The End of 2024

I'm sort of glad it's the end of 2024. It feels like a new start is needed. It doesn't work that way, though, but still, we can pretend, can't we?

I had to get up the earliest I've had to get up for awhile, 7:15 am, for an early morning hair appointment. I was due an eyebrow wax and a trim and some lowlights around my face where it's going grey. I'm mostly letting it, and when it wears off in a few weeks I don't think it looks too bad, and I'm not dying my whole hair, but I do around my face some. For now.

Kaylee took Molly to her first vet appointment with her. She put her in the cat carrier and put her in her (new) Jeep, and Molly showed what she thought of this by putting her butt right up against the mesh and spraying pee all over the inside of the car, the carrier, herself. Kaylee went into the vet and asked for paper towels and they told her not to worry about it, so she brought the cat inside like that, and the vet people helped her clean up the cat and the carrier. (She got the car later). Molly was super friendly to the actual vet and the people there, and was given a clean bill of health including shiny white clean teeth. Blood work was drawn but not expecting to find anything bad. 

I got a text tonight asking if I'd be interested and available to fly Andy to Puerto Rico in February. I looked it over and it looks pretty simple, so I said sure. I'd be dropping them off one day and picking them up 4-5 days later. I've never been to Puerto Rico, so thought it would be an interesting trip. I hope they actually do it, I'd like to add it to the places I've been. It'll also be Vegas, Puerto Rico and probably Grand Cayman that I get to fly to this winter. That's kind of fun.

I was going to try to wax philosophical. Come up with meaningful things from this year, or meaningful hopes for next year. But I really don't feel it. So unpoetically; I did my first international trip, that was cool. I was made to feel insecure about my job, which wasn't cool. Also had the main plane down for almost 4 months out of the year, which didn't help. Lost Ann and Roadie, Kaylee graduated and got her first real job, I lost the opportunity to fly another P-51, probably the last shot I had at it. Didn't get to do much with warbirds because I had to focus on corporate stuff again which I'll have to do in 2025 too, but at least that end brings in decent financials and some interesting opportunities like the ones listed above.  No longer paying towards Kaylee's college, vet bills, and hospice care, though for sad reasons for the last two, but that's okay because we had the lawsuit ramp up and cost a lot at the end, and the airport had a monumental screw-up where they presented us with an audit they'd done where they say they realized they hadn't billed us for a massive, massive amount of fuel charges over the last 20 years. As in almost six figures. And they want it all right now. All they send us is invoices, never statements, and we pay every invoice we get. We pay towards each invoice and specify exactly what it's for by invoice number. They apparently just applied the amount to a total, never had a statement or a running total, and it's now in their courts, being left being told to prove what we owe, because we've paid everything we were given, and if they screwed up on their end they're going to have to get organized. But that's now hanging over our heads too, so that's great and what we needed. On the good news front, the lawsuit IS over with and nothing else will be going out on it. They're now on their 2nd new baby through IVF. She's in her mid to late 40s, so in a hurry to make more babies as fast as she can. Kaylee had her own apartment for a year, and has now moved next door and gotten the perfect cat for her, so that's a bonus. She's got a lot of health problems and is hoping to have answers this year. That's all she wants out of 2025 is to feel better. She said tonight she sometimes has to choose between taking a shower or fixing dinner in the evenings because she's so fatigued. So most years I talk about gratitude and about blessings and about the good and the bad. I'm still grateful and I still have perspective, but this year I'm also still kind of tired, and I'm annoyed, and on another day I'll feel more optimistic, but today I just feel like I hope I get through 2025 with a minimum of bad things happening. That would be great. That maybe we can get on top of things for once without the next thing coming along to knock us back over. Would also be great. Very bah humbug of me, but that's what it is. It wasn't a terrible year, but it's wearing me down anyway. So as of tonight it's over, and we move into 2025, like I said, with nothing changing when the clock rolls over, but it still feels a little like a fresh page anyway. I'll take it, and I'll try. That's all anyone can do, eh?

New Year's Eve here, the three of us are just hanging out in the living room watching Nashville and NYC on TV, performances turned down, talking occasionally, with some champaign at the end of the night for a toast. 

Let's see, flying stats for my own purposes:

My total time is up to 14,836.0, so I'll break 15,000 hours in probably 2 months.

