Monday

Tried to get Shuttle Launch viewing tickets for the causeway, but was unsuccessful.  Did have an opportunity to purchase visitor center viewing tickets, but decided if we go, we'd rather fight the crowds at Space Park in Titusville.

Work from home.

Tuesday

Work from home.

Went to the dentist in the afternoon to get a cavity in #16 (my only remaining wisdom tooth) filled.  My dentist is the best at giving Novocain shots of any dentist I've ever seen - no pain at all.

Wednesday

Work from home.

Thursday

Worked from home.

We received an invitation to watch the Shrimp Festival parade at 29 South at the corner of 3rd and Ash Streets from a couple of the volunteers that Jeanie works with at Barnabas, so we headed downtown around 5:30 PM.  Had a lovely time sitting with Georgia, Bill, Dianne and Mark.  Weather was perfect - not too hot, not too cool.  Fortunately 29 South had a couple of pescatarian friendly hors d'oeuvres and I actually drank a beer which I quite enjoyed.

Friday

Worked from home.

Jeanie drove to Darrien, GA, which is about 1/2 way between Savannah and our home, to meet Jay to pick up the three grand-nephews. 

Early afternoon, I headed to the island to get a haircut then came back home to continue working, as I had a deliverable to complete and a 4:00 PM conference call to attend.

Jeanie arrived back home around 5:30 PM.  Jeanie made a lovely Mexican dinner consisting of cheese quesadillas, refried beans, cheese dip and salsa with chips.  We had planned to take the boys downtown to watch the Shrimp Festival pirate invasion and fireworks, but it didn't start until very late (9:30 PM) and the weather was threatening, so we started watching Avatar on DVD instead.  Around 9:30, about 1/2 way through Avatar, Tyler says "I'm tired, and it's past our bed time, would it be okay if we finished watching Avatar tomorrow?"  Pretty mature for a nine year old!

Saturday

Had breakfast then packed up the boys and headed downtown to attend the Shrimp Festival.  Decided to park at one of the "park and ride" locations - Southside Elementary - rather than hassle with trying to find a parking place near center street, and having to settle for parking blocks and blocks away, then having to drag the three boys so far.  Worked out pretty well.  Was funny to sit in a school bus.  Bus dropped us off right at 8th and Center.  Went straight to the Kid's Zone.  All three boys did the bungee jumping and appeared to have a great time.  Then I took the two older boys to the rock climbing wall while Tripp went to large inflated pirate ship slide/jumpy thing.  We had told the boys they could only do two attractions, but we broke down and let Tyler do the rock climbing one more time, and let Tanner do the pirate ship thing.

Walked up to 6th and got shrimp quesadillas for all of us and sat in the shade of the Methodist church and ate.  Then walked up to 7th and bought a couple of smoothies to share from the "Friends of Fernandina Beach Aviation" booth.

Caught the bus and rode back to the car, then drove home.  We were only home a few minutes when Jay and Tricia arrived.

Ate heavy hors d'oeuvres but decided to wait to go fly as the winds/gusts were quite strong.  Finished watching the end of Avatar, then headed to the airport.

Unfortunately, just as we got to the airport, a low layer of scud appeared on the horizon.  We had to wait until it passed, then we started loading up.  First, we put Tripp in the right front seat and let him "drive" the plane to the FBO ramp.  This is quite fun for me, because the child doesn't realize that the plane is steered on the ground with your feet, so I keep my hands off the yoke and they really do think they are driving.

Shut down, picked up Tyler and Jay, and took off for some sight seeing.  Visibility was okay, but not great.  Went up to the north end of the island, then headed down south, but didn't quite make it to the southern tip before we had to turn around due to rain.  Was just starting to get dusky as we landed.  Nice smooth landing.

Put the plane up, then drove around the airport so we could look at the lighted runways (all three) then drove to Tony's for pizza.

Home, baths, bed.

Sunday

Tricia and Tanner got up early and we headed to the airport around 7:30.  Weather was beautiful.

Tricia taxied us to the run-up area, then I did the run-up and took off, then as soon as we were clear of the pattern, Tricia took the controls and flew us up to around Jekyll Island.  She did turns, climbs, descents, rudder work, and we discussed changing power settings and how that affects the aircraft as well as elevator trim.  When we got near the pattern, I took the controls back, and we landed.  Decent landing, although Tanner thought it was hard.

Put up the airplane and Tricia, Tanner and I walked over to the FBO to chat with the Sunday coffee crowd while we waited for the rest of the gang to come pick us up so we could head back to the Shrimp Festival.  A few of the EAA members were there, and they were kind enough to offer to open up the EAA hangar so we could see the new Skyboy the chapter had purchased.  Rest of the gang arrived and they came over as well.

Went to the Shrimp Festival.  I broke off from the pack and headed to Front street to get some Shrimp Etouffee before starting my noon-to-three shift in the smoothie booth.  Then headed up to the smoothie booth.  Started in the base/soda mixing position, then was promoted to the machine running position, then finally was promoted to the smoothie cup filling position.  As always, it was quite fun.  It was busy enough that we were hopping pretty much the entire time, with just a few lulls to allow us to catch our breath.  One negative was that I forgot how loud it is in the booth between the three machines and the ladies hawking, so I got a bit of a headache.  I have become much more aware of the fragility of our hearing mechanisms, and am trying as much as possible to protect what's left of my hearing - unfortunately, I don't think working the smoothie booth furthered that endeavor.

At three, said my good-byes to the gang and called Jeanie to ask her to come pick me up.  Walked up to 8th and Date where Jeanie met me and took me home.

Had left over pizza, watched some TV, then went to bed.

What a great extended weekend!

Monday

Work from home.  Went to the dentist for a cleaning in the afternoon and then drove to Jax Beach to take my mother out to dinner.  We went to the Salt Life Seafood Shack.  Jeanie and my mother had been there a number of times and liked it.  I thought it was okay, but nothing to write home about.  This seemed to mirror the sentiment on UrbanSpoon.

Tuesday

Work from home.

Wednesday

Work from home.

Left the house around 5:00 PM to go fly.  Did three full stop landings.  The second landing was one of my best ever.  Full stall at touchdown and feather smooth.  After flying I went to talk with Keoki for a while and when he asked why I had such a big smile on my face, I realized it was because I had a LOT of fun flying.

Stayed and chatted with Keoki until it was about time for the CAP squadron monthly safety meeting.  Chatted with the soon to be new squadron commander David (who is one of the check pilots and also a member of the flying club) and went to look at the new paint job on the club plane with him.

After the safety meeting, chatting with David a bit more, then talked on the phone with Andy until it was an hour past sunset, then cranked up the plane to renew my night currency.  Winds were totally calm, so I was able to use runway 26 which is good for noise abatement (especially considering it was so late).  The temperature / dew point spread was only 1 degree, so I decided to just stay in the pattern in case ground fog developed.  All three of my landings were acceptable, but I definitely find flying at night (especially when just doing take-offs and landings) to be more work and not as much fun as during the day.  Anyway, it's good to be current for another 90 days.

Thursday

Work from home.

Installed PGP whole disk encryption on my work laptop.  The timing of doing this was good, as the pre-installation involved running a disk check which meant there was lots of waiting time.

I used this waiting time to try to purchase launch viewing tickets for the next shuttle launch - STS-132 on May 14.  I started trying to access the purchase site at 8:45 AM.  I was running two different browsers on three different machines, but was unable to access the site.  At 11:30 AM I was finally able to connect to the site.  This is what I got:

The good news is: we will get another chance to get tickets.

Got assigned to a new engagement.

Went to the airport for a 6:00 p.m. special EAA chapter meeting.  The purpose of the meeting was to vote on authorizing the aircraft search committee to make an offer on a new-to-us InterPlane Aircraft SkyBoy.  Even though the chapter had been looking for quite some time to purchase a kit for us to build, this aircraft appeared to be a very good deal that would meet the vast majority of the mission parameters the membership wanted.  After the meeting, I wandered over and chatted with Keoki while he worked on continuing the sanding and painting of the fuselage tubing on his Pitts.

Friday

Worked from home.

One year anniversary of being a pescatarian.

Saturday

Went mattress shopping with Jeanie.  First off, my goodness, are those things made from spun gold?!?  You'd think so given their prices.  Second, too many choices!  Conventional spring, latex foam, memory foam, air, hybrid, fixed base or motion base, firm, plush, pillow top, eurotop, arg!!!  Long story short, we (well, I) didn't make a purchasing decision.  We also shopped for a new T.V. to replace the one in our living room that is dying.  Same problem as #2 above. plasma, LCD, LED/LCD, size, refresh rate, resolution, arg!!!  Also looked for a new home theater receiver to replace our Sony unit that is dying.  Choices are a little simpler, but the one store we looked at didn't have very good stock.  My thought now is that I'll buy the new receiver at the same time I buy the new T.V., whenever that is.

Sunday

Coffee at the airport.  Learned that the local EAA chapter had in fact been able to purchase a new-to-us InterPlane Aircraft Skyboy.  It looks like a lot of fun, and I am looking to fly it.  Hopefully, it will be in the EAA hangar by next week, although the chapter may decide to have the engine (a Rotax 582) rebuilt before we start flying it.  Stayed a while after to talk with Patrick about the Citabria.  Looks like nothing will happen for the next few weeks one way or the other.

Came home, feasted on fish tacos, then diagnosed the problem with the sprinkler head that gushed ever time the irrigation system got to that zone.  The problem was that the PVC pipe was cracked at the T connector for the sprinkler head.  Probably because I drove over it.  Went to Lowe's to pick up some parts.  Tried to fix the pipe and realized I needed some special part to enable me to splice in the fix, as there was no way to get both ends of the broken pipe into a standard coupler as there was no "give" on either stub of pipe.  Did some research on the Internet and decided I now had a good excuse to visit the new Ace Hardware on island.  As has been my experience in the past, they had a friendly, helpful person who was able to help me find just the part I needed, that being, a "Qwik Fix PVC Repair Coupling 1/2HXS"

The key to this particular part is that one end is a standard 1/2" PVC hub (female), the other side is a standard 1/2" PVC pipe (spigot, male), and the "magic" is that the PVC pipe has an internal bushing that allows the pipe to telescope 2" - enough to glue the hub to one piece of the broken pipe, and then extend the other end into the coupler connected to the other end of the broken pipe.  I was also grateful for the education on working with PVC pipe that I received from our former neighbor in Cary.  Installed a couple of stakes to help straighten the fig tree in the front yard, and one to help straighten the elm in the back yard.

Monday

Work from home early morning, then went to a couple of doctors appointments mid-morning until mid-afternoon.  Returned home for a late afternoon work teleconference.

Tuesday

Work from home.

Wednesday

Work from home most of the day.

Late afternoon drove to the island to drop off my old clip-on sunglasses at the eye doctor.  I really like my eye doctor and his associated optical shop.  I have used the same style frames for a number of years because: I like the style and it's hard to find large frames these days due to the vagaries of fashion, and, because my clip on sunglasses fit the frames.  Unfortunately, the lenses on my clips have become scratched over the years, so this year I was going to break down and purchase a new set.  Unfortunately, the manufacturer no long makes or sells the clips, so, I thought I was going to be out of luck.  Fortunately, the optical shop had a creative solution: they ordered a set of polarized blanks for a frame that is larger than mine and the edged them to fit my clips - all for $24 vs. new (if they were available) at a minimum of $80.

I then went to the airport to work with one of my airport buddies (Bob) for a while helping him learn his Garmin 696, then went to the local EAA chapter monthly meeting.

Thursday

Work from home.

Friday

Work from home.  Late work call.

Saturday

Flew the CAP C-182R.  My flying was okay, but I wasn't super happy with it.  No major mistakes, just not as precise as I would like.

Went to the monthly EAA hotdog lunch and had a bun (only, since they didn't have any meatless dogs).  It was interesting and pleasant.

Went to Advance Auto to buy some new fuel hose for the CAP tug.

Went to Wal*Mart to buy a new battery for my Timex Expedition Digital Compass watch.  Paid $5 for one CR1620 battery that I could have bought on e-Bay for $3 shipped - for FIVE!

Went home and installed the new battery which was simple and straight forward.

Drove to Jacksonville to take my mother out to dinner.  I was a little concerned that she wouldn't be able to get in and out of the Durango, but we managed.  We went to P.F. Chang's China Bistro at St. John's Town Center.  We had to wait about 45 minutes for a table, but that was less than the "hour to an hour and a half" wait that we had been warned to expect which pleased us.  I am a big believer in the "under promise and over deliver" school of customer service.  For dinner, we shared an order of pan seared shrimp dumplings that were scrumptious.  For entrees, my mother had the VIP duck which she said she enjoyed, but which I thought she was only "okay" with.  I think she would have preferred something a bit more traditional.  I had the Hot Fish which I have had before and have never been disappointed with.  In all, it was a  pleasant evening.

Sunday

Went to coffee at the airport.  Around 11:00 am, went over to Bob's hangar and we went for a spin in his K35 V-tail Beech Bonanza.  Once we were off the ground and clear of the airport, Bob let me fly it from the right seat.  This was really exciting for me as this was the model of the plane that my father had when I was a child.  I was amazed at how smoothly it handled.  The interlinked ailerons and "rudder" allowed me to fly coordinated turns with my feet flat on the floor.  I was amazed at how fast the airplane is.  At 23 squared, we were burning around 12GPH and traveling at 150 knots!  We flew all the way up to St. Simons, gawking at the C210 that had made a wheels up landing on the beach on Cumberland Island.  I flew all the way back to Fernandina and flew the plane through the pattern until we were on final when Bob took it back for the landing.

After getting the plane back in the hangar, we went to McDonalds where I bought lunch for Bob and me.  Bob's lunch consisted of a regular cheeseburger, two apple pies and a small coffee - cheap date!

We sat and chatted for quite a while, then we went back to his hangar to do some more tutoring on his Garmin GPSMap 696.  I had to cut the lesson short, as I needed to get on the road to drive to Savannah to meet the Jeanie, Jamie and the Melvin clan.  It was cool - all of Mama and Dad's children and grandchildren were there except for Robby, and Lisa's husband Sonny (who was sick).  I left the airport at 2:30 p.m. sharp, stopped by the house to let the dogs out, and was on the road at 3:00 p.m.  I made a four minute fuel stop at exit 29 and made it to Tricia and Jay's just before 5:00 p.m.  That put me arriving only about ten minutes after Jeanie and Jamie arrived.

I stayed until around 7:00 p.m. when everyone else headed home and got back home myself around 9:00 p.m.

I got involved on the computer searching for this and that.  Among my searches, and "finds," I finally was able to confirm that an accident report I had found a couple of years ago was in fact the one for my father's crash of his V-tail Bonanza.  The confirmation was a newspaper clipping that I had not seen in my earlier searches.  I also think I finally found the telephone number for stepmother #1 - the only one of my father's three wives subsequent to my mother that I really consider a stepmother since I actually lived with her and my dad for a period of time.

I didn't end up going to bed until after 1:00 a.m.

Monday

Work from home.

Tuesday

Second attempt to transport the Atlantic Flying Club to Alabama to get painted.

One of the other AFC Board Members, Joe, picked me up at our house at 0645.

Took off at 0738.  First leg was direct to Fitzgerald, GA (KFZG).  Had about a twenty knot headwind at 4500 feet.  Leg took a total of 2.3 hours.  Visibility was fantastic, and the air was as smooth as glass.  Approach was normal, but ended up high on final.  Had to aggressively slip to make my aim point.  Landed on runway 1 with about a seven knot crosswind.  Got a strange burble crossing the threshold, but managed to make a smooth touchdown.  I even noticed that I used good crosswind technique and held me ailerons into the wind throughout the flare.  I did have to work hard through the final portion of the landing, to the point that I was actually grunting.  I can only imagine what Joe was thinking.

Tried to use my new "tailwheel style" takeoff, but found that it was much harder to manage having to hold in lots of aileron to correct for the crosswind.  I find it awkward to hold aileron with a yoke - this aspect seems much easier with a stick.

Conditions on the leg to Wetumpka, AL (08A) were the same as the first leg, with a bit more headwind.  Had to climb up to 6500 near Columbus, GA due to issues ATC was having with their radar, which caused us to lose some groundspeed both due to the climb, and the higher winds aloft at 6500 vs. 4500.  We were able to return to 4500 feet after about half an hour, which allowed us to increase our groundspeed both due to the descent, and to the lower winds at 4500.  As we started our descent into 08A, things got quite bumpy.  We also hit an incredible updraft that lifted us almost 500 feet before I realized what was happening.  Even though I consciously extended my downwind, I was once again high on final, and once again had to aggressively slip.  I was able to make my aim point, but I ended up ballooning my flare, and had to add some power to recover.  We landed on runway 27 and winds were from 310 at 12, gusting to 16, so the crosswind was a bit stronger than FZG at about 10 knots.  The fact that it was so bumpy, and that the runway at 08A is only 80 feet wide (vs. the 100 that I'm used to) made for an exciting landing, although I didn't grunt.  20 feet doesn't sound like much, but it does change the sight picture on final.  Time for this leg was 1.6 hours.

The wife of the owner of the paint shop was really nice and drove us to the Montgomery, AL airport so we could rent a car.  We had a bit of a challenge getting a car, due to the recent unseasonable weather in the South, which had apparently created a run on one-way rentals.  Hertz, our first choice due to there being a location at the Fernandina Airport was totally out of cars; I was able to get a reservation through the telephone reservations from National, but it took some convincing at the counter to get them to actually honor it.  We ended up with a Toyota Corolla, which was fine for me, but a bit tight for Joe's 6' 4" frame.  My TomTom routed us south on 231 through Dothan, AL, to I-10, east to Jacksonville, then north on I-95 to home.  Total drive time home was about 7.5 hours, which included a stop at Wendy's (which now serves fish sandwiches - yea) for lunch and one fuel stop, compared to the total flying time of 4.5 hours including the fuel stop at Fitzgerald.  Driving mileage was 430 statute miles compared to the flying distance of 276 nautical miles.

Drive home was very pleasant.  Scenery was pretty - I especially liked central Alabama with its rolling hills.  Conversation was great, and the time flew by.

I got home around 2230.

Wednesday

Drove to JAX first thing to drop off the rental car.  Joe picked me up and took me home.

Worked from home for the rest of the day.

Attended the monthly CAP Safety Meeting and hung around a bit after the meeting to chat with the commander and director of operations.

As an experiment, Jeanie and I tried sleeping in the bed in the "yellow room" to see if that mattress allowed us to rest any better than the one in the master bedroom.  Unfortunately, the answer was "no."  My back still got sore, and between the three of us (Jeanie, Cali, me) I guess we've outgrown a queen sized mattress.

Thursday

Did some work work, but also did a number of "honey do's."  These included:

1. Speaking with the broker who manages my mother's guardianship investment account about alternative fee structures.
2. Repairing the cord for the electric blanket in the blue room.  The cord is a three wire affair, about the same gauge as the cord for an electric light.  In one place, one of the three wires had been totally severed.  In the other, there was about a six inch section that appeared to have been chewed by a dog.  I cut out the chewed section, offsetting the cut of each of the three wires so that the splices wouldn't all be at the same spot creating a giant bulge in the wire.  I was able to salvage one piece of this removed area to use as a "graft" for the section of the severed wire I had to cut out.  I soldered all of the joins, and used heat shrink tubing to insulate the joined wires.  I was reasonably pleased with the results.  It never ceases to amaze me how much a dab of flux helps solder to flow.
3. Replacing the batteries (4 button cells, which fortunately I have a bunch of) in one of Jeanie's carabineer flashlights.  This also required cleaning out the corrosion that had accumulated in the battery section.
4. Replacing the batteries (3 of the same type of button cells as the flashlight above) in Jeanie's lighted tweezers.
5. Taking out the garbage and wheeling the dumpster to the street.
6. Putting the ladder back in the garage from when we had to re-hang the insulating plastic sheeting on the lanai.
7. Re-filling the bird feeder.
8. Moving one of the bird houses from a branch on the oak tree to a free-standing metal "shepherd's crook" stand.
9. Flipping the king sized mattress in the master bedroom and helping Jeanie change the sheets and remake the bed.

Friday

Work from home.

Jay, Tricia and the boys arrived around 6:00 PM.  Jeanie had our low country boil (sans sausage) ready shortly after they arrived, and we ate until we were about to pop.

We watched "Cars" and then went to bed.

Saturday

Jeanie made a lovely breakfast, then we headed downtown to walk around.  Went through the farmer's market and Tricia bought some plants and I bought a five pound jar of locally produced wild flower honey.  I've been consuming a lot of honey since I switched from drinking coffee to drinking tea.  I'm now on a "Constant Comment" kick.  Occasionally I'll still have a cup of Peet's coffee because it is just so good, but my stomach tends to object.

We returned home and hung out for a while then Jay, Tricia and the two older boys got in their vehicle, and the youngest rode with us to Pepper's Mexican restaurant on the Island.  Jeanie and I shared the seafood fajitas for one which was delicious as usual and more than enough for the two of us.  After lunch, Jay, Tricia and the two older boys headed off to the River City Marketplace to see Avatar, and Jeanie and I took the youngest to the playground at main beach.  Afterward, we walked on the beach, then went to the playground on Atlantic.

