A little (lot of) wind, a little (fair amount) of snow, a little (light) ice, and a whole LOT of cold. My face went numb just pulling the plane out in the gusty icy winds when the sun was out this afternoon. It was 60 degrees in Mississippi. I kind of hate coming back from that. We shot an approach back into Kokomo, and it was lower than expected. The loose snow on the ground plus the snow in the air reduced the visibilities quickly, and being night you couldn't really see the pockets of clouds. What was supposed to be VFR ended up going down to a mile and 700' while we were in the middle of the approach, which at the time he was just doing for the practice. We had the airport in sight, were under the clouds, visibilities were fine, did the approach anyway, and poof, we were in it and having to actually do it. The winds were 19 gusting to 31 knots, with a bit of crosswind, and blowing snow all over, and D said "Good grief, this is getting ridiculous" as we were coming down final, which made me laugh. All good practice, on why not to cancel an IFR clearance too soon, on shooting an ILS with a big crosswind, on a night circle to land approach, on all sorts of stuff... Putting the plane away, I don't know what the wind chill was, but it was UGLY out there. Ugly. "I don't want to play any more" kind of ugly. This will be the last trip to MS for a couple of weeks, so that'll give me some time to catch up on a few things too.
When I got home tonight around 11:30 pm, Kaylee had left me a care package on my pillow, of some chocolates. I thought that was sweet. :) A lot of schools are already on a 2-hour delay because of the wind chills for tomorrow. So far Kaylee's school is not listed as one on a delay, but I hope they do, because I could use the sleep-in myself. ;)
A problem with getting home from a flight at 11:30 pm, particularly a flight where you had to really pay attention and monitor and work at it a bit, is that you're too wired up to get to sleep when you need to. So it's 1:40 a.m. and I'm still not tired. But I have to be up in 4.5 hours to get Kaylee ready for school, and I'm gonna feel it then...
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Slug
It's been a bit of a sluggy week. I've been tired, and haven't kept up on stuff. So I decided to give myself a slug week, then get back to it. February is the longest month of the year, with the gray and the weather and the yuck, and here it comes. January went pretty well, but rounding the corner towards February it's trying to drag me down, man. ;)
Kaylee, I woke her up for school, and she wouldn't eat much, was a little sluggish. I put her back to bed, woke her up at 10:30, and she was just fine. She ate two breakfasts and then wanted lunch at 11:30. Making up for lost time, apparently. So I took her back to school after lunch, and she was fine there and has been fine since. I seriously have no idea...
We just switched over from ForeFlight to Garmin Pilot for a variety of reasons. It's not as user friendly or intuitive as ForeFlight, doesn't have some of the features, but it does offer additional important things ForeFlight can't. So I'm honestly not very fond of it yet, but that's not overly fair considering I have two years behind ForeFlight and 1 day behind Garmin Pilot. I'm sure once I have the back-up weather and traffic going on my iPad with it, I'll like it more. I do wish ForeFlight would offer what we need with it though. They are a better program.
There's an Indiana couple facing charges after they saved a wounded doe and nursed it back to health, which is apparently against the law in Indiana. DNS told them they could not release the deer to the wild because it wouldn't survive, as it had spent too much time with humans. So instead, the DNS told them they had to put the deer down. Because, let's get this straight--releasing the deer on its own to try to survive is no good because we don't want it to die out there, so let's just kill it ourselves?? Anyway, before the deer was put down, somebody (nobody will say who) let it out, where it is now in the wild. And the couple was arrested. This is a wonderful use of my tax dollars. It's great to prosecute a family who helped a wounded deer. I love brainless, pointless prosecution empty of any logic, reason, or a point.
Tomorrow is probably going to be a tad tiring. Unless something changes, I have a flight until lunch, a flight after lunch, and then another trip to Mississippi. It's about 11 hours of flight time plus ground time--I'll be busy for about 13 hours straight there. So I guess I'd better not stay up too late tonight, huh? I need to find an exerciser I can use in the cockpit to keep me awake and from getting a blood clot or something. I've switched seats before, put my legs on the other side of the airplane, wiggled around, but even I can only sit on my butt for so long! ;)
Kaylee, I woke her up for school, and she wouldn't eat much, was a little sluggish. I put her back to bed, woke her up at 10:30, and she was just fine. She ate two breakfasts and then wanted lunch at 11:30. Making up for lost time, apparently. So I took her back to school after lunch, and she was fine there and has been fine since. I seriously have no idea...
We just switched over from ForeFlight to Garmin Pilot for a variety of reasons. It's not as user friendly or intuitive as ForeFlight, doesn't have some of the features, but it does offer additional important things ForeFlight can't. So I'm honestly not very fond of it yet, but that's not overly fair considering I have two years behind ForeFlight and 1 day behind Garmin Pilot. I'm sure once I have the back-up weather and traffic going on my iPad with it, I'll like it more. I do wish ForeFlight would offer what we need with it though. They are a better program.
There's an Indiana couple facing charges after they saved a wounded doe and nursed it back to health, which is apparently against the law in Indiana. DNS told them they could not release the deer to the wild because it wouldn't survive, as it had spent too much time with humans. So instead, the DNS told them they had to put the deer down. Because, let's get this straight--releasing the deer on its own to try to survive is no good because we don't want it to die out there, so let's just kill it ourselves?? Anyway, before the deer was put down, somebody (nobody will say who) let it out, where it is now in the wild. And the couple was arrested. This is a wonderful use of my tax dollars. It's great to prosecute a family who helped a wounded deer. I love brainless, pointless prosecution empty of any logic, reason, or a point.
Tomorrow is probably going to be a tad tiring. Unless something changes, I have a flight until lunch, a flight after lunch, and then another trip to Mississippi. It's about 11 hours of flight time plus ground time--I'll be busy for about 13 hours straight there. So I guess I'd better not stay up too late tonight, huh? I need to find an exerciser I can use in the cockpit to keep me awake and from getting a blood clot or something. I've switched seats before, put my legs on the other side of the airplane, wiggled around, but even I can only sit on my butt for so long! ;)
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Aftermath
Kaylee crawled in bed with me this morning and said "My stomach kind of hurts but I feel okay." So, off she went to school-no fog delay. Not too much later, I got a text from her-she'd thrown up at school, and hadn't made it any further than a trashcan in her class room. She went to the nurse's office, where she told her she was feeling better and wanted to go back to class. About an hour later she texted me--her stomach was hurting again but she was afraid to tell the nurse after she'd already said she was okay. I told her to go to the nurse's office anyway, Steve called the school to let them know I was coming, and I finished my sandwich and went off to pick her up. I felt bad for her--especially if you're kind of a private person about the...realities of not feeling well, it's really embarrassing and upsetting to do something like throw up, right in front of all your classmates, who are all making jokes and comments about it, etc. For now she's home, she hasn't thrown up again yet, doesn't seem to have a fever...not sure what's wrong. But she's not the kind of kid who pretends to be sick to go/stay home--yet--and even if she was, the trashcan full of public embarrassment wouldn't have been the way she'd have gone about it. ;) So, here's hoping this was just something she ate or something, and that it's not contagious. We're too busy to pass the flu around here!
In aviation news today, a man on an airline flight was wearing a t-shirt that had a picture of a name tag on it, with the words "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Anybody who has ever seen or heard of "The Princess Bride" knows that line. Apparently none of the passengers on the airline flight fall in that category, and they became upset and felt threatened by the guy wearing that shirt. Flight attendants asked him to change his shirt-he didn't have another. They asked him to take it off. He was uncomfortable with that. Passengers stared at him in suspicion the entire flight. Apparently it didn't occur to anybody for him to just flip the shirt inside out for the duration of the flight. And, while I'm at it, Good Grief. Grow a spine, people...
I watched the remake of Footloose on Amazon Prime tonight while Kaylee read a book and Steve took a siesta. I probably said the exact same thing when I first saw it, but while it has some nice additions to the original, and was fine, and I enjoyed the lines I knew so well from the first one, there is one thing I can't get past. The original Ren and Ariel were real looking people. The kids in the high school were real looking country high school kids. Scrawny, chubby, acne, bad hair, big ears, goofy teeth, all of it. Even when they danced, they were good dancers, but they were real people dancers. They were still better dancers than you would be growing up in a small country town run by a pastor, trust me, but they were realistic. This movie, everybody is Hollywood. Almost every person you see has million dollar bodies, hair and faces, and dance moves that obviously came from a whole lot of professional training. Original Ren and Ariel were awkward teenagers coming into their own. This version they're 20-some-year-old cocky beautiful people movie stars. Even the Pastor and his wife--the wife NAILED a life-long (conservative) pastor's wife in the first one. Plain, demure, soft-spoken, obedient. In the second one, it's another Hollywood lady, confident, outspoken, etc. Nope. Cheesy as it is, I relate to the first movie and the characters in it. The second one I just note the differences and enjoy a few of the similarities. I do find it sad that all these years later I can still tell you what Ren's original speech before the Council was, word for word, and why it was better in the first movie than the second. ;)
Well, Kaylee hasn't gotten sick again, but she says her stomach still hurts off and on, and that she has a bad taste in her mouth that she can't get rid of no matter what she eats. Reflux? Hmm... I spoke too soon, she just threw up again. No fever. Not sure what's up with the girl. :(
In aviation news today, a man on an airline flight was wearing a t-shirt that had a picture of a name tag on it, with the words "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Anybody who has ever seen or heard of "The Princess Bride" knows that line. Apparently none of the passengers on the airline flight fall in that category, and they became upset and felt threatened by the guy wearing that shirt. Flight attendants asked him to change his shirt-he didn't have another. They asked him to take it off. He was uncomfortable with that. Passengers stared at him in suspicion the entire flight. Apparently it didn't occur to anybody for him to just flip the shirt inside out for the duration of the flight. And, while I'm at it, Good Grief. Grow a spine, people...
I watched the remake of Footloose on Amazon Prime tonight while Kaylee read a book and Steve took a siesta. I probably said the exact same thing when I first saw it, but while it has some nice additions to the original, and was fine, and I enjoyed the lines I knew so well from the first one, there is one thing I can't get past. The original Ren and Ariel were real looking people. The kids in the high school were real looking country high school kids. Scrawny, chubby, acne, bad hair, big ears, goofy teeth, all of it. Even when they danced, they were good dancers, but they were real people dancers. They were still better dancers than you would be growing up in a small country town run by a pastor, trust me, but they were realistic. This movie, everybody is Hollywood. Almost every person you see has million dollar bodies, hair and faces, and dance moves that obviously came from a whole lot of professional training. Original Ren and Ariel were awkward teenagers coming into their own. This version they're 20-some-year-old cocky beautiful people movie stars. Even the Pastor and his wife--the wife NAILED a life-long (conservative) pastor's wife in the first one. Plain, demure, soft-spoken, obedient. In the second one, it's another Hollywood lady, confident, outspoken, etc. Nope. Cheesy as it is, I relate to the first movie and the characters in it. The second one I just note the differences and enjoy a few of the similarities. I do find it sad that all these years later I can still tell you what Ren's original speech before the Council was, word for word, and why it was better in the first movie than the second. ;)
Well, Kaylee hasn't gotten sick again, but she says her stomach still hurts off and on, and that she has a bad taste in her mouth that she can't get rid of no matter what she eats. Reflux? Hmm... I spoke too soon, she just threw up again. No fever. Not sure what's up with the girl. :(
Monday, January 28, 2013
Four Mississippi
Well, this one didn't go quite as smoothly. When I woke up at 4:30 a.m., I found my destination below IFR minimums. So I got ready anyway, sent a text and said "Do you want to push back by an hour, go ahead and go but land at this other airport that is higher than minimums, or stop for fuel halfway and give the original destination 3.5 hours to raise up to minimums and see what we get?" We ended up waiting an hour. We actually ended up waiting more than an hour, as the plane hadn't been topped off like we thought it was, and I had to wait for the fuel guy to come out and top me off. That was irritating, by the way, but I figured at the time the longer the delay the better my chances of getting into the airport without having to stop. It didn't work, but it was a nice thought. ;) We had pretty large band of precip we worked around, got wet a few times, but nothing convective. It did make us deviate a lot, however. The headwinds along with the deviations meant that when I got to our destination, I'd have 40 minutes reserve...the nearest airport above legal alternates was an hour away. Our destination was reporting 500' and 4 miles for awhile, but the weather was calling for occasional periods of low IFR, and it and everything around it kept going up and down, above and below minimums. I'm not playing with that, where you have one chance to get in and if you blow it you're stuck. So, we stopped at "Golden Triangle", a place I'd looked up ahead of time that was on the edge of the low ceilings, filled up, and took back off. By the time that stop was done and we got back to MS, the visibilities were 10 and the ceilings were over 1000' where we wanted to go. So I got an ILS into Golden Triangle and broke out fairly high, and a GPS approach into Hattiesburg, with practically VFR conditions.
I was working on filling up the plane when someone walked up behind me and said "Hey, you need to stop coming to my airport without letting me know you're coming!" It was Herve, my online pilot friend. We talked for awhile, and then I offered to go to lunch with him, but he declined, saying he wasn't dressed for where I was going. I wasn't dressed for where I was going either, but I didn't care. ;) I had these crab wonton appetizers, then on to the "catch of the day" sandwich, fresh from the Gulf. Black Dunn or something like this. It was quite good. I brought home some bread and seafood/crab bisque with me to share with a few folks soon, and Herve found a place where I can order fresh seafood, so as soon as I have an order put together, he'll get it to me. Success.
When I took back off for Kokomo, it was 500 overcast or so there, which is what it was when we left, and what it was supposed to be all day, according to the forecast. So as I was cruising along, when I saw it dipped to 300', I thought "huh, well, it'll probably go back up." Then it went to 200 and 1/2 mile. I zoomed around and looked out, and to the west of where I was going there were a lot of hot pink flags. Hot pink means very low IFR. Red means IFR. I started pulling up airport after airport, and they were all calling for very low ceilings, low visibilities, and fog. The whole area was going down to fog. I came up with Plan B and C, and then kept motoring towards Kokomo, which was still reporting right at minimums. I was still an hour out when everything around, and I mean everything in Central Indiana, was below minimums and fog...except Kokomo. Grissom was reporting 1/8 mile and fog, and Grissom is about 8 miles away from Kokomo. I figured there was no way Kokomo would hold out. But it did, and for over an hour. When I was on the approach, Grissom came on and said "We are reporting...actually, we aren't reporting ANYTHING on vis right now." (Zero.) I told him, "Kokomo's AWOS is still reporting 200 and over 1/2, so I'm going to go take a look." He didn't answer me, and he probably thought I was lying. He cleared me for the approach. I hand flew it, left my strobes and landing lights off so that I'd hopefully be able to better see any hint of ground lights, waited until I was less than a mile out before triggering the lights on high, and waited. I had the airplane set up to yell the word "MINIMUMS" at me at the correct time, which is a very handy feature when you're single pilot, and I saw the rabbit lights right as it called out Minimums. The runway lights were all surrounded by fog, which was really quite pretty looking. Right now Kokomo is below minimums too, as is the northern half now of Indiana. I'm glad it held out for me, held out long enough for me to be able to get home tonight.
Now we'll see if Kaylee's school has a fog delay in the morning, as this is supposed to hang on until tomorrow sometime.
It was a long day, really. Lots of flying, lots of planning and re-planning, assessing and deciding, where not much went very easily. But...another day's in the books, mission accomplished, even if not a cakewalk..
