to do.  But, I only found out this week when I went back for a follow up check at the Air Force base that any surgery in India grounds you for 6 weeks time.  That means that I can go back and get my full fitness report and medical on that date.

In the meantime, the company that I have been working for the last two years decided NOT to renew my contract this time so I have been looking for work again.  Now, almost a month after their announcement, I have a verbal offer and should have a signed contract by the end of the day.  It's kind of wild to think about but this job was told to me by a friend and when I called them they basically made the offer over the phone about 6 hours after I knew that Airone wasn't renewing my contract.  So, since airplanes come and go and I have been in this situation about 6 or 7 times in my life, this qualified as the quickest that I had ever received any kind of offer when I needed it.  When you work overseas, they want these signed contracts and it kind of prevents job shopping while you are working for someone.  That means that you are only available when you are not under contract, which isn't very much of the time unless you can convince your current employer that you need out of your contract.

I am writing this on March 24 and I will be heading for the USA in a few days.  While there I have to get my new visa, do my recurrent training program for the Citation that I will be flying and then still visit my kids and NEW granddaughter, Lucy.  Brad and Jessica have wonderfully provided me with my second grandchild, Lucy was born on Feb 18, so missed my birthday by three days.  I was hoping. Brad enjoys his career working with HMO type healthcare organizations, while Jess is working with a Pediatric practice in Cleveland, TN, where our family lived for 28 years.  I will get out to Thunderbird Academy in Arizona for my high school reunion the first weekend of April and then also get up to Michigan to see my daughter and her husband.  Keith continues his studies at the SDA seminary while Shayna is working her profession as an optometrist, enjoying having her chosen career.  Since Keith is planning on doing some extensive studying there, they went ahead and bought a fixer upper house.

Karen is getting some beautiful, new dental work done and also recently had one cataract surgery, to be followed by the other one here this week.  She is thrilled with her new eyesight, now not needing reading glasses and when her dental work is done, she should have a gorgeous smile.  Its great to be able to get this stuff done here without going into huge debt.

Well, I hope you all are doing well.  Karen is going to America a couple of weeks after me since her dental work isn't quite done.  She says she is not coming back to India since I have been flying so much and she basically is home alone most of the time.  The culture shock and no real expat community here for her to socialize with has finally made her choose to be home with family and I cannot blame her one bit.

The company lost it's permission to park at Mumbai airport last July and since that time I haven't been home for more than a couple of days per month, which makes it very tough for all of us.  Well, we look forward to seeing all of you and will keep you informed of our progress, mostly on Facebook but also with my Delhi letters email and here on the blogpage.  Take care, everyone.

Shayna and Keith visit India

In March of this year, Shayna, my daughter, and her husband, Keith Bowman, came to India with some people from their church in Oregon.  They flew into Hyderabad, from which they operated for over a week and did their clinics and mission work.  Then, they took off up to Delhi and took the Golden Triangle tour of India seeing Jaipur, Delhi and Agra, where the Taj Mahal is located.

Following all of that, the kids headed for America and Keith and Shayna stayed a couple of days with us in Mumbai.  I had also flown over to Hyderabad on a commercial flight for Sabbath, in order to spend that day with the kids.  It was all wonderful fun and great to see Keith preach at the big SDA church in Hyderabad.  I don't know if the translator really knew what he was doing but it was still a great experience and one never to be forgotten time. 

While the kids were here in Mumbai we took them out to one of our favorite breakfast places and also took a photo op with our maid, Nanda.  The second day of touring, Keith wasn't feeling too great so he took it easy while Shayna and Karen and I did more touring around. 

When you are 10,000 miles from home it is really nice to have family come for a visit. 

This stuff is all old news because I have been so busy flying and because my main focus is on facebook now and the interaction with my FB friends.  I have started a website from my high school, Thunderbird Academy in Arizona and it has over 750 members now.  We are planning a big reunion in early April next year to coincide with the alumni weekend at the academy.  Should be a blast and Karen and I are planning on being there.

I hope this finds everyone doing great. I will post some more up here of our USA trip and the complete round-the-world tour that we completed in July of this year. 

 

Take care and hope to see you soon,

 

Dan and Karen

Dan Birthday

Hello family and friends.  Well, Dan had another birthday.  They just keep on rolling around so, after another trip around the sun, here we are again in late February and we did have a good time.  The day started with a trip across Mumbai to Bandra West where our favorite Mexican food restaurant is, Sancho's.  Sancho's was originally discovered in Delhi, where they had the original restaurant and we so enjoyed it there but then they closed it.  Once we moved to Mumbai we didn't know that there was a Sancho's here until we were at a gathering of American pilots late last year and the name Sancho's came up.  I immediately investigated and found the Mumbai location.  The chef for both of these restaurants is from Northern Mexico and he arranges with the Mexican embassy here in India to import authentic ingredients for his Mexican food dishes. The result is that it doesn't taste at all Indian, which was our biggest complaint about the other Mexican food restaurants that we had tried.  So, after a nice lunch, beginning with the pictured Fiesta Nachos, we each chose an entree and left with full tummies and food to carry out for a couple of more meals at the house. 

Then, it was time to drive just a few blocks away to a theater that I had found online just a few blocks from Sancho's.  It turned out to be alright and we saw Denzel Washington's latest, Safe House.  Good movie and it will definitely have a follow up movie to help finish the story.  For a big finish, Karen and I went to another mall where they have a nice electronic's store and I picked out my new Canon 1100D DSLR camera.  Over two years ago, when I first came to India, I bought a Canon 1000D, equivalent to the Canon Rebel or EOS 1000 in the US.  It is a start up Digital SLR camera and has been really a nice camera for me here.  Of course, Canon is continually making improvements and so I now wanted the improved version, which is up from 10 to 12 megapixels and also has the video option.  So, rather than sell my old camera to my copilot, who really wanted it, I am going to now have two digital cameras for our wild game safaris.  You really need two cameras, one with a telephoto lense, and one with a more normal lense.  I have found that quickly changing lenses while on a dusty jeep in the middle of the jungle is both unconvenient and dirty, as well as not good for the camera.  Next, I want a really powerful long lense to bring those tigers right up close.  Next trip to the USA, I will be looking at camera shops for a good deal on that.  Karen's mom will be here in a week or so for a visit and we'll be doing a tiger tour, hoping to get pics of the big kitties again.  I did see some on a trip I did in late 2009, before Karen came to India, but since she has come, we haven't been able to see any, so here's hoping.

The final part of Dan's birthday was to grab some dessert at our NEW close-by restaurant, TGI Fridays.  This nice restaurant was just completed and added to our nearby mall, R City Mall, just a couple of kilometers from our home.  We can take an autorikshaw (affectionately called tuk-tuk's) and be there in 10 minutes if traffic isn't bad.  That equates to about 75 cents.  So, I came home from the birthday having seen a good movie, a full tummy and a new camera to play with.  I will try to put up some of the new photos pretty soon here. I haven't ventured out with my new camera yet, nor have we had any flights for the last couple of days, but something will come up soon.

