February Cometh

I pulled a nice move tonight.  I opened the garage door, climbed into the car, put it in reverse, heard the door moving, took my foot off the brake, and looked in the rear view mirror to back up.  There are only a couple of inches between the bumper and the door and it wasn't enough space for me to get stopped before hitting the garage door that had come started coming back down for some reason.  So...I just backed the car into the garage door and bent the door.  A brilliant move, of course.  I'm not sure what caused the door to come back down, but it doesn't matter, that's what I get for not paying close enough attention.  The car is fine--I hadn't even hardly started moving yet...the door, not as fine, but at least it's back down.

While we were at lunch today we learned about an airplane that went down just a few blocks from where we were sitting.  Come to find out it was the local aircraft sales place young fella who ran it out of gas and then safely put it down by the highway.  By the time we left lunch, they'd run gas cans of fuel out there and the plane was already gone.  So, nothing bent and nobody harmed, at least.  Not a great plan on his part, but hopefully it's "lesson learned". 

Tomorrow begins the month of February, my least favorite month out of the whole year, the longest 28 days.  So I've decided to focus on my health this month pretty hard.  One nice thing about using a tracking app is that I was able to tell that I'd kept off all but about 10 pounds for most of two years.  It was just in the last 3 months or so that I just got...tired...and gave up, and started putting weight back on too much again.  So I'm going to use the bleh month of February to really be strict and get back on the right course.  I halfway started last week, but the last two days I've been strong on the bandwagon and plan to continue.  Same formula, it works, you just have to keep doing it.  Moving more, paying attention to food and beverages.  I'm already down those first couple pounds that come off easy before all the hard work kicks in.  ;)  

I think I'm going to say something political.  Shocking, but since this is mostly my parents reading this, it feels pretty safe.  ;)  I am just downright pleased with the Supreme Court nominee.  As a Constitutional originalist, him interpreting and judging cases based on their legal merit with the Constitution as it was written and intended vs what feels more politically currently cool means...so much.  It was a great move on Trump's part, to find someone that everyone liked on both sides, with an impeccable record, who isn't going to ram through his own agenda but just try to defend our country and Constitution's integrity.  I know the Dems will try to block him because everyone is a child (not just Democrats, but everyone) and Republicans blocked Obama's guy so they'll block Trump's guy and who cares about what's actually good for the country, right?  But hopefully they won't be successful for long, and that seat will be filled with a strong, young, articulate, intelligent, actual legit judge on the panel whom I really do believe has the best interests of the country at heart and has proven that with his career thus far.  That was one of the main reasons I voted for Trump, based on Hillary's clearly defined goals with the 2nd Amendment among other important SCOTUS issues.  I felt forced into voting for him.  I did not want to, I did not know how we ended up with this guy as a serious candidate, but it truly felt like voting the other way was something we couldn't afford any more of in this country.  I didn't expect him to actually win.  When he did, I was concerned, pleased, cautiously optimistic, watchful.  And you know what?  So far in his first week of Presidency, he really has done what he said he would do, what he ran on.  People may not like all of it, and you can argue about some of it, and I wouldn't do all of it exactly as he is, either, but by George, he is knocking out every single thing he said he'd do, and I admit that I agree with most of it.  I absolutely love him getting General Mattis as Secretary of Defense.  Love it.  Love the SCOTUS pick.   I have found myself  disgusted by the absolute media blitz of nothing but ugly and negativity, spinning every thing with twisted facts and half truths in the worst way you can take every little thing, the hypocrisy of much of it, I've found myself surprised at what all he's done thus far, surprised that I'm pleased with much of what he's done thus far, and maybe even a little hopeful that some things actually will get back on track, even with a lot of very loud, very angry, very intolerant people making more noise out there than the quiet adults sitting in the background cautiously optimistic and somewhat approving of what they've seen so far.  They're not the ones making the news,  but they're the ones who came out and voted him in, and so far they're mostly pretty pleased.  I don't know where all he'll go, I don't know what all he'll do, I'm sure I'll hate some of it, just like you do with any President, but I have to say, someone I wouldn't have given a chance in the first place if I'd have had about any other choice in front of me besides Hillary, has been a downright interesting and surprising uprising.  If he can do no harm to our country, and maybe even do some real good, then...that would be fantastic.

One way or the other, the world will keep spinning, the country will keep running, change will come again in the other direction as it always does, and the hysteria can calm the heck down a few notches.  It'll be okay, folks.  Breathe.

On that note, February is about to start in about 30 minutes here, and I've got a few things to do before bed.  Peace out.  

Kaylee Stuff Mostly

Kaylee got her score sheet this morning from ISSMA, and her quartet received a perfect score.  They also got a perfect score last year at State, so that's pretty great, especially that they did it this year for district without a coach or instructor.  She was pleased.  :)

Kaylee had school until 3:10, then practice for one thing until 6, then practice for another thing until 7.  I got her home around 7:30 or so, and now she gets to do homework.  At least it's not later tonight, like it is half the time...

Steve and I took up Gumby this afternoon to try to see if we could recreate the problem where the localizer needle didn't come in on an ILS.  I think we found it.  I still can't fully explain it based on what I know I was doing at the time, but at least I can see a set-up in which you can have the localizer frequency in and have the GPS on VLOC and it not actually be going where you want it to go.  We flew for over an hour doing different stuff to try to mess it up, and it's actually pretty hard to get it to mess up.  That's a good thing, I suppose.  :)

Onward and Upward.

