"Coffee Bean" appears on ReMARKable Palate Podcast

Shane's jazz tune "Coffee Bean" will be featured on the ReMARKable Palate Podcast episode #63 for November 1st, 2006, featuring Executive Chef of The Guilded Fork, Chef Mark C. Tafoya, out of New York City.

Thanks for the play, Chef Tafoya! Great podcast!

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music, podcast, promotion, creative commons, licensing, jazz

Accepted: Pump Audio Catalog

Nearly all of Shane's entire catalog of instrumental music (recorded since 1993) has been accepted by Pump Audio, LCC and offered in their music licensing catalog.

Hopefully, you'll hear some of these tunes soon in movies, commercials, television, games, answering systems, environmental sound systems, etc.

PSN listener comments on "Feline Demise"

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A few PSN listeners have emailed some really nice comments to Big Al Wagner and Mike Big Honey" Bolan over at Project Studio Network regarding their review of my tune, Feline Demise, in Show #39.

In Show #40 at 34:30, Dave Criddle from Home Recording Odyssey sent some nice comments and an appropriate criticism regarding the lack of a strong bass instrument in the tune:

"Hey, tell Shane Hendricks I really enjoyed his song. Like a strange siren, I kept being drawn to it. I actually rewound and listened to it three times."

In Show #41 at 39:24, Nick Dodson had some really nice comments too:

"Not only were there Zappa-esque allusions, but there's also references to Captain Beefheart."

"Penguin" appears on Dorm Room Daily

The Dorm Room Daily podcast entitled Wiped-Out Wednesday featured the tune "Penguin With A Ruler" at 6:23 into the podcast.

Thanks Sir William for the play!

"Sing Me" appears on 2 podcasts

Shane's jazz tune Sing Me My Breakfast was featured on Career Mom Radio Episode 9 out of the United Kingdom.

The tune was also featured on Pirates Week for 10/15/06.

Thanks for the support!

Shane gets a mention on IHR

Inside Home Recording's Neat links for October 12:

Derek from Inside Home Recording makes a mention of the Feline Demise review that appeared on PSN Show #39.

Now on Podsafe Music Network

Shane has posted 24 old and new tunes and licensed them for use in podcasts or other legitimate, legal uses under a Creative Commons license.

As a matter of fact, all original music posted on the Internet (under the names Sonic Deviant, Shane Hendricks, etc.) is hereby licensed under the Creative Commons 2.5 license listed below; all music is freely useable and distributable in accordance with the license. Have fun and enjoy the fruits of my labor!

These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License.

Featured on X-Pat Podcast!

Shane's older tune East Wind Blows West was featured in episode 58 on the X-Pat Radio podcast via podshow.com. This happened within hours of posting the music, so thanks X-Pat!

PSN reviews "Feline Demise"

Project Studio Network Podcast #39:

Shane's tune, Feline Demise (from the upcoming CD Transduction Euphony), is reviewed by the guys at the Project Studio Network podcast in Show #39. The review is located at 39:36, but you'll want to catch all the other great information within the podcast if you're a home recording enthusiast.

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Web Presence updated!

Be sure to check the changes to all the sites on the web, starting with sonicdeviant.com. My Space has been updated as well. The changes are in anticipation of finishing my next CD, Transduction Euphony.

I'm working hard on the next CD, but grad school takes precedence most of the time. I've posted some of the tunes from the forthcoming project at the sites listed above. Also, check out the awesome video Leo Alves Vieira put together for Mutation p53.

Avid sucking up everything musical

Macworld UK - Avid buys Sibelius for $23 million:

Macworld Daily News

Wednesday - August 02, 2006

Avid buys Sibelius for $23 million

By Macworld staff

Avid Technology has acquired London-based company Sibelius Software in a $23 million deal.

Sibelius makes music notation software that is widely used by musicians for movies and songs and by scho.

Avid Technology now owns Digidesign (ahem...ProTools), M-Audio (midi controllers and other music hardware/software), and now Sibelius (a top notation program). I fear companies that become too monopolistic.

Inside Home Recording

I've been meaning to send folks over to visit my friends Paul Garay and Derek K. Miller of Inside Home Recording. They're running a nice blog and podcast that I found whilst perusing the iTunes catalog one day, looking for podcasts to consume for an upcoming long road trip. The discussion forum is here, there's some great fickr content, and there are many RSS feeds with which you can cram your newsreader.

