Happy Halloween!

I was to leave the house at 7 a.m. to go on a flight to Missouri. I got the call at 7 a.m. as I was leaving the house, that the flight was cancelled. So, instead I flew with my 9:30 student until lunch, then did some catching up on a few things that needed caught up on.

I got Kaylee from the bus stop at 3:45, ran her home, threw her into her Halloween outfit, she ran next door to show off to Grandma & Grandpa, and then we drove quickly down to Noblesville to join Maggie and Hannah for trick-or-treating. Maggie was a royal princess, Hannah was a homemade R2D2 with sound included, which won costume of the night award everywhere we went, and Kaylee was Clawdeen the Wolf Girl from a TV show called "Monster High". The only disappointment for her for the night was that I couldn't get her wolf teeth to stick to her real teeth. The paste that was supposed to gel and glue them to her teeth would *not* stick, so I tried tacky stuff, and that didn't work either, so she pouted fiercely long enough to make me angry and then got over it because she had these long glittery purple fake eyelashes to wear that she liked a lot too. ;)

Kaylee really really really wanted to trick-or-treat on our street too. She said she was afraid that if she didn't support our street, people here would quit offering candy. She said "Plus they know me and it costs money for them to do candy and decorations and I want to go to their houses. HURRY!" So I drove home as fast as I could, and we pulled onto our street at 7:58. Trick-or-treating ended at 8. Only two houses were still lit up, and she ran over to them. She said they both said "You're the last trick-or-treater of the night!" and gave her a ton of candy. She came away with pounds and pounds of loot, and she was happy to get to support our street too, even if just a little. :)

One of the houses in Noblesville gave away entire packages of Oreo double-stuffed cookies. I mean, store size, big ones. We think the guys must work for Nabisco or something, but they win coolest Halloween hand-outs of the year. Another house gave giant-sized candy bars, and others full-sized candy bars. Now THOSE people know how to give out loot!

I put up a bunch of pictures up on Kaylee's site. If you need the password, email me. :)

Hallowed Eve

One problem with using Imitrex is that occasionally you can get rebound headaches. Which I did last night. Had a rough night with that, getting up every 3 hours to take more stuff to try to kick it, unsuccessfully. Later this morning I pulled out the big guns and took a manly painkiller, and that finally did it. Urgh. Hopefully that'll be the end of the round. I went for years without having to take an Imitrex, so hey, now I should be good to go for many more years, right? :)

Kaylee had a marvelous time at her sleepover. The girls were up until about 1 a.m., and they set the alarm for 6 a.m. so they would have time to play. (Yikes). They didn't get up until 7, but that's still way early. The girls played until I got there just after noon, and there was only one casualty. Kaylee had a brand new hair feather thing she'd gotten yesterday and was wearing for the first time, and when I got there, Allie said that Sketch the dog had gotten hold of Kaylee's feather headband and it's now dead. The first thing I said was "Aaaaand she freaked, right?" Yep. Kaylee doesn't deal well with that kind of thing, but fortunately I guess she cooled off fairly quickly and realized it was not, in fact, the end of the world after all. Whew. :) She was so sleepy from all the excitement that she passed out in the Jeep on the way home, was out within about 15 minutes. Then later this afternoon she fell asleep on the couch, too, and took a big old hefty nap on top of it. This may mess up her sleep schedule for having to get up for school tomorrow, but she needed the sleep.

Steve made it back from his camping weekend, happy to be warm, but having had a good time. They made chili and peach cobbler and all sorts of good food out there on the campfire; big breakfasts, the whole ball of wax. That was the only thing that tempted me to join them: the food is always better outdoors. :) I'd have liked the food, and the company, and the different experience for the weekend, but I also enjoyed the time to myself, the warm house and a comfy bed. When he got back, he took a big nap to recuperate from his weekend too. And I took a nap today to recuperate from my lack of sleep and physical weariness from the pain last night. So we were a drowsy family for awhile this afternoon, while the Colts lost again.

Kaylee had insisted on getting a pumpkin, because "WHO does HALLOWEEN without a PUMPKIN?!" So, Saturday we picked out a pumpkin, and today we cleaned it, carved it, cooked the seeds and lit it up. "Toothy" the pumpkin is now sitting on our counter, and it was a full family affair this year. Kaylee did a good job scraping out the seeds and guts, and Steve and I took turns on the guts too. I baked the seeds with butter, cinnamon and sugar this year, and they're pretty tasty. Everything's better with butter, cinnamon and sugar. ;)

We also had a conversation about fairy tales, Santa Claus, Deenie the Elf, the Tooth Fairy, etc. Kaylee's enjoyed pretending it's real, but she's known, and today she flat out said of course she knows. She looked at me and said "You know, there's a price tag on the Deenie dots. And I recognize your guys' handwriting." She's done pretending, it sounds like, and I guess 10 is old enough for that. I'll kind of miss her eyes sparkly and wondering and thinking maybe, just maybe there is magic there after all. We told her it was hard sometimes, but we always made sure not to lie to her, while still letting her believe in some of these fun kid things. She said we did a good job with it, so at least she isn't upset about the whole thing, which, considering her personality, is almost amazing. :)

She's growing up too fast...

Jump Back!

I hope the boys are having fun out there in the freezing temps. :D

I took Kaylee down to Westfield for a birthday dinner with Gina, Chuck, Judy, Brad, Allie, Maggie and Hannah, after which Kaylee went with Maggie to a comedy place and then home for a sleepover. So, Kaylee's having a good time, I'm sure. :)

After I left Westfield, I had some time to myself. Kaylee and Steve are both gone overnight, so I decided to do something I haven't done in years. I went to the movies. And I watched "Footloose". Talk about a blast from the past. They made the remake different enough from the original to make it the same movie with the same theme and some of the same lines, but it went in a slightly different order, had different music (mostly), and a different feel. The thing is, the original Footloose had a lot of things in it that rang true of a small country Church-based town and highschool ran by the local pastor. Trust me, I'm familiar. :) This one...it was too "citified" and "updated". For one thing, the kids in this high school? If they were small town country kids, I'm the tooth fairy. Just because they occasionally wore flannel in the movie, it didn't make them look any less like New York City models. In their 20s. And you don't learn to dance like that in a town like that. They basically had all these kids as Juliard dance kings and queens. The main scene where Ren loses it and dances alone in the gin mill to blow off steam? They had him do krumping. I suppose that was their way of modernizing the movie, and it IS "angry" dancing which is appropriate for his mood I suppose, but krumping?? Krumping does not belong in Footloose, I'm thinking. Ariel IS a model. The original Ariel was a pretty, scrawny girl, who looked exactly like a preacher's daughter in the country while still being beautiful. This one looks like the supermodel she is. A lovely young lady indeed, but no country highschooler. :) But still, I liked the movie anyway. Maybe because it was a blast from the past, even if different. When I got up to leave, I turned around and a woman behind me said to a group of ladies she was with, "I bet we are the only 40 year olds in here!" I laughed and said "No, I'm here from that generation too." There were mostly young kids in there, but a few of us middle aged chicks were there to represent the 80s. :)

I caught up on shows I missed last night (gotta love the internet), and I have nothing to do tomorrow but relax and wait for the family to get back.

Works for me!

Friday

Woke up a little under the weather this morning, but good enough to go flying for an hour and do checkride prep takeoffs and landings. There was ground fog over to the east of us, with the sun and blue sky above, making for a really pretty landscape down there. Trees and things poking up out of the white on the ground nearby, etc. :)

I took Kaylee out to the airport for lunch, as she wanted to play with a couple kids she thought were going to be there, and we were having ham and beans, so I stopped at Subway for both Kaylee and me, as we are bad "southern" gals who both dislike ham & beans. Some day maybe I'll get there--after all, I liked Steve's baked beans with bacon and onion in them tonight...

The headache I'd had all morning kept getting worse, no matter what brand of pain killer I threw at it, until I'd well exceeded appropriate dosages of Extra Strength Tylenol and Excedrin Migraine formula, and tried a nap, and caffeine, and food, and another dark room, so for the first time in a couple years I had to break out an Imitrex. I'm just grateful I have stuff that works for those stubborn times. :)

This evening after I recovered, we headed out to a friends' house out in the country, cooked this delicious steak/potato/baked beans meal, sat out around a large campfire, bundled up a bit because of the cool air, sat around and talked. Kaylee hung with us until about 10 pm, then she got her iPod out and listened to some tunes by the fire until she got sleepy. I brought her home around 11, while the boys stayed out there to camp out. Kaylee and I were invited to camp out all night too. It's going to be a low of 32 tonight, with frost. Yeah, I'm good right here. In my water bed. With warm, soft, flannel sheets. Thankyouverymuch. ;)

Parent/Teacher Conferences

So, today I had a poor student who drove over to fly all day. First the weather was supposed to be too bad to go. Then it was good enough to go and it was supposed to get better. So he comes out, and the weather becomes worse than it was supposed to be and stayed that way. We flew anyway, as all he is working on is the pattern right now, and we had enough for that. In Class G airspace anyway. Darned weather forecasters can't seem to get anything right...

