Happy Thanksgiving

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~ Thornton Wilder

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

Happy Thanksgiving from Guangzhou / Canton, China!

Dad / Geoff

Sychronicity

"A man who has a million dollars is as well off as if he were rich."
John J. Astor III

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

This post is a continuation of the trip I started discussing in Sun Dog's got Seoul.

FedEx puts us up in some very nice hotels - your Sheratons and your Hiltons and such. This is not so much because they love us and want us to have a nice time. It is more that they know that we are much more likely to get adequate rest and nutrition at the nicer places. This is especially true on the international trips I fly and is a direct reflection of an effort to 'protect the freight'. It is highly unlikely that they can replace me on a short notice basis since I may be the only pilot within 500 miles or so qualified to fly the jet to the next location. Protecting our 'Absolutely, Positively' reputation demands that we stay in establishments where we won't be woken by drunken brawls.

We landed, went through the customs rigmarole, loaded in the van and entered Seoul, South Korea's daunting traffic snarl for the hour or so ride to the Millenium Seoul Hilton. This Hilton is located in the center of Seoul, at the foot of historic Namsan Mountain, Home of the Seoul Tower. It is very near the Namdaemun Gate, a famous historical site. It is also a short bus ride from Itaewon street, a well known shopping, bar and restaurant district that butts up against the Yongsan US Army Post.

As, I say, we stay in a nice hotel, but normally we are on the lower floors where the lesser mortals breathe. I know, in general, that the upper floors of a hotel like the Hilton have some much nicer accommodations than I am used to - but I am pretty apathetic about it all. My requirements for a successful layover are a bed, a hot shower and a place to plug in the trusty ol' laptop.

When we checked in, the front desk staff had a surprise for us. We heard: "We are full today." Now, normally, these are words that strike fear, trepidation and hopelessness into the heart of your tired and oppressed professional aviator longing to sleep free.

Then we heard: "Except for a suite. You'll have your own room, but you'll share a common area. It's our nicest place! Will that be ok?"

Okeydoke, whatever. So, the bellman escorted us to our 'room'. First, we needed our plastic key to authorize the elevator to go the top floor. This piqued my interest. The second to the top floor in Millenium Seoul Hilton contains the "Business Lounge". The top floor holds the "Executive Lounge". The bellman then proceeded to escort us past the executive floor receptionist to the corner suite on the executive floor and open this door.

At this point, I must indulge in an aside to this story. Until very recently, I would have had to admit to not having your basic clue as to who or what a Swarovski is. I'm sure that I had seen more than one Swarovski crystal in my illicit past, but I remained apathetic - much like it took that stupid Devil wears Prada movie to penetrate my awareness that Prada was a brand name. I often get the strangest looks from my gorgeous wife and daughter when I admit to branding obtuseness such as this.

It is a fine example of synchronicity to experience exposure to the Swarovski brand name twice in such a small time frame.

Our suite as we walked into was purely and overwhelmingly "made with Swarovski elements." My first impression when entering this suite was to ask the bellman if there was a guest book somewhere. I wanted to know which heads of state and other such criminal elements had stood where I was standing. There were - I am not making this up - more square feet in this suite than in the house I am presently making mortgage payments on. Through the entry way, we turned right and climbed these stairs to see this 'Vista'.

At the bottom of the stairs are the small kitchen and the servant room areas for the hired help to doss their weary heads.

At the top of the stairs was this sitting area that I can think of no reasonable use for. It just connected my room which you can see straight ahead with my FO's room which is invisible behind this picture.

Standing in front of that couch, I looked over the rail to see this.

My room had Swarovski elements sewn everywhere.

There were two - count 'em - two bathrooms with Swarovski Crystal elements outlining the mirrors.

Finally, even the light fixtures had Swarovski Crystals spreading a cheery light throughout the room.

At this point, please go back and review my requirements for a good room. "A place to plug in my trusty laptop" brings a chuckle to my lips as I type this. For it was obvious that the sort of well-heeled VIP who normal stays in the executive bedroom of a suite of this opulence has no thought of laptop connectivity - he has people for that sort of thing. After looking for 10 minutes or so, I had to call Hotel services to come up and pull the cable out from behind the decorative desk and connect it to the hotel network. It was obvious that I was the first guest in many a moon who had asked for a laptop to be connected in that den of luxury.

