And Then...

Kaylee called us last night from Pastarrific, where her car did the thing where it would start but wouldn't shift into gear. We had JUST that day sent in the paperwork saying we think they fixed it and accepting the conclusion of it. And that night it quit working again. She had to get a ride home from a friend and leave her car running in the parking lot of Pastarrific. We have no choice but to let the car run all night until the battery dies. Then this morning Steve and I drove down there, he jumped it, and it would drive very slowly, so we took it to a nearby car place. Couldn't take it all the way down to Tipton like that, but we could at least get it to our local place. Of course things like this happen on a Friday night when nothing's really open. So Steve called today and got somebody in Tipton, told them he wanted a different car, one with a normal gas engine, because it's the electric part of this that is causing all the problems. And so next week we get to mess with getting her a rental car again to get to work and back, and get to try to figure out how we're going to turn this car in and get a different one for her that will hopefully not leave her stranded multiple times in a few short months as a brand new car. Bunch of baloney.

I got a text this morning from Bob H, the guy in Ft Wayne who isn't a pilot but bought a T-6 and had me fly him around in it, then sold it, then bought a new T-6 a few years later and wants me to teach his Fed Ex buddy (who is terrible) in it. Well, Bob asked if I was checked out in a T-28, and I said no, and he said "well, we're going to change that, because I just bought this one. Have fun with it, please reach out and start the process, I will cover all costs, please start as soon as you can." Well...heck. My instructor is going to be Job S, of course. Also of course, he just got checked out in a T-28...yesterday. lol But if this actually happens, it'll be the first warbird checkout I was offered that actually goes through. :o We'll see. I would like that though, even if it is a nosewheel. :)

More

Yesterday morning I went up with Ashley in the Champ, and we flew for almost 2 hours. She wanted to do spins too, so we did, a bunch of them, and she did a nice job with them. From there we did a bunch of takeoffs and landings in the Champ. Wheel and 3-point. She doesn't quite have it, is a little slow on reacting with her feet on the ground, but she's getting close.

I can't remember what else I did yesterday, actually. lol 

I did decide to call the doctor's office though and get an appointment. I could either wait for my own doctor, and see him in 2.5 months or so, or I could get an appointment the next day with a NP. So that's what I did. I made the appointment for the knee. I get there, she looks at it and manipulates it a little, says that yes it's swollen and popping when it shouldn't, and she sends me across the hall for an x-ray. The tech tells me that the x-ray won't show if I tore the meniscus, but they have to do the x-ray first or insurance won't pay for the MRI I actually do need. And I should see an orthopedist, but insurance won't cover that unless I'm also signed up for PT. Here's the rub. Insurance may "pay" for these things, but my deductible is so high it won't matter, I'll end up paying for all of it anyway. But I have to do it in their order in order for it to go towards the deductible anyway. So I have to do double the things I actually need to do in order to get to what I do need. Ah, insurance, you're so awesome. 

Steve brought up Oshkosh and that made me blink, because I can't walk around Oshkosh like this. I can't walk around the block like this. Steve's like "we could get you a scooter". Ack. They gave me an NSAID, Meloxicam. Whatever Kaylee gave me worked really well on the pain and stiffness. But after I got this, I looked it up, says it could cause dizziness, so I will have to be careful with it. It is "allowed" on the FAA medicine website at least. I of course look that up first too. I will only take it if I've over-used it and it's hurting me. Otherwise...

I got a text today, one of my imaginary friends ('friend' I've known online for a decade or more) was coming through the area. His "handle" is "Anymouse", a version of Anonymous. He was a King Air pilot who flew during wartime in the middle east as a civilian contractor for the military. Saw a lot, did a lot. Was an Alaskan pilot too. Neat guy, a little younger than Steve. I could only be there about 40 minutes before I had to leave for my doctor appointment, but it was nice to meet in person. Awkward because I'm awkward, but also nice.

I'm trying to meet up with the guy who sold Jeff's Suburban for him, as he needs to give me the cash for it. But it's already 8:30 pm and I haven't heard from him yet, and if he doesn't hurry up in the next 15-20 minutes or so, I'll be done and just have to meet up with him another day instead.

I was supposed to fly with one of Ashley's students this afternoon, but instead we're rescheduled for tomorrow morning. I halfway hope tomorrow's weather isn't any good so I don't have to, but...it would be good if I did. She said he needs help with the flare, with his landings. So I'll give that a shot.

Kaylee is out tonight with Mrs. E from Eastern, and Caitlin. I'm glad. 

Any and Me and BOB

Me getting three more x-rays because I didn't get enough of that this year ;)

Right Round

Tuesday. First up were the Flying Squirrels. I had two flights, in the Champ. First up was the same kid I had last week, who almost threw up on me. He did better this time, and we went up and had a little more relaxed fun than we did on the last lesson. He is not very good at this yet and has like 12 hours, and still doesn't know how to level off or do anything that you don't tell him to do. Second kid I had, he did a good job. We went up and did our Champ flight, and then I even had him land, and he did pretty well with it all told. From there we had Chick-Fil-A delivered for lunch. It was funny because the Moms set up lunch each week and this Mom had Chick-Fil-A delivered, except the Kokomo store doesn't do deliveries apparently, and either neither does Door Dash or she didn't know how, so she had it delivered from MUNCIE. The van shows up from Muncie to the airport in Kokomo. I asked if the driver was tipped and she said not that she knows of. Gah. I felt bad about that, but I didn't do it and I couldn't catch the driver afterwards, so...it just has to go down as a bad deal and we all move on. The Lord's Chicken was good as always, however, still nice and hot.

Next up was the CAF FEB meeting. Now that was just great. It lasted three hours. It was Not Fun. Jordan B and JP flew up from Terre Haute, people called in from several other states, and Doug sat there while everyone discussed the situation, and it was contentious at times, logical at times, but it went on and on. The problem came when we dismissed Doug and discussed penalties, and the first penalty on the list was "is not fit to fly" and should never fly for Indiana again. It was discussed, and 13 people agreed that was unnecessary. One guy was a hold out, who said that he "wasn't there", and nothing anybody said was going to get him there. Now in this room were Instructor Pilots, Check Pilots, Airline Pilots, NTSB investigators, Rides Pilots, Safety officers, all manner of people/pilots. The one guy who was a hold-out? Isn't a pilot at all. He has no freaking clue what he's talking about, and instead of listening to people who DO know, he just drew a line in the sand and said he wasn't happy. So now people are trying to find out what will make him happy. And three freaking hours later, here we are with this stupid long evolved unnecessary plan of punishment and monitoring. He also called two guys yahoos, said 'shame on us' for going easy on one guy, and basically this was shots fired at me for reasons too long to explain on here. That lit me up, and I went after him. Steve ended up cooling me off there a bit, and we continued. But I didn't appreciate that at all.

Steve's angry, I was angry and I woke up at 3 am thinking about it, which makes me angrier. Sleep is precious to me any more, now that I've felt what life was like without it. So waking up at 3 am thinking about this guy and why he's a tool just made me madder. Steve has decided he's going to make a move and push, and either that guy goes or he goes. He is declaring war on the guy, and plans on telling him to his face that he wants him out. So, I guess we're about to have a little internal war in the CAF, ready or not.

