Rockin'

I had a dream about "The Lottery" last night. The last time I'd read that story was probably for some Lit class somewhere, but there was a discussion thread on winning the lottery to buy an airplane and the name of the thread was "The Lottery" and that story was the first thing I thought of, of all things. Of course this was a month ago, so why I dreamed it now, I don't know. Isn't the mind a funny thing? I'm dreaming about a sunny day, people from my small community (I don't know them in real life, I knew them in my dream only) gathering together, joking around, having a fun day, all our names in a big hat, more jokes, and right when I saw all our names written on multi-colored cupcake wrappers (huh??) in a hat and realized we were in a field, I knew exactly what this was; even asleep I knew it was "The Lottery". Still in the dream I looked around and saw a complaining woman named Tessie, and I knew she was the one who was toast before I even got there in the dream. One funny thing-when the person pulled the name out of the hat, I tried to read it over his shoulder, and even in my dream my vision was like it is now-I couldn't see it clearly right off the bat and I was sitting there trying to focus when he read the name out loud. That amused me even asleep. When everyone reached for stones, I decided to get out of the dream and woke myself up. Man I wish I could teach Kaylee how to do that...

Sam & Jim have been working on our C-172 32L, rewiring the panel, adding an audio panel and working on the radios and just doing a TON of electrical work. They showed me some of the things that had been wrong with it, and honestly it looked like voodoo to me. All those teeny tiny circuits and wires and connections...anyway, it needed test flown to make sure everything was working properly, so I went out to Glenndale and took Sam and went up and checked out the audio panel, new intercom, all the radios and nav aids, etc. It was a pretty, smooth day to fly, and things seemed to be working great. The runway had ice and a little mud/slush from the middle on south, so I stayed on the west and north edges, but that's no problem for that airplane, at least on landing. With 40 degrees of flaps you can put it where you want it and be stopped post-haste. :)

I came home in time to get ready for our airport Christmas party tonight, and we had a great turn-out, good food and drinks and a fun time. Lots of people came from all three airports, a few from other surrounding airports, and some longer-distance travelers who stopped in as well, and I was glad to see several of our new students too. Kaylee had fun playing with the kids upstairs and helping being a coat checker (she got a $5 tip which she thought was pretty cool), and the adults enjoyed having some time out. Fresh jumbo shrimp with a nice horseradishy cocktail sauce among tables of other delicious foods and desserts didn't hurt. I wore heels and ended up standing and walking around a good portion of the time, so by the time I got home I had a couple of numb toes. In fact, three toes are still numb while I write this. ;)

Steve and I joined the local IAC chapter tonight (International Aerobatic Club) while we were there. The host of the party is the president and he'd like to promote aerobatic flying, which has suffered a proportionally sharper decline than even regular General Aviation has this last year...