ISSMA & Stuff

So we begin the time of year where Kaylee does one ISSMA performance after another.  She has four performances, I believe.  A saxophone quartet, a sax solo, a vocal solo and a vocal quartet.  Her band and her choir also have performances.  So first up is District performances.  Her first was yesterday, for the sax quartet.  The group has not practiced a lot together, and has not had any saxophone coach, teacher, or adult guidance.  They did it on their own, getting together on their own, practicing and improving on their own.  Their band director wasn't even their to see their performance yesterday, as he was with someone else at the time.  So we were a little unsure how that would go.  I think we need not worry.  These kids are perfectionists, and they are talented.  While they were performing, I was watching the judge.  She started nodding and smiling in time to the music, made a couple of notes, and when it was over, everyone in the room clapped.  That's unusual, you're supposed to be quiet.

The judge then started with "I have a couple of suggestions for you for when you go on to State".  That right there made you both nervous and excited, because "WHEN you go on to State" means they got a gold.  :)   She's also not supposed to provide any input or critique to the performances right then, just mark the score and provide what points were knocked off and for what.  But instead she decided to give them pointers for State, which is also really neat.  She told them that they are doing the elements they are supposed to, but where the difference right now is "this" big between measures, they should really go big and make it THIS big.  I don't understand all that, but basically she was telling them to go bigger on a couple things for State.  Then she said "Individually you are all very strong.  Excellent, each of you.  Together as a group, you guys are total rockstars.  It was a true pleasure listening to you play today."  It was really neat, and I'm pleased for and proud of them.  And yes, they got gold.  :)  Now they move on to State, and in the meanwhile she has a bunch of other performances to practice and prepare for...

We had to get up early to do that, as she had to be there by 8:20 am.  When we got back, we grabbed breakfast, dropped her off at home, then went out to the airport.  I needed to run the Twin Beech manuals back down to Jordan, as he was taking his to get an annual done and the engines replaced, and I had his actual POH.  The weather was IFR, a little snowy and windy, grey, gloomy.  I had a student at 2 pm, on his second dual cross country, and I was going to have to cancel him, so I asked if he wanted to go with me to Terre Haute.  He did, and when we took off we found out it was severe clear above 5000'.  Not a cloud in the sky up there, with the sun beating down and making us toasty.  Unfortunately it was only a 35 minute flight total.  :)  I had him do the flying once we broke out on top.  He's just barely soloed, so the Aerostar is a handful, but he did well with it.  He was doing well enough I even had him hand fly the RNAV approach down into the airport.  I controlled the radios, the throttle, the flaps, the gear, and told him what to do, but he got the job done keeping the needles centered all the way down, so I let him land it too, with me on the power.  Did well!   I got Jordan his stuff back, and he was telling me about some fun things he has coming up that he's willing to have me participate in too, so...if it works out, something to look forward to.  Then we headed back.  This time I did the flying.  I want to practice too.  ;)  Grissom brought me down to 3000' pretty early, which is right in the one altitude where there was ice.  I left it alone as I had all the equipment on and I knew it was fine even 500' lower.  It picked up some ice, but it was fine. I shot the ILS 23 into Kokomo, and we were home, back down into the grey and gloom.

Kaylee had a birthday party to attend that evening, so I took her to get a bag that fit her gift, and ran her to her party and back, and I went out to the airport, where we had a whole group of people working on various things.  Jerry was working on the wiring in the panel for the Saratoga.  Danny was cleaning on the 340.  Nathan, Steve and Greg Peterson were working on the Twin Beech (Bob). Chuck was out working on something or other, and Justin P was finishing up cleaning on the T-6.  I was out taking a quick trip to HUF and back with a student, and even though it was a rather bleary day outside, at least the airport stayed hopping.  :)

One more Kaylee story.  Today she had another friend's 16th birthday party.  It ran at the same time as her youth group.  I sort of assumed she was going to either show up late to the party or skip the youth group tonight.  But she did very poorly on an Algebra II test last week, as did most of the class, so the teacher is allowing a retest for partial grade.  Kaylee has a friend who attends her youth group who agreed to meet with her for an hour ahead of time and help her figure out the Algebra material.  So I asked Kaylee what time we needed to leave today for her friend's party, and she said "Well, I won't be able to attend the party.  It's at the same time as youth group, and Algebra and God come first."  I was proud of her for deciding on her own to put her priorities on her grades and the youth group over a party, even though she really wanted to go to the party.  It was an adult and responsible decision, one of many that she makes.  Like practicing on her own to achieve quality results in ISSMA.  Or doing what it takes to get good grades.  We don't push her any more, she pushes herself, and sometimes we have to tell her it's okay if she didn't do as well as she hoped.  She's hopping around like crazy on a busy schedule, and she had straight A's last semester.  This one she won't have, she got a few Bs, and she's disappointed in that, and frankly, I'm just impressed with everything she's accomplishing...she's doing way more, and way better than I did as a teenager.

Blue skies above 5000'

A little  murky down at 3000'.

Pretty spiral pattern of ice on the spinner.

The four Gold-medal players.

The obligatory "beat down" photo.  I don't know how or why it started.  lol

And here's the song they played this year...

