Of Adventure and Seaplanes

I woke up this morning bright and early. I think I like taking the shower in the evening better than in the mornings here. For one thing, I don't wake up feeling all gruddy, and for another I can get ready in 10 minutes flat. It's a really good solution other than the havoc it wreaks on my hair to sleep on it freshly washed, which, let's face it, can't be that big of a concern out here when one is "camping".

We've been waking up early to take care of the Mustang, and even if I'm not the one getting up, in a trailer this size you will hear someone moving around and getting ready in the morning, and once I'm awake, I'm awake. This morning since I was already showered, I just got ready and watched the morning sun through my front window while I went online to look up today's scheduled events. Since I had a good connection for awhile, I went back and spell-checked my previous entries since I hadn't had a chance to do that before. ;)

This morning, Kaylee, Maggie, Judy and myself went over to KidVenture, which is at the Pioneer Airport with the EAA Museum. It's a neat place, set up just for kids of all ages. Kaylee and Maggie entered a drawing contest where they drew pictures of an airplane. They were the first two to do it, and the first two pictures hung up on the wall. While I was taking a photo of them by a wooden airplane, an EAA photographer said "Oh, that's too cute, will you do that again for me?" So I shrugged and set up the girls and did it again while he took video and/or photos from the back side of me and Judy taking photos of the girls; then he walked over to our side and took video/photos of the girls' faces. Who knows where that may end up, but they were photographed more than once by the EAA photographer guys in the hangar too, working on projects. We wandered around in there sitting the girls in the cockpits of various airplanes from Cubs to Mustangs to F-100s. They made a kite out of paper that they colored, and played around in and under a DC-3. We didn't do the helicopter rides this year; too much money for too short of a ride with too long of a wait. We'll do them again sometime, but this year neither Judy nor I were in the mood.

We walked from KidVenture over to the EAA Museum by crossing the active grass runway. The museum has another KidVenture area in it that is there year round. It's a very scientific area, and a fun one too. They have a hangliding simulator where you sit in a hanglider seat with a bar and have three huge screens around you, and you try to follow the glider in front of you and land on a target. Kaylee actually did really well on this one. They have a hot air simulator as well, and an area where you can learn about all sorts of things relating to aviation, airplanes, aerodynamics, etc. There is also a cardboard cutout of a dude in a flightsuit with a helmet under his arm and a wall of sky and airplanes behind him. Judy and I took pictures of the girls with their heads in that slot--and then when the girls went away, we took each other's photos in there too. Just to be goofy.

We'd worn ourselves out and been there for four hours when we decided we were hungry, so we stopped in the cafeteria to eat hot dogs, brats, sausages, chips, drinks, etc. I was standing in the coke machine line for my first caffeine of the day when suddenly the fire alarm in the building went off. This was a very slow line, you understand, and I'm right by the exit anyway. I look around, and people are hauling out of the building in a quick and steady stream. No panic, but plenty of fast-movers. Kaylee comes up to me a little bugged out, and I tell her to leave with Judy and Maggie who are on their way out. Meanwhile, I stay in the Coke line. Like I said, it was slow moving. A few other guys did the same thing. Just as I was getting up to my turn at the machine, everyone came trickling back in. False alarm. Like I said, we were right by the exit, and I made sure my kid and my camera were out of the building first. ;)

We ate and got ready to go, when Kaylee slipped on the wet painted concrete floor by the cafeteria, and went down hard. Ironically, she wiped out right in front of the admin office and the First Aid office. She was bawling on the floor, unable to walk, and I was cleaning up the water on the floor and helping her get to her feet, when out came the representative asking if she needed medical attention, very concerned. I reassured them that she would be fine (no lawsuits here, folks), and carted Kaylee off. She whispered in my ear "I don't want to go to first aid Mommy, that's why I quit crying." Anyway, she got a bruise on her knee and one on her toe, but will naturally be just fine.

This whole venture tired us all out, so we went back to our individual trailers and had Quiet Time for awhile. I worked on the computer while Kaylee rested, and then I looked at the clock on my laptop and thought "Hey, it's time to go!" I dragged up Kaylee and took off in the golf cart, then walked through the Fly Market on up to the Forum area, so I could hear a lady named Diana give a talk on her Grass Strip Tour of the US. She had stopped at Glenndale and I've met her a couple of times now and we talk online now and then. The only problem was, I arrived huffing and puffing only to realize that my laptop time is set up on Kokomo time, and I am now an hour and 15 minutes early for her forum. So instead I sat in the shade in there and learned all about painting aircraft. Common mistakes, common issues, how to do it, how not to do it, various techniques of things, etc. Not my usual interest level by any means, but I have to admit I did learn a few things against my will. ;)

Finally it was her turn, and she had a packed tent. I was really glad for that-it's one reason I went, to show support and make sure there was a friendly face out there. I need not have worried. There were lots of people there, including people from three different online pilot message boards. I got to meet several of them in person for the first time, which is always kind of weird, but interesting. Diana did a good job; afterwards I talked to a few people and then went on back to the trailer where Steve and Nathan were sitting there waiting to go to the Seaplane base.

We gathered up the kids, stopped at "Andy's and Ed's", which is a restaurant that opened up in 1942. To this day it's drive-up only, and the girls come out on roller skates and black skorts and take your order and hang it on your window old-style. Their burgers leave a little to be desired, but their shakes are killer. :) Anyway, we ate, then we headed over to the seaplane base.

You know, Nathan's been coming to Oshkosh since it moved from Rockford, IL, and we've come off and on since the mid 1990s. But none of us have ever made it over to the seaplane base. I'm really glad we made it today. For one thing, it's beautiful. You hike through some woods and end up at a pretty lake surrounded by trees with a bay holding dozens of float planes. The sun was getting low in the sky, the air was calm, and several of the float planes were taking off and landing out there, and it was just a really pretty sight. We sat on a bench and watched them and relaxed for a long time. It is like being in a whole other world away from the hustle and bustle of Oshkosh. We've decided we could camp out there instead and be happy. :)

When we finally left, it was time to come back to the trailer and light the fire. Tonight it was my duty to be the fire starter. It was a difficult job, but someone had to do it. ;)

So, all in all it was another busy but enjoyable day. This week is going by really fast; I can't believe we'll be headed home in just a few days...

Another Gorgeous Day

We woke up this morning and got ready in a hurry so we could get out to the Mustang. It had rained the night before, and once the sun comes up, if it bakes on the water, the whole airplane gets caked-on dirt, dust, mud, and water spots on the shiny aluminum. We didn't quite make it in time; it was fairly messy, but we got it rubbed down and taken care of. I did my morning job of opening up the canopy, and as I was up there rubbing out the spots, I saw some guy set up taking a photo of me up there. I briefly considered striking a pose, but decided to just polish the airplane and let him take whatever photo he was interested in. ;)

We went and had breakfast at the "Ace Cafeteria" with a lot of people, then broke into groups. The kids went with Judy to a craft tent while the rest of us went through the big display hangars. We met back up, got a drink, and Steve and I took Kaylee and Jamie around for awhile to a kids' tent. We wandered through the "Fly Market" aka flea market aviation style, then hit lunch where I didn't eat anything because I wasn't hungry in the least. We wandered back out to the T-6, where I climbed up on it in order to sit on the parachute in the back seat and see if it worked for me-which it did. Sat there for awhile and watched the judges come around and check out the T-6s, then headed back over to the Mustang. We just sat under the wings in the shade, laid back in the grass, and watched the air show. Finally we wiped off the airplane again, taped it up, got it ready for the night, and headed out to dinner.

A nice, too much food dinner later, we battled traffic and came back to the trailer where we've kicked up our feet, watched the ultralights cruise by in the setting sun, and had a relaxing chat with friends by the fire...

The other day as we were sitting on the grass watching the air show, Kaylee came up close to me and hugged me, looked down and said "Mommy, you have a white hair." She then proceeded to pull it out of my head. Then she paused and said "Mommy, you have a lot of white hairs up here!" and proceeded to yank them all out one at a time. I let her, I didn't say anything, and then finally she said "There. I think I got them all. I don't want you to be old." And then she patted me on the head and jumped off to go play. Silly girl. I told her my hair always had gray ones in it from the time I was a teenager, and that it didn't mean I was old yet. :)

The kids have these cool little LED finger lights. They are white, green, blue and red, and they attach to your fingers, one on each, and end up giving them a laser-like appearance. At night it really is neat. We just dread when the batteries wear down. The whole finger lights cost us like $3.00. The batteries will probably cost a few times that, per light, per hand. Upon further reflection, we've decided to go back to the Fly Market and buy a few more batches of these, since getting new ones will be cheaper than replacing batteries in the old ones.