This morning I was able to sleep in until 8:30, although I didn't sleep in until 8:30, but I at least didn't get out of bed until then. ;) I met Brennan at Chuck's place, and we were taking the Citabria up. Brennan wanted to get his spin endorsement. So we talked on the ground first about spins, what causes them, how to recover from them, what students can do to put you into those situations, etc. Then we went up, went over to Kokomo, got gas, and then climbed up and did all the things. Normal stalls, uncoordinated stalls, turning stalls, then getting more aggressive until we did stalls/spins out of a slip, out of a skid, out of a steep turn. Left and right spins, fully developed spins in both directions of at least 4-5 turns (the second one took him out, he was done after that one lol), spins where you recover with PARE, or spins where you recover by just pulling power out and letting go, we did it for over an hour, just all the things. It was fun. Did a couple landings at Glenndale, and then we put it away. It was a fun flight. Brennan did a nice job with it!

Afterwards, Chuck, Steve and I met up for lunch, and then I had an afternoon flight with Josh in the Champ next. We did one-wheel landings mostly, he started working on those. His wheel landings are still a little wobbly most of the time, so the one wheel landings were a little wobbly too, but he's getting there. Then he asked if we could spin the Champ, so I said sure, and we went up and did several to the left and right in the Champ, too. We ended up doing about 4 or 5 spins.

Landed from that after almost 2 hours, and met up with Cameron, Ashley, and Steve for dinner at Pastarrific. While we were there, Ashley said that we were scheduled to fly the Champ tomorrow, and asked if we could do spins too. Hahaha--sure. I told her sure, and it's scheduled. Sort of funny, I guess it is Spin Week at OKK. :D Fortunately out of the probably dozen spins I did today, it never got to me/bothered me, even the fully developed ones. I've had times last year where it felt like it got to my equilibrium a little bit, but not today, so I was glad for that.

Steve was going to go tailwheel flying with me today, but Josh took too long, so we just skipped it and went to dinner instead. I'll try to get him up flying tomorrow maybe. I was supposed to go to Nebraska, but that got moved by a week, so now I'm here tomorrow. Flying with Ashley and hopefully him. He wants to get more back into it, and I want him to too.

I'm going to be taking Brennan on a couple Cirrus flights. First one next week. Get him back in the IFR system, see the airplane, get used to trips, start winding him up to be able to build time and get ready to take on Cirrus trips himself in the future. He's excited, and that's always fun. He's a good kid, I like him. He's almost the next Spencer. :)

Nothing new on Kaylee, or Steve, or Molly. I'm still doing the additional weights, I don't do a ton but I'm consistent, I've doubled the sad amount of weight I'm using, and I'm feeling decent about all that. 

My ring tells me I'm stressed out a lot, my cumulative stress level is "high" and "chronic", but you know, a lot of times I do not feel stressed when it says I am. This morning, however, they purged the hydrant in front of our house and we had no water pressure and the water was spraying across our driveway and my ring said I was stressed, and I was "agitated" about it, tis true. Later on when I was up doing spins with Brennan, I pulled up my phone and looked at that, out of curiosity, and it said I was doing a good job being "relaxed". I thought that was so funny. I'm up spinning an airplane over and over and over, and it tells me NOW I'm relaxed. But really...I pretty much was relaxed. It was fun. But I took a brief 20 minute nap after lunch before going out to OKK to make up for me waking up at 3 am and not getting back to sleep quickly, and during my nap it told me I was stressed. I was not stressed, I was asleep! Anyway. That aspect of the ring may be stressing me out more than helping me, as it tells me I'm too stressed and that's stressful. ;) 

The Days

Father's Day, Steve slept in until like after 9:30 am, which is super rare, and when he did get up, even Kaylee had gotten up before him! Haha. It was a more laid-back day than Saturday, but I still made crispy bacon and eggs and OJ for lunch, and Kaylee came over for a bit with Molly, too. I think he had a very nice Father's Day weekend.

I did run into one problem. Saturday, I got up and down out of the T-6 several times. I felt fine. Sunday I woke up and I couldn't hardly walk on my left leg. It was *super* painful and wobbly. Like it painfully needed to pop but could not/would not, almost like it was something sharp on something sharp in there, and it would give out on me with any weight. And it didn't get better all day. I took some more of the anti-inflammatories that Kaylee had, and I wore the knee brace, and I thought, well, crap, I'm going to have to call the doctor's office after all. I didn't even really know what I did to it. I've been exercising it more, but it was doing much better until right then. Apparently I am not allowed to climb up and down on the T-6, but everything else is okay. *sigh* The good news is, when I woke up Monday morning, it was back to okay. I mean, not healed, but I can walk on it at least for crying out loud. No, I didn't call the doctor yet. I should. But I already know that unless I go in for a scan of some sort and learn anything different, they're probably just going to send me to PT, which I'll have to pay for out of pocket because our (large) insurance deductible started over for the year. I've done my own PT on my shoulders, and they're pretty good now. Right knee I'd say is back to totally normal though I need to regain some strength. But that left knee, man...at least I can use it again, walk normally, mostly straighten it out if I go slowly and carefully. But it did just show me in one day that it's not okay yet.

Today for lunch Steve and I met up with Ethan G, our former instructor who has been hired on to an airline. Can't remember which one. I think Endeavor. But he just got through training, and has his very first trip on Wednesday in the actual airplane. He's never flown the actual airplane before. He got his type rating in the simulator and on Wednesday he will get in the real airplane for the first time in his life, and fly it from JFK to Chicago O'Hare and back. With a captain, of course. But still. Wheeeew, man. Off he goes. He wanted to buy us lunch and say thank you for everything and let us know how he's doing and all that good stuff. He was a good instructor, a hard worker, and is a good dude, so we're happy for him. And we still bought his lunch today because he's not making the big bucks yet. We told him he could buy when he got more established. ;)

Speaking of former instructors now airline pilots, Spencer is here today too. He's working on BOB, getting an engine off and ready to go down to Texas so we can pick up the new engine and get it on BOB. He went out to dinner with us after driving 4 hours to help us out, and we ended up at Half Moon with him and Chuck. It's always nice to see him again, he's one of my favorite people we've ever had out there and I miss having him around.  He's a good dude. Smart, super hard working, and an excellent pilot, all combined.

Kokomo Airport hired one of the students we had to drop because she was absolutely incapable of progressing on her pilot certificate. She had the attention span of a gnat, was always showing up tired, was completely inconsistent, you'd have to start over and do things you've already done multiple times and she'd forget the next time. She had a scholarship, and she burned through it and never even soloed. She wouldn't study, or couldn't study. She was a train wreck, and we sat her and her parents down multiple times, until finally we had to say enough. So she left. And then she was back working for the city pumping gas. Except she was removed after about one day, because she wasn't strong enough to pull the hose out of truck, apparently. Kinda hard to fuel airplanes when you can't drive the truck, nor pull the hose out of the truck. So she's gone again. I feel a little sorry for her, I think she has some learning disability issues, but damn. We really don't want consolation prizes in aviation. That's how a kid fuels up an Aerostar with Jet A which proceeds to crash and kill a guy. So who took her place? Another former student of mine who had ADHD badly, was kind of weird, and his dad would sit in the back of the plane on his lessons and say "good job buddy" and stuff like that. This is the kid who kept doing the same thing over and over and I kept telling him not to. Then one day with his dad in the back he was flying the plane with just the trim wheel again, and I said "remember, trim off the pressure then just fly it with the yoke, don't fly it with the trim wheel" and he snaps at me "I KNOW that, you already TOLD me that." And I fired back immediately with "THEN STOP DOING IT". Then I paused because his dad was in the back seat, and then I did not give a single shit, because that little punk was not going to snap at me when he's the one not doing what he's supposed to. I also told him not to just go for a a medical, that he had some things to get in order first. He went to Mike and got a medical anyway, and showed me his paper and was like "See, no problem!" (Not a good show on Mike's part, btw). He went off to Indiana Statue for the flight program there, and six months later the FAA sent him a letter and revoked his medical. I did not say "See, Problem" back to him. Dad spent over $10k and eventually got the medical back somehow or other, over time, but the kid just isn't any good at this, and he either quit or got removed from the flight school there too. And now he's back here at OKK to pump gas. We'll see how even that goes, frankly. Got two more kids here, one on scholarship and one who is out at the airport working for us. Scholarship is a sweet girl, homeschooled in a strictly religious home. She's struggling finishing her Private and is about to have her scholarship revoked too. Another boy, also fully homeschooled, came out to work on maintenance stuff for us and work on his Private. His mother goes with him everywhere. She attends his ground school sessions. She comes out to the airport for every event he goes to. She sits with him at home when he does Zoom groundschool. He is completely incapable of doing anything on his own. He is completely incapable of studying. Doesn't know how. Is used to having everything just fed to him and no clue how to get it himself. You try to assign him a task, and unless you spell out every step of every task, he will move a tool from one place to another and then stand there like a robot whose programming just ended. He was prepped for a Private Pilot checkride, and then miserably failed in the first 15 minutes of the oral when he completely forgot everything, and didn't know how to think outside the box when asked anything. Then he blamed it on the DPE not giving him time to think or not letting him look up anything. Except we've known the DPE for 30 years, and DPE said the kid stared at the table for excessive amounts of time, said not a word, didn't know where to look up anything, didn't know how to do a weight and balance if the excel spreadsheet didn't come up, and was completely lost. This was awhile ago now, and he's still no closer to being able to finish. He and his mom were at the Noblesville pancake breakfast smiling and walking around. Very lovely people. But just not...right. Home of misfit toys still, I swear.