As an aside, the sharp look of appraisal that the tech geek who performed this task gave me, said, very plainly, "What is a mug like you doing in this room?"

As a final observation, the potties serving this suite were the 'Cosmo Crappers' I have written of before.

With that observation, I remain,

Dad / Geoff

A Mystery, Continued

"We have not succeeded in answering all our questions. Indeed, we sometimes feel we have not completely answered any of them. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole new set of questions. In some ways we feel we are as confused as ever. But we think we are confused on a higher level and about more important things." Anonymous

Gentle Readers and Love Ones,

Back in February, I posted this. It was about my quest to learn more about Marine Private First Class Gilbert H. Whisler. PFC Whisler's name appears on the marble wall of the Arizona Memorial honoring the Marines and Sailors killed on the USS Arizona during the Pearl Harbor Attack - A Day that will live in Infamy.

If you have not read that post, please click the link before you continue reading here.

First, I have an issue to set straight. I was completely out to lunch on the derivation and beginnings of the name 'Whisler'. Our family name traces its origins to Switzerland where it was spelled 'Wïssler' with the cute little double dots over the 'i'. The name made it's way to the US before we won our independence and the progress of the spelling change went thus: Wïssler -> Whisler -> Whistler....or so says the voluminous research my uncle did before he passed on. While my intriguing story of the grandfatherly argument and fallout is compelling, I have no proof that it is correct. I apologize for misleading you.

The next thing to tell is that after reading my post, an old friend and frequent esteemed reader sent me this link to a fine short history called "Battleship Arizona's Marines at War" by Dick Camp. I ordered the book from Barnes and Noble and found some interesting things.

PFC Whisler was a member of the ship's golf team.

In the back in the appendices is a copy of the "Muster Roll of Marine Detachment Arizona, December 1941." Footnote "C" applies to PFC Whisler and 15 other Marines to include Lt Simensen and says: "At about 8 a.m. killed in action on board USS Arizona while engaged in repulsing Japanese Air Attack at Pearl Harbor. Remains interred at Red Hill Cemetery, Oahu." Most of the names of the Marine dead on the muster show a notation of Footnote "B" which is "Missing in Action."

The book gives a fine account and confirmation of the story I related in the previous post of Lt. Simensen's attempt to rally the troops. I hope and assume that PFC Whisler was in this party and died on his feet fighting.

He was interred in Grave #519 where I assume he remained until he was moved to the Punchbowl in 1949. Red Hill is an area on the east side of Pearl Harbor.

This is a very interesting book and if you can get a copy I highly recommend it to you.

Continuing my research, I googled "Bloomfield, Iowa + Whisler" to discover that the American Legion Post 078 in Bloomfield is called the "Reed Whisler Post". This intrigued me highly and I got the post's phone number and called them. The phone was answered by a friendly lady working in the bar. I introduced myself and told her that I was curious about where the name of the post came from and why.

She told me that it was named for the first Bloomfieldians to die in combat in both WWI and WWII and that there is a Bronze Plaque memorializing them. I then asked her if there were any books or documents there in the post that might give me more information. She gave me the phone number of a Retired Navy Chief Petty Officer who was a submariner in WWII. He was the local expert on WWII and the men who fought it from the Bloomfield area.

I called him, introducing myself again and what I was looking for. He was very helpful and owned a rare copy of a book called "WWII Gold Star Boys" that lists of all the men killed in that war from the state of Iowa. He photocopied the page that detailed PFC Whisler and sent a copy to me.

Please click the image to zoom in and read the text. You will see that PFC Whisler joined the Marines in September of 1940. He had been a Marine just a little over a year when he was killed in action.

I asked the CPO if he knew PFC Whisler. He answered that yes he did but not very well. That Gilbert was a delivery man for the local grocery and that was when he often saw him.

I also contacted the Bloomfield Democrat, the local paper. I talked to a nice but harried newspaper lady there who promised me a copy of PFC Whisler's obituary if she could find it. Since it has not arrived, I assume that a copy does not exist.