6,400 is multi time

2,275 tailwheel

8,158 has been teaching others

1,278 now turboprop time

This year, 2024:

Total: 871.5 (I was on track for 950 hrs until the last few months)

Multi: 657 of it

Turboprop: 416

Tailwheel: 174.6

I took 341 flights, flew 238 out of 365 days which is 65% of the days of the year. Longest streak of consecutive flying days was 18 days in a row. The longest I went without flying was 1 week. Most flights on a single day was 5 legs, most hours in one day was 11.5 hours (going to Cayman and back). Most landings in one day was 34 landings, and that was T-6 training with two people in one very long day. Longest and furthest flight was the 11.5 hours going 2,639.3 miles to Cayman and back. I visited 154 different airports in 24 different states and two countries. Visited six different airports and four different states in one day. Flew 25 different airplanes.  That's a lot more than your normal professional pilot, and I enjoyed most of it, so I'll take it. :)

Peace out, see ya tomorrow.

Aliiiiiiiive

Me. I'm alive.

But first, the important stuff. Kaylee had an appointment with the doctor we called "the butt doctor". It's not really, but kind of, she was referred to him because of her gastro-intestinal and derriere issues. She looked up all the doctors in the practice and they were all older men or a couple of women...and the one guy she got is the only one who is young, looks her age, and is attractive. She's like--I don't want some cute guy my age looking at my butt! But she's desperate for some help on some of these things, so she was willing to put up with it. He ended up just doing more of a consultation where they talk about everything, and he recommended she get a colonoscopy since she's already had a ton of labwork done (nothing showing) and even a stool sample test done. So she's going to be talking to their finance people, seeing how much this will cost even with insurance (with the deductible), etc. See what she can see. She was excited that she didn't have to bare her butt to the cute guy though.

Steve is holding steady; sick, runny nose and sleeping a lot, but I keep him medicated and fed and rested and so far he hasn't gone down as hard as I did. I also ran myself into the ground before and after I got sick, and he's been very careful to take it easy, so I'm hoping he just gets a light case and gets well soon. He's also not coughing, but he also doesn't have my crap lungs. So there is that.

When I got home tonight I brought everybody broccoli cheddar soup, and I took Kaylee's over to her, and Molly rubbed up on my legs, something she hasn't done before. It was cute. She likes me.

The rest of my day was flying stuff. I drove to Frankfort and took the 340 over to Williams County, OH for maintenance work on the fuel system. It was IFR, 500' overcast, so I had to file. Got on top, had a quick and easy flight, and while I was in the air, Kaylee tried to call. Her appointment was then and I was afraid she needed to ask or tell me something so I tried to answer in the air over my Bluetooth headset, but I was just high enough we couldn't get a good connection. So I texted her and asked if she was okay, and she said all was well she just wanted to tell me about it. I told her I'd be on the ground in 15 minutes, and called her then. That's when she just told me about the appointment.

Morgan came and got me in the 172RG, and she was there about 15 minutes after I was. It was still IFR, and I got a kick out of her not thinking anything about coming over to get me IFR. The last time I needed picked up when it was IFR she was nervous to do it. But since then she's done a Looot heavier IFR than this in faster things than a 172, and now suddenly it was no big thing. It made me smile and feel like a proud airplane parent.

She dropped me back off at Frankfort where my car was and had to file and fly IFR back to Kokomo, but it was breaking up. I was hungry, it was 1:30 pm, so I stopped for lunch and suddenly had an urge I haven't had in months. I had the urge to fly something for fun.

It's been a long time. I haven't flown the Champ in 3 months. Hadn't flown the Citabria or the T-6 in 2 months. Even when the weather would have permitted, any time I would think "the weather is okay, I should go fly the Champ", I'd just go...nah. I don't feel like it. Too much effort. Doesn't really sound fun, just sounds like work. So I'd go do my work flying and go home. Today the little spark was back, so I took it. 

I drove to Kokomo, pulled out the Champ, and it was a nice weather day now, the clouds had burned off, the sky was blue for the first time in what felt like AGES, the winds were super light, and it was in the 40s. I took it up and first did a 3-point landing, and it was a total greaser. It was almost a perfect landing, which made me laugh out loud and smile big. I went back up and did two more to make sure it wasn't an accident, and they were all really good, which I thought was funny since it had been 3 months and usually the first couple when you're rusty are "fine" but not greasers. Then I moved on to wheel landings. My first wheel landing, I'm leveling off, flaring a bit, feeling it down, waiting, and I'm like...man, when is this going to touch down? 1.5 to 2 seconds later I realize the right main has been down and rolling for a bit and I NEVER FELT IT TOUCH DOWN. Yes I'm yelling. That's only happened like 3 times in my life, where you touch down so gently that the wheel just rolls onto the pavement in such a way you can't even tell you're on the ground. It's a total fluke. I am not saying I'm God's gift to aviation. I'm saying that's super rare and lucky and fun as hell. lol One wheel just rolls on like a butterfly wing, man. I almost didn't want to do another landing because they're not going to get better after that. But I did, I did three or four more wheel or one-wheel landings, some engine outs, and everything was just super...good. So I taxied in and put it away. Steve had said I should take up the Citabria. He meant INSTEAD of the Champ because I don't have to pay for the Citabria but the Champ does cost a little. But I took it as Both. ;) It's the last day of the year that I'm going to be able to fly, since tomorrow looks like a rainy wash-out crap day. So I figure, flying four airplanes on my last day of 2024 sounds good, and getting tailwheel current at the same time.

