One of the benefits of flying commercial to NYC is for Delta to lose one of two bags, which must not be easy on a direct flight. They graciously returned it it 15 minutes ago, near 3:30, allowing me an early start on the day.
Politics is weird, but the market has been hot. I imagine COPAns have had as good a run as anyone.
My chief market indicator, Craig Rich, is in the doctors’ lounge talking about how good his stocks are all the time now- my usual indication to sell. When he gives that up and talks about Texas Holdem all the time, I buy. Of course, a belt and suspenders kind of guy, I vetted this method with the COPA money gurus, but it’s pretty foolproof.
I’ve come across a few posts lately delineating how well we are doing, and at least one looking at what to do about the consequences of so much success- dealing with tax liabilities.
I can help you here.
I read about an old friend in the news the other day, and I’ve been thinking about all that ever since. Not quite an aviation piece, but there are some terrific drone shots in the article.
Catherine Porter is the NYT bureau chief for Toronto, and she went to Haiti after the earthquake almost 8 years ago.
I never crossed paths with her, but it is clear we didn’t miss by much. We traveled some similar paths.
Her story is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/13/world/americas/haiti-death-funerals.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
It’s a fairly gruesome tale. But it caught a lot of what Fr Rick Frechette is doing, has done for 30 years and more.
He’s a high gravitational force kind of guy, dragged me right along in his wake, changed a sweet airplane adventure into a whole other thing. Airplane folks like to GO places, it took awhile to learn to BE somewhere. that’s harder.
Trying to strike repeated blows a single point, we built a GI lab there, delivered piecemeal by SR22. No running water, but there were some workarounds. Crashes and chute pulls were good for exposure, some donations resulted. When the flow of that and other money dried up, Rick suggested I might want to crash another, but I was only willing to follow him so far.
Sanjay graciously compiled some of my posts after the chute. The “love in the time of cholera” post, also gruesome, is most closely aligned with Ms Porter’s article.
https://www.cirruspilots.org/copa/non_member/guest_discussion/f/11/t/127894.aspx
COPA played a role in things, too:
https://www.cirruspilots.org/copa/non_member/guest_discussion/f/11/t/132727.aspx
Over time, Rick replaced the tents with containers, then some semi-permanent structures, and now a real hospital, with a real 2 room GI lab, where Dr Nathalie Colas runs the show, using 70s era stuff I scrounged. The “GI lab” post shows the humble start, and this shot shows Nathalie in the new spot:
It’s a sweet lab, our edifice complex is sated.
But the equipment, which of course had passed its “sell by” before I scrounged it, is falling apart at a rate I can’t keep up with. A standard Haitian problem.
Which brings me to the pitch.
Send some money if you can.
Label it COPA.
See if we can keep it going.
Thank you.