Thursday

My flight this morning was cut short after the plane started running rough in the air. I had the student land, and the mechanic had the bad plug changed out by the end of the afternoon. Wa-la. The evening flight down at Sheridan was canceled too, so I had a little time to work on billing. I took a pretty good bite out of it today, but I have a lot more to go tomorrow.

Kaylee had a school trip to the Pumpkin Patch today, and she got to pick out a little pumpkin which she has since drawn a face on and is leaving on our counter. She still wants to get a big one to carve up, a big one with "lots of goop, mom!" So, I guess that's next. She wants to be a flamingo for Halloween, and I can only find adult-sized decent-looking flamingo costumes. WHY does an adult want to be a flamingo?? Why can I find 10 websites selling adult flamingo costumes and none for kids? What is wrong with this picture?

Kaylee spent some time this afternoon next door with her grandparents. Steve and I aren't sure what she does over there, but she just says they "talk". She always comes back over bouncing and happy. :)

Tonight Steve decided to pay her back for something, and we took a bunch of these large foam stars, sneaked into her room when she wasn't looking, and we pelted her with the foam stars. She was pretty shocked--we win. ;)

The Best Laid Plans...

My idea of not having any flights and instead doing billing all day got reversed. I took Kaylee to school and took in her ice cream for her class, then I took Steve's 10 a.m. flight so he wouldn't have to go up in the air with his messed-up sinuses and ear, and then it was lunch time, and after lunch we went to Glenndale and returned a lot of the SMA Support equipment to the storage area, and then I flew the Citabria over to Kokomo for maintenance work. Twenty minutes later I had the 4-6 p.m. flight that had been set up today. Steve picked Kaylee up from school at 3, and took her to Awanas at 6, and I picked her up at 8. Dinner, and now it's almost 9 p.m. and I didn't get any billing done, but more importantly, I don't feel like doing it these last 3 hours before bed, either! :)

Slowly but Deliberately

I took the morning a lot more slowly than usual. After dropping Kaylee off at school, I climbed back in bed and slept for another hour and a half. Even after we got up, we moved slowly and didn't do a whole lot. Steve said "Are we being lazy this morning?" and I said "Yep! I think we earned it." He's still trying to not completely be taken under with whatever he's fighting off, and me, I don't want to wear myself down and catch it if it's catch-able. Lots of stuff going around out there anyway, for sure.

What's always fun is when I drive 40 minutes round trip, pull out an airplane, wash the windshield, get the headsets plugged in and ready, fuel up the plane, start it up and taxi it to the terminal, and then sit and wait 30 minutes for someone to show that does not show, and I get to put it all back away and drive home, having wasted my time. I can't even bill them for it because it's a prospect, not a member. That's life, but it's a little on the irritating side.

I did use that time to instead run to the stores and pick up things we were pretty behind on around here. School lunch stuff, supplies, fresh fruits and veggies since it had been awhile since I made it to the store, etc. My flight this evening was also canceled, due to the airplane not being ready, so I worked on a little billing, ran a few errands, caught up on dishes and laundry and got rid of some clutter, all that "yadda yadda" stuff most regular people do every day, trying to catch up on that before I get buried back in end of month billing again. I actually do not have a single flight scheduled for tomorrow, for once, so I plan on doing as much of the billing as I can and try to get a jump on it. I'm also going to bring in 35 cups of ice cream to Kaylee's class tomorrow, a little treat for the 2-4th graders at lunch. :)

Happy Birthday Alonna! Twenty years old... (yikes!) Kaylee is the one who addressed your card that way--you'll see. I hope the Post Office doesn't mind. ;)

I don't know if you can see this or not, but if you click on the picture you may get the blown-up version of it. This is the note Kaylee gave to me last night when I had to leave for a night flight. I hadn't seen her all day. I was in Missouri, and was only home for about an hour and a half before I needed to leave for the flight that wouldn't get me home until midnight. So she wrote this note for me and told me to only open it if I missed her. I read it in the car at the airport, and I thought it was pretty sweet...

The Arch

The word "arch" made me think of skydiving, as that's the position you're supposed to assume once you jump (fall) out of the airplane. But that's not what I did today...

I woke up at 3:30 this morning, out of a restless sleep filled with weird dreams and half-nightmares, to a full-fledged raging bloody nose, the likes of which I hadn't seen since I was a kid. I used to get them pretty impressively, lasting for 45 minutes sometimes, so heavy that you couldn't stop it, you just had to let it go. I VERY quickly learned not to tell anyone when I had one, because adults (I don't remember my parents, just school or camp people) would follow the medical advice of the day and make me tip my head backwards, plug the nose, and that is just about like what I imagine waterboarding to be like if water was thick and horrible. It felt like I was drowning and choking, and I'd be sick to my stomach for hours. So I'd just take care of it myself. Anyway, last night was a little reminiscent of those, except all of a sudden I came as close to passing out as I only have a few times. It was just weird, and I felt terrible, almost shocky; rapid heartrate, icy sweat, shaky, nauseated, dizzy & lightheaded, etc., but it's not the whole blood thing-that doesn't bother me. I don't know what was wrong. I was so grateful when it quit after about 20 minutes so I could lie down before I fell down. Woke up to take Kaylee to school and I felt like I'd been clubbed. Steve took Kaylee to school, which gave me about two hours to sleep a little more and slowly get ready for the rest of the day, and there was a lot of it.

At 10 a.m. I took the Saratoga and flew a passenger to St. Louis Downtown Airport. It was a *really* pretty, smooth and nice day for it, and I asked him to take my camera and get some pictures of the downtown and Arch areas as we were coming in to land. I always want to take pictures, but I'm always too busy in that airspace to be able to land and talk to the tower and take pictures at the same time. He snapped a few, but I'm too tired to look at them tonight.

We were on the ground for about four hours, so during that time I decided to have the place drive me over to the restaurant on field, "Olivers", for lunch. They said it would be a few minutes, so I went back to the other room for awhile. After about 20 minutes I decided I was hungry, came back out just in time to meet up with two other guys who were heading over for lunch. Once in the van, they asked our names, and called me "Miss Laura", and asked if I flew in. When I pointed out the Saratoga, they said "Is that from Kokomo, Indiana?" That made me pause! I said yes, how did they know? The one guy was from Anderson, IN, and they had just been at Kokomo meeting with Ty talking about tailwheel training. I say "Yes, Ty is one of our instructors! My husband and I have flight training centers at Kokomo, Glenndale and Sheridan airports." He says "Glenndale! We were at their BBQ Bash last weekend!" I say "No way! That's MY Bash! I was the one giving rides in the T-6 in the afternoon." Now they're saying "No Way!" They asked if I'd been to Anderson, and I said I was there for their fly-in. So were they. They asked about Marion, and I said yes, I was there in the T-6, and they said they saw us leaving. We'd been to all these places at the same time, had never met before, I'd never even heard of them, and we end up meeting in a van going to lunch in St. Louis, Missouri. How small of a world is THAT? It was funny, they invited me to join them for lunch, and I almost declined, because I'm not that social with strangers and because I like to eat lunch by myself with a book and an airport view, which comes back to that not being that social thing. But I couldn't think of a graceful way to exit after that, so I joined them for lunch, and we actually had a nice time talking about flying. I gave one of them my card, as he's said he definitely wants to join the club and take some tailwheel flying, maybe even the Saratoga checkout. Works for me. :)

The trip home was just as smooth once I got up to altitude, and it was such a pretty day that once I was handed off to Grissom, I canceled my IFR clearance and took my passenger over his house. He got his daughter on the phone, and she ran outside and saw us circling around and "waving" at her with our wings, and they both thought that was pretty awesome.