The Citabria flying also went unusually well. I was in the groove, man, my landings were really nice. lol Don't worry, they won't always be that way. In fact, after just 30 minutes I'd already done a bunch of 3-point, wheel, one wheel, engine out landings, and I saw that Cameron was there on his day off, so I texted him and asked if he wanted to come up and do some tailwheel flying, and he said yes!, so I landed, shut down, got in the back, and let him fly for another 1.5 hours. Flew over his Grandma's house, did some air work, some takeoffs and landings, and we had a good time. Laughed, flew, until we turned on the runway lights and enjoyed the glow. 

I put that away, and stopped at Panera for broccoli cheddar soup. Steve had been sad that he'd finished off the last of his pumpkin pie from AE, so I called Bob Evans, which was right across the street from Panera, and they did have a pumpkin pie they had available for sale. So I stopped in there and bought it and brought it home, too, to have a Happy Steve. I lastly stopped at CVS to pick up some more DayQuil, because we were down to one dose, and that stuff has been keeping the worst of the runny nose at bay for him and keeping him in decent shape. So I gathered all that and came on home as the conquering hero for everyone. ;)

And like I said, I felt like myself again, awake, alert, participating, not flat and grey and going through the motions.  I even felt happy and that's stuck around the rest of the evening so far. It's nice. ;)

172RG in the rainbow circle

Poor Checkertail. I would've flown it one last time before it went down if I'd have known. I think. I would've today, anyway. lol

Champ wing, downwind for 23

Citabria wing, crosswind for 23

Citabria shadow

Cameron landing with the runway lights up

Well...

Steve definitely has it. Yesterday afternoon his nose started running and he started sneezing. Today he woke up with it pretty good. So that's fun! I thought he'd escaped it because I've had it for 2 weeks, and he hadn't caught it until two weeks later. *sigh* Of course when I get sick, I isolate and take 100% care of myself. When anyone else in my family gets sick, they get needy. :p

Friday I didn't do anything but housework stuff. Nothing important, or big. I still get tired really fast, have no stamina. Even getting up and doing a load of laundry will have me briefly fatigued.  I really need to start exercising again but just being up and productive wears me out right now, so I'm trying to take it easy so I don't back slide, knowing I'm going to need to push and get some physical activity back in soon. Today's really the first day I'm not hacking my lungs up and blowing my nose every few hours. So I'm trying to be patient with myself.

Steve's cousin Mark Kline died last week. Mark was the son of Ann's sister Ruth and her husband Hank Kline.  He was a problematic fellow. He was raised super strictly, and went off the rails maybe even because of it, I don't know. Alcohol, drugs, criminal activity, stealing things, bringing harm to his parents, strife within the family.  His son (Justin) didn't want anything to do with him either. Justin called Steve today to tell him Mark had died, and didn't have any contact info to tell anyone else in the family "who might care". And I just got an email from a guy who flies with us who says Mark went to church where he goes to church and had mentioned Steve was a cousin and the church is reaching out to us to get contact info from family to notify them. A tough life when nobody knows how to reach or who to tell or if anyone cares to set up services when you die. I was surprised to hear he was going to a church, honestly. It's a sad cautionary tale. Of what is purely debatable, but it is one none-the-less.

The rest is airplane stuff. I had a trip to Marco Island, FL, taking Ethan, Amber and Atlee down for New Year's Eve vacation. They all rode in the back. Meanwhile, Morgan had her first solo trip in the Meridian to Sarasota, FL with Caleb and his three boys on board.  I got an EDCT, a delay, and tried to work around it to no avail. So we ended up sitting on the ground for another hour before we could leave. The rest of the trip was uneventful. I got down there, got gas, and took a courtesy car in to the Island Gypsy outdoor little restaurant on the water. I had a 30 minute wait to get in. At 2 pm I had a 30 minute wait to get in for lunch. Good grief! 

Meanwhile, Morgan had made her first trip, and she was freaked out. She'd had an oddball approach into Georgia, low almost at ceiling minimums, where the glideslope didn't come in when it should have, and she'd been worried about getting an EDCT like I had and how to handle it, because I'd texted her about it before I left and what to do, and she was just...rattled. She was nervous to get in and head back home, so I talked to her on the phone for about 30 minutes, talked through her options to get home. The weather was bad in Georgia, and she didn't have the fuel for TN, and Florida was still a cluster and she was going to have to file low to get out of it, so I offered the option for her to stop in Macon, Georgia, which is almost in Florida, so it's not a very far flight, but it's far enough for her to file low, get out of Florida, have enough gas to be low, the weather was decent IFR and not low, and then she could file high out of there and get home. So she liked that idea, and did it. Meanwhile, I left after she did, flew home non-stop, and beat her home by an hour.

