Still Here

If you're on Facebook, you already saw all my pictures, as I put them up in an album.  It is so hard to pick which ones you want to put if you only want to put up a few.

My Mom & Ernie drove up from Missouri to be here, and Steve & Ann and I went as well.  As always we enjoyed the concert, and as always Mrs. E did a fine job planning it and the kids did a fine job executing it.  Encore sang The National Anthem, and everyone in the audience rose for it, removed hats, etc.  Then they did an "Armed Forces" theme, where they sang each of the Armed Forces song, and everyone who was actively serving or formerly served in that branch stood, and the audience applauded for them.  They turned the lights up a bit in the auditorium so people could see the standers.  That was nice.  Their main theme was that they were traveling across the country, sending post cards about their various stops, and then they'd sing songs from those areas.  During their California stop, they threw beach balls into the audience during the song.  Proud Mary was sung starting in the darkness behind us all, and sounded really good, and then they ran up on stage to finish it.  Nicely dramatic.  All in all, always a good time, and I appreciate her school and their support of the military, patriotism, and freedoms.

I haven't felt the best the last several days.  I thought it was just allergies but it may have been more than that.  I've spent the last two days sleeping in late, drinking water, resting, and trying to get ready for tomorrow, when I'm supposed to do T-6 rides at Logansport.  We never sell rides there, but Steve is supporting the local guy.  But I just saw their flier for the event yesterday, and they mention regular rides, helicopter rides, and warbird rides, but a different warbird for less money.  Our T-6 rides aren't even listed. So...

Then on Sunday I'm supposed to do a formation flyover at a large parade in southern Indiana.  Except I only have myself and one Yak to do it.  Every Other Person who flies a warbird in the state is gone tomorrow.  One is off flying a TBM at an airshow, one is off flying the famous "That's All Brother" C-47 with Doug R., one is flying a B-17 giving rides (I'm starting to feel inadequate here), the rest are gone or busy with other stuff.  So I have a parade of 20,000 people and just two of us little guys in which to do it.  I wish the weather would be awful so they'd think we had a bang-up show but just couldn't do it.  But the weather looks lovely.  *sigh*

My photo made it as "Photo of the Week" for AvWeb, an online aviation "magazine".  You can see it here.  A guy mentioned I should submit it, so I did, and it won.  So that's kind of neat.  :)

Kaylee and I are also in this month's WASP E-newsletter for the CAF, which doesn't surprise me, since we did the filming thing.  I just got a text from a local CAF guy that said my photo appears twice in the September issue of the main CAF magazine, too.  Probably for the same thing, I'd assume.  I'll have to see how bad it is when  it gets here in the mail.  lol

Kaylee did her "Senior Pants" last night, finished them up.  I'll need to get a picture of those soon.  They finished their Homecoming Float last night, late, and it was in the parade today.  They didn't win "Best Float", the Freshmen did, but they did win "Best Door" (decorated door in school).  She gave out most of her candy to her 4th grade class that she assists in.  She jumped off the float, silly stringed them, dumped most of her candy at them, and hopped back on.  She was a hero to her 4th graders.  ;) 

But after the parade today, everyone left.  Kaylee had a generator and an amplifier to get all the way back from the field to her car.  She asked one teacher if she could use the gator to help, and the teacher said "no, sorry, this is going back to..." and left.  So Kaylee picked up and carried the generator and amp BY HERSELF about 1/4 of the way until a boy stopped.  She asked him to help, he said "No, this is too heavy", and left and brought back two other people with a car, and they loaded them up and took them to Kaylee's car.  I have moved that generator.  For her to carry it and the amp alone for awhile, well, I'm impressed.  Her arm and back are a little sore--gee, I wonder why.  How nice of everyone to dessert her and leave her to carry those two things, without which they wouldn't have had any kind of decent float.  :/

Tonight she's going back to sing the National Anthem at the Homecoming Game, with Encore.  It's fun that she has these fun highschool things to do, even if it was stressing her out a little the last few days.  Many of the things on her list are done now, successfully, so hopefully she'll be able to relax a little bit for a while here.  Right now she's leaned up against me sleeping, wrapped under my fuzzy blanket.  Just for a little while before she has to go back to school for the game.  :)

I think I mentioned the boy who had toe cancer?  They thought they got it, but it came back and metastasized too.  Well, in a couple weeks they're going to amputate his leg below the knee.  They think it's his best chance of saving his life, even if it is aggressive.  He will need to recover from that, then get a prosthetic, and they think he can walk again by early next year.  Tough for a high schooler.  Tough for anyone.

I've been stuck at home not feeling well during the time frame the whole Kavanaugh thing has been all over.  It's hard not to get sucked in when you're weak, not well, and a trapped audience.  ;)  It's a fascinating study on human nature, group thinks, media, politicians, etc.  We shall see what comes of it all.  I watched both Ford and Kavanaugh's opening statements and as much of the questioning as I could stomach.  I had to keep muting that.  It was a long day for everyone, that's for sure.

Now, how to get to the bathroom without disturbing the sleeping girl next to me...