Fun and Games Dept

Greenville, S.C. is quickly becoming my home away from home. Granted, my experience of the area has been limited to the very quaint downtown, but I am impressed by what I have experience.  I’m looking forward to coming back again next month. 

  
I am sitting at the mall wondering why I’m here. As you can see by the photograph shown above, there’s not much going on at the local mall. Sears has left the building. Buses keep stopping at the entrance. The only person on said bus is the driver. No one gets on, no one gets off.

Earl is out of town until Sunday. I go out of town on Sunday. We are experiencing what we call “power couple time”, two career minded people passing like airplanes in the night, blinking our lights at one another, making radio calls and blowing kisses in the wind. Things will be back on track next Friday.

I just worked at 12 hour day and because I work at home, I was going stir crazy so I had to get out of the house. I had planned on flying after work today but it was too windy for me to derive any enjoyment from flying and once the wind settled down it was too late because the airport closes at 9:00 p.m. for construction. The construction was slated to be completed in July but now they’re saying September. So they’re closing the airport every night to work on fixing whatever they ripped up earlier in the year. 

Our tax dollars at work.

Next week, during my travels for work, I plan on flying with an instructor in a Cessna 172. Aside from that one time in Kansas City, Mo., I’ve always flown low-wing airplanes, so going up in the high-wing 172 will be a newish experience for me. This is another step in determining the type of airplane I want to purchase for us next spring. I spoke with the instructor today and she seems nice. Since airplanes handle differently, it’s always good to go up with a qualified pilot when flying a new model of airplane for the first time. Most insurance companies require a couple of hours of proficiency flight and when I’m trying something new I always want another pilot with me.  I’m really looking forward to the experience.

It still amazes me that our local Sears store closed and yet our downtrodden, dilapidated Kmart remains open (they’re both opened by the same company). Our Sears was a decent store. I’ve seen better, I’ve seen worse. Personally I think Sears could use a sprucing up by adding a little bit of class to their stores, something like this model of store, using the old logo from the 1960s. 

  
  I think it looks kind of sharp.

So tomorrow is the big trip that I’ve been planning for a year. Earl is already in Indiana by now. Chuck, his wife Elise and I leave in the Cherokee 180 around 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

We are flying to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for EAA AirVenture, the big aviation celebration and convention that Earl and I have been going to for the last couple of years.

My first visit to Oshkosh was in 1984 with my dad and grandfather. No one from my family has ever flown an airplane to the event.

That will change tomorrow.

Earl and I are in the midst of packing for our trip to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Earl has been kind enough to drive out alone; he will be leaving tomorrow afternoon. I will be flying the Cherokee 180 out along with our friends Chuck and Elise. I’m wicked excited about this trip. It’s going to be an awesome adventure.

Tonight we setup the tent to make sure we knew how to do it. It’s a big tent, and we are using it for only one night as we have a hotel room in nearby Appleton, Wis. I’ve always wanted to camp with the airplane at Oshkosh, so we are bringing the tent along.

It’s a big tent.

So today I completed my 47th ride around the sun on this big blue marble. I’m feeling pretty great for 47 years old; I’m in good health, I’m where I want to be in most aspects of my life and I’m enjoying each day. I might get cranky about something once in a while but that’s usually a passing fad. My life is good, I can’t complain.

Here’s to going on the 48th ride!

I am back on my game this morning for the first time in a long while. I’m recovered for my surgery with my follow up appointment scheduled for this afternoon. My plumbing is working the absolute best it has ever worked in my lifetime and quite frankly I feel amazing. 

I just stumbled upon this for the first time today. Apparently, during the fourth season of Charlie’s Angels there was a backdoor pilot for a spin off with male Angels, and it would have been called “Toni’s Boys”. 

A fan made the opening credits as shown in the YouTube link. 

The pilot was never picked up for a series, crushing the hearts of the gay men of the times. 

I love to see little examples of common sense. As found at Red Robin. 

So I’m a flight from Raleigh-Durham to Detroit. After a three hour layover in Detroit I will be headed home. Flight plans for the coming week all involve me as pilot; no commercial flights in the next few weeks.

This is my eleventh commercial flight in the past ten days, and I’m kind of happy about that because with today’s flight I become a Delta Silver Medallion customer for 2016. It’s a little thing but it makes me feel good. I’ve been quite happy with Delta Airlines, save for that incident when we went to Vancouver and the flight attendant was hurt after not putting her seat belt on for takeoff.

I’m finally catching my breath after a whirlwind of travel and adjusting to the new job. This coming week will be the third week of the new job but my first week of working from home, which is now my official office. The team I belong to is based in Greenville, S.C. but my employee profile pegs me as an employee of Central New York. This is quite comforting to me.

The new job is going splendidly. Last week I was part of a meeting for the management team of the group and it was during that meeting that I felt like I had made the absolute right decision for my career to move to this new opportunity.

The only drawback thus far is being away from Earl and Jamie as much as I have been over the past two weeks. This weekend I visited our friends Jeff and Mark in the Raleigh-Durham area; this trip was planned prior to the new gig. It was a great weekend.

I’m looking forward to the upcoming layover in Detroit. I’ll enjoy a little dinner, do some people watching and live the life of a jet setter. Earl and I just made flight plans for the holidays in December because we wanted to get a really good rate.

So much life to look forward to.