Kaylee had her first experience with the public shower tonight. She had gotten filthy dirty today, and her feet were in particular a mess. So I decided that rather than mess up our little shower, since I needed one anyway tonight, that I'd take her with me and we'd go do the public showers. You wouldn't think they'd be that busy at 10 something p.m., but you'd be as wrong as I was. It was hopping in there. I hate that. Anyway, I set Kaylee up with her own shower stall and showed her how to do everything, and then got down to the business of my own shower. A few minutes later we were all done. Kaylee doesn't say much at first, and then she pipes up with "I saw naked ladies in there. And other people's showers get me wet in my shower. And I can't reach the soap. And I got shampoo in my eyes but I couldn't yell because there were strangers all around me. I don't like those showers." Ah, well, she'll only have three more days here at Oshkosh in which to have to decide which shower to use. ;)

I didn't know Kaylee can do a one-handed cartwheel by the way. She showed us that last night, and I was kind of impressed. Of course it may not be all that impressive at all, but *I* sure couldn't do it. :)

The kids' tent we went to today was really for much younger children, so we didn't figure we would be there for long. Again, wrong. Kaylee and Jamie played in there for about an hour. Hey, whatever keeps everyone happy! As we were sitting there, a little boy held up a figurine of the girl airplane from the "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" series and asked what her name was. Now this was right on the tip of my poor little brain, but Kaylee hadn't watched that in about 4 years. I'm thinking and thinking, and the little boy moves away. Five minutes later, while Steve is talking, I blurt "TRACY!" He says "What?!" I said "The little plane's name is Tracy!" "Ooookay, that came out of nowhere." I'm just grateful it came at all, frankly. ;)

One port-o-pot jab at myself. I hate the things, okay? I really do. I try not to think about it and I just DO it. But I hate them. I Really hate them at night. See, one time I started to use a port-o-pot that sat out for a long time, and as I got ready to do my thing, I glanced down in the hole (no I have no idea why) and there was a SPIDER in a WEB down in the seat. If I'd have sat on that thing...okay, I'm still really skeeved out at the mere thought. Now I *always* look down the hole and I don't care what I have to look at, as long as it's not a spider. But in the dark without a flashlight (which could get dropped too easily)...I can't see that the seat is clear. My mind tells me these port-o-pots have not been sitting in the middle of nowhere for months. That people use them all day every day. That they are cleaned out twice a day. That there is no way a spider will build a web there. And yet I have never moved faster in my life than when using a port-o-pot at night. So last night I'm sitting there in the dark telling myself "Think about anything but spiders. ANYTHING but spiders." And I reach my hand up to get some TP, and I feel the lightest feathery touch on the back of my hand. I almost shot out of there like a canon ball before my brain registered that it was the other roll of TP hanging down and just barely hitting the back of my hand. It took my heart rate a good five minutes to slow back down though. I didn't tell a soul. Only the ones who read this huge entry will ever know. ;)

A neat photo of Nathan's Mustang was in the EAA newspaper put out today. I got a copy to take home. They always take it from the back so you can see the checkertail, then the polished metal, and then the distinctive "Mustang" cowling/prop. Gorgeous.

Well, as the hoard descended on Oshkosh, our internet connection network has definitely loaded up and bogged down. I can still get on when I'm lucky throughout the day, but not nearly well enough to do what I was doing the first part of the week. It's still a massive improvement from last year though, thanks to Steve. Instead of taking a golf cart and driving down the road to a box and sitting under it several times a day, trying to get on, mostly unsuccessfully at the times I'd try, getting two out of five bars and just barely plugging along...now I can sit in my trailer with my laptop on and just go with it. Either it's bogged down and unavailable, or it's on and cooking, but I can do it from the comfort of my own place at my own schedule. I'm not on my email though-I'm just doing a blog entry a day and that's about it. I'm out having a good time the rest of the time, or when I'm around so is everyone else and the network is bogged down. So I'll enjoy this vacation while I've got it, and I'm sure I'll have plenty to do when I get back. We are having a terrific time. :)

(Oh. And my white ankles/feet and brown lower legs are back in full force. You can not walk around here in flip flops, not for the miles and miles of walking. At least I can't, comfortably. And yet wearing socks and tennis shoes for all these days in a row in the hot sun, even with sunscreen, has provided once again the terrible contrast on my feet. Oh well!)

Family Day

I guess I'm not in the mood to write today! It was a good day, a quiet day, and not much of interest to you happened. :)

Basically...

Today Steve and Nathan headed to the Mustang to clean it up and get it ready for the judging while Kaylee and Maggie and I hung out. They played at the trailer for a few minutes, and then I took them to "Paul's Park" where they actually played for several hours. I fixed lunch at the trailer, the girls played for several more hours here, and then Judy took them out on the Flight Line to the kids' tent for awhile as the rest of us hung out in lawn chairs with a book and a beverage and watched the air show from here. Nathan flew with the Mustangs today; they did about three passes in a racetrack pattern...

After the show we headed to Kodiak Jacks with a small group, ate too much (again), and came back to a campfire, where I am currently watching the lightning up north and writing this blog entry...

Air Show Day

We had a really fun day. This morning we leisurely got ready, sunscreened up, and took the car to the "Red Lot" over by warbirds. I opened up the Mustang canopy while Nathan went to registration, the kids played, and Steve and Nathan and I wiped down and dusted off the Mustang to get it ready for the day. As we were standing there, several people we know came up off and on, and it was nice to catch up with them, too. We wandered from there over to the T-6 range, where we again ran into a few people we knew. Nathan was doing a good job being a salesperson for the T-6 Restoration guys. ;) When we finished up there, we did the walking thing, and we walked around Oshkosh for awhile. It was another gorgeous day for it, too.

It put a smile on all our faces to see the mass of planes going up, coming over and around, in formation, smoke on, jumpers away, Air Show Day. We found some shade, we sat on the ground, and we enjoyed the show. At one point we moved locations, had ice cream, had drinks, found more shade, and relaxed and enjoyed the show. It was really nice.

We topped off the air show day by going for a plane ride of our own. The five of us (Nathan & Jamie, Steve, Kaylee & myself) all went on the Ford Trimotor. Steve and I had never been on a Trimotor, and Nathan had only ridden on one once, decades ago. So we decided this year we'd just do it. It was a little more complicated than it looked-you had to wait in line for a good amount of time, and then you went and did something else while they worked through the people. We went off and watched more of the air show in the shade, ourselves. ;) But finally it was our turn, and we all really enjoyed the flight. It's a neat airplane, and we had a great view. I took a couple of video clips and still shots from my seat in the back of the plane. The nice thing about the Trimotor is that every seat is a window seat, so there is no jockeying in position to get a 'better' view. It was a really neat little ride and we all gave it a thumbs-up and a "that was worth it" rating. :)

We wandered from there back over to the Mustang where we wiped off fingerprints and dust and sealed up the cockpit and did all the night "prep" work. We got back to our car and drove right into town to eat dinner, all messy and sweaty, but we weren't the only ones! Most of the restaurants around here have "Welcome EAA!" on their signs. They're prepared for us. ;)

Another stop at Fleet Farm (the guy shopping place), another stop at the gas station that had fire wood, and now that it was dark we were ready to come home and have ourselves a little camp fire and, well, relax. So that's exactly what we did. It was a perfectly lovely air show day.

Tomorrow Nathan flies the Mustang in the warbirds show, and I think Steve will probably go out with him early in the morning to get the Mustang ready for judging. A busy day coming, I'm sure...

Roughing It

I am sitting here with my laptop, another gorgeous, cool-ish day, listening to two P-51s fly over, with a fridge full of cold beverages and a couple of Oreo cookies in my hand. The kids are playing nicely, we are all freshly showered and sunscreened up, and life is good.

Did you know they have a laundry service out here at Camp Schoeller here at Oshkosh? They'll come pick up your dirty laundry from your camp site, take it, wash it, and bring it back, delivering your clean clothes to your tent or trailer.

This morning I had homemade scrambled eggs, hash browns and fruit for breakfast in my lawn chair in front of my trailer.

As I said, we're roughing it. ;)

This morning I felt like a little more space than our shower provides, so I went into the "What is more important to me at this moment...space or privacy?" self-discussion. I decided to try the main public shower area this time. When I got in there, I was the only person in my row of showers, and there was another lady on another row of showers. *YES!* They also added benches right in front of the showers, and there are hooks on the outside, so the necessity of walking around sans clothing in public is greatly reduced. That works for me. I did forget to bring my flip flops though, and I don't enjoy walking barefoot on public shower facilities. Eh, oh well. So far so good anyway. And then two more women came in, and one of them went in the shower right next to me. Now, aren't there rules of etiquette for this?? It's like bathroom stalls-you don't pick the one right next to someone unless the others are all full! (If you didn't know that already, please take note.) ;) Anyway, the showers are clean and very tall, and while it's still not my top choice to try to get dressed either in a turned-off shower while trying not to get your clothes wet before you get them on (try putting on pants with wet feet on a wet floor) or by stepping out of the shower and getting dressed in the dry but very public area, it's not bad...

