Podcast 445

The Highway Song. As the media cycle repeats on an endless loop, boredom begins to set in. How many more arguments do you want to hear about Donald Trump being Hitler, or Ted Cruz being Ted Cruz, or Hillary Clinton and Benghazi? There is a real world waiting to be experienced. Not the make believe world the media’s twenty four hour a day obsession with American politics seems to be showing us. When there’s a new wrinkle, the Bob Davis Podcasts will break in with an update. Meanwhile this podcast asks, is travel an escape from reality or is travel reality and our lives are an escape from travel? A walk and talk through a ‘warm’ early December evening is designed to stir your memories of travel and your wanderlust. Where have you gone? Where would you like to go? Why? When did you first experience a sense of wonder as you traveled to new places? Was it a road trip with the parents? A first flight to some exotic location in the islands? A ski trip in the mountains? A road trip, with college friends, back in the day? What cities have you visited? Where would you like to visit? New York City? Chicago? New Orleans? San Francisco? Las Vegas? For me its all about the road trip. As I prepare for the big Mobile Podcast Command Winter ’16 trip to Iowa for the caucuses, then onto the mid south, and the eastern seaboard through the North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, my mind turns to the things I see and learn through the screen … the windscreen that is. There’s nothing better for the soul. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Trucks. 

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Podcast 398 – Sturgis Part 1

Political Escape To Surgis. The first installment of the Sturgis 2015 Road Trip begins. After a 500 mile road trip from Minneapolis-Saint Paul to Rapid City, South Dakota we arrive at the Harley Davidson Dealer in Rapid City. First order of business? Let’s get the political stuff out of the way because in Part 2, we head into Sturgis itself in Mobile Podcast Command Unit 8. Podcast 398 is posted on the day of the first ‘debate’ of the 2016 political cycle. Well, maybe we should call it a cage match, rather than a debate. Not a single vote has been cast, yet the rocket scientists at Fox News have decided to pick the ‘top ten’ candidates based on the political polls. (Editor’s Note: I gave listeners a good primer on the negatives and positives of political polls in Podcast 397.) This is fine and well if your guy is in the top ten, but what if the first guy in the bottom seven or eight got Trumped by Trump, based on a poll? And how do you become number one in a poll? Say a bunch of stuff that gets a lot of news coverage. The decision to cover the Sturgis 2015 event versus the Republican ‘debate’ is detailed in this podcast. Without saying the debate is a disaster for the Republicans (it could be), it feels way to early for such a spectacle. It is dangerous for the Republican party and the American people when a television network decides who the top candidates are, before a vote has been cast. A minimum of a million people are due in Sturgis at some point during this week, in actual physical form. Not on line. Not watching it on Fox News, CNN or MSNBC. People in this country are doing what they do, while a tiny portion of the public is sitting in front of their TV’s hanging on every word. Somehow that feels very close to pathetic when the weather is amazing, and the open road beckons. So Sturgis it is. In this first road trip podcast in the Mobile Podcast Command Unit, recorded about 1 AM, a little slash and burn, some stories, and some comments about the ‘big debate’. Sponsored by X Government Cars. (Editor’s Note: In this podcast I refer to the Sturgis event as the 75th anniversary of Harley Davidson, which is obviously and painfully incorrect. I meant the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally event is 75 years old.)

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Podcast 394

The EAA Air Show Gets Me. Live at Osh Kosh, and despite the plane crash, this is an event that reaches out and grabs you. Acre after acre of all kinds of planes, many with pilot’s tents beneath their wings, four hangers full of aviation equipment, pilots and aircraft enthusiasts all over the place. Warbirds, jets, brand new airliners, seaplanes, experimental planes, workshops, even massage chair demonstrations! It’s all a little overwhelming for a podcaster who doesn’t fly and doesn’t know anything about aviation, except that it’s pretty cool. Then there was the speech and presentation by Bert and Dick Rutan. One comes away with a message that needs to be heard these days. A message of living your dream, maybe taking the road less traveled to try to accomplish something that changes the world, or maybe an industry. EAA began as a community of homebuilders, and aircraft enthusiasts and there are still workshops and demonstrations for people in this tribe, but the event obviously has grown over the years to become one of the country’s premiere attractions, all in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin. All the big companies are here; GE, Boeing, Airbus, Honda, Bendix King, and Alpha Systems, to name a few. Medium and small vendors of all shapes and sizes are represented too, selling all kinds of tools for pilots, and all kinds of aircraft. If the original intent of designers and kit builders was to democratize flying — because 50 years ago the only way some people could acquire an airplane was to build their own — then they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Let’s hope it continues in this vein. In the end, it’s the people — the flight community — that makes this event so special. If you fly you already know. If you don’t, EAA is something to see. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. (Editor’s Note: I mentioned Bert Rutan’s best friend and pilot of Spaceship 1, Mike Melville and got his name wrong. Mike was part of the presentation that night at EAA, and has his own list of impressive aviation accomplishments.)

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