Thursday Revisited

I'm very sleepy, so I claim immunity on whether this makes sense or not. ;)

I went out to Glenndale this morning and entered time sheets. It is getting close to the end of the month, and our airplanes are flying SO much that we're trying to save some time at the end of the month by getting stuff entered a little early. Lunch was at Culvers, and then I came home and did some work until it was time to pick up Kaylee from school and take her to gymnastics. She passed several things in gymnastics, and she got 2 out of 3 points she needs for her cartwheels, which are I THINK the last thing she needs to pass before she can move out of Level 1 and into Level 2.

I read a book today during gymnastics. It was given to me by a fellow pilot. It's called "Maggie Ray: World War II Air Force Pilot", written by her daughter Marsha Wright. It's really a very interesting story about a specific woman in the WASP program during WWII. She learned to fly in a J-3 Cub after catching the bug as a tiny little girl; and then went on to fly for the military, ferrying airplanes, dealing with emergencies, hopping in perfectly strange very large airplanes with minimal checkouts, etc. with this group of women pilots. They weren't allowed to tell people what they were doing because the military was embarrassed that they were forced to use women to fly planes around and didn't want the enemy to know they were that "desperate" for national security purposes. So they weren't allowed to be sent off with parties or fanfare at railway stations like the soldiers or other pilots, weren't allowed to have their names posted in the papers like the soldiers or other pilots, and so on. The story was really about her love of flying and all the various airplanes and adventures she got to deal with, and it was pretty interesting. At the end, as you probably know, all the ladies got letters that basically said "instead of helping our men, you are now going to start replacing them and we can't have that. This group is being disbanded as of this date, you'll get a certificate for helping us out, so long." Some women were all around the world and had to find their own way home at their own cost, and once they got home they had to just go get married or go work as a secretary. Getting a job as a civilian pilot just was not happening. Some ladies she knew became "stewardesses" (better known as "flight attendants" today) just so they could stay in the air, even if it meant serving drinks in the back rows. I can't imagine something like that happening to me. Maggie ended up getting her instructor rating, though at first nobody would fly with her. She's now 85 or so, and has raced across the world, has flown the space shuttle simulator, and has over 40,000 hours of flight time. Amazing. I thought it was kind of neat; when she was a teenager, she told her dad she wanted to learn to fly, and he didn't say a word. She was disappointed, but a few days later she was in the car with him and said "Dad, I want to learn to fly" and he said "I've been checking into it, and I think this is the best place. You can take the car once a week and do this, and you'll have to pay for it yourself" etc. She said "Do you think I can actually do that? I've never heard of a girl flying." He said "Maggie Ray, I think you can do anything you put your mind to" and away she went. Pretty cool, particularly for that day and age. :)

Tonight Steve, Kaylee, myself, and the Riders went over to a friend's new house; they'd just moved into the place, and it is a Gorgeous home. Several stories tall, wide open windows, huge cathedral ceilings, spiral staircases, marble and tile floors, beautiful lighting. The bathrooms (and bedrooms) all have flat screen televisions in them, there's an indoor courtyard that looks like a Venice cafe, several fireplaces, and downstairs is an awesome room that has a bar area with a television behind a two-way mirror, so when the TV is off, it turns back into a mirror. We watched part of "Top Gun" on it with the surround sound. :) There's a sound-dampened music room for the band to practice in, a wine cellar, a theater room with staggered seating, an exercise room, just all sorts of really cool areas. There are wall units in every room where you can access all the house lighting, security, the internet, whatever you want. It's just a drop-dead beautiful home, and we had a good time hanging out and talking flying and exploring the house. When Kaylee first saw it, she said "WHHHOOOOOOA! I could get LOST in here!" And she proceeded to try to do just that, wandering up and down all the hallways and stair cases and little areas. She had a blast...until it was time to leave. She wants to stay in the Guest Suite area, which has its own bathroom, two televisions, three beds, a fireplace, a gaming center, and so on. I figured she would hide somewhere when it was time to go, so I sneaked up on her so she couldn't. ;)

All in all it was a busy but enjoyable day. :)