Stuff and Stuff

Kaylee's home!

Okay, she didn't have the best time this year.  By the end of this week, she'd also gotten sick for the last two days, with what she called "The Double-headed Dragon".   I think you can figure out the reference, but if not...she wasn't feel well from either end.  So she starts out the week with a scratched cornea. blurry vision, headache and nausea from it, and ends the week with nausea and bathroom problems...at camp.  While she's doing manual labor like pulling weeds, picking up sticks (in the woods?), cleaning bathrooms and setting up the dining room/doing dishes.  Meanwhile having minimal time to actually spend with the kids, which is why she wants to be a counselor in the first place.  So she's had better times, but she's through it now, and home, and recuperating.  She's still sick today, but the good news is she doesn't have to do anything until Thursday or Friday when we head to Oshkosh.  She will decide later if she's going back or not.  She will ask to be approved as a Senior Counselor.  If they say no (you're supposed to be 18), she's definitely not going back as a Junior Counselor.  If they say yes, she will probably go back as a Senior Counselor.  So, we'll see.  The new director has a few management and dealing appropriately with workers and kids issues.  If we'd have known some of what we learned later back when we were there, Steve probably would have said something to him.  I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that we didn't know until now some of how he dealt with the kids harshly.  Kaylee was sick, and was napping in the office, and he told her she couldn't lie down, and that she should report for work because he hadn't heard of any exceptions on work duties for the day.  She reported to her 'boss' who said "You are too sick to work, go lie down in the office!"  Kaylee said "Mark just told me to leave the office and that I couldn't lie down."  So the lady said "Well, sit here at the sound booth and just relax, then."  I mean, really??  Anyway.  She's home, she's resting up, she's fine, just not the kindest week.

My last post, Tuesday I mentioned a trip I was supposed to take.  We'd lost power at the house and I hadn't gotten much sleep, so the next night I went to bed around midnight, and was supposed to get up at 6 for this big day.  Instead, I woke up at 4:30 am and could not go back to sleep to save my life.  Two nights of low sleep.  We meet up at the airport, and four of us head south to pick up the Baron and the 5th person who was going along.  The plane was right out of annual and hadn't flown yet.  Not my favorite, but okay.  The mechanic is known for being shady.  Also not my favorite.  So we all load up, and on run-up I can't get the left prop to move no matter what I do with the lever.  That's bad.  So we taxi back, shut down, and the mechanic "fixes" it, he says.  I run it again, and this time it'll drop RPM a few hundred, but it won't go into full feather, at all.  I said "I'm out."  I'm not taking five people over the hills and trees of N. Carolina in a twin where I can't feather the left engine if need be.  I kind of really hated being the bad guy in this, because we had a whole complicated set up going.  We had four pilots and a mechanic meeting up with three other pilots to pick up three airplanes in one day and ferry home, and there were a lot of cogs in the machine, and I just shut it all down by refusing to go.  But if we'd have lost that engine, we would have had a windmilling propeller, with a ton of drag, and we *would* have gone down.  IF I got lucky I could have found a decent place to land, but where we were going isn't flat land, and landing a 6000 lb airplane with an 78-84 knot stall speed, it's a lot of mass and momentum.  Are the odds good that you won't lose an engine?  Yep.  Do I want to risk it knowing the outcome if it happens?  Nope.  So I (or the mechanic who left it like that right out of annual) ruined a lot of people's day and cost a fair amount of money.

Since I couldn't do that trip, we went out to eat and then came back to Kokomo, where the Flying Squirrels program was just ending for the summer.  The PT-26 was ready for test flights to check for oil leaks, so I took it up for a quick 15 minute flight, saw no problems, so took it back up for what was supposed to be an hour flight.  About 30 minutes into it, Ty called up on the radio and said "Hey guys.  Huge storm just to the west of us headed our way."  Everyone scrambled and landed except me, I waited by the pattern, trying to get more time in.  Then I saw the darkness coming, decided I didn't want to get caught in a taildragger in gusty storm winds, and landed.  The storm promptly missed us, but at least the airplane did well, no major leaks, and that was good to find out as now the plane could go home.

