Andrew's Birthday Parties

This year, Andrew got something really special - we celebrated his birthday with his grandparents and other family members. First we celebrated in Ohio with my family a few days before his actual birthday. My parents, my aunt, my grandmother, my cousin and her son, and my cousin's family from Tennessee were all present.

Back in Virginia, we celebrated his birthday again with Susan's family.

Christmas At Gram's

After our long drive, we were ready for a good dinner. We loaded up gifts in my parent's minivan and headed to Gram's house. Andrew was very excited to see his second cousin Mikey, who is just 10 months younger. They immediately started playing together and didn't stop for three hours.

Although I love the home-cooked food, one of my favorites when I'm home is Italian Sausage from Capri's restaurant. Once again, I was not disappointed. Dinner was great, but we couldn't get Andrew to stop playing long enough to eat. But then, who could blame him. He spent most of the day in the car and he needed to burn off some excess energy. When he finally started getting hungry, he found the cookie plate and asked which cookies were safe for him to eat (he has a serious peanut allergy). We divided the plate into groups of safe and unsafe cookies. He grabbed a snickerdoodle and returned to playing with Mikey.

Then came present time. Both Andrew and Mikey got a present to tear into. Then Mikey got another and another. It didn't take long for Andrew to notice this fact. I guess at his age, the quantity is the most important thing.

After a while, we noticed that Andrew and Mikey were downstairs and it was far too quiet. I went down to check on them and found a large Thomas layout on the floor. Andrew and I quickly started making improvements. Before long, we had created a bypass loop around the outside and started pulling in other toys as props. In one section, we had the alligator swamps. In another, we had a pride of lions eyeing the trains as they passed. The herd of elephants was causing derailments on another section of track. And who knows what the zebras, giraffes, and dinosaurs were up to.

Bedtime for Mikey finally arrived and the fun was put on hold for the evening. My wish for Andrew is that he will find some friends his age to play with in Florida. It's so good for him to have this time with Mikey.

To Ohio

This morning we started our second road trip - to my parents' house in Toronto, Ohio.


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The drive up was nice, but we did have some issues with the new GPS - so much so that I was about to throw it out the window and drive over it a few times. The GPS wanted us to take US 17, but I wanted to stay on the interstate. As I drove past the exit, it recalculated the route. Three times in a row, it told me to take the next exit and return to US 17. And three times I ignored it. On the fourth recalculation, it ran out of memory and crashed. I restarted it, but unbeknownst to me, it forgot our destination and was simply showing our current track. This was not an issue at first... until we missed our exit to pick up Interstate 270 to bypass Washington D.C.

Washington D.C. is very nice this time of year, but it was not part of my 'get-to-Ohio-as-quick-as-possible' plan. We unfortunately missed our exit and wound up on I-395 in the heart of D.C., which eventually leads to a 'T' intersection in a rather degraded part of town. Yikes.

Susan re-programmed the GPS while I floundered around looking for something recognizable. I was on I-95 south when the GPS told me to turn around and head north. I did as I was told and finally we were back on the correct path. After about 30 miles, I cooled off and started respecting the GPS's decisions again.

With our setback, I was even more determined to get there quickly. As we entered the Pennsylvania Turnpike, my stomach started speaking to me. After a half hour, hunger overtook the need for speed and we stopped for a bite to eat at one of the service plazas and took a break from the highway.

The route took us practically through downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; my favorite big city growing up. There's been quite a few changes over the years, but I always feel like I'm almost home once I pass through the Fort Pitt tunnel heading west.

After all the round about driving in D.C., we still managed to get to my parent's house in just over seven hours. I find that pretty amazing.

Christmas Eve with the Haksch's

As per tradition, Susan's family celebrates Christmas together on Christmas Eve. I was tasked with picking up Susan's brother in Ashland. When I returned, dinner was ready. This was followed by some carol singing, then the distribution of gifts. From what I can tell, a good time was had by all.

To Virginia

Early this morning, or late last night - depending on how you look at it - we began our road trip to Virginia for the holidays.


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According to Google Maps, the trip should have taken 12 hours and 42 minutes. According to our new GPS (thanks Dave & Cathy), the trip should have taken 13 hours and 22 minutes.

At 3:00AM, we were out of bed and finishing the packing of the Honda. By 3:25, we were on the road heading north. We stopped for gas/snacks/bathrooms three times along the way and to switch drivers. We pulled into the driveway in Virginia at 4:30PM; just over 13 hours later. Not bad.

The biggest surprise about the trip was the lack of cities along the way. Other than Jacksonville, Florida, there were no major cities until we reached (and bypassed) Richmond, Virginia.

Christmas Card 2008

For the past three years, we have visited Flower World in Maltby, Washington, to take our family Christmas card photograph. This year, we're in Florida, so we had to find a good alternative. We had a few ideas for places outside, but finally decided to take the shot in front of our Christmas tree.

