I didn't do anything airplane-related today; barely set foot in the garage, and that was just to grab a Fat Tire out of the fridge just a few minutes ago.  I am "first-level on call" this week at work, which means that if problems happen after-hours, they get to call me first... fortunately, we're not on call all that often (about an eight-week rotation), and we have a very stable environment, so we usually don't have any huge issues.  But, we also have a BIG environment (huge data center), so there's lots that can go wrong... and you know what they say about that.

Anyway, I got about 2 hours sleep last night... and I am sitting here on another call, just after midnight.  There are about five of us on a call, and one of the other guys is resetting some fibre channel switch ports, so instead of just sitting here I figured I'd type up a little for the website. 

It's time to tell the story of why my RV-7's official FAA registration (tail number) will be N855WH. Most US-registered planes start with "N", so the actual N-number I picked is 855WH.

It's been about 3 years now since my grandfather, William "Bill" Hurd died, unexpectedly, of a massive heart attack while driving his car into town for a routine checkup.  I miss him greatly.  Grandpa was a solid rock in a turbulent childhood.  His love was unconditional... he always had that great, white "Grandpa" hair, and stubble that made his hugs feel like you were getting mauled by 60-grit sandpaper.  Funny, though, we always looked forward to Grandpa's squeezes.  He had the strength of a sailor, having spent years in the Navy and then years traveling the world for Western Union, when they still did teletype and telestrip machines.

It hit me like a ton of rocks when I received that call.

I miss him more than words can say.  Sadly, I never got to take him flying, something I had always wanted to do.  Here's a picture of Grandpa with his wife, Denice, that I took the year before he died, up at Mt. St. Helens in Washington.




Grandpa and Grandma bought a turn-of-the-century house in a small town near the mouth of the Columbia River in Washington, across the river from Oregon and just a short distance from Astoria.  The drive to their home runs from Longview, Washington along the river on a beautiful road that hugs the river for miles.  Together, they fixed up the house, eventually running a successful bed and breakfast and making many friends and memories from visitors who came from all around the world.

Grandma still lives there, though she doesn't run a bed and breakfast anymore.  It's a big, old house, and without Grandpa there to work on it, it's just too much for her.  She has family in town, and may friends.  Grandma always has something baking, and a wonderful smile and laugh.  She loves her garden, and is out there working on her flowers whenever possible.  Even now, here in Texas, I can smell the scents of her garden mixed with the oil and leather from Grandpa's shop.

He was quite the accomplished man, able to do anything he put his mind to.  And he put his mind to a great many things.  While I was very young, he taught me macrame, a way of tying knots to make useful items.  I don't remember how to do it anymore, but Grandpa used it to make multi-tiered hanging structures for the many plants that came in from Grandma's garden.

As a child, we used to go to their house in Lowell, where Grandpa had a horse named Chester.  Grandpa had built the neatest little A-frame playhouse, complete with attic in which we could hide... it got HOT up there in the summer, but we had so much fun with it.

Grandpa also made his own blackberry wine.  I remember large glass bottles covered with balloons over the openings, and how the balloons got bigger each time we'd visit the house.  I remember sleeping in the living room and hearing the slow "tick TOCK tick TOCK" of the large grandfather clock in the front room.

He was also accomplished in leather work, making saddles and all kinds of equestrian accessories.  Downstairs, in the basement, where I always wanted to go, Grandpa had his computers... he ran a business writing software in RBase and DBase2.  In fact, I got into computers because of Grandpa... he bought a TI-99/4A when they first came out, and quickly upgraded to a Commodore Amiga 128.  Thanks to Grandpa, I got my first computer--his old TI-99/4A.  Hooked up to a black and white TV through an RF modulator, I'd write programs in TI-BASIC and then save them (sometimes after multiple attempts) to cassette tape.  Ah, the good old days.  Back then, an external hard drive with 10MB of space was over a thousand dollars.  Cassette was cheap.

So many good memories... I still miss his bear hugs.  When I get to missing him too much, I call Grandma.  She's still got his voice on the answering machine, and I hope she never takes it off...

Grandpa and Grandma were married in August 1955... and now you know why 855WH will be the tail number of my airplane.  I'll finally get to take him for that flight we never had.

I miss you, Grandpa.  Sleep well.