She lands, and I text her, and she's not responding normally, so I pry it out of her, and she'd had icing issues, was a little traumatized by the whole day, being responsible for the whole trip, single pilot, with bad weather, in busy airspace, all of it. It's a lot. It's fun and games when you do it as a crew and someone else (aka me) is responsible for everything. It's a little more terrifying when suddenly it's all on you. I could just tell she was shaky and needed to decompress, I could feel the adrenaline coming off the phone. So even though it was 9 pm and I'd just gotten home, I suggested we meet up for a drink. I ended up driving to Marion to meet up with her at a little tavern that was open at 10 pm, since nothing else was, and we just sat and talked and hung out and debriefed and talked about the good, the bad, the mistakes, the solutions. She started off saying she didn't want to go by herself again, which would be a problem, and I poked and asked her what other job she'd like to do--maybe truck driving. ;) She ended by realizing what I realized from the beginning. She was ready, and she handled every single thing that came up that day, and she handled it all appropriately. She handled the bum approach and made it happen successfully. She handled the busy airspace and changes in flight plans. She recognized the ice, and handled it appropriately. She wasn't sure she did it all right, but once we went through everything, I had two small things to tell her that she could do differently or add next time that may help, but that nothing she did was wrong, and SHE did it. Her own decisions that were correct for the situations at hand, and she successfully completed a flight that a LOT of crewed jet pilots couldn't have done on single pilot/on their own. We decided and agreed at the end of the night that she earned "Real Pilot" status at this point.

I didn't get home until 2 am or so. Slept in until 9, so got a little under 7 hours of sleep, which isn't bad, and then woke up to go visit with Kaylee who had felt icky and wanted Mom time too last night, brought her a Smoothie King smoothie and just hung out for a few hours, and then came back home to fix Steve eggs, do laundry, get some drugs for him, etc. Next up is finishing laundry and fixing myself some food.

The little outdoor restaurant, water is on the other side

My tasty fresh grilled sammich

Cruising low over Florida

Pretty proof that the sun still exists after all

Yep, I look puffy, pale, and tired still. But the sun felt sooo good

Cool almost night, smooth, flowy looking sky and clouds

Nuthin

I spent the day writing important emails and trying to figure out what I'm going to do with a series of new problems I have. Bad weather, with two trips, a personnel issue, trying to get a plan to get the 340 to Ohio, with bad weather and no chase pilot, trying to get a plan to finish Morgan in BOB with bad weather and running out of time, suddenly finding out I'm now responsible for teaching the ground schools for the BT-13 and C-45 this year when someone else had it and "double booked" themselves and now can't make it and dropped it in my lap. I'm guessing something more fun came along as that seems to be the common M.O. for that group.

So I'm mostly tired and annoyed for the day. ;)  Nothing else exciting. Kaylee went back to work, Steve's got a scratchy throat and stayed home all day, and now you're all caught up.

Christmas

It's a slightly strange, quieter Christmas, with just Steve, Kaylee and I. A lot of years we had all the Cherry's around, and Steve's parents, and my parents, and it feels okay but a little unsettling to do as we did this year. 

Everyone slept in until like 9 am, then got up and we did our brunch. Bacon, eggs, pancakes with chocolate chips (gluten free of course), orange juice, coffee. We fixed most of it over here then went over to Kaylee's to eat at her table and hang out for awhile. Molly the cat stayed around and hung out with us. We then opened our modest presents, cleaned up everything, and then Kaylee wanted Christmas Kitty photos, so we tried. 

Molly, however, doesn't like being held. So Kaylee tried, and we got a lot of photos of the cat looking at the ground wanting down. We gave her a break, then Kaylee tried again, holding her in the weird way she'll allow herself to be held, and put a Christmas hat on her, and that certainly annoyed her too. But it was pretty funny, and we got a few photos out of it, so it was worth it.

We went our separate ways for awhile and rested in our respective homes. Steve made a smoky old fashioned and smoked a cigar on the deck, and I wrote a long, heart-felt farewell to the school board where I'm a board member. They want sub committees and everyone in attendance at the monthly meetings and more meetings with the sub committees and I'm just not able to commit to that.  I have one more letter to write tonight that I need to think about, and I'll try to get that before I go to bed. Maybe a third that I shouldn't write but has been bugging me. Maybe I'll drink some Nyquil first and then give it a go. ;)

I mostly feel a little melancholy. But I've been feeling off anyway, and then I was sick for a week, and now it's the holidays, and I have stuff coming up I have to figure out, and I don't feel good about a couple things, and some of it is making me have trouble falling/staying asleep. Last night I was lying in bed at 2 am wide awake still, thinking about something that's bothering and embarrassing and annoying me all three, so I got up at 2:30 and took another dose of melatonin and some nyquil to try to finally knock me out, and then I woke up at 6 am anyway and never got back to sleep, just felt groggy. Boo. Tried to nap this afternoon and couldn't pull that off either. Gave up and got productive instead. 

