On Stand-by For Damage Assesment

I have been on stand-by for 2 days to head to Louisiana for damage assesment/disaster relief. We were to launch at first light Tuesday, told to stand down, then Jonesboro was to come get me Wednesday morning, then told to stand down. Told to prepare self-sufficient pack for 72 hours but am still standing by. Meanwhile, this morning I went out to call Hopper and found him on the roof. Joe had to get a ladder to get him down.

Sir Hops-A-Lot keeping watch on the roof

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Caricature of Cath done at 2005 Grape Festival

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Me & Catherine on the Tilt-a-whirl

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Me & Catherine on the sizzler

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Joe & Catherine playing that quarter game

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73.45%

John aand I finally had over a 70% game today. We still got several black marks in the post mortem but it was fun.

The Kitchen

I finally got busy and selected my Christmas presents - new refrigerator and stove. I also selected a corian top for my cabinets. Boy was that a joke. They gave me a quote of $1700 installed price and I said lets do it as that was the quote I had gotten 2 years ago for redoing the formica. Oh, and that was with a free $480 sink. Ha! Ha! When I went in to actually order and pay for it they came up with just a few extra charges that had not been mentioned before. After all the added charges were included like $109 for re-hooking up the dish washer, and $8 per square foot for tearing out the old cabinet tops, oh and $200 for corian where the "free" sink would be, the final real bill was $3340. What a rip. I told them to forget it.

I selected a gas stove that I just loved. Oops - I didn't yet have gas there in the kitchen. I called one plumber and he couldn't make it till Thursday. Thursday came and went. I called again and he said he couldn't make it till Monday. Monday came and went and he still didn't make it. He gave me a name for another plumber. The new plumber said he couldn't make it till Friday late but he would definitely be here Monday morning. Monday came and went with no plumber. I called and delayed delivery till Wed. Tues here comes a plumber finally. Boy he wanted this job. I told him after five minutes if it was upwards of $600 I would not be doing it. He continued to look and speculate where the pipes might be. Said it would run about $1000 and he would have to make a whole in my ceiling and poke his head up there to see if it could really be done. Finally he said that some contractors routinely put both gas and electric behind the stove when they build the house.

I kept my hopes up and Wed. morning when the carpenter arrived I waited with baited breath while he tore out the floor cabinet under the old stove. Alas, no gas. I quickly ran to Lowes to change to an electric stove. Of course they could not deliver it until Friday so I got a delivery company to go get it for me since the carpenter was taking out the door jambs to get this stuff in the house. The guys from Lowes took the old stove and refrigerator away just as they said they would but refused to take the carton that the stove came in b/c they said that was the responsibility of the guys that delivered it. I said it had Lowes name on it and I bought it there but they wouldn't budge. Oh well, I have new appliances. Now I will work on the formica.

I can't imagine doing a whole house remodel or even building a new one. People just don't show up when they say they will.

More Flying

Went flying again!!! Got to control the a/c about 2 hours. There were several storm systems in the area and that was a bit nerve racking. Flew a total of 6.6 hours in 2 sorties. Dennis showed me a lot about the stability of the Cessna 172. We did several pendulums series letting the a/c get back to where it was trimmed. It was a great learning experience for me.

I was a little jittery on takeoff because I had such a screwy morning getting ready. Sir Hops-a-lot, our cat, had been in my bathroom looking for hair ties as he loves to do if I forget and leave the bathroom door open. Since Rogers is on stage 2 water conservation as in flush only when necessary I had failed to flush as well as failed to close the lid. I returned to the bathroom when he showed up in the kitchen with a hair tie and found that he had knocked several items of make-up into the open toilet. I had to reach in and retrieve them because unfortunately I know how much it costs to get a plumber to come retrieve things that have been flushed. After much hand washing I ran out the garage door and found that Joe's garage door was trying to close on a scarecrow. He had left the house about 30 minutes earlier. I had to open his door to rescue the scarecrow and then close his door before I could leave. I am now running about 15 minutes behind schedule so I decided I had to take the "fast" way on 102. As I sat at the light at the 13th most dangerous intersection in Arkansas a stupid lady talking on a cell phone while making a left turn off of 8th street turned right into my lane. I was sitting right there at the red light with my headlights on and that stupid jerk turned right into me. She corrected without hitting me bumping over the island and still talking on the phone. In that fraction of a second I thought Oh! no I'm not going to get to fly today. Do I have Dennis's cell phone number to tell him I can't come? Do I have the number of the hanger. I won't get my sorties that I need to complete my ribbon. It's absolutely amazing how much runs throughout ones mind in that split second when you think your about to get hit.

