BOO

Happy Halloween?  At Grindestone Charlie's, all the servers dressed up in costume, which is fun.   It's a cold, rainy, overcast, windy, dreary day.  As I type this, there is snow on the ground.  The first snow of the season was today after the rain chilled down.  For awhile I laid on the couch and watched it spit snow out the window and huddled in depression. 

Today was supposed to be my jury selection day.  They suggested you wear business casual dress, and I don't think they meant my business casual, which is my business t-shirt and jeans.  So I dressed up.  My time was 1:15, so I had time to go to lunch and meet up with six others.  They all eyeballed me but nobody said anything until I mentioned I was going to have to leave a little early for jury duty.  Then Dale says "You clean up pretty good", and Ty says "I wondered why you were all dressed up."  I was eating when I got the call from the court house, where they let me know that the case I was being called in for had just been settled, and that we no longer needed to come in.  I said "Huh.  Well, I kind of wanted to do it since I haven't done it before, and here I got all dressed up for nothing."  Ty looks at me and says "Well, it IS Halloween; you just dressed up as an actual girl today!"  He was only that brave because he was back in the corner and I was too far away to get to him.  ;) 

I feel sorry for the trick or treaters and their parents tonight.  It's so nasty outside.  It pretty much put the kibbosh on the night.  One of my friends said her husband literally bribed the kids to get them to stop trick or treating.  I can so see that.  "I will buy you bags of candy all for yourself if you will just let us GO HOME."  Lol

Here are three little video clips Kaylee sent.  You don't see her in any of them, but one is just before the monkeys attacked them, and two are of this bamboo structure with gaps and holes.  She seems to be doing all right.  ;)

Briefly

Kaylee said she and her group were attacked by monkeys.  Nobody bitten, but they scared her to death, and she now has a monkey phobia.  I'm trying not to laugh, but c'mon.  Kaylee got attacked by a group of monkeys in Thailand.  There's an experience for you.  ;)

Formating

Steve worked outside all day in the yard and the garage and the gardens, and some out at the airport in the hangar organizing too.  I don't even know what all he got done, but I know he was tired, sore, and very pleased with his day's work.  I know he got the hoses winterized, and vegetation trimmed, and...just a full day of outdoor work.  His muscles are even yelling at him.

I had an interesting afternoon/evening.  I went out to the airport, did some arranging of my own.  I pulled out the Cheyenne, pulled out the 340, pulled out the T-6.  I put away the 340, then put away the Cheyenne, and closed up the hangar.  By then it was time to get the plane ready and take off, and I headed over my house, where I saw Steve working outside, and circled around him and gave him a big wing wag when I saw him waving his arms up at me.  Hiiiiiii!  :)  From there I hopped over to Glenndale and said hi to Ron, Michelle, and Dennis at least.  All of these things were on my way down to Indy Metro.  I made an accidental basically perfect roll-on 3-point landing, and nobody saw it, which means I've wasted my one chance in awhile.  ;)  

Down at Metro I met up with Greg M and Tom McCord.  Tom got out the Mustang, and Greg got set up in my back seat, and we did a brief and then a photo flight during the "golden hour".  There were parts that didn't quite work out as well as hoped, like the takeoff and landing sequence, partially on me and partially on Greg, but he thinks we got some good photos in and seemed  pleased.   So I took off first, then swung around the pattern, called for Tom to start rolling, and then the goal was to swoop down past him a little and get some shots of him taking off.  I was so low I had to lift up to be sure I was clearing the wind sock in my way, which was fine, and I shot past him a little too fast, which was not as fine.  I thought he'd accelerate faster than that and outpace me quickly, but he didn't, and meanwhile, Greg was waiting to get the shots from the other side of the plane.  He was facing backwards.  We flew around and did a few circuits over the water and over some fall foliage trees.  When coming back in to land, I followed him around the pattern, and this time stayed good and low with him while he landed.  My gear horn is going off, I'm trying to slow way down as he's rolling out and stay with him, and I'm keeping an eye on the trees at the end down there.  One had best pay attention when one is getting low, slow, and lower and slower.   I then swung around the pattern and came in for my landing.  I dropped off Greg and equipment, shook hands, and got some gas.  I didn't want to get gas, but I was down low enough I wanted some before I headed back.  The sun was going down, and I didn't want to get back in the total dark if at all possible.  I'd also had a cylinder run rough during the flight a couple of times.  So, daylight was preferable.  