I found out today that I didn't win the "Ride with the Aeroshell T-6 Aerobatic Team Over Oshkosh" give-away for Monday. I entered a couple of us hoping to win, but to no avail. I am heartbroken and distressed now, because I don't know when I'd ever get an opportunity to fly aerobatics in a T-6 again. ;) Seriously, that would have been a lot of fun though. I don't normally enter contests, but I had to enter that one. You never know. I even know the person who did win it-not personally, but off of a pilot message board-so it was close. ;)

Nathan arrived around noon our time. We had taken the golf cart and made it all the way over to "Fighter Town" where the warbirds are parked, and we were hanging out by the T-6 crew. Nathan's T-6 was there along with two others that the guys had finished up, and we were just hanging out there waiting to see Nathan fly over so we could go over to the Mustang area and pick him up. As we were sitting there, Chuck suddenly sits up and says "That sounds like our airplane." Sure enough, we heard a Mustang shutting down, so we drove on over there, and there he was. We never saw or heard him fly over or taxi by, but we heard his engine sputtering and popping on shut down. Perfect timing-we arrived as they were exiting the airplane. :) We grabbed lunch at the warbird tent, went back and secured the airplane and wiped it clean of bugs and fingerprints, then came back to the trailers to hang out, relax, tune in the hand-held radios and listen to Oshkosh tower traffic, and do our thing.

We got the golf cart through the gates today, something we won't be able to do from tomorrow on most likely. We still had to have the wristbands to get in, and they still had gate-keepers, but today they were a little more lax on the golf carts than they will be. So we didn't even have to walk all the way from camping to warbirds. Thankfully. That's a looong hike. Anyway, as we were driving along on the golf cart, we were a little surprised at how many people were out milling around. Oshkosh hasn't even technically started yet, but you could fool me by all the people out there already. You know, in a matter of a few days, Camp Schoeller alone goes from acres of empty field/grass to a literal city about the size of Kokomo. Very impressive.

Well, it was dinner out with the Davis boys and time to come back and relax awhile before bed. We've enjoyed watching all the planes come in, fly over, land, and park. Oshkosh is looking pretty full...

Settling In...

I woke up this morning to a beautiful day. It felt like I had slept in forever, but when I looked at the clock it was still 8 a.m.-ish. We took our time getting ready, took our time eating, took our time doing everything.

Steve, not being content not working while we're gone, (okay, really just making me happy) did a little computer networking and hooked up a bridge out here so that basically we are our own wireless 'tower'. What this means is that instead of driving a golf cart to one of the 'boxes on a pole' out there to get a good internet connection once a day like last year, I am sitting in the same room as the 'box', and I have perfect connectivity and a smoking fast connection. What's even funnier is that people around us are picking up our network because it's the strong one for this location, and we can see who all is using it. I'm fine with them using it until they bog us down, at which point we'll boot people off and they can go back to the EAA wireless. ;) It's good to have a handy fellow along with you on trips like this. ;)

As I was getting ready this morning, Kaylee got out her make-up bag and started putting on her make-up as well. She looked so grown up, sitting there applying lip gloss and body sparkles and eye shadow, and comparing notes with me on how I did this and that...

It was almost lunch time, and Maggie came over to our trailer for awhile and Kaylee and Maggie played most of the day. They did bubbles, played 'house', all sorts of things, and had a great time. Steve also put up a little pop-up tent for them to play in, and they got a lot of mileage out of that one.

Meanwhile, I spent most of the day sitting outside in the cool temps with the light breeze and the bright blue sky in the shade of my awning with a beverage in one hand and a book in the other. I could hear various engines going over, from the whine of a jet to the rumble of a radial, and I would find myself smiling quite contentedly at the whole scenario. It was a perfectly lovely way to spend an afternoon.

For dinner tonight we hit Kodiak Jack's, which is a steakhouse and seafood place. Oh, they're good. Kaylee and Maggie split an order of King Crab Legs, and that's what Steve and I had too. Except we didn't split one, we wanted our own. SO good. There were "only" 14 of us at dinner tonight, but we still had a pretty good crowd. Afterwards we stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up a fan and some batteries. I was sitting in the car waiting for Steve and Kaylee to come out, when I glanced up and saw a Glenndale shirt going by. I looked back down, then did a double-take. Sure enough, that WAS a Glenndale shirt at Oshkosh, and it wasn't on someone I knew. I saw his spouse then and recognized them as folks from Chuck's camp site, but for a second there it threw me. :)

We all came back and went to Chuck's camp site, where the kids played tag in the dark and the adults lit a birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday to Chuck. His 17th anniversary of his 50th birthday. :) Kaylee climbed up The Hill, but they have become party poopers around here and now have signs up stating "Warning: No Sliding Down Hill". Well, phooey on them. Liability Schmiability. Anyway, she climbed up there to look around, and then we mosied back over to Chuck's and hung out for awhile until it was time to come back and put kids in bed, do something on Nathan's bus, make blog entries, and all that fun stuff.

Not a bad way to spend Day Two at Oshkosh. :)

The Oshkosh Arrival

We were up until past one a.m. last night, packing, getting the house ready, all that good stuff. I fell asleep some time after 1:30, and Steve's alarm went off at 5 a.m. Three and a half hours sleep. *yawn* A few last-minute things thrown into the Jeep, hauling out Kaylee who woke up most cheerfully, and we piled into the Jeep which was groaning under the weight, and went out to Glenndale. The truck, trailer, and golf carts were there waiting for us, so we unloaded the Jeep, loaded up the truck, and we were right on time. We wanted to be at Glenndale at 6:30 a.m., and we pulled in at 6:29 a.m. We wanted to be on the road by 7 a.m. and we pulled out onto the road at 7:01 a.m. Not bad for our little mostly-night-owl crew. ;)

We had been on the road for about 15 minutes when it occurred to me that I didn't know where my cellphone was. Sure enough, I have left it at home, sitting somewhere that I set it down 'temporarily' at 5 something a.m. So, I used Steve's phone to change my outgoing message to "I don't have a phone, so call me on Steve's phone." This does not please any of us, since we use the phones to not lose each other while we're out here playing around. I can't send little text pictures to Nathan to harass him since he's not up here yet. Nothin'. It is the ONE thing that we can't just go buy if we forgot it. Well, actually, there IS a Verizon store up here, with the new phones I've been looking at... ;)

It's funny, Kaylee was so excited to be driving this trip. When she found out we weren't flying in, she was delighted. Even when I told her that we could be there in an hour and a half flying or in more like 7 hours driving, she wanted to drive. Likeways, her little friend is coming up to Oshkosh in the back seat of the Mustang...and doesn't want to. He'd rather drive up and wishes there was someone driving up that he could come with. They have no idea how many people would dearly love to switch places with them! It's all a matter of what you're used to. To Kaylee, who takes most long trips in airplanes, and is done in less than 3 hours, a big long drive is an adventure where you see other cars and where you stop at places for gas and food. In the airplane, we get in, she sees blue (or white) sky for 1-3 hours, and we're there. On the way she has to wear a headset, which she dislikes, and we don't stop for hours. Poor thing, getting from Indiana to wherever in just a few hours with a dvd player hooked up through her headset, food and drinks, being able to unbuckle and wander around, getting there in a third of the time, in a nice big comfy airplane... :) I have to admit, she had it pretty good for this trip too. The truck we were in had a dvd player in the back with a headset, and she hung out back there and watched movies in comfort while I hooked up my iPod up front for us. It's got the whole GPS/XM Radio/digital touch screen display thing, so I spent the first portion of the trip figuring out all the gizmos and gadgets and workings. Very nice.

Steve did keep having one problem. As he was trying to change lanes more than once, he'd start to go over and halt abruptly because there was a golf cart back there getting ready to pass him. ;)

The trip itself was uneventful. One difference from last year is that we really didn't see many other people heading to Oshkosh. Usually when you get north of Milwaukee and south of Fon du Lac, you start seeing the herds of people, trailers, bikes, mobile homes, whatever headed for the campground. This year I saw two, and that's unusual. But once we got here, there was still a line of vehicles waiting to get in, and the campground is filling up pretty fast. We got our spot, but our trailer hadn't arrived yet, so we hung out at Chuck & Judy's camp where Kaylee and Maggie got to play for a few hours, or we sat out on golf carts at our spot. Finally, five hours after it was originally going to be here, our trailer arrived all set up and ready to go. It's smaller than last year's trailer, but it is also very nice and clean, and will do just fine. We got everything out of the truck and into the trailer, got the generators hooked up, and then we went out to dinner at Red Robin, one of our favorites around here for giant but good burgers.

There were 20 of us at dinner, which is impressive. ;) After we ate, we went to the store to get the food and drinks and supplies we'd need for the next few days to a week. Finally we dragged ourselves back to our trailer, unloaded all of that, made the beds and arranged Stuff, and fairly well crashed. We'd had lots of manual labor, not lots of sleep, and lots of travel. But...we've arrived. :)

Here We Go...

It's taken us most of the day, but I do believe we are ready to go. You wouldn't believe the amount of bags it takes to get three people 7 hours away for 9-10 days, particularly when you have to pack towels and sheets and pillows and blankets on top of hot and cold and rainy clothes on top of "living" stuff and electronics like cameras and chargers and dvd player and movies and cds and player and iPod and chargers and adapters and toys and stuffed animals and...make-up. Gotta have make-up to sweat off. Then you get to get the house ready for a long absence. Prepare cat stuff. Water plants. Unplug scented thingies from the wall. Electrical stuff off. Dishes and laundry and trash picked up so as to not come home to ants or unpleasant odors. Yadda yadda. But the bags are just impressive. We're not even taking any food or drinks-we'll get those once we get up there, at a store. Anyway, it's 11:30 at night and I think we're finally about ready to go.