Part of our building excitement these days is that Karen's mom will be here in less than a week, my daughter Shayna and her husband Keith Bowman will be here in mid-March doing some mission work and then stopping by for a couple of days.  We just had a two day visit from Dr. John McGhee of Seattle, so we have been enjoying this period.  Shortly after Shayna and Keith leave, we'll be traveling to the USA to take advantage of our built in contractual vacation and possibly for Dan to do his recurrent training. Lots to look forward to and also lots to keep life interesting as Karen has big plans for her mother's visit.  They will be flying over to Lucknow, India, where our aircraft owner has his main home and estate, along with several on-campus guesthouses, one of which they will stay in while enjoying the benefits of the spa and gym, etc.  Plus, the campus is a gated community with not much going on so the roads are wide and quiet and there is no traffic.  It's actually quite tranquil there and, with the spa providing free services, Karen has come to really like Lucknow.  It will spoil you, and being that I fly for the owner, we are treated like Kings and Queens while there.  The tiger tour will be another 90 minute flight to Nagpur and then a drive to a nearby game park, though not the same one that we drove to in January.  We liked that one but thought we would try another one with Karen's mom and see what happens.  There will be plenty to do just around Mumbai for a couple of days while Keith and Shayna are here.  My friend, Ron Coleman, who flies for Continental/United airlines, first told me about the laundry.  Its a huge, outdoor commercial washing operation, where you see literally miles of water running in cement troughs while people are beating the dirt out of the cloth.  When you see the color of the dirt and water, you realize that the sun has to do a miraculous job of bleaching while things are hanging on the miles and miles of clotheslines that comprise this operation.  You see the amazing white sheets, linens for restaurants, etc, as well as people personal stuff and it just boggles the mind to process that this really works. 

Last Sabbath at our Mumbai Central SDA church we enjoyed the company of Dr. John McGhee and his amazing musical talents.  He put the new keyboard at the Mumbai church to work and gave the congregation an appreciation for what you can do to liven things up a little more.  One of my challenges as I play the keyboard there for church, is that they use the hymnals that only have the words in them.  They only have one hymnal with the music and it's the OLD SDA hymnal so it's numbers don't match up with the NEW SDA hymnals that they use for words.  Since I don't play too much by ear, I have to find out what the song title is, quickly look it up and see if it's in the OLD hymnal and then find that hymn before I start playing.  Trying to get someone to actually give me hymns for song service in advance, so I can look up the numbers, hasn't happened yet.  When I come to the US, one of the things I will be doing is buying a NEW hymnal with the music.  I have one, but it's safely in storage up in Pennsylvania.  It would be buied somewhere and it really wouldn't be fair to ask someone to try and go find it.

I have been really busy flying for the last couple of weeks, right up until my copilot's wedding last week.  Since we took that break, we have had a full week off and this never happens, but it's been nice to be home for my birthday and for visits with John McGhee. Next time we'll put some more exciting photos up and show you another side of life in India.  Since this bday this week, I have a maximum of 6 more years here, and that's if everything goes according to plan.  We'll look forward to seeing some of you very soon.

Smaller Indian Village Destinations

Hi friends and family,

Don't die of shock, I am doing a second blog just days after doing another one.  This hasn't happened in over a year.  I thought I would just put a few recent photos of my adventures up here and then give a brief explanation since life here is so different from back in the good, old USA.

About a week ago we spent the night in Belgaum, India, near GOA, while flying one of the four holiest men in India, according to the Hindu Religion.  His title is Shankaracharya and when we flew him, we got the most amazing handling in Indian airspace that I have ever seen.  Direct to altitude, no level-offs, direct to destination, no turns, and asking for our descent request before we started even needing to go down.  Very unusual.  When the man, who speaks no English or Hindi, only Tamil, his native language, was coming down the steps of the plane, we asked for pictures and I put my arm around him for the snap, which got me "shouted on" by all the Indians present.  I guess you are not allowed to touch him, so that was a faux paus.  I immediately placed my hands together and apologized to the audience, which was accepted.  That's him coming down the aircraft steps in the bottom picture here.  He traces his lineage back to Lord Shiva, which is one of the Hindu gods and so he occupies a very special place in Hinduism.  According to my copilot, there are four of these guys, one for each geographic sector of India and this one was from the South of India, not far from Chennai.  We flew him for two days and while staying in Belgaum, I snapped a photo of our pool at the 3-star hotel where we stayed, which was probably one of the nicest available in this town.  Our rooms were huge, with two inter-connected rooms, one for sleeping and one with a couch and chairs and a second window A/C unit, which would probably be needed at certain times of the year.  I was on my way back from the gym, where equipment was basic and I was the only one there, but the stuff did work and I had no complaints.  Not every one of our trips is to some exotic location with 5-star hotels available, so don't think we are always living high.

The second photo down from the top is taken with another Citation XLS that belongs to the Maharashtra government here in Mumbai.  I was giving a flight check to the chief pilot, who is a friend of mine, and we were at the Vadodara Airport, which just so happens to be my copilot Vipul's home town.  I had been there before a few months ago on a charter but Captain Buhariwala chose to fly there for his Proficiency check and so I got to see it again.  Plus, I got to fly in this fine aircraft again, which was nice.  It is actually newer than ours, so it's the newest Citation XLS in India at the moment.  The captain and his wife are good friends of ours and we have been out to dinner with them, but the best part is that he is a good pilot and I enjoy flying with him and his copilot for these flight checks.  They always appreciate my understanding of this aircraft and helping them to understand and operate the systems is fun.  This time I had him do a short field landing because India has many airports that are around 4,000 feet long and I want to make sure these guys are sharp on coming in to these shorter airports, which require a lot more skill than landing at Delhi or Mumbai, where the runway is over 2 miles long.

The third photo is of our Air Hostess on this particular day, Rupinder.  She was made available because our own Parizad broke her leg on the local express train here the other day.  She will be out for 4-6 weeks while that heals up.  Vipul had taken me to the train station in downtown Mumbai to watch thousands of people get on and off these local trains during the rush hour.  The trains only stop for about 15-20 seconds, during which literally thousands of passengers get on and off the trains.  You have to preposition yourself near the door when it's time to get off and not before.  If you get too close to the door, you will be forced off by the motion of the crowd.  If you are too far away, you will never reach the door before it moves on.  I guess Parizad was traveling with her brother and some friends during a busy time and got pushed down by the crowd, and broke her ankle.  She weighs all of 95 pounds and was not in the women's area because she was with her brother so got into trouble with the bigger guys getting on and off the train.  Ouch!  Anyway, we have had two rental air hostesses in the last two weeks and this is a picture of Rupinder.  She says she was offered a job last summer by our company but they didn't reach an agreement so she has been free-lancing and ended up working for us this day.  Most of these air hostesses are in their mid-20's, agewise, and make around $100-$120 USD for a full day of flying with us. 