The quote that hit my inbox today was this one:
If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow.
~William McFee
I was working on filling up the plane when someone walked up behind me and said "Hey, you need to stop coming to my airport without letting me know you're coming!" It was Herve, my online pilot friend. We talked for awhile, and then I offered to go to lunch with him, but he declined, saying he wasn't dressed for where I was going. I wasn't dressed for where I was going either, but I didn't care. ;) I had these crab wonton appetizers, then on to the "catch of the day" sandwich, fresh from the Gulf. Black Dunn or something like this. It was quite good. I brought home some bread and seafood/crab bisque with me to share with a few folks soon, and Herve found a place where I can order fresh seafood, so as soon as I have an order put together, he'll get it to me. Success.
When I took back off for Kokomo, it was 500 overcast or so there, which is what it was when we left, and what it was supposed to be all day, according to the forecast. So as I was cruising along, when I saw it dipped to 300', I thought "huh, well, it'll probably go back up." Then it went to 200 and 1/2 mile. I zoomed around and looked out, and to the west of where I was going there were a lot of hot pink flags. Hot pink means very low IFR. Red means IFR. I started pulling up airport after airport, and they were all calling for very low ceilings, low visibilities, and fog. The whole area was going down to fog. I came up with Plan B and C, and then kept motoring towards Kokomo, which was still reporting right at minimums. I was still an hour out when everything around, and I mean everything in Central Indiana, was below minimums and fog...except Kokomo. Grissom was reporting 1/8 mile and fog, and Grissom is about 8 miles away from Kokomo. I figured there was no way Kokomo would hold out. But it did, and for over an hour. When I was on the approach, Grissom came on and said "We are reporting...actually, we aren't reporting ANYTHING on vis right now." (Zero.) I told him, "Kokomo's AWOS is still reporting 200 and over 1/2, so I'm going to go take a look." He didn't answer me, and he probably thought I was lying. He cleared me for the approach. I hand flew it, left my strobes and landing lights off so that I'd hopefully be able to better see any hint of ground lights, waited until I was less than a mile out before triggering the lights on high, and waited. I had the airplane set up to yell the word "MINIMUMS" at me at the correct time, which is a very handy feature when you're single pilot, and I saw the rabbit lights right as it called out Minimums. The runway lights were all surrounded by fog, which was really quite pretty looking. Right now Kokomo is below minimums too, as is the northern half now of Indiana. I'm glad it held out for me, held out long enough for me to be able to get home tonight.
Now we'll see if Kaylee's school has a fog delay in the morning, as this is supposed to hang on until tomorrow sometime.
It was a long day, really. Lots of flying, lots of planning and re-planning, assessing and deciding, where not much went very easily. But...another day's in the books, mission accomplished, even if not a cakewalk..
The quote that hit my inbox today was this one:
If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow.
~William McFee
Sunday, January 27, 2013
School's In Session
Kaylee's school project partner never did pony up his half of the project, so it was good that she didn't wait to hear from him before going ahead and doing it herself. She's right now working on a family tree project, and in her spare time she has a notebook next to her chair, in which she is currently writing a short story for a friend of hers. The conversation went like this. Steve-"What are you doing?" Kaylee- "I'm writing a story." "Why?" "It's for my friend Megan." "Who's Megan?" "My friend." "Okay, why are you writing her a story?" "Because she's hooked on this one book series, but the next book in the series doesn't come out for awhile, and she can't stand it any more. I know how that feels, so I am writing her another story to read that will be like those stories, to hold her over until the next real one can come out." "Okay." She's hand-writing it in pencil, and every once in awhile she'll ask me for a good word to use when she's stuck. The other night it was "Mom, I need a better word for 'crazy', cause that's not quite right." So I went through a few, and when I got to "deranged", she said "THAT'S the one, that's what I meant!" When I was her age writing stuff, I'd use a thesaurus. There's an app for that now; I'll have to show her. :)
Steve's been working on getting a new Amazon Prime account working on stuff. So far he's been unable to get it to work on his Nexus, on Kaylee's Kindle, on the Xbox, or the Wii. The Wii seems to be some problem with downloading it is having itself, not related to the Amazon thing. What it HAS worked on just fine, no problemo, is my iPad. So me, I can watch 'free' movies and TV all I want on my iPad, and so far everybody else is hosed. Seems fair, right? Heh. Actually, I do have a LOT of movies to catch up on. Other than just a few, I haven't really watched many movies in...years now. I used to see every movie that came out, practically. But I don't often want to take 2+ hours in one chunk of time to sit and watch a movie any more. But it would have been handy the other day when I was sitting in Aurora for 8 hours straight with decent WiFi but nothing with me to work on, having not expected to be there all day. Now I almost look forward to the next time I have to sit somewhere and wait on a passenger, because I'll have a perfectly good excuse to sit there and catch up on a movie, and get paid for it while I'm at it. My recent rash of trips have all been drop offs and pick ups, not sits and waits, but I know that one of these days...
I'll be going to bed early again tonight, as I have to be up at 4:30 a.m. for a trip. This one might not be so nice. We're getting freezing rain/sleet today and tonight here in central Indiana, and the odds are pretty slim of the airport having any ramp or runway clearing done by 6 a.m. Monday. If I can get the plane all the way out of the hangar without losing traction, the rest I should be able to handle. It's also supposed to rain here all day tomorrow and be IFR, with strong headwinds and icing up high, and down in Mississippi they are currently calling for very low IFR, below minimums through the early morning hours. This gives me potential fuel issues too. At least down there they're supposed to have a high of 79 degrees tomorrow though. Whenever I can get in, I am going to do things a little differently this time. Normally I fly 3.5 hours down, drop off D, top off the airplane, go to the bathroom, and fly 3-3.5 hours home. This time after I drop him off and top off the airplane, I'm going to move it away from the self-serve pump (it's almost $1.00/gallon cheaper to do it myself, for about 135 gallons of gas. I should get a bonus for saving the company that much money every flight by doing the hassle myself. ;)) and I'm going to see about stealing their courtesy car and driving five miles into town for lunch. Eating and drinking a lot right before my flight home isn't the best plan, but you know what, this time I'm going to do it anyway, if I get the chance. It's not right to go into new places without at least finding something enjoyable to experience from it now and then. And I have just the thing in mind to make up for a crack of dawn awakening, ice, wind, rain, and IFR. It's a shame I won't be able to share. ;)
Steve's been working on getting a new Amazon Prime account working on stuff. So far he's been unable to get it to work on his Nexus, on Kaylee's Kindle, on the Xbox, or the Wii. The Wii seems to be some problem with downloading it is having itself, not related to the Amazon thing. What it HAS worked on just fine, no problemo, is my iPad. So me, I can watch 'free' movies and TV all I want on my iPad, and so far everybody else is hosed. Seems fair, right? Heh. Actually, I do have a LOT of movies to catch up on. Other than just a few, I haven't really watched many movies in...years now. I used to see every movie that came out, practically. But I don't often want to take 2+ hours in one chunk of time to sit and watch a movie any more. But it would have been handy the other day when I was sitting in Aurora for 8 hours straight with decent WiFi but nothing with me to work on, having not expected to be there all day. Now I almost look forward to the next time I have to sit somewhere and wait on a passenger, because I'll have a perfectly good excuse to sit there and catch up on a movie, and get paid for it while I'm at it. My recent rash of trips have all been drop offs and pick ups, not sits and waits, but I know that one of these days...
I'll be going to bed early again tonight, as I have to be up at 4:30 a.m. for a trip. This one might not be so nice. We're getting freezing rain/sleet today and tonight here in central Indiana, and the odds are pretty slim of the airport having any ramp or runway clearing done by 6 a.m. Monday. If I can get the plane all the way out of the hangar without losing traction, the rest I should be able to handle. It's also supposed to rain here all day tomorrow and be IFR, with strong headwinds and icing up high, and down in Mississippi they are currently calling for very low IFR, below minimums through the early morning hours. This gives me potential fuel issues too. At least down there they're supposed to have a high of 79 degrees tomorrow though. Whenever I can get in, I am going to do things a little differently this time. Normally I fly 3.5 hours down, drop off D, top off the airplane, go to the bathroom, and fly 3-3.5 hours home. This time after I drop him off and top off the airplane, I'm going to move it away from the self-serve pump (it's almost $1.00/gallon cheaper to do it myself, for about 135 gallons of gas. I should get a bonus for saving the company that much money every flight by doing the hassle myself. ;)) and I'm going to see about stealing their courtesy car and driving five miles into town for lunch. Eating and drinking a lot right before my flight home isn't the best plan, but you know what, this time I'm going to do it anyway, if I get the chance. It's not right to go into new places without at least finding something enjoyable to experience from it now and then. And I have just the thing in mind to make up for a crack of dawn awakening, ice, wind, rain, and IFR. It's a shame I won't be able to share. ;)
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Life
The girls got to sleep around 1:30 a.m., after Steve and I went ahead and went to bed. I guess we've officially reached that age where our pre-teen kid can now out-last us. Well...normally I'm good past 1:30, but I was tired from the day. So maybe I can still hang in there awhile longer. ;) Steve fixed the girls pancakes, I made some bacon, extra crispy, naturally, Steve made up some cheesy scrambled eggs, we poured some orange juice, and the girls had a nice big breakfast before going over to the Xbox and finally playing a few games before it was time to go home. The sleepover was a nice success.
Kaylee had a bit of a problem--she was partnered up with a boy to do a project for history, on World War II. A timeline, looking up facts, drawing some pictures, writing a sentence about each item on the timeline, etc. They were supposed to divide up the work, but the boy didn't do his end of it on Friday when he was supposed to. The two of them get the same grade for the project, and she didn't want to get a bad grade because half the project wasn't done. The boy had said he'd email her his half of it this weekend, but as of the end of Saturday he hadn't, and she couldn't wait until the end of Sunday only to maybe not get it then too and be left with no time to do it along with all the other homework she had. Anyone who has been to college has been faced with this--a "team" project where everyone gets the same grade no matter what they do, and there's always one or two people who want to get a good grade and work hard on it, and one or two people who don't care and/or want the other people to do all the work for them while they skate by on getting a good grade from others' work. Kaylee was mad about it, and Steve and I both told her, welcome to the real world. You can guess which camp both of us fell into back when we were in school. I told her she has two choices--let the project fall on its face and get an incomplete or bad grade to try to make a point to the boy, or do the entire project herself, get the good grade and know that the kid who didn't do any work will get a good grade out of it too. And that yes, life isn't fair. She huffed for awhile and then said "Fine, I'll do the whole project by myself. I didn't trust him to do a good job on his half anyway. I don't trust most of my class to do a good job. Nobody cares but me and (listed a couple names)." So today she spent 3 1/2 hours working non-stop on this project, and finally got it done to her satisfaction. I know why schools think these group projects are important, and I suppose learning the actual lessons of how to deal with uncooperative co-workers or that if you want a job done well you're likely going to have to do it yourself is important too, but really, they are very frustrating and irritating things to do to school kids of all ages. My last group project was for Purdue. I lived in Kokomo, was commuting daily to Purdue, was married and pregnant and working and 25, and my teammates were all young kids living in dorms who wanted to meet up at somebody's apartment at midnight with beer two days before the project was due and see what they could do. Literally, that was their plan. Yeah, we got along well. I still kept my 4.0 GPA, however, because I'd already learned this lesson...
This summer Kaylee is interested in doing a TILT program at her favorite summer camp. That stands for Teens In Leadership Training, for kids going into 7th - 12th grades. It's what it sounds like, a leadership training camp, and the kids can come back and help out with a regular camp week, not as counselors, just as helpers. She's wanted to do it ever since her first year there when she saw the girls in the program, and I would think a leadership training course wouldn't be a terrible thing for her to go through anyway. So we've been looking into that tonight, emailed them and asked them a few questions about it. The one problem is that she was going to go to camp with a friend of hers, but her friend is a year behind her, and there's a cut-off at camp between 6th and 7th grade, and they wouldn't be able to be together. So that's a bit of a bummer for her. We'll still see about this TILT program, what it entails and such, and that may be her plan for camp this summer.
Here's a photo from yesterday, flying along on the way to Mississippi. I enjoy the quiet, uneventful flights more these days, and this was one of those. The sun went down off to our right, the full moon was off to our left, and while here we were in between layers, most of the time it was clear above. When we left MS, it was fully dark, and the bright moon was shining on top of that cloud layer, turning everything into what looked like a special effects black and white photo. I tried to get a picture of it, but my phone couldn't pick it up properly. We cruised with a little heat on, a little music on, the occasional chit chat, but a lot of silence, just relaxing for the time it took us to get home. It's not so relaxing or peaceful getting the plane in and out and refueled and put away and such, in the dark and the cold and the wind and the snow, but for the period of time you're actually in it, the office view is quite nice.
Kaylee had a bit of a problem--she was partnered up with a boy to do a project for history, on World War II. A timeline, looking up facts, drawing some pictures, writing a sentence about each item on the timeline, etc. They were supposed to divide up the work, but the boy didn't do his end of it on Friday when he was supposed to. The two of them get the same grade for the project, and she didn't want to get a bad grade because half the project wasn't done. The boy had said he'd email her his half of it this weekend, but as of the end of Saturday he hadn't, and she couldn't wait until the end of Sunday only to maybe not get it then too and be left with no time to do it along with all the other homework she had. Anyone who has been to college has been faced with this--a "team" project where everyone gets the same grade no matter what they do, and there's always one or two people who want to get a good grade and work hard on it, and one or two people who don't care and/or want the other people to do all the work for them while they skate by on getting a good grade from others' work. Kaylee was mad about it, and Steve and I both told her, welcome to the real world. You can guess which camp both of us fell into back when we were in school. I told her she has two choices--let the project fall on its face and get an incomplete or bad grade to try to make a point to the boy, or do the entire project herself, get the good grade and know that the kid who didn't do any work will get a good grade out of it too. And that yes, life isn't fair. She huffed for awhile and then said "Fine, I'll do the whole project by myself. I didn't trust him to do a good job on his half anyway. I don't trust most of my class to do a good job. Nobody cares but me and (listed a couple names)." So today she spent 3 1/2 hours working non-stop on this project, and finally got it done to her satisfaction. I know why schools think these group projects are important, and I suppose learning the actual lessons of how to deal with uncooperative co-workers or that if you want a job done well you're likely going to have to do it yourself is important too, but really, they are very frustrating and irritating things to do to school kids of all ages. My last group project was for Purdue. I lived in Kokomo, was commuting daily to Purdue, was married and pregnant and working and 25, and my teammates were all young kids living in dorms who wanted to meet up at somebody's apartment at midnight with beer two days before the project was due and see what they could do. Literally, that was their plan. Yeah, we got along well. I still kept my 4.0 GPA, however, because I'd already learned this lesson...
This summer Kaylee is interested in doing a TILT program at her favorite summer camp. That stands for Teens In Leadership Training, for kids going into 7th - 12th grades. It's what it sounds like, a leadership training camp, and the kids can come back and help out with a regular camp week, not as counselors, just as helpers. She's wanted to do it ever since her first year there when she saw the girls in the program, and I would think a leadership training course wouldn't be a terrible thing for her to go through anyway. So we've been looking into that tonight, emailed them and asked them a few questions about it. The one problem is that she was going to go to camp with a friend of hers, but her friend is a year behind her, and there's a cut-off at camp between 6th and 7th grade, and they wouldn't be able to be together. So that's a bit of a bummer for her. We'll still see about this TILT program, what it entails and such, and that may be her plan for camp this summer.
