Pins

I don't have much to talk about.  No flights today, all canceled for low ceilings.  In fact, it's been 3 days since I've flown, and the weekend is going to be a wash-out too.  We were supposed to go to Terre Haute for an ISU fly-in event and give a T-6 ride to a veteran down there, but that's been rained out.  Boo.  Lunch at Glenndale was a tasty baked potato "bar" with lots of toppings.  I guess the only thing that was kind of funny today was a Kaylee story.  She's at school and texts me "I need 80 clothespins this weekend."  I said "Remember that time you texted me from school that you wanted me to buy you a radish asap?  This is just as weird, in case you're wondering."  She has some school project which requires her to write on wooden clothespins, so on our way to her voice lesson we stopped at Meijer and picked them up.  They're in a package of 100, so we'll have plenty of left-over clothespins should anyone need one.  ;)

Oh, I did get my paper logbook fully caught up today, too.  I ended up being off by 4 hours between my digital and my paper logbook, and tonight I happened to catch the error.  It was in my digital logbook, a misplaced decimal on one of my entries.  Perfect.

Got It In

Today's weather held out long enough for us to get in about everything we needed to.  Steve had flights early, and I had flights from after lunch until 8 pm.  Good, busy day!  I also ended up doing six instrument approaches, (and holds),  meaning in one day my own instrument currency is reset, even though I didn't actually shoot the approaches, I just instructed them.  Gotta love the FAA sometimes. Me on a VFR day in the right seat watching someone else do all the work and I'm officially current.  I'm not complaining though.

Kaylee's doing okay. She's goofing around, wrestling, silly.

I'm trying to come up with something interesting, but truly, we flew all day, the end!  Sorry!

Monday

I had a flight this morning before the winds picked up, and from there it was just lunch and running around.  Store, errands, took Kaylee out of school a bit early to take her to a dentist appointment, from there home long enough to get some stuff then back out to the school for a Starlets practice from 6-7.  I got gas and sat at a Subway for an hour, took one of her friends home afterwards, and finally we made it back.

She's doing okay. Her choir director hugged her today and asked her if she'd be okay, and encouraged her to try out again next year.  Her friends are supporting her, and her attitude is swinging around.  She's still really disappointed, but she's turned the corner.  I know, small potatoes in the grand scheme of life, and I'd only talk about it with the few folks who read this, I just hate it when my girl is sad.

Open Doors

Today is Richard's birthday.  Steve came in and said he'd gotten the fountain working next door and was working cleaning up the garden path in honor of his Dad, for his Mom.  I went out and helped weed, but it was his plan. I think that was thoughtful and sweet.

I tried to get Kaylee to come with me today.  I was going to take her out for ice cream, and take her up flying in the Cub with me.  She liked the PT-26 with the open cockpit, so I thought she'd like the Cub with the wide open door and open window.  She's never been.  It was in the 70s, sunny, light winds, felt like Spring, and I thought it would do her good to get out.  But she wouldn't do it, didn't want to leave the house at all for anything, so I went without her.

I got gas in the Cub, and that's one major advantage to a Cub, that's for sure.  8 gallons of gas gives you a couple of hours of flying.  Can't beat that.   Yesterday I'd been doing takeoffs and landings at Kokomo, messing a bit with 3 point and wheel landings, but mostly 3 point.  Today I did one at Kokomo, then decided to go over to Glenndale and do a few.  It takes a lot longer to get from Kokomo to Glenndale and back in a Cub than you'd expect.  ;)  (I seriously do not care to take it on cross country trips.)  I smiled when I brought it in and the bottom door swung up right when I was touching down.  That's the stall indicator in the Cub--there's no horn, no light, no shaking, but when the door rises, you're out of lift.  I suddenly realized I hadn't been seeing that at Kokomo.  So I went back to the concrete and played with it some more, did the direct crosswind runway, which at worst was about 11 knots and by the end was down to 7.   Not very impressive, but better than nothing.  I flew a little over an hour and a half.  I have a little more I want/need to do with the Cub, but it could use a little work on the prop seal.  I want to use it while I can, when the weather is nice.  The prop seal is leaking oil.  I asked about it, and it's not supposed to be a safety of flight issue.  The only problem it gives me is that by the end of the flight I can't see out the front windshield, but really, you're in a Cub.  You can't see out the front most of the time anyway.  ;)

This was from yesterday. Nothing fancy on the photo, just blue sky.

From yesterday...

See the prop blade through the oil on the windshield today.

This is why you s-turn when you taxi, so you don't run over something you can't see in front of you. :)

The photo isn't out of focus, the windshield is just a bit blurry...and I have enough gas for another hour or so.  ;)

Spring

Kaylee is quiet, down, and subdued, but working on it.  Steve and I were gone all day, and she had the house to herself to read books, watch some shows, do whatever she wanted in peace.  She doesn't know yet that she has a dental appointment on Monday, so that'll just make her Monday.  First day back at school in the singing group class and dealing with that, then going to her least favorite place on earth-the dentist.  She doesn't have anything wrong, just a cleaning, but it's so hard to get into these days you have no choice but to do it during school hours.

My morning started early, up shortly after 7 this morning to drive down to Sheridan to do CAF ground school for the PT-26.  It started at 9, and lasted until almost 2 p.m. I had to take an open book quiz, and a second "closed book" quiz, and answer a third question on emergency procedures.  I picked up a couple of good things actually, that I'd forgotten.

At 2, I drove through Wendy's and brought Kaylee some lunch, checked in with her, then went on out to Kokomo, where we spent a nice day with open hangar doors, blue skies, light winds, and bright sunshine.  Finally at the end of the day Steve had a lesson, and I took up the Cub for some takeoff and landing work.  I've spent so much time just doing or saving an occasional landing from the front seat that I just hadn't done much actual flying in it from the pilot's seat.  So I did probably a dozen landings or so, just working on a couple things.  I have a bit more to do.  Weather and life permitting, I'll do a little more of it tomorrow.  After I get gas.

