January was snowy here, with lots of shoveling, but winter has its compensations… the low rays of the winter sun deepen the colors of the sky and the bay to jewel-like hues, the snow beautifully clings to the trees and reveals the tracks of animals in the woods, the cold and dark drive us to visit theaters and museums we never get to in summer. The worst of winter… the messy morning commutes and the darkness at quitting time… is bypassed by the freelance option to work from home. Summer is sweet, but the shifting seasons make it sweeter still.
For Robb Report’s New and Noteworthy site, I wrote about Embraer’s new Legacy 650. I finished up a feature story for Roger Williams University’s alumni mag, about some interesting research by a criminal-justice professor, but that’s a quarterly magazine so it won’t be out for a while. And AVweb kept me busy every week, reporting aviation news, plus podcasts and blogs. January’s blog topics were safety-related, looking at airbags for airplanes and the hazards posed by the proliferation of “met” towers that collect weather data to evaluate wind-turbine sites. For the podcasts, I interviewed Dan Johnson for a preview of the Sebring Light Sport Aviation Expo, and talked with Waco Aircraft CEO Peter Bowers about his company’s new biplane.
