Thanks to Twitter friend Dan Sleezer, I was made aware of a fantastic set of photos from Lost America on Flickr featuring an abandoned terminal set for demolition at San Francisco International Airport.  Check out the set here.

For those of you who know me, abandoned airfields are a particular passion of mine. I have always been intrigued with structures of the past that become disused, abandoned, and eventually gone for good. I frequent Paul Freemans "Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields" site and even contributed significantly to the listing there for Woodward Field in Le Roy, NY, near where I grew up.

I was quite possibly one of the few people that regularly visited the site of the former Nathaniel Hawthorne College in Antrim, NH.  Hawthorne was something of a "sister" school to my alma mater Daniel Webster College and closed in the late 90’s.  It was created around the same time in the 60’s as DWC. It had a flight program similar to DWC and was about the same size.  Even their administration building looked very much like Daniel Webster Hall.

All that’s left of the college now are some of the buildings reused as a meditation school — while other buildings are merely foundations.  In the case of the great library, it sits abandoned and completely gutted — ceiling falling in and windows broken. To me, the sight of the college in its current state gave me particular passion to make sure my college, Daniel Webster, would never succumb to a similar fate.

See a video tribute to Hawthorne here.

It may be sad to see abandoned places, but I seem to find a certain purpose in it. It reminds me that all things on the earth, including us, have limited time here.  We need to appreciate things while they are here and get the most out of that time we are here while we still can.

Brian Shaler seriously is the man!  Go to… www.MyMotivatr.com.

Thanks to JenniferWhitley on Twitter… I will have bad dreams for the next few days.  She came across this rather disturbing photo…

Yes, yes, that is a TRON suit on him.

And yes… that suit is WAY too tight for his, um, body. Thank God pilots don’t normally dress like this… and I feel sorry for the guy who rented the plane after him.

The Williams Grand Canyon News today reported on the possible move to bring the warbird collection of Hans Lauridsen’s from current storage areas around the the Phoenix area to permanently relocating to Williams, AZ as the Lauridsen Aviation Museum — just off the I-40 at the gateway to the Grand Canyon.

Don’t take my word for it, read the full story at this link.

Lauridsen has had problems with the City of Glendale in his original plans to house the museum and collection there.  As a result, a good number of his planes are spread around the Phoenix area.

It frustrates me because I look at places here in the valley where you’d think the tourist attraction value of an aircraft museum would hold some water with the city fathers, but it seems like they are way too concerned about pooling resources to become the next Scottsdale. Take for evidence Mesa’s Falcon Field, Glendale, or even Phoenix-Gateway-Mesa-Williams-blah-blah airport… None of these places care about the historic aircraft, but will bend over backwards for the very light jet crowd (is there a “crowd” yet?)

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