Speaking of, Zak T is back polishing up the T-6 now too. He came around and asked Steve if he could use Checkertail as a way to drum up airplane detailing business. Steve said sure. He did do a nice job on it. 

Today was the anniversary of Devon's death. I went back and read some things I'd written about during that time frame, and I didn't even remember some of it, which makes you feel weird and bad. So odd how it seems like it happened to someone else almost, or in a different world. It WAS a different world. When he died I was 27 years old. Two years older than Kaylee is now. That's freaking weird, man.

Well, I've got some emails to write up, some business to get to. Tomorrow is the Squirrels, and then the FEB meeting for the CAF where everyone piles on Doug. Morgan's gone to TN on family vacation, I don't have any work flights until Thursday, but I have some students in the meantime. Brennan wanting to do spins in the Citabria, a kid struggling with the flare in the 172, student of Ashley's, Ashley wanting to do some tailwheel stuff in the Champ, the Squirrels of course, etc.

T-6ing

Twas a good day.

Early wake-up call, but for a good cause. Took our CFI Ashley in the back seat of the T-6 down to Noblesville Airport for their bi-annual pancake breakfast. Everybody goes, from all over. They give a free breakfast to the pilot, but they get so much car traffic in they still make a lot of money. We usually pay for our meal anyway just to support their event.

Flying down with Ashley, I let her fly, and she was having fun with that. Then I showed her some more aggressive maneuvering, and she really enjoyed that. lol On the way home she said "Can you do the stuff again?" so I did a bit more, and we had fun. 

I ran into about everybody down there. Photographers, friends, pilots, many of them. When I walked up to the cash register, Brian there said "She's nothing". I said "No, I gave my ticket to Ashley so she's nothing, but I'm something". Then I said "I'm NOTHING? How rude". lol He meant I don't get charged anything because I flew in. It just sounded funny.

We got back to Kokomo after 10:30, and then I waited around until 1 pm. Billy W. came in then with his daughter and we talked and came up with a plan for the Haynes Apperson parade fly-over. 1:35 I fired up, 1:45 we took off together and circled over north of town, and 1:58 pm we hit the town square after the National Anthem and started off the parade.  Except the clock I was using for a second hand, suddenly my second hand was gone and I couldn't get it back and I no longer knew when to start our run down Main Street. So I had to guess, which was uncool, and we ended up being a little early. Early is better than late, but on time is best. Of course. 

Meanwhile, Billy's daughter was unhappy in the plane and he was having trouble concentrating, but he stayed right with me and supposedly we looked good. Hope so!

All in all, a good day was had.

Steve piddled around the house, and then we had ribeyes he grilled out for dinner tonight, I made my corn, Kaylee came over, and we had a Father's Day day on Saturday. Steve lit a fire in the pit in the back yard, and we all sat out there, had a drink, hung out and talked. Ended the night with a movie, and it was really nice day.

On the way to pancakes

Meet Ashley. I think she likes it back there :)

Back of my head

T-6 departing...

Fire in the back yard :)

Juneteenth

The storms passed by uneventfully for us, nailed southern Indiana with at least six confirmed tornado touchdowns. We got wind and rain, sound and fury, but no harm.

The next morning I took Ethan's Cirrus to Delphi in the wind (again) and picked up Clay and took him to Washington, Iowa. It was an hour and a half out there. He hadn't gotten a car figured out, so he took their courtesy car. Except they had two, so I went into town too and stopped at a little coffee shop. It was a cool little place with comfy warm seating, nice lighting, and little trinkets for sale throughout. Made a pretty good vanilla latte with oat milk, too. It only took us an hour to get home, because of the tailwinds now. Not a bad day. 

Afterwards I met up with Morgan. In the last 30 days, I had a whole like 3 flights, and that's what she had too. She rents an apartment in Indy, and hasn't been making enough, ever since winter hit. Six months now. We've been supplementing her to make sure she could make rent and expenses, but quarterly taxes are coming up, and she doesn't have that. I have only been okay because of T-6 training that's covered my costs. She's been instructing some but it doesn't cover enough. So she feels she has to do more, even though she doesn't want to, and she's applying to a job in Indy Exec. It's a time-builder jet job, where she works 8 days on and has 6 days off. On her six days off she'd still be up here working for us. She is pretty upset. She doesn't want to do it, we don't want her to have to do it, but we can't supplement her any more than we have been, and she would like to make enough to buy a house nearby, and stay here. So, she'll need an additional form of income. Hopefully things pick up again, even if we aren't going to have a turboprop doing fun trips, we at least need enough flights to support the both of us, whereas right now we don't have enough to support even one. But if she ends up with income from another job, I won't have to worry about her any more, and won't have to give her half my meager trips anyway. Again, neither of us wants this, but it seems like the most logical thing to do for now. *sigh* 

So she'll be wearing a pilot costume and flying right seat in a jet, if she's hired. If she's not hired, neither she, nor Steve nor I really know what we'll do. When she starts flying jets, I'll also be the only person in recent history at our place who isn't. Cameron flies jets for Lucas Oil, Shelby flies jets for Cummins, her boyfriend flies jets for Beck's, Spencer, Ethan G and Alex are all flying jet airliners now. I don't want these jobs. Lucas, Cummins and Becks won't let you be more than 90 minutes away at any time, so you can't do BOB tours or events out of town or much of anything but that. I've never wanted an airline job. But I do feel a little degraded just bombing around in Cirrus's now. My ego is wounded and I can feel my actual complex Florida/NY-style IFR skills degrading, too. Tis a bummer upon a bummer. Is what it is, of course, can't do anything about it for now. Live to be 54 and you at least learn to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep on keeping on, with the knowledge that while others appear to have a much more affluent and easy path, there are many more who are struggling with way worse things than you are. This too shall pass. 

