Quotes and Quotables

In case you were ever wondering, it's not a good idea to eat Mexican for lunch right before you go get your eyebrows stringed. See, they get really close to your face for a long time. Longer than waxing, because that is just apply then rip. Stringing is much slower. I can't hold my breath that long. I did valiantly try however, for her sake.

For the record, I went into Books-A-Million today...and came out...empty handed. That's just newsworthy is all I'm saying. ;)

You can tell the time of year--I mean, it is just a few days after Thanksgiving and the line out the Post Office door is backed up to the outside again and the parking lot is packed out. It's as though every person in town decides they must stand in line and ship something for the next 25 days straight. This is the time frame in which I park in the bank parking lot next door so as to avoid the line of cars waiting for a slot, and in which I do not go to the post office every day. Ick.

It's the last day of the month, so you can guess what I've been doing and what I will be doing for the next day or so. (If you can't guess, it's end-of-month billing.) There aren't as many time sheets to enter these days but there's still plenty to do.

No new Kaylee stories today, other than she laid in bed for almost three hours last night, wide awake, staring at the ceiling, not playing, not moving, being a good girl and trying to fall asleep, but unable to do it. Poor kid...I hope she goes out easier tonight.

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"I've learned there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead, others come from behind.
But I've bought a big bat.
I'm all ready, you see.
Now my troubles are going to have trouble with me!"
~Dr. Seuss

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks."
~Phillips Brooks

"Facing it — always facing it — that's the way to get through. Face it!"
~Joseph Conrad

"Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'"
~Maya Angelou

"The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little -- or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives."
~Anthony Trollope

"Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people."
~Robert Benchley, humorist

More Little Bits of Nothing Special

It's been a good day of rest. Steve & Kaylee had a camp-out last night while I stayed up until 3 a.m. trying to finish up a book. It's a small book-only 320 pages-and I thought I'd be done a lot sooner than I was, but the print is very small in this one and I ended up having to put it down at 3 so I could get some sleep, and finishing it off this morning instead. A few days ago I read the 1100 page book "Under the Dome" by Stephen King, which like many of his novels was more a study of human nature and character under duress than anything else. "Lord of the Flies" meets "Peyton Place" and a twist of "Alien". :) Last night I read "The Longest Trip Home" by John Grogan, same author as "Marley and Me", and his personal memoir, which was pretty touching and had its own food for thought material on the circle of life, faith, growing up and the relationships between parents and children.

I was too young when he died to remember my biological dad, but from what I hear, I got his uncontrollable dark hair and a bit of Gypsy blood. This means to me that sometimes I get restless when things are just going along on the status quo. It's why I detest winter so much. It's hard to have adventures when it's blasted cold and dark outside, when you don't like being cold and in the dark. It's part of why I used to move around so much. It's why I only eat at restaurants I don't have available to me at home when I fly to new places. It's part of why I love flying itself. It used to be driving, but the roads can't compete with the sky when it comes to feeling free. (For now. Until the TSA gets its claws in some more.) But I also remember what life was like with one medical (and personal) crisis after the other. There is such a thing as too much adventure. When I start finding myself restless, like now, I remind myself again that at one time I used to wish for "normal", and that our good, content lives are made up of the small, seeming insignificant moments that usually pass without much notice. Like me sitting here watching the Colts beat the Texans, drinking an Irish Coffee, while Steve and Kaylee play "Spy" in the other room. Or putting together a homemade puzzle at the kitchen counter on a Sunday afternoon. You know, the good things in life. :)

Saturday Stuff

The other day a woman called to set up a special ride/flight for her dad, probably a T-6 ride. She was talking to Steve, and she mentioned that her dad was older, and wondered what a good flight might be for him. Towards the end of the conversation, Steve asked how old her dad was, and she said "Oh, he's about 50." Steve about choked. lol

Steve spent today mostly finishing up the work on the bathroom floor. He's got everything done but the tile, and went ahead and put the stool back on. Now all we have to do is either figure out how to perfectly match up the edges of the tile that was removed, some of which is broken, or find exactly matching tile from ten years ago to put down. Noooo problem. It looks good, and I stood on the floor and it feels solid, but I still think I'll let him be the first one to sit down on the stool... ;)

This evening there was a surprise birthday party for Brad down in Noblesville, so while Steve finished the floor project, Kaylee and I drove down. Before we got there, I let Kaylee know that Maggie had just gotten her ears pierced, and oh buddy was she on a tear from there on out! By the time she does get her ears pierced, she will certainly want them. Kaylee had fun playing with Maggie and the other kids, and the adults had fun playing either "The Price is Right" Wii downstairs or "Rock Band" upstairs. Kaylee was the singer for "We Are the Champions" and got 100% on it, which she was pretty proud of. I came upstairs to see her in a room full of people singing to Queen, and I stayed behind her so she wouldn't see me and quit singing like she does sometimes. She did a good job. :)

Kaylee has also come out with a Christmas Wish List. She's got everything on there from a pet rock to a cell phone (I told her no way). One thing she listed that made us smile was "Since Stuff". We told her she needed to learn how to spell "Science" properly, so now her Christmas List has "Since" crossed out and replaced with "Sience". Well, it's closer anyway...

To end our evening, Kaylee asked if we could go through the "City of Lights" that Kokomo puts up each year in Highland Park. I started to say no, then couldn't think of any good reason to say no or any better time to drive through it than now, so we drove through. They didn't have music going this time, but the lights were all up, and we chose favorites and enjoyed them all as we drove through slowly with our headlights off. At the end I gave her the money to give to "Santa", who asked her if she'd been good. She said yes so he gave her a candy cane. Then he leaned in my window and said "And have YOU been good?" I said "Well...mostly..." and he laughed and then said "Good enough" and handed me a candy cane too. You can't lie to Santa, right?? ;)

Black Friday

Kaylee's been on school break since she left school on Tuesday afternoon dressed up in her Pilgrim gear plus a new black hat that the school gave to all the girls. Wednesday I took her to McDonald's PlayLand to celebrate her freedom from school, and she got lucky and had two different rounds of kids that came in that held girls about her age. They became almost instant friends, played for a total of three hours, and hugged when they left for the day. Things come so easily to children that aren't so easy for adults, don't they? :)

Thanksgiving Day dawned as much of the previous week or two has-gray, cold, overcast and spitting rain...the main difference being that it was more mixed with snow this time. We stayed indoors at home until almost noon, then went and joined Nathan and Tre and family and friends there and spent a relaxing, enjoyable day eating way too much, watching football, drinking and chatting. I even got to steal Ryan & Holly's 2 month old baby for awhile and snuggle. She fell asleep on me as most babies seem to do, and I enjoyed her little fuzzy head on my neck and the baby milk smell for awhile. We stayed a little later to let Kaylee and the kids play for awhile extra, and made it home after dark practically in a food coma. The good kind, of course. Tre can certainly cook up a mean meal. Tender turkey, delicious pies, I think Holly made the potatoes and they were awesome also. All the side dishes, and the fresh, homemade pies of various flavors? I'm getting hungry thinking about it again...