I flew with him until it was time to run out of there and go to Kaylee's school for our first parent/teacher conference. I thought it was a little clever, they had the students do the evaluation. First the students read their own self-evaluation paper, where they had circled how they felt they did in five different areas, grading themselves "Excellent", "Average", or "Poor". We all felt there needed to be an "Above Average" and "Below Average" in there too, because the line between "Excellent" and "Average" is a big ole jump. But anyway, so she had to read that, and actually she did a very good job being self-aware of how she was doing in those various areas. Then she had to read our Parent Evaluation that we filled out last week with any questions, comments, weaknesses, strengths, etc. She went over some test results, etc. Maybe I'm just unfamiliar with the public school system, but I thought it was interesting that they put the burden of the eval on the 5th grader. I liked it, treating them like active participants in the process, not just having them sit there and listen to how good/bad they did.

Something that made Steve and I both smile; during the evaluation, the teacher said that Kaylee was sometimes "super social" in class. Even Kaylee appreciated the delicate way that the teacher tried to say that she talked too much in class. Guess who else used to get in trouble for talking too much in class? I wrote hundreds and hundreds of sentences for that in elementary school. The teacher also said that Kaylee would sometimes not pay attention/listen. Guess who else had a 6th grade teacher write a note on her grade card that said "Sometimes I think she's off on another planet"? I told Kaylee that, and she said "That's not very nice!" I told her it was true, I was daydreaming, and that's what she's doing too. She said "No I'm not." I said "So your mind isn't going off in some other direction and you're not thinking about other stuff, making up stories in your head while the teacher's talking?" She came back with "Okay, yeah, I do that." She does a few things like Steve too. Getting a little bored with a topic and not really trying on something because it's just not that interesting to her, for example. Hearing our past evals coming back to us in the form of our daughter was just funny.

Kaylee has three teachers, and the kids rotate classes. Her homeroom teacher is the one who gave the conference. We also ran into her language/arts former reading teacher in the hall. He told us that "she's a very smart girl", and well above the class in the Accelerated Reading program. He asked her how her grades were, and she said All A's and one B+, and he asked her if she was okay with that. She said she didn't think a B+ was that bad but that her dad didn't like it, and the teacher said that it's because there's no reason she should be getting a B in anything, and that she needed to want it more than her parents did, she needed to dislike that B, because if she did, she'd never have gotten it. He wasn't even supposed to be doing the evaluation, but he pretty much gave her a push and a pep talk and gave us a look while he was doing it. In the reading area, the homeroom teacher who was doing the eval showed us a "this is the goal to get to by April/May", and Kaylee had started out at the beginning of the year hundreds of points past the end of the year goal, which is pretty cool. :)

Anyway, no surprises. She talks in class, she doesn't always take her time, but is fitting in well at the school, has friends, is doing well in classes, and so far everybody on Team Kaylee, from parents to teachers, are all happy with the transition.

She also got her Netbook, finally, to bring home. Each 5th grader gets a netbook (computer) that has their assignments, math book, etc. on it. They take it home, and have a flash drive to transfer documents back and forth, etc. The computer was set up specifically for each kid, and hers had her name on the setup. It even has a webcam on it. Pretty cool. Pretty amazing, really. Fifth graders...

So after this conference, Steve went out to fly with my morning guy and I took another evening trip to St. Louis. Watched the sun set while I headed west, and a lovely one it was. I had a tailwind going west too, which is different. I'd had a Caesar salad for lunch and nothing since, so I was glad to see a Snickers bar and a Diet Coke in the front seat of the Jeep waiting for me when I landed, compliments of Justin. :) I got home around 11:20 p.m., and found Steve and Kaylee passed out on the couch together, cuddling. Awww. Kaylee had asked me to text her when I landed in Missouri, so I did. She likes to keep in touch and I can usually text from the plane, which works for her. :)

Oh, when I got close to St. Louis, it was really busy. You'd think "St. Louis-of course it's busy", but I'm saying I went there twice a day, every week (at least) for months now, and THIS was busy. Finally I landed, taxiied up to the ramp, and there was Nowhere to park. At all. Planes were lined up all down the ramp, way past the FBO, even doubled up into what wasn't real parking spots. I turned around and found a place to double up on a plane myself, spun it around and parked it, and when I got out, a line guy with a tug came running over and said "Wow, that's the best park job we've had out here all night!" I guess they've been tugging everyone into these weird places to try to make room. I said "What's going on over here? Some kind of convention or something?" He said "The World Series." Oh. Duh. Yeah. On the way home, a pilot came on and said "Hey center, got a score update?" The controller comes back with "Score is tied 3 to 3, bottom of the 4th, two outs." It wasn't the only "score check" I heard over the radio on the way home tonight. Pretty funny...

A Breeze

Twas a breezy one today. I flew for an hour this morning on checkride prep, and by the time we landed it was up to 21 knots. I ran and grabbed a sandwich, then flew the plane over to Glenndale to meet with a pre-solo student. It was a tad, er, brisk, for a pre-solo student, with winds forecasting to get up to 30 knots, but he wanted to go, so go we did, for 1.4. It was our first flight together, and he's pushing to get his license as fast as he can here, so I have a couple folks on the fast track again, scheduling about every day they can.

I finished up with my student in perfect time to get gas and pick up Kaylee from school. We went to Target to get a few things, and ran into her 2nd/3rd grade teacher, whom she'd loved. After that we went to the Halloween store to pick up the last little things she needed for her costume. Now she's all set and ready to go from top to bottom. :)

I've got some photos up on my site from Sunday's adventures. I don't have any of the actual formation yet, but here are some I took on the ground with my little point and shoot, and if I get any from Greg of the formation stuff, or Trey of any of the flybys or other fun stuff, I'll add them later...

Back to Monday

My phone went off around 12:15; I was trying to get to sleep because I had to get up at 5:45 a.m. for a trip to Missouri, but I wasn't making it yet. I woke back up around 3:30 and I couldn't really get to sleep again very well. When my alarm went off, I turned it off, laid there for a second, and when I looked it was 6:15 and I needed to leave as fast as I could get ready. Whoops. I dragged my way through the shower and out the door, put my makeup on in the dark in the car at stop lights on the way to the airport, and away we went. It was supposed to be clear here, there, and everywhere in between. Halfway there I did what I always do and check the weather there anyway. A local place was reporting 3/4 mile, mist and 100 overcast. Doh. Can't get in like that. But I looked around at other nearby places, they were all reporting VFR, we were in the clear, and I figured that was an outlier. When we got within 50 miles I could pull up their specific weather over the radio, and when it said "visibility 1/2 mile and fog, ceiling 100 overcast", my guy and I looked at each other with our eyebrows up. I told him we were going to go take a look anyway, we had the fuel to see if this was a valley fog thing that would move off or burn off, since it wasn't supposed to be there anyway. I canceled our IFR flight plan so we could hang out as we needed to. When we got there, I could see the runway through a mist, and there was a fog bank just off the west end of the runway, which must have been where the weather reporting station must have been. We landed with no problem. It's true, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. :)

I flew home by myself, and I couldn't wait to get back on the ground, 5.4 hours later. It was 1:30 pm or so, I hadn't eaten, I was wiped out, and as I told Steve, I need lunch, Tylenol and a nap, and not necessarily in that order.

I got the lunch, I took the Tylenol but my head still hurts, and I tried to take a nap but I was too wired up. So I'm 1 for 3, which is better than nothing, but I think the bed is going to feel really good tonight. :)

Photo Shoot

Kaylee enjoyed herself at her slumber party. There were five girls, plus two little brothers, for 24 hours, so that's a brave mom. :) At one point on Sunday morning Kaylee was having a little issue, and she texted me, and we talked back and forth for a few minutes until she felt better. That made me glad that she has a cell phone and can communicate. You remember what it felt like to be a kid and feel really bad about something but you were kind of stuck without anyone nearby to help you with it? Well, now she doesn't have to do that, and I think that's great. :)

Meanwhile, I was out at Kokomo getting the T-6 ready to go for a photo shoot. I cleaned it up, got my stuff together, looked over a map of where I was going to see if there was any airspace or obstacles to be wary of over there, and what I thought I was doing was flying to Danville, IL to do a photo shoot with a P-51 over there. I got the text that the photographer and Trey & Carol would be there in an hour and 45 minutes, so I waited 45 minutes or so and headed over to Danville, with my iPod in, the mixture leaned out, and the canopy cracked. I arrived early enough to clean the oil back off the plane and make her look pretty, open up the back seat for the photographer, secure the stick and get everything ready. I wasn't there long and here came another T-6. Then a Mustang was pulled out of the hangar. Then another Mustang was pulled out. Then a Mustang blasted by the runway and came in to land. We were having a warbird convention over there. Come to find out, we were doing a photo shoot with a four-ship. I would be photo ship "lead" with G. Morehead as photographer in back, with G. Morris and M. Vadeboncouer in Warbird Adventure's T-6 as #2, Vlado L. as #3 in the P-51 "Live Bait", and D. Young as #4 in the P-51 "Happy Jack's Go Buggy". That's quite a line-up. These were three airplanes all restored by the Danville crew, so the photo shoot was getting three years' of restorations all in a row. We ate lunch at Schroeder's restaurant in town, then the Mustangs and T-6 took off to give some fly-bys, warm up, test out fuel tanks on Happy Jack, etc. I stayed down on the runway with my little Canon and watched Greg and Trey take some real shots of the planes going by. The guys were having fun, no question, and we had our own impromptu air show going on. Locals started showing up at the airport because they heard all the noise, and the flying went on for quite awhile. At one point there was a rainbow right off the end of the runway, with two Mustangs framed right under it. The rainbow faded very quickly, and the one picture I took you can't even hardly see it, but it was pretty neat. Finally they came on down, got gas, and it was time for all of us to go. The pre-flight briefing was Vlado saying "air to air is 130.65. Good enough?" Good enough. :)

By the way. You know those "Heritage Flights", with the current military jets flying alongside with P-51s at every major airshow? Vlado is one of those in the P-51. He's got over 3000 hours in a P-51, and is the check pilot for fighters, etc. This was my 3rd photo shoot, and the first time with a 4-ship. None of them knew that, and it was my goal to make sure they didn't suspect it afterwards, either. ;)

Fortunately these aren't too complicated after you learn the sequence--kind of like learning how clearance delivery is going to give your IFR clearance, or ATC is going to clear you for the approach. There's an order and a sequence to them, and after that you kind of have to play it by ear anyway. It's not too bad; they have to do all the work to stick with me. I relay photographer "commands" to them on where to position themselves with a series of hand signals and radio work. I keep an eye out for airspace and traffic and on them and try to be smooth and clear on what I need them to do.

