The Microwave Is On The Move

Edited, with my sincere apologies to Pennsylvanians, to correct the name of Harrisburg.

My microwave has gone from Harrisburg, PA, to Louisville, KY. I hope it's getting on a big brown airplane bound for Southern California. gother package itineraries are representative, it'll get to Ontario Airport[1] at around 0300 and be in Lancaster by 0600, so it can be out for delivery by 0800. It should be at my house at about 1430.

It will be welcomed with open arms. I've had to actually cook dinner, rather than reheat a frozen meal, three nights in a row and I'm running out of ideas (and food) unless I go to the grocery store.

[1] This Ontario Airport isn't in Canada but in SoCal. It's one of five airports in the LA Basin with scheduled airline service (Los Angeles International, Burbank, Long Beach, Ontario, & John Wayne).[2] Ontario gets a lot of air freight business because it's got less air traffic and it's in a good location for trucking stuff around. The other airports in the Basin are really busy (LAX) or have shorter runways (Burbank) or are in noise-sensitive areas (John Wayne).[3]

[2] OK, Palmdale Airport has scheduled service, too, but it uses the USAF Plant 42 runways and stuff and isn't really an independent airport and it's not in the Basin, although it is in Los Angeles County. Van Nuys Airport doesn't have scheduled airline service, being a general aviation airport, but is still one of the busiest airports in the US. UPS could use it, I'm sure, but it's in a noise-sensitive area.

[3] Why people buy a house near an airport and then complain about the noise is something I do not understand. If you don't like airport noise, don't buy a house by an airport! You don't hear me complaining about Plant 42 or Fox Field or Bermuda Dunes Airport. Which reminds me of a funny story (a lot of things remind me of funny stories, probably because I'm easily amused). For background, you have to remember that Edwards Air Force Base is the USAF's flight testing base and does most of its flying between 0700 and 1600 on weekdays, unlike the regular Air Combat Command bases.

So, here's the story, from back in the days when realtors didn't have to warn prospective buyers about everything. Some family, who lived Down Below (that's what we call the Los Angeles Basin up here), came to Lancaster house-hunting on the weekends. They were looking for a little acreage and settled on a place out in the northwest corner of the valley. They moved up on a Saturday, got all settled in on Sunday, and were sleeping the sleep of the just on Monday morning when the first wave of USAF sorties launched at 0700 and a couple of the airplanes made runs down the Alpha Corridor into the bombing range at low altitude and high speed. The version I've heard says that the couple just about levitated out of bed, thinking they were under attack or something, because they hadn't heard or seen any military aircraft on the weekends and didn't realize how close the base really was.

This would have been a better story a decade or two later, when NASA started landing Orbiters at Edwards. Those come in from space dragging a spectacularly loud sonic boom that would have really jolted the folks out of bed.