Alive

It's been a rather busy several days of some things. I completed my online Cirrus transition training, and my first date with the instructor is Wednesday, just an overview of stuff on the ground, plane preflight, cockpit stuff, etc.  That training took forever, but the plane has a lot of interesting features, including auto land. It'll fully land itself, hit the brakes and shut off while talking on the radio to the frequency. It automatically switches fuel tanks too, every 5 gallons. On its own. The avionics are fancy and complicated and new, so that'll be what takes as much time as anything to figure out.

Today I took the 340 over to OH to pick up a guy who was dropping off the Cherokee Six for annual. A wall of unforecast low clouds was in between us and the airport. Morgan was with me, flying, and I'm watching the weather, and listen to our airport which says it's fine, and she says "Do you want me to just keep going"? and I'm like...yes but then Nope, I don't like this. I can't see through it, we're already at pattern altitude, can't go any lower, and the clouds seem to go all the way down. So I took the controls and turned around, then found an area where I could go behind it. Meanwhile, the other guy just went straight in to the airport. There's no way he didn't hit that, he's not an IFR pilot so he probably just had the autopilot on, he wouldn't admit it, and he's lucky the airport itself was okay.  Not a good judgement call.

On the way out, he asked how we were going to get home and at what altitude, and I said I filed IFR for 4000', so...legally. 

Tonight we're packing to go to Gunnison for the weekend. We won't be back until Sunday evening with a busy day Sunday. But we'll get to spend a couple days in Colorado, which will be lovely.

I have been having trouble sleeping the last half of a night. I wish there was something I could take to help me sleep from 3 am on that wouldn't leave me gorked out the next day. *sigh*

Will try to catch up more later. Just letting folks know I'm still alive out here. 

Kaylee and Stuff

Friday morning I was up early and taking the Conquest over to Muncie for them to fix the failing transponder issue, and reboot the avionics in 'config' mode to get rid of that error message.  The Aerostar was already there in the shop and ready to come home, so it was time to do some swapping and planning. It was (and is) also extra frigid. We needed to get the RG in the back of the maint hangar and the Aerostar in the front, and needed to use the RG to go back and forth, and had to get the Conquest back to Frankfort and the Aerostar back home. So the plan was I drive to Frankfort, fly Conquest to Muncie, sit there and wait on it for a couple of hours, fly back to Frankfort, drive right to Kokomo, fly with Morgan in the RG back to Muncie, pick up Aerostar while RG turns right back around, put RG in the back, Aerostar in the front, and only open the hangar door one time in the frigid air.  Good plan.

Instead, when I got to Muncie, they pulled the Aerostar out on the ramp in order to put the Conquest in the hangar to work on it. Well, did I mention it's frigid out there? Leave the Aerostar out in the high winds and zero temps, and it's not gonna want to start for me. So I went backwards. I flew the Aerostar back to Kokomo and left it parked outside--and may I add that it doesn't have a working heater right now, so that was fun--then took the RG with Morgan back to Muncie to be dropped off. When the RG got back, they opened the hangar door once and put it away, then shoved the cold Aerostar in front of it. That part was done. I'm at Muncie, they get done, I fire up and fly it back to Frankfort, and get the exact same error message halfway home. So that did not help. ;) Parked it, drove back home to do a few things. I stopped at CVS to pick up some Sudafed, and the gates were shut in the pharmacy. They close for lunch at 1:30 and I got there at 1:34. *sigh* I'm down to one Sudafed and I'm pretty sure it also helps me at night, so I'll try to go again soon here once we plow out.

Look at that temp. This is some bull crap

Aerostar outside on the ramp as they push in the Conquest

Kaylee's kitchen has been repainted, and they did such a nice job with it! The 1980 green and pink wallpaper and border is gone. This isn't the finished product, but it shows you nice progress. It's brighter, and we all like it. :)

And then it was time for dinner. Friday was Kaylee's 25th birthday. She had invited all her coworkers out to dinner. Of the six invited, four said they could make it, and then one of them had a sick baby and had to stay home. So three of them plus me, Steve, Kaylee, and her friend from highschool Caitlin, who is going to be working there as an organizing manager, which they're both excited about and I just hope goes well. ;) 

I thought it was brave of the coworkers to do it, to go out to dinner with a coworker and her PARENTS whom they didn't know, and I was glad they did. It was two dieticians and another therapist who made it, and we all actually had a good time. We went to The Italian Place in Fishers (Indy), and they put us up in a room with a table by ourselves, which was sort of fancy. Good food, conversation went smoothly, minimal awkwardness. I didn't take a picture of everyone because THAT felt awkward, but I did take a Be Real photo of me, Kaylee and Caitlin before the others got there. It's a little blurry. Steve was on the other side of the camera but he had his mouth open when I took it. lol

When we got back, I gave her her presents; a gift card for Door Dash, some pretty metallic looking 'stones' for her or for clients, an alarm clock that brightens like the sun in your room at the time you set, and her Grandma's card. She had a good day, all in all, and now she's 25 years old! It does go fast.

Saturday we just hung out at home and watched movies and waited for it to start snowing, basically. This is when it occurred to me that I didn't have much food in the house, and it was toooo late. lol I made spaghetti for dinner, had that, and I took a flour tortilla, put butter on it, sprinkled a little garlic powder, added in mozzarella balls, melted it in the microwave and rolled it up for a little something to go with the spaghetti. Weird, but it worked. ;)

All the stuff is out of our kitchen and pantry, too, waiting for it to be painted. So you have to go up front to find a coffee pod or a pack of crackers, all the snacks are in bags or locked away. It's kind of funny, but that's where I learned my fridge is also very bare. No frozen pizzas, no cheese to go on crackers, no milk, no english muffins, and about 4 eggs left. I planned...poorly. Ha. Hopefully today I can get some stuff. Roads should be better in town by sometime today.

Sunday we watched it snow some more. The last I heard, Kokomo got about 7" of snow. The cold temps and high winds are what made things trickier. Kokomo Airport just closed for awhile, while all the other airports scraped off a runway. Steve decided not to shovel the sidewalk until today, let it finish snowing and blowing first, but I don't envy him being out there in 0 degrees. At least the sun is out, but...brr. I'll have to keep an eye on him out there.  I could help, because I'm younger, but...I wouldn't want to take away his manliness. ;) He's going to leave the driveway alone, and our 4-wheel-drive vehicles will make tracks and be fine until it melts. But the sidewalk to our house, and behind our houses to the garage, he'll get all that.