I fired up first, so I could make sure the T-6 would start (it has started having an issue on hot starts again), without having three other airplanes burning gas waiting on me, and fortunately it had sat long enough apparently, and it fired right up. After everyone had been running for a little bit, I called for a radio check, everyone checked in, and I led the taxi out to the runway. We flew for something like an hour. I was hunting sunlight, and it was very patchy, which was a problem for Greg's photos. I flew 20 miles away from the airport looking for good light, and we'd hit some and then lose it. But I'll tell you what, that is a view that I cannot begin to accurately describe and give justice. I'd turn my head to check on everyone, and almost get stopped in my tracks looking at those three airplanes lined up off my wing with the sun hitting the polished aluminum and the props. I wanted to hit an autopilot and whip out my own camera and take pictures. Of course there is no autopilot, I'm busy enough, and that would be grounds for immediate and appropriate firing, full-on-beating, and permanent ostracization within the community, so, no. ;)

At the end I sent off Live Bait and the T-6, and had Happy Jack take the lead, so I had to fly off of him now, through the pattern. Instead of normal formation position, Greg would have me move up, down, forward or back, whatever he needed to get the shot. "Doc" (the pilot of Happy Jack) gave me a hand signal I didn't know, so I had to shake my head. Then his gear doors opened and it didn't take long to figure out as I pulled my power back in a hurry so I didn't blow past him. I followed him all the way down to his landing, which again, is a time to be careful. You're low, you're slow and getting slower as he rolls out, you're maneuvering, you're not over the runway so you have to watch for terrain, you're watching him, and in front of you, and it's a busy time. I tried to do it with Vlado too, but he was already coming down final, I was too far away to get on to him on time, I tried to catch him by cutting him off and swooping around, but it just didn't work out. I'm glad we got Happy Jack at least. Come to find out, the gear down signal is different for fighters than T-6s. But now I've seen it, and I'll know it if I see it again, trust me. ;)

We all landed one at a time, shut down, got fuel, took group photos with the pilots, shook hands and said thanks, and then the sun broke through, right at the golden hour. Vlado had to leave, we'd already flown the mission, but NOW was the time as far as the light was concerned. Greg took pictures on the ground of Live Bait in the sunset light until it was dark, and then took me, Trey and Carol out to dinner at a local steakhouse.

When we got back to the airport, the walk-through gates that they told me would be open to get back in were chained shut. Not cool, man. So I climbed up on a picnic table, climbed over the fence to something on the other side of the fence, and hopped the fence. So did Trey, who was standing by in case I had a starting issue, which I really hoped I didn't have in the dark. I got my handy dandy flashlight out, and used the flashlight feature on my cellphone to light up the inside for start-up. She started just fine again, and I launched into the dark. It was a beautiful evening. I'm flying along, with flames/glow out the exhaust, I look up above my head and there's a huge field of stars up there. Out in the country, up in the air, the sky was beautiful. On the flip side, I caught myself monitoring the JPI (engine monitor) a bit more than I usually do, and kept fairly close to bigger roads, because the thought of an engine issue in that at night isn't very warm and fuzzy. ;) But I really enjoyed the view. As I was getting closer to Kokomo, I caught a shooting star, which I thought was an appropriate end to a day that had warbirds and rainbows too.

Once I got back on the ground, I texted Greg, Trey and Steve to let them know I made it back in one piece, and then I texted Nathan to let him know his plane made it back in one piece. ;)

That was a heck of a day; what a view, and what an opportunity.

Missouri and Kids

Kaylee is off at an overnight birthday party sleep-over tonight with five girls from her class. I hope she is having fun. She loves parties. There are a couple potential grade school landmines here, but I think she can handle it. :)

Steve had one long local flight all afternoon. I got up, went out to Kokomo and flew to Missouri to pick up a fellow. I had a nice strong headwind, but I was alone and I had tunes, so I was fine. ;) I took a few pictures of the surrounding area, but the best shots needed to be taken when I was busy taking off and landing, so these will have to do.

I got back to Kokomo around 4:30, which was in time to take Kaylee back to the house to get her sleeping bag and go through a crisis of wardrobe before taking her to her slumber birthday party. :) I turned around and came home to pick up Steve, and we went right out to our EAA Chapter's Chili and Wings dinner night. There were over 60 people there, so it was a success! We stayed until dark, then finally made it home. We're both tired, long day, productive, and good.

Kaylee's report card came back, and she missed straight A's by a few points in Social Studies. All A's, 1 B+. Argh! She'd had all A's on her last progress report, so she just missed it by a few points. Ah, well, I guess we'll take it. ;)

The Mighty Mississippi

The hill on downwind

The airport carved out of the surrounding trees.

Welcome to Piedmont. :)

Six School

The busy weekend begins on Friday. This morning I had my first flight in the new 172 (nice airplane) doing checkride prep. We ended in time for lunch, after which we went back out to Kokomo Airport for a kids' "Aviation Day". They were supposed to arrive at 2:30. They didn't make it until 3 p.m., and had to leave in 15-20 minutes, so they didn't get the full experience of individual photos in a plane, but they had a good time. We had 31 Second-graders and 9 adults, which is a pretty good-sized group. I had two T-6 rides scheduled for right after them, so I put on the flight suit and came in with the helmet just before my first rider arrived. Steve had me come to the front of the class so he could tell them that I was a pilot who flew at air shows in that plane over there, explained the flight suit, and picked one little girl to put my helmet on her. It didn't go on. Either he wasn't really trying, or my head was smaller than that 2nd grade girls'. ;) I handed out balsa wood airplanes and the kids left, happy but irritated that the teachers wouldn't let them stay long enough to watch the T-6 fire up.
My first rider watched the end of the gradeschoolers thing, then Jon got him buckled in and we spent 40 minutes in the Six. He did the takeoff, climbed us up, did some maneuvering to get a feel for the plane, then had me turn us upside down a few times, tried a roll himself, and spent the rest of the time doing takeoffs and landings, which he said was fun and an adventure all in one. :) My next guy, I expected to be a "straight and level only" based on his personality, but I was wrong. We were only supposed to be up 20 minutes, but I had to pretty much make him go back. He was hooked pretty hard, also wanted to do some aerobatics, and ended with "I think this was a very bad idea." He now plans on going to get his tailwheel endorsement, getting some time in the Decathlon, then coming back to see me to do some training in the Six at a later date. He had that fevered glow in his eyes, so I'm guessing he may actually do it. ;)

I was going to go do some formation flying with Trey in the other T-6 after that, but alas, it didn't work out. But that's okay, it was a fun, busy day as it was, and at least the gas I burned was all business, man. ;) One of the guys tonight said "Boy, you have a really rough job, don't you." Some days, yes, yes I do...

Potpourri

More unpleasant weather just meant I got other productive things done. Kaylee and I went to Hobby Lobby where we picked up a birthday gift for this weekend and some stuff for her shadow box on the Alaskan Indians (Tlingits or something like that). See, I'm going to be quite busy from Friday morning through to Sunday evening, and she has a birthday party Saturday night, and needs to get stuff for her project to work on it as she can, so today was the perfect day for that. After all that fun shopping we went to Cone Palace to pick up their seasonal pumpkin soft serve. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. ;)

At basketball practice the kids always play a game at the end. They all line up on a line. Left is "land", right of the line is "sea", and "air" is just a jump straight up on the side you're already on. The coach will call out "Land!" and everyone has to jump to the left. Etc. If you jump the wrong way, jump up when you're supposed to stay put, etc., you're out. The first day Kaylee was out early. Yesterday she was in the last five girls. Today it was her and a 6th grader who were the last two standing out of some 30+ kids. Not bad! :)

I just got another request to pay for the funeral of a child with SMA. There have been a lot of those lately...four or five in the last couple of months. Something a little ironic is that the people requesting this of me are actually the head of FSMA chapters in the various areas of the country on behalf of their members. I got a thank you from one of the families that said "thank you for all the support, FSMA." I am *not* FSMA. But what am I going to say? "You're welcome, I'm so sorry you just had to bury your child, but I have nothing to do with that organization, and they like to take credit for everything other folks do? ". Of course not. ;) So I remind myself why I do what I do, and it has everything to do with helping families during some of the most difficult times of their lives and nothing to do with getting rich, famous, or thanked.

