Quick

The camp was supposed to post their first photos and updates tonight after 7 p.m....it's now 10 pm and there hasn't been any kind of update.  Harrumph!  :)  If you want to send an email to Kaylee at camp, you use this webpage: http://www.jotform.com/director/camperemail.  Her cabin isn't listed as she's in TILT, so when it asks for cabin just say "I'm not sure" and they'll get it to her anyway.

I started off this morning at Kokomo Airport to fly, but between the time I left the house and the time I got to the airport, the clouds went from "Well, we can still fly in the pattern" to "Not Happening", and I pulled up radar when sprinkles hit my windshield, and saw a big wad of stuff I hadn't known was there, coming.  So...met with him, told him what was up, turned around and went to the store instead, and home.

We got to spend the day with Lon, Cathy, Tanner, Rania, Richard and Ann, just a nice quiet day, before Steve grilled up some chicken and we all hung out watching a little tv and relaxing...

Here are some photos from Saturday that I forgot to put up.  While it's raining, you might as well get a few other things done, like Oshkosh prep, or Rides prep, right?!

Nice hard rain, with our Oshkosh trailer open, AE working on trailer organization...

 

Nathan and Chuck taking refuge under our hopefully-no-longer-stinky pop up canopy.

 

:)

 

Steve works on assembling our new rides banner while the rest of us supervise.

 

Success!

Ohio

We had to wake up early enough to check the weather in time to let us start driving to Ohio today if it was going to be a problem to get Kaylee to camp by 3 pm.  That meant deciding by 9 a.m., and at that time, we knew there would be scattered storms that afternoon, but it looked okay.   We left the house in time to stop at CVS and pick up some allergy meds for Kaylee.  Except for the second time in a row, when I tried to purchase the allergy meds, after they scanned it in, and after they scanned in my driver's license, and after they started ringing it up, THEN it kicked back and she said "I'm sorry, but we're having a problem with the system right now, and I can't sell you the medicine."  This time I got a little upset, told her that was the second time it happened, that we were on our way right now to somewhere and needed the medicine because we were out because the last time I tried to buy it there was a "problem".  Meanwhile, the people in the drive-through and the people in front of me didn't have any trouble getting whatever medicine they were getting at the pharmacy through the system.   This whole allergy pill thing gets my goat.  We are not all meth dealers...most of us just have allergies or kids with allergies who need their medicine!  Gah.  Anyway, we had to stop at Walgreens then, and Steve used his driver's license for the first time to buy some (mine was already scanned in that day, and the "system" had had "problems" the last two times after my driver's license was scanned), and he was able to get them.  I'm going to try Walgreens myself next time and see if THEY have a "problem" with their system too.  Paranoid?  Maybe.

We took off from Kokomo in the RG, and we were cruising along fat dumb and happy when the stormscope showed a lightning strike somewhere out there.  Kaylee pointed it out actually (she was up front with me), and I said "Naw, there'd have to be something out there..." I zoomed out and not only was there something that had blown up out there, it was a whole line, covering a pretty good distance, and it was already developed.  Huh.  That wasn't there last time I looked, and it wasn't supposed to be there until later in the afternoon.  So we got to play a little dodge ball, but fortunately it was pretty easy.  For awhile it didn't look very easy, but as we got closer there were plenty of gaps, and it stayed good VFR.  When we landed, while we were taking Kaylee to the campground, the line moved through and dumped a pretty good hard rain in the area.  By the time we got back to the airport, we only had to wait about 30 minutes before we could head home in the mostly clear.

So Kaylee is off at TILT camp.  Hopefully she is having fun and making friends and enjoying her week, because she was really looking forward to this, for a long time now.  She seemed a little uncertain when we left, but things were a little disorganized at first, they didn't have anyone to tell us where to check in, they weren't ready for the regular campers yet, her cabin was a lot smaller and there were fewer people in it, etc.  So hopefully she got her feet under her and is having fun now.  :)

The Cherry family has arrived today.  Lon, Cathy and the two youngest made it up today, and will be here for a few days.  Great to see them.  :)

Satisfied

I woke up at 5 something a.m. checked the weather at 6, and told a guy who was driving up here to help us do T-6 rides to come on up.  I laid back down and didn't look again until 8 a.m., and by then there were some light rain showers, but no big deal.  I took a shower and got ready, looked at the radar, and Bam, it had blown up.  Not storms, but good-sized rain and scud.  Steve, Kaylee and AE had driven to Logansport to set up the tent and get things ready for rides, Zak had driven from an hour and a half away, and I got out to the airport and it was just too rainy.  Any other airplane might not have been too big of a deal, but the T-6 in the rain isn't good due to possible avionics damage, and we couldn't load rides with a top-open canopy airplane in the rain anyway.  So we waited.  And waited.  Finally the Logansport crew gave up and drove back to the Kokomo Airport, and I gave up and stayed there and waited for them.

The rest of the day was pretty nice though!  We stayed out at the airport until pretty late, almost 7 pm I think.  When the weather finally cleared off, I took Zak up in the T-6 and let him do it from taxi to take off to flying around to two landings, from the back, the same place me, Steve, and Ty all did our first takeoffs and landings in the plane.  It's good for you.  ;)  He had enough cushions back there that he could see pretty well, though, and ended up making some pretty good landings out of it.

Later in the evening Nathan gave the kids rides in the T-6 before we put it away.  Gwenie went first, then Andrew, and Kaylee wanted to go too.  She told me she wanted to do a barrel roll.  I explained to her that she'd just done aileron rolls before, and what the difference was a little bit, and she said she wanted to do them, so I told her to ask Nathan when they got up there.  I figured he wouldn't mind.  ;)  She said they did loops, wingovers, aileron rolls and barrel rolls, several of them, going from one move to another a couple times, and she said she really liked it.  I asked her what her favorite maneuver was, an she promptly said "All of them."  Then she said "Well, the loops were pretty cool.  Well, actually the barrel rolls were...okay, all of them."  She said she wanted to say "Wheeeee!" in the middle of it but didn't want to distract him while he was flying.  I laughed and told her she wasn't going to cause him a problem by saying "Whee", and that when we're sitting up front, we like to have the feedback from the backseaters while we are doing stuff like that so we know they are 1) okay and 2) enjoying themselves.  Nathan said the thing he didn't want to hear from the back seat was "gag, cough, URP".  Fortunately she felt fine.  She said that in one loop her vision started graying out.  We hadn't talked to her about how to manage g-forces yet, but she said that her muscles in her legs/rear were clenched after some of the moves, and we laughed and said that was right, and about half the battle.  :D  Anyway, I'm glad she got to go and do all the fun stuff, and I'm really glad she liked it so much.  She got to do something not a lot of people get to do--a series of nice, fun aerobatics in a T-6 with a pro.  :)

Tonight we're packing for Kaylee's camp--tomorrow we fly over to Ohio weather permitting and drop her off for a week's worth of camp.  She's excited...

Full House

Four-forty this morning is when my alarm went off. It was at least a nice day, no fog, no storms, no turbulence, just a nice smooth flight to Virginia/DC.  I was alone on the trip down, listening to music, cool temps, awake, doing fine.  When I got there, I had about an hour wait on the ground, topped off with gas twice, and started getting sleepy.  Why twice?  I was taking a large load home, and I had an exact number of gallons of fuel I needed on board.  Any more and I'd be overweight, and any less and I wouldn't have the reserve I need to get home non-stop.  It worked out perfect...except they didn't get my main tanks all the way full.  So I had to have them pull the fuel truck back over there and put a whopping 6 gallons of gas more in the plane.  I needed it, I ended up having used and left exactly what I was supposed to.  Gotta love modern day fuel planning capabilities in the digital age.