I ran errands for a couple of hours today too. I got about six checks sent off, made trips to two banks, to Fed Ex to ship off some SMA Stuff, to the post office, to Glenndale twice, got everything that I could in "order" for a long absence. I even filled up and washed my car, because it looked like somebody drove it through a mud puddle that splashed up over the whole thing. I don't remember doing that. ;) Anyway, on our way to the gas station, I drove through an area of town I'm not usually in, and it's not the most affluent area. Kaylee looked around and said "Mommy, do you see these houses?" I said yes, and she said "They look like the haunted houses on Scooby Doo. I wouldn't like to live in those houses. Everything is broken and scary and ugly. I can't stop staring." So there's a blessing for the day. Our home is not a mansion, and it's not in an old or new money area, but it is clean, not broken, kept up, and does not look haunted. It was actually a good opening to have a conversation about "differences" and thankfulness both.

I was reading a NATA magazine (North American Trainers Association), and in it I skimmed past a picture twice before I realized it was a picture of the T-6 that Nathan and I flew last month. I thought "Hey, I've flown that plane!" Kind of neat, at least to someone not yet overly used to flying airplanes that end up in magazines. ;)

Well, tomorrow is going to come a little (okay, a lot) too early for my tastes. I hope to have internet while we're gone, but we'll see. We're off to the annual pilgrimage to Oshkosh, and I'll talk to you...soon. :)

Prep Day I

Last night I was walking around wincing, and I could not figure out what on earth was the problem. My lower back really hurt, and my calves hurt too. I sat there for quite awhile trying to figure out what I did that pulled so many muscles. And then I stretched my feet out, and the answer came to me in a flash. I had to stretch so far and hold the brakes so tight on the Mustang for long enough, that I pulled my calf muscles and strained my lower back doing it. That's almost pathetic! Lol

This morning I flew in the C-172 with someone interested in possibly learning to fly. It was their first time in a small plane, and fortunately we had a nice smooth day for it. I did smile at the question "Really, HOW old are you??" Why, thank you very much. :)

After the flight, we went to lunch, after which everybody went their separate ways to get stuff done. I took Chuck to Greentown where I picked up the Corvette and drove it out to Kokomo airport for it to be washed. Using the clutch was almost the same motion as holding the brakes in the Mustang, and every time I pushed it in my leg would twitch. We went from there over to find a portable DVD player for Kaylee for Oshkosh. Her other one has lasted for several years, been on many trips, and served us well up until it died a few months ago finally. I stopped at Sam's Club first. They only had two models-one for $68 and the screen was really dark even on the highest brightness setting, and one for almost $200. We decided to look at HH Gregg which is right next door. They had five or six models, but none of them were running so you could see the quality, and they didn't come with anything like adaptors or anything. On to Meijer. Hey, they have nice ones there, but man, the cheapest there was $129 and it had a tiny screen. Why not, let's go to Wal-Mart. Perfect! We finally got one for under $100 with decent quality and all the accessories. It took more trips to more stores than I care to visit in general, but at least it was fairly quick and I had good company, dragging Chuck and Kaylee along with me. ;)

I took Chuck back to Glenndale, where we found that something like 30 cases of oil had been delivered and left outside the building. Can't have that, so Chuck and I hauled them a case at a time through the building and into the hangar against the far wall. I started taking two cases at a time to make it go faster, but it was taking awhile with just the two of us. We took a break, and along came someone with a pickup truck who helped Chuck load up the last dozen cases and haul them around to the other side. We got our manual labor in for the day...

I picked up several pieces of SMA equipment that needs shipped out tomorrow, and finally brought Kaylee home, where she started packing her suitcase and I kept working on some SMA and work stuff, which is what I'm about to start doing again as soon as I finish this. Tomorrow I pack my suitcase and finish helping Kaylee pack hers, and Friday morning away we go. :)

Quantum Physics

This is "Getting Ready For Oshkosh" week, so it's going by way too quickly. Some things are bigger fires than others and have to be taken care of quickly, because being gone for basically ten days makes everything more important. Banking, billing, mail, shipping, responses, etc. I've made one round of shipments today for SMA Stuff and have one more round to do before we leave, or it'll be two weeks before it goes out and that won't work at all. We're trying to get golf carts and hauling trailers and schedules and all that stuff figured out, fixed up, hooked up, and ready to go. Well, that's Steve, Nathan and Chuck's end, not mine. ;) Anyway, so it's getting a little more frenetic around here.

I had just pulled into the parking space at the post office and was getting ready to run in, when Kaylee says "Mommy, what is Quantum Physics?" I just kind of sat back, paused, and said "Where did you hear that?" She shrugged. "I dunno, just wondered what it was." Anybody else want to try to figure out how to explain Quantum Physics to a seven-year-old?? I told her it was a form of science that dealt with hard-to-understand things like matter and energy. "What's matter?" "That's what stuff is made of." "Like cookies have milk and eggs in them." "Uh, kind of, except it's the stuff that everything is made of, like our skin and a table and an egg, and...well...stuff. ALL Stuff that exists and takes up...space." Mom falls silent as her brain spins out. "Energy is like electricity, right Mom?" "Yes, electricity is a form of energy, and so is lightning and even motion." (Decided I didn't want to go anywhere else with this one.) "What's so hard to understand about that?" Exactly. What's so hard to understand about that?? *wipes brow*

So our next stop is the bank. We're pulling into the drive-through, and Kaylee says "Mommy, does dying hurt?" Ooookay. I go ahead and talk to the teller, roll up my window and think "Huh-can we go back to Physics now??" :O :) I told her that when she was born, it wasn't very comfortable for her either, and it was kind of scary and new and unknown, but that once it was over she was here with us and it was all fine and she didn't even remember any of the scary stuff. That dying is a little like that; that it's kind of scary and might not feel the best right when it's happening, but that once it's over, she'll be in a better place with people she loves and that she won't be bothered by any scary stuff ever again. I should have stopped there, because she got that, but she asked again if it would hurt. I told her it depends, but that I believe that God made our minds and bodies to protect us from the worst of fear and pain at that point. I still don't know why she asked that question, what brought it up, or what has been going around in that mind of hers about death, but that satisfied her for now. She did say "I want to go to heaven, but I want to wait and be here with you for awhile first. Besides, if I go to heaven too, you won't have anybody left here. Well, Daddy, but no kids." Sometimes I'm surprised I don't smell her wheels turning up there, as fast and furious as they seem to go most of the time. Just sit and talk to her quietly, one-on-one for a few minutes, and you may be amazed at what comes out. :)

Fortunately, I think that death and physics were the only two serious topics for that hour, and we moved on to laptop games and laundry once we got home. I've got more stuff I need to do tonight and tomorrow, and then it's "Pack For Oshkosh" time Thursday, and "Head 'em Up and Move 'em Out" on Friday morning. I'm not going to repeat last year's blogging about Oshkosh, I don't think. If I do anything it'll just be an accounting of what we did. This may be no more than "woke up, ate, watched airplanes, walked around, ate out, hung out." Which sounds juuuust fine to me. ;)

Firing Days

Apparently this was the message for today. I got home from shipping some stuff off, and picked up a book that my father-in-law gave me to read today called "Under the Potter's Hands; Count it all JOY!" by Flete Robinson. I only read one quick story from the book, and the first line was "It was a firing day." She is talking about how if we are to be the clay in God's hands, days in the "kiln" are part of the process. This reminded me of my "Some days are bug days, some days are windshield days" analogy, only on a much more spiritual level. ;) The quick story was about her family which had no food, no money, and a dirty fridge, and how she was sarcastically trying to find the good in it, and accidentally really did find the good. It's about how you take things that go wrong, bad days, and try to find the good, the lesson, have the right attitude and heart about them, learn from them, not succumb to the temptation to just grump and complain and pout. People of all and no faiths have their own version of this, because it's a true lesson regardless of your beliefs. The aspects of your life that you feed and nurture will be the aspects that grow and become strongest in you. We all know people who can consistently take the smallest problem and turn it into everyone else's biggest nightmare, and people who can take the worst situation in the world and handle it with grace and dignity. Neither one of those just happens, they are simply outward expressions of each person's most frequently allowed internal dialog. Taking it to the book's spiritual level, those difficult days are the ones that can be used to allow the Potter to smooth away the rough, ugly edges. Anyway, I read this story, then sat down to my email, where the only message waiting for me was my "Quotes of the Day" that get sent to me, well, each day. :) So my quote for today?

"Anyone can be happy when times are good; the richer experience is to be happy when times are not."
~Susan Harris

So whether this message was for me or for whoever is reading this, or both, it's a good thought to have for the day...maybe especially if it is a firing day. :)

CHILDREN'S BEATITUDES

Blessed is the child who has someone who believes in him, to whom he can carry his problems unafraid.

Blessed is the child who is allowed to pursue his curiosity into every worthwhile field of information.

Blessed is the child who has someone who understands that childhood's griefs are real and call for understanding and sympathy.

