Ohio with Teeth

Steve, Morgan and I were all up at 6 am. We were up at 6 am because I needed them to fly me to Toledo so I could pick up the Conquest. I told them (Toledo) the night before I'd be there at 8 am, and he said he'd have Fred out there doing the ground runs at 7 am, and hopefully I'd be on my way. What I thought was happening was: they do ground runs in the morning before I get there. I do a test flight with the mechanic, and I go home. I didn't bring an iPad or any work to do, and I had Steve and Morgan drop me off in the Aerostar. I get there and the cowl is still off and they're still working on it. I go inside and wait. I have to leave by noon, because I have my appointment with the oral surgeon in Noblesville to get my tooth implant, and I'm not missing it. They come in and tell me all this stuff that's not working that they're working on. I'm like...I need to leave by noon, remember? One guy leaves practically running. I'm agitated now, because it's too late to get someone to come get me, and even if they did, I need the plane for a trip to Florida tomorrow. So I need them to put the thing back together and get me on my way. They do that at 12:07 pm. I get in, fire up, and the prop heat doesn't work on the left engine now. So I now have no anti-ice on the left engine prop, which isn't great. Only good news is that at least I shouldn't need it here in August going into places I'm going into. They didn't fix several things I didn't even know they were working on, so Ethan must have asked them to do that. If I'd have known that, I wouldn't have gotten up at 6 am, and I wouldn't have gotten over there until 11 or so to start with, and I would have brought my iPad with me and some work, instead of sitting in a tiny room by myself in silence with nowhere I'm allowed to walk and nothing to do. I can typically easily entertain myself, but those are some pretty tough circumstances--I couldn't even read a book.  All I could do is sit there and scroll on my phone and get agitated at how long it was taking. Hours.

Finally I'm buttoned up and fired up at 12:07. They had pulled a bunch of circuit breakers, had set the pressurization all high, had left the air on, had just about every switch in the wrong position, so I had to be careful with all that. I had also brought it there was a fuel tank of fuel, which is hours and hours and hours of gas. When I fired up to leave, I had about 900 lbs of fuel on board. It burns about 600/hr. It took me .7-.8 on the hobbs to get home. That didn't leave me a whole lot of leftover fuel. Juuuust enough to have about 50 min reserve on a nice VFR day. They burned 2200 lbs of fuel doing ground runs. That is Really impressive! REALLY impressive. They ran the hell out of that thing on the ground.

Because they didn't get some stuff done, I have to take the plane back over on one of the few days this month I didn't already have something scheduled, and pick it back up.  *sigh*

I get to Frankfort, and Steve and Morgan are already there in the Aerostar waiting for me. I drop off the Conquest, tell them to top it on Ethan's account and it needs to be out tomorrow by 2:30, and we all hop in the Aerostar. It's now 1:30 pm. I'm hot (it's REALLY hot), tired, hungry, hangry, thirsty, and grumpy, and now I get to go to an oral surgeon.

I went to the post office for Kaylee, and came home for a few minutes. Ate a sandwich, brushed my teeth very well, talked to her for awhile. She starts her new job tomorrow and is really excited about it. She starts in Lafayette tomorrow, so we determined what time she needed to leave. I backed her up by 10 minutes because her time management skills are only a little better than Steve's, if at all. So I'm like..."you need to be walking out to your car at 7:29 am, not sitting there at 7:30 and deciding you'd best get ready to head out now, so best go feed the cat, go potty, water a plant, make a quick phone call, look up directions, all the whatevers. Walk out the door at 7:29 am." There's a lot of construction, too, right now. I think she'll be good to go though. :)

She is doing Pilates, and she has run into Mallorie from grade school several times. Remember Mallorie? Her dad was on our school board for awhile and was a dark cloud in the whole group. He's a shyster, a con, a big talker and no real action. He also screamed at his family in front of Kaylee. And Mallorie was a bully who would make fun of Kaylee. The one I remember the most is that Kaylee loved these boots, so she saved up and one day we went and got them. She wore them to school for the first time proudly, and Mallorie made fun of them, and she was sad and wouldn't wear them again, ever, no matter what I said. Fortunately they weren't expensive, but that little shit... Later on, they had a truce and became almost friends. Well, Kaylee ran into her at Pilates and said she was dressed head to toe in hot pink, is going to law school, and is quite snooty to her again. I didn't tell her this, but Mallorie was a shit as a kid, her dad is a shit, so odds are not in her favor to not be a shit as a young adult, either. So don't color me surprised here.

By the way, there was another guy who had kids with him yesterday and one of them could have been the mystery hangar toilet pooper. I will say I hope so, even though those kids had better be young and mentally incompetent, or else...

So next up I drove down to Noblesville to the oral surgeon. I was so out of it when I left there last time, from the anesthesia, that I didn't even recognize the place except the waiting room. lol My appointment was for 3:40. I got there at 3:22. They called me back at 3:45. I was there for 10 minutes flat. They did a mouth ex-ray to make sure the bone in my jaw had healed properly. He told me what he'd already told me--they put a post in, let it heal, my dentist puts in the actual tooth/implant. He told me my jaw had healed "textbook" and it was "perfect" for an implant. He sent the lady in who told me how much  money I was going to get to spend on this, and set up a date for the procedure. I was expecting October. She got me in August 26th, just 2 weeks out! Amazing.  I was out of there in ten minutes, and had an hour drive home with all the traffic and construction. But I was in a much better mood now. I'd made the appointment. I'd eaten. I was going to get my tooth hole fixed. 

I ran home to drop off some stuff, and then I got back in my car and went out to the airport, where I pulled out the Champ and went up for about 40 minutes. Not real long, but nobody else was out there. It's hot, but with the window open, in the air, it cools it off. I went up and did a spin, and a bunch of takeoffs and landings, and it felt good. Nobody watching, nobody in the back seat, nobody in the pattern, nobody at the FBO. Just me on a calm, hot summer evening, and it was nice.

When I made it back from there, I got hotel rooms. I have been putting this off for good reason. Originally we needed two rooms for two nights and a rental car. I wait, and it becomes 3 rooms for 3 nights and a rental car. I wait, and now we don't need the rental car after all. It is 7:42 the night before they are supposed to leave, so NOW I get the 3 rooms for the 3 people for the 3 nights.  I pull the trigger. Spencer calls at 8:02 and says he's not going to make it tomorrow night, so we only need a room for him for 2 nights. It's non-refundable less than 24 hours in advance of the date. And THIS is why I WAIT. But c'mon, man. I had just hit "go" on everything and was sending the room info out when Spencer called. *sigh* I called in person and said I hit the wrong date and needed the check-in date for one of the rooms to be the 13th and not the 12th. She said she did it. Whether or not we still get charged for it is anybody's guess.

Hot summer open window flying