Anyway, flight following kept trying to get us to tell him what we were doing manuvering around that area for 6.6 hours. I think he was worried we were up to no good there. it was pretty comfortable at altitude but we kept having to dip down lower because of the clouds. Of course when you descend to land it gets really hot so the 96 degree air temperature when we got out of the a/c after taxiing was a big relief . While we refueled and cleaned the leading edges and windscreen I think I lost about a gallon of sweat. My car was in the sun all day so it was also a steam bath coming home. Out goes anothe gallon of sweat. I got home around five 15 and had just enough time to replenish fluid, get out of my sweaty clothes, and get to bridge.

I was bushed the next day.

Flying

I went flying today -We were up 5.7 hours. Dave, the pilot, let me take the controls a lot of the time. He tested me a bunch by having me continually changing the trim, flaps, and throttle and then getting back to stable flight. We had flight following and were maintaining altitude at 4000 in order to provide highbird communications. Clouds started building up around 11 and it was hard to maintain 4000 and stay away from the clouds. Every now and then we would suddenly encounter a cloud bank and Dave would say "Aim for that whole in the clouds over there". I was a little jittery at those points. We covered several nav techniques in the event the GPS doesn't work. My head is spinning, but it was sure exhilarating.

We barely had time to refuel and get back on station at the lunch break so we traded controlling the a/c while the other ate lunch. We were monitoring several comm's and there was continual radio chatter. I can't imagine how pilots in real busy areas keep all the communications straight.
The new tower in Rogers had us come in on runway one and expedite both times we landed there because there was so much local traffic. There was so much haze it was hard to see the horizon and the bright sun shining off the haze tired my eyes. All told, we were out a little over 9 hours. I was sure tired when I got home, of course you can tell by how disjointed this post is.

Grandma the Detective

Sometimes Grandma gets things a little confused. Well today was one of those days she got a lot confused. Joe inadvertently answered Grandma's question about Catherine's plans with a statement that she heard only part of. Somehow Grandma got it in her head that she was supposed to meet Catherine at the Crumpet Tea Room for lunch. (Catherine's lunchbreak at work is just 30 minutes and she takes her lunch with her.) Grandma had called Catherine the previous evening - after Joe had gone to bed - to inquire about meeting at the Crumpet. Catherine told her she could not go there because she had to work. Joe left the house in the morning before Catherine got up so he had not talked with Catherine. When Grandma asked Joe if Catherine was going to meet her at the Crumpet he said something to the effect that he had not seen Catherine since last night and therefore did not have a clue about her plans.

Well....... What Grandma heard was that we had not seen Catherine since the previous evening as in she hadn't ever come home from fencing. Joe didn't realize what a n impact his statement had and went on to work. Around eleven thirty Martha takes a couple of sandwiches over to Grandma's house for their lunch. Grandma is in a panic because Catherine has not been seen since last night and insists that Martha take her around town looking for Catherine's car. Martha says that can't be true and refuses. Grandma says if Martha won't take her she will call someone else to drive her around. So.... martha takes her out driving around town looking for Catherine's car and the place that she works. Now neither of them can remember the name of the place that Catherine works but Grandma thinks it is somewhere around 1st street. Around 1:30 I get a call from Martha asking where it is that Catherine works. I tell her where it is and they are there in about 30 seconds and See Cat's car in the parking lot. Grandma wants to go in and make sure Catherine is alright so Martha hands the cell phone to Grandma so I can convince her not to go up to the door. I explain that I fed Catherine breakfast and packed her lunch for her this morning and she was perfectly alright but Grandma insists that that is not what Joe said. Can't she just go in for a few minutes and make sure Catherine is OK. I told her no - do not go in. I talk with her as Martha drives Grandma back home. Martha finally got to eat her sandwich about 1:45.

Later that afternoon I get a call from Grandma saying they won't let Catherine even come to the phone at her work. Grandma has looked up the number in the phone book and called out there. Thank heavens they have one of the awful answering systems where you get a recording about extensions. I suppose Grandma asked the recording if she could speak to Catherine and they hung up after awhile. What a day!!!!

Sister Jolita and Me at Friday night reunion Party

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Bachelorette Business

Catherine is the maid of honor for Abby's wedding scheduled for July 2nd. This week, Catherine had the idea of having a bachelorette party for her after the rehearsal dinner since Bobby was to have a bachelor party. Catherine spent quite a lot of time researching ideas on the internet and making up games for it. Then she talked to Abby and Abby wanted something a little more risque for the party. Not being a very risque person, Catherine asked "her parents???" to help come up with some ideas.