Blessed is the child who has about him those who realize his need of Christ as Saviour and will lead him patiently and prayerfully to the place of acceptance.

Blessed is the child whose love of the true, the beautiful and the good has been nourished through the years.

Blessed is the child whose imagination has been turned into channels of creative effort.

Blessed is the child whose efforts to achieve have found encouragement and kindly commendation.

Blessed is the child who has learned freedom from selfishness through responsibility and cooperation with others.

~Author Unknown, post copied from "Seasonal Soundings"

Hits and Misses

The usual occurred today. Dishes, errands, work, lunch. I even left my to-go box sitting on the table at lunch after having to ask twice to get it. I do things like that sometimes. Walk into a room and forget why I'm in there. Ask for a to-go box and leave it sitting on the table full of my food. Look at my schedule and then promptly forget to do what was on it. Is is Ginko biloba that is supposed to help with things like that, or a lobotomy?

After lunch I ran a few more errands, then went out to Kokomo. We'd sent my helmet back to the manufacturer because I couldn't hear in it properly in the T-6, and I rather need to be able to hear. Chuck and Nathan's helmets worked fine, therefore it was just mine, and we sent it back. I'd just gotten it back awhile ago and I needed to test it out and make sure it was better, working properly, etc. before I actually needed it again. Nathan was working on an oil leak in the Mustang, and it was time to run it up, so my plan was to hop in back and try out the helmet then. If you can hear in the Mustang, you can hear in anything. What ended up happening was he stayed on the ramp with a hand held radio looking it over and telling me what to do while I fired up the Mustang and ran it for awhile. With the seat right for him at 6'3" or 6'4" with much longer legs than mine, I was stretched out completely in order to be able to hold in the brakes, and brakes are Very Important. ;) Now that was a nice view. My helmet worked up to a certain power setting, at which point I could hear squelch breaking when he spoke, but no words. I think the helmet works fine, but I added some spacers on the ground to push the ear pieces inside closer to my ears, and I think that'll help even more by allowing less outside noise in.

I accomplished a couple of other things out there, then headed back to pick Kaylee up, which is when I learned that I'd forgotten that today was Monday and I'd made her miss her ballet class. I got her to Cheer on time, and while we were waiting I apologized to her for making her miss her ballet, and she said "It's my class and I forgot too. Don't be so hard on yourself, Mom." Sometimes she is like a 12-year-old. I told her that it was my responsibility to get her there but I appreciated her understanding. She patted my hand, said "you're so sweet", and hopped off my lap to go do her cheerleading class...

RFSM: Checkrides

(Random Flight School Memories, since it's been awhile).

There's a guy (not at our school) who is ready for his checkride, but refuses to go yet, and he reminded me of my checkride and how that went.

See, I was one of the last people in my class to go for my checkride. It wasn't because I wasn't ready. My instructor had been pushing me to go for quite awhile, but I kept refusing, saying I wasn't ready. And then one day I got The Talk. The examiner at the school, whom I still email today by the way, called me into his office and told me that I had two choices: take my checkride, or drop out of the flight program. I know how melodramatic this all sounds now, but at the time it was quite serious to me, as young as I was. I came closer to Option B than anybody knows. All I could hear in my head was the voices of people around me. I didn't belong. I was going to fail. I couldn't do it. I was a joke. I shouldn't even be there. I'd never make it. People were betting how many times it would take me to pass my checkride, if I could at all. So when he told me I had to take the checkride or go home, I actually had to think about it. I thought about how maybe it would be better to just go home having never actually failed. I didn't want to prove people right, but at the same time, I was afraid that if I took the test and failed, I'd be proving them right in even more spectacular fashion. People were watching, and I never had done well in those conditions. I finally agreed to take the checkride, and set the date, and I didn't sleep from then on. The night before my checkride I got no sleep, and I was sick to my stomach. That morning I literally threw up before walking into the checkride, and I went in there like a person headed for an execution. I walked in with no sleep, white, shaking, and serving myself up to be knocked off, basically.

The oral was the hardest part for me. I hated being asked questions and having to think and answer, and even though he was trying to put me at ease, I was just terrified. Finally it was over and I'd passed that part. Not smoothly by any stretch, but passed. There was more, but the only thing I remember not knowing was that the emergency frequency is 121.5, but I know that now. ;) Once I got past the oral hurdle, from then on out I was actually a lot more relaxed. We went up in the airplane, and I knew that part. The only thing I missed there was on VOR tracking-I tuned in the radial with a "From" indication instead of a "To" indication and headed away from the airport instead of to it. But I figured it out, turned around, and took us home, figuring I'd blown it and failed. My examiner hadn't said anything up to this point, but then he turned to me and said "Why the heck did it take you so long to take your checkride?" I didn't know what to say, and he continued with "You should have taken this a long time ago-that's one of the best checkrides I've given." Now I'll grant that he probably says that to most of them, but it sure sounded good to me then. :)

I landed, we went inside, and he got out the old typewriter and made up my temporary airman's certificate, shook my hand, and said "Congratulations, pilot." I didn't really react much, didn't say anything except wave it past my instructor on my way out to the car, and I was halfway home before my heart started pounding extra hard and this silly grin started spreading on my face. I spent the last half of my drive home whooping and hollering in my car like the crazy kid I was. I kept trying the words "I'm a pilot." in my head and they just wouldn't sink in. The funny thing is, I don't remember calling or telling anyone. The last thing I remember from that time frame is driving home and laughing like a loon.

That was a turning point of sorts. It's funny to look at now. Failing a checkride is not a very big deal. If you fail some part of it, you get more training and you take that part again. People don't permanently fail. If they are so bad that they'll never pass a checkride, they never get far enough to be signed off for a checkride. If they get signed off for a checkride, then even if it takes a time or two extra, they will get it. It is quite simply not that big of a deal. But it felt like life and death to me at the time, and I'm not sure I'd ever been that flat-out scared. And sick. But when I got that pilot's license in my hand, it was a turning point for my confidence. I'd always been stubborn, er, persistent, but then I felt like maybe I really could pull this off after all. Instrument was next, and my Commercial certificate wasn't too far behind it. I don't remember anything about that one except he told me if I got him safely back to the ramp, I was a new Commercial Pilot. When I pulled the mixture to shut off the engine on the ramp, the mixture came off in my hand-the cable broke. I stared at it dangling in my hand, and he said "Now what are you going to do?" I taxied it over to the maintenance hangar. After we finally got it killed, I turned to him and said "Does that still count as safely to the ramp?" It did. Because of my delay in taking my Private checkride, I was two weeks behind to start my Instrument Rating if I was going to do it over the summer course, and the administrator/examiner said he didn't think I could pull it off; that it's hard to do it in a summer course anyway, let alone starting off two weeks behind. I looked him in the eye and said "I can do it." I remember him staring at me for a few minutes with a little amused look on his face, and then he said "Okay, I'll let you try, but you'd better do it." I did. I flew like crazy, getting in a ton of flight time in during those weeks, flying so much that sometimes on my drive home I would find myself straddling the line in the middle of the road like a taxiway instead of staying on the right side of the road like I was supposed to. After I passed that checkride, on my way out of the office, I turned around and threw him a grin and said "I TOLD you I could do it in time." He laughed and said "Yes, you did. I'm not actually surprised."

On a side note, after I became an instructor, the very first person I sent for a private pilot checkride, I sent to my former examiner. My student had only one leg, and walked into the school where I was teaching on crutches, and said "As you can see, I only have one leg, but I got my medical and my special issuance...are you willing to teach me? The other place wasn't." I thought we made a good pair. A student other teachers were wary of teaching and an instructor that other students were wary of learning from. He did great, and passed on his first try. :) Actually, he did better crosswind landings than a lot of people I know with two feet!

That same examiner is how I ended up in Kokomo. He let me know he'd heard there was an instructor's position available in Kokomo, and I drove up from Carmel to apply for it. Steve's chief instructor at the time, Mike, hired me to help on weekends, and that is the beginning of the story of how I ended up marrying Steve and living in Kokomo happily ever after. The End. ;)

But back to checkrides. It was after my multi-engine checkride, when I only had one more to go anyway, that it all finally clicked in. Something that people like Steve always knew but took me awhile. So you blow one thing and have to do it again...So What?? Does the world end? Is all your training for naught? Is there no hope of redemption? Is there some secret record of how many times it took you? Nooope. Big Hairy Deal. Work hard, study, practice, do your best, and you too can pass any checkride out there.

Now, ask me why I don't feel like taking my ATP checkride here where people know me. ;)

R&R

It was a good weekend just at home. We don't really have a lot of those where we're just able to be together all weekend, at home, particularly not in the summer months, so this was nice. Steve did have to go out to the airport for a few hours today, because we had a guest airplane and a whole parking lot full of people there today for it, but that was enjoyable for him. I'd have gone out too with Kaylee if I could have mustered up the energy right there at the end. ;)

I did some productive things and I did some relaxing things, and at the end of the day we had a nice steak dinner with corn and potatoes with his mom and dad. A lovely end to a lovely, quiet, peaceful day.

