Unnaturally...

Twas an interesting start to the day. Steve was washing his hands bright and early this morning when he realized the water was pretty tepid. He checked out the water heater to find that the pilot light was out. And wouldn't light again. He messed with it for quite awhile before he gave up and called a water heater guy. Meanwhile he had to go on a lesson, while mine wasn't for another two hours, so I stayed with the repair man while he worked on it. Unbelievably, he got there Right Away. (I wonder how much that costs?) He also worked very hard to get it working. What made me laugh was that the first time he tried to light it, it went. I started laughing, said I was going to text Steve, and within 60 seconds it went out again. He said "That's not good." He cleaned some ceramic plate, yadda yadda, it lit again, it went out again. He said "That's a thermo-coupler". This is where the fun began. Lowes no longer carries parts for our furnace--even though it's only five years old. This guy had a thermo coupler in his shop but didn't know if it was the right one or not, and neither Lowes nor the manufacturer of the heater would tell him if it was the right one. It's a matter of security and all that. He ended up having to UPS Next Day Air the part to our house. Which means no hot water for two days here.

Fine. I got ready as best I could and headed out for a day full of flying in a small enclosed airplane. ;) We were in the 172, and the winds blew up on us so we got to play with some pretty good crosswinds for a person's first time back in the air in a month. We stopped for lunch, did a cross-country flight to a nearby airport, then stopped in at Glenndale for his first ever short field soft field crosswind takeoffs and landings. By this time the wind had died down to fairly reasonable, so I had him fly the 172 to Sheridan while I stayed close by in the Citabria. We did what I'd call loose formation all the way there, had an uneventful arrival, had the next guy in the 172 ready to take it, and then the student flew me home in the Citabria from the front seat, and had some fun with that. First time in an airplane in a month and ended up doing strong crosswind takeoffs and landings, cross-country work, light formation, grass strip work, then ended up doing tailwheel grass strip crosswind stuff. I think he had fun, and so did I. ;)

I didn't get home until after 5:30 p.m., at which time I had a couple things to work on. I returned a call to the formation clinic organizer for this weekend, then worked on getting together my information and planning for a trip I'm taking tomorrow to St. Louis. I'll be in the air by 5:30 a.m., so I need to get everything ready tonight that I can.

Which brings me back to...we don't have any hot water. Does a person stand under freezing cold water to take a shower at 4 a.m., or go for the second day in a row with unwashed hair? Bzzzt. Okay, perhaps I can take a shower next door. Oh yes, the water is shut off next door. Steeeeeeve? (He's over there now seeing if he can get it turned on and get the hot water heater going over there.)

The bad news is that I only have a couple of hours here before I need to be going to bed so I can function properly while flying in and out of St. Louis at an ungodly early hour. (I'm going to BE there by 5:45 a.m. their time. That's just unnatural.) At least the weather looks reasonable, which makes my life easier, which I certainly appreciate...