Steve and I ordered some carry-out from Pastarrific, and thus concluded a lovely day.

Song

Well, Kaylee didn't get in to Encore.  She was told by the choir officers that she was actually put in originally, and then she was taken out.  She doesn't know why, and was told that the director won't give out specific information on how you scored or any details, that you'll be told to try again next year.  Some of her friends tried out for Starlets, and two others for Encore, and every one of her friends who tried out got into what they hoped for except her, which is a little tough.  She's pretty sad.  She had this band thing right after finding out, but she was sad so she went away for a little while to try to regroup.  I drove over and picked her up and took her out for ice cream and some commiserating, and then when she was ready dropped her back off to do the band thing, just a bit late.  She won't be home until almost midnight from this contest.  Poor timing on the band contest time.  She also found out that then the director was going to add an additional couple to the Encore group, which would have been her and a boy named Joe, but he was also in soccer and would have to miss a lot of practices, so when he wasn't able to be in the group, she wasn't again either, as they have to have the same number of males to females.  She's also disappointed because two of the people who got in are known to be not strong singers/dancers, and she doesn't understand.  Neither do I, really.  Everyone at school was congratulating her, assuming she got in, not knowing she hadn't until she had to tell them over and over that she didn't.  The Encore group had several kids who expected her to be there, her voice teacher, friends with the director expected her to be there, she said kids she doesn't even know were coming up to her to congratulate her on getting into Encore.  Except she didn't, and all that was just pretty painful for her.  She's still in Starlets, but she was moved to "Second Soprano", because in her attempt to get into Encore she sang a song that showed her vocal range, which also goes up pretty high, even though it's not easier for her.  This backfired, as now she's been moved to a new part, which means re-learning a few things and having to sing higher than she's actually comfortable singing for the entire next year.  She's not having a good day.

This is, however, about the first thing she's attempted that she hasn't been successful at early and out of the gate.  She got into TILT as a 12 year old, a year early.  She got into the Junior Counselor program, also a year early, nailing her interview.  When she auditioned for Starlets, there were 100 girls trying out for 10 spots, she had no previous experience, was unknown, wasn't that strong of a singer, and I didn't expect her to get in...but she did.  She's won talent contests I didn't expect her to win.  She always does well.  This time we all expected she'd make it to Encore, but it just didn't happen.  Steve wants to fix it, but some things are just good ole life lessons that everyone gets and that stinks rotten eggs but is what it is and could always be worse.  I think it's as hard for us as it is for her though.  You really do go half crazy wanting to fix everything for your kids.  There should be more warning labels on parenthood, including that one! 

Kay

Not much to talk about today.  Kaylee had her auditions this evening after school.  Her time slot was 5:30, so she did the dance with a group of four, and then did her singing audition alone behind locked doors with just the panel of "judges".  She didn't feel very confident in her performance, said she didn't mess anything up but that it just wasn't her strongest performance.  Personally I think she's going to get in. She promised to text me tomorrow after school to let me know, and she'd better not mess with me.  ;)

Yesterday Nathan and I ran over to Aurora in Gumby, with one of my students along for the ride, and he brought home the Cheyenne.  It's still not working properly, but I think the plan is to take it to another place for a diagnostic and hopeful fix.  It was a nice flight, and the guy who went along with me had a blast.

I hit the treadmill today and it didn't try to kill me this time.  Of course I just stuck to my own walking, but hey.

Steve is at an EAA meeting, I didn't feel like it, and Kaylee is in her room probably freaking out about her audition and chatting with her friends about it.  :)

Weather

It was another nice weather day, so there were lessons all day.  Steve started at 8:30 and his last lesson ended at 8 pm.  I had flights from 1:30- 6 pm, then drove down to Sheridan to attend a CAF meeting.  I'd no more gotten there, borrowed a folding chair from Nick, set up and sat down, when Kaylee texted that she needed picked up at Western School.  Steve was up flying, she wanted picked up, so I packed back up and drove as fast as I should to go get her.  She then hadn't gotten the latest texts, and I hung out for almost 30 minutes before I could find her and leave.  This doesn't make me happy, but we ended up at Mike's Pizza for dinner, which helped.  ;)

Tonight Kaylee had an "Academics Bowl" held at Western.  She was on the "English" team.  While she was in play, they made 8 points, which was good.  She was subbed out (they had to sub out and bring in two other girls), and when they did, the rest of the entire game the other girls only brought in 2 more points.  So her team ended up not doing well with a total of 10 points.  Others did worse, but still.  But her school in general did very well and is leading in Science and Social Studies at least.  English they ended in the middle.  Kaylee said that in Science they had quite a few airplane questions.  She said she only missed one airplane question, which had to do with yaw, rudder, and elevator, and which way an airplane would be going with specific inputs.  Talking about it later she shook her head and said "I've seen it a million times, I should have know that." She's 15, so she's going to be hitting flying lessons more this summer.  That and Driver's Ed!

Tomorrow will be busy if the weather holds out.  We'll see.