Oh, my passenger manifesto today?  Five adults total, one baby, and a dog.  Yes sir!  That sounds like a bad joke, a bad idea, or an over-loaded airplane, but fortunately the adults were all very small, and the baby and the dog were both very well-behaved.  Nobody threw up, screamed, pooped, barked, or otherwise posed any problem at all, and it was a nice flight home.

I didn't quite make it in time for Glenndale lunch, but I did show up late, thinking I was done for the day, until I went on my schedule to put on the next flight back to Virginia, only to see I had a flight scheduled Right Then, for back at Kokomo.  Whoops.  It ended up working out fine--I was 30 minutes late, but we needed to do ground time over cross-country work anyway, so we did that instead of fly.  I'm glad I did enough of those in the past that I can still use the E6B computer and remember how to do the "manual" flight planning, even though I use computers myself these days.   I told him as soon as he does a couple manually, then he too can start using a "calculator" for his "math"...aka digital flight planning tools that require no skills whatsoever.  :)

Well, tomorrow is up in the air.  We're supposed to go to Logansport's fly-in and sell rides in the T-6.  There's a 50% chance of rain/storms.  I have to make the call for one guy by 6:30 a.m, as to whether or not to come up here for it.  I should go to bed after my early start today...and another early start tomorrow...

Sun coming up at OKK

 

And on my way east...

Okay

My trip to pick up the 340 was delayed all morning by fog all the way from here to Aurora.  Finally it started lifting everywhere by 11, but by then it was late enough that we just stayed for lunch with friends and then went.  I took one of our students along with me for the ride; he has about 10 hours total flight time now, and I let him fly the RG on the way over, and the 340 on the way home. He thought that was pretty darned great, took a bunch of photos of the clouds, and said he doesn't understand why anybody would not like flying.  Me neither.  :)  He also did the landings in both airplanes and ended up with full stall, nose up, pretty gentle touchdown landings.  Of course part of that is me telling him what to do and when, but he did an impressive job doing it fast and smoothly, and getting it done at all with 10 hours of flight time!

Otherwise, today is pretty quiet for me and Kaylee.  I'm working on answering correspondence, doing household chores, and getting ready for tomorrow's flight to Virginia/DC (at 6 a.m.). Downloading the new charts, watching the weather, making sure I get there early enough to have time to fuel up with the exact number of gallons I'm going to need for the load I'll have on the way home, etc.  Part of the household chores is laundry, seeing if I can get the oil and grease out of Steve's jeans from Wyoming.  I'm on attempt #1 here of Project Save the Jeans If You Can...

Round-Up

As I write this, the Tres Ombres, as Nathan put it, are winging their way home from Wyoming in the RG, on the last leg from South Dakota back to here.  A long journey for one day, getting back around 9 pm or so, but I'm guessing they'll be glad to be back.  Maybe.  :)

I had three flights scheduled for today and only one got off the ground, thanks to low hanging clouds most of the morning.  The last flight was at 2 pm, and it was good to go by then.  We went up in the Champ for a first tailwheel lesson.  This was made a little difficult by the intercom wires breaking, meaning we had no headsets/intercoms, and if you think a 65 hp engine isn't loud enough to be a problem shouting over on takeoff, you'd be wrong.  My throat is now sore, and I cut the lesson short, as it's pretty danged hard to teach a first time tailwheel person without being able to talk to them quickly and clearly.  It was pretty out though, and I did enjoy getting up in the air.  When we landed, he said "Good grief, it's like I've never used rudders before or something!"  Made me smile.  Welcome to tailwheel.  :)

I was scrolling through my newsfeed when up popped another picture of the Mustang.  Beautiful shot, too, and the description was that it was from when it was giving rides last Saturday. There always seems to be a new shot every week or so.  The thing is, how I want to feel about stumbling across new pictures of it and how I actually feel stumbling across new photos of it are two different things, and I'm fighting the urge to "unlike" or "unfriend" the pages that keep posting the pictures, as I decide whether that's best for now, or just...immature...of me.  It doesn't make me smile yet, it makes me feel like somebody hit me, and that's not how I want to feel about it.  I want to be happy that it's flying. I want to be happy that somebody is spreading it around, that it is still living history out there for more people to see, I want to be happy for the nice guy who was so excited to be able to fly it even though he didn't even have his pilot's license yet.  One of these days maybe I'll see it and smile and actually feel that way.

Well, the boys are back, I just met them for a late dessert at Grindstone's, it's good to have everybody back home.  :)

The CAF got back to our wing operations officer and had some more questions before they would approve me as an instructor or check pilot, and there may be a hang-up on at least the check pilot part of it. Not because of my hours in it (that they've said thus far), but because they want a different person to be the instructor than the check pilot, for checks and balances.  Only problem is the wing has no instructors and no check pilots, we have two people ready to train in the airplane and two more who said they would if we got an instructor, so they need to approve me and get this show on the road.  Otherwise I will probably tell them that they are stifling the "wing", for stupid, unnecessary red tape.

Nathan and Steve say that the Twin Beech has a good airframe, and decent interior, a lot of the rest of it hasn't been taken great care of, which means it has a fair amount of work to be airworthy, and the experimental category it was operated under offers more problems getting it to standard category and bringing everything up to "proper" approved status.  Like using airplane batteries instead of car batteries.  I....guess we'll see how it goes with what resources the wing has and what we feel we can pull off.  We expected a flying airplane when it was granted to us, flying with an old loaner engine we knew would run out of time soon.  We didn't expect the size of project it's actually going to be...like I said, guess we'll see!  Nathan, Steve and Jon sure put a whole lot of work into it the last three days.

The lemon garlic chicken with potatoes, asparagus and baby spinach was good, by the way.  Kaylee ate all the chicken, skipped the spinach, and I forced her to eat some of the asparagus, but the chicken was really good, juicy, etc.  Next week I'm trying fish tacos and something beef...

Two-fer

Somewhere close to 9:30 a.m. a bus pulled up at the hangar and unloaded 26 kids and four or five adults, and we were off and running.  I asked them how many had been to an airport before, been in a plane before, what some things were that you could do with airplanes, I didn't get much into what makes airplanes fly, just briefly.  Talked a little about the airplanes, then divided them up to look into the C-172 that was there because it rained so the guy canceled and Steve C taxied it over for me, and the Cherokee 180 that Steve and I pushed into the hangar.  Chuck helped the kids get up and down out of the 180, and I helped them figure out what was where, while Steve took on the 172.  When everybody had gone, I brought them over to the T-6 and talked about it for just a minute, and then decided to let them sit in it.  This was where the workout was.  They were good kids, patient, no problems.  Nobody pushed, pulled, or stepped anywhere they weren't supposed to.  They were pretty little too, but that meant mostly too little to get in and out by themselves, so I ended up lifting each one up and over both to get in and to get out.  Let's see, 26 kids, about 50 pounds each, lifting up and over twice each...I was sweating big rivers by the time I was done--it was so muggy out there anyway, and I was literally just soaked.  Gross.  Some of them liked sitting on a parachute, a couple of them were worried that it would automatically deploy on them.  Some of them wanted the canopy shut, others were worried they would be trapped.  A few asked questions.  Afterwards Kaylee handed out the balsa wood airplanes, and in the meantime she had been taking photos.  I think she did a good job with it.  :)

When I got home, I had to completely change clothes and start over for the day.  I was soaked.  Okay, for the first time this season I'm saying it: I hate humidity.  I hate freezing too, but at least you don't sweat through your clothes when you are freezing to death. ;)  (Of course at least the outside world doesn't stop for six months when you're in sweating territory, either).