I got my car back today! They got all the hail damage out. It was $3600 total, which I paid for with a credit card, but only because the insurance company didn't get the check in the mail until today and the car was already done and I didn't want to not have it for the whole weekend. So we paid for it, then when the check comes in we'll get paid back and it'll be fine. I was very happy to drive my own car again. You miss your own car, you know? :)

Tomorrow I'm taking Ashley (our current airliner bound CFI) in the T-6 with me to the Noblesville Pancake breakfast, which is something not a lot of people get to enjoy doing that I will enjoy doing.  Then that afternoon I have a fly-over of the Haynes Apperson Parade. I'm doing a two-ship with Billy Werth in his Pitts, and it'll be fun! Steve is going hiking with Kaylee, and they will have a good father/daughter day too.

I picked up some 4 lb weights, and have started in on those. Like I said, the 2 pounders got too light, and now that range of motion is back, I'm adding in a bit more weight. The 4 lbs each side is still obviously very light, but it's something. Since I can't work on cardio because of my knees, I can at least work on knee stretching and strength building, and upper body strength again. I've also continued to work on my weight, and am down a bit more. Six pounds gone, and I can't tell in the least. You get to be my size and you don't feel six pounds. Hopefully I'll feel the next six though. Like I say, progress, right? Better than nothing.

Onward.

Hatches Battened

I'm typing this while it rains pretty hard. This is round one for tonight, with round two being potentially pretty bad. Thunderstorms, large hail, damaging winds, and "tornado outbreak". Kokomo is on the edge of where it may hit, but it's in the red zone, and everybody, even the humor weather sites that say that other weather sites are fearmongering and stressing people out unnecessarily are saying this one could be pretty bad. So I've charged up my laptop, cellphone and iPad, which means I'll at least have 5G internet even if power and wifi goes down, and I guess we're about as ready as it gets. Kaylee is down in Indy for work, which is firmly in the "strike" zone. She can't get her car indoors anywhere apparently, so we're hoping she doesn't end up with hail damage (or worse) too. I'm sure she and her work buddies have a plan if a "spinny boi" heads their way. Meanwhile, she wanted to make sure that I would go get her cat if something bad happened with weather and take her into the basement. I'll actually keep more of an eye out today, since I might need a little time to find the cat and get downstairs if it should actually aim our way. I hope it doesn't take out the power at the Frankfort or Delphi Airports since I have a trip to Iowa tomorrow in the Cirrus.

I didn't go out today--canceled my noon flight because of the incoming weather. Steve took the Jeep to get an oil change and his brakes checked, Kaylee is down in Indy all day, and my car is in the shop getting hail damage repaired. So I didn't have a vehicle for the day anyway. Instead I just worked on stuff around here and did things I had been avoiding doing. When you have a day you have no excuses but to do the things you've been avoiding doing, well, that's probably a good thing now and then. lol 

Steve was at work at the airport for a few hours anyway, so I had some time to myself, which I also liked. I got my exercises in for the day. Still used the lighter weights for my arms but with plenty of reps. Did more stretches on my legs/knees. Today for the first time in awhile I was actually able to get on my knees without a lot of pain. The left knee still is...tender...and I still have to be careful, but I was able to get down there, kneel, and stretch those muscles. It's been too long since I hurt it, about a month and a half, and I am positive my strength has atrophied on that leg in particular. I've limped on it, babied it, hardly been able to straighten it out OR stretch it. I think now that I know for sure that it's actually healing, and not that I tore or permanently damaged something, I can push it harder to regain some strength, mobility, flexibility in it.  It still doesn't 'pop' like it used to, and can really hurt when it needs to pop but won't. But when it does pop, after the sharp pain, boy it feels almost normal and I can walk like normal. I even put some weight on it today by itself, doing a little bouncing/weight bearing. Felt good. It's on the upswing. Thank goodness!

Oh, the CAF meeting was just a normal meeting. The "jury trial" is actually in July now I believe. So hasn't happened yet but is yet to look "forward" to.

Finished my peach crepes. Steve and Chuck said they were delicious, and I loved mine, even though my old recipe doesn't actually tell me how much of most of the ingredients to use, and I guess, but apparently I guess correctly enough. :D They are so damned good. I have peaches left over, too, but one batch of peach crepes is "live and enjoy life, dammit", but two batches of peach crepes would not fit well into my "be kinder to my joints" weight loss journey. ;) For those of you not in the know, the filling on these involves a lot of cream cheese, powdered sugar, cool whip. So not exactly lightweight. But Oh so tasty with my homemade crepes which even I pulled off well and tasted excellent. ;)

I'm hearing thunder rumbles now, not just rain. The sky is getting darker over there and the humidity is up. Looks like we'll see how it goes around here! Duck!

Squirrels and Stuff

I was up nice and early this morning for the Squirrels, and I ended up using the Champ. I didn't sleep well last night, couldn't shut off the ole brain, so I was a little too tired this morning for children and instruction, but I got two of them done. My first girl had zero knowledge, information, and only mild interest in airplanes, so I couldn't really figure out why she was there. But when we got up in the air she said she thought it was really cool and maybe she should think about being a pilot after all. We were up doing work and then I did some fun flying for her, and she was laughing and said "You're my new best friend! That's so cool!" lol Back on the ground it got more awkward again of course, but hey. ;) Next kid said he had 10 hours in airplanes, 5 with the CAP and 5 with us last year.  Well, he didn't taxi or fly like he had any time--the girl did better and she had never sat in one before. And then at the end he got sick. I'm scrambling for a sick sack and can't find one, and he's heaving in the front seat. I threw open the window and told him to stick his head out. Finally I found a sack, but he ended up keeping it together until we got on the ground, thankfully, and there was no barf on the inside or outside of the airplane.

Weather was moving in after that, and I really didn't feel great from the lack of sleep, so I went home and left Cameron and Jerry to take over for me. But they didn't end up doing any kids anyway because of the weather. I came home and I actually took a nap sitting up in my chair like an old person. I was out pretty hard, too, and when I woke up I did feel a little better.

Kaylee and Molly came over for awhile. Molly was I think concerned that she was going to be left here again, because she was all over Kaylee and the door. lol

Steve came to the house and picked me up around 5:15, and we went to Grindestones to meet up with Cameron, and we all went down to Sheridan to the CAF meeting. Morgan met us there. Meeting lasted 1.5 hours or so, I did my participation part, and when we left, there was this line of storms, and there were big rainbows all over. Very cool, thick, vibrant rainbows with clear color lines. Then on the highway there was another thinner double rainbow right out my window. It was pretty.  We dropped off Cameron to get his car, and then came on home to do some work. Deposit checks, do laundry, have a peach crepe, do this post, you know, stuff.

I've got nothing on the schedule for tomorrow for flying except a quick flight with Brennan in the Citabria. I do have a trip for Thursday. Nothing Friday. Saturday is the Noblesville Pancake Breakfast that I'm going to go down with Steve in the T-6, and then a flyover of the Haynes Apperson Parade in downtown Kokomo at 2 pm. 1:58 pm to be precise. 

Knees are doing pretty good. Minimal pain, occasional stiffness, still a little weirdness on the left knee muscles, but better and better! Whee!

Squirrel I flew with

Look at how clearly you can see all the color bands!

You can see the left end of the rainbow over the trees on the left too

Double Rainbow...

Home

Kaylee is home. She texted me from Colorado--her flight out of Denver was delayed and she texted me and asked me what was going on, so I did the pilot thing and looked up the info on it. She got lucky, and her flight left only 15 minutes late, while other flights were way delayed or canceled. So fortunately she got to her car and got home by like 11 pm. She parked her car in the driveway and came walking right into our house to see Molly, who was sitting curled up on my lap.

