Now it's the weather we're fighting. When I got up this morning, I got all ready, went down for the free breakfast downstairs, then came back up to the room and packed up all my belongings and made sure my iPad and everything was all charged up and ready to go. I knew that they were supposed to test fly it this morning, and if it was fixed, I could check out of the hotel before getting charged for the next day, and be on my way. The call never came. I gave them until lunch, knowing they had said they'd call, but finally I needed some kind of answers, so called out. They hadn't done the test flight yet because they didn't think they had good enough weather to do it, but hoped to fly in the next 30 minutes. That ended up being more like 3 hours, and then the issue wasn't fixed yet, so they worked on it some more and will check it out tomorrow--maybe. Now we're in a race against storms and other bad weather out there both for them to finish up before the end of Friday (they don't work on weekends) and before I am unable to safely get out for who knows how long. In the meantime, I've kept an eye on my weather so if they called and said "It's Good", I can be out of here and on my way there in 5 minutes flat. This does lead to an uncomfortable day, however. You can't relax if you have to be ready to go at a moment's notice for 9 hours straight but there's nothing else you can really do, just keep an eye on stuff and wait.
I think I told you there was a set of windmills going up in Tipton County that end up being about a mile and a half off the end of our runway at Glenndale, which is bad. There is a group set up that are opposing the windmills, and I joined in there to see if there was anything I could do to help. The problem is, it's the typical group of people opposing things. I'm not sure how to put this without sounding bad, but basically they're all emotion and huffing and puffing and no substance. They were the kind of group we easily and repeatedly defeated when they were opposing us having an airport near them. The only reason we ended up having to fold in the end was because while they weren't smart enough to come up with anything legit, they had one big backer who out-spent us until we couldn't afford to go back to court again. This group, I'm on their side of the issue this time, but that doesn't even sit that well with me, because I'm not interested in the boo-hoo-this-is-bad-but-I-have-no-real-reason-I-just-don't-like-it stuff. They're talking about things like kids climbing up the things and getting killed (I'd have done that, which I know because I did things like that, and if I fell, it would have been my own darned fault for being stupid). They're coming up with any little thing they can, not understanding that none of that will matter or stop the wheels they want stopped. This I know from experience. Now I don't know what the answer *is*, if there is one, don't get me wrong, but somebody who does know the rules of this stuff needs to find out the realities and deal only with those, and forget this "it hurts my view, my kids' lives are at stake" crap. I have a feeling we're going to end up just dealing with a bunch of windmills right off our runway. Stupid, pointless, useless waste of money windmills that are another bad government "investment".
I have to admit, I am in a particularly...harsh...mood. It's nobody's fault, no one or no place has done anything wrong, I'm just... This afternoon I took about an hour to try to walk it off outside, half hoping somebody tried to take my wallet or something. ;) I went out to dinner, then went to see GI Joe, the only thing in the theater that wasn't horror or kiddie. I figured any action flick with Bruce Willis, The Rock Dwayne Johnson and hello, Channing Tatum couldn't be all that bad. Unfortunately they kill off Tatum pretty early. The movie wasn't bad, had some really good parts even, but sometimes it felt more like an older version of The Power Rangers. I think a 14 year old boy would love it. But like I said, it wasn't bad.
The thunderstorms hit around here, bigguns, enough that I was glad the airplane's in a hangar. I drove around for awhile, looking around, and I can tell you they roll the sidewalks up early in Tulsa. By 10:30 there wasn't hardly a thing open--even gas stations were shut down. I was still...restless..., so I did something I haven't done in years, and went walking in the rain. It wasn't big, just a light rain, and even after walking for 40 minutes I was barely wet. But I put on my headphones, grabbed a beverage, and went for a nice long walk in the dark, watching the lightning show off in the distance, enjoying the wind whipping around me. Mother Nature always does have a relaxing effect on me, even storms--well, unless I'm flying too close to them, of course, a scenario in which I'm pretty sure nobody is relaxed.
Having gotten about 2 hours sleep the night before, last night I ran out of gas at 8:30 pm, went to bed, and didn't get up until 8 this morning. I don't know the last time I slept almost 12 hours, but I sure felt good this morning. Tonight's not looking that promising. Don't ya love it when it's bedtime but you can feel it ain't happening? :-|
Before I go find something else to do, I have learned two things in my recent rash of travels. 1. When you get a new rental car too frequently, you will forget what it looks like when you come into a huge parking lot hours after you last left it, so you'd better make sure your fob is working. And 2. In hotels, put the bar across the door when you go to sleep, because twice I've had hotel maids knock AS they were walking in the door while I'm still in my room. Fortunately both times I had the bar thing across the door so they didn't get far, but sheesh. I know, the Do Not Disturb sign doesn't seem to be overly effective sometimes.
Here's hoping for good news tomorrow! Right now my windows are rattling. Nice storm...
No comments:
Post a Comment