Sunday

This is my 1600th post on this blog. Hmm, think I talk too much? ;) Well, you're actually safe, because I don't have much to say about today. Went on a trip to Greencastle in the RG this afternoon, which the weather finally allowed. (I need to catch my logbook back up again.) I was trying to get home to see the end of the US/Canada hockey game, but I missed the ending by two minutes! Oh well, we lost anyway, but barely, in overtime. I'm glad the Olympics are over with and I look forward to regular programming coming back on NBC. I did see some of the "recap" of the games today, and I still would like to know why the Americans were all dressed in pajamas. All the outdoor gear the Americans wore literally looked like flannel, printed pajamas. Snowflakes and plaid and everything. Yuck...

I worked on end of the month time sheets tonight while watching "The Marriage Ref" (which had us both laughing) and the Olympics closing ceremonies. Kaylee had a fun day playing with Steve, and Steve is on the upswing pretty well. Hopefully he'll wake up tomorrow and be ready for a Monday. I'm not sure I'M ready for a Monday, but it's coming ready or not. ;)

Ready Freddy

Not to sound like a broken record, but I had to cancel a cross-country flight today thanks to the weather. It was supposed to be okay, but it ended up being IFR, making it a little hard for someone to do their first VFR cross-country flight. It's STILL IFR (low clouds and/or bad visibility) right now. Ick.

So instead I took the day off, along with Steve. He is feeling a little better today, though still not exactly himself. He's been trying to be good and get lots of rest, not push it, etc. He played Xbox with Kaylee for awhile, and they played "Shrek 2" and "SpongeBob". She also played on the computer for a long time today, and helped me bake oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

I did things like laundry and dishes and watched the Olympics and took a nap and snuggled with Kaylee and just...relaxed. Oh, and I watched "Footloose", much to Steve's dismay and my amusement. I don't know how many years it's been since I've seen that, but I can still recite almost the entire movie by memory, when I really only watched it as a teenager, twenty years ago. That's scary, but I'm going to blame it on having had an almost photographic memory back then and things like that stuck whereas things I've learned in the last ten years are lucky to last through the next day. ;) By the way, people might think the town depicted in that movie is a caricature, but let me just say...it is not.

I look forward to the USA/Canada hockey game for the gold medal tomorrow afternoon, and then the close of the Olympics, which seem to go on forever. ;) I'm ready for the resuming of normal life, I'm ready for March, I'm ready for Spring, I'm ready for lots of stuff!

Riding Along

I started off today in the back seat of the C-172RG, giving a few pointers to the guy in the right seat who was giving pointers to the guy in the left seat. Sounds strange, but it was an effective learning tool for both for what they're working on. This was actually Steve's gig, but Steve woke up this morning about half dead. He's gone through massive amounts of paper products and is pretty well miserable, and flying under those conditions would be...dumb. So he's stayed in a fairly reclined position today, attempting to sleep and kick this cold or whatever he's got (or whatever has "got" him.)

I sort of hesitated to take Steve's gig because I'm not...fond...of riding in the back seat with someone I've never flown with and don't know in charge in the front seat, but Steve said the gentleman was good, and while I don't trust unknowns any more, I do trust Steve's assessment. He was right-the gentleman did a fine, professional job. The cell phone photo is the view I had out the rear window, looking into the side mirror where I could see the gear hanging down. :)

Blue Angels Up Close

Well, Maybe Not EASY, But...

(Funny, this essay sounds awfully familiar.) ;)

LIFE WOULD BE EASY... IF IT WEREN’T FOR DIFFICULT PEOPLE

by Connie Podesta

Go on, it’s okay. Admit it! We all know that life would be a whole lot easier if we didn’t have to deal with those difficult people we just can’t seem to avoid. I think you know who I’m talking about.

What’s not okay is to give up something you need, want or deserve because of their rude, obnoxious, sullen, and apathetic habits. Yes, I do mean “habits.” If you’re tired of playing their game, take charge of your life by taking a good look at yourself! You cannot change them, but you can change what you do and how you act around them, and ultimately how they affect your life.

Difficult people have been trained and taught to act the way they do since they were children. In fact, they have been rewarded for their negative behavior throughout their entire lives. Difficult behavior worked for them as children, and more important, it continues to work for them as adults.

The game of life is basically about “getting our needs met.” And you certainly do play a part! We reward difficult people by giving in to their needs. Think about it. If someone’s behavior is consistently inappropriate or unacceptable toward you, ask yourself if in any way you are rewarding their negative behavior.

For example, Jennifer wins this “reward” at her new school. Few of the kids would talk to her and some were even making fun of her. She asked to stay in during recess, but the teacher said no. Eventually she gets into a fight and pushes another girl down. The teacher tells Jennifer that fighting is against the rules and she will have to stay inside. What did Jennifer learn? Ask the teacher respectfully and you will not get what you want. Push someone and you can avoid recess!

We have three choices each time we respond to another person:
1. Be positive;
2. Be negative; and
3. Avoid or ignore them.

Difficult people see avoidance as a positive response. When we ignore unacceptable, inappropriate behavior, it will usually happen again because our avoidance tells the difficult person that we are willing to accept their behavior.

What do they really want?

Difficult people want to do their own thing, in their own time, in their own way, without interference. In addition, they expect everyone around them to cooperate—even work extra hard—to ensure that this happens. And they do not see anything unreasonable about these expectations. There is little in their experience to signal them that their actions are inappropriate. They also have little (if any) desire or motivation to change their habits.

What can I do about it?

We learn a lot from difficult people. We tolerate their behavior and attitudes as “part of life.” We hold back our feelings and swallow our words. We make concessions even when we do not receive anything in return. We compromise even when it is 90/10 instead of 50/50. We may even question our own ability to relate and communicate with others reasoning that “Maybe it’s me.”

Since we cannot change difficult people, we can only change ourselves and our reactions to their behavior. They need our cooperation and our permission to get their way. In most relationships, we are treated exactly the way we allow ourselves to be treated.

The good news is that because we are partly responsible there is something we can do to create and maintain relationships where we are treated respectfully. That’s great news! By focusing on ourselves and the changes we can make in our own behaviors and reactions, we can begin to take control of how other people treat us—today!