This weekend we were on a political flight since it's election time here in India.  This means that you fly into places you wouldn't ordinarily go because these politicians need to connect with people out in the villages.  We flew into two VFR (visual flight rules) airports that had no operating control towers or any kind of instrument approaches.  This gets interesting because if you haven't been in there before and you are trying to find the airport, all you have is some Latitude-longitude coordinates and then you search in the haze for what you hope is a runway that you can recognize.  We found both of them, even though it gets a little dicey when the visibility is only about 3 or 4 miles.  The client did bother to get us a hotel rooms for the 3 to 4 hours that we were waiting for them in each location but even though it may have been the finest in town, it was marginal and probably wouldn't rate anything above a 2 star hotel.   I snapped the next photo of the menu at our restaurant for lunch because I got so tickled at the misspelled English.  The Hindi word for 3 is "tin." Which is pronounced "teen."  I thought the menu was talking about only 3 beers available, even though we weren't drinking beer, I was laughing at that when my copilot pointed out that "Tin Beer"  is actually beer served in cans.  So, then I got that straight but pointed out that Budweiser had become "Badweiser" and I know my folks would have loved that name for any kind of beer - ha!  The Kingfisher should have been one word and the Royal Challange was another typo so they were 3 for 3 on that.  But, the air hostess was horrified at the lack of cleanliness of the chairs and furniture.  It's just another world out there, nothing like Delhi or Mumbai at all and worlds away from anything you would see in America.  I was entertained by the 25 year old's naivete about life in the villages just a few miles from the big cities.  She could not imagine what they "do" and how they have any "life".   After seeing the typo on the menu I gave her the nickname, "badweiser" and told her she had a lot to learn.

Karen and I were at home the other day and went to the mall for lunch and a movie.  Only problem was, the movie we wanted to see in English wasn't showing for more than 2 more hours and we were already tired and stressed from having run around the mall with literally thousands of people having a holiday on "Republic Day."  We have never seen the malls this crowded, it was totally unreal.  One of the stores had two salesmen with bullhorns, inside, trying to outdo each other across the aisle.  Loud doesn't begin to describe it.  But, anyway, we didn't want to bother to go home in traffic and more stress, only to turn around and come back to the mall, so we just decided to buy tickets to the next Hindi movie, which was just starting, and sleep through that movie in order to get some rest so we would be up for our English movie.  The whole plan worked great, except for the fact that Shah Rukh Khan was starring in the movie, he has been my passenger, so I had some interest in the movie, AND, they constantly break into English in these Hindi movies.  They call it Hinglish.  So a large part of the dialogue was in English and it was a bang, bang action movie and those scenes could be done in any language, they are universal, so we didn't get as much sleep as we thought we would, but still felt rested and only paid 3 dollars each to have a couple of hours rest.  When I went to the theater box office window to buy the tickets, the guy said, this movie is in Hindi, I said, "I know."  And then I asked for the tickets anyway.  I think he thought I didn't understand Hindi.  Doesn't he know I have been living here for nearly 3 years now???  Shame on him for thinking that - ha!!

I spoke to another ex-pat pilot who flew the holy man and he said he is a nice guy.  He was nice to me.  Karen has issues with the fact that he did jail time for a murder-for-hire situation a few years back.  A couple of the local pilots that knew I flew him brought that up, too, but Vipul, my copilot, is a believer, so it is interesting.  Having him on board did cut through a lot of red tape with ATC.

Take care my friends and have a great week.

Dan

Belated Happy New Year 2012

Baby tiger track

Hi friends and family,

This blog will be extremely short as I have to get ready to go fly here in just a few minutes.  I realized that, again, it's been awhile since I put anything up here.

Karen and I recently had the privelege to go to Nagpur, India, and do a 3 day tiger safari.  Of course, you always take the chance that you won't see the big cats, but just the experience itself is worth the trip and there is a good chance you will see them.

We didn't this time but made a vow to go back and try again because the experience is just awesome.  This is the morning photo, as the sun comes up, of our little resort by the gate to Tadoba National Park, in Central India.  The first picture above is of baby tigers that they know are there and are watching out for.  We didn't get a chance to see them or mom but it was so exciting to be that close to the wild kitties in their home domain.

We also recently got back from South India, Kerala, where we were able to spend a week with friends and then also tour on one of the backwater boat trips and then drove several hours up in the mountains of South India where they grow tea near Munnar, India.

I will put up a more complete blog here with pictures and more thoughts about our exotic vacations here.  We just feel so priveleged to live where we can take advantage of things that I have only ever read about in National Geographic or some exotic travel book. 

Right now I am on a trip with one of the holiest men in the Hindu religion in India.  Everywhere he goes it attracts crowds. He is one of four Shankaracharya's in India, this one if from South India and is called Swami Jayendra Saraswati.  This stuff is just so out of my field of view and if I had ever even thought I would be doing something like this, I would have told you it was a crazy dream or something.

And, here is a picture with Sushmita Sen, she was miss India and later Miss Universe 1994.  We had her on board for a charter in the middle of December.  Very interesting person and just another example of the people that I get to meet and talk to almost every week, it's something different.

And now I have to close but I will put up another blog with more photos and descriptions here in the very near future.

Karen and I are doing well and looking forward to our next trip to America.



We love you guys,

Dan and Karen

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Hi my friends,

I realize that I haven't been on here for a long, long time. I actually tried to write a blog about a month ago and something happened to it and it didn't load. I lost it somewhere in hyperspace so I let it go. The last couple of months I have been spending an inordinate amount of time in Lucknow, India, since that is where the aircraft owner lives and when we come here, unless we have a confirmed charter flight, they just leave us here. Also, interestingly, they really don't have long-term permission to park the aircraft in Mumbai, our home base. Sounds crazy, but it's one of those India things that would take too long to explain. We were in Lucknow for 23 days of October and it doesn't look like November will be too far behind. I just fly Karen over from Mumbai and she enjoys spending time here since they put us up at our boss' private guesthouse, where we are treated like VIP guests, with full availability of the gym and spa. Karen loves all the free spa services. We have both taken advantage of full massages, facials, pedicures, haircuts, you name it. I think the skin on my face and feet is in the best shape it's been in since I was about 4 years old.

Karen and I took a couple of days off and spent time with Dr. John McGhee, our good friend from Auburn, Washington. He is working on a very interesting new project, trying to produce a kind of soap opera program for the women of Pakistan, who are addicted to these programs, but these have a heath and spiritual twist to the stories. We saw the initial program, which was extremely well done by a great cast of actors, including the lady who played Ghandi's wife in the classic movie from the early 80's. Her name is Rohini and we spent a lovely couple of hours at her home with Dr. McGhee. Very impressive, and we hope that this wonderful project takes wing and can express God's love and care in an amazing new venue on Pakistani and Indian television.

Karen and I will do Thanksgiving alone this year at Lucknow. But, we are happy to have a great place to do so, under the care of our wonderful hosts. Probably won't have turkey like we were able to do last year in Gurgaon, with our new oven. We took the oven to Mumbai but are still waiting on the gas cylinder to hook it up to, so Karen can try to cook some of our favorite dishes in our much smaller kitchen. We will probably go out to one of our favorite restaurants here in Lucknow, called Barbeque Nation, and see if they, by any chance, have any turkey on the menu for Thanksgiving. Most likely we'll be eating chicken, and that's okay.

The Indian economy just keeps on rolling and my job security seems pretty well maintained if I am still interested in working in India. My plan now is to work here, if possible, until mandatory retirement at age 65. That's still more than 6 years away so you can see we are having our big adventure here. It's turned into more of an adventure than we thought it might.

