The highlight of the week was definitely the visit from Shawn, Tara, Sarah and Megan...

They stopped by on their way to Orlando and spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning.  On Saturday, we went to Cedar River Seafood for dinner, then did a quick evening tour of downtown and ended the evening with a stop at Cold Stone Creamery.  On Sunday, Jeanie made us a yummy breakfast and then we all went to the beach for a few hours.  The ocean was as smooth as a lake, so Jeanie finally got to try out her SwimWays Spring Floats.  They were really cool.  The weather was just perfect - blue skies with a gentle breeze and a water temperature just cool enough to be refreshing.  The new tires on the Durango seemed to do just fine in the sand.  I'm glad I went with the 31's rather than the P235's - they just give that little extra bit of confidence.  We stopped at Harris Teeter on the way home to pick up some lunch meat and rolls and had a a nice lunch at home.  Then it was time for them to load up and head south.  It was great seeing them and I hope they stop by on their way back north.  Maybe they will have time for an aerial tour of the island.

Jeanie spent the remainder of the week recovering from her sinus surgery.  I spent the remainder of the week working and providing modest support to Jeanie's recovery.  She did a good job of not over-doing and doing her sinus irrigation regularly.  She is recovering nicely.

On Saturday morning, I attended the first formal board of directors meeting for the Friends of Fernandina Beach Senior Squadron and then spent a couple of hours at the Squadron trailer helping one of the other members renew his Mission Scanner and Mission Observer qualifications.

I guess two things in life that really illustrate the passing of time and the brevity of life are the passing of famous persons and seeing children grow.  We knew Sarah before she was even born.  It seems like only yesterday... yet here she is, an almost grown young woman - and a really sweet and lovely one.  And then there was the passing of four notable celebrities - Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and Billy Mays.  It's sobering that the latter two were my age.  The time goes by so swiftly.  I wish I could impress upon the young people I care about just how quickly time passes.  As a child, we spend so much time wishing we could speed up time.  Then we get to the point where we wish we could slow it down.  Finally, we get to the point where we wish we could turn it back.  The truly blessed recognize that each moment is precious, savor it, and enjoy it in the present.

Yesterday was two months living the pescatarian lifestyle...

I must admit, I am starting to have some meat thoughts.  Nothing uncontrollable, but there nonetheless.  I wonder if there is a meat eaters anonymous?

The most significant event of the week was Jeanie's sinus surgery on Friday.

Monday and Wednesday were spent working.

Tuesday, I took a day of vacation, and it was a day of highs and lows, literally and figuratively.  I started out Tuesday flying a CAP Mission Pilot training mission which was great and my literal and figurative high. We flew up just over the St. Mary's river into Georgia and first flew an expanding square search pattern using the US-17 bridge as our starting point.  On the way back, we flew a practice ELT search.  This was particularly interesting, as it was the first time I had ever experienced an ELT search using the old DF equipment rather than the Becker.

The low was then going to buy four new tires for the Durango, which was very traumatic and my literal and figurative low.  Things started out okay.  I had done research the night before, and had narrowed down my options to two - either Michelin LTX or Bridgestone Dueler A/T Revo.  After talking with the salesman, I selected the Michelins.  As to size, I thought my only option was to stick with what was already mounted.  The salesman indicated that I could either go with the size we currently had, or a slightly smaller tire.  He said that the advantages of the smaller tires were that they we less expensive, and would yield slightly better gas mileage.  The disadvantages of the smaller tires were that they wouldn't fill up the wheel wells like the 31's, would cause the truck to lose a little bit of ground clearance, and would be a mismatch with the spare, although that wouldn't be any more of an issue than driving with a "donut spare."  I thought I was clear that I wanted to stay with what we had, but apparently, there was mis-communication between the salesman and me, and they ended up installing the P235/75R/15 tires rather than the 31X10.5-15 that were on the vehicle. The salesman offered to swap them, but I was tired and didn't want to wait another 30-45 minutes and the fact that the 235's were $186 cheaper (t0tal) was enticing. The other issue with going to a smaller tire was that it caused the speedometer to read "slow" by about five miles per hour at 65 MPH.  Not a big deal, but for some reason, it really bugged me.  It also seemed to me that a tire with a larger diameter would get better gas mileage, not worse.  I did some online research, and while it indicated that in city driving, the smaller tire would yield better mileage, on the highway, the larger tire should get better mileage.  Can you say "Buyer's Remorse?"  Fortunately, Discount Tire is an upstanding company, and when I called to tell the salesman how unhappy I was, he offered to replace them with the larger tires.  I told him I'd sleep on it, and let him know in the morning.