My schedule has been chaos, so I didn't even mark anything down or arrange airplanes or anything. Ethan wanted to go to Colorado today, maybe afternoon, maybe Tuesday, maybe overnight, maybe not. Then Marco on Friday but only if it was warm enough. And if he didn't he could help me get the Conquest up to Michigan to get the fuel tanks repaired and either way I could use the 421 to come get them from Marco...IF they didn't just charter. I didn't plan anything, or work on anything. I waited until he called this morning. Marco is off. It's too cold. So they'll go to their 2nd of 3 homes instead, and Colorado is moved from today/tomorrow to Friday. Amber will probably go then, and we can all spend a night or two out there in Gunnison. And that's why I'm glad I didn't try to figure anything out! :)

It also means I don't have anything on the schedule for this week. So I'm going to try to use that time to be productive towards our CAF C-45 ground school that I'm being forced to do again. And anything else I need to be productive on. 

CO/IL

I'm writing this from my laptop in Romeoville, Illinois (south of Chicago). I'm really pooped because I went to bed at 11:30, fell asleep sometime after that, and woke up at 2 am out of a hard sleep and never got back to sleep. I finally just got up at 4:45 am and stayed up, sat in the living room and slowly got ready for my 7 am departure. It was a nice leisurely morning, anyway. I wasn't that tired until I got to IL here, and then I closed my eyes for almost an hour in the pilot lounge before going to get some breakfast. I'm a little tired now, but not as bad as you'd think a person would be on a couple hours of sleep. I just wish there weren't other crews in here in this small pilot lounge too. Today *I* am the tired puffy non-talking sit-in-a-chair crewmember I usually make fun of.

I brought my laptop so I could send over some more of my records to the PA people. I don't know how this is going to go, but I can't wait until it's over with successfully, hopefully.

Yesterday Morgan asked me if I couldn't be a pilot any more, what I would do. I really have no idea. I don't want to be a sim instructor. If I can't be in the airplane, I probably don't want to be around aviation any more, because I think it would hurt too much. I can't think of what profession I would take over at this point, at 53 years old. Too young to retire, too old to start over, right? So what? Go be a cashier or secretary again? *sigh* That was an uplifting thought experiment. ;)

Yesterday was a long but not bad day of going out to Colorado. I took Stephen, Nick, Tell and Morgan and we went to Ft. Morgan, CO first. They had a job to look at there, while she and I drove around hunting for coffee. They got back and brought with them a huge guy who came along with us to Colorado Springs, to look at a job there for a couple of hours. She and I went to a restaurant on field that was inside a giant airplane. I don't even know what it was, but you climbed up inside it and the fuselage had been redone to have a bunch of tables to eat at. The cockpit was intact and you could climb up in there and mess around. It was weird and different and interesting, and the food was good too. The waitresses were all in pilot uniforms with 4 strips, and they took the flying motif very seriously. ;) We also drove to the WWII Aviation Museum on field there, but it was $20/person, and we would be out of time very quickly. Sure enough, they were back in less than an hour, so it would have been too close.

We were at the airport by 7:45 am, and got home around 10 pm, so like I said, long day, but interesting.

I'm home now from Illinois. That was a long day. There was one small pilot lounge with six seats in it, I was there for 8.5 hours, and all the seats were full most of the time, in a tiny hot room, with nobody saying a word, in a dead quiet room. I was able to leave and go get breakfast, but after 12 I wasn't sure when they'd be back, so I had to stay there, and there wasn't anywhere else to stay. So me and a bunch of quiet jet pilots sat there in silence for H-O-U-R-S.  I couldn't nap, because...crowded room full of men I don't know and I'm not going to doze off in front of them. I got something around 2 hours of sleep last night and was planning on napping. There was no water or snacks there, at a towered controlled airport even. It is frigid, and 35 knot winds for awhile, and I had to get the plane out myself early this morning, and...there are a couple other things that are issues I won't get into. So I spent most of today tired and I guess a little sad and disgruntled. So I was glad to see that the airport manager had stayed late tonight and was there to help me put the plane away so I didn't have to do THAT in the dark and cold by myself. :) Today took 12 hours door to door, and only my breakfast and the quick 30 minute flight each way was enjoyable. ;)

Coming into Colorado Springs

In the cockpit

Never grow up...

Inside the restaurant plane

Pretty cool :)

Wow

Steve, Kaylee and I watched the IU/Miami U "Natty" or National Championship Game last night starting at 7:30. It was fire, as the kids would say. It was a really good game, close, with some incredible plays, and I have to say, whatever comes up for the Super Bowl is going to lack in comparison. This game was most likely much better than the SuperBowl can be, no lie.

For one thing, for anyone unfamiliar, IU has never won a national championship, and they were the single worst (most losses) team in the HISTORY of college football. They sucked. Bad. And always had. So.  First, the IU QB, Fernando Mendoza (FM from now on), was raised in Miami. His dad played football next to Miami's head coach, in high school, and played on another team in Miami. But FM still was not offered a football scholarship with them. He went to walk-in try-outs, and was still not accepted by Miami. So to now beat the Miami team, in Miami, for a National Championship, is serious vengeance vibes and I love it for him. Except he's too nice to say anything out loud, or too smart, and he just looks nice. But I bwa hahah'd for him. ;)

He only got one scholarship offer, and was only a 3 star prospect. Most of the team are low star prospects as opposed to most of the opposing teams, who had 40-50 4 and 5 star prospects--Indiana had 8 and of them only 2 were 5-star. So...they weren't much on paper, either.

IU having an undefeated season and going 16 and 0 has only happened one other time in college ball history, and that was the Yale team back in 1896. Yeah, 1896. 

Miami played "physically" which meant they slammed into FM, head-butted him and gave him a bloody lip, held onto and cranked around on other player's jersey's, and none of them were called against Miami, just a couple called on Indiana. They were playing against Miami and the refs both.  And IU just kept going. They got ahead, they stayed ahead. They stuffed a return kick in the kicker's face and got a touchdown off of it when it went into the end zone. FM ran on 4th and goal, got grabbed and plowed into and dove into the end zone for a touchdown, holding the ball over his head for maximum reach, to break the plane and get the TD, and he did it, scraping and bruising up his whole right (passing) arm. And kept going. Indiana won that game and they deserved to win the game.