I landed and got the plane put away, ran through a drive-through for dinner, ate it at home long enough to check messages and get things lined up, turned around within about an hour and a half and headed back out to Kokomo to do a night cross-country flight to Columbus, Indiana. Still a beautiful night for it, but the last guy had left us with not enough fuel and everything was closed, so we had to go into Glenndale again to fuel up and THEN get on our way. Two point four hours flight time later, I got home at midnight for the day...

Tomorrow I'll scan in the note Kaylee sent with me tonight. She's such a sweetie.

Continued

I left my sleeping family behind this morning and went out to the airport to give a lesson in the pattern. I've done a whoooole lot of pattern work for awhile here, for sure--five different students all pounding out the pattern. Oops, make that six, although a couple of them are moving to the next phase soon. :)

I stopped at Steak-n-Shake for lunch for everyone on my way home, and spent the day catching up on household stuff, watching a little football, reading, and relaxing a bit. Steve is still a little on the ill side, though he's doing his best to rest and recuperate.

In a one-week time I'll have gone to quite a few places. Akron, Ohio last Wednesday, Auburn, Alabama last Friday, St. Louis tomorrow, and potentially Davenport, Iowa on Tuesday. Plus quite a few very active students each flying several times a week, two more pushing towards their checkrides, plus the end of the month billing is coming up too. Busy!!

Early Post

I was glad to sleep in until 9 a.m. this morning-it felt like a lazy morning after the early rises I've been having for awhile. :) My 10 a.m. flight was moved to tomorrow, so I have the day to do with as I please. I am mixing a little productivity with a little rest and relaxation.

Steve is definitely ill--he's not flat on his back yet, but he's not great, either. He's been resting the last couple of days to try to fend it off, and he's still resting today to try to keep it as mild as possible. Kaylee is completely stuffed up and sneezing, but in her case it may be allergies, as she otherwise feels fine. Me, I broke out the Lysol and the vitamins and am doing my best to not catch anything.

Kaylee has enjoyed going next door and playing her recorder for Grandma and Grandpa. I hear her back there in her room practicing, and she's having fun listening to the music and trying to hit the notes. She is doing all right on how to hold her fingers, how to blow, and the rhythm of the tune, but the actual proper notes are still escaping her for the most part right now. She'll get it. :) Today she couldn't wait until they came home so she could go show them the new songs she had been working on, and then I think she spent some time just listening to music and hanging out. She's a lucky girl and I doubt she knows it yet. :)

There is nothing on TV today, but it happens to be on college football, something I don't care a whit about. The part that's making me smile though is that the game that's on right now is the Alabama game, at Auburn, which is just where I was yesterday evening, and they were all ramped up and getting ready for this game, charging big landing fees for coming into their airport before the game, have a TFR set up and a temporary tower at the airport, all these big jets on the ramp...these folks take their football pretty seriously in that town. (As Steve pointed out, most college cities do...I remember Nebraska!)

It's a beautiful day to go outside and do things, but it's just not going to happen today. Chuck is gone to Washington State and is enjoying sending us photos of beautiful things he is seeing like the ocean, and a sky full of hot air balloons at dawn, etc. Nathan is gone to Kentucky, where we were supposed to join him except work came up instead. Steve is trying not to be sick and failing, and me, I'm going to sit here, catch up, clean up, and relax, and I'm not going to feel too guilty about it, either.

One thing I did get caught up today was pictures, finally. Go to my "Flying" page, and there are six new pages of photos from various things from our Bash to the last two trips I took. Also, at the bottom of the "Marion" page are a few new pictures that were sent to me for that... I also caught up on the pictures to Kaylee's site. Now if I can get someone to put away my clean laundry for me, I'll be in good shape. ;)

Alabama Slammer

Steve and I finished counting late last night, and the grand total of money that came in for the BBQ Bash this year, sponsors and all, was $15,027.67! That's a new record. :) Pretty amazing, huh?

The gusty winds canceled my first flight of the morning, but next up for the day was a trip to Auburn, Alabama. We were originally to leave at noon, but a band of bad weather was going to hit us right about at noon, so we bugged out at 11 a.m. and let the weather chase us unsuccessfully for awhile. When I took off, the weather was reporting winds gusting up to 41 knots, which meant I wasn't looking forward to a calm, smooth flight, and I pre-warned my passenger about it before he got there. I tried to go down at 7000', but the winds were so strong up there that I was only getting 100 knots groundspeed, which is silly in that airplane, so I went even lower and finally picked up a little bit of speed. We got tossed around a fair amount, but it wasn't as bad as that Chicago trip awhile ago...the passenger did fine, and we landed in AL after 3 hours and 45 minutes for what should have been about a 3 hour and 15 minute flight. That's a lot of wind.

When we arrived, I walked into the terminal building to find I was in the middle of a party. Men in suits, women in dress suits and expensive dresses and heels, TV cameras all over the place in there. There wasn't standing room. Apparently today was the Grand Opening of their new terminal building, and I had to wade through a sea of Southern Belles and Gentlemen to get gas for my airplane, but at last I was successful, if not severely under-dressed for the occasion. ;)

I took the trip home with a different passenger, and he relaxed in the back with his feet up, playing Soduko on his iPhone and chilling, which is not a bad way to travel even if it was still a little rough in the air. :) I went up to 10,000', and had only a little bit of IFR to deal with, and one weather system that I went through, and then it was blue skies and smooth air for the last hour home. I landed after the sun went down, got the plane put away and stuff put back in the hangar, grabbed dinner, headed home, and finally got to eat around 9 pm after 7.5 hours of fairly busy flight time. The photo is as I was coming out of the band of weather, into the sun.

Mission Accomplished...

Breezy

My schedule for today included two pre-solo students, one pre-checkride student, and one basically pre-solo student. Eight hours of scheduled flight time. The winds today were supposed to get up past 30 knots by the afternoon, and did, but I was hoping to get the morning flights in anyway. We did, sort of. It was pretty turbulent up there, and the second student ended up riding a rodeo of a gusty, turbulent crosswind landing back into Glenndale, with the winds up around 21 by then, and both he and the person before him called uncle before an hour was up. So after lunch, instead of the flights, I did the errands and housework and billing and BBQ Bash counting thing.

Steve is feeling a little puny-he's not quite sick but he's not quite well, either, so he's taking a few days here to try to rest up and recuperate and not get really sick.

