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Name: Alexander “Alex” Barrett
Special Meaning: None
Nicknames: Alex
Age: 27
Marital Status: Single
Place of Birth: Long Beach, California
Education: Aviation Mechanics School
Residence: Manila, Philippines
Occupation: Cargo Pilot
Vehicle: Restored and Modified PBY Catalina Seaplane
Family: Mother, Father, and Younger Brother
Favorite Color: Blue
Favorite Gemstone: Emerald
Favorite Beverage: Diet Coke, Sprite
Known Likes: Flying, Working on engines, Talking about airplanes, Noodle cups
Known Dislikes: Bills, Shoddy replacement parts, Rust, Rough weather, Rising Price of fuel
Theme Music:
* Sonny Rhodes - Firefly Main Theme (Ballad of Serenity)


Inventory:

Flight Goggles (Worn on occasion)
Jacket (Worn when needed)
Aviator Glasses
Pilot Cap (Worn on rare occasions)
Leather Shoes
Navigational Maps
Flight Log
PBY Catalina (More on this later, although it won't be coming with him)

Character Background:

Early Years:
Alexander was born in Long Beach, California. His life was pretty uneventful through most of his early childhood. He was the older of the two siblings. Like most kids in Long Beach, he got to enjoy going to the beach and soaking up the sun, even if his younger brother made going to the beach less than fun on occasion. But that’s what little brothers are for.

Early on, Alexander knew he wanted to work with and fly airplanes. For him, airplanes were something that on special folks got to deal with. So he started to learn what he could about airplanes, watching shows about them, reading about them, learn how planes worked. It’s not like his parents felt a need to stop him from learning about stuff. Indeed, they mostly felt it was a childhood fascination of his and that he’d grow out of it. It wasn’t until he hit high school that it seemed that his passion for airplanes was more than a childhood fantasy.

Highschooling:
During his high school years, Alex spent a lot of time up at the Long Beach Municipal Airport. Mostly he tried to talk with some of the local private aviators, and find out what he could do to become a pilot. In order to raise some money so he could try and take some short flying lessons, he started to use his technical knowledge and put it towards working on his friends cars. While their desire was towards cars and having them taken care of mechanically, Alex would turn the money he heard from those jobs so he could further his interest in planes.

Aviation Education 101:
By the time he had graduated, Alex was already pretty good with fixing cars and engines, but still wasn’t any closer to really getting his hands on an airplane. Instead of going off to join a college, he turned his attention to an aviation mechanic school, where he could finally learn more about airplanes than he had before. Of course his parents weren’t thrilled at the concept of him deciding not to go to college, so he could learn to work with airplanes, but that didn’t stop him. While his parents knew that the school wouldn’t be as good for him as college, they weren’t ones to tell their son not to follow his dreams either. And so he packed his stuff and went to northern California, to study at the aviation mechanic school.

Being in the school was a great time for him. He got to meet quite a few other students who shared his passion for airplanes, as well as got to learn from many others who had been in the aircraft industry for years. A person he met there, a student by the name of Raymond Tan, became a good friend with him. Ray was from the Philippines and had traveled overseas to study. After a lot of conversation and planning, the two decided to try and get their pilot licenses. Both were eager, even though it would be sort of costly in the short run for them, but a love of planes drove them to try and become well rounded, both as pilots and mechanics. Unfortunately, this didn’t last very long. As soon as Ray’s parents found out he was spending extra money on ‘unnecessary’ stuff like flying lessons, they had his finish up the classes he had at the school before having him come back to the Philippines. With that, Alex had lost a good friend, someone who shared his love of planes.

This was pretty depressing for Alex, since part of the fun of getting hours in with flying practice was getting to hang out with his friend afterwards as well as being able to talk about all their experiences with aircraft. It wasn’t like he had much choice though, and so he pushed ahead, finishing up his courses in mechanics over the next year, as well as getting the last of the requirements to get certified for a pilot license. And with that, he’d finally come one step closer to actually working with airplanes, although it didn’t help him feel great, knowing his friend wasn’t there to help celebrate with him.

