I finally got to actually perform aerobatic flight as a pilot.
For years, I have wanted to fly aerobatics; preferably in a Super Decathlon (Super D).
The desire to fly aerobatics I believe is a combination of a fondness of undergoing G forces and turning upside down, and my belief that it would make me a better pilot.
The desire to do it in a Super Decathlon is a combination of going back over twenty-five years to my skydiving days when one of the pilots who flew at the DZ - we used to call him "Z's" because of his difficult to pronounce last name that began with a Z - gave me an aerobatics ride in his Super Decathlon; and my belief that the Super D is an ideal balance between something like an Extra 300 or Edge 540 - Ferrari's of aerobatic airplanes - and a Citabria or Super Cub - the Volkswagen of aerobatic airplanes. The Super D has a constant speed propeller which means that you don't have to manipulate the throttle nearly as much as a fixed pitch prop (as is on the Citabria or Cub) while performing maneuvers, but is more inherently stable than the high end aerobatic machines. The Super D does have a symmetrical wing and inverted fuel and oil system so it is legitimately fully aerobatic.
I had to hunt quite a bit, but I finally found a flight school with a Super D that was "close enough" distance wise, at the Savannah Georgia Airport - Costal Empire Flight Training Acadamy http://www.idreamofflying.com .
My instructor was their Chief Flight Instructor, Denis Boissonneault.
The drive up to Savannah took about two hours. I arrived around 9:30 AM. I had checked out the location on Google Maps prior to departing which was fortunate, as the road that Coastal is on isn't actually on my Tom Tom or even on Google Maps. But, since I was on the PC, I was able to find the closest road that WAS on the GPS, which got me "close enough."
After spending about half an hour doing some ground school, we walked out the airplane to perform our preflight. The one thing Denis stressed was that simply looking to check that each of the screws had a nut affixed wasn't good enough - each nut needed to be checked by hand to ensure that it was tight.
Before getting into the airplane, I put on my parachute, since Denis advised this was much easier than trying to put on the parachute in the airplane. Actually getting in the airplane involved putting my right foot on the step, grabbing the bars at the top of the cabin with both hands, putting my left foot in, then holding my weight with my arms while I brought my right foot in, then lowering my butt into the seat. Denis was nice and helped my get the five point harness buckled and adjusted properly before he got in the airplane.
Denis handled all the radio communications (which was fine with me) and taxied the airplane onto the taxiway and then let me take the controls. He performed the actual takeoff, with me following along on the controls. At about 300 feet, he passed the controls to me. I was quite surprised at just how light the controls were. Just the merest pressure - especially on the ailerons - elicited a response from the airplane. I found the trim to be almost too sensitive - it was very challenging to move the trim enough to achieve the desired result without moving it too much.
For each maneuver, Denis would first demonstrate the maneuver while I followed along on the controls, then he would have me do it one or more times while he hovered over the controls. We did our air work between 3500 and 4500 feet, in the vicinity of Hodges Airpark (GA39, 31-59-03.7490N / 081-14-46.4000W)
First, we did some stalls, just so I could get a feel for the airplane.
Next came spins. Initially, a recovery from an incipient spin, then a recovery from a three second spin. The procedure to enter the spin was the same in both cases - increase attitude until the onset of a stall, then apply full left rudder while holding full back stick. Recovery is accomplished by reducing the throttle to idle, allowing the stick to go to the neutral position, applying full opposite rudder, then just as the rotation is about stopped neutralizing the rudder, ensuring there is adequate airspeed (which might require allowing the dive to continue for a moment or two) then applying back stick to return to level flight. It should be noted that spin recovery in the Decathlon is a bit different than most aircraft in that forward stick is NOT required after rotation stops. Denis was able to effect recovery of the incipient spin in about 800 feet and the three second spin in about 1200 feet; I don't know how many feet my recoveries consumed. In the recovery from both types, I tended not to allow the stick to go fully neutral. Fortunately, each time Denis would prompt me to relax the stick and I would comply, but it was his prompting, not a feel for the stick/situation that allowed me to recover properly. Because there is so little feel on the stick in the spin, Denis recommends that the grip on the stick be released and the pilot's hand simply encircles the stick rather than actually holding it.