I did, and on Wednesday morning, I was still unhappy, so I got up early and was at the store when it opened.  They were very nice, and replaced the tires without a fuss.  As to the mileage question, the Durango has a trip computer in the overhead console that includes a readout of instantaneous miles per gallon.  On the way to the tire store (with the 235's still on) it showed 19 MPG at an indicated 63 MPH turning 1950 RPM.  On the way home, it showed 18 MPH at 60 MPH turning 1850 RPM.  Go figure.  My guess is that even though the almost two extra inches in diameter improve the mileage, the one extra inch of width creates enough extra rolling resistance to negatively impact the mileage.  It still doesn't totally make sense to me, as I had always thought that fuel usage was mostly a function of engine speed when the load was relatively constant - thus, lower RPM should equate to higher gas mileage.  Oh well, at least the 31's "look right," the speedometer shows the correct speed, and maybe that extra inch of width will keep us from getting stuck in the sand.

On Thursday, I took another vacation day so I could do my Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Search and Rescue (SAR) Mission Pilot (MP) checkride.  The oral and practical portions of the checkride went well, and as a result, I am now an official CAP SAR MP.  Even though we started at 9:00 AM and the oral portion of the checkride was only about an hour and the practical was only about an hour and a half, between having to wait for some weather to pass, and having to do all of the paperwork, I spent the better part of the day getting through the process.

Friday, as noted earlier, was Jeanie's surgery.  Because Jeanie's parents were here, I was able to attend the annual meeting of the flying club, for which I am very grateful.  The meeting was well attended and I was reelected to serve on the board of directors.  The toughest part of the night was resisting the Sonny's Bar-B-Que that was served for dinner.  Fortunately, I was able to fill up on coleslaw, corn muffins and banana pudding.

Saturday was spent at home caring for Jeanie.

Sunday was Father's Day, and it was nice to have Dad Melvin here.  Jamie sent me a really cool card that was really sweet, and both Jamie and Robby called and I had nice conversations with both of them.  As noted in this post, Jimmy and Kimberly drove down for lunch and we had a nice visit and meal at Pepper's Mexican Grill.

Amazingly well actually...

Jeanie's sinus surgery went well on Friday.  It was an outpatient procedure, and we were back home by mid-afternoon.  She is having to sleep in the recliner, but she appears to be sleeping fairly well.  I am sleeping in our bedroom, with the door open, so I can hear call me if she needs anything.  Cali usually starts out in the bed with me, but then migrates to Jeanie's chair some time during the night.  Jeanie's pain has been manageable, and she's being very diligent about doing her nasal irrigation regularly, and changing her drip pad.  Other than sometimes wanting to do a bit too much, Jeanie has been a very good patient.  Her parents came over on Thursday, and having them here has been a real blessing.

Jeanie's brother and Kimberly drove down for a surprise father's day visit today, and Jeanie was feeling well enough for us all to go to lunch at Pepper's Mexican Grill on the island.  As usual, the food was yummy.  Jeanie, Momma, Dad, Diego and Cali are all taking naps at the moment, and now that I think about it, that sounds like a really good idea...

Worked at home all week.  Nothing special, other than it was nice to be home.

