{"id":2600,"date":"2014-01-26T11:31:24","date_gmt":"2014-01-26T15:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=2600"},"modified":"2014-01-26T11:31:24","modified_gmt":"2014-01-26T15:31:24","slug":"one-year-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/one-year-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yee-haw! Today, my buddy John Strayer and I are \u201cone year helicopter crash free.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ayoob,<\/p>\n

A year ago<\/a>\u00a0 we and pilot Graham Harward managed to walk <\/span>\u00a0stagger away more or less intact from what one commentator called a \u201chard landing.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, as a rule of thumb, \u201clanding\u201d upside down is hard whatever the conveyance.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all completely recovered, and the scars are just souvenirs.\u00a0 No lawsuits; we knew what we were getting into when we stepped aboard the helicopter.<\/p>\n

The incident, like all such things, gave each of us involved a sharpened appreciation of the people we love, and the people we serve.\u00a0 (We all got a pretty good dose of adrenaline and survival euphoria, too.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Thanks to all for the kind support after it happened.\u00a0 Lessons came from it. John had a gun in hand when we lost power, and the bird went down too fast for him to holster; I\u2019ve mentioned his impressive trigger finger discipline in every firearms safety lecture I\u2019ve given since, and discussed it more in Guns Magazine.<\/a><\/p>\n

Another lesson, of course, is that our being helicopter crash free may just have something to do with neither John nor I having been <\/i>in a helicopter since.\u00a0 Our significant others both told us in no uncertain terms:<\/p>\n

NO. MORE. HELICOPTERS. EVER!!!<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

We have replied,<\/p>\n

<Ummm\u2026maybe bigger <\/i>helicopters? With newer engines\u2026?><\/p>\n

Our pilot, of course, has been flying ever since, doing contract helicopter work, and doing just fine.<\/p>\n

But, seriously, thanks for caring.\u00a0 They tell us to live every day as if it was our last.\u00a0 If I had done that, I would have given all my stuff away and the funeral director would be wondering where the body is for the last 51 and a half weeks.\u00a0 Perhaps it suffices to live every day as if it might <\/i>be your last, and try like hell to do something good with the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yee-haw! Today, my buddy John Strayer and I are \u201cone year helicopter crash free.\u201d A year ago\u00a0 we and pilot Graham Harward managed to walk \u00a0stagger away more or less intact from what one commentator called a \u201chard landing.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, as a rule of thumb, \u201clanding\u201d upside down is hard whatever the conveyance. We\u2019re all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}