You know I'm a Purdue fan, but dang, that was fun. Coach Cignetti going for it on 4th and goal instead of getting an easy 3 points, when he didn't need to, was gutsy and smart. And at the end when Miami made a run for the game winning touchdown, and we intercepted it, I threw my hands up and cheered in my living room. Game over. That was just...fun. Congrats to IU. I'll go back to being a Purdue fan shortly, but I enjoyed that run, and the interviews, and the comments. It's just been great. :)

I spent the morning working on medical stuff. Asking my doc to write a letter that he wasn't worried about my health, asking for my records from FL, because PA says the FAA wouldn't accept the portal docs, even though the portal docs ARE my records. So I had to print out and fill out and sign and mail a paper form down there to get the exact same documents sent to me as I already have available. Whatever.

Tonight is a CAF meeting, tomorrow is Colorado. Looking forward to Colorado, should be a good day.

ONE degree. So wrong.

Frozen ice crystals in the air

Snow flurries, ice crystals, frigid winter morning.

Home

I don't really remember much of what I did this weekend other than eat out with Steve, Chuck, AE and Jeff at Harvey Hinklemeyers (it's a normal Friday evening appointment), and do household stuff. We've got most of our kitchen cleaned out for it to be repainted, and today we emptied out our pantry and other shelving units in there. Now THAT is a job. You have no idea how much is in your pantry and how long some of it's been in there until you take *everything* out of it. We found stuff from 2007. We threw away 2 grocery bags and one box of cans, boxes, etc. What's left should make for a less crowded pantry, too. It was a lot of work and sort of amazing, actually. We're going to have them paint in all the pantry/closet areas in there too, freshen the whole thing up. So until they get to that, we have no food in the kitchen pantry, no coffee, all the stuff. lol They should be painting Kaylee's kitchen and bathroom this week, and then moving to our kitchen/dining room. After the paint comes the flooring. Like I said, looking forward to it.

Tomorrow is frigid. It's 20 degrees right now, it'll drop to 6 degrees by tomorrow morning when I'm leaving, with winds around 30 knots. In other words, very much sub-zero wind chills. Tomorrow my trip is to Madison, Indiana, where the guys will be driving over a few miles to Kentucky. It will be 17 degrees there with 30 knot winds, so...not a whole lot better. Bleh.

Wednesday is out to Colorado at two, possibly three stops there. Thursday is Chicago.

Friday I run the Conquest to Muncie for them to fix my transponder, which quit working on my last trip so I had to use the backup transponder. Then it's Kaylee's birthday! She turns 25 years old, quarter of a century. We're taking her and 7 of her co-workers out to dinner in Indy at an Italian place. :)

Watching the Chicago/LA game, which has been tight and back and forth all night. I thought the Bears had it, after they pulled off a miracle, and then right when they got in field goal range, they got intercepted and now it's back to the Rams. *sigh* Here's the game-winning field goal. Darn.

I can't think of anything else. It's just...winter.

Oh. I did get contacted by a formation group to do a fly-over with the group on July 5th for a "Battle Creek Field of Flight" event. T-6s, T-34, BT-13. They asked me last year to join them as another member, and I just yesterday said okay, at least for this one event. He said his Lead would want to fly with me ahead of time, which I would hope so. These are paid events, and you sure wouldn't want to stick someone in there who you've never flown with before for the main event first time out. I could very much suck, or we could have bad communication, or anything. I have flown with him before, at Dubuque, him and me and 3 others ended up as the centerfold on a NATA magazine photo shoot in a nice formation. :) I don't know if he remembers that or not. But I haven't flown hardly any formation in the last two years, so I sure need to get some practice before I have to prove I don't suck. ;)

I'd like to get back more into the warbirds, since I lost momentum these last two years to prove myself in the other business end of things, only to lose half that business anyway. So...might as well go do when I enjoy too this year!

Off to watch the next Landman, and head to bed for tomorrow's frigid 'adventure'.

Mobile, AL

Up at a time with a "5" in it, took the Conquest with Nick, Stephen, and Morgan to Mobile, Alabama, on a nice and pretty day. When we got down there, my plan was to drop them off then go over to Dauphin Island. It's a small 3000' strip on a tiny island down there, and I've always wanted to go there, but hadn't had a chance until possibly now. 

We started the day at "The Breakfast Spot" in Mobile, because Morgan felt a headache coming on and needed coffee and food. We ended up downtown at an odd little spot with a big Mardi Gras mask on the door, and I was informed that Mardi Gras started there before it became a big thing in New Orleans. Did not know that. There was a Mardi Gras Christmas tree up at the FBO, too.

From there we went to the USS Alabama, a battleship on the water there. We climbed around all the levels, around the giant guns and down tiny ladders and into the belly of the ship and all the little passages. We did it really quickly, because we wanted enough time to go to Dauphin Island too. It was pretty interesting, and a maze like nothing else. They had directions and you'd STILL get lost down there. I cannot imagine living on that ship 24/7.

We got back to the FBO, I turned in my car, and right before we were leaving for Dauphin Island, as we should have had a good 1.5 hours left, my guys texted me that they were done early and would be back at the airport in 5 min. Good thing we hadn't left yet! They think we'll be back down there a few times, so one of these times I'm going to make it over there. :)

Morgan ended up with a bad headache, she couldn't even fly us home. She sat over there with her eyes mostly closed and tried to not barf. A tough end to an otherwise good day of flying.

Kaylee came over and we made pudding in a cloud. Warm cooked chocolate pudding with a cool whip base that melts lightly and deliciously. A nice little comfort food.

Today (Friday) I picked up paint for our kitchen, Steve got the flooring ordered, Kaylee's house got the basement shored up so the house wouldn't shift and crack the walls in the front any more (that looks even and solid now). I picked up some packages at the post office, and ran through to get Kaylee a sweet tea from McDonald's, before going out to dinner with Steve, Chuck, AE and Jeff.  Dishes, laundry, billing, receipts, logbooks, all the home paperwork things. Paid my annual dues for the B-29 Squadron of the CAF.  Watched "Lessons in Chemistry" and only have a couple of episodes left. And so on and so forth.