Kaylee came home from school today with her new recorder. You know, those things like look like a flute but aren't? Let the torture begin! I told her to go to the back yard for awhile if she was going to keep blowing that thing. She serenaded her grandparents for awhile too, but I have to admit, she's gone in one afternoon from just making noise to actually coming up with songs and figuring out the fingering. :)

Speaking of back yards, on the randomly pointless end of things, we have a wildlife preserve in our back yard. There's a little chipmunk, several squirrels, and now we have a big, fat groundhog that waddles over and starts munching on the nuts on the ground. No wonder Dulce loves to sit on the deck and stare outside all day. ;)

Ohio

Nathan and I headed to Akron-Canton, Ohio this morning at 7 a.m. in the Cheyenne, to get some work done on the plane. It was only about 45 minutes over there, and we went over at FL250 (25,000'). He let me left seat the trip both ways, and it ended up about an hour and 45 minutes total, so of course I enjoyed that. Three hundred eighty-seven knots ground speed and 25,000' is something I could easily get used to. ;)

While we were waiting for the work to be completed, we ended up going to a couple of attractions there on the field. First we at lunch at the "356th Fighter Group" Restaurant on field, also known as "Bombers". That was some pretty doggone good food, and it had great atmosphere. We had crab-stuffed shrimp for an appetizer, and had to send the waitress away twice while we tried to figure out what, out of all the good stuff, to eat. This picture is the outside of the restaurant, and it was right there in the middle of the airport field, so you could watch the planes taking off and landing from your table. We enjoyed that one.

Next we went to a museum that's on field, called the "Military Aircraft Preservation Society" or MAPS Museum. An older gentleman gave us a tour of the regular museum, where I sat in a Mig-17 and we looked around at several rooms of artifacts in the hangar. They had displays for Vietnam, WWII, Korea, the Tuskegee Airmen, WASPS, quite a few airplanes, a blimp, etc. It is actually a pretty nice little museum and you can tell they've put a lot of time and heart into it. After we hit the main area, our guide said he could tell we knew what we (mostly Nathan) were talking about, so he let us go over into the smaller building next door where they were doing all their restoration work on various airplanes and future exhibits. THAT was the more interesting part, really. We ran into a guy who used to fly an F-100, and he was working on some projects over there as a volunteer...they all were. The history of the artifacts is interesting, but I'll bet the history of the men volunteering their time to restore them is even more so. We spent a good amount of time looking around and checking things out, and by the time we were done at the museum, the Cheyenne was done and it was time to head home. We had weather to the north of us when we left Kokomo, and weather to the south of us when we left Ohio, but it ended up working out just fine.

Steve had a busy day, including a flight until about 8 p.m., and Kaylee had school and Awanas. I got home around 7:30, then turned around and picked up Kaylee at church, and tomorrow is a very full day!

Catch-Up

My flights for today were canceled for various reasons, so I spent the day catching up on my stuff. I got my email back down to a reasonable amount. I got a ton of scheduling stuff done, pictures sorted through, laundry caught up, errands run, work done, phone calls made, pictures sent out to people who were in them, I got stuff put away and packed up and unpacked...I was just one busy little bee, all day long. I rented the new "Tinkerbell" movie for Kaylee, which she got to watch after she did her chores and cleaned her room, and which she loved.

I still need to get pictures up on the website, but I don't think that's going to happen tonight...

Saturday evening sometime after 7 p.m., I came in with my last passenger in the T-6, landed, shut down, climbed out, and heard someone shouting "Plane down! Plane down!" I spun around and looked down the runway and saw a plane upside down and a cloud of gray, what I thought was smoke. Chuck grabbed a fire extinguisher and threw it to me, we hopped on a golf cart and drove down. As we got closer, we recognized a friend's homebuilt airplane, and saw that the cloud was actually dust, not smoke. That was one relief. The next came when we saw our friend walking away from the plane. He was bleeding pretty good from his head, but he was walking and talking fine. He'd had a passenger who was also already out and was in better shape than he, with just a sore shoulder. Steve had a pilot police officer who was there call in to 911, and in short order we had two ambulances, the police, and a fire truck all on our runway. The pilot didn't do anything wrong-the plane's nosewheel bent and then collapsed during roll-out after a normal landing; the plane dug in and flipped over. It took awhile to get the FAA and the NTSB and the Police all on the same page, but finally we had permission to pull the wreckage off the runway and secure it for the night, so we could open the runway and continue the event Sunday. Sunday morning the pilot came, and he has to wear a neck brace for a little while out of caution, and he's sore, but he's fine.

When Kaylee, Maggie and Grace heard the commotion, Kaylee asked to go down there. She was told no, which she talked to me quite a bit about on the way home that night. Instead, the three girls joined hands in a circle, and started praying. As Michaele said, sometimes things come up that make you think that just maybe you're doing something right...

Steve handled the newspaper reporter who came out right away, and did a good job minimizing the sensationalism as best you can to a reporter. On the way home, I could tell by the look on Kaylee's face that she had a lot of questions, and boy did she once I opened the door with "So, do you have any questions about tonight?" We spent quite a bit of time talking about what happened, why, what it meant, etc. She really wanted to know why she wasn't allowed to go down there, and said that being kept away left her more afraid than if she'd been allowed to see what was happening. I understand that, I really do, and I told her that, but that it was also a safety issue. We're very grateful that our friend is okay. The FAA came out and talked with him on Monday, and it looks like a non-event as far as that is concerned. He'll get a check from insurance and go on to finish the airplane he's currently building...

I haven't had time to add up the numbers from the BBQ Bash yet. I do know that we sold 267 regular airplane rides, 65 helicopter rides, and 41 T-6 rides, for a total of 373 rides. That's pretty impressive for a little country grass strip in one weekend, you know! It never looks very busy out there in general, but it's steady. I look forward to seeing what the final tally is. :)

Yesterday we finished up the paperwork for a friend of a friend who is renewing his CFI. He's a Gold Seal Multi-engine, single engine, instrument instructor who let it lapse 20 years ago. I'd been doing some flying with him to help get him ready for his re-checkride, yesterday was paperwork day, and today was his checkride, at 9 a.m. The winds picked up, but he headed over at 9 a.m. By noon I was wondering, but shortly after that I got the call that he'd passed, and he is back in business as an official, full-blown instructor. And a big old congrats to him!

Well, for tonight it's bed time, as I've got an early morning wake-up call!

Still Running

Monday morning Kaylee was dragged protesting to school, and I limped protesting to work. I had a flight that lasted until almost lunch time, had a break for lunch, ran some errands, had another flight starting at 4 p.m., had about a two-hour break at home to help Kaylee do her homework and get some food and catch up on a few things, then had a night flight from 8:30-11:00 p.m. I got home around 11:30, and was too wound up to go to sleep, even though I was sore and pretty well wiped out. I think I fell asleep around 1 a.m.

The night flight was fun though. I start off having them do normal night take offs and landings. If they're doing fine with that, I move on to a night landing without a landing light. If they do fine with that, I'll shut off all the interior lights but leave on the landing light. That's always a little strange for new pilots, trying to trust their "rear ends" on if they are fast enough, slow enough, etc. when they can't see a single instrument in the cockpit. They're almost always surprised at how well they know the airplane when they just listen to the engine and feel the plane without relying on the instrumentation. From there if they're doing well I will do a full electrical failure landing, which includes no flaps and no lights. That's always a fun one. Electrical failures do happen, and it's not uncommon for a landing light to be burned out, so it's always better to practice that stuff with an instructor before having it happen on your own. Last night I pulled one last one just for the unrealistic fun of it. On downwind, no lights, no flaps, and no engine. ;) That was the end of the night, and I dragged myself home, pretty much played out...