I took back off as the sun was close to the horizon, and then I was treated to the most magnificent sunset for that 15 minute flight.  I mean, seriously.  The whole sky was rose and golden and on fire.  I couldn't whip out my phone and take my own photos of the Mustang off my wing or me off his, but when I was alone I whipped out my phone and took a ton of photos of the sunset.  I'm going to post too many of them, but I couldn't decide too many to just leave out.

Also on the way home, someone got on the radio and asked me if I was still "up", and wanted to know if I still did "Bienniels" and "Checkrides".  I don't do checkrides and biennnials are called Flight Reviews now, but yet.  :)  He said he needed one soon and I told him to contact me on the ground with details.  I didn't even know who it was until I got home and he messaged me.  Kind of funny.

So when I got back to Kokomo, landing at the perfect time where I could see the pins on the wings for landing without needing the flashlight, I then got to do the reverse.  Open hangar door, pull out Cheyenne, pull out 340.  Hook up and put away T-6, put away 340, put away Cheyenne, plug all the tugs in, put all the chocks back, hook up the oil drain system, close the door, head home.  Takes a little time when you're by yourself.  Still, a good day of flying, and it was worth it.  It was nice to be up close and personal on a Mustang again. 

The photographer did ask me if I'd be willing to do it at Oshkosh.  I said we probably wouldn't take Checkertail up there and why, and he says he's not sure if Walt wants his plane used that way any more.  So not sure if that'll work anyway.  Plus those photo shoots are at the buttcrack of dawn, as in getting up at 4 am and getting all the way over to warbirds.  Partly I want to because I love the view, and when I get to meet people it helps, at least as long as I do a decent job.  Mostly I don't want to because this is my vacation and that's not very relaxing.  But I'd be paid.  And I'd get to fly off of all sorts of cool stuff.  But...4 am.  So...I don't know.  

After I got back home tonight, two people had happened to see us flying around out at Metro and snagged photos.  One was Jodie with her cellphone, which she posted as a story on Instagram, and the other was Trevor with his camera.  He hasn't shared his photos yet, just a screen shot of the back of his camera, but I look forward to seeing what he got.  

So here's what I got.  Sunset galore.  Beeeeeautiful.

On my way into Metro

The sun while it was still up wasn't as pretty as once it went down!

That glow just spread across the sky.

Downwind for Runway 23 at Kokomo

I didn't Photoshop these.  They're pretty much straight out of the camera.

Base for Runway 23

Final Runway 23

Taxiing off

Me standing on the wing with the sun's last light behind me.

Jodie's two pics, one of me passing the Mustang on takeoff after I got some altitude on it

And Trevor's back of camera shot of me on the Mustang.

Nightly

I fell down a rabbit hole today going back through old blog entries.  From when Kaylee was six years old and freaking out because she wanted me to shave her legs so she wouldn't be a MAN-lady, to when I soloed the T-6, and all sorts of stuff.  After this trip down memory lane, I'm glad I still post stuff today, even if most of the time it feels mundane.  Even if I use the same language most of the time, or do the same things most of the time.  Life is the small moments too, and I appreciated going back all those years and seeing some of those moments again.

I had a night flight last night, and we did the usual.  I took a picture of Kokomo from the air, and the student took this video with a GoPro he mounted.  The video shows a no landing light, no panel lights, runway lights left on low, no moon, overcast sky landing.  I couldn't shut the runway strobes off, and the brief cellphone glow at the beginning was me showing him how close he was to the proper airspeed even without being able to see the airspeed indicator.  There's not a lot to see in this video, which is precisely the point.  ;)

Kokomo at night.