5-something a.m. frigid getting the plane out

Downtown Mobile, the old sector not the huge buildings

The view from the ramp going up to the USS Alabama

Ahhhh, the sun and water

Biiiig guns. You could fit a Volkswagen in a barrel, no lie

Morgan walking on the ship

The Mardi Gras tree

Me & Morgan on board

Molly staring over at us :)

No shit

Muncie

I spent 9 hours today getting no further away than Frankfort and Muncie, Indiana. Had to get up at 6 am and drive to Frankfort, pick up the Conquest. It was suuuper cold and windy. I flew it over to Muncie, low and fast and under the clouds. I was taking it in to the avionics shop to replace the left side G600 in the panel, so it wouldn't blind me at night any more. I expected it to take a few hours, but I did not expect it to take 7.5 hours! I waited there in the pilot's lounge and did some work on my iPad. Around noon he came in and told me that they had to update the software on the old unit before they could replace it, and after they updated it, the unit seemed to be working. It took them from 8 am to noon to update the software, which is impressive! Anyway. He said that the manual didn't say anything about a software update having anything to do with that problem, and he didn't trust it. I told him that it was intermittent and I didn't trust it either, so they'd go ahead and replace the unit, the reason I was there. If they thought it worked now and I left like that and then take off at dark tomorrow and the unit blasts bright again, now I've lost a day of my life and have to go back and do it all again. No thank you. So he agreed with me, and they replaced it.

While they were working on it, I took the crew van over to town and got brunch. I'm sitting there and I suddenly see white pellets hitting the ground and bouncing off of it. I peeked around the window and it was some kind of tiny snow/sleet pellets. Winds were over 30 knots, this precip stuff was bouncing off of everything and blowing sideways. YUCK.

Finally when they were done, they asked me if I was going to leave, because the weather was even worse. And so it was, but it was still good enough. About then, the line guy at Frankfort texted me and asked if I was going to make it back, because the weather sucked. I was in the plane with it running and I laughed. He said "Never mind, I see you filed for home. Fly Safe!"  The winds were now blowing to 35 knots, snow blowing sideways, low visibility, turbulence, a little ice, and as I found out on short final at Frankfort after I shot the RNAV in, pretty good wind shear. My airspeed went from 116 to 95 in a blink, and the airplane yelled "AIRSPEED" at me. I was already powered up by then and it was taking time to recover. It got slow a couple of times, I had to keep jockeying with it. Ended with a nice 70 degree crosswind at 35 knots, made a beautiful landing out of it, too. ;)

Nick topped off and put the plane away for me, and I headed out, had to stop for gas (should've done that this morning when it was warm!) and get home in time to eat dinner with Steve and prepare for tomorrow's trip to Mobile, Alabama. 

The new Restaurant opening soon at Muncie

Such a pretty day at Muncie...

Weird Science

I got a slow start this morning, and finally made it out to Kokomo, where Morgan and I took the RG over to Logansport. We could have taken Jerry's Citabria or the Champ, but the winds were gusting over 25 knots, almost a direct crosswind at Logansport, which the Citabria can't actually safely do for some reason. The Champ could do it, but it's cold, turbulent, and would take forever in the Champ, while being cold and drafty and rough at the same time. So we took the RG and were happy to get there relatively quickly and warmly.

At Logansport they gave us a little die cast model of a Twin Beech, black and red from AvFuel. It's pretty and I appreciate it. :)

When we got back to Kokomo, Morgan took me in her new-to-her 1980 black Corvette back into town, and we had lunch at McCallister's Deli. A little broccoli cheddar soup hit the spot. 

From there we drove to visit her mom's work place and say hi, then I brought her to my house, showed her our Corvette, and my bike, and then we went inside because she was curious if the "live culture" probiotics would actually be moving. So I pulled out a microscope and some slides, and put a drop of Kombucha on a slide and magnified it, and sure enough, things were moving around in there. She was so creeped out she swears she will never eat anything with stated live cultures again. Yogurt, cottage cheese, drinks, none of it. I told her it's good for her stomach and digestion but I don't think she's swayed. ;)

Nothing much else going on. Kaylee came over to ask questions and have a discussion about ICE and the MN shooting. Because that's light conversation of an evening. ;) 

I read this about someone who is mentally unhealthy:

This is the person who avoids the pain of judgement

and ends up socially anxious.

The person who avoids the pain of grief

and ends up emotionally numb.

The person who avoids the pain of vulnerability

and ends up lonely.

The person who avoids feeling the very pain that would have kept them mentally strong.

We've got most of our kitchen and dining room cleaned out, and Kaylee's kitchen cleaned out. We just have to finish cleaning out all our closets so they can paint and do the floors in there too. 

How I feel Dec-Mar

The Day

Not much went on today. I got some good walking/exercise in. Called at noon and talked to the Dr. in Pennsylvania. I have an appointment to meet with him in person in Pittsburgh Feb. 27th. Well, it's not on the books yet but he says his people will reach out to me to make that appointment and charge me for the first part of this.  He says he will take good care of me, and other than costing a few arms and legs, I feel optimistic. He's finishing up looking through all the records to make sure there aren't any other bombs in there that I need to worry about. I wish this wouldn't take a month and a half before I know more, but...it is what it is and hopefully all will be resolved by this time in March.

Steve and I cleaned out the kitchen, took everything off the walls, I took the wall plates off the outlets, all the stuff. Our kitchen is now ready. 

Kaylee and I went out to the school board meeting tonight, and spent our duty time there. Nothing exciting happened. We talked budget and fundraisers and reports oh my. I stopped at Panera on the way home for her, I'd already eaten. 

When we got back, Steve and I went over to Kaylee's while she worked on session notes for work, and we got HER kitchen ready for tomorrow. We took all the stuff off the counters and walls and wall plates and all that stuff. I think they're coming tomorrow at 9 am to work on one or the other of the places.

That's about it for tonight. Quiet week ahead.