Brief

Hehehe

It was windy today but at least Steve got some flying in. Steve who is not feeling well, is stuffy and achy and went flying anyway because we've not had any decent weather in so long that the few days we can actually get something in, we try to get it in.

Chuck and I pulled out the T-6 so I could take some photos for something, and I pulled out the Baron to top it off, and with the wind blowing around as much as it was, it was darned cold.

No Kaylee stories today, it's a quiet one, and here comes Friday again. :)

Life

Well, it seems like it anyway. I was supposed to take a trip tomorrow, which has also been canceled now thanks to ceilings a little low to be scudding under with a little too much ice in the clouds to go up into them for long in a non-equipped airplane. Three trips in one week I can't get in. Ugh.

This trip had me down in Indianapolis by 6 a.m. and on to southern Indiana from there. That meant getting up at about 4 a.m. While I never look forward to that, I was ready, and hoping to get the flight in, and I had told Kaylee I was going to go to bed earlier than she did tonight and that I'd be gone when she woke up. So when I picked her up from school today I told her no trip and I'd be here. I said "On the only good news front, that means I won't have to get up at 4 a.m." She comes back with "Yay! No Cranky Mommy!" Heeeey! ;)

I've been trying to find the 'perfect' image of a T-6 head-on showing the full prop, stopped, for a project, and I couldn't find one of my own, so I went online and Google-fu'd it. The only problem was that it's hard to not be distracted by going to some of the sites of some of the photos I found. ;) I never did find a great one of what I'm looking for, so I'm going to pull out the Checkertail T-6 on a nice day and take the photo we want that way. I did see a few photos of T-6s over on their nose after a nice groundloop though. The most recent one happened just the day before yesterday, out in Arizona at a formation clinic--with light winds. Ow...

We have a friend who says a prayer aloud every time he takes off in an airplane. I personally don't feel the need to pray every time I get in the plane or the car, although I can't say that it's a bad idea, and my passengers' opinions may vary, ;), but there have been a couple of times I may have said the astronaut's prayer ("Dear Lord, please don't let me goof this up.") Thinking about someone groundlooping the T-6 at all, let alone in front of everyone else and during fairly calm conditions, brings forth the impulse to do just that.

By the way, for those of you who don't know what groundlooping is, you also probably don't care, but just in case...it basically means you lose directional control of the airplane on the ground, spinning around without intending to, usually in a taildragger airplane when you land too crooked or the wind blows your backside around and you don't correct for it properly. It happens more than you'd think, sometimes without causing any damage at all other than to ego if anyone is watching, other times it can damage a wingtip and even the gear if it happened when you were fast enough and/or in a heavier airplane. It's not something that is going to hurt the pilot in general, but it's sure not cool, either. And now I'm going to quit talking about that unpleasant thought. ;)

Kaylee's got Awanas, she's doing well in school, has a couple of friends who call her on my cell phone now and then to chat about mysterious pre-tween girl things, and enjoys playing computer games too. Nothing exciting happening this week, but sometimes excitement is over-rated, or at least that's what I'm telling myself this week!

Gotcha

Once again the weather killed a revenue flight today, a trip to southern Indiana. The bad news is that I spent all morning going over weather charts, icing charts, tops, forecasts, looking at trends, at precip, all of it, trying to find a way that I could safely get it done. And while IFR was out thanks to icing and being in a C-172RG, VFR was supposed to be possible. Not great, marginal, but possible. But there was one time frame in one small area that was possible to be too low, and with that, I had to cancel, to both our frustrations. It ends up being a good thing I did, because the forecasts for the entire route were wrong, and it stayed IFR almost the entire way there for the entire day. I was actually glad to see that, because few things frustrate me more than canceling a trip only to find out I could have taken it after all.

So instead it was "work around here" day. Errands, paperwork, emails, shipping stuff, house stuff, all the usual suspects.

Kaylee, who never wears jeans because she finds them terribly uncomfortable, walked out of her room this morning wearing snug jeans. Poor Steve says something like "Wow, Kaylee, you look good in jeans; you look so skinny!" to which she replies "Oh, so otherwise I've looked fat all this time?? Thanks a lot, Dad!" Enter the universal male look of dismay and the "That's not what I meant!" Hehehe *snort* The best part is that she wasn't saying that in seriousness, she was saying it to "get" him, and it was a good one!

I heard about a formation clinic that is typically annually in Illinois that is this year going to be held near me, in May. Things have to work out to be able to do that, but it's awful handy that it's so close and I could maybe skip the whole hotel part of these things. This is supposed to be a pretty big one, with over 40 planes coming so far. I guess we'll have to see, but even if it doesn't work out for me, just hearing about upcoming flying events and knowing that March is finally just around the corner makes even this snowy cold day a little bearable. ;)

Toil and Trouble

Ah, the return of early morning, bad weather and daily routines...

We were watching the Olympics last night, and Kaylee saw the mother of one of the skiers praying, which initiated an interesting conversation. She feels that it's not right for a person to pray for their son to win the games, and besides, everybody else could be praying for THEIR son to win too. Instead she feels that it's right to pray that your son does his best, doesn't make mistakes, etc. Steve and I didn't "give" her that opinion, she expressed it herself, and we both think that's a pretty good distinction for a 9-year-old.

While I was working on some billing this morning, I was listening to a recording of a pilot who got in trouble in Florida. He ended up in the clouds when he wasn't trained how to handle that, and was low on fuel, too. First, this is called very bad planning. Secondly, this is a double whammy bad deal. He was unable to maintain a heading, kept just doing turns, but fortunately kept it right side up. A couple of Air Traffic Controllers worked with him, trying to get him to an area where he would be able to see, even sent a Baron out to try to help guide him to clear air and a safe landing, but it was all to no avail for awhile, and he got critically low on fuel to the point they had to just let him descend through the clouds to about 300' above the ground and hope he broke out and made it to a runway. The last controller though, he was a true professional. He would tell the pilot "deep breath, stay calm, you are doing great. Keep the wings level. You are in a right turn. Gently turn left and get it level. There you go." The controller talked this man down, one tense bit at a time, until eventually he did break out and spot his runway about a mile in front of him. Right before he landed safely, the pilot said "Thank you. Thank God for you and for every one that has helped me." The controller came back on and said "We just thank God you are okay, down and safe." It was a Very tense recording to listen to, even knowing ahead of time that he walked away, but it's also a really good example of why controllers aren't people to be feared in times of flying trouble, but tools to be utilized. They aren't out to get you 'busted', they want to help, and those controllers no kidding saved that man's life.