We had thought about coming home for Christmas this year but decided its a very difficult time of year to travel and everyone has family agendas so we put it off til Spring, when I will come home for training anyway. I am hoping to go back to Thunderbird Academy for their reunion weekend. It will be my brother's 40th year and I knew lots of people from his class. We like the weather in Scottsdale that time of year so maybe we'll do it again. Plus, we can visit our kids and see the grandkids, too.

We love our new apartment in Mumbai and it's close to a lot of restaurant choices and good things that Karen can do, even when I am out of town. It's much more convenient and handy than our Gurgaon apartment was, which was kind of far out.

I am going to keep this kind of short, try to get it to publish and wish each and every one of you a very wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas Season. Since Mumbai stays quite warm throughout the winter, as opposed to Delhi, which got cold in December and January, we will enjoy moderate temperatures throughout the winter (think South shore of the big Island of Hawaii for weather comparisons).

We love you all and hope to hear from you soon,

Dan and Karen Clifford

P.S. The pics are from the Formula One race in New Delhi a few weeks ago. Our aircraft owner bought 50% of the race team and we got to go to the weekend trials. We had tickets to the race but traffic was so bad we couldn't reach in time for the race. Still had fun, though.

Buying vegetables and eating out

We were taking our taxi through Mumbai the other day and saw this place in the city where the farmers come to sell their goods.  Its amazing how they just sell their stuff right there on the highway.


The last picture is out of our apartment window in the afternoon sun, looking North.  You can see other highrise apartments in the area, plus our local go-kart track, if you look carefully.  It's a beautiful area and one of the remarkable things about it is that there are no slums visible in your window view, something that is very hard to achieve in any part of Mumbai.

Karen still has to worry about the supposed crocodiles in the lake and now we hear there are leopards in the forest around where we live.  I won't lose any sleep over this but it will give her some added things to think about when I am out of town - ha!

I actually put this blog together several weeks ago and couldn't get it to publish so we'll see if I can get it to go up today to give you guys a little better idea of what our life in India is like from day to day.

Love you all,

Dan and Karen

Good morning,

I see it's been almost a month since I last put up a blog. I know that some of you are on Facebook and see me there, some of you are on my email list and get those letters, and some of you are probably seeing all of this stuff as I put it out. This blog was my kids idea but I do have to admit that I have enjoyed blogging more than I thought I would. I just don't do it as often as I would like to.

The other day I was totalling up a logbook page and it really pointed out how little flying I have been doing lately. Since the first of June, when the move to Mumbai really got serious, I have only flown about 30 hours. Usually I fly that much in a month. Some of you have asked and I am on salary so it's not a monetary issue, it's just that I like to fly and to be busy, so this has been a particularly frustrating stretch for me. This last week we did have two flights, which was nice. One of them was actually a charter flight and it was down to Kochin, which is a place that I hadn't been to before down in the Kerala coastal region of Southern India. I was glad to get a chance to fly down that way, even though it was only a pickup trip and allowed no time on the ground at all. A couple of days later we had a trip for height verification on our RVSM (reduced vertical separation minimums). An engineer flew in from Bangkok and he had the equipment required to do our height verification testing. ATC around Mumbai was not in a particularly good mood and they sent us offshore for our test flight. That became tricky because the engineer wanted us to fly in a straight line for 45 minutes but since we were headed out to sea, even though we had slowed way down, we couldn't fly that long or we were going to get out of radio range, which would complicate things mightily. So, we flew as long as we could and then turned around before we lost communications. We headed back towards Mumbai but there was some serious weather on the way and we began negotiating for moving around the weather. The controller started us down, which we couldn't do during the test, so we had to turn around again and fly out towards the ocean again. Then, I went back in the cabin and checked with the engineer to see if we could trun around and fly back into Mumbai for the landing. He gave me the thumbs up so, we headed back in, but on the way in Mumbai had a couple of 360 degree turns to make room for other planes as we headed back in. With the Hindi/English thing going on, it's always an adventure. It's in times like these that I am thankful for my Indian copilot, who can speak their language, so to speak. Lots of explanation was required for the controller to allow us to fly at an RVSM altitude when we were seeking RVSM certification. It seems that we already were RVSM approved and the only thing we were going was getting our height certification from the engineer. Sometimes, it's just how you word things that makes the difference.

If you have looked at the pictures above, I am sitting in the pilots lounge of the General Aviation Terminal in Mumbai. This was something we didn't have in Delhi, so I have to appreciate the building and the accomodation of our private planes here. The parking here is quite interesting, with the runway just a few yards away, the big jets go roaring right past you. If they ever had directional control issues due to an engine out or something, it would get really interesting really fast. It is fun to watch the big planes, the 747's, the 777's and big Airbusses do their takeoff and landing thing just right in front of your eyes. The Mumbai runway is probably one of the most used pieces of runway real estate in the world. They do have a second runway but it runs in a different direction and so they are reticent to use it under normal circumstances, which keeps runway 27 very, very busy. Sometimes, they tell us we are number 20 for landing and it isn't too hard to be number 10 for takeoff. I try to save fuel by taxiing on one engine and also idling for long periods of time on one. At least here in Mumbai the taxi times are short, compared to Delhi. I have never, ever taxiied as much as I did in Delhi. Sometimes, it was a 20 minute taxi to a far away runway. Here, last week, we started, called for taxi, and tower told us to pull into position for takeoff, so it was less than 5 minutes from startup to takeoff, but this seldom happens. More likely is that you will do a short taxi and then wait 20-25 minutes for your turn to takeoff. Since airplanes are feeding in from several different takeoff positions, you often don't know your sequence and if you start your second engine, that will just about guarantee that you will have to wait another 10-15 minutes than you thought.

Our houseguest, Ankita, went home to Delhi for the weekend to take care of some business. She will be back on Tuesday evening so we have had some time to ourselves. Karen has not been feeling well, so has been sleeping most of the weekend.

We had something really interesting happen on Sunday morning. Our househelper from Delhi had called a few weeks ago to chat about something. She has been talking about coming to Mumbai to work for us here since she liked us so much. I couldn't totally understand what her conversation was about but she was trying to get it so her 20 year old son could come down and work for us. I had tried to tell her that we didn't have a position for him because Karen really doesn't want a male housekeeper around when I am gone so much. But, come Sunday morning, he shows up with his suitcase, at the front door and was expecting to go to work. Now, he spoke just a little English but not much. His mother speaks none. I had, at the most, indicated he could stay with us for a few days while he was looking for work but now that was going to be negated by the company of our little air hostess. I was eating breakfast, getting ready to go to church and the doorbell rang. In he comes. So, I called my friend up in Delhi for whom this kids mother now works and explained everything to him. He said Saina would be coming in to work on Monday morning and he would explain everything to her then. Of we went to church, with this very nice young man just tagging along. I am not sure how much he got out of the English only church service but he was just so nice. After church I called my copilot and asked him to please explain to this young man, Attosh, was his name, that we really didn't have a place for him to stay and that I was so sorry for the misunderstanding. I was willing to pay for his transportation back to Delhi, which is 1,000 road miles away. He said he would only need 500 rupees, which is about $12. I handed him that and he packed his bag and headed out. We were so relieved because we really don't have a servant's quarters in this apartment, like we did in the one in Gurgaon. Here, we only have three bedrooms, one of which is the office with the computer and all, so no bed in there. With Ankita here, there is no extra bedroom at all. Karen and I were sweating this out but after Vipul called and talked to our new helper, he was very nice and totally understanding that his mother had kind of misguided him and so off he went. I did get him to one church service in the few short hours that he was with us. Karen wasn't feeling well enough to go on Sunday morning so it was good to have someone to talk to the auto rickshaw driver.

