Reading Charlie Stross’ The Fuller Memorandum, one of his amusing Laundry books, and fairly zipping through. Seems kinda like it may be time to return to Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, as is my habit every so often.

hunh, just realized I stalled out on Stross’ Iron Sunrise a couple months ago. Plus I do have a pile of comics I have been putting off. Gene will have to wait, although having just completed a history of the collapse of the Byzantine West maybe now is a good time after all.

Is it ever not a good time for Wolfe?

On March 19, Sandy McDonnell, former CEO of McDonnell-Douglass, died at his home in Missouri. On March 22, the New York Times published an obit.

On March 23, at around 4 in the afternoon, I saw an F-101 flying east, along with what I estimate were three other planes (I saw three, but the first one was likely one of a flight of two – it heard two planes and the next set of military jets were paired up, so it is a reasonable assumption).

McDonnell’s first big project at his family company was to lead the F-101 design process. He also headed the development of the F-4 Phantom II.
Various obits indicate that his memorial service is to be on March 28 in St. Louis.

I now rather wonder if the plane I saw in formation with the F-101 was an F-4.