They not only review new gear but also provide useful tips and techniques vital to us home recording and project studio nuts. Go check 'em out.

Pump Audio - Amateur film composing

Pump Audio | Welcome: This seems like a great new site to check out. Amateur composers and musicians can license their work for use in amateur film!

Lot's going on...(Rubenstein review)

I've revamped the web site quite a bit. I'm trying to decentralize as much as possible to allow easier maintenance of the site; for example, I've started moving my links to del.icio.us to allow me to share and update them easier, and I've started hosting my images at .Mac (also allows easier updating). News will now be mostly through this blog and on myspace: Neil Haverstick and other guitarists from around myspace and kronosonic posted some nice comments over at my myspace site.

I met a bunch of great guitarists, musicians, composers, and artists over at Kronosonic at the invitation of friend and experimentalist Dan Stearns.

I also finally met Ken Rubenstein, a terrific experimental guitarist who has been around for years. I bought his CD, Invert and Transcend, and decided to write a review of it for CDBaby:

Ken is a pioneer in the genre that many of us have only recently come to know--that of experimentalism, especially as it relates to the beloved, popular stringed instrument we all adore--the guitar. Experimental music is not wholly constituted of just random noise (though that sort of aleatoric music has its rightful, valid position in the realm of experimentalism); Ken (and a few others like him in this relatively young anti-genre) has shown that such music takes talent, skill, and courage. They are treading sonic ground where no one else has dared walk for fear of being misunderstood or outcast. Unlike the "others" in the music industry that popular culture tries to cram down our throats as currency in art, Ken and his ilk are the REAL pioneers--the REAL artists. They should be on the cover of Rolling Stone--not the latest Brittany Spears reject (or whatever corporate invention happens to be popular at the time)."Invert and Transcend" offers a rich treasure from the first to the last cut. Unlike some experimental music that can be tremendously dissonant and sonically overbearing, this CD is acoustically painted and very approachable for the casual listener, as well as for the trained musician. At times sounding similar to Michael Hedges and at others undefinable, this work is a watershed auditory experiment. Ken has chops that any guitar nut will appreciate, but the music is the star here--his technique is tastefully employed only as a tool to relate the story.

Ken breaks the listener in easily with a short acoustic intro tune called "Yudawee Sang With Love and Joy." The song features some very nice guitar synth embellishments and short bursts of fat, distorted guitar.

"Smallest Words" opens with a nice, chirping koto motif, interwoven between the left and right channels. Then there is an abrupt segue into the acoustic guitar introduction, followed by powerful, conjoining bass and drums. A real treat awaits the listener, as soprano Wendy Parker beautifully sings the unique melody line. Ken likes odd meters, and you'll hear plenty of that here and throughout the album. This number reminds me a bit of Steve Morse from "High Tension Wires." The song is full of changes and turns, so there's no chance of boredom setting in.

The next cut is "Xin Gap Lan." Soft, droning, flute-like synths lead into a very beautiful, arpeggiated acoustic flurry. The material is very rich, flowing, and extremely non-repetitive. Ken sucks you in and takes you on a journey of texture and variation. Interspersed throughout the beautiful tune is an unintelligible spoken word track, and a tastefully delayed horn solo (possibly created via guitar synth).

One of my favorites is "A Man Called Whores / You're All Whores / Lost In All That I'm Not." Here, the listener is taken through more adventurous territory. The opening lines, spoken in Arabic by Ameer, set the tone for the tune, which has a very Eastern ethnic feel, with incredible string lines, odd rhythms, and snapping drum corps snare lines. The spoken Arabic at the front of the tune has an extremely rhythmic, almost argumentative cadence that defines the bedlam to follow. Then there is a chaotic, bizarre interlude of atonal bliss, which rounds back into less dissonant territory toward the end, revisiting the sweet singing of Wendy Parker.

"A Song for Paul" opens with spoken exclamations of terminal drug-induced delirium (I'm assuming of "Paul") and cascading acoustic guitar work. The tune is thick with ambience and underlying busy fretwork, and the rhythm section is spectacular, as it is throughout the recording. There is a very cool upward glissando appearing throughout the tune that translates the emotional richness of this work.

"Broms" is an excellent atonal acoustic piece with some gorgeous Metheny-esque guitar synth lines. At the top of the tune, doubled guitar and synth phrases busily duck and dodge (in pulses of 8) around a quickly paced bass line. A short middle section here encapsulates remarkable guitar synth solo work.