Wow, I just got a phone call and the airplane has some interesting flights coming up. Also, amazingly, the management actually listened and did not take the new captain they were looking at. He just didn't have a good reputation here in the local flying community, so that is always alarming. I had talked to his former boss and they said they had restricted him from VIP flights. I had told them in an email last week that I thought all of our flights were VIP flights. I still thought that I was going to have to try and work with this guy and do some intensive training. But, we dodged a bullet and so I am breathing a sigh of relief and thanking my lucky stars.

Our taxi will be here any minute to take us to the mall. There, we are going to eat some lunch and try to take in an English movie - yahoo!!

I'll be back with more next time.

Dan

Shocked in India

This week Karen and I were visiting with the pastor from our Mumbai SDA church here in India. We actually love Pastor Rajan Paul, who graduated from Spicer College in Pune, with a Master's of Religion degree. Since then he has gotten married (arranged) two years ago and now is the senior pastor of the Mumbai Central church. The first time I heard him preach back in late May, I knew I was going to like him and he is known for his preaching style. He is a wonderful young man and always has a smile on his face. Since I graduated from the SDA theological seminary at Andrews University 32 years ago this month, we started comparing notes about studies and the life of a young pastor. Since I had taken a year out of college and gone flying in Botswana for a year, I was 26 years old by the time I finished seminary and headed back to California, where I was a youth pastor at the Redlands SDA church. So, by the time I was finished with graduate school and back in California, I was right about the same station in life where our young pastor is. He has been married for two years and his wife is expecting their first baby around Christmas to early January. Now, here is where the paths of an SDA minister in the USA and one in a developing country widely diverge. Without probing too deeply, I asked the pastor if he was comfortable sharing salary information with me. I well remember before seminary, my first year out of college, this was 1976, and my starting pay was $1,000 USD/month, give or take a little. My ex-wife was working already as a dental hygienist and in California, they were pretty well paid, so she was making roughly twice what I was making, which didn't bother me at all. With two incomes and not much expense, we were able to get by just fine, even though our first year of marriage, I was still in undergraduate theology training. Without too much pressing, and with a smile on his face, I asked our young pastor about his current pay and he revealed that he is working for less than $90/month US. I asked him again, because, for a moment I was in shock. He laughed again and said that because he has his graduate degree and works at the Mumbai church, he is making quite a bit more than some of the other young men. The local conference does take 10% of his pay for rent on the parsonage, which is attached to the church. We have seen it, and it is just a different world than we live in, trust me on that. We pay our housemaid, who only comes in 6 days a week for about two hours, quite a bit more than this, and she has no education at all. Our drivers, who were full time at Jindal in Delhi, were making more than twice this amount of money and, again, they barely spoke English and their main contribution to life was driving a car in bad traffic. This is just so wrong. Not only is that wrong, but now I did a little math and its just obscene the difference between his pay and mine. If a wealthy executive were making as many times more money as I am than the pastor, he would be making over 35 million dollars a year. Karen and I came home and discussed this for quite some time and we are just shocked that there are dedicated and hard working young people who will submit themselves to a very rigorous and intense post-graduate education for this amount of money. I still remember when my dad talked about arriving in Chile, South America back in 1944. Of course, at that time dad didn't have his master's degree but he had his undergraduate degree in theology and a burning desire to work in Spanish work, since he had grown up in El Paso, Texas. When they got off the boat in Chile, dad discovered he would be making a dollar a day. His and mom's first opportunity to come back to visit family and friends in the USA would be in 6 years. My company here in India flies me home, business class, twice a year. To put one last period on this sentence, the pastor here kind of laughingly told me that his wife has a pretty good tech job with a local company. In fact, her office is right behind our apartment here in Powai. The sad part, his entire salary pays only the tithe on his wife's salary, so she is making 10 times what he makes. I know that pastors in America must now be making in the neighborhood of $50,000/year. The last time I checked, the Indian rupee is about 45 to 1 on the USD, so you can take the same number in both the USA and India, and that's the pay, only here its in rupees, where it's USD in America. An American pastor makes about 45-50 times as much as an Indian pastor. I don't know even where to start with this, but now I have a completely new and amazing appreciation for these pastors and workers.

If you noticed the pictures look a little different today, we followed our Mumbai Central pastor to another SDA English speaking church in the Mumbai area. A friend in Delhi had told me about this church in an area called Sanpada. If the driver knows what he is doing, then it's possible that we might get there quicker than we do to Mumbai Central. Sanpada is an area across the bay, which is part of Navi Mumbai (New Mumbai.) We drove kind of through and passed it on the way to Pune a couple of weeks ago, so I got a brief look at it and now we know. I was very impressed with this huge SDA school that we ended up at for church today. As it turns out, it is a private, SDA school but, since private schools are so highly sought after, they have 2600 students here. When I saw all the school busses and the size of the school I was totally in shock. After church today, one of the teachers informed me that almost the whole congregation at church today was made up solely of the teachers at this SDA school but that most of the students were not Seventh-day Adventist at all. So, I said, what a great opportunity to give them reading, writing, arithmetic, English and Bible. He said they love it and that the school is highly regarded and very successful. I had no idea and love surprises like this. We met in one of the classrooms and sat on very hard desks for the entire length of the SS and church program. Gave me so much more respect for these young kids who come in and sit in these desks every single day. Karen and I guess that there were about 25 people there today, with only one child in the entire congregation. Interesting. As soon as we arrived, the pastor came out of the classroom and greeted us, along with the local pastor of this church. We were honored as guests with special recognition and introduction from the front, as well as one long-stem rose each. Just a wonderful experience, and the pastor of this church said he had heard about me already. I forgot to mention that 3 weeks ago, when we were attending the Mumbai SDA central church, we ran into the president of the Western Indian Union office, and when he saw me, he said he had already heard very good things about my sermons from his grandkids. I guess they attended Mumbai back on July 16, when I was very priveleged to speak there. All this preaching stuff, and the wonderful way that the people here respond to God's gospel of Love, makes me wish, again, that I was two people, so I could share all the time. I got the thelogy degree to please my parents, who thought flying was not a worthy profession, but I have been flying professionally for 31 plus years and it has been a very enjoyable career. Anytime someone pays you to do what you love to do anyway, it's a good life, but we really have to fix this minister salary thing here. AND, I bet, although I don't know, that the teachers are not paid well, either. So fundamentally wrong. And, I have many friends in India who are pilots or working tech jobs and they are paid quite well. It's just a different culture.