Molly latched on to me the last couple of days, and she'd come crawl all over me, put her head on my face, curl up in my lap, she was very affectionate and talky and loving and cuddly to me, which was sweet. As soon as Kaylee came in the door, Molly was all over her, headbutting her, rubbing, meowing and talking, and she was very excited to see her. It was So Cute. They headed out for next door fairly quickly, where I think they were both happy to have their normal routine back. Molly was a good guest. :)

I made peach crepes this morning. I think I should have added more peaches to it--I thought it was a lot but I needed to make it 3, not 2. And I needed another batch of filling. But they're quite good. I gave some to Chuck as a thank you for the fresh peaches.

Steve and I drove my car over to the collision place this morning and dropped it off so they could fix my hail damage. There are at least 6 hail dents on it that you can easily see. Steve said they found several more that he couldn't easily see, and fixed those too on his. I've also seen that the car wash has put little scratches in my paint on the back of my car. Top of the trunk and the sides back there. Supposedly they're thin and will mostly buff out, but that's not cool.

Flew with one of our instructors, Josh, in the tailwheel. He's trying to get better in there, and he'd gone backwards for awhile, but yesterday and today he started dialing in on it more. We did almost everything today. 3-point, wheel landings, x-wind landings, short field TOLS, we went to Converse and did a narrow runway short field takeoff and landing, went over to Glenndale and did grass with a direct crosswind, I pulled the engine on him and had him do an engine out landing, and we started in on the one-wheel landings. He did much better today. He'd flown a Pitts the other day with a guy, and I think it helped him get faster and quicker on all his control inputs and even helped him out in the Champ.

Had lunch with Morgan where we talked about future stuff. Had dinner with Steve. Had a school board meeting via email, where we read the minutes and reports, had a brief discussion, then a quorum of people who voted to accept them. That was easy enough.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to fly the Squirrels but I don't have an airplane to do it in. The Citabria has no right brake, which I was supposed to use, and most of our other airplanes are down for maintenance. Meanwhile Jon has been down sick for awhile now and we are way behind on maintenance. We only have one 172 up and running right now, and the Champ. 

Then tomorrow evening is our CAF meeting and the FEB meeting to put Doug and Mike on the hot seat for the BOB problems. Can't wait for THAT one.

Steve is overwhelmed with work, and it just keeps coming, and we keep losing people or airplanes or whatever and making it harder. Meanwhile, I've had four revenue flights in the last 30 days from Ethan's guys. In June. (That's not much. I was doing four flights in two days sometimes). 

I did hear something interesting. Remember when I had an opportunity to potentially fly a particular Mustang last year, but I wasn't selected to do so? Apparently one friend asked another friend why he didn't get me in there, and the answer was basically financial. He said that they were just not very confident in my ability to do the $50k. Now, I was told they'd put it up and I could pay it back over 10 years of required flying at $5k/yr, but the other guy could just pay it himself up front and that's better for them. The friend also told the other friend he'd considered putting up half of the money for me and asking someone else to put up the other half, but he didn't. And I don't know how I'd have felt about it anyway. Grateful, shocked, a little bad maybe, but I'd have paid it back eventually. But...things usually happen for a reason. Either it wasn't my season, or it never will be, I don't know, but I appreciate the friend who asked and pushed for me and the friend who wanted me to be able to be there too to the point of considering putting $25k into me. That's humbling that it was a thought. And it's sort of good to know from my perspective that it wasn't because of skills or personality clashes with any of the other members, that it wasn't even because I'm a fat older woman. I just couldn't afford it. Well, that's true, I can't afford it. And somehow that makes me feel marginally better to know that's the reason. End result is the same, but...

I feel weary tonight, inside, not physically. So I think it's time to get off here and get ready for tomorrow, which will be full too and end with a probably rather icky CAF meeting. Onward, anyway.

Barnstorming?

Annoyingly I woke up at 3:30 am, because Brain was Wondering about Things. So I got up and checked the Duke website, where it now says the power won't be restored until 3 pm today. I was supposed to leave at 7:45 am in the T-6 for Indy Exec and the Barnstorming Days. So I went back to bed with the knowledge that wasn't happening, and I needed to tell people, but sending texts at 3:30 am is a bad and rude plan, so I didn't. I told Steve before I finally fell back asleep somewhere around 6:30-7 am, which is also a bad plan. Woke up at 9 am to a text from Morgan asking why 24B was flying over her house right now if the power was still out at the airport. I blink at that for like 30 seconds, but I know Morgan, so I know she double checked, that she's not likely 'wrong' that 24B is flying over her house. I look at the schedule and nobody had it scheduled, which would be a point against her, but she just doesn't make that kind of mistake. I pull up FlightAware and I see 24B off flying. I pull up the Duke Energy site, and it now says the power is restored to the airport after all. I text Steve and let him know, text the Indy group and let them know, I'm on my way out to the airport now to get the airplane and get down to Exec as fast as I can.

As fast as I can is bed at 9 am to airport door by 9:50 am, which included figuring this out, a shower, and a 20 minute drive. lol

Morgan beat me there and started getting the plane ready, which was good. I pull it out, get gas, and Steve calls and asks where we are, I said about to take off, and he said he'd missed the part about 2 hours in my text, and already had a rider for me. I said I was coming as fast as I could. :)

It was only a 20 minute flight down there. I did a fly-by overhead approach to make some noise, but kept it up legal-ish height, breaking over where the people were so they could see the underside of the plane and hear the radial rumble. It helps sell rides. ;)

Sure enough, I landed, was parked, and a family came walking up with my first rider. I wasn't sure who it was as it was a mom with like three small children who was walking up. Ends up being one of the kids. And that was one of the more fun rides I've done. This kid was like 9 or 10 years old, and had a vocabulary better than most adults. Not me of course, but most. ;) He was super pumped up. See, we have a "rule" that they have to be over 12 to go, but that's for our own defense against typical young kids who would sit back there by themselves with access to my controls, brakes, fuel, mags, all sorts of things I don't need them touching, pulling, whatever. So if anyone, kid or adult, seems to be a problem, they don't go. So when this kid walks up, I knew Steve had vetted him and deemed him good to go, and of course he was correct. Steve said he asked the kid if he wanted to be a pilot, and the kid responded that "actually, I'm more interested in the historical aspects of it!" Hahahaha, you go kid. We took off, I let him fly, and he was Super Pumped about that. He actually kept his altitude better than the actual glider pilot who went 3rd, too. I asked if he wanted to do anything "roller coaster" and he said yes, so I started gentle and he was laughing out loud, belly laugh, loved it. We were coming in when I heard Jordan B coming in in the P-51. We could see it from the air, so I pointed it out to the kid. He was super excited about that too, said he had a special fondness for P-51s. I told him that this one would probably join up on us in formation except I probably shouldn't do that with him on board. lol Jordan and the Baron did a low pass over the field while I was on downwind, then I came on in and landed, and as we were taxiing in, the Mustang landed off to our right, and the kid was just enthralled by all of it. He kept thanking me, over and over, saying this was the best experience of his life, that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Such adult words and pure joy and thankfulness, and in good part, that is why I enjoy doing these rides. Sometimes you meet people that give you a little hope for humanity after all, you know?

We were taxiing in and he said he wondered what his mom would be thinking as we came in. I said the first thing she was going to be looking at was his face, to see if he was happy. I know that much as a mom, whether you're a typical mom or not, that's universal. I heard later he was pumping his arms up and down as we came in, and I wonder if he was doing that to tell her from afar that he was happy. Either way, what a neat kid. He, the mom, they kept thanking me, and his face was just Lit Up. 