The Last Day

Sunday dawned cold, gray, and completely IFR. This is not good when it comes to flying. I couldn't get Kaylee up again, so we were almost late for the church service at 10 a.m.! The poor kid was exhausted, and frankly, so was I! But after the church service that morning, the skies parted, the clouds and visibility lifted, and the rides fired up again shortly. Nathan took on the morning/early afternoon shift of the T-6 rides again while I didn't do much of anything this time but hang out. Around 1 p.m. Ty flew myself and a lady named Betsy over to Flora, IL, where we signed our lives away (literally), strapped on a parachute and a guy attached to the parachute, went up to 11,500' in a ratted out airplane, and jumped. This was the second time I've ever skydived, and I really enjoyed it. It was Betsy's first time, and she wasn't nervous at all either. The sensation of freefalling is amazing, and once the chute is open (at 6000' for us) and you're just floating down in the open air, it's, well, something. If I had unlimited time and funds, I would take up jumping too, but a person can only focus on so many things at once, and I'm pretty well full up right now. :) When I landed, I looked up, and the first person I saw was Kaylee, standing right by the tape, waving and grinning at me. I walked over and gave her a big hug, unhooked my gear, grabbed a brat to eat, then swapped places with Nathan and took over the rides in the T-6 for the rest of the afternoon. I flew over the Howard County Veterans Association group a few times, ended up doing some low grade aerobatics with a few people throughout the afternoon, and ended up with a sunset low pass over the runway. At one point we had a double rainbow going right by the airport. It was beautiful, and I really wished I had a camera up there in the cockpit with me, because flying a T-6 through what looked like the middle of a rainbow arch was pretty cool.

I had one ride where the gentleman's stomach was in the way of me being able to get my stick back all the way, which I found out before I took off when I did my "controls free and clear" check, and they weren't free or clear. I hesitated, then told him that when it came time to land, I was going to put the stick where I needed it to go regardless of what got in the way. I bounced that landing because I couldn't do a smooth flare, but he had a fun time, and I joked about him getting a two-for-the-price-of-one landing. I had another ride where it was a friend only I didn't know who was back there and was making idle chit chat only to find out who it was. You can't see in your own back seat and I hadn't seen who was getting in at the time. Kind of funny.

At the end of the day, the T-6 was the last airplane giving rides, and I did that until close to sunset. Then it was time to tear down and get everything home. The guys took care of tearing down the stakes and tape and pop-up tents. I was to take the T-6 back to Kokomo, Ty was taking the Saratoga, Steve C. was taking the RG and AE was taking the 180 to Kokomo to pick us all up. Except I couldn't get the T-6 started. The starter wouldn't engage. I unbuckled, hopped out, pulled the prop through a few times, hopped back in without buckling up, tried it almost hopelessly one more time, and it fired. Yay! I took off first, then decided to give them one decent pass for the weekend before heading over to Kokomo and putting it away. Ty arrived shortly thereafter, then Steve C., and finally AE, and we all piled into the 180 where Ty brought us back into Glenndale. I don't really remember getting home tonight, but I do know that there wasn't much on me that wasn't already hurting!

The Main Day

Saturday came way too early for all of us I think! We were already tired and the event hadn't even officially begun. I could NOT get Kaylee moving, so we arrived right at the end of breakfast, but we made it. Rides started at 10 a.m., and Nathan took the first shift of T-6 rides. He flew like crazy, too. (As in for a long time, not as in actual crazy flying.) :) I took a shift of giving rides in the Cherokee 180 for about an hour to give Ken a break. I had one flight with two small children in the back seat along with an adult, and then a great big guy in the front seat with me. Five people and lots of fuel in the 180, but at least two of the people were very little! I raised an eyebrow, did some mental math, and headed out and about. It was a weird wind day, with the winds making the gambit of the entire compass. It started off in one direction and ended up back in that direction after going all the way around at some point during the day, and I had to switch runways on folks three times. I took over the T-6 rides around 2:30, and I went until 7:30 p.m. Even when I needed fuel, I'd just pull up to the pump, shut down, sit there while they pumped one wing full, fired up and kept going. Neither Nathan nor I got out from the time the rides started until the time the rides ended except for one hour in the middle there... The T-6 calls which runway everyone uses because it's the one most sensitive to quartering tailwinds. My first flight up, I had to make everybody move to Runway 36 because the winds had swapped to 300, which was too much for me to land comfortably/safely on 18 which was what everyone was using. It bumped up as the afternoon wore on, and swapped around a few more directions. I missed the skydivers, though I did see them from the air, and I missed the BBQ dinner, too. I did get to pull out a sandwich later at least, but I missed all the good stuff! I enjoyed the flights though, and the last few flights as the sun was getting low were really pretty. When I got out of the plane at the end of the day, I had several muscles that were already yelling at me, but a bottle of water and a chair by the fire later, and I was good and comfy. We got home late and fell right in bed.

BBQ Bash Set-Up

Today was the big push to get everything ready for the weekend. Chuck and Steve and a whole lot of guys worked like crazy all day, putting up tape over stakes, getting popups put up, all sorts of things. I don't remember what all I did, but I know I ran a bunch of errands. Trey and I went flying in the Champ for a little while, and it was a beautiful afternoon for that. When I came back down, I made up a schedule of planes and pilots in two-hour segments for the weekend. Nathan and Tre had brought homemade chili and grilled cheese sandwiches, which were Really Good, so I snarfed down one of each and grabbed Trey and his girlfriend Carol and hitched a ride to Kokomo. Trey and I were going to fly the T-6 for awhile, but the sun was getting low so we didn't have a lot of time. It went downhill from there. I couldn't get the tug started, at all. So we pushed it out by hand. It has steel plates on it for weight. It's heavy. Really, really heavy. Three of us pushing got it out of the way, but it wasn't easy. Next came a 172 that needed pulled out. Next came pulling out the T-6 by hand. That was a treat too. Pushing away the 172 wasn't too bad, but pushing away the tug was Not Happening. It was so heavy that I was leaning on it with all my body weight, as was Trey, and we were barely moving. It took a long time to get in the hangar, and the door shut, and by then it was already almost dark, and Trey and I were just flat out of luck. I barely had time to get the T-6 into Glenndale before dark, so I threw myself in the plane, fired up and went directly there. I put my gear down early so I could see that they were in fact down and locked (something you can't see in the dark), and for my first landing in the T-6 into Glenndale in a year, over the wires, at dusk, all went well.
We stayed the evening and had a nice fire and just hung out and talked until pretty late...