Here's a photo from yesterday, flying along on the way to Mississippi. I enjoy the quiet, uneventful flights more these days, and this was one of those. The sun went down off to our right, the full moon was off to our left, and while here we were in between layers, most of the time it was clear above. When we left MS, it was fully dark, and the bright moon was shining on top of that cloud layer, turning everything into what looked like a special effects black and white photo. I tried to get a picture of it, but my phone couldn't pick it up properly. We cruised with a little heat on, a little music on, the occasional chit chat, but a lot of silence, just relaxing for the time it took us to get home. It's not so relaxing or peaceful getting the plane in and out and refueled and put away and such, in the dark and the cold and the wind and the snow, but for the period of time you're actually in it, the office view is quite nice.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Three Mississippi
At 3 pm I headed back to Mississippi, but that's not the story for today. The story today is that because I had to leave for Mississippi, Steve collected three 12-year-old girls from the bus stop and brought them home for a play time and sleep over. He ended up doing just fine, I pre-ordered their pizza dinner for them, the girls had a good time, and are right now still not asleep up there. He spent a lot of time and energy making sure they had a TV and Xbox hooked up in the front, and they never even turned it on. A little ironic, but they had other fun things to do this time around.
So, my trip was fine and uneventful. Watched the sun set just above a layer of clouds, and the almost-full moon was on the other side. I had an instrument student along with me for the trip, a brave person willing to be gone on a whim for 8 hours and sit in a plane for about 7 of them. But the good news was it was about 70 degrees down there when we got there, and considering it's 20 degrees here and we got a couple of inches of snow today, soaking in some warm southern air didn't hurt any of us in the least.
Tre got me a little care package for these colder temps after the heater failed in the 340, and I found it very handy! Fuzzy warm hat with ear flaps, and two pairs of wool socks, one for hands and one for feet. Well, you can laugh at the hat with ear flaps, but I'll tell you what, it fit, and it kept my head toasty without being clamped on like most winter hats. I hate having something super tight on my head/face/neck/self, can't handle it, so that's why you don't see me wearing caps in the winter, even when it's brutal out. THIS hat is comfy and cozy and kept me warm tonight. I like it. :)
The guy I know from a pilot board that lives in the town in Mississippi where I go ended up walking right past my plane tonight, on the other side from where me, D & P were chatting, and I didn't see him and he didn't connect the dots that it would be me, until later tonight when he sent me a message and said "Hey, were you down here tonight?" Kind of funny, walked right past and didn't see each other.
Well, I'm too sleepy to come up with anything coherent. Goin' to bed!
So, my trip was fine and uneventful. Watched the sun set just above a layer of clouds, and the almost-full moon was on the other side. I had an instrument student along with me for the trip, a brave person willing to be gone on a whim for 8 hours and sit in a plane for about 7 of them. But the good news was it was about 70 degrees down there when we got there, and considering it's 20 degrees here and we got a couple of inches of snow today, soaking in some warm southern air didn't hurt any of us in the least.
Tre got me a little care package for these colder temps after the heater failed in the 340, and I found it very handy! Fuzzy warm hat with ear flaps, and two pairs of wool socks, one for hands and one for feet. Well, you can laugh at the hat with ear flaps, but I'll tell you what, it fit, and it kept my head toasty without being clamped on like most winter hats. I hate having something super tight on my head/face/neck/self, can't handle it, so that's why you don't see me wearing caps in the winter, even when it's brutal out. THIS hat is comfy and cozy and kept me warm tonight. I like it. :)
The guy I know from a pilot board that lives in the town in Mississippi where I go ended up walking right past my plane tonight, on the other side from where me, D & P were chatting, and I didn't see him and he didn't connect the dots that it would be me, until later tonight when he sent me a message and said "Hey, were you down here tonight?" Kind of funny, walked right past and didn't see each other.
Well, I'm too sleepy to come up with anything coherent. Goin' to bed!
Thursday, January 24, 2013
All Who Wander Are Not Lost...
(A little Tolkein to end the day.)
It's easy to see how you can lose control of your days when you're in a business that is usually pretty spur-of-the-moment. Yesterday I was supposed to take the 340 over to get the heater fixed, and presumably be home in a couple of hours. Instead I spent the whole day sitting there watching it snow, drinking coffee and water to stay awake, and waiting. It's tiring sitting there doing nothing for hours, in a quiet room, so when you do get home, you don't really have the energy to get anything done, and the plans you had for the rest of the day are toast anyway. I went to bed early, tired, and woke up early, tired. So I got Kaylee off to school, and I went back to bed. There goes the early morning, too, but it was needed. I didn't have any trips or any students today, so once I got going, I started working on the house because we have company coming over tomorrow. If you DO have students and/or trips every single day, as often is the case during the busy seasons, now you can see how far behind you can really get, and how when you do have time off, you just want to rest a little instead of working on everything else that just piled up. Instructing all day or being gone on the 8 hour round trip flights, or sitting in Illinois all day, it messes up your eating, your drinking, your activity level, any helpful routine you may be trying to implement. Of course, that's the name of the game! I get itchy if everything is all planned out to the "T" and exactly the same for the foreseeable future anyway. I need things to...vary. At least a little. ;)
I'm getting ready to run an internet search on seafood down there in southeastern Mississippi. If the weather will hold out, I'm going back down tomorrow afternoon, where, by the way, the high is supposed to be 75 degrees. Whoop! If I can find a place, and call in an order tomorrow morning, I should be able to get D to pick it up and bring it to the airport for me. I'll see if I have a cooler I can pack to bring some stuff home in. If not tomorrow, I can try for Monday, when I'm supposed to go back down again. Of course, if I get it Friday night, I need it to be able to hold over until Saturday lunch or so, as I won't be home until 11 pm or so. If I get it Monday morning, I'm home by 2 pm, and we could eat it Monday night. Hmm. I'll have to think about it. But in the meantime, I can still find what places will be available for me to call in an order like that, and to the frozen tundra of Indiana, I'm going to fly us home some fresh, close to the coast, tasty seafood. Hallelujah and Amen! (And that's another reason I like my job!)
Unfortunately, my Friday trip to MS will leave Steve here alone with Kaylee and two friends at our house for rollerskating and a sleepover. He can handle it, but it's better to have a unified front in such a situation, you know? I got a call asking if I wanted to do a formation flight Saturday at noon, which I politely but immediately declined. It's supposed to be about 30 degrees on Saturday, warmer than it has been, but the thought of being gone all of Friday, and then coming home very late, then getting up early and go flying for not-work, leaving him with sleepover and Saturday activities too, well, he's a patient and supportive husband, but that would be a bit much for anybody, wouldn't you say? ;)
Now, I've got a bit of research to do, if you will pardon me!
It's easy to see how you can lose control of your days when you're in a business that is usually pretty spur-of-the-moment. Yesterday I was supposed to take the 340 over to get the heater fixed, and presumably be home in a couple of hours. Instead I spent the whole day sitting there watching it snow, drinking coffee and water to stay awake, and waiting. It's tiring sitting there doing nothing for hours, in a quiet room, so when you do get home, you don't really have the energy to get anything done, and the plans you had for the rest of the day are toast anyway. I went to bed early, tired, and woke up early, tired. So I got Kaylee off to school, and I went back to bed. There goes the early morning, too, but it was needed. I didn't have any trips or any students today, so once I got going, I started working on the house because we have company coming over tomorrow. If you DO have students and/or trips every single day, as often is the case during the busy seasons, now you can see how far behind you can really get, and how when you do have time off, you just want to rest a little instead of working on everything else that just piled up. Instructing all day or being gone on the 8 hour round trip flights, or sitting in Illinois all day, it messes up your eating, your drinking, your activity level, any helpful routine you may be trying to implement. Of course, that's the name of the game! I get itchy if everything is all planned out to the "T" and exactly the same for the foreseeable future anyway. I need things to...vary. At least a little. ;)
I'm getting ready to run an internet search on seafood down there in southeastern Mississippi. If the weather will hold out, I'm going back down tomorrow afternoon, where, by the way, the high is supposed to be 75 degrees. Whoop! If I can find a place, and call in an order tomorrow morning, I should be able to get D to pick it up and bring it to the airport for me. I'll see if I have a cooler I can pack to bring some stuff home in. If not tomorrow, I can try for Monday, when I'm supposed to go back down again. Of course, if I get it Friday night, I need it to be able to hold over until Saturday lunch or so, as I won't be home until 11 pm or so. If I get it Monday morning, I'm home by 2 pm, and we could eat it Monday night. Hmm. I'll have to think about it. But in the meantime, I can still find what places will be available for me to call in an order like that, and to the frozen tundra of Indiana, I'm going to fly us home some fresh, close to the coast, tasty seafood. Hallelujah and Amen! (And that's another reason I like my job!)
Unfortunately, my Friday trip to MS will leave Steve here alone with Kaylee and two friends at our house for rollerskating and a sleepover. He can handle it, but it's better to have a unified front in such a situation, you know? I got a call asking if I wanted to do a formation flight Saturday at noon, which I politely but immediately declined. It's supposed to be about 30 degrees on Saturday, warmer than it has been, but the thought of being gone all of Friday, and then coming home very late, then getting up early and go flying for not-work, leaving him with sleepover and Saturday activities too, well, he's a patient and supportive husband, but that would be a bit much for anybody, wouldn't you say? ;)
Now, I've got a bit of research to do, if you will pardon me!
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Twelve
I woke up the birthday girl with a singing card and a giant Hershey's kiss, to start off her next year in fine form. She was pretty sleepy, but when she saw the dancing critter on the front of the card and heard the goofy doo-dee-doo song, she started laughing, and said "Just so you know, I am keeping this card forever." As soon as I saw it in the store, well it just had her name all over it. She snuggled back up in bed with me for a few minutes before leaving for school, and off she went, my 12-year-old going on 8, going on 18.
My plan was to bring her a bunch of cupcakes today to school, so she could have a small birthday shin-dig at school, but Steve gets to do that now, as I'm in Aurora (Chicago area) waiting on the heater to be fixed in the 340. Fortunately for him, all he has to do is deliver the cupcakes to the school-the teacher takes care of the rest. :)
Originally I was going to get to Aurora by 8 a.m. their time, which is 9 a.m. my time, but I got pushed back by about half an hour or so. So I'm cruising along VFR on my own, when I zoom out my weather, and see a line of snow close to Aurora and heading that way. That wasn't supposed to get there until 11, or 10 their time, per my briefing before I left, but obviously it did not know that. I looked at how far away I was, and how far away the snow line with the dropped visibilities and reports of icing were, I tuned in the tower frequency and heard a guy report that so many miles southwest of the airport the visibilities were down to 2 miles. So I richened up the mixtures and pushed in some power and booked it there as fast as I reasonably could. As I got closer I could see the wall just off to my left, too low to go under. I could have called up Chicago Approach and picked up an IFR into ARR, but I have a vacuum pump out...but I have another operating pump...but losing them both while shooting an approach wouldn't be great...probably wouldn't happen, but...but it was clear to the north so there were good outs if it did...could always turn around, though it was closing in from the south, might have to contact Chicago anyway to go into their space to avoid it...these are the things that run through your mind within a second or two. Just options. Eventually I got within 25 miles and could see that I'd make it in VFR. They gave me a straight in final, which I took, parked the plane on the ramp, went inside, got a cup of nice hot coffee, sat at the desk, looked out the window, and the snow had arrived. Welcome to Illinois! This time I had some thicker layers on, thicker gloves, and even without a heater I was doing fine. I was feeling a bit feisty, so I had to stop over at Glenndale to check out the runway conditions on my way over, too. Good thing that didn't take five more minutes to do. ;)
The heater took longer to fix than anticipated. I went into town and got an excellent blackened tilapia sandwich for lunch, and the rest of the day I spent waiting, watching it snow all day long. That makes for a long, dull day. Every hour or so I'd get up and walk quickly around outside and get moving a bit, but I still was ready to take a nap by the end of the day. There was more wrong with it than they anticipated, so they had to run out to another maintenance shop in a different city and get some more parts. I didn't take off for home until the sun was down. That made the VFR flight home a little trickier, as there was a line of snow showers with varying ceilings and visibilities along the way. It was a little scuddy now and then down there, but also kind of pretty, watching the snow stream past in the strobes and once I turned the landing lights on. It looks like...sparkly ice, I guess, going past, which is pretty much what it is. I tried taking a photo of it, but I never have gotten a good shot of that one. Guess you'll have to see it for yourself sometime. But one thing for sure--I was toasty warm on the way home, at least!
I wasn't thrilled at being home late on Kaylee's birthday, but by then I was just glad I wasn't stuck overnight, as the weather was going to turn a little less pleasant the longer I had to wait...I stopped and picked up the birthday girl's requested dinner, and we were home at last, to have a cupcake with a lit candle and a Happy Birthday song. She's having two friends spend the night this weekend, and then after that is Great Wolf Lodge for the Birthday Extravaganza. Pictures will follow. :)
Kaylee's loved all the phone calls and voicemails and emails for her birthday. Thank you to everyone who sent her a birthday message! She's growing up awful fast on us...
My plan was to bring her a bunch of cupcakes today to school, so she could have a small birthday shin-dig at school, but Steve gets to do that now, as I'm in Aurora (Chicago area) waiting on the heater to be fixed in the 340. Fortunately for him, all he has to do is deliver the cupcakes to the school-the teacher takes care of the rest. :)
Originally I was going to get to Aurora by 8 a.m. their time, which is 9 a.m. my time, but I got pushed back by about half an hour or so. So I'm cruising along VFR on my own, when I zoom out my weather, and see a line of snow close to Aurora and heading that way. That wasn't supposed to get there until 11, or 10 their time, per my briefing before I left, but obviously it did not know that. I looked at how far away I was, and how far away the snow line with the dropped visibilities and reports of icing were, I tuned in the tower frequency and heard a guy report that so many miles southwest of the airport the visibilities were down to 2 miles. So I richened up the mixtures and pushed in some power and booked it there as fast as I reasonably could. As I got closer I could see the wall just off to my left, too low to go under. I could have called up Chicago Approach and picked up an IFR into ARR, but I have a vacuum pump out...but I have another operating pump...but losing them both while shooting an approach wouldn't be great...probably wouldn't happen, but...but it was clear to the north so there were good outs if it did...could always turn around, though it was closing in from the south, might have to contact Chicago anyway to go into their space to avoid it...these are the things that run through your mind within a second or two. Just options. Eventually I got within 25 miles and could see that I'd make it in VFR. They gave me a straight in final, which I took, parked the plane on the ramp, went inside, got a cup of nice hot coffee, sat at the desk, looked out the window, and the snow had arrived. Welcome to Illinois! This time I had some thicker layers on, thicker gloves, and even without a heater I was doing fine. I was feeling a bit feisty, so I had to stop over at Glenndale to check out the runway conditions on my way over, too. Good thing that didn't take five more minutes to do. ;)
The heater took longer to fix than anticipated. I went into town and got an excellent blackened tilapia sandwich for lunch, and the rest of the day I spent waiting, watching it snow all day long. That makes for a long, dull day. Every hour or so I'd get up and walk quickly around outside and get moving a bit, but I still was ready to take a nap by the end of the day. There was more wrong with it than they anticipated, so they had to run out to another maintenance shop in a different city and get some more parts. I didn't take off for home until the sun was down. That made the VFR flight home a little trickier, as there was a line of snow showers with varying ceilings and visibilities along the way. It was a little scuddy now and then down there, but also kind of pretty, watching the snow stream past in the strobes and once I turned the landing lights on. It looks like...sparkly ice, I guess, going past, which is pretty much what it is. I tried taking a photo of it, but I never have gotten a good shot of that one. Guess you'll have to see it for yourself sometime. But one thing for sure--I was toasty warm on the way home, at least!I wasn't thrilled at being home late on Kaylee's birthday, but by then I was just glad I wasn't stuck overnight, as the weather was going to turn a little less pleasant the longer I had to wait...I stopped and picked up the birthday girl's requested dinner, and we were home at last, to have a cupcake with a lit candle and a Happy Birthday song. She's having two friends spend the night this weekend, and then after that is Great Wolf Lodge for the Birthday Extravaganza. Pictures will follow. :)
Kaylee's loved all the phone calls and voicemails and emails for her birthday. Thank you to everyone who sent her a birthday message! She's growing up awful fast on us...