Then we did some aileron rolls. This involved pitching down a bit to build the speed up to 130 knots, then pitching up about ten degrees then quickly and smoothly applying full aileron. These were fun, and relatively easy, although I could have done better about pushing the nose down slightly while inverted and using the rudder (in effect as an "elevator") when at 90 degrees to keep the nose at the proper point on the horizon.
Next on the agenda were loops. The procedure was to put the plane in a 45 degree dive until we attained 160 knots, then apply strong back pressure (but not to jerk the stick) to start the loop. As soon as the nose was above the horizon, shifted my gaze to the sighting device affixed to the left wing struts. As we passed through vertical, ease off the back pressure on the stick until we were inverted, then as we started back down increase the back pressure until we were just about level at which point the stick goes back to neutral.
Next we performed hammerheads. The procedure for the hammerhead starts like the loop, but, as the plane reaches vertical, back pressure is released and this stick position is held until the plane starts to shudder as it gets close to losing its upward momentum. At that point, full rudder is applied which forces the airplane to pivot and head straight down, after which back pressure is applied to return to level flight. During my hammerheads, I tended to have some roll around the longitudinal axis while vertical. Denis told me that was because I was holding just a slight amount of aileron. He have me a tip that rather than just fixating on the sighting device, I should take quick peeks at the aileron itself to note it's position.
After the hammerheads, Denis demonstrated a barrel roll. Rather than being a true barrel roll, which is in effect a sort of rolling loop, it ended up being kind of a strange, ungraceful aileron roll. I have always struggled with motion sickness, although I have gotten much better over the years, especially while flying. Unfortunately, I guess I still have my limits as after the barrel roll, I started to feel pretty green. Fortunately, I didn't actually hurl (although I came really close) but I did ask Denis to take the controls and just fly straight and level until I could get settled. I never did get fully settled, and Denis ended up having to talk me through the landing, and help me recover from a balloon on my landing flare. Sadly, I thought to put my ReliefBand electronic anti-motion sickness device in my flight bag, but unfortunately, I neglected to actually put it on before heading out to the airplane; I can't guarantee that it would have helped, but I should have tried.
I have to admit, flying aerobatics was MUCH more challenging than I had imagined. It reminded me in some ways of my first few parachute jumps. Things happened much faster than my brain could process them. For the first time in a long time, I was WAY behind the airplane for most of the flight. I was also very surprised at how challenging it was to get a feel for when the controls were truly in the neutral position. During the debrief, Denis explained that part of the reason was that at low airspeeds, there just isn't much pressure on the control surfaces, so you don't get much "feel." But, I think a big part of it was just due to information overload for me.
It was very strange flying without a Directional Gyro. I found it very challenging thinking of which way (right or left) I needed to turn to fly to a different heading. This was compounded by the fact that the compass "turns" opposite from what is the intuitive direction for me, and I had to deal with compass errors while actually making the turns which made it difficult to turn out on the correct heading. I hadn't realized just how much the DG had spoiled me.
I also found that my headset was problematic in the maneuvers. I tend to keep it set pretty loose so I don't get headaches from it, but I guess because of this, it kept sliding off my head. Also, because it is fairly cheap, it has a metal microphone boom rather than the fully flexible type, and the boom kept slipping away from my mouth on the pull ups.
Generally speaking, I was too timid on the initial inputs. I eased into my turns, dives and banks too much, rather than snapping to the proper 45 degree lines, and then I was too heavy on the controls - movements rather than pressures - while in the maneuvers. According to the G Meter, our maximum positive G's generated was a little over 4, and no negative G's.
Overall, I think Denis was a good instructor, and I enjoyed flying with him. Both he and his wife Sam, who is co-owner and chief administrator of the company, were very nice.
Unfortunately, the experience overall was disappointing. I didn't have nearly as much fun as I had anticipated, especially in light of the investment of $275 for the flying, $20 for the car gas and four hours of travel time. While I didn't expect to be great my first time out, I didn't expect to suck. I was pretty much "off" for the entire 1.2 hours. I just never could catch up with the airplane. I guess maybe part of the problem was that in hindsight, I tried to do too much too fast. It probably would have been better if my first flight had been limited to takeoffs, landings, steep turns and stalls, so that I could really get a feel for the airplane. Then, maybe a second lesson focusing on nothing but spins, or at most spins plus one or two other maneuvers.
Nonetheless, I am glad I finally was able to do some aerobatics, and I am hoping that after a few days or weeks, I'll focus more on the fun, and less on getting queasy and on how good I wasn't.