Home Shakeup

We've got a couple of guys coming to do some work around our and Kaylee's house. Some structural things, some cosmetic things. One thing we're doing is replacing the paint in our kitchen/dining room, and our flooring in the same place. So today we took everything out of our kitchen/dining room except the china cabinet (yet), and we took everything out of it so it's ready to move. The kitchen table was the heaviest thing to move, and so far we still got it. No problem. ;) And we picked out paint to go with the flooring. It's a darker flooring, so we picked a light paint. We're going to be going from the tan and maroon that was in there before to a light grey wall that will probably look weirdly bright to us for awhile, but should go with our black appliances, wooden cabinets, and flooring that has some black and grey in it already.  It matches our current living room carpeting, too.  Our back living room is going to be staying dark red for a long time, considering what all we'd have to get out of here in order to repaint it. I don't know if we can. Same with our bedroom and the border that's in there unnecessarily, and the carpeting I'd love to get out of there. But how on earth do we get that California King out of there and all the heavy wooden furniture?! At some point we'll redo our bathroom too, but that may cost more so will have to wait and see there. But I'm excited to have the lighter, brighter kitchen/dining room. It always was a little too yellow-y for me. We're going to get rid of some of our old person stuff on the walls too.  It'll be nice. We still get rid of things now and then we don't need, to declutter. Like the big glass decorative thing on the floor by our fridge that we put there solely for the purpose of hiding old water stains in the linoleum. Now we'll have new flooring and we won't need to hide that spot, and while it's a cool old container, I don't know what we'd really do with it or use it for. So out it goes.

The problem with getting rid of some of the knick knacks on the little shelves is that...you don't want empty shelves or oddly spaced things on them. I guess we could get rid of the whole shelf, but Steve doesn't like blank spaces/walls. I do, but I agree some of them might look a little funny. 

I've found that the best way for me to wake up clear-headed right now is to have the UV light on, and to take a Sudafed before I go to bed, or a Claritin D during the day. The only problem is, both those things have pseudoephedrine in them, and both of them you're supposed to avoid taking long term or it increases your risk of dementia by a fair amount. Of course, not sleeping well also increases those risks. So damned if I do, damned if I don't. I've been taking it about every day for a week, so I'm going to probably quit, unless I have direct issues, and...see how it goes.  Even without it, I'm still clearer than I used to be at least.

Steve has been off his statin and on Citrus Bergamot for a little while, so he's going to get some blood work done and see what his cholesterol levels are doing now. If they stay the same or go down, he'll stay off the statins. If they go up, he'll go back on the statin.

Kaylee is over here helping us pick paint and picking up all her old school concerts and plays that she was in that I bought DVDs for every time. EVERY time. She now says she is so glad I did that, because she's really looking forward to watching them again, especially the plays. She was looking for "Hello, Dolly" tonight. :)

Guess that's about it. Tomorrow I have a consultation with the aviation medical doctor guy at noon, and a school board meeting at 6:15 pm. It snowed and iced over here, and the back roads are super slick, but that should melt off tomorrow...

OH & Carmel

I'm typing this Saturday morning, watching the local news, which is inundated with the Indiana University Hoosiers football win at the Peach Bowl down in Atlanta. So I have to go on about that for a minute. IU football has sucked for its entirety. It started in 1887 and has never won a national championship, and only occasionally in that time frame got anywhere at all. So even though we've always had an IU/Purdue rivalry, I had to cheer on the underdogs here. They have a total of something like 7 "4 & 5 star" athletes, and everybody has blown them off this season even though they went undefeated. Talking heads kept saying "they haven't played a real team", they had an easy schedule, they were going to eat dirt when they played SEC teams. When they beat Ohio State, traditionally very strong and with 40+ 4-5 star athletes, it was "barely", so they were just lucky. When they blew out Alabama, with 50-some 4-5 star athletes, it was a fluke but they were still going to lose to a 'real' team. Even though they beat Oregon once, with 50-some 4-5 star athletes, they were going to lose the rematch. Now that they blew out Oregon too, I think we're out of 'real' teams now, and suddenly they're favored over Miami. It's just kind of funny, and it's a bit of a Cinderella story for Indiana. You can tell by how much red was in the audience all the way down in Atlanta, and that Indy set up special non-stop flights back and forth from Atlanta for this event. Thus I enjoyed watching the beat down of Oregon, and Coach Cig's facial expressions or lack thereof all the way to the end, and I hope they cream Miami too and go home with the natty for the first time in their 139 year existence. 

Friday was just typical home productivity day. I ordered some stuff I needed for the house, caught up on emails for the most part, paid bills, did laundry, made a couple of phone calls, picked up my new contacts, just stuff. And then Friday evening Steve and I dressed up and went down to Carmel with Ethan and Amber and had a nice friend dinner at a steak house, the name of which is escaping me right now. We had Australian Wagyu filets, which were really good. Wedge salad, crab cakes, asparagus, a glass of red wine, yukon twice baked potatoes. Lots of food, but it was all very good.  Ethan bought, and it was a nice evening. We all had a good time.

He also said he'd made a final decision on airplanes today. He lowered the price on the Conquest because he wants it to sell quickly now so we can go ahead and get moving. That'll be great. He is getting an M600, which is a newer, improved version of the Piper Meridian. It's a single engine turboprop with the same body as the Meridian, so it's still small inside, but it has a better wing, holds more fuel, has better range, can hold more weight, is a little faster. It's also new. The oldest ones produced are 2017, so he's thinking fewer maintenance issues. I think it'll be a good airplane. It'll be for all the flying his guys are doing, and the "occasional" longer trip to FL or CO would be possible in it. Mostly he's going to be chartering jets for those, for sure. But I need the income, so while flying to OH and IL isn't really all that exciting, it pays the bills, and it should keep Morgan busier too, so that's all good.

Thursday was...Ohio. ;) Morgan went with me, and I had some planning to do. After we got back from Dallas, I didn't top it off. So I left it at almost half tanks, because it's only a 30 minute flight over to Dayton, and another 13 minutes over to Columbus. Both of those places are big/international airports, which means expensive FBOs and big fees if you don't buy gas, and if I started off full I couldn't put in hardly any gas after 30 minutes, let alone 13 min.  Leaving it at half tanks, we took off and landed in Dayton, where I dropped off Logan and told the FBO we'd be back for him in a couple of hours and would get fuel, trying to get them to waive the fees. They would only waive one of the two landing fees, but at least they did that much. I went on to Columbus, where they had a $350 ramp fee, which is a LOT. It was waived with 100 gallons of fuel, so I took that on, and Still had room in the tanks. Morgan and I took a crew car into town and ate, came back, and it wasn't long before Nick and Stephen were ready. Took back off, went over to Dayton, topped off the tanks there with cheap CAA fuel, waived the one fee, and headed for home, having successfully been very efficient. :) Not sure I actually get much credit for being frugal and efficient and helpful like that, when someone pays $30k for a one-way charter without blinking and I saved them a couple hundred bucks, but...it's still the way I want to do it. 