Unfortunately, lately there has been a rash of people doing bad things in small airplanes. The infamous Stack who flew his plane into an IRS building to make a "point". The guy with the expired student pilot certificate who just stole an airplane and landed it at LAX, one of the busiest airports in the country, and a few others. These things hit the air waves and people are screaming for more restrictions. But I've heard the tower tapes of Stack before he took off to kill himself and however many IRS people he could get with his plane, and he sounded cheerful, professional and completely normal. What rule would have stopped what he did? He had a valid medical and license, he wasn't drunk or noticeably crazy, he was completely legal, and just as impossible to stop as if he had loaded up his van with explosives and driven into the building instead. The aviation industry folks are scrambling, trying to prove that we're not a threat to the general public, that small airplanes wear white hats, not black ones, but flying is scary enough to most people that it's a tough sell.

Which is why I think we should have running side-bar news coverage constantly for awhile, every time we take off and land, every time a student pilot, a hundred-dollar-hamburger-runner, an airliner or a corporate jet or a mission airplane or a seaplane in the Canadian bush or a relief plane in Haiti or a supplies plane up in Alaska successfully makes a trip, and have at the bottom of the television screen a statement reading "Emotionally stable members of the community, not crashing into buildings!"

If people had to watch how much went on safely around them for very long, they'd get pretty bored pretty quickly. :)

Ah well, that's life, there's not much you can do about it other than sweep your own front porch. (Er, probably a metaphor nobody remembers, but let's just say we all do our part to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.)

Sentimental Journey

I am a bit of a sentimental fool when it comes to throwing away or getting rid of things. I used to keep every letter everyone sent me, every card, every gift. As you can imagine, however, as time passes, you run into two problems. One, basic accumulation. Two, exponential accumulation by an increase in people in your life. What finally took me over the edge was having kids. You can not, can NOT keep every single thing your child brings home, draws, colors, etc. Trust me, I tried for a little while. So...I started tossing. I have done pretty well keeping just a folder of Kaylee's stuff, keeping the photo albums down digital realms now, and even keeping my computer well-organized and decluttered for the most part. But I have one area left, and it's a biggie: my email. When I first started using this email program, I never deleted anything, even innocuous emails. Once several years had passed and my program was choking and I realized I'd have to start deleting, I made a point to get rid of those quickie emails you'd never need anyway. But I still slowly accumulate things I don't want to lose, and I still have that backlog of copious amounts of email from the past. Today I went through my archives and deleted a bunch of stuff, and after spending almost two hours deleting, I found out that I'd deleted almost 1 Gig of old info...and still had 7 Gig of info in there. I went through my "sent" files, and found emails you just wouldn't want to delete. Emails I sent about Devon, photo emails I'd sent to Kaylee's pre-k teacher, emails to family members, all sorts of stuff. *sigh* Of course, the question remains, what exactly are you going to do with any of that, and why? And who exactly is going to wander through my email files and find the important ones some day? I've spent enough time looking at that today, I'm done for now, but I may just do a mass delete, not look at what I'm permanently losing, and start with a cleaner slate. Maybe. If I can get my index finger to do it.

The DVDs just came out from the 2009 Indianapolis Air Show, and Justin got some of them and gave me a couple. Today I finally had a chance to watch it, and it was actually neat to see the people you know being interviewed and featured up close and professionally. An air show in a way you don't really get to see it when you're actually there, if that makes sense, all close-up and with extras. Of course the section I was most interested in was the Warbird shows, and in that I was a little surprised. They showed everybody taxiing out, a few people from a distance taking off or flying by, no voiceover of what was being said or what the planes even were or anything about it. Just music and a few photos of the planes. Kinda weak when they did so much throughout the rest of the dvd on the other planes. I can tell they used the footage they took from Saturday, because I recognized the order of the "Trainer" planes going out, and Duane was in front of me in the Wood T-6 and I was the last one for our group. Duane gave a thumbs-up and pumped his fist at the crowd while I just concentrated on taxiing and not running into anything. ;) Oh, the announcer, Dave Jackson, was wearing a Checkertail Mustang hat, which I noted with a smile. Anyway, I called Steve and Kaylee in and showed them my three seconds of "fame", the first time I ever showed up on any kind of official video footage for an airshow, taxiing by, and they walked away saying "Wow, Mom, one, two, three, poof! Very impressive! Three whole seconds! Whew!" as they went back to her room to finish putting the glow-in-the-dark stars up on the ceiling in her room. Smart alecks--I'm surrounded by smart alecks!

I may not have done anything there but fly in circles and not do anything too dumb, and it doesn't even show any of that anyway, but I'm still not "decluttering" that DVD. Sue me. ;)

Hot and Cold

It didn't really seem like a Saturday today until a few hours ago, but we're looking good now. When I woke up this morning I drove right down to Sheridan where I had a lesson on the crosswind simulator trainer machine. We spent the time doing the ground work, he got in the machine, and after about 40 minutes it started shutting off randomly. Interesting, but I'd just start it back up and it would keep going. And then some white smoke came puffing out of a fan/vent area on the side, along with the smell of hot electronics, and I shut it down and went and let the owner of the machine know what I'd seen/smelled. There was someone in it after me, and they think they got it fixed, so hopefully that was the case.

Another guy who was there looking at the machine piped up in a condescending tone of voice and said "We can't find anything that would cause the smoking issue though, nothing burnt or crispy in there-are you sure you didn't overreact to the smoke?" Overreact? As in run around squealing about smoke in a panic, or as in making it up completely? That set my teeth on edge, which I didn't hide very well. (I'm getting worse at that). No I did not blow it out of proportion, no I did not make it up, yes I know what hot electronics smell like, I did not say burned, I said hot, and those are two different things. I didn't "overreact" before, but I'll show you an overreact now. ;)

I got to participate towards the women's liberation movement today whether I felt like it or not. ;) There was snow and ice in front of the hangar where our Cherokee 180 is housed, and we've got more snow and freezing rain coming, and it's better to start off with the ramp cleaned off as much as possible to maximize the chances of being able to actually get the plane out to fly it on decent days. I didn't blink when the 21 year old strapping young man left with an "I'm outta here!" and I got to do the shoveling myself, because hey, that's life. I did mutter to myself at one point that nobody better call me "Princess" today though. ;)

I left Sheridan just in time to get to the store, considering we have more bad weather coming and I had zero food or drinks in the house. I got some basics before heading over to the movie theater to pick up Kaylee. She had gone to see "Tooth Fairy" with her former 3rd grade teacher and several classmates, including the friend she spent the night with last night. She had a great time, and she thought the movie was pretty funny. I'm glad she watched it there and I didn't have to though, because I'm thinking I don't need to see "The Rock" in tights and fairy wings for two hours.