Thursday I didn't have to get up early, but I did wake up kind of early anyway.  After lunch I had flights all the way from 1 pm until a night time cross country starting at 10 pm.  I was already tired, but that wiped me out.  I fell asleep around 1 am, and had to wake up for an MBros flight around 7 am.  I'm lucky that they didn't want to leave earlier.  God must have given me a break and made them go a little later, because if it would have been one of those 5 am ones, I'd have had to call Uncle.  ;)

Friday morning.  The lack of sleep on previous days was catching up to me and I was feeling a little gritty.  This is what I posted about that morning on Facebook, because I don't feel like typing out all the details.  But the one FBO/desk guy shut himself in an office, door shut, and watched TV in there so loudly that it could be heard all through the building.  He was not exactly helpful or friendly.

The FBO guy probably wondered why I started laughing in the bathroom. But I'd been up till 1 am the night before doing a night cross country flight after a busy day full of hot and muggy flying. This morning I had a trip. It was supposed to be clear but wasn't, which is fine. One RNAV approach in it is. Their Coke machine said "change only". I'm a nickel short. Out to the plane and a quick search and I found the last nickel I needed to get the Coke. Desk fellow sees me feeding coins in and says "machine's broke but there's a water fountain". I said "Thanks-I have water, was hoping for caffeine." He says "There's coffee" and walks away. Coffee machine is out of water. I fix that. No cups. I can't find a cup. Consider sticking my head under the dispenser. Find an old used cup and rinse it out in a dirty sink. Hey, I have a good immune system. No sugar, sweetener, cream or spoon. All right, black is fine too. Internet password doesn't work. Fine, I have 3G. Go to the bathroom. It's a sealed thick door in a concrete room with no windows, and the light is burnt out. I can't see my hand in front of my face. Debate on leaving the door open but 1) it's a heavy steel door that swings shut anyway and 2) No. Back to the plane to get a flashlight to hold in my teeth so I can go to the bathroom. Drop the flashlight mid-transaction. And that, ladies and gents of the jury, is when I started laughing...

I got back from that trip around 2 pm. I stopped and got some food, then went back out to the airport, where Steve met me, and we took the RG to Ohio to pick up Kaylee from camp.  We landed  back here at 10:22 pm, and got home around 11 pm.  Another long day.  There's a funny story in there about Steve trying to fit in the back seat with Kaylee's big plastic three-drawer bin, but I'm too tired to flesh it out.  ;)

This morning I was able to sleep in until 8:30.  Woke up with a headache.  Of course.  Felt pretty puny all morning.  Packed up all our coats, sweatshirts, sheets, pillows, blankets, shoes, and loaded the car.  Took all that stuff to the airport for AE to load in the trailer going to Oshkosh.  Flew with a guy who brought his buddy along to do pattern work.  Still had a headache.  Paused, got gas, headache faded and went up to fly with another person getting ready for a CFII checkride.  I felt much better after that flight.  Steve and I went to dinner, and he brought Kaylee back some requested food, while I made a store run.  Now it's almost midnight but I don't feel like going to bed because tomorrow is sort of my day off and my time off started this afternoon and I don't want to rush it.  ;)

I did think it was funny though, this morning, working on stuff, it seems like one of those old people jokes.  There was a can on the counter, so I went to throw it in the recyclables.  That bag was full, so I pulled it out and took it to the deck for Kenny to pick up.  While on the deck I noticed that the cat's water was low, so I took the water container in to fill it up.  And so on.  Everything I did led me to something else I needed to do.  I eventually got fairly well caught up.  Except for laundry.  I was trying to pack stuff and I needed to do laundry to pack.  I have done four loads of laundry so far and haven't actually dented our actual clothes, just bedding, towels, etc.  Tomorrow I'll work on that.

M&M has new "caramel" M&Ms.  They are worthy.  In case you were wondering.

I'll throw some photos up tomorrow.  For now, I'm suddenly wiped out again.  Bedtime is calling.