We were so full we skipped lunch, then late this afternoon it was time to get into Dinner Mode. Around 4:30 I started; I tore up gluten free bread and baked it long enough to make it harder, and then I started hand-making the dressing/stuffing. With butter and garlic and celery and actual fresh herbs and stuff. I made my mashed potatoes, which takes about an hour and a half in total. This time, for the first time, I got Steve and Kaylee to help me just peel the 5 lbs of potatoes while I worked on the stuffing. Steve made Kaylee come help him about halfway through, and at the end I asked if the two of them appreciated my mashed potatoes more now that they knew how much effort even that was. They both said yes. lol  I actually timed everything really well. The turkey in Kaylee's oven, the stuffing in my oven, the potatoes on my stove top, and the cream cheese corn in the microwave all got done at the same time. I felt oddly proud of that, to be honest. 

I left the leftovers with Kaylee of the things she would eat, brought the rest of it back to our house, and then cleaned up everything again. Christmas is a lot of cleaning, ya know? Breakfast fixed, clean up. Breakfast eaten, clean up. Put away all the clean stuff. Dinner fixed, clean up. Dinner eaten, leftovers put away, clean up. Put away all the clean stuff. Dessert later eaten, clean up. We do have a lot of food left over though, which I can't complain about. The only thing I wasn't super impressed with is the gluten free stuffing. It just didn't do it for me. The box of Stove Top Stuffing that I make with chicken broth and butter on the stove top in 5 minutes flat tastes really good to me. The home torn gluten free bread and the chopped celery and the herbs pulled off of plants sauteed in butter (I skipped the onions because I made it and I can do that) and all that stuff did not taste as good to me. Maybe it's just the bad bread, I don't know, and I know it's sad, but the boxed stuff was better. In our opinion. I can't remember non-gluten-free-bread-homemade-stuffing taste right now though.

When Steve and I got back to our own house, and I finished cleaning up again, we watched a Netflix movie called "The Six Triple Eight". It was based on the true story of an African-American Army Captain woman who ran the only all-Black and all-female unit to serve overseas during World War II (The 6888th Battalion). The movie is very good, and the true story is even better. It's long, but if you read all of this...  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/real-story-behind-netflix-six-triple-eight-new-tyler-perry-film-about-women-6888th-central-postal-directory-battalion-180981540/  The protagonist Charity Adams was amazing. She graduated with a triple major in Physics, Math and Latin I think with a minor in History, and she rose through the ranks in the 1940s as a black military woman and ended up with the highest rank a woman could get in the Army at that time. They renamed a base partly after her, the only black woman to have that honor to date.  There were a couple of arcs in the movie, a run-in with a Chaplain and a run-in with a General, and I figured both of those were added for Hollywood. Nope. I read elsewhere that both things actually happened. Those dudes were major a-holes, but in the end, the General actually came around, because he gave her a (he thought) unimportant task that he (thought) knew was impossible to accomplish in the 6 months she was given, and in the end, she (and her troops) did it in 90 days. Gained the respect of everyone, even with the higher-ups against her.  I'd never heard of it. I really enjoy learning about underdog stories come to life. The Tuskegee Airmen. The WASP. The 6888, the men and women during WWII who were fighting for their country in their own ways even if their own country-men and women didn't always give such a damn about them. Like the WASP, the women who were killed in an accident overseas were left to be buried by collecting money from the other women there. Like the WASP, there was no parade, no recognition back in the states. They were disbanded and sent on to go back and live at home once the men came home and took all the jobs again.  And like the men and women of that era, quite a few of them lived to be feisty, 100 year olds. I love the story of one of them who took up Tae Kwan Do in her 70s and earned her black belt. I mean, come on, that's awesome! They're all gone now, the last lived to 104 years of age and died two years ago.  Anyway, Steve and I enjoyed the movie and appreciated it. He was glad I forced him into it. ;)

And one fun little side fact. A part of the story-line was that one of the main character's beau (he was a white man) was a P-51 pilot in the war. He was shot down and killed, and his last letter, with his blood on it, was sent on. Well, they showed him in the air in one scene, and he was in a unit of P-51s...that were all Checkertail! Most of the facts of the movie are accurate, so I'm really curious if he really was a pilot in the Checkertail Clan. I might have to see if I can find out. The scene was really short, but that's a neat little snapshot, a little shock I got watching the movie.