Warmth

Something has happened to me--I've been waking up early even when I don't have to.  It's not fair because I'm still a night owl...I'm just getting up earlier.  This morning I was up right after Kaylee and Steve left for school.  So since I was up, I got some stuff done.  Stuffed the envelopes for billing and got them in the mail, got various checks ready and in the bank, did two loads of laundry and the dishes, drove out to MBros to deliver some stuff, and walked on the treadmill.  The treadmill tried to kill me, and it was pretty funny.  I'm glad nobody else was around to see this one.  Up until now I've just been walking on it.  Today I decided to try one of the program modes.  I picked the 30 minute one that had what looked like little hills up and down in speed.  The others looked like they had big hills.  So I pick that one, and it starts me off at 2.5 mph. which is pretty slow.  I usually walk just over 3 mph.  I'm not quite set up yet, so I've got my cellphone in my hand with my ear buds on, when all of a sudden it kicks up to 8 mph.  This means I am full out sprinting on the thing trying not to fall on my face. I can't stop running enough to put my phone down so I'm trying to punch at the "stop" button with the back of my hand which isn't working.  Finally I swipe at the emergency pull cord, and it comes to a halt.  That was the end of my program mode attempt.  After that I just put it back on 3 mph and did my own walking.  That had to look hilarious though, me in a full sprint with a shocked look on my face clutching a phone in one hand and trying not to trip while searching for the means of stopping the thing...

After lunch I had flights straight through in the 172 from 1:30-5:30.  I was then supposed to fly in the Cub at Marion for a couple hours, but that got canceled, which is too bad because today was the day.  Calm, warm, a perfect Cub day.

I stopped at Steak-n-Shake for me and Steve, then Kaylee requested more pasta, so even though I made three-cheese-tortellini with pesto sauce for dinner last night, I got her some chicken fettuccine alfredo tonight.  She's been a pasta monster since the European trip.  :)  She sent me a video of a giant spider who had been living under a toilet rim, who, even when the water washed him into the bowl, was fast and strong enough to swim upward and stay in the bowl, so that when it quit flushing, he just scrambled back up under the rim.  She's a good kid--other than that.  She sent me that video, via Instagram, and all I could see was a still shot of a toilet.  This was how our private message digital conversation went, starting with me:  "I don't want to hit play on this. I don't think you can make me."  "But you don't even know what it is yet."  "It has to be a spider. In a toilet.  That is wrong."  "How do you know it's a spider" "Because it's YOU."  "True"  "Fine. I'll look."  "I can hear your screams."  "That is one stubborn, big, strong spider.  He can have the toilet. And the house."  "Haha.  Love you."  Brat.  ;)

PT-ing

Today wore me out, but on the good end it was about 80 degrees out there!  I actually got hot and had the canopy open in the PT-26.  I had someone come up to fly the PT, and I got there at 9 am, got stuff ready, he got there at 9:30, and we finally got started and flying at 10.  Flew an hour and a half, came down, got lunch, went back up and flew another hour and a quarter.  2.7 hours of flight time took leaving the house at 8:45 a.m. and not getting home until after 3 pm!  It was a lot of work both for him and for me, and we were both worn out by the end of it.  Who knew flying could be such a physical "sport", eh?  ;) Tailwheel instruction is not overtly relaxing from the get-go, some even less so than others.  One of these days I'm going to be too old for that.  By the end of today, briefly anyway, it was today.  Whew.  ;) 

We are having an issue with our water.  Steve's been working on it for awhile now, but we're having some kind of issue with the water backing up/not draining.  He's even pulled out the sulfuric acid pro grade stuff and there's still a problem.  Yikes.  Still working on it...

Kaylee is getting nervous about her choir auditions.  She's making me nervous.  I'm trying not to show that I'm nervous though. She's going to find out how she did Friday right after school, and then she has to go right away to a band event until almost midnight that night.  Whether she got into Encore or not, the last thing she's going to want to do is go do a band contest, so that's kind of a bummer for her, but hopefully it'll be a bummer because she got in and is too hyped up.  

Look at that beautiful weather.  Blue skies, smilin' at me...

Me for much of the day.  :)

Spring!

This beautiful weather continues.  It was over 70 degrees, light winds, and sunny.  Unfortunately I just haven't felt well--today I wasn't alone, as Nathan felt even worse.  But Steve and I got up this morning and got out to Kokomo and flew the T-6 down to Westfield for their first pancake breakfast.  They had a really good turn-out, which was great!  There were all sorts of airplanes and folks there.  The pancakes and sausage were good, we ran into lots of people we knew and some we didn't, which is always nice too.  What's funny is that Steve and I have an operation down there, and until today I had never landed at Westfield.  Nice airport, it's one of those "out in the country grass strips with old-style hangars", aka my favorite kind of place.  The runway is 3000' long, which is nice, final approach is right over a huge park full of children, which is not so great probably, and the runway is a little wavy, which is just a little bit of personality/character.

There was a big warbird gathering in Illinois this weekend.  Steve and I commented today, as we were enjoying our time at Westfield, that had we gone over to the big show, we would have been one of many, and nobody would have cared.  But when we went to Westfield, we were supporting a local group's first fly-in pancake breakfast, and they truly appreciated us coming out, and were glad to have us there.  We also know many of the pilots there and we like each other, as opposed to the...well, not sure how to describe it, so I'll just say "other" less relaxing social experience.  :)

I came home for a little while with Kaylee, then went back out to Kokomo to do a checkride prep flight, then we all went on to dinner at Outback with friends for a birthday.  Homemade cheesecake for birthday dessert.  Mmm.

Four flying ladies.  Three of them happened to be wearing "Ladies Love Taildraggers" t-shirts.  Apparently the fourth didn't get the memo.  :D

Isn't that pretty?  Blue skies, pretty plane, grass strip style. The plane just belongs there.

Not Chatty

I flew from 8:30 this morning until lunch, had an excellent hot dog, back out to Kokomo, went to Muncie in the RG and left it there, and flew the T-6 back home, with its working traffic system.  (Hmm.  I wonder if it will squawk at you in formation.)  Picked up Kaylee at school with Steve, tried to take a nap, ran her back out to voice lesson, came home and watched TV, ready for bed again.   Tired...