Hi Victorville, Hi Garden Grove, Hi Redlands. These are the three SDA churches that I worked at back in the late 70's and early 80's just before I voluntarily switched careers. Great memories, great people and a wonderful experience. I wasn't paid well, but it was an OK life, with lots of the compensation coming as appreciation directly from the parisioners. (Not money, just great appreciation for trying to communicate God's love to them and their kids.) I need some of that love and forgiveness myself these days. I have been struggling lately and just really need your prayers and love.

Thanks for coming along, I hope you enjoyed the message and the journey. Love you all!!

Dan

Waiting to fly

Hi Family and friends,

In early to mid-June, Karen and I began the process of saying good-bye to our Delhi and Gurgaon friends and boarded an airliner for a two hour flight from Delhi to Mumbai on June 18th. Getting three cats on board a domestic airliner in India is no small task. Security insisted on seeing the cat containers but wouldn't have anything to do with the cats themselves. I talked to many supervisors and coordinators before the transaction actually took place. Karen was busy with the debit card covering the cost of the extra baggage and the cats themselves, which we had already taken to the vets office and gotten documentation of their shots and certificates so they could travel. The vet was trained in America and when he sees and American he charges American prices so all the paperwork and the cages, etc, ran way over $200 USD. They were not happy about their new journey and of course, when we arrived at our new apartment near mid-night on Saturday night, security was not happy to see us or our cats. They refused to let us into our new apartment. Calls were placed and, with the cats howling in the background, after about 45 minutes of negotiating, we ended up being let in. The first picture at the top is one of Karen's and my best friends in India, Louise Eikerman. She called and met us at the mall just a day before she was going to board an airliner for her native Canada. She is a nurse and a sweetheart, who has helped us a couple of times. She is now already back in India and has said that Vancouver was lovely this summer. Blue skies, perfect temperatures, etc. Rub it in, Louise. Friends Simon and Jess Alexander also saw us off and have invited us to spend Christmas with them in one of the most beautiful parts of India, the Kerala coast. We really look forward to that and hope that it all works out.

In the meantime, the last few weeks have been consumed with getting a major inspection done on the airplane so that has given us a little time to get some trips done, which you already saw the blog for the Pune trip. We have been busy trying to get all the paperwork in order for our third visit to the FRRO, foreign regional registration office. This most hated of Indian government bureaucracies is just indicative of how things go wrong when you allow paperwork and old ideas left over from the British way of doing things to flourish and grow for decades. Its just horrible and now we have made two visits there with at least a 90 minute drive each way in traffic and with not even the courtesy to get in and speak with any of the people since they always find something wrong with the paperwork. Part of this required a visit to Delhi by airlines to deregister there so we could register here in Mumbai. Until you have been here and done this you cannot imagine the amount of time and energy that goes into keeping all your paperwork and visas and other transactions current and ready in case you need them.

At least, since I have come to Mumbai, we have been flying some quite interesting people. The picture above with the lady in blue is a famous Bollywood actress here named Somali Bandre. She flew with us twice and once she had a planeload of friends from Bollywood so that was a fun and interesting trip.

Karen and I have been traveling to the Mumbai Central SDA church every weekend that we are here. Traffic is bad, although if you leave early enough, we can make it in 45 minutes. If you leave a little late, then it's over an hour. Gives new meaning to the trip to church every week but we love the little congregation of only about 60 people. The pastor is a wonderful, young man, Pastor Rajan Paul, who has been very kind to Karen and I as we moved (shifted) into the Mumbai area. Just an interesting sidelight. The pastors here in India are paid so poorly that it is just kind of sad. Our current pastor's wife has a nice, corporate job near our apartment and she makes many times what he does. In fact, he told us that his salary only pays the tithe on his wife's salary. Kind of puts dedication to the church and it's work in a new light when you consider that. I remember my folks taking a job as missionaries in Chile, South America back in the mid-40's. Dad's starting salary was $30/month and they were starving to death. Just unbelievable what church work expects of people sometimes. Dad said that even though they were ex-pats from America that the division office had decided that they would be compensated as locals. If I had been dad, I would have been on the next boat home. They had just riden on a frieght ship from New York that took them weeks to get there. Once they got there, it was going to be 6 years before they got to see America again, courtesy of the church. Mom had her first baby thousands of miles away from home, without the support of family or people that she could easily communicate with. Wow, mom, I have a new appreciation for what you went through. You made some great friends, though, and now, all these years later, your friends from those many years ago in Chile, the Wanderslebans, are good friends from Cleveland, Tennessee. Turns out, that many years later, I hired Fred Salyers as a pilot at Life Care Centers in Cleveland, and he had married the Wanderslebans daughter, Joyce, so SDA world strikes again.

When I first came to India, I had told Karen that 2-3 years would be it. Now, I am going into my 3rd year and I have changed my story. Of course, you never know how it will work out, but if things go according to my plan at all, then we will stay in India for another 6 and 1/2 years until I hit my 65th birthday and will no longer be able to fly here.

We keep talking about things that we should blog about and then I can't remember what we wanted to say when I sit down to write. One of the things we have discovered is that pedestrians are not protected in traffic like they are in America. If a car comes for you, you better jump, as they will not move or slow down. So, Karen ends up screaming at the drivers and waving her arms like mad, which I am sure just makes them wonder what's wrong with that blonde, American woman there in the way. I tell her she is not going to change the culture here but that doesn't seem to change her mind about this one. We like our neighborhood here better with a Chili's restaurant and a Spaghetti Kitchen that make us feel much more at home.The gym is about 3 blocks away and when we walk there we have discovered one of the differences here is that they don't pick up their pet's dog poop so you better watch your step. We see the natives stopped, with their pets, just doing the business in the middle of the sidewalk, not even moving to the curb. PLEASE, people!! Karen usually makes friends with every dog in the neighborhood but here she has met with some resistance that we have blamed on skin color. These dogs not only don't want to come to her, but bark and snap and really don't want to be with her. She got her feelings hurt but not every dog on the planet is going to love anyone. Our little Poppy cat was going into heat and caterwalling around the apartment for weeks, so I finally took her to the vet and got her fixed. We just took her to a vet a few blocks away and you would have been amazed at this little vet office, with the operating table right there in the office. They shaved Poppy's side in a square about two inches on a side and so it will take months for her hair to look right again, although she doesn't seem to mind. Boy, now I think she is becoming my new favorite kitty, as she has calmed down and really is a wonderful cat, considering she was going to be a Feral cat on the streets of Gurgaon until that fateful night in March of 2010 when Karen reached down, picked her up and her life changed, miraculously, forever. God does something similar for us, if we let HIM. Karen now knows the names of all dozen or so dogs that we see on our way to the gym and back each day. We love our gym and the people here are warming up to us. We finally found a couple of ex-pat organizations that have promised to let us know what is going on and to invite us to come to their social functions.

I have decided I want to buy either a real piano or possibly and electronic one for the Mumbai church. They have neither a piano or organ so the music is done each week with the assistance of a wonderful, young man and his guitar. I love the guitar, but miss the keyboard function and hope maybe we can find one reasonably here in Mumbai to help them out.

Hope this finds you all well. Will be back flying again in just a couple of days. There will be more road pictures and stories from that.

