Two Pilots & an LSW: Lots of Stuff

This starts off with Kaylee.

She sent me a text that said "HAHA I'M SO EXCITED!"

and then this:

So she got a perfect score, the only perfect score, on her final, and this was in a Master's class, not undergrad. It's been tougher. So she was quite excited, and I was proud for her too. :) She finished up with texts that said "YEAH BABY" and "WOOT WOOT" "I'm gonna go do a little dance". So I'd say she was pleased. lol

My day today was home stuff. I got home at 3 am (more about that later), slept in until 8:30 or so, then when my brain woke up I couldn't get my body back to sleep. So I got up and dealt with an SMA Support thing (more about that later too), and then went out to lunch with Ty, Chuck and Steve. Finished that and ran a few errands, including going to Ann's bank to shut down her IRA and transfer it to her checking. I had her death certificate with me, and I'm on her checking account, but the only problem was they couldn't find the form they needed in order to be able to do it. So they'll have to call me back and have me come in and sign it when they figure it out. Which I hope isn't tomorrow as I'll be gone until 3 am again (more on that later too).

I went home and tried to nap for an hour, because two very long days in a row, but I couldn't do it. So instead I got up and went out to the airport. I'd told Steve I was probably going to take the T-6 up today as it was a beautiful day and they're waiting on me to do my last flight to take it down for the annual for a few months. I get there on this perfect day and the T-6 is buried behind a 172 they are doing maintenance on. I can't get it out. I told Steve he may have saved himself 40 gph, but I'm still taking up the Citabria because I went all the way out there and it's a perfect day. Our friend Greg O was there, and he said "My gosh, didn't you get enough flying yesterday?" I flew 9.6 hours in the seat yesterday. I'll have the same if not more tomorrow. I told him nah, that was yesterday, besides, it's a totally different kind of flying. ;)

The Citabria and I went to Glenndale, where Ty and I hung out in the pattern together, him in the Chief and me in the Citabria, and did several TOLS. My window popped open on one, and I was trying to close it one-handed, and you can't. Can't fly with it open. So I'm hanging onto it with one hand and flying with the other. I'm sure if anyone was watching me on the ground they were wondering what the heck for a few minutes there. I looked drunk or incompetent. lol Went back to Kokomo and did some concrete takeoffs and landings, on a different runway than everyone else, because the sun was so low and so bright off of 23 that I couldn't see at all, and it was strobing through the prop. I thought, my gosh, I'm gonna have a seizure here. So I used Runway 32, because I can. ;)

When we finished up, Steve and I went to Half Moon for dinner, and a bunch of people we knew were all there, all at once, but separately. Mark T with his grandson, George W with his wife, Scott P, Gregg L., and us. Kind of weird.

I'll have to go to bed as early as I can stand it, because tomorrow I get up at 6, leave the house by 7, take off from Frankfort around 8, go to Ohio with Nick. Either stay there or come back and get him later, but come back from Ohio probably before 1:30 pm, get some food, top off the airplane, and fly back down to Ft. Lauderdale, FL to pick up Andy and his wife. I need to be down there by 8 pm so I can top off and be ready to head back, but we may not leave there as late as 10 pm. That'll put me home at 3 am again. Good thing I'm a night owl, eh? The weather sucks down there too.

Which takes me back to yesterday.

I was up at 6 something, drove to Frankfort, and flew Nick up to Gary, Indiana for some meetings. Left there and got back to Frankfort, and I stopped and ate lunch, then had too much time to kill, so I drove an hour back home, and did paperwork, sent off receipts, planned my next flight, sent off billing, all that stuff. Drove an hour back to Frankfort, met Morgan and Andy and his wife, and flew everyone down to Ft. Lauderdale. I warned them, it's not very nice and may be bumpy down there. I had 30-32 knot winds, with a 15 knot gust factor, low level wind shear, rain, IFR, and it was a 60 degree crosswind. It was rough, bumpy, dark. When I landed, I had to wrestle it a bit, you could feel the wind shear, and the plane tried to drop out from under me just before the flare. I ended up touching down very softly, and when I parked, my backseaters said "Wow, that surprised me, that was smoother than I expected especially considering how much we were getting tossed around!" I laughed and said "You and me both!" That could've ended with a thud but fortunately I got lucky. ;)

I had Morgan fly us home then. She got to find out how 'fun' it can be to be in busy airspace flying a faster airplane in night, IMC, bumpy, talking, etc. It was good experience. We were flying along, and all of a sudden I saw a shooting star. I exclaimed and pointed, but of course it was gone. Fifteen minutes later, another! Finally a third happened later in the flight, and Morgan saw that one. She'd never seen a shooting star before in her life, so she was excited to get to see one. On the drive home, we both saw another one in the car. I googled it when I got home because seeing four in one night is super rare, and sure enough, there's a meteor shower happening last night, tonight, and partly tomorrow. Pretty cool!

When we were in Florida, we took a courtesy car and ran to a nearby crab shack, where I had a warm lobster roll that quite hit the spot. It was time to head out around 10 pm, and the flight was so convoluted that it took me 10 minutes to enter it all into the 430s in the plane. We took off around 10:30 pm, and landed back at Frankfort around 2 am. Had to chock it, get a drink, hit the bathroom, and drive home, so I wandered in around 3 am and fell into bed. I wasn't tired until I got in bed, at least.

One annoying thing from yesterday was the SMA Support thing. A young lady with SMA was in the hospital with a BAD infection. She had to be taken by ambulance because the mom's van broke down. She had it towed to a shop, and needed help to get it fixed, so asked. SMA Support could do that, so I agreed to call in a credit card to the mechanic. Well, yesterday she told me that he wanted 1) a copy of my driver's license, 2) a copy of my credit card, 3) a selfie of me to match with my driver's license, and 4) a written statement authorizing him to charge my card on behalf of work done. I was actually pretty annoyed by all that. Why not have me send you my social security card and mother's maiden name while I'm at it?? I'm not sending some rando mechanic from Michigan a copy of my Driver's License! I call him on the phone. He says his credit card company requires it (bullshit). I told him I wanted a copy of his facility repair registration, and I'd like a copy of his driver's license to prove who I'm sending a lot of money to, and how about a selfie so I know it matches. I did tell him that in 20+ years of this, I've never had so much trouble trying to give someone money. So I scanned in my driver's license and blacked out everything except my name and my photo. I sent a copy of the credit card and blacked out everything except the first four numbers, and my name. And on the selfie I held up the piece of paper with those photos on it, and I held it in place with my middle finger up. Not very mature, but I'm like...offended...by this. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But he ran my card and her vehicle is free now so she can take her daughter back to the doctor's office or wherever they need to go again.

I spent the rest of today updating my logbook and doing the paperwork from yesterday's flights, while getting ready for tomorrow's flights. More crap weather in Florida, decent but windy day otherwise.