We got home late afternoon, I unloaded the Jeep, laid down on the couch, Kaylee laid down next to me, and we both passed out cold for a good hour. I needed that! The problem is that she feels a little too warm to me, and she slept in the middle of the day, and she's slightly whiny, which I know can be from running around too much and staying up too late and excitement after her night out...except for the warm thing, and they are also symptoms of hers when she is getting ill. Lord I hope not. First, I don't want her to be sick, but secondly, when she IS sick she recovers fast, but I just stopped coughing from the last thing I caught. *sigh*

Finally after a day of instructing, physical labor, errands and a nap, Let the Weekend Commence!

Looking Around

I keep looking around with a start, feeling like I'm forgetting Kaylee. But Kaylee isn't here. Kaylee is on a sleepover with a school friend, the first time she's spent the night anywhere but with a family member. I know all you parents out there will understand that my biggest concern is that my daughter handles herself well, with good manners and appropriate behavior. ;)

This morning the sky was blue! It won't be that way for long; we've got another winter storm warning coming, with several more inches of snow on top of several bouts of freezing rain coming by Monday night. (*sigh*). But for today, I spent some time looking around and enjoying the sun. Thirty-six degrees isn't as bad as it sounds if only the sun is out and the sky is blue. I flew this morning with a student, including a runway check at Glenndale (still looks kind of deep on the north end), then sent him off on a couple of solo flights. I got the itch to take myself on a solo flight too, but held it off for another day. My time will come.

I was reading a friend's blog, and he was talking about how once he was really nervous about taking off in a (single seat) airplane for the first time and basically checking himself out in it, and his dad came up to the plane while he sat there, literally shaking, unsure, and said "Son, there are them that talk and them that do. Which one are you?" Tough love, man, but tough love from a former Navy fighter pilot. The point is valid though. There ARE 'them' that talk and 'them' that do. I think a lot of pilots (people in general) have come to a crossing road of sorts where they had to put up or shut up. More of them shut up than put up, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. We all have to know our limits. But sometimes you just have to "do". And sometimes when you "do", you fall on your face. It's the nature of the beast...but the things in life you miss out on if you always sit out... I can't think of too many times where I wasn't really glad that I "did". Sometimes I ended up a little embarrassed, but most of the time it was a character-building, personal pushing, confidence boosting experience. :)

Which reminds me of the Canadian TV show I've been watching on the Internet called "Ice Pilots NWT". I really enjoy it; they are flying DC-3s, DC-4s, all sorts of cool big noisy radial engine airplanes. I like big noisy radial engine airplanes, particularly the taildraggers. ;) Anyway, one thing that I enjoy about the show is that the pilots up there are still "Git 'Er Done" guys. In this day and age, people getting it done is being overtaken by the politically correct and safety police. Now, of course you want to be safe. But there's realistic and there's bubble-wrap, and bubble-wrap flying bugs me to death. There's a whole new generation of pilots now, the pedants, the ones who I'm not really sure why they are involved in flying in the first place. Maybe the techno guys who like the gizmos but the actual flying part of it escapes them. I don't know. But it's nice to see a show where the pilots land on an ice runway if the job requires it, land on gravel, work on a -40C ramp to get an airplane ready, who crosses the Atlantic in an airplane they had to rig to be able to make it, but who made every single safety precaution they could come up with to get it done. They don't say "it's too cold, it's too windy, it's too snowy, it's too narrow, it's too..." they figure out what they need to do to get it done, they take all the safety precautions they can reasonably manage, and then they...get it done. That's the flying that is disappearing, fast.

Which reminds me that like a few Americans, we are watching the Olympics. You know what strikes me about the Olympians? Their eyes. Watch the eyes of the bob-sledders before they start down, or the downhill skiers. You can tell before they even begin who is going to put it all out there. Like Lindsey Vonn, who has an excruciating shin injury and comes to the end on one ski favoring her injury who wins a gold medal against other highly experienced and talented and uninjured downhill skiers. You go, girl.

Which reminds me for some reason of the Dunning Kruger effect. You know, those who think they are great are incapable of seeing that they actually stink, and those who are truly very good always underestimate their abilities. If you don't think this is real, you've not only never been a CFI, you've also never watched a season of "American Idol" tryouts. ;)

Well, it's time to relax! It's weird around here with Kaylee gone, and even the cats miss her. They are wandering around looking for her. I'm sure she's having a great time. Me, I've got work in the morning and then I need to go get Kaylee, and after that it's time to start the weekend and settle in for the next rounds of snow on top of bouts of freezing rain that is headed out way. Again...

Ahhhhh

Well, this was a fun day. :) I got to go flying in the morning, got to enjoy lunch with friends, got to go flying in the afternoon, then got to get out of the airplane and send a student on their first solo flight. It was an up to 15 knot wind at up to 50 degrees off the runway, which is more wind than I've first soloed anyone in before, but if he can consistently and safely handle it as long and as many times and ways as I had him do takeoffs and landings today, well, there's no good reason not to. He doesn't know it, but there was a small crowd in the FBO building watching his solo take offs and landings. :) I wasn't planning on soloing him in today's winds, so I didn't bring my camera along, but sometimes you gotta go with it when it's right. Right after we got done flying, THEN the clouds went away and the sun came out, but hey, at least it came out.