For dinner, Jeanie made a lovely dinner of salad, spinach lasagna, pizza and spaghetti.  After dinner, Jay and Tricia headed off to Jacksonville for their Jimmy Buffet concert, and we bathed the youngest, then sent each of the other two boys off for their showers.  After bathing, we put the youngest to bed, then the two older boys and Jeanie and I watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

Fortunately, the plastic five pound honey container we got from Costco hadn't made it to the garbage yet, so I cleaned it out and transferred the locally produced/purchased honey from its glass jar to the plastic container.  Even though I like the idea of glass vs. plastic when it comes to what I'd rather have my food sitting in, the plastic is much easier to dispense from. 

Sunday

We had pancakes for breakfast, then the gang packed up and headed back home.  Jeanie and I went to the beach with Cali.  I took the new kite I had received from the IBM Thanks! program, but unfortunately, there wasn't enough wind to fly the kite.  We stayed a couple of hours, then headed home.  After dropping Cali off, Jeanie and I headed out to drive through some neighborhoods to see what was on the market.  We saw some houses that might be worth going through.  We stopped off at McDonalds for Filet 'O Fish sandwiches and some shared fries.  We returned home and watched "Up" which we both really enjoyed.  "Up" deftly demonstrates that with a compelling story, a movie can be great, pretty independent of the medium in which it is presented.  I also found it interesting just how strongly the movie tugged at the heartstrings.

Monday

Awoke at 3:30 a.m. to go watch the launch of STS-130, the last scheduled nighttime Shuttle launch.  I messed up and thought that the launch was scheduled for 4:41 a.m. but when I checked the NASA Shuttle Blog, I realized that it was 4:14 a.m. so we had to hussle to get get out of the house.  Fortunately, we had laid out our clothes before we went to bed, but we didn't end up having time to make coffee.  We also spent a few extra minutes having to scrape frost off of the windshield of the Durango.  We managed to make it to the Scott Road beach access with about five minutes to spare, which was just enough for us to get the beach chairs out and set up and for me to get the video camera set up.  Jeanie had the good binoculars and had a fantastic view of the entire launch.  The video camera had trouble focusing and was more of a distraction for me than it was an asset.  From our vantage point, it was crystal clear, with a quarter moon almost due east, low over the horizon.  We were well bundled and layered, so we didn't suffer too much with the 37 degree temperature.  Fortunately, there was almost no wind.  We both initially saw a red glow in the south, which we later decided was the reflection of the light from the solid rocket boosters off of some clouds to the south.  A few moments later, the red flame jet of the solid rocket boosters became clearly visible.  With the binoculars, Jeanie was able to see the separation of the boosters.  It was so clear that even without binoculars, I was able to see the shuttle all the way until Main Engine Cut Off - which was about eight minutes after we initially saw the red glow on the clouds at lift off.  The track of the ascent was perfect for our viewing, being almost due north along the eastern coast of the U.S. at one p0int positioning the still glowing shuttle just above the crescent moon and continuing until well north of it from our vantage point.

Went home and went back to bed and took a nap then got dressed and headed off to Jacksonville via Heckscher Drive.  On the way, we stopped at a couple of bedding stores, as our mattress is at its end of life with well worn depressions on both of our sides that make the mattress somewhat uncomfortable.  I wasn't prepared for how expensive mattresses have become, and was a bit overwhelmed with the multitude of choices: Tempurpaedic, traditional spring, full latex foam, etc.  I guess I'll have to do some research before making a decision.

We stopped at the Sandollar Restaurant on the river on Heckscher for lunch.  Jeanie and I have driven past it countless times, and Jeanie has been there with Wendy and Tammy, but I had never been.  Service was good and the view was great.  Jeanie and I both had shrimp plates - hers broiled with rice and beans, mine fried with french fries.  Portions were generous and reasonably priced at $8.  The shrimp was cooked "just right" for both of us.  Jeanie's were well seasoned and she enjoyed the rice and beans, though I found the beans a bit bland.  I found the batter bland on my shrimp and the fries were a bit limp, but the lunch was still enjoyable.  The highlight (other than being with my sweetie) of the meal for me were the hush puppies.  They were delicious - hot, crisp, plenty of onion and just a hint of sweetness.

After lunch, we continued to the southern edge of Jacksonville and did a bit of furniture shopping.  Jeanie was looking at prices of oversized chairs to try to decide if it makes more sense to get her existing "chair and a half" recovered or to just buy a new one.  I know I am frugal, but, $2000 for a chair?!?  For that kind of money, I vote to keep what we have an just keep throwing a blanket over it, but, I'm not sure I get a vote.

On the way home, we stopped by Costco and picked up some stuff, then drove back via Hechscher as it was still light and we enjoy the view.

After arriving home, I went off to take another nap.

Around 6:00 p.m., Jeanie and I headed off to the airport for me to do my three full stop landings to maintain my night currency.  The night was lovely.  While overcast at around 3500 feet, it was very clear below the clouds, the temperature was crisp but not cold, and the winds were gentle.  I did one closed circuit pattern, then did a half loop around the northern part of the island, then returned to the pattern to do my last two landings.  My first landing was a bit firmer than I would have preferred, but not bad.  My second was decent and on my last, I thought it was going to be perfect, but I ballooned a bit just at the end, but was able to salvage it with a bit of power to end with a greaser.

All told, the day was just wonderful.

Tuesday

Normal work from home day.

Wednesday

Normal work from home day.

Put the plastic that runs from the screening to the house back up on the lanai as the forecast calls for the temperature to drop to 32 degrees tonight.

Thursday

In the morning, met one of the other CAP members at the hangar to act as safety pilot while he flew some instrument approaches under the hood while flying a Cessna 182T Nav III Skylane.  Our squadron swapped airplanes with the Craig squadron for a few weeks so our members could get current on the "glass" and the few of us remaining who are not glass qualified could get some time in the aircraft.  This was a great opportunity for me, as it gave me the chance to sit in the right seat and focus on the G1000 without having to worry about also flying the airplane.

In the afternoon, I worked from home.

Friday

Worked from home.

Saturday

The plan was for Joe and me to fly the club airplane to Wetumpka, AL (08A) and drop it off to get painted.  We lined up one of our airport buddies, Roger, who is also one of our CAP squadron members and a CAP IP, to fly chase in his Piper Arrow to bring us back.  Joe picked me up at 0645 and we headed off to preflight, even though the weather didn't look promising.  The weather in Wetumpka was fine, but at FHB, the ceiling was 1500 feet with a temperature of 4 degrees centigrade on the ground.  In addition, winds at 3000 feet were almost a direct headwind at 30 knots.  By 0800, our planned departure time, the clouds had only lifted to 2000 feet.  by 0900, they had only lifted to 2500 feet, which meant we would have to fly at 2000 feet, right at the freezing point.  Given these conditions, we elected to scrub the trip.

By noon, the weather had lifted, and I was jonesing for some flying, so  I called Roger to see if he would be willing to go up with me in the G1000.  He is so nice.  He said "sure," and we arranged to meet at 1300.  I got to the airport around 1230 to ensure that the aircraft was as ready to go as I could make it before Roger got there.  I say "as ready as I could make it" because I didn't want to perform the G1000 related portions of the preflight with an instructor there to make sure I didn't mess anything up or miss something important.  Roger put me through the paces, having me perform slow flight, stalls, steep turns, and normal, short field and soft field takeoffs and landings and a power off landing.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't have any trouble adapting to the glass panel presentation of the primary flight instrument data, but I did struggle a bit with the landing flares due to the significantly greater height of the glare shield on the instrument panel.  None of the landings were horrible, but they weren't as smooth as I would have liked.  Overall though, even though I worked hard, I enjoyed our 1.5 hours in the air.

For dinner, I made salads for Jeanie and for me, as Jeanie was tired and asked me to make dinner for us.

After dinner, we started to watch "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince," but both of us fell asleep before the end of the movie.  This was our first rental from RedBox, and I was very impressed with the rental experience.  I really like the idea of paying for rentals by the night (especially at a buck a night), rather than the approach that Blockbuster takes of charging $5 for a 5 night rental.  The fact that the first night was free (due to them sending me an email with a promotional code for one free rental night) made the experience even better.  Never know when I'll need that extra dollar!

Sunday

Happy Valentine's Day.

Jeanie hadn't slept well, so about the time I got up, Jeanie headed back to bed.  I had borrowed one of the Sunday airport coffee regular's Garmin 696 User Manual on Thursday so I could learn about how to use the unit and then give him some tutoring, and I wanted to get the manual back to him, so Jeanie and I decided for me to go to the airport coffee, at least briefly. 

After I returned, we exchanged cards and gifts.  Jeanie got me a bag of M&M's, which honored my request to her to cut way back on her buying presents for me.  I got her a Sandisk Sansa Clip 2GB MP3 player, Koss Custom Fit KE20BZ Noise Isolating Earbuds, and a patch cord to allow her to connect the Sansa to her car audio.

While on my way home, Jeanie cooked us breakfast consisting of grits, a fried egg and toast.

After breakfast, we decided to go back to bed for a nap.

When we awoke, we bathed and then watched the end of the Harry Potter movie.  I wasn't overly impressed with the movie.  Maybe it had been too long since I read the books, or maybe it was just because so much of the book had to be eliminated to fit the time available for a movie.  I was glad to learn that the cinematic coverage of the final book will span two movies, one to be released this November and the second to be released the following July.  I was also pleased to learn that they will both be available in 3D.  Hopefully, the extra time will allow a more faithful adaption of the final book.

Around 3:30 we headed off to Fernandina.  We drove to the north end of the island and looked around the marinas there, then headed downtown and walked around.  At 5:00, we walked into Espana for our Valentine's Day dinner reservations.  As usual, the food and the service were exceptional.  We started off sharing Ceviche and a half pitcher of sangria.  For our entree, we shared a Paella Marinera (Seafood Paella) with Clams, shrimp, scallops, mussels, calamari and Lobster for one (which was just the right amount for the two of us).  For desert, we shared a serving of flan.  We both left satisfied but not stuffed, with very happy taste buds.

On the way home, we stopped by one of the RedBoxes on island and returned our movie.  The return process couldn't have been simpler, and I really like the fact that you can return your rentals at any Redbox, rather than having to return it at the location from which you rented it like Blockbuster.

The week started off great, ended great, and had some nice spots along the way.  You can't ask for much more than that.

Monday

Worked from home in the morning and early afternoon, then Jeanie and I went to the appointment with my gastroenterologist to get the results from my gallbladder ultrasound and upper GI.  Good news was that they didn't find anything horrible.  Bad news is that he isn't really sure what is causing the gastritis.  His theory is that the cause is either one of the vitamins / supplements that I take daily, or it might be one of my prescriptions.  He suggested that I stop taking the supplements for a while to see if that helps.  He also prescribed a new medicine to try.  Prior to getting the prescription filled, I logged onto the AOPA site and double checked that it wouldn't create a problem with my medical, which it doesn't, so I will go ahead and get it filled, but not start taking it until Sunday, as I plan to do some flying this week, and want a few days after starting the new medicine before I fly, just to make sure there are no side effects that might negatively impact my ability to safely pilot.

Tuesday

Normal work from home day.

Wednesday

Left the house at 8:00 AM to drive up to St. Mary's with Joe from the flying club and his wife to pick up the club plane now that its annual is complete.  Joe flew back, I rode.  Was back at home by 10:00 AM and spent the rest of the day working from home.

Thursday

Received an email asking if I could fly the CAP C-182 plane down to Daytona with another squadron member so he could ferry another CAP aircraft that had been in maintenance back to Craig.  After coordinating with the other member, who happens to live in Jacksonville, we decided it would be easier for him for me to pick him up at Craig since that's where the other plane needed to end up and he lived about 1/2 way between Fernandina and Craig.

The weather was VFR, but it was a bit windy and the ceilings were around 4000 feet.  When I arrived at Craig, it turned out that an aircraft had blown a tire on landing and was still on the runway that the winds preferred, so I ended up having to make a crosswind landing with a fairly brisk crosswind.  It wasn't my prettiest landing, but given the conditions, it wasn't horrible either.

The flight down to Daytona was unremarkable, other than that I had to fly at 2500 feet rather than the 3500 feet I had planned to due to a lowering ceiling.

The flight back home was also unremarkable.

All told, I got in 2.9 hours of flying.  By the time I got back to the airport, it was around 2:00 PM.  Since I had burned most of the day, I decided to hang around the airport and play "airport bum."  Fortunately, there were a number of folks I knew at the airport, either working in the hangars or sitting at the FBO shooting the breeze, so I had lots of folks to visit with.  It was quite enjoyable.

Friday

Ran a full backup of my work PC's hard drive in preparation for the pending installation of Windows XP Service Pack 3.

Watched the two hour season opener episode of Lost.  I liked that we finally learned the explanation of the smoke monster, but I'm on the fence about the rest of the episode and where this final season is headed.

Saturday

I got up around 7:00 AM.  Showed and dressed for my Civil Air Patrol monthly squadron meeting while Jeanie ironed my long sleeve Atlantic Flying Club shirt.  I logged on to DUATS to check weather, NOTAMS, etc. in preparation for my EAA Young Eagles flying while Jeanie made me a breakfast pita with scrambled eggs and cheese.  Threw my flight bags and CAP briefcase into the truck and headed for the airport.

Arrived at the club hangar around 8:00 AM, got the doors open, and started cleaning the airplane windows inside and out.  Mark, one of the other club members arrived around 8:15 and we chatted for a bit while I finished up the windows and he started preflighting the aircraft.  Around 8:45 AM I left to head over to the CAP trailer.  The meeting lasted about an hour, and then I headed over to the FBO to check on the status of the Young Eagles flights.  Mark had flown one load, and one other pilot had taken one kid in his Citabria.  It was fairly windy and gusty, and I was on the fence about whether it was a good day to fly Young Eagles.  I talked with Mark and learned that the kid in the Citabria had gotten sick, and that Mark felt the conditions were "challenging."  We went and talked with the organizers and we all decided that we needed to cancel due to the conditions.  I was disappointed that the kids who showed up didn't get airplane rides and that I didn't get to fly any kids, but agreed that I'd rather have some disappointed pilots and kids than have a bunch of kids whose first experience in a small airplane was unpleasant at best, and scary at worst, due to the conditions.

Headed back home and chatted with Jeanie.  I remarked to her that the squadron had scheduled a cookout for lunch unbeknownst to me, but that I didn't see the point of us going since they only had hotdogs and hamburgers.  Jeanie, in her infinite wisdom, suggested that we grab a couple of Boca Burgers and head over to the airport, which sounded like a great idea to me.

We drove to the airport and threw our Boca Burgers on the grill and proceeded to have a nice lunch.  A number of the other member's wives had come over, so it was a nice social event.  After lunch, Jeanie and I walked over to the FBO and looked at the three beautiful Collings Foundation warbirds that had come in for the weekend: a B-17, a B-24 and a P-51 Mustang.  Jeanie decided she didn't have a burning desire to walk through the aircraft and I had done so a couple of years ago, so we headed off to pick up some specials at Publix, then headed home.

After taking a brief nap, we grabbed a cooler and headed off to Jacksonville.  First stop was the Sam's Club to renew our membership and pick up a few items including some eggs (thus the reason for the cooler).  Then we headed to Jax Beach to pick up my mother to take her to dinner for her birthday.  My mother wanted to go to the Mill House for dinner, and Jeanie and I had anticipated this and decided that since it was for my mother's birthday, we'd make the drive if that was where she wanted to go.  As usual, the food and the service were very good, and we had a pleasant visit with my mother.  After dropping her back at her place, we headed home and arrived at around 8:00 PM.

Went to bed around 10:30 PM after setting the alarm clock for 3:30 AM so we could get up and go to the beach to watch the Shuttle launch.

Sunday

Didn't sleep well.  Awoke for the first time around 12:30 AM.  Slept fitfully for a couple more hours before finally deciding to arise around 2:30 AM.  This was mostly prompted by moderate intestinal cramps that instigated a couple of visits to the commode.

Went into the office and saw that my work PC had blue screened during a boot time defrag I had scheduled.  When I power cycled the machine, it wouldn't boot into windows.  Tried to boot to the recovery console and it would hang before it finished loading.  Powered the system down and left it off for a while.  In the interim, checked the NASA web site for an update on the Shuttle launch.  It reported a 60% chance of launch due to some low clouds in the area, but the local weather for the Space Center according to Intellicast looked promising.

Tried starting the work PC into the Recovery Console again and was able to get the Recovery Console to load.  Ran a chkdsk with no parameters and it showed that there were "one or more errors on the volume.  Ran chkdsk again with the /r parameter in hopes that it could fix whatever problems there were.

While waiting for the chkdsk to complete, did some blogging and occasionally checked the NASA blog.  By 2:40, chances for launch had decreased to 30% due to low clouds in the area of the Space Center.

The chkdsk run on my work PC completed, and I held my breath, rebooted, and thankfully, Windows loaded.  Yea!

At 3:45 AM, I checked with my local shuttle launch viewing mission commander (Jeanie, whom I hated to awaken) and gave her a status briefing (still 30% chance of launch and local conditions of overcast and cold as heck) and she elected to scrub our viewing mission and ordered me back to bed.

Fortunately, I was able to go back to sleep and slept soundly until almost 8:00 AM.  Got up, showered and headed off to the airport for coffee and the monthly Flying Club meeting.  At the meeting, we finally made a decision on which paint shop we will take the airplane to (TRI-D in Wetumpka, Alabama), and I got tasked with coordinating the transport of the airplane to 08A.

I retuned home around 1:00 PM and Jeanie and I piddled around the house until it was time for the Super Bowl.  As has been our tradition for a number of years, Jeanie made us our traditional Super Bowl party snacks including wings and her famous meatballs.   Of course this year, they were meatless wings and balls.  Unfortunately, the balls that we really like are either no longer sold at all or are at least not sold around here; the replacement ones Jeanie was able to find were not to my liking, and the wings were too hot for both of us.  But, the deviled eggs, crudités and guacamole, salsa and chips were all tasty.  Unlike years past, we watched the game in almost real time, and both of us thought that for the first time, the game was actually more interesting than the commercials.  We were both rooting for the Saints, and we were initially discouraged when the Colts jumped out to an early ten point lead, but were excited when things turned around for New Orleans.  Of the commercials, our favorites were two for CBS: the NCIS "head slap" one and the "Late Show" with Oprah,  David Letterman and Jay Leno; the Doritos crashing asteroid observatory; Google; Hyundai Tucson; and the Budweiser pony/calf / horse/steer.

Monday

Worked from home.

Tuesday

First thing, met Joe from the flying club at the airport to transport the club airplane to St. Mary's for our annual.  I flew.  The flight up was a little bumpy, but not too bad.  The weather was really clear and the temperature was very comfortable.  Winds favored runway 22, so I had to keep the downwind pretty short to avoid the King's Bay prohibited area.  There was a little bit of a gusty cross wind, but I managed to recover from a bit of a balloon and make a decent one-wheel landing.  Joe's wife met us there and drove us back to the airport.

Worked from home for the rest of the day.

Wednesday

Worked from home.

Thursday

Worked from home.

In the late afternoon, after Jeanie had finished volunteering at the Barnabus Center, we decided to go for a walk on the beach.  Jeanie came home, we grabbed Cali, hopped in the Durango and headed off to the Scott Road access.  It was a beautiful day, and we thoroughly enjoyed our 30 minute stroll.  Sadly, we no longer take Diego, as the deterioration of the functionality of his hind legs has gotten to the point where he just can't walk for more than a few minutes before the spasticity just gets too bad.

Friday

Worked from home.

Got a haircut at the end of the day.

Saturday

Jeanie and I ventured out to the Hollywood 14 Cinema at the River City Marketplace to see Avatar in 3D.

My comments about the movie can be found in this post.

Afterward, we went to Renna's Pizza in the marketplace.  I like their pizza best of any in this area.  The sauce has a nice zip, and the pizza has a nice thin crust with the puffy thick edge that I like.  Unfortunately, they only have two salads on the menu, an antipasto with lots of meat, and a very plain house salad with only iceberg lettuce, onion and tomato.  I offered to take Jeanie someplace else, but she said that she was willing to sacrifice for me since I had been hankering for pizza for a while and she knew I liked Renna's and we I didn't get there very often.  She is so sweet.

Sunday

Coffee at the airport then home for lunch.  Jeanie has been in the mood for a Burrito Bowl from Chipotle Mexican Grill but the nearest one is almost an hour away, so she decided to make them at home - they were yummy.  After lunch, we finally got around to loading up all the Christmas stuff into the Durango and taking it back to the storage unit.  Somehow, a few Rubbermaid storage containers went missing, so we went to Target and Walmart to find some replacements, but they didn't have any tall ones, which is what we really needed (to protect the table-top trees).  So, for the time being, the trees will just have to sit as they are in the unit until we can either find the ones at home, or find some more suitable bins elsewhere.  While we were at Target, we picked up a sheet of the free 3D glasses for tonight's Grammy Awards tribute to Michael Jackson.

I have been half-heartedly looking for the red/blue variant of 3D glasses for a while now, as every now and then, Astronomy Picture of the Day has a 3D image and I've never been able to view them.  After viewing all of the APOD 3D archives, I started searching the web for other 3D images.  In the process, I learned quite a bit, including the fact that it is more accurate to refer to them as 3D anaglyphs.  With this new knowledge, I went back to look for glasses on eBay, and was surprised to find lots of options.  I doubt I'll buy any, as I think the paper ones will be fine for my occasional viewing.

Afterward, Jeanie and I engaged in an "Eastwick" marathon.  I actually think the show is cute, and was mildly disappointed to learn that it was not renewed for next season.

