I am enjoying our view tonight.
J.P.
Pzizz.
I’ve mentioned before that I am a fan of Binaural Beats. If you’re not familiar with the term, binaural beats are audio tracks that you listen to with headphones. The binaural beats are two different frequencies, one in each ear, tuned so that they create a certain “beat” in your brain. Binaural beats are best listened in tandem with a music or other ambient noise kind of track, listening to just the beat can become quite tedious.
Back when I was power napping in the Jeep during my lunch hour (due to the fact that my days were extra long because work was 59 miles from home), I would use the Pzizz app on my iPhone to help guide my body through a 15 minute power nap. Pzizz started out as a Mac application and then when the iPhone and its siblings came around, the app was developed for iOS. A year or two ago the separate nap and sleep apps were merged into one app.
Over the past month I’ve been using Pzizz to fall asleep at night. Pzizz combines binaural beats with very stereophonic music that is very lullaby-esque. There’s also an option to have a voice guide you to sleep. The male voice is pleasant with a slight MidAtlantic accent and his voice becomes more subdued as the experience goes on.
To effectively sleep with Pzizz, I have a cheap pair of very comfortable ear buds. I believe they are called “jellies’ or something like that. The soft rubber is not uncomfortable at all and I wear an extension cord so that I’m not tied tightly to the nightstand. I usually pull the headphones out in my sleep, I’m guessing around 1:00 or 2:00 a.m.
My night’s sleeps have become absolutely fantastic and my mood and work productivity have both been positively affected.
If you’re looking for something to try, I believe the Pzizz nap is now free. I recommend giving it a whirl and seeing if it helps you find a better night’s sleep.
Ballast.
Earl and I just finished a flight from Syracuse to LaGuardia. The flight was on Delta, the official airline of our family. Since Syracuse is insignificant in the commercial airline world, we get the express version of Delta whenever we are connecting to a hub. Today’s flight was on a CRJ200. It seats 50 people.
Before takeoff, the lone flight attendant advised that we needed to redistribute some of the weight in the front of the cabin. She needed three volunteers from the first four rows to sit in the back just for takeoff, then we could move back to our seats.
As a good citizen trying to set an example for all, I obliged. I moved to the very last row and sat next to a woman who was quite nervous. She asked why we moved and I told her we needed to meet weight and balance requirements of the airplane for takeoff. I used my pilot voice and everything. I told her I’d be there for just a minute and would be moving back to my seat after takeoff.
It’s been a while since I’ve purposely sat in the very back on a commercial airliner. It was kind of fun, though I missed being up front with Earl. When you’re traveling with your spouse, it’s always good sit with them.
All in all I didn’t mind being ballast for a few moments. I enjoyed walking back through the cabin when the flight attendant gave the all clear signal. People might have whispered about me for a nanosecond. I like the attention. I wore my AOPA cap so they would know that I was involved with aviation.
I’m cocky like that.
Cheesecake.
Earl and I are currently at a local eatery enjoying a dessert after a delicious homemade supper. The local eatery has a decent reputation in these parts. Perhaps you’ve heard of it, it’s called “Café Florentine”.
We don’t have Starbucks within 50 miles of the house. Actually, that’s not true. There’s a Starbucks on the Thruway Service Area about 15 miles from the house, but you’re suppose to get on the Thruway, stop at the service area and then exit the Thruway, paying the appropriate toll along the way. And since the Thruway Starbucks is a service area, it’s not a “real” Starbucks, but rather just a stand in the middle of traveler amenities such as Burger King, S’barro and a mini mart that sells bottles of water for $4.00 a pop. I’m not sure on the price of actual pop.
The Café Florentine display cases featured many delicious desserts this evening. A peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake caught my eye, it looked like regular cheesecake with graham cracker crust, a peanut butter topping and sprinkles of chocolate nuggety goodness. In the mood for such nuggety goodness, I ordered a slice. Earl ordered a raspberry “pusty”, which in these parts is short for pasticiotti.
Earl’s pusty was delicious, judging by the speed in which he consumed it. In reality he didn’t eat it that fast, I’m just consumed with writing this blog entry and that shifts my perception of time a little bit.
