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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater Sun, 03 Jun 2007Finally, things pretty much went right today. Not that things have been going horribly or anything, but it was somewhat remarkable to have a day where everything just clicked. The day started with a 9 am meet-up with my house painter. He was already going at it, as I pulled up at 9, and we chatted briefly. Things looked to be on track, so I left him to it. I got myself inside, unsure if I was going to be overwhelmed by fumes or not. "Not" ended up being the answer, so I pulled on my paintin' clothes and went to town. The bedroom is fully primed, and the hallway and the office are fully painted... well, pretty close, anyway. After lunch, I didn't have enough time to start painting with real paint, so I got up on the roof and started pulling down antenna wires, so they wouldn't be painted onto the house. As long as I was up there, I also took down two of the three antennas on the house (the last one will take more than one person). That accomplished, I cleaned up a little bit, and saw that I was exactly in time to head home, take a shower, and get ready for a performance in the afternoon. I played cello in a brief song at a wedding. Not actually anyone I knew, but the singer in our group was presenting the song as a wedding present, and I was in the band, so I performed too. It was interesting and fun, and that was my first public performance on the cello since about 10th grade. Didn't do half bad, either. Music done, Kristin and I had a lovely dinner at Paddy Coynes, our favorite Irish pub (if you go there, try the potato leek soup; yum!). Suitably stuffed with pub food, we went home to relax for a bit. Now, I've had airplane on the brain for the last week or so, and I finally decided to do something about it. I scheduled myself for two hours of airplane + instructor at my favorite FBO this evening, after dark, so I could re-certify for day and night flight. So, I sat down to do my homework before the flight. I checked the weather by web and by phone, and reviewed the various speeds for the airplane I was going to be in. The weather looked ideal (warm and clear with minimal wind). The speeds were quickly memorized. I packed up, and hopped on the bike. After a frustrating circuit of Wallingford due to repaving work on 45th, I was on the freeway, headed for Everett. The ride out was nice, the temperature perfect, and traffic relatively light. The flight itself went off perfectly. I finally found an instructor I like, and I grabbed his card this time. He had me do some stalls and steep turns, and we did some stop-n-goes to get me night legal. I got my sign-off, and happily tootled back home on the motorcycle. Finally, a positive flight experience! It's almost enough to get me all atwitter about flying again. It certainly doesn't dampen my resurgent enthusiasm for building a plane. Posted at 00:44 permanent link category: /misc Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net. |