I didn't get Kaylee from school until right when After Care was over, and we came home long enough to do a few things, then turned around and went back out to Glenndale for the night's EAA Chapter Meeting. We had a guest speaker from Grissom Air Reserve Base's Museum, and talked about the B-17 that is coming to Kokomo in July, the Airshow we're having July 3rd, and the Aerobatic competition we're hosting at Kokomo in August. There was a pretty good crowd tonight, Chuck made popcorn, somebody brought drinks, and everybody had a good time. :)

The night was polished off when I got home to a phone call from a classmate's mom who would like Kaylee to have a sleepover at her house tomorrow night, starting right after school lets out. A little conversation and the ground rules spelled out, and Kaylee can't wait.

Hmm, the weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow, too. Even better. ;)

Whew

Well, until about 8:30 p.m., I sat down at lunch and I sat down for 45 minutes to watch a quick video. Other than that, I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Or a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. Or whatever cute little colloquialism you'd like to use. The first 2/3 of the day were very productive, the last third ended up a little frustrating, but whining about why wouldn't do anybody including me any good, so I'll spare us all. ;) I sure got a massive and impressive pile of things done today though...

Tonight at Awanas Kaylee designed a pine wood derby car that she'll race in March. She chose to make it in the shape of an arrow, and the men there at Awanas helped cut it out and provided the wheels and weights while I hung out with her and watched and provided input. She brought it home, and now she and Steve have until March to get it up to but not over 5 oz. of weight and decorate it as she pleases. She's looking forward to racing it.

Me, I want some food, a drink, my Wednesday night TV show and an early bedtime! Tomorrow will be full as well, hopefully even getting some flying in. :)

Did I Mention Snow?

Snow. Snow, snow, white, snow, cold, snow, ice and oh yeah, snow.

I drove in the snow to a bunch of errands, didn't get to fly because of snow (well, low ceilings and visibilities thanks to snow anyway), took Kaylee to dance and home in snow, picked up dinner through snow, plowed back into my driveway through snow.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

(How long did it take for Jack to go crazy up there in the Overlook Hotel again??)

;)

Back to Reality...Again?

Our trip to Missouri was a nice, relaxing time away, and we were in no hurry to come back early today. It snowed off and on in both Missouri and Indiana, but the icing was supposedly not bad. Our biggest problem was that we had gotten snow and ice while we were down in Missouri, and even though we had the cover on the plane, the cover doesn't cover the whole thing, and we can't take off with a bunch of snow and ice all over the plane's control surfaces, wings and tail, so we spent a good amount of time cleaning off the airplane in twenty degree temps. By the time we finally were able to take off, I was glad to crank up the heat and music and head home.

Steve volunteered to sit in the back and let Kaylee have the front again, but I think he regretted it because 1) she kept changing the music to Spanish tunes and 2) the few feet in between the front and back seats were a heat wasteland. He was freezing back there and we were burning up front. And yes, I had the right cabin heat on. :)

The flight itself was really very nice for the most part. When I took off out of Cape Girardeau, it was a little cloudy, but right at 6,000' we broke out of the clouds and it was severe clear, blue and sunny above, and it was like we were riding on a fluffy carpet of white clouds. Kaylee said it looked like a beach of white sand, except you'd fall through if you tried to step on it. We stayed above all of it, watched the sun go down under it and the moon rise above it, until it was time to descend into Kokomo. It was supposed to be VFR when we got there, but instead the clouds were just a tad low and it was snowing pretty well again and I had to shoot an instrument approach. The airport was reporting braking action of "fair" with thin snow and ice on the runway, but the runway was fine to me, just a little snowy. But the nicest thing of all was, as we taxiied up to the hangar, the door slowly started rising, and I'll be darned if Chuck hadn't come out there and warmed up our cars and opened the doors up on this cold snowy dark night. You don't know how nice that is until you yourself arrive home from a trip to that kind of help!

I stopped at Burger King to feed the fam, we got home and found our cats still alive, got our bags in, got the kid in bed, and now I'm just about ready to go there myself...

Where No Man Has Gone Before

A couple more Kaylee stories. On the way down here, Kaylee was thrilled to be able to be the one to stick her index finger up in the air as a cue to her father to be quiet because they were talking on the radio. She's always the one getting a finger stuck up to be quiet, so that day the roles were reversed. From the back seat you can't hear the radios very well, so Steve couldn't tell when they were talking, and Kaylee was delighted to let him know.

I had explained to her the magenta line and what things were, so after we took off from Kokomo, she pointed to a dot on the GPS and said "Like that's Glenndale". I looked, and she was right, which surprised me. I said "You're right, it is; how did you know that??" She said in this "duh" tone of voice "It says Eight Eye Three (8I3), Mom. That's Glenndale. It's on all Daddy's hats. And shirts." Ha.

She got me too, though. I was hand flying a good portion of the time, and at one point she looked up and said "According to this, you're too far to the right. You need to go left to be on course, Mom." I'm going "Hey, I'm working on it!" and Steve started snickering. Like I need another "backseat" driver around here! ;)

And it's not just that-she was playing with the Garmin 696 most of the time, changing songs, etc. When we got to Cape, I was hand flying a descent in IFR, and when I put my hand up on the throttles and up to change radio frequencies several times, I'd block her access to the GPS. She got irritated and tried to bump my arm out of the way a couple of times, at a sort of busy time, until I finally had to tell her I needed to actually have my hands here right now and she was going to have to sit on it. I actually had to pull PIC rank on a 9-year-old.

Kaylee got to open a couple of birthday presents including glow in the dark stars for her special room at the house, and a really cool, actual microscope. She asked for science stuff, and she got real science stuff. It's exactly like the microscope I used in college, with pre-done slides and also slides and covers and pipettes to create your own slides. Pretty awesome, actually. We looked at a sample of Grandma's hair, fish tank water, and a section of bowel to start with. Tiny worlds revealed...

I finally got to see the new Star Trek movie tonight, and other than a pointless and silly romance involving Spock, I thought it was really good. There's also a commercial out for a movie version of "The A-Team", which I fear will be as cheesy as the remake of the "Dukes of Hazard", and yet I can't help but look forward to watching it anyway, something I'm almost loathe to admit. But what aspiring young pilot didn't admire Murdock?? I always liked Hannibal, too. Maybe in the movie version they'll actually be able to HIT something with all the firepower they aim at people. ;)

Well, it's Valentine's Day, or "Valentimes Day" as Kaylee still calls it. Yep, it is. A silly day, but hey, each to his own, and may those who celebrate it also remember that you love each other the rest of the year as well. ;)

Kaylee had a fun day playing, I read "I, Sniper" by the same guy who wrote the movie "Shooter" with Mark Wahlburg, which I liked, and the guys napped to the Daytona 500. All in all a nice day all around!