I hope that you find this as interesting as I found it. In any case, I remain,

Dad / Geoff

Ojigi

"How many things, both just and unjust, are sanctioned by custom!"
Terence

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

I have occasionally started this blog with the words: "I don't want this blog to become a political one", and then proceeded to start some mildly political screed. That bit of misdirection will continue today. It is my fervent hope that I always tie in some kind of travelogue / Gadabout connection in these things in the hopes that you will see things in a different light.

In any case, I have spent a great deal of my lifespan in Asia and the vast majority of that in the Republic of Japan, specifically on the island of Okinawa in my first assignment in the Air Force. Further, on a whim, I chose to take Japanese / Nihongo as my language my freshman year at USAFA. So, while I would not hold myself as a great expert on Japan and the Japanese culture, I think I have more than average experience in the place.

Bowing or Ojigi in Japan is pretty much the accepted greeting. It's also - like two dogs first meeting - a way to establish who is higher in the social order. (Bad visual image there...sorry!) Generally speaking, the lower the bow and the more obsequious looking you make yourself, the lower you are in relation to the one you are bowing to. And vicey versey.....

I long ago opted out of the competitive nature of bowing. I do bow while in Japan, but it is a gaijin bow - a quick nod of my head, but lower than an American nod of affirmation. Say quickly lowering your head so that you almost touch your chin to your chest and just as quickly returning to an erect stature. It's important to maintain eye contact throughout while doing this. It's the kind of response that says: "Hey! How you? I ain't a total rube here. I know you guys bow in greeting and I know there is a social measurement aspect to it all. I'll greet you, but I ain't playing the social games."

Seems to work for me.

In general in Japan, people ignore one another. Osekkai is the custom. I wrote about that here. I find myself making eye contact in Japan more often than most gaijins do. I am 6 and half feet tall and somewhat large. This attracts attention in Japan. So I find myself doing the gaijin bow greeting fairly often.

With all that setup, I give you this link to www.powerlineblog.com - a truly political blog.

Personally, I think our President would have been much better served by the gaijin bow. I suppose one could argue that the lower bow shows the modesty and virtue that is supposed to be a hallmark of this administration's "Hope and Change". I personally don't want my Chief Executive to lower himself or raise himself over the other elected leaders of the world's democracies. (Don't ask me what I think of bowing to an unelected tyrant......)

But that's just me.

With that, I remain,

Dad / Geoff

Hockey

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

Without really knowing why - I offer this University of Alaska Fairbanks hockey video. It is touted as being "The Most Awesome Thing Ever to Open a Hockey Game."

Remember Tremors? Sure you do. Now think ahead to Tremors 3: Back to Perfection. I gotta say....A Polar Bear with a hockey stick is a whole lot more frightening than an A** Blaster is.

I remain,

Dad / Geoff

Yokota Military Charter

"Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold."

Andre' Maurois

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

This is not so much a travelog as it is a family story. As I tell it, I find myself fighting to not drop into long tedious explanations of details. I hope you enjoy it.

In September, I picked up a military charter out of ‘Open Time.’ FedEx is part of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet and in this specific charter we had contracted to fly freight for the Air Force from Yokota Air Base, just south of Tokyo, Japan to Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska and then a short hop down to Elmendorf AFB on the northern outskirts of Anchorage, AK. As my son and daughter-in-law live on Yokota AB, I jumped at the chance to trade my boring old 'been there-done that' trans-Pacific trip for this military charter and a chance to visit them.

One of the bigger headaches in my job is the problem of how to commute to work to begin each trip. As I’ve mentioned before, I live in the Twin Cities of Minnesota but am ‘domiciled’ in Anchorage, AK. FedEx expects me to be on-site in Anchorage, well rested, nourished and ready to fly at the beginning of each trip. This usually involves two legs of jump seats on company airplanes and about a day of lead time. I spend about 10 hours sitting in a long aluminum tube just to get to and from work each direction every month.

This charter was different. For operational reasons I don’t understand, the company chose to have one crew fly the jet into Yokota to ‘position it’ for the charter. They bought them a plane ticket home to the states then they ‘positioned’ my crew by buying us tickets to Yokota from Anchorage. My contract allows me then to cancel those tickets and use the money to buy alternative tickets. As long as I show up in Yokota in time to be fully rested, ready to fly and within budget, I can get to Yokota however I wish.