Monday

First thing went to get the ultrasound of my gall bladder.  That took most of the morning.  As best I can remember, that was the first ultrasound I've ever had.  The technician didn't offer any comments, so I am assuming there was nothing exceptional.  I'll find out in a couple of weeks when I have the follow up appointment with the gastroenterologist.

After returning home, Jeanie and I drove to Jacksonville Beach to pick up my mother from the hospital and take her back to her place.  My mother seemed to be doing remarkably well, and it appears that most of her recent "back pain" was in fact pain from her gall bladder.

Got home around 6:00 PM and headed off to bed pretty soon after that, as both of us were beat.

Tuesday

Jeanie took me to the hospital for my Upper GI (EGD).  We got there a bit early, but the wait wasn't too bad, and they took me back right on time.  The staff was friendly and efficient.  The actual procedure was a non-event for me.  Last thing I remember was them wheeling me into the procedure room and having me bite down on the plastic mouthpiece that serves to protect the patient's teeth and the endoscope.  Next thing I knew, I was in recovery being offered a tasty muffin and some juice.

I am not sure exactly when we got back home, but I had no after effects from the anesthesia or the procedure other than I was a bit tired and spacey for the rest of the day.  As such, I chose to take the day off.

Wednesday

Worked from home in the morning.

In the late afternoon, I went flying with one of the other flying club members.  He just wanted some company while he did some touch and goes and some air work, and I was happy to just sit in the right seat and enjoy the beautiful day.  It still amazes me how much more of the scenery I "see" when I am not the one actually flying.  I did do a little flying from the right seat which I found very interesting, as while it's not that different from the left seat, it's just different enough - in sight picture and in the fact that you "switch hands" (i.e. left hand on the throttle, right hand on the yoke) - that it was interesting.  When we got back, we decided to switch seats so I could do a few touch and goes myself, which I did.  I was pleased with my landings.  It was a very nice afternoon.

Thursday

Worked from home.

In the evening, I installed the new CSH Inc. FCA2-05 Failed Circuit Alarm I had purchased from Amazon.com. 

I finally broke down and purchased one after Jeanie discovered last weekend that the GFI outlet had once again tripped (most likely due to a power "burp" caused by high winds) and the refrigerator/freezer in the garage was without power.  Fortunately, it hadn't been without power for too long, and it was during the cold spell, so nothing spoiled, but still.

Overall, I am pleased with the alarm.  It is well made and well thought out.  Even the way the screws affix the cover to the rest of the box are well engineered.  Two of the screws affix the box to the wall, and then the other two screws affix the cover to the box.  The unit has an on/off switch and a test switch, and plug that goes into the wall outlet is of the piggy-back variety so you don't lose the use of one of the outlets.  The only complaint I have about the unit is that the alarm could be louder - it is just barely audible when standing in the kitchen.  It is not at all audible in the bedroom.  I think it would also help the alarm be more easily heard if it were a warbling type - like on a home smoke alarm - rather than a constant tone type.  The cost was $29.95 plus $7.49 for shipping.  Given the quality of the construction and design, and given that it probably only has a modest market so it doesn't enjoy huge economies of scale in manufacturing, I guess $30 is reasonable, but definitely not "a deal."  Because I really do think it is a good product, and the one "issue" I have with it is the alarm, I did something somewhat unusual (for me) and wrote an email to the company providing my feedback.  I was extremely impressed when I received a response to my email within two hours thanking me for my feedback and suggesting a possible adjustment that might increase the volume of the alarm and also offering to send me a new buzzer.  I haven't gotten around to trying their suggestion, but I am very impressed with their responsiveness.

Friday

Work from home.

Saturday

Went to the Doo Wop Diner on 14th street on-island.  Doo Wop's had formerly been in Yulee, but had closed a number of months ago.  Jeanie had a stack of blueberry pancakes and I had two eggs over easy, toast, hash browns and coffee.  The food was tasty and served hot, but I felt it was expensive at $14 for the two of us, and the service, even though they weren't that busy, was mediocre at best.  Decor was cute, and the music was enjoyable (50's standards, as you'd expect) but a little loud for my ears.

After breakfast, we went downtown and strolled the farmer's market, then walked down to the marina, then stopped by Publix on the way home.  Jeanie bought a couple of loaves of bread - one cranberry walnut and one peasant boule - and categorically demonstrated that any basic white bread (artisan or not) will start her coughing in no time.

We went home and started "Duplicity" with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.  Jeanie fell asleep part way through, so I switched to watching the premiere of "Caprica" on Syfy.  There is a great article on Wikipedia on the show here.  I really enjoyed the show.  I find it to be less dark (literally and figuratively) than Battlestar Galactica and I think I am going to enjoy the moral and ethical questions it appears it will explore.  While in some scenes it still is easily apparent that computer graphics (CG) are being used, in some scenes - especially ones with Serge - I found myself forgetting that "he" wasn't "real."

Sunday

I went to coffee at the airport.  After about an hour, I had to go to the car to take a work teleconference.  After the call, I went back to the coffee for another half hour or so.

While I was gone, Jeanie did some laundry and made a homemade vegetable soup and a really yummy vegetarian (of course) chili.

The plastic had ripped away from the staples in a number of places on the lanai, so, taking a suggestion from my brother-in-law, I used strips of wood, in the form of some wide thick wooden tongue depressors, as sort of reverse furring strips.  I would have used real furring strips, but I didn't have any, and was too lazy to go get some whereas I had a bag of the tongue depressors.  So far, they seem to be working okay.

Jeanie and I were supposed to take all of the Christmas decorations back to the storage unit, but both of us were feeling really tired, so we gave ourselves the rest of the day off.

We watched the rest of "Duplicity" which we both thought was okay at best.  The interplay between Julia Roberts and Clive Owen was cute, but the movie had lengthy slow portions and the plot twists were a bit too convoluted.

I continued to wrestle with my esophageal discomfort all week.  It wasn't horrible, just mildly annoying.  Still, I'd prefer for it to go away.  Hopefully, when I see the doctor week after next, he'll tell me it's nothing major, and be able to prescribe something to resolve it quickly and easily.

Monday

Didn't sleep very well.  Got up at 3:30 AM and exercised.  Was pleased to be able to do 3 pullups.  Went back to bed at 6:00 and slept for about an hour.  Got up and headed downtown.  On the way, made a couple of bank deposits.  Primary purpose of the trip was to get the sticker for the license plate on Jeanie's RAV4 straightened out.  Somehow, we never renewed the sticker last year, and we had been driving the vehicle for a year with an expired sticker.  I have no idea how much was for the sticker and how much was fines, etc. but the bill was just under $100.00  Went by Staples on the way home and purchased a new 4 phone DECT 6.0 telephone system for the house.  It was on sale, plus I had a 20% off coupon, plus it had a rebate.  Net cost will be about $60.

Did some work work, then got a call that my mother was being taken to the hospital.  We've seen this drill before.  In the past, it has usually been dehydration and/or a UTI, so I didn't worry too much about it, and didn't drop everything to run to Jacksonville Beach.  I did make a number of calls during the day to talk with nurses at the hospital - first in the Emergency Room and then on her floor after she had been admitted.

Around 1:00, I got a call from Dave Kicklighter, whom I had been trying to coordinate with to go flying in his clipped wing Cub.  He said that he had some time this afternoon, and given that the weather was beautiful and nothing was pressing at work, I seized the opportunity and scheduled to fly with him at 3:30.  Since I hadn't slept well the previous night, I decided to take a nap.

Here's a representative photo of a clipped wing Cub that's similar in appearance to the one I flew:

The flying was fantastic.  Dave is a great instructor - possibly the best I've ever flown with.  He spent at least half an hour talking to me before we got in the airplane going over what he planned to do with me.  We then got in the plane.  Well, technically I got in the plane, as the plane has no electrical system and thus no starter, so he had to stay outside to hand prop it.  Cubs are flown solo from the back seat, so that's where Dave had me sit.  I was apprehensive at first due to yesterday's experience in the Citabria where when sitting in the back seat, you really can't see well out front when landing at all, but for whatever reason, it wasn't as bad in the Cub.  While he was standing outside, but before he propped the engine, he had me apply full brakes.  This was interesting, as the Cub has heel brakes rather than toe brakes, and they are somewhat inboard from the rudder peddles.  After I had (what I thought) fully applied the brakes, he pushed the strut a bit to demonstrate that I had to push a LOT harder than I realized to REALLY have full brakes applied.  Only then did he actually prop the engine.

Dave talked me through taxi (including gently reminding me to occasionally do S turns so I could make sure there wasn't anything directly in front of us) , run up and take-off.  The take-off was a little rough as I didn't anticipate the gyroscopic precession when I lifted the tail, and it took me a moment to get on the right rudder when the plane decided to head left.  On the climb up, Dave reminded me to occasionally lower the nose or do S turns  to clear the area ahead of us.  When we got to altitude, he first had me establish level flight so I could get a feel for the sight picture.  He taught me a trick which is basically, if the ends of the wings are level with the horizon at cruise power, you will most likely be in level flight.

One of the things I noticed right away was that whereas the stick forces were "very light" on the Super Decathlon and "somewhat heavy" on the Citabria, they were "just right" on the clipped wing Cub.  Also, the trim was much more manageable than it was on the Super D or Citabria; the trim on the Super D being much too sensitive in my humble opinion, and the trim on the Citabria not being easily accessible from the rear seat.

He then had me do some banks without applying rudder so I could get a feel for adverse yaw.  In level flight at cruise speed doing gentle turns, it was hard for me to see/feel it, so he had me slow the plane down thus increasing the angle of attack and had me use more enthusiasm when making the banks - that did the trick and I was able to finally really see/feel what adverse yaw is all about.  In the Cub, it wasn't so much that the nose truly moved away from the bank as it was the nose initially not moving in the direction of the bank.  The adverse yaw was actually more pronounced coming out of the bank than when going into it.  He then had me use the rudder to make coordinated turns.  On some, I did pretty well, on others, I was either too heavy, too light, or ill-timed on the rudder.

Then we did some stalls.  He would have me hold the stall, rather than immediately recovering, which was quite challenging, as the clipped wing cub tends to want to drop a wing when stalled.  One of the big "aha" moments was him pointing out that rather than applying and holding rudder, I needed to make quick, forceful jabs of the rudder as soon as I sensed a wing was wanting to drop.  When I applied and held the rudder, the low wing would pick up, but then the other wing would drop and I was constantly behind, with the wings dropping back and forth in an oscillating fashion.

Next, Dave had me do a maneuver where I would bank the aircraft and then raise the nose to lose airspeed, then drop the nose while still banked, and then recover to straight and level.  Either due to training I don't remember, or to instinct, I would level the wings first, then pull out of the dive.  Dave complimented me on this, which made me feel good.  He then demonstrated what happens when you try to pull out of the dive and level the wings at the same time (which is apparently what a lot of pilots do)  - you end up generating about twice as many "G's" and you loose a lot more altitude before you recover.  It made total sense to me why this would happen, which was also cool.

Then, we did a spin entry and recovery.  We did the classic spin entry - slow to idle while maintaining altitude, then apply full rudder right before the stall.  While I was a little slow to get full rudder in, I was quite pleased, as I was able to consciously ensure the stick was centered prior to applying the rudder.  Dave told me we did about 1 3/4 turns.  I guess I am fortunate in that I actually enjoy spins - I guess many pilots either hate them or are terrified of them.

We then headed back to the airport and Dave had me fly a pattern without telling me what the appropriate speeds / RPMs should be.  Much to my delight, I did pretty well, even making a decent three point landing which even appeared to catch Dave a bit by surprise.  The only thing that I did was allow my speed to get a little low right at the end, which caused me to start sinking a bit.  The timing of my flair was just right, so the landing was good, but because I had gotten slow, I had no margin for error.  I also noticed that the pitch angle of the approach is quite a bit steeper than on the Citabria, which affords a much better sight picture from the rear seat.

Afterward, Dave gave me a thorough explanation of gyroscopic precession that made total sense to me.  He educated me to the fact that as the angle of attack increases, the big determinant with P factor is actually the speed of the relative wind on the downward blade  - which is higher since the "wind" is coming up at an angle relative to the propeller blade compared to the blade going up which is going in the same upward direction.

I had an absolute blast, and didn't have even a hint of motion sickness.  It was a fantastic experience.

After I got home, I learned that my mother had been admitted to the hospital, and later in the evening, learned that she would need surgery to remove one or more gall stones from her bile duct.  I asked the doctor if lithotripsy was an option, but he said it wasn't for her situation.  At least the surgery won't require cutting.  Instead, they will do an ERCP procedure where they use an endoscope that is placed in the mouth, down the throat, past the stomach and into the duodenum, where it will then be snaked into the bile duct to get at the stone(s).

Jeanie is still away, although at least she's now heading in the general direction of home.  She'll spend tonight at her parents, then come home tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I'll head over the Jacksonville so I can be there for my mother's procedure.

Tuesday

Spent all day at the hospital with my mother.  The doctor was not able to get to the opening of the bile duct using the endoscopic procedure  due to modifications to her anatomy in that general area due to a previous surgery.  So, long story short, they ended up scheduling surgery.  They had hoped to be able to perform the surgery laparoscopically, but were unable to do what they needed to do with the scope, so they ended up having to do an open surgery.  The surgeon couldn't find any gall stones in the bile duct, but said that my mother's gall bladder was in bad shape and showed evidence of a long history of gall bladder disease (Cholecystitis), so he removed it.

I was quite impressed with Baptist Beaches hospital.  They appeared to be efficient and attentive.  During the surgery, they moved all of my mother's stuff from her room on the general ward that she had been on to a room in the Surgical Telemetry Unit.  The STU is a new unit, and I was quite impressed with the room.  It was relatively large, and not only had a recliner, but also a little couch that pulled out into a bed so that if a family member wished to spend the night, they could be at least moderately comfortable.

Jeanie got back home around 4:00 PM and offered to come to Jacksonville, but I told her to stay home, as I knew she was tired and still not feeling well.

I ended up getting home around 10:30 PM.

Wednesday

Went to Jacksonville in the morning.  Stopped by the Toyota dealer to get the oil changed in the RAV4 as we were already a 1000 miles over.  I was very impressed - from the time I walked into the waiting room until the time I drove off. 22 minutes!  Then went to visit my mother at the hospital.  She was in a lot of pain.  Didn't stay long, as I had to get back to the island for a doctor's appointment for me to see what's up with my stomach.

After the appointment, went to the airport to work on the CAP airplane tug.  Put a toothed washer on the side of the handle that didn't already have one which I hope will fix the problem of the level popping open unexpectedly, releasing the lock on the nose wheel at inopportune times.  It was late, cold and getting dark, so I didn't want to hassle with actually opening the hangar doors fully and trying the tug out.  So, I guess I'll have to do that some other day or let someone else in the squadron do the testing.

Thursday

Went to the hospital to do my pre-procedure paperwork.

Unboxed the new home phone system I had purchased on Sunday at Staples and got all of the handsets plugged in so they could charge.

Jeanie went to the doctor as she still isn't feeling well, and then went to do her volunteer thing at Barnabas.

My stomach wasn't feeling too hot, so for dinner, Jeanie had some leftover soup, and I had cream of wheat and a toasted bagel.

Friday

Jeanie went in to Jacksonville to visit my mother and to go to Costco.  I stayed home because I wasn't feeling great, and to try to get some work done.

At lunch time, I got the new home phones installed.  This was more involved than you might imagine, as not only did I have to set up the new answering machine including setting the system time and recording the greeting, but I had to program each handset to set the ring tone and activate the message waiting light.  The main problem with the old system was that the batteries no longer held a charge for as long as we preferred.  Unfortunately, purchasing name brand replacement batteries is just about more expensive than just buying a new setup!  Even if I bought the batteries on eBay, because Staples had the phone on sale, and had a rebate, and I had a 20% off coupon, I really didn't spend much more for the entire new system than just buying batteries.  Part of the impetus for purchasing a new system was also that I needed to replace my work phone in the office, as the headset jacks in both handsets had gotten to the point where occasionally the phone would make a horrible squeal that not only did I hear, but that was heard by everyone else on the call, effectively disrupting it; bad enough when I was just one the phone with someone else, but really bad when I was on a teleconference.   I had tried to fix the jacks, but was not able to.  So, in addition to installing the new home phones, I cascaded the old system into my office and cascaded my old work office phone to be my new personal home phone in my office.  This cascading meant that I had to do some additional setup on the old system to deactivate some functions to allow proper operation with my work phone director features.

I quite like the new phone system.  It is a Panasonic KX-TG1034.  It uses the new DECT 6.0 Digital technology, the handsets have big, easily visible buttons and a decent sized backit  LCD, everything is RoHS compliant and the system is Energy Star rated.  The primary base unit is quite compact.  The handsets have a jack for a headset, which is important to me.  The menu system is reasonably intuitive, and the caller ID feature allows you to easily change the format of the calling number to include/exclude the "1" and the area code when calling the number displayed - something our old system did not.  I also like the fact that phone book entries can be easily copied from one handset to another.  The feature I like best is that the handsets use standard rechargeable NiMH AAA batteries, so when the batteries wear out, it will be simple and relatively affordable to replace them.  The only two things I am not crazy about are the ring tones - I'm not crazy about any of them (but they're tolerable) and you can't associate a custom ring tone with a caller ID/phone book entry.  That was one feature I really liked on the old system - for certain people, it allowed us to "know" who was calling without even having to get up to look at the caller ID.

Saturday

Slug day at home.

Sunday

Went to the coffee at the airport, then returned home for another slug day.  About the extent of my productivity was to re-staple portions of the plastic sheeting on the lanai that had become detached due to the high winds, take down the portion of the plastic sheeting that went from the screen door to the house since it will be above freezing and much of had some detached from the ceiling anyway and water the plants on the lanai.

We toyed with the idea of going to visit my mother in the hospital, but neither of us was feeling great, and we figured my mother would most likely be released tomorrow so we'd have to drive in to transport her back to her place and we'd see her then.

Watched Julie & Julia which Jeanie and I both thoroughly enjoyed.

While I was at the coffee, Jeanie made bread pudding using raisin bread and some individual ramekins of egg custard.  It was yummy.  In the evening, I made some sugar glaze (a little bit of warmed milk, a little bit of vanilla extract and enough confectioners sugar to achieve the right consistency) to drizzle over the bread pudding.  Double yum!

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.

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!

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:

1. I hate selling cars with a passion
2. The car has lots of problems not the least of which is it barely runs
3. Donating is quick and painless
4. Even though I might have made a few extra bucks selling it, I do get a small tax deduction from the donation
5. 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.

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.

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.

Monday - Tuesday

Normal work from home.

Wednesday

Worked from home in the morning.  Our dear friends Bob and Wendy arrived late afternoon.  They brought their new puppy Brie, a Maltichon (AKA: Maltese Bichon Frise Mix).  Wendy also referred to the "breed" as a Coton de Tulear, but a quick bit of research leads me to believe this is an entirely different breed.  Regardless, Brie is a really sweet dog, and is as cute as can be.  Unfortunately, I guess we didn't do a good enough job of socializing our dogs, as they were a bit aggressive towards Brie, so they ended up spending the majority of the week locked in our bedroom.

Thursday

Had a great Thanksgiving with Bob and Wendy.  Had a yummy Thanksgiving meal. Was able to resist the Turkey we cooked for Bob and Wendy, and really didn't miss it. We all took a nice walk on the beach. And if all of that wasn't enough, we watched the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle streak across the evening sky just before 7:00 PM. We truly are blessed, and grateful for our bounty.

Friday

Bob and I flew to Jekyll Island and walked around the Jekyll Island Club.  The girls drove to Jacksonville to shop.

Saturday

Great day with Bob and Wendy.  Drove down to Daytona for a car show.  Left the house around 8:30, got there just before 11:00.  They didn't allow pets, so Jeanie and Wendy stayed with Brie while Bob and I walked around the car show.  The show occupied the entire infield of the Daytona Raceway, but unlike Charlotte, there were no cars on the track itself.  Left Daytona around 3:00, did a quick pass through St. Augustine on the way home and then took A1A and the ferry on the way back from St. Augustine.  We lucked out and got to the ferry just as it was starting to load, and got to see the last of the sunset from the ferry.  Played "restaurant" for dinner, watched an episode of "White Collar" then called it a day.

Sunday

Bob and I went to the coffee at the airport, then we all drove back down to St. Augustine.  Drove down Heckshere, took the ferry, then took A1A.  Had lunch at Cruisers Grill.  Bob and Wendy had grilled chicken sandwiches, Jeanie and I had fish tacos.  It took a bit of effort, but Jeanie was finally able to convince the waitress to make her fish tacos with crisp corn tortilla shells rather than the soft flour tortillas.  Bob and Wendy said the chicken sandwiches were okay - nothing special, but not bad.  Our fish tacos were about the same.  Walked down St. Georges street.  Stopped in the usual shops.  Drove home via US 1 which allowed us to drive past the St. Augustine airport.  Got home just about dark.  Had home made vegetable soup and salad / sandwiches and went to bed early, as Bob and Wendy were going to try to be on the road by 6:30 AM.