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Bitter Sweet
Bitter cold gave all the kids a two-hour school delay this morning, and they were considerate enough to declare it last night so everyone could just sleep on in. It's for the bus stop kids who have to stand outside and wait on the bus, but it didn't affect MY bus stop group/kid since they all sit in the cars with the heater running until the bus shows up. But she took the two hour delay with glee anyway, and I didn't have any complaints myself.
It looks beautiful out there, but it really is brutal when you have to step out in it for long. I did the usual round of things, then got a few things for Kaylee's birthday set up, then went out to Kokomo to make very sure of what was wrong with the 340 heater before flying it over to Chicago tomorrow to be fixed. That's going to be another cold hour's flight over there, but I'm going to be a little better prepared for it. As well-prepared as a person who hates being cold can be, anyway.
I got an email today from the guy who does most of the Red Star formation events around here, and it was a calendar of events for next year; formation clinic weekends, known air shows and fly-overs, etc. It's the coldest day we've had here all year thus far, but I suddenly smelled a hint of Spring today anyway. I found myself driving along day-dreaming through the various maneuvers, looking at the airplanes lined up out there with the sun glinting off of the props and wings, and just smiling to myself. For a few minutes today I was one of those people you drive by and wonder at. ;) The first event currently listed for Spring is in Louisville, KY over the March 9-10 weekend--the weekend I turn 41. It probably doesn't sound very proper, but I gotta admit, spending my birthday knocking off some formation flying rust in what has become a fairly laid-back environment sounds pretty sweet to me...
And yes, this is one reason I hope there are many, many trips to Mississippi (or wherever) this winter. March 1st is only 38 days away, you know!
By the way, I'm still working on my back/neck/arms. My limitations are not as noticeable in day to day activities any more, but part of that is that I've compensated for what I can't do as well. I'm trying to quit that, as I recently noticed a loss of range of motion in one particular direction I hadn't really realized. I don't want to just compensate, I want to be back where I started. I still do my stretching and exercises every day, and am still building up some with weights. It IS better; I still have a couple of areas where I'm as weak as a child, but it is better. The first time I fueled up the 340 by myself in MS, I was sore and a little messed up for 3 days. Hauling and twisting the hose up and down the ladder, twisting off and on four fuel caps, holding the fuel nozzle out away from the wing while it takes 135 gallons, slowly, etc. (Sounds pathetic, doesn't it?? That's what I'm sayin'!) The second time, this last time, I was only sore for one day, and not nearly as bad. So, I'm not doing a daily play by play of walking on the treadmill (which yes, I still do), or this back thing, because it's not very interesting. But I'm still plugging along, and plan on doing so until I get where I want. I am curious on how I'd do in the Six with it now. Not curious enough to try flying it when it's -15F windchill out there, but curious. ;)
I get an aviation e-newsletter, and they always end it with a quote. This was today's, and I had to give it a nod.
"It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to."
~W.C. Fields
Boy, isn't that the truth...
It looks beautiful out there, but it really is brutal when you have to step out in it for long. I did the usual round of things, then got a few things for Kaylee's birthday set up, then went out to Kokomo to make very sure of what was wrong with the 340 heater before flying it over to Chicago tomorrow to be fixed. That's going to be another cold hour's flight over there, but I'm going to be a little better prepared for it. As well-prepared as a person who hates being cold can be, anyway.
I got an email today from the guy who does most of the Red Star formation events around here, and it was a calendar of events for next year; formation clinic weekends, known air shows and fly-overs, etc. It's the coldest day we've had here all year thus far, but I suddenly smelled a hint of Spring today anyway. I found myself driving along day-dreaming through the various maneuvers, looking at the airplanes lined up out there with the sun glinting off of the props and wings, and just smiling to myself. For a few minutes today I was one of those people you drive by and wonder at. ;) The first event currently listed for Spring is in Louisville, KY over the March 9-10 weekend--the weekend I turn 41. It probably doesn't sound very proper, but I gotta admit, spending my birthday knocking off some formation flying rust in what has become a fairly laid-back environment sounds pretty sweet to me...
And yes, this is one reason I hope there are many, many trips to Mississippi (or wherever) this winter. March 1st is only 38 days away, you know!
By the way, I'm still working on my back/neck/arms. My limitations are not as noticeable in day to day activities any more, but part of that is that I've compensated for what I can't do as well. I'm trying to quit that, as I recently noticed a loss of range of motion in one particular direction I hadn't really realized. I don't want to just compensate, I want to be back where I started. I still do my stretching and exercises every day, and am still building up some with weights. It IS better; I still have a couple of areas where I'm as weak as a child, but it is better. The first time I fueled up the 340 by myself in MS, I was sore and a little messed up for 3 days. Hauling and twisting the hose up and down the ladder, twisting off and on four fuel caps, holding the fuel nozzle out away from the wing while it takes 135 gallons, slowly, etc. (Sounds pathetic, doesn't it?? That's what I'm sayin'!) The second time, this last time, I was only sore for one day, and not nearly as bad. So, I'm not doing a daily play by play of walking on the treadmill (which yes, I still do), or this back thing, because it's not very interesting. But I'm still plugging along, and plan on doing so until I get where I want. I am curious on how I'd do in the Six with it now. Not curious enough to try flying it when it's -15F windchill out there, but curious. ;)
I get an aviation e-newsletter, and they always end it with a quote. This was today's, and I had to give it a nod.
"It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to."
~W.C. Fields
Boy, isn't that the truth...
Monday, January 21, 2013
Two Mississippi...
Irony on a sub-zero windchill day.
1. Have the programmable thermostat in your house set to warm back up by 4:30 a.m. when you're supposed to be getting up for your trip.
2. Have the heat in the garage turned up so that when you go out to your car, it is toasty warm.
3. Preflight and load up the airplane in the heated hangar, so that all you have to do is pull it out and get in.
4. Take off, turn on combustible heater in airplane, find out it's suddenly not working since the last flight, and spend the next 6.5 hours of flight time in -23C outside air temps with no heat at all.
Perfect!
I can still feel the cold radiating from my legs and feet, and I've been home for 3 hours.
It was 64 degrees in Mississippi where I went today. Jon said the windchill at Kokomo was -13. I don't know for sure what it was, but it was brutal! I had a nice 60 degree 32 knot crosswind to land in too, but luckily you don't really need to feel your feet in order to be able to see when you have enough rudder in there. ;)
I didn't top off the plane when I got home. I couldn't do it. I just wanted to go home and thaw! Of course first I had to pick up Kaylee, take her to pick up school supplies, then fill up my car with gas. Now I need a hot tub. (Oooh, that sounds good!) I'm supposed to go back to MS this Friday. If the heater's not fixed, I will be dressed like Nanook of the North, that's for sure!
So, you wonder what it looks like to go IFR? Here ya go...
Going...
Going...
Gone. Isn't that lovely? ;)
Proof. 108 knot winds, -22c showing there. The bigger boys were screaming about the headwinds over the radio, begging for lower. One guy said "I'm getting 155 knot headwinds up here! This is nuts!" I bet their feet were warm though...
1. Have the programmable thermostat in your house set to warm back up by 4:30 a.m. when you're supposed to be getting up for your trip.
2. Have the heat in the garage turned up so that when you go out to your car, it is toasty warm.
3. Preflight and load up the airplane in the heated hangar, so that all you have to do is pull it out and get in.
4. Take off, turn on combustible heater in airplane, find out it's suddenly not working since the last flight, and spend the next 6.5 hours of flight time in -23C outside air temps with no heat at all.
Perfect!
I can still feel the cold radiating from my legs and feet, and I've been home for 3 hours.
It was 64 degrees in Mississippi where I went today. Jon said the windchill at Kokomo was -13. I don't know for sure what it was, but it was brutal! I had a nice 60 degree 32 knot crosswind to land in too, but luckily you don't really need to feel your feet in order to be able to see when you have enough rudder in there. ;)
I didn't top off the plane when I got home. I couldn't do it. I just wanted to go home and thaw! Of course first I had to pick up Kaylee, take her to pick up school supplies, then fill up my car with gas. Now I need a hot tub. (Oooh, that sounds good!) I'm supposed to go back to MS this Friday. If the heater's not fixed, I will be dressed like Nanook of the North, that's for sure!
So, you wonder what it looks like to go IFR? Here ya go...
Going...
Going...
Gone. Isn't that lovely? ;)
Here we are this morning as the sun was coming up.
Proof. 108 knot winds, -22c showing there. The bigger boys were screaming about the headwinds over the radio, begging for lower. One guy said "I'm getting 155 knot headwinds up here! This is nuts!" I bet their feet were warm though...
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Brr
I will be up at 4:30 a.m., hauling out the plane with wind chills of -10 to -15 degrees, for about an 8 hour round trip.
So, watching the Patriots hopefully (but not likely) lose, then going to try to get to sleep early-ish. I may not like it bitterly cold, dark, and butt early, but I do like these trips. I need these hours for that airline career, you know! Okay, no, but having trips during the slow winter months certainly helps the bottom line, and Spring is only 59 days away...
So, watching the Patriots hopefully (but not likely) lose, then going to try to get to sleep early-ish. I may not like it bitterly cold, dark, and butt early, but I do like these trips. I need these hours for that airline career, you know! Okay, no, but having trips during the slow winter months certainly helps the bottom line, and Spring is only 59 days away...
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Saturday's Briefing
A group of 11 grown-ups and 8 kids spent the afternoon at Chuck E Cheese, for Gwenie's birthday. Hey, a good time is not as much about where you are as who you're with. :) Afterwards a few of us went out to the hangars with the four oldest kids, and they played around in the airplanes in the big hangar, rode scooters, and did whatever it is they do when we're not looking. I know I'm going to be double checking things on the 340 pretty closely before I launch at 6 a.m. for Mississippi again. ;) The rest of us worked on a few things that needed caught up on out there, and we left around sunset. It was another beautiful sunset, too, burnt orange and gold... I brought the two girls back to our house to play for a few more hours, and we're getting ready to drive Girl #2 back home, shortly. This will be met with wailing and gnashing of teeth, I'm afraid, but that's just another life lesson--the hard part about having fun is letting go of it when it's time. :)
Friday, January 18, 2013
One Mississippi...
So there I was, flying along at a low 10,000' to avoid bad headwinds, when I looked down and saw I had blood all over my hands, and all over my jeans. I had a cut on my finger, looked like a chunk of skin was missing, but I had no recollection of doing anything to myself, and obviously hadn't noticed I was bleeding all over, either. Don't know when or how it happened. Weird, man!
Tonight was my first of many runs to the great state of Mississippi over the next 3-4 months. It's right at the edge of my fuel, which I hate. Today was kind of a test run. I had to do the whole rigmarole on fuel management, and ended up with 40 gallons remaining, which sounds like a lot, but isn't. It's an hour's worth of fuel. What that means is that when I have stronger headwinds than today, and/or I have to shoot an instrument approach into there, I'm going to be right at minimum reserves. So...I've already got a mid point place picked out for a fuel stop if need be, and a tower controlled field with self serve fuel 24/7 closer to my destination. Just in case. But today was fine, it was severe clear, and down low I kept the headwind to some component of under 30 knots, arriving at Hattiesburg just after the sun went down.
Their self-serve pump will allow you to do $500.00 per swipe, which still means I have to swipe the card twice to fill up, but at least they have self serve fuel after hours, and at least I only have to swipe it twice. ;) I also got lucky, because something I'd been wondering about has now been solved. This is a 3.5 hour long flight down there. I'll be doing a lot of flights, like tonight, after hours. The place is locked up after hours. Now I'm good on "holding it", but I'm not 8-hours-without-a-bathroom good. There was a line guy that happened to be there late, and he gave me the code to get inside the terminal building. I've put it on my phone, so from now on I at least know I have somewhere to go.
The other issue with turn around trips like that is that you have to moderate your food and water intake not just while you're flying, but for about an hour before, too. You can't chuck a Diet Coke or a bottle of water then go fly for 3.5 hours. And once I land down there, I'm just filling up the plane and leaving again, so again, I can't really do much for food or drink without putting myself in a bind. It ended up being 7.5 hours from first takeoff to last touchdown, at 11 p.m. I had a package of peanut butter crackers and sipped on 1/2 bottle of water on the way home, and had a decent headache by the time I got home. Guess I'd better up the intake just a bit.
The way down I was alone in the plane, so other than constantly changing around and monitoring fuel (and everything else), I also had my iPod in, and got almost an entire James Patterson book read. I was routed around airspace two different times, and they dropped me down for a third airspace issue.
The airport I went to is the home field of one of my online pilot friends. I haven't met him in person yet, but likely will now that I'll be going back and forth to his home airport where he instructs. I'm actually not sure about meeting people IRL sometimes-I'm kind of shy about it, really. But it's kind of neat that the little airport in nowhere Mississippi that I'm going to happens to be the one that an online friend works at. :)
The best thing about going to this airport is that there is a lot of good, fresh seafood nearby. I already told D, I'm bringing a cooler down, and I'm picking up and bringing home some good fresh seafood one of these upcoming trips. It will happen. I don't know if I can pull it off for this Monday's trip or not, but soon, it will be mine, oh yes it will...
The only eventful thing about our flight home was that we got into a little wind shear action close to Kokomo. The winds aloft were 23 knots most of the way home, but as we descended into Kokomo, we started getting thrown around pretty hard, and the wind speed picked up to almost 60 knots. When we got down to 2500' and the winds were at 58 knots still, I did a little quick pilot brief on dealing with wind shear coming in to land. We were about 25 degrees off on our heading just to track straight on downwind, and getting thrown around pretty hard. I apologized to the poor new guy in the back seat. Fortunately the winds on the ground were only 20-30 degrees off the runway, gusting at 32 knots, but it was still a pretty good ride, and our airspeed had some big fluctuations a couple of times. D hasn't flown a lot lately, so he got a refresher tonight, his first night landing in ages, with winds like that, and did a good job not letting it get slow even when it tried to, and quickly.
I thought the below picture turned out strangely interesting with the lighting. The sun was really warm on my face. The next one I took had normal lighting, but I don't feel like posting two pictures of myself at the same time. ;)
Tonight was my first of many runs to the great state of Mississippi over the next 3-4 months. It's right at the edge of my fuel, which I hate. Today was kind of a test run. I had to do the whole rigmarole on fuel management, and ended up with 40 gallons remaining, which sounds like a lot, but isn't. It's an hour's worth of fuel. What that means is that when I have stronger headwinds than today, and/or I have to shoot an instrument approach into there, I'm going to be right at minimum reserves. So...I've already got a mid point place picked out for a fuel stop if need be, and a tower controlled field with self serve fuel 24/7 closer to my destination. Just in case. But today was fine, it was severe clear, and down low I kept the headwind to some component of under 30 knots, arriving at Hattiesburg just after the sun went down.
