Television news vs Reality

Attention news media: The 50s called and they want their lifestyle back.

I was watching the news this morning and there was a lengthy segment on the rash of package thefts. You know the drill - UPS or FedEx delivers a package when no one is home, leaves it on the front porch and some scumbag walks up an hour later and steals the package.

The talking head ended his in-depth, cutting-edge, breaking-news story by giving us his "things you can do" tips to prevent the theft of packages.

The first thing he said was, "Schedule deliveries when you are home."

What?

Do these people have any idea how modern delivery companies work? Do they think we are still living in the 1950s when deliveries are made by small trucking companies who you could call and say, "Hey Eugene, we'll be home at 4:00. Bring the stuff over then, okay?"

The US Post Office, FedEx and UPS deliver packages on their schedule, not yours. There is no scheduling them.

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I haven't brought up the Red Sox lately and for that I apologize. I know you get the majority of your Red Sox news from us here at The Daily News^© and we have been remiss in our duties to keep you informed. Senior management is aware and people will be fired.

Clay Buchholz is no longer a member of the Red Sox and in my humble opinion, this is probably best for both Buchholz and the Red Sox. It was time for him to take his talents to a new venue and it was time for the Red Sox to get someone else on their roster who wasn't going to miss half the season because of some mental issue or an unknown injury.

They have added Chris Sale to the roster and while I'm taking a "once burned, twice shy" attitude about this, I have hopes he will perform well in the Boston market. He is somewhat of a nutcase which means he probably won't be easily insulted by the Boston media or the southie bullshit attitude that seems to be prevalent in Fenway.

The "once burned" thing is my reference to David Price, John Lackey and Rick Porcello. All three of those guys had crappy first seasons with the Red Sox. In the case of Porcello, he turned it around in his second season and in the case of Lackey, he turned it around after some surgery. I'm still waiting on Price....

Hopefully Sale shows up in full blown MVP mode and he is unbeatable in his first season but I'm gonna remain a little skeptical until at least late May or early June.

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If you are interested, here is the radar track of my checkride from last Tuesday.

A pretty good chunk of it is missing (that dashed line over Millers Falls) because I had to do a series of different types of landings and takeoffs at Turners Falls Airport. There are lots of hills around Turners that prevent the radar from detecting the aircraft and recording its location.

The initial stretch you see going from Northampton in a north-west direction is the first leg of the cross country trip he had me plan. If you continue along that path for another 3 hours, you will eventually come to Oswego, NY. Fortunately for me, we broke off the cross country when we reach my first waypoint which was the 0° radial of the VOR in Chester, MA

From there, we worked our way north while he had me do all kinds of interesting things until he was satisfied that I knew what I was doing. Then it was over to Turners to do the landings and finally back to Northampton where I was told I was now a private pilot.

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Tomorrow is the start of A Christmas Story marathon so tomorrows posting may be short.

While I practice saying ,"You'll shoot your eye out kid!" over and over again, you can visit these links:

• Presenting this episodes Brilliant Criminals of the Week.



• Only in Florida.



• Here's your Naked Guy In The News story.



• Key line in this story: "It's more stable than a Samsung phone."



• Other than that, it was a very nice wedding.



• Oh Canada.