Yesterday we had this one storm cell move through. It wasn't big, but it packed some punch, and at one point we had this huge flash of lightning in what looked like our back yard, along with a massive thunderclap. The timing was such that the lightning flashed, the thunder cracked an an amazing decibel, and the lights all went off in the house, all within a second of each other. Kaylee was sitting at the computer working on a Polly Pockets website, and she just started shrieking. Over and over shrieking. She was highly freaked out, in a most dramatic fashion. I jumped up and ran over to her and grabbed her, and she kept shrieking. I had my hand on her chest, and I could feel her little heart pounding a mile a minute. Finally she calmed down, the lights came back on within a few seconds, and all was right with her world. Every time the thunder rumbled for awhile there though, she stiffened up quite suspiciously.

Well, I drafted this, and when I went back into drafts I found one I'd never posted. Perhaps I had a good reason for that, but I'll go ahead and "post" anyway. It's an old installment of "RFSM" or Random Flight School Memories. Skip if you wish, and in the meantime, have a good week coming up!

Relaxation

Today I took a break on that whole "productivity" thing, and we just relaxed and hung out as a family. Steve grilled brats for lunch, we all played a little, Kaylee played computer games, played the piano with Steve, just...being together. A perfectly normal, slow-paced, laid-back Saturday.

I also read a novel today that I enjoyed. Mom, you'd like it too. It's called "The Last Oracle" by James Rollins. It was a fairly fast-paced book based on the history of Russia, India, Gypsies, the Greek, all entwined with modern-day politics, genetics, and a plot to destroy most of the planet and the race to save lives. But what would make for a decent fiction book anyway ended with a surprise for me in the "Author's Note" at the end, in which he lists most of the components of the book that had sounded like fiction...and told you that they were true. One of those things that can give you a little bit of the creeps.

The Greek Oracle of Delphi and the role it/they played in history. Project Stargate where the Stanford Research Institute and the CIA had some success in people who could view things "remotely" that they had never seen before. Brain manipulation; augmenting brains with magnetic stimulation. Nobel Prize-winning scientists who say that people can see about 3 seconds into the future, as determined by experiments on gamblers and soldiers that have been repeated at universities around the world, all consistently showing that capability, with no explanation of why. An Indian boy who was taken to Oxford to prove he could answer questions to math questions BEFORE they were asked him. He did, consistently. They asked him questions they didn't even have the solutions for yet, and he answered. After he had died, they finally had the capability to run the math equations they'd originally asked him...and his answers were proven correct. "Intuition: Knowing Beyond Logic" by Osho describes many such encounters with savants. A Lake in the Ural Mountains (thanks to Chernobyl) with Current radiation levels sufficient to give someone a fatal dose of radiation in less than an hour, leaking radiation into neighboring swamps, with fault lines under the lake. An earthquake potential exists there that would kill the Arctic Ocean and sweep over northern Europe. For real. Strange weapons like sonic flares, radiosensitive poisons, and whip swords. And the role people who have displayed various level of autistic tendencies have played in the world. Pretty interesting stuff.

The human brain is composed of thirty billion neurons. Each neuron communicates to its neighbors via multiple synapses, creating roughly one million billion synaptic connections. These connections in turn create a huge number of neural circuits...as in ten followed by a million zeros. There's a vast amount of computing power locked in our skulls that we haven't even begun to comprehend yet. I still can't see how it could have been anything but created with purpose and design...

Anyway, it's just a fiction book, but it certainly did a good job tying in a lot of different topics into one interesting storyline.

Well, I am enjoying this weekend at home prior to the chaos of Oshkosh prep, attendance, and recovery, and for now I think I'll get some rest. ;)

Rules Pilots Live By...

A few oldies but amusings. :)
--------------------------------------------

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to the society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist the parachute.

If helicopters are so safe, how come there are no vintage/classic helicopter fly-ins?

As a pilot, only two bad things can happen to you and one of them will.
a. One day you will walk out to the aircraft knowing that it is your last flight.
b. One day you will walk out to the aircraft not knowing that it is your last flight.
(p.s. Take this as a 'losing-your-medical-and-being-grounded' thing, since that is the Bad Thing for a pilot.)

The ideal pilot is the perfect blend of discipline and aggressiveness.

The medical profession is the natural enemy of the aviation profession.
(See? ;))

Before each flight, make sure that your bladder is empty and your fuel tanks are full!
(*I told you to go before we left!*)

He who demands everything that his aircraft can give him is a pilot; he that demands one iota more is a fool.

There are certain aircraft sounds that can only be heard at night or over water.

Flying is a great way of life for men who want to feel like boys, but not for those who still are.
(*oh heavens, amen!*)

Flying is a hard way to earn an easy living.
(*nods*)

If black boxes survive air crashes -- why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?

It's not that all airplane pilots are good-looking. It's just that good-looking people seem more capable of flying airplanes. Or so seasoned observers contend.
(*snort*)

Son, you're going to have to make up your mind about growing up and becoming a pilot. You can't do both.

There are only two types of aircraft -- fighters and targets.
(*grin*)

You define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, and you weren't nauseated by the food. So you're grateful.

The New FAA Motto: We're not happy till you're not happy!
(*This works for the IRS, the BMV, the Insurance Company, and the Telephone Company too!*)

Celebrate Good Times, C'Mon...

I hope you're singing it now too. ;)

We leave for Oshkosh in a week or less and will be gone for 9-10 days, so I am cramming over here attempting to catch up on and get ahead of everything I possibly can. So today, other than three and a half hours I spent at Glenndale, I have been cranking out work again, and leaving my daughter to her own devices a lot. There's always a trade-off, isn't there... Fortunately, she is not used to me spending all day working on the computer any more, so she's given me these days to work most patiently.

Kaylee got to have her friend Maggie at the airport with her today, which really made her happy. They hugged when they saw each other and they were attached from that point on. They always do well together. Once in awhile there are typical light spats, but they usually resolve them pretty quickly and well, and I'm glad they have each other to hang out with now and then. She is even probably going to spend a few days at Oshkosh, which Kaylee will love. :)

Nathan brought lunch today-40 some steaks. Fillet, ribeye, strip, all sorts of steak. We all thought there would be steaks left over, and that we'd be eating steak for lunch the rest of this week. We were wrong. There were over Fifty people there today! It wasn't a Glenndale record for lunch, but it was really close. Fortunately, many of the kids and ladies either skipped a steak and just went with side dishes like mac & cheese, cheesy potatoes, baked potatoes, baked beans, salad, etc., or some cut a steak in half and just went that way. So we ended up having enough steak...barely. Nobody went hungry that I know of, but there were not any leftovers, either. One of the airport guys who is quite handy with the steak prep and cooking came out and did the grilling for us, and when he saw how low we were running on steak, he ran back to his house and brought back an entire fillet (a literal uncut however-many-pounds-worth fillet). We didn't have to break into that, but it was close. He also fixed bananas foster on the grill, which is a specialty of his that we all enjoy a great deal. None of us expected him to have to grill for 50 some people, so hopefully we will see him around there again and he hasn't just beat it out of the state. :)

I didn't stick around as late as I usually do on a Friday because I wanted to get back and keep working. So when Kaylee's friend left, we left shortly thereafter as well, and I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening working. It's past midnight as I write this, and I still have two things to do before bed; I just wanted to get a blog post in tonight. However, my inbox is CLEAN. My "things to do" list is still there, but I had to start somewhere, and I took care of 289 messages and what they entailed these last few days, and that's no small task.

Poor Steve got home past 10:30 p.m. last night, so he had a whole hour and a half to relax...no, catch up on some work at home...prior to going to bed and getting back up at 7 a.m. and going back to work. It's been like that for awhile for him; he's been running very late and very early hours for days straight including weekends. This is why I didn't wake him up when he fell asleep on the couch an hour ago. But as he (and the saying) says, you have to make hay while the sun shines. Things will probably slow down a bit as the weather turns miserably hot and muggy, and things always die off in the winter. So every hour counts when it's good flying season.

Well, back to work for me. I'm glad tomorrow is Saturday!

Thoughts from Thursday

Let's see, I'm sitting down to write this at 9:21 p.m. and it's the first time I've stopped working on stuff since I got up this morning. And after I write this I'll probably go back to working on stuff. I didn't even get a dent in my paper pile today, but boy did I get some dents in other areas, thankfully. While I'd like to impress you with the list of things I got done today, I'm not narcissistic enough to think that anyone really wants to know and I don't want to take the time to write it all out even for my own boring posterity. ;) I only left the house once today, to run the usual errands and eat lunch. Otherwise I have enjoyed the air conditioned comfort of my home today.