I thought about writing out what I am thankful for, but while I am indeed thankful for much, every day and not just this one day when we are 'supposed' to be thankful, I am not feeling like blogging about it.

Black Friday lived up to its name. Going past Target showed a parking lot so packed out it had spilled over into McDonalds. From what I've heard second-hand, people came out in droves, early, and really hit the whole shopping thing hard. Kaylee asked me last night if I'd take her shopping on "Black Friday", and I told her that I loved her and would do about anything for her, but I wouldn't do That, and she'd have to find a friend or family member sometime when she's older who would love to go do that with her.

I'm on vacation for a few days here and haven't done much and don't plan on doing much other than keeping up with the bare necessities of dishes and civilized life. I hope you and yours are enjoying the Thanksgiving Holiday and all it entails!

Howdy Pilgrim

Photos Here

Timing is Everything

Here's a progress shot of our bathroom floor. Actually, all of the sub-flooring is down now, so this progress shot is a bit out of date, but I didn't feel like taking another. :) It took a lot of time to get done what he did get done over the weekend, and I heard much muttering and gnashing of teeth in there, but there IS progress. I am thankful that we have a second bathroom, that's for sure!

I was the Master (Mistress) of Timing today. When I left my house this morning, I had several errands to run and I wasn't sure of how much time many of them would take. I ended up making a bank deposit, shipping off some SMA supplies, going to the eye doctor and getting a pair of Steve's glasses repaired, dropping off a computer to be repaired, then stopping at the grocery store. I pulled out of the grocery store and into the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant right at 11:45 a.m., which was the exact time I was supposed to be there. I thought that was pretty good. The rest of the day was fairly busy too, and the timing worked out well, but not down to the minute like that. :) I had a short flight this afternoon in KS doing slips, stalls, steep turns, tols, etc., and brought Kaylee a peace offering of a raspberry shake when I picked her up late from school out of "after care". I got a lot of billing done and several other errands I ended up making, and all in all it was a pretty busy day.

Steve's day was pretty well congested too-he got home sometime after 10:30 p.m. from Muncie, which he had driven to. That he drove is only important because he ended up getting a speeding ticket on his way home from Muncie tonight. This would usually be cause for a little bit of merriment from me considering how much flak he gives me for my driving, but this time it has to be cause for just a little bit of a smirk because he's had a really rough time since about Friday night when absolutely nothing he's done or touched has gone very well. If I started listing out everything that's gone wrong, broke, not worked, fitzed out or fallen through, it would just be depressing, so I won't. It was actually the same kind of thing that got me last year--a transition from a 55 to a 45 and a police officer waiting there and pulling over a bunch of people at once who didn't get down to 45 in time. Steve doesn't usually go more than about 4 mph over the speed limit on the main roads, and he wasn't tonight either...just didn't get down to the 45 right at the sign. Kind of frustrating. But it's still fodder for me. Just not today. ;)

Best Laid Plans

Usually if fog is forecasted, it not only shows up but stays for hours beyond what they originally think. Today fog was forecasted, so I didn't expect to get my 10 a.m. flight in on time. At 9 a.m. I called and was surprised to hear that it was perfectly good VFR weather out there. When I looked around I was even more surprised, because most airports around us were reporting...fog. Huh.

Had a 2.3 hour instructional flight this morning doing instrument work, holds and entries, etc. in the RG. At one point the green "gear down and locked" light didn't come on. A quick check showed it was just the bulb, so I swapped it out with the amber light so we'd at least know our gear was down for sure, and Nathan replaced the bulb when I got back down.

The rest of the day was spent working on projects that would Not go right. The part for Steve's cell phone came in today, and he was trying to replace the touch screen on his phone. Several hours later he'd lost a tiny black part off of his phone which I somehow found, bent a part of his phone which is still bent, and still hadn't gotten his screen replaced. So he moved on to the bathroom project. The toilet has been removed, tile has been taken up, and what do you know, the wood underneath was wet farther into the room than anticipated. Now we're talking cracking and breaking and removing a few feet of floor tiles, and working with hammers, screwdrivers, circular saws and recipro saws (better known as "saw zaw" but I don't know how to spell that). As of this writing we have a giant hole in our bathroom floor that goes down to the crawlspace, but at least the bad area has been cut out. Now we're just hoping we all remember not to walk onto that "floor" area in the dark. That would be ugly. First Steve's phone, then my tooth, then the bathroom floor--would anything else potentially expensive like to break around here? Hmm, there are too many options there, so I think I'll quit tempting fate. By late tonight Steve did manage to fix his phone at least, and other than one corner slightly raised from the bent area, at least it seems to be working properly again.

Kaylee spent time playing on the computer and helped out in the bathroom project, carrying out tile, scraping the floor area, cleaning up afterwards, all that good stuff. She likes power tools and really enjoys helping us with projects. She's fascinated by how things work and what things look like when they're taken apart, and just likes spending time with her dad doing even simple things like washing a car or cleaning a garage or trimming trees...or fixing the bathroom floor. She asks questions and learns and offers suggestions. In fact, we offered the same suggestion once and didn't know it. Steve needed to take out another row of tile but it was getting hard to get the tile up without cracking neighboring tiles because the wood underneath there wasn't as soft. So I asked why not take a hammer and the sharp screwdriver edge and crack in between in a line to weaken that area so that prying up on the other end would crack along that line instead of shattering the tiles the other direction like it was doing. I didn't understand why he said "Huh!!!" until Kaylee said "Hey, that's what I said too!" At this point I said "Well, Kaylee, there is such a thing as too much help, and it sounds like what we've got going on here." :) Our plan was good in theory, just not in reality. ;)

Commencing Relaxation...

Working Girl

Well, sort of, in comparison to the rest of the week anyway. Today was the first day it wasn't overcast and rainy, but it did start out with an airplane-grounding fog that lasted until about 11 a.m. The cross-country I was supposed to take at 9 a.m. in the 172 was pushed back, and we didn't get off the ground until about a quarter to noon, but at least we got it in finally. We've been trying to get that in for two weeks.

Kaylee won second place for best Pilgrim costume today at school! I didn't even know they were doing a costume contest with it, but Kaylee was looking quite Puritan and came in second to a well-dressed Indian. :) She left the outfit at school for the weekend so that on Monday when they do a presentation for the first graders they can dress up again. She was pleased, which pleases me.

After lunch I took the Citabria down to Sheridan for a lesson in the 180. It was the first time I've flown myself in over a month, maybe two. It was a great afternoon for it, and after we finished up with what we were doing, I took her up for a quickie in the Citabria before I went over to Kokomo Airport in it to pick up Kaylee. Steve had just taken off in the RG with two of his friends and Kaylee on board, so I decided to play around a little. The winds were almost calm so I just used whatever runway was closest at the time to take off and land on. Goofed around with going from one wheel to the other and such. It was fun, and you can't hardly go wrong in the Citabria. That sure is a gentle little airplane.