Kaylee helped her grandma in the garden today after we got back from the airport, and I went to lunch.  On the way, a stop light turned green, I got just across the street, and suddenly I heard a "whoop!" and looked in my rearview mirror at the police officer back there, and his lights were on now. Now I'd seen him back there before I came to a stop, and I couldn't figure out what on earth I'd done wrong for once.  Well, you can guess, I bet.  He asked if I knew why he'd pulled me over, and I didn't, truly.  He said he had passed me awhile back on Webster street, and that I'd been doing 41 in a 30.  Oh.  That I believe.  Nobody goes 30 on that street, me least of all.  Forty is just a much more reasonable speed for that stretch.  ;)  He asked me if I had ever had any other tickets.  Er.  I said Yes. He asked how long ago, and I couldn't remember, but I think it's been a couple of years.  Next he asked me what for.  Well, my last ticket was for rolling a stop at a stop sign, which I told him.  At that point it occurred to me that I should probably tell him I have had more than one ticket and mostly for speeding before he took my license back and ran it and found that out for himself and thought I was being disingenuous, which is rarely a good idea to do to a police officer, but before I could determine if or how or what I should say, he handed my license back and said "Do me a favor and slow down, will ya?"  He didn't even give me a warning ticket.  I apologized and thanked him.  Such a nice man, and not one of the officers in town I actually know even.

So before noon, I'd had a successful airport event with a true herd of 5-6 year olds, gotten my weight bearing exercise in for the day, a fresh load of laundry started because of it, and managed to not get a speeding ticket.  That's pretty productive for a Tuesday morning, I think!

Kaylee picked me a beautiful bouquet of flowers today from Grandma's garden and had it waiting in a vase in the kitchen for me, along with a note.  What a sweetie!!

My phone rang this afternoon, and I didn't recognize the number, so I started to do my usual "ignore" of it, when I saw that it was from Washington.  Now I KNEW it was Washington, Seattle to be precise.  My phone said so. But in that split second, in my head it was Wyoming, so I figured one of the guys must be calling me from some other phone.  Thankfully I just answered with "Hello" instead of something pithy, because the guy on the other end is from Seattle, and he comes here to visit in-laws, and he wanted to talk to me about getting his Sport Pilot License.  Crap.  This is a Steve call!  I don't do these!  I stumbled around and said whatever I could think of, and got through the call.  Fortunately he is so excited about flying in general that I think he could have talked to Forrest Gump and he'd have still been excited.  Which is good, because I'm not much better than Forrest on the phone...must be more careful about answering these ringing things!

The boys are working hard out there.  Having to take parts off an engine that is sitting on the ground, sitting on some of the parts, starting early, ending late.  They're getting tired and sweaty and sweaty and tired, and still have a fair amount of work to do getting the "new" engine together.  They are probably wondering right about now why they agreed to do this...for free.

Some photos Kaylee took today...

Addressing the Minions when they first arrived...

 

Steve C. was in the 172 helping them have turns.

 

Talking in front of the T-6 for a minute.

 

Steve helping the next kid in.

 

I just lifted my 20th child back down...

 

 

:)

 

Chuck helps the next young lady up on the 180.

 

It looks like she's asking him a question here...

 

Me with the line of patiently waiting kids.

 

A nice panoramic shot Kaylee took.  Chuck stands guard.  :)

 

 

 

Awww, sweet!  :)

Fait Accomplis

My morning started with a text that said "I'm on my way!" from the CAF check pilot in Virginia.  His plane landed in Indy International at 10:30 a.m., so I got down to the Metro Airport by 11 a.m. so I could preflight the airplane, get everything ready, etc. before he got there.  He arrived, and he wanted to fly first and do paperwork later (the opposite of the norm) because of incoming weather.  Worked for me.  He joked "looks like you've got some nice winds.  Heh  heh."  I said "Thanks a lot", to which he said "It's always more fun watching other people have to do it."  We went up and did the air maneuvers, and then came in for the takeoffs and landings.  The winds weren't real strong, but they were widely shifty, going all the way around the pole, from a direct right crosswind (the normal state for the day) to a headwind to a slight left crosswind to a tailwind all in a few seconds.  With the winds being down the runway where you come in over the trees too, it made for some funky turbulence, and the last two landings I definitely had a tailwind in the last few moments--you could feel it drop out from under you and then shove you down the runway before you touched down.  Fortunately for me I pulled off 2 really nice 3-point landings anyway and one okay no-flap wheel landing.  We did short field and soft field crosswind takeoffs and the aforementioned landings and called it a day, he didn't make me do them all, which was nice.  Paperwork was done, and he put in a recommendation for me to be an "Instructor Pilot", meaning the obvious, that I can start instructing in it now, and he put in a recommendation for me to also be a "Check Pilot", meaning I can give "checkrides" to people in the planes, rather than calling someone in from Virginia, I can give checkouts to other CFIs so they can instruct in it too, rather than calling someone in from Virginia, and that I may get calls from local FAA folks to do 609 ride flights with tailwheel people who need a competency flight after an accident or incident. Apparently they do that in some places, and it's of course up to me whether I would want to or not.  (Depends!)  However, what he recommends and what actually happens may or may not be the same thing, so I won't count anything as done until I see the formal letter from Headquarters, where it has to go next.  The instructor part shouldn't be a problem, I think that'll be fine.  The check pilot, they may refuse because I only have 7 hours total in that airplane, not even enough to start giving rides yet.  ;)  You need 10 hours in it to just give rides to the public.  So, we'll see what they say...

I'm glad to have that done.  I don't like checkrides, even other people's, surely not my own, even on "easy" stuff.  (The CAF is one checkride after the other, so at least I will get to know a few of the people I have to fly with, I suppose, if I must do a bunch of rides.)  The thing is, most of the time that I've found myself in a pickle, it was in something that should have been easy.  An easy nosewheel trainer, an easy taildragger, an easy student.  You can still botch "easy", especially if you think it's easy.

On my way to the checkride I got a call from a lady wanting to verify the 25-30 5 and 6 year olds she was bringing to the airport tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m.  Um, what?  So I've got Kaylee and two other people helping me in the morning to get some airplanes over to the hangar (since all our airplanes are gone right now except the T-6, and even our 172 is supposed to fly that morning and be 'gone' too) and help me corral the little ones.

The spider still lives in the PT hangar by the way, which is not cool, and I didn't notice any skin hanging off of any of the screws back there, so that's good.  ;)  I meant to take a picture of the screws, but I forgot during the checkride.  I'll get it another time so you'll see what I'm talking about.  Those are dangerous looking suckers now that I actually look at them.  I don't think there's any normal reason you should be pressed up against those, however.  Even if you end up inverted on the ground, God forbid, they shouldn't be in your way.  I guess I'm the one in its 70 year history that had to find the one way to hurt yourself on them.  That figures.  ;)

Kaylee's doing fine--she's excited about camp in just six days, she's taking care of the cats without being reminded while her dad's gone, she's going to help me tomorrow, and I think she's going to help in Grandma's garden tomorrow too.  Taekwondo is still on, so she gets about 90 minutes of exercise in there to hint at counteracting all the sitting around and reading books and snacking she is also doing.  ;)  I seriously can't say anything, that was my summer for awhile too. Go to the library, get a stack of books, sit on the couch and read them.  For days. In fact, that sounds downright awesome right now.  When's our summer break?  ;)

D-Day

Early this morning, Steve, Nathan and Jon launched in the RG and headed west, to Wyoming.  They had a little weather to divert around, and had some more weather to miss out there when they were landing, but they made it.  :)  They'll be there for a few days, working on hanging the "new" old engine on the Twin Beech.  It's a bit of an adventure for them, and a lot of work, I'm sure!  So we're bacheloretting it for four days here, Kaylee and I.

