Monday - Wednesday
Worked from home.
Thursday
Worked from home in the morning.
It was an absolutely beautiful day - temperature in the 50's, crystal clear skies and air smooth as glass. It had been about a month since I had done my proficiency flying, so I seized the opportunity and scheduled the CAP C-182. It never ceases to amaze me just how much rust can form on my flying skills in just a few weeks. Fortunately, I can usually knock off the rust in an hour or so, but while I find that I feel safe even if I only fly twice a month, I don't really feel proficient unless I fly at least once a week or more. Needless to say, that means I rarely have ever felt proficient since obtaining my private certificate many, many years ago.
After flying, I decided we should go out to dinner. I was in the mood for pizza, so we went to Tony's on-island. They have recently hired a new pizza cook, and I haven't been as thrilled with their pizza since - last night was no exception. I don't know if it is the cook, or if they are cutting back on the ingredients, but the sauce didn't seem as zesty and the crust didn't rise with a nice puffy edge the way I like. Jeanie had a veggie sub that she thought was very good.
After returning home, we received a call from Jeanie's mom to let us know that Jeanie's aunt Janie had passed away unexpectedly. Janie had been ill for many years, but she had just spoken with Dad that morning and had seemed fine.
Jeanie and I discussed options, and we decided that it would be best if she drove to Milan to meet her parents and drive up to Hickory with them so she could help her dad with the driving, and for me to stay home to work and take care of the dogs. We spent some time getting her ready for the trip, then went to bed.
Friday
Jeanie didn't sleep well, and arose at 3:00 AM to do some last minute preparation for the trip. I arose around 4:00 AM due to a disturbing dream (related to me not going with her to the funeral) and helped as best I could. Around 5:00 AM we both went back to bed, then arose around 6:30 AM. I packed the car while Jeanie dressed, and around 8:00 AM she headed off.
As I mentioned in the post about our vacation, the power adapter for the car for Jeanie's GPS (we call her Jill) stopped working on the trip. Unfortunately, the connector that plugs into the window mount unit is proprietary, so I had to do some hunting to find a replacement. The first thing I discovered was that the adapter Jeanie has is the Garmin GTMT 20 integrated traffic receiver rather than just a simple power adapter. Even though the traffic subscription has expired, my preference was to replace the non-functional adapter with a direct replacement - until I discovered that they cost between $60 and $120! While I was looking at other alternatives on the Garmin site and on eBay, I realized that the problem was that a few pieces had come off of the end of the adapter. It just so happened that we had an extra adapter that wasn't being used that employed the same (or at least very similar) pieces. So, I was able to repair Jeanie's adapter.
This is the adapter as it appeared before the "repair."
This shows the pieces that were "missing."
This shows the adapter after the repair.
For Jeanie's trip, I lent her my GPS (which I am still trying to decide if I will call Susan or Tom (even though I have it set for a woman's voice).
As a postscript, I also discovered that Jeanie's GPS can use a standard mini-USB power adapter (of which we have many), if we are willing to plug it directly into the GPS rather than into the mount. That's good to know "just in case." As an additional postscript, you may have noticed that the silver "ring" is missing from the photos of the repaired adapter. That is because after I assembled it, I noticed that the tip would sometimes "hang" when the ring was installed, and since the ring appears to be primarily decorative, I decided to go for function over form.
Got back on the exercise wagon. I was amazed at how much strength I had lost after not exercising for two weeks. I am back to barely being able to do one pull-up!
Worked from home.
Saturday
Went to the monthly CAP squadron meeting. Came back home and talked with Jeanie on the phone for a few minutes. Puttered around the house.
Sunday
Jeanie is still away. Went to the coffee at the airport, then attended the monthly flying club meeting. Since Jeanie wasn't home, I hung around the airport, which turned out to be good fortune on many accounts. Keoki finally made an appearance (he had been MIA since we returned from vacation), which not only gave me the opportunity to return the aerobatics books he had lent me, but gave me a chance to talk about my experience flying in Savannah. I felt a lot better after talking with him, as it appears that what I experienced (see this post) is quite common, and usually gets much better after five or six lessons. Good fortune item number two was that Keoki introduced me to Dave, the guy I've been trying to coordinate with to go flying in his clipped wing Cub. Even though we didn't get to fly today, I chatted with him for quite a while, and he echoed everything Keoki had told me and gave me hope that things would get better with a few more lessons. Good fortune item number three was that after talking with Dave, I walked over to another flying buddy's hangar and he just happened to be getting ready to pull his Citabria out to go for a spin and he invited me along to ride in the back seat. He did a few aileron rolls, and some other maneuvers, then offered to let me fly. I tried a few aileron rolls. The first couple were pretty bad (I forgot to apply rudder and pushed too hard when we were inverted) but the last couple were half decent. I remembered to put on my Relief Band before we took off, but unfortunately, I still got a bit queasy. At first I tried the relief band on my left hand (while still on the ground) but, not surprisingly due to the damage to my median nerve, it didn't work correctly on the left hand, but did function properly on the right. I don't know if I would have been more queasy had I not worn it, but everything I hear is that over time, I will develop a tolerance that will reduce the motion discomfort. I tried a landing from the back seat, but my buddy had to take over, as I just couldn't see the runway in front of me and so had all sorts of trouble getting centered and judging my height. I didn't get bummed about the landing, and was actually quite excited about the overall experience. The stick pressures were quite a bit higher than on the Super Decathlon, but I actually liked that at this stage, as it gave me some direct feedback regarding where the stick was.
After returning home, I got a few items knocked off of my to-do list, did lots of posts on Facebook, then went to bed.
Digg It!
Bookmark it!
Posted by David at January 10, 2010 09:32 PM | Categorized under: A day in the life, Flying