Today we've watched it rain and blow and howl. 

Tomorrow I do a photo shoot with the Woods P-51.  Hopefully it goes well.

Quickly

Not much today.  I had a flight this morning, the rest were canceled for wind and turbulence.  Instead, I Snapchatted with Kaylee a little bit.  This is milk in a bag, which I said "ummm", and sent her a picture of myself at a stop light, and she responded with the above picture.  She doesn't want me to drive her Explorer, so I deliberately let her see me doing it just to annoy her.  It works.  ;)

Brief

I got a letter in the mail today that lets me know that I have been summoned for Jury Duty...on Halloween Day.  This ought to be entertaining.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Ann had a dermatology appointment today, for the rash on her leg and arm.  They think it's eczema.  She also had four spots on her face, three they did biopsies of and the 4th he just froze/burned it off.  They'll call and let us know about the other three and what we need to do from there.

I haven't heard more from Kaylee in the last couple days, other than a quick "hi" text now and then. 

The wind was howling these last two days.  Yesterday everybody canceled, today I had one guy who wanted to go anyway, so I did.  Far be it from me to not let somebody get a high wind workout if they want.  ;)  But in the meantime we still got a lot done yesterday and today.

We're coming up on the time of year where we spend it mostly indoors doing mostly paperwork and have very little interesting to report.  We're also coming up on the time of year where the trees change colors and look so pretty for that 10 minutes before the 30 knot wind days blow them all off and turn everything brown and dead.  *sigh*

Girl Stuff

Steve and I ran my Explorer out to the mechanic this morning, as the "Check Engine" light is on.  It just has something to do with the fuel system, not a big deal, but still, it shouldn't be on just in case something bigger happens that WOULD turn it on that would matter, that we wouldn't then know about in time.  So...it's in the shop.  We currently have three cars, so that helps.

I then had a Discovery Flight.  It was actually more just a ride, a married couple for his 79th birthday.  Their daughter bought them a plane ride to have a fun experience.  She said "What do you buy someone for their 79th birthday?  An experience they haven't had before!"  We actually had a good time, too.  The air was perfectly still, and we circled around where they worked and where they lived.  I let him fly for awhile, and he thought that was great.  She took a lot of pictures, and I took a photo of the two of them together.  Their daughter, grandkids and great-grandkids were there to watch them do it, and they had fun.  It was a good morning.

From there Steve and I ran up to the Dutch Cafe, and had a huge brunch.  It used to be Amish/Mennonite run, but was sold, and has definitely turned more into a typical buffet.  It was still very good, and still very much.  As we were getting ready to leave, our waitress told us that another table had paid for our meal as a pay it forward kind of thing.  So that was sweet!

Back home, it was time to get stuff done you get behind on when you run non-stop.  Paying bills.  Doing laundry.  I wrote out the last six receipts from the BBQ Bash.  Cleaned up my paperwork.  Sent out receipts for MBros.  Responded on emails.  Did dishes.  Updated my scheduling.  Ordered a few things we needed.  Etc.  Smaller stuff that all in all takes all day.

I had someone Facebook Private message me today with this.  I thought it was kind of neat, and I have to say, I guess there is something to that girl thing.  Sometimes it takes seeing one to know you can do it.  It doesn't stop anyone if they want to do something, it didn't stop me, but sometimes people don't think they can do something until they see someone like them doing something they didn't know they could do.  The young lady from the message below is working on her CFI now.