I ate enough last night that as of today I've eaten a small cup of soup, a little bit of mac & cheese, and drank mostly water, in an attempt to recuperate. Not that I felt bad or anything, but boy do I need to take a few days (okay, months) off of large meals. The good and bad news is that we're having steak for lunch tomorrow. But I'll just make that dinner as much as lunch and be good to go. :)

You may remember that I now get my eyebrows done via a "threading" method. I'd never heard of it, tried it, it worked well and looked good, and didn't pull on the ole eye skin so much. So, fine. Well, last week I went and had that done, and in an odd coincidence, just a few days later a Middle Eastern fellow showed up at our airport with a flyer he wanted to put up on our bulletin board about threading. Before you think it, no, they don't even have my name, let alone my work address or know anything about me. I don't even talk to the lady who does it other than "eyebrows please" and "thank you". So it was indeed a coincidence. Unless she had this guy follow me around until I got to the airport. ;) Anyway, so this guy put up a flyer about "threading" on the bulletin board of a grass-strip airport populated by mostly older gentlemen. Myself and one other lady are the only two women out there frequently. I'm still cracking up at the thought of these..."Mature"...airport guys secretly taking down the eyebrow shaping number and going to give it a go. Anyway, the threading eyebrows guy apparently decided to ask a few flying questions, which were fine until he got to "So how much fuel do these planes hold?" If your eyebrow (ha) just went up, so did mine. What kind of question is that for a non-pilot? Why do you want to know and what made you think of that question? Poor guy was probably just curious, but in this day and age, curiosity of that kind of thing isn't always a good thing since it conjures up thoughts ranging from terrorism to airplanes who have had the fuel stolen from them thanks to the high costs.

A few days ago, Steve and I were sitting in our living room very late at night when his cell phone rang. On the other end was Flight Service, telling us that we had an overdue airplane who had not closed their flight plan and wondering if we had seen them land. Flight Service went down the line, calling several people and places looking for our plane. Now, when a person files a flight plan, it can be easy to forget to close it. This happens. And if that happens, in 30 minutes Flight Service will do their job and they will start looking for the airplane. First they call around, and if that is unsuccessful they start physically searching for a downed aircraft along the filed route of flight. Even though pilots are humans too and do forget to close a flight plan now and then, even though most of these calls are from that and not from a real problem, even though you logically know it's probably nothing, there is still nothing quite like running an airport and getting a phone call after most people are in bed and hearing that you have an overdue aircraft and a missing pilot. The first thing you do is look up who it is and start worrying while you tell yourself to not worry. Steve tried calling the person on the cellphone, and just got voice mail. That didn't help. We just kind of looked at each other for a minute there. Within an hour though, he got the phone call back that the plane and pilot had been found safe and sound. What is more unusual about this story though is that in this case, the pilot did not make a mistake and forget to close the flight plan...Flight Services started looking for a plane that wasn't even overdue. We're still not quite sure how they managed that one, but they did. The pilot had the print-out of his flight plan with the time on it, and he was not late. Goes to show you, FS makes mistakes now and then too, apparently, although I must admit this was a new one on me. Thanks for that little bit of fear though, guys! :O

I've been thinking about the SMA community a lot lately. Forgive the recap if you're familiar, but to make this make sense, I'll start with the past. When Devon & I (we) came along, there was a definite gap between what was available and what was needed. There were only a couple of personal SMA websites out there of children who had passed away, and there was only one organization out there doing only SMA research. No information about SMA, care, support, nothing. The one organization didn't permit discussion of medical issues online for liability reasons, didn't provide equipment or really do anything but fundraise towards a cure, which is of course important too. That was their focus-the cure-which is fine. When their board went down for a couple of weeks, those of us who were online missed talking to each other, and since Steve and I are involved in the computer world, it was easy for me to start up my own web board. While I was at it, we made it uncensored, because that was our biggest gripe...that we couldn't even talk to each other without posts being deleted and people being banned if they discussed anything medical or nutritional. I didn't plan on it really going anywhere or doing anything, and assumed that when the other board came back online, mine would probably disappear, and I was fine with that. Until I got a phone call from said other organization basically attempting to intimidate/threaten and harass me about the whole thing. Funny, I would probably have just disappeared if I hadn't been pushed. Or maybe not, because around this time people wanted to help us do a fundraiser for SMA, and rather than sending it for future research, I wanted it to go towards families currently dealing with SMA to get equipment that at the time was terribly hard to get. We did that for two years, quietly, and then decided to go ahead and set up a non-profit tax exempt organization so that people who donated could write it off on taxes too. I didn't even tell anyone in the SMA community that I had an organization because I didn't want there to be any controversy or problem with the other organization. A friend 'outed' me with a t-shirt fundraiser publicly, and we were off and running from there. There were a lot of battles over the years between what I'll call "my" guys and the other organization. I won't get into what or why, but I can honestly say that those battles effected change that has made a difference. These days people speak freely and swap information, supplies, equipment, ideas, and support as if it's always been that way, even in the other organization, which now also provides equipment and support. Huge numbers of kids have way outlived their prognosis because we can finally talk about what works medically and nutritionally with these kids-enough so that doctors have finally stopped blocking it and started doing actual studies and research on it...successfully might I add. They have even recently officially bumped up the age of life expectancy in these kids because of this. Families have gotten good at getting doctors and insurance companies to get them what they need for their kids, at least the basics. There are dozens and dozens of organizations now. Choices, options. People aren't as alone out there. They can ask a question at midnight and get an answer right away. All of this is not as it was, that's for sure. Now I am still here, sending out what I can where I can to whom I can, and I still have the message board and chats and angels websites. I still ship out supplies and equipment where insurance denies and people can't get. But there are still plenty of things that need done in the SMA community. I think coming up there will be the next step in the SMA world, taken on by the next person who has maybe been pushed, or is finding a way to deal with their grief, or fired up about filling a need where currently there is a hole. I was that person ten years ago, and a lot of ...worn... people tried to be rather discouraging about it. Now I am more worn, but rather than being discouraging to that next person, I would say: It is as it should be, and it is good. In the meantime, I'll still be here plugging along and doing what I can. :)

(Bust A) Hump Day!

Today was "Get It Done" day. Not that I got it All done by any means, but I certainly put a decent dent in it. I took care of over 50 emails-and these were things I needed to do, not just quick things I needed to write or answer. I got Kaylee signed up for a "Dance Intensive" class, which is a two-day thing she did last year where they go over all the different types of dance in a cram session kind of thing. I dealt with two different customer service places on the phone for over an hour today--and got it resolved. I even retained my patience when I was transferred for the fourth time at the same place and had to tell my story for the fourth time in a row. I win some kind of internal brownie points for that one. ;) We all ate a light lunch at Applebees today; not too many things will make me have a salad for lunch, but what we were planning for dinner was one one of them. ;) After lunch I had to go back to Staples for some stuff, then on to Meijer to get house necessities.

This whole time, Kaylee was wearing her white high heeled shoes with the ribbons tied around her ankles. You know, she really walks fairly well in those things. It started off with me giving her lessons on how to walk in high heels, and within a few years SHE may be telling ME how to do it. Anyway, she made it through all these stores and errands, but after the big store she asked me if we were going home. I said no, I had to go to the post office too, and she paused and said "Can I wait in the car? My feet are getting tired." Ah, the price of beauty. ;)

After lunch I got more work done. Laundry, dishes, more computer stuff. I printed off and folded 50 brochures, went through my mail and took care of most of that, paid bills online, sent off our property taxes (whee), printed off some congratulatory certificates for pilot achievements, you get the idea. I got lots of work done so I could relax and enjoy this evening...

Oh, Kaylee's Ballet & Tap Professional Photos are finally up on her site. Grandparents and other relatives who want a copy of either, just let me know which one and what size. :)

We started off the evening right at Outback where I made up for that salad I had at lunch. Nathan had us out for his birthday, and we ate like crazy. There were, let's see, Nathan and family makes seven, the Stants 3, the Brier two & Dale, Chuck...I think that's it, so 14 of us, and we had mushrooms and cheese fries and blooming onions and spinach dip and those were just the appetizers. I left my baked potato untouched mostly, and the bread, and I left most of my salad, and in this way I could focus on my favorites. We topped it off with dessert, too. Oh, yeah.

Come to think of it, I'd better have salad tomorrow, too. ;)

Swelter

It felt like summer hit with a vengeance today. It was Hot and Muggy, my exact two least favorite ways to be...

Kaylee and I ran errands this morning, then came back here so I could get some work done. I accomplished a fair amount, really. We met up with Chuck for lunch, then took some food out to OKK (Kokomo Airport). I enjoyed watching the T-6 flying around overhead, and Man does that thing sound good.

Chuck was forced to ride in the back of the 6 on the way back to Huntington ;), and Kaylee and I "chased" in the Baron to pick them up. And that's where it's hot. You practically wish you could shove your head out the door during flight. I finally quit sweating at Huntington in time for us to go back in the Baron and go home-so I went up high enough to feel the cool air, even though I had to come back down to land as soon as I got up there. A cold Diet Coke later, and Kaylee and I came home to get some more work done.

While I'm at it, I have to wish Nathan a Happy Birthday today! I think he's 59. ;)

Kaylee was getting a little whiny and cranky today, and I asked her what the deal was...we'd been gone during the morning, we'd been gone from 11:30 until 4 something p.m., and it was now 6 p.m. She said to me "My life is boring. I'm bored." Like mothers from all countries, decades, and races, I provided suggestions of things for her to do, which like children of all ages from all places she wasn't interested in the least in doing (hanging up clothes, for one). She said she's ready to go back to school now, and that she's just bored. After all, there were a couple of hours in there where we were home and I was not keeping her entertained, don't you know! :) She misses her cousins and Aunt Cathy...