Saturday

We spent today checking out the house that Kasey and her husband purchased, which is a fixer-upper in town, we ran out to Sam's Club and did a little wandering around and shopping and getting food stuff, hung out with Kristopher and his fiance, ate, etc. Later that afternoon Kaylee went on a trailer ride with Grandpa driving and Grandma wrapped in a blanket in the back of the trailer being pulled by a John Deer tractor, up and down the road. It was pretty funny looking, and I took a few pictures, right about when my camera decided to "error". Oh well, I think I got a couple anyway.

From there we headed over to Jackson, where Kaylee immediately assaulted her Grandma Chiles and has held her play hostage for the last several hours. I don't think Grandma minds too awful much. ;)

On the flight over, as I said, Steve was sleeping in the back of the plane while Kaylee and I rode up front. Well, at one point, Steve said he was scared of being flown around by two women. Kaylee looks up at me, gives the BIGGEST eyeroll you've seen out of any girl, and just faces forward without a word. She's got the female sarcastic eyeroll down totally pat! I just Cracked Up. I swear she looks an awful lot like me sometimes, and that was one of them--saying a lot without saying a word. You go, girl!

We are watching Apolo Ohno get a lucky Silver medal, tying him for first place of most Olympic medals won in the Winter Games, eating some junk food, and letting the kid run wild. Happy Saturday!

Southbound

Friday started off clear and cool. Kaylee had her Valentine's Day party at school and came home with bags of goodies and Valentines and candy. I packed up our bags and got the house and cats ready for an absense, loaded up the Jeep, locked up the house and went out to Glenndale for Fried Chicken Friday lunch. From there I grabbed Kaylee from school and went out to Kokomo Airport, got out the Baron, loaded it and fueled it up and got everything ready while Steve finished up with an instrument student and some phone calls. Finally we were ready to go, and Steve hopped in the back to take a nap while Kaylee flew up front with me. She manipulated the Garmin 696 and got the XM music selections going, and in under two hours we were in slightly warmer temps with almost no snow on the ground...

Thankful Thursday

Steve took Kaylee to school while I caught up on a bunch of things and prepared to be gone again. Around 11:45 a.m. I got a phone call from an unknown local number, which means I let it go to voicemail. A few minutes later the same number called, and this time they left a message--it was Kaylee's new teacher informing me that school had let out early today and they were wondering when someone would come to get Kaylee. I was a little irritated because nowhere on the school closings page did it list an early dismissal that morning, and they had once before just announced to parents as they dropped kids off that there would be early dismissal and put it on the internet after school started. I thought maybe they'd missed telling us and decided to close early, and it irritated me because not everyone can sit at home and watch the school closing page all day or drop everything and come early. I was supposed to fly all day today and Steve was too. My guy had canceled, but if he hadn't...I'd have worked something else out, but still. Come to find out, they'd sent a note home in a newsletter while I was gone telling us about the half day today. I wasn't the only one that hadn't seen it though-there were three out of eleven kids left in the room when I got there. ;)

I took Kaylee with me to lunch with the airport crew, after which Chuck took her home with him where Judy had Maggie over, and they got to play for a few hours and Kaylee got to go to Kid Town I think it's called, which is their church kids' program. She had a great time, and while she was gone I went Valentine's Day shopping for her school party and for her and started getting ready for the weekend.

The weather was supposed to be terrible today, which posed a problem because we've got a guy going on a checkride tomorrow who hadn't gotten a chance to do the last of his prep, and Steve might not have been able to go with us on our trip. But when we woke up this morning it was to perfectly clear blue skies and better weather you could not order up (well, other than temperature of course). So he accomplished what he needed to, my guy canceled on a pretty day making me available to take care of Kaylee on the unexpected short day, and my bags are packed again and ready to go. All things worked out for the best today. :)

Snow Day II

I was almost as happy to hear that today was going to be another Snow Day for school as Kaylee was, as it meant that I got to sleep in too. They canceled last night, so we didn't even have to set any alarms. I think the couple hours of extra sleep I've gotten have helped in a few areas. :) We didn't spend this Snow Day sledding on the hill or running around. Kaylee spent it playing games, Steve spent it trying to fix my computer (and do other work) and I spent it doing basic housework, and frequently curled up on the couch with a drink and a book. Church/Awanas was canceled tonight as well, and we just took the day...off.

Random Pieces

As I'm typing this, my daughter has taken a photo of me off of my phone and put it up on the TV via the Wii and turned it into a 48-piece puzzle that she has to figure out how to put back together. She got my face mostly done, but the rest is harder.

We got back from our trip at just the right time, as later that night and this morning we're getting hit with the next winter storm. Kaylee's school was canceled for the day due to the snow coming down, and actually that worked out nicely for me as it gave me a little extra time to sleep in and get adjusted to the new time zone. When I woke up at 7:15 originally, that was 4:15 a.m. California time. I appreciated having a little time to get back on track here.

On the flight, it makes for a long day to go across the country, but it was really very pretty. Both the trip out and the trip home had a potential for unpleasant weather, but both trips ended up being doable with a bit of pretty tossed in. We spent some time in the clouds, we spent some time in the snow, we spent some time in the clear, we watched two sunsets from two different directions, and there's just something neat about watching the terrain under you change from fields to sparseness to hills to mountains to bluffs to desert. When you're up high in an airliner you just don't get the same feel. I made the statement last night that I don't understand how people can not like flying. Going from Kokomo to Des Moines to Colorado Springs to Winslow AZ to California down low in one day, or California to Las Vegas Nevada to Hutchinson Kansas to Kokomo in one day, and the view. For example, last night somewhere over Illinois, we watched the clouds come in and cover the ground lights, but above us we still had the stars. Orion was on my side, the Big Dipper was on the left. Soon another layer of clouds moved in and covered the stars too, and it was just...dark. We kept seeing something sparkle, so Nathan turned on the landing lights to the plane, and on both wingtips you could see the snow blowing past the wings and the lights, and the sparkling was ice crystals in the air shining off the lights. It was Very pretty, like a stream of liquid crystal going past in the darkness. Every once in awhile we would fly over the top of a city, which you would know because the glow of the city lights would penetrate the cloud deck and turn everything orangeish-yellow around you. Relaxing music, the crackle of the air traffic control calls every once in awhile, the drone of the engines, a little conversation, and a cooler with snacks and drinks in the back. What could be a better way to travel?