Rider #2 was an ultralight pilot from Denmark here in the states for several years. He said that you couldn't do things like this in Denmark, that it didn't exist, the ability to take warbirds up on rides. Rider #3 was an 85 year old glider pilot. I thought he was going to be more difficult because he wouldn't listen to Morgan's instructions when she was loading him, kept saying "Uh huh uh huh" while she was talking, but clearly not doing what she was saying. But once we got in the air, he started telling stories. He was an Army man who was stationed on a boat for awhile, served in Vietnam and Korea, had done an Honor Flight recently, and he talked about some of his friends who didn't come home, some of his stories of being shot at but never shot/hit, et. He talked so much I couldn't make radio calls, but I enjoyed listening to him. Those two guys represented another two reasons I enjoy doing the rides. Because there are places where you don't have the freedom to do that, and there are people who served their country for whom this represents something important and special. And you get to be a part of representing that.

I did an interview for a local newspaper on the event, and they said they were going to make it a cover story, so we'll see how that goes. Channel 13 also came out and did a segment, which I posted on Facebook, or I guess I can link it HERE too. They sure used a lot of Checkertail in there which is funny because that's the only plane that's not actually a CAF airplane. ;) Morgan's back appears at the very end. Channel 8 supposedly did one too but I haven't seen that yet. So they did 7 rides each in the PT and the BT, and 8 rides in the Stearman, which was a very successful rides day for them. I only did the 3 rides, because I was just a back up for the CAF aircraft. I wouldn't have minded doing a couple more though instead of just sitting under a tent for the next 4 hours. But us doing three rides meant we made money, since we only burned about 40 minutes of fuel to get there and back. And I don't mind making money, and I like doing rides. I wish I could do more of that again and less instruction, but instruction is where the bigger money is.

The rest of the day was uneventful. The CAF gave 22 total rides in their 3 airplanes, and I gave 3 in mine. I sat under a tent in the shade and watched the other planes fly after my 3 were done, and hung out, and talked to a few people, including a young lady who is an individual instructor out of Lafayette and Delphi trying to get in with us to instruct too. Around 4 pm everyone decided we were hanging it up for the day, so I topped off the T-6 with their cheaper fuel than Kokomo's fuel, and we helped tear down tents, tables, chairs, etc. The CAF planes all took off and got home before I did, but that was okay. lol

I put Morgan in the front seat for the flight home, her second time up there. She did just fine. She was so nervous landing that she said her leg was shaking and she barely remembers making the landing. But it was a perfectly fine wheel landing. ;) The only down side was I didn't have a ladder to get in or out of the back seat, so I had to do it myself, and as I was hauling up and jumping down, landing mostly on my right leg to protect the left, I was thinking...I'm not quite out of the woods yet and I need to not do that yet.

We landed at Kokomo, put the T-6 away, and Steve showed up and we all decided to eat at Marble. We are sweaty, sticky, and tired, get home around 8 pm or so, and then Steve asks me if I'd gotten 26F ready for a checkride tomorrow, which he'd asked me to do before I left Indy. Nope, I did not. So I drove back out to the airport, hauled a case of oil over to 26F's hangar, checked the fuel and oil in it, got the logbooks into the airplane for the morning, and headed back home. Meanwhile Steve had yelled at Brennan for not taking care of 26F's hangar (they're all supposed to have oil in them) so Brennan drove out there to take care of it not knowing I'd already done it. Oops. 

Meanwhile, yesterday Chuck had given me six fresh peaches off the peach truck. So tonight when I got home I placed an order for the ingredients I need for...guess what I'm making...I know you can't guess... Peach Crepes! I promised him I'd deliver a couple to him if he gave me the peaches. Yum. Does not help with my current health kick, but a person has to live, too, and I will not turn down fresh peach peach crepes.

Me with the 85 year old rider

Steep turns

Made it home

Steve Tummers took this photo

Kaylee and the bride, Emily

Kaylee at the wedding

Storm Out

So Thursday night we got back from dinner, and a round of storms that were supposed to run through, did, in full force. Molly was over at our house, and we were watching the WNBA because nothing was on, and they interrupted the last overtime 4 minutes because of storms heading through, but...boy did they. Tornado sirens started going off, the power flickered a couple times, and the gust front that led it was impressive. I was looking out the back deck windows and watching the tall trees across the back alley swaying with debris blowing around. It was a little impressive. 

I texted Kaylee that what was up with the weather, and she told me to put Molly in the harness if we were going to take her to the basement, which I thought was funny, because where is Molly going to go in the basement? I told Kaylee that the only way I was harnessing up Molly and going over to her basement was if I saw actual things flying around the sky that shouldn't be. I don't like basements, I don't like not being able to see what's going on. So we watched and waited and it blew by uneventfully for us. Not so uneventfully for everyone.

We're lucky in that our house is right next to a power station, and we rarely lose power and when we do it's not for long. We didn't at all this time, but a lot of people in Kokomo did. We didn't really know that when we woke up Friday morning, and I headed out to Kokomo Airport to finish flying with the T-6 guy. I'm driving to the airport and I see trees, branches, leaves, debris in the middle of the roads, even a main road like Washington St. I get out to the airport, and the power is still out. I looked it up on the Duke Energy website, and the power outage had been reported at 1:16 am, but had no time listed for getting power back up. T-6 guy came up anyway, as we both assumed the power would be up within a few hours. Spoiler alert--we were wrong. We sat there all day long waiting for an update. That was a long day for me, because we're sitting in our dark hangar with a generator running one fan (it was really hot out too) and a light, with our small door propped open for a little natural light, sitting around a table with an overly talkative stranger, for hours and hours. That's exhausting to my social/energy battery.

Finally around 4 pm, I check the site (again), and this time it says a time--that the power won't be restored until midnight. So I send T-6 guy home, and he's done for now--we haven't set up another time to meet up. Then around 5 pm me, Morgan, Steve, Chuck and AE met up at Harvey Hinklemeyers for dinner. HH had a wall covered up with boards, because the evening before some older woman had come crashing through the side of their building, into the dining room, stopping just short of a table full of people. Nobody hurt, thankfully, but they closed long enough to get that halfway sealed up so they could open again.

After dinner, Morgan and I took Chuck's Citabria up for a couple of hours. I flew up front this time. We went back to Kokomo to get my headset and check out the power (still not up, no shock). We flew up to a little grass strip up north called Robinson Field, right in the Grissom Class D airspace but nobody ever talks to Grissom when they go there so I didn't either, even though it feels really wrong. But last time I did try to talk to Grissom they had no idea where I was going and did not care. Landed there, the grass was a little long and the place is surrounded by trees, which makes it kind of fun. You have to drop in over trees and take off into trees and the trees are way over you on the sides too. It's pretty. Went from there over to the Peru Airport, which we haven't been into. We go get fuel there because Kokomo's self serve is down too because of power, and when we go inside the terminal just for grins, there is a plaque there that has her grandpa's name and picture on it, and the whole terminal was dedicated to her grandpa, and she had no idea. So she took a photo to share with her family when she got home.

There was an airport cat there too, who was super happy to see us. It had food and water set out in the hangar, so it was obviously cared for, but it (she I think) came up to us and was rubbing up on me and super friendly. I petted it quite a bit. Morgan is a little scared of cats because her family had one that was mean and would attack her, so she stayed back awhile, and then said she could see this one was nice lol When we walked away back towards the plane, the cat stayed off the ramp, stayed up by the hangar, and just meowed super sadly at us as we left. Like "please come back" "please don't leave". I wondered who trained it and how to not go onto an active ramp. 