When scheduling approved the swap, I immediately called George and Brook. This is much easier than it would have been a generation ago. You taxpayers and the USAF have paid for them to have a US phone number and it only costs the caller US long distance rates to call them.

I knew George was due to deploy to Kuwait and the Iraqi theater for 6 months. I hoped that this charter would get me there before he had to leave but I was out of luck and I missed him. Brook answered the phone.

Readers Digest used to have a “My Most Unforgettable Character” story each month. Brook would be high on my list of unforgettable characters. As her Dad once told me, there are only two kinds of people in the world for Brook: Friends and Friends she hasn’t met yet. I have always enjoyed being around her – she is never boring and one of my favorite people.

When I told her I was coming, she said: “Great, Daddy Geoff! Since George is gone, you can be my date for the Air Force Ball Saturday Night!”

Those of you who know me well know that this filled my being with a joy and a light – Not. I didn’t even like AF Balls when I was still in the Air Force. The Uniform of the Day for one these things is Mess Dress. Since I am officially a retired Air Force Officer, I am legal to wear the uniform and I actually have a Mess Dress that fits.

I have one that fits because I bought the thing for George and Brook’s wedding. One of the requirements of a Mess Dress uniform is the complete display of the wearer’s medals, ribbons and other devices. I am very proud that I served in the Air Force long enough to earn the right to wear command pilot wings. However, the rest of my ribbons and devices reflect my mediocre career. In 1986, I chose to transfer to the Training Command from Strategic Air Command because at the time, SAC pilots were only getting 15 hours a month of very boring flying whereas an instructor pilot in the training command was getting a lot of interesting and rewarding flying time.

This means that – much to my late mother’s relief – I have never heard a shot fired in anger and if I wear a uniform my awards reflect that I was a REMF. In this day and age with so many young heroes and heroines serving voluntarily in our armed forces, I don’t particularly like to advertise that.

Don’t get me wrong….in my career I had the opportunity to put my personal thumbprint on the flying skills over well over 500 student pilots. I like to think that I gave them some perspective that stood them well later in their flying careers and that is a source of pride to me.

In any case, I chose to pack my suit instead of my mess dress despite Brook’s pleading and off I went.

My commute on this trip was the best I’ve ever had since I started flying out of Anchorage. I checked in with Northwest / Delta Airlines at the Minneapolis Airport, deposited my aging carcass in a Business Class seat on a 747 and ate and drank my way across Canada and the Northern Pacific while watching movies, reading my book and fitfully dozing. All while getting paid. This is a good deal.

On the ground in Narita International, I cleared the Japanese Health Inspection and Customs inspection in record time and found my way to the bus counter run by the USO. For $20 American, I found myself on a bus directly to Yokota AB where Brook would pick me up.

I got off the bus about 10 pm Japan Time. We had expected to go out to dinner but I had not slept well on the plane and the two hour bus from Narita to Yokota so I disappointed her and went to bed and crashed. Sorry Brook.

The next day we had breakfast, walked the dogs and got caught up. After a nice lunch at a local Indian Restaurant, we went to Yokota Base Operations to try and figure out how I would get to the airplane the next morning. A mildly funny story ensued.

I am wearing shorts and a knit shirt. I borrowed George’s flip flops. Base Operations is literally only a few hundred yards from the kid’s house on base. We walked over. I introduce myself to the sergeant and his staff behind the desk and started asking how I would make my way onto the FedEx MD-11 parked just out the large windows looking out on the ramp. After some initial confusion while trying to decide I really am who I am, the staff is a great help. It helped that I had my retired AF ID card and my FedEx ID badge.

They put me in contact with Nori-san who is in charge of getting the military charter guys like me on and off the base. I introduce myself to Nori-san on the phone and he immediately jumps to conclusions:

“You are in the wrong place! You are supposed to go to the Palace Hotel in Tachikawa! How did you get on base?”

“Nori-san, I’m not in the wrong place and I’m not going to the hotel. My son lives on Yokota and I’m staying with him. I’m just trying to find out how to meet up with you in the morning so I can be escorted onto the flight line and out to the airplane.”

We go back and forth one or two times before I convince him that I really know what I’m doing and I have a place to sleep. We agree that he will pick me up in the morning in front of base operations at 0500.