"Lament for St. Thomas of Cantebury" is a nice horn and string arrangement, full of interesting counterpoint. "Invert and Transcend" is another of my favorites on the CD. Here, as in other places on the CD, there is little in the way of static, reappearing ideas; Ken is constantly moving, cascading, driving, and flowing from place to place--rhythmically and melodically, asking us to come with him. Miss Parker's singing talents reappear again on this piece, with an unusual melodic line, and provide a transition into a rapid, tasteful ethnic guitar passage.

"Woe Be Unto Thy Tangible Soul Who Cares Not What's At The End of the Pole As Long As He Fills Your Tight Black Hole" may be one of the longest (and most tongue-in-cheek) titles ever dreamed into existence by an artist, but the musical ideas contained within betray the covert Freudian humor of the song's moniker. More pleasing, pulsing, masterfully composed and performed acoustic guitar, synth, bass, and drums are found within the left and right bookends of the piece. By this point, the listener wonders if Ken will run out of ideas. The music is experienced with a belief that he certainly is conjuring it all at will. Midway through the approximately six-minute work is a staggering, traipsing guitar breakdown, replete with wailful string lines.

The last piece, "Beatrice Foley (for Charles Rosenberg)," is a short, mournful, slow work that initially starts with lightly tinkling piano lines, which, at first, seem to be trying to convey a melancholy narrative. Joining in toward the end are interesting synth bloops and, possibly, a guitar lightly feeding back in the background. A nice, soft, cushiony ending to a terrific project.

Ken is one of the great talents and pioneers of experimental music and guitar--a new realm of musical exploration also championed by such great artists as Neil Haverstick and Dan Stearns. This album is a must-have if you're sick of the "popular garbage" or "wannabe popular garbage" that pervades most Western music. As a matter of fact, just check out kronosonic.com to meet the REAL undiscovered talents of creative guitar and experimental music and art. These are the guys I look up to musically; they're real, talented, approachable, and nice folks too. Ken and others like him are the patriarchs of this genre--this anti-genre.

Now on myspace.com

Be sure to check out:

http://www.myspace.com/sonicdeviant

Two new songs are on there from the upcoming album! Have fun...

New Songs Added on Download.com

I’ve added a few new songs to CNET for download: http://music.download.com/sonicdeviant

Crappy Products
Jemistry

More to come as my new album is finished...tentatively titled Transduction Euphony.

Enjoy.

Unga Bunga - Thirteen

There was once the dreaded 16 Semester Hours of the undergraduate days, but this stint of 13 graduate hours, though somewhat shorter, was as tough or more so, given a 10-year college hiatus. In my insanity, I--for some reason unknown to myself--took Organic Chemistry, Genetics, Organizational Behavior, and Infectious Disease Epidemiology. So I’m basically a crack smoker. After a week or so of organic, I visited my graduate committee and respectfully beg--uh--asked if I could change course and go with more of a management focus. In other words, can I please drop the organic chemistry--sniff, sniff, whimper? Their sadistic responses amounted to saying, “Shut the whining and get on with it.” They were right. I was wrong. I made it through and appear primed to go all the way in the realm of biochemistry and molecular biology. I actually find chemistry, including organic chemistry, fascinating, but the Brainiac from the Planet Krypton who was teaching it--we’ll call him Dr. X--made it very intimidating. I learned and understood a lot, but there’s so much more I don’t understand. Stereochemistry is the devil.

But I also gave myself a break. I opted (whimped out) and decided on the non-thesis option. None of our ideas were really panning out towards a workable project, so I’m instead writing up a mishmash of special problems--molecular techniques comparison, bioterrorism, and a molecular CBT for med techs. I’m still sticking with my plan--a mix of science and management. The science foci will still be in molecular biology and related areas. No matter what, I will ultimately be an administrator, so I must keep myself immersed in this area. It doesn’t pay to ignore it.

On the music front, during the break I’ve been working on a project planned for nearly two years. My life seems measured by completed audio projects. Around 6 songs are semi-finished except for mastering. Many more are laying around on the hard drive much like parts of a thalidomide baby--maybe an arm, leg, or head--but lacking the entire body. I’ve found I’m not as efficient when I work on too many things at once. It’s better that I take one piece at a time, so I’m going to head back to that after this project. Sometimes it’s hard because of all the ideas swimming around in the noggin’. The real problem now is time. Quality and options abound because of my trusty Macs and software, but there’s not enough time with the strains and demands of adulthood and fatherhood ever present.