Countdown

Chuck, Steve, Richard & Ann, Judy, Tre and several other folks have been working their tails off for the last couple of days, and we're down to tomorrow to finish setting up and getting ready. Steve gave me the job of taking care of the FAA, so a few weeks ago I mailed off a letter requesting permission to give airplane rides at this event, and yesterday I scanned in and faxed over 44 (yes, forty-four) pages of information over to the Indy FAA guys. I hadn't heard back from them, and we have to have their "blessing" to be able to give rides to the public for donations, so first thing this morning I called down there to make sure all those faxes came through, see if there was anything else they needed, etc. The guy in charge of my case wasn't there at the time, so I went on my merry day. I still got a bit of a jolt later that day when I answered my phone and heard "Laura S.? This is B. T. with the Indianapolis FSDO." The first thing that crossed my mind was "Low pass? Of course not!" ;) What they really needed was proof from a logbook that every entry included proof of a landing. Apparently the next flight listed in the logbook was not proof enough that the pilot had actually landed the time before. Ah, red tape at work, but the rules are the rules.

Last year on Friday afternoon we were huddled around the fax machine waiting and hoping to get the fax from the FAA before we actually started giving rides. It came in just in time. I'd spent the last three days taking so many trips to Staples to use their fax machine that the employees there over several days all knew me by sight and would crack jokes with me every time I came in. This year I was way ahead of the game, getting the letter Thursday afternoon and all. ;)

Kaylee only had a half day at school today, so when I brought her home we did her homework, she did her chores, she helped me get change for all the "departments" for the BBQ Bash, and she helped Grandma & Grandpa set up goody bags for the kids for the weekend.

We have a few more things to work on tonight and a whole lot to do tomorrow. At least the weather is looking great so far. :)

Wednesday

First, Happy Birthday to Steve, who spent his birthday working his rear end off with very little fanfare. His daughter bought him a gift of her own, and made him a card, and a few of us threw a "happy birthday!" at him throughout the day, but mostly he spent the day running around and on the phone and trying to get things ready for the BBQ Bash this weekend. Not very glamorous, but maybe we can celebrate a bit later a little better. :)

I did a little primary checkride prep this morning, a half hour of commercial maneuvers, and later this evening a little pre-solo work with a fellow, and the rest of the day I spent either driving around, running errands, helping Kaylee with math, or working on FAA stuff.

Kaylee went back to Awanas for the first time tonight, after helping her grandma & grandpa organize goodie bags for the kids at the Bash. I think she was happy to be back-she had a nice time reconnecting with her friends there.

It's very late and I'm going to be very tired tomorrow, but I think it's going to rain anyway, leaving more time for phone calls and emails if the flying isn't doable. We'll see...

The Day

One hour in KS working on the pattern this morning was followed by a lot of running around, errands, and various work & BBQ Bash items of no interest to anyone. :)

Later this afternoon, Chuck captured the MetLife Blimp giving Glenndale a low pass on Runway 36...not a usual sight!

These were my quotes for the day:
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"There is only one you for all time. Fearlessly be yourself." -Anthony Rapp

"All I would tell people is to hold onto what was individual about themselves, not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find it on your own terms." - Harrison Ford

"Style is being yourself, but on purpose." -Patricia Fripp

"We make our decisions, and then our decisions turn around and make us." ~ R.W. Boreham

"Frustration is your worst enemy. You have to continue to stop yourself from letting it drive you to make irrational decisions." ~Henry R. Kravis

Sunday Really Is The First Day of the Week

Steve had a flight this morning, while I got up and just started plowing in on things that needed to get done. I worked from 9 a.m. through to, well, it's now after midnight, (so did Steve), and while I took a 20 minute break to drive somewhere and pick up dinner, I even ate it in front of the computer and worked. I didn't do housework, I didn't play with Kaylee, I just sat here and worked on stuff. Tomorrow is going to be very similar except I have a flight and a school board meeting to go to as well. Got a lot done, have a lot yet to do...

Nine Eleven

It's weird to think about Kaylee being an 8 month old baby, barely standing on her own in front of the TV while I sit in pajamas and watch the day unfold. I went looking for that photo I took of her in front of the TV, but I didn't put it up on her site, which means it is printed out in a photo album, and I'm not going to go hunt it down and scan it in and post it right now, anyway. But while I was looking, I did run into this photo of her, in 2732L, our little red and white C-172, with a VFR paper map/sectional out to help us navigate, and the kiddo "flying". This picture makes me smile for more than one reason. Mostly I want to rub her fuzzy blonde round baby head again. :)

Anyway, I digress.

We woke up this morning to gray skies and rain, which was both good and bad. Good because this was the driest August in something like 13 years, and the land needed the rain. Bad because it was the morning of what was to be a pretty good-sized fly-in breakfast at Indian Hills, merging the usual fly-in with our EAA chapter meeting breakfast plus adding in Logansport's EAA chapter breakfast too. Due to the weather, none of the Logansport fellows made it over and it was a more quiet event, even for us. There's food and a fire the night before that we were just too tired to go do, there was breakfast again Sunday morning which I was too tired to go do. I guess I needed that 2 1/2 hour nap I took tonight. :O

After leaving Indian Hills, we ran home to change clothes and get ready for Tre's son's wedding. It was held in an historic round barn, and the clouds and rain went away just in time for a nice ceremony and celebration. Kaylee was pretty enthralled with the entire process. The wedding, the beautiful bride in a classic gown, the ceremony, the dancing, the traditions (like glass clinking and cake cutting). She took her camera and took lots of pictures, and when her batteries ran down she stole my camera and took even more. I have a feeling her playing may include "wedding" for awhile to come. :) There was a bride/groom first dance, then a daddy/bride dance, and finally a mother/groom dance, and after awhile Tre looked around and asked somebody to come up there and dance with them. Out of 150 people there, the one that got up and went to dance with them? Yep. Kaylee. She cut in and danced with the three of them, then Tre bowed out and Kaylee finished the dance with the groom, whom she didn't even really know. Not a shy bone in that girl's body...

Was a nice evening out with friends, and Kaylee not only got to dress up and enjoy the wedding, but spend time with Maggie too. Win/Win. :)

Friday Follies

I had a little more breathing room on the ground today, so I filled it up with the stuff I needed to get done. :) I had a flight in the morning at Glenndale and one in the afternoon at Sheridan, and other than lunch, the rest of the day I ran to various stores and got miscellaneous items we needed, got some house stuff caught up, all the things I won't actually spell out in painful detail for you tonight. ;)

Kaylee had Grandparents' Day at school today. I took her to school, and then they came at 11 a.m. for the day, taking her from school and out to eat at Steak-n-Shake, where she even finally won one of those grabber/pincher games for about the first time ever. They went shopping at Target too, and when I got home, Kaylee was excited to show me her loot for the day. :) I'm always so grateful that Kaylee is fortunate enough to have so many grandparents who love her so much, and that she gets to have some with her for the special school day. :) Kaylee had a really fun time with them, and is currently sitting outside by a fire with her dad and "Uncle" Kenny. She's really a very blessed little girl, surrounded by people who love and respect her...

Kaylee has to write a "Journal Entry" every day at school on whatever the topic is of the day. Yesterday's topic was to choose a person they admire, and explain why. Kaylee responded that she admired her cousins Alonna, Morgan, Tanner and Rania, because of their faith and close relationship with God. Pretty sweet. :)

Oh man, I just settled in with the TV on to relax and do a little work from the couch, and every channel has the cancer fundraiser on it. Even the MDA telethon doesn't take over every channel anymore. I don't want to watch the cancer fundraiser tonight...no offense...

