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October 30, 2007 well it finally happened, we were burgled! I went back home Friday to get a piece of paper with some info to do an email, and when I got there the gate was opened. As I walked around the back door was opened and I proceeded in cautiously to find some stuff strone around in the floor in the living room as well as the den. I stuck my head into the den to see my new Dell with a 19 flat screen gone! Poo! I then walked into the bedroom to grab my Glock, if it was still there, it was fortunately, so I armed myself and went looking around the rest of the house to make sure I was alone. After assuring that I was in fact alone, I called the police and waited patiently, not touching anything, for the boys to get there. All in all they got about $12,000 dollars worth of stuff, well that is what it cost new. I am sure they will not get that much for it from any pawn shops. The funny thing was how polite they were in their such for items to take. The house was not in the least bit vandalized, and the drawers that they did go through had all of the items in them disturbed but mostly in place. All of the TV's as well as the satellite stuff, sound equipment, DVD player in the living room was all left alone. We had a harder time cleaning up the finger print power than any mess the thieves caused. It was as if they did not want to cause me any extra grief in the entire experience. I have since secured the back door as well as all the home windows, but alas nothing is full proof, if someone wants in they will get in, You can only attempt to inconvenience them as much as possible, and hope for the best, after all it is only stuff! Some changes will be made in the gun storage methods but I will not go into that here, suffice to say we should be more secure in our future comings and goings around the house. Oh and Happy Halloween!
September 21, 2007 I know, I know, I have been so slack with the page it is pathetic, and it is not that I have been leading a dull life of late, just tardy with the updates. Flying has been slow, I did get up in the air back on the 11th, of August! Evan (Lora's son) and I went over to Herlong to bounce a few touch and goes. On the way back i asked Even if he wanted to fly , and although he was reluctant to do so I told him it would be ok, he could grab his yoke at the same time I had mine. He did and slowly I let go and folded my arms across my chest. after a short time (seconds) he looked over to his amazement that he was flying the plane! We had started a shallow turn to the right so I told him he needed to come back to strait and level flight, he said he couldn't, to which I answered he had to, because he was flying the plane not me! Well I suppose he did not want to remain in orbit around the I-295/I-10 interchange forever so he righted the plane, and was quite pleased with his action. Upon return to the base i dug out one of my AOPA hats (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association). It has a pair of wings on the front, so I gave it to him, proclaiming that he had actually flown the plane, so he was now an official airplane pilot! Something was brought to my attention by one of the members of a football board that I frequent. Tom Batiuk is the comic strip artist that writes a strip called Funky Winkerbean. He started it back in 1972 although it did not become that popular until some time in the 80's. In 1999 he started a story line with one of the main characters, Les and his wife Lisa. In the story Lisa contracts breast cancer, and over the following 6 months or so it touches on both of their lives fighting the cancer. Well, Lisa was in remission until late March of this year when we found out the cancer is back, and it is terminal. The comic does a remarkable job of communicating some of the deep dark thoughts someone might experience living through such an ordeal, well as far as the husbands side, that is all I can attest to, but he has so many of those feelings so down pat, it causes me to believe he cant be to far off with Lisa's point of view. Tom is a cancer survivor too. Here is a link to some site if your local paper does not carry Winkerbean, you can read it here and even get caught up with the whole Lisa story from 1999 if you like.
Lisa's Story Current Funky Winkerbean strip
My intent is not stir up painful feelings here, it is just that so much of what has been printed here has caused me to laugh a bit and cry a bit, and remember Julie. For me, that will never be a bad thing.
August 10, 2007 Just a short post here from work. Lora's kids have been up visiting this week, so things have been busy. We went to see the Suns pull out a last inning win against Mudcats last night, thanks to the rally hats and devout cheering from all of us. We will be heading back this Sunday for some more baseball action, this time we will spectate from the St. Joe's airconditioned box! We are going to try to get in the air tomorrow afternoon, but the weather can shut down these things in a moment this time of year, thunderstorms and what not. One of her kids, Ashley, does web design and is into anime, so I have posted a link to her web page, check it out, she is very talented!
August 1, 2007 Wow another month in the books, were does all the time go. That was rhetorical, no need to answer. With the coming of August comes one of my deepest passions, football! The Jags preseason games will begin Saturday the 11th and I can hardly wait! This years games are a bit bitter sweet as I did not renew my season tickets. These last few years were difficult to attend all the games and it got to be a bit like a chore, more than the pleasure it once was, thus the decision to let the tickets slide. I will see how things look next year, maybe we will jump back into the football fray. Lora has never attended an NFL game so we will test the waters this year and if it is something that we find enjoyable to do together then, we might jump back in. We have been flying together twice now and she seems to enjoy herself. Our first time up, it was a bit bumpy so I think that might have put a damper on things somewhat, although I did two touch and go's at Herlong and the last landing back at NAS was probably my best ever. Mother nature was on my side, as we returned to the base the runways were wet from a shower that had just passed. Rain takes a lot of energy out of the air, and it makes the runway wet and slippery, so when the wheels touch down, they tend not to be snatched up to 50 mph quite so quickly. All of these things combined themselves to give me a very professional "greased in" landing that made for a perfect first flight ending. This last Saturday was fun also. We flew over to Herlong again, but did not hang around long as it started to get crowded with poor pilots as well as humans falling from airplanes(parachutist) so we bugged out to head south. We flew over south of Jax to a neck of the woods that Lora's company is currently developing, a place called Rivertown. We flew around, she took some picky's, then headed over to her work, took some more photos and headed back home. It was a wonderful day to fly and a good time was had by all. I will post some photos she took of our approach back into Jax NAS
July 19, 2007 Well as some of you might have noticed the front page for the home page has taken on a slightly different look. Julies page remains right were it was but the link was moved to the text part and the picky removed. I knew someday things would change and I would have to dial down on the Mike and Julieness of the page, to be honest their are a few reasons for doing it now. First, it is hard to think of and constantly be reminded of myself sans Julie, but the hard truth is we are no longer together and the constant reminder each and every time I brought the page up was a little like salt in a wound, the remnants of what could no longer be. Second, I have been dating now for about the last six months or so. It was at times trying, at other times freaky, and yes sometimes it was even sad. Around the first of May I met a young lady that peeked my interest more than most of the others. We have been dating each other exclusively for the about the last four weeks. Although our involvement together played a part in my altering of the page, it by no means was precipitated by her, in fact she has no idea it has changed and will not until I tell her, or when she reads it for herself. I told her about the page, so that she might know what had occurred these past few years, and she has commented on it from time to time so I can assume she still checks in to see what I have recently written. I hope that the changes will not cause any angst or ill feelings, for that was truly not my intent. Instead it is my wish that all involved will see this as the normal course of events that needed to eventually take place.
July 13,2007 well this is the last installment from my adventures in Asheville. My last neat experience, well lets say best of many, occurred Thursday evening just before sunset. Lisa and I were getting ready to go to a wonderful downtown Indian restaurant, but it was still early, and being on the Lisa plan, I knew I had an hour or so to burn until she would be ready to go so I decided to take a spin up the Blue Ridge Parkway, before the sun went down. The parkway comes in from the north and loops around the bottom of Asheville, so I decided to run up towards Mt Mitchell for about 20 miles then turn around and head back. At parkway speed limits, it should take about 1.5 hours for the round trip, I would be back in 40 minutes. The trip up was not very event filled, I ran about 22 miles up and when the roads started to turn rough I thought this would be a good time to turn back. I went until I came to an overlook, which is just a small parking lot built at a scenic portion of the parkway, to make my turn. As I headed back about a quarter mile down the road from my turn, I noted a dark shadow up ahead crossing the road in front of me. The shape was perplexing to me, it had the lumbering movement of a racoon, well sort of, but it was the size of a great dane, or bigger. I was approaching at about 50 mph and while I did not want to hit this, thing, especially at speed, it was at this moment that I realized what it was, it was a Bear! I rolled off the throttle to give me more maneuvering capabilities if I need them, and it is worth noting here for future reference, the sound that a VFR 996 Honda makes while decelerating fro 50 to 30 mph is, evidently of great interest to some species of black bears, cause this one stopped in the left lane to take a look see at what was growling at him from down the road a bit! Well this was my cue to add copious amounts of Shell 93 octane, along with enough air into the 48mm Honda carbs to accomplish two things. First to propel me out of harms way as quickly as possible, and second I thought I might suck all of the available oxygen from the area immediately surrounding me and the bike and thus cause a brief moment of simi consciousness for my would be ursa major nemesis! It must have worked, as I am here now recounting the story to all of you here.