If I try again, I will probably try to fly with a local instructor who has a clipped wing cub. It won't be as capable as the decathlon, but I'll have the advantage of flying in a familiar area that only takes a few minutes to get to.
If I go back to Coastal Empire, I'll spend more time working on the basics of competition turns, climbs and descents, and try some knife edges and sustained inverted flight.
And, regardless of where and what I fly, I'll make sure I wear my ReliefBand!
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Monday
Worked from home.
Jeanie is away, but I am managing to keep myself occupied so far, so am not too lonely (yet).
Tuesday
Worked from home.
Started watching "V" which I had recorded on the DVR in the bedroom and was saving to watch some time when Jeanie was away, since she isn't interested in watching it. I had questioned whether I would like it, but so far, it's not too bad. I don't think it will make it into my list of all time favorite TV shows, but it's worth watching, if for no other reason than the special effects which are quite good.
Also started watching "Sing Off." It's not bad, but the caliber of the groups is not quite as high as I would have expected, but it's still quite good. I must say that some of the individual singers are exceptional, and, even "quite good" acapella is better than most of the stuff on TV these days. I must also say "thank goodness for fast forward" so I can skip all the judges commentary and other junk, and just skip to the actual performances.
Wednesday
Worked from home. Went to dinner at Tony's Brick Oven Pizza on-island, then went to the monthly CAP safety meeting.
Thursday
Spent the majority of the day making reservations for our trip. I get so stressed when I make travel reservations. Things are so complex now because there are so many decisions that have to be made: do I use points/miles or do I pay, which hotel(s) do I stay at, what is the most logical itinerary - especially as with this trip when there are going to be multiple cities and attractions, do I book everything individually or do I book packages? And then of course, there's the issue of, having finally made a decision, finding out that your choice is not available and having to choose an alternative. Anyway, I finally got it done.
I then did some research on the Internet to get some more information on the airplane I'll be flying (assuming the weather cooperates this time) this Sunday - a Super Decathlon 8KCAB . I did find a copy of the flight manual, which among other things, lists the entry speeds for various aerobatic maneuvers. In my web wanderings, I came across a freeware add-on 8KCA aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator, so I downloaded it from here: http://www.flightsimulatorx.it/download/download.php?file=113_Gmax-aca8KCAB.zip&tipo=aereo which I found here: http://www.fs2004.co.uk/freeware/general-aviation/champion-decathlon for Microsoft Flight Simulator. The installation was a little tricky, as the package had no installer, so I had to do some digging to learn how to do the installation manually. Fortunately, I found this great resource that walked me through it: http://www.simviation.com/acinstall.htm. Unfortunately, when I fired up MSFS, I received a message that "Your computer cannot currently use 3-D hardware acceleration as it has less than the required amount of video memory. Software 3-D mode has been enabled. Some graphical features may not appear in software mode." I searched and searched, updated MS DirectX, uninstalled and reinstalled my nVidia drivers, uninstalled and reinstalled my HP My Display program, tried a whole bunch of other fixes I found, but ultimately, nothing worked. I burned the whole evening trying to resolve this issue. My guess is that reinstalling Windows and all the applications would fix this issue (as well as lots of others) but, that's not likely to happen until I buy a new PC with Windows 7 - whenever that happens.
Friday
Donated the Dodge Stealth to NPR using their online donation site. I should have listened to Jeanie and done it a year or more ago, but, better late than never. I decided to donate it rather than try to sell it because:
- I hate selling cars with a passion
- The car has lots of problems not the least of which is it barely runs
- Donating is quick and painless
- Even though I might have made a few extra bucks selling it, I do get a small tax deduction from the donation
- I don't have to feel guilty listening to the local NPR station for the next year or two, even if I don't send them any cash during their begathons - one of which is going on right now.
I also learned a good lesson as a result. I didn't properly follow the instructions (which were clearly on the web site and excellent) on how to sign the title, and ended up signing in the wrong place. This is just the sort of mistake that causes me to get so stressed when I do stuff like this. Well, even though it seemed like it might for a moment, the world didn't end, and the "fix" for my mistake was a relatively minor inconvenience of having to make a call to the nice processing folks, who emailed me a form (apparently I'm not the only person who ever did this), which I then filled out and took to the local bank to get notarized. My mistake added maybe an extra thirty minutes to the process - not even close to the end of the world. And, in what was maybe good fortune, it motivated me to get the stuff in the mail today, rather than waiting until tomorrow.
