Flailing

I'm sitting here watching "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer" with Steve and Kaylee, so if this post doesn't make sense, that's why. I'm listening to the "Island of Misfit Toys" sing. :)

I was up past 1 a.m. last night working on the billing. When I crawled into bed I was out cold and the next thing I knew morning had arrived waaaay too soon. I had been extremely wired up yesterday, even though tired, so once I finally fell asleep, I slept like a log...

The weather didn't look like it was going to cooperate for my two flights today, but I was (mostly) wrong. This morning I got some cross-country and TOLS work done in the 172 for almost 2 hours while it rained all around us, but not on us. After lunch I thought for sure the weather would move in, but it still was holding off for a 2pm flight for me in the Chief, so I went on out to Kokomo to do that. Unfortunately the airplane had other ideas. I tried everything I could think of to start the thing, and it would Not. I flung the propeller as hard as I could for a long time, and when I finally wore out I had the guy I was with get out and try it for awhile with me messing with the throttle, primer, etc. He had no luck. I tried it again, going through every single option I could think of. No luck. I was out of ideas and muscle both, so I called Nathan who drove over and worked through the starting procedures same way we had. He had no luck either, but he wins the prize for the most impressive prop-throwing. That thing looked like a toy prop in his hands-it looked like it spun around as fast as if it had been running. It never even tried to bark at us, and it was getting fuel properly, so it's got some other issue and is now down for maintenance. Now I like nostalgic airplanes, I enjoy taildraggers a lot, but had this one had a real starter, I'd have known a whole lot sooner that something was wrong with the thing and three people wouldn't have spent what, 20-30 minutes exerting themselves in the cold for a plane that wasn't gonna start no matter what anyway. Just as Nathan was giving up too, it finally started raining harder, an icy cold rain in 40 degree temps that finished up the voice in my head saying "Not today, girlfriend, but nice try!"

So why did I ask two other people to try to start the thing after me? First, because I might have missed something. But mostly because I know Steve too well, and he wouldn't have believed the plane had a problem if it was just me. He also would think the guy I was with didn't do something right since he's a "student" in the plane. But he'll believe Nathan. ;)

(My arms and shoulders are actually a little sore tonight. There's a set of muscles I apparently don't use as often as I should...among many others!)

Steve was working on his problem computer job arena today, and I don't think it's all done just yet either. It's been a little helpful for him that the weather hasn't been as nice for flying so he'd be free to work on this other project, but hopefully it will wrap up successfully soon.

Kaylee gets to do her "Secret Santa Workshop" at school tomorrow, and she's really eager. An "elf" comes and takes a few kids at a time to the school-sponsored workshop, and the kids go shopping for presents for family/friends, wrap the gifts there, and then they have real surprises for their family members. Kaylee's done it every year and she's really pretty good about picking out gifts for us. Mostly she loves shopping so much that she can't wait to go. :)