Yawn

I got home around 10:30 pm last night after a night flight, tried to go to bed at 11:30, was still awake around 1 a.m., which would be okay except I was up at 5:20 am for this trip to Baltimore.  I thought I'd sleep in the pilot's lounge.  Life had other ideas.  ;)

The trip was beautiful, clear, and easy.  Love those.  Tailwinds both directions, no kidding.  Not a single cloud in the sky.  No surface winds to speak of.  The only tricky part of the whole flight was getting into and out of the Washington DC area safely and without incident, which we did.

However, when we got there, the FBO was completely under construction.  There was no pilot's lounge.  No sitting area.  Nowhere to go, nowhere to rest, nowhere to sit, unless you sit in a straight-back chair with no head rest right next to the FBO lady at the desk taking fuel orders and answering phones. No bathroom.  They had a port-o-pot outside that everyone had to use.  Mmm.   Not cool, man, I'm not at Oshkosh with a trailer for emergencies, I'm at a fancy FBO in Baltimore, Maryland, and I EXPECTED A BATHROOM AT LEAST.  *cough*

However, on the good end, there was a Cafe on field, and at that cafe I had a crab cake on a pretzel roll.  And fries that were cut and cooked there, fresh.  And clam chowder that was fresh.  And yes, it was quite tasty.  They had an outdoor sitting area, and it was warm and sunny outside, so I got a drink, tipped well, and sat out there for several hours and read a book.  That part was very nice.  :)

The trip home was also completely uneventful once we got out of the DC area.  They were super busy, and the airliners coming in were being given a 30 minute hold before they could land.  Fortunately we were just leaving, so we tried not to get in anyone's way during our three clearance changes, and headed west to Kokomo, with a nice light tailwind.

Piece of cake.  I like those days, where there's minimal actual challenge.  :)

Sunrise at OKK

Sunrise and the 340

Sun breaking the horizon as viewed in the spinner

This guy flew right over us in the Washington DC SFFA

You can see the "Arrival Corridor" for the major airports, via the ADS-B  traffic on my iPad.

I had this. It was tasty.  ;)

The airport was very busy for training and flying.

As viewed through the barbed wire most people see...

Hump Day

Steve is out doing a night Commercial cross-country right now, and still isn't back by 10:40 pm.  I just now got back myself after doing night pattern work at Kokomo.  I will be up at 5 a.m. for a trip out to Baltimore.  Steve's not feeling sorry for me though because once I do get there, I may have the opportunity to take a nap in the pilot's lounge if nobody else is there, and I may get the opportunity to eat something decent and fresh too.  But getting up at 5 is not going to be fun.  Steve had several flights today, and I had one other after lunch as well.  In fact, I'm going to go write those down before I forget.  I spent some time right after lunch working on my paper logbook again.  I am caught up through October 2015.  It ought to start picking up speed towards the finish line now, as after November the flying really slows down, ergo fewer entries.

I sort of had time to pick up Kaylee after school and run her home, bring her a turkey cheese sandwich, and tell her not to party too hard with the neighborhood cats while her parents were both gone flying until late.  When I got home at 10:30, she was in bed, dishes in the sink, her clothes picked up, her school bag ready to go in her chair, her bathroom picked up.  Have I ever mentioned she's such a good kid?

Clinic Night

I did start a couple of big projects.  First I started in on my paper logbook.  Found out it had been a year since I wrote in it, so that is a lot of hours to catch up.  I spent the entire afternoon/evening working on it yesterday, and only got from April 2015 to August 2015.  I did wipe out my big "Master Pilot Log", a book that took me 10 years to fill, and my 3rd total logbook.  So I started breaking in my new big logbook, #4, assuming it'll take me through the next 10 years or so.

I took a break from that project tonight, and instead worked on my phone photos.  Since my cellphone camera takes such good quality photos, and is always with me, I carry it around a lot more than my big digital, and I had almost 5,000 photos and videos on my phone.  I transfer them all to my computer and have them organized there by date and topic, along with my good camera photos, but I don't delete them off my phone, because then I can use a good one as my screen shot, or home page shot, or show people a specific airplane or person or event at any time by calling up the  year and the photo.  It's a walking photo album.  But...the size, it was getting too much.  So, working backwards, I've sorted through, made sure I didn't forget to download any of them to the main computer, and deleted all but a few that I thought I might want to use potentially as screen/home photos.  I've only gotten through 2016 and 2015 so far; I'm down to 2500 photos.  Whew.  That's a big job too in case you were wondering.  And I just KNOW I'm going to need or want a photo once I delete it off of there.  :p

Tomorrow I'll go back to working on my logbook.  I realized I'll probably need it for the Cheyenne checkout too, whenever that happens, so I have 7 months' worth of flights to catch up.  Good thing a couple of those months are during winter, when things were slower.  Putting in 4 or 5 flights a day, entering 20 flights and realizing you're not even through one week...that gets demoralizing!  Then adding up all those columns of numbers, making sure they add up...I've caught errors in my digital logbook where I fat fingered a decimal, for example.  Getting everything to add up in two logbooks close enough to not make me crazy is going to be a challenge, but I'll see how close I am when I'm all done.  It would be hopeless if I didn't have the digital record though, and I love the ability to pull up times asap for any airplane, any scenario (night, instructing, any N#, etc.) for insurance, at the touch of two buttons.  It makes catching up the paper one in much more simple too, since I just have to copy...