Their self-serve pump will allow you to do $500.00 per swipe, which still means I have to swipe the card twice to fill up, but at least they have self serve fuel after hours, and at least I only have to swipe it twice. ;) I also got lucky, because something I'd been wondering about has now been solved. This is a 3.5 hour long flight down there. I'll be doing a lot of flights, like tonight, after hours. The place is locked up after hours. Now I'm good on "holding it", but I'm not 8-hours-without-a-bathroom good. There was a line guy that happened to be there late, and he gave me the code to get inside the terminal building. I've put it on my phone, so from now on I at least know I have somewhere to go.
The other issue with turn around trips like that is that you have to moderate your food and water intake not just while you're flying, but for about an hour before, too. You can't chuck a Diet Coke or a bottle of water then go fly for 3.5 hours. And once I land down there, I'm just filling up the plane and leaving again, so again, I can't really do much for food or drink without putting myself in a bind. It ended up being 7.5 hours from first takeoff to last touchdown, at 11 p.m. I had a package of peanut butter crackers and sipped on 1/2 bottle of water on the way home, and had a decent headache by the time I got home. Guess I'd better up the intake just a bit.
The way down I was alone in the plane, so other than constantly changing around and monitoring fuel (and everything else), I also had my iPod in, and got almost an entire James Patterson book read. I was routed around airspace two different times, and they dropped me down for a third airspace issue.
The airport I went to is the home field of one of my online pilot friends. I haven't met him in person yet, but likely will now that I'll be going back and forth to his home airport where he instructs. I'm actually not sure about meeting people IRL sometimes-I'm kind of shy about it, really. But it's kind of neat that the little airport in nowhere Mississippi that I'm going to happens to be the one that an online friend works at. :)
The best thing about going to this airport is that there is a lot of good, fresh seafood nearby. I already told D, I'm bringing a cooler down, and I'm picking up and bringing home some good fresh seafood one of these upcoming trips. It will happen. I don't know if I can pull it off for this Monday's trip or not, but soon, it will be mine, oh yes it will...
The only eventful thing about our flight home was that we got into a little wind shear action close to Kokomo. The winds aloft were 23 knots most of the way home, but as we descended into Kokomo, we started getting thrown around pretty hard, and the wind speed picked up to almost 60 knots. When we got down to 2500' and the winds were at 58 knots still, I did a little quick pilot brief on dealing with wind shear coming in to land. We were about 25 degrees off on our heading just to track straight on downwind, and getting thrown around pretty hard. I apologized to the poor new guy in the back seat. Fortunately the winds on the ground were only 20-30 degrees off the runway, gusting at 32 knots, but it was still a pretty good ride, and our airspeed had some big fluctuations a couple of times. D hasn't flown a lot lately, so he got a refresher tonight, his first night landing in ages, with winds like that, and did a good job not letting it get slow even when it tried to, and quickly.
I thought the below picture turned out strangely interesting with the lighting. The sun was really warm on my face. The next one I took had normal lighting, but I don't feel like posting two pictures of myself at the same time. ;)
Here's the sun going down over a small town in Mississippi. The sky was almost on fire--it was quite pretty.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
In the System
I had a brand new experience today, going into the local police station and getting fingerprinted. When I arrived for my appointment, Steve was already in there getting his prints done, and I had my camera out and was zooming in when he stepped away and was done. I was so close to a really good Facebook post there. ;) They were having difficulties with their computer, which ran me late for my flight student. Make that two new experiences, as I have never before and hopefully never again will have to text a student and say "Sorry I'm running late, I am stuck at the police station." ;)
My fingerprints weren't in any system, anywhere, until today, but they were well and thoroughly done today. Every single individual finger, flat and rolled both. Kind of neat to watch how the computer did it. But I'd better never commit a crime now. Nah, I'd remember to wear gloves anyway. ;)
Alas, my ability to be able to take the PT up and do some practice in it has been curtailed by circumstances beyond our control. I've got about an hour and 45 minutes in it now, and we're waiting to see if headquarters will be amenable to an easier solution than currently existing ones. Doug is still an option, if it works out for him to come this way. It's fortunately not a difficult plane, but a little familiarity prior to a formal checkride wouldn't be a terrible thing to me.
Steve doesn't care about silly things like that--for example, I think he liked finishing off his required 3 hours of checkride prep on his way to his multi-engine checkride. ;) Me, I'm more of a fuddy duddy. (Well, sort of. My second ever flight in the 340 we took it into IMC into Indy International. That's not too fuddy duddy-ish.) The difference between Steve and I on the learning flying stuff is, he assumes he'll be fine winging it, and doesn't give it much of a second thought once he knows what he's supposed to do. I can't do that as effortlessly as he. Nobody likes looking like a doofus, but I'm more sensitive to it than most. In my defense, I have some valid historical reasons for my slight neurosis there, but don't worry, I won't subject you to them here. ;)
We ended the evening with an enjoyable EAA chapter meeting at Glenndale. Dale talked about the Cubs that came to Oshkosh, sharing about those, and Michelle brought vegetable soup, and it was a nice couple of hours. The newsletter guy asked me to write up an article on something fun I've done flying related for the newsletter. He mentioned a photo shoot, so I was thinking through those, and thought that maybe the one with the PV-2 that was a disaster from start to finish might be kind of funny...and then I thought about the fact I'd be publishing it in a newsletter, and that perhaps I might not want that getting back to them. Of course the newsletter goes to a whole 30 people or so, none of whom know those guys...that I know of...maybe I could change the type of airplane to protect the guilty. Or I could write about the Thunder Pig, and Steve being the flight saver when the Six wouldn't start and he had to pull the cowling with the C-123's engines running and everybody waiting on and watching us. Hmm. Or I could do a monthly article called "Stants' Savory Stories" and post either my or Steve's foibles one at a time for the next year or two. ;) Nah, folks will just have to wait for my book...
My fingerprints weren't in any system, anywhere, until today, but they were well and thoroughly done today. Every single individual finger, flat and rolled both. Kind of neat to watch how the computer did it. But I'd better never commit a crime now. Nah, I'd remember to wear gloves anyway. ;)
Alas, my ability to be able to take the PT up and do some practice in it has been curtailed by circumstances beyond our control. I've got about an hour and 45 minutes in it now, and we're waiting to see if headquarters will be amenable to an easier solution than currently existing ones. Doug is still an option, if it works out for him to come this way. It's fortunately not a difficult plane, but a little familiarity prior to a formal checkride wouldn't be a terrible thing to me.
Steve doesn't care about silly things like that--for example, I think he liked finishing off his required 3 hours of checkride prep on his way to his multi-engine checkride. ;) Me, I'm more of a fuddy duddy. (Well, sort of. My second ever flight in the 340 we took it into IMC into Indy International. That's not too fuddy duddy-ish.) The difference between Steve and I on the learning flying stuff is, he assumes he'll be fine winging it, and doesn't give it much of a second thought once he knows what he's supposed to do. I can't do that as effortlessly as he. Nobody likes looking like a doofus, but I'm more sensitive to it than most. In my defense, I have some valid historical reasons for my slight neurosis there, but don't worry, I won't subject you to them here. ;)
We ended the evening with an enjoyable EAA chapter meeting at Glenndale. Dale talked about the Cubs that came to Oshkosh, sharing about those, and Michelle brought vegetable soup, and it was a nice couple of hours. The newsletter guy asked me to write up an article on something fun I've done flying related for the newsletter. He mentioned a photo shoot, so I was thinking through those, and thought that maybe the one with the PV-2 that was a disaster from start to finish might be kind of funny...and then I thought about the fact I'd be publishing it in a newsletter, and that perhaps I might not want that getting back to them. Of course the newsletter goes to a whole 30 people or so, none of whom know those guys...that I know of...maybe I could change the type of airplane to protect the guilty. Or I could write about the Thunder Pig, and Steve being the flight saver when the Six wouldn't start and he had to pull the cowling with the C-123's engines running and everybody waiting on and watching us. Hmm. Or I could do a monthly article called "Stants' Savory Stories" and post either my or Steve's foibles one at a time for the next year or two. ;) Nah, folks will just have to wait for my book...
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Random Day
I don't know what the outside temp was this morning, but I do know that at 7 a.m. in the dark it was bitter cold, and that by Monday morning, when I'm supposed to take a trip leaving at 6 a.m., it's supposed to be 2 (as in TWO) degrees. Bleh. I took two gents back to St. Louis this morning, watched the sunrise from a low 10,000' to try to get away from a headwind that still hit us at over 40 knots right on the nose for awhile there. Everybody else in the airplane took a nap, the heater was on, it was dark, the sun gradually rose, the radio was dead quiet, I had my music playing just over my headphones, and I was almost drowsy. Nothing was going on, the airspace wasn't busy like it was yesterday, and I was cleared to land 10 miles out. So I wasn't mentally ready for it when I landed, and was rolling out, all relaxed and in quiet mode, and tower spouted off its huge instructions to get to the ramp. "9JM, turn right Bravo 3, Bravo, Bravo 2, cross 30R, Alpha, Alpha one to the..." That's the second time they've gotten me like that. I'm still rolling out, it's not like I can scribble it down, either. So I said "Right Bravo 3, Braaaaavooooo, yeah, you're going to have to say that again, sorry." Then by the time he said it all again, and I repeated it back, I passed Bravo 3. He then said "Now we'll have to amend that." and gave me a completely different set of directions. Perfect, just when I had the other ones memorized! Heh. I had woken back up fully by then out of embarrassment, so I got that one. I made sure to sound like I actually knew what I was doing when it was time to leave, though. ;)
I made it home in time for lunch, then had a flight in the 172 afterwards. I was supposed to have another flight, and Steve was going to have to pick up Kaylee from school. When my second flight canceled at the last minute, I texted Steve that I could get Kaylee if need be, and he called and said that was a good thing because his car wouldn't start and he was stuck at the dentist's office. We'd have been in trouble with Kaylee if my flight had gone after all--unless I had my electronic device on in the airplane and got his text telling me to land asap and pick up the kid before she got sent back to the school alone on the bus without knowing what was wrong. See. Things like this are why I'm ignoring any new FAA rule banning electronic devices in the cockpit. They can bite me.
Our vehicle had to be towed to the repair shop, but thankfully we have a back-up vehicle, so other than Steve spending more time at the dentist than he might otherwise care to, and hoping that the repairs aren't too costly, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
Just now got a message that Doug R., pilot of Duggy and the Red-Tailed P-51 (among other things) is probably coming this way within the next month and would be able to do my instructor checkride in the PT for the CAF so I don't have to go to Texas or have the wing pay to have the guy come from Texas and stay here. Really nice of him to offer. And he's a brave man, too, getting in the PT in February in Indiana... :)
I made it home in time for lunch, then had a flight in the 172 afterwards. I was supposed to have another flight, and Steve was going to have to pick up Kaylee from school. When my second flight canceled at the last minute, I texted Steve that I could get Kaylee if need be, and he called and said that was a good thing because his car wouldn't start and he was stuck at the dentist's office. We'd have been in trouble with Kaylee if my flight had gone after all--unless I had my electronic device on in the airplane and got his text telling me to land asap and pick up the kid before she got sent back to the school alone on the bus without knowing what was wrong. See. Things like this are why I'm ignoring any new FAA rule banning electronic devices in the cockpit. They can bite me.
Our vehicle had to be towed to the repair shop, but thankfully we have a back-up vehicle, so other than Steve spending more time at the dentist than he might otherwise care to, and hoping that the repairs aren't too costly, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
Just now got a message that Doug R., pilot of Duggy and the Red-Tailed P-51 (among other things) is probably coming this way within the next month and would be able to do my instructor checkride in the PT for the CAF so I don't have to go to Texas or have the wing pay to have the guy come from Texas and stay here. Really nice of him to offer. And he's a brave man, too, getting in the PT in February in Indiana... :)
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Razzle Frazzle
Steve C and I launched for St. Louis this morning, picked up the boss and came right back home. He took the leg out and I took the leg home. St. Louis was pretty busy today, and they had us doing circles on a two mile final at 2400' for awhile there. Then on the way home, Grissom never let me down. I ended up canceling IFR with them with the airport just about right under me and I was still at 11,000'. I did a giant pattern, and it's not uncommon for them to dump me on top of the airport, but I don't remember being THAT high before. What were they going to do-clear me for the visual approach and then shut off their "Sink Rate" alarms in there when I had to come down like a manhole cover? If I wouldn't have had any passengers I might have tried it. Spoilers out, drag out, power back, slip it down and see what you get-carefully, of course. Could be fun, but that wouldn't be nice to a non-pilot. :)
This article made my eyes roll. Basically it says the latest recommendation in aviation safety from the Federal Aviation Administration is--get this--more manual flight operations...aka hand flying your airplane now and then. Per the FAA: “A recent analysis of flight operations data (including normal flight operations, incidents, and accidents) identified an increase in manual handling errors. The [FAA] believes maintaining and improving the knowledge and skills for manual flight operations is necessary for safe flight operations.” In other words, the FAA is saying that failure of the flight management system and autopilot is now a critical in-flight emergency that demands special training and practice: flying an airplane by hand. See, there go my eyes all rolling around again. You mean you have to be able to actually fly the plane yourself too? That people who rely completely on technology end up in trouble when something goes wrong, which it does and will? NO KIDDING. Yes, I shouted that. But c'mon.
Here's another article. This time the FAA wants to create a rule to prohibit personal electronic devices in the airplane. They can prohibit it if they want, but this is one I'm going to ignore. Getting a timely text in the air has saved me from problems more than once, and sending a timely text has helped me out more than once. I don't like rules that don't need to be rules. Use common sense. There's a thought.
Last but not least, this bothered a lot of us recently. Short version, a glider pilot who wasn't doing anything wrong was arrested by some local yokel police officers who got him for "breach of the peace" because he flew over a power plant. A power plant that was not depicted on our aviation sectional charts as restricted airspace, no NOTAM over it, he was more than 1000' over it, was completely innocent of any wrong-doing. But these Barney Fife types decided that they had jurisdiction over the airspace, that this glider was a national security threat, and talked about shooting it down, and arrested the 70 year old pilot and put him in jail with 11 other inmates, because he flew over an area that was not illegal to fly over. He then signed away his rights to go after them in exchange for his release once they realized they couldn't get him on anything. The good news is, that police department has been inundated with people crawling down their throats over this. If it's a no-fly zone, then it has to be depicted as such. If it's not, then you don't have the right to arrest people for it.
That really reminds me of the flight I took, what, last year I think it was, where I circled, repeatedly, low, over 8 different power plant facilities, one after the other, under some of the busiest airspace in Ohio and Pennsylvania, not talking to a soul. Five hundred (to a thousand depending on where I was) feet above the ground, circling over and over while the photographer took photos of their assets. I even said back then that if nobody followed or contacted me about it that I'd be shocked. I didn't bust any regs, I didn't fly into any space I wasn't supposed to, I didn't get lower than the minimum required altitude, I didn't do anything illegal, but I sure did a lot more than this guy, and I never heard a word about it, while this poor guy quietly and legally flies his glider over the top of one more than 1000' above it and gets arrested by Deputy Dawg. Not good. We cannot have secret "no fly" zones out there waiting to get you "shot down" by some overzealous frightened law enforcement officer, or arrested...