I also got a message from the guy who was here with his T-6 that I was helping do the CFI maneuvers.  At one point he had me taxi his plane to park it while he directed me from the ground.  The tiedowns were tight on spacing for that wingspan.  He is notorious online for being very aggressive about things like what I posted above--making women "special" or making a big deal about "first women to..." type things.   Anyway, so this was the message he sent:

Also, did I mention you taxiing the plane? I meant to if I didn't. It's funny. Through the years, I have only trusted a handful of people with any plane of mine. When I had the ride business with the Stearman the only person I could find who I could trust with it was Tracy - one of the best pilots I ever knew, and also a woman. I turned Ginger loose in the Gullwing after one flight. She flew it so well I was quite honestly amazed. And, when you went to move the plane the other night it hit me you were the third woman, of maybe five people total, I've ever asked to sit in or placed in the seat with zero hesitation. Statistically that is way off the charts. Probably due to the matching of skill to great attitudes. Thanks for your help.

He is a hard man to please, and I do feel good about having done so and being trusted purely as a pilot.  I still shake my head at some stuff he posts now and then, but I understand him a little better after having been around him in person for several days.  This is in part why the internet has had a part in deconstructing relationships and people.  You read something someone writes, without a sense of them as a person, and you get an incomplete picture at best.   He and I have lightly butted heads a couple times online.  At this point after spending several days together, we both have more respect for each other.  It's kind of nice, actually.

And get this.  I opened some mail today that had been sitting on my desk for awhile.  In it was a note from a CAF guy that I flew with at Oshkosh.  I took half my day to get to Fon du Lac, fly in the MN wing T-6 with him, so that he could give rides for them, and I didn't take any money for it.  Well, he sent me a note thanking me for taking time away from my vacation to do that, and said "Please accept this donation to your organization on behalf of my mom who recently passed."  I open the check, and it's for $3,000.00.  I said "Whoa!" out loud.  Steve says "What?"  I hand him the note then the check, and he says "Whoa!"  That's amazing.  That's a lot of money!! I'm a little stunned by that, honestly.  That is an amazing amount of generosity...

Imaginary

My daughter rode an elephant today.  Not just like in a circle at the circus, but actually down a river, and down a street.  Here are a couple still shots and a little video clip.  I think she got a real charge out of that one.  They used the elephants as transportation.  How fun is that?!

Steve and I became Great-Aunt and Great-Uncle today.  Morgan had her baby, Israel, this morning.  :)

First thing this morning I had a Discovery flight, a 15 year old girl whose dad wanted to ride in the back.  I let her do all the work, as always, and they both had a good time.

I put that plane away, and then it was time to do the first test flight on the Saratoga!!  It hasn't flown since April 10, 2011.  Nathan and I went up in it and put 1.2 on it, and made up a list of squawks.  They worked on some of the squawks and took it back up for awhile while I was busy elsewhere.  It's exciting to see it fly again.  Being grounded for almost 9 years is a loooong time.  We didn't leave the airport environment for a little while there just to make sure everything stayed attached and kept running as expected.

When I got done with that, I had a meet-up.  It was with a fellow named Bill, better known as Willie, from the pilot board I mostly hang out at.  We call them imaginary friends, because you only know each other online.  But so far I've never regretted any of the people I've met from there, including today.  He is from New Jersey, but is working in Chicago right now, so he drove over to meet me.  We had a nice time today.  I showed him around the airport, and around Glenndale, and took him to lunch.  We were going to all eat together, but he ran too late and everyone else had to eat, so it ended up just he and I.  At the end I offered to fly something with him, but he deferred.  I think he wanted to but didn't want to say so.  But he promised to come back and we'd go flying then.

Steve and I came home, and fixed up two of the 2" thick, 10 oz fillets with a little fat around them that Walt had sent me as a thank you for flying his T-6 and putting some hours on the new engine.  So let me get this straight.  I fly your airplane, you pay for the gas, and you send me 4, expensive, huge steaks as a thank you.  It's a terrible job, you know.  ;)

I am pooped though today...

Here are the photos from Kaylee, and I'll have to later add the one of me and Willie, as he has those.

Chiang Rai, Thailand

Traveling via Elephant

Nathan in the Toga

Willie signing Jim's rafter

Look at this meat.

Seriously, look at it.