Kaylee had "Clinic Night" tonight at the school, where the people who are wanting to audition for "Starlets" and/or "Encore" see for the first time the dance moves they're going to have to do for the auditions.  They have until next Thursday to practice them on their own, and then they audition Thursday, and find out Friday after school if they're "in" or not.  Kaylee's nervous.  That makes me nervous.  Encore practices a lot more than Starlets, and is a little more hard core and less "fun".  Whatever happens, it'll be fine.  She'll still at least be in Starlets, and she loves Starlets too, so while she'd be disappointed if she wasn't chosen to move "up", she'll still really enjoy Starlets.  But did I mention she'd really like to be selected to move up?  ;)

I did the post-annual maintenance test flight on a 172 this morning, and then went up and did the post-annual maintenance test flight in the 150, too.   Kept them both up for about 25 minutes, just to run them, especially the 150 which had sat since October and was about to go on a cross-country.  The ole 150 didn't want to start for me, but finally I coaxed it into staying running.  As I was coming in to land, I pulled on some flaps, and I realized that the bar flaps in between the seats is still not for anyone but Slim Hips Jim.  Or maybe Slim Thighs Jim.  I also had to use both hands to get the last notch on, so it's not for "I wasn't expecting that so I didn't grunt and put all my effort into it" girls either.  Reminds me of the third notch of flaps in the Seneca, in which you'd have to get mad and YANK if you wanted them to lock in.  I always got a kick out of folks who'd try to get that notch, not be able to, and then watch me just yank them right into place.  It's a technique.  One I did not have in the 150 today.  :)

This week we have Killer Great weather.  I'm going to try to get as much done as I can on a few things with that, but mostly I'm just looking forward to being warmer and sunny.  Days like that make me happy....

Not All Mondays are "Mondays"

Kaylee's first day back to school since Spring Break went fine.  She is waking up easier in the morning, and that helps for the first part, she just gets tired earlier, and that's not all bad.  ;)  She said it was nice to see all her friends and such, even if she does have homework to deal with too now.  She is dropping tennis, and I for one am glad.  She's got plenty of other things to focus on.  The only thing I'll miss about tennis is the exercise it provided, all the practices and games.  But it's not worth the rest of it.

I caught up my digital logbook, and am thinking of tackling my paper one.  I will probably need the paper one caught up when I go do the seaplane rating in a few months, so I might as well see about doing it before we go completely crazy busy on students.  Which is coming fast.  Steve already has a day this week where he's booked solid from like 10 am through to 5 pm with no breaks.  We just got a call about another guy who wants to fly 5 days a week and hurry up and get his license.  We have a few rushing to finish, all at once.  That means on nice weather weeks, it's super busy for both of us.

Last night I cooked chicken breasts wrapped with asparagus and a little cheese.  They didn't look done so I overcooked them a bit, but they weren't bad.  Kaylee even ate it and she's not a big fan of asparagus.  I had sweet corn and brown rice to go with it.  That's the last home-cooked meal I had in the works though.  Sorry.  ;)

Today's weather canceled my morning flight, but that worked out as I was really not feeling well at all anyway.  Finally the weather and my stomach cleared up at the same time, and I've spent the rest of the day busy--I'm not done yet, but at least whenever I do run out of steam I'll know I accomplished enough.  Feeling pretty good about that.

Kaylee has decided not to do the school's Driver's Ed, because the timing is too bad for her summer that we've already got planned.  So the next thing on my list here is to get her signed up with a local driver's ed place and an online "Groundschool" and just get that done.  I think Kaylee will be a good driver.  :)

I've Run Out of Titles

Once in awhile I try to come up with something clever, but all I'm left with is "Saturday".

I flew with a new guy this afternoon, a checkride prep guy right after that, and then took the T-6 over to Muncie with Nathan as the chase pilot in the Aerostar.  I did get a smile out of seeing our two shadows close together on the ground.  I actually haven't flown formation in coming up on two years, but I didn't have to do the work today, Nathan did, so that was easy enough.  ;)

Steve and I went to dinner afterwards, and Kaylee just wanted to stay home.  I brought her some pasta and some lemon berry cake, which she loves, but she was still sleepy and ready for bed when I got home so we saved it for tomorrow.  She has been on a pasta kick since she got home.  I felt kind of bad about it, so I got a couple of different pastas. One I made was a three-cheese tortellini with a pesto sauce.  She and Steve both really liked it.  The next was a shells with cheese, broccoli, etc.  It was just dried in a bag, add water and cook on the stove stuff.  She liked that okay too.  I felt bad because she basically is craving Italian pasta and I am not an American chef let alone an Italian one.  But I'm trying to at least help fulfill the craving, giving her different things to try, and she seems to like them okay. I saved half my Pastarrific pasta for her tonight, and she'll like that too.

I have stuff to do.  Tomorrow is a rainy Sunday, so I'll see if I can get it done.

Friday

It's odd that while Kaylee is the one who is fighting jet lag, I feel like I am too.  She and I both woke up at 5:30 a.m.  She couldn't go back to sleep, I did but had the weirdest darned dreams.  Anyway.  I took her to a party this morning with her singing group friends, where they got together and practiced their audition pieces in front of each other.  The auditions are coming up soon to either stay in Starlets or be advanced to Encore.  Once you're in Starlets you can't be kicked out unless you break the rules too much or you want out, but you still have to "audition" each year anyway, and if you want into Encore you have to audition for that.  She's going to try for Encore, thinks this year is probably her best and maybe only shot at it, as if you don't get in by your Sophomore year you usually don't get in.  So, we shall see.  These things make me more nervous than they do her, but I don't tell her that.  I don't remember being warned ahead of time that one of your biggest jobs as a parent was going to be smothering or facing your own issues in order to prevent them from negatively affecting or limiting your child, from spiders to public tryouts/auditions.  ;)

Well, my credit card was compromised today.  The card company thinks there might have been a card scanner/reader at the gas pump.  It started with a $1 charge at that gas pump before the real charge was made, and then they proceeded to rack up several thousand dollars worth of stuff the rest of the day.  Steve got alerts, and he called the card company pretty quickly, and while they were talking, more and more charges kept coming through, all down in Florida.  They'd hit the card for $1 to make sure it was still working, then buy something for just under $100.  Finally while I was on the phone with them too, they got my card officially shut off, and the lady said "Another charge for $1 is coming through just now, and...it's been declined.  We got it shut down."  So they'll be sending me a new card soon, but they just did that with Steve, when HIS card was recently compromised, and now his card doesn't work half the time.  If I have the same issue with my card, it'll be a real pain, possibly a real problem.  The credit card lady suggested we go inside at gas stations and not use the card swipers at gas stations.  Because THAT'S convenient, going backwards here.  Ah, the times in which we live.