Today as I was driving Kaylee home from basketball practice, she said "They are reassigning us tomorrow with new seats. I just hope I get to sit next to a girl." Me: "Why, do boys have cooties now or something?" Kaylee: "NO, Mom, boys are just...Weird. You can't talk to them like normal people." Me: "snort!" She's right--until they grow up (and some never do), boys are highly strange and irritating creatures. ;)

To end, I saw this story today, and thought it was really sweet. For the recap for those of you who don't want to go to the link, it's a couple, 90 and 94 years old, married for 72 years, who were in a car accident. The hospital put them in beds next to each other in the ICU, where they held hands the entire time. The husband passed away, but his monitor was still showing a heart beat. The doctors said that's because they were holding hands and his wife's heartbeat was beating through him and registering on his monitor. Exactly one hour later, she passed away too. They always both said they needed to go first because they had to be there for the other. They both got what they wanted, surrounded by family, moving on in their 90s, holding hands, together...

Great Gray

Cold, gray, wind and rain, that was today. A lot of people are dragging along with the weather. I started a little slow this morning, but once I got going I got quite a bit done, including some mundane things like vacuuming. ;)

We've got some changes coming with our pilots' club. We're removing two C-172s and replacing them with one nicer 172. As Fall turns the corner towards Winter, we're trying to make some changes that will make it a bit easier to get through the season, and this is a positive change for us...

Kaylee's school nurse sent home a paper letting me know that their current records from previous schools just showed a month and year for all her vaccinations, but that they required month, day and year. (Even though no shots expire on a day, mind you.) I went looking, but I didn't have month, day and year, just month and year. She then sent another note. Then she called me. Then she sent me an email and called me again. "We MUST put the exact day in the system." They also wanted to put her into a national system, plug in all vaccinations so that all number of places could pull it up and access her medical history including allergies, vaccines, etc. Colleges, workplaces, schools, etc. I still had the right to opt out, so I said no. I or she will provide it to whomever actually needs it, as long as they let me. Anyway, so I finally get my hands on the full dates, and I email them back to the school nurse, who is lucky I didn't just make up the exact day because it's unnecessary and pointless. She emails me back and says "Great! If you can send a copy of Kaylee's official medical record to school, I will copy it and send it back home with her." NOW I've had enough. The school needed to know she was vaccinated. She was. That's all they need to know. They didn't ask for an official medical record on the application. They have no need of that. I said no. I told her I'd scan in the vaccination card that shows the same things I already sent her and email it to her, and that was it. Like most things in life, particularly unnecessary ones, the more they harass/push me about something like this, the less interested I am in cooperating. I don't care if it seems "harmless". No.

But we are looking forward to the weekend, which, weather permitting, should hold lots of good adventures. :)

Order

Kaylee's basketball camp after school seems to be going well. Other than the fact she ran into a wall and smashed her elbow pretty hard. She says she has more trouble trying to do "proper form" than just winging it, but she knows that she won't really get any better if she doesn't learn the right way. Every day she comes home from school and says she had an "excellent" day. I'm so glad. :)

Every day one of us picks up Kaylee at the bus drop-off. Something I noticed right away that I can't help but be amused by is the parking order. Even in something perfectly random, it's not random, because people will put it in order. I tend to park somewhere different each time, depending on when I get there and what's available, but most people park in the same place every time every day. Okay, I can understand that habit. But the one that cracks me up is the, pardon the term, "urinal rule". Just like there's a "man rule" that men shouldn't sidle up to another fellow at a line up of urinals, but should at least put one space in between, there is a "parking rule" too. These cars park one space away from each other, every time. Two cars just do not park next to each other. This one I feel too. I don't like pulling up cheek to cheek with someone else while we all sit there and stare straight ahead and pretend not to see what we're all doing, which is playing around with smart phones. (That's another sight---a line of minivans with moms on their phones until the bus arrives). However, every now and then, if it means I have to park too far away, I will straddle a line and pull in between two parked cars. I like to live dangerously. ;)

Monday

An hour of checkride prep, lunch, then out to Kokomo to fly over to Piedmont, Missouri again. I had some pretty stiff headwinds, and only made about 105-115 knots groundspeed all the way out, making it almost a 3 hour flight. It's an interesting little airport, surrounded by hills and woods, short-ish and narrow-ish, so you drop in over a hill to land, and when you're taking off, you'd better know what's in front of you as the terrain rises to meet you about as fast as you can climb. I did a few s-turns on take off because I can't see over my nose in that kind of climb, and I didn't want to be...mistaken...on what was out there. ;) My trip home was a whole lot faster-I was getting 145-157 knots groundspeed this time. I was alone, so I turned up the music, scooted my seat back a little, stretched out and relaxed. Had a little weather to go around, but not bad. It was supposed to be just rain, and I was just cutting through the edge of it--I was pretty much in the clear. And then I saw a bolt of lightning off to the north of me, and promptly scooted a little farther away. No need to be too close to that.

Kaylee had her first day of Basketball Camp after school today, and she loved it. I'm not sure who she is sometimes! Basketball?? Well, okay. :) She really did have fun fun with it, it's good exercise, learning a skill, and she's meeting a few new people too. So all in all, Kaylee's pleased with her new venture. It only lasts for five days after school, ending Friday, and then she wants to take a tennis camp after that. Will do. It's always good to have at least minimal knowledge of a variety of different topics, sports, subjects, etc.

On a more serious note, a friend send me a link to this article about parenting a child with a terminal diagnosis. It's a different disorder than SMA, but what she says is spot on, and something people probably don't think about...

End of Weekend

Steve had a student on a checkride today that wasn't able to go off for a couple of reasons including weather. I had NOTHING today. Purposefully. I'm doing laundry, dishes, you know, the typical house up-keep, and that's it. I did watch the Colts lose-again. :( Just one play different here or there and they'd have won about 3 of their last games. Instead they are 0 for 6, which is just ugly. Fans are departing the area rapidly, but I'm not that fickle. I don't just like a team because they are winning, I like a team because of the character of the players and/or coach, and hope they can get it together. They may not be able to play at a SuperBowl in their own city this year, but at least maybe they can retain some dignity and start winning again. They're close...

Tomorrow I have another trip to Missouri, which would be unremarkable except that I have no airplane. The Viking is gone to S. Carolina until Tuesday, and everything else is down for maintenance. EVERYTHING else except taildraggers and trainers. So I can take one of the 172s, which I'm not fond of with the terrain I will be over as well as having to pay too much for them, as my best option. So...today Nathan agreed to take his Sunday, the day he takes off for family, and come out to Kokomo and patch up the RG enough that I can safely take it on this one trip. Steve went out to Kokomo to help him get it accomplished. I hate it when I owe those guys, but I sure do appreciate the save. :)

I finally caught up on my pictures. Sort of. I have more coming to me from other people. That's the downside of not taking my own pictures-I may have to wait to get my hands on them, and I am not a patient person. ;) But for now I've put up a lot of the random photos, mostly flying photos, from the last month or so...

Saturday's Good Things

So Kaylee and her friend A, and their family and another friend went to go to the Haunted Barn, but when they arrived, it was "closed for the season". The season? The season IS Halloween! The family was then going to go to another Haunted House, but the next one was a bigger, scarier house, and Kaylee has enough sense of herself to know that it wouldn't be good for her, so she politely spoke up and let them know she didn't think she should go there. Thankfully they didn't mind, and took the kids out for ice cream and back home, and Kaylee ended up having a blast of a sleep-over with her new friend. They did fingernails, played "Dance Central", got up early and rode bikes after a big tasty breakfast, and just had a truly great time. I was really happy for her. :) When I went to pick her up, the mom said "I recognize you-didn't you go to Flipsters?" I was a little shocked, because 1) I haven't been there in well over a year, and 2) I never spoke to anyone there, I just read my book and watched Kaylee, and how she recognized me is beyond me. But it seems like a super nice family, and I think the girls are going to be good friends, and that's great. You don't have to have a ton of friends, but as long as you can at least have someone where you are, the world is a friendlier place. Kaylee is a lucky girl to have some very nice young ladies as friends in various places. :)

Today was a reunion with the 325th Fighter Group Checkertail Clan veterans and their families. It was a smaller group this year--last year they had 96 attendees and this year they only had 12 for various reasons. But 11 of them came up here to Nathan's hangar, and we had a really nice afternoon. Tre made some most excellent food, the Tummers came up, Jon came out, Chuck & AE for awhile, and everyone stood around and swapped stories and had a good time. The veterans and their families got in the Mustang, photos were taken, food was consumed, pictures were shared, and the organizer of the event was in tears multiple times throughout the afternoon. Originally I'd contacted her because something she set up had our (our? you like that? lol) Nathan's Mustang on it, and I was just contacting her to touch base. She then said she was doing a reunion, and we began planning over several months some ideas. I sent her links to things in Indy, hotels, events, etc., and agreed to set up a time for the veterans to come up to the hangar. It grew from there, and then sized back down as folks had to cancel due to age, illness, etc. It was really nice to have them there today, and I'm glad we were able to meet up with them and give them a good afternoon. :) Originally we had discussed giving just the vets rides in the T-6 if they were able to get into the plane safely and were healthy enough to do so, but whether they were or not became a moot point when the wind gusts started hitting 35 knots at a crosswind to the runway. Too rich for MY blood in a T-6, Nathan didn't seem all that interested in busting it out either, and it just would not have been enjoyable for anybody...no thanks.