Kaylee

A few from Kaylee.  She says that they were separated and moved into individual homes in the village.  They worked there for about a week, and then tomorrow are supposed to move back into their group place.  She said it's been eye opening.  They only have squatty potties, everything smells like urine, the cleanliness is challenging, but they are ministering to the families and usually the kids as best they can.  She says that she's struggling a little with homesickness, that most of them are.   She also said that one of the kids in her YWAM group was explaining why America should be socialist.  Said that Jesus would be socialist.  Conversation went like this.

"I literally had someone at YWAM start a conversation about how we should become a socialist country, and then pulled the whole "Jesus would've been socialist" card, trying to reference stuff from the Bible.  But luckily, I know a thing or two about that, and kinda flipped it around on them.  Because Jesus wants our giving to be a choice, not forced or mandated.  Without a choice there's no love.  We have to have the choice to love people and to show that love by giving to them out of our own free will."   You go girl.

She also said she's sick again, with a cold, and could use a prayer for her and for her team, as several of them are sick.  

More Sixing

I've gotten about 25 hours of T-6 flying in the last 30 days, and 10 hours just in the last three days.  That's a lot of T-6 flying!  I know soon enough winter will hit and tailwheel flying will be done for months.  The sun is going down earlier, the air is getting colder, and I'm trying not to feel panicky about it.  For now, I'm swamped.  Completely running and swamped, but I'm still not complaining.

I'm so tired right now that I keep sucking all the oxygen out of the room just sitting here trying to write this.

Tomorrow I should have some time during business hours to do a few things I need to get done.  I had a flight, a trip to IL.  That was canceled so I had a guy doing T-6 training for the afternoon.  A different guy.  That was moved to next week.  So now I have the afternoon, finally.  :)

I've been doing Commercial maneuvers in the T-6 this week with a guy, and I'm actually not doing too bad at it.  lol  It's actually been good for me to review all this stuff as well, not just the Commercial maneuvers, but a few other things on top of it.  We've had kind of a good time at it, too.

Flying along in Rich's T-6

The pretty blue SNJ

The hangar is stuffed with cool things.  Two 1980 airplanes, and three 1942 airplanes.  Gotta like that.

A front moved through today, looked pretty neat.

It looks like two different pictures mixed together.  A thin line between...

Whirlwind

I haven't really stopped since first thing Monday morning.  Right out of the gate I had a young lady in the 172.  Then I flew with a guy in the T-6.  I was up front, he was in the back, and we went up and worked on Commercial maneuvers.  It went pretty well, actually.  We figured out power settings and maneuver specifics and all sorts of stuff.  Then I ran into the next plane, a Bonanza for an hour, "Pinch Hitter".  Then I hopped right back into the blue T-6 and did more maneuvers and flying.  We finished as the day was ending, spent some time on the ground going over everything, went to a late dinner, came home and I crashed.  I woke back up at 5 am, and was out at the airport by 7 am.  As I was pulling into the airport, the people coming to pick me up let me know they were running 45 minutes late.  So that was nice.  I sat in my car and watched the sun come up.  When they got there, they put me in the back seat of a Cirrus.  At least I could reach the chute.  ;)  Actually, the SR-22 is a lot nicer than the SR-20.  Anyway.  We get to Evansville, and I'm there to pick up a yellow T-6.  The seller doesn't want to sell it.  A woman's husband restored it beautifully, and a nephew flew it and put time on it.  Neither wanted to see it go, both had tears in their eyes, and they stood there with cameras and video waiting for me to start up and fly away.  Gee, I hope I get it started up right away the first time!  No pressure!  ;)  Fortunately I did.  They take pictures, I taxi down, take off, pull up the gear, look out the window, and there is oil everywhere on the right wing.  I jump a little, scan the gauges, everything looks fine, and I figure it's blow-out oil, but man it's a lot of it.  More than I normally see on a plane even if it's been sitting.  I can't stand the thought of staring at that on an almost 2 hour flight and "hoping" for the best, so I tell Evansville tower that I need to return for a landing.  They ask if I need any services, and I say no.  I took off on Runway 18 and was cleared to land on it, and promptly turned and lined up with Runway 22.  Brilliant.  They cleared me to land on 22 since I was lined up on it.  Runway 22 is really big, Runway 18 is much smaller.  It just didn't stick out to me in time.  Anyway, I land, taxi up, and the folks are there waiting to ask me what's wrong.  I feel a little stupid, wish they weren't there, but I said I needed to check out all the oil.  We wipe it all down, it ends up being nothing but blow-out oil, and I taxi back out for one more takeoff.  But it was the right thing to do.  It would have been hard to defend if I'd continued on a trip with that much oil coming out and I really DID have a bad leak or problem.  Putting a brand newly acquired airplane I'd just promised to take good care of down in a field somewhere is not my idea of a good time.  So I don't regret it even though I find it a little embarrassing. 