Ohio

 I decided that 4:45 a.m. was a lot easier to deal with than 3:45 a.m. For some reason, that extra hour means everything.  Don't get me wrong, 4:45 is bad, but 3:45 is brutal.  :)

The weather this morning was cloudy with snow showers, wind and cold.  It was only an hour over there, nice tailwind.  The runway only has approaches on one end/runway, and it's a downhill sloping runway too, with big towers off the other end (aka why no approaches from that direction).  When we landed, he came right out with the rental car, put a carpet down for us, and was just very attentive.  This is good because their fuel was about $1.50 more per gallon than Kokomo's prices.  Small place but good service.

We watched the sun come up, and then I took this video as we descended down into the clouds for the approach.  It was a pretty day on top, an ugly day down below.  God bless altitude and sunshine.



My new phone came in today, and as far as I can tell, it is all set up and running without any glitches. It  has a few new features I'll need to learn, but my contacts, photos, voicemails, emails, all that good stuff is all still in there, so I'll call that a win.  I'm always concerned I'll lose everything on these switch-overs.

Kaylee had quartet practice after school until 5, and tomorrow we leave the house before 8:30 to go to her first ISSMA competition.  Here's wishing  them luck!  I'll try to take video with my new phone and see how it comes out, how it compares to the video above, for example.  :)

Here are a few more photos from today. Obligatory Sunrise Sequence, and then...

Below the cloud deck wasn't quite so glorious.

From 7,250' and above, it was blue skies and bright sunshine alllll the way up.  Remember, boys and girls, life lesson--whatever the grey is for you, keep going and eventually you'll break out of it.  Also known as "When you're going through hell, KEEP GOING".  

Thursday

Kaylee had school until 3:15, then I picked her up and ran her home to get something she forgot, then back out to her voice lesson at 4:30.  For that half hour I went to get some gas and ran another errand, picked her up at 5:10, drove her through dinner at Subway, then home until 6:45, at which time it was time to get her back to Greentown for a Barbershop Quartet practice, I came home, waited, left at 8:30 and picked her back up, and we're home by 9:10 pm.  The whole afternoon was running Kaylee back and forth from one thing to another.  :)

She did say her Quartet practice went well, so that's good.

My trip is wheels-up at 6:30 am, so that's at least getting up at 4:45 a.m. instead of 3:45 a.m.  For some reason that doesn't sound much better to me though.  I just got over the last early morning.  :p  Akron, Ohio, here we come!

Bluster

Kaylee had Barbershop Quartet practice tonight 8-9:30 pm, and she said they're finally working on movements, that the vocal part is coming together.  They have until Saturday to master it, and they're working as hard as they can to get it.  I'll try to record it and post it if my camera is working right and it turns out okay.  :)

She said she was supposed to be practicing the saxophone thing this morning with two of her fellow sax players, and none of them were up to it, so she decided to practice her vocal solo instead.  She was going to leave to practice it, they told her to do it there, so she did.  One is the president of the choir, both are in Encore (the main singing group).  She said when she was done, the president looked at the other and then her and said "That was GREAT, Kaylee!"  So she's hoping she impressed the Encore people, one of whom will at be on the committee to appoint members next year.  There is only 1-2 slots open for next year, so she's hoping...

The 3:45 a.m. wake-up call messes me up for awhile.  I was too wired to go to sleep until about 1 am, and then I slept through until 11 am this morning.  Now it's 12:30 am again and I'm not tired.  Not helpful.

I flew with one fellow who has been complaining that we can't get flying in, and has been bugging me about it every time more and more, even though there's nothing I can do about low IFR.  Today the winds were a crosswind gusting up to 25 knots, and low-ish clouds, and bumpy, but by George we went anyway, and I worked him out pretty hard.  At the end when I asked if there was anything else he'd like to work on before we headed in, he said no, that'd he'd sufficiently scared himself on final when the stall horn came on and realized what I'd been getting on him about airspeed control for, and was ready for a break...and then when he left I found out that he was heading to a birthday dinner--today was his birthday.  He got a work-out for his birthday.  lol

My phone battery has started biting the dust, and I'm having to keep it on a charger in my car or airplane or home multiple times a day.  So my contract is up and I'm available for a new phone, and it should be on its way now.  I don't want to go to the newest iPhone model because it doesn't have the plug for my headphone jack.  Yes, I could get an adapter but then I couldn't charge it at the same time as I have the ear buds in, which is what I do a lot in cars and planes.  So I just went to the last step Apple has before they moved to that new model, the 6s, but I think I'll be pleased with it as it has a larger screen (without the ginormous screen I don't like) and still gives me another couple years with my earphones at least.

Okay, it's 1:30 and I'm going to try to get to sleep.  Tomorrow isn't busy, I might not have anything to say at all, and Friday is a trip to Ohio, while Saturday is Kaylee's ISSMA stuff, at least some of it.  So I guess we'll see what we get for weather and life coming up here...

Georgia

Yep, 3:45 this morning I woke up on my own.  My alarm was set for 4:10 am.  I laid (lay?) in bed and looked at my weather and such on the phone before finally getting up at 4 on my own.  We had 500' overcast ceilings, and Grissom wasn't "up" yet, and the on the ground frequency is down right now, so I had to call on the phone old school style and get the clearance that way.  It was actually faster than dealing directly with Chicago often is at 5:30 a.m.   We landed in Athens, Georgia before the sun even rose.  This is not natural.  D had a meeting at 10, and then was going to drive over to a facility north of Atlanta, and I was to fly over and pick him up at Peachtree Dekalb Airport there in Atlanta by 2.  First I tried to rest in the pilot's lounge, but it was loud.  There was a snooze room, so I went in there, kicked back a lounge chair, closed the curtains, and tried to nap.  Only problem was that it wasn't very sound proof either, but worse, there was an air conditioner in there, and with the door shut, that concrete room became icy cold very fast.  I couldn't rest.  So instead I just went out and flew over to Peachtree a little early.