When they returned, Kaylee crawled in the back of the Citabria and I took her back to Glenndale to put it away. She can reach the rudder pedals now, but not enough to push on them. She's getting closer-as soon as she can get full travel on them we'll do more flight training with her. It's a little bit like piano lessons when you're a kid. You might not care about it at the time and you might not become a pianist when you grow up, but those who don't do it seem to regret it when they grow up and those who do seem glad they did. Right now Kaylee has two parents who are CFIs and access to various airplanes. If, when she gets older, she wants nothing to do with airplanes, that's fine, but for now she has an opportunity most people will never have, and it wouldn't be very wise to let it pass. Think how irritating it would be for her to be 35 years old, want to get her license now, but her parents are now old and decrepit and retired and golfing, and she has to pay $20,000 to learn how to fly and can't get it done...

As we were driving away from Glenndale, the sun was going down. A fitting end to the first pretty day we've had in a week.

Problem Areas

I am wondering why a section of street right next to my house was completely blocked off by police crime scene tape this afternoon. All the entrances and alleys were blocked off on a section of the road, with police cars with lights on at each end. Being the curious type, particularly since I live close enough to the area to see it from my driveway, I tried to see what was going on, with no luck. Trying to avoid being one of "those" lookie-loos, I didn't go down on foot, and now the tape and officers are gone as if nothing happened. I guess I'll watch the news and see what happened on my block today that I don't know about.

There was a system failure today in aviation--computers that deal with flight plans crashed, which basically brought Atlanta's ability to move airplanes out to a halt, which caused delays around the entire country. Not a safety issue, but a definite hassle issue for anyone trying to get somewhere. That system has been flawed and outdated for a long time. I'm thinking Thanksgiving and the holidays would be an especially bad time for it to go down again...

Apparently the view from underneath our house showed that our entire toilet was resting on a vent pipe, and that my joke about crashing through the floor to the crawl space below was actually not a joke at all. Fortunately nobody stumbled to the restroom in the dark at 2 a.m. and sat down to find themselves in a dark, cold, damp, dead-spidery (but otherwise fine, Mrs. Lincoln) space with a broken tush/legs from the sudden stop at the end. "And how were you injured, Mrs. Stants?" "My toilet dropped me several feet straight down." ...pause... "And how were you injured, Mr. Stants?" "My wife...threw me...headfirst...five feet...I mean...I, uh, I walked into a door."

I don't really think a person would have fit through the hole, at least not where the cracks are, but it sure would have been a thrill. Guess what Steve gets to do this weekend? (He's beyond thrilled...)

Someone somewhere had an idea of posting a photo on their blog each day that represented something about that day. I'm not going to commit to that, but I do like the idea and will try to do more than I used to. The above photo is not one I took myself, but it did seem to represent most of the content of this post from the literal to the figurative. :)

On the way home from school today, Kaylee said "A lot went wrong today but I'm still in a really good mood. I can't help it, I'm just happy today." I suggested that this was a great lesson on how our happiness isn't dependent upon what happens to us, but rather on how we handle it. She paused and then said "You're right! I never thought of it that way before!" It's never too early to try to wrap the ole brain around that one, is it? :)
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Edited to add: Apparently the police tape was due to a nice little battle about four houses down. A man fired shots, rammed his truck into a police car, and the policeman shot back at him. Well, isn't that lovely...

Things With Teeth

Kaylee is working me over hard these days. She's like a little piranha that smells blood in the water, and she's going for it. See, she's wanted her ears pierced since she was...I don't know. Very very small. I told her she'd need to wait until she was older. She got me down to 10 years old, and that was the end of it, until recently when I told her that if she got all A's on her next two report cards I'd let her get her ears pierced a little early. From there on out it's been downhill. She's relentless. Today we spent the entire time in the car on the way to school with her starting off saying "Okay Mom, let's negotiate." (Her words). She wanted to know if she saved up the money herself to get it done if she could get it done earlier. She wanted to know if she did some pet-sitting or did everything for her own cats if she could get it done earlier. She wanted to know if she kept her room spotless for 3 months if she could get it done earlier. Her negotiations hit a snag when she said "I'll do ANYTHING!" See, a good negotiator would never let go of all their cards at once like that, but I'll tell you what, she's certainly got a good start going. ;)

Today Steve and I swapped vehicles for awhile, so when I picked Kaylee up from school it was in the Corvette. We were halfway home before she said "I didn't know you knew how to drive the Corvette." Grr. So I said "*sigh*, don't you remember me picking you up at school in the Vette and you saying 'does Daddy know you're driving his car?' and me telling you it wasn't just HIS car?" "Oh yeah, I forgot!" She also informed me that I didn't park in the same place in the garage daddy does, so I told her he could (and would) move it to where he pleased. I don't drive the Vette much (not because I can't, Kaylee JoAnn!) ;), but I have to admit, it's still fun, except when you're traveling through town in stop and go and swooping traffic. The back roads are great. (There's reason number three I don't drive the Vette much...I can't afford the inevitable tickets and insurance boosts.) I felt a little conspicuous today, though I know the people that kept looking over weren't actually looking at me, and I've never really felt the desire to put lipstick and high heels on in the Jeep. (Just kidding...) ;)

This morning I discovered what Kaylee tried to tell me last night: our toilet is sinking into the floor. THAT'S not good. She came out of our bathroom last night and said "Mommy! There's a crack by the toilet and it's all soft!" Well, we've had a soft area for awhile there that we've known about, so I said "I know Kaylee, it's okay, we're working on that." So this morning I walk in there and find it is not what it was and it is very much Not Okay. Good thing we have two restrooms in this house, because if I ended up in the crawlspace below sitting on the pot next to all the cobwebs in the underbelly of the house I would be one VERY angry woman. And there would be no laughing about it (where I can hear/see you), either.

Just before lunch time I had my emergency dental appointment to take care of that tooth I shattered. As a kid (teen?) I ate a Gobstopper (jawbreaker) which broke a molar back there. They put a metal cap on it. The metal cap broke loose, food got underneath, the tooth under there and next to it got a cavity in it. The metal cap was replaced with a ceramic one and the tooth next door got a filling, and that's the way it's stayed for...years. Decades. Until late Friday night when harmlessly eating something when the back half of that second tooth just sheared off. The good news was, no decay, he said the filling just weakened the tooth and it just snapped off after some time. The other good news was that no nerves or roots were exposed and he could file it down, smooth it out, put some Bondo on it (so to speak) and I could move on without a massive oral undertaking that I neither want nor care to pay for. If I lose any more of it I'll end up needing a crown, but for now it's doing okay as is.