Love you guys,

Dan

Trip to Pune and Spicer College

Hello my friends,

For the first time in 5 months, I am back to publishing my blog. So, for those of you who look for this then you will be happy. Karen and I finally got a little bit of time off from my work and we are heading out on a ROAD TRIP. You see, my airplane is in maintenance for at least 15 days so that gives me time to go and see some of India, as well as other places.

First of all, I need to apologize for not being on my blog site in 5 months. The job change and transition to Mumbai was WAY more difficult and time consuming than I EVER thought it would be. Karen and I went together to the USA the 1st of April for my 40th High School reunion. That was really fun and we had a blast together but then I had to go to New York City to get my new Indian visa as I had to have that for my NEW job. That took like an extra week and with all the bother of New York City hassles, traffic and just dealing with Indian bureaucracy at the Consulate in New York. Fortunately, we had friends in the DGCA in India who helped hurry my new pilot visa through and meanwhile I was back in California, visiting with my granddaughter, Sadie, while the bureaucrats fought over issues. Finally, after the embassy refused to take my credit card info over the phone and said to send it on their website, I sent it to their email address. No passport in the Fedex truck the next morning so I called and they said their website had issues and wasn't working. I forced them to take the info over the phone and finally, on Wednesday of the second week, I had my passport and visa, but not in time to make the LA flight to Delhi that day. So, one more night in Loma Linda and then LAX to Delhi on Emirates, a very nice ride in business class and the first class lounges, where I took my first shower in Dubai this time. Very nice!! With lots of sleep and the shower I was ready for my big Indian bureaucracy when I got back to Delhi this time. First to the Indian Air Force to finish up my delayed Indian medical. Once that was in hand, we headed for the DGCA to get my new pilot's license for the new company, since your license has your employer on it. I got that and then we headed for the dreaded Foreign Regional Registration Office. Ugh!! This most hated of bureaucracies is just a drag any time. Fortunately, I had my copilot Vipul, with me to help if there were any issues that we couldn't understand. Of course, we took about 3 days because for a minute we thought we were going to the Gurgaon FRRO because that was my home address, but NO, it was back to Delhi and the LONG lines there. Finally got everything settled and had my paperwork done. They were still finishing up the certification for the aircraft in India (it had come from England) and once that was done, we started flying on April 28. I had already been working for the company for one full month, but all of that time was tied up in paperwork and taking taxis all over Delhi to get things done. Karen was still in the USA visiting with family and having get-together's with friends in Pittsburgh area. Finally, on May 26th she reappeared in India and, though I was out of town flying the plane, she put on her big girl pants and got a taxi to take her HOME, where she crashed for like a week straight. Jet lag coming from the USA is always a killer, for sure.

I had lots of flying for awhile and then it began to slow down. Finally, I had to return to the USA in late June for my recurrent training and this time, due to last minute schedule changes, I caught a British Airways/American Airlines combination through London and then straight to Dallas/Fort Worth airport, where my class started at 8 a.m. the next morning after 22 straight hours of flying and then arriving in Dallas at 8:30 p.m. the night before. Fortunately, I didn't sleep through class and we got the training done before I headed for Tennessee, where I visited with Brad, Jessica and Sadie, who were staying with her family in Tennessee. I also got a chance to visit with many friends at church and in the area over several days. Bill and Debbie Hoover up in Cleveland, Gary Walls, Doctor Starkey, all friends from days gone by, made contact and we had some quality time together. Got many chances to see Sadie and she is becoming quite a ham, reminding me constantly of someone in our family about 30 years prior to this. Brad has his 30th birthday in early June. Wow, can I possibly have a kid that age already?? 

We left this morning from Mumbai, where our new apartment in Powai area of Mumbai is our new favorite place in India. We LOVE our location, since we are on the 14th floor of a bunch of highrise apartments that are in a very nice section of Mumbai. Karen can walk out our door and catch a tuk-tuk or walk just 3 blocks to great restaurants, shopping and banks, whatever she needs. This area appeals to ex-pats and she finds herself finally feeling quite at home in India. Our gym is located about 3 blocks away and we walk together there almost every day. Too fun to have someone to work out and walk with. Karen is working hard on her new body image and finally has gotten the GYM fever even more than me. I have been faithful in the gym for over 2 years now. Even though I am no Charles Atlas, I am in the best physical condition of my life and she has started to become a believer that this stuff works so she is now waking me up at 6 a.m. to make it to the gym and workout before others get to our favorite equipment. She has lost many pounds and I have lost almost 30 since I first came to India in June of 2009. The best part is I don't worry about my blood pressure and the treadmill tests that are a routine part of my Indian flight physical are just such a breeze now. Since treadmill or Cross-trainer is a part of my cardio routine, it sure makes a difference in how I feel about my physicals. Since India has been such a blessing to me, financially, we are making plans to stay until I am forced to retire at age 65 here, so almost another 7 years. Life is adventurous, comfortable and pretty easy. We wish we were closer to family and sometimes it is lonely and hectic. Our biggest frustration right now is Mumbai traffic, which is SO MUCH WORSE than Delhi traffic. I live 10 miles from the airport and sometimes it takes 1:20 or more to get to work. Very sad and frustrating. I kill time with my new company IPAD2 and the moving map of the world works very well in all parts of India so, since I love maps, it is my new passtime, getting acquainted with the roads of India. I even tell the drivers where to go sometimes, which they do not appreciate at all. Too funny. The driver mentality cannot process a moving map with a blue dot that represents our taxi and roadways that represent what you see out the window. Not a single driver can do it, so I just tell them that I will say right or left to get where we are going. They argue with me and sometimes that alone takes an extra 10-15 minutes. But, those of you who know I love maps will know that I have found my new passion. It even works at the airport on the runways to keep us from getting lost on the airports. Too fun!!

Gottta go to Friday night vespers at the college so must close. I am off Facebook for a little while so you guys will benefit because I will take more time to keep you updated. Please let me know you like or don't like this stuff. I will try to keep it interesting.

Karen was looking for her glasses as we left this morning and they were on her head. I had to post that pic. Also, look at the road to Pune, have you ever seen such open, clear, clean roads in India? amazing. Also, look at the beautiful scenery. Our college has a wonderful campus and we will enjoy it for vespers as well as church tomorrow. Then, a little touring around Pune and back home tomorrow night.

Love you all,

Dan and Karen

New Job!!

Saying good-bye has always been very hard for me to do. I have a picture up here of Captain Sharma and Manika, whom I have been priveleged to work and fly with for quite awhile now. I have been doing the type training for Captain Sharma since early November of last year and Manika has been flying with me ever since I first started with Jindal Steel. This is a picture of my crew standing on the top of a construction project at our overnight camp in Aizawl, India, a place that Manika will always remember since you usually don't have someone breaking into your room and then stealing your money. But, I had never been to this part of the world and the countryside is just beautiful to see.