The rest of the trip was uneventful.  My landing back at Kalamazoo wasn't that great, but I'm down.  The Cirrus guy flew me back to Kokomo.  I ate the last half of my Mennonite sandwich from the day before, for lunch, at 2 pm.  And then went flying in the other, blue T-6 for another hour and a half.  More maneuvers.  It was windy, gusty, bumpy.  I actually hurt tonight, stiff and sore neck and shoulder.  Leg.  Oh, and I fell off the Cirrus step and scraped the daylights out of my shin, so that hurts too.  I didn't have a very graceful day.  I fell off an airplane, I didn't have very good landings, I had trouble on the radio (I couldn't hear it very well, but I also couldn't remember long instructions today at an unfamiliar airport, and I didn't have anything to write stuff down with), I lined up on the wrong runway, and all in all I wasn't my most impressive.  But I got the jobs done safely, minus the scrape on my leg.  ;)

I've now flown 12 different T-6s, and the 12th one had an autopilot on it.  I let the autopilot fly for a little while, but that just isn't right.  So I let the guy in the back seat fly us home instead.  That's better.  ;)

Strapping in to the SNJ in Evansville

The SNJ at Kokomo with the sun going down.

Parking on the ramp for the night

The sun coming up this morning on the silhouette of the T-6

Flying to Michigan in the Yellow T-6

Proof that the autopilot was on and the plane was flying by itself.

The first smoky start-up.

Just running.

Stuff

Steve and I were at Kokomo today, and took up the C-172RG to do its post-annual test flight, which I put in the logbook appropriately, and for him to go up with me and teach me the Commercial maneuvers.  We didn't actually look forward to this.  I don't want to know them, he knows I don't want to know them, and he says I was going to be difficult.  I was seriously considering being difficult.  Like I mentioned, I have to learn these to do the Commercial Maneuvers with a guy in his T-6 starting Monday.  So anyway, Steve and I hit Chandelles, Lazy Eights, Steep Spiraling Descent, and 8's on Pylons.  He'd teach it, demo one, I'd do it a couple times to get it, then he'd do it and do stuff wrong on it so I could see what it did, and I'd see if I could catch what was wrong, etc.  It's not as hard doing it yourself as it is instructing it.  We only flew a little over an hour, but I felt pretty good about it, felt like I actually had a chance of doing this with this other guy without looking like an idiot.  We were flying straight and level back to the airport and Steve says "You know, you've become a really good pilot."  I joked that it wasn't very nice that he sounded surprised.  :)  But I appreciated the compliment too.  We usually get along pretty well in an airplane, and I think we make a good team. 

He took me out to Japanese for dinner, because I'd ordered Japanese Friday while he was gone, and Door Dash delivered me someone else's Wendy's (which I turned down) instead.  I ended up having a bowl of cereal and an ice cream bar for dinner that night.  ;)  So tonight he took me to Japanese even though it's not his favorite food for dinner. 

Tomorrow I'm supposed to fly with Pinch Hitter lady, but the winds are going to be really high, so I don't know that we're going to do that...