He did tell me I'd better stop chewing on ice and hard candy though, and gave me a few stories of people with perfectly healthy teeth that were fractured or shattered by crunching on things, said that a lot of his business is fixing teeth for that reason. My Aunt Peggy warned me about the same thing years ago after several of her teeth fractured, and I've tried to modify my ice crunching behavior, but now that I'm older and have had a tooth break apart for no good reason, I might modify my behavior just a little bit more consistently. Teeth are kind of important, you know. Maybe not for everyone in every state (*cough* W. Virginia *cough*), but they are to me. ;)

Miss Judy just stopped by to purportedly measure the apron she sewed up for Kaylee, and she arrived with the black dress and a collar and the apron altogether! We put it on Kaylee and she looked like the perfect little Pilgrim girl! Too cute. I told Kaylee she could be a Pilgrim for Halloween next year because she could wear warm clothes under there and the costume was already made, and she actually thought that was a good idea too. She also said the outfit makes the dress she'd picked out to wear under the apron look "like poo". She's excited to go to school and have such Perfectly Pilgrim attire. Thanks Judy! (That is a seriously helpful skill to possess...)

To end, this is only 49 seconds long, but it'll grab you--look at her face...


Tricked On Halloween

Cold November Rain

(If you are humming a ballad right now, you probably remember the early 90s.)

This is the view out of my window today. You would think it was a grayscale photo, but no, it's just a grayscale world. See what I mean about the sky looking like dirty wet concrete?

I have to admit, this wasn't a very productive day for me. I have things I need to do, particularly if I want to stay ahead of the game like I have been, but things kept interfering. Even something simple that just required activation via an ATM brought about an unexpected visit to a bank only to find that they sent me the right info but for the wrong account, and there's nothing they can do about it today, and I needed it for tomorrow. So an hour's worth of trying to finish up something...down the drain. That's kind of been the whole day, really. Not bad or anything, just not very productive.

Here's a story for you:

"Recently a 98 year-old lady named Irena Sendler died. During WWII Irena got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive'. She as a German knew what the Nazis were doing to the Jews. So Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack to hold the larger kids. She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2,500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazis broke both her legs and arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the children she smuggled out, and kept the names and locations in a glass jar buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived, and reunite the family. Most had been gassed. The children she helped got placed into foster family homes, or adopted.

In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

Although nominees are supposed to be secret for 50 years, several organizations have protested to the Nobel committee for her continuing to be overlooked."

I can see why it's so much better to choose a politically correct hot topic like Global Warming than a politically incorrect topic like life-saving heroism during Nazi aggression for a world-wide "Peace Prize". Wouldn't want to offend Germany by bringing that up. So let's ignore real people for whom the Nobel Peace Prize should and used to exist and instead make sure people are rewarded like Gore (for that hard-core work on global warming), Obama (who had done nothing but get elected at the time of nominations) and Yasser Arafat (for promising to just try to not have people blown up for a little while there). For heaven's sake...

Well, Kaylee's day was uneventful. She said they lost their second recess because everybody was cranky and not listening. Her friends liked her hair, and she's headed off to dance class shortly here. Steve is meeting with a couple of new folks tonight and got some flights in this morning, which is good. And I'm going to be doing some billing/information entering on the computer while I watch NCIS.

Until tomorrow...

Concrete

The sky today tinted everything the color of dirty concrete, dingy gray and damp. (The icy drizzly rain didn't help much either.) I didn't have any flights today, though Steve got a couple in. It is hardy, determined, and aviation-hooked folks who fly in weather like this if it's not their job. :)

So Kaylee has been wanting to get her hair cut again, and today was the day. She started off saying she wanted it as short as her ears, but I convinced her to start at her chin and see what she thought, and if she wanted it shorter she could get it shorter. Once again the chin area won, and she is quite pleased with her newly shortened hair. I heard the stylist ask her if she wanted bangs or layers, and Kaylee was clear about what she did and did not want. While we were waiting, she said "You know, Mom, I'm not really blonde any more. Can I dye my hair back blonde?" I told her no, but I can already tell that she just loves changing her hair and messing with it, and she'd better set up an expense account for that when she gets older. ;)

While we were there I went ahead and got a trim myself, one of the first I haven't done myself in a very long time. I told the lady she could feel free to do whatever she wanted as long as she left me at least shoulder length, which left actually a lot of hair to cut off. She wasn't any more inspired by ideas than I and just took off the dead ends and cleaned up some layers in the back. Exciting.

I did seem to have trouble concentrating today though. I went to Dollar General looking for a cheap sheet to turn into an apron for a Pilgrim apron, and walked out of the store without one of my two little bags of stuff, which I did not notice until an hour later when I went to retrieve an item from the bag and found it did not contain everything. So after taking Kaylee to gymnastics I stopped back and and got my bag of stuff back. Meanwhile I'd gone to Burger King, and drove off after they gave me my change back...before I got any of my food or drinks. That was particularly brilliant. I just pulled off to the side and they ran my food out to me. Brother...

Kaylee's school took the kids on the bus over to Kokomo Mall and helped with an Outreach Program they were holding there for underprivileged kids. Kaylee said they did a lot of work and that she enjoyed the experience. She's also 8 and was almost as excited about the bus ride there and back as she was at the field trip and what they were doing, but I do like that her school is doing several community outreach programs this month.

The two quotes that hit my inbox today:
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"Happiness is not some emotional phantom floating in and out of your life. You can choose happiness every day. Laughter and enthusiasm are the fuels that move the world. The world belongs to the enthusiastic, and people will follow them anywhere."
~Andy Andrews

"Pain is a part of being alive, and we need to learn that. Pain does not last forever, nor is it necessarily unbeatable, and we need to be taught that too."
~Harold Kushner

Weekend Ramblings

While it's better in some regards to be busy at the airport over the weekend too, it's been nice to take some of these weekends and just have quiet family time at home. I took a digital holiday and read a Patricia Cornwell book. At 500 pages, it occupied me for the entire afternoon/evening. ;) (There's also a new massive Stephen King book out that I've avoided looking at too closely. In due time.) Kaylee had just finished cleaning up her room/putting away her clothes, and was thrilled when I did two more loads of laundry today that included some more of her things to put up. I don't blame her-it's my least favorite chore of all time, and I don't know how those of you with three, five, eight children handle all the clothes. I had a hard enough time keeping up with one kid...and I am so grateful she's old enough to put away her own clothes now. I wonder if I could convince her to put away mine, too...

Speaking of clothes, I was looking at the wall of pink, lavender and purple shirts and ties on men on the television again, and it just makes me shake my head. Not really at men wearing pink or purple, because, well, why not? Women can wear any color they want, what difference does it make, it's not an assault on manhood if they wear pastels. But at "fashion" itself. Fashion is supposedly a cutting-edge kind of thing, where you go out and know what is "in" and "stylish" for this season, and you make sure you have it too, like everybody else. Or like everybody else who reads/sees that it's the next new thing anyway. Really, it's very predictable. For example: women's make-up. What you are "supposed" to do varies per season per year. So, let's say last Fall it was fashionable to wear dusky earth tones. Next time around they will go for the "dark/bold" look. The year after that it will most likely be "bright". And so forth until they end up back in the cycle. Bright lipsticks one year, nude lipsticks this year. And how about hair? Short hair one year, then long hair, then curly is in, then everybody is straightening the next. Pencil thin eyebrows, 'natural' eyebrows next. You can guess what is coming up next just by going with the opposite of whatever just was. And that's not even getting started on clothing. It's not that hard. I just can't figure out why I should care and spend lots of money on things I'll have to give away or quit wearing shortly because it's worse to wear "just got tired" fashion than to just wear "classic" clothes that could fit in at any time. (Of course I don't usually do either one these days, so I don't have much room to talk.) You can (try to) take away my Woman Card if you want... Oh well, at least my lack of spending on makeup, clothing and hair stylists can be instead used on books, electronic equipment and 100LL. We all have our priorities, and my hair, makeup and clothing gets messed up in airplanes anyway. ;)

My tooth that crumbled is still doing okay, thankfully. I'll call the dentist tomorrow and see when I can get in, but so far the only discomfort I feel is when I drink/eat something really cold or hot on that side. I'm so grateful it didn't expose a nerve ending or something late at night on a Friday night when there's nothing I can do about it for days...

Today has been a good day of rest. We made eggs, bacon and toast for breakfast, a few naps have occurred, a little football (Colts/Patriots game tonight), Steve's gotten some little projects done, I've gotten some housework done, Kaylee's been playing, I shared with her some of my Dark Mayan Chocolate coffee (extra milk of course) ;), and all in all it's been a good day of unwinding from the work week and preparing for the next.

Kaylee did a lot of playing outside, with Steve. Swinging, "Cluck Bucket" (her favorite pretend restaurant game), sweeping out the garage, playing horsey in the back yard, just having fun on a pretty day. I apparently missed seeing them trotting around in the back yard on "horse lessons", but that would have made for an excellent photo op. ;) They played a board game, she and I played in her secret hide-away a couple of times, and I let her do a sleepover kind of thing with me last night too. Today she and Steve played "spy" and they had glasses on and would watch me from various corners of the house, skulking around, trying not to be spotted themselves. She's had a good weekend. :)

In the truth of the day section, I saw a quote a friend put up that said "God may give me more than I WANT to handle sometimes, but he has never given me more than I CAN handle. There is a difference."

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th may not be over yet but so far it's been a "lucky" day. Everyone is healthy, warm, fed and safe. I had two flights (chief & 180) on a pretty day and we all lived to fly another day. :) Then when I got to Glenndale for lunch, I had a package waiting...my cell phone! I'd gotten it off the internet inexpensively. I took it to the Verizon store before my second flight of the day, got it unlocked, activated and all my contacts switched over in a matter of minutes and was on my way with my shiny titanium LG Voyager in hand. Buttons I can actually see! I have so missed my phone. I didn't have any photos on it, so on my way home from work tonight there was a lovely sunset behind an American flag; I stopped my car in the middle of the area, snapped the photo, and set it as my wall paper. Lovely. :)

Okay, one bad thing happened today. I was eating a frozen Twix bar tonight when I felt something really hard I was trying to chew on, and once I realized it wasn't part of the Twix bar and spit it out, I found a good-sized chunk of a tooth. That dumb tooth I broke as a kid with Gobstoppers that has since been capped, the tooth next to it crumbled a long time ago and was repaired, and tonight I just lost the other side of that tooth. It's a little bit jagged and feels weird on my tongue, but for the Good News Game, it does not hurt (yet) and it's not so sharp that I'll cut the inside of my mouth (I don't think.) For the Bad News Game, it's Friday Night and there's no way to get into the dentist until who knows when, but at least not before Monday.

Otherwise looking forward to the weekend...

"A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be."
~Albert Einstein

"There is no level of skill so high that it cannot be overcome by sufficiently poor judgment."
~Unknown Aviator

Fogged

I was supposed to take a nice cross-country flight this morning with a student to Portland, (Indiana, not Oregon) but when I got to the airport it was to find 1/4 mile and fog along the route of flight. That was irritating considering it was completely clear with blue skies above. We waited almost an hour with no luck, and eventually he went on home and I pretty much did nothing of any import out at the airport until lunch. The skies cleared up after lunch, of course, but by then the plane was already scheduled with someone else and Kaylee was out of school at 11:30 today while Steve had flights for the afternoon, so we were just "plane" out of luck. Next week looks like cold rain. Greeeaaat.

Today it was Culvers who gave free meals to veterans, and this time we went early and got there before the biggest crowds arrived. We sat in front of a table that held a couple who were both bound and determined to be miserable. Every time I accidentally tuned in to them they (mostly she) was/were complaining in that irritating snarky tone of voice. I hope the rest of their day went better and they got all that negativity cleared out of their system. Kaylee was able to eat with us because she had a half day today while the teachers and administrators had an "admin day". A half day of school and chocolate ice cream on the same day made her a very happy kid. ;)

The rest of my day was just maintenance. Billing, paperwork, errands, phone calls, emails, housework. Little bites on projects to keep everything from getting too far behind again. I also had Kaylee clean up half her room and throw away a trash bag full of old toys and things she didn't want any more. The other half of her room is due to be cleaned tomorrow, including hanging up all her clean laundry, which is her least favorite job in the world (mine too). For tonight, time to relax though!
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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
~Aristotle

"I believe there is an old answer for every new problem, that wise whispers of the past are with us to assure us that if we just listen and remember, we are not alone; we have been here before."
~Victor Hanson

"That some good can be derived from every event is a better proposition than that everything happens for the best, which it assuredly does not."
~James K. Feibleman

"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."
~Carlos Castaneda

Salute

Gusty winds killed off a couple of flights today while others got in okay. It depends on what someone is working on. One person was just mastering that last few seconds of landing, and that's pretty impossible for them to do when being slammed around in 20 knot gusting winds. It just frustrates and discourages them, and that's not exactly good for learning. The guys that went ahead and flew were more advanced and mostly working on things up in the air, not down low in the pattern. Even in the air it was really rough though.

This week a lot of the local restaurants are providing discounts or free meals to all Armed Forces Veterans, so our lunch rotation has depended on which day which restaurant did what. We have four veterans in our group, so we've taken advantage of the discounts. Yesterday Half Moon gave Free meals to everyone, other than the $1.21 for the drink. Today Applebees was giving away free meals to veterans, but when we arrived the line was out the door with a big wait, so we went across the street to Ruby Tuesdays. They were giving 10% off for vets, which isn't as much fun as a free meal, but at least we could get in and eat in a timely manner. :) Tonight Texas Roadhouse is providing free meals for vets but I would hate to be in line for that one-they already are difficult to get into at dinner time a lot of times. It goes through Friday, lots of places doing it, and it's pretty neat. You see a lot of gentlemen with military hats and jackets around and it's great to see them honored around town.