Monday

Worked from home in the morning.  Around 1:45 PM, Jeanie and I jumped in the Durango and headed to American Beach.  We found a nice place to park on the beach, set up our beach chairs, grabbed our binoculars, and watched the launch of the space shuttle at 2:28 PM.  The weather was as clear as a bell, and the visibility was very good.  It appeared that the trajectory of this launch was more east or south than some of the others we have seen in the past, as in the past, the shuttle has appeared to be "coming towards us," whereas this time, it appeared to be "going away from us."  Nevertheless, it was cool to witness in person.  After the launch, we sat and enjoyed listening to the ocean and feeling the sun on our faces for a while, then we took a walk to the bathrooms at Burney Park.  On our way home, we made a quick pit stop at Publix to see if they had any Peet's Decaf Major Dickason's Blend in stock (they did, on sale, so we got three bags) and then took our obligatory run by the airport.

Tuesday - Wednesday

Normal work from home.

Thursday

Worked from home in the morning.  In the afternoon, the co-worker I had worked with earlier this year and his friend dropped by the airport on their way home from their hunt on Cumberland Island for an airplane ride.  The plan had been to give them a tour of Cumberland Island and Amelia Island, but the weather did not cooperate, and we were only able to take a lap in the pattern before I decided the weather was not conducive to sightseeing.

Friday

Worked from home in the morning.  Went with Jeanie to take my mother to her follow up with the surgeon from the implantation of her neural stimulator.  The surgeon indicated that the incisions had healed nicely, but was at somewhat of a loss as to why my mother is not getting better relief now that the device has been turned on.  He said that it could just be that the device's programming needs some additional tweaking, or even though he's never had it happen before, the placement of the leads might have shifted from the target.  To check, he ordered some x-rays, which caused what should have been a quick doctor's visit to end up being an all afternoon event.  After we finished at the hospital, we took my mother to dinner at the Mill House Restaurant, near JAX International.  Jeanie had their pan fried crab cake appetizer as an appetizer; it was absolutely delicious - well seasoned and tender, with just the minimum amount of binder to keep it together.  For her entree, Jeanie had their firecracker shrimp, which she said was "okay," the primary issue being it hadn't been what she had expected from the description on the menu.  Jeanie also had a couple of glasses of their house cabernet, Coastal Vines, that we both thought was quite good.  Mom had the fillet mignon and shrimp scampi, which she said were both wonderful and started with a caesar salad which she enjoyed.  I had a ceasar salad which was fantastic - not too big, with just the right amount of really yummy dressing.  For my entree, I had the mussels appetizer.  I can't remember the name, but they were served in a large metal bowl in a broth of garlic and Italian herbs and seasonings.  The mussels were sweet and tender, and bountiful - there were about two dozen in the bowl.  The dish was similar to the  Jerk Fired Shrimp at Bahama Breeze but not quite as good as the broth was not quite as flavorful.  Jeanie, who typically isn't a mussels fan, thoroughly enjoyed sharing them with me.  The service was excellent and the price of the meal for the three of us, with a good tip, was a reasonable $61.00

Saturday

Jeanie and I went to the Farmer's Market on island.  Jeanie bought a couple of eggplants and a couple of red oranges.  We walked down to the marina and looked at the boats, then drove to Sandy Bottoms for lunch.  As usual, you couldn't beat the view (we sat outside) and as has been the case during its various incarnations, the service was mediocre at best.  Now that KP (from the now defunct KP's) is their head cook, the food was pretty good.  Jeanie had red beans and rice (which she shared with me and which we both liked) and an order of onion rings that were a bit too done and which I thought had a funny tasting batter.  I had the fried calamari which was very tender.  It was served with a marinara sauce and I would have preferred a spicy sweet/sour asian sauce, but it was still pretty good, although quite salty.  On the way home, we stopped at the grand opening of Scott's Jewelers.  I looked at their Reactor watches, but I wasn't impressed for the price.  Our plan had been to rent a U-Haul trailer so we could move Jeanie's chair-and-a-half from the storage unit to the house, but the local U-Haul place didn't have any small trailers and by then we were tired anyway, so we just came home and vegged the rest of the day.

Sunday

Went to the coffee at the airport.  Jeanie cooked a yummy spicy asian stir fry for lunch.  After lunch, I took a nap, then spent the rest of the afternoon taking a first pass at straightening up the office.  This consisted mostly of throwing a bunch of empty boxes in the trash, taking some more empty boxes up to the attic, and then putting various "stuff" into storage boxes and getting the boxes back in their respective spots on the wire shelves in the office.

The final task of the day was updating the Blackberry Desktop software on my work PC to version 5.0.1.

Monday

Flew with one of the CAP Instructor Pilots (IP) to prepare for my Form 5 in the morning.  We didn't get to launch as early as I had hoped, as one of my team members scheduled a team call for 9:00 AM even though I had told her that I had something personal to do in the morning.  It worked out okay though, as the sky was overcast and the ceilings were low early, and didn't start lifting and breaking up until around 10:30.  I had gotten quite frustrated that my Form 5 had expired in September and I hadn't been able to renew it due to either me not being at home, the weather being bad, not having a CAP aircraft available locally, or not having an IP available.  But, fortunately, the stars aligned, and I was able to fly my prep.  In the afternoon, I did normal work from home stuff.

Tuesday

Normal work from home day.

Wednesday

Normal work from home day, until our Internet access died late in the afternoon.  See this post and this post.

Thursday

Tried to get the Internet issues resolved and tried to work.  Thank goodness for my cellular modem.  Jeanie took mom to the hospital for the implantation of her neural stimulator that will hopefully relieve most of the pain she is still experiencing due to her back problems.  In the evening, I affixed the various required items (leather name badge, CAP patch, American flag and rank bars) to the flight suit a really generous and nice CAP member had given me when I had gone to the Craig Composite Squadron a number of months ago to help them with some training.  I also took my on-line annual Form 5 test, and completed the other paperwork for my Form 5 evaluation.

Friday

Took and passed my Form 5.  Had fun, even though the check pilot worked me hard.

In the afternoon, went with Jeanie to pick mom up from the hospital after the implantation of her neural stimulator and took her back to her place.  Jeanie and I ended up having dinner at the Chipotle Grill at St. Johns Town Center.  We had tried three other Mexican restaurants, but we couldn't find the first two even though we had Jeanie's GPS (our guess is they had recently gone out of business) and the third - Cantina Laredo - looked much too expensive.  After dinner, we returned the 2Wire Gateway to the Best Buy and then went to Costco to return a couple of books and pick up a few items.  While we are at Costco, I looked at watches and found an Invicta (Speedway model) that was nice looking, but it was very heavy so I didn't purchase it.

Saturday

Attended the CAP monthly squadron meeting.  Afterward, went to look at the club plane with another club member to address a squawk that had been reported.  Went home and changed and then went to Shuckers Oyster Bar for lunch.  Jeanie and I shared a seafood combo consisting of fried shrimp, fried grouper fingers and deviled crab, french fries, coleslaw and a hushpuppy; and two appetizers: fried squash and fried okra.  The food arrived hot and tasty overall.  The best by far was the grouper.  The shrimp were fine - large and not overcooked, but a bit heavily breaded, the deviled crab was okay, but not as good as some I've had.  The french fries weren't as crisp as we would have preferred, the okra were standard frozen okra and the squash was a bit oily.  After lunch, went to Staples to purchase a new DSL Gateway - a Netgear DG834G.  I used the Staples Rewards money I received as a rebate from the purchase of my new Sharper Image rolling backpack briefcase a few months ago.  We returned home and watched some TV, and then after Jeanie went to bed, I set up the new gateway.

Sunday

Jeanie and I went to the Jacksonville Sea & Sky Spectacular in Jacksonville Beach.  Left the house around 9:30, stopped at the Parkway Grille to get some takeout breakfast, then took Heckscher into Jacksonville.  I should have taken the ferry, but didn't so we ended up having to drive the long way.  Paid $20 to park in a church parking lot about four blocks from the beach, which was a lot better than paying $20 to park at TPC and then having to take a bus.  Got to the beach around 11:30.  Found a good spot to set up our backpack beach chairs, not too far from show center, which was the pier at 5th street.  It was crowded, but not claustrophobically so.  Missed the first few acts, but did get to see a lot of cool stuff including an A-10 Warthog demonstration, a B2 fly-by and of course the Blue Angels.  The precision of the Blue Angels pilots is awe inspiring.  Even though the Blue Angels were fantastic, the highlight of the show might have been the Red Bull helicopter.  It did loops and rolls and all sorts of other things that I don't think helicopters are supposed to be able to do.  Absolutely amazing!  After the show, we took some side streets north, then jumped onto A1A and took the ferry home.  It's a short ferry ride, but I always enjoy it anyway.

Monday

Flew from Jacksonville to South Bend, Indiana for some follow up work on the engagement I did last year.

Tuesday

One of the co-workers I worked with last year became a friend, and started learning to fly.  Even though we have gone on to different engagements, we touch base from time to time to talk about airplanes and flying.  He joined a flying club in South Bend, and found a flight instructor that he likes.  In a really cool "alignment of the stars" we ended up getting to fly together in the morning.  I started out in back, with him and the instructor up front.  The weather wasn't great, but good enough for us to stay in the pattern at KSBN.  After a few laps, I got the opportunity to fly, which was really cool.  KSBN is a great airport.  Controlled, but not too busy.  I ended up making two nice landings, which was nice, as I was a bit worried about that.  The FBO, Atlantic Aviation, was really nice - beautiful facility and great coffee.

After flying, we grabbed a quick lunch with the flight instructor, and then headed to the client for some meetings.

Wednesday

Spent the day working on my current engagement in my hotel room.  In the evening, my colleague and I had a dinner meeting with one of the client's consultants and afterward, we spent some time discussing strategies and approaches for his current engagement.

Thursday

Got to fly again.  This time, the ceilings were a bit better, but the winds were much worse.  45 degrees off of any of the runways at KSBN, and strong and gusty, which was a bit much for my friend.  The instructor suggested we fly to Andrews University Airpark (C20) in Berrien Springs, Michigan, which had a runway more favorable for the wind direction.  The runway direction was more favorable, but it was much shorter than he was used to, much narrower, and the terrain created some interesting wind shaping which made the landings really challenging.  After a couple of landings from him, I took the controls and flew a couple, which ended up being two of the most challenging landings I've ever flown.  Then it was back to KSBN, where I dropped off the rental car, attended a teleconference, and then had to take three flights (SBN-CVG-ATL-JAX) to get home, leaving at 6:00 PM and arriving back at the house around 1:00 AM.  On the plus side, the return trip home was enough to put me over the threshold for Platinum status on Delta.

Friday

Normal work from home day.

Saturday

Drove to the in-laws for a visit and to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.  Since Dad is still recovering from his quadruple by-pass, rather than having a big party, it was just Jeanie's brother, his wife, Mama, Dad, Jeanie and me.  We went to dinner at the Cedar Lane Supper Club.  Mama and Dad had the prime rib which they appeared to enjoy.  Jim and Jeanie both had the catfish, which was tasty but didn't have much meat, Kim and I had the seafood platter which wasn't too good.  Oysters were fishy, scallops and shrimp were tough, hush puppies were cold and didn't have much flavor, french fries were battered and too salty.  The deviled crab was very good, as was the salad bar.  I should have just had the salad bar.

After dinner, went back to Mama and Dad's house and talked for a while.

Sunday

Jim and Kim left after breakfast.  I set up Dad's laptop that we had bought him 6 months ago for his birthday.  Nice laptop - Toshiba with Microsoft Vista Home Premium.  Unfortunately, their old PC had massive capacitor failure, so it kept rebooting itself, so I couldn't transfer the old data to the new laptop.  We didn't have room in the car, so we just left the old PC there.  Next time, I'll at least get the hard drive out of the PC and try it in a PC at home.

Left their house around four and got home a bit after 8.

Monday

Left the house around noon to catch a flight to New York City.  Rather than getting a direct flight, I flew through Atlanta, which added a few hours to the trip, but the flights were on time, and the connection was easy.  The desk clerk at the Hilton New York apparently was in a good mood, and decided to upgrade me to a really nice corner room up on the 32nd floor.  Not that I get to spend a lot of time in the hotel room, but it was a nice room and it did bring a smile to my face.

Tuesday

Spent the day in the IBM office preparing for a customer meeting.

Wednesday

Had a quick team meeting in the hotel to do last minute prep for our client meeting, then went to the client's office for a 90 minute meeting.  Went back to the office to debrief and work on some customer deliverables, then grabbed a taxi to LGA for the flight home.  Once again, flew through Atlanta, and once again, the trip was smooth.

Thursday

Normal relatively long work from home day.

Friday

Another normal work from home day.

Saturday

I spent the morning and about half of the afternoon flying EAA Young Eagles.  I had joined the EAA a couple of months ago expressly so I could fly Young Eagles.  The Young Eagles program is a great program and gets great support from the local EAA chapter (943).  At one point, there were nine aircraft including two C-182, our club C-172, a C-150, a Taylorcraft, a Citabria, a EuroFox and a couple more I can't remember.  The weather was a little threatening in the late morning, but thankfully it never got bad, and actually cleared up nicely right towards the end.  Altogether, we flew 47 kids, plus a few parents.  Mark (another club member) and I split the flying in the club plane and each of us ended up with four flights.  I sure hope the kids got half as much out of the day as I did.  I just love introducing kids to the joy of flying in small aircraft.  And, I got to meet a whole new group of aviation enthusiasts whom I had previously not had the pleasure to interact with at our little airport.

After I got home, Jeanie and I headed off to Jacksonville to see the new movie "Amelia" - a movie about Amelia Earhart - on the big screen.  We splurged and split a medium popcorn which I thoroughly enjoyed.  The theater wasn't very crowded which made for a great viewing experience.  Jeanie and I, unlike the majority of film critics,  found the movie enjoyable, with good acting and absolutely gorgeous aircraft.

After the movie, we dropped in to Garden Ridge so Jeanie could pick up some Christmas boxes, then we headed home and watched the pilot of the new USA TV series "White Collar" which we both quite enjoyed.

Sunday

Went to the coffee at the airport as usual.  Unlike usual, decided to have a couple of chocolate chip pancakes.  They were very good.  Talk at the coffee was unusually enjoyable.  More talk of airplanes and flying than local or national politics.  Highlight of the morning was when a Twin Bonanza taxied up to the ramp to drop off a passenger.  It's not every day that you see a Twin Bonanza up close and personal.

Came home and Jeanie made us a nice lunch of salad and spaghetti.

Then we sat and talked for a while, then Jeanie went out onto the lanai to work on the plants and I went into the office to do a mixture of bill paying and work work.

For dinner, Jeanie outdid herself with an amazing dinner of pan grilled salmon and shrimp with her delicious pineapple chutney and homemade mashed potato cakes.  Yum!

Monday

Normal work at home day.

Tuesday

Jeanie went back to her parents to help out.  Dogs stayed with me.  Normal work at home day.

Wednesday

Got a haircut.  Normal work at home day.

Thursday

Normal work at home day.

Friday

Normal work at home day.

Saturday

Gave blood. Blood drive was sponsored by the FB Pirates Club.  Had four bloodmobiles.  Goal was to get 100 units.  Got a nice small cloth bag and a T-shirt.  Was a little nervous that my iron would still be too low, but it was 14.4 which was comfortably within their range for men of 12.5 - 19.  Guess the iron pills are doing their job.  Then went downtown and looked at some of the cars at the cruise in.  Then returned home and waited for Jeanie to return from her parents.  Around 3:30 PM, headed off to the airport to go flying.  Got to play with my new Creative Vado pocket video cam.  Used my small tripod which I bungeed to the headrest of the co-pilot seat.  Not too bad for $40.  Propeller is not totally invisible - exhibits the strange curved appearance you see with video from an iPhone.  Sound when you playback on the unit is horrible, but normal when you view on the computer.  Output to the computer is really cool.  USB transfer yields ready-to-use .avi file.  Tried to set it up so I could see both the instruments and outside.  Tough for camera to handle both from an exposure perspective - it favored the inside, with the outside usually being overexposed.  Flying was pretty good, even though it had been a month, and it was windy/gusty.  After flying, I went to Publix to get some hogie rolls and a few other items.  While I was on the way home, Jeanie cooked some fake chicken and warmed up the leftover peppers and onions I had cooked earlier in the week.  The fake chicken was surprisingly good.  Not quite like real chicken, but pretty darn close.  Watched a couple of episodes of Glee and then called it a night.

Sunday

Coffee at the airport.  Jeanie and I went to Jade's Bistro for lunch then walked downtown for a bit.  Came home and expanded the size of the hole on the birdhouse Dad had made.  Tried to use a hole saw and just scarred up the front.  Tried the carbide ziptool type bit which didn't work that well.  Then used a sanding drum on the Dremel which did work well.  Used the mouse sander to smooth off the front of the birdhouse.  Was able to get most of the scarring blended away.  It's not perfect, but it's not too bad.  Watched the pilot of "The Good Wife."  Better than I had anticipated.

Monday

Started the day with a work call, then packed the car.

Did a little site seeing in Virginia Beach and Norfolk.  Visited the house where Jeanie lived and where she went to High School.

Had lunch at the Olive Garden in Norfolk.  All you can eat soup, salad and breadsticks.

Left Norfolk and headed to Clarksville.  It still amazes me that I can be sitting in the passenger seat of a car driving down the highway at 70 MPH in the middle of nowhere Virginia, and be able to work on my computer that is connected via a VPN connection via a connection to my cell phone that acts as a cellular modem to my corporate network.

Drove to Tammy and Coop's where Jeanie visited while I leached off of their wireless Internet connection and participated in a teleconference and then drove to Bob and Wendy's.

Arrived at Bob and Wendy's around 5:00 PM.  Had dinner, chatted a while, went to bed.

Tuesday

Had a teleconference, then drove into Clarksville for lunch.  Had lunch at Gino's Italian Restaurant.  Jeanie and I split a veggie grinder with fries, both of which were absolutely delicious.  The grinder had grilled onions, peppers, mushrooms and was topped with melted cheese.  The veggies were cooked just right - just al dente.  Took a call for work, then left to drive to Apex.  Had planned to stay at Andrew and Laura's, but Laura was sick, so we used some Hilton points to make a reservation at the Homewood Suites in Cary.

Met Andrew and Hannah at the Rockfish Seafood Grill at Southpoint for dinner.  Food was fine, service was horrible.  Andrew was really nice and gave us a coupon for 1/2 off on one of our entrees.

Wednesday

Went to start the RAV4 to head back home and the battery was dead.  I figured I must have left the lights on.  Unfortunately, we were just a few thousand miles over the three year, 36,000 mile warranty that included road service.  Fortunately, Robby had not left for work yet, so he and Erin drove over to the hotel to give us a jump.  It took allowing the battery to charge for about five minutes before the engine would crank, but then it did and started.

Jeanie wanted to go by the Fresh Market / Whole Foods before we left town, so we drove over to Waverly Place.  Since we hadn't driven far and the battery hadn't had much time to charge, I decided to stay in the car and keep it slightly revved so the battery would charge.  After a few minutes, the dash lights flickered a couple of times and then the engine died.  Once again, the battery was as dead as a door nail.  So dead, that I couldn't even get it out of Park.  We called the closest Toyota dealer, Fred Anderson Toyota in Raleigh, and they were very accommodating, scheduling an appointment for "as soon as we could get there" and dispatching a tow truck.  While I waited for the tow truck, I reviewed the towing section of the owner's manual, and found out how to override the "Park" lockout on the transmission.  Fortunately, the tow truck that came was driven by a very nice man, and the truck happened to have a rear seat which he was willing to let us ride in.

Long story short, on the cosmic scale of relative fortune, we got lucky, and the problem turned out to only be a battery that had apparently developed an internal short or collapsed plate and thus had died a premature death.  Since the car was out of warranty (I do think 3 years, 36,000 miles is way too short) we had to purchase a new battery, but Fred Anderson Toyota was very nice and waived the diagnosis fee and only charged us $10 for the installation.  Since it turned out that we were due for an oil change, we had them do that while we were there, thus saving Jeanie from having to make a trip to Jacksonville to get the oil changed after we got home.

The nice folks at Fred Anderson had a very nice waiting area with free wireless Internet access and a cool coffee machine that ground and brewed a cup of Starbucks coffee on demand.  Jeanie spent some time on the phone and on her laptop doing fun stuff, and I spent some time on my phone and my laptop doing work stuff.

We got on our way around 3:00 PM.  I took the first shift of driving.  Around Benson, we stopped to get gas and use the facilities.  The station had a Quiznos, and we both got veggie subs that were quite tasty.  Jeanie drove for a while and I worked, and then we switched off for the last leg home.

Thursday

Worked.

Friday

Worked.

Saturday

Went flying to renew night currency.  Left the house around 6:30 PM so I could do a few touch and goes while it was still light to knock the rust off, then waited until 8:30 PM (1 hour after official sunset) to do my three landings to a full stop so I can carry passengers at night for the next three months.

Sunday

Coffee at the airport.

Ran errands with Jeanie - Lowe's to get a furnace filter, Wal-Mart to get various dry goods and some groceries, CVS to get wooden stick cotton swabs, and Publix to get some groceries.

Put together, and "installed," the Iron Gym pull-up bar by Pro Fit.  Actually, quite cool.  Requires no drilling into the door frame.  Seems quite sturdy.  Easy to "install" and remove.

Sad part is, I can't even do one pull-up or chin-up.  Can't hardly even just hang.  Jeanie can hang and do leg lifts!

Watched "The Astronaut Farmer" which Jeanie had DVRed IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes reviews.  Somewhat slow at times, and totally improbable, but we still enjoyed it, as ultimately, it was a feel good movie.  Possibly the first Billy Bob Thornton movie I've ever enjoyed.