I had Morgan do the flights to DAY to OSU, and then I did the flights from OSU to DAY and back to FKR. 

I've had a lot of headaches lately. So far in the 10 days of January I've had 4 days of headaches. Last month was pretty bad too. So I've started tracking them again so I know when it's happening, how often for sure, etc. I have an excuse for each one. Today we have a big weather and pressure change again, going from warm to cold and rainy. That seems to do it. It did it a few days ago too with the pressure change in the other direction. And before that I was at high altitude, long flights, lower hydration levels, etc for a day. But I am still waking up without being quite as stuffy any more, thankfully, something (UV light or sudafed or both) is helping there. Just wish I could ditch the headaches.

Guess that's about it. Steve and Kaylee were going to go hiking today, but it's rainy, so they're going to hold off. I don't have anything planned for today but kick the headache and get some groceries...

St. Louis

At 9 pm last night, I got a text from Logan asking if I could by chance take him to St. Louis tomorrow morning. Yes, actually I could. So Nia, Morgan, Logan and I loaded up this morning and headed to St. Louis. He said he hoped he'd be done in 2 hours, and he really was. We ladies took a crew car and went into downtown and ate at Union 31, kind of a fancy place. Got back and I was on hold with Bose on the phone, and I got a text from him that he'd be back in 20 min. So that was good timing.

My Bose headset in the Conquest, the Bluetooth was working fine yesterday morning when I called on it to get my clearance. But later that day, the Bluetooth wouldn't even turn on. No light came on, nothing happened, it wouldn't be "found", it was dead. So I tried again today. Replaced batteries (even though it's a Lemo plug), reset the switches under the batteries, wiped/cleaned the contacts inside, did all the things, and it still wasn't coming up. So I called Bose, they agreed there was nothing else we could do, and told me to send it in to them. They opened a ticket, sent me a UPS label, and it'll all be free because it's still under warranty. It'll take a few weeks to get back, but I'll just bring my own other headset along instead, the one that takes batteries, and it'll be fine...

When we got back to Frankfort today, the "job shadowing" was done, and Nia went on home. I'm just glad that we got through three days without too much boredom. It was slightly awkward, and it was a lot of peopleing, and I'm glad it's done. I hope she got what she needed and it wasn't too bad for her.  We made it.

Morgan and I decided to go to Glenndale and fly the Citabria a little. It was in the 50s and sunny and clear and calm winds in January, so we had to go take advantage of it while we could...she started off in the front and did some spins and landings, we stopped and got gas, and swapped seats and I was up front for the ending.  Not a bad January day.

LifeLine

Whew, I was tired. I'm posting this while Steve is napping next to me on the couch. See, when I got home today, I was really tired, and I sat on the couch and passed out. Kaylee tried to call me, because she likes to talk on the phone on her way home from work. I declined it and was going right back to sleep, except Steve called Kaylee back and talked loudly to her until she got home, waking me up quite thoroughly. And then he hung up with her when she got here, leaned back, and passed right back out, breathing heavily and contentedly sleeping. While I'm now tired but awake. Bum. ;)

This was a tiring day. The weather was supposed to be low IFR but doable, but it kept being worse than it was supposed to be. It makes it pretty hard to plan things if your available information is "okay" but reality isn't and you can't tell what it's going to do. 

I had NB (16 year old job shadowing me) wait an extra half hour as I wasn't sure if we were getting into the Chicago area airport or not. It kept dipping at to below minimums, and the available forecast wasn't helping. Finally I decided we could get there, but I wasn't so sure about Michigan, where we were dropping her off, but it LOOKED like it should be doable. So we launched, in 500' overcast and mist. The forecast at Chicago was for 300' and 2 miles. Halfway there it was reporting 200' and 1 mile, then 2400' and 2 miles. When we actually landed, it was 300' and a mile or so. Just up and down all over the place. We get there early enough to get gas and pay the bill, and Tanya, the cancer patient, was there within about 45 minutes. I spent that whole time trying to figure out what we were doing. The original airport we were supposed to go into went down to 0 miles visibility with "vertical visibility" ceiling of 0'.  Zero Zero, well, that's not happening. I had a back up airport, JXN. I watched everything around it go below minimums while it stayed at 300'. Then 200' and 1/2, or...minimums. It stayed there for 45 min, it stayed there while we got in the plane, it stayed there 2/3rds of the way there, but everything, and I mean everything else was below minimums, so my plan was to go to Lansing if I had to, which would have been extra hours of time and decent money to get her home by Uber.  But my choices were limited.

Right as I'm starting vectors for the approach in, I'm told it's now 1/4 mile and 200'. That's below minimums. But I decided to go ahead and shoot the approach and look, because sometimes what you see at the end of the runway is different than what the thing reports. And I was already there.  When I got switched to tower they told me they couldn't see the runway so just to let them know if I landed or if I went missed. I said I'd advise them. I told NB that her job was to stare out the front of the window, and if she sees the same white "rabbit" lights we had at Chicago, to call out just "LIGHTS". I programmed in Lansing with the assumption I was going to go missed. Called out altitudes. 1000 to go. 500 to go. 200 to go, 100 to go, Minimums, right when I saw and NB called out LIGHTS. I didn't have the runway but I had the lights, so I came down to 100' above the ground, and there was the runway.  So we landed. The two ladies on board were impressed. I was just glad to have found it. I told tower I was on the runway taxiing off at "Alpha", having landed at minimums. He had me taxi to the FBO "under the tower", but I couldn't see the tower. lol I just used the map like normal, man. 

We dropped off the lady, who was very nice, got some gas to waive the fees, and took off again in the murk headed for home, Frankfort, which was a respectable 1700' overcast. 

Landed, and I had her help me wipe the plane down, we went over paperwork, the logbook, plane's logs, receipts, etc., and then I was like...we're done for the day, I got nothing else. So she's coming back to Kokomo tomorrow at 9 am. I told her to bring homework or something to entertain herself with, because I don't have anything for her to do tomorrow. She got to do a lot of things...some that other people wish they could have done, so it'll have to do.

