Why Airshows Are Kinda Neat But Not Really

Living next to an airbase is pretty much awful.  You never know when things are going to get loud, and when they do, you'll see my cat swiftly army-crawl to and from all her tiny hiding spots. I've been startled out of sleep in a half-conscious panic by some of the things that fly over our apartment.  And after that, you get to listen to everyone's car alarms go off.  Fun.

(By the way, if you google or flickr images of "army-crawl," you just get hundreds of images of people's babies, all of which are not very good at demonstrating an army crawl.  I was going to paste a picture of my cat's face on someone army-crawling, but pasting her onto a picture of a baby wasn't an accurate illustration of my point.  This is where I would have put that picture, so use your imagination and laugh because a cat crawling around with an army helmet on is probably pretty cute.)

Anyway, if you know me, you know I don't care for airplanes much (I blame this cartoon.).  I definitely don't like being in them, and seeing/hearing one fly overhead is enough to get my heart rate up.  Even so, I'm planning on seeing parts of the airshow this weekend because A) it's free, B) it's probably entertaining, and C) I just have to go outside and tilt my head up.

So free entertainment is one benefit of living next to an airbase.  But after that, it's mostly all cons.  If a plane nosedives into our apartment (and, unlike the slightly improbable Bugs Bunny cartoon, doesn't run out of gas the moment before crashing), that's going to cause some problems.  Also, the volume of the show is going to be annoying, but I'm used to that a bit.  One inconvenience I wasn't expecting, though, is the pre-show spectators.  The airbase is right between where I work and where I live (see map below:  A = work, B = airbase, C = Subway, D = live). 


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I figured the weekend traffic would be obnoxious, but I can avoid that area when I don't work.  Apparently, though, two days of actual airshow are not enough for most people.  On the Friday before the show,  it appears that some people like to randomly pull over to the side of the road, get out of their cars, and squint towards the sky to watch the planes practice.  They also apparently have to go to the same Subway I go to for lunch and clog up the line!  Blurg!

I'm probably just being a local, crabby jerk-head, but it does seem kinda dumb to watch and photograph the sporadic, unscheduled, and less impressive practice-runs.  It'll be way more entertaining to squint up at the sky with your mouth open tomorrow and Sunday.  Until then, keep your eyes on the road and move out of my way...I gotta get back to work and do important things (one of which is definitely NOT writing this post...seriously, it's not...shut up!).

That's a pretty accurate picture of my lunch-hour experience (Georgia folk sure do love their moonshine).  I hope you enjoyed the good-ol'-fashioned copyright infringement.  Also, I made the barrel roll joke before any of you jabronies could.  Sorry!

This is my weekend airshow futurecast...barf or no barf, should be entertaining.

Later!