Today is the 15th anniversary of Devon's death.  I had some time this afternoon, so I watched a movie called "Heaven is for Real".  I didn't really know what it was about, I just knew I hadn't seen it yet, so I checked it out.  There was one scene in there where a Dad, who is also a Pastor, was talking to a woman whose Marine son died overseas.  He says something like "I saw my son in the hospital bed, and I knew he was dying, and something inside me just broke, a part of me is broken, and it has never mended since. You don't ever have to apologize to me for those parts of you that are broken." I didn't know that was in the movie when I watched it today, but it's certainly the truth, and many times you can see it in the eyes of people you meet. It doesn't even have to be a death. In this case it is--you remember the positive, you do your best to make something good come from the bad, you are grateful for the time you do have...but I think everyone who has been there will remember the moment they felt something inside break, a part that sometimes strengthens with time and distance, but cannot ever go back the way it was. It's also important to remember that nobody gets out of life without their share of struggles, and any time you think yours are too big, you should be looking outward, not inward, and you really will see that you are still...blessed.

Kaylee and I decided we wanted to do something this afternoon, and she still wanted to go up with me in the PT-26, so we did.  She said she wanted to drive down there, not fly down, so we did that too, listening to songs, singing loudly, drinking McDonald's tea, and talking.  At one point she said "Aren't you glad I'm here?  I lighten the mood.  Otherwise you'd just be driving along, bored and alone."  Yes, dear, I was glad you were there.  :)

Let's see, we ran into a big spider in the PT hangar, which was not cool, with nobody around to kill it.  I tried to squish it by sliding an oil pan over the top of it, but that just made it mad, and run, and disappear, which bothered us both.  We got the plane out together, I got her buckled in, we did a review on the switches up front, and away we went.  We flew around for 15 minutes or so, just looking around, and then I had her take the plane.  She said "I thought you weren't authorized to instruct in this airplane yet."  I said "I'm not."  She said "Okay. Well, I can't say I'm worried about it.  It's not like you can't fly it." lol  She asked how we make a crosswind landing.  She asked about weather, clouds, and wind.  I like it when she asks me aviation questions.  ;) 

I finally got to do a few takeoffs and landings in it.  Short field, regular, light crosswind, go-around, engine-out to landing.  They were actually really smooth, except for that last one, which was just...fine.  The first landing, Kaylee said "Butter", which made me laugh, because even I said "Well, that was kinda pretty, wasn't it.", but my favorite was the one where Kaylee said "Oh wow, we already landed?!  I didn't feel a thing!"  Thank you, thank you very much, I accidentally rolled that one on, one of those you only get a handful of ever, so I'll not be able to pull that off again any time soon, wish I'd have saved it for the checkout pilot, but I'll take it anyway.  ;)  I'm supposed to fly with the check pilot sometime in the next two days, depending on his schedule and the weather, and of course both days there are pretty good chances for turbulence, pop up thunderstorms, and the winds are supposed to be almost a direct crosswind at mid numbers, which in theory shouldn't be a problem, but I'd rather have a nice day...

Kaylee had fun in the airplane.  We were laughing, talking, singing songs, and she loved that she could stick her arms out the top of the canopy and feel the breeze without hurting herself.  She would comment on my landings, we would talk about why I did a roll-and-go on one, but a full stop and taxi back on another, we waved at a few people who waved at us, and we both just had a really nice time.  When I went to get out, I was holding onto my headset with one hand, and it's actually a big step down from the back seat, and I lost my balance and didn't have a free hand to grab anything.  So I took my right arm and shoved it up against the top of the canopy there, and tried to wedge my arm in there to stop myself from falling backwards.  Well, it worked well enough for me to slow my momentum down enough to regain my balance, but where I shoved my arm is a series of screws, with the tail end sticking out.  I have a row of scratches on my arm now, 7 of them all pretty evenly spaced, a few that broke the skin, and one pretty good-sized hole in my arm where one of the screws tore through.  That hurt.  The area around it was blue for a second before it started bleeding.  I should have checked to see I didn't leave skin hanging off of the screws up there!  Considering how old that airplane is (70 years in case you're wondering), and who knows what kind of dirt, oil, maybe even rust is on there, the first thing I did was go up to the terminal and wash it out with soap and water (felt great), and when we got home, the first thing I did was pour hydrogen peroxide on it twice, then Neosporin, then stick a bandaid over it.  It bled through two bandaids before it finally settled in, but finally it seems to be behaving itself.  And I need a new plan for the next time I'm falling out of that seat.  ;)

I had found an ice cream place on the way down, so on the way home Kaylee and I stopped for some hand dipped goodness.  Mocha chip for me, wild black cherry in a waffle cone for her.  Good stuff, great way to end the adventure.  It took us about an hour to get home, and we watched the cumulonimbus clouds building up, talked about which one had stuff in them, which ones might not, how you could tell, and I pointed out one big cell that had a dark center.  She said she'd like to see a thunderstorm from the inside.  I said she would not like to see that.  She told me she loves the weather, particularly storms.  Interesting.  Me too, always have.

Well, I need to study a couple things here before hitting the sack and getting ready for whatever tomorrow brings...

Kaylee sticking her arm out the window...because she can, and it felt good to shove air up her shirt sleeve.  ;)

 

My arm...

Summer

Today is the official Summer Solstice, and I guess the thunderstorms, high temps and high humidity has been  proving that out.  I just can't believe we basically have one month left, and then it's almost time to go back to school.  Good grief.

I took Kaylee and Maggie shopping today.  We left the house around 11:30 a.m., and got back around 4:30 p.m. or so.  Kaylee needed clothes that fit her and weren't ripped out, and needed some camp stuff too, so we got some jeans, some shorts, some shirts, and a few other necessities.  We went to a couple of different places including the mall and several stores therein, we took a break at KFC for lunch, and an ending break at Orange Leaf (frozen yogurt) afterwards.  The girls both bought a shirt they liked, matching, and Kaylee got most of what she needed not just for camp, but for summer.  Originally I was going to be formation flying today and Steve was going to take her shopping.  Both she and he are fortunate that the formation fell through and that it was me that did it.  ;)  We had a nice time, although that's a LONG time to be walking around shopping.  We were all tired by the end of that one, but everybody hung in there with a good attitude.  Thus the ice cream reward afterwards.

Kaylee was going to go down to Indy with me this evening so I could actually spend some time flying the PT from the back, since thus far both previous attempts were very short for various reasons.  The guy coming from Virginia said anytime Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, and I wanted to be more ready.  Last time he came up I hadn't hardly flown the plane at all, and now here he is coming back and I again haven't flown it hardly from the back.   But I had a low grade headache today, and after my nap attempt this afternoon from the shopping spree, some weather started wandering this way, and I just didn't feel like it.  Steve told me to quit messing with it, it's not like I can't fly the airplane, which is true.  So when Kaylee asked later when we were going down to fly, I said we weren't today, and she said "Oh.  I was kind of looking forward to that."  Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?  Come to find out, she likes that airplane, likes the PT with the open canopy that is quieter and doesn't blow her headset off her head, motoring around slowly, looking out.  Well, cool.  I'll get her back in there then, and that's a great excuse to go fly whenever a convenient day arrives to do so.  :)

Review

Two flights today, nice and hot and sweaty.  One guy hasn't flown for a year. We got in the Cherokee 180, and I think that's probably the first time I've flown it in the last year too.  We went up and did a little air work before coming in and hitting crosswind landings, 40 degrees off, up to 15 knots, which is a nice way to get back in the saddle after a year.  Later that afternoon I was in the 172 out at Glenndale with Steve's new student, and we worked on the pattern for the first time.  Like I said, it was good and sweaty out there, but I think we got a decent amount accomplished.

Kaylee got to spend the day with her friend Maggie--I'm not sure what all they did, but I do know she sent me a text at lunch telling me that she needed to go shopping for jeans NOW because she'd ripped her jeans by the BUTT and that is NOT cool.  I told her she was out of luck right now, we were both working, but I think Judy put a quick fix on them for her.  By the time she got home tonight she' ripped them again elsewhere.  Man they do not make jeans like they used to--a pair of mine is falling apart too and they aren't that old.  Meanwhile I have jeans from 15 years ago still in perfectly good shape, if they were the "right" size.  ;)  Anyway, after my last flight I did take her to Walgreens to shop for some camp supply stuff, and I needed a couple things too. 

When I got home this afternoon, there was a box at my front door.  Inside this box were the ingredients and recipes for two meals, that I ordered on the internet.  Tonight's meal was pan-seared ahi tuna with quinoa salad and a dill sauce.  You open the box, and it has everything you need in exactly the quantities that you need, it's all fresh, and still cold, it's healthy, fairly low calorie (depending on what meal you pick), and it tells you what to do with an 8.5 x 11" size thick shiny recipe card with pictures.  Cooking for Dummies (or Laura).  The food really was fresh, the veggies were crisp, everything was in perfect condition.  The prep time was a lot for this particular meal.  It still took a lot of effort to fix, because I had to clean and dice and slice cucumbers, radishes, garlic, fennel, chives, dill, fresh herb leaves, and I can't remember what else off the top of my head, but it was a lot of slicing and dicing and chopping.  But I did not have to go to the store to find all of these things (quinoa? fennel?)  In the end I had a meal like you would get at an expensive restaurant, it had a lot of different flavors and ingredients that I don't normally eat, so to me it was slightly weird, but in a good way.  The more I ate it, the more I really liked it, and Steve liked it too.  Kaylee not so much, but at least she tried it.  She doesn't like fennel, she does like radishes, and she hated the tuna, about sprayed that out all over the kitchen.  ;)  So, bottom line?  The food was really good and good quality.  In fact, if you care about such things, it was mostly organic, GMO free, etc. etc.  The directions were clear. The calorie content was printed out so you knew what you were getting into.  Having the ingredients is hugely helpful to me.  The prep was too long for this meal, but I choose my own meals so I could keep an eye out for complicated in the future. The biggest down side? The cost. It's about what you'd pay to eat out at a mid-range restaurant, but shipping is high because of how they do it--fancy box with a cooler liner and ice packs, overnighted.  I wish it were cheaper, and if someone would do that for me locally and just bring it to me, I'd probably pay them less than this but pretty well.  lol   All in all, the big minus being the cost, it was pretty darned good.  I have one more meal to make from this batch...Garlic and Lemon Roasted Chicken with Potatoes, Spinach and Asparagus.  Now doesn't that sound tasty?  Forty minutes of prep time (another longer one) and 570 calories per serving, which is actually a pretty large serving size.   Kaylee will probably eat this one, too. Sounds like a win to me.

FB Day

Kaylee went off to see "How to Train Your Dragon 2" with her crew of friends all from one family, five brothers and a sister. They are all about 6' tall and just strong, large kids, teens, and they look like hooligans...but they are far from it.  She likes going out with them because they make her feel both small in comparison, and well-protected.  See, every one of them is a black belt, and they think of her like their second littler sister, and that works just fine for me, too.  ;)

Facebook was on fire today.  I saw some of the best links/videos I've seen on there, all in one afternoon.  I'm not sure I can find them again now, but here are a few.

First, the only one that is aviation themed.  This is set to "Dreams" by Van Halen, a song which I used to listen to on my earphones via cassette tape on my way to the airport when I was taking flight lessons so that I could ignore everybody else around me and just enjoy the experience.  The original "Dreams" video featured the Blue Angels, of course.  This one is not the Blue Angels, but these guys are darned good, parts of the show are more daring/entertaining, and I really enjoyed watching.



Next up is something much more...feminine.  I laughed so hard by the end of this that my eyes were literally watering.  I watched it with Kaylee and she kept saying "I would KILL you.  Like..just...KILL you."  Just picturing it made me laugh even harder. This thing is full of one-liner zingers.  I'd like to just embed the video like the above, but it won't let me, so HERE'S the link to go to the page for it.  Warning--it has to do with female cycles, so don't watch if such things offend, embarrass or horrify you.  ;)

On the political front, we have MSNBC who can't stop making fun of the IRS "losing" two years' worth of email.  When MSNBC folks, except for the blonde there, are chiming in on the ridiculousness of the whole thing, you know it's not good.  (Of course they'll likely get away with it, because if the proof isn't there, it isn't there, and people can make fun all they want, but there's nothing there to actually do anything with, so it too will pass shortly.)  I wonder how it would go if everybody in America answers the IRS's next insistence of "Provide proof of what you were doing" with "I'm sorry, I would, but my computer ate the information and then I recycled the harddrive."  I say it again--the IRS is one of the biggest terrorist groups in the country.


On another body function video, this is a rude one having to do with gas, but yet Kaylee and I couldn't stop laughing at it, either:

Now this one is just an image.  For some reason a whole lot of our own people popped into my head when I saw this.  ;)

 

The last one I had was a sweet and funny collage of cat clips.  Some were funny, adorable, creepy, painful, all sorts of stuff, and it was one of the best I've seen.  Of course I can't find it again.  My FB isn't cooperating, and it's gone,  So instead I'll end with another one that made me smile.  Somebody posted something really, really stupid.  Epically stupid.  And this was one person's response in total--no words, just this.  Made both Kaylee and me laugh. Of course, apparently today we were in the mood to laugh.  What can I say...

Non-Chat

Another flight this morning, muggy and breezy, still a direct crosswind because of our main runway being closed, but not as wonky of winds as yesterday's.  We went over to Sheridan and did the takeoffs and landings there, to give him the skinny mostly-into-the-wind runway experience.  I go to other places now and then not only for their benefit, but mine.  It gives you both a break from the pattern if you do the pattern somewhere else.  :)

I heard a little blip on the radio news tonight that I thought was kind of funny.  I guess Miley Cyrus put up a life-size cardboard poster of Selena Gomez (another young singer) on stage with her and sang a rude song to "her".  Selena didn't say a word about it anywhere, and shortly thereafter won a voting award of some kind in Canada.  Miley had actively campaigned for that award, and posted publicly that obviously the fix was in, rigged voting.  Selena responded...not at all.  So Miley is out there trying to stir up stuff and the person she's trying to stir it up with is completely and totally ignoring her. That makes me smile--either Selena is a lot smarter/wiser, or she has a better publicist/advisor.  ;)

I've spent too much time sitting here to say nothing at all, so I'm giving it up.  ;)