On Saturday, another CAP member (Brian) and I flew over to Suwannee County Airport (24J) in Live Oak to fly CAP Cadets.  Really nice little airport.  Beautiful runway with full length taxiway.  Nice hangars including a beautiful EAA combination meeting building / hangar that the EAA is nice enough to allow the CAP to use.  Was also national Young Eagles day, so quite a few folks there for Young Eagles rides.  There were six cadets scheduled, and it was to be my first time flying cadets.  Since Brian is instrument rated, we decided to have me fly over and for him to fly back -- just in case there was the fairly typical Florida afternoon weather.  We were wheels up by 0730 and landed by 0830.  The flight over was uneventful and pleasant, although the visibility was a bit hazy.  When we arrived, we learned that only two cadets had shown up.  There was one other member who had just transitioned from being a cadet to being a senior member.  He was eager to make some progress on his scanner rating, so we decided that Brian would fly the two cadets and I would work with the new senior member to make some progress on his MS SQTR.

While I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't get to fly cadets, I was really excited about about this young man's enthusiasm and preparedness.  In many ways, he reminded me of myself when I first joined the CAP.  It was a great opportunity to provide some "give back" for me and I was glad to do it.  By the end of the morning, we had made really good progress on his Mission Scanner SQTR.

The flight home was uneventful, but we were really glad we weren't headed any farther south, as there was a strong line of thunderstorms that would have made the trip uncomfortable at best and potentially impossible since we didn't have on-board weather in the aircraft we were flying.

Sunday - usual coffee at the airport, small crowd.  Ended up chatting with a number of the squadron members.  Then Jeanie and I went to Jacksonville to buy Dad Melvin's father's day gift.  After returning to this area, we went to Staples to buy regular and photo paper that were on-sale.  Between the rebates and Staples bucks from print cartridge recycling, we actually "made" money on the purchase.  When we walked into the store, there was a big display with paper and I just assumed that this was the paper that was on sale - you know what they say about when you assume... it makes an Ass out of U and Me.  The assistant manager was really nice nice about fact that I had grabbed the wrong paper that wasn't on-sale / rebate eligible.  I of course, felt like a dolt and apologized profusely, so I guess in this case, neither of us ended up being asses.

After we returned home, we watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

Jeanie and I watched "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" (Links: Official Site, Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes)last evening...

While I was truly amazed at the special effects, the acting was very good, and the structure of the film was interesting, somehow, when all was said and done, I didn't thoroughly enjoy it.

Maybe it was because it didn't fit into my preferred movie formula of "sweet, with a happy ending," but I think that it was more than that.  I just don't think the story held together well enough.

As a potentially interesting aside, I did find an online version of the original short story by F Scott Fitzgerald here.  Other than the concept, amazing how little of the original translated into the movie.  I  enjoyed the short story less than the movie.  One other aside: I find it increasingly annoying that Blockbuster doesn't include the DVD Extras discs in their rentals.  My guess is that I would have enjoyed watching the extras more than the movie.

The highlight of the movie for me probably was the following quotation: "For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."  Sadly, as to those last two sentences, I'm afraid that I don't and I don't.

I've been wanting to get current again for night flying, but the weather hasn't been cooperative, and its so late before a landing counts for night currency (1 hour after sunset, which this time of year is around 9:30 PM) that I just haven't been able to accomplish it - at least not until tonight...

Around 8:00PM tonight, I noticed that they sky was clear and the winds were calm.  I had slept well last night, had arisen relatively late, and had even laid down for half an hour before dinner, so I was well rested.

So, I checked for TFRs, got an online weather briefing, scheduled the club plane, grabbed my flight bags, and headed off to the airport.

Long story short, it was a beautiful night to fly, and I was even relatively satisfied with my flying.  In fact, my landings were three of my smoother efforts.  As usual, I was a bit high on approach, and my turns to final were late, but overall, I was satisfied.  I didn't take any time to fly around and enjoy the night lights - just stayed in the pattern - but it was still quite enjoyable.

My latest aviation object d'lust is the Luscombe Phantom II LSA.

I actually prefer the radial engine variant as shown in this Plane and Pilot article.  Its look is just so classic.