Commentary

I made a decision about 20 months ago to try to attain better balance between work and life.  I can't say that I've been as successful in that endeavor as I would have hoped, but I did take a step in the right direction last Sunday.  And sometimes, things actually do work out right, when you make a leap of faith.  Okay, maybe it wasn't a leap... maybe more of a hop, but still...
This, in regards to my decision to drive home with Jeanie rather than fly.
Turns out, that after the client meeting, the deal is in a bit of a lull, so I would have been sitting at home alone, with nothing pressing to do work wise, whereas, having made the decision to drive with Jeanie, I've been able to enjoy a few days with her, away from the routine and drudgery of home.

Monday

Started the day with an early work call, then another work call.  After the calls, finished packing and then headed to JAX to catch an afternoon flight to NYC.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Worked in the IBM office in mid-town Manhattan preparing for a meeting with the client on Thursday.

Thursday

Spent most of the day in a meeting with the client to walk through our proposed solution.

Friday

Dialed into a call to debrief from our meeting with the client the previous day, then took a taxi to LGA to catch a late morning flight home to JAX.  Drove to Jacksonville and had dinner at P.F. Chang's.

Saturday

Went to brunch at Parkway Grille.  Jeanie had an egg salad sandwich and I had eggs over easy with toast and hash browns.  Learned that as much as Jeanie loves tomatoes, she doesn't like tomato on her egg salad sandwiches.

Then we went to the Kelly Seahorse Ranch Stables at the south end of the island.  http://www.kellyranchinc.com/   Google Search for other options: link

Decided not to ride because the weather was marginal and Jeanie was feeling a little pre-migraine

Went downtown and walked around.  Visited four galleries and then went to the jewelry store to pick up her dragonfly pin and charm bracelet, both of which had been repaired.

Then drove to Blockbuster and picked up a couple of movies - W. and Revolutionary Road.  Both of us were tired, so we got into bed and started watching W.  Movie was interesting, but I guess we were both more tired than interested, as both of us fell asleep a couple of times during the movie.

Then had leftovers from Friday night's diner at P.F. Chang's.

Watched some TV, went to bed early.

Sunday

Made coffee in Jeanie's new Chemex coffee maker Jamie sent for Jeanie's birthday.  Yes, it really does make great coffee.

Flew to Jekyll Island and had brunch at the Jekyll Island Club http://www.jekyllclub.com.  Crab claws, jumbo shrimp, caviar, smoked salmon, cheese, snapper, grits, potatoes, deserts.  Walked around some, sat and watched a couple play croquet (they seemed to know what they were doing, and took the game very seriously, even using what appeared to be their own mallets that were square in cross section rather than round) then flew home.  Weather was beautiful.  Sunny, a bit warm in the sun, but lovely in the shade.  Watched some TV and went to bed early.

You can view photos from the trip here: Gallery

Monday

I met the Fernandina Beach squadron commander at the airport at 0630 for a transport mission.  I flew us to Craig (KCRG) and dropped him off so he could fly the Craig squadron's aircraft down to Daytona for service.  I followed him down to Daytona, and then flew the both of us back to Fernandina Beach and was still in the home office working by 1300.

Tuesday

Worked.

Wednesday

Worked.

Thursday

I worked in the morning.  Mid-afternoon, I went on my first real CAP SAR (REDCAP) mission - a report of a missing aircraft.  I got the call at 2:00 PM, we were wheels up just after 3:00, and back at base just after 5:00.  I served as Mission Observer.  We had been given coordinates of the last known position of the missing aircraft, so we flew directly to that location.  After arriving at the location, we began a point search (expanding square).  We found the wreckage on the third leg of the expanding square.  As was reported in the local media later that day, unfortunately, there were no survivors.  If we hadn't known we were looking for a crashed airplane, I never would have recognized it as such.  Even knowing that's what we were looking for, it didn't look anything like an airplane.  It was sad to know that an aviator had perished, but there was some comfort in knowing that we might have in some small way helped in at least providing confirmation to the family, as not knowing is sometimes worse than knowing.  It was also gratifying to see that the time we spend training can result in performing an actual mission effectively.

Tweaked Witsdom.

Friday

I took the day off from work, and Jeanie and I spent the bulk of the day cleaning out the garage to create a walk way so the fridge could be delivered on Saturday, and moving a shelving unit that was packed with food from one location in the garage to another so that there would be room for the refrigerator near an electrical outlet and near the door from the laundry room into the garage.

Saturday

I flew the aircraft currently assigned to our CAP squadron down to Craig (KCRG) so that the Craig squadron (which is still without their aircraft (see Monday) could do some Mission Scanner and Mission Observer training.  The weather was a little marginal at KFHB, so I had to wait a bit to launch, and even with that, ended up flying through some rain and ended up arriving about 30 minutes behind schedule.  I ended up spending the first part of the day providing Mission Observer ground training to two senior members, and then flew two training missions as Mission Pilot (my first two) so that another senior member could get his two Mission Scanner missions and earn his Mission Scanner qualification.  I didn't end up getting home until around 1700.  All together this week, I logged 4.6 hours of flying and 6.6 hours of total time in a small aircraft.

While I was away, Sears had delivered our refrigerator for the garage, and Jeanie had spent much of the day transferring items from the kitchen fridge to the garage fridge.

Also while I was away, I realized I have allowed my priorities in life to get disordered and have generally allowed things around and involving me to get out of balance.  I am renewing my resolve and focus to rectify that.

Sunday

I did the normal Sunday morning coffee thing at the airport, then attended the monthly flying club meeting.  Jeanie and I drove to Jacksonville and took my mother out to lunch at Maggiano's.  We spent about three hours with my mother, plus another hour each way in travel.  Lunch was yummy and we had a pleasant visit with my mother.

I spent a couple of hours in the evening deal with various Blackberry issues as noted in this post.

Jeanie spent the time I was working on the Blackberry feeding her new Facebook addiction.

The AOPA has just released a really cool application for the Blackberry...

The application is their airport directory.

There are two things that make it especially cool.  The first is that it is free for AOPA members.  The second is that it is the first Blackberry application that I have seen that allows the database for the application to be stored on the SD card, rather than being required to reside in system memory.

The application is also available for Windows Mobile devices, iPhone and iPod Touch devices and can be downloaded from here.

Monday

Took Jeanie to the doctor to get her nasal splints removed.  Amazing how large they were.  After removal, she was immediately more comfortable.  She's still a bit stuffy, but progressing.  Was doing well enough that she decided to sleep in the bed, but that turned out to be a bit premature, as she awoke even more stuffy and swollen around the eyes.  She decided she'll go back to sleeping in the recliner for the rest of the week.

Right before bed, I noticed that the Linux server that hosts Blogdom, Witsdom and Dealdom was shut down.  No idea why it shut itself down.  Looks like the power just died, which is strange, since it is connected to a UPS.  I guess maybe the UPS needs to be replaced.  Based on the reboot, it did not perform a graceful shutdown, as all the file systems had to be checked.  Fortunately, the system was able to self-recover.  While I was on the system, I did a bit of poking around and discovered that the root mail file had grown to 1.2GB!  It was so large that I couldn't process it normally, so I had to just delete it.

Wednesday

Conducted my first Business Controls Assessment for an engagement I am involved with at work.  Covering for a coworker who is on vacation, and turns out to have been good training for me given that the DEM and TSM roles are being combined.

Thursday

Worked during the day, then went refrigerator shopping.

Friday

Friday was a REALLY expensive day... we bought two new refrigerators: a bottom freezer french door 25.5 cu. ft. Samsung with through-the-door water and ice (model number RF267ABRS) for the kitchen (last year's model deeply discounted and then 20% off) from Lowes, and a 17 cu. ft. top freezer for the garage from the Sears scratch and dent outlet in Jacksonville on St Johns Bluff Road.  Hopefully, our dying Amana will hold out two more days until Lowes delivers the Samsung on Monday.

The salesman at our local Lowes was a really good salesman.  The model we had finally decided on got sold Thursday, and they had no more of that model in stock.  The replacement model cost $400 more and I wasn't willing to spend that much more, so I was about to walk out.  He sensed this, and started calling around until he found one at another store.  The problem was that they wouldn't deliver it until late in the week, and Jeanie was scared that our fridge would die before that, so we were about to walk out.  He sensed this, and negotiated with the other store and his store manager for them to drive to Jacksonville on Sunday to pick it up so they could deliver it on Monday.

Around 5:00 we headed off to the Falcon's Nest at the Amelia Island Plantation to attend a "meet and greet" for the pilots who will be flying in the airshow on the 4th.  Keoki was there, as was Mark from the flying club, and a couple other people I had met at the airport.  It is a really cool restaurant with lots of aviation related paraphernalia.

Saturday

I helped with the Amelia Island Plantation  32nd(?) annual 4th of July airshow.  I served as the starter, which was a really simple job given that there were only 5 acts total, and they were all seasoned airshow professionals.  The role of the starter is basically to ensure that the acts leave early enough to be ready to enter the aerobatic box just as the previous act is exiting, but not so early that they have to spend a lot of time loitering in the area waiting.  The other key role is to serve as a communication relay between the airboss at the show and the performers waiting at the airport.  Acts: Alex Land flying a CJ6, Carl Pascarell flying a Pitts S2, Bob Murphy flying an O-2, Greg Koontz flying a Decathalon and a skydiver who displayed a 5000 square foot U.S. Flag.  I arrived at the airport a little before 1:00 PM for the organizational / informational meeting.  The first show started at 2:00 PM, and afterwards, I helped "smoke" one of the planes, then scooted out to the Plantation to spend a little time on the beach with Jeanie.  The AIP invited all of the folks associated with the airshow to their annual friends and family cookout dinner at 5:00.  Jeanie and I feasted on coleslaw, cold shrimp salad, bean salad with olives, three color tomato salad with olives, broiled fish, corn on the cob, mac and cheese, and we shared slices of three different pies for dessert.  Then it was back to the airport for me and back to the beach for Jeanie for the evening show.  I got to leave the airport early because the performers all decided to take off one right after the other (rather than waiting) which allowed me to see Greg Koontz.  The pluses of helping were that I got to meet all of the pilots and got to talk with them, and Jeanie and I got to go to the Falcon's nest on Friday and to the AIP barbeque on Saturday.  The down side was that other than the last two acts of the evening show, I didn't get to actually see any of the air show.  Even though times are tight, the Fireworks, both at the Plantation, and along the beach as far as we could see in both directions, were spectacular.

Sunday

As usual, I went to the coffee at the airport.  It was a pleasant crowd, so I lingered a bit longer than usual.  Turns out that Lowes decided to deliver the new fridge on Sunday, rather than waiting until Monday.  So, I headed home and helped Jeanie unload the stuff from the old fridge and freezer and put in coolers.  I had to leave before they finished installing to go fly a Sundown Patrol for the CAP, so I felt guilty because Jeanie ended up putting all the food into the new fridge/freezer by herself.

The new fridge appears to be quite nice.  There are lots of nice features, and I think we are going to be quite happy with it.

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.

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."

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...

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.

Friday
The day started out with us taking Cali back to the Vet as she still wasn't doing well.  We started her back on Cetrine in the afternoon and she was better on Sat, Sun and Mon (good appetite, but no poop on Sun/Mon) By Tuesday, she was back to not doing so well.  Fortunately, eventually, she did get back to feeling well.

I Spent a good part of the day dealing with insurance - homeowner, umbrella, automobile, etc.  In general, I'm not really happy with our current independent insurance agency.  I guess I just got spoiled by our agent of twenty years in North Carolina, Jerry Teague.  The existing agency just doesn't provide a good level of service.  Forget being proactive, they don't even do a good job of following up on what we ask them to do.  As an example, when our address street number changed due to 911 changes in the county, we notified the agency of the change.  Apparently, they never properly processed the notification, since the new bills still had the old address on them.  Another issue was the lack of credit for wind mitigation last year - even after we sent them the report, then called to follow up to make sure they received it and acted on it.  It was only luck that we figured it out after getting a new quote from another company (Olympus) and overhearing another agent's comment about St. John's being cheaper than Olympus.  Had that not happened, we would have ended up overpaying over $800 for our homeowners insurance.

We had dinner at Pepper's on-island.   Jeanie had fish taco's - I didn't like the sauce.  I had seafood fajitas - they were delicious, although I would have preferred more peppers and onions.  The serving was enough for four people and included a fillet of fish, shrimp, scallops and fake crab in addition to the tortillas, guacamole, source cream, cheese, lettuce and pico-de-gallo.

Saturday
I gave blood to The Blood Alliance at a Fernandina Pirates Club blood drive at Murray's Grille.  While I do appreciate the fact that The Blood Alliance is quite convenient due to their frequent blood drives close to home, I do miss the way the American Red Cross made a point of recognizing each gallon milestone.  It turned out that this was my 9th donation, yet I would not have known had I not bothered to look it up on their web site.  While collecting gallon pins was never the primary motivation for donating, it was a nice gesture on the part of the ARC.  On the other hand, the BA has a Donor Awards program that appears to be quite cool.  You get points for each donation that you can then use to select various BA logo items from an online catalog.  The primary motivation is still to help others, and the secondary motivation is that I believe there are health benefits to draining a pint every few months, but getting a little pat on the back is nice too.

Speaking of the Pirates Club, why is it that pirates are so celebrated in our culture?  Think about it... pirates were murdering thieves who raped and pillaged.  No one would think of celebrating the current crop of Somali pirates.  Why so then the pirates of yore, who in many ways were much worse than those of today?

In the afternoon, we watched a bunch of "Rescue Me" episodes.  I found them to be  funnier and not as mean as last year.  Jeanie baked banana nut bread and muffins which were yummy.  One of my coworkers with whom I had spent the better part of last year working with on my last deal called to tell me about his first flying lesson.  I was really excited to hear how excited he was, and I hope that he continues on through obtaining his certificate.  We ate the fajita leftovers for lunch.  For dinner, we had a real oven baked potato (not wrapped in foil) for dinner.  Baking the potato in an oven (as opposed to a microwave) without foil results in such a nice fluffy potato, with just the right amount of bite to the skin.

Sunday
I did the usual morning coffee thing at the airport.  I then returned home, picked up Jeanie, and headed back on-island so we could have Calzone at Tony's.  We spent the bulk of the afternoon driving around and looked at houses and neighborhoods.  On the way home, we went to Lowes to get three pyramid shaped trellises for the back yard.

Monday
We spent most of the day working in the flower bed in the back yard.  The primary focus was getting the trellises installed and pulling some of the dollar weed out of the primary bed.  The reason we installed three trellises is that we have three Carolina Jasmine bushes that we had severely cut back because they had gotten out of control.  Each jasmine will now have a trellis that it can climb on, but that will allow us to keep the bushes under control.  As an aside, the fig and grapefruit trees we planted at the end of March are doing really well.  A few weeks earlier, I had noticed that the leaves were yellowing and buds were browning.  I had thought that the problem was either poor soil, improper PH or a lack of iron, but it now appears that the problem must have been insufficient water since the only thing that has changed in the last few weeks is that it has rained every day.

In the late afternoon, we watched WALL-E which we both thought was really cute.

After dinner, I burned the new live ColdPlay CD for Jeanie.  The CD is available as a free download (zip file with MP3's) as "a thank you to our fans" at this link.  I also created the new Aviation / Flying page on Witsdom.

I've been meaning to add a page to Witsdom for aviation / flying related stuff for quite a while...

Well, I couldn't sleep last night, so I finally got a start on it.

It isn't anything to brag about, but at least it's a start.

The one issue with it is that since I built it on Witsdom, it's not particularly easy to update.

Oh well, as I said, at least it's there.  Here's the link: Aviation Links Page on Witsdom.

Last weekend was predominately aviation oriented...

Last Thursday, I received a call from the Civil Air Patrol squadron commander asking if I could make myself available to participate in the Florida Wing SAR EVAL (Search and Rescue Evaluation) the following day (Friday).  I replied that I could not on Friday, as I had to work, but I could on Saturday.  Nick called back a bit later to inform me that Wing indicated that there was a need for one aircrew from our squadron, but there was a wrinkle: we would need to be in Ormond Beach (KOMN) by 7:30 AM, and we would have to drive, as the airplane assigned to our squadron had been moved to another squadron on the other side of the state a few weeks earlier.  The idea of having to drive two and a half hours to arrive at 0730 was not super appealing, but I agreed as I knew we were needed.  After thinking about the situation for a bit, it occurred to me that Nick and I are both members of the flying club, so I checked ScheduleMaster and saw that the club plane was available all day and suggested to Nick that we fly the club plane down and back.

I awoke on Saturday at 4:00 AM so that I had enough time to shower and get a weather briefing before heading to the airport.  I arrived at the airport at 0530 so I could have the pre-flight completed by 0600.  Nick and Frank arrived about 0545, and we were wheels up by 0615.  We decided that I would fly the leg down to KOMN.  Nick flew right seat so that I could show him how to use the GPS and autopilot, and so he could play with the GPS some.  The flight down took a little over an hour due to headwinds which allowed us to arrive at the mission staging area right on time at 0730.  We got checked in and participated in the general briefing for the day.  Around 1000, Nick was directed to go to mission base to receive a mission briefing.  When Nick returned, we learned that we had been tasked with an ELT mission.  We decided that Nick would act as mission pilot, Frank would act as mission scanner (back seat) and I would act as mission observer (right seat).  The mission went really well.  Long story short, we were able to acquire the target fairly quickly, pinpoint the location and then direct the UDF team's vehicle right to the target.  While we were waiting for the UDF team to arrive, we also served as radio relay for a couple of other teams that were operating out of radio range of mission base.  Total time in the air for us was around three hours.  After going through the debrief, we enjoyed box lunches provided by CAP and then sat around for a couple more hours before being released to return home.  Because Nick had flown the mission, I was elected to fly the return trip home.  Since Frank had been in the back seat both for the flight down, and for the mission, Frank flew right seat on the way home.  Both Frank and Nick were career airline pilots and have thousands of flying hours.  I must admit, I could get spoiled having a professional pilot in the right seat when I fly somewhere.  Between the little tips they offered, and the fact that every time I went to search for the next frequency to tune the radio to, they had already entered it into the standby frequency, it made flying in and out of a class D airport under class C airspace much easier.

On Sunday, I did the usual coffee thing at the airport, then attended the flying club meeting, then helped wash the club plane.  For this wash, we used UltraLuster Waterless Wash.  The product was brought to us by one of the club members.  Even though it is sold through network marketing, something which I am very skeptical of, the product really was quite amazing.  It did a great job of removing the grime and bugs without a lot of scrubbing, and provided a smooth glossy finish without any buffing.  The process was as simple as pouring some product into the supplied refillable sprayer, spraying it on a small section, using a terry cloth to wipe off the dirt, waiting a few moments until a haze appeared, then using a microfiber cloth to wipe off the haze.

I got checked out in another aircraft this week...

I hadn't expected to actually get checked out, I just thought I'd go up for an orientation with an instructor, but apparently, the practice I'd been doing in the 182 yielded additional benefit.  Speaks to one of those sayings from the old DataFlow days: "the definition of luck is when preparedness meets opportunity."

When we were told a number of months ago that our CAP squadron was going to become part of a group of units that would be included in a rotation of multiple aircraft including a C172, a C182 round dial, a C182 glass, and a Cessna 206, I made the time to complete the CAP aircraft questionnaire for the 206 in addition to the C182 round dial.  I also printed out a CAP Form 5 to have whenever I was ready for my abbreviated Form 5 for the 206.  I didn't end up flying the 206 when it was here a couple of months ago, but I did put the forms in my binder.  Here's are some links ( photo1 photo2 ) to photographs of the plane I flew.

I hadn't planned to fly the 206 when it was here last week, but one of the CAP instructor / check pilots encouraged me to do so.  So, I scheduled some time with one of the other instructor pilots, unaware that he had recently been promoted to check pilot.

Well, long story short, preparedness met opportunity, and I am now qualified to fly four CAP aircraft: C172P, C172S, C182 and U206.

In case you're wondering why it is a U206 instead of a C206, the designation is used to differentiate that this particular aircraft has the cargo door configuration rather than the more typical passenger configuration.  The aircraft is still set up for carrying passengers (co-pilot plus three in the back) it just has a big pair of cargo doors on the passenger side so that the aircraft could be easily reconfigured to haul cargo.

In terms of differences between the 206 and the 182, the 206 has a 500 pound greater gross weight (3600 pounds), two extra seats, and a higher horsepower engine (300HP).  I found that I had to be more aware of the rudder than in the 172 or 182 - not only on takeoff, but any time I changed power settings or pitch.  The pitch attitude needed to maintain best glide airspeed with full flaps and power off is steeper than the 182.  After takeoff, not only must the power be reduced to bring the manifold pressure into the green, but the prop must be brought back to bring the RPM into the green.  Because of the high RPM of the propeller at low pitch, the blade tips actually go supersonic, so the airplane is quite noisy at takeoff.  But, what was most surprising to me was that after about half an hour of flying the 206, I forgot that I was flying a 206 - it just became flying another airplane - and that was a WAY cool feeling.

The highlight of my day was learning and performing a 360° overhead approach (also referred to as a "low break").  In this maneuver, you start by passing over the runway threshold, on runway heading, level at pattern altitude.  This maneuver is often used by military aircraft, and varies a bit depending on the aircraft you are flying.  In the case of the 206, as soon as you cross the numbers, you then cut power and begin a moderately steep left hand descending turn.  If you execute the maneuver correctly, you end up rolling out back onto runway heading with just enough altitude left to drop flaps and then flare.  I didn't quite get it on my first attempt, but I got it on the second try and it was WAY COOL!  Here's a link to a YouTube video showing the maneuver performed in a Cirrus.