As we were wrapping up, we had one more mission for the day. Nathan and I went in the Cheyenne out to Missouri to pick up a couple people and bring them back to Kokomo. It was a beautiful sunny day, and of course windier than heck. It took an hour and fifteen minutes to get there in the Cheyenne. It would have been about 3 hours in other planes thanks to the headwinds. We went up to 30,000' and cruised over, listened to the radio, and had a really nice flight there and back. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday. Reunion, uneventful and quick trip, etc.

We all hung out at the hangar for awhile before heading out to eat and coming home. It was a long and busy day, a good one, and one that seems to have left everyone happy...

Briefly

It was a breezy one. When the corn rows were bent over, I knew it had been a good decision to postpone the T-6 ride scheduled for today. It was a direct crosswind out of Glenndale, so my checkride prep student and I decided to wait for a nicer day too. With wind gusts up to 40 knots, it was more than we figured we needed to play with for the day.

I took Kaylee's suitcase to her today after school, and she went off with a new-ish school friend to go to the Haunted Barn then spend the night. She was so excited, and so was her friend, who seems very sweet. We parents coordinated a bit and the girls ran off without a care in the world. It's great to be a kid. :)

Since Kaylee was gone, Steve and I decided to go out to eat and have a "date". One most excellent meal later, it's time to get off the internet for the day and be ready for tomorrow, with lots going on. I like it. ;)

Kay

Kaylee is working on braiding hair. She had been working on her dolls, but she needed a live subject, so I sat on the living room floor while she worked on me. By the end of the evening she was getting it down pretty well, and I'm sitting here with two braids like Ellie Mae right now. ;)

Kaylee also has a sleepover with a new friend coming up here, so she's really looking forward to that. They are going to the Haunted Barn That Isn't That Scary, so I'm hoping Kaylee doesn't embarrass herself there. ;)

Gray clouds and rain precluded flying today, so I worked on other stuff instead, but at least I got a lot accomplished. I was pretty tired this morning, so Steve took Kaylee to school and I went back to bed. But I had to give her credit. I got her up, got her breakfast, and I went back to bed. A little later, Kaylee came into my room to snuggle up a little bit, and she whispered "Hey mama. I saw that today's lunch was beef stew. Ew. So I made myself a turkey and cheese sandwich, and packed some pudding and crackers and put it in my backpack to eat instead. No need to buy lunch just for the other two things they're serving and waste the stew." So at 6:30 a.m. my kid looked up lunch and packed her own without waking me up or complaining. I'M impressed. I know adults that don't take as good care of themselves as that. ;)

Trip Dialogue

Did somebody pray for me today?? Man, the trip I took today should not have gone nearly as well as it did. Since what I did today was take a long trip, I'm afraid that's pretty much what this post will be about, so you can skip it until the end, Mom. ;)

When I went to bed last night, the weather forecast wasn't looking too hot for either one of my destinations. Not so terrible I had to cancel, but not so pretty that I was all relaxed, either. My first stop in S. Carolina was IFR down to 500' overcast anywhere nearby within two states, meaning if it dipped down much below that, or if I had to circle to land for the ILS down there, I'd have to make it halfway home again to get better weather. But theoretically it should be doable. My second stop was calling for 70% chance of thunderstorms. That was going to de dicier, but you can't call it until you see it and so far radar was okay. So I was up at 4:20 a.m. to get ready, and I pull up the weather first thing, of course, and now the forecast is calling for 300 overcast and a mile where I'm going. Ouch. I don't have much margin there. But I notice that at 4:30 a.m. it's actually MVFR there, not the IFR it was supposed to be. But every TAF for everywhere around is calling for the same low ceilings and visibilities, which means it's going to drop down, because what are the odds they're ALL wrong? So I prepare, get ready, leave the house early, and get to the airport by 5:30 a.m. to get the plane, charts, everything ready, I look over my one available approach down there, the missed approach procedures, come up with a Plan B in case I can't get in, pull the plane out, and my trusty passenger/student and I take off right around 6 a.m. into the dark.

We get to do some night IFR for awhile, which gives him a really good workout. ;) Actually, me too. There's nothing like somebody else getting vertigo and wrestling the plane a little in the dark in the clouds to give YOU vertigo too, which can be tricky. :) As the sun was coming up, we were coming up on the mountains, and we broke out of the clouds right about then. What a view. I took about 60 pictures today, which I'll just put up on my website for anyone who enjoys that kind of thing. As we travel along, of course I am double checking the hand-held GPS for weather updates for our destination. It's not only staying reasonable, it's actually getting better. By the time we actually get there, the clouds are at about 3000' and we can just shoot a visual approach and land, no sweat. The clouds were supposed to be down and scuddy from about 1 a.m. until about 10 a.m., then get better. Instead they stayed fine, getting better even, from 4 a.m. until we landed at 9 a.m. Within ten minutes of us landing, the field went IFR. Not as low as they forecasted, but still.

We were on the ground about two hours, then it was time to depart for St. Louis. Destination #2. I was watching the weather, and it wasn't looking too good. I again came up with a Plan B, and C, actually, because it looked like a line of storms and I were going to meet up at the same place at the same time,and we didn't want that. But with a 3-hour flight, you never really know for sure what will go down, and away we went. The mountains were just gorgeous by the way. The Fall leaves were all in full color down there, the sun was hitting them nicely, and I just sat there and snapped photos as we went over. Gorgeous. A little creepy, because there were no valleys with roads, no places to land, and nowhere good to go if the engine pooped, but still beautiful. As we got closer to St. Louis, the controllers suddenly told us that their radar had failed east of St. Louis, and they were re-routing everybody onto existing airways. So I got to do it the old fashioned way with two VORs to identify intersections and airways. The problem was, the airway put us smack into the middle of the line of ugly that I was looking at on my nexrad. I told the controllers that I may be unable due to weather, and he said "Well, let us know if you have to deviate and we'll try to figure something out, but we can't see you on radar." I stayed on the course, and saw the weather ahead, but...it didn't really look as bad as nexrad said it was. So I kept going on the course. I had to go around a couple of small things that did not look attractive at all, but other than that I kept on going, picking my path with my eyes over the nexrad, and barely even got into any rain, and almost no turbulence. Went IMC, which I didn't like because I couldn't see what was around, but it was smooth and flat, not built up and ugly, and it was light, and I could occasionally see blue above. It was fine. Broke out the other side, and landed in St. Louis just fine. Pulled up the radar at St. Louis there, and yep, it still looked ugly on radar. To go around it on my way home would take me pretty far out of my way, so I decided to drop down even lower, to 5000', to hopefully get out of the clouds, and go through again on the way home and see what I could see. If it wasn't good, I'd deviate south and go around. So I went through, and ended up staying pretty much VFR the entire time, barely getting any light rain. What was there was all above me, and what was above me was starting to build up. When I broke out the other side again (it wasn't very wide), I turned around and looked back, and thought, NOW if I was coming from this way, I'd probably go around. It was starting to get that dark, ominous look your instincts warn you away from. But when and where I went, it was smooth, clear, VFR, and just a hint of occasional light rain. It shouldn't have been that easy, either way. I also ended up having light winds to tailwinds pretty much every way I went, so that I never ended up slower than about 143 knots, which is just impressive, and also never happens. Like I said, nothing about this trip was as hard as it should have been. So I said, thank you, Lord. Maybe getting up that early was punishment enough for once. ;)

So, 8.3 hours of flight time, and 12 hours from driving into Kokomo at 5:30 a.m. and leaving Kokomo at 5:3 p.m. later, after night IFR, day IFR, pretty VFR, mountain crossings, weather avoidance, several plans and lots of overall busyness, the mission is done.

And I'm tired.

Today while I was gone, I grinned when I got a message from Facebook that I had a wall post that said "Jump Back!!" With those two words, Stephanie and I had an entire conversation without any other words. She said her husband wondered if I'd know what she was talking about. Of course I did! So my post back was "So how do you feel about this remake?" Not surprisingly, we feel the same. Suspicious, slightly negative because it's not the original, but we will watch it anyway because...because it's Footloose, man. ;) Now I see they are remaking "Red Dawn", too. And "Three Muskateers" for the 42nd time. Man! I suppose "Grease" is next...

Did I mention I'm tired? Time to put up pictures, then over and out. ;)

Cracking Up

All of our trip airplanes are down. The RG has a cracked-through cowling, the 180 is waiting on parts, and the Toga is still down. The Viking is still up, but most club members can't use it, so that doesn't help anyone but me and two others, really. I am, however, grateful that it's up, because tomorrow morning I'll be getting up at 4:30 a.m. to head to South Carolina, then later that day over to St. Louis, then tomorrow evening heading home. Without the Viking this wouldn't be possible. Unfortunately the weather doesn't look the nicest--I'll have fairly low IFR at my morning destination, and 70% chance of thunderstorms at my afternoon destination. So we'll have to see.