All the flying stuff just keeps me off of the gun control stuff going on. But for tonight, if I'm going to keep up on my Things To Do pile, I have to take care of a few things. Tomorrow will be an early and busy one.
This article made my eyes roll. Basically it says the latest recommendation in aviation safety from the Federal Aviation Administration is--get this--more manual flight operations...aka hand flying your airplane now and then. Per the FAA: “A recent analysis of flight operations data (including normal flight operations, incidents, and accidents) identified an increase in manual handling errors. The [FAA] believes maintaining and improving the knowledge and skills for manual flight operations is necessary for safe flight operations.” In other words, the FAA is saying that failure of the flight management system and autopilot is now a critical in-flight emergency that demands special training and practice: flying an airplane by hand. See, there go my eyes all rolling around again. You mean you have to be able to actually fly the plane yourself too? That people who rely completely on technology end up in trouble when something goes wrong, which it does and will? NO KIDDING. Yes, I shouted that. But c'mon.
Here's another article. This time the FAA wants to create a rule to prohibit personal electronic devices in the airplane. They can prohibit it if they want, but this is one I'm going to ignore. Getting a timely text in the air has saved me from problems more than once, and sending a timely text has helped me out more than once. I don't like rules that don't need to be rules. Use common sense. There's a thought.
Last but not least, this bothered a lot of us recently. Short version, a glider pilot who wasn't doing anything wrong was arrested by some local yokel police officers who got him for "breach of the peace" because he flew over a power plant. A power plant that was not depicted on our aviation sectional charts as restricted airspace, no NOTAM over it, he was more than 1000' over it, was completely innocent of any wrong-doing. But these Barney Fife types decided that they had jurisdiction over the airspace, that this glider was a national security threat, and talked about shooting it down, and arrested the 70 year old pilot and put him in jail with 11 other inmates, because he flew over an area that was not illegal to fly over. He then signed away his rights to go after them in exchange for his release once they realized they couldn't get him on anything. The good news is, that police department has been inundated with people crawling down their throats over this. If it's a no-fly zone, then it has to be depicted as such. If it's not, then you don't have the right to arrest people for it.
That really reminds me of the flight I took, what, last year I think it was, where I circled, repeatedly, low, over 8 different power plant facilities, one after the other, under some of the busiest airspace in Ohio and Pennsylvania, not talking to a soul. Five hundred (to a thousand depending on where I was) feet above the ground, circling over and over while the photographer took photos of their assets. I even said back then that if nobody followed or contacted me about it that I'd be shocked. I didn't bust any regs, I didn't fly into any space I wasn't supposed to, I didn't get lower than the minimum required altitude, I didn't do anything illegal, but I sure did a lot more than this guy, and I never heard a word about it, while this poor guy quietly and legally flies his glider over the top of one more than 1000' above it and gets arrested by Deputy Dawg. Not good. We cannot have secret "no fly" zones out there waiting to get you "shot down" by some overzealous frightened law enforcement officer, or arrested...
All the flying stuff just keeps me off of the gun control stuff going on. But for tonight, if I'm going to keep up on my Things To Do pile, I have to take care of a few things. Tomorrow will be an early and busy one.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Accomplished
On one of the corners on our drive home from picking up Kaylee from the bus, there's a Little Caesar's pizza place, and they always have a guy or girl out there, sometimes dressed all in orange, sometimes just in their uniforms, sometimes dressed as Little Caesar himself, and they will dance, wiggle, throw signs in the air, and try to get your attention and make you think about eating there. Today Kaylee saw one and piped up with "Hey, that Little Seizure guy is on the corner again!" They do kind of look like they're having a seizure out there sometimes. ;)
I enjoy Facebook for keeping up with family and friends; it's great to see pictures and updates from people I enjoy that I might not get to see as often as I'd like. I also don't really "friend" someone unless I actually know them, or I know who they are and am interested in learning more; I have a lot of "flying" people like that. But every once in awhile you get someone who just drives you nuts. Either it's constant game requests (I've figured out how to block that at least), or it's Irritating Posts. I have one that is a mid-40s-year-old woman who acts like she's emotionally about 14. I can't hardly take it, and it's been a lot worse lately. People need to not use public Facebook to cryptically and dramatically air all their dirty laundry, particularly when they're a middle aged person who should be mature enough to know better. Gak. I've certainly had enough...I'd remove her if it wouldn't cause a meltdown of hurt feelings and despair. Anyway. I digress.
Great day of continuing to catch up on stuff I should have done a long time ago. I'd had some banking issues for awhile, was locked out of my online account, and a few other things, but taking care of it required going inside and talking with someone. Since I couldn't do it via email, website, or text, I pretty much just ignored it. So I finally got it taken care of today. It took me a good 40 minutes or so to get everything done, but all three banking things I had a problem with, I got taken care of. The pile on my side of the desk, the pile of Things I Need To Do Eventually, is down to nothing but a W-9 form to fill out and a Staples coupon that I need to use up before it expires. I am The Man. Well, The Woman. I have another giant project I need to tackle that I've let go for...years, but I've been working on this stuff a bite at a time, and now I'm down to mostly that. It's about to get busier around here again, so I'm glad I had these couple of quieter weeks to get some of this stuff done.
Starting Saturday I'll be starting a series of runs to Southeast Mississippi for work. The last time I went to Mississippi I ended up calling it "The Great Mississippi Debacle" and stranded for 3 days, after one of the worst flights I've had, with everything from battery and mag and plugged fuel injectors/maintenance issues, to two bad and converging lines of thunderstorms, and ice, and bad turbulence, and such strong headwinds I had to stop for an unplanned fuel stop, and a guy who threw up so many times, using up every sick sack in the plane, that he was practically comatose by the time we finally got to where we were going, and coming home had its own set of problems. Yeah, good times. ;) Here's a toast to Mississippi getting a second chance to not be synonymous with "ARGH!" in my memory. ;)
I enjoy Facebook for keeping up with family and friends; it's great to see pictures and updates from people I enjoy that I might not get to see as often as I'd like. I also don't really "friend" someone unless I actually know them, or I know who they are and am interested in learning more; I have a lot of "flying" people like that. But every once in awhile you get someone who just drives you nuts. Either it's constant game requests (I've figured out how to block that at least), or it's Irritating Posts. I have one that is a mid-40s-year-old woman who acts like she's emotionally about 14. I can't hardly take it, and it's been a lot worse lately. People need to not use public Facebook to cryptically and dramatically air all their dirty laundry, particularly when they're a middle aged person who should be mature enough to know better. Gak. I've certainly had enough...I'd remove her if it wouldn't cause a meltdown of hurt feelings and despair. Anyway. I digress.
Great day of continuing to catch up on stuff I should have done a long time ago. I'd had some banking issues for awhile, was locked out of my online account, and a few other things, but taking care of it required going inside and talking with someone. Since I couldn't do it via email, website, or text, I pretty much just ignored it. So I finally got it taken care of today. It took me a good 40 minutes or so to get everything done, but all three banking things I had a problem with, I got taken care of. The pile on my side of the desk, the pile of Things I Need To Do Eventually, is down to nothing but a W-9 form to fill out and a Staples coupon that I need to use up before it expires. I am The Man. Well, The Woman. I have another giant project I need to tackle that I've let go for...years, but I've been working on this stuff a bite at a time, and now I'm down to mostly that. It's about to get busier around here again, so I'm glad I had these couple of quieter weeks to get some of this stuff done.
Starting Saturday I'll be starting a series of runs to Southeast Mississippi for work. The last time I went to Mississippi I ended up calling it "The Great Mississippi Debacle" and stranded for 3 days, after one of the worst flights I've had, with everything from battery and mag and plugged fuel injectors/maintenance issues, to two bad and converging lines of thunderstorms, and ice, and bad turbulence, and such strong headwinds I had to stop for an unplanned fuel stop, and a guy who threw up so many times, using up every sick sack in the plane, that he was practically comatose by the time we finally got to where we were going, and coming home had its own set of problems. Yeah, good times. ;) Here's a toast to Mississippi getting a second chance to not be synonymous with "ARGH!" in my memory. ;)
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Growth
As I've mentioned before, one of Kaylee's favorite things to do is to have a sleepover in the living room on the couches, with her dad. So we'll send her to bed in her room at her normal time, and then when he's ready to go to sleep, he'll go in and get her and they'll lay out on the couches, watch TV, talk, and eventually go to sleep. When they first started doing this, she barely took up one cushion. Now she takes up an entire side of the couch. It's getting hard on his back, but he keeps doing it, because he knows that this too shall pass, and that one of these days she won't think it's cool to have a camp out with her dad on the couches. It's the same reason I let her crawl in bed with me and cuddle in the mornings for a few minutes. Official teenager-hood isn't too far off the horizon. She's a cuddly one, so she may hold out for awhile, but she won't be crawling in and cuddling up to me forever. I enjoy her face on my shoulder, her arm wrapped around me, falling asleep again, or talking and laughing about something going on with the day. They are snapshots of quiet happiness that we can share, just the two of us, and the two of them.
Steve got a new toolbox for the garage, so his Man Project for the weekend was to get it set up properly in there. Like any project, however, there are snags. This won't fit properly, this will need to be cut, but he doesn't have the right saw to do it, etc. I haven't been out there yet. Woman's Rule #1: Whenever there is a Man Project, it is best to avoid the area as much as possible until completion of said project, at which time your sole duty is to say "Wow, that looks fantastic! Great job!" ;) No, it'll be great, he's been wanting to do that for ages, so I'm glad it's on its way. We also got all our Christmas stuff finally put away out in the garage, the tree has been hauled outside (that always looks kind of sad to me), and the house is back to itself for another 11 months and 2 weeks.
I've been working on Domestic Goddesshood. Vacuuming until the new machine isn't picking up anything, dishes and laundry, cooking an "almond cream butter braid" (which was quite tasty), and then some business stuff--sending out some receipts for SMA Support, going through a little banking, getting ready for next week, cleaning off (and actually DOING my "To Do" pile on my desk), doing my all-powerful weights and stretching, and now sitting back, watching the playoffs and listening to the rain-turning-into-sleet lightly pelting the window...
Steve got a new toolbox for the garage, so his Man Project for the weekend was to get it set up properly in there. Like any project, however, there are snags. This won't fit properly, this will need to be cut, but he doesn't have the right saw to do it, etc. I haven't been out there yet. Woman's Rule #1: Whenever there is a Man Project, it is best to avoid the area as much as possible until completion of said project, at which time your sole duty is to say "Wow, that looks fantastic! Great job!" ;) No, it'll be great, he's been wanting to do that for ages, so I'm glad it's on its way. We also got all our Christmas stuff finally put away out in the garage, the tree has been hauled outside (that always looks kind of sad to me), and the house is back to itself for another 11 months and 2 weeks.
I've been working on Domestic Goddesshood. Vacuuming until the new machine isn't picking up anything, dishes and laundry, cooking an "almond cream butter braid" (which was quite tasty), and then some business stuff--sending out some receipts for SMA Support, going through a little banking, getting ready for next week, cleaning off (and actually DOING my "To Do" pile on my desk), doing my all-powerful weights and stretching, and now sitting back, watching the playoffs and listening to the rain-turning-into-sleet lightly pelting the window...
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Deconstruct
We have had the same vacuum cleaner since, well, I think since I've been around here, anyway. It's old, it's very heavy, and it's extremely noisy. I hate loud high pitched whiny constant or repetitive noises, so that vacuum was always a nuisance. So finally, after much debate, research and even more debate, Steve went out and got us a new vacuum, called "The Shark". It has a twisty handle so you can go around corners easily, a canister instead of bags, lightweight, quieter, all that good stuff. We had just vacuumed not too long ago with our old vacuum, so when we pulled out the new vacuum, I expected to get some stuff with it, but not a lot. Yes, well, wrong. In fact, bothersomely wrong. We swept over just the main room twice in a row and ended up with a lot of dirt and cat hair that came up that hadn't come up with the other vacuum. We went around from room to room doing that, and it was a little disturbing. Nothing to make you feel unclean like seeing how much gunk a new vacuum brings up. I'm still not done, I'm going to do it another time or two tomorrow to make sure we're at least starting off nicely.
Today we deconstructed Christmas on the inside of the house, taking down all the Christmas ornaments from around the house, taking down the tree ornaments, all the lights, all the room decorations, etc. I got about five boxes of stuff ready to go and back on the deck, and then Steve has the harder job of packing up all the remaining loose random objects into what's left of the boxes. He does this job because I'm not patient enough for it, and I'd just throw stuff in there until the boxes were full. He does it like a Tetris game, everything fitting just so and packed just so. Again, this is why he does it.
We went out tonight for a nice dinner with friends, and the Broncos/Ravens game was on around the corner. While we enjoyed our fillet, we did not enjoy watching Peyton Manning lose a 7 point lead with 31 seconds left in the game, and did not enjoy watching him throw an interception in overtime leading to his loss. It couldn't ruin that steak, but it wasn't fun to see that field goal go in. I was really hoping he'd take it all the way this year as kind of a nose-thumbing thing. Now I'm watching the Packers lose too. Bah humbug. Enjoyed the dinner, though! It's nice to get out every once in awhile without kiddos and enjoy a few hours out, and that was one good meal. I'll probably have to do some walking tomorrow to counter some of that, but it was worth it.
Kaylee is excited. For a combination of her birthday and a celebration of her straight As, we're taking her and a friend to Wolf Lodge over in Ohio. It's a big ole indoor water park and hotel set-up, and she's never been before, so she's really looking forward to it. We got word tonight that the friend she asked can come, and our reservations are made, so she's good to go and can't wait. She also may be invited to go to Daytona Beach over Spring Break, too, and if so, she's pretty happy about that too. And this year, if she goes to Florida, she is NOT to buy or bring home or even look at any baby turtles!! I have done my last baby turtle resuscitation attempt and burial...
Today we deconstructed Christmas on the inside of the house, taking down all the Christmas ornaments from around the house, taking down the tree ornaments, all the lights, all the room decorations, etc. I got about five boxes of stuff ready to go and back on the deck, and then Steve has the harder job of packing up all the remaining loose random objects into what's left of the boxes. He does this job because I'm not patient enough for it, and I'd just throw stuff in there until the boxes were full. He does it like a Tetris game, everything fitting just so and packed just so. Again, this is why he does it.
We went out tonight for a nice dinner with friends, and the Broncos/Ravens game was on around the corner. While we enjoyed our fillet, we did not enjoy watching Peyton Manning lose a 7 point lead with 31 seconds left in the game, and did not enjoy watching him throw an interception in overtime leading to his loss. It couldn't ruin that steak, but it wasn't fun to see that field goal go in. I was really hoping he'd take it all the way this year as kind of a nose-thumbing thing. Now I'm watching the Packers lose too. Bah humbug. Enjoyed the dinner, though! It's nice to get out every once in awhile without kiddos and enjoy a few hours out, and that was one good meal. I'll probably have to do some walking tomorrow to counter some of that, but it was worth it.
Kaylee is excited. For a combination of her birthday and a celebration of her straight As, we're taking her and a friend to Wolf Lodge over in Ohio. It's a big ole indoor water park and hotel set-up, and she's never been before, so she's really looking forward to it. We got word tonight that the friend she asked can come, and our reservations are made, so she's good to go and can't wait. She also may be invited to go to Daytona Beach over Spring Break, too, and if so, she's pretty happy about that too. And this year, if she goes to Florida, she is NOT to buy or bring home or even look at any baby turtles!! I have done my last baby turtle resuscitation attempt and burial...