For the first time in my life, I actually paid for it...

No, not that!

Well, actually, some might argue that every man pays for it - one way or another.

But, I digress...

In this case, I am referring to sushi.

Tammy and Wendy (and Grayson and Murphy) came to visit last week.  It was wonderful having them here - I only wish the weather had been better for them.  Not that it was terrible, it was just a bit cool and breezy - not fantastic beach weather.

On Wednesday, Tammy and I went for an aerial tour of the island.  We had a great time, and I greased the landing.  I've figured out the trick to me making good landings - I just need a Murphy in the plane with me.  Wow, I just realized I never posted about our big flying trip last year before my surgery - gee, I'll have put that on the list...

Anyway, on their last night here, Tammy was in the mood for Sushi, Wendy wasn't in the mood to go out, Jeanie was willing to go anywhere as long as the restaurant had options other than bait, so we went to Fancy Sushi on the island.  It was very good.  In an interesting twist, we were each served a bowl of miso soup, and given  a hot appetizer, for which we were not charged.  Tammy ordered two rolls - a crispy roll which contained tempura shrimp that was okay (nothing wrong with the preparation or taste, just not something that "wowed" me) and a Green Dragon roll with eel and avocado that was quite good.  We both ordered a flying fish egg sushi, and I ordered a raw salmon roll that was quite good.  Jeanie ordered  vegetable udon which she enjoyed, and we took home an order of hibachi shrimp for Wendy which she enjoyed.

While it had been fun to be able to say that I had never paid for sushi out of my own pocket, it was more fun to have been able to take Tammy and Jeanie (and Wendy by proxy) out to a really enjoyable dinner.

It wasn't quite as dramatic as Captain Sullenberger's, but...

It was exciting enough for me.

We recently had a new rebuilt engine installed on the club airplane.  It is very important that the proper break-in procedures are followed to ensure that the oil consumption is minimized over the life of the engine, and that we have the best chance of the engine lasting its rated life.  It is also prudent that the first few hours be flown in close proximity to an airport, in case the engine fails - as that is most likely during the break-in period.

So, there I was flying laps around the island, when I noticed the attitude indicator was spinning.  Just like in the movies!  Fortunately, I wasn't.  I quickly deduced that the directional gyro had also ceased working - a clear indication of a vacuum system failure.

I must say, even though the failure wasn't really that big a deal, it was enough to unsettle me a bit.  I was glad that my first mechanical failure was relatively innocuous, as it gave me a bit of an appreciation for how even a minor issue can affect my thinking.   I think I will be better prepared to handle the next issue, even if it is more serious.

Since I was concerned that the failure might be indicative of something more serious - or at least the start of something that could cascade - I decided to head straight back and land.

The landing was just fine, and after talking with one of the other club board members and the A&P who services the aircraft, they assured me that I wouldn't cause any more damage by continuing to fly the airplane, so I took it back up to put another hour on the engine.

The following day, I flew the final of the first five hours, then flew the airplane to St. Marys to have the filter changed, cut open, and checked for the presence of metal.  While it is not uncommon for there to be a small amount of metal (from the seating of the rings) in the oil, more than a small amount can be an indication of potential issues.  Fortunately, there was no metal in the filter, which was good.  While they were checking the filter, they confirmed that the vacuum pump had in fact failed (I had hoped it was just that a line had come loose) and we had them order a new one.

Two days later, I flew the plane one more time up to St. Marys to get the vacuum pump replaced.

We are now past the critical stage of the engine break-in, although it will be a few more hours before we switch from the straight mineral oil to the standard ashless dispersant oil.

The good news is that the new engine is running great, and should provide us with at least ten years of faithful, trouble free service.

Yesterday, I received my High Performance Endorsement...

The Cessna 172 that had been assigned to our Civil Air Patrol squadron for the last few years was recently replaced with a C-182R.

This gave me the opportunity to fly with one of the Instructor Pilots and learn some new skills.

The C-182 can generally be considered to mostly just be a slightly larger, slightly heavier, slightly more powerful, slightly faster version of the 172.  It has greater fuel capacity, greater payload, and a higher horsepower engine (230 HP vs. 180 HP).

Technically, what makes it High Performance is that fact that the engine has more than 200 HP.

In addition to the differences noted above, there are two other primary differences between the C-172 and the C-182: the 182 has a controllable pitch propeller (also called a constant speed propeller)and cowl flaps.

In terms of differences in operation, the big differences relate to the controllable pitch propeller and the fact that the 182 is much more nose heavy than the 172.

The variable pitch propeller  means that there is one more knob to twiddle, and a different way of viewing engine power - via a new gauge: engine manifold pressure.  This page, and the pages following it, have a good description of the specifics.

In terms of flying differences, in addition to having to remember differences in airspeeds and having a few more items on the check lists, the one really big difference shows up after turning final till landing.  On the 182, if you pull the power all the way back, the airplane sinks noticeably.  Also, because the airplane is more nose heavy, it requires more nose up trim, and even with trim, you have to concentrate quite a bit more to keep the nose from dropping right before touch down.  Due to these factors, it is much more effective to maintain some power all the way through flare (which needs to be no more than a few feet above the ground) and touchdown.

All in all, the transition to the C-182 wasn't too tough.  Just different enough to be exciting - although I was glad to have an instructor in the aircraft during that first landing approach when the sink set in and it felt like the bottom was dropping out.

Given all the hours I spent sitting in the back of a 182 in my youth (lots of take-offs, not many landings) it has been a real kick to finally get to fly one.

Tomorrow, I will go for my Abbreviated Form 5 Check Ride, which, after I (hopefully) pass, will allow me to fly the CAP aircraft without having to be accompanied by an instructor.

It will also position me to get checked out in the C-206 which is supposed to show up at the squadron hangar on Saturday.

I had another first today - I got me some tail..

tailwheel time, that is.

I went to the Sunday coffee at the airport as I do most Sundays, but since no one was home, and I wasn't eager to get back home to start working, I loitered at the airport for a while.

My loitering included chatting with Keoki Gray for a while, which is always pleasant, and then driving over to the club hangar to put a fuel receipt in the log book.  When I got there, Patrick was just finishing up the debrief from a lesson with one of the club members.  After Ray left, Patrick and I started chatting, and next thing I knew, Patrick was asking if I'd like to go with him to Herlong to get some fuel.

Well, he didn't have to twist my arm much to take a ride in his beautiful orange and white Citabria (technically a Bellanca 7ECA).  The photo below isn't his aircraft, but it gives you an idea...

The flight over was beautiful.  The air was smooth as glass, the sky clear blue, and the visibility was great.  It was fun riding with Patrick, as he has lived here his whole life, and has been flying around here for almost thirty years.  It was really cool seeing all the landmarks he pointed out.  It was my first time flying in to Herlong, which appears to be a nice airport.

I tried to let Patrick allow me to pay for part of the gas, but he said that the Citabria burns so little fuel (six gallons per hour) and he saved so much by only having to pay the $3.30 a gallon at Herlong vs. the $4.75 at Fernandina, that in his mind, the flight had paid for itself.

The big surprise came when Patrick asked if I wanted to fly back.  I reminded him that I had never flown a tailwheel aircraft, but he was confident that I could do it, and I was confident in his instructional abilities, as I had flown with him before and found him to be a great instructor.  So, I climbed into the front seat, and off we went.

I found using a stick to  be very intuitive.  As I had read, the aircraft demanded more rudder work than a high wing Cessna does, but it wasn't problematic.  I was a bit nervous about the landing, as there was a bit of a cross wind, but it turned out to be a decent landing.  I think I actually like the landing attitude of a tail dragger better than a nose wheel aircraft.

To say that I was on cloud nine after the flight, would be a massive understatement.  It probably took at least two hours for me to return to earth after the landing.

As if that wasn't enough flying for the day, I ended up going back to the airport this evening to fly the club plane so I could do some night flying and get back to being night current.  The weather was still beautiful, and I actually remembered to take some time to just fly a bit and enjoy the night time scenery, rather than just racing through my three full stop landings.  As if the day wasn't great enough, my last landing was a real greaser.

And, all this was on top of flying Jeanie and Jamie to McRae the day before Christmas Eve to visit Jeanie's parents and then flying back on Christmas Eve.

It was really nice getting to see Jeanie's parents, although I didn't get to spend that much time with them as  I ended up having to work almost from the time we touched down until we went to bed on Tuesday.  I did get to spend a little time with them on Wednesday before we left.

I was glad that it was cool on Tuesday and Wednesday, as between Jeanie, Jamie, the dogs, overnight bags and some presents, we were right at the top of the weight and balance envelope when we took off.

Even though it would have been much cheaper to drive, the airplane really did show its value, as what would have been a boring round trip of seven hours of driving instead was an enjoyable three hours of flying.  Jamie even took a hand at the yoke on the way up to Georgia.  She seemed to enjoy it, although I didn't get the impression that she will be begging to take flying lessons in the future.

You'd think after having flown about four hours in the last five days, that I'd have had my fill for a while, but I am still so psyched about my flying today that I am seriously trying to figure out a way to be able to fly a CAP transport mission on Tuesday - if work will allow.

I spent the majority of last weekend at the local airport...

On Saturday, our Civil Air Patrol squadron hosted the Andrew Jackson HS Jr AFROTC Cadets.  The squadron flew six missions with 12 cadets.  We entertained their families, who were outstanding in their support of the kids.  We cooked dozens of burgers and hot dogs. 

One of our new squadron members, Judy McCoy, who happens to be the new director of the Amelia Island Museum of History, made a wonderful pitch, both for the AFJROTC program and for the museum, as a result, 20 of our visitors went for a tour of the museum.

The kids and the families seemed to have a great day.

The day started early for me, 0730, helping set up the two squadron tents in front of the trailer, clearing out and cleaning out the hangar and icing down the drinks.  Both our squadron safety officer and our deputy safety officer were unavailable on Saturday, so the unit commander asked if I was willing to step up and fill in, which I agreed to do.  This meant that I was responsible for conducting the unit safety briefing, the pre-flight safety briefings for all of the cadets, and ensuring the safety of the cadet movements to, around and from the aircraft on the flight line.

Most of the kids had never been in a small plane, and many had never been in a plane at all.   As I performed the pre-flight safety briefings many of the kids, despite the high school bravado, were obviously a bit nervous.  It was so gratifying to see those same faces after they stepped out of the aircraft after their rides.  To a one, you couldn't have wiped the grin off their face with a brush.

Most of the kids in this school come from (at least) economically challenged homes.  It felt really good to help to provide a fun day for them, and to maybe offer some of them a glimpse into a possibility for a promising future.

After all of the guests had departed, and we had cleaned and cleared up,  the unit commander flew the Craig unit's aircraft back to CRG, and I flew our unit's aircraft as chase plane, then flew the both of us back to 55J.

By the time we got the plane back in the hangar, it was around 1900 - definitely a long, but very rewarding, day.

On Sunday, I went out to the airport for our regular Sunday morning pancakes, coffee and conversation.  This was followed by the monthly flying club meeting.  After the meeting was finished, I flew with one of the local instructors, Keoki Gray, to get a sign-off to fly the club plane to and from grass strips.  The grass strip we used for the practice / checkout is the "grass strip" at 55J.  This "strip" is the section of grass two thirds of the way between runway 8/22 and taxiway Alpha, bordered by taxiways Bravo and Charlie.  It is two thirds of the way because the first third (next to taxiway Alpha) has three large drainage grates.  Depending on who you ask, it is between 1600 and 1800 feet.  All things considered, I did pretty well.  To make things more exciting, my last three (of the total five landings) were simulated engine out landings, with Keoki controlling the throttle.  This made it interesting, as rather than the standard "cut the throttle abeam the numbers," he would make throttle changes to varying degrees at various points.  Oh, did I mention there was a cross wind?  We flew for just over an hour, and by the end, I was soaked with sweat and ready to be done.

After I got my debrief and sign-off from Keoki, I got the airplane cleaned and put away, and headed home.

Jeanie and I had planned to go to Jacksonville to do some shopping at Costco, but Jeanie wasn't feeling well, so we just stayed home and talked.

As I was logging my flights, I noticed that my night currency had less than 30 days before it lapsed, so I decided that since the night was forecast to have beautiful weather and a full moon, that I would go back to the airport and renew my night currency with three takeoffs and landings to a full stop in the CAP airplane.

So, I headed back out to the airport around 1930.  By the time I had dropped off the recycling (it's on the way to the airport) and preflighted the airplane, it was o' dark thirty.  I ended up taking off right at 1 hour after official sunset, and made my three circuits.  My takeoffs and landings weren't horrible, but they weren't my best either.  My guess is that was due to being a bit tired, and having a cross wind - which is very unusual given I have three runways to choose from.  It was such a beautiful night, that I thought about leaving the pattern just to fly around and enjoy the view, but I decided I had had enough flying for one weekend (never thought I'd type those words) so I just did the three and called it a night.

All in all, it was a nice weekend.  The only thing that kept it from being great was that I didn't end up getting to spend much time with Jeanie.

It was once again time for my FAA flight physical and I was nervous...

I was concerned that my schwannoma would create an issue.

So, I arrived at the AME armed and ready. I had used AOPA's wonderful TurboMedical (http://www.aopa.org/medical) to fill out the 8500-8 Application for Airman Medical Certificate. I had a letter from my family physician stating that my blood pressure and cholesterol were well controlled, along with a record of my blood pressure readings and a copy of my last EKG. I also had a letter from the neurologist which summarized his findings and stated that he saw no reason why I could not fly. Just in case, I had my full schwannoma medical history, which I left in the car. It contained all of the various reports, but I figured it was better not to bring that in, unless I had to. Sometimes too much information can raise flags and be a bad thing.

Generally, I would rather be over prepared than under prepared. This turned out to be the case. The AME still had a copy of my prior information, and was satisfied with my explanations. The fact that my blood pressure was 120/82 (which shocked me as I figured it would be high given the circumstances) probably helped.

I still am a bit nervous that one day I will find a letter in the mail from the FAA informing me that they have reviewed my file and have some concerns about the schwannoma, but if they do, I am ready - in duplicate.

In the mean time... Yippee!

My travel schedule has continued to be pretty brutal...

I am currently on my 9th airline leg in the past 7 days. In the past week I have been to Chattanooga, TN and to Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

So, the last thing you would expect would be for me to voluntarily spend a couple of my precious hours at home away from Jeanie in an airplane.

Did I mention that I have the most wonderful wife in the world?

My night currency had lapsed a few weeks ago because I have been home so little, and most of the few hours I have had at home have been spent sleeping.

Given what little time I have been home, most wives would have pitched a fit were their spouse to suggest that they wanted to spend their one evening at home - having had spent the morning attending a CAP meeting and part of the afternoon asleep - away from home yet again, flying. But not my sweetie.

So, off I headed to the airport.

The night was beautiful - clear, smooth skies with little wind and a bright half moon. All five of my landings (two before night and three after) were acceptable or better.

Even the songs on the radio on the drive home were great.

There I was innocently sitting in our monthly squadron meeting...

When the commander announced that our squadron's assigned airplane would be gone next week, having been volunteered to sit at Sun 'n Fun as one of two CAP aircraft on static display.  The plan was that the squadron would wash and wax the plane tomorrow, and then someone from the squadron would fly it down to Lakeland on Monday.  Because another squadron would be providing a lift back to the pilot, and the "lift" aircraft would already have two occupants, the pilot flying our aircraft down would have to fly into Sun 'n Fun alone.  From what I had read about flying into Sun 'n Fun, this was not a mission for the faint of heart, nor one who hadn't flown in before.  So, I resigned myself to not flying for the next week or so - at least not in the CAP aircraft.

Well, for better or worse, I ended up hanging around for a few minutes after the meeting ended.  During this time, the commander got a call requesting that the aircraft be delivered to KLAL today.  Guess who got nominated to fly the mission?  Far be it from me to turn down some free flying...  I checked the weather, and while it wasn't CAVU, it was VFR, as long as I didn't tarry, and didn't wander too far west too soon after take-off.  The forecast called for broken clouds, so I figured I would be able to get on top.  As usual, I requested, and received, VFR traffic advisories (flight following) from ATC - thank goodness I did!

Long story short, the entire trip was flown at 2,200 feet, bumpity bump, with prodigious amounts of vectoring by ATC to keep me away from thunderstorms and heavy precipitation.  Even though Lakeland is in central Florida, I ended up flying almost to the west coast of Florida before being able to head back to the southeast to get to KLAL.

The flight included a number of firsts for me - the aforementioned vectoring around weather, my first glimpse of lightning while piloting an aircraft, my first flight through rain (very brief and in case you are wondering, it is legal for a VFR pilot to fly through rain - as long as visibility and cloud clearance minimums are maintained), transit through Class Bravo airspace, and seeing people under canopy while flying an airplane.  The controller was nice enough to point these out to me at my 9 o'clock - I don't think he realized what a kick it was for me.  Nor did he probably realize what a kick it was for me to see Zephyrhills again from the air - even if it was while sitting in an airplane rather than in freefall or under canopy.

My landing at Lakeland wasn't bad - especially considering the brisk crosswind.

Even though the airplane that was supposed to ferry me home was supposed to be waiting on me, it didn't arrive until almost 5:00 pm.  Unfortunately, by the time it arrived, a solid line of thunderstorms had formed between us and home.  We ended up only being able to make it as far as Ormond Beach - the home of the two other CAP members.  The aircraft was one of CAP's new G1000 Cessna 182's.  It was so cool to watch the XM WX Satellite Weatherâ„¢ high resolution weather in real time.

Since I wasn't keen on the idea of spending the night in a hotel, I ended up renting a car and driving the two and a half hours home.  One of the members was nice enough to drive me to Daytona to rent the car.  I must admit, given the brutal rain that I had to drive through for part of the trip home, I sure was glad that I was in a car rather than in a small aircraft.

I can't end the post without noting how great Flight Service and Air Traffic Control were today.  I know the FAA is taking a lot of heat lately, but I couldn't have asked for a more thorough weather briefing, nor better service from ATC.

Boy we did a lot of flying a couple of weeks ago...

The original plan was for Jeanie and I to fly the squadron airplane down to Daytona (KDAB) on March 25 and drop it off for its 100 hour, then rent a car and drive back home.  Our plan had been to explore Daytona Beach a bit, and then swing by St. Augustine on the way back.

The flight down was good.  The skies were clear and the ride was smooth - at least until we got close to Daytona.  We flew down at 5,500 feet.  As we neared Daytona, we encountered a few scattered clouds at around 4,500 feet that ended up not being a factor as just before I was about to request an altitude change to get below them, ATC directed me lower.  Once under the cloud layer, things got a bit bumpy.  Not horrible, but enough to be sometimes a bit uncomfortable.  I also had a few new experiences.  I got to play with the Squadron Commander's Garmin 296.  In many ways, it is nicer than the KLN 94 installed in the aircraft.  This was my first time flying into a Class Charlie airport without a seasoned pilot in the right seat.  It was also the first time that I had ATC vector me all the way to final, and the first time that I was asked to do a LAHSO (Land And Hold Short Operations) landing.  The LAHSO landing was no problem as I was landing on a 10,000 foot runway and the LAHSO length was 7,000 feet - 2,000 feet longer than the longest runway at 55J, and at least 5,000 feet longer than I needed.

Well, after I called in to close the mission with the flight release officer, he mentioned that there was a loaner aircraft that we could take back to 55J.  I didn't really want to, as I was looking forward to the drive with Jeanie, but, being the good squadron members that we are, we decided to yield to the greater good and fly the loaner back.

Before heading back, we walked over to the terminal to cancel the Hertz reservation, and also to get something to eat, as neither of us had eaten all day.  We split a Subway prime rib sub that was pretty good.

Once we got back to the maintenance facility, it took a while to actually leave, as I found a couple of issues with the floater during pre-flight that had to be addressed.  I also experienced a problem with the audio panel that turned out to be pilot error.  The problem was that I could receive and transmit on Com1, but could not switch to Com2, nor would the intercom work.  Apparently, as a safety factor, the radios are wired such that if the audio panel fails, the system automatically fails over to a direct connection between the pilot's headset and Com1.  In my case, the "failure" was that the audio panel had been turned off, and I didn't realize that I had to push the volume knob in to turn the panel on.  Fortunately, one of the mechanics was very nice when I asked him to take a look, and didn't call me a dumb-ass, but simply turned the panel on and wished us a good flight back.

The flight back was nice as well.  Although I didn't get to linger, I did get a glimpse of the St. Augustine Light Station and the fort at St. Augustine.

My landings were decent both at KDAB and at 55J.

I did come to gain a much greater appreciation of both the squadron's assigned aircraft and the club plane.  While safe, the floater definitely felt like it had been rode hard and put up wet many times in its life.  Not only did it tend to drop a wing while in flight, but the controls just felt "sloppy."

I also, not that I needed it, came away with a greater appreciation of just how lucky I am to be married to Jeanie.

This is a way cool aircraft photo collection.  It includes my all-time favorite plane, the SR-71 Blackbird.  Here's the link: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/index.html check it out!

I was catching up on my reading on my last trip to The Netherlands a couple of weeks ago, and came upon this story written by Ray Bradbury...

It was published in the December 2007 issue of Plane & Pilot, although it was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1988.