It was really busy going into the Atlanta airport.  I must have hit it at a busy time, because there was a string of us going in.  I even got told to slow down to 160 knots or below because I was following an Aerostar in.  I wanted to say I doubt I needed to slow down for the Aerostar--that he could speed up!  :)

I happened to know a fellow who flies out of that airport, and he contacted me and offered to take me to lunch.  There's a restaurant right there on the field called "The Downwind", so he came over at noon and we ate and talked for a couple of hours, and it was great to see him in person.  When he left, I was sitting downstairs in the FBO with the general population instead of up in the pilot's lounge where there were a couple guys sitting up there with the TV on and the windows closed, when I heard a guy say "HEY.  They have a pilot lounge up there, you know."  I look up, and it's Duane C., a corporate jet pilot from Little Rock, Arkansas, who used to be here in Indiana...his son Trey was one of our students and is now another jet jockey out of Texas.  It was wild to run into Duane then and there like that, and we sat and talked for a couple hours too.  Interesting day!

I watched the sun set during the flight home, too.  We landed after dark, and went from 60 degrees and sunshine to 30s and overcast, t-shirts to sweatshirts and coat.  Ah well, at least I got to spend most of the day in the sunshine!

Morning sunrise...

 

Blue sky and sunshine on the ramp getting ready to leave.

Sunset on the way home.

Sunset from the other side.  So pretty.

Off the nose...

Short final at OKK.

Sweet 16!

Saturday and Sunday the weather was supposed to be yucky, which didn't thrill me because I had two Cheyenne trips, loaded up with 9 of us, and I wasn't looking forward to a low IFR approach down into the hills.  Somehow, when the day arrived, it was actually quite nice out.  The trip down was uneventful, and on the way home, sitting in there by myself, once I canceled IFR I did a few maneuvers, a seriously steep turn, slow flight, a stall, then came in to land.  When we were coming in to land down there, there was moderate turbulence, and it was really rough coming in to land, but everybody hung on and did okay.  I was concerned about Sunday though, which was supposed to be rainy, windy, turbulent and unpleasant.  So imagine my surprise to wake up Sunday to sunshine and blue skies too!  One more uneventful trip sealed the deal.  Saturday I had a student dual cross country trip in the morning, landed just in time to take the Cheyenne trip, came home and flew with another student until dark.  Sunday I had the trip, then flew with a guy for a couple hours to check him out in the Bonanza, and then had to run home and take Kaylee to youth group.  After I dropped her off, I had 40 minutes or so of legal daylight, and it was still in the lower 50s, so I grabbed the hangar key and my coat and I took the Cub up for 40-45 minutes.  It was glorious, even if chilly.  The end of January in Indiana and I could fly an airplane with the door open.  Awesome.

So SOMEBODY turned 16 years old today!  In preparation, she requested asparagus stuffed chicken for dinner, and an ice cream cake.  She also wanted to do brownies for her class at school.  A lot of yesterday therefore was prep work.  A store run, a trip to DQ to order the cake, an order for the stuffed chicken breasts, a drug store run, all sorts of running around.  Last night Kaylee and I started making brownies.  She needed 35 of them.  I got 3 box mixes, we made them, and I'll tell you what, I could not get those things to cook all the way.  It's like my oven knows I like gooey brownies, so it refused to cook them.  I took the brownies off the outside edges and kept putting them back in for 10-15 minutes at a time.  By 1 a.m. they still weren't cooked all the way, but I hacked them into gooey squares and put them in a tupperware container lined with aluminum foil separating the layers (since i didn't have any wax paper).  I was really concerned that these brownies would be falling apart, some too gooey, some too crispy after they sat overnight, and that she'd be embarrassed by these sad brownies at school tomorrow.  Instead, they turned out really good, hardened up just enough over night that they were still soft and tasty the next day, and they were all gone when she brought the tupperware container home.  Whew.  That was more work than I expected.  It took hours!

Kaylee was at school early today, stayed until 6:10 pm working on various ISSMA things.  Steve picked her up and brought her home at 6:30, where I had rolls and corn and scalloped potatoes and asparagus stuffed chicken breasts waiting, along with the cinnamon orange tea that we bought in Ohio that I tried making up.  Steve thinks it was a little strong so we'll tone it down a bit next time, but I like it.  :)  We pulled out the ice cream cake and sang, Kaylee opened her presents, and got a silly singing video from her aunt and uncle and cousin, and then had to get right to her homework, which she had a lot of, even on her birthday.

I think she had a good day, even if it was busy.  She was sung to by the Starlets, her friends made a thing about her day, she enjoyed her gifts from her grandparents, and I think all in all she had a good 16th birthday.  It does start going faster.  She's a good kid, smart and funny and kind and sarcastic and dramatic, and I enjoy her company as she grows.  :)

The school is still going through the "Comet Vomit".  A bunch of kids left sick today too.  So far she hasn't gotten it nor given it to me, but I'm not sure how hopeful I am of long-term health with something so bad they named it and hashtagged it going around like that.

I have to get up at 4 am and fly to Athens, Georgia tomorrow.  Love those 4 am things.  :p

Here are a few photos, first of the Cub flight and then Kaylee tonight.  I should've taken a picture of the food.  It wasn't bad!

