I saw Steve’s obituary in today’s Missoulian ; he apparently died almost two weeks ago. “Friends said he was in fragile health,” writes the anonymous obituarist, and I must say this was evident to me when he and I last worked together.

It’s sad to see the death of any friend, but it’s even sadder to learn only from his obituary what an interesting life he led: prolific writer and collector of pulp and Western fiction, screenwriter on two Roger Corman movies, magazine columnist.

In a day job “as a transmitter technician in Missoula, he snowmobiled weekly to the summit of Television Mountain…” Perhaps those weekly trips whetted his appetite for “the first known sled descent of Mount Jumbo,” described as “a half-mile ‘luge run’”; regular Outside contributor Peter Stark helped him “survey, clear, bank and ice the run.”

The accomplishment of the “luge run” seems all the more impressive for the fact that Steve was apparently not a natural athlete. His fellow softball players on the local rec-league team “Montana Review of Books” dubbed him “Merc, short for Mercury, because he reminded none of his teammates of the fleet Roman god.” But that didn’t stop him from eventually becoming “an adept all-around waterman, especially an able and enthusiastic — if not artistic — rafter and kayaker.”

As for writing: “Though well-versed in the Great Works, his real literary love was pulp fiction”; a writer of the stuff himself, he was in “the ‘her body would make a bishop put his foot through a stained-glass window’ school.” Further, “he believed that the point of fiction was to entertain…” and once observed that “big-time stylists impress me like big-time bus drivers.”

Oh, and: “He could finish the New York Times crossword puzzle before you could uncap your pen.”

I hope my obituary is half as interesting. So long, Steve, I’m glad we met.

“My assumption that there would be no hangovers under obama incorrect.”

Perhaps we should have vetted the guy a little more carefully after all.

Did you know there’s a way to keep track of new posts on all of your favorite web sites? It has to do with that funny orange symbol up at the far right of the URL bar. What that means is that there is an RSS feed available for this site, and what THAT means is that you can “subscribe” to this site and any other similarly equipped site (most are, including my New West page) and learn of new posts in one central location called an RSS reader, in which new posts from all of the sites you “subscribe” to are displayed almost as if in a sort of email inbox for the internet.

The best thing is, you can do this for free, especially if you already have a Google account (i.e., a Gmail account, which are free). There’s this thing called Google Reader, and you can learn more about it by watching a short video here. You can also buy slightly more sophisticated RSS reader programs elsewhere. Be careful, though. Stare long and hard enough into the Internet, and the Internet stares into you.

By which I mean that the potential for wasting time on this stuff is enormous.

Author Linda Hirshman has an interesting post up at TPM Cafe on “Liberal Principles” (it’s part one of three). Or at any rate I find it interesting, because I’ve been spending a lot of time over the last couple of years thinking about what my principles are, and it’s interesting to hear some thought about what the actual philosophy of modern political liberalism might be. As intriguing as her arguments are, I sort of like what one commenter proposed: liberals are simply for democracy and the rights of man.

I can go with that for now.

“My notebooks began in the very early days in Paris. I think, in those days, I always carried one with me. I was like a reporter at large. I made notes so conscientiously you’d think I was being paid by a big, important newspaper. I made notes of everything… Now, very often, I make no use of my notes, but I enjoy making them. They fire me.”

Is it just boring at this point to report that this morning’s flight to Missoula is delayed one and a half hours (so far)?

Tell you what. From here on out, I will only post if our flight is on time. Otherwise, assume we are experiencing what now appears to be “the usual.”

At least we are in the terminal, not on the runway.

“We’ve been released and should be on our way shortly.”

From the flight deck: “ATC is aware of our situation [i.e., that the pilots will need their milk, cookies and naps soon] and we have priority over other flights on the east coast.”

The crew’s “flight day” runs out in 50 minutes. Maybe the actual flight time doesn’t count as part of the “flight day,” since a computer actually flies the plane between takeoff and landing, otherwise it’s not clear how we could still fit in a flight to Chicago within the next 50 minutes.

Perhaps they are simply keeping us calm. Perhaps they have no intention of launching this aircraft and would take us back to the terminal right now if they could, but ground traffic is too backed up to allow them to do so any time soon. Rather than risk open revolt by announcing that we will be returning to the terminal in 50 minutes, they will wait until they can actually start rolling that way before doing so.

Just a theory.

Also, one curious detail. On the Flight Stats page for O’Hare, the following text appears:

Ground Stop – This airport has issued a Ground Stop affecting flights departing to it between Aug 19 03:11 PM UTC and Aug 19 05:00 PM UTC due to WEATHER / THUNDERSTORMS. Flights are being delayed an average of 116.8 minutes.

Ground Delay Program – This airport has issued a Ground Delay Program affecting flights arriving between Aug 19 08:00 AM and Aug 19 10:59 PM due to WEATHER / THUNDERSTORMS. Flights are being delayed an average of 137.7 minutes.

Delay – This airport is experiencing departure delays of 60 to 75 minutes due to Weather:Thunderstorms since Aug 19 10:11 AM.

Now, the flight crew has said that this flight is affected by the “ground stop.” Does the fact that the ground stop was issued for all flights departing between 11 p.m. last night (UTC, or Greenwich Mean Time, is currently four hours later than Eastern Daylight Time) and 1 p.m. this afternoon mean that the ground stop was issued before 11 p.m. last night, meaning, in turn, that United has known about it since then? I have heard that planes delayed on the tarmac do not count as “delayed,” in the absurd calculus by which airlines avoid having to behave like actual businesses. Did they pack us on the flight and get us out here, even though they knew we would be delayed or even canceled, to avoid being tagged for a delay?

Just another theory.

12:52 p.m.
The pilot restarts the engine to power the air conditioning. A relief, but what implications does this have for our fuel?

No word from the flight deck yet, but the delay has allowed A. to complete the rabbit she was knitting for Grace’s christening present.

Actually, she still needs to finish the tail, but that require scissors, which, of course, no one is allowed to have on a plane.

At least, however inconvenient this is, we are safe from scissors-wielding maniacs.

Also, the baby behind us isn’t crying. Much.

As I type, A. and I are sitting on United Flight 487, which in turn is sitting on the runway at Philadelphia International Airport. Our destination is O’Hare Airport in Chicago, where we had hoped to attend our niece Grace’s christening today. We actually planned to be a little late, but a member of the flight crew just announced that — due to “some weather” — it looks like we will be very late. O’Hare is “ground-stopped,” meaning that nothing is landing and nothing is taking off. Meanwhile, ominously, our flight crew is “running up against the limits of [their] flight day,” meaning that we could conceivably be delayed long enough that they will need to be replaced before we can take off. (Pilots are notorious weaklings who cannot be expected to remain awake for more than a set number of hours each day without napping with their blankies; in the world of ships, you simply stay awake, for as long as it takes, sleep when you’re dead, etc. Guess this is why the Air Force is known to the rest of the military as the Chair Force.)

We are promised an update in an hour and twenty minutes.

We hope everyone who has some hope of our visiting them in the near future will understand our refusal to board a plane for the next several years, by which time the world should be mostly out of oil anyway and there won’t be any more flying at all for non-millionaires.