Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Finally, 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 Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater