Life

Richard is doing well today--when he came out of the procedure, he was eating great and in good spirits.  :)  His procedure to repair the heart valve is tomorrow, so keep him in your prayers please!

Kaylee got fitted for her new "Starlets" dress, that $250 accessory.  She said the teacher said if you're not planning on buying a new one next year, make sure this one was big enough to grow into.  I told her she'd better not buy one too tight, because SHE could buy the next one if she did!  She loves it though.  Plus, one of her friends who only missed getting into the group by one point ended up getting in after all as one of the other girls is moving now.  So she now has several girls who are already her friends in the group with her, and she's really looking forward to next year and her adventures in Starlets.  I'm happy for her!

We have someone with a checkride for tomorrow, and needed to get something done on the plane before then.  Muncie got us in at 9 a.m. today, last minute, which was nice.  When I got here at 9, I told the guy what it was here for, and he pulled it right into the hangar.  It was supposed to take a couple hours, so I figure hey, done by 11, 11:30, home in time for lunch, and it and I had a flight scheduled at 1:30.  No problem.  At 10:30 I checked in with the girls, who pulled it up and said "Yep, it's an open job", and took my phone number to call me when it's done.  At 12:15 I see nobody working on it but the stuff still hooked up, so I go over and ask what's going on.  They're not done, and everybody goes to lunch at noon, and they might not have gotten started on it right away, and we don't know how long it will take, and you'll have to wait until they're back from lunch, etc.  I'm kind of mad at this point, so I call my 1:30 and tell him I'll have to call him later if we can still fly later today. The morning I expected, the afternoon I didn't, and it's shot.  And then one of the avionics guys says to me "Time to spare, go by AIR", and I'm trying to be amused by that because I like him, but...  That saying is a bit grating if it's being used as an excuse; the air, airplane, weather, the usual suspects weren't the problem, your people on the ground were, and giving me a smug little cliché when I'm already annoyed is not going to go over well.  It's 1:30 and I'm still sitting here.  At least there is a restaurant on field, or I'd be downright ugly. ;)  I had French toast with cinnamon chips, and man, that was good.  Anyway, picking back up this evening: around 1:30 I ate lunch, and I finally left Muncie sometime after 4 pm.  By then I was okay.  I had started to get upset at the desk ladies and it wasn't their fault, so I went for a nice long walk...more than one, actually.  A normal day gets me 5000 to 7000 steps...I was over 10000 by 4 pm.  :D  There were several things wrong with the system in the airplane, and instead of a simple check, they had to fix a few things.  The unpleasantly coincidental thing is that I think THEY were the ones who goofed it up in the first place last year!!  Even more humorous in a not-funny way, I bet they charge for 6 hours of their time to fix something they goofed up themselves.  What a rip-off aviation is in some regards.  There aren't tons of jobs out there where you can goof something up and charge them to do it, and then charge them to fix what you goofed in the first place.  I suppose IT is like that too.  And doctor's offices.  But the rest of us don't get to do that too often.  :)

Buzz Aldrin:  So, Kaylee asked me if I knew who Buzz Aldrin was.  I said "Sure, don't you?"  She said "I do now."  He was the guest speaker for the Opening Ceremonies at DI Globals 2015 in Knoxville.  I said "Cool!"  She said "Well, not really, Mom, I'm pretty sure he was really drunk.  He was slurring his words and he kept swearing in front of 9000 kids, and he was telling us how screwed up the school system was, and kept telling us that we needed to join up and join in on the expedition for the colonization of Mars, and Mom, that's a one way death sentence trip.  Another guy with a mic kept trying to get him to come off stage and shut him up, but he kept ignoring him and going, and security was over on the side, and finally somebody had to take his mic away and just lead him off stage.  It was weird."  So I Googled it, and there were people there who had taken videos of some of his ranting there, and the title of one was "Buzz Hammered at DI Globals".  It was really...sad.  He was an American hero, and it's sad to see him be That Guy.  A bit of a bummer I guess, and that's how 9000 kids are going to see and know of him.  Not as the man who went into space, but as the man who cussed and ranted, drunk, at a bunch of kids.  Bleh.

Since I ate at the restaurant at Muncie for both breakfast and lunch, and there is no such thing as a "light" meal for either meal at that place, even though I walked around a lot, I got a Panera salad for dinner, and the whole thing is really low calorie and it looks really good.  I'm getting ready to dive in, looking forward to it.

I saw a quote today that said "Bravery is being the only person who knows you're afraid."  That made me smile...