It's funny--Jon was talking about doing something with the Mustang, charging up something, installing something, I don't know, doesn't matter. Being a red-blooded American pilot, my next thought went to flying the airplane. The smooth handling on taxi/turns, the smell/sound of the engine when it fires up, that power on take off that shoves you forward and makes your ears squeal...and now, of course, I'm smirking to myself, because, well, the airplane has that effect on me. And that led me to thinking about how many people have told me that it's not as difficult to fly as the T-6. Dudley, Duane, Jim, Nathan, Doug, (Budd in an article). Now I'm not smirking any more. I'm thinking, that can't be totally accurate, because it's twice as fast and three times as powerful, and you've got to be more ahead of it or it'll bite you faster. But in the air, I know it's just another airplane, within a certain normal operating envelope. Smooth, powerful, responsive, fun. I was lucky enough to be Autopilot Laura for enough hours to know that. :) On takeoff and landing it's purportedly more stable than the Six, with wider gear and not as far aft of a CG. But now I've gone from smirking to...not so smirking. So, moving on. Thoughts of Mustangs and T-6s fade to the background as I go flying and doing other things today, getting in some checkride prep with one student, flying with another and sending them off on their second ever solo, etc. (It has been a fantastic two weeks for getting people finished up on stuff! Thank you mother nature!) When I get home, Justin had sent me a link to the new EAA sport magazine article, all about the T-6. I eagerly open it up, smiling at the pretty pictures of one of my favorite airplanes, and the first thing I see in a big black bolded box off on its own is the words "Pilots with experience in many warbirds, however, say the T-6 is more demanding of a pilot than most fighters and bombers designed later. Sean said it's easier to check out in a P-51, for example, than the T-6, particularly for takeoffs and landings."

Aw, just shuddup already...

;)

Guess I'd better eat dinner, work on billing, and get my stuff ready to wake up at 4:30 a.m. for the Next Great Adventure in the Super Viking; may she stay strong for one more flight as our last trip plane standing right now. :)

Meanderings

I've enjoyed watching the video we got of the 89-year-old veteran I flew with on Saturday. He doesn't have many teeth, and he's so little back there, but you can still catch him smiling off and on, taking pictures, and having a lot of fun, even if he's just flying around sedately, looking around. When we got back on the ground, he gave his family the victory hand sign, and after I shut down you can hear him say "Did I do okay?" and me yelling back at him "You did great!" This was the first actual full video we've gotten of any of the rides. I wouldn't watch the whole thing, as it's half an hour of flying around and will probably only be interesting to him and his family as a memory, but you can see him back there a bit. Fun. :)

Kaylee has been invited to attend a haunted barn with a new school friend. Originally I told her probably not. She has a very vivid imagination and a lot of the "haunted houses" out there are way over the top on gory, scary, gruesome, etc., and the last thing she needs is an eye full of chainsaw wielding monsters popping up in her face. So I asked which place they were going to, and the dad of the other young lady said this was a very sedate haunted barn at a family-friendly farm, they tell a scary story around a campfire and then take the kids through a barn, people can't get close to them, even little kids can go through, etc. So it looks like Kaylee will get to hit a haunted barn this weekend. I went to a haunted warehouse once. The crew weren't allowed to touch you, but they could get right up in your face, and one segment of this warehouse had you walking in a pitch black narrow maze indoors with high walls touching your shoulders on both sides and stuff popping at you where you were trapped like a rat in the maze in the darkness. Anybody who even halfway knows anything about me knows how well I enjoyed that.

There's a group of ladies that I've known online since Kaylee was...born, I think? They've all been together since pregnancy, and all the kids are the same age. As they've grown up, the group has been there to discuss all the issues that each is going through, from teething and illnesses to school, friendships, handling divorces with the kids, nutrition, allergies, just about any issue you can have with a kiddo. Lately the issues have gotten a lot harder, and I can think of five of the kids off the one group who are dealing with depression or mental breakdowns severe enough that they have been taken to counselors, to emergency rooms or even admitted to hospitals, many of whom are on medication, have threatened suicide, or admitted to suicidal thoughts. That is some rough stuff and I can only imagine how scary that must be as a parent. Then I think back to me at 10, 11, 12 years old, and I think...kids I knew then aren't much different than kids today, there's just a lot more public focus on mental health issues, and hopefully some of the kids who need it are getting more help these days than they used to. I also find myself wondering something very politically incorrect. How many kids out there (not talking about the ones on the group I know) learn that all they have to do is act depressed or use the "s" word and end up with all sorts of people tiptoeing around them, providing them special services, getting them out of school, and having all sorts of attention, and does that make them want to get better? I don't know...I'm just grateful not to have had this issue to deal with. :(

On the good news front, a man who has been working on his Private Pilot license for years now, for a couple hundred flight hours, passed his checkride. The examiner said his landings were "above average". I'm so happy for him. To say this didn't come easy for him is the understatement of the decade. To say this didn't come easy for me is another understatement. He earned this one, he earned it through hours and hours and dollars and sweat and perseverance beyond anybody else I've seen who struggled. I am so...relieved. The crazy thing is, I was busy all day Saturday, so I wasn't able to be there for his checkride. After his ride, he left, as did the examiner. I called his house and left a message, and he never got back to me. Two days went by, and two more phone calls from me, and I still didn't have a clue whether he'd passed or not, and that's not cool, man. Don't do that to your instructors, folks! I called the examiner even, and I just now got word that it was a pass. Whew and hallelujah. And that makes for a good Monday. Even if I have to work (really bad) on billing. :)

Off

Today's plan was to fly to the Noblesville fly-in. Didn't make it. We both needed one day, just one, where we didn't end up at the airport, but stayed home and took care of some stuff here and relaxed. I enjoy spending Saturdays at the airport even if I'm working all day, like yesterday, but sometimes you just need a day at home, too. This is our day.

I watched the Colts lose-again-this time losing from a 17 point lead. Ugh. Now if only the Patriots would lose too, I'd be a little happier. Not much, but a little.

Kaylee has decided to join up and do a Basketball camp through her school. There was a cheerleading one that she decided not to do, so I am still blinking in surprise that she's interested in a basketball one. I can't imagine her liking it all that well, but hey, she surprises me now and then. :) The exercise and learning new skills are always good...

Saturday Work Day

Home and Sleepy!

Started off the morning with a T-6 ride. As we were getting in, he said "You're not going to scare me, are you?" I said no, that wasn't my plan. That's where I may have a bit of an undeserved reputation--I like to go up and have fun and do things myself, but I am always careful not to traumatize anybody else in an airplane. :) We went up and had a nice flight, and as I was shutting down, Ride Two for the day was just arriving. This was an 89 year old WWII veteran. He was Army, and his birthday was two weeks ago, and this was his present. He couldn't hear well at all, but he was in excellent shape for being 89 years old, and he got in the back just about as well as people half his age. We'd arranged hand and plane signals ahead of time on the ground, and I gave him the plane up in the air, and he spent the next half hour flying us around looking at the countryside. I'd asked him ahead of time if he would like to go upside down. He hesitated, said he'd kind of like to, but he has enough problems and he probably should stay right side up. Then he grinned at me and said "But if you want to, you know, go up and down and around a little, that would be fine. Just keep me right side up." No problem. ;) I kept it nice and gentle. After we were back on the ground, he said that was the best birthday present he'd had in years, that he'd had a wonderful time, and that his daughter (in another state) wouldn't believe what he did today. He also hugged me and told me I was "quite capable", which I took as a nice compliment...

I took off the flightsuit, and next up was two Discovery Flights in the C-172. This was a father/son combo, and they both wanted 20 minutes up front flying, so I took off with the son up front first doing the flying with dad in the back, and we went over his house, his school, and his friend's house before coming back in to land, where I shut down and put dad up front to fly. He took us up over Grissom, looking at the cargo planes on the ramp down there, and just around for a bit. They both had a great time, enjoyed the flying, and did well. The son had flown a few flights in the Cub with the Flying Squirrels, and he said the 172 was way better than the Cub. It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? :)

Next up I had a student on a first official solo cross-country flight. Got her fueled up, signed off and on her way with instructions to text me upon arrival at destination and when back home. From there on out it was time to relax. The kids played, I half-napped, Nathan worked on the plane, Steve piddled around, and finally around 7 pm we all went to Applebees for dinner. The student found the destination and home in one piece, all the four rides I gave today went very well, and all in all I'd have to say it was a satisfying day...

End of Week...

Sort of. As usual, Saturdays aren't really a day off, other than from Kaylee's school. Tomorrow I have a guy on a checkride that I am really, really, really, really (really) hoping passes. Really. I've also got two T-6 rides to give, two Discovery Flights to give, and someone to send off on their first official solo cross-country. That ought to keep me busy on a Saturday.

No flights today somehow. I was supposed to work on accounting, but you know what, I didn't get real far. *sigh*

Today a little girl named Aleena Hope died. She was 7 years old, SMA 1, she was doing fine and passed away unexpectedly. And the world keeps turning...for most of us. Her parents are in shock. I know it's hard now, but I know it will be harder later.