CAF Day

I flew this morning at 9 a.m., and it was one of those rough wind days where no matter what the AWOS says, it feels a lot more squirrely.  When we took off the winds were 220 gusting up to 17 knots, and our runway 23 is closed at Kokomo now, meaning we got to use 14, which is pretty close to a direct crosswind.  Since he's working on the pattern, we went over to Marion to practice, because Marion had a runway pretty much right into the wind.  We were over there about an hour, and the winds were really picking up, and he was worn out, so we headed back to Kokomo, and when we got there we now had a direct crosswind at 25 knots.  He got us around the pattern, and then on final it was obvious it was a problem, the gusts were big and swirly, and at first I was just helping, but then he just put his hands up.  I had to work it pretty hard too, it felt more like the 30s than the 20s.  I get it down after some work, and as I'm slowing down, he says "Well, that was nuts."  It was definitely a sporty day, and the thought that ran through my head as I was wrestling it around was "I'm glad I'm not in a taildragger right now."  Today was supposed to be my checkout from the back seat in the PT-26.  The winds down there were only a 70 degree crosswind, not a 90 degree crosswind, but it was enough.  The majority of the checkride is various takeoffs and landings.  Short field, soft field, 3-point, wheel, aborted takeoff, go-arounds, normal.  That's a lot of time to be spending wrestling winds like that if you don't have to.  So it's rescheduled for next week.  I wanted to actually fly it longer than for the couple of takeoffs and landings I've done in it thus far, but it is forecasting to rain all the way up until next week when we're supposed to go, and I can't go by myself, so I have to drag somebody else out there for ballast, which makes it harder to get done.  Oh well...

Tonight I had a CAF meeting.  It started at 6, but it was down at Metro, and I drove, which meant I had to leave at 4:30, and I didn't get home until 11 p.m. We went over the regular meeting info, then we went over the Warbird Expo "things to do better/differently", then we took a group photo in front of the PT hangar for Warbird Digest.  I really dislike having my photo taken, but what are you going to do...

Ballast and Co-Pilot

Kaylee got her orange belt today!  I'll have to get a picture of her wearing it Wednesday when she goes to class.  She was happy to have it, and they introduced the first of two "forms" she'll need to know when she tests for her next belt, Green.  She already has it memorized after the first day, because she thinks this one is cool.  It's getting more aggressive with the punching, kicking, etc., and she had fun with it, came out and showed it to us before she went to bed.

Tonight Steve and Kaylee were kind enough to drive down to Indy Metro with me to help me with the PT.  Well, Steve was nice enough, Kaylee wasn't really given a choice, but she was a pretty good sport about it anyway.  ;)  It's over a two hour round trip drive.  That's a pain.  Anyway, I needed Steve to help me get the airplane out of the hangar, and I needed a front-seater, as you can't fly it solo from the back.  First up Kaylee got a cockpit checkout from the front seat, Steve showing her where the master, avionics master, and generator were, and explaining how to recycle the generator until it actually kicked on.   So I called out things like "Master On", she'd do it, I'd fire up the rest of the way, then I'd call out "Avionics Master On" and she'd flip that, etc.  We took off and I did a landing, took off again and had a bit of a maintenance issue, so came around and made a full stop landing.  That was a long drive and a lot of hassle to do two takeoffs and landings, but that's how life works sometimes.  Steve fixed it back at the hangar (such a handy fellow to have around!), and by then three people came up to talk to me and him about the airplane and such, and then it got late and dark, so we just put it away.  I say we, but mostly Steve.  He had better things to do besides take 3 hours to go there and do that, but I'm glad he did anyway.  :)  It was good that we found the issue and fixed it before the checkride, and I still got to take Kaylee up flying in it for a little bit. She likes the open cockpit.  She has good taste on that kind of thing. 

The checkride has been postponed until next week now.  I look forward to getting that out of the way.

It was a muggy and hot evening, but it was still an awful pretty evening.

Plane Day

What started off to be just a day giving one T-6 ride ended up being a day of being at the airport and flying from the time I woke up until I made it back home around 10 p.m.  I didn't have to get up until 8:15, but I woke up three hours before that and never did get back to sleep.  Boo.

The T-6 ride was fun; it was his 80th birthday, and he hopped in back there better than most people half his age.  He used to work for North American, and his family got him this flight to try to find something he hadn't done before, and he said they succeeded.  He was never a pilot, had never flown in anything smaller than a DC-3 before, was a little nervous to start with, but he did a lot of the flying and wanted to try a couple of different maneuvers towards the end there.  He had a good time, and I had a good time helping him have a good time.

A little later this afternoon, Steve, another young man and I hopped in the 340 and flew down to Indy Metro (and BOY was it hot out there) so that I could get the PT-26 out and fly it from the back, with Steve up front.  I can tell you a couple things.  Getting it out of the hangar by myself isn't going to be very easy, it's kind of a long walk over to it, which I suppose is good exercise, and I think they need to rethink their rule of putting it away with full fuel every time.  Today with full fuel, Steve up front and me in the back, with a crosswind (not much headwead component), on a hot day, that airplane barely gets off the ground.  There are two large cranes off the end of the runway doing construction, and some tall lights, and I had to turn at around 150' above the ground at a very slow airspeed to avoid getting too close to/running into those.  It took me a very long time to get to pattern altitude, and finally I quit climbing after 10 minutes at 2200'.  That was good enough to do steep turns and a couple of stalls.  Flying the maneuvers shouldn't be a problem.  I came in for the first landing, went for a three-point, and that one wasn't all that great.  Next up I stayed in the pattern, never did get higher than 500' in the pattern before it was time to land, that thing climbs like a DOG, but did a wheel landing next, and that went much more smoothly.  After that I was sort of done for the day.  I need to go back out and do another handful of 3-point and wheel landings from the back seat; it was good to do it with a decent crosswind today for the practice of it, but before I actually instruct in it I want to do a couple more.

We flew the 340 back to Kokomo and hung out for awhile, before I took the 340 over to Aurora for maintenance and Justin G came and got me in the RG.  We didn't get back to the airport until 9 something pm, and it was 10 before I pulled into the driveway.  I didn't expect it to be a long airport day, but I had a good time with all of it, and I'm glad I don't have to take it over tomorrow morning when the weather is supposed to be a little cruddy anyway...

Meanwhile, Father's Day passed quietly.  Fortunately we had a little Father's Day action for Steve yesterday.  :)  Happy Father's Day to all you great Dads out there, who teach their sons what kind of dad to be, and teach their daughters what kind of man to marry.

Now I vote that it's bedtime.  I'm a little worn, in a good way.  :)

Here's a pic on my way to Aurora tonight...

Hi-Ya

It wasn't a very restful night's sleep; at some point Kaylee came sleep walking into our room, laid down basically on top of me and passed back out.  At 5 a.m., Steve's phone went off, randomly playing something very loudly.  That woke Kaylee up too, who had no memory of coming to our room and thought I'd gone in and carried her in here or something (not something I would do, nor am I capable of doing any more--she's too big!) The rest of the morning we didn't really get back to sleep, and then it was time to get up and get going for the day. 