The last week has been a very difficult one for me and I hate making tough decisions. I just wish they were all easy ones. Jindal Steel has been very good to me and I have many fond memories of flying with this company and the very cool places that we used to go. For example, I am writing this very blog from Tblisi, Georgia, Eastern European Union (former USSR). I love coming here and this is likely my last trip to Tblisi but I am very happy that Karen got to tag along and see what a wonderful place this is to spend time and to get to know some of the most wonderful people on the planet. Again, tomorrow, we are going to drive up to Gudauri Ski resort and Andro and I will go skiing again, just like we did last winter. This time Karen and my co-captain will tag along and Andro's uncle owns a hotel up in the mountains so we'll drive up and then spend the night up near Gudauri somewhere. Just the scenic drive is so fun and so worth it. I again think there aren't many of my classmates who are able to say that they have snow-skiied in a part of the former Soviet Union, although Georgia is independant now and wants nothing to do with Russia.

Captain Sharma is a good pilot and I feel that I am leaving Jindal Steel in very capable hands until they also add another pilot to their group. One of my American pilot friends already called me and said that there is an ad on the professional pilot websites for a Citation XLS captain with the type rating and current experience, so they didn't wait long to try and replace me, that's for sure. But, after oscillating back a forth for over two weeks, as it was a very tough decision, the swing factor for me was the Indian pilot's themselves, who pointed out unanimously that they would definitely make the change as my new company has the best reputation in India for the way they treat their pilots. As most corporate pilots know, this is where the rubber meets the road in our daily jobs. You can be flying the greatest and most modern equipment out there and be the envy of every pilot on earth but maybe not be treated the best, or there may be major issues that affect the daily operation of the flight department but the new company asked me to find a single pilot in India that would have anything bad to say about them and I literally could not. Several of our own pilots in my previous company had worked there before and told me that they would go back in a heartbeat if given the chance. Several of our former people are over there now as this company, Sahara Group, which has a flight department called AirOne, is rebuilding their flight department after some cutbacks a few years ago. That is one of the things that I worried about in making the change because Jindal is very strong, financially, and really has nothing to worry about. Sahara is on the forefront of commercial development in India and is building many commercial projects throughout the country. Could be up and down a little more than Jindal, but what swayed me was, I only need them to do well for another 3-4 years and I can be out of here, if necessary. Even if I decided to stay in India until I was forced to retire in 7 more years, I think the company will be okay for that period of time. That 3-4 years could be very pleasant indeed if they are anything like what I have been told about the company. Very nice hotels and better treatment are all that make up our daily life formula for happiness and success. The added bonus is that, since ex-pat pilots have to bring their expertise to India, nobody can upgrade here to another aircraft. You have to have had 100 hours of pilot-in-command time in order to qualify as a rated captain in India, in addition to having the type rating already. Since I won't likely be changing types here, I am happy that I can at least now fly the latest and greatest iteration of Cessna's Citation XLS, which is now called an XLS+. No performance difference but certainly a lot of electronics and avionics changes will make this a more fun airplane to fly. Since I have been flying this type for right at 11 years now, this should be a nice, little change for me. And, of course, to add to the incentive to make the change, the whole package makes my life better. That doesn't take anything away from Jindal Steel, which was always a great option and has been nice to me throughout.

So, saying good-bye almost always makes me cry. I hate this part of life but certainly look forward to this exciting, new step. I was offered my first India job because of my experience and qualifications in this wonderful Citation XLS. When I first started flying the Citation Excell in April of 2000, I never knew the wonderful journeys that would result from flying this great performing corporate jet. Now, the most exciting part for me, this time, was that I not only got hired because of my experience on this jet and in my flying, in general, but I was offered this job because we flew a charter flight so well under extremely challenging circumstances, that the executives took notice and rewarded my flying with this fantastic job offer. Nothing could cap off my professional career better than to have something like this happen at this stage of life. After working so hard and so many long hours for so many years, now, I finally get a very special offer as I begin the think about winding down my career, it just seems that God has blessed my life so much.

Of course my flying journey began with my father, who encouraged and provided me with the opportunity to fly airplanes when I was 8 years old. He bought our little Cessna 172 and, since mom didn't care about sitting up front too much, I began flying with dad at that very tender age. My siblings had the same opportunity but I was the one absolutely smitten with the flying bug. Dad was glad to have company on many of his business trips and I was so excited to be allowed to fly at such a young age. Pursuing all my flying opportunities, I became a commercial pilot and flight instructor while still in high school at Thunderbird Academy in Arizona, finishing up my instrument rating my freshman year of college just before I headed over to Botswana, Africa for a student missionary year of flying for Kanye Hospital. What a fantastic year that was. Being president of the Thunderbird Academy Flight Club (Cloud Choppers) for two years was one of the most fun things I did while in high school. Then, flying a mission plane in Botswana while still 19 years of age was a great set up for a professional flying career. But the folks really didn't encourage professional flying as a career so I ended up pursuing their dream and got my college degree in Ministry and music, while still flight instructing my friends and renting planes to fly home on vacations every chance I got. This all led to me continuing to fly while I was attending the SDA Seminary in Michigan and where I greaduated with honors in 1979. Early 1980 and I had a call from a friend about an SDA businessman in Tennessee who was setting up a new flight department for his growing health care company. I jumped at the chance to start up the flight department for Forrest Preston and Life Care Centers of America in Cleveland, Tennessee. Did that same job for over 8 years and then opted to go with the airplane when it was sold in 1988. Now, 5 jet type-ratings later and with over 15, 500 hours in my logbook, I feel so amazingly lucky to have had this all happen in my life. My family will all testify that my logbooks are more like a diary for me, as I can go back to as early as my first logbook and look at the specific date and flight and, for the most part, I can recall that flight. Usually I have made a remark in there that keys my memory to something and will help me remember that flight. I can tell you exactly where I was when things like President Reagan being shot or the big stock market slide or my father's stroke or more mundane things like a bad headwind or great tailwind affected my flight and my life. There are entries that are accompanied with tears of sorrow and others with tears of joy. In short, my logbook is a microcosm of my life and I love that. So, while this latest change is scary in many ways, it is also very exciting because, if it works out, it will fully enable me to hang it up and still have a life. When you fly airplanes for a living, you really never know if this is actually going to be a possibility. My friend and copilot John Page used to see the roadside bums with the grocery carts and bandanas and say, "there goes a former corporate pilot." We used to laugh hard at that because there was more than a little truth to that statement.

God has certainly taken me through some very tough trials in my life and there were days that I really thought it all might not be worth it but He has stayed by my side throughout and now, as this all seems to be such a huge blessing in my life, I cannot forget that HE led me all the way and that, all in all, it has been a very good life.

So, since life goes on and this is the next chapter, I expect it to be very exciting and adventurous. Daily life in India meets those criteria, and when you throw in the flying and international travel, I say, who could ask for more.

Now I have all my blog buddies and Facebook friends to share this with me and I feel blessed beyond my wildest imagination. Thank you all for being there for me and for acting interested in

those things that bring joy to my life. I will try to do my best to keep the India adventure and the God takes care of Dan story going so that, if it provides any inspiration or pleasure for even one person, then I will feel like my life has been worth it.

It will take a couple of months to get all my certifications and paperwork processed for my new responsibilities so be patient and then, let the new adventure begin.

So: to Dhaka, Ashish, Jagjiven, Capt Sharma, Manika, Mehak and the countless others who have been associated with me at Jindal, THANKS for all you did for me and I hope to still see you around somewhere in India.

Captain Dan