Saturday
Gave blood. Learned that the reason they ask if you've had aspirin in the last 48 hours is that the chemical composition of aspirin impairs the ability of platelets, a component of blood that plugs leaks in blood vessels to prevent bleeding, to function properly. There's no issue if you are donating whole blood, but there is if you are donating platelets. Since I have no interest in apheresis - I'd rather not have to sit for 1 to 2 hours rather than 10 to 15 minutes, and while I don't mind giving up a pint of my precious bodily fluids, I really have no interest in having a portion of them put back into me once they are already outside of me.
The donation experience was slightly marred by the fact that almost immediately after the needle was inserted, the flow stopped, so they had to move me to the other side of the bus and use the other arm. This is the second time this has happened to me. The other time was with the American Red Cross in North Carolina. In both cases, the one thing that seemed to happen was that the "stick" (which is usually just a momentary "pinch" at worst) was quite uncomfortable. In both cases, I believe what happened is that a bit of skin or meat ended up in the needle, blocking the blood flow. Fortunately, the second "stick" was almost painless, and everything went smoothly.
Apparently, I am trying to read things too fast, or am not paying enough attention to what I am reading, as I made another mistake related to filling out a form. One of the questions on the donation questionnaire was "In the last twelve months, have you had a vacation, taken a cruise, or made a business trip outside of the U.S." I answered "No" because I totally missed the part of above in italics (which I added for emphasis) when I read the question. Fortunately, the person who checked my hemoglobin, took my vitals and checked the form caught the error and corrected it. I guess I need to slow down a bit / pay more attention.
Sunday
The plan was for me to go to coffee at the Fernandina airport for an hour or so, and then head to Savannah for my aerobatics lesson. Once again, my plan to fly was foiled by weather. This time, the problem wasn't the ceilings, but the wind. Gusty conditions in Savannah precluded our flying. So, since Jeanie was still out of town, and I had nothing better to do, rather than leaving the coffee at 10:00 AM as planned, I stayed until after 11:00. I then returned home and spent the rest of the day puttering around.
Sometime during the week, I started watching the backlog of "Flash Forward" episodes that were stored on the DVR in the bedroom. Jeanie and I had tried on three different occasions to watch the pilot and had fallen asleep part way through each time. I finally made it through the pilot and was on the fence, but decided to watch a few more episodes. It took two or three more episodes to round out the central themes and flesh out the characters, but I eventually decided that it has potential.
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Monday - Tuesday
Work from home.
Wednesday
Glad I heeded the old saying that "discretion is the better part of valor." After checking the weather forecast early today, I elected not to fly a CAP transport mission. Mid-morning, with clear blue skies, I was ruing that decision. But by the afternoon, with a low solid overcast and gusts to 23 knots, I was reminded that "there are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots."
First time I was able to do three pull-ups.
Around 4:30, I headed to Jacksonville to take mom out to dinner. Went to a Japanese steak house near where she lives. Dinner was pleasant.
Jeanie had originally planned to take mom to lunch and to get her hair done, but Jeanie woke up not feeling well, so I pinch hit (only sorta, since I didn't take mom to get her hair done) for her.
After dinner went to Kohl's to pick up some pants for me. Almost purchased a Delsey® Air Style 21-in. Wheeled Carry-On Upright, but couldn't bring myself to pay $159.99 for it. I really liked it as it had all the feature I want - strong handle, skate type wheels, removable strap for strapping on another bag, big open clothes section and large, easily accessed external pockets. Interestingly, when I just searched on Kohl's website, it is showing as on sale for 1/2 off. I wonder if it was on sale in the store and I just missed it. If so, bummer, since I had a 15% off coupon and would have paid $68 bucks for it!
Came home and watched the last results show of "So You Think You Can Dance" prior to the finals. Even though early on I thought Molly should have been eliminated, based on Tuesday's performance, I totally think she deserved to be in the finals. The waltz she and Jakob did I think was one of the most perfect numbers ever on the show. I loved everything about it from the scenery to the costumes (especially Mollie's skirt) to the music, to the dancing, which was capped by that beautiful lift at the end in which Jakob had his hands behind Mollie's waist and she had her hands on his hips.