The T-6 Flies!

It was another perfect summer weather day, and this morning I went along with Nathan up to Huntington where he flew off a couple hours on his newly completed T-6. So far so good, it runs beautifully! I put my seat as far up as it would go, and brought and wore a parachute to sit on as well, and I was still down in a hole in the back seat so far that when Nathan turned around he said I'd disappeared-that all he could see was the top of my red helmet. That's okay, all I could see of him was the top of his red helmet too. :) He took off, and we climbed up over the airport and basically just flew around. The first few hours you're breaking in the new engine and just checking over everything, making a list of what needs worked on or tweaked, etc. One of the things that needed tweaked was that we couldn't talk to each other, so the first flight we communicated by him giving me hand signals now and then. :) He flew it for awhile, then turned it over to me for awhile. We circled around up high where it was nice and cool, above a broken layer of clouds, wandering around within gliding distance of the airport at all times. At one point, I decided to try to get a different kind of picture. I tightened up my camera strap on my wrist so that should I drop my camera I wouldn't lose it, opened my canopy all the way, stuck my arm out the window as far as I could, aimed the camera back at the T-6, and blindly took a couple of pictures. It's quite cold in that kind of breeze that high up, and at one point my camera shut down on its own from the chill. Apparently Canon little bitty cameras aren't designed to be in wind chills like that. ;) But I got a couple photos anyway after a reboot or two. We landed and they worked on the intercom and a few other things while we ate lunch, then we went back up for Round Two. This time I put a cushion down there which raised me up a few more inches, and we could hear each other on the ground. Still couldn't hear each other in the air, so more hand signals for the last leg as well. We landed long enough to kick me out, and I flew the Baron back to Kokomo.

It was just really neat seeing it fly. I've personally never seen an airplane go from metal frame to flying bird before, so it's been educational and interesting, and I really enjoyed going up in it today. Days like this are only possible thanks to the help, support, and understanding of my entire family. Richard and Ann let Kaylee hang out with them most of the day today, Steve worked around his schedule to take her after that and take care of her ballet and cheer activities, and Kaylee lets her routine and day get changed around usually without any complaint. I wouldn't be able to do things like go on the test flights and spend time learning the plane if it wasn't for all of their help, and I really appreciate them all being so patient...

After I landed at Kokomo, I put stuff away and then headed home quickly to change my clothes and head right back out to a school board meeting which lasted almost 3 hours. I made it home around 9:30 pm for the day, and went into Kaylee's room to chat with her for awhile. She was still awake, so we just hung out for awhile.

I got some pictures from today up, and a couple of little video clips. Well, "little" if you're not on a slow internet connection, anyway. Sorry, Mom...

Today I learned that a new T-6 has stiffer controls than an old T-6, that I look like a doofus in a helmet but at least my hair is safe, that I have to find a better way to enter and exit from the back seat because it doesn't have a hold where the other one did, that I like the new style canopy and how it folds open and shut, that you don't put your fingers on the outside of the canopy when the guy in the front has his canopy closed, because if he suddenly opens it, it will slide back and catch your fingers in a big pinch, that in July in Indiana it gets cooler around 3000', and that Kaylee still has a great laugh.

Fair Maidens

Today was Fair Day! And it was just a gorgeous day for it. I've decided that the last day is the perfect day to go to the fair. The crowds were way down, the lines were short to non-existent, and the vendors hawking wares were all wanting to get rid of their stuff, so they pretty much gave it away if you played at all. The only bad thing was that the food tents were out of a lot of things, but I can deal with that as long as they have elephant ears. ;) It was a not-a-cloud-in-the-sky blue day, warm in the sun and cool in the shade with the breeze. Really, it was just the perfect day to go to the fair.

I slathered the sunscreen on Kaylee and even myself, and away we went. We got parking right up front by the entrance, and it didn't cost us the $4.00 the sign said--nobody was there to collect money. That was a nice start to the day. :) We just bought wristbands so we could go on unlimited rides, because I am nothing if not a glutton for punishment! :) This was the first year Kaylee was tall enough to go on all the rides but one, and she was raring to go. The first ride was one of the biggest at the fair. I can't think of the name of it, but it spins you around (naturally) while shooting you up very high. You sit in it and your legs swing free. Kaylee and I couldn't sit together, so I was just hoping she was okay, but she did just fine. I, however, felt it. When I got off, I could feel the dizziness for a little while, and I thought "Uh-oh". The next five rides we went on all did spinning in various forms, all to the left, some up and down, some round and round, some all combined in one. After about five rides, I told Kaylee I needed to stop, and she did a couple of smaller rides on her own...but that's not nearly as much fun for someone to not have someone to go on rides with them, you know? She did three or four without me, and then we stopped and had a snack. See, I was doing this on an empty stomach, and it was now almost 2 pm. So we went for an elephant ear, cotton candy, pizza, lemonade, and water. I didn't eat or drink too much of anything, knowing that a full, sloshing stomach would not be a good plan. We went back and went through some funhouses for kids; one of them had a slide you had to go down in order to get out. Kaylee was amused to see me go down the twisty slide. :)

And then it happened. Kaylee had been begging me all day to go on the "Ring of Fire". This is a perfect circle of a roller coaster that takes you up forwards and backwards, then all the way around upside down. Several times it then just stops at the top of the circle and leaves you hanging upside down for awhile. My problem with it was that it just did loop after loop after loop, fairly fast, and I just knew this would not be good on me, particularly after already doing a bunch of other things that spin. I begged off of it, I tried to get out of it, but this was the first year she was big enough to do it, and she *really* wanted to go. She pleaded, she batted her eyelashes, she told me how excited she was to do it. Finally, I figured I had waited long enough that just maybe I was feeling steady on my feet. I'd also learned with some of the other rides where to look, to relax and breathe, etc. and that I'd come off them somewhat okay. So we get on the Ring of Fire, and Kaylee is quite excited. All the way up to the point they send us upside down, and she feels like she is going to fall out. She is not, but you do slide forward and hang by those straps, and she Freaked Out. The girl in front of us was screaming her head off, crying, howling "we're going to DIE, Oh my GOSH, I'm SCARED!" which made that girl's mother start screaming at the guy running the ride (who didn't speak much English) to "STOP the ride! Let us off! Get us down!" Meanwhile, Kaylee is yelling "I'm FALLING! I'm FALLING! I can't hang on any more! I'm going to fall! I'm scared! I want off!" And me trying to calmly tell her we weren't going to fall, and using my arm to hang on to her and try to reassure her. Meanwhile this thing is looping around. I am neither breathing slowly nor relaxed nor looking where I need to be looking. Every time we go upside down and they stop us there, every kid on that ride is screaming, not from joy, but from total fear. The operator apparently didn't hear the mother or children yelling "stop the ride!", and finally after about the longest ride of my life, with the camera on my wrist banging around the metal cage, Kaylee giving a running commentary on how she hates this ride and she's never going on it again and she wants OFF and we're going to FALL, the other children wailing and yelling similar things, the ride finally stops. As the motion stops, I'm busy talking to Kaylee when I gag without even knowing I'm going to. We exited the ride, with a whole crew of people talking about how they are never going on there again, and as I'm trying to walk, I realize I'm in trouble. Fortunately for me, we are at the edge of the fair, and I can go behind a trailer and be all by myself when I throw up my elephant ear. Yeah, yeah. Kaylee didn't know what to do, so she stood there and watched me (which I just love). :O Oh well, at least I felt better. ;)

From there we went and hit the carnival games. A man guessed her birthday and was wrong, so she picked out a pink dolphin. She went fishing with a magnet and caught two fish, so she picked out a pink frog. I decided that another snack and drink would serve me well, so we hit some chocolate ice cream and a slushy. She asked me to go back on the first high ride we went on, and this time I was smart enough to say no, even though I felt fine again. She said "why not?" I didn't even answer, I just looked at her with one eyebrow up and a "really?!" look on my face. lol We hit a few more booths and fun things, and then she did the 'strong man' sledgehammer to the bell and picked out a giant inflatable dolphin. It was a good thing we were leaving, because that thing is literally taller than she is by several inches. It's HUGE. She was quite thrilled with it, and on that note, 3 1/2 hours after our arrival, we said goodbye to the fair.

I came home and took a nap on the couch to recover, and when I woke up I had a big pillow over the top of me, a pink dolphin in my left arm, a pink frog in my right arm, and a small pillow I had pulled over my face to dampen noise. I woke up to Steve laughing and saying "Kaylee-come here and look at Mommy!". :P We went out to Grandma's garden, which is blooming beautifully, then I got all the pictures up on Kaylee's site from her visit to TN and from today at the Fair. There are two pages of each. She's got new photos on her home page too. :)

It was a busy day, but other than the Ring of Fire, we really had a great time, and I'm glad she made it home in time to be able to go to the fair after all this year. Next year I think we need to bring along a friend to go with her, so that once I reach my limit she won't have to ride alone or skip rides she wants to do though. She's a ride monster...oh to have that iron stomach back myself! :)