A picture Justin B. took of me in the pattern at sunset.

KayJo  :)

Digging out presents from The Tube

On red heart umbrella  :)

Kaylee and Grandma S. 

Inauguration Day

I randomly remembered today that my Initial CFI checkride was on Inauguration Day, January 20, 1993.  While I was being grilled and doing lots of flying, Bill Clinton was being sworn in as President of the United States.  That's been awhile now.  :)  What I can't remember is the day I soloed.  I feel like looking that up--if I can find that logbook.

My wedding ring lost a chip stone quite awhile ago.  Like last year, probably.  Finally yesterday I took it into a local jeweler, and they'll be replacing the chip for $50, which isn't bad at all.  As he was inspecting the ring, he also let me know I had six prongs that were either bent, broken, or worn down, including at least one on the main stone.  He said that I wasn't far off from losing a few more stones, so I'm glad I finally got around to taking it in to be repaired.  My finger does feel naked without the ring on it though.

Kaylee had school all day starting early, stayed after to practice for the quartet until 5, I picked her up so she could change clothes, then she had someone else's birthday party to attend from 6-9 pm.  The girl's schedule is just nuts.

Meanwhile, the present Kaylee had gotten for tonight's party was supposed to arrive via UPS today at Glenndale.  Yeah, she cut that close.  UPS almost always arrives between noon to 2 pm.  So I sat there from 11:45 am., through lunch, until I had to leave at 4:40 to pick her up, then went right back out there when I got back, until the package finally arrived at 6 pm.  Her party started at six, and Steve took her.  So I ran home, put her present into a nice bag, and ran it to her at the party.  She owes me big time, man.  I spent my entire day sitting at Glenndale waiting on her present.  I did have a few other things to do, but...what are you gonna do... ;)

In the meantime, the United States has a new President.  Here, as always, is hoping for the best for our country and the men and women running it.

Mid-Week Doin's

I haven't had the motivation to go through all the pictures.  Three hundred and sixty photos is a LOT of photos.  :)  But I'll get back to working on it soon.

With the trip home from New York, I broke 9500.1 hours.  This doesn't mean anything, I just saw it on my electronic logbook when I added the last flight and for some reason it made me smile.

Kaylee has been going in to school at 7 to 7;20 am to practice for her barbershop quartet, and staying after school until 4-4:30 pm to do the same.  Apparently it's a very tricky four part harmony and they're all actually having to work pretty hard on it before they take it to contest (ISSMA contest).  She had practice tonight from 8-9 pm as well, after going in at 7 and staying after until 4.  She has no time for driving, no time for flying, barely time to get her homework done.  She has a vocal solo, a vocal barbershop quartet, a saxophone quartet or trio, a solo sax performance, all for ISSMA, and then she has the musical that is starting up now too for her role as one of the ballroom dancers.  I'm pretty sure I'm missing some things she's doing, too.  I have officially lost control of her schedule and she has to tell us each day when and where she needs picked up and dropped off.  So far she's still cheerful and getting it done.

The schedule tonight was a bit of a problem, from 8-9.  I had to leave at 7:40 to get her to Greentown by 8.  Then what do I do?  If I drive home, I'll get home at 8:25 or so, and have to leave at 8:40 to go back and pick her up by 9.  So I filled my car up with gas and then went to Meijer, where I basically got my walking in.  I needed to get more steps in for the day anyway, so I paced around Meijer for 45 minutes.  I may have looked homeless, but it gave me something to do, plus I was able to pick up the soap I keep forgetting to buy, and get a minimum amount of exercise in I'm trying to do each day.

I finally was able to break out the "Bullet" I got for Christmas.  I had bought fruit the other day, so Kaylee had raspberry banana, I had peanut butter, oats, banana and blackberry, and Steve had a strawberry banana smoothie.  They were healthy and tasty both, and easy to make.   :)

Speaking of Christmas, we finally got our Christmas tree put away today.  It's only a month after Christmas, but hey, why not enjoy it for as long as possible?  ;)

I should work on photos before I go to bed.  Maybe.

Random Thoughts of the City Itself

It had been a very long time since I'd hit NYC as a tourist (every time I type that, I start to type "terrorist", which is funny but not funny at all), so things looked the same but different, and there was a lot I hadn't done or didn't remember.  

Some of you probably know all this, but just to put it down...space is at a premium, so everything is smaller, and I do mean everything.  The bathroom stalls, the hotel rooms, each shop is very narrow, but may go back a ways, up, down, or both, but it's not wide. The tables in restaurants are smaller, as in they put four of us at a table where two would be crowded, and you had to arrange your plates and glassware very carefully and exactly to get it all on.  The tables are also all close together, so you're sitting back to back with someone all the time. They are cramming in as many people into as small of a space as they can. Even the theater, on Broadway, for the Lion King, had seats really tight together in there. 

Wherever we went there was someone in 'charge' of the line who was constantly yelling directions to the crowd.  Loudly and repetitively.  They all projected very well.  But whether it was Top of the Rock or the 9/11 Memorial Museum or the theater, there was someone there to yell at the people in line.  I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but I don't like being yelled at. It makes me feel like being belligerent.  ;)  But I was a good sheep like everybody else. ;)

The driving...it's a dance, you can see that. It's extremely crowded and I would Hate having to do it, but like everything there's a rhythm to it. They use the series of honks and maneuvers to get where they need to go, and as long as they're all old hats at it, it goes just fine.  You can tell when someone is new or goofs up because the horns go from a quick toot for "come on over" or a couple honks to "watch out, I'm coming over" and go into a big long angry HOOOONNNNNNNNNKKKK and you know somebody blew it. 

