Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Moving on Up...to Examiner.com

I recently signed on as the Phoenix Travel Examiner with Examiner.com. Since a girl can only write so much in a day without burning out, please look for new travel articles at: www.examiner.com/x-1682-Phoenix-Travel-Examiner.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

AIrport News

Sky Harbor Airport is one of the most popular and hated places in the Valley. Residents will tell you that the crowds, endless construction projects and poor signage make trips to the airport are in the same class as trips to the dentist.

The Phoenix Business Journal reported on June 5, 2008 that the crowds at least may be declining. In fact, passenger traffic was off by 1 percent in April compared to 2007 and was expected to continue to decline during the summer months.

At the same time, passenger traffic at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport continues to grow. More than 27,800 passengers passed through the Williams terminal in February 2008 representing a load count of 85 percent. Those numbers were expected to increase to a 90 percent load count or almost 40,000 passengers in March, according to the minutes from the April 21, 2008 Williams Gateway Airport Authority meeting, the most recent meeting for which minutes are available.

There are always fewer visitors to the Valley during the summer months. After all, who wants to experience temperatures reaching 110 degrees or higher? It doesn't matter that it's a dry heat, it's still HOT. This year, however, it also appears that more residents are staying put. Are you one of them?

Friday, March 7, 2008

Commemorative Air Force Aircraft Museum Celebrates a Sentimental Journey

On March 13, 1945, the Army Air Corp accepted Sentimental Journey, a B-17 Flying Fortress, into service, assigning it to the Pacific theater for the duration of World War II. Almost 63 years later to the day, you can dance the night away in the shadow of this vintage aircraft at a glamorous event and fund-raiser for the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) Aircraft Museum at the City of Mesa's Falcon Field Airport.

"A Night in the 40's" will feature a WW II-era musical entertainment performed under the direction of Master of Ceremonies Danny Davis from AM 1230 KOY. The pre-show, featuring Forever Dance, begins at 4:45 p.m. The Kathy Donald Jazz Ensemble, including guest vocalists Debra Qualtire and Susan Gerkin, will be "swingin' and singing" between 5:30 and 7:30 when the Sun Lakes Big Band Orchestra takes the stage playing music favored during the war years.

"This is a great opportunity to recapture one of the most important and nostalgic times in our history," said Rick Senffer, publicity director for the CAF Arizona Wing. "Events like these pay special tribute to all those who fought for freedom during WW II and allow us to look back on that piece of our past."

Attendees are encouraged to dress in clothing appropriate to the 1940's to help everyone get into the mood. There will also be a costume contest for the best dress 1940's costume and a swing dance contest. Food, including a bar-b-que plate, and refreshments will be sold during the event, as well to help keep everyone charged up and dancing.

The CAF Aircraft Museum is an organization dedicated to keeping aviation history alive for current and future generations. The annual fund-raising event regularly sells out, attracting almost 1,500 attendees. Sponsors for this year's "A Night in the 40's" include Comerica Banks and Hensley and Company, Taylor Rays, AM 1230 KOY and Alpha Creation Awards.

Tickets for "A Night in the 40's" can be purchased in advance for $35 per person at the CAF Arizona Wing Aircraft Museum, 2017 N. Greenfield Rd., Comerica Bank locations in Mesa at 1825 S. Val Vista Dr., 5225 S. Power Rd. and 925 N. Dobson Rd. or online at www.bigbanddance.com.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Exploring the Origins of Flight & the Ancestry of Birds

Six years ago a fossil of a 130 million-year-old creature with four wings and superbly preserved feathers was discovered in a stone quarry in China. Paleontologists had never seen anything like it. They aren't even sure how to reconstruct the fossils for an accurate depiction of the creature.

On Tuesday, February 26, 2008, NOVA, the highest rated science series on television and Public Broadcasting System's (PBS) most watched documentary series, airs "The Four-Winged Dinosaur". The hour-long program attempts to resolve the standoff debate among scientists regarding the origin of flight in birds by presenting two distinct reconstructions of the fossils and conducting an unorthodox experiment to determine whether a replica of the creature is capable of flight.

Four days later, on March 1, 2008, the exhibit "Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origins of Flight" opens at the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa. The exhibit includes a collection 35 fossils that are national treasures on loan from the People's Republic of China along with life-sized reconstructions of how the animals may have looked.

"The NOVA program and our exhibit 'Feathered Dinosaurs' could not complement each other more," Arizona Museum of Natural History Curator of Paleontology Dr. Robert McCord said. "Both examine fossils from Liaoning Province, China and both explore the question: how do all these feathered dinosaurs change our understanding of the origin of flight and birds?"

The debate over how flight and birds evolved is not new. In his 1973 study of Archaeopteryx, paleontologist John Ostrom revived the theory, first made a century before, that modern day birds are the descendants of dinosaurs. As one of the earliest proponents of the theory during the twentieth century, one of the "winged dinosaurs", the Rahona ostromi, was named for him in 1998. Fossil remains indicate "Ostrom's menace from the skies" had feathers, a two-foot wingspan and a sickle-clawed second toe, when it roamed or flew the Earth between 65 and 70 million years ago.

Ostrem is not the only supporter of the theory. Even among those who believe dinosaurs are the ancient ancestors of birds, however, it is disputed as to how flight actually developed. Some argue that two legged, ground dwelling animals developed feathers and wings which allowed them to become airborne. Others hypothesize that flight developed among tree-dwelling creatures who, after generations of leaping limb-to-limb, developed gliding structures to soften landings and extend the length of the leap. These gliding structures eventually became wings.