I went to Culvers when I got back, and sat in the restaurant and ate my first meal of the day at 4 pm. The glamorous life. ;)

Me, Nia, Tanya

Lining up for takeoff again out of JXN

And back on top, in the sunshine

Shadow

So today was the first day of NB "job shadowing" me. Steve ended up needing to get the Aerostar over to Muncie to work on the autopilot, so I took her with me in there. I did all the ground stuff and takeoff, and had her fly us for awhile. Then I did some super steep turns and wingovers and such since she'd said she really liked stalls. She enjoyed that. She's a quiet one, introvert, Junior in high school. We land, and Morgan is there in the 172RG to pick us up, but because I'm trying to actively kill time, I have us all go inside. Talk to the front desk, talk to the avionics guy, go up to the pilot lounge and sit for a bit, go over flight plans, eat up as much time as possible. We got in the RG and I had her and Morgan fly us home. Morgan asked if she wanted to take off, and she said she'd never taken off before. Later I saw her logbook, and she has 6 or 7 flights (6-7, hah), for quite a few hours, and she'd NEVER taken off?? I have my Discovery Flight students take off the first time they ever sat in an airplane if they want to! Her instructor is not doing her any favors, that's for sure. It's a new girl, named Mercedes, who is a brand new CFI, and apparently she is not comfortable at all, or she'd at least let the girl take off. I do not feel promising about this one. Anyway. She took off and flew us home, and Morgan landed it after NB said she didn't want to do any more on downwind. We then had an hour to kill that was kind of slow. I talked to her about different options in aviation, from the weird like fish game wildlife to firefighting to island tours in Hawaii to airlines and corporate. 

Then we went to lunch. I told her lunch was a big part of being a pilot. ;) Afterwards I ran some errands with her and Morgan in the car, which highly amused Morgan. Then we drove back to Kokomo. While we were at lunch, I got an email about LifeLine needing a pilot for tomorrow. I was like...hey...that's what we can do! But I didn't know if Ethan would want me to now that he's selling it. And then ten seconds later Ethan texts me and asks if I want to do that flight. Yes I do. That was fortuitous. So I wrote in and told them I could do it. Ergo, after lunch, we drove down to Frankfort so I could see how much gas I had on board, figure up how much I would need, see if I needed to add any (I didn't), and do all that work. The three of us hung out at that airport for awhile, and then she headed out and we were done for the day as far as the job shadowing goes.

Here's the thing. She isn't really all that interested in aviation. When Steve asked her at lunch if she'd learned anything, she said not really, didn't have anything to say. Even though she'd done her first own takeoff and had done almost aerobatics for the first time too. She wanted to job shadow her dad's company, but they wouldn't let you do a family thing. So she had to go to someone she sort of halfway almost knows (me). She didn't talk a lot, she didn't care about the various airplanes that much, didn't know the name of the airplane she was "learning to fly" in, hadn't had a flight since last September, and definitely doesn't have the "bug" for flying. She thinks it's interesting and wants to do something different for a living that isn't sitting at a desk, but she's not super enthralled with aviation, and if you ask her what she wants to do, she has zero idea. "I'll start with Private" and go from there. So...the pressure felt gone on my end to try to make this anything but slightly entertaining and just get through it, because she doesn't really care. I got through today all right, and tomorrow should be all right. I have no idea what we're doing on Wednesday yet. I think 3 days of 8 hours each is a lot to ask of me, especially when she only has to write a 1-3 paragraph, not page, paper about it at the end. If this were true job shadowing that would be fine, but I'm having to come up with something to keep a 16 year old introvert who would almost rather not be there but has to be in order to graduate, not too bored. That's not the most fun for any of us, right? But we all did all right today. I think she enjoyed most of it, found it something relatively different to do. And she loosened up by the end and was talking more. It helped having Morgan there, who is closer to her age. Morgan and I could talk like normal people and then she could chime in here and there, vs me trying to talk to her on my own, which I did for awhile, and got nowhere and it felt awkward. lol So anyway, that was day one. Day two it'll just be her and me doing the LifeLine flight, and then Wednesday Morgan will be around again.

Afterwards, Morgan, Steve and I went to Half Moon for dinner, before coming home so I could work on the LifeLine stuff. In the beginning I was thinking of that flight as a 'win' because I now had something to do with NB. But then I got the itinerary, and the flight is to pick up a 51 year old woman traveling alone, from the Chicago area, where she is getting treatment for her Stage 4 Melanoma that has metastasized into her liver and lungs. In other words, she's probably gone, and not too long from now. Suddenly being available for a trip was more about helping her get home than it was about not being bored with a kid for a day...

Dallas

Yesterday (today) was kind of a weird one. I didn't have anything on the schedule, per usual. Steve and Kaylee were set to go hiking on what they thought was a 10 mile hike. I'm invited but it was 25 degrees, and I don't think I could do a 10 mile hike at the pace that she is doing to try to prep for her Grand Teton Adventure. Pretty sure I don't want to, even if I could, and not sure that I could right now. So they went off and did that, while I left the house, ran a couple of errands, and stopped at Missy's for brunch by myself, reading a book, eating at the counter. 

Some people are horrified by that. In fact, I saw a morning show guy say one of the worst things you can do is eat alone. He equated it with drinking alcohol alone. Says if you're in a restaurant alone, you should strike up a conversation with someone, anyone, for human contact and stimulation. Says the extrovert, obviously. ;) I don't WANT human "contact and stimulation" from strangers, thankyouverymuch. I want to enjoy good food, without being disturbed, and people watch while I read and eat. He (and Steve and Kaylee) can chat up strangers, and I'll find my peace elsewhere, eh? ;)

The other day Kaylee sent us a text and asked if we left bread in her bird feeder. I said no, Steve said no, and she said "WHAT??" because there was a huge chunk, like a half loaf of bread stuck in a little plastic feeder thing by her deck door. Steve says it was a squirrel, that the cameras didn't show any humans. So yesterday I left the house at 11:16, and took a photo of Molly on the deck staring at me to send to Kaylee. The hunk of bread was there. I got home at 1:55 pm, and was walking to my house when I saw the bread was gone. Shot a photo and sent it to Kaylee and said "Your bread is gone". Steve thinks it was a squirrel but man it was a big hunk of bread. It had to be something that could climb like that...big fat squirrel?!

Molly staring at me, bread over her head slightly to the right

Bread be gone

When Kaylee and Steve got back, they'd had a good hike, stayed warm, did it to be an 'aerobic' exercise, because Kaylee's training program had her doing 2 hours of aerobics, but she didn't want to do it indoors, so she wanted to do it on a speedy walk. By the way, neither Steve nor I can say "aerobic" without starting out at "aerobatic" and trying to figure out what the correct word actually is.  Steve is glad Kaylee is wanting to do this, because he otherwise doesn't want to hike 10 miles on a Saturday, but he says it's good for him, and they do some good bonding too.

