"How I Spent my Summer Vacation"

[CloudDancer]

Didn't you ALways just HATE that assignment in class !!

As you might suspect precocious little middle-school CloudDancer was much more enamored of that other favorite assignment...Show 'n Tell....
until Sister Mary (I'll Beat the Devil Right OUTTA' you boy!!) Clarence
caught me tryin' for "extra credit" with cute little Muffy Hunnibunz during an unAUTHORIZED private Show 'n Tell session in the bushes during recess one day.

Despite Sister Clarence's repeated and STRENUOUS efforts...there's STILL a liddle bit of that nasty ol' Devil left inside. I mean...well....just see the pics.







I know I got some more around here SOMEwheres. Wait jes' a minute while I go HUNT for 'em.

CloudDancer

[SJ]

Cloudy,

At LEAST you were wearing the proper attire to attract the more discriminating chicks..

sj

[Grant]

Steve,
Do you mean the shirt or the bag?

[CloudDancer]

Now Juuuuusss' wade a minnite there Fellas!!

CloudDancer is a EQUAL OPPORTUNITY LOVER!! I dasn't distriminum...
destribulate.....disterminate......

I loves womens of ALL KINDS....EVEN the breasticularly imPAIRED!! And I have happily DESEMINATED with quite a FEW!! as subsequent and follering pictorographical evidence shall shew!!

'N Grant.....now that was a ROTTEN thing to say. I'll have yew know I RESEMBLE that remark! !

Now...WHAR'S the REST o' my DAD-BLAMED pitchers.....

Cloud (Hey Baby...Ya' Wanna get LEI'd ) Dancer

[CloudDancer]

[Nathan K. Hammond]

CloudDancer, you're my hero.

nkh

[CloudDancer]

Awwwwww.....SHUCKS....Nate.....

STOP it now...yer' makin' me

But I AM slowin' down in my old age, which the girls seem to APPRECIATE!! Now it takes me TWO "bounds" to leap a tall building...an' I'm only barely able to keep UP with those darn speeding bullets.

LOOK! Up in the sky! It's....it's a Bird...it's a PLANE

It's.....

[CloudDancer]

[CloudDancer]

[CloudDancer]

[CloudDancer]

Now my friends and Chronicle followers; as you can see.....I’ve been having a fairly good vacation thus far.

I’m determined to add to the general merriment of those around me as well , and give other of my fellow tourists some additional treasured vacation memories when able.

You may have detected a trend in this thread of things not ALWAYS working out the way I had hoped. Well....as always for your beleaguered former Alaskan flying Lothario....Murphy (of Murphy’s Law fame) is never far from my side and can even manage to foul up a great thread like this one.

In place of this written.....excuse/explanation post, SHOULD be some incredibly dramatic and entertaining underwater photographs of your reluctant hero doing his best Lloyd Bridges “Sea Hunt” impersonation.

CloudDancer....battling to overcome the odds..... having lost his snorkel gear to a rogue “killer” wave and almost trapped amidst some very SHAPELY undersea “obstacles” and out of breathe. MAN...her legs went AAAAALLLLL the way from her TOES to ......deTERmined to find the undersea treasure chest.

And of course......our protagonist emerges victorious and in fact found a set of identical TWIN treasures “chests” in identically twin skimpy shiny gold bikini tops!! I assure you no lesser a pirate than Blackbeard himself would have been impressed by this booty!! :P There were several photos taken of yours truly, brown-baggedly conducting his underwater, so-close-you-feel-like-you’re-almost THERE photographic explorations of these treasures in a manner that would make even Jacques Cousteau proud.

SO....where ARE they you ask????

Well....remember MURPHY!!

Now...within a block and a half of my Waikiki hotel there have to be at LEAST a DOZEN retail establishments selling disposable underwater cameras. Each one must have twenty-five or thirty hanging on the little racks. So that’s what.....between 240 and 360 cameras within a block and a half to pick from and I.....with the SAME luck at besting the odds that has provided the money to buy a new fire engine for the local Indian tribe which operates the casino closet to my house.....

Yes dear readers I pick what HAD to have been the ONLY camera that slipped past the quality control inspectors with.....NO %$#&ING FILM IN IT!! This, of course, ONLY comes to my attention after having returned to the mainland and my local CVS pharmacy for development of these most critical pieces of evidence.

Hence...what I had HOPED would’ve been a real knee-slapper of a series has become this. But....I want you to KNOW....I MADE a good effort for you guys ‘cause I felt you deserved nothing but my best.

And now.....for the conclusion of both the vacation and the thread, I will wrap it up with the following.........

Hope you’ve enjoyed sharing some of the parts of my vacation that I can remember, as I have enjoyed sharing them WITH you.

‘Til next trip....

[CloudDancer]

This SAME line of "narrow-minded" thinking that resulted in the LAST photo; led me to conclude that my planned "Aloha and Goodbye Waikiki" series of photos....which I HAD planned to shoot in airport departure lounge area...well....I just figured better leave well enough ALONE!!