Change in Directions:
Then, a letter came a few days later for him. His buddy Ray wrote him, asking him to visit. It seemed that Ray had missed his friend and wanted him to come over to see him. Ray had gotten a job working on small jets at an airport in Manila, and he wanted his friend to come over so they could celebrate Alex’s graduation and getting his pilot’s license. Considering the distance, Alex decided he’d let someone else do the flying ‘this time’, and so off he went, to visit his friend in Manila.

The vacation (that’s what Alex told his parents it was, which wasn’t too far from the truth) was a welcome break from the classes and lessons he’d had. Alex spent a lot of time catching up with his friend, learning all the interesting and not so interesting things that had happened since Ray had been forced back home. It also gave Alex his first exposure to a foreign culture, which lead to quite a bit of humor being generated from Alex’s lack of Filipino, one of the two official languages of the Philippines. Luckily, English is the other official language of the country, meaning that Alex wasn’t totally lost in the country.

It was during his last week he was supposed to be in the Philippines that Alex stumbled across a For Sale ad at the airport for an old surplus PBY Catalina. Alex had wanted to buy his own plane, but most airplanes aren’t exactly cheap, but this one seemed like a bargain. A quick taxi ride to the Manila Port quickly proved why the plane was such a bargain. For a seaplane from WW2, the plane had seen more than a bit of use. Parts of the hull needed patched up, the engines were barely functioning, and most of the controls were rusting or in a bad state of repair, and the whole thing needed general repairs in several other spots. Needless to say, Alexander fell in love with the beat up aircraft. Sure, anyone could buy a new plane, but it would cost less to buy one that needed a lot of work and to do it himself. There was the problem with how he’d pay for the airplane though, as well as needing to stay in the country long enough to do the work it would need. Since he was in the same city as his best friend and he wasn’t working currently, he decided to get himself a work visa so he could stay in the country to work. That wasn’t too hard for him to get, although then he had to talk with a bank to loan him the cash he’d need to buy the plane and make repairs, as well as money to start up his own business. If he was going to have a large seaplane at his disposal, he might as well use it. He could use the plane to island hop customers to other parts of the Philippines, and haul cargo to remote locations as well. After a lot of haggling, Alex finally got the funds he needed.

Be Your Own Aviation Boss for Better or Worst:
The next two months were some of the hardest work for the would-be pilot. He rented out a spot on the outskirts of the seaport, where he could work on the plane and set up a small office, and then started to work on the airplane. Each day was a lot of work for him, from having to replace parts of the engines to patching up all the parts of the plane. Refurbishing the plane was a major task, since the plane was more of an item just ‘floating around’ than being used, so taking care of the issues generated by it was an undertaking. The plane may have been cheap but the replacement parts, the dock rentals, and all the assorted things he needed weren’t. At the end of the two months though, Alex had his plane in one piece, and it was once again serviceable as air transportation. Unlike some aircraft, Alex had decided to revamp some of the plane, to make it easier to handle for a single crew by moving all the navigation and communication equipment he might need to next to his pilot seat. Another modification was to streamline the plane some by removing the front observation area as well as the old gun blister canopies on the back half of the plane. The fresh coat of blue-grey paint over the whole plane only helped to finish off its rebirth as a plane ready to fly.

And so Alex began his life as a mechanic, pilot, and the owner of the small ‘Air-Asia Cargo’ company. There’s probably something to be said about Alex’s life at this point. He had spent so much time, so much effort, on becoming a good pilot and a good mechanic, that of all the things he knew how to do, the one that would cause him the most issues would be the fact that business wasn’t something he knew well. And the company showed because of it. Alex hired a few people to help manage some of the work, but even then, bringing in business was almost as hard as managing it. The company itself wasn’t very big, maybe 4 employees at most at any one time, one being himself. The business he did gather was usually low paying tourists, or small express deliveries that needed to be sent to another island. A few better-paying jobs took him and his PBY into Hong Kong, dropping off and picking up cargo and people, and flying back to Manila. While the work was good, he always did cherish the work he got to put in on the PBY, as well as flying it around the South Asian seas.