Even though it was late, we then watched the season finale of Glee, which we both enjoyed.
Thursday - Friday
Work from home.
Saturday
Jeanie and I drove to Savannah, GA. for the annual Melvin Birthday/Christmas (which I guess makes it a birthday/birthday) gathering. Jeanie had made arrangements with the couple that mow our grass to come over and let the dogs out and feed them, so the dogs stayed home. We ended up driving separate vehicles because on Monday, Jeanie will be continuing north up to North Carolina to visit Robby, and I will be returning home tomorrow. Originally the plan was for me to fly up, but the weather precluded that. We met the family at the Cancun Mexican restaurant that we have eaten at for the last few years. Lunch was good, the company was great. Afterwards, we all headed back to Jay and Tricia's house for the gift exchange. Other than our kids, the entire nuclear family was at the gathering. Jeanie and I spent the evening visiting with Jay, Tricia and the three boys. Tricia made a delicious stuffed manicotti and garlic bread.
Sunday
Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with my plans to take my first aerobatic lesson at http://www.idreamofflying.com. So, after breakfast, I headed back home. Between the drive home, and having awakened at 2:00 AM the previous night and not having been able to get back to sleep for a few hours, I was quite tired by the time I got home.
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Monday
Woke up at 5:00 AM to make sure that Bob was awake. Bob and Wendy left around 6:30 AM. Worked from home. Took a quick nap in the afternoon. I left the house around 5:30 PM and headed to the airport to renew my night currency. Conditions were just fantastic. The moon was almost full, there were just a few high wispy clouds, the wind was calm, the air was as clear as a bell and as smooth as glass. I did two laps around the pattern, then flew over to the house, then south along the intracoastal then back north along the intracoastal back to the airport for my final landing. I took our old Panasonic PV-DV400 MiniDV tape camcorder and put it on a full sized tripod that I bungeed to the seat. Unfortunately, it swiveled to the left a bit, so the view wasn't quite as good as I hoped. Still, it was interesting to watch.
Tuesday
Took the morning off to fly the Civil Air Patrol C182R. Had a nice morning. Ceilings were only 2500 feet, but that was enough to do a few laps around the pattern and some steep turns. Landings were pretty good. Video taped the flying using the camcorder. I had purchased a PCMCIA firewire card for my work laptop a number of years ago (pre USB 2.0) so I could back it up to an external hard drive. I slapped it into Jeanie's laptop (which has a native i.link port, but I don't have a 4-pin to 4-pin cable, only a 4-pin to 6-pin cable) and the drivers self installed and the video editing software that was preloaded (Microsoft Movie Maker and ArcSoft Showbiz) both were able to pull the video from the camera without a hitch. After flying, I went to Publix to pick up a few items for Jeanie, went by the bank and got two rolls of the new Zackary Taylor $1 coins, then went to Staples. I had hoped to pick up one of their $29 after rebate 3 handset DECT 6.0 phone sets, but they were out of stock both in the store and online and they wouldn't give me a rain check - grrr! I did end up buying a combo (black and color) pack of ink cartridges for our trusty HP Deskjet 970cxi printer. Normal work from home afternoon.
Wednesday
Normal work from home day.
Thursday
Was awakened at 3:30 AM by what felt like a bug crawling on me. I got out of bed and was tempted to take a flashlight and look under the covers, but didn't want to awaken Jeanie. Went into the office and heard the main home PC making a clicking sound that I immediately recognized as a dead or dying disk drive. After just a bit of problem determination, I deduced that it was my D: drive, which is my main data drive. Of course it had been a few weeks since my last backup, so I wasn't a happy camper. I pulled the drive out of the case and crossed my fingers that the old "put the drive in the freezer trick" would work at least long enough to allow me to get the data off the drive. After an hour or so, I reinstalled the drive, and to my delight, it spun up. I quickly copied the critical data to the G: drive, then when it appeared that the drive might last a bit longer, I did a full backup to my network storage server.
About the time I started the data copy to the storage server, I heard Jeanie squeal from the bedroom. Apparently, what I thought felt like a bug in the bed was in fact a bug in the bed - a large "tree" roach. Even though I try not to kill bugs (preferring to just take them outside and set them free - unless the bug is of the biting variety) I dispatched this roach down the commode.