I guess that's my cue to get to work. Or something. ;)

The Day

I'm going to suggest you skip most of this post, as the only reason I'm writing it out is for my own posterity. It will bore you. But first I'll tell you a Kaylee story--then you can skip my litany of "what I did". ;)

Kaylee has been working very hard on her math this year, bringing home her work book even if she didn't have homework, studying the night before a test willingly, etc. I made a deal with her that if she got an "A" on her next math test, we'd go celebrate with ice cream. She then said, "If I get an A+, can I have an ice cream cake?" I said sure. So today I picked her up from school, and she said "Well, Mommy, I didn't get an "A" on my math test...I got a "C"." I said "A 'C'?? Seriously?? Why?" She hands me her test, and it's a 100%. She got me! So I took Kaylee to the store and she picked out an ice cream cake, and I had them write on it "100%" across the top, then "Congratulations!" under that, and then they wrote two math facts like "8 x 6 =" and "5 + 4 =" on the bottom. That's what Kaylee wanted. :) As we went through the checkout line, the male cashier started clapping. Kaylee and I both looked up at him in surprise, and he said "Hey, you got a 100% on math! That's terrific! Congratulations! You're going to be an Einstein in math if you keep going like that!" He handed her the cake to hold after he scanned it, and as we were leaving he kept going, telling her that he was proud of her and to keep up the good work, and actually clapped again and got a couple other people to clap for her too. She was glowing when she left there. There's a man with a kind spirit, working a cash register at Kroger. He made her day.

So this is the boring posterity part. This is how our days go, sometimes. Steve has more of these days than I do, as he's almost always working on something or doing something, from wake up to lay down. My yesterday had even more flying in it but was similar to today, which went like this:

This morning after I got up, I went to fix Kaylee's lunch and realized I was out of little sandwich bags to put goldfish, her sandwich, and other lunch items in. So I hunted down used (but clean) big gallon sized baggies to put her food in instead. I got her breakfast, where I noted that I had now used the last drop of milk in the house. I haven't had time to go to the store. She came out of her room wearing sweat pants because she didn't have any clean nicer clothes to wear, because I hadn't had time to do laundry. I went to get dressed and I too was out of clean pants, so I reverted to an old pair of baggy jeans. Today her cookie dough fundraiser order was due, so I placed an order on behalf of a few of us, wrote out the check and got the form all ready, got her backpack and lunch and snack all set up, then hustled her out the door by 8:10 a.m. I drop her off at school, then head right to Glenndale where I meet a primary student right away, and we hop in the 172 and fly until about 10:45 a.m. Sign the logbook, talk about what's on the next flight, put something on the schedule, and then it's time for the 11:00 a.m. flight in the Citabria. Today this one didn't work out, because the run-up caught a bad mag check; the plane backfired badly, so we shut it down, Chuck changed out some of the plugs, we tried it again, still not good, so after an hour we called it quits, and instead of flying from 11-1, I tried to fly from 11-12, ate from 12-1, and then hoofed back to Glenndale to fly from 1-2:45 p.m. in the 172 again with someone working on their checkride prep. Sign the logbook, and I hit almost all green lights on my way to get to Kaylee's school 20 minutes away in the 15 minutes before she's let out of school. I make it, pick her up, and I find out about her 100% Math test. I'd promised her an ice cream cake for an A+, so we ran to Kroger's to pick up the cake...and milk...I'm feeling productive now. I take her home and promise we'll celebrate with the cake when I get back home tonight. I have thirty minutes at home, so I empty the clean dishes out of the dishwasher so I can clear off our counter full of dishes that need washed, talk to Kaylee, go over some of her stuff, and start a load of laundry, before driving off to JC Penny's to pick up an item, haul out of there and drive down to Sheridan by 5:30 to meet the last student of the day in the Cherokee 180. I leave there around 7:15 p.m., drive through KFC on my way home to grab dinner, make it home around 8 p.m., eat dinner, help Kaylee with a project, do another load of laundry, and finally check my messages for the day too. Steve walks in, we celebrate Kaylee's A+ with her cake, as promised, and start working on a few things. Now that it's 11:30 p.m., I'm not caught up, my laundry is still going, and I'm wasting time writing out today's chain of events. ;) It can be a little tricky to keep up while working 12 hour days (outside the home, let alone inside the home), keeping up the house, keeping up on the kiddo's school stuff, and being a decent parent, too. The last few nights I've fallen asleep around 11-11:30--that's how you know I'm pooped. :) Fall is always a super busy time, and that's a good thing! It will slow down soon enough. But not yet--first we have Indian Hills and a wedding this weekend, then the ramp up and all the work for the BBQ Bash next weekend, which we're not ready for yet... We're paddling as fast as we can. :)

Kokomo Airport Video on KGOV Cable TV

The local cable channel KGOV came out to Kokomo Municipal a few weeks ago and did a segment on all the aspects of the airport, including the flight training centers and the warbird training center. Steve gave a couple of interviews, the first one starting at one minute thirty seconds, and then our friend and crew chief Jon showed the reporter how to strap into the T-6, then around 5 minutes and 45 seconds into it, I take the reporter on a fun flight. I'll see if I can embed the video here...

Kokomo Municipal Airport from City of Kokomo on Vimeo.

More Stuff

Not much of interest to report today, either. I left the house at 7:30 a.m. for an early morning flight at Kokomo in the Saratoga with a student, ran two errands on my way to Glenndale to fly with a pre-solo student in the 172 until late morning, hit lunch, went up in the Citabria with someone from after lunch to early afternoon, had about an hour wait at the airport and then drove down to Sheridan to fly in the 180 until after 7 p.m. Twelve hours after I left the house this morning, three airports and four airplanes later, I was on the road back home. We hit a detour though, as Steve was finishing up with his tons-of-laughs appointment with an accountant at the same time. So he picked up Kaylee and we met Chuck and Nathan (who were working on some projects out at the airport) for dinner. A full stomach and comfy pants later, and I do believe it's bed time. ;)

One quick thing--Kaylee at dinner was talking to Chuck about America's Got Talent, and they both agreed that Prince Poppycock was an enjoyable act. When we got home, Kaylee had a voicemail from her Grandma Chiles who was congratulating her on seeing that Prince Poppycock made it into the Final Four. Kaylee loved having the message-and she's been in there watching the show, too!

The Windy City

They aren't kidding, today.

When we took off out of Kokomo this morning the winds were already gusting up to 23 knots. Grissom routed us way over by Lafayette because of their "hot" (active) Military Operating Area (MOA). We saw groundspeeds of 83-93 knots, numbers that I have Never seen so low on that airplane straight and level. We get routed around all over the place, we finally get clear and headed towards our airport, and the controller calls out that the MOA is cold now. Good grief.