I did get pictures of the trip up. Like all pictures, you can't actually catch the full scope of what you see in your entire field of vision with a photo, but you do your best anyway because it's too impressive to not try. :) I didn't end up taking very many photos this trip. The first few days we were there it rained, including the trip to Chino, so none of the photos would have turned out very well. I didn't take photos of the SuperBowl party because I mostly just watched us lose. :/ So this go-around I mostly just took photos of the scenery outside the window of the airplane on the way there. :)

Today Kaylee took the cats outside to play in the snow, and while she was out there she did a little shoveling on her own, without being asked. She shoveled a path from our door to the garage door and her grandparents' door and Steve's car. The snow isn't super deep just yet, but Steve went out too to get ahead of it a little, as we're supposed to continue to get dumped upon over the next day or so. The cats thought the snow was pretty interesting, but didn't like the whole falling from the sky on top of them thing and came back in pretty quickly. The kid finished up, got a warm drink, and was ready to play on the computer for awhile. Snow Day!

Well, my computer is a little fitzed. We're (I use "we" lightly in this case) going to have to do something about it and get it fixed, so in the meantime I've got a bit more limitations on what I can do on the computer. My email is one of the things not working well, so while I have some catching up to do on that front, well, it might take me awhile. In the meantime, we are hunkering down, watching it snow, doing what work we can from home, and still watching it snow. :)

Home

It was a nice ending to the day tonight when Nathan and I rolled up to the hangar at our home base and our cars were heated and running, the hangar door was open and lit up, and Chuck tugged us right into the hangar sitting in the plane. Now THAT is service with a smile! We got to unload the plane in the warmer hangar, hop into warm cars, go home and relax. I really really appreciated it!

Today's flight looked a little sketchy on the weather as of this morning, and there was a good possibility we might have to land and wait it out prior to getting home. But fortunately Mother Nature for once did not end up as bad as it could have been, and our trip was mostly uneventful, and instead of having to shoot a low IFR approach into home base, we were in the clear. We landed for gas in Las Vegas...Las Vegas, New Mexico that is. :) We also stopped for gas in Hutchinson, Kansas. They have a nice restaurant on field and we had dinner prior to our last leg home. We had some ice, some clouds, some snow showers that in the lights of the wing at night looked like a massive sparkling star shower, some clear areas, and we landed at an airport with a field elevation of almost 7,000', which is a first for me. It's weird for this flat-lander to be sitting on the ground and seeing my altimeter reading that high.

Something else of note to nobody but me--I actually fell asleep in the airplane. I never, Ever fall asleep in airplanes. Not airliners, not little planes, have never been able to do it even when truly pooped, no matter who else is on board. I wasn't that pooped, but I leaned back and actually fell asleep, and not lightly dozing. I was Out. And shocked when I woke up and realized I'd gone out that hard in an airplane. It's the first time that's happened in all these years of flying. Whaddya know...

All in all, a good flight home, good to be home, and I'm just in time for the next winter storm. *sigh*

Chino

This morning Nathan and I went in the Baron over to Chino, California. The weather wasn't the greatest, but it made for an interesting flight. It was really turbulent over the mountains, both on the way over in some decent rain and on the way home, when we had freezing rain for awhile with a quick ice accumulation which melted off minutes later in the clear sky we hit just a few minutes later. In one trip we had busy airspace, IFR, VFR, moderate turbulence, calm skies, freezing rain, regular rain, lightning and mountains. It was interesting. We have it easier in the Mid-West...out here it can be more of a workload. At one point it was VFR but it was fairly turbulent, and even with the autopilot on you could feel the plane struggling to handle it, and it would bank over 30 degrees and lose or gain 200 feet of altitude, which is personally more than I've seen an autopilot deviate maybe ever. Mostly the trip was hand-flown though, and it was good proficiency practice. I did joke though, because one of our waypoints was the "Paradise" VOR. So today I went to Paradise! :)

Nathan (and me but I'm superfluous in this) met with a couple of folks today at Chino at a hangar with his TF-51 project, went to a restaurant for awhile, then came on back to the hangar to do a little inventory work while I chatted on my cell phone with Kaylee. :) We flew home and had a nice dinner at 'home' with Doug & Gail and a fairly new flight instructor for Doug's aeroclub and his fiance who fortunately didn't get sick to death of all the airplane talk throughout the night.

Kaylee was telling me all about the cleaning she was doing with Daddy, how she was a little bored and wanted to chat, she was telling me about the earrings she put in and took out on her own now and how she's getting better at that...it's neat reading texts from her, because she writes like an older kid than she is; she writes better texts than some adults I know. I like that. ;) I miss my girl. And my guy of course. :) But I'm a lot warmer here than they are there and I like that, too. ;) But my turn is coming...we ARE coming home in a few days after all...back to the Winter Wonderland...

Trip Day

The morning began like all others, getting Kaylee up and ready for school, dropping her off, and heading out to the airport. But this time I had my suitcase, camera, cooler and laptop with me. :)

We took off out of Kokomo shortly after 9 a.m. Thanks to a weather system coming in, we couldn't go the most direct route, but we headed north and ended up landing in Des Moines, Iowa for our first fuel stop. It was IFR the whole way, but we didn't pick up even a trace of ice where we were for almost the entirety of the flight. When we went to leave Des Moines, there were several F-16s in the pattern, doing an overhead break, coming in to land, and taxiing in, which was great fun to watch from the other side of the runway. They had fresh cookies at the FBO there too, and popcorn, so we were good to go. ;)

The next leg was also IFR, also no ice, and we passed the time by reading newspapers, books, napping, listening to tunes on the XM off the Garmin 696, oh, and flying the airplane. We landed in Colorado Springs, Colorado for fuel stop #2. Neat airport, and there were big cargo planes in the pattern with us there. We didn't stay long, just long enough to fuel up, walk around a bit, hit the restroom, and hop back in.