Friday, January 11, 2013
Weekend Begins...
Happy Friday! I think it actually is a weekend around here, too. As far as I can remember right now, we don't have anything work related we have to do this weekend. So I'm starting off the weekend right with a small DQ Blizzard and fuzzy socks.
Kaylee wore one of her new shirts today, looked good, felt good, had no homework, and got her report card back finally from first semester. All A's, and the rest that don't have grades were "O" for "Outstanding" or "P" for "Proficient". So we have to come up with some kind of positive reinforcement reward for that one. She said "I got an A- in Math at the end there", and I said "Now you have something to work on for next semester--all A+'s." She groaned and said "Great". ;) So after I picked her up, she wanted to go to DQ, which sounds good to me. We're munching on chocolate ice cream when Kaylee says "Did you ever see Gulligan's Island?" I pause... "You mean GILLIGAN'S Island?" "Yeah, that's it. We watched an episode of that in school. It was pretty goofy. Reminded me of The Three Henchmen." I burst out laughing. "You mean The Three STOOGES??" She rolls her eyes at me and huffs and says, "Stooges, Muskateers, Blind Mice, Henchmen...WhatEVER!" I can't decide if I'm more amused at what she called them or bothered that she didn't know what they were. Gulligan's Island took me a second because my first thought was Gulliver's Travels. But Three Henchmen?! Now that's just funny. And by the way, why are they showing episodes of Gilligan's Island in school?? *I* could be that kind of teacher at home.
We were driving home when a beat up pickup truck in the other lane suddenly sped up and went by us. Kaylee said "Mom, that guy just flipped us off." Apparently Mr. Manners had wanted over in our lane, but didn't put on any signal or give any indication of such desire, then when he didn't get in, he became unhappy about it. I was promptly filled with a desire to give him a piece of my mind over gesturing towards my 11-year-old daughter, but decided that responding with said 11-year-old on board observing would be a poor parental example. We did have eye contact at one point after that and it wouldn't surprise me if he caught my opinion of his behavior by the look on my face, though.
A woman called my phone four times one right after the other today, leaving two messages about how I’d said I would help them months and months and months ago and how nobody was answering her and nobody was helping and she was calling the FSMA on me to tell them I wasn’t doing anything (on no!), and somebody needed to call her back Right Away and let her know if this would be taken care of, etc. I looked up everything before I called her back, and the hang up was not on my end. When I told her I hadn’t had any communication from anyone since the initial contact, no invoice, no other phone calls before today, no emails, no anything, and that I would be happy to take care of the issue if the other party was ready, she wanted to know my full name, address, phone number, and exactly what time I was planning on calling the other people to take care of it. She was very...abrupt and unpleasant. This is a person who applied to SMA Support for help with something. I am always happy to help, but I don't do real well with people being buttheads, nor do I think having or even losing a child with SMA is an excuse for being a butthead. The thought popped into my head to tell her she's not the only one who has ever had to deal with this, but that would be unprofessional. So I just took care of it. When I contacted the other party, they said they had a bunch of messages from her in one day as well. When I called her back, I let her know it was taken care of, and told her that I was sorry for what she and her family was going through. At that point, the demanding, harsh woman started crying. Grief is a strange animal, and anger is definitely a part of it, I know. I hope she can learn how to deal with people respectfully anyway, and I hope she gets a little peace from having this issue taken care of.
We are in the midst of determining Kaylee's birthday activities, and Spring Break, too. She has a couple of ideas, but we'll have to see if they will work out. One year and 10 days until she's an official teenager. How wild is that??
Kaylee wore one of her new shirts today, looked good, felt good, had no homework, and got her report card back finally from first semester. All A's, and the rest that don't have grades were "O" for "Outstanding" or "P" for "Proficient". So we have to come up with some kind of positive reinforcement reward for that one. She said "I got an A- in Math at the end there", and I said "Now you have something to work on for next semester--all A+'s." She groaned and said "Great". ;) So after I picked her up, she wanted to go to DQ, which sounds good to me. We're munching on chocolate ice cream when Kaylee says "Did you ever see Gulligan's Island?" I pause... "You mean GILLIGAN'S Island?" "Yeah, that's it. We watched an episode of that in school. It was pretty goofy. Reminded me of The Three Henchmen." I burst out laughing. "You mean The Three STOOGES??" She rolls her eyes at me and huffs and says, "Stooges, Muskateers, Blind Mice, Henchmen...WhatEVER!" I can't decide if I'm more amused at what she called them or bothered that she didn't know what they were. Gulligan's Island took me a second because my first thought was Gulliver's Travels. But Three Henchmen?! Now that's just funny. And by the way, why are they showing episodes of Gilligan's Island in school?? *I* could be that kind of teacher at home.
We were driving home when a beat up pickup truck in the other lane suddenly sped up and went by us. Kaylee said "Mom, that guy just flipped us off." Apparently Mr. Manners had wanted over in our lane, but didn't put on any signal or give any indication of such desire, then when he didn't get in, he became unhappy about it. I was promptly filled with a desire to give him a piece of my mind over gesturing towards my 11-year-old daughter, but decided that responding with said 11-year-old on board observing would be a poor parental example. We did have eye contact at one point after that and it wouldn't surprise me if he caught my opinion of his behavior by the look on my face, though.
A woman called my phone four times one right after the other today, leaving two messages about how I’d said I would help them months and months and months ago and how nobody was answering her and nobody was helping and she was calling the FSMA on me to tell them I wasn’t doing anything (on no!), and somebody needed to call her back Right Away and let her know if this would be taken care of, etc. I looked up everything before I called her back, and the hang up was not on my end. When I told her I hadn’t had any communication from anyone since the initial contact, no invoice, no other phone calls before today, no emails, no anything, and that I would be happy to take care of the issue if the other party was ready, she wanted to know my full name, address, phone number, and exactly what time I was planning on calling the other people to take care of it. She was very...abrupt and unpleasant. This is a person who applied to SMA Support for help with something. I am always happy to help, but I don't do real well with people being buttheads, nor do I think having or even losing a child with SMA is an excuse for being a butthead. The thought popped into my head to tell her she's not the only one who has ever had to deal with this, but that would be unprofessional. So I just took care of it. When I contacted the other party, they said they had a bunch of messages from her in one day as well. When I called her back, I let her know it was taken care of, and told her that I was sorry for what she and her family was going through. At that point, the demanding, harsh woman started crying. Grief is a strange animal, and anger is definitely a part of it, I know. I hope she can learn how to deal with people respectfully anyway, and I hope she gets a little peace from having this issue taken care of.
We are in the midst of determining Kaylee's birthday activities, and Spring Break, too. She has a couple of ideas, but we'll have to see if they will work out. One year and 10 days until she's an official teenager. How wild is that??
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Thursday's Drive-By
Around here our Winter Wonderland has gone. The warmer temps, sun and rain have melted the snow off, all our outside Christmas lights and decorations have been put away, and the outside of the house looks bare again. Our decorations and tree are still up and lit inside, but they will probably take their final plunge this weekend. I'm not even a huge fan of Christmas (sorry), and I hate putting up decorations, but once they are up I do enjoy having them there. They make everything feel...cheery.
Kaylee was fine all yesterday afternoon, all evening, and woke up just fine. No more sickness. So whatever it was is gone, and I sent her off to school. When she got off the bus this afternoon, she was really excited because her Math teacher didn't make her do yesterday's homework that she missed. She said "And it was a ton of questions, too!" I guess he figured she already knew how to do it or something, I don't know, but I'm glad too, because she already had make-up work to do in other topics.
I was supposed to fly tonight from 3 pm to midnight or so, but my passenger wasn't fond of the icky weather and I couldn't guarantee the last leg of the flight would be able to go, so he cancelled. So instead I took Kaylee shopping at a girl's clothing store where she had two gift cards to spend. She's kind of tough any more to get clothes for--she has to try them on, usually, and she's very picky about how they fit and feel and look on her. I doubt this is a bad thing in Real girl world, unlike the Laura girl world of "is it baggy enough to be comfortable", but if you don't like shopping in the first place it can get a little exasperating to have someone try on 8 pairs of jeans and 10 shirts and hear "It's not comfortable. It makes my tummy look big. It's too short. It's scratchy. They're too tight. I don't like the zipper." Etc. Today wasn't bad though, because we got all the stuff she was interested in all at once, she tried them all on, and then there was a "yes", "no" and "maybe" pile, and that worked out better than going back and forth to the dressing rooms. After awhile she looked at me and said "Are you getting irritated?" I honestly said "No". She looked at me sideways and said "Are you thinking about maybe getting irritated in the near future?" Made me laugh. I wasn't yet, no, but we probably did finish up in about the right time for me. ;) Best of all she found several things that she really liked, which is hard for her, and she walked out having successfully wiped out her gift cards and adding some new, nicer clothes to her closet, clothes she actually was needing. So we were both pleased with that one. She still needs to find some jeans, but she has the worst time with that, and none of them from today would do. We need to be able to find a particular brand or style that works for her and then just get them in whatever size she grows into next and take the guesswork out of this...she wants slim jeans to tuck into boots, but not skin tight jeans. And no colors, no patterns, and no jewels. But lightly stylish. And comfortable. And not tight in the legs or the waist--but still skinny jeans. I wonder how much it would cost to have a seamstress just make her a pair of Holy Grail Jeans Just For You. ;)
I got about a mile and a half on the treadmill today. It's easier for me to walk on the treadmill when it's cold outside, because the deck is nice and cool then and I don't get all hot and sweaty when doing it. Heaven knows you wouldn't want to get all hot and sweaty when you're exercising, right?! Today was also the first day I could lift the 2 lb weights from down at my side to up over my head, out at my sides, ten times, without having to bend my arms for the last three or four. It still hurts, though a little less. Little tiny bits of strength gains. It feels like it's taking forever. Patience is not my middle name. Stubbornness might be, though. ;)
If the weather and scheduling permits, this weekend the CAF folks should accomplish the next step towards me getting the PIC (Pilot In Command) "Checkride" in the PT-26. The former CFI now needs re-checked out, then needs to fly with me for the official blessing. Then I need to fly it a couple times by myself to do a few things, then I need to fly it from the back seat to get ready for the instructor approval process, whatever that will be. I'm not really fond of red tape, have I ever mentioned that? ;) My first victim (student) in it has been patiently waiting for months. I'm just glad it's not me that has been the hang-up for him.
Time to relax and hit some Big Bang Theory. MAN this week went fast!
Kaylee was fine all yesterday afternoon, all evening, and woke up just fine. No more sickness. So whatever it was is gone, and I sent her off to school. When she got off the bus this afternoon, she was really excited because her Math teacher didn't make her do yesterday's homework that she missed. She said "And it was a ton of questions, too!" I guess he figured she already knew how to do it or something, I don't know, but I'm glad too, because she already had make-up work to do in other topics.
I was supposed to fly tonight from 3 pm to midnight or so, but my passenger wasn't fond of the icky weather and I couldn't guarantee the last leg of the flight would be able to go, so he cancelled. So instead I took Kaylee shopping at a girl's clothing store where she had two gift cards to spend. She's kind of tough any more to get clothes for--she has to try them on, usually, and she's very picky about how they fit and feel and look on her. I doubt this is a bad thing in Real girl world, unlike the Laura girl world of "is it baggy enough to be comfortable", but if you don't like shopping in the first place it can get a little exasperating to have someone try on 8 pairs of jeans and 10 shirts and hear "It's not comfortable. It makes my tummy look big. It's too short. It's scratchy. They're too tight. I don't like the zipper." Etc. Today wasn't bad though, because we got all the stuff she was interested in all at once, she tried them all on, and then there was a "yes", "no" and "maybe" pile, and that worked out better than going back and forth to the dressing rooms. After awhile she looked at me and said "Are you getting irritated?" I honestly said "No". She looked at me sideways and said "Are you thinking about maybe getting irritated in the near future?" Made me laugh. I wasn't yet, no, but we probably did finish up in about the right time for me. ;) Best of all she found several things that she really liked, which is hard for her, and she walked out having successfully wiped out her gift cards and adding some new, nicer clothes to her closet, clothes she actually was needing. So we were both pleased with that one. She still needs to find some jeans, but she has the worst time with that, and none of them from today would do. We need to be able to find a particular brand or style that works for her and then just get them in whatever size she grows into next and take the guesswork out of this...she wants slim jeans to tuck into boots, but not skin tight jeans. And no colors, no patterns, and no jewels. But lightly stylish. And comfortable. And not tight in the legs or the waist--but still skinny jeans. I wonder how much it would cost to have a seamstress just make her a pair of Holy Grail Jeans Just For You. ;)
I got about a mile and a half on the treadmill today. It's easier for me to walk on the treadmill when it's cold outside, because the deck is nice and cool then and I don't get all hot and sweaty when doing it. Heaven knows you wouldn't want to get all hot and sweaty when you're exercising, right?! Today was also the first day I could lift the 2 lb weights from down at my side to up over my head, out at my sides, ten times, without having to bend my arms for the last three or four. It still hurts, though a little less. Little tiny bits of strength gains. It feels like it's taking forever. Patience is not my middle name. Stubbornness might be, though. ;)
If the weather and scheduling permits, this weekend the CAF folks should accomplish the next step towards me getting the PIC (Pilot In Command) "Checkride" in the PT-26. The former CFI now needs re-checked out, then needs to fly with me for the official blessing. Then I need to fly it a couple times by myself to do a few things, then I need to fly it from the back seat to get ready for the instructor approval process, whatever that will be. I'm not really fond of red tape, have I ever mentioned that? ;) My first victim (student) in it has been patiently waiting for months. I'm just glad it's not me that has been the hang-up for him.
Time to relax and hit some Big Bang Theory. MAN this week went fast!
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Medical Mayhem
Kaylee came into our room in the middle of the night, went to her dad's side (like a well-trained young lady ;)) and said "Daddy, I just threw up." She ended up throwing up three times last night, poor kid, and just took care of it herself, too. When I got up this morning to check on her, she was fast asleep, and I just left her there, called the bus driver and let them know she wasn't coming today. She had no fever at all. No coughing, no sneezing, just stomach pain, lack of hunger, nausea and vomiting. She woke up today late, and she was really leery of eating anything at all, but was dizzy from not eating yesterday and throwing up what little she did end up eating and drinking. I offered her oatmeal and she said "NO! Ugh! I can't handle that right now. Have you SEEN it? That stuff looks like it was already thrown up before you even eat it!" I hooked her with a Hawaiian roll first, and then when she kept that down she was willing to eat a little more. By the end of today she's looking and acting just fine. Never did get a fever or anything, and I honestly have no idea what was wrong, but whatever it was, it woke her up out of a dead sleep to make her throw up, so it wasn't in her head. She's now playing on the computer, humming and drinking hot chocolate, so I'd call her cautiously cured of whatever it was.
The flu is hitting the country hard right now. Central Indiana is so far a bubble of goodness, but there's no way that will hold considering we are surrounded by infestation. One of the hardest hit areas is Boston, which is in a state of "medical emergency", where they even have large tents set up to quarantine and treat flu patients. They want everyone to get the flu shot, though they then came on TV and one of the doctors on the panel that determines which strains get put in the vaccine each season admitted they're missing at least one strain that's going around right now and thus a lot of people are still getting sick. The numbers of infected people this year are higher than in a very long time, and it's not even peak season yet. More and more people are lining up each season for the flu shot but everyone is still getting sick. All that combined made me think of every "Black Death", "Outbreak", even zombie apocalypse book I've ever read. I know, I'm just all kinds of wrong. Can't help it. But go look at one of the flu maps that puts pins everywhere flu is being reported and tell me you don't see a movie or book scene flash through your mind too!