We were routed all over for airspace and for traffic (typical Chicago), and we were tossed around in turbulence like an angry child was shaking a toy. As we descended into Chicago Executive airport, the turbulence got worse, until both the student and I just started laughing at the ridiculousness of it. I had my seatbelt as tight as it would go, and I felt like I needed to check some of my fillings in my teeth. Best sustained turbulence I've seen in years. You couldn't even change frequencies or hit any buttons in there, because you couldn't hold your hand still long enough to get it close, and the plane would just go wherever it was tossed, and you'd wrestle it back. I could have used sports safety equipment... I quit laughing as it was time to come in to land, considering their weather reporting on field was warning about potential Low Level Wind Shear, which is not very funny. They routed us in on the ILS for a landing on Runway 16, when the winds were from 250 gusting upwards of 30 knots. That's a direct crosswind, with a very large gust factor (over 20 knot gust factor at times, meaning the winds went from 17 up to 37 in a flicker, which like I said, is a lot), so I said no thanks, and requested a circle to land Runway 24, which was much better. ;) There was a Cirrus who landed before us who said he got plenty of turbulence but no wind shear. Good deal, we're next. Student did a fantastic job, and I just helped a little at the end. That was a pretty hard core flight on multiple levels for someone new. I was hoping to get my kidneys back in place before our trip home, as we now have winds gusting up over 40 knots on the ground. At least if we're lucky we'll have more of a tailwind this direction!

While waiting to come home today I was reading an aviation newsletter, and saw the following blurb: "TSA outreach program to target general aviation airfields"
"The Transportation Security Administration is launching an outreach program to share best practices. The agency says it hopes to visit at least 30% of general aviation airfields this year as part of the mission." Oh, great, the TSA hopes to visit all our little airports to "share" the best practices for airfield security. If they make it out to little ole us, this ought to be good.

The trip home started off with the winds so variable that they didn't have one runway to use-they had them all open. "You can choose 24, 16, 30 or 34, the winds are all over the place gusting up to 37, watch for low level wind shear." Nice. But it ended up okay. We may have had higher winds but it wasn't as turbulent up in the air at least. Mostly. It was still pretty rough, but at least I didn't have to keep my teeth clenched to keep from biting my tongue most of the flight. ;) When we came in to land, the winds were gusting up to 26 back at the home front, and the student made the landing completely on his own. Nicely done...

I ran Kaylee to the library to pick up some new reading material. I didn't want to go to the library, and at first I said no, but good grief, I know what it's like to be out of reading material, and that's just no good at all. ;)

A quick stop for chili dogs for dinner, a stop at the post office, a little bit of going over Kaylee's math for a test tomorrow, and I could go to bed right about now!

Windy Ways

My flight student this morning was going to try to solo again, but the winds were too strong and gusty for that, so we worked on crosswinds instead. The pattern was really full-there were people and planes all over the place while I was out there.

This evening Steve and I headed back to Missouri to pick up Kaylee. I stayed as low as possible to avoid as much of the headwind as possible, but on the way home we had a nice tailwind and saw 210-218 knots groundspeed, which is nice for that plane. Back from Missouri in an hour and 14 minutes. I'll take it!

Steve flew most of the leg out to Missouri, then when he got bored I took over. I'd been flying about 30 minutes when suddenly there was a loud popping noise, a very loud sustained Whoosh. Steve and I both jumped and hunched our shoulders up to our ears for a second, and then after a second or two I said "Back Window", and he got it closed again. That thing is LOUD when it "blows". Steve got the window shut successfully, sat back down, and we just sat there for a second before we started laughing both about his comment about "I think I piddled a little" and because I told him that when the window blew, and we hunched up our shoulders, the next thing he did was grab hold of my controls. He didn't hang on long because when I said "Back window" he let go and fixed it, but I said if we ever have a real emergency, it looks like there may be a wrestling match for a second or two there. ;) (Not really-it would depend on the plane and the situation as to who would do what during a problem...there would be no real wrestling.) The best part was that he didn't even know he'd done it--it was just instinct.

Other than that, it was a smooth, sunset flight home with a lovely night landing back into the home drone. Kaylee had a great time with her grandparents, and was glad to see her kitties (and parents) too. She's not ready for school tomorrow, and I don't think I am either, frankly! But it was a really nice Labor Day extended weekend, for all of us. :)

Marion and Such

Whew, I'm tired today! I was up until about 3 a.m. last night, and then my alarm went off at 7 a.m. to go to the fly-in at Marion. The winds were forecasted to be pretty high today, like they were yesterday, and the winds that aren't very exciting in the Baron I was in yesterday are a little more exciting in a Citabria, T-6 and Mustang. Chuck and Steve in the Citabria debated between driving and flying, as it was right on the edge of being too much, and I kept looking at the conditions too. Nathan had Jamie in the back of the Mustang, and I had Gwenie in the back of the T-6, until we realized the Mustang was out of gas and the FBO didn't even open until 9. We were going to be in Marion around 9 originally, but life just doesn't always work out on time. We had to wait for the fuel truck, and then finally we were on our way, flight of two, over the broken cloud deck, in formation, in two pretty planes on a pretty morning.

When we arrived at Marion, I got in the pattern behind a yellow experimental that did a huge pattern, and then didn't get off the runway very quickly. So I'm coming down final, trying to stay slow enough to be able to land but not too slow with all the turbulence, and I hear the Mustang behind me call a go-around. I waited just a bit longer, because there was still a chance, but by the time the yellow plane did get off, it wouldn't have been a great plan to try to force it down halfway down the runway at the last second. So I went around too, called out downwind behind a Cessna, and Nathan called out "Mustang on downwind behind the T-6 behind the Cessna" which cracked me up. I also heard another guy call in and say "I'm on a base for 22, behind what...looks like...two...Mustangs?" This time the turbulence down final wasn't quite as bad, which was a bonus. ;) I waited off a taxiway for the Mustang to taxi up, then we went in together.

I don't think I will ever be comfortable taxiing that airplane surrounded by a whole lot of people. I can't see over my nose, I have to S-turn and/or trust that whoever is guiding me in is looking, and trust that some little kid isn't going to break out and run at me. At the end there I was taxiing on the ramp, with people everywhere, just moving out of my way, and when I shut down there was a whole group of folks all around the airplanes watching. One WWII Veteran who flew T-6s during the Korean War came up to talk to me for a little while, and one of the men who actually built that T-6 said he was really happy to see it flying. The guy who is putting on the event was really really grateful to see us--he said they were down really far on airplanes for today because the winds (which for awhile were a direct crosswind gusting upwards of 23 knots there) had chased people off, and he thanked us for coming about ten times. We even got to skip the ginormous pancake line and get our pancakes, sausage, juice and/or milk right away. That's all it takes to get us to go somewhere--easy food. ;) Another guy who talked to me, he introduced himself (I can't remember names) and then said that he got a kick out of it because when I pulled up, he said he heard people in the crowd murmuring "That's a woman in there! And she has a little girl with her!", that it kind of went through the crowd. Somebody with a camera mounted on a Jeep took a video of me with the event organizer in front of the T-6, and we just stood in front of the plane and pretended to have an in-depth discussion of something while we were really just making up things. The video wasn't to be an audio thing too, so he just needed me to look like we were talking about the plane and then with each other. I had a hard time not cracking up-I'm not a great actress if asked to do it on the spur of the moment. ;) Next the videographer called over "I need you to pose for me, please!" So I struck a goofy hero pose and made her laugh before standing by the prop and smiling like I was supposed to.