Kaylee had a fantastic day at school. She enjoys Fridays. They get extra recess if they've behaved all week (she had), they get to go shopping and spend the points they earned with their reading program, and they get to pick out more books to bring home from the local library. She was very bouncy when she got to the Jeep today. I haven't asked her about the "friend" situation in the last few days, but she seems to be doing just fine. :)

Sam had fixed my helmet for me--apparently several wires were broken or loose, and he got them back in one piece for me. I'll have to be extra careful with the helmet--it's really easy to get that cord taut when you're getting in or out or buckling up because of how it goes in there and how short it is. Without Sam I would be in a world of trouble, because I'd have to ship it back to California and wait for them to fix it at who knows what cost. So I really appreciate the time he spent fixing it for me... The last few days as I've been riding around in the right seat while other people flew, I was looking at the sun hitting the changing trees, and I kept thinking "I need to bring a camera up here and do some flying and take some pictures." So this afternoon I did. When your helmet was fixed and nobody else can fit it on their head to make sure it's really fixed, and you have two T-6 flights tomorrow where you'd like to use it, and when it's Fall, and when the sun is getting low, and when you've got that tight, icky feeling in your chest, then it's a good time to take up the T-6 and a camera and make sure your helmet is working and that the airplane is in good shape for tomorrow. I didn't take any great shots because I brought my big camera, with its new battery pack, which I was also testing out, and it's not as easy as you'd think to fly that plane and take pics with that camera at the same time, with nowhere to put the camera but around my neck. I did get a few though. I also made sure to flip upside down a couple of times and say hello to Indian Hills, for which Jim came on the radio and thanked me for clearing the deer off his runway. Just a public service; I was thinking about landing, but there were just too many critters out there just before sunset...

I felt better after that flight. I always do.

Flying Around and About

Sorry Mom, it's all flying. ;)

It was a gorgeous Fall day, and I love this weather, love the light and the changing colors. I had someone from 9-11, working on checkride prep for a private pilot checkride this weekend. We did emergencies, slips, navigation, diversion, that kind of stuff. After we landed, Chuck's first flight instructor had stopped by to get tailwheel current again, so we went up in the Citabria. How neat is that, to have your flight instructor from what, 1968-1972 somewhere in there come back years later and fly your plane? :) Chuck fortunately brought me a burger back for lunch, because after we were done flying, my 1-3 flight was there and ready to go, and we went up and did some hood work, VOR tracking, and unusual attitudes. I was supposed to then go to Kokomo and fly the RG over to Muncie for a lesson, but the RG ended up down for maintenance, so instead I did the errand run, picked up the kiddo, did some house stuff, and got ready for my night flight. Yep, still another flight today. Told you it was all flying. ;) Tonight after sunset I took off in the 172 and went to Shelbyville with a student, and we did a little GPS tracking, a little VOR tracking, a little hood work, enjoyed the Indianapolis city lights as we went by, and killed off all the rest of that person's night requirements towards their certificate. While this weather has been just stunning, everyone is cramming in everything they can get. Folks want to get their licenses done before winter hits. I've got one going on their ride Saturday, and two more that are just finishing up their requirements and getting ready to hit checkride prep to hopefully be done this month. My schedule is going to be a lot more open once they all pass, too, which could be good or bad. :)

No news on the Kaylee front. She's doing fine, had a good day at school, had fun on the bus on the way home, and said today "Math is my favorite subject right now." Okay, that's a good subject to like, I'd say...

Life

I got to solo a student today. He hadn't flown in almost a month, and still came out and did well enough that I had him drop me off and go forth and aviate on his own. He's worked a long time for it, so I was pretty happy for him. :)

Today I went around and found birthstone rings for Kaylee and me. She had bought us each one with her own money at the Ko-Ko-Mah encampment, for $1.50 each, and as you can imagine, they didn't last long or well. The gold coloring wore off the first day, and they were turning our fingers green and brown, but we didn't care. I wore mine at the nice banquet dinners in Oklahoma, and I told Kaylee that, and she told me that she was impressed that I would wear a ring that turned my finger green to a "fancy" thing. I tried to tell her that I doubted there was any one there who wouldn't understand someone wearing a gift their daughter gave them, but she didn't think a lot of moms would do it. I think they would. :) Anyway, my ring broke, so we decided to get rings that would be a little more durable. Today I surprised her with them along with a small personal speech, because a little formality means a lot to her, and we are both sporting our new rings. :)

Kaylee and I went to the library today too, and she picked out another 7 books to dig into. This time she's got a book on a teen with an eating disorder. I'm sort of hesitant on her reading it, for a couple of reasons, including the amount of "adult" themes that have been coming up lately, but she is very good about talking things out with me right now. Whew...

Below are a couple photos from my trip home from Cape Girardeau last night:

Minefield

I think my travels caught up to me, as I didn't want to get up this morning. I flew this morning with a checkride prep fellow, and it was a beautiful, smooth, Fall morning. Left there and went to Kokomo where I took the RG over to Muncie to pick up lunch and Nathan, who was coming over in the Cheyenne. I took off first, and I thought I was going to make it, but when I was on a 7 mile final I heard the Cheyenne call in over the interstate, which meant he was only about 3 miles behind me. He was about to eat me up. Tower inexplicably still had me land first, so I drove it as fast as I could towards the runway while he did a 360, I hung everything out at the very end, slipped it and put it down and got off on the first taxiway in time for him to come in behind me. Tower thanked me for getting off on that taxiway, and I half wanted to joke about how it was for my own self-preservation against getting a buzz job by a very large turboprop. ;)

When I got back from Muncie with our lunch and Nathan, Ernie wasn't too far behind, arriving in the C-150. We had a cold burger for him while the pit crew zipped into action. ;)

For the first time today, I drove to Kaylee's school to pick her up in person. She's been riding the bus since the beginning, but I was going to register for an online report card option, so I went at a time I could just pick her up while I was there, for something different. I go in there and they want to know if I'm a "car parker" or a "car walker". Uhhh. I dunno. So I ask. A car walker, you park in the parking lot and you walk up to the doors where all the kids come out, grab yours, and leave. If you're a car parker, you don't park at all, you drive through a line of cars and your child gets in and you drive away. Okay. So I was a car walker today. :)

Kaylee's had a bit of an issue on the bus and at her school. There are three 5th grade girls including her who had been friends. You know how well 3 works out, right? Somebody gets left out. Kaylee originally brought in the other girl. Then the other two girls seemed to be kicking Kaylee out altogether, in a sort of mean way. She's been very mature about the whole thing. In fact, she's been...tough. So much so that I talked to her about how it's important to not chase after someone who doesn't want you around, but that it's also important to work at or fight for a relationship sometimes too. That line is hard for adults, let alone kids, but I guess you have to start somewhere, right? So today we told her if she'd like to invite one of the girls out to play at the airport with us, she could. The girl accepted and came out, and the two of them had a great time, one-on-one.

I'm pretty proud of Kaylee. She's handled a few difficult things here lately with a great deal of equanimity. She's getting to have a pretty good head on her shoulders, I think. :) The other day she was with a friend, and the friend was talking about how she had a "boyfriend" who was super nice, but that Kaylee had told her she had decided to wait on the boyfriend stuff. I'm just grateful that Kaylee has the ability to just say "nah, I'm not ready for that" and not be bothered that her friend is going somewhere she isn't. Kaylee also got in a little trouble at school for arguing with a supervisor at recess, who ended up saying something that neither Steve nor I appreciated, and that hurt Kaylee's feelings a little. Today a friend told Kaylee that she should let her Mom & Dad tell on the supervisor and get her in trouble because she was a mean lady. Kaylee, not knowing she was overheard, said "I disagree. I didn't want my parents to get her in trouble. I don't think she's really mean." You know how easy it would be as a kid to say to another sympathizing kid "Yeah! Mean ole lady yelled at me!" But she didn't. And she doesn't know anybody else heard that. And that made me proud of who she is becoming. (Not that she's perfect, trust me, and note I have no doubt that she did argue with the supervisor in the first place.) ;) But she's learning, and trying, and growing. :)

While Kaylee and her friend played today, Ernie and I flew back to Missouri in the RG. I had a nice sunset/night flight home, and now it's late and I'm tired and I'm going to bed because I can't think of a graceful way to end and I'm out of steam. ;)

Hope for the Future

Kaylee Skyped her cousin Morgan for the first time the other night, and thought that was pretty cool. We finally got it all figured out, sound and video and all, and Kaylee got to see her college dorm, meet some roommates, participate in baking cookies, and all manner of fun things. :)

There's also an issue with a couple girls who were her friends, one of whom she'd included when the girl didn't have anyone to sit with, and her bus ride. Let's just say she is handling the disappointment and betrayal with a lot more grace than I'M feeling about it. This parenting stuff is tough. I am not happy. Nor is Steve. But we're letting her handle it, and she's doing just fine--like I said, better than we are, pretty much. I know kids can't learn to handle situations without being allowed to handle the situations, but man...this stuff stinks. *sigh* She's got a good head on her shoulders, when she asks for advice we give it, and when she seems to be floundering a little we offer some encouragement and advice, but otherwise she's handling it, and I'm proud of her. She's doing better than I did as a kid...I just wish she didn't have to, that's all.