I spoke to the airport manager in Michigan there, and I will be getting a refund of the $50 landing fee, which he says was a "miscommunication" on the part of the line guy.  The city owns/operates the airport, and the fellow in charge there said the airport is not to be charging landing fees, and he'll make sure that's taken care of.  In their defense, I think they were calling us a "commercial" operation rather than general aviation and charging thusly, but still.  I'll take the $50 back.  I couldn't get past spending $250 on fuel and still paying a $50 landing fee at Podunk, Michigan, even if it wasn't my money.  It wasn't right.  D laughed at me, but he's glad to get the money back too.  ;)  Unfortunately, in the process, a guy I don't even know personally went ballistic over the whole landing fee thing, and did his own contacting of the airport, public postings on the websites, ranting on my facebook wall, calling the city guys...I told him nicely to stop about three times, and the last two times I flat out said I didn't want anyone else calling and I wanted it to stay between me, who had the problem, and the people with whom I had the problem, not middle men.  He said "As you wish, just trying to help".  I get that, and I appreciate the moral support, but I'm a big girl.  Would he like it if he said something about a company he had trouble with and I started calling everyone from the city mayor to the CEO of the company, started an online campaign to smear them, and stepped in and didn't let him handle it himself?  I think he'd think it was weird and maybe even insulting.  Well...guess what.  If I need a White Knight, I'll ask for one.  In the meantime, let me handle my own stuff, thanks.  He just made the whole thing worse for me in dealing with the people.  Awkward.  I hate awkward.  But at least I got the money back.  ;)

Kaylee and I had some good conversations today about personal strength, about tough times and what they can do to a person and how you have a choice to make.  We talked about the concentration camps again too, and a few other things.  I'm glad we can still talk.  She seems older again since she got home, our little world traveler.  :)

Michigan

I usually wake up Kaylee and kiss her goodbye when I leave, but this morning it seemed mean, so I sent her an email instead. I was up at 6:30 checking weather, and it wasn't looking all that promising. Back to Michigan, not far from the lake, snow and rain with iffy temps, a lot of icing forecast, high winds, etc.  But doable.  Instead of taking two airplanes, we just took one so D would have me on board to help out with the weather.  The flight wasn't long, we picked up ice climbing out and descending, but the equipment (which I tested on the ground) all worked and it ended up not being as bad as they expected. If the forecast is going to be wrong, I much prefer it be wrong in that direction. :)

If you're on Facebook, skip this next paragraph 'cause I already wrote it out.  ;)  The place we went to is a small airport in Michigan south of Grand Rapids.  They have self-serve fuel only, so we parked by the pump, and in the spitting snow/rain and gusty winds, I topped off.  I requested 80 gallons. The card reader said "This type of card is only approved for 47 gallons per transaction.". Oh GREAT, another one of those. We weren't going far, so I just put 47 gallons in and left it alone.  I go inside and the guy behind the counter says "How much gas did you buy?" I said "47 gallons", so he says "We have a landing fee here unless you buy 80 gallons of gas." I said "80 gallons!? What planes do you usually get in here?!" He didn't answer except to say "The landing fee is $50.00"  That is a massive fuel requirement and massive landing fee for a tiny airport in nowhere, Michigan!  I was so flummoxed by that I forgot to even complain about the card reader not letting me do more than 47 gallons per transaction until later, at which point he said "I don't know why 47 gallons".  Okay, thanks. Nowhere on their website, on Garmin Pilot's airport info, or on AOPA's airport info on them does it mention any kind of landing fee.  That's just a nuts requirement.  I've written AOPA and suggested they add the information for the next sucker, and I've written the airport I just came from too, but I haven't sent that one yet.  I'm wondering if I'm going to have to go back in there or not, first.  ;)  Actually, updating this, D just got back to me and said no plans to go back and visit anytime soon, so let 'em have it.  So I shall see what they have to say.  If I were doing it right I'd call, but if I have to call I won't do it at all.  So I'll write, and it'll have to be good enough.

The courtesy car was an old black cop car, with TWO spotlights, one on each side, and they both worked!  That was most excellent.  ;)  I asked for some place not fast food to eat, and they sent me to a market near by.  It ended up being a grocery store that had a deli counter and you could get fried chicken, fried baby potatoes, fried potato wedges, fried balls of something else I couldn't determine, mac and cheese, and mashed potatoes and gravy.  Wheeew!  Next time I'll do what I normally do and just look up local places to eat on my own, then ask for a recommendation, then go with whatever sounds better.  ;)

The funniest part was the toilet.  They had one restroom there with a single toilet, and it had a large leather strap with a buckle on each side so you could theoretically strap yourself onto the toilet.  The lid of the toilet had a drawing of a nuclear bomb blast.  Cracked me up.  I can't say I take pictures of toilets usually, I can only think of one other, in Metropolis, IL, but this one required a photo.   I joked about it when I came out of the room, but the three guys there didn't respond to me, probably because they were annoyed at me for telling them, even though I did it nicely, that I didn't understand the 80 gallon minimum.  I also asked them if you could get clearance on the ground, and they said no, and when I asked if they had the number for the local clearance, one guy grudgingly gave it to me, reading it off very fast, and when I got to the end of the runway and called for my clearance, it said that number had been disconnected.  Either he never flies out of there IFR after all, he mistakenly said the wrong number, or he gave me a bogus number.  Fine, I called 1800wxbrief and got it the old fashioned way.  When I left, nobody said goodbye--not them, not me.  After I talk to him/her about the fuel and fee situation, their manager probably won't like me much either, and that's fine too.