The year has been hell. In just over a year, I went to Iraq in the middle of the Sunni Triangle (where I was mortared just about daily); lost my Dad; flew home for two weeks and then back to Iraq to finish my deployment; finished in North Carolina and moved here; lost my Mom (back to NC to take care of her arrangements); came back here and experienced the wrath of Katrina; and then went through a semester of academic torture. Other than that life is great.

USM and a decision

I made it down to Mississippi and met with the Medical Technology Department Chair, Dr. Jane Hudson, of the College of Health at the University of Southern Mississippi. We discussed a few potential plans of graduate study for me. One plan has me taking classes that are more closely aligned to laboratory management--mostly management courses with a few science courses thrown in and a thesis or several academically-documented projects related to molecular microbiology or bioterrorism. The other route has me going through a more intensive scientific plan of study, which will unfortunately require me to go back and at least audit undergraduate organic chemistry and genetics (I didn't get these courses in my undergraduate study). This way I could get biochemistry and then molecular biology; I could choose or not to do the thesis, but I really want to get the experience of higher level graduate writing with the added defense requirement. I have no idea if I'll go on and seek a Ph.D. currently.

I've spent time visiting with old friends in MS; we've had a great visit. I played tennis here with buddies who've advanced tremendously in their playing abilities since I lived here, but I managed to hold my own. I had a lesson with my first tennis teacher, Torbjorn Fasth. Tomorrow we head off to Myrtle Beach for a short weekend before returning home in NC. We have only a short few months before we make our move to MS. I'll have around one month to settle in at our new residence before starting school. It's only a matter of time now before I launch into full-time graduate study.

Stick Man and Dan

I just received a terrific CD, Stick Man, from a good friend of mine, guitarist Neil Haverstick, out in Colorado. One of the many tremendous attributes setting Neil apart from the ocean of competent, fervid guitarists out there is his use of microtones. Neil doesn't typically dabble in the ubiquitous 12-tone realm that most of the rest of us are trapped in; he takes an octave and, instead of dividing it evenly into 12 steps as is the prosaic Western way, he splits it into 19 or 34 equal divisions--hence the label microtones. The resulting music can be very challenging to the banal, jaded listener unwilling to tramp unfamiliar, enigmatic sonic ground. This music can sound out of tune, even to the most highly-trained, educated musician fancying herself tolerant of new or different things.

I'm personally not so jaded in my own listening that I find his non-12-tone music offensive to the ears. Actually, I find it quite refreshing, and I find his exuberance and enthusiasm in its perpetuation and promotion inspirational. I've also read his book, The Form of No Forms, and found it a staggering instructional tool, advancing a new way of learning to understand, compose, and play music. Come to think of it, being the eclectic composer and artist he is, all of Neil's CDs are terrific listening digressions into tasteful, exceptional experimentalism. I've been a fan of his since 1993, and I first read about him when his music was reviewed in Mike Varney's Spotlight column in the December 1985 issue of Guitar Player magazine. At that point I had been playing guitar not even one year, but I remembered how cool he looked holding his ES-335 with the Yin-Yang emblem prominently adhered to the guitar's body; Neil was no posing shredder like the other chaps in Varney's column, trying to convince the magazine's readership he was the next incarnation of Yngwie Malmsteen--all the rage back in those days. It was that review that led me 7 years later to contact Neil and purchase his book, The Form of No Forms. From there we became friends, exchanging our latest projects and occasionally phoning and emailing each other. Since that 1985 review, Neil has appeared in numerous magazine reviews, has played with many prominent, renowned musicians, and has been praised by many of the same. He's among those I count as a musical influence.