Uber is fantastic.  We'd never done it before, but it is THE way to go.  We were able to get rides around town for about $7-20 for the four of us, tip included (although  Steve gave them a little more anyway), in nice vehicles privately maintained, and they were there at our door in 3 minutes or less Every Single Time.  You put an app on your phone, tell them where you are and where you want to go, choose what type of service you're looking for (how many people, how nice of a vehicle), and can see all the eligible cars on a little map on your phone.  Then someone close by gets the notification, and says they are on their way. You get a photo of the driver, his name and license plate number, and you can watch on your phone as he gets closer. All the other little cars disappear off your screen, and you see your car as it comes to you. It shows up, you get in and give them your name, and they drive you to your destination. Far cheaper than cabs and you can do it on your phone without standing in a street and flagging one down and hoping for the best.  Sweet.  Taxi companies may be in trouble as it's kind of hard to compete with that.

The city was kept pretty clean. Last time I wandered around the boroughs I remember thinking how dirty it all was, and smelled like pee.  Now maybe in January there is no pee smell, so bonus there, and we didn't hit all the other boroughs, but where we were was clean, people were friendly, we felt completely safe even at 11 pm walking outside, it was a definite melting pot of nationalities, and nobody cared whatsoever. Shop owners were helpful, folks in the hotel elevator were friendly, it was just a lot less hostile than I remembered it being. I did get offered free tickets to a strip club on Times Square, which Kaylee heard, but that was more funny than anything.

Sunday night we asked about legit New York style pizza, and ended up walking to a little hole in the wall place right down the street. They closed in ten minutes, so we were like "aw, man", and the guy insisted we could get some by the slice and he'd toast it up for us, so that's what we did, then took it back to our room to eat.  The pizza was fired up in this old style pizza oven, and we all declared it the winner in the Chicago vs New York pizza war.  I love dough, don't get me wrong, and Chicago knows how to do dough, but the sauce and the cheese on the NY pizza won hands down.  Good stuff.

Most of where we ate was fantastic.  The only one that was a little lacking was actually an extremely expensive restaurant at Rockefeller Center by the skating rink.  It cost like $220 to feed four of us, and the guy left us sitting there for 30 minutes without bringing the check or doing refills. The food was fine, I had striped bass and calamari and it was fine, but it wasn't THAT good.  The cool thing about that place though was that you could sit inside in the warm and watch the skaters go by right outside the window.  In the dark, but all lit up with flood lights, and with a light snow falling. That was lovely.  We ate breakfast at another hole in the wall place by World Trade Center, and you could tell it was a local favorite. The second day we ate breakfast at a fancy pants place downtown. The food was A.Mazing.  In quality, quantity, and price, all three through the roof.   ;)  One thing we learned, though, if you don't get out to breakfast by about 9-9:20 a.m., you will need reservations wherever you're going, or you might as well wait for lunch. Each day when we were leaving the restaurant around 10-10:30 a.m., every place was packed out and backed up. Our last morning there we tried to go to Sarabeth's for breakfast but everyone was running late that day so we didn't get there until 10. It would have been a 45-60 minute wait standing in a tiny room with a large crowd. We found some place else, and even IT was just our hotel restaurant and was still super busy. Be prepared if you're going to NYC to get reservations for meals!

Steve was a bit of a trouble maker though.  We are in line at the World Trade Center 9/11 Memorial Museum.  To get into this place you  have to go through basically airport security, except you can leave your shoes on. So, belts off, coats off, electronic devices in the bin along with anything metal, you walk through a metal detector, and they scan all your bags. I didn't think about or understand it at first, but then it did make sense. If you're a terrorist/bad guy, what better coup than to blow up or take out the memorial museum with all the artifacts of those killed in the original terrorist act and take out a whole other large crowd of people while you're at it?  :o  So anyway.  Steve.  We all get through and the guy behind the scanner says "Pocket knife" pointing at Steve. Steve says "I don't have a pocket knife."  The guy with not great English insists he has a pocket knife.  Steve slaps his pockets and says "I do not have a knife!"  The guy says "In the coat."  Steve's getting mad now, points at the pens on the pocket, and the guy says "No.Pocket knife."  Steve says "I do NOT have a knife!"  Guy says it's in the pocket of the coat by the pens. Steve goes digging in the pocket, and comes up with a pocket knife that he'd thrown in there a long time ago to use to be able to cut off a seatbelt like in the T-6 when traveling should an emergency  arrive. Except he'd forgotten it existed. He apologized to the guy. They took the knife, gave him a ticket, and after we left he was able to reclaim the knife.  He put it back in the pocket and determined to put it in the hotel room. Which he promptly forgot to do. So when we went to "Top of the Rock", again there was security. This time there was nothing in place for them to do with it. He either had to leave, leave and hide it somewhere and come back, or throw it away. He just threw it away. We were there to see the sunset, and if he'd left we'd have missed it.  They made a production out of it, with calling in "contraband", and pulling us all aside.  It was a tad awkward, yes, but oh well. So after that, the knife was no longer a security problem in New York.  He is now out a knife he is not happy to throw away, even if he'd forgotten he even had it in the first place.  So out of two teenage girls and me, Steve was the one who caused us problems.  ;)

My body aches a little.  My hips, legs, calves, feet.  We walked A Lot.  One day was like 18,000 steps for almost 7 miles, and  the  next day was almost 5 miles, and all of us felt it except mostly Steve, for some reason. I'm the one that usually does the most walking, but I haven't been for a long time now, and apparently I am out of shape. It was great exercise, but I was kind of glad to sit the next day.