Kaylee and I snuggled for awhile on the couch, and it's good to have her home.  She's trying not to go to sleep by 3 pm our time, but she's ready to crash.  Welcome to jet lag, huh?  I should go check on her and make sure she's not sleeping yet.  :)

Steve is putting together my new treadmill.  He almost got himself and Dale E in trouble, because he was joking with Dale about how I'd said we needed to quit waiting on a treadmill or I was going to get too fluffy again.  So when I walked in, Dale said something like "I hope you can get your good figure back soon with this!"  HAHAHaha!  I said "Dale, it's only 10 pounds, man, c'mon!"

Oh, a Kaylee funny.  She was telling us a story about flying home from Detroit, and how people were complaining about how little the airplane was.  But what she said was "People were talking about the sprinkle hoppers."  We said "The WHAT?"  "You know, the sprinkle hoppers.  Whatever you call the small airliners."  I said "Do you mean PUDDLE JUMPERS?"  Sprinkle hopper, puddle jumper, I see where she got it from, anyway.  I think we're going to have to call it Sprinkle Hopper from now on.  And her friends have no idea what a small plane is--to her, that S.H. was really, really big.  :)  :)

On the ramp

You can see the little snow flurries.

Only the second toilet I've ever taken a photo of that I can recall.  ;)

Home Again!

As I type this, Kaylee is passed out in bed.  Her plane landed on time at 6:30 pm our time, we collected her luggage, then stopped at a Chick-Fil-A down in Indy, where we ran into a whole group of her friends and their parents who had gone on the trip with her.  Too funny.  She was excited and chatty and was telling us all about it, and then after she ate and we were getting ready to leave, she hit the wall, and started crashing.  It was after 2 a.m. in "her" time, even though it was only 8 pm our time.  She stayed up until after 9 pm our time, then hit the bed.  We'll try to wake her up not too late tomorrow morning to ease the transition back to Kokomo time.

She loved Switzerland the best, and Venice next.  She says she has to go back some day.  She bought chocolates from most of the countries she went to, but said Italy's chocolate wasn't so good and Switzerland's chocolate was the best by far.  She brought me some too.  :)  I looked through her photos, and she had some great shots, more than she sent us.  We'll have to copy them off in one spot so they exist someplace other than just her phone.  Trip of a lifetime for her, she really loved it.  She tried a bunch of new foods and liked almost all of them, she learned things about the various cultures, such as how you don't fill your own cup at a restaurant, you fill the person's next to you, oh, and you have to pay to go to the public bathrooms.  She said her mental note to self was to bring along more coins, because she just had dollars/euros and you needed coins to go to the bathroom, so she bought a souvenir just so she could get change and go to the bathroom.  ;)   They saw tons of churches, castles, climbed the mountain, did the gondola ride, had gellato (she says she'll never be able to enjoy ice cream the same way again), toured bombed cities in Germany and the concentration camp, so many things.  She said at one point at Dachau she realized that she was standing in the room where they stacked the bodies before disposing of them, and she had to leave.  There was a chapel room there, and they opened the door, and it was dark with candles lit in there, and she and some friends went in and prayed, and cried, and that the experience will stay with them.  They also discussed how in many places people are trying to pretend like the Holocaust is a fake...she said it was so important that they leave this available for people to see, that you cannot deny the Holocaust when looking at it, feeling it.

We rearranged her room and cleaned it up while she was gone, as well as Steve adding a cabinet and new sink and faucet to her bathroom, so she liked that, even if she was too tired to enjoy much of it yet.  So, the kid is home, and the trip was a resounding success.  :)

Baltimore

I didn't hear from Kaylee today, but I think they were traveling back to Germany in order to prepare to head back to the good ole United States of America.  :)

I was up at 4:50 this morning, driving out to Kokomo while the stars were still out and bright.  I watched the sun rise from 21,000' where it was nice and smooth and we had a great tailwind.  Once on the ground in Baltimore, Maryland, it was just as cold and windy as it has been here, making it not a good time/place to do any walking.  It's a very small building with one room and a small hallway to the bathroom and a closet like room with two vending machine in it. They also don't have courtesy cars.  Their van did take me to a nice lunch spot on the water.  It had outdoor seating, but this was not the day for outdoor seating.  :)  I sat by the window so I could enjoy the view anyway, and had some blackened scallops and a large lump crab sandwich on a roll.  Tasty.  Apparently Baltimore is a new project just starting up, so they're thinking we're going to have several trips out there and back this summer.

I didn't get home until 8:30 or so, and Steve still isn't home at 10:30 here.  He flew all day, then had a CAF meeting down in Indy.  Busy day, which is fine, as tomorrow's weather is going to tank.

Here are a few photos from today, from  me, not Kaylee, sorry.  ;)

Sunrise with a sliver of moon, FL210

Baltimore, MD

Chesapeake Bay

The Week Begins

What I was supposed to do today was switched around to something else, so I ended up flying 1-3, 3-5, then had a school board meeting from 6-8.  A quick stop at the store, home in time to put up these photos of Kaylee in Switzerland, and I leave the house at 6 a.m. for a trip to Baltimore.  It's going to be very cold, and very early, and very cold (did I mention cold)?  It's April 5th and it's going to be 25 degrees tonight.  Boo.

Kaylee Facetimed me today.  She called from the top of Mt. Pilatus, showed me the mountains and the scenery, was so excited and lit up.  She is having a fantastic time, you can tell.  The area is SO beautiful.  Their hotel is in a super cool, beautiful place.  When she Facetimed me, she said "By the way, Mom, don't say anything weird, you're on speakerphone."  Heh.  Good thing she warned me, you never can tell what I'll say.  ;)

Anyway,  here, I'll get right to it:  Kaylee's photos.  They're gorgeous.  I'm jealous.

