OCR Text |
Show Wed/Thurs/Fri, November 2-4, 2005 The Park Record A-18 Fine Cigars and Accessories for Wine and Spirits - weekly wine tasting school - cooling & racking systems -stemware, cork screAS, decanters, etc -shakers, bar tools - flasks & botta bags - ice buckets - liquor pourers - ice tongs / bar spoons - f i n e cigars - humidors 1400 Snow Creek Dr. (Dan's Shopping Center off Hwy 224) Park City, Utah 435.655.WINE (9463) www.theartofwine.biz theartofwine@bigplanet.com g o - lighters -cutters -ashtrays forvour 110016 Air controllers: duty almost like a game By MATTHEW D. LAPLANTE MediaNcws Group Wire Service Balad, Iraq - It's a game, of sorts. The blips, lines and dots pop onto the screen in shades of orange. She needs to turn the symbols green. Fast. Her fingers dance on the keyboard, leap to the screen and then back down again. She ruffles through a thick packet of papers - numbers upon numbers, each part of the puzzle. It could be fun, were the stakes not so high. Even' minute, every day, airmen from the 729th Air Control Squadron are in this cramped, frigid black box. eyes fixed on dark screens, identifying and directing traffic in the skies over Iraq. Each symbol on Jami Theiss1 screen represents a passenger plane, military jet. helicopter or unmanned aerial vehicle that has been picked up by U.S. radar. Theiss and her fellow airmen, all from Utah's Hill Air Force Base, are charged with figuring out which is which. There is some room for error, but not much. This is a war, after all. Take the week of Oct 2, for instance. The United Arab Emirates Air Force was bringing in ballots for the Oct. 15 referendum. But someone didn'l file the flight plan, so the air controllers in Balad had no idea who or what was in the plane fast approaching Baghdad, said John Palmer, one of the supervising con- trollers. "We can usually see what the aircraft are," Palmer said, his fingers dancing from blip to blip, all over the screen. "We look at the flight profile." The speed and altitude of the unknown radar "acquisition" indicated it was a cargo aircraft, but it look coordination with dozens of others - including a few fighter pilots sent to greet the mystery plane - to figure out what it was. Luckily, airmen joke, no one needed to be shot down. "Talk about a catastrophe of national politics," said Palmer. Palmers just getting comfortable in his scat - "getting into the groove of things," he says - when Theiss1 two-hour shift ends. She and fellow airman Kora Margurite duck out of the control center, an inconspicuous piece of machinery hidden between 16-foot concrete barriers, and into the midday heat. Today was a good day, Theiss says. "On other days, when you have tons and tons of aircraft, it's exhausting." Hence the two-hour shifts. Controllers do only two a day. "On busy days," Theiss says. "Two hours straight is a long time." The simulators used at Hill to train young airmen for their roles in Iraq are quite realistic. The green and orange symbols on their computer screens dart about - not the toughest thing to duplicate. Airmen in this squadron say they PHOTO COURTESY OF MEOIANEWS GROUP WIRE SERVICE Airwoman Jami Theiss, of the 729th Air Control Squadron, keeps tabs on incoming air traffic on her computer screen. transferred quite comfortably into their wartime roles when they arrived here last month. There wasn't much they hadn't seen before. "But when you know it's training, you know it's just fake," Theiss says. "You get out here and you go, 'Whoa, these are real aircraft.' 41 Back in the black box that is their control center. Palmer is jabbing his fingers into the touch screen, gabbing on the radio and maintaining two or three conversations on an online messenger program. A smile crosses Palmer's lips .as Tara Weisflock asks whether he has noticed the new acquisition that has crossed into Iraqi airspace. "I'm 99 percent sure he's a Navy guy." Palmer says. "We'll keep an eye on him." The game continues. And so long as he can stay on top of it, Palmer is happy. "Why would you want to practice and never play?" he asks. "You'd be hard-pressed not to be excited about this." New 2007 time change poses problems CHRISTINE'S HOMI 1 T O H Kitchen | Furniture | Lamps | Rugs | End Tables | Accessories 3126 Quarry Road, Suite A in Park City 1435-649-8981 By KRIS WISE MedinNews Group Wire Service People struggling today to gel used to the switch from daylightsaving to standard time shouldn't get too comfortable with the current schedule. After three decades of falling back in October and springing forward in April, the dates for daylight-saving time will change again in 2007. A provision in Congress' energy bill that passed this summer lengthens daylight-saving time by more than four weeks in 2007. That year people will have to bump the clocks ahead three weeks earlier than usual, on March 11, and push them back a week later on Nov. 2. The change is supposed to save the nation billions of dollars on energy costs, but it doesn't come without some worries about how the time change will affeel people and businesses. "A lot of kids are going to be standing out in the dark at the bus slop for a few weeks," said Richard Bajura, executive director of the West Virginia University Research Center for Coal and Energy. The controversial change in daylight-saving time, which has had its fair share of critics for decades anyway, is expected to create at least a few logistical hang-ups. Computers and other electronic equipment such as phones, television sets and recording devices that are programmed to automatically update the time won't keep up with the change. Some probably just won't show the correct time, and others will have to be reprogrammed. For certain groups of people, the potential mechanical mishaps are the least of their concerns. The airline industry fought the daylight-saving extension, arguing it will cost money and create confu- sion due to mass changes in the scheduling of international and cross-country flights. Farmers have said the time change will mess up livestock feeding schedules and will cut down on the amount of earlymorning sunlight farm crews need to work. In many places around the country, after the first change occurs in March 2007 the sun won't rise until about 8 a.m. or later during those last weeks of winter. "I think the philosophy behind it has not changed, and that's still a good thing." Bajura said. "But I don't think this is going to solve all our problems with energy use, and I think a major concern has to be what this is going to do to schoolchildren and to the morning commute." Supporters of the energy bill and the time change contend it will save 100,000 barrels of oil a day because people in homes and businesses will be turning lights on later in the day. But the entire energy bill created major controversy between lawmakers in Washington, many who said the measure was chock full of bonuses for energy companies while providing little aid to financially strapped consumers. For much of the public, the coming change to daylight-saving time seems to have passed without much notice. "I think of lot of people weren't paying attention," Bajura said. "It wasn't that big a point of debate, and it's really under the radar. But it's not that far away." The daylight-saving time schedule remains the same next year, with clocks springing ahead on the first Sunday in April and backward on the last Sunday in October. Starting in 2007, clocks will be set one hour ahead on the second Sunday in March and one hour behind on the first Sunday in November. HOW CAN I ADD INTERNATIONAL FLAIR, AND SIMPLE aecANce TO My LIVING PvOOM AND DININC ROOM? JID6B0XM) $699 reg $799 DIN1NC TABLE $699 $849 DININCCHAIP. $149 reg $229 END TABLE $99 reg $129 COFFEE TABLE leather & iron bar stool $249 $99 reg $289 A ^pptthose in-between yearM$P^5) when you're on j «'afcoiit oneihing in life: getting the most skiing andridingfor! ^latst amount of money-D'oft^eventiink, about it. Ski and ride \ / 0 ^' I Th C i ^ "' TAKE A LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION, MADE OF HAND-FINISHED ROSEWOOD, AT MOUNTAIN TIMBER Oh, AND LOOK IT'S ON SALE! MOUNTAIN TIM5ER Op cn a ur a Mondaij - 5 t "d y 9<*)O a.m. t o ^:OO p.m. . *" • W V ' " - • • Renewal pnrts arc offered to any ScasonPto tqlcfci$i&fc(USeason PassatTfic Canwftlis in the 2004 2005 season. reg. $149 |n the Wal-Mart 5 no pping Qj. ^FURNISHINGS ... |tJs tne >\nswer |