First stop was Master Jay's Dojo down in Indianapolis. Kaylee's instructor was testing for his 4th degree black belt, which will make him a Master as well, and her instructor's son was testing for his 3rd degree black belt.  Kaylee was testing for Orange and one of her other classmates was testing for his Yellow.  Kaylee did excellent on her two "Forms" that she had.  Nice and crisp and smooth.  Next up was sparring, and they paired her with a 3rd degree blackbelt, a large man, and she was a little freaked out that he was going to punch or kick back hard enough to hurt her.  So she was a little too timid with him, even though he was very nice and was obviously (to us anyway) not going to pose her any harm.  She got through it, not her strongest sparring, but we talked about it afterwards and I don't think she'll have an issue going for it on future testings.  Then came the board break.  They'd told her that she would probably have the thin boards, and that's what she'd practiced with one time back in class last week, as that's what they had on hand.  Nope, again they pulled out the what they call 1" Boards which are really about 3/4" thick wood.  Her first kick she was kind of testing it out, finding the board, etc.  The second kick, she nailed it, split it in the middle with no problem at all.  Boom.  It was the sweet sound of "craaaaack!"  Finally they did an interview with the Grand Masters, asking questions of the applicants to determine if they are doing it for the right reason and aren't Karate Kid Bad Guy Crazy or anything.  After that, you're done, and she'll get her orange belt at one of her practices next week.  :)  Afterwards we stayed around to watch her instructor and friend go for their advanced belts.  The sparring they do as black belts is certainly more engaging.  The Grand Master said "No head contact, light body contact."  They weren't going for light body contact--a couple of them started going at it pretty hard, with no gear on. It was definitely entertaining.  The Grand Master said a couple times "LIGHT contact, LIGHT contact" but you'd hear the THWHACK from across the room.  There's going to be some bruises there, I'm sure.  The closer, lower ranking black belts near us kept apologizing.  One would get the other and say "sorry! sorry!"  The higher belts over there, there was no "sorry" going on.  Just some testosterone.  lol

When we got back from Indy, Steve went off to fly, and Kaylee and I went off on our own mission.  We stopped at Kroger and picked up some food and a Father's Day card, got home, unloaded everything...and the card wasn't there.  I called Kroger, they didn't see it lying around at a checkout or anything.  So we loaded back up, went to CVS, and picked up another card, and while we were out I stopped at Top Banana, the local fresh fruit/veggie market, and picked up some more ingredients.  See, Kaylee and I had a plan.  For Father's Day, we decided to make him banana pudding, something he loves to eat.  I don't know how to make it, so I looked up a recipe on the internet.  It said and I quote, "14 bananas".  I didn't think much about it, I got 14 bananas, because it said so.  And I got a couple extras so we could make banana shakes later.  I get home, look up several other recipes, and they all say 3 or 4 bananas, not 14.  Kaylee and I make the stuff, and sure enough, 3 bananas is plenty.  Now I have a WHOLE lot of bananas left over.  Like, we'll never be able to eat that many and Steve will walk in and wonder what on earth we are doing with a whole banana tree in our house.  So Kaylee ran a big bunch over next door, and fortunately they took them, and we made banana blueberry shakes with a few, and we made the pudding, and we STILL have half a dozen bananas left. Anybody want a banana?  ;)

We had just gotten the kitchen cleaned up when he came driving up.  Just in time, and the pudding is hidden in the fridge, where hopefully he won't snoop much until tomorrow.  I'm not too worried about him reading this tonight--he thinks he knows what's going on any more and doesn't need to read this as much.  ;)

Tonight is the Rib Festival at Foster Park in Kokomo, and we headed down there too.  It was beautiful weather for it, and we walked around a bit, sampled some ribs, potato twists, and a few drinks, ran into a few people we knew, heard a little background music from some bands going on, and had a nice quick time down there before coming home and digging into the banana pudding a day early (tomorrow is more a working day anyway).  A nice ending to a nice and busy day...

Standing at attention waiting for testing to begin.

 

Finishing her first "Form", of the required two forms.

 

Sparring the black belt.  You can tell by his face he is concerned that she's going to get him.  ;)

 

This looks awkward, but that's her leg coming down from the kick that spilt the board he is holding in two.

 

Stepping outside to take a photo of the broken board, and successful completion of the test.

 

Waiting...

 

More waiting...

 

On the way home.  This seems to be a snapshot of our lives. A daughter passed out in the back seat of my car, lying her head on my flight suit, with a broken Taekwondo board by her head, next to my Bose headset.  That all seems about right.

 

Steve and Kaylee at the Rib Festival in Kokomo.

Kaylee with her $10 Pina Colada smoothie, including Tree glass.  :)

80s Ladies

Kaylee has left to go to a birthday party in the park near our house with an 80s theme.  She was asking me what I wore in the 80s.  I told her I pretty much wore normal people clothes, not whatever the style was of the times, for the most part, but that people in the 80s wore big hair, leg warmers (I DID have those), bright colors, blue eye shadow, that kind of stuff. So she found the most clashy bright outfit she could put together and ran with it, and you know what?  She still looked nice.  The kid is just pretty, that's all there is to it.  :)  She walked to this party, but if it gets out when it's dark I will probably go get her anyway.  Yes, she's 13, yes, she's about a block from our house, but the park isn't what I'd call a great safe zone at night.

I had to get my flight medical renewed today, and because I'm a procrastinator with a weird schedule who can't really pre-plan two months in advance when I'll be available, I usually use the old German doctor down in Indy.  I talk about him each year, but that's because he's a sweetheart and he always makes me smile, which is, I am pretty sure, the only doctor in the history of doctors I have ever been to who can make me smile while in the midst of any kind of exam.  He still insists on letting me try to pass the vision test without my glasses, and so far I can still squint and memorize and cheat enough to do so, but I think maybe next year I'll try again to say "I brought my glasses.  I will use them."  Last time he said "No, no, just TRY!"  As if I concentrate hard enough I can make my eyes behave.  :)  He said "See, you still have 20/20 vision!  You are fine!"  His nurse/assistant didn't remember me from last time, because we had the exact same interaction.  She has me stand on the scale (before he lets me give my "urine sample" and before he has me take my shoes off which seems a few pounds unfair ;)), and starts with the little bar on the wrong setting.  I tell her where she might as well start it, and she looks me up and down and says "No way."  He likes to do these strength tests too, and he looks up at me and says in his strong German accent "You are VERY Strong girl!!"  I told him it was the German in me and he got a kick out of that.  I walked out with my fresh shiny new medical, good to go for another whole year.  My blood pressure was up to 119/70 this year.  I knew there were several factors contributing to it not being my normal, but it falls into the just perfect range as far as the FAA is concerned, so that's what counts for today.  ;)

Kaylee asked me what "Planking" was, so I showed her, and we had a little contest, and I stayed up longer than she did.  She doesn't know this, but I was about out of gas too, so I was proud of myself for beating a young, strong, thinner kid at planking.  And then I did a full push up (no girl version), and she looked over and said "Yeah, that's nice, but can you do this?" and she did a full push up, pushed off, clapped her hands in the air, and caught herself back in the push up position.  No.  Not only can I not do that, if I try I will land on and break my wrists.  I had seen her practicing that before but she hadn't been able to do it.  Today she did it with some ease.  She said "I can only do one right now", but hey, it's one.  Better than I've got!

I had pizza delivered to the house tonight, and when I opened the door, the pizza delivery man was a former worker out at the Kokomo Airport.  I'm standing there in disaster hair and glasses and almost no makeup and old sweat pants as my nicer looking comfy pants are in the wash, and there's my line guy and refueler at my house!  That felt really, really awkward/weird.  He said "Hey, at least this pays better", which is sad of its own right on behalf of aviation.  Thank goodness I had a decent tip handy, mostly because I was out of Ones, but still...