I can't imagine what it must be like to have gone to war, fought, and survived, but I have to imagine that this story captures the reality for many who have...

You can read this moving short story on the web here or here.

Last weekend was nice...

Saturday:

Jeanie spent a quiet day at home resting after a tiring week dealing with my mother.

I started the day by going to the monthly CAP squadron meeting.  Fortunately, there was no special training or events scheduled, so it was only an hour.

I Went home, changed, then went back on the island to donate blood.

In the evening, we watched the entire four hour presidential candidate debate which we both found very interesting and entertaining.

Sunday:

I Went to the Sunday coffee at the airport and spent a couple of hours chatting with the regulars. There was a relatively small crowd, but I found the time very enjoyable.

I came home and Jeanie fixed a yummy scrambled egg and cheese in a flat bread sandwich.

We took Cali and headed off to the beach for a forty minute walk.  We got to watch the para-motor pilots flying around which we always enjoy.  The weather was a bit brisk, but not too bad.  We then went to Center street and walked around for a while.  It was nice only having Cali, as unlike Diego, she is friendly with strangers and doesn't embarrass us.  We then went to the Dairy Queen, where Jeanie and I both ordered a double dipped cone.  Much to Cali's delight, the nice girls in the drive-in window gave her a small cup of DQ.  We drove onto the beach at the end of Sadler and ate our ice cream while we listened to the band playing at Sliders.  We then headed home, where Diego got to share some of Cali's DQ.

Since the weather was nice and my night currency was getting close to expiring, I decided to go do my three take-offs and landings.  I got to the airport a little after sunset, and by the time I had finished preflighting the aircraft, completing my CAP paperwork, getting my flight release, etc. I was good to go for my three trips around the circuit.  Technically, I had to only do two night landings, as I had just done a night landing less than a week ago, but I couldn't figure out how to do the three night take-offs but only do two night landings <grin>.  I was very pleased with my flying.  I performed one short field take-off and two normal take-offs.  Since the last time I had done night currency circuits, I had been high on all of my approaches, I decided to extend the downwind leg more than seemed "right."  This worked out well, as I was able to intercept the PAPI and fly the glideslope out at a much more comfortable distance and altitude, which allowed me to fly a much more stabilized approach.  For all three landings I used "normal" technique, but for the first two, I still ended up with reasonably short landing distances and reasonably smooth touch downs.  For the last landing, I allowed the roll-out to be relatively long so I could practice keeping the nose wheel off the ground as long as possible.  This worked out well, as it allowed me to get to a convenient turn-off point on the runway without having to do a lot of extra taxiing.

Jeanie and I started off the new year by taking a day trip to Cedar Key...

We headed off to the airport around 0930 and were wheels up at 1053.

I had planned our route to go from Fernandina Beach (55J) to Mayport (NRB) to NAS JAX (NIP) to Cecil (VQQ) then direct to the George T. Lewis Airport on Cedar Key (CDK).  I did this to avoid the JAX Class C airspace and the TFR over the Jacksonville Stadium and the restricted areas south of Cecil.  It turned out that the restricted areas were cold, so I could have gone direct from NIP to CDK, but I elected to stick with my VFR flight plan as filed.  The flight over was lovely.  The sky was clear and visibility was great at our cruising altitude of 4500 feet.  We did have a brisk headwind of approximately 20 knots which reduced our ground speed to about 85-90 knots.  The 129 knot trip took about 1:30 including pattern time.  I don't know why, but it seems every time we fly to an airport next to the ocean for one of these adventures, I am faced with a direct cross wind for landing.  This was no exception.  The combination of the slightly gusty 10 knot cross wind and 2,355 foot runway created some challenge for me, but we managed to land and get stopped (comfortably, without extreme braking) before the end of the runway on our first try, although it did take a small bounce or two to keep the wheels firmly planted on the runway.

I had read on Adventure Pilot.com  that if I made an inbound approach call on the CTAF (122.9), that more than likely Judy, of Judy's Cedar Key Airport Taxi, (Cell: 352-949-2127, Home: 352-543-5406, P.O. Box 326, Cedar Key, FL 32625) would respond back to ask if we would like a ride.  I did, she did, and I said we would.

By the time we landed, Judy was sitting on the ramp waiting for us.  The two mile or less ride from the airport to "town" was quick and reasonably priced at $10 total ($5 per person), and Judy was friendly and informative.

Judy drove us to Dock street, where Jeanie and I checked out the menus of the various restaurants.  We ended up selecting Frog's Landing Restaurant (420 Dock Street, Cedar Key, FL 32625, 352-543-9243).  We thoroughly enjoyed our selection.  The ambiance was nice, with a Florida Keys decor and Jimmy Buffet / Island type background music.  The food was wonderful.  Jeanie started with a cup of "Frog's Thick and Creamy Crab Bisque" which was delightful - true to its name, with loads of tender crab meat.  I had a cup of their soup of the day - a hearty gumbo which was also quite good.  For our entree, Jeanie and I split an order of Deviled Crab (2) and Fried Shrimp (6) with fries and slaw.  Ordering deviled crab can be a bit of a crap shoot since sometimes it is more devil than crab, but in this case, it was definitely more crab than devil.  The crab and shrimp were cooked just right, the fries were hot and crispy, and the coleslaw was light and creamy.

After lunch, we took a walking tour of the island.  The streets on the main portion of the island are laid out in a grid and logically named.  The east-west streets are numbered 1-8 starting at the south, and the north-south streets are lettered A-G starting at the east.  We ended up walking the length of Dock, 1st, 2nd (which appears to be the "main drag" and 3rd streets.  This gave us an opportunity to see many of the restaurants on the island, as well as to visit a number of shops, a grocery store and the city park with its tiny (we believe man-made) sand beach.  The island is small, and appears to be best suited either for a day trip such as ours, or if you're planning to stay a night or two, to those who want either a very laid back quiet vacation, or are avid fishermen or nature lovers.

As an experiment, we took Jeanie's new Garmin Nuvi 650 with us as we walked around Cedar Key.  I also played with the four different GPS/Mapping applications I have loaded on my Blackberry.  We were surprised and disappointed at the performance of the Garmin as a pedestrian GPS.  While it is wonderful in the car, we found it to be inadequate while walking around.  The main issues were that we couldn't find a zoom level that gave us enough of an overview while maintaining reasonable detail, and we couldn't scroll the map to display what we wanted to see.  On the other hand, the Blackberry worked surprising well.  Both the Garmin and the Blackberry had difficulty locating the GPS satellites.  I don't really understand why, as we were out in the open when we started trying to use them.  Both did eventually lock on (mostly).  The worst performer on the Blackberry was the Blackberry native mapping program.  It never did manage to get the GPS active.  Nav4All worked okay.  amAze GPS worked quite well, even noting some points of interest without having to go into POI search mode (which is good since its POI search is weak).  It did struggle a bit to maintain the lock on the GPS satellites and when it lost them, in terms of best overall functionality, I'd have to give the prize to Google Maps.  I believe that Google Maps supplements it's GPS guidance with guidance based on triangulation from cell phone towers.  It seemed to have the best control over map size and location, along with an uncanny ability to determine our location and direction of travel.  The one downside to using the Blackberry as a GPS device is that doing so gobbles up the battery.

Ended up back on Dock Street.  Jeanie was in the mood for a cup of coffee and something sweet.  We decided to try a different restaurant, just because.  We selected "Seabreeze On The Doc" (PO Box 520, Cedar Key, FL  32625).  Seabreeze is a two story establishment, with a bar on the ground floor and a restaurant on the second floor.  We elected to go up to the restaurant.  As with Frog's, the restaurant sits on pilings extending out into the bay.  Three sides of the dining area were floor to ceiling glass, which afforded just about everyone in the place a beautiful view.  We were seated next to the glass in the sunshine, which was fine with us as we were both a bit chilled.  We ended up splitting a scrumptious slice of Key Lime Pie.  The pie was just right, with that perfect blend of sweetness and tartness, complimented by the creaminess and sweetness of a fresh whipped cream topping.  The crust was a traditional graham cracker crumb crust, with just enough butter and sugar to hold it together, but not so much as to make it sticky or tough.

Even though from what I had read, the $10 taxi fare was "round trip," Jeanie and I decided to walk back to the airport so we could sight see a bit more.  I find that I notice so much more walking than I do riding.  I don't know if it is just an issue of the slower speed, or if I just pay more attention when walking.  As an aside, all told, we walked almost six miles during our visit.

Here are some photographs from the day: http://www.blogdom.org/gallery/view_album.php?page=2

For some more nice photos, check out Stuart Jewkes page here: http://www.pbase.com/stuwj/cedarkey

For our departure, we still had the direct cross wind, but the wind speed had increased.  Let's just say it was right at the limit of the demonstrated cross wind capability of the aircraft.  Even though the Cedar Key Visitor's Site (http://www.cedarkey.org) on its airport information section (http://www.cedarkey.org/island.html#airport) (gee, what a concept!) suggests departing on runway 5, I elected to use 23.  My logic was that given the strong cross wind, were I to drift away from the runway after lift-off, I'd rather drift over the open water than near houses, plus, the obstacles were lower and farther away using 23 than using 5.  I thought this was a better alternative, even if it meant taking off with the sun in my eyes and departing over open water.  I elected to perform a standard short field take-off.  As soon as I was airborne, I crabbed into the wind, and was able to maintain my heading on departure.  The sun was low on the horizon, and once we rotated and crabbed, it wasn't a factor.  We were fortunate in that right after we got into the plane, but before I started it, a Piper Cherokee came in for a landing.  I am not sure if the first approach was an intentional go-around, but I think it was.  I think the pilot chose to fly a low pass to get a feel for the conditions before committing to a landing.  His second approach was picture perfect, and he made an absolutely text book cross wind landing.  The fact that he was able to land with no apparent problems gave me more confidence that I would be able to take off without too much problem.

Although as best I could tell, my take-off was quite good (given the conditions if I do say so myself) I got a bit flustered.  The aircraft was always under control and I maintained proper airspeed, etc., but Jeanie said I was breathing pretty hard right after lift-off.  I definitely feel it was the most difficult take-off I have ever performed.  To top things off, shortly after take-off, Jeanie told me that my door wasn't closed.  It turned out that it was securely latched, but was not quite as tightly closed as normal - I guess I didn't slam it quite hard enough when I went to shut the door so there was a slight gap between the door and the seal.  Since it was secure, and given the conditions at Cedar Key, I elected to continue on.  Other than a very slight draft from the gap, there was no issue.

The old adage is "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" and I guess I kept to the principle.  I managed to handle the airplane, and get myself pointed in the right direction.  My communication left a bit to be desired.  On three different occasions, I either entered the proper frequency into the stand-by frequency but then forgot to press the flip-flop button before transmitting, or I entered the frequency into one radio, but forgot that I had the other radio active.  In each case (once on CTAF, twice with ATC) the people on the frequency were very friendly and gently advised me of my error.  My communication wasn't all bad.  Once I got on the right frequency, I did manage to communicate properly and effectively.  I even filed our return VFR flight plan over the radio (a first for me), and switched from ATC to FSS to get a check on winds aloft (also a first).

I flew the same route (except reversed) home.  Other than a very brief period of mild turbulence on the way home, the ride was smooth.  Now traveling north east, and given the increase in wind velocity, we now were helped by an almost thirty knot tail wind.  For a good portion of the return flight, we had a ground speed of 134 knots at 7,500 feet.  Wheels up for the return portion was around 1730, so we got to enjoy a beautiful sunset (1745) out of the rear window as well as some lovely night flying.  Night landings always make me tense.  I just don't fly them as well as I think I should.  As a reminder, Jeanie isn't too keen on landings - day or night.  It has something to do with the fact that she's had lots of take-offs in small airplanes, but relatively few landings (since she tended to get out along the way).  Given that I had my sweetie as a passenger, I attempted to exude confidence in my approach and landing so as to not increase her apprehension.  Fortunately, the wind was right down runway 31 (which, strangely enough, given that it is the instrument runway, does not have VASI or PAPI).  I don't know if it was my exuding, or just dumb luck, but I made the best night landing I have ever made.  It would have even qualified as a real nice day landing.  Total time back was about an hour and a quarter.

All in all, it was an absolutely wonderful way to start the new year.

And boy did I spent a lot of time in the air...

The weather for the last few days has just been glorious - crystal clear skies, comfortable temperatures on the ground and gentle breezes.

On Saturday, I rode as safety pilot for one of the CAP members doing instrument approaches.  We went up to Brunswick GA (SSI) and shot a couple of approaches, then returned home.  It was a little bumpy, but not bad, and the sky was clear and beautiful.

On Sunday, I flew the CAP 172 for a little over an hour.  It had been a while since I had spent an hour just focusing on proficiency, so I spent the time doing touch and goes, slow flight, steep turns, turns around a point, etc.  When I am doing that kind of flying I don't get to enjoy the scenery much, but I think it is important to regularly focus on the basics, and even if I don't get to look around much, I do enjoy the skills work.

After I landed, I noticed a couple of the flying club members pushing their airplane back into the hanger, so after I got the CAP plane back in the hangar, I walked over to chat.  As I was chatting with them, another flying club member who happens to have a hangar facing theirs walked up and mentioned that he was going to take his Citabria up for a spin, and asked if I wanted to go with.  Gee, twist my arm...  Turns out, he was literal in his offer to go up for a spin.  And a loop, and some rolls, and a half-Cuban, and some snap rolls, and...  To say I had a blast would be a massive understatement.  It had been years since I had ridden in an airplane doing aerobatics - back then it was also in a two person tandem airplane with a stick rather than a yoke; the main difference between that plane (a Super Decathlon) and this was that the Decathlon had a fully inverted fuel and oil system, a larger engine and a constant speed prop so it could do more "stuff" .  It was just as much fun as I had remembered.  For years, I have had a dream to one day own an aerobatic airplane and learn how to perform aerobatics - maybe some day...

As I was walking back to the truck, I happened upon our CAP squadron commander who was just getting ready to go up to do some proficiency flying in the CAP airplane.  He asked if I would like to go with.  "Sure," I said.  I quickly changed back into my CAP golf shirt, and off we went.  I hadn't gotten to do that much "sightseeing" on either of the day's earlier excursions, so I took the opportunity to fully enjoy the view while flying with Nick.

I guess this weekend was a good demonstration of that old definition of luck: when opportunity meets preparedness.  I definitely felt lucky this weekend.

I found the coolest site this afternoon: http://www.guiweather.com/

Among the many way cool features are a number of KML files for Google Earth.  My favorite is the Level II Radar that can display the latest static radar map or a loop automatically updated every five minutes.  To install it, with Google Earth open, all you have to do is click on this link.

Another source of weather data including Nexrad Radar and Airport Weather Observations (METARS) is http://earthnc.com/  They also offer all sorts of boating related overlays if your interests sway more to the nautical.  In order to access the features you need to register, but registration is quick, easy and free.

Another site with some interesting KMLs is http://www.weatherstationmaps.info/weather/radar/googleEarth.jsp, which is also a cool weather site in its own right.

Finally, one more site with interesting KMLs is http://wdssii.nssl.noaa.gov/geotiff_new/index.html.  I particularly like their regional loops, which seem to have better resolution than some of the other sites'.

I could burn lots more time playing with this as Google returned 288,000 hits from a search string of:

Google Earth Weather with online RADAR overlay

but I should go do something more productive.

As with most weeks, last week had its ups and downs.

My mother is not doing too well.  She is back in the hospital and is being handled by the hospital as an incompetent person.  Even though part of me rebels against the thought, since there really is no one else to do it, Jeanie and I have started the process of seeking guardianship.  Jeanie did a lot of work researching attorneys in the extended area, made lots of calls, and ended up finding what we believe will be a good attorney, skilled in these sorts of matters, right here in town.  We met with her early last week and had expected the papers to be filed this week.  Unfortunately, a recent (three weeks ago) Florida supreme court ruling now requires that even for emergency temporary guardianship, the alleged incompetent person must have an attorney to represent them and must have the guardianship petition personally read to them by the attorney prior to being accepted by the court for consideration.  It would have been nice had we known that before we got all dressed up and drove to Jacksonville to appear before the judge in his chambers.  At least, the judge was nice and since we had made the effort to appear, he "swore" us in his chambers and made sure that there were no disqualifying items (prior felony convictions or bankruptcy) that would prevent us from being able to act as guardians in the state of Florida.  This will hopefully save us from having to go back to Jacksonville - our attorney should be able to file/appear on our behalf.

Depending on how well the hospital can stabilize her, she may be able to go back to the assisted living facility where she is currently residing, or she may have to go to a nursing home.  Even if she can stay in an ALF, we may choose to move her back closer to here, as it just adds to the challenge of caring for her having her over an hour away.

The weekend was nice for the most part.

On Saturday, we went to breakfast at Miss Caroline's.  It was crowded, somewhat slow, and the food was fine, but relatively expensive given the total lack of presentation or inclusion of any side dishes.  I ordered eggs benedict and that's what I got - two English muffin halves, each topped with a piece of Canadian bacon and a poached egg, topped with Hollandaise sauce plopped on a plain white plate - nothing else.  Jeanie ordered pancakes and that's what she got, three pancakes plopped on a plain white plate.

After breakfast, we went downtown to the Amelia Cruizer's 11th Annual 8-Flags Car Show.  Before walking around the show, so we would still get a good selection, we stopped in at the Fernandina Farmer's Market where we picked up some fresh veggies and a small Myer's Lemon tree.  The car show was quite enjoyable.  The weather was lovely, and there were lots of interesting cars.  Jeanie and I both thought Bob Murphy would have enjoyed the show - it is sad that Wendy and Bob live so far away.

After spending an hour or two downtown, we headed home.  We spent the afternoon relaxing in the house.

Around five, I headed out to the airport for a CAP Search and Rescue Exercise (SAREX).  It was interesting because rather than the normal ELT search, we did a visual search.  I acted as Observer on our sortie.  It was more challenging than I had anticipated both because every time I had to turn my attention in to the cockpit to jot down a note or talk on the radio, I had to break off my visual search, and just because spending an extended period of time really looking for something in a systematic manner is tougher than you might expect.  The exercise really made me appreciate (at least in a small way) just what the folks looking for Steve Fossett went through.

After the SAREX, a number of us stayed around to do night proficiency flying.  I was very disappointed in my flying.  The night was absolutely beautiful - clear skies and no wind, so the experience should have been picture perfect - unfortunately, it was far from it.  Each of my approaches were quite high turning onto final.  On my second approach, everything seemed fine right up to touchdown, but at the last minute, the aircraft got squirrelly and I bounced and elected to go around.  I was slow retracting the first notch of flaps and let my airspeed get lower than I should have.  There was no major issue and the stall warning never sounded, but I think I made my copilot nervous which really upset me.  The three landings I made weren't horrible - I didn't pound the aircraft into the ground or land way long - but they weren't great either.  By now, I expect that especially in ideal conditions, every landing should be perfect.  I really need to focus - especially at night - on attitude flying.

On Sunday, I did my normal Sunday morning ritual of going to the airport to hang out.  There was a good crowd and I ended up staying for a couple of hours.   The time was pleasant, but I was still aggravated over my flying from the previous night.

Jeanie and I had planned to do some chores around the house - like planting the lemon tree, but Jeanie had a migraine, so we just spent a quiet afternoon and evening at home.

I had another "first" yesterday: I acted as Safety Pilot for an IFR rated pilot (one of the other CAP members) practicing IFR procedures.

Riding as safety pilot has to be one of the best deals going.  Basically, my job was to sit in the right seat and look out for other aircraft while the guy doing the flying (and all the real work) was under the hood.  So, in effect, I got to sightsee, learn about IFR procedures and observe a proficient IFR pilot actually performing IFR procedures - all for free!  Oh, and I even got to log the time!

Turns out, per FAA rules, in this particular situation, the safety pilot is considered a required crew member, and as such, is eligible to log the time.  In our circumstance, we decided that the guy doing the flying would be acting as Pilot In Command, so I was only able to log the time as Second In Command.  This was fine by me, as I had never flown with this person before, so I wouldn't have been comfortable taking the responsibility of being the PIC anyway, given that had we agreed that I would act as PIC, then I would have been liable for anything the guy flying did wrong - even something like busting airspace or an assigned altitude or course.

In the future, I may choose to accept the responsibility of acting as PIC, as this would be a good way to build PIC time, which I need to be able to become a CAP Mission Pilot or Cadet Orientation Pilot.  I believe I would feel comfortable doing this with the guy I flew with yesterday, as well as with a number of the other pilots I have flown with in the squadron.  Even if I don't act as PIC, it will still allow me to build my time in general, which can be helpful for other things I might want to do.  I guess I'd better get the word out that I am available...

Jeanie and I spent the better part of the day in Deland today...

I have wanted to fly to Deland for a while.  Now that Jeanie is also a CAP member, we took the opportunity to take a cross country proficiency trip to DeLand Municipal Airport-Sidney H Taylor Field. 

Even though I had looked up the airport on AirNav, I didn't know where to park and didn't want to waste a bunch of time taxiing around the airport.  I tried to call Unicom to get some directions, but got not answer.  So, I just ended up guessing about where to park.  We ended up parking part way between Skydive Deland, which was a big part of the draw for this particular destination airport (and close to where we exited the runway) and the FBO, which was at the far end of the taxi way.  I had a feeling that we had not parked in a public spot, so we started walking over towards the FBO to ask.  As we were walking, we noticed a flight instructor from what turned out to be Regional Airline Academy Inc, and decided to she if she could provide some information.  She was very nice and explained that the FBO indeed was at the end of the field, and that they no longer monitored Unicom.  She also mentioned that it would be fine to leave "our" airplane right where it was for a few hours (I got the impression that it was part of the flight school parking area).