A few years passed and Alex had been in the country long enough to learn Filipino, as well as bits and pieces of Chinese. This was a good thing, since it let him be able to converse with his clients, many of whom didn’t feel quite so comfortable flying with someone who didn’t speak their language. English maybe the language of flying (especially air traffic controllers), but customers weren’t quite the same. Then the tsunami struck nearby country of Indonesia, in late December, ringing in a change for the company. Now, Alex wasn’t one to try to turn a profit on the suffering of others, but he also had one of the few aircraft that could get too many of those remote islands in Indonesia. And that’s how Air-Asia Cargo began a busy year of flying cargo and people to Indonesia and many of its islands. Relief workers, news crews, folks just wanting to get supplies to the poor folks who lost so much in the massive tidal wave, they all came through the doors of Air-Asia Cargo. Alex was a very busy pilot by then, and actually making enough money to pay off some of his loans although rising fuel costs always seemed to try to thwart the company’s profit margins.

Lately:
Since then, times have been a bit less plentiful in profit, but its still enough for Alex to keep his small cargo service going, squeaking by the profit margins enough to keep going. It might not be great for the company but in the end, it gives Alex a small bit of happiness just to be flying, even if the business side isn't that great.

Mythos Information:

Creature Type: Gryphon
Category: Griff

Reason for Choice:

As a pilot, Alex is used to flying. It would be only natural for him to turn into something that was able to fly. A gryphon would be good enough choice. He'd be pretty big, strong, able to fly, have sharp talons and beak to fight with, and eyes sharp enough to spot a rabbit over a mile away. A possible optional choice could be an avian Roc, as a Roc would be good for being a creature designed around flying, but might be a bit too big at times.

Plus, gryphons are cool. Thats more of a personal reason, but its a reason none the less. Seriously, watching The Lion, the Witch, and the Waredrobe shows off how cool gryphons are.

Appearance:

As a gryphon, I figure Alex would probably be a standard eagle/lion mix, and not something more exotic. Really though, go look at The Lion, The Witch, and The Waredrobe if you're not sure what I'm talking about. Something like this and this. Other than that, I'm guessing he'd be non-morphic as well, since well, thats how most gryphons are.

I guess the coloration is pretty open to artistic whims, but I wouldn't mind if the avian coloration was based on the red-tailed hawk. Why? Well, it was what I was questing for over at the IoDM before it closed down so hey, if I can bring a little of that flavor into the character, thats cool.

Selection of Elements:

Air: Alex is a pretty free spirit. When it comes to being able to move from spot to spot, Alex is a pro. He likes the feel of moving from spot to spot. He is pretty happy when flying. He also enjoys lounging out on his PBY's wing fishing or just soaking up the rays. Being tied down to the business of shipping isn't exactly his ideal situation, he knows its the only way he can enjoy the freedom of flight that he has now.

Water: Alex is able to adapt to things pretty well. When he works on engines, he works with what he has and does the best he can. When he was given the chance to own his own business, he went for it and adapted from just being a pilot into the owner of a business. It doesn't mean he's always great at it, especially when it comes to issues dealing with money, but he'll do what he has to, to adapt to whatever happens around him.

Earth: Alex is pretty reliable, when it comes down to it. He's not a huge risk taker when it comes to his actions. When he does things, they tend to be for what he feels would be the most appropriate way for him to proceed.


Alex's Pukka:

Since Alex is overseas and hauling cargo and people from places from anywhere between China, Japan, Australia and a few other places, its not unlikely that he'd pick up a souvenir while waiting for his plane to be reloaded and refueled. Plus, shopping for unique gifts makes for nice Christmas presents to send back to his folks in California.

Most likely he'd pick up something small, like a necklace perhaps. A nicely designed necklace would be easy enough to wear and not be an issue while flying. A simple metal necklace might be the best since that would be easy and simple enough to be worn.

More Information:

Wikipedia article on Gryphons
*more to come*

No more updates for the quest, since it is...


COMPLETE!

Happy Gryphon Dance Time! 4laugh