Fortunately, I remembered that I had a spare drive in an external enclosure, so I formatted it, copied the data from the failing drive to it, then swapped the drives. So far, it appears I dodged a bullet. I can't fault the old drive for failing. it did have over 50,000 hours of powered-on time on it. Its replacement is a veritable "pup" as it only has about 7,500 hours of run time.
Friday
Worked in the morning. After lunch, I went to the doctor and got my seasonal flu shot, then went on-island and got a haircut, then stopped by GoPC and picked up a new power supply. I decided to buy one locally rather than from NewEgg because I didn't want to wait the three days it would take to ship so I was willing to pay $15 extra dollars for a slightly inferior unit. GoPC only had one option - a CoolMax model v-500, 500 watt power supply with a 120mm bottom mounted fan. As an interesting aside, I discovered that on the picture on the box, and on all of the pictures on-line, the power supplies are shown upside down - so that the customer can see the fan. The reviews are mixed on NewEgg on this particular model, with some complaining that it is noisy and may not last that long, but at least so far, it is quiet (quieter than the old PS), and given that the power requirements of this particular PC are modest, I am hoping it will last until I decide to replace the PC with more current technology.
I then went to Wal*Mart and picked up a new battery for the BIOS in the PC, a couple of grocery items and a $10 metal flex style band to replace the fake leather band on my $9 watch. For whatever reason, the fake leather band is just too uncomfortable for me to wear the watch on my left wrist. I'm not sure the new band will work for me either, and the clasp style band on my other watch (which is quite heavy) is also not so comfortable, so, I might just have to give up on the idea of wearing a wristwatch and stick with the dorky watch I wear on my belt loop.
After returning home, I installed the new power supply, and since I had the case open anyway, replaced the video card with a slightly more powerful one I had in my "spares" pile. I finished doing that and got the PC back up and running just in time to dial into a work teleconference.
Another benefit of the PC challenges I had over the last few days.While my main PC was down, I logged into my Bellsouth email account via the browser interface to check my mail... imagine my surprise when I discovered that AT&T has been filtering my mail and that a whole bunch of mail never made it to the POP mail on my PC because it got automatically redirected to the spam folder on AT&T's mail server and therefore was not available to be POPed. Looks like I'll have to periodically check email via the browser for a while and unflag any mail erroneously marked as spam until I can train AT&T's automatic filters.
Saturday
Went to the CAP monthly squadron meeting. Jeanie and I were going to go to the annual Fernandina Beach Christmas pet parade, but it was cold and rainy, so we decided not to. I was going to take my 4 old dead UPSs to the city recycling, but the CAP squadron commander happened to mention that he had just purchased new batteries for one of his UPS, but then the UPS itself died, so he ended up taking my 4 UPS to see if he could rebuild at least one working one out of my four plus his (he is very handy in many ways). Returned home, picked up Jeanie and we ran a few errands on island, then went back home. Jeanie made her first attempt at cooking paella. After lunch, we watched "A Dog Named Christmas," a Hallmark Hall of Fame production made-for-TV movie based on the novel by Greg Kincaid that we had DVRed. The movie was predictably heartwarming and sweet, and Jeanie and I both enjoyed it. In particular, the acting of Noel Fisher was exceptional. In the evening, we watched the last two episodes of Monk. I believe the final series ending episode was one of, if not the, best series finale I have ever seen.
Sunday
Coffee at the airport then Atlantic Flying Club monthly meeting. Then went to Lowes and Wal*Mart to get some stuff, then home.
One item of stuff I got was another new $10 band for my $9 watch. Well, technically, I got two new watch bands - one a "long" version of the standard Timex style flexible metal band and the other a metal link/clasp type band. The "long" flex style band was too big - the watch would just roll around my wrist. As expected, the link/clasp style band was also too long initially, but it was adjustable. After doing a bit of Googling, I found instructions on how to remove links. I was able to get the first two out relatively easily, but the last one was a bear. Fortunately, one of the other items of stuff I purchased was a 4" pair of vise grip pliers that turned out to be instrumental in getting the last link out. With one last adjustment to the band - which hole (out of the seven or so) the flex links were attached to on the clasp, the band was "just right." I wore the watch all evening, and I forgot I was wearing one - which is just what I was hoping for. I repackaged both of the other replacement bands I had purchased and will return them to Wal*Mart next time I go.