One of my students is a PhD, works with the NFL, used to work with the government a lot, dealing with physiology, the brain, all sorts of fascinating things. We were talking about memory today, and I told her how I missed the memory I used to have. She told me that there are studies that show (and a friend of hers that lived it) that the brain can take up to 10 years to fully recover from trauma, whether it be physical such as a car accident, or emotional, such as intense emotional stress/grief/etc. She then told me that it's possible to recover some memory function, if I'd had what I said I had (which I did and I know people who can verify it lol), and she gave me a few things to do to help with that. She suggested that the whole pregnancy/mom thing, which they call "mommy brain" for good reason is real, and coupled with the SMA experience among a few others, that it's not surprising that the memory/brain took a big hit, but that you can recover some of it. I told her I'd expected it to take a couple years, but figured after this long I was just out of luck, getting older and all. She said no, not necessarily. I decided I liked having a little hope, and maybe I'll see if I can get my brain back to any semblance of what it used to be able to do. If not, at least I'm not any worse off. ;)

Tired...and sleep is an important prerequisite for proper brain function, you know. ;)

From OKK to OK

I know you've all been waiting with bated breath to see what I've done these last four days of silence, like how many times I made it to the Post Office or something... :)

Wednesday was a whirlwind day. I spent the whole day running around and getting ready to be gone. I hadn't finished packing, I just had a lot of loose ends to tie up, and fortunately we weren't going to leave until 3, so I had exactly enough time to get most of it done and show up at the airport on time. It had also occurred to me that morning that the schedule of events had listed a banquet each evening, and that probably didn't mean Glenndale shirts. This posed me a bit of a problem. Originally I hadn't worried too much about apparel because I wasn't going to be doing the "alternate" (aka ladies) events of shopping, art deco shows, museum tours, etc., I was going to be touring maintenance and parts shops, listening to guest speakers on airplane stuff, etc. Therefore, airplane apparel should work just fine. I had forgotten the evenings. So at the last possible moment I threw in some nicer shoes and got a couple of new dress shirts and jeans and some accessories and decided that would have to do.

It was cloudy and yucky and cold in Kokomo, so it was nice to take off and bust above it all and fly over at 36,000' on top of all the clouds and soak up some sun. The Cheyenne is a marvelous time machine for that. :) We landed in sunshine and clear blue skies and were met by a couple of other Aerostar pilots and their wives and waited for a large van to take us to the hotel to check in and register with the convention. I was given a new umbrella, a schedule of events and a name tag to wear for the time I was there, and welcomed to the AOA (Aerostar Owners Association) Convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Each night was a banquet/dinner, sometimes with guest speakers like the gentleman who flew his Aerostar all around the world, once with a silent auction, slideshow presentation of a group Aerostar Alaskan flight/trip they did, raffle give-aways a couple of nights, etc. Each morning they offered breakfast before I got up ;) from 7-8 a.m. or so, and then the vans would pick us all up and disperse us to where we needed to go. There were three vans, each van seated 12 people, and most vans were full to the limit. First the three vans took all the men (and me) to their activities, then came back and shuttled all the women to their activities an hour later. There was a constant dance going on of transportation, and they honestly did a really good job of keeping it all smooth.

Day One (full day, or Day Two that we were there), we ended up going to seven different shops, toured seven facilities, many of which we actually purchased services or parts online in the past, had lunch at a club house at the Tulsa International Airport (neat facility--we need one like that), where there was actually a Foland Gnat on the ramp, like the one Nathan used to have only painted differently. I woke up that morning with a bad headache and stomach ache, and actually was sick several times that morning--bouncing around in the van with all the bobbing and weaving in it made a sick girl sicker, but fortunately I could wait until I got to one of these places' restrooms and not make a spectacle of myself. *sigh* I did my best to ignore it until right before lunch, at which point I wasn't sure I was going to make it without having to lie down in the van or something, but I didn't want to miss any of the stops. So finally at one of the stops I asked a secretary there if she had any Aleve, she did, I took it, and an hour later I was finally through with the whole throwing up/head pounding thing and on to enjoying the rest of the stops much more. Even sick I was listening, picking up on info, checking stuff out. It was good stuff. Props, engine casings, factory production lines, hoses, just about everything you can imagine. How it works, how it's built, how the company works. Right there on one street you could basically take an engine, drop it off a part at a time one shop at a time down this road, and come back a week later and pick it up completely fixed up/redone.

Day Two everyone loaded up in various Aerostars (and one Cheyenne) and flew over to Ada, Oklahoma. This was another pretty interesting day. We went to visit "Tornado Alley", the home of GAMI. The tour of this place took all day, and was filled with some pretty cool inventions and advancements. They divided us into two groups, and one group got a tour of their facilities and upcoming ideas while the other group got to go to a facility where they were running a test engine set up with tons of computers and monitoring systems, where they were running their engine on a new fuel they have been working with...no lead. They showed us how they would test the fuels, lean it out until the engine would knock/detonate, monitor the differences between the fuels and how the engine handled it, etc. They've come up with a product that, if they can get it past the FAA and red tape, which they claim so far is looking good, will fit seamlessly in place of 100LL fuel. It can be mixed with existing 100LL with no issues, so if they switch over, FBOs will be able to just top off their existing tanks with it. You can fly airplanes with a mix of the fuel and it won't know the difference. It is produced by components all in the US and easily obtained, and can be produced just like 100LL in the same facilities for not much more if any more than existing fuel. They have been flying on it for months now in certain airplanes, with no issues on engines, parts, tanks, etc. It sounds really promising for an alternative to 100LL, a lot more promising than Swift Fuel, which is made up of a certain chemical they can only get in China, which would make the cost of the fuel upwards of $10/gallon, isn't compatible with existing fuel, has to be produced differently, and isn't in-country. Anyway, these guys are working with the FAA on getting everything tested, lined up and in order, and we'll just have to see how it goes, but it sure looks like they have a viable product, and all their testing thus far has been great. It's really nice to see the innovations this place has been working on--not just the fuel--and know that folks out there really are working on getting away from 1950s technology in General Aviation. They gave us challenge coins and hats, a delicious dinner, then a PowerPoint presentation before we all flew back to Tulsa.

That evening we went to the Tulsa Air and Space Museum after it was closed for regular hours. We had a guest speaker, Dr. Silberman, an FAA employee in charge of airmen medical certification, who is retiring and will be volunteering with AOPA to help airmen get medically certified to fly. It was "Mexican" night, and they had margaritas, nachos, fajitas, all manner of foods catered in. The museum was small but well done, with a lot of local flavor and history in it.

Day Three was Seminar Day. We got in the vans at 8:30 a.m. and went out to the airport where we had one speaker after the other present on Aerostar topics from aviation insurance to turbines, oil leaks causes and cures, fuel pumps, new diesel engines that are coming out that would be perfect for the Aerostar, how they work, questions and answer on some maintenance and handling issues, a guy who has created a new material with which he has made o-rings and seals for gear and such. I had stayed awake too late the night before and I was having a seriously hard time staying awake and alert during this. 8:30 on a Saturday morning is a tough time for me to pay attention to insurance and maintenance and engines and parts, but I did my best and I actually did pick up on most of it. We broke for a quick boxed lunch right there, and kept going until something like 4 pm. On little metal chairs. My butt was NUMB. ;)

When we were done, they handed out voting ballots and we went around and looked at every Aerostar on the field (something like 20 of them), judged them, and voted for "Queen of the Fleet", first second and third place. We decided that it was a good thing Gumby wasn't there after all. Poor Gumby has a great airframe, but she, uh, wouldn't have been the prettiest girl at the ball. ;)

That evening was the final banquet. It was supposed to start at 6 p.m. I had on dress boots with heels, and an hour later we were all still standing outside the ball room mingling and chatting on our feet. Now I can sit in those boots, or walk around a little, but I can not stand in them and walk around for over an hour without rest. My feet were already hurting and the night was young. So I walked back to the elevator, kicked them off, went up to my room, changed into my black flats, and came back down with hardly a person noticing. Much better. ;) However, when we got in the room, Nathan was talking with one of the organizers, and when we went to sit down, there were no empty chairs. All the tables were full. The organizer's wife said she must have miscounted people, and sent the hotel employees out to get two more chairs, and said we'd have to scoot some people over at a table and join them. In the meantime, two of us were left standing in the front of the room, the only two people standing there in a room full of folks sitting there. No, that's not awkward in the least. ;) They did let our table eat first as a "sorry".

The food this whole time was really impressive. Lunches were large, fresh and tasty, even the sandwiches. Other than the first "brats" night, each evening the dinner table was formal, with three glasses, three forks, two knives, two spoons, over the plate, etc. I kind of grinned to myself thinking of Kaylee sitting there trying to figure out which utensil to use where, and decided perhaps I'd better show her again just in case. You may not end up at a formal table all that often, but whenever you do, you want to know what to do with it. Oh, man, that night we had a chocolate dessert that should be illegal. That was wicked good, and I can't even really describe it, but I got a to-go box and took it back to my room and munched on it a little here and there. I did not overly care that I was the only person at my table who took it back to their room with them. They could deal with it.

I am used to being the only female in an aviation group activity. I didn't even really think about it other than when a couple folks brought it up, I'd look around, be like "oh, yeah", then go back to listening to whatever aviation thing was going on. One guy asked me if I was understanding/getting anything out of all the seminar stuff. Even if I wasn't, which I was, I wouldn't have admitted that for any amount of money. ;) What WAS different though was transitioning a little in the evening to "girl" mode. I'd spend the day with the guys, which most of the ladies found a little perplexing, and then I'd come back and dress up a little bit and talk to the other ladies, because it was a time where that's what was just done. One lady told me that next time I ought to skip out on one of the guy airplane days and come shopping with them, and I appreciated the invitation, but talking shopping instead of airplanes is not on my list of things to do anytime soon. :) People there were nicer than I expected, and many of them did their best to make a new person feel at home. Tulsa was a very aviation friendly area, with friendly people. It's a nice city.

The flight home was clear and smooth, and once home it was time to put away stuff, do some laundry, eat, catch up on here and emails and photos and get ready for the upcoming week... I am now more educated than I was before I left. My brain still hurts to prove it. ;)