Rain

Yesterday I was scheduled to fly all day with the guy from Ohio in the T-6.  The flat tire meant that was canceled.  If that was canceled I was scheduled to fly all day with the Flying Squirrels, from 9 am until about 4 pm.  So as you can see I was double booked.  The weather forecast canceled the Squirrels even though it ended up it would have been nice enough to get some flying done in the morning.  Another guy asked me to do a checkout in an airplane for the sales people, and when I said no, I couldn't, he never responded back with "ok" or "thanks anyway" or anything.  Sorry buddy, the last priority lost, so that when my day did open up some, I still just didn't contact him again.  The afternoon stormed and rained, all flights canceled.  It was just the break I needed.  Badly.

Meanwhile, our airshow is in 3 days.  Pam, who wants to be in charge of the event, and who every year messes up the waiver and other things under her purview, this year spectacularly outdid herself.  She was responsible for three things.  Providing water for the crowd and participants.  Providing lunch food vendors.  Providing the airshow waiver.  These were the three things she insisted on doing.  Every time Steve would ask about them, she'd say "Don't worry, I have that covered."  First came the water.  She had no provision for it, so Steve just took it over about a week ago and got it covered.  But "Don't worry about lunch, that's covered."  Three days before the event, Pam sends a text that "all the lunch vendors have backed out."  What that means is she never had them in the first place and now she can't get them.  So we have no food for the airshow participants as of right now.  Same day she sends Steve an email that the FAA guy is just not getting her info on the waiver and she gives up, he can take her name off the waiver.  So.  She has done nothing, gotten nowhere, and THREE DAYS BEFORE THE EVENT, she blames other people and drops the ball right into Steve's lap, with no time left, and walks away.  Thanks, Pam, so much, you're a real champ.  If this show didn't come off, we would be the ones who look bad, to the public, to the local pilots, to the FAA even.  Not her, even though our failure would be a direct result of her. But Steve is Steve, and Steve is good.  He's pulled out all stops, called and gotten help from everybody he can get on board.  He has the airport manager scrambling for food.  He has friends helping him create diagrams to finish up the waiver.  He has reached out to the FAA who promises him they will push the waiver through if he can get it to them asap.  I think we're going to get this done, and the good news is that we shouldn't have to deal with Pam ever again if we ever do another airshow at Kokomo.  We'd better not, anyway.  This year was a very small event anyway.  Most of our acts had to back out when the city changed the date of our show.  Steve made up acts and there are two aerobatic acts.  That's a short show.  We don't have many warbirds again.  I think it'll be fun, but small.  So I'm torn.  Part of me likes that and says that's just right.  The other part thinks...one more year.  Make it big.  Bring in a good sized show, lots of airplanes.  Make it big, and successful, ourselves.  Prove a point.  And then not do it any more.  Go out on a win.  Either way, I don't want to hear Pam's name in relation to any of it again.  She's always caused more problems than she's ever provided assistance.  And this is a public blog, so it could be  found, screen shot, passed on, and as far as politics go that would make me unwise for posting it.  But what's she going to do about it?  Get mad and walk away from us at the last minute and dump the airshow on us and hope it fails?  Oh wait...