As it turns out, Susan heard from a friend in Washington that Flower World is not doing the poinsettia tree this year. I guess we would have had to find an alternative regardless.

CFI-A Lesson 2

Early this week, I finished up the missing details of Lesson 1. Today, I started Lesson 2. According to the syllabus, I was supposed to present a pre-flight briefing covering the four fundamentals of flight - straight & level, turns, climbs, and descents. After that, I was supposed to teach the four fundamentals in the airplane, while also covering everything else involved in a typical training flight - weather, airport information, take-off and landing distance, pre-flight inspection, engine start, ATC communications, taxi, run-up, take-off, etc.

When I first started, my nerves kicked in and I was mess. I could barely think or speak. My instructor interrupted and told me to relax. I took a few deep breaths and started again. As expected, the pre-flight briefing blew past the 30 minute time alotted and stretched to about an hour. I was not surprised at all. I went into it with eight pages of notes! I completely ignored six of the pages, and still ran 30 minutes over the limit. The four fundamentals are, well, fundamental maneuvers. The instructor must impress upon the student just how important they are and that they be performed correctly from the very beginning of training. I focused on covering everything the student would see, hear, and feel, in addition to how to correctly perform the maneuvers.

After I completed my brief, my instructor critiqued my performance. He was pleased, then went on for another half hour about things I should consider adding to my brief. I informed him that I had all of that in my notes and he said, "I didn't say it would be easy". My take away from this is that the pre-flight briefs are just that - brief. As an instructor, you must know what information to present during the pre-flight brief and what to cover in the airplane. It's just not practical, timewise, to cover an entire topic completely and thoroughly.

Normally, we would have gone flying next, but time was short and I hadn't completed my Piper Warrior Cadet pre-flight test (hadn't been given the test ahead of time). So we called it a day and will complete the flight portion of Lesson 1 next time.

New Tires for the Honda

The tires on the Honda were showing their age. It's not at all surprising; they've been rolling along for over 80,000 miles. They've served us well and got us safely across the country. But with the prospect of driving to Virginia and Ohio in a few weeks, we decided it would be wise to have a little more tread between us and the pavement/snow/ice.

On two separate occasions, I researched the current tire market. Consumer Reports listed four tires as their best buys, but none of them are available in my size. I was on my own. So I started looking for local tire stores to see what they carry in my size, then working backwards to get reviews for those tires. I eventually widdled the choice down to two tires, both by Goodyear. One has excellent traction qualities and good comfort and noise characteristics. The other was just the opposite. I was leaning towards the latter, but it wasn't in stock. The salesman offered a pretty good deal on the tires in stock and we went for it. The deal included a 30 day, no questions asked return policy, so if the new tires are too rough or noisy, we can return them for the quieter tires.

As the old tires came off and the new ones were installed, Andrew and I watched from the sidelines. We were both quite impressed with the hardware involved with mounting and balancing tires. Then the owner offered Andrew some Mega Blocks and a cabinet full of toys, including jet planes and Thomas, Annie, and Clarabel. Andrew started playing with Thomas, but soon switched to the planes and setup a nice airport at the end of the runway (black runner carpet).

The alignment of a BMW was taking longer than expected, so the owner offered to show Andrew the store room. We walked into a small room with tires on shelves from the floor to the 20 foot high ceiling. A worker showed how he reached the tires on the top shelf by climbing the racks. Andrew was impressed. Andrew played in the tires for a while, then it was back to the airplanes.

Finally the Honda was put on the alignment machine. Unfortunately, Honda does not provide adjustments in all three dimensions on the CR-V. They adjusted what they could and we were finally cleared to leave. Andrew was not in any hurry to leave. He was having a great time. The owner offered to let Andrew take two planes home with us. Andrew picked the F-16, but couldn't decide between the B-29 and the F-111. The owner graciously let Andrew have both. What a great guy. Given a choice, I'll repay the kindness by giving him some more work in the future. In tough times, and times are pretty tough here, it's nice to see great customer service.

Vero Beach Christmas Parade

After a full day of playing and riding bikes and enjoying the 70 plus degree sunshiny weather, we drove to the park near the beach to see the local arts festival, play at the playground, and kill a little time before the big parade. One of the vendors was selling wind chimes and that was all Andrew needed to see. He could literally spend an hour playing with chimes, listening to all the different sounds they make. I was more interested in the smell of onions and sausage cooking at a stand on the next row.

We went to the playground for a while, then moved on to the boat launch, where we saw three large pelicans sitting on the tops of the pier supports. Then we drove to the beach park and played while waiting for the parade to begin. As it got darker and the temperature started to drop, I wondered if I would be warm enough in my sandals, shorts, and shirt. I soon discovered that I wasn't; I had to put on my fleece jacket and cover my toes with a beach towel, then I was perfectly comfortable. I'm not certain, but I think this is my first Christmas parade in shorts!

