Fun and Games Dept

So this morning I headed to the airport for the weekly class, which I call our “safety briefing”. Once a week, every Saturday morning, the members of our local flying club get together for coffee and donuts and an hour long presentation on various ways to better ourselves as pilots. The vibe is wonderful and similar to the events I remember from growing up around airplanes and flying clubs when I was a kid.

Right before the end of class, my (former) instructor told me that the student scheduled to fly right after the briefing had canceled and he told me I could take the airplane out earlier if I wanted to, since no one would be using the airplane. I had originally scheduled the airplane from 2:30 to 4:30 pm for Earl and me to enjoy a flight this afternoon.

After chatting with a few other pilots, we all decided that it would be fun to take three airplanes to a field about 50 miles away for lunch. We decided to go to Fulton County Airport (NY0) near the city of Johnstown. The airport in question is about three miles from where I work. I had never flown into the airport but I had been by the field many times.

I called Earl and asked if he wanted to fly with me per this new plan. It took some convincing; he was still in sweats and hadn’t showered for the day. I told him none of this mattered, because we would get to fly! He finally caved to my hints and met me at the airport 20 minutes later, just as I was finishing up the pre-flight of the club Cherokee 140.

Since this was a spontaneous flight of sorts, I didn’t get the chance to do hours of preparation like I had during my training. I knew where I was going and I knew that I was fully capable of the flight, but it was a weird yet exciting feeling to be doing this. We needed to fuel up the airplane; the others left ahead of us by about 15 minutes. Fueled up and ready to go, Earl and I made the flight. It was a little hazy and I was a little nervous about all these new elements that I hadn’t experienced before, but overall the flight to Fulton County was quite enjoyable. Earl asked me many more questions today. He’s really intrigued by this General Aviation thing and he seemed to be having a great time. Fulton County doesn’t have a control tower, it’s “pilot controlled” in that we watch for airplanes that might not have a radio and we announce our intentions all along the way to landing. I made my radio calls and before we knew it, I made an excellent landing on runway 28. Our fellow pilots were waiting for us and let us know that the restaurant was closed. Ack, no food after all.

Earl and I took a selfie, something that we’ll probably do at many airports over the coming years. Earl then took a photo of the group of us.

While we were there shooting the breeze, another pilot based at the airport went up and practiced some touch and goes and then various stunts. If you look closely, you can see his yellow airplane in the gorgeous sky.

Afterwards, we all departed, one right after another and flew to our home airport. Earl and I were in the Cherokee 140 while the other two airplanes were Cherokee 180s, so they had a few more horses to play with, but we brought up the rear and was able to watch one of the other airplanes land just as we were arriving at the airport. Another excellent landing and it was time to put the airplane away.

Days like today are the reason I became a Private Pilot. The adventures have just begun.

There’s no snow on the ground, the winds are howling at over 30 MPH, but there’s warmth and happiness in our home this Christmas morning.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a joyous day, no matter what you are celebrating today!

I have dreams of turning this space in our basement into a game area.

I want to drape a tarp along the right side of the space as a makeshift wall from the storage area and then put our dart board and maybe a card table and whatnot and make a man cave. Earl thinks I should just build a wall instead of draping a tarp but honestly, I have no idea how to build a wall. My dad’s business used to do that sort of thing and we hired them for that.

Earl asked who we would invite over to enjoy this area and I told him we could make friends. Folks in the area, folks passing through the area, it doesn’t matter, we’d grab them off the Thruway and play darts or play board games and drink beer or whatever.

I feel like I need a new project in 2015.

There can be something just wonderful about taking a shower in a hotel room. I’m picky about my shower experiences; the water must be able to get fairly hot (I know, it’s not good for my skin) and the water pressure should be able to pin me against the opposite wall. The shower in this Hampton Inn meets the designated requirements and it seems to have an unlimited supply of hot water. I was decadent today and I took a 30 minute shower. I’m usually in and out in seven minutes.
 
 I feel wonderful this morning. Maybe I should take longer showers more often.
 
 The one thing that I did find about this shower this morning involved the glass doors, which I would otherwise find enjoyable. This Hampton Inn is brand new. It has that new building smell to it and the number of electrical outlets, placement of Internet information, etc. is indicative of the age. The glass door in this brand new shower has a mind of its own. It doesn’t want to stay closed. I fired up the water, hopped in the shower when the optimal temperature was met and closed the shower door behind me. It opened up. I closed it again, it opened up again. Every time I closed the door, it opened itself back up. Water started making a good sized puddle in front of the toilet. I finally grabbed an extra wash cloth and wedged it behind the door so that it would stay closed. On one hand I find this surprising, you would think that a contractor would make sure the shower doors were level during the installation of them, but on the other hand, I’m not really that surprised because it’s rather indicative of the general expectation of quality in the United States in the 21st century. “Meh, good enough” gets a standing ovation.
 