There was a row of t-hangars there, and we could see coming in that the roof had been blown in. So we walked over there, to see the roof had been blown off and it was the door that had been blown in. It crushed an ultralight in the first hangar, and then crashed in around a Bonanza in the 2nd hangar. The Bo actually didn't look damaged though. There were parts resting on it, but no dents or dings as far as we could tell. They got lucky, man. Morgan went crawling around debris to get to the Bo, but I decided not to do that with my knees yet. Besides, one of us had to be outside of it in case it collapsed any further and had to help or get help. ;)

When we were done exploring, we hopped back in, she did a couple landings at Kokomo from the back to redeem herself from her back seat landing at Peru, and then I flew us back to Glenndale and did a couple landings close to sunset. 

We get back and put the plane away, and Morgan's 1980 Corvette, the lights won't come up. At all. She has no lights and it's a 45 minute drive home, at which time it will be very dark. She calls her dad who says "Just drive it home". I'm like...uh. She starts off driving home and I text her that when it gets too dark, I can meet her somewhere and just take her home. Her mom ends up coming out and meeting her at Kokomo Airport, and they drive together to her grandpa's house, who is the one they hope will fix the headlight issue.

At 10 pm they say the airport power is still out. I said the website said midnight, so we're hoping it'll be up by the morning, because I have the Indy Exec "Barnstorming Event" rides day and I'm supposed to be there in the T-6.

(Oh, there is no manual way to get the hangar doors open easily. We had a slate full of students, so Steve took a generator, pulled circuit breakers, and tried to backfeed the power in, but couldn't get the door open for t-hangars. He said he'd have to rewire in there and didn't think the city would appreciate him rewiring their hangars.)

Kaylee has had a ball with her vacation. She has had some wonderful experiences and is so glad she went. She'll have some down time when she gets home I bet. You always get a little let down after a big thing like that. She left Wyoming and flew to Colorado to go to her friend Emily's wedding, which is what started this whole thing in the first place. These were her pictures the night before to show us her dress and the scenery :)

Me coming in to land in the Citabria

Chuck's video of us coming in

T-6ing

I didn't have to get up until 8 am this morning, so I didn't go to bed very early. But then Morgan texted me at 6 am worried about her Cirrus flight and the line of weather that was out there. I didn't really help her much, because she's at a point she can make these decisions on her own. She knows what to do or not do. I would have liked to have not been woken up, because once I was, I couldn't get back to sleep. *sigh* She took the flight and it went just fine, of course. 

Then I got up to meet my guy at 9:30 am. Except he said he was running a little late, so it would be 10. Okay. Then it was 10:35 before he actually got there. That started us off a little later. We were wanting to do 5 hours today, but the late start combined with his personality made it well past lunch before we actually got flying. He is high energy, seems like an engineer type with a slight autistic tendency, and talks and bounces around non-stop verbally, which makes it difficult to do an organized, complete groundschool. We were hopping all over the place, and he'd stop and tell stories, and I'd get him back on track. It wore me out, all day. Too high energy required for it. We sat in the cockpit and went over everything, then finally got the plane pulled out and did our first flight. Again, struggled a little with communication, but he had no problem with the airplane. He didn't have one landing that was scary, sketchy, nothing. We went up and did all the stalls and I may take him back up for some of the more aggressive ones tomorrow. We did all the takeoffs and landings, and he was comfortable and fine with all of them. So 2.5 hours in he's close to done on his checkout, one of the two fastest people I've ever checked out. He plans on going into fighters, has a buddy who promised to set him up once he got T-6 time. He'll have a lot to build if he gets checked out in under 5 hours and then has 95 to go. Tomorrow we do grass strip, narrow runways, and maybe a few more stalls. Maybe I'll take him into Glenndale instead of going all the way to Sheridan, which won't be a challenge. Glenndale will. As long as he doesn't get me in trouble on it. 

Kaylee went ziplining today off the mountain, had a great job, said it was super cool and she loved it. She's also missing her cat though, so she's counting the 'sleeps' until she can see Molly again. But I think she should enjoy what she's doing while she's doing it and she'll have plenty of time to be home afterwards.

Steve, Chuck, AE and I went to Pastarrific for dinner, and then I came home to catch up on paperwork before I crash. It was super hot and muggy today, and being out in it from 9 am until about 6 pm wore me out for sure.

Zipline Kaylee

Stuff

I was grumbly about having to wake up early to go flying this morning when I didn't feel like it, but I didn't have to get up until 7:45 am, and I woke up at 4:30 am and never went back to sleep anyway. I tried though. At 5 am Steve got up, and he stayed up until like 7 am, and then he went back to bed for awhile and I just gave up and got up anyway.

The flight in the morning wasn't as bad as I expected from a heat standpoint. By 9-11 am it was warm, but with the vent on you in the airplane, it was actually fine.

The flight itself was less fine. He is consistently really, really not good at this. In a lot of ways I won't spell out. In fact I can't think of anything I should type here, so I'll move on.

Steve, Chuck and I met for lunch, and then I went right over to my hair appointment. I was then supposed to fly with the new T-6 checkout guy. I didn't feel like it. I mean, really didn't have the right energy for that at all. It is hotter than hell and muggy and starting with a new guy takes a lot of...energy. That part is one of the worst parts of instructing for me, always has been. The initial meet, assessment, talking, getting started. Once you're rolling it's usually okay, but that first part takes a lot out of me. So when he texted and asked if we could postpone until tomorrow morning, I was all in. Yes. Sure. You betcha. No problem. Thank you. lol So instead I went home and did home things, including my arm exercises.

I've been using these little 2 lb weights just to do various arm exercises, and at the end of 10 reps each exercise, of 4 different exercises, my left arm would feel it and even be sore. Then it wasn't, so I went to 15 reps, and now I'm at 20. Today I tested it, and my range of motion is back; it's just as good on my left arm as my right arm. That made me happy. I'm going to have to go up to heavier weights too, with fewer reps, which is great. There's one position it still hurts, and it "clicks" or pops sometimes where the other one doesn't, but the range is back and I'm gaining strength and I'm really pleased. I think my right knee is actually back to normal. Left, well, still working on that one. I can straighten it out now, carefully, even though the feeling of that skeeves me out still. I've started some gentle stretching exercises on them, too, carefully. I've also gotten more dedicated at losing weight, as my weight is the hardest thing on my joints and my joints are obviously firing warning shots at me. So over the last month I've lost about 4 pounds. A whopping 4 pounds that I could probably eat a few big cheeseburgers and have be back up, but so far it's continuing to slowly (slowly) go down. Just the old version of smaller portions, minimal desserts, minimal sugar as a whole actually except for the occasional coffee treat. Lots of water. Try not to eat after 7-8 pm. Better choices when I do eat, more fruit, protein, walnuts, fewer carbs. It's annoying and tiring to have to think about everything you do and eat. But I'm back on the wagon, and hopefully will at least get healthier and maybe even a little smaller. 

Kaylee is at a rodeo right now, as her friend says you can't go to Wyoming without seeing a rodeo. She's also going to do a zip line off a mountain tomorrow, one that gets up to 60 mph and has a more than 1000' drop. So cool! I hope she's having a really fun time, she seems to be. :)

Molly is hanging out over here, head butting us occasionally, and doing well. She's a sweet cat. Even Steve loves her a lot. You can't not like Molly. Unless you're a monster. ;)

We're having some CAF issues. We have an event this weekend that Steve just found out is getting dropped on its head and full of problems. So he's jumping in and trying to make it happen. It's at Exec. We also are having an issue with our unit and HQ and the guy who toasted BOB's engine. We're having what's called an FEB meeting which is basically a "Fit to Fly" committee that gets together and hashes over everything that happened, and then decide how to punish the guy and how to move forward. Problem is, some people want blood and other people don't want anything other than what he's already trying to do, but either way this is not going to be a pleasant meeting and I have to go as the instructor. I don't even know how to be. I am NOT happy with him. I didn't teach him that way. He's made people question me as an instructor and it reflects poorly on me and our unit with the whole organization, whereas we were one of their golden children prior to this. Steve firmly doesn't want to lose the guy because he's all about 3rd chances and redemption and the fact the guy is trying really hard now to make everything right. If the wing does something to boot the guy out, Steve may get mad enough to quit. He hasn't said that, but he's threatened it before over less. And that would be a real mess. So I am *not* looking forward to Tuesday's meeting, fight, whatever this will be.