Neil introduced me to another master experimentalist named Dan Stearns, who likewise has been honored by many of the same publications that wrote about Neil. I could use many of the same encomiums I listed above and apply them to Dan without inaccuracy. He's just a plain nice guy with extreme loads of talent. Dan plays a fretless guitar and invents his own forms of musical notation to address the microtonal systems he employs. Another really cool thing about Dan is his use of polyrhythms, which is another realm of modern music that can confound all but the most adventurous auditory spirits. Frank Zappa and Steve Vai, two of my other influences, are (in the case of Frank--were) huge proponents of polyrhythms, where you apportion base elements of one meter into odd tuplets ad infinitum. Dividing a quarter note from 3/4 time into 5 sixteenth notes with the last sixteenth further subdivided into 3 thirty-second notes would be a sample polyrhythmic occurrence. Clearly all but the most technically talented of us can conceive and, much less, accurately play such forms, but Dan can do this stuff blind-folded. His guitar playing sounds almost computer-like in its virtuosic, accurate rhythmic interpretation of these fast tuplets. He's got chops for days. I'm lucky; Neil and Dan are two guys I know personally who just happen to be big influences on my own music and my life. I think other guitarists would benefit by adding them both to their influences list.

So if you're interested in discovering some great, oft overlooked musical giants, visit Dan's and Neil's sites. Read about them and buy some of their music. Support them because they're the real pioneers out there. They're the Lewis and Clark of 21st Century guitar playing. These guys are doing it for the art...not to be the next pop sensation.

Acceptance and Vomit

Great things can transpire in the same week. A few weeks ago, I finally heard from my preferred grad school that my application was accepted. So now what do I do? I have to actually act like a graduate student--a scientist/researcher wanna-be. This could be interesting. My hope, of course, is that I will maintain the required 3 GPA to retain my funding and academic stature. I've been told by those who've trudged the path before me that grad school mostly amounts to perseverance, discipline, and organization; it has less to do with brain power. This gives me optimism, though I'm certain some amount of intelligence is required. That stupid GRE proved it. Man, I sucked at the GRE. Clearly I can't think my way out of a paper bag at hypersonic speeds; I need increased time and clambering to get to the same place others will easily reach in an ephemeral time. So is this acceptance a blessing or a hex?

Somewhere along the same timeline of the acceptance news (and speaking of hypersonic), I was given the opportunity to fly in the back seat of an F-15E Strike Eagle. This is a twin-engine jet fighter with more than adequate horsepower to elicit the loosening of various digestive sphincters, which keep stomach juices and contents in their proper places. I was given some initial training, to include instruction in the so-called G straining maneuver, which is the way you should tense up your lower body and breathe while under the affect of positive G forces. I had to go through a miniature flight physical and get fitted for my flight suit, G suit, and body harness. Other training topics included means for emergency egress, both in the air and on the ground; egress simply refers to exiting the aircraft in a hurry, so I was somewhat alarmed to learn how to eject my seat and collapse my body upon landing, after floating to the ground on the end of a parachute.

So there I was--the guy who doesn't partake of roller-coasters, bungie-jumping, sky diving, rock climbing, or any of the other various X-game type behaviors--walking out to row Juliet among a multitude of fighters, where my F-15 and its maintenance crew awaited. They took time to tether me securely to the airframe: first, my seat kit; next my lap belt; followed by my shoulder harness straps; then my G suit connection; and finally my oxygen connector and radio connections for my helmet. My assigned pilot, Sparky, was a very nice chap and took it easy on me, but there's no real tranquil way to fly in an F-15. Even though the take-off, flight, and landing can be conducted in the same manner as a commercial airframe in terms of speed, altitude, and turning, the fact that one can easily view anything 360 degrees in any direction through a transparent canopy really forces one to come to grips with what's actually happening; our dispatch, though no more remarkable in speed or maneuver from a Delta Airlines flight, was quite exhilarating and simultaneously terrifying, as I was forced to actually notice our extreme acceleration when the landscape turned into a blur-scape and the jet pulled up and away. Our jet's mission call-sign for radio purposes was DIME 41.

Once airborne, things felt fairly normal (as normal as they can in a fighter jet), as we made our way to our assigned mission airspace, where we would be free to perform some "aerial acrobatics". Our sortie was part of a two-ship formation, so Sparky, being the lead pilot, demonstrated various ways he could communicate intentions to our sister F-15, DIME 42, (the pilot's handle was Sloppy) by merely jiggling his wings a certain way. This is quite a weird feeling too, as one never feels this sensation on a commercial flight unless something is very wrong. I thought to myself this is a portent. Sparky shook his wings side-to-side and Sloppy obediently maneuvered his F-15 from our right side, went under us, and came up on our left side. Another neat aspect of this trip was just observing the other jet get close enough to see and wave to the other two fellows inside it; I felt almost as if I could jump right into their jet, though one should obviously take that only for illustrative purposes.