Now Christmas is...past. I don't have to work until the 28th, so I have a few more days to sort of recuperate, although I do have to figure some things out, check weather, do flight plans, arrange some things, and try to fly BOB with Morgan to finish her up if the weather will let us. So I leave you with all the photos we took to try to get a good one of Molly and Kaylee. lol

Let me down

(I slapped the wood to make her look up)

I want down

Oh great now it's a hat

Put Me Down (this is the only way she'll let you hold her for a short time, too)

Down

Oh frickin' hell
(It's funny it focused on Kaylee but you can still see the cat's face)

Sigh. Seriously.

Christmas gift for the kitty

The smoky old-fashioned Steve made with the smoking kit Kaylee got him for Christmas. He likes the lid/barrel a lot

Eve

Sorry, I just haven't felt like posting, haven't had much to post about. I had my annual December illness. Just wore myself down and then Death Viruses of Indiana started making the rounds. So far I've avoided the Vomiting Bug that's going around. One guy lost 28 pounds in 2 weeks from a stomach bug. That is not how I wish to lose 28 pounds. That's about death's door in 2 weeks, man.  But I did get the stuffed up head, plugged up sinuses, cough a lot, fatigue easily version.

Today's the first day I really felt better better. I spent most of the last week sitting on the couch not doing anything. Except blowing my nose, dozing off, and coughing. Today I scanned in all my receipts from trips I took when I first got sick, billing, all that good stuff. Caught up on email, yadda yadda.

Yesterday I had my first flight in a few days. I was supposed to get up at 3:30 am, get to Marion by 5 am, fly the Meridian to Sarasota, Florida, get back by 2:30, get to Frankfort by 3:30, fly the Conquest to Marco, FL and back, and get home around midnight. I knew I couldn't do it, so I canceled the Meridian, told him I was still sick (and he didn't want to catch it anyway), and took Cameron with me to fly to Marco at 2:30 pm.

It didn't go super smoothly. I flew the leg down and had a bit of trouble shortly after takeoff on climb-out, then it was fine the rest of the way down.  The right engine torque gauge dropped to zero somewhere along the way, but the engine was running fine, so I ignored it, and just matched the "throttles" by ear and position. We landed, topped off with gas, and when we went to leave, I had told Cameron it was his leg. He pulls out without waiting for instructions, and doesn't quite do it right, before I can talk he's shoving things forward and rolling and things aren't going well. Finally we get rolling and the plane drifts right and it feels like he's hitting the left brake and I'm like "no brakes" and he says "I'm not" and he says "Should I abort" and finally we abort and roll to the end and get off. We'd called for our clearance and only had a 5 minute window which we were now going to miss. He says he wasn't on the brakes and I said he needed to bring the right engine up more. We didn't have a torque gauge to tell us how much power it was producing but it seemed obvious it needed more. So he picks up the clearance again, annoying the guy, and goes to take off again, and it still doesn't feel right. He aborts. We taxi back. I do a run down the runway, and push the right all the way to the stop and it's not producing full power compared to the left, you can tell. So I abort. Go in, taxi in, and call Ethan over my headset, who calls the Weststar maintenance guy. We call clearance and tell them we have a maintenance problem and our clearance was canceled.  I shut down the plane, restart it, and the torque gauge works this time. Maintenance guy says to turn the torque to manual, and then it hits me. If the torque gauge wasn't working, then the computer must not be giving us the power because it thinks we're not getting enough. But now that the gauge is working, I do another test run down the runway, and it works. I abort. Taxi back. Cameron picks up the clearance again, and the annoyed guy clears us for take off. Cameron says I should do it and he'll talk, so I take off, and it works fine. We get in the air and I call off the ground and clearance guy sounds so tired when he says "You're squawking 1200 and you need to call departure, not clearance". Cameron had forgotten to put the squawk in and neither of us had switched frequencies. It was super embarrassing. I just said "Sorry" on the radio and switched over while Cameron plugged in the squawk. We were like...I swear I am a professional. I can't go back there for awhile. I'm hoping I don't get the same controller when I got back in 4 days. The whole day was awkward and difficult for several reasons. Cameron's a good kid but we just don't work smoothly together, for some reason.  We have trouble communicating clearly with each other, so everything just feels a little difficult.