Of course, given the weight limitations of LSA's, none of them are really practical as a traveling aircraft for Jeanie and me, and even if it were, we would have to win the PowerBall to be able to afford one.

But, one can lust...

On Monday, I working until I accompanied Jeanie to her appointment with the ENT late in the afternoon.  He confirmed the recommendation of the other ENT that she undergo sinus surgery to hopefully resolve the recurrent sinus and ear infections she has been suffering.  He recommended a less radical procedure than the other surgeon, suggesting that the procedure be limited to opening up the passages that allow the sinus to drain properly, and repairing Jeanie's deviated septum.  This sounds much better than the much more aggressive procedure the other ENT was talking about that would have entailed the removal of actual sinus tissue.  Jeanie is scheduled to have the outpatient procedure week after next.  As I noted in this post, I got to fly on Monday which was a nice treat.

On Tuesday, I traveled to Dallas, Texas, leaving the house at 6:00 AM, to continue working on one of the two deals I am involved with.  Dinner on Wednesday was yummy, as I noted in this post.  I returned home on Thursday, arriving at the house around 10:00 PM.

One evening while I was out of town, I got the inspiration to search Facebook for some of my cousins that I haven't talked with for years.  I found and contacted three, and got responses back from two.  I also received another message from one of my childhood friends.  I really am enjoying this aspect of Facebook.

Friday morning, I got my hair cut, then spent the rest of the day on teleconferences.

On Saturday, I attended the monthly CAP general squadron meeting in the morning, then Jeanie and I drove to Jacksonville Beach to take my mother to lunch.  Mom was quite sweet, and we had a very pleasant visit with her.

Today, I did the usual Sunday morning coffee thing at the airport, then Jeanie, Diego, Cali and I drove to the beach and took a nice walk.  After returning home, Jeanie prepared a tasty dinner that included cooked cabbage, sweet potato casserole, and a meatless meatloaf, using red beans in place of the ground beef - it was quite tasty.  We both have continued to maintain our pescatarian lifestyle, although I am finding that my weight loss is starting to slow down.  I know I need to get back to exercising regularly, but so far, I have not been able to summon the will to get back on the regular exercise wagon.  I had hoped to fly tonight to get night current again, but it doesn't look like the weather will cooperate.

It looks like I will not have to travel out of town this week, which will be nice.

Tonight for dinner, I had the Salmon Diablo at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen. It was a seven ounce fillet of char-grilled salmon topped with crawfish, crabmeat & pico de gallo in a lemon garlic butter sauce. Instead of the dirty rice, I had mashed potatoes. It was absolutely delicious. Highly recommended!

I had an opportunity to shoot a few touch and goes yesterday early evening in the club plane. I hadn't been able to fly for the last few weeks, mostly due to inclement weather and then due to a lack of available aircraft. Fortunately, the club airplane's nose strut issue was resolved yesterday, and it was so pretty that I just couldn't resist.

After doing a couple of touch and goes, I spent a bit of time just flying around the area - something I don't typically do when I am alone in the a/c as I am usually focused on practicing maneuvers. But yesterday, I decided to just enjoy being one with the airplane and the sky - it was good for the soul...

Just as I pulled into our driveway, I realized that I had forgotten my sunglass clip-ons in the airplane. After dinner, Jeanie agreed to ride with me to the airport. We decided to take the puppies along for a ride. We arrived at the airport right as the sun was starting to set. I quickly found my clips on the floor of the aircraft. Since Cali was feeling better, and we were in the mood, we decided to go to Dairy Queen for a dipped cone for Jeanie and me to share, and a doggie cup for the puppies. Given that we were in the neighborhood, we decided to drive to Peter's Point and drive out on the beach. Once there, we decided to take a walk. It may have been my most perfect experience on a beach. There was just the right amount of breeze, the temperature was perfect, the skies were clear, the seas were calm, the puppies were well behaved, and I got to share it all with my best friend.

This past weekend was relatively quiet...