I stayed home with Kaylee today until it was time for my first flight in the early afternoon. I pulled up only to find that my student had fallen on the concrete and hit the back of the head. They didn't want to fly just in case, wanted to play it safe, and thankfully ended up just fine other than a small bump on the back of the head. My next victim and I went up and got to do some steep turns, ground reference maneuvers and crosswinds, 50 degrees off at 13 knots, which was enough and good practice for the day. The rest of my week gets messier. I have a business flight tomorrow afternoon, two trips to St. Louis and back starting at 3 pm and not being done until past midnight. I have a student going on a checkride the next day, Friday. If the weather is good enough for my flights tomorrow, I'll be gone during the time I need to do the checkride prep stuff with my student. Paperwork, IACRA (computer sign up stuff), logbooks, etc. Friday's weather may be too bad for a checkride anyway, making Thursday not necessary to worry about, other than being able to get the other flights done with the current weather reports for that day. So, stay right there on the edge of your seat, and I'll let you know how it turns out. ;)
The flu is hitting the country hard right now. Central Indiana is so far a bubble of goodness, but there's no way that will hold considering we are surrounded by infestation. One of the hardest hit areas is Boston, which is in a state of "medical emergency", where they even have large tents set up to quarantine and treat flu patients. They want everyone to get the flu shot, though they then came on TV and one of the doctors on the panel that determines which strains get put in the vaccine each season admitted they're missing at least one strain that's going around right now and thus a lot of people are still getting sick. The numbers of infected people this year are higher than in a very long time, and it's not even peak season yet. More and more people are lining up each season for the flu shot but everyone is still getting sick. All that combined made me think of every "Black Death", "Outbreak", even zombie apocalypse book I've ever read. I know, I'm just all kinds of wrong. Can't help it. But go look at one of the flu maps that puts pins everywhere flu is being reported and tell me you don't see a movie or book scene flash through your mind too!
I stayed home with Kaylee today until it was time for my first flight in the early afternoon. I pulled up only to find that my student had fallen on the concrete and hit the back of the head. They didn't want to fly just in case, wanted to play it safe, and thankfully ended up just fine other than a small bump on the back of the head. My next victim and I went up and got to do some steep turns, ground reference maneuvers and crosswinds, 50 degrees off at 13 knots, which was enough and good practice for the day. The rest of my week gets messier. I have a business flight tomorrow afternoon, two trips to St. Louis and back starting at 3 pm and not being done until past midnight. I have a student going on a checkride the next day, Friday. If the weather is good enough for my flights tomorrow, I'll be gone during the time I need to do the checkride prep stuff with my student. Paperwork, IACRA (computer sign up stuff), logbooks, etc. Friday's weather may be too bad for a checkride anyway, making Thursday not necessary to worry about, other than being able to get the other flights done with the current weather reports for that day. So, stay right there on the edge of your seat, and I'll let you know how it turns out. ;)
Tuesday, January 08, 2013
Traveling
Today was a little harder to wake up the kiddo, but once she got going she wasn't doing too bad. Her stomach was hurting her this morning, and it's still hurting her tonight. Not sure what's up with that yet. Her online school system says she ended up with all A's at the end of last semester. Whew, glad she held onto that A in math even with the unexpected change at the end there!
It was a traveling day. Nathan and I left this morning in the Aerostar to go
over to Pittsburgh and pick up the Cheyenne, took both planes over to Cincinnati (he beat me by 20 minutes, for some reason ;)), then came home together in the Cheyenne. It was a nice VFR day for it, a series of uneventful flights, and a couple of missions accomplished in one swoop. Shortly thereafter the PT-26 arrived and I went up for a flight in that. We only had about 45 minutes, so I went up to do "checkride" moves. Steep turns in both directions, slow flight, stalls. It stalls very straightforward. So I held it in the stall for awhile, and the left wing will break every time in a more accelerated stall, but easily manageable, so you can do falling leaf in it pretty well, and it's a better exercise than in the 172 because it does break and require decently quick rudder input to straighten out. Three full stop TOLS and he had to go home before it got dark. One funny thing-on one of them I pulled onto the runway, added full power, and it didn't sound right. You have to run it very lean, so in case I had it too far back I tried richening it up a bit, and that didn't help. I messed with the mixture a little more, still no good, and I was thinking about aborting the takeoff, but then saw the carb heat wasn't in all the way. Got that pushed in, and the engine cleared up, and then I took off. What's so funny about that? Well, the airplane is so underpowered that I was at full power "careening" down the runway and had time to mess with all of that, look around, tweak it all, and still had to wait a moment or two before I had the speed to take off. Try that while you're taking off in the T-6. Or not. Heh.
So the other day I'm getting in my car out at the airport when I see a red laser dot moving across the seat of my Explorer. I duck and spin around to see what was behind me, only to find out that I'd accidentally hit the button on the little red laser pointer I just put on my own keychain a few weeks ago. I'll leave you with that visual. You're welcome. ;)
It was a traveling day. Nathan and I left this morning in the Aerostar to go
over to Pittsburgh and pick up the Cheyenne, took both planes over to Cincinnati (he beat me by 20 minutes, for some reason ;)), then came home together in the Cheyenne. It was a nice VFR day for it, a series of uneventful flights, and a couple of missions accomplished in one swoop. Shortly thereafter the PT-26 arrived and I went up for a flight in that. We only had about 45 minutes, so I went up to do "checkride" moves. Steep turns in both directions, slow flight, stalls. It stalls very straightforward. So I held it in the stall for awhile, and the left wing will break every time in a more accelerated stall, but easily manageable, so you can do falling leaf in it pretty well, and it's a better exercise than in the 172 because it does break and require decently quick rudder input to straighten out. Three full stop TOLS and he had to go home before it got dark. One funny thing-on one of them I pulled onto the runway, added full power, and it didn't sound right. You have to run it very lean, so in case I had it too far back I tried richening it up a bit, and that didn't help. I messed with the mixture a little more, still no good, and I was thinking about aborting the takeoff, but then saw the carb heat wasn't in all the way. Got that pushed in, and the engine cleared up, and then I took off. What's so funny about that? Well, the airplane is so underpowered that I was at full power "careening" down the runway and had time to mess with all of that, look around, tweak it all, and still had to wait a moment or two before I had the speed to take off. Try that while you're taking off in the T-6. Or not. Heh.So the other day I'm getting in my car out at the airport when I see a red laser dot moving across the seat of my Explorer. I duck and spin around to see what was behind me, only to find out that I'd accidentally hit the button on the little red laser pointer I just put on my own keychain a few weeks ago. I'll leave you with that visual. You're welcome. ;)
Monday, January 07, 2013
Back At It
Success! Kaylee got to sleep fairly early last night, and woke up this morning at 6:15 just fine. She was in a great mood, went off to school chatting, and came home having had a great day. Well, great other than she had math homework, but she'll have to get over that. ;) I know the upcoming days will actually be harder as it won't be new any more, but the first day was a good milestone to hit well.
I seem to have come full circle--today I became a Secretary again. Well, I've been a secretary for a long time anyway, but at our school board meeting this evening I volunteered (I know) to take over the duties from a leaving member. If there's one thing I can do, and probably faster than anyone else in there, it's type. So I'll take over the meeting minutes and notification duties for the Board, knowing that like any Board duties you take on, I'll probably be doing it until I die. ;)
Over the last couple of days there have been three armed bank robberies, three different banks, different suspects for at least two of them, all in Kokomo. Someone I know is a manager at one of the banks and was there for the robbery. He came in with a "semi-automatic and crazy eyes", and she said that though they hit the silent alarm and she dialed 911, he was only there for something like 53 seconds, cleaned out all the drawers and was gone. The police haven't caught him/them yet.
I've tried for about an hour to come up with something to say beyond: I made bank and post office runs, got some SMA equipment shipped off at UPS, got Kay's coat back from the dry cleaners, stopped for gas and washed the Explorer, worked on a spreadsheet, went to a meeting, exercised, and... I'd like to be more interesting than that, but it's hard to be interesting when you're running errands and going to board meetings and living a normal and thus not very interesting week. Actually, that's not really true. Life IS the little stuff, and if you're a creative writer you can come up with something to say about it. Some things I do feel like writing about I don't necessarily feel like writing about in public. But I'm only creative in rare bursts anyway; therefore you're mostly going to hear about minutia. Sorry. ;)
QOTD (Quote of the Day):
In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.
~Anthony D'Angelo
What do you know, Mr. D'Angelo sort of had the title to my future book in his quote here: "How Not To Do It"...
I seem to have come full circle--today I became a Secretary again. Well, I've been a secretary for a long time anyway, but at our school board meeting this evening I volunteered (I know) to take over the duties from a leaving member. If there's one thing I can do, and probably faster than anyone else in there, it's type. So I'll take over the meeting minutes and notification duties for the Board, knowing that like any Board duties you take on, I'll probably be doing it until I die. ;)
Over the last couple of days there have been three armed bank robberies, three different banks, different suspects for at least two of them, all in Kokomo. Someone I know is a manager at one of the banks and was there for the robbery. He came in with a "semi-automatic and crazy eyes", and she said that though they hit the silent alarm and she dialed 911, he was only there for something like 53 seconds, cleaned out all the drawers and was gone. The police haven't caught him/them yet.
I've tried for about an hour to come up with something to say beyond: I made bank and post office runs, got some SMA equipment shipped off at UPS, got Kay's coat back from the dry cleaners, stopped for gas and washed the Explorer, worked on a spreadsheet, went to a meeting, exercised, and... I'd like to be more interesting than that, but it's hard to be interesting when you're running errands and going to board meetings and living a normal and thus not very interesting week. Actually, that's not really true. Life IS the little stuff, and if you're a creative writer you can come up with something to say about it. Some things I do feel like writing about I don't necessarily feel like writing about in public. But I'm only creative in rare bursts anyway; therefore you're mostly going to hear about minutia. Sorry. ;)
QOTD (Quote of the Day):
In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.
~Anthony D'Angelo
What do you know, Mr. D'Angelo sort of had the title to my future book in his quote here: "How Not To Do It"...
Sunday, January 06, 2013
Week One
It's been a good first week of 2013. I've caught up on a lot of things. Like today I'm caught up on laundry and dishes and emails and ordering some SMA Support stuff and scheduling some appointments and getting in an argument via the email and treadmilling (one of my students HATES it when people take a noun and turn it into a verb, so I've been doing that on purpose-like "formating" or "treadmilling") and am sitting sipping hot tea with milk and watching the Colts play really hard but lose in the playoffs anyway. They have nothing to be ashamed of this year. They worked hard and did well.
When we were in Tennessee, we had 5 and 10 lb weights in our room. I couldn't lift the 5 lb weights straight out at my sides-couldn't even lift it more than a couple of inches. So when I got home, I had these little 2 lb weights and started in on those, just for that one move. Everything else, I'm okay, but that one motion I couldn't do. Today I made it, got 10 "reps" of TWO POUNDS. Two pounds is what I can lift straight out to the side right now. But when you couldn't even lift your arm that far a few weeks ago, well, you gotta start somewhere, I guess, it's just kind of embarrassing is all. ;) You lift up the 2 lb weights in your hands and mostly you can't even feel they are there. When I can do 5 lbs, I'll move up and do more all around exercises with them. I've been doing push ups on the counter in the kitchen, because I can't do them on the floor yet, but I can do them there at the right angle. Kaylee came in and said "WHAT are you doing??" I told her I was trying to fix my messed up neck/arms by doing what I can to stretch and strengthen. So she came over and told me I should try "this" move, and then she did a push up off the counter, spun around, fell backwards towards the counter, caught herself with her arms, did a backwards push up, pushed herself off, spun around and faced forward, etc. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but I'm pretty sure that right now when I "caught" myself going backwards, I'd end up with a concussion when my arms gave out. ;) I told her I'd do it...later. Hopefully by Spring, 2-3 months here, I'll be back up to at least a normal girl strength levels.
We left our Christmas stuff up for one more weekend. The lights are still on, the tree smells good, and we were so late getting it up that we figured we'd enjoy it just one week longer.
We tried to help Kaylee get ready for going back to school by having her go to bed an hour earlier at night and getting up an hour earlier each day these last few days. It went pretty well until last night. Last night she was supposed to go to bed at 9 and get up at 8 this morning. The poor kid laid there in bed for 4 hours, wide awake. I know how she feels, it happens to me too. Tonight's going to be just as bad, only she'll have to get up at 6:15 a.m. I hope they don't have any big brain tests on these first few days back to school! Poor kid. I told her this is why you want to try to avoid staying up super late even on a holiday, because going back is hard, particularly when you're not wired that way. I hope she gets some sleep tonight...
Ending on a quote I saw today that I liked: "It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings." ~Ann Landers.
(It's ironic that right as I type that, Kaylee is doing her own laundry. It may not be what could make her a successful human being, but it still works for me. ;))
When we were in Tennessee, we had 5 and 10 lb weights in our room. I couldn't lift the 5 lb weights straight out at my sides-couldn't even lift it more than a couple of inches. So when I got home, I had these little 2 lb weights and started in on those, just for that one move. Everything else, I'm okay, but that one motion I couldn't do. Today I made it, got 10 "reps" of TWO POUNDS. Two pounds is what I can lift straight out to the side right now. But when you couldn't even lift your arm that far a few weeks ago, well, you gotta start somewhere, I guess, it's just kind of embarrassing is all. ;) You lift up the 2 lb weights in your hands and mostly you can't even feel they are there. When I can do 5 lbs, I'll move up and do more all around exercises with them. I've been doing push ups on the counter in the kitchen, because I can't do them on the floor yet, but I can do them there at the right angle. Kaylee came in and said "WHAT are you doing??" I told her I was trying to fix my messed up neck/arms by doing what I can to stretch and strengthen. So she came over and told me I should try "this" move, and then she did a push up off the counter, spun around, fell backwards towards the counter, caught herself with her arms, did a backwards push up, pushed herself off, spun around and faced forward, etc. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but I'm pretty sure that right now when I "caught" myself going backwards, I'd end up with a concussion when my arms gave out. ;) I told her I'd do it...later. Hopefully by Spring, 2-3 months here, I'll be back up to at least a normal girl strength levels.
We left our Christmas stuff up for one more weekend. The lights are still on, the tree smells good, and we were so late getting it up that we figured we'd enjoy it just one week longer.
We tried to help Kaylee get ready for going back to school by having her go to bed an hour earlier at night and getting up an hour earlier each day these last few days. It went pretty well until last night. Last night she was supposed to go to bed at 9 and get up at 8 this morning. The poor kid laid there in bed for 4 hours, wide awake. I know how she feels, it happens to me too. Tonight's going to be just as bad, only she'll have to get up at 6:15 a.m. I hope they don't have any big brain tests on these first few days back to school! Poor kid. I told her this is why you want to try to avoid staying up super late even on a holiday, because going back is hard, particularly when you're not wired that way. I hope she gets some sleep tonight...
Ending on a quote I saw today that I liked: "It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings." ~Ann Landers.
(It's ironic that right as I type that, Kaylee is doing her own laundry. It may not be what could make her a successful human being, but it still works for me. ;))
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