Kaylee was supposed to wear red, white and blue today both for school and for Awanas. She came out of her room this morning looking like she was heading to clown school, or as Steve said, as a character out of a Dr. Suess book. Red and white striped pants, the wrong shade of blue shirt with multi-colored flowers on it, a red plaid skirt over the top of it all. I made her change clothes, even though she insisted that she was following the letter of the instructions. I told her that wasn't patriotic, it was...scary. :) She instead went to school in a blue jean dress with silver jewels on the collar, a long-sleeved red shirt over the top of it, and white socks. When she got out of the Jeep, the lady at the door said "My, aren't you dressed fancy today!" and Kaylee said "I know." She didn't say it weird or snotty or arrogantly, just very matter of fact. It made both me and the lady laugh while Kaylee was like "what?!" :) She's a hoot...

I took a few pictures on our journey to Muncie's restaurant the beginning of the month. I was holding the camera up over my head facing the other way just pointing and hoping I got people. I was not trying to get my own head in there, but that's how it worked I guess. You can see most of our crew here other than my own table. Nathan and Tre there with Steve C. right behind us, Sam and Ty and his son Jay behind them, Chuck and Dale and Jon off on the left side, etc. :)

Windiness

The weather wasn't supposed to be very nice today, but it (mostly) held out long enough for us to get a couple of instructional flights in, which is good. Mine was at 9:00 a.m. after I took Kaylee to school. When I got to the airport I checked NOTAMS (Notices To Airmen) and found that Runway 5/23 was closed today. That kind of put a crimp in my plans, because I'm working with someone on their tailwheel endorsement, and we were going to go up and down that longer runway which was into the wind and do some practice tail up/tail down higher speed taxi practice and a few more normal 3-point take offs and landings. Instead we had to use the other runway, which was a direct crosswind. It doesn't take much wind to feel it in the little Chief, and higher crosswinds aren't usually on the menu for somebody's 3rd flight in a taildragger, but that's what we had today, so we went with it. It was more like a frog in a pot of slowly heating water. We started off with 8 knots steady direct crosswind, which was enough. A few trips around the pattern and I thought to myself "Self, that's no 8 knots any more". It was up to 12. He was getting the hang of that for a few laps and then I thought to myself "Self, that's no 12 knots any more." Sure enough it was now gusting on upwards of about 17. The last hundred feet above the ground was bumpy as all get-out and there was some serious "chili-stirring" going on as we call it on take off and landing. That seemed good enough for the day, so we ended after a very pretty two-point (tailwheel and main into the wind) landing, and after we shut it off I listened again and it was a direct crosswind at 14 gusting to 19, which is nothing to sneeze at, particularly for that airplane. He got a workout, for sure. Steve asked me at lunch how I liked not having any brakes on the right side today, and I laughed, because while it's true that you don't use them hardly ever and brakes are the tool of last resort, should you get yourself into a position where you are at your last resort, it sure is nice to have that tool in your toolbox to try instead of just being along for that darting-off-the-runway-potentially-swapping-ends ride. Everything was fine. We did have a couple of wilder rides on takeoff and landing, and once I got a mental image of reaching my right arm outside the door and slapping the back side of the airplane while waving my left arm over my head and yelling "Whee HA!" :) That Chief is a tough little airplane.

Yesterday I was filling my Jeep up with gas...I was on the other side of the Jeep messing around in the back seat when I heard this funny noise. It took me to about "3 Mississippi" to figure out it was the sound of splashing. I ran over to the other side to find fuel spraying out of the tank around the nozzle which hadn't shut off automatically. It's the first time I've seen my fuel gauge read over the "F" in that thing, at least. :)

Michael Moore has a movie out against Capitalism. I was slightly horrified to read that he's standing up for pilots in his movie. He talks about how airline pilots who hold hundreds of people's lives in their hands are so underpaid that they often have second jobs or sometimes are even living on food stamps. Now, this is true. Pilots really are underpaid, mostly because it's one of those jobs where supply of eager pilots still exceeds demands for jobs. Pilots take these jobs because they want to fly, they often pay for their own time to get to these positions, and you can always find a replacement so eager to get in an airplane that they'll eat Ramen noodles for years for the privilege of doing it. But if we have sunk to the place where Michael Moore is defending us on the Big Screen as a point of "proof" that capitalism is a Bad Thing, we really are in trouble. I can't stand that loudmouth uncouth jerk and just about anything he believes in and I don't want him on aviation's "side", thank you. (Unreasonable perhaps, but while I agree with his facts on this I come to a rather different conclusion about them, and I think Mr. Moore should move to a country that doesn't allow capitalism and make us both happy.)

When I picked Kaylee up from school, she informed me that it was time to do something different with her hair. She started going through options. We reiterated the rules that no, I will not let her spike it, dye it or perm it. She said she'd like to cut it very short again and get a "bob". I warned her that her hair doesn't really do a bob very well and reminded her that last week she wanted to grow her hair long again. She paused and then said quite dramatically "There's just something inside of me that tells me I need to do something different with my hair, Mom!" Well, all right. I told her to think on it for a few days and let me know what she decides.

Kaylee had dance tonight, and afterwards I drove her right out to Kokomo Airport where we were hosting a Cub Scouts group. They arrived at six and I couldn't get there until 6:20. By then Steve had already given the "airplane talk" about what makes planes fly and why/how for me, and he and Chuck were helping keep kids rounded up and taking turns climbing up on the T-6 and looking in and getting their photo taken up on it. There were over 30 people there total, so it was a pretty big turn-out. Folks hung around and talked for awhile and everyone had a good evening of it. A couple of coincidences. For one thing, I taught one of the dads there how to fly waaay back when we had Camel-Lot, through his Private Pilot's License. For another, Kaylee recognized two little girls, twins, who had come along tonight with their brother. They had all gone to 1st grade together at Redeemer Lutheran, which is now two years ago, and they all looked very different...I didn't even recognize them. When they left, the three girls did a group hug, which was really cute, and Kaylee was glad to see them. :)

It was a busy but productive day. Thanks Chuck and Steve for covering the Cub Scouts...

*Yawn*

I ended up going four places after I dropped Kaylee off at school, and got a fair amount done by 9:15. I spent the morning on a little more paperwork and organization, and after lunch spent the time going to a couple of different places to pick up business cards. We tried two different places, one that was having a deal on a mass quantity of cards, so I tried them for one project while using the other place for our usual airport business cards. They both look good. Next to the one place is a tiny little bakery that I've never seen before called "Indulgence Bakery". It is really a cute little place, well done, with just a few little tables inside and a flat screen TV on the (cheerful yellow) wall. Less space than my bedroom, but it looks like a little Italian coffee shop and bakery, and was just a really neat hole in the wall spot to go. A little expensive though. One cinnamon roll was $3.00 and a cupcake was $1.75. But I do like finding these little mom & pop places, and would prefer people support the good ones over Starbucks any day. :)

Whatever else I was going to talk about will have to show up tomorrow, if I still remember by then. I'm sleepy!

Weekend Warriors

Early this morning Richard and Ann headed South for the winter. We said our goodbyes last night, and they were gone by the time Kaylee and I woke up--Steve and Dulcie waved at them from the deck though. :) Kaylee was sad to see them go and we will miss having them next door.

