We saw the Blue Angels perform today and the show was spectacular as usual. The kids thought it was pretty cool to see the planes fly so close to the ground and of course they liked the difficult aerial maneuvers of the F/A-18 Hornets as well. Going to airshows always brings back nostalgic memories for me.

Grace, an airshow enthusiast?

Growing up, my dad would take us almost every year to see the airshows down at the El Toro Marine Base. My dad retired from the Air Force a long time ago, but his enthusiasm for military and civilian crafts transcends even till today. Of course he’s also worked in the Defense industry for decades and was involved in the design and creation of the military’s B-1 Bomber, DoD’s Communication Management Network between Space Station Freedom and the Space Shuttle for NASA at Johnson Space Center in Houston, US Air Force’s AWACS-Airborne Warning & Control System under contract by the government, plus countless other Defense projects for not only the US Air Force but US Army and US Navy throughout his entire career. Wherever we went on vacation as kids, it involved visits to the Air & Space Museum. One of the coolest I’ve been to is the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C., and the one we frequent the most I recall was the San Diego Aerospace Museum due to its proximity to home.

Lucky for my dad, he had 3 girls. I guess even though none of us shared the passion for aeronautics quite the way my dad did, at least he has instilled in us the excitement over aeronautic achievements (the closest I came to being a part of that action was getting personally escorted into JPL-Jet Propulsion Labortory by my professor’s colleague to visit NASA’s mission control room while the Space Shuttle was in orbit so I was able to see actual visuals transmitted back by the space shuttle in real-time — and I sat in the exact seat that then-president Dan Quail sits when he goes to visit NASA’s Space Flight Operations Facility in Pasadena). Kind of cool huh? Well, maybe not for most people, but it certainly was an awe-inspiring experience for little ole me at the time. Anyways, it’s never the same these days when I go see airshows sans my dad especially with him living further away, but I only hope that one day Nicholas & Wesley will be able to enjoy these similar experiences that I’ve been lucky enough to share with my dad.