Kaylee came over today, and we watched The Sound of Music, because we were talking about it and it had been a long time and we decided it was a good evening for it. We had talked about It's A Wonderful Life, which was on tonight at 8 of course, and I am about to make my mom sad, but I realized why I don't enjoy the movie much. It's depressing. You spend an hour and 45 minutes of the 2 hour 10 minute long movie watching a man's life go downhill. He has dreams and goals and desires, but one at a time every chance he has is taken away from him by a cruel twist of fate. Everyone close to him is happy, successful, rich, famous, his brother, his best friend, etc. They get to travel, to follow their dreams, while he stays behind and scrabbles. Then his stupid drunk uncle bankrupts him and destroys what he had left. Then you get to  watch him spiral out of control.  The whole thing is SAD and depressing. Sure, at the end he learns his lifetime of sacrifice was "appreciated" by the townspeople and it mattered that he was alive, and the townspeople come together and save his bacon this time. But it's how many minutes of happy conclusion after how long of watching the depressing?  If it wasn't for his wife, I'd say he had have come to that bridge a lot sooner. It's no wonder we cry at the end of the movie. It's like..."oh thank God something decent happened to that poor man after all those years!" ;)

Anyway. Tomorrow we're going to cook bacon and pancakes at our house, then go over to Kaylee's house and make eggs, and have brunch and open presents and hang out and rest.

Steve just told me to go to bed because I'm coughing a lot more again. I'm not sleepy though. I'll suck on some cough drops and try to stop that for now...

Marco Sunset

Leaving Florida

Home

Slept in, rested most of today. Nose is a bit better. Not sorry to not have flown today. We had homemade pumpkin ice cream that AE made that was delicious. And I'm writing up a thing to probably resign from the Christian school's board, no hard feelings anywhere, just no time to do it justice.

Nothing on tap for tomorrow. More recuperating and maybe a shower. ;)

Illinois

Kaylee had a tilt table test yesterday afternoon. They strap you to a table and move it up and down and monitor your blood pressure, heart rate, etc. It can last upwards of an hour while they try to make your body react. She reacted almost immediately, passed out hard, and her blood pressure dropped to 40 something over 38, which is too low even by my low standards. The doctor said “Well, she didn’t last long!” and said this was a good thing because it was a definite “positive” to the test, and she can finally get some answers as to why her heart rate is so high and she gets so fatigued and dizzy so easily. POTS is one thing it can be. They haven’t gotten back to her yet with more answers, but they will soon. She is just grateful to have them/someone/her know she’s not crazy and something IS wrong. She said she might cry if the test came back as “you’re fine!” because she’s tired of not feeling right and not knowing why. Well, it did not. Hopefully the next step is what they can do to help with that. She’s too young to be incapacitated.

Speaking of incapacitated, I’m not, but I definitely have a head cold. I’m hacking up a lung, stuffy head, runny nose. I took a home Covid test last night and it came up negative, so it’s probably just another virus that does the same thing. I wouldn’t say “cold” because it started with a low grade fever, which is usually virus. Last night I was not in good shape from that standpoint. I was coughing like I had TB or something. Flew to Illinois to pick up two people who sat in the back, and took Morgan with me. Fortunately last night I was able to get some sleep, and I woke up this morning with a thick head but not unsafe. So an allergy pill later, nothing not allowed by the FAA, and I flew 3 people to Champaign, IL. Warned them about the head thing, they said they didn’t care. I’ll get home around 4 pm tonight or so, probably.

Tomorrow I was supposed to go to FL, but when I told HIM about my head cold, he said he didn’t want it and he’d airline out instead. Fine by me. That gives me a couple of days to be able to stay home and recuperate, I hope. When both nostrils close off like last night, I can’t stand that, so I was lucky I was able to medicate enough to sleep with one side open at least. I hope it just gets better from here. After I get home today I don’t have any more flights for a few days.

And that’s about it for now.

Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois

Still coughing like a mother over here, to the point where your head hurts every time you cough, feels like you're putting pressure on your brain. :p  But I otherwise don't feel bad. Just a little easily fatigued, which is appropriate for the conditions, ala waking up at 5 am when also already not 100%.

We were off the ground at dark, headed to Ames, Iowa. Two hours there, I wasn't hungry so I didn't eat anything yet. Next stop was Medford, Wisconsin. It was frigid there, and there's nothing there. We were only supposed to be there 1 hour, so I didn't take the crew car and get anything. It wasn't until 2.5 hours later we actually DID leave, so I shoulda gone into town to the diner, but I didn't know I wouldn't be leaving at any moment. So it goes. ;) Ran over to Rochelle, Illinois next, and dropped off two guys, didn't even get out of the plane myself.  Flew from there back to Frankfort and dropped the last two guys off. A little over a 10-hour day. 

On the way home I stopped at Culver's to eat for the first time, and drove home in the dark just like I'd left home in the dark. I hate winter...

Up at 5 am and this was the tiny little cup available to put old dead coffee in

Really.

REALLY?!

New Joisey

Woke up feeling better than I did when I went to bed. Still have a cough and tight chest/sore throat, but at least the blasted headache is gone. 