On Saturday, I worked in the morning and Jeanie had her weekly call with her mom.  In the afternoon, Jeanie and I took a walk through downtown and browsed the local bookstores.  We at lunch at a new Italian/Pizza restaurant on island OPS Pizza.  Jeanie had cheese ravioli which she thoroughly enjoyed and I had a slice of cheese pizza which was not bad, but not as good as Tony's.  So, we will go to OPS when we want Italian other than pizza, and Tony's when we want pizza or calzone.  I worked a little more in the evening and that was about it.

On Sunday, I was supposed to fly twice; once in the late morning just to knock the rust off me, and then at night to renew my night currency.  Unfortunately, it appears that a seal failed on the nose strut during another member's trip to Savannah on Friday, so the aircraft was grounded awaiting repair.  The airplane assigned to our CAP squadron was moved to another squadron over a month ago, and we still haven't been assigned a replacement.  The rental aircraft that the FBO used to rent reached its time for overhaul on its engine over a year ago, and because of the ongoing legal battle between them and the city, they elected to not overhaul the engine, so there is no rental aircraft available from the FBO.  So, I went to the coffee and whined about the fact that even though I live five miles from an airport with three open runways and an FBO, am a member of the Civil Air Patrol, and a member of the flying club, there still wasn't an airplane available to fly.  As a result of the whining, I did learn that the aircraft that had previously been limited to rental only by student pilots was now available for rental by licensed pilots, but it was too late for me to make arrangements to get checked out, and I really didn't want to pay $25 per hour more than the club plane, plus have to pay for the aircraft and an instructor for the checkout.  I guess if I get desperate, its good to know that there is an alternative other than having to drive to Jacksonville.

After I returned home (a little later than usual - around noon) Jeanie and I ate lunch, then we bathed Diego and clipped Cali's nails.  I then jury rigged a repair on one of Jeanie's rain gauges.  The original gauge had a plastic tube that had cracked from old age.  Jeanie found a replacement tube made of glass, but it was narrower than the original tube.  So, I cut off the old plastic tube flush with the base (a ceramic frog) and then used a piece of large heat shrink tubing as a shim between the glass tube and the old plastic tube.  The solution is close enough...  Speaking of heat shrink tubing, I finally got around to affixing Diego and Cali's new rabies and county license tags to their collars and then shrink wrapping the now four tags each (the others being their name tags and microchip tags) so that they don't jingle jangle as they walk.  Speaking of Cali, she appears to be feeling better.  She's still not quite 100%, but she's at least 80%.  She went back to not eating on Saturday morning, but Kimberly suggested we give her four fingers of Pepto-Bismol (i.e. dip your finger into a spoon of the pink liquid and then wipe your finger on the dog's tongue - four times) and that seems to have worked to settle Cali's stomach as she started eating again in the afternoon.

Later in the afternoon, we puttered around the yard a bit.  Before the last few weeks when it rained so much, the fig tree had started experiencing browning of new buds and yellowing of its leaves and the grapefruit had been dropping leaves and fruit.  I thought that the problem was a lack of iron in the soil or improper PH.  But, with all the rain, both trees really perked up and started growing beautiful new leaves.  So, it appears that the trees just weren't getting enough water during the county mandated limit of lawn watering only twice a week.  As such, it appears that we will have to supplement the water needs of the new fruit trees with at least one hand watering per week.

Jeanie made a lovely meal of boiled shrimp and lobster tail, along with corn-on-the-cob, broccoli and salad.  I added some links to the aviation page on Witsdom as well as updating some of the meta tags on the four different files that serve as the "index" page.  I watched the CAP ground handling video for the third time - this time so I could take the now mandated test.  I also accepted four friends invitations on Facebook that I had been sitting on the fence about.  Previously, I had been only accepting invitations from people I knew really well, or at least remembered really well.  I decided that I'd widen my circle a little bit, even if that means I will be a bit more selective (read less open) about what I post as updates.  We ended our nice, quiet weekend by watching a bit of TV.