Another item of stuff I got was a plastic two step stool. I had been looking for one of these for a while. The reason I wanted one is that I figured out that I could use a stool to help me build strength as I endeavor to increase my ability to do pull ups. I have actually continued to use Jeanie's gift to me of the Iron Gym pull-up bar by Pro Fit that I initially "installed" on September 20. I can now do one and one-half pullups from the 90 degree (palms facing my ears) position and 1 1/2 chinups from the palms facing my face position - i.e. I can pull myself up (chin above bar) from a standing start, lower myself all the way down (knees bent so I don't touch the floor) and then pull myself all the way back up and then lower myself back to the standing position. What I had been doing was using a one step plastic stool to "assist" me in doing additional repetitions. I would stand on the stool and then use my legs to reduce the amount of weight I was having to support with my arms. The problem was that the stool wasn't quite tall enough to allow me to get my chin above the bar, so I didn't feel like I was getting a full range of motion in these assisted pullups. The two step stool allows me to get my chin above the bar. The downside to the two step stool is that I end up doing a pretty deep knee bend at the bottom of the pullup, so I'll need to be careful about not over stressing my knees. One other good outcome from Jeanie's gift is that in addition to the pullups (in addition to the two sets of 1 1/2 unassisted, I do 10 assisted from the 90 degree handles, 10 assisted close grip palms facing and 10 assisted wide grip palms away) I also have added some glutes exercises, crunches and pushups. While I've hit a plateau on my weight loss efforts (I've been the same weight for 8 weeks now), I believe I am replacing some fat with muscle, as I am now able to fit into a pair of pants that Jeanie bought for me a couple of months ago that I couldn't wear comfortably then.
The last part of our weekend was attending the annual Civil Air Patrol Fernandina Beach Senior Squadron Christmas party. As it was last year, it was held at the Amelia Island Golf Club, which is part of the Ritz Carlton. Jeanie was absolutely stunning in a slinky black dress complimented by a black sparkly three quarter length jacket. The dress really highlighted her beautiful waist, and she was by far the prettiest girl at the party. In fact, when she first modeled it for me at home, it took all of my self control to not just take it off of her right there and ravish her on the spot. I had fun deciding which of the half dozen or so Christmas ties I have to wear. I ended up wearing my Looney Tunes tie which is one of my favorites. Dinner was okay. There was a salad with walnuts and dried cranberries that had a tasty dressing, a salad with marinated squash (yellow and green) that was boring, a boring orzo and boring new potatoes. There was no fish dish, so we had no protein. The highlight of the main course was an acorn squash that was dotted with dark chocolate. It was delicious. I wasn't too thrilled with either of the deserts, but Jeanie said she mildly enjoyed them. I did enjoy getting to socialize with some of the members that haven't been that active lately and getting to meet a few of the new members. After dinner, we walked up to the Ritz lobby to look at the giant gingerbread pirate ship. The S.S. Amelia is 17-foot high and 12-foot wide and is made from 1,200 pounds of flour, 900 pounds of sugar, 3,000 eggs and 15 gallons of milk. The pastry chefs and carpenters at the Ritz logged more than 300 man-hours on the completion of this annual project.
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Warning.spoilers follow. If you haven't seen the last two episodes, and don't want the series finale spoiled, don't read any further.
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Well, we've actually had them for quite a while, but I am just getting around to posting about them.
Because when I work from home I am often participating on teleconferences, and given that my office is right next to the living room, we needed to come up with a way for Jeanie to be able to listen to TV while I am in the office.
Our solution was to purchase a rechargeable stereo wireless headphone model number 33-1197 from Radio Shack. The headphones plug into the headphone jack on our home theater amplifier. Pushing one button on the front of the amp mutes the external speakers, making things easy to use.
The specs include: 900MHz - coverage is good throughout the house and evening in the garage and yard, PLL synthesizer eliminates the need for fine tuning - no little dial to have to twiddle with to try to tune into just the right frequency and off/off and volume controls on headset which just make life simpler.
Jeanie and I have both found the headphones to be light weight and comfortable - even after extended use.
The headphones use three AAA batteries. These can either be alkaline or rechargeable (Ni-Cd or Ni-MH). We choose to use three of our Eneloop AAA batteries to provide rechargeable functionality, and this is working very well. The batteries are recharged each time the headphones are placed back on their cradle, and Jeanie has worn the headphones for hours without having the batteries go dead.
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