The weather was gorgeous this weekend, so warm and sunny that I shut off all house temperature regulation and just opened up a bunch of windows and let the fresh air in. Steve and Kaylee and the two cats spent most of today and much of yesterday outside doing "stuff". I came out for awhile in the evening and played ball, frisbee, swing-pushing, etc. Dulcie kept climbing up onto the roof of the house and then not being able to get down on her own. She just loves to climb up on the highest thing possible. She also spent a lot of time at the base of a tree staring up at a squirrel she'd chased up there that had subsequently departed the area a long time ago. Kaylee came in tonight with dirty feet, hair and clothes, so I threw her in the tub, and thus ended a fun weekend outdoors for her. I don't know what all they did out there. I know they washed the Corvette and started up the house generator to make sure it worked and played games and sat in chairs and talked. I could hear them laughing out there. :) She's a lucky girl to have a daddy who not only spends so much time with her when he can, but usually has just as much fun doing it as she does.

I read a Michael Connelly book on Saturday and took a nap. How's that for lazy? It was nice, thank you. :) Today I made up for it a bit. I made it to the store to get groceries for the next couple of weeks, mailed off some photos at the post office, went to Lowe's for some house stuff we needed, stopped for a late lunch, then came on home and got to work. See, walking around outside in the almost-70-degree-temperature-day with the warm light breeze and the blue sky, I felt like a big girl on a diet walking around in a chocolate factory with the smell of warm gooey chocolate wafting past her all the time. You just have to think about something else besides airplanes errr chocolate. So instead I got a lot done at home, which needed it anyway. Decluttered the kitchen hot spot counter, did all the laundry and dishes and swept the kitchen floor and vacuumed the living room and straightened up the living room and worked through a small pile of papers that needed done since last week's mass snail mail accomplishments and did some billing for the airport and some for SMA Support as well. I watched the Colts win as I worked. I even fixed dinner. It was Chinese, which Kaylee hates. She said "Mommy, you aren't really going to make me eat that, are you??" I've made her eat it in the past, several times, and she has hated it from day one without wavering. So for that meal I break my own rule of "I'm not a short order chef and you will eat what we eat when I fix it" and I let her eat something else. Hey, I remember Ham Balls and what they used to do to me when I was a kid choking them down! ;)

The day isn't over, and while things are looking good around here, I'm still working on some paperwork and one last desk top that needs decluttered, after which hopefully I'll be prepared for Monday to arrive. I guess. If I must...

Friday Fun

This morning started with a flight in the Chief. Sort of. A large eyelet got dropped down into the engine cowling (I didn't do it, though that is something that I could see happening to me), so we spent a good 30-40 minutes taking the cowling off in search of this eyelet. Even a hose was unclamped and searched, all to no avail. It wasn't on the ground, it didn't drop into the heater, so where is this thing? We can't go flying with some big part banging around loose in the engine compartment somewhere. We'd just started staring at it with the "duuuuh" feeling, when we both saw it at the same time, sitting right behind the prop hub in plain sight in the air intake. We hadn't had to take the cowl off at all if we'd have just seen it there. After we put the airplane back together, we got our flight in. I now know what the insides of the Chief look like, and even know that the engine used to be neon green at one point. Steve was out flying in the Saratoga this morning at the same time we were--in fact, the pattern was very busy. At one point we were in the pattern doing takeoffs and landings, the Toga was there, a Cherokee was coming in to land, another was shooting a straight-in ILS approach on the other runway, and a Skyhawk came in as well. We could hear all the traffic on the radio, but our push-to-talk switch wasn't working properly, so we couldn't communicate with them. I had them all in sight and just tried to sequence in to stay out of the way of the faster planes. Steve got on the radio once and warned incoming traffic about half-NORDO us. It was kind of fun. Actually, I hate to admit it, but even though it's been cold at 9 a.m. and I've had to hand prop the airplane, and it's slow and underpowered, it's been a little fun. I still prefer taildraggers in particular to have sticks, not yokes. I also prefer sitting in an airplane and pushing a button or turning a key to start it, but it's been an amusing change of pace to hand prop so much lately. The plane doesn't have an impulse coupling on the mags, so on this plane the harder you 'throw' the prop, the more likely you are to get it to start, especially on these cold mornings. I'm dialing in pretty well to what this particular airplane takes to get going, and I get a little nod of satisfaction when it starts purring. I'm sure I'll get all caught up on that soon. ;)

I still like airplanes to have a little...zip...to them though.

We had really good food at Glenndale lunch today. Home cooked ham, fancy green bean casserole, deviled eggs, soft rolls with butter, and a really good pumpkin/cheesecake dessert. I ate plenty because I knew food was a little light back at the house and I figured I'd end up with a slim dinner tonight. Of course I was wrong about that, because we ended up going to Outback Steakhouse for dinner tonight with Chuck, Nathan, and Matt Jackson and his friend Dean. Matt is going to be opening an engine shop in Beaumont, Kansas, which is really funny considering that's where my mom was born and it's a tiny little town in the middle of the state. He's a Reno Air Racer, warbird pilot, friend of Nathan's, and is always a hoot when he starts sharing "war" stories. After listening to Nathan and Matt swap stories about it, I now have learned how to fly a Mustang in hard IFR and why it's not like flying other airplanes in IFR. So should I ever end up in that situation, now I know what to do to. ;)

The weekend looks beautiful. Windy tomorrow, but warm and sunny. We don't have any plans at the moment, so I look forward to staying up late and sleeping in tomorrow and...relaxing.

Falling

More flying around in KS this morning, on a beautiful sunshiny day. The winds picked up a little bit by the time we were done, adding in a nice little impromptu crosswind practice, which he nailed nicely at 70 degrees off the runway up to 15 knots, which for you non-pilot folks is very good for a student. Or even for plenty of non-students. :)

Kaylee "rocked" her spelling test, and is having fun at school right now with a Pilgrim project they are working on. Her Pilgrim name is "Constance", and she likes that. :) They're doing a presentation for the First Graders I guess, with a diorama of Pilgrim life.

I saw my first Christmas commercial two nights ago, for Wal-Mart. Since then I've seen several more holiday commercials. A little early, don't you think? We just passed Halloween for heaven's sake!

Fall has fallen. the beautiful leaves have blown off the trees, and everything is turning brown and stark. At least we're supposed to get weather in the 60s this weekend, and I will hold out for the last bit of nice weather that I can get for as long as I can get it.

Boring Flying Stuff

Cross-country work today in KS for 1.7, followed by a quick lunch at Culvers with friends, followed by take off and landing practice in 19R for 1.7, followed by running Kaylee to Awanas (and then back) and a few errands in between is what today was made of on my end.