You probably won't hear from me until Monday night.  I doubt I'll do much of note tomorrow.  Laundry.  Definitely laundry.  Maybe read a book.  I could use a book reading day.

Raining

Today was still good, and we got plenty of flying in, but the rain comes tomorrow.  I canceled the T-6 trip for tomorrow, and am going to take the day to get some supplies for us and Ann, and maybe even relax a little bit if I can.

It's a thought, anyway.

No news from Kaylee...

Quick Trip

I had a trip to Michigan today, Lansing.  We didn't leave until 10 am, which gave me a chance to take two Zzzz-Quills and knock myself out for a full night's sleep.  That felt good.  Even that didn't feel like enough, I was wiped out.  Haven't been getting enough sleep lately.  It was a beautiful day though, and a good, easy flight.  I don't mind easy now and then.  :)

I was still worn out enough that I didn't go exploring though.  I was one of the old fuddy duddy pilots today who sat in a comfy chair and closed my eyes and read a little instead of getting a courtesy car and going to do anything.  But today I just didn't have the explorer gene going.  I had the "I don't feel like doing anything" gene.

Came home and had a student, it was a good flight, and the pattern was super busy, and he did a good job anyway.  I think he's going to get this soon.  :)

I got a box today, and in it was a couple of 10 oz. fillets from Allen Brothers "The Great Steakhouse Steaks".  It was from Walt G, as a thank you to me for putting some time on his T-6 and bringing it home for him.  Steve is disgruntled that I flew someone else's T-6 and they thanked me for it by buying me steaks.  :D  Friday I'm supposed to bring that other T-6 back from Evansville, and I told the guy that the insurance company probably needed my hours/times/etc., and he said "They already know you and have you in the system."  That's not our insurance company, or Walt's, and I don't remember working with them before, so that's kind of cool.  By next week if weather permits, I'll be adding two new T-6s to my list.  I think that's kind of neat too.  Now, I need to add in a few other warbirds on top of T-6s, dontcha think??

Flight Training Centers had a busy day the other day.  Did I say that already?  Two new Private Pilots and one First Solo in one day.  I like it when we get stuff done like that.

Nothing from Kaylee today but a quick 'hi'.

Golden

I got to sleep around midnight, woke up around 3 am and didn't get back to sleep until about 6 am, about 45 minutes before I had to get up for the day.  So I've spent the day pretty worn out.  I think the shock has worn off, and I felt less...something...about the accident.  I mean, it is awful, and I will be glad when the wreckage is gone from the field so close to the airport, so I don't have to look at it all day as I'm going around the pattern.  It sticks out, the path through the field, the debris, the main part.  The scar in the crops on the ground will be gone when they harvest the field, and that will help too.  Today felt more normal at least, though a lot of students had questions and concerns.  One young girl, she's 16 and isn't even far in Driver's Ed yet, was really nervous today, so we just flew around and talked and didn't really do any maneuvers.  Just flew while nothing bad happened and enjoyed the view.  Instructing is still part psychotherapy.  Probably about as expensive as good therapy too. 

Kaylee is going back into the caves in Thailand where the group of boys got trapped.  All but one of the trapped boys became monks after they were rescued.  The last boy was a Christian--and he is the one taking them back into the caves today.  I told her not to get stuck.  ;)

It was a busy day for Flight Training Centers.  First thing this morning we had a First Solo.  Then we had a new Private Pilot around noon.  Then another Private Pilot later that afternoon.  So two new official pilots and one new soloed pilot.  Pretty good day on that front!

My weather for Friday isn't looking good for picking up a T-6 in Evansville and moving it to Kalamazoo.  The 16th I'm having four guys who all want a check flight in the WI Wing CAF's T-6 down here.  That'll be a long and somewhat stressful day.

I'm so tired I've been sitting on the couch staring at these last few paragraphs through three evening TV shows.  I'm gonna call it off and get ready to go to bed, where I'd better STAY ASLEEP all night this time.  Tomorrow I go to Michigan.

Golden fields, golden wings, golden sun.