I am trying something new.  I have often joked that if someone would fix it for me, we would all be eating much healthier around here.  Even if I fix my own food, most of the time I cheat and get something pre-packaged because it's so much easier and faster.  Planning each meal, figuring out what on earth to make, getting to the store to get the fresh ingredients, finding all that stuff in the store, not letting it go bad before you get a day to fix it, those are the things that hold me back.  I've spent hours searching for what to fix and wandering aisles looking for stuff.  I can actually cook if I know what I want to fix, but that preparation and shopping is just a show stopper to me.  Well, I found a place that I'm giving a try next week that will deliver fresh food and recipes to your door.  You go online and they have a menu for the week.  You select how many plates of which meal you want.  The meals are flavorful and healthy, and have meat, fish, poultry, or vegetarian, and come with sides and all.  They box up all the fresh ingredients and it is delivered to your front door same day (they don't ship, they are locals and deliver on a truck).  You only have to have things like salt, pepper, and pans.  They provide the recipe, which you keep, and every ingredient you need. You prep it, cook it and eat it.  I am trying four plates of food next week for a total of $20.  Normally it's more expensive than that, but I get a "try it out" discount this first time.  So, I'm going to "try it out" and see what I think, if it might be something I do once a week or so, or if there are any issues with it, etc.  We shall see, but I'm interested.  They were sold out of food this week, and next week until Friday, so that may be a good thing that they are busy.  :)  The first one I have coming is Garlic and Lemon Roasted Chicken on a bed of potatoes, asparagus and a few spinach leaves.  Yum.

Got the bills paid, the dishes and laundry done, the kid's uniform washed for tomorrow's TKD thingy, business receipts organized and sent out, and a bunch of other productive things as well.  It's a good day.

Vent

I'm going to warn you right now that much of this post will be nothing but a "Make Laura Feel Better" rant about my flying day.  So first I'll hit up anything new or exciting with Kaylee.  She's staying up too late, sleeping in too late, reading too many books, went to see a movie with a friend the other night, has an 80's themed birthday party down in the park tomorrow evening (we're still debating on whether or not she can walk down there by herself), and tests for her orange belt Saturday.  She's enjoying too much food and not having parents organized enough to make her come out and work at the airport with us yet.  Her summer break is probably thus far pretty darned good for a kid, and she'll get busy enough soon enough.

Richard is working on gaining some weight and dealing with the effects of the chemo, and hopefully will be on the upswing soon!

Steve was up until past 4 a.m. working on some computer problems, and since I had to be up at 7 to take my trip, I haven't seen him since.  I think he's still alive as I've gotten an occasional email or text from him, but I'm guessing that his night will be over as soon as he hits the couch and relaxes.

Tuesday the guy from Virginia is supposed to come up and check me out from the back seat of the PT-26 for the CAF to approve me as an instructor pilot for our local wing (after 2 years of trying to get it done).  I haven't ever flown that airplane from the back seat, so if I can't get a flight in before he gets here, my first time may be for a formal checkride, but it's not exactly the most complicated airplane in the world, so...so be it.  It'll be fine.

So Why My Day Was Annoying.

Originally I was supposed to have a student this morning and then fly down to Washington DC area at 10:30.  Then he wanted me down there at noon instead, so I canceled my student.  Since it was just one guy, I asked to bring someone along with me as a fun trip, and that was no problem--until 30 minutes before I was supposed to leave and got the text that now there were going to be four of us, which is about one too many with full fuel as it is, so I had to cancel the guy who was going to come with me.  Bummer for him, but not a huge problem, that's life.  On my way down to DC, the XM weather never came on, and I was too high too fast for a text to get out, so I turned on my ADS-B back up instead, only it didn't work either.  I'm going into an area of lowering ceilings and pop up storms without weather, which is annoying, but it's not terrible yet, because you still have the old fashioned way of checking weather along the route as best you can as you get closer.  Eventually after a reboot I did get my ADS-B weather to work though, so that helped a lot. The airport I was originally supposed to go into doesn't currently have any instrument approaches valid into it, which means you have to be able to visually get the airport from their minimum vectoring altitude of 1500'.  Well, the ceilings were calling for 400-600' overcast now, so that wasn't happening.  I had left early enough that I hoped I could get there, take a look for the airport, go missed and go over to my alternate, fill up with fuel, and be ready by high noon when they wanted to leave, giving them enough time to see which airport I ended up at, too.  They came early, having seen me leave early, and they went to my original airport, which I couldn't get in to, and then had to drive a long ways to get to the airport I did end up at because they jumped the gun a little bit.  They sent me a text once that the clouds were breaking up there, but it still wasn't enough.  I ended up shooting the ILS into my alternate and broke out around 400'.  Finally they made it in and we loaded up, and the one guy who claimed to be 230 pounds?  *I* am probably closer to 230 pounds than he is, in the opposite direction.  He was a big boy.  I hadn't put full fuel in, to compensate for the additional weight, but after eyeballing him, I'm pretty sure we were still over, which I hate. Because of the delay in getting there, the storms were really starting to build up, scattered stuff and lines forming quickly.  When we departed, we had to turn away from one pretty heavy cell and go the wrong direction for a little while before turning on course, and then the fun began.  The XM weather still wasn't working.  D couldn't ever connect his ADS-B.  Mine was working slowly, but ATC was forcing us to stay down around 8000', for 45 minutes of the flight, which was the worst time to be down there because it's where all the weather was.  We were going in and out of a lot of buildups with two green passengers, onboard radar that can't see past 20 miles, no NEXRAD, and one ADS-B receiver kind of coming in grainy, dealing with embedded stuff, which is my gosh darned favorite thing to do.  They told us we could deviate as we wanted, gee thanks, but had to stay down at 8000', gee THANKS, and would try to tell us where cells were, but their radar is off on time as well, and there were so many cells out there that you could easily wander into one when you couldn't see.  So we played dodgeball.  I had largely pixelated ADS-B for big picture stuff out there, and the on board radar set to 20 miles, and as a cell would pop up there, we'd deviate around it.  A couple times we had to get fancy with a line that popped up and didn't leave us much of a gap.  Every once in awhile we'd break out, I'd look around visually and find the path of least resistance, and then we'd be back in and going off the equipment again.  It was fine, we had enough open space, and the weather wasn't fully developed yet, so you could still maneuver safely.  It was just a pain in the butt.  After we worked through the weather for 45 minutes, then ATC cleared us up to 16,000' where I could see the few buildups that high and easily maneuver around them, but by then we were out of the bad area of weather anyway.  It was handier having two pilots for a bit there when he would keep the dirty side down and I would analyze the weather, tell him where to go, when to turn, etc. At least going in single pilot, while I was busy with weather in busy airspace, it wasn't as built up as it got later.  Anyway, don't get the wrong impression, this wasn't death-defying or anything, but having three weather systems in the airplane and having none of them working quite properly on top of ATC forcing us to stay down in the middle of the buildups for that long made for a really annoying trip for awhile there...

Coming into Kokomo then, a two-ship was talking on the radio to each other about how they were going to depart 23, head east, and then switch frequencies.  So I got on the radio and announced we were 10 to the east coming into land on 32.  The one didn't seem to pick up on that so I watched on the traffic system as they departed and turned right towards us, and made another radio call with our distance, direction and altitude.  Again, nothing, until I saw him coming right at us, our altitude, head on, right down the path for the runway's final approach, and the second plane said "Watch out for that twin who called on final."  "Huh?  Where?" says the first plane, as if he'd never heard of such a thing.  Right HERE, in your WINDSHIELD, kid.  We dropped down, he climbed up, and we landed shaking our head.  Situational awareness at its finest...

Now, I'm done complaining.  ;)  In fact, I think I'm going to find a nice beverage and snack, kick up my feet, look over some study materials, and relax with Kaylee, who seems to have this relaxing thing down cold right now.  ;)