From Colorado Springs we just went VFR. The weather was nice, and this way we could fudge a little on routing, where the IFR airways would take us way out of the way. We flew through a mountain pass, which is a first for me actually, flying along with mountains higher than me off to the sides. It was a little hazy, so flying into the sun everything looked blue-white and washed out. But when you turned your head and looked backwards, you could see the sun shining off the mountain rocks and trees, and it was beautiful. The sun started to set behind a double ridge of mountains in front of us and made for a lovely tableau. We flew right over the top of the giant crater which the name of is escaping me at the moment, flew over Winslow, Arizona (what song just popped into YOUR head?), and celebrated entering California via "Needles, CA". We didn't stop again from Colorado Springs through to our destination in California, and it was a hefty leg. Five hours or so. By the time we landed, we were ready to stretch--that last hour or so was getting a little long. It was a really nice flight though. Uneventful, and once we hit Colorado we could actually see the ground and then the sky too, we were out of the clouds and into the sun. I stuck my face up in the windshield for a minute and soaked it up like a cat. Ahhhhh.

I'd gotten a dehydration headache, even though I'd tried to be good and drink water at every stop and in the last few hours of every leg, so when we got here I popped some Excedrin and had some good chicken strips and another bottle of water and within an hour I was back to normal. As normal as I get, anyway. We ate out, enjoyed the company, hung out until something like 11:30 our time (which is 2:30 a.m. home time) and then headed to bed.

As soon as we stepped out of the plane in Colorado, I smiled and said "It feels like Spring!" Everybody there (and here) is chilly, but to us it is downright balmy. The air doesn't bite on the way down to your lungs, and I haven't shivered once since I got here. My cough is a little better already too. Not gone, but better. I'll take it...

Runnin' Around

Twas my last day to get ready, and I'm not quite done yet. My morning flight was canceled thanks to bad weather, so I spent that time cleaning up the house, starting laundry so I could pack, getting to various stores so Steve and Kaylee will have what they need while I'm gone, getting some stuff in the mail, working on some website stuff, picking up business cards (that ended up not being done properly), just a bunch of stuff like that.

When I picked Kaylee up from school, she glared at me all the way to the car, upset because she wanted to go into "after care" with her friends, who had brought make-up and games to play together. But I overcame her ire when I told her that since I was going to be gone in 3 days when her time would be up to change out her earrings, we could do it together today. She was so excited she actually started crying. She wasn't quite so excited later when we did it. Her left ear is the one that they pierced hair into, and while she has been religious about cleaning, you can't clean in the hole until you remove the earring, and it had some goopies. So I was glad I was here to help clean it out. She wore new dangly earrings for awhile, and I told her if she could get them out and get her studs back in by herself, she could change out her earrings while I was gone. If not, she'd need to wait because her daddy isn't too fond of medical procedures like sticking little needles into little holes. :) She was unable to do it, so Steve sacrificed and gave it a shot for her, and he made it, which impressed all of us! But...her one ear just needs a little more time to heal up, so I told her to leave the studs in for several days and give it a break. She's disappointed, but that's the way earrings work until your body gets used to foreign objects...

I spent the evening finishing the billing and getting it in the mail tonight when Kaylee went to Awanas, and tonight I'll have to pack a bag as I am headed to the warm and sunny state of California first thing in the morning. Kokomo will be getting another snow storm Thursday night, and I will at least be in temps in the 50s to low 60s, which may not be summer but it's sure going to feel good to me!

Trips

This was one of the first mornings I haven't had a flight of some sort, so I tried to finish up as many errands, work from home, airport stuff, some SMA stuff, as much as I could get done before lunch.

A trip to Indianapolis Metro then Evansville happened after lunch. I was supposed to be down there until almost midnight, home close to two a.m., but I ended up able to come home about two hours early, which worked out great on several fronts. It was an IFR flight, and I ended up shooting one daytime ILS approach, a night GPS approach and a night ILS approach. Not that any of you care, but I'm not getting my logbook out tonight so here's my temporary record. For some reason, FlightAware had my track, heading, and altitudes all OVER the place up north of Kokomo, but I swear, it was a perfectly normal full ILS. :)

While down at Evansville, I grabbed a courtesy car and followed my usual rule of thumb and tried to find an atypical place to eat dinner. I don't like to go places and eat at the same chains of restaurants I can get in Kokomo; I like to try new places that only exist where I am at the time. I was running out of luck, the main drag at EVV had mostly chain restaurants. But then I saw this "Asian Buffet", and for some reason that sounded good. Boy was it. They had steak they cooked right in front of you, medium rare (yum), they even had excellent seafood, and my favorite crab rangoons were loaded with the cream cheese filling in big pockets, not those little bites that some places do. It was a buffet but they still had servers who would come take your plates, refill your drinks, and they were really gracious too. I sat there for an hour, read a book, and munched on seafood biscuits, Chinese cuisine, some American cuisine, and a fortune cookie that said "For your quandary, consult experts." (Did I have a quandary?) It was really good.

There's a young lady who is just about a month younger than Kaylee, and her name is Madison. She's almost nine, with SMA, and yesterday she went into full cardiac arrest and had several seizures as well. She's currently in a coma, and the doctors are concerned about a permanent vegetative state due to being without oxygen for about 20 minutes. Please keep her family in your prayers. They are good people, and Madison is a feisty fighter of a girl. They will have an MRI done tomorrow to try to assess brain damage. I met Madison in person the first time at the SMA Gathering I did in Greenville, N.C. a few years ago, and I remember Madison and her Nonna Kim and her mom out on the dance floor getting down and having a great time...Pray for strength for Madison and her family...

Monday

I flew in the 172 this morning, broke for lunch, flew again in the afternoon, picked up Kaylee from school, brought her home to get a snack, ran a few errands, took her to gymnastics early, went to a school board meeting, left the meeting early to go pick her up from gymnastics, got her dinner, and then came home to get some work done here. Not very exciting or poetic, but that's life sometimes! :) Steve is working late on computers, and Kaylee met her new permanent teacher for the first time today, Mrs. K. She likes Mrs. K a lot as of the first day, and Mrs. K was one of about five interested teachers for the position and was the best qualified, so hopefully she will work out well.

Tomorrow will be busy and fast and late, so I think I'll do something rare and go to bed early. :)