So off we all (Joe, Catherine and I) went Sunday shopping for supplies and trying to find some "dirty" stuff. We of course headed for Fayetteville and the "Science???" store in the Fayetteville mall. Boy do they have a lot of disgusting stuff. We got some dirty joke cards, big hunk cards and some chocolate body-butter. Catherine kept saying she couldn't believe she was shopping for that kind of trash with her parents. When it came time to check out, we sent Joe to the register to pay - it was simply tooo embarrassing for either of us to check out with that stuff.

Then we went to a couple of other places to get more party supplies and a nice microwave for the wedding present. We figured we had gotten a lot done so we done so we treated ourselves to Red Lobster. Catherine checked her phone and noticed that she had a call from Abby and since they had arranged to talk that day she figured she would wait till she got home to return the call since she was the one driving.

When we got back to Rogers, Cath called Abby back and found out the wedding was called off at least for the time being. Now we have a microwave and some dirty party stuff sitting in our living room!!!!

St. Annes Reunion

I went to my St. Annes All-school reunion this past weekend. It was a blast seeing people from all the various graduation years. Only a few from my year showed for the whole event but I'm sure a lot more will come when we have our real class reunion in two years. Will post pictures when I get to it.

Catching up

I certainly have a lot of catching up to do -3 weeks without a post. These 3 weeks have been really busy.

I went flying a couple of times and was on stand-by a couple of more days. We got called out around 19:00 on Monday the 2oth for an ELT signal in what turned out to be a no-notice exercise. The senario was an ELT signal around the Lost Bridge area at the lake. We had a full a/c crew with Col Cherry as PIC, me as observer, and Craig Heinze as scanner. We realized it was a practice when we were given the practice channel to set the DF to. It was a beautiful evening for flying but we had no joy finding the signal. We finally resorted to looking for Max's red truck in the heavy foilage - no luck there either. The ground team turned out about 7 people and they also had a rough time of it. Max set off a couple of road flares to help them find him but the GT thought they were seeing someone setting off fireworks.

We finally found that the problem was loose wires in the practice ELT. The antenna on the van was also loose. Max got those fixed before they took off for the SAREX in Texarkana. We did several take offs and landings, Dennis saw 3 coyotes on the taxiway turn-off on our first touch and go so I got the camera and had Craig try to get pictures the next couple of times we landed. No luck.

I'm tired - am going to bed. More later.

Flying - Earthquake Drill

Another beautiful day of flying for the CAP earthquake drill. Flew a canadian grid that we programmed into the GPS. It's amazing how it plots your course. You can just watch the screen count down to zero or the little a/c reach the end of a leg to indicate the time to turn. If you get off the heading the little a/c is shown off the track. Did several touch & goes at the Rogers airport. We had a pretty good crosswind for the landings. Just after our last landing the Goodyear blip took off cross wise to 19. Wouldn't you know, I had left my camera at home and so had Dave.

Brad Paisley, Sara Evans, & Will Smith

Went to the concert in Fayetteville on Wednesday night in Walton arena. Since it was free we didn't have assigned seats. It was grab as grab can. We ended up in the nosebleed section, but we really had a good view of the stage. They each preformed for about 40 minutes. I generally play my music way too loud but this was soooo loud that I had trouble understanding the words. Brad Paisley was a good entertainer with lots of viewgraph action that he brought along. Will Smith made a grand entrance carried on a lounge like Cleopatra. His act was Rap so Catherine and I left a little after it started. The place was really rocking so we managed to ge out without the traffic stampede.

RazorbackDBC

RazorbackDBC

Continuing Saga of the Chipmunk

Well -It was 8:15 Tuesday morning and I heard noises in the house. I checked a couple of times and could find nothing. Joe & Catherine are both gone to work and the cats are both out. Maybe I have been hearing a wasp hitting against the windows.

On the 3rd trip around the house, I notice a chipmunk hanging on the screen by the front door. Poor thing - he has been in the house for five days now.

See Chipmunks Are Cute---Outside

I wonder where he has been hiding and how he has escaped the cats. I have propped open the front door but he ran back into the house. I guess I'll leave it open a while.

Sir Hops-A-Lot enjoying the shade in the shallow end of the pool.

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Catherine and Joe getting the yuk out of the bottom of the pool

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