At 5:30PM, the police motorcycles kicked off the parade. They were followed by the Vero Beach High School band and the fire department. Surprisingly the parade kept coming and coming and coming. Each float had a number and I know I saw number 67 go by before it was all over. Finally, Santa Clause rode by in the bucket of a fire engine ladder truck.

During the entire parade, Andrew was not with us. He was swinging on the swings, talking to the teenage girls who were hanging out nearby and a teenage (almost) boy he met. Afterwards, while pulling out of the parking lot, a group of girls walked by our girl and said, "Good-bye Andrew" as we drove past. Later I asked why he didn't watch the parade with us. He told me he could see better from the swing because he could get higher and see over everyone.

It's Beginning To Look...

... a little like Christmas.

Tonight we ran some errands in town. I bought some cheap printer paper and mechanical pencils for my kneeboard. I was looking for a small, cheap calendar to schedule my future flights, but didn't see one that I liked. Then we went to the local hobby shop to see what interesting things they have. As I walked down all four aisles (it isn't a very big store), the owner handed Susan a small 2009 calendar which will work perfectly for my scheduling needs. What an nice little surprise.

The hobby shop closed, so we headed out to the car. The sun was just beginning to set. I asked Susan if she needed to do anything else in town. She had some items on her shopping list, so we went to Publix to get some things, and for me, to kill a little time until it got dark outside.

When we came back out, it was indeed dark and the Jupiter, Venus, Moon alignment was clearly visible in the crystal clear sky. But that's not why I was waiting for dark. We got back in the car and started driving the few blocks to Pocohontas park. On the way out of the parking lot, I saw something streak across the top of my windshield. I pulled off the road into the bank parking lot and stopped. I turned off the car, opened the windows and listened. Listening carefully, we could hear a low hooting sound. On a street light pole nearby sat a huge owl! I don't think I've ever seen an owl in the 'wild' before. Very cool, but still not why I was waiting for dark.

On our way again,  Andrew and I called out each Christmas decoration we passed on our side of the car. We stopped at the park and got out. The park has several large, lit decorations, including a tall Christmas tree surrounded by gifts, marching tin soldiers, and two girls throwing snow balls back and forth. Andrew giggled cheerfully as he ran around, inspecting each figure and looking at all the lights. Then we walked a few blocks around town and saw a train with three cars stretched aross a second floor balcony and lots of lights and trees in the local business windows. Eventually we made it back to the park, where we saw an opossum sitting on a branch of a tree.

Just east of our apartment, there's Tara Plantation. It is quite nice, sitting far back from the road with a small lake in the front, surrounded by trees. It has recently been decorated and it quite an eye catcher. We tried to drive in and see it, but there was a private event going on, so we followed the signs to the event parking. When we arrived, we were told that there was a charity event going on and tickets were $50 each! Wow. They also told us that it is normally free, so we'll stop there some other time.

CFI-A Lesson 1

Today was the first of a scheduled 22 lessons for the Certified Flight Instructor - Airplane rating. Earlier this week, I went to accounting and paid for half the lessons. If all goes perfectly, I will fly for 22 hours and have ground briefs for 34 hours. And, with only 22 lessons at 3 a week, that should taked just over 7 weeks. That sounds far too quick to me, especially considering: A) My knowledge and confidence level at the moment (not at all at the instructor level), and B) the holidays coming up soon and my instructor's plans to be out of town. I'm thinking 10 weeks - minimum - is more realistic.

The first lesson is a review of the fundamentals of instruction. This was covered in the first week of ground school, and I even took an FAA exam on this subject. Regardless of all that, this subject, to me at least, is the most theoretical and unlearnable of any aviation subject. Now, if you know anything about this subject, or just learning in general, you'd say, "Well no wonder it is hard to learn, given your bad attitude towards it." That is probably true. But I didn't always have a bad attitude; the material is just hard to correlate in the brain. All I can do is memorize it, but then it doesn't stick and I have to go memorize it all again.

With that said, I went to my first lesson. My instructor grilled me on this stuff for two hours. I found that I have two distinct areas of knowledge. First, I can generally explain a given learning skill or memory concept and even give a decent example of where it would be used in a training environment, if you give my the skill/concept up front. But, if you ask me to list the 6/8/10 different skills/concepts/mechanisms, I draw a blank and spit out one or two. Other than coming up with silly acronyms for these lists, I'm not sure how to memorize them permanently.

I'm planning to make a list of examples for each and letting the examples correlate with the names and maybe that will be the glue that makes this stuff stick in my head. Wish me luck.

I mentioned the schedule of hours earlier. Well, I'm already an hour behind after this lesson because I need to go back to it again and prove that I know all this stuff.