So, after thanking her for the information, we walked back over to Skydive Deland.  Being back at a DZ was bittersweet for me.  I guess there is still a part of me that misses the days when I ate, slept and drank skydiving at the Franklin County Sport Parachute Center - now known as Carolina Sky Sports.  Jeanie wasn't plagued by any such melancholy.   The facilities at Skydive Deland were definitely a step up from what we were accustomed to (although in fairness, my guess is that so too is Carolina Sky Sports).  While we were happy to cram into a Cessna 182 or as a treat, a Beach D-18, the jumpers in Deland got to jump out of a Skyvan.  While most of the jumpers were kids who probably didn't have  a clue, there were a few gray hairs who probably appreciated the luxury of jumping a Skyvan.  Deland also sported a nice gear shop, a restaurant, large indoor packing areas, a nice spectator area and even a playground for the kids!  On the other hand, when we jumped, there were acres of open fields to land in, and other than the jump plane, no other aircraft for miles.  I can't imagine jumping at an airport with such a high volume of traffic - having to land next to or between active runways.  After watching a few loads land, we headed off for some lunch.

We had lunch at the "Airport Restaurant and Gin Mill."  Our other option was "The Perfect Spot" at Skydive Deland, but based on a few reviews on AirNav, we decided to go to the Gin Mill.  The Gin Mill had been voted the “Best Cheeseburgers in Central Florida.â€�  I wasn't that hungry, so Jeanie and I decided to share, which meant a hamburger cooked medium well (rather than a cheesburger cooked medium rare) and some onion rings.  Jeanie and I were both really pleasantly surprised.  The burger was hot, juicy, and delicious, as were the onion rings.  The service was excellent.  The server went above and beyond normal good service - she overheard Jeanie mention in conversation that after flying I typically was more thirsty than hungry, so she brought over a pitcher of diet coke so we wouldn't be left with empty glasses.

As an aside, as I was writing this entry, I stumbled across a cool new (to me) aviation oriented web site - one that has lots of reviews of airport restaurants - http://www.flyingflorida.com/index.html.  Their review of the Gin Mill is not consistent with our experience today, but their two reviews of the Fly-By Cafe in St. Augustine are consistent with my two experiences there.

After lunch, we headed back over to the DZ.  We had hoped to see some jumpers exit and watch some RW, but the only jumpers we could ever spot in freefall were tandem jumpers - due to being able to see the relatively large drogue chutes that they deploy to help stabilize the freefall.  We sat at the door of the packing room for a while reminiscing about all the parachutes we had packed so long ago, then decided it was time to head home.

As we walked around the airport, I was once again struck at how different the feel is at 55J compared to other municipal airports in this area.  Deland had a number of business on the airport property, lots of "T" hangars, and the few open hangars we walked by just felt "friendly."

The flights to and from were very nice.  Visibility was quite good, and the ride was smooth.  Time enroute was  about an hour each way.  Landings were good on both ends.  Beautiful weather, flying a nice airplane, a visit to a new airport, a good lunch and time spent with my best friend - what a great day.

On Thursday, I flew my first solo CAP Transport mission...

Three of us (the unit commander Nick, the unit operations officer Mickey, and I) drove to Craig Municipal in Jacksonville where we picked up the Craig squadron's new Cessna 182 G1000 glass cockpit aircraft.  The glass cockpit is absolutely amazing.  The amount of information available is incredible.  Having real time weather and traffic is a huge plus.  I rode in the back seat so Nick and Mickey could hone their G1000 skills, both having been recently qualified in the aircraft.

The flight down to Daytona (KDAB) was smooth and uneventful.

After making sure that our aircraft was ready, Mickey and Nick headed off back to Craig, leaving me to fly our aircraft back to Fernandina by myself.  The reason we didn't take a fourth person is that due to weight and balance issues, CAP C172's and C182's can typically only carry three adults.

This was my first time ever acting as PIC departing from a class C airport.  Fortunately, I had flown into Daytona a month ago, and had flown right seat out of Daytona earlier this year, so I was at least familiar with the airport.  Still, I was a bit apprehensive - not from a safety concern, but from a concern that I would stumble on a procedural element.

Although I tried really hard to do everything right, I did make one stumble.  I started off properly, first listening to ATIS and writing down the information, then contacting Clearance Delivery to receive my initial instructions.  My stumble occurred when I went to contact Ground.  Rather than using the proper ground frequency, which I had previously written down, I used the Departure Control frequency which I had just written down from my communication with Clearance.  Departure was nice and gently corrected me.  The rest of my procedures - contacting Ground, taxiing, contacting Tower and departure were smooth.  I did learn two good lessons:

1. It is a good idea to slow down a bit,  double check what frequency I will be using, who I will be talking to, what I am going to say and what I expect to be told prior to each step.  That, and to take a breath...
2. The world doesn't end and there aren't hordes of people pointing and laughing at you if you make a minor mistake.

One of the nice things about departing from a class C airport is that there is no extra step needed to request flight following - at least there wasn't for me as Clearance Delivery offered this at initial contact.  The down side of this was that being in constant communication with ATC makes it difficult to contact Flight Service to activate your flight plan - if you remember, which I didn't until 1/2 way through the flight.  Once I realized I hadn't activated my flight plan, I requested a frequency change from Approach so could could contact FSS.

Other than the items above, the trip was really nice.  There were some scattered puffy clouds near Daytona, but they diminished as I traveled north.  The air was smooth and the temperature was lovely.

I made a well planned approach into Fernandina and capped it off with a nice smooth landing.

What more can you ask for?

Yes fans, that's right!  I am now an official Civil Air Patrol Transport Mission Pilot.

One of the things I found interesting when I started jumpmastering and instructing skydiving was how many people dropped out of the sport once they got off of student status.

I think the reason was that while they were students, they had a series of goals that were perceived as attainable and were incremental enough that they could be achieved reasonably quickly.  But, once they reached the major milestone of getting off of student status, either they dropped out because they had been hanging in just to reach the major goal, or because the next major goal - an "A" license, was too nebulous and too big a leap.

What, you may ask, does any of this have to do with me being a CAP TMP?

I think CAP is very smart in that they offer a large number of areas in which you can achieve qualifications.  Each qualification also has incremental steps and a methodology for tracking your progress to help keep you motivated.

So, even though it will probably be another couple of years before I can qualify as a Mission Pilot or Cadet Orientation Pilot, there are still other areas that I am working on, and, I already have a few "tick marks" on my Mission Pilot SQTR, with more to come I'm sure.

After having had a private pilot's license for twenty-five years, I finally flew in Class C airspace...

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to fly the CAP airplane down to Daytona Beach to drop it off for its 100 hour inspection.

Daytona is Class C airspace.  Back when I first got my license, such a concept didn't exist.  Of course, there were airports with control towers, but the airspace classification system as we currently know it didn't exist.  I did make a couple of landings / take-offs into Charleston, which was a reasonably large airport, but for the most part, I flew out of small airports with no tower / approach / etc.

Even when I resumed flying a few years ago, I did my flying out of pilot controlled airfields.

I did finally fly into a Class D airport a few months ago (St. Augustine), but I still hadn't flown into an airport with regularly scheduled major airline traffic.

On the one hand it wasn't that big a deal, on the other, it was quite interesting.

The bulk of the trip down was very routine.  I had filed my VFR flight plan on DUAT, and shortly after take-off, I had activated it and had contacted JAX approach for VFR flight following.

For the majority of the trip, the sky was clear, visibility was good, and the ride was smooth.

We started seeing a little build-up right around our altitude (3500 feet) as we neared Daytona, but nothing we couldn't easily navigate around.  As we got closer to DAB, the clouds got closer to each other.  Not so close that we couldn't get through, but close enough to have to dodge...

Things didn't get really interesting until we got close to Daytona.  When I had checked the weather, the reported conditions around DAB were 3 miles visibility with smoke, improving to 6 by the time of our anticipated arrival.  Well, let's just say that there was more smoke than anticipated and even though I was quite close to the airport, and it's a pretty big airport, I couldn't see it.

Fortunately, I had a very experienced pilot as a co-pilot.  He flew for the Air Force for twenty-seven years and then for an airline for another fifteen.

Even though we were flying VFR, he had dialed in the frequency of the ILS approach on the NAV.

Between his coaching and the GPS, when I rolled out onto final, it turned out I was right on track, at least according to the ILS - it took me at least fifteen seconds before I could actually see the runway.

I learned a number of good lessons along the way:

1. Make use of HIWAS or TWEB enroute to check for weather.  You can tune to a nearby VOR on the NAV radio and still listen/talk to ATC. Availability is indicated by a dark circle with a light H (HIWAS) or T (TWEB) in it in the VOR information box.
2. Listen to EFAS (Flight Watch) on 122.0 enroute.
3. Don't fly right along the beach.  So does everyone else, which makes traffic avoidance more interesting.  Better to slide over a mile or so to either side...
4. When ATC informs you that there is traffic in the area, switch on your landing light.  Don't forget to turn it off after the traffic passes.
5. Turn on your landing light within ten miles of your destination - even if it is daytime.
6. Even if you are not IFR qualified, it is interesting and potentially helpful to know (and tune in) the frequencies for the ILS for the runways in use at your destination.  You can either get this information from an approach plate, or from your GPS.
7. When approach tells you to join the base leg for a runway, they mean to do it far out (~5 miles or more), not like you are flying the pattern at your local little airport.
8. Which means, take a look at the airport diagram as soon as you hear from ATIS what the active runway is, then look at the GPS to get an idea of where you are going to want to go when you get told how they want you to approach.
9. Make sure you know, before you take off, where on the airport you need to end up at.  Once you know which runway you are going to be landing on, figure out whether you need to exit the runway to the left or right (if there are taxiways on both sides) based on where you need to get to.  Once you are off the runway and switch to ground, you can figure out exactly how to get there, but if you are on the wrong side of the runway to start, it's a pain to get across.
10. While on the base leg, get configured for landing.  After turning final is not the time to realize you need to slow down, etc.  Of course, sometimes you don't have the luxury of loafing in, but at the same time, you need to get configured for whatever you need to make a stabilized approach.
11. If you really are having trouble figuring out where you are and/or where you need to go, ask ATC for vectors.

I was just reminded that I neglected to mention something in my Form 5 renewal post...

Part of the Form 5 renewal includes flying "under the hood."  "The hood" generally refers to a device worn by the pilot to limit his or her view so as to prevent being able to see outside of the aircraft.  The purpose of this is to simulate flying in IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions) i.e. in the clouds.  While not legal for non-instrument rated pilots, VFR pilots sometimes accidentally find themselves "in the soup" and without training, they typically lose control of the aircraft within minutes.   In the old days, this was accomplished by donning various visor type devices.  These were awkward and uncomfortable.  Some bright person came up with the idea of creating a pair of glasses which had all but a small area at the bottom frosted - thus accomplishing the goal of preventing the pilot from seeing outside, but in a much more comfortable fashion.

The only problem with this approach comes when the pilot in question's near vision isn't what it used to be, and he needs a little bit of optical assistance.

Last time, I tried wearing the foggles over my glasses.  It worked, but wasn't the best solution.

This year, I got a bright idea.  I ordered a pair of Optx 20/20 Stick On Reading Lenses For Glasses.  While you can buy them from your favorite pilot shop for $20 bucks or so, you can also get them from eBay for 1/2 that price.  I got mine from the eBay store of CC-Cards-N-Stuff for $12.99 delivered.  I had to guess a bit as to the proper strength to order, but after a little experimentation with a few pairs of retail reading glasses at the local drug store, I guessed that the +1.25 strength would be best for me, and fortunately, I was right.

While I plan to just leave my Optx stuck on to the foggles, they are pretty cool in that they just adhere with water, so you can move them from one pair of glasses to another simply by wetting them and then placing them on another pair.

The weather over the last few days has been so beautiful.  Monday and Tuesday were especially nice - the haze seeming to have gone elsewhere for a while.  Unfortunately, I had to work, so though I wished to break my earthly bonds, grounded I stayed.

Work has really sucked this week.  Actually, it has really sucked for a while, but it really sucked this week.

Today, I could stand no more.  Even though a bit of the haze has crept back, the skies are clearer than they have been of late.  Of course, mid-day is brutally hot, but the evenings are tolerable.

So, I decided I deserved a break.  Plus, depending on my work obligations and other factors, I may get to fly the CAP plane down to Daytona for its 100 hour inspection on Sunday night.  If so, I will have at least one rider, which meant that I needed to refresh my night currency.

As an aside, I think I will try not to let my currency lapse again.  I was a few weeks out of date, which meant that either I had to do the required three takeoffs and landings by myself or with an instructor.  It seems strange to me that the FAA considers it safer for me to go up by myself, than to go up with another pilot, one who might even be night current.  But, such are the rules, so, next time, I'll try to get back up at night prior to the ninety days so I can go up with someone in the right seat.

Anyway, so, off I went this evening for a nice flight up to Brunswick Georgia.

Flying at night, with the moon about half full, and the skies clear, is absolutely beautiful.

Other than doing circuits around the pattern for night currency, it has been a long time - like over twenty years - since I had actually flown somewhere at night.

I remembered how pretty it is, but honestly, I had forgotten how hard it is!

Everything seems harder.  It is harder to keep the wings level as - especially when flying along the coast line - there isn't really a horizon to sight along the wings with.  Landing is much harder.  I don't know exactly why - the runway is lighted and has all sorts of lighting cues along with specialized vertical guidance lighting (PAPI or VASI depending on the runway).  It is probably mostly a mental thing, but still... Taxiing around the airport - even one you are very familiar with, let alone one you've only been to one before - is on the verge of unnerving.  And navigating?  All I have to say is: thank God for GPS!

I had always had trouble keeping the definitions of cloud coverage (clear/few, scattered, broken, overcast) straight in my mind until I stumbled upon this wonderful little resource.

The site, http://www.planemath.com is a wonderful site for those who have an interest in aviation, whether they are young, or young at heart.

Flying, that is.  Night flying to be exact.

Yesterday, I finally got current for night operations.

I had been trying to find a time to schedule flying with an instructor at night, but I just never could seem to work it out.  So, since I can legally fly by myself at night, I decided to ease back into the darkness on my own.

Jeanie and I went out for a sight seeing flight in the late afternoon.  We had been interested in looking at some of the new local developments from the air.  Google Earth is great, but it can't keep up with a rapidly developing area like around here.  So, off we went too look around, being careful to stay under JAX's class C veil.

After we had finished our sight seeing.  I dropped Jeanie off so she could run some errands, and parked the plane on the ramp.  I guess all the flying I've been doing lately paid off - it was the smoothest landing I've ever made.

I waited until about a half hour after sunset to take back off.  At that point, it wasn't yet totally dark, but it wasn't day either.  That way, my first couple of landings allowed me to acclimate to the night time environment.  After making a couple of full darkness landings, I decided to take a tour of the island.  This was the first time that I had ever flown right at the ocean at night.  It was an interesting experience.  Although there are additional inherent dangers associated with night flying - especially near open water - it is wonderful.  Things are so different at night.  The lights are pretty, the stars are bright, and typically, the air is very smooth.  All in all, it makes for a very serene experience.

As far as the actual flying is concerned,  I had remembered that the actual touch down is a little more challenging, due to the challenges with depth perception at night, but I had forgotten how much more challenging making the correct approach into the airport to enter the pattern is; especially at an airport with three intersecting lighted runways!

There was one other highlight to the evening.  Years ago, Jamie had given me this really cool, really small flashlight. 

For years I had kept it stuffed away in a drawer.  When I started flying again, I threw it in my flight bag.  Turns out, it is a perfect little flashlight for cockpit use while night flying.  It is not too bright, and a yellowish color, so it doesn't ruin night vision.  The little clip on the back allows it to clip conveniently to my shirt pocket, which it is just right for reading checklists.

I don't anticipate that we'll intentionally do much night flying, but it is nice to know that if we end up going someplace and leaving later than initially planned, that I can legally complete the flight under the cover of darkness - at least for the next 90 days.

I got to check off another item on my list of things I'd like to do list...

I always thought it would be so cool to pilot a Cessna 182. I've wanted to fly one since I regularly started jumping out of them in 1977.

Yesterday, only thirty years (give or take) later, I finally got to do it.

Our Civil Air Patrol squadron ended up with a loaner C-182 a few weeks ago. One of the nearby squadrons had just gotten a new glass cockpit aircraft, and we had been without our aircraft for quite a while due to an extended 100 hour, so our squadron commander arranged to allow us to borrow the other squadron's "other" airplane - a C-182.

I had been wanting to fly it since it arrived, but I just couldn't work out the scheduling.

Yesterday, the stars finally aligned.

I was out at the airport because the Collings Foundation bombers were due to arrive at the local airport. The bombers - a B17 and a B24 - are going to be here for the weekend. As part of the event, our CAP squadron set up our aircraft on static display and also set up a tent with some promotional materials so we could do some recruiting.

Luck - as defined by an old boss: When opportunity meets preparedness - was on my side. I had dressed in my CAP uniform, there happened to be a CAP instructor pilot at the airport, who also was in uniform and the aircraft was available. Unfortunately, it was already tied down in place for the static display. So, somewhat uncharacteristically, I asked if it would be too much trouble to move the aircraft off of the tie down and go fly for a bit. Fortunately, two other members had similar desires, so, the aircraft was moved back to the taxiway, and off we went, me in the lead. Sometimes, even luck needs a nudge. Or maybe as someone else once said - you make your own luck.

Anyway, flying the 182 - with its constant speed propeller, 200 HP engine, cowl flaps and heavier weight, was not nearly as difficult as I had imagined. Maybe the fact that I have flown quite a bit the last few weeks helped. Maybe the time I spent flying the Microsoft Flight Simulator complex aircraft lessons helped. Maybe the instructor was really good.

Whatever the reason, I had an absolute blast!

The last few days have had their share of ups and downs...

On the ups side...

I've been flying quite a bit.  Since the beginning of the year, I've already flown 3.6 hours, with 2.2 of those just in the last two days.  I don't imagine I'll maintain that pace throughout the year - I don't have the time or the money - but it's a nice start.  The CAP airplane is finally back from its 100 hour, so I took it up yesterday, then today I flew the club plane for an hour with Keoki Gray, and then another 1/2 hour sightseeing with Jeanie.  While I still wasn't happy with my flying while under the tutelage of Master Gray, I did feel a bit better when he told me that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was.  He did give me a few exercises to work on to improve my aileron / rudder coordination including rolling S's, Dutch Rolls, and tracing rectangles on the horizon with the nose of the aircraft.  We also did some stalls which were really cool.  Rather than doing the recovery at the onset of the stall, he just had me hold full back elevator through the stall - both straight and level power on and off, and while turning.  Contrary to what I expected, the plane never got wild, and I really got to experience what a fully stalled 172 feels like.

I won a T-shirt from Lost Squadron as a result of having been a winner in one of Plane&Pilot Magazine's recent WIN THIS contests.

We discovered a (new to us) restaurant on the Island - Baxter's.  The service and food were excellent, and the prices, while not cheap, weren't as outrageous as I had thought.

I received emails from two friends from whom I haven't heard in a while, letting me know how they're doing and what's new in their lives.

And, I haven't had to delete a single comment or trackback spam in days!

On the downs side...

My forearm continues to trouble me - both because of the discomfort, and because of how it has shaken my faith in our healthcare system.  I'm still angry at the hand surgeon, as I still feel he should have referred me to a peripheral nerve surgeon.  I am also troubled because I don't know whether I should try a peripheral nerve surgeon in Jacksonville, or if I should go to a big city practice.  Or, should I even go to another surgeon, or should I see a tumor specialist?  And, either way, how do I pick the actual doctor to see? 

We can't find anyone who video taped the first hour of 24.  I know I can go to the Fox site and read the synopsis, but, I'm still bummed that the $#@%@! DVR didn't work.

My weight is becoming a problem again.  I've gained about fifteen pounds in the last six months, and I can't seem to get back on the wagon with diet and exercise.

Finally, Jeanie has not been well for a while now, and that always makes me sad.

Today was much better than last time.

I had a CAP squadron meeting this morning, and afterwards I wandered over to the FBO to get some plexiglas cleaner for the club airplane.

While I was waiting for Sue to come back to the counter, Keoki Gray, co-founder of Amelia Island Aerobatics, happened to be standing at the counter.  I had heard that he was an excellent instructor, and I had been thinking about asking him if I could fly with him for an hour or so to work on my landings, and general smoothness, so I asked him if he was interested in flying with me.  He asked what I had in mind, and I told him I was most concerned with improving my landings.  He asked me a few questions, and gave me a few tips.

Well, I've always thought Keoki had some kind of Zen aura, but, yikes!

A few hours later, I went back to the airport to do a bit of flying in the club plane.  I did five touch and goes.  The first one was pretty darned good, and none of the landings were horrible.

If just talking to him for a few minutes provided that much improvement, I can't wait to see what happens when I actually fly with him.

I discovered a few more cool sites while reading various flying magazines...

We had a nice weekend...

Here is an updated compendium of interesting flying related sites, new ones listed first...

This has definitely been a flying long weekend.

I learned about this cool site from a mention in AOPA Flight Training Magazine...