The event itself has really gotten pretty big, even if their numbers were down today. And it was an eclectic collection. I saw an Elvis doing chin ups (he only made it to 7), a toilet that actually drives around, with paper and a steering wheel, they had a section of motorcycles, a section of antique cars, a section of tractors of all things, helicopter rides, and of course airplanes! (Usually there is a section of ultralights and powered parachutes too, but, well, they couldn't make it in.) There is plenty to look at, and good food, and we spent a nice morning walking around. We even ran into a few warbird guys like R+10 and Dave J. and John S. and quite a few Glenndale/Sheridan/Kokomo folks. It was nice! I got the few pictures I took up, of course. I really wish we'd have had a camera ship to take photos of the two planes in formation above the broken cloud deck with the two kids in the back seat. That would have been great...

We had gotten there in one piece, and now it was time to get home, too. Cleared the path of spectators, and Nathan led us out. He came around for a goodbye pass while I just climbed out, and then I saw the Mustang blow over the top of me and go into a nice roll. It was a darned pretty sight from the air, 'majestic' is the best word. So I got on the radio and said "beautiful!" A voice came back with "I didn't know anyone was looking!" It was Chuck in the Citabria being a smart aleck. ;)

The more interesting landing of the day was going to be the Citabria into Glenndale, considering the winds were out of the west and it's a north/south runway. In other words, it was very windy and it was a hefty crosswind for a light taildragger. Of course, Chuck being the man and all, the Citabria was tucked away into its hangar after a lovely landing, Nathan and I got "our" planes put away, and a few of us went to Applebees to celebrate a mission accomplished for the day.

A two hour nap later, and another shower, and I was ready to take on the rest of the day. ;) Steve and I went out and did a few things for fun-Kaylee is in Missouri, so it seemed like a good time to go out. We topped it off with Outback takeout, and I even got dessert. You only live once, right? Might as well live plumply. ;)

Let the Weekend Begin

Richard and I flew the Baron to Missouri today to drop Kaylee off for an extended weekend with her grandparents. She was excited to get to go, and Richard and I had a nice flight down and back. It was pretty windy and bumpy, but it worked out just fine. Steve had a concert he went to with friends while we were gone, and it was a nice Friday. :)

Let's Just Blow Up The House and Start Over...

Annnnd here is something that would happen to me. The last line of the article says it all, too. ;)

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Man injured in blast while killing spider
By James Thirst
Wednesday, 1 September 2010

A man suffered serious burns after he blew himself up trying to kill a spider. The 28-year-old had tried to attack the spider with an aerosol can at his home in Clacton in Essex.

He had been called by his wife to deal with a spider she had seen going behind the lavatory on Monday. Unable to reach it, the man decided to kill it by spraying it. However he was unable to see whether it was dead because the bulb had gone. He used a cigarette lighter to illuminate the room, but ignited the gas fumes and caused an explosion.

The blast was so strong it blew him off his feet. He suffered burns to his head, legs and torso and, after dousing himself in cold water, was taken by ambulance to hospital. A spokesman for the fire service said: "We're not entirely sure whether the spider got away or not but there was no sign of it."

Urgh

I spent the morning stuffing envelopes and getting them into the mail, and I got several other things accomplished that had been on the back burner a little too long too, making for a productive morning.

Steve spent his morning on the phone with the Pakistani Help Desk people, going round and round when it became obvious pretty quickly that he knew more about some of it than they did. All morning long he dealt with them, and when I last saw him at lunch, he was going back out there to do it some more. As of 9:15 p.m. here he hasn't made it back.

Kaylee is going away for three days on vacation tomorrow after school, and she surprised me today by finishing up all of her weekly chores early. She's been bringing home great grades for 4th grade so far, and she's a great speller. The one that made me laugh though; everyone had to bring home their reading book for a test tomorrow--they were supposed to read the story tonight and study for this test, which will be asking questions about the story. A comprehension and memory thing. The reason this makes me laugh is because Kaylee can tell you, in excruciating detail, about every book she reads. She does it to me all the time, which I guess is my penance for doing it to my mom and even occasionally on this blog. ;) The question isn't going to be if she can remember the story-she'd be able to practically rewrite the whole thing down without looking if they asked. The question will be, does she take her time to answer the question they ask properly and in the right format, or will she get in a hurry and get sloppy. Something else inherited from me, sadly. ;)

I had an appointment today for my hair. When I walked in, the lady who did my hair was as sick as a dog. She looked miserable, had a deep, wet cough, circles under her eyes, pale, not talking, just very obviously ill. I just kind of looked at her, and I was really not happy to be within 3 feet of her, let alone sitting in her chair touching her stuff with her hands on my hair and face. When I got home, I washed my clothes, my hands, everything I could, and took a couple extra vitamins while I was at it. I understand needing to work even if you don't feel good, but when your job is hands on with people and you're that sick, you are just infecting everyone you come in contact with most likely, and that is just not cool. I didn't appreciate that, and if I get sick I'm going to be Very Unhappy. It's going around everywhere right now. Kids at Kaylee's school are sick too, though she's been fine so far. I've had two sick flight students who came out too, and I managed to not get ill off of them, so I'm hopeful. I'm just trying to stay out of the way.

One other note. I've been surprised at how many people who are hairdressers for a vocation do not have very nice looking hair themselves. Isn't that kind of advertising your skills, and if you can't do your own...? One lady there had overblown, frizzy, dried out hair that has fallen out a lot, and what was left was all catty-whompus, and I'm just trying to figure out, well, I guess I just don't understand that one. Maybe they just spend a lot of time practicing on their own and it causes some damage...

Chores are done, homework is done, dinner is done, school bag is packed, Kaylee is off to pack her bag for tomorrow, I am off to get some stuff ready for tomorrow, and this whole week has gone by at warp speed!

Mid-Week

For once I didn't have any flights most of today, so I worked on billing, and I'm hoping by the time I go to bed tonight I'll actually be done. On the first day of the month, none-the-less, which would be some kind of record I think. ;)

I was supposed to fly this evening with a new student, but a line of bad weather moved through right at the time we were supposed to be going. It was one of those flights that would have been technically possible, maybe, but for someone just starting out, it sure wouldn't have been a very productive or enjoyable one. So I ran my errands and got a few more things done instead.

Kaylee informed us that she likes her dress shoes to look classy and professional, not girly. When she was picking out her new shoes, there was a pair that was pink with flowers on it that in the past she would have thought was "awesome". Instead, she wrinkled her nose and said "too kiddish." The pair she ended up picking out were from the women's section, as she fits into women size 5 right now (same as kid size 3.5 I guess). They are brown, have topaz colored large diamond-shaped jewels and a strap around the ankle to hold them on. They look very nice, actually, and she was very happy with them. I find myself trying to play catch-up with the things she is trying out and liking right now. :)

Kaylee sets her own alarm at night now, and gets up on her own in the morning, even takes a shower in the mornings instead at night now. Sometimes she'll get up early and come in and lay with me for about ten minutes first, so we start the day off with a little cuddle, which is a really nice way to start the day, you know? I know that soon--at this rate VERY soon--she'll be too old to want to do that any more, so I'm enjoying the mornings I watch her fall back asleep cuddled up to me for a few stolen minutes...
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"The trouble with people is not that they don't know, but that they know so much that just ain't so." ~Josh Billings