That's probably good enough for now. I'll post some photos with a few stories of what we did/saw later tonight or tomorrow.  Today in Kokomo there will be nothing exciting happening. It's dreary, flights canceled, house being cleaned, Kaylee's school was canceled because over 200 kids were out sick last Friday and they couldn't get any nurses in today, so they have to make it up President's Day. She had a Barbershop Quartet practice right when we got home last night, from 6-8:30 pm, and was going to have another practice this morning at 7 am, except school was canceled so they canceled it.  But she's up and running already, has a lot of ISSMA stuff to prepare for with singing and the saxophone both.

New York, New Yooooooork

I didn't realize I hadn't updated anything before I left.  I couldn't very well write anything while we were there, as I just had the iPad and we were busy each day from pretty early morning until pretty late at night, and we just fell into bed at the end of the day.

First, Kaylee found out on Friday that she didn't get a speaking part in the musical "Cinderella" coming up, but she DID get in the big ballroom dancing scene, the thing she'd wanted most of all.  It's a group of the best dancers who have a large choreographed set of dances, with several couples and lifts and everything.  It's right up her alley, and she's really excited to get to participate in the dancing scenes.  So that was good news, and we got it right as we were leaving for New York.  :)

The flight out to NY went just fine for the most part.  The weather was great, we had a nice tailwind, and the girls sat in the back and sang songs and had a good flight.  I had a bit of an interesting arrival into the airport.  They didn't set me up for an approach, just wanted me to do a visual and get out of the big boys way.  The only problem was, I couldn't FIND the airport.  At night, the city lights surrounding it, combined with what I found later was the runway lights on a low setting, meant I couldn't find the runway, and I couldn't plug in an approach and come in that way because they had me coming at it perpendicular to the runway.  Kaylee, from the back seat, was actually the one who said "Is that the runway to the left?"  Tower had already cleared me to land, and I did the single most unstabilized approach I've seen out of anybody in awhile.  I'm way high, way fast, dropping all the flaps and gear down, while tight turning in the dark and coming down like a safe.  I apologized to the girls in back for the ride, but they seemed to mostly think it was fun.  I was down just after the numbers, but it was less than ideal.

We had a limo service fellow who arrived in a perfectly timely manner, loaded up all our bags, and took us to our hotel, "The Lucerne", on the upper West Side of the city, not far from Central Park.  The hotel is old style gentlemanly, with a doorman dressed in full black including hat and long tailed coat who opens the door for each person who comes in or out.  It was lovely.  :)

We had a big old dinner at Sarabeth's, a fancy little place within walking distance of our hotel, and then had dessert at a nearby crepe and Italian Gelato place.  With Italian style hot chocolate.  Amazingly delicious. We went to bed after that with big  plans for the next two days.

For now it's 11:15 pm and I'm tired and it was a busy day, but we are home now, safe and sound, and I'll write what else we did tomorrow.  For now, here is Kaylee and me on top of the world.  :)

Hump Day

More wind, clouds and rain today.  A student texted me and asked if we were going flying.  It was 200' and 1/2 mile out there.  I sent him a photo of the current weather without a word.  Look out the window before you ask me that question, or maybe look up the weather, or call AWOS, or something to give you a hint, but just looking out the window should have done it.

I think the pressure and temp changes have been messing with me.  My eyes and nose ran most of the day, and I took a Zyrtec last night and a Claritin this morning and I was still all drippy most of the day.  I ended up taking a big nap this afternoon, just felt like crud most of the day.

Kaylee had her call back auditions tonight.  We had to run her a sandwich on their break at 6:30, and when she came out she shook her head, said she didn't do what she'd wanted to do, that she didn't nail her audition tonight.  She was disappointed in herself.  By the end of the night they learned who the stepsisters and stepmother were going to be, and it was the three people who always get the main parts, so it was sort of expected, but she's still disappointed, mostly because she didn't perform as well as she knew she could.  She won't know until Friday what, if anything, she'll be doing in the musical.  She's hoping to be in the ballroom scene still.  We shall see.  We will be leaving for New York RIGHT as she finds out if she's on the list or gets nada...

Bluster and Bluff

The business flight for today was cancelled last night due to the weather today.  It ended up being not as bad as it was forecast today, but the fellow going along does not do well with rough flights, and it still would have been rough.  Winds right now are over 40 knots and wind shear was around 70 knots, moderate turbulence everywhere, and all in all it would have just been an unruly flight.  So instead I stayed on the ground and watched it blow and bluster and rain.

Kaylee texted me at 8 a.m.  She got a call back!  That means that tomorrow after school they will do further auditions.  She thinks she is up for step sister, so she is practicing the step sister songs tonight.  She doesn't think her chances are very good, but she can't help but be excited at the same time.  Considering she is one of only two sophomores who got a call back, and that Seniors, then Juniors, and Encore all get first preference, I won't place bets that she'll get the part, but she's happy to have gotten a call back anyway, and really hopes she gets put in the ballroom dancing scene no matter what.  :)

Steve is off working, she is in her room practicing her songs and doing homework, and I'm sitting out here watching "Die Hard" while going through some paperwork, receipts, etc.  And listening to the wind blow.

Monday Monday

Winter makes it tricky to find interesting things to discuss.