This is the view from their hotel.

From the top of a mountain

Kaylee's hotel is behind her to the right.  How cool is that?

Falling off the mountain?  ;)

Isn't that beautiful?  ;)

Their ride up the mountain...

Weather It

I'm trying to remember what happened yesterday, but the answer is: nothing that interests you.  Didn't hear from Kaylee other than a quick "good morning", which she sent at 2 a.m. our time.  And Steve and I, other than a brief time at the airport over the lunch hour, mostly spent the day running around and accomplishing various things.

Today was a bit different, however.  Kaylee has made it to Austria, and to Vienna.  She did a gondola ride on the Venetian.  She got to see artisan glass blown.  She got to see the beautiful Swiss Alps.  I am jealous of these things in case you are wondering.  So glad she has the opportunity though!

Meanwhile, our day was a little more average.  Steve stayed home and worked with a handyman to replace our sink counter tops and fixtures in both bathrooms.  The color was different than what we thought, but you can't take your bathtub and toilet in with you when you go shopping, and online colors aren't helpful, so...but they look good.  They're clean, shiny, bright and new, getting rid of the cracked, old sinks.  Nice!

Our weather today is kind of wild.  We've lost some shingles off our roof.  The winds were over 52 knot gusts (what is that, 60 mph or so?) . There was rain, sleet, snow, hail, and total sunshine whipping past in 5 minute increments, having trouble making up its mind.  But at all times, there was serious wind.  Tree branches blown into the road, debris caught in fences...it is a bit of a mess out there.  No good reason to be in the air today!

I went with Nathan down to the Indianapolis Executive Airport to go to a seminar that was being held there regarding on-board radar.  It was a free seminar, and it was hosted by Erik Eliel, the president of "Radar Training International".  It was sponsored by Montgomery Aviation, who, frankly, did a bang-up nice job of it.  They paid for him, for the materials, for breakfast pastries and a Panera lunch spread (plus drinks), and hosted, all free to us to attend.  First class set up in their hangar, and just very well done.

Erik was the student of Archie Trammell, the "father" of figuring out this onboard radar stuff, and it's obvious he has it down.  The seminar started at 8:30 a.m. down there, and was supposed to conclude at 2:30 p.m.  I was wondering what they were going to cover for that long.  Instead, we weren't done until 4 p.m., and we only took a 30 minute lunch break instead of the hour.  Talk about a lot of info.  And sitting.  :)  Some of it was stuff we already knew, as we figured it would be.  But some of it was definitely good information to have.  By the end I was starting to get overloaded with math.  None of it was hard math, but remembering what to use and when, what the specific rule of thumb was and what it went to...that will require some more reading/refreshing.  But I learned one thing I'd been doing wrong, and a couple of things to really help interpret what I'm looking at on the radar.  I've been doing my best to stay in VMC conditions as much as possible around storms so I could use my eyeballs, my NEXRAD, and my onboard radar all three.  That works well.  However, at night or when you are stuck in IMC, the things we learned today are really important to help keep you safe.  He used a lot of examples of airline accidents that happened due to weather and likely improper use of their onboard radar.  Also, he noted, that at his airline they don't have NEXRAD.  They have to call up a dispatcher and ask them what they see on XM weather.  We little guys have more and better info than most of (if not all of) the airliners.  Which I knew, but still.  It was a long day, but a good one, and at least three things I can think of off-hand make attending well worth my while, particularly as summer and storm season starts swinging into gear.  One thing in particular that I hadn't really known struck home a bit as he described an accident that took out an airliner, when the pilots thought they were going the right way to find the fastest way out to a clear area, when they actually went to the worst of it. It looked like a thin line with a clear area.  He said "Would you have made a different decision than they did?"  The answer was...probably not, no, not if I couldn't see it out the window.

He also  made it clear that the majority of airline pilots don't know how to use the onboard radar properly either, it's not part of the training to any real degree, and that just following the guy in front of you because he made it through is a terrible idea, and that you may get lucky...until you don't.  He had an accident to back that up, too.  Planes that got lucky going through an area, and then two minutes later a plane went down following in their path when the luck ran out.

Good info on stratus rain vs convective rain.  On how to determine how much clearance you have from the tops.  (More math).  All sorts of good info.  I need to digest it for awhile, then go back over the DVD and book which he handed out for free to the participants (also paid for by our competition, thanks!!)  We also got a certificate (which will sit around until I toss it) and it counts towards FAA "Wings" program points.  I don't track those really, but it doesn't hurt.  More information and knowledge is never a bad thing.

One thing he said, that we know but is good to put out there, was about complacency.  It went something along the lines of how each time we get by with a weather decision without any negative consequences, it reinforces complacency, and how eventually the threat of weather loses its edge...until it turns and bites you, hard.  Anyone who has flown for any length off time knows THAT is true.  That's why we watch the young punks with 100 hours (to 1000 hours) dodging stuff and scud running, who don't know what they're doing, getting by with it, and hoping they just don't kill themselves, rather just scare themselves, so they can learn before they DO kill themselves.

Anyway, like I said, busy day, good day, enjoyed the seminar, need to go back over it some more.  I brought the dvd and book home for Steve, and Nathan brought one home for his brother, and it was a worthwhile and productive way for a couple of pilots to spend a Saturday.

Oh, and at the end of it, they had a drawing, and I won an online course by Archie Frammell, that is supposedly everything he knows about onboard radar.  Everything there is to know about it at this point.  It's a fairly expensive thing, so that's handy.  I can use it or give it to someone else (but not sell it).  I'd like to be able to have a few of us do it at the same time.  Maybe on a big computer out at the hangar or something.  We'll see.  Nice prize to win, though.

Now, back to what you actually care about: Pictures of Kaylee and where she is.  ;)