After that Brook went to get her face professionally made for the ball and I took a combat nap and ironed my suit. She looked fabulous when she returned.

Brook has been taking Taiko Drum lessons and she had invited her sensei to go to the ball. At the appointed time, Takako-san shows up wearing the traditional kimono complete with tabi and obi. Shi is a very friendly person who speaks wonderful English. I’m 6’ 6” and Brooki-san is around 6’ herself while Takako-san is under 5’ tall and very Japanese. We made quite the trio.

There are more pictures of the ball at this link. Be sure to click it.

The air force had buses going around the base picking up Ball-goers so they wouldn’t have to drive to and from the Ball. This was a great thing. Brook chatted with her neighbors and friends during the short drive over to the base Theater where the Ball was held.

The buffet layout was wonderful and had some really great sushi. (No Basashi!) I had decided that I was not going to drink that evening because I did not want to put me, the Air Force or FedEx in the position of wondering if I had quit before the appointed 8 hours from ‘bottle to throttle.’ The rest of the ball goers were having a great time.

Brook introduced me to a million people. Like most military bases, Yokota has a relationship with the surrounding community. The brass was hob-nobbing with the local government officials. The Four-Star Pacific Air Forces Commander was the guest speaker but since I no longer have to listen raptly to General Officer's give speeches, I didn’t. I’m sure he was heart-broken.

There were a lot of Japanese locals and they were having fun.

I will admit to a moment of disorientation here. I spent 22 years in the Air Force and went to a million parties just like this one. Although I knew no one personally, these were all my kind of people and I felt at home. They were talking about things I am used to talking about and behaving in ways I understand. They were partying hard. It had been 15 years since I had been to a party like this but I felt like I had never left.

Then suddenly…I realized that they were my kids - I was literally old enough to be their Dad. I still enjoyed myself, but that was a very strange adjustment to make.

At this point, I’d like to discuss party/aloha shirts. This was just starting about the time I retired. A mess dress is a very formal uniform. But somewhere around 1000 all the big brass leaves and an Air Force Ball becomes more informal. Off come the jackets and the dancing starts in earnest. A lot of guys and gals have paid tailors to modify the backs and sleeves of their Mess Dress pleated shirts to have loud and personalized designs. The best one I saw that night was a Colonel who had a nice Harley design on the back of his shirt. I wish I had thought to take some pictures. This one is of George at his wedding.

The Ball broke up around 11 and I was in bed by midnight. FedEx alerted me at 0430 and Brook made me a nice cup of coffee and walked the 100 yards over to the pickup place with me. Nori-san showed up on time and I hugged Brook goodbye.

It was a nice visit.

The flight from Yokota to Alaska was boring in the extreme - just the way you want it to be. On the west coast of Alaska we deviated from the normal track into Anchorage and flew north of Mt McKinley / Denali into Eielson AFB.

I suppose if I had asked they would have told me the details of what I was hauling but I really didn’t want to know. Freight is Freight. I did hear we had some equipment for the Japan Air Self Defense Force which was coming to Alaska for an exercise.

There was a mild icing foofaraw at Eielson AFB. It started snowing around 10pm or about the time we were full reloaded, refueled and ready to start, taxi and take-off. We had to be airborne by 11 pm local or stay the night as the base closed. Initially the AF said it would take 50 minutes for the deice vehicles to get to us. When I asked where they wanted us to stay for the night, 50 minutes turned into 10.

We got down to Anchorage and Elemendorf AFB at about midnight. There were no flights home at that time of night, so I went to Ilona’s Bed and Breakfast, got up at 0700 and had enough money left in my travel bank to fly home on Northwest / Delta.

It was a good trip.

On that note, I remain,

Dad / Geoff

Zero Tolerance

"Actions are judged by their results, not by their intentions." Jean-Francois Revel

"To live is, in itself, a value judgment. To breathe is to judge." Albert Camus

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

I have often said here that I don’t want this to be a political blog. This entry will skirt the limits of that intention. I apologize in advance.

This article got me to thinking about flying, judgment and responsibility. Please click the link and familiarize yourself with it. It’s another story of Education and Zero-Tolerance run amuck. (Note, when I awoke this morning, I found this story has been overcome by events - the clue bird has landed on the school board. Still, I think I will post anyway.)