Kaylee woke up cranky and came home cranky-hopefully she gets a good night's sleep and feels a little more cheerful tomorrow. :)

Steve did the flight yesterday with the videographer who is doing a documentary thing on the Wildcat Creek. Unfortunately the poor guy got motion sickness pretty bad from looking through the viewfinder of a video camera while flying along a creek. That's a very common problem--in fact, occasionally I do aerial photography for companies or people, and if I'm the one using the camera when someone else does the flying, it gets to me too, and airplanes don't make me sick. Looking through a camera lens with things zoomed in and in motion differing from what your body is feeling can get you easily. The guy was supposed to go for about two hours, but called uncle after one. Steve went looking for a sick sack in the airplane, found an envelope for one, but it was empty. Now we have some questions about that. Who pulled out the sick sack and left the envelope empty, for one. Why would you do that?! That way we didn't know we didn't have a sick sack until we needed one, at which point it's too late. Thankfully the guy held on to his lunch at least until after they landed.

I enjoyed the flights today, because good progress was made on both of them, leaving both people feeling accomplished and excited, and that's always a rewarding part of being a teacher of any kind I'd suppose. Watching a lightbulb go on and a skill mastered, particularly when someone has been working so hard at it, is just satisfying. There are students who pick things up quickly and students who take a little longer, but many times the students who take longer end up being better pilots in the long run. For one thing, they end up with more overall experience than people who shoot right through it, and say what you want, experience counts for a lot. For another, they have to work harder at it, be more dedicated, want it more, study harder, and they know it doesn't come "naturally" to them so they exercise good judgment, patience, and care. Considering that the vast majority of aviation accidents are purely poor choices made by pilots, them being careful and conscientious goes a long way towards making them a good, safe pilot. As someone once said, "Being an exceptional pilot means using your exceptional judgment so you aren't forced to actually use your exceptional skills."

On my long drive home from the last flight today, I was kind of drained, though in a good way, and I was thinking about instructing, obviously. :) Being a flight instructor is more complicated than just teaching somebody how to land. You're a salesperson, a cheerleader, a boss, a friend, a coach, and often times a therapist-marriage and personal. When they get down, you encourage them that they can do it. When they get cocky, you teach them what they don't know yet. When they're afraid, you have to judge what the real issue is and whether to push them through it or back off and ease them into it. When you explain something and it doesn't click, you have to come up with another way to explain the same concept...and sometimes you have to come up with three or four or five ways of explaining one thing, because everybody learns differently. When someone says they understand something, you have to be able to tell if they do, or if they're just saying that because they're embarrassed to admit they don't yet. And if they don't, you have to find a way to impart that information that won't make them feel weird about it. You have to know when to push through a bad flying day and when to call it quits so they don't get discouraged. Some people like to go up in rougher weather and get excited about the challenge while others would throw in the towel and quit flying unless you take it slow and calm. Some people need to be spoken to bluntly about risks to get it through their heads for their own safety and others are only too well aware of the risks and need to instead be encouraged about all the safety practices in place for their peace of mind. Meanwhile, you're evaluating what they are doing in the airplane, what they know, how they're handling it, and coming up with ways to help them that fit them specifically. Why are they landing flat all the time when you've given them the tools to get the nose up in the flare? Why do they keep losing all that altitude in the steep turn to the left? Where are they looking? How is their trim? What are they thinking? Do they not feel the plane start sinking at this point? What is next in the training? One example from a former student-he'd always have a jerky flare. I convinced him to trim his nose up on final, which made his flare just perfect...except now his airspeed control went down the drain. It took about two landings for me to figure out he was so used to holding a certain amount of back pressure on the yoke down final, that once he'd trimmed off that pressure, he was automatically pulling back that hard anyway, even though he didn't need to any more, making him get too slow, pushing the nose down, pulling it back up, and chasing his airspeed. Once he knew what he was doing, he could fix it, but for a couple of trips around the pattern there, he was frustrated at why something he used to do fine now was not good while something he used to have trouble with was dialed in great. That's the learning process, and it takes a lot of brain bandwith sometimes, and not just for the student.

More than anyone wanted to know. Sorry Mom. I'm done now and going to bed. ;)

The Take-Over

This morning I flew for an hour in KS with KL, working on situational awareness and a bit of crosswind landings. We finished up at about a quarter to eleven, and the migration began to Kokomo. Chuck took the Citabria over and the rest of us drove over to meet up, because today was the grand opening of the new restaurant at Muncie and we had told the owner we would be there today and bring a crew. Well, we brought quite an impressive crew-we ended up bringing at least 6 airplanes and 16 (19?) people, with a couple of other planes and folks from the Kokomo area coming separately too. I was in the RG with Justin and Steve C. and we arrived #4 in a line-up of airplanes that sort of confused the tower guy a little bit. The place was packed out on its first day, so they were waaay behind on service. and it took them over an hour to bring us our food. We had warned them that we were bringing a large group at least, but I don't think they expected that everyone else would come at once too. :) When I walked out, the new owner came up and said he hoped we would give them another chance, that he was sorry they were so slow, etc. I told him we'd be back and not to worry about it, we all know how the first days of new ventures can be. We are obviously not the only group that was happy to see a restaurant back at Muncie again. :)

On the pointless end of things:

1. Have you seen all the pink and purple ties and shirts men are wearing these days? I quit pointing them out on tv any more because it got annoying even to me. I get it. It's 'cool' for men to wear pink and purple--for now.
2. Levi Johnston needs to e-n-u-n-c-i-a-t-e his words instead of mumbling everything, and then go away. He's just an irritating little boy to listen to, even if would be in the right.
3. It was on one of those news tv shows that Kate Gosslin was caught on tape scolding her children and saying quote "This is what you are not supposed to be doing. You are five years old." Well, stop the presses. A mom with a bunch of kids was caught scolding them. They've obviously never camped out with cameras around any other mother either, huh? And by the way, I don't want to hear any more about her and her soon to be former spouse and his new paramour, either.
   

Kaylee came out to the car yelling that she got an A+ on her math test today. She's on a roll with math lately, which is great. :) She also decided not to do the hip hop. She said tonight "I just don't think that class is right for me, that's all." That's fine, it would have been good exercise, but she's busy enough without it.

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"Some people are making such thorough preparation for rainy days that they aren't enjoying today's sunshine."
~William Feather

"All of us are watchers -- of television, of time clocks, of traffic on the freeway -- but few are observers. Everyone is looking, not many are seeing."
~Peter M. Leschak

"I've always been in the right place at the right time. Of course, I steered myself there."
~Bob Hope

"We should learn, by reflection on the misfortunes of others, that there is nothing singular in those which befall ourselves."
~Thomas Fitzosborne

Briefly

Flew in the Chief this morning with a student, and we had a lovely morning for a flight. The afternoon got busier, running errands, getting Kaylee, running more errands, going to a school board meeting, coming home and helping Kaylee study for a few minutes on a test for tomorrow, and the rest of the evening will be spent finalizing (hopefully) billing for October for the airport. Kaylee's 3rd grade school pictures came back today, so if you want one, let me know what size and how many and I will get them to you. I have 5x7, 4x3 and wallets. :)