Finally the time came when we had arrived at our airspace and Sparky asked, "So Shane, are you ready to try some Gs?" My reply was a weak and tepid, "I guess so." He instantly banked abruptly right and accelerated, and I felt my first positive G-force--a weak 2 G turn (my body felt twice as heavy as normal), which for me might as well have been a 9 G turn. As we came out of it, Sparky asked, "How was that?" "Uh...okay I guess." I felt myself becoming squeamish. The turn, even with the G suit and G straining maneuver, made my lips and skin tingle. Then a hard bank left into a slightly stronger 3 G turn. My body was suddenly three times it's normal weight, and my lips and skin went numb for a second. I immediately opened up my airsick bag, unlatched my oxygen mask, and proceeded to dry heave a few times. "I'm not doing too well with those Gs," I told my pilot in a feeble voice. "Okay," he replied. "We'll just fly straight and level for a while." I'm such a wimp.

At around this time, Sparky gave me the stick saying, "You've got the airplane." I wiggled the stick as he had instructed me before the flight and replied, "I've got the plane." He had explained before our sortie that there was nothing I could do to hurt us or the plane by taking the stick, but I found myself just gently banking the plane, first right then left. The whole time the nose of the jet was rising, and Sparky told me, "Dude...we're climbing outside of our ceiling. Nose it down a bit." I pushed down on the stick minutely but sharply, and the jet dove quickly down a story or two and took my stomach with it. I couldn't believe how responsive it was. Sparky told me the jet would literally respond to exactly how I manipulated the stick. Jerk it sharply left and that's what will happen to the jet. Push forward and to the right and you perform a diving right turn. What a sickeningly good time.

After a time, Sparky made another suggestion. "At this altitude, you really don't get a good idea of how fast we're going. Let's drop down to cloud level and get a reference point for you to look at." That day we were flying at a ceiling of 18,000 feet. Below us was a nice, fluffy blanket of clouds extending from horizon to horizon, and above us was pure blue sky. After a few seconds we had gently descended down to the clouds, and I noticed them begin to zing by at a rather high rate of speed. He was right; a reference point definitely clarified things. "We're going about 215 mph right now," explained Sparky. "Let's punch it up a little bit." He hit whatever knob, button, or lever that controls the throttle, and two seconds later he said, "400," meaning 400 mph--in just two seconds! Then he said, "afterburners," and two additional seconds later our airspeed was up around 600 mph as the afterburners kicked in. So in a mere four seconds we had tripled our airspeed; the cloud cover transformed from a discernible cottony field into a sheet-like white blob. We hadn't even neared passing the first Mach level the plane is capable of hitting. I immediately exclaimed, "Dude, I'm going to throw up!" So he killed the throttle and we moderated back to a more acceptable airspeed. So far I had managed to avoid actually puking.

We met back up with Sloppy and his passenger and dumped some fuel to be light enough for the landing. Then we flew a straight vector back to our home base. As we approached the airfield, Sparky said, "Shane, we're going to have to do some turning to line up for the landing. One of the turns has a little more G action than you pulled before, but don't worry...it will be over quickly." We flew straight over the airstrip far too high to touch down; then we banked hard right, flew in a semi-circle vector parallel with the ground, and pulled 4 Gs. The G suit squeezed me tightly and I strained the way they taught me under the G-forces. My pilot never uttered a sound; obviously a puny 4 Gs was nothing to him. We seemed to travel the length of the runway again, and made an additional diving tight turn, this time without any Gs thank goodness. As our wheels touched down on the glorious Earth, I proceeded to vomit into my airsick bag a few times, and I caught Sparky smiling at me in his rearview mirror. I somehow had survived this brush with the Top Gun experience and definitely underscored the fact that I'm currently in the correct line of work. I wasn't meant to be a pilot or any other sort of flying person; I belong in a laboratory behind a microscope or in a studio behind a guitar.

Sparky told me that my incentive ride was pretty typical; I guess most non-flyer types can't handle the 7-plus Gs that the F-15 routinely pulls on a sortie (the F-15 can pull up to 9), but I also think Sparky felt sorry for me and was just attempting to boost my ego up a bit. He told me, "No matter what...you can say you've flown in an F-15 Strike Eagle. Not many people can say such a thing." And this was true. I had flown in it and flown it, even if for only a few minutes. Man, am I dumbass or what? I'll never do that stupid crap again! But I faced my fear and did it anyway. Like I said...dumbass.