Fun and Games Dept

A co-worker has a horse farm with plenty of barn cats. A few weeks ago another kitty showed up in the barn. He didn’t really get along with the others, it’s a clique sort of thing, so he slept out with the horses in the hay. None of the neighbors knew who he was. He had no marks of identification.

He is a very friendly guy and he needs a nice warm home to live in. So tonight, Scooter came home to be with his new family. He’s a little shy right now, but he’s slowly exploring his surroundings. He’s purring like crazy. We think he’s happy.?

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So on my flight lesson today we were headed out to the designated practice area. My instructor wanted to review some skills that I was taught on my lesson earlier in the week, namely slow flight. These skills would be used later in the hour as I worked in the pattern around the airport; the focus on being how to fly the pattern and position the airplane for landing. After all, takeoff is always optional but landing is always mandatory.

On the way to the practice area I took a few moments to look around at the ground beneath us, the horizon, the weather coming in from the northwest and Oneida Lake before us. I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to just look around for a few moments on my lessons because while I’m loving every moment, I’m concentrating on learning how to fly the airplane. I’m cautious but gaining confidence. And while I was doing the same today, my comfort level was at a place where I could just look around for a few seconds and enjoy the moment. I did so briefly and silently.

One of my recent realizations is that I’m learning to fly because I want to fly. No one ever suggested I should become a pilot, no one ever told me that’s what I should be doing. I’m not following in the family footsteps. While time spent in the air with my dad for almost all of my life, as well as dozens of experiences with other pilots, have certainly contributed to my desire to fly, the truth is, I’m doing this because I love it and because I came to that realization on my own. I was inspired by my dad but I found my love of flying on my own. While I’m taking in a lot of information from my flight instructor, practicing during my lessons and watching videos and studying on my off hours, I feel so amazingly relaxed when I’m in “pilot mode”. Work stress is gone. I might be worried about my performance on a lesson but overall the experience puts me in a happy place. Every time. Poor Earl, he listens to hours of my chatter about flying and how awesome the Cherokee is and how many turns I made and how I know I will do maneuver X better the next time I fly and how many times I talked on the radio during a flight. Tonight he listened to my excitement about an SUV parked on the road at the runway watching me learn landing techniques.

I will be a different pilot than my dad. He flew on small grass strips and mostly stayed in a defined radius around his home airport. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I have different goals. I’m liking the structure and mechanics of controlled airspace. Paved runways that can be used year ’round are awesome! I want to explore places I haven’t been to before. I want to fly to vacation destinations. Maybe someday I’ll share my skills with others that want to learn how to fly. I know that I want to share my enthusiasm for flight with anyone that holds a similar interest. There’s where I’m like my dad; I’ll tell you why becoming a private pilot is an exciting adventure and I’ll share my experiences with you, but you’ll find your path and become your own pilot.

Looking over the snow covered ground from 3000′ is a beautiful thing. I’m happy, grateful and thankful for everything that fueled me to get to that moment. I look forward to what lies on my path ahead.

I was warned that these boneless chicken wings were insanely hot. It was projected that I wouldn’t be able to finish one, let alone multiple bites.

I just finished my third boneless wing and while I am sweating profusely and possibly now hearing things, the truth of the matter is that I found them quite delicious and I’m looking forward to eating them again.

Apparently I enjoy more zest in my food as I get older.

So I have but one goal for this vacation, and that is to relax. While I appreciate all that the House of the Mouse offers and I certainly appreciate the time and effort my husband has put into coordinating the few reservations we have set up for this week, I just want to relax. My mind needs to get back to an equilibrium.

Today was definitely a positive step in that direction.

Today we spent some time at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I hammed it up enough in the audience to get picked to be an extra in the Indiana Jones attraction. I played “screamer #2”. This was a new role for me, as in the past I’ve played one of the “pointers”. Earl confirmed that today was my third appearance as an extra in the attraction. I had a good time.

When we travel and people ask where we are from I always say Syracuse instead of drilling down to specifics. When on stage today and asked where I was from I responded with the usual and there was a cheer from a surprisingly large section of the audience. Go ‘Cuse!

I’m the one in the middle with his feet in a duck-like stance. It’s just the way I stand.

We hit some of the other big attractions throughout the park. All lines had wait times of 15 minutes or less. We like this January visit thing.

For lunch we enjoyed our first visit at the Sci-Fi Dine In Theatre Restaurant, where we sat in a modified vehicle with many others and enjoyed snippets of B-movies on a big screen.

We’ll definitely do that again on future visits.

We wrapped up our visit with the “Beauty and the Beast” stage performance, which I think of “Beauty and the Beast Express”, where the entire story is told through dialog, song and dance in 25 minutes.

Contentment. It definitely leads to calm.

I am working at the office today. Because of my fun-filled schedule I had to take an early lunch, so I decided to mix it up a bit and go to my “alternate” parking lot. The seagulls that usually hover around this area are nowhere to be found. It must be too cold for them. This has me wondering as to where seagulls go in the wintertime? Where do they hide? Are they equipped to handle sub-zero temperatures? How do they eat? Who eats the discarded Burger King french fries? Do they seagulls feel thinner after eating SatisFries?

I’m very curious.

A beautiful tree, warm sentiments, friends near and far and a wonderful evening with family; these things help me find the spirit of the season.

Merry Christmas to all. Thank you for reading. Thank you for being part of my joy.