The cheesecake with graham cracker crust, peanut butter topping and sprinkles of chocolate nuggety goodness did not meet my expectations. The cheesecake itself was quite good. The graham cracker crust has a great sweetness to it. But the peanut butter topping was not what I expected it at all. In fact, I believe the peanut butter was a large, painted swath of Jif or Skippy, as it had the taste, texture and consistency of that which a choosy mother would put on her six-year old’s sandwich. Now, I do enjoy peanut butter, but sandwich peanut butter and cheesecake peanut butter should be two entirely different things. And to add fuel to the fire, the chocolate nuggety goodness tasted a little stale.
Now, I’m not one to complain (well, I guess I really am), but when you’re in the mood for something like a peanut butter laced piece of cheesecake and you get half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich plopped on top of a piece of cheesecake, your senses feel assaulted in a less than orgasmic way. (Mind you, I refuse to talk about “mouth feel” but I don’t mind describing a taste sensation as orgasmic.)
On a scale of one to ten, I’m giving this cheesecake experience a 4, one for each seat, including the extra kitchen chair we never saw, on “The Golden Girls”. No points for the stool that Sophia always dragged to the table.
Perhaps Café Florentine should stick to Ear Salve on Linguini (now known as Pesto Sauce).
Captain Caitlyn.
Photo courtesy of Mike Fizer at aopa.org
Caitlyn Jenner is a pilot. Before today I didn’t know that she was a pilot.
AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) writer Barry Schiff recently featured Caitlyn in his regular feature on pilots and predictably is getting some flack for the feature. There’s usually some flack from the sidelines when something new or different is introduced in a traditional atmosphere (and aviation is steeped in tradition). This is sad but true. I took a moment this morning to send a message to Barry thanking him for his inclusion of Caitlyn in his column.
While I believe that a lot of what Caitlyn does is publicity driven and I don’t agree with some of her political leanings, as a fellow pilot I can’t help but smile when I think about her flying her 1978 Beech Bonanza V35B. Good for her! If our paths were to cross I’d shake her hand and ask to see her airplane. It sounds fantastic.
Flight, Part 2.
Someday I’ll take all of this flight footage I have and start making videos of my flights to share. It’s been much too long since I’ve done this.
In the meanwhile, here’s a shot from the GoPro4 mounted in the cockpit. This is Earl and I turning final for runway 28 at KART Watertown International Airport. I enjoy flying into this airport as it’s in my old stomping grounds.
Flight.
I took Earl on his first flight to Watertown, New York. It’s about a 45 minute flight startup to shut down each way. It was a beautiful afternoon to fly.
Age.
Doing some quick math in my head earlier today I came to the realization that on my next birthday in July I will be 48 years old. 48. I’m not having an aging crisis because quite frankly, I don’t really feel like I’m 48 years old. People that are 48 years old are adults doing adult things, and honestly, I’m still a kid at heart.
When we are growing up we think that anyone in their mid to late 40s is ancient. I remember watching the old sitcom “Maude” and thinking they were old people. In reality, Maude and Walter were 47 and 49 during the first season the show. Conrad Bain, playing Arthur, was 48. I certainly don’t feel like I’m their age. I don’t even wear flowing caftan things over a pant suit. I currently do have a mustache like Bill Macy did when we played Walter and upon further examination of the show, I have more gray in my mustache that he had in his when he was depicting a 49 year old (in real life he was 50 at the time). I feel like I’ve accomplished many things in my life and am at a comfortable place, but I certainly don’t feel like I’ve “grown up”. Heck, my parents were my age when they met my husband! Where has the time gone?
I wonder if Bea Arthur and William Macy felt like kids at heart when they played their famous roles. In reality, I suppose that is what’s most important in the long run, how we feel on the inside. As long as I continue to be who I am, try to stay reasonably fit and enjoy life to the fullest, I suppose I’ll always be a kid at heart.
Geek Weekend.
I’ve decided that I’m going to embrace my inner geek this weekend and enjoy myself with many things technological. I have already installed a new file server on our network. The file server of choice is a WD MyCloud Mirror. To get completely in the weeds, this is a RAID-1 setup, so all of our data stored in the file server is mirrored to a second hard drive. This helps keep our data extra secure.
After I’m done copying all of the relevant files to the new file server, I’m going to consolidate the various hard drives we have installed elsewhere on the home network and make them all available through this new file server.
There’s quite a few changes I need to make to the network to get it in top notch condition again, but I won’t bore you with the details of changing routers, reconfiguring the wifi hotspot and the like.
By the end of the weekend everything should be tuned for speed and backed up in a brilliant manner.
And I will be one happy geek.