Like I said, I took Morgan with me as a back up. I didn't really need it, but better to have it and not need it, especially when your approach is down to minimums. I flew the leg there, and had her fly the leg home. By the end of the day I was worn out because I'm not 100%, but not terrible.

Trenton, NJ, I broke out of the clouds 40 feet above minimums, landed in the grey and the rain. We went to a little cafe and had breakfast. They had all the stuff I normally like, the sugary waffles and pancakes and french toast flavored and cream cheese and all that. But I could just feel that my system wanted protein. So I ate eggs. I also had a little bacon, but I LEFT half of it on my plate because I wasn't very hungry. Again, something wrong with me. I also had a little bowl of fresh fruit which tasted good to me, and a piece of toast. I didn't eat anything else until I got home at like 7 pm. Not hungry. Yesterday I ended up eating one bowl of oatmeal, and a bowl of Ramen chicken noodles, and four crackers. Yep, my system was just like...nah.

While we were in Trenton, a pilot came up and wanted to talk to me about the Conquest. He was looking at getting one. So we walked out to the airplane and I let him up in it to check it out, and I truthfully told him it was pretty hard to beat that airplane for range, fuel efficiency, load hauling, and numbers. 

The flight home was grey and IFR until the last hour, and then we broke out to a beautiful sunset.

Tomorrow I leave the house at 6 am for a trip to Ames, Iowa, then on to Medford, Wisconsin, then a drop off in Rochelle, Illinois, then home. Long day, but I just have to get through that one and I can sleep in Wednesday morning. At least tomorrow's weather is much better than today's was. :)

When Kaylee got home she called to talk for awhile, but I can't talk much without starting to cough too much. So instead I listened, and Molly the cat was talking a bunch too. She was happy to see Kaylee and was chatting and meowing away at her. It's cute.  Kaylee's "Tilt Table Test" is Wednesday, where they try to determine issues with her heart rate, dizziness, etc. We shall see...

On top

Series of sunset photos

Pretty evening above it all

Snapshot

Friday early morning I drove to Frankfort, met up with Ethan, and we went down to Indy. Hopped on an airline flight first class to Denver. Had a huge breakfast on the airplane. Hot rolled washrag, and breakfast I couldn't finish that was bacon, eggs, croissant with butter, fresh fruit in a bowl, Greek yogurt, coffee, two hashbrowns...what else. It was a lot, man! Landed in Denver, got on the next flight that was a 45 minute hop from Denver to Grand Junction, CO. No food because of the short trip and the turbulence, they had us all stay in our seats including the flight attendants. But it wasn't that bad, honestly.

We were supposed to leave at 1:30 pm with the Conquest. They found a leak on the pitot static system. Long story short, we spent the next 6 hours waiting for them to fix that.  Finally everything is ready to go, and Ethan and I load up in the dark to head home for a late night. We get off the ground, hand flying, engage the autopilot at some point, and it points us down to the mountain. Disconnect, try again. Same thing. Disconnect, try different modes. IAS, VS, straight and level, all of it. Nothing. It dives out from under you. So I call back in and we go back to Grand Junction.

Get a hotel room and a rental car. Ethan gets an airline ticket out at 7 am the next morning, and I stay behind to fly the plane home, we hope.

They put the old pitch servo back in there, and finally it's ready to go. I test fly with an approach locally, it works, so I pick up my IFR and have another 3 hour flight home. Plane works. I don't feel great, and worn down even though I sat most of the day.

Get home from Colorado and landed at Frankfort, and realize I have the rental car keys in my coat pocket. UPS is closed so I go to the Post Office to do an overnight, but the closest I can get is Thursday. That isn't going to work, so I go home, drop off my overnight bag that I'd packed thinking I wouldn't need but was grateful to have in the end, changed my shirt, and went out to the hangar where we were having our CAF Christmas party. Stayed at that until 8 pm, and then I was done. I was worn out.

Drove home and crashed. Woke up with a headache (not a shock), went back to sleep until 9:30 am (THAT was a shock), still didn't feel good. So I've been resting up a lot today, as it's a busy week coming up and I don't have time to not feel good. 

Tomorrow is New Jersey, Trenton, with bad weather/rain/low clouds. I'm bringing Morgan along as a back up because I'm not 100% and it's a crappy weather day.

But now am home. Kaylee's fine, Steve's fine, we're trying to figure out what we're doing coming up, we don't have anything decorated and I wonder if we will at all.  Dunno...

The FBO at Weststar in Grand Junction which is more festive than around here

My teenage CAPTAIN on the flight to CO

More FBO festivities

Me and Ethan at night over Grand Junction before the autopilot tried to drive us into the ground

The next day headed home in daylight, just me.

It's still pretty