CloudDancer

[Champdriver]

Cloud Dancer, I have come to the conclusion you and I must be the same age. I was In Alaska from '75-'78, and I believe I have that same Don Ho Hawaiian Shirt. I may have the same waist line as well, wait I think I may have some photos from Mexico with the same "Incognito" thing going on...
Great Photos, and really enjoy reading your Stories... We gotta Have about the same years of experience... Thanks, Write more, work less...
Champdriver

[CloudDancer]

Hiya Champdriver -

Good to hear from you....hell....great to hear from ANYbody these days. I'm beginning to wonder what's become of some of my more prolific "reviewers"? Am I writing to tamely? Is it all starting to read the same...(yawn)?

I mean I just keep hearing from Stephan in Washington ...but he's Russian (beSIDES just being a BOEING guy)...and he only writes to me so he can practice writing in English.....

I mean c'mON KIDS. I need INSPIRATION if I am to continue finding new and never-before existed ways to write longwinded poorly punctuated sentences full of mangled English nouns and verbages intended to paint aviation oriented mental al frescos in the minds of you, my literarily starved readers, in your still unfulfilled (here) quest to find the next Bach, Gann or Serling in whose works you can immerse yourselves to, for a short while at least, forgets your troubles and woes!!

And Champdriver. What GREAT advise. I LOVE it. Write more. Work less. If only I didn't have that nasty habit.....and that nasty gambling habit..... or that VERY seldomly rewarding ADOPT-a-STRIPPER or COCKTAIL WAITRESS charity foundation that I am committed to.

I am age fifty-something.....meaning I can still see 50 in the rearview mirrors....but the numbers on the sign ARE getting indistinked.

So it's kinda' easy to figure from there. I been flying commercially since my first flight offa' runway eight in OTZ on 07/31/73 and my biggest remaining fantasy in life is that somehow ....some way.....MUCH to what I'm SURE would be the INTENSE displeasure of ALL the Smilin' Eskimo pilots.....that SOMEhow.....my airline and theirs could become ONE....simply for the selfish reason that should I SOMEhow manage to hold on to my medical for another few years .....my very LAST commercial flight....forty-one years later in 2014 could SOMEhow be offa' kotzebue's runway eight headed for the Big Village on the Cook Inlet.

It'll probably NEVER happen....but in this business....who KNOWS!!

But that sure would be way....WAY cool eh?

THANKS for taking the time to chime in Champdriver and DAMN GLAD you like the Chronicles. A few more to come yet. EnJOY!!

CloudDancer

[skagwaypilot]

In the past few weeks, I have undertaken a detailed computer assisted analysis of Cloudy's picture to discern his true identity. I admit that his disguise was deviously clever and designed to mask both his facial and physical features. In doing my research, I learned that, several years ago, he was often seen at New Orleans Saints football games with many members of his family.



His physiological appearance in his vacation pictures was clearly misleading. Unless his employers provides seatbelt extenders for the cockpit crew, his frame could never have fit into the left seat of a Cessna 207. A full-stall landing would be impossible. That was my first clue that he was deceiving us by altering his vacation photos to hide his true identity.

Next, I carefully examined what few facial characteristics can be seen behind his paper facade. I happened to be watching an episode of CSI, New York when discovered that facial reconstruction can be accomplished by using just a few key dimensions. The distance between the eyes, the position of the nose and the height of the brow provide a basis for recreating a person's appearance. By carefully applying the skills acquired by TIVO'ing several episodes of CSI, I began to undertake the task of learning Cloudy's true identity.

The steely blue of his eyes could not be masked. Admittedly, they were a little bloodshot, but the years of peering through a windshield at the challenges of Alaska weather was immediately evident. The glint of determination is there, no peril will be overlooked - the eyes tell us that this is a pilot in which we can have full confidence in his abilities.

His eyebrow shows a hint of gray - we've all seen the airline captain as he strode purposefully toward his cockpit. We immediately feel more relaxed if he (and now sometimes, she) has a bit of gray in their neatly trimmed hair. The adage that there are "Old Pilots, Bold Pilots, but no Old-Bold Pilots" is often quoted by passengers when evaluating the skills of their captain - ergo, a pilot with gray hair certainly must be more skilled that a pilot with non-gray or, for that matter, no hair at all.

Finally, I used the awesome power of Google to search on the characteristics which will lead us to the true identity of CloudDancer.
Lets see:
Pilot
Airplane
Good Hair
Steely eyes
Chiseled Jaw

And Google responded with:

[HvyJet]

Skagway--
That was way too funny for me...
Thanks for a good laugh!
Barney

[CloudDancer]

Skagwaypilot -

Just got back from my latest four-day hostage crisis to find your post and HvyJet's response as well!

Been laughing for the last ten minutes straight, and believe me, after today I really needed it. :P

But HONest.....I've really never BEEN in a MEN'S sauna ....REALLY!!

And HvyJet, who knows me only TOO well, and was knee-deep in the creation of this thread with me (not to mention knee-walking alongside me MOST every day in Hawaii ) is one of the VERY FEW who know JUST how close to home that STRIKES!!

Thanks you SouthEast Scoundrel for trying to sully my otherwise impecable reputation so hilariously!!

CloudDancer

[skagwaypilot]

Just a small paypack for the laughs you have given all your readers.. please keep adding to the Chronicles.. I'll be first in line to buy your book.

[CloudDancer]

Reposition Bump

[SJ]

OK! Think I got the pictures back working here.

Sorry for the delay!

sj

[CloudDancer]

You da' MAN!

Thanks Steve.

CloudDancer

[dreamer]

Gee Cloudy,

It looks like you were having a wonderful time Clearly

yours truly,