Tomorrow morning around 9:30 I start flying with new T-6 checkout guy, Matt. Here's hoping this goes smoothly and well and we can get our 5 hours in on the hottest and muggiest day of the year so far and I actually hope he IS as good as he says he is. It's just much less scary for me when they're good.

Kaylee & Bri at a rodeo. It's apparently cold there. It is not cold here!!

Trips

Kaylee sent us more photos—she went to a rock concert with her friend. Steve pipes up with “As in the middle of the ROCKS?” because in the photo they’re surrounded by mountains. She says “Nope Rock band on a mountain” She totally missed the dad joke. I’m disappointed in her. ;)

She spent today recuperating with Advil as her muscles were all rebelling from the hike. She’s bored as she is texting me non-stop while her friend is at work. lol I am at work too, sort of. Trying to be productive anyway.

Yesterday I took the Cirrus out of Frankfort, went to Delphi and picked up Tell, Stephen and Clay, and flew them down to Kentucky. Dropped Clay off and took the other two 15 minutes away to another field, where we stayed and waited until they were done. Weather wasn’t great, and I had to go around some things on the way down, but then it got really dicey for the trip home. I texted them and said if we didn’t get out of here in the next 5 minutes we weren’t getting out for awhile nor were we going to be able to pick Clay back up. I took off with cells all around the airport, bombed out of there, went in between them, then raced them to the other airport, didn’t shut down, threw Clay in the airplane, and went for home. Had to divert around a huge wad of weather, and was racing to get back to Delphi. I could have made it before the storms, but then getting back into Frankfort was a question, so we stopped at Frankfort and they got a ride from there back to their cars at Delphi. It was an adventure. Always an adventure. 

One embarrassing thing is that this Cirrus will not stay running if you start it with the power at a normal lower setting. So I’m sitting inside talking to the old guys that hang out at airports and they ask me questions about how long we’ve had the plane, etc., and I’m like “Well, this is its first trip, actually”. And then I get out there and it dies the first time, so I leave the power up and it ROARS and I pull it back and it almost dies so I bring it up and it ROARS and this happens like 3 times. Plus I’m rushing out of there to beat storms. I figured those guys thought I was a complete idiot. I sure looked like one. I’m still embarrassed and I’ll hopefully never be back there. :P

I was so focused on the weather for that day that I completely forgot to have anyone check the fuel in the 340 for me. I was leaving at 7 am the next morning (today) and the airport would be closed, and now that I was home for the day it was 5:30 pm and they were also already closed, so I had to drive from Frankfort to Kokomo Airports, get out there, and sure enough, no gas in the plane. So I had to pull it out, taxi it over, self-serve the four tanks, taxi back, put it away, close up, and THEN go home. I was so sweaty, it’s super muggy here now. Cold cold windy windy HOT. *sigh* But at least I was ready.

Get home and go to bed early last night because I had to get up at 5:30. Then Dustin and I were looking at the weather for Milwaukee, and it’s not great. There are storms, and low IFR. I look at all the approaches, and low and behold, the approaches are shut down where he wants to go. The only approach into the field has minimums of 600’ and we need 200-300’. So I pick the other airport that has one approach that goes down to 300’. He wants to leave 15 min earlier, so 5:15 am it is, and I go to bed. Wake up to storms here and low IFR there. We end up delaying by an hour, which helps us with the storms but not the low IFR. Dustin hasn’t flown in six months, and here we are shooting an approach to the minimums. He struggled a bit on this one, so I quietly helped here and there as he had a professor from Purdue in the back of the plane on headset with us and you want to make him look good, ya know? We land in the rain and the clouds, at minimums, and he heads off with her to a seminar of some sort until 6 pm.

Meanwhile, I work from the pilot lounge, wait for lunch, and then take the crew car to go drive around and eat. First, the crew car required a checkout. It’s a full electric Chevy something or other, and there is no “start” button. You just put your foot on the brake with your door closed and it will start automatically. The knobs on the dash are dark and you don’t know what they are until you move them, and then they’ll light up and show you radio volume, for example. And they required a diagram on how to shift gears, because like everything else they didn’t want to be “normal”, but “new” and “fresh”. They say that a good way to keep your brain young is to task it with different or unusual or new places. If that’s the case, my brain may never die, because I go these weird places and drive on busy roads in big cities with construction and traffic where I have NO idea where I’m going, in cars that require extra thought to find simple things such as how to shift into Park or which side the turn signal vs the windshield wiper is or how the navigation system works or…how to open the door if it’s a Tesla. Just all the things are weird. It's interesting at least, and maybe even good for you.

I ended up at a place called “The Twisted Fisherman”, which had an “island” vibe in the middle of Milwaukee. It was on the river, and they had brought sand in there, and beach chairs, and played island music inside and out. I had a fabulous seafood pasta that seriously tasted like Florida with clams, calamari, shrimp, mussels, spinach, linguini in a garlic wine sauce. A few capers and I’d have been in heaven. SO good. Sat there and watched the water, in the sunshine, and for a little while I was pretending to be somewhere kind of cool for once. ;)

The rest of the afternoon, I drove around a bit, then came back to the airport and hung out in the pilot's lounge and did some work. The FBO closed at 5 pm and my people weren't coming back until 6, so they left me in the main area and said once I left I couldn't get back in, unless I put something in the door to stop it. So at 5:45 I went to the bathroom, which is outside the FBO door. I put a magazine in the door to block it, but before I left I felt weird about leaving my stuff in there, in case it got locked in, so I took it with me. Which was good because the magazine didn't stop the door from locking, and I was now locked out of the FBO. At least I had my purse and iPad! So I sat outside on a bench until Dustin and the two folks we were bringing home got there

Now we had round two of weather. The ceilings were higher but we had two lines of thunderstorms to navigate and one big cell headed right for Kokomo. We got there at about the same time. Lightning, heavy rain, broke off the ILS because of it, but we were otherwise VMC, so we circled around to the south, and when the cell moved off the runway, we came in and landed. Our passengers were impressed. lol. Fortunately it was mostly smooth until the end there.

I got home around 9-something pm, and then realized at 9:45 pm that someone scheduled me for a morning flight tomorrow. I was looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. OH well. So it goes some days, eh?  Then I looked at the weather and realized that tomorrow afternoon may be the only/best day of the next 3 in order to do a guy's T-6 checkout. He's cocky, says he doesn't think it's a hard airplane, says he hasn't bent an airplane in 1700 hours tailwheel and doesn't plan on starting now. We'll put his money where his mouth is and see how it goes. When it's hotter than hades, too. Should be great. ;)

The inside of my electric Chevy

My tasty lunch at the Twisted Fisherman

Outside, relaxing

BTW, the pilot lounge was at the top of this steep flight of 20 stairs. Going up and down it repeatedly was great for my knees. ;)

"Mountain Wave" turbulence? In Indiana? Well that's interesting

This was way cooler in person. It was like a blue shadow on top of the storm top