Whether flight developed from the ground up or from the trees done does not alter the central theory that birds descended from dinosaurs.Not everyone agrees, of course.

"My idea," Larry Martin, Curator in Charge of the University of Kansas Natural History Museum, said in 1997, "is that birds separated off early from the [evolutionary] stalk that gave rise to crocodiles and dinosaurs --- well before there was anything you could call a dinosaur."He points to Longisquama insignis a small reptile that existed in central Asia some 220 million years ago and some 75 million years before the earliest birds. Martin co-authored a study with several other scientists theorizing Logisquama had feathers and glided among the trees above the earliest dinosaurs.

Research published online on January 28, 2008 in the journal BMC Biology, appears to support a pre-dinosaur ancestor for birds.

"Scientists typically use two sources of information to date biological events: the fossil record, which contains physical remains of ancient organisms, and molecular genetic data," explains University of Michigan graduate student Joseph Brown, who is first author on a new study suggesting the ancestors of modern birds arose more than 100 million years ago, not the 60 million years ago indicated by the fossil record. Brown and his fellow researchers from the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, the Centre for Biodiversity Conservation Mexico and Central America and Boston University explain that fossils tend to underestimate the amount of time since lineages diverged and that the molecular clock used to reconstruct evolutionary history isn't quite as precise as was assumed.

"What my colleagues and I did was apply all these new methods to the problem of the origin of modern birds, with each method making different assumptions about how mutation rate changes across the tree," Brown explains. He says the researchers hoped to narrow the gap between the fossil and molecular data but the results in fact underscored the finding that the forebears of modern birds emerged more than 100 million years ago.

Mark Davis, producer of NOVA's "The Four-Winged Dinosaur" and its predecessor the "Case of the Flying Dinosaur" (NOVA, 1991), has been tracking the debate over the origins of flight and the search for bird ancestors for almost two decades. He doesn't expect to resolve it in a single hour.

"In 'The Four-Winged Dinosaur', we weren't trying to solve the puzzle but rather provide a glimpse into what makes it such a puzzle in the first place," he explains in the Producer's Story on PBS.org.

Viewers and visitors to the "Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight" which opens March 1, 2008 at the Arizona Museum of Natural History can decide for themselves.

The Arizona Museum of Natural History is located at 53 N. McDonald St. in Mesa.

"Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight" was organized by The Dinosaur Museum of Blanding, Utah in association with the Fossil Administration Office of Liaoning, China and the Liaoning Beipiao China Shihetun Museum of Paleontology.

Monday, February 4, 2008

A New Hot Spot in Mesa

My laptop top isn't my constant companion, but I do like to stay current on where I can find free wireless access around town, just in case. The latest addition to the list is the Main Mesa Public Library.

The service is available free of charge and with no time limits to any library patron with a laptop or similar device having wireless networking capabilities. No library card or password is needed, although a working email address is. Also the network is only available during the Library's hours of operation. The Main Mesa Public Library is located at 64 E. 1st. St. in Mesa.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Growth Defies History for Amtrak's Sunset Limited

The Sunset Limited has long been the poster child for all that is wrong with passenger rail service in the United States. Yet, somehow, this troubled route has defied history increasing both the number of riders and ticket revenues.

For more than 110 years, the Sunset Limited trains have meandered between California new New Orleans. Back then, it was operated by Southern Pacific Railroad (now part of Union Pacific), which still owns the tracks the Sunset Limited travels over from Orange, Texas to Los Angeles, California. Southern Pacific dropped the Limited from the name, along with many of the amenities that make long-distance rail travel enjoyable, in the 1960's. Amtrak took over operation in 1971, restoring the Sunset Limited name along with the sleeper and dining cars and continues offering service 3 times a week to this very day.

Amtrak extended service east of New Orleans to Florida in 199o's. A decade later, track damage from Hurricane Katrina disrupted this service which Amtrak has decided to discontinue it indefinitely. This truncated service is just one of the challenges the Sunset Limited faces.

In 1993, the Sunset Limited was involved in one of the worst Amtrak accidents on record when the train fell from a damaged bridge into a Alabama bayou killing 47 people. A year later the two locomotives derailed along with 8 other cars in Arizona, killing one persona and injuring 78. The case remains unsolved. Eighteen people were injured in 1999 when two locomotives and two cars derailed after colliding with a truck. Add such incidents to one of the worst on-time records of any Amtrak train and it's hardly surprising that the Sunset Limited has inherited Southern Pacific's reputation as the railroad people love to hate.

What may surprise people is that, after years of declining use and revenues, the Sunset Limited appears to be enjoying a renaissance. According to the most recent numbers reported by Amtrak, the Sunset Limited's ridership increased by more than 22 percent during fiscal year 2007 while ticket revenues grew by nearly 32 percent. Growth in both areas exceeded that of any other long-distance service offered by Amtrak and many of the short-distance routes.

Put another way, more than 63,000 people traveled through history last year. The territory between Tucson, Arizona and Del Rio, Texas is much the same as it was when the Sunset Limited first rolled across it in 1894. Travelers can easily imagine themselves in a Western movie or the Old West itself as they rush past mesquite and cactus and play peek-a-boo with the Rio Grande. Crossing the Pecos High Bridge they might forget they aren't flying as the train is invisibly suspended 265 feet above the Pecos River on one of the nation's highest railroad bridges. San Antonio's station is within walking distance of the Alamo.

Traveling aboard the Sunset Limited is an adventure. There are no guarantees for on-time arrivals or departures, scheduled stops or even properly working equipment. One thing travelers can count on is making new friends as they experience the southern United States in a way too few do.