So there I am, sitting on the couch, and I get a text from Dustin who asks if I'm up for an adventure, and would I be willing to go to Puerto Rico to pick up his best friend and family who are stranded there because the airline flight was canceled...because all airline flights were canceled because of the Venezuela situation, and military activity. I told him I was always up for an adventure, but nobody was getting in there right now, because it's not just airlines shut down. lol  I also don't have an airplane I can use right now for that, because his 340 sure won't make it. ;) But that was an interesting rabbit hole, looking up the airspace and the activity going on and reading about all the folks trying to get in or out of there. The airspace opened back up at 5 am this morning, and planes hopping in and out of there, so hopefully everyone is getting sorted quickly.

Now it's late afternoon, and I'm just sitting there on the couch still, and I get another text, this time from Ethan asking if I can do a quick run to Chicago to pick up his son Tell and his girlfriend, Abby. I hadn't been drinking or anything, so I said sure, I could. Come to find out Tell and Abby were in Dallas, and their airline flight into Chicago had been delayed 3 times already, and now wasn't going to get into Chicago O'Hare until midnight.  Whoa. They were going to have to land at O'Hare, and get an Uber over to Palwaukee or Midway, and then we'd have to fly home, and then drive from there, and we were talking like 3 am before it was said and done. I didn't have anything on Sunday either, so I could, but... so the next thought was, they're sitting there in Dallas. I could fly to Dallas and get back to Frankfort about the same time as they'd be landing in Chicago, IF their plane wasn't delayed again or canceled.  Ethan floated that past Tell, and they took it.

I got dressed and ready, flight planned, filed, called to get a quick turn down there for fuel, texted Morgan, because she's stir crazy right now too and I haven't even seen her for almost two weeks, and we headed for Frankfort.

I stopped at McDonald's on the way out, and this sign was hanging in the window. Being curious, I read it even though it wasn't for me. It says:

NO SPEAKERS
NO HEADPHONE
NO EARBUDS
IF A MANAGER SEE YOU
WITH ANY OF THESE
ITEMS YOU WILL BE
WROTE UP AND
TERMINATED!

The Grammar. Oh, it hurts. It hurts so bad. I need a red pen, STAT!! ;)

There was ice on the ground in front of the hangar, and I couldn't get the plane out by myself. She pushed on the wing and with that extra oomph we were able to get it out (and back in) but it wasn't easy, it was cold and dark and icy, but at least it wasn't windy. :p

The flight itself was easy, fortunately. Morgan flew the first leg and I did the radios, and I flew us home and she did the radios. The moon was super full and bright, skies were clear, and it was pretty out. It made for a nice first 'real' trip of the year. When we landed there, they had the fuel truck pulled up, and we had time to go to the bathroom and pay the bill and we were back outside, in the air in like 20 minutes flat, which is impressive. The only weird thing was the display on my side. The main G600, which displays all the information I need to fly the plane, suddenly went full on bright even at night awhile ago, if you recall. Ethan put a tinting film over the top of it, which makes it manageable even if still a little bright, even though I also manually took the backlight down as far as it would let me. Well, I pull up to the runway to take off in Dallas, and my screen goes completely black. I can't take off like that. What happened is the thing started working. I could shine a light on it and make it come up for a second, but I couldn't keep a light on it and fly easily. So I ripped the film off of it and brightened the screen back up manually. Take off, get halfway home, and Bam, it suddenly goes full bright again, blasting the ole retinas. I had saved the tint film, fortunately, so I slapped it back on there and we made it the rest of the way home. Dumb thing.

Meanwhile, Ethan was in Naples, FL waiting to get home in his brother's jet. They were supposed to leave at 2 pm, and they were stuck on the ground until 7 pm. They had to get in line around 4:30 pm, in the airplane, on a taxiway, in line, and sat on the ground at least 2 hours. Tower controlled field. Thing is, Marco (uncontrolled) wasn't showing delays, and the floor of the EDCTs was at 18,000' like normal, so I think I could have gotten them out of Marco in the Conquest, but I can't say that out loud...and don't know it for sure. But I think so, because I have been able to so far.

The ground traffic at Naples, with Ethan's brother's plane in red, sitting for 2+ hours

I got home around 1:15 am, which is a lot better than it could have been. The only down side is that I had a stuffed up head and low grade headache even when I went to bed. I think maybe flying along at 30,000' in a not-great pressurized airplane, almost 6 hours, couldn't really drink much, I think those high altitude long range flights are hard on me these days. Anyway, my head never unstuffed, and I ended up with the first headache of the year this morning, and the UV light couldn't save me from whatever that was as far as head stuffiness. I didn't feel great most of the day, but I walked a mile on the treadmill anyway just to try to get some motion in.

I got a bit of a surprise this evening. Morgan had asked me last night about Shaun (my first fiancé), and I said I didn't know where he ended up, so I figured I'd look him up on the FAA database and see if I could figure out stuff. He had his A&P, a Flight Engineer certificate, his ATP and several type ratings on small stuff that looked like regional airline pilot, but then I noticed his medical expired in 2021 and was never renewed. That made me curious, so I put him into Google with his birthday, and the first thing I found was...his obituary. Bro died March 20th, 2024 "peacefully at home" at age 54. Of WHAT, I have no idea, nothing said. I probably shouldn't contact his parents, his wife of 22 years, 3 daughters, or 2 grandkids and ask them. ;) But it's wild to me that he died at home at 54. Cancer maybe? That's what got Bob J at age 53 who also died 'peacefully at home'. It's just weird when people your own age die. Everyone older than me is laughing at me right now. But it IS weird. He looks like him, just older.

Tomorrow I have the young lady (NB) coming to Kokomo to job shadow me for 3 days, as we do...nothing. No trips, no students, no warbirds, I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with her past Monday afternoon. Maybe I'll fly her to some random place and sit her in the pilot's lounge and tell her that we're gonna wait here for 8 hours and then fly home. ;)

Airborne photos from last night's trip to Dallas.

So many lights coming up on Dallas

Coming up on downtown in a series of photos. You can see the bright green skyscraper in the center-ish get closer

Turning right on top of it

Bright moon made it almost look like daylight behind you