 After my shower I went to show Earl what he had to do to get the shower door to stay closed and it started staying closed on its own. So apparently when no one is in the shower, the door stays closed but when someone is standing in the shower, something goes off level.
 
 It’s a good thing we are on the ground floor.
 
 On the bright side, the shower door slides and isn’t one of those open and closed things that you occasionally find. That could be interesting.
 
 

I woke up this morning moments before the alarm went off. My dream came to a natural conclusion and as a result, I awoke with a smile on my face. I got up and worked out, had a decent breakfast and made it to work with plenty of time to spare. (I drove to the office this morning).

What a great way to start the day.

It is amazing what one can accomplish after hauling your butt out of bed when you originally pledged to do so. Over the past few months I’ve gotten in the habit of sleeping in and I think it has had a detrimental effect on my mood and health. Hopping out of bed this morning and getting my day started seems to have supercharged my mood. I need to get back on track with not lounging around in bed after waking up.

The flip side to this is that I’m now going to take a 20 minute power nap in the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot near work. It’s important that I not nap for longer than 20 minutes because then I’ll be too groggy to get through my afternoon at work. Luckily, I still use the Pzizz app for napping, which does a great job of waking me up on time.

ZZZZZzzzzzzz.

It’s starting to look like the Christmas season in these parts.

Our home sits just to the right of the approach to Runway 33 at Griffiss Airfield.

Earl and I spent the afternoon assembling festive displays for the front of the house and putting up the new lights we purchased yesterday. We have one strand of 50 lights leftover. I’m trying to decide where they will go. I think I’ll need a couple more days to think about it.

Earl and I decided to go for a ride in the Jeep this afternoon. We had no plan other than to relax and just enjoy each other’s company. Random navigation found us in Rochester, the third largest metropolitan area in New York State. We stopped at one of our favorite malls, Eastview Mall, and ended up getting quite a bit of our Christmas shopping done.

We decided on keeping it simple for supper and hit the food court, which includes one of our favorite regional quick serve restaurants, Tom Wahl’s.

The service is always friendly and the comfort food is delicious at Tom Wahl’s. We were not disappointed.

We ended up buying all new decorations for the outside of the house as our decorations did not fare well last season. Whilst perusing the selection at Sears, I found this sign to be confusing.

Like a photo I took a couple of years ago; the photo was of an 8×11 sheet of paper with MERRY CHRISTMAS printed in 36 point in Arial, I suspect the wording of this sign is an attempt to somehow be politically correct, but honestly I just found the sign to be confusing. And why are holiday decorations 30% off already, it’s not even December yet!

With the shopping we did today I’m finding myself easing into the Christmas season with a smile. It’s a nice change of pace.

Earl made an absolutely delicious feast for Thanksgiving this year. He does something a little different for each Thanksgiving celebration; this year he made the brussels sprouts with a sauce from champagne jelly. They were absolutely wonderful.

Our little family says grace before each meal. This surprises visitors from time to time but it’s something that we do. We are thankful to a higher power for what we have. It’s not an organized religion thing, it’s a spirituality thing. The blessing is brief and occasionally recited at warp speed. Live long and prosper.

As I type this Thanksgiving evening blog entry, the bread machine is doing its thing so we can enjoy the turkey all weekend long.

Life is grand.

And it’s started. We have less than a half inch of snow on the ground at the moment (we had more yesterday) but the television is covered with so many warning crawls you’re lucky if you can see more than one eyeball of any character on any given show this evening. Winter storm warnings. Winter storm watches. Winter weather events. Polar vortices. Snow Devils. Icicle launches. Blizzards. Typhoon. Bad breath. The list goes on and on.

Undoubtedly the weather channel has named all of these events. So have I. I have dubbed the “asshat”.

Either I’m getting crankier as I get older or people are becoming insane. I lean toward the latter. Folks are Up. In. Arms. about the fact that it’s snowing in these parts in November. Global Climate Change. Gas emissions. Starbucks. Chemtrails. Everything is to blame because it’s never been this way before. Snow in November. Who’d a thunk it.

Except when I was kid I went trick or treating on several occasions in snowstorms.

When I worked for ARC in the 90s school was closed in mid October due to an early snowfall.

I’ve ridden a sled or snowmobile on Thanksgiving day at least a dozen times in 46 years.

Listen people of Upstate New York, I don’t know where all the fair weather freaks are coming from but I ask that you kindly leave and take your hysteria with you. I’m damn proud to be born and raised in the Lake Ontario snowbelt and just to prove my point I’ll haul my ass into the office everyday the local schools close as administrators cower in fear and teach their students to do the same.

I was born and bred of hearty stock and I’ll wear that like that badge of honor it is. And I don’t care if it’s covered in snow, get the hell off my lawn.