Kaylee had an after-school practice for a quartet followed by a musical practice and try-outs until 10 pm.  She hasn't been home since she left at 7 a.m.  Steve ran her a Subway sandwich during her one break from 6-6:30.  I'll go get her at 10 here, we'll get home around 10:30 pm, and then she'll have homework to do.  The only good thing might be that tomorrow morning we're supposed to get sleet, and her school may be delayed for 2 hours.  Maybe.

Speaking of sleet, I'm supposed to fly to southern Indiana tomorrow morning.  Of course there is wind shear, moderate turbulence, moderate icing, and sleet in the morning followed by 30 knot wind, overcast and rain the rest of the day.  D and I were going to go anyway if we could get the plane out of the hangar, but then his boss was going to come along, and he gets motion sick easily and doesn't enjoy flying anyway, and this was not going to be a nice day.  So they decided to drive.  Bad for my wallet, good for their stomach, and probably saves me a little extra tension and work early in the morning in crappy conditions.

I had a school board meeting this evening where we discussed upcoming budget, kids, fundraisers, etc.  It was exciting.  ;)

The play/musical that they did reading/tryouts for tonight is "Cinderella".  Kaylee thought she did well and enjoyed the readings she did, but she doesn't think she'll get a call back because a lot of the Junior/Senior girls did well too and there are only limited rolls.  She said she botched up her Cinderella chance, but it was mostly funny because they all knew that she was not a princess type.  Apparently Prince Charming, who is a friend of hers, gave her a really corny look, and she snorted accidentally, then tripped going down the stairs, and didn't know how to lock arms appropriately, and they all knew she wasn't going to make it as Cinderella.  She did a great job as a step-sister, she said, but so did several others higher up on the food chain than she is.  She will find out tomorrow morning if she gets a call back for any speaking role.  If she doesn't get a call back, she still has a chance to get a dancing role, which she'd know by Friday.  Mostly the Encore kids will get those though.  So she's hoping to get something.  We'll know some by tomorrow, the rest by Friday, but she seems okay with whatever happens, at least right now...

We Be Home

While Kaylee went to her camp reunion weekend, Steve and I spent the day doing our own thing.  We drove around the area, went to eat at several amazing places, found a nice little nook with a good view of the hills, lake and trees and read, and just had a nice quiet weekend.

Kaylee's camp is changing things up, and we're not fond of it.  They are phasing out the TILT campers, and turning Junior Counselors into TILT kids.  What that means is, they are making the Junior Counselors, who used to work with the kids, stay in the cabins with the kids, etc., go back to doing what the TILT kids did, which was cleaning, mopping, bathrooms, kitchen duties, now mowing the soccer field, etc., staying in a separate cabin, and not working with the kids at all.  Kaylee spent three years as a TILT camper, paying money to do all that work, and was excited to be a Junior Counselor last year, working with the kids, and she did a good job with it, even had little kids who remembered her and loved working with her.  She worked hard to move up to that position.  Now she'll be bumped back to the other duties, and can't be an actual counselor working with the kids at all again until she's 18 years old.  None of us like this at all.  The camp is getting rid of TILT as a program and just making all Junior Counselors, whom they are collectively calling "the high schoolers" fulfill that function instead.  Not nice.  She'd also already signed a contract stating that she was coming back before they told her about these changes.  They used this weekend to try to get the kids on board and convince them that this was great for the camp.  We told Kaylee not to worry too much about that contract considering they completely changed the parameters of what she was agreeing to do without notifying her prior to signing it.  We're bummed and more than a little annoyed by this.  Their restructuring is already in place, nothing we can do about that, so now it depends on what she wants to do with it.  *sigh*  I'm disappointed for her.

The weekend was otherwise a nice little trip, though, and we enjoyed our stay!

The trip home was really cold.  Steve huddled in the back seat with two coats, a hat and a blanket and still couldn't get warm.  Air was just coming in from somewhere in the back, and the heat wouldn't go/stay back there.  He froze for the 90 minutes it took us to get home.  Kaylee flew from the right seat for a little while, doing the climb-out, going through a layer of clouds IMC, and then leveling off and flying and tracking us for awhile after that.  Eventually I kicked on the autopilot, because the hard part is the climb-out, IMC, and initial level-off, but once you have the track and the plane set up, the rest is pretty easy, so no need to beat it to death.

I left my iPad in the plane, but fortunately she had to go to church tonight anyway, which is right by the airport there, so I picked it up when I dropped her off.  We were out until about 9 pm, and then she started in on her homework.  As of almost 11 pm she wasn't done with it yet, but hopefully soon.

Here are some photos from Friday.  I'll probably stick them up on my website too, just to keep the trend going.  ;)

This is the face of 6 a.m. and sub zero temps.  Don't suggest messing with it. 

Beautiful sunrise coming as I head out to N. Carolina

Snow and frost and sunrise.

Sunrise over Indiana

100 knot crosswinds up at 17,000'.

The winter storm moving into N. Carolina.

Beautiful smooth clouds and sun.

Mountains rising through the clouds

Descending into the airport on the other side of the granite there.

The three of us on the way to Ohio

Steve a little chilly back there.

Beautiful frozen Ohio

On top on the way home.

Extra super duper chilly Steve in the back on the way home.

Just cruising, watching the patchwork quilt off the whites and blacks on the ground.

Kokomo Airport end of the runway lights.

Looking at the airport lights from the other side of the fence from w here I normally am.