At present, I am sitting in the left seat of this MD-11. We are flying at 31000’ somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific, hauling 133 thousand pounds of freight from Osaka, Japan to Oakland, CA. Weighing in at a gross weight of 530,000 pounds of metal, plastic, freight, kerosene and pilots, we are cruising at .82 mach or 488 knots True Air Speed, with a tailwind of 120 knots. This means that effectively, after you account for the tailwind, we are traveling faster than the speed of sound over the waves below. Or, if you will, I am traveling about the same speed as 45 caliber pistol bullet but I’m a whole lot bigger.

On the other hand, this airplane is so automated that this is really just another milk run. The autopilot is on and connected to a set of cross-talking Flight Management Computers and maintaining my speed and altitude much more precisely than I could dream of doing. Through the Global Positioning Satellite system, we are maintaining a 95% statistically accurate position within 0.07 nautical miles of the required course. The Ground Proximity Warning System is armed and ready to tell ‘Bitchin’ Betty’ to scream at me if we should come in danger of hitting the ground. ‘Bitchin’ Betty’ is also watching the Hydraulic, Electrical, Pneumatic and Fuel systems and controlling their required parameters much more precisely than any Flight Engineer of times past could have hoped for.

I haven’t touched the controls in hours and the airplane really requires very little from me right at the moment.

But….I am most definitely not a passenger. I am the Pilot in Command and the Captain. If something goes wrong and I do not correct it, it will be my fault and no one else’s. My whole point of existing right at this moment is to sit above all the automation, all the organization and agencies on the ground that exist to keep me safe and watch it all. There are voluminous books that tell me how to do this and every 6 months I get classroom training and a check ride to prove that I am familiar with it all.

That familiarity includes this line in the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs): “There shall be no deviations from applicable FARs or FAA Operations Specifications unless an exemption or deviation is approved by the FAA.”

Sounds like Zero Tolerance doesn’t it? But the next line is: “However, no policy or regulation shall be interpreted as a substitute for the exercise of sound judgment.”

So there you have it. It's my job to follow the rules unless the rules are wrong - in which case I'm expected to violate the rules. Said another way, my job is to step in and prevent buffoonery. I get paid a lot of money for this....and I don't know that I am all that special. Most of my gentle readers have jobs that require the application of judgment.

Tying this back to the news article: School boards and school principals also get paid a lot of money to prevent buffoonery.

I think back to Mrs. Britton, my First Grade Teacher in 1960. Had she perceived a danger from me taking my multi-tooled Boy Scout knife to school – I had one too, boy was it cool! - and using it to eat, she would have handled it thus:

“Hi, Geoff, that’s a nice looking knife you have there. May I see it please?”

(Little Geoff would be a nervous wreck at this point, Mrs. Britton had him cowed.)

“I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to it. I’ll keep it for you.”

(Little Geoff could no more say ‘no’ than fly.)

She would have either given it back to me at the end of the school day and told me to leave it home in the future or called my folks and asked them to come get it some time. Her choice would have depended on how she viewed the ‘danger’ of me having it.

Problem solved.

Instead, the kid in the news article gets a 45 day suspension and gets sent to reform school?

"Say whut?", Geoff asks, sarcastically.

I do not understand Zero Tolerance but I am firmly of this opinion: we taxpayers pay school officials pretty good bucks to administrate our kid’s education. If you have made the effort to get the PhD in Education and "paid the dues' to get the experience required to become a school administrator, why in the world would you want to give up your authority and experience and pay obeisance to some Zero Tolerance rulebook?

It’s just a matter of time until a knuckle-dragger like me stands up in a School-Board meeting and asks: “If you educators have an all-encompassing rulebook that knows all and sees all, why do we need you? Why don’t we get rid you and your payroll and just pay some dumb flunky to read the book and do what it says?”

I can’t wait to see that townhall video on Youtube.

On that happy note, I remain,

Dad / Geoff

p.s. I see that the School Board thought about this and reversed their ruling. They were idiots for putting themselves in the public eye in the first place.

p.p.s. Make sure you click the first 'Bitchin' Betty' link. I never knew what she looked like until I researched this.