Jay, great write up... I was going to go this year as it's been two
years, then for whatever reason decided to keep making progress on my
projects... I did want to walk around Spaceship One, etc., but being an
adult means making hard decisions... Damn, I liked being a kid lots
better than I do being an adult...

One comment on the " . . EAA you listening?..":
AIRVENTURE is a separate corporation from the EAA with it's own board,
etc... It has full time employees who demand paychecks, perks,
retirement, health insurance, car mileage, secretaries, etc., etc...
They have mortgages to pay, kids to put through college, and on, and
on...

AIRVENTURE is no longer ours; US, the great unwashed members,
cognoscenti, builders, admirers, EAA members, and supporters.. US, who
haul the garbage, police the trash, put up the fences, wear the vests
and run around in the hot sun because we love airplanes... US, who
supply the aircraft for others to admire and for AIRVENTURE to profit
from...

AIRVENTURE is a corporation... And like all corporations it exists to
exist... Nothing more, nothing less... The only thing that will move
the AIRVENTURE board is the bottom line... They will change those
things that negatively hit the bottom line, and will not change those
things that enhance the bottom line, regardless of the "feelings" of
US...

I date back to Rockford, in my BC12D Taylorcraft when the girls in
their shorts and halters still smiled at me, and 'sir' was my father,
so I still see "The Big O" as a gathering of eagles, of builders, of
aficionado, of lovers.... I am a dinosauer... I am extinct... What I
want to see at "The Big O" no longer exists except in my head, in my
heart, in my memory... I will continue to go to "The Big O" from time
to time because I am an aficionado, a lover, and to meet the folks I
chat with here, but I have no illusions... This is not Rockford, this
is not the early days of"The Big O"...
AIRVENTURE exists to collect those big vendor fees, issue those press
releases, to make those corporate cross contracts, to get publicity and
pull in the paying public, to fill the corporate coffers, to pay those
executive salaries, educate those kids, and to continue to exist as a
corporation; and the wants of dinosauers like me, be damned...

Sorry for the rant...

denny