July 2-6, 2007 Happy BirfDAY Karen (Brads Karen) she is twenthuurmmuuthhing, well that is what she said. Ok on to the ride. One of my primary reasons for making the trip north was to get in some much anticipated mountain road motorcycle riding time. One would think having having ridden motorcycles from childhood that somewhere along the way I would have made the trek 500 miles north to enjoy, but alas the hills of north Georgia at Road Atlanta were the closest to a "mountain road " that I had ever ridden, so with some trepidation, awoke early Wednesday morning and made my way north of Asheville, to a friend of Lisa and mine who likes to ride bikes every now and again when he gets the chance. Jamie lives a little south of the town of Marshall NC. The entire downstairs or ground floor of the home is garage, and I don't mean like yours or mine, you can build full blown stock cars in the puppy. As I roll up Doug, Jamie's friend and mechanic, is out puttering getting the equipment ready for the day of tarmac terrorizing that is fast approaching. Now some of you might not be aware of who Jamie is. Jamie James is a past AMA super bike road racing champion. In the immortal words of Meat Loaf, "The feeling came up on me like a tidal wave", I am about to go have one of the best times of my riding life or I am about to have one of the worst, you know one of those moment of truth kinda moments when it all gets very real very fast. Well with out further adieu we checked the scoots, dawned our riding gear and we were in the wind before 10 am. Oh one other small note here. Jamie runs a company that takes R1 Yamaha's and turns them into fire breathing, AWSOME, ultra trick, street sleepers. No expense is spared, if you can think of it and it makes an R1 fast, trick, and streetable, it is on a JJP Scoot. These bikes run in the $38,000 bracket. Well two weeks before I got there one of the JJP's got dropped, so Jamie was down to one. Doug took the other good one with a friend Heather in tow, and Jamie borrowed an old yamaha he used to own but had sold it to a nearby neighbor. It was a Yamaha Venture Royal(Yamaha's bad ass answer to the Honda Gold Wing)! Now at first I was feeling sort of bad for Jamie, I mean here we all are on some pretty nice sport bikes, Doug on the black JJP, me on my Honda VTR 996, and Gene on a VFR 1000, If memory serves me correctly, all pretty nice sport type scoots. I am thinking poor Jamie will be comfortable, but I mean really how fast can you go on a Venture Royal? Well if you are Jamie James, pretty damn fast!
We took of with Doug taking the lead, Jamie following him, me behind Jamie, and Gene bringing up the rear. The first few miles were not to bad, the pace while not torrid, was quick. It was some time during this first hour of riding that I was to hit the mustard for the first time. I was in close pursuit of Jamie when this rather long sweeping downhill right hander caught me off guard. I was in it about 5 mph over my head when some rocks came into view, in my line. That was it, I baled out into the oncoming traffic side of the road, a definite no no. Now Jamie has been instructing up and coming road racers for some time now , so it is second nature for him to ride "in the mirrors" just about as much as he does up in front of him. I was to get away with nothing with out the master noticing. At our next stop Jamie was sure to admonish me on my faux paux and remind me three very important things, not just for today's riding, but for motorcycle riding period. (1.) Look were you want the motorcycle to go! It will go where you point it and we tend to point things in the general direction in which we look. (2.) Lean the bike over! You can not imagine how far today's bikes will lean over, it is a lot, and that is very necessary in turning while at speed, so just lean it right on over, it'll go, just push the bar right down into the direction of the turn and hang on, cause its gonna go! (3.) Don't give up on the scoot! There is nothing good waiting for motorcycle or rider anywhere off the asphalt, nor are there many pleasantries waiting for us on the oncoming lanes of traffic for that matter. With these pearls of wisdom we were back at it, carving up turn after turn, but something still was not clicking like it should. I guess my trepidation was showing in my riding, as Jamie offered up some further advise at our next gas stop. He asked if I was "loading" the pegs in the turns. Now I have been riding for some time and I wondered how I had got along this long without knowing this. Loading the pegs refers to stepping on the peg or shifting some weight over to the peg in the direction of the turn, this action helps to turn the scoot, sort of a mild form of power steering help for motorcycles.
So we blast off again, and I am pressing on the pegs in the direction of the turns and noticing the difference, but still wondering how in the hell did I make it all those years road racing with out the knowledge of this. The truth of the matter is I had been doing it all along I just did not realize I was. I was also having problems with my hands falling to sleep because of the death grip I had on the bars while riding. Yes I was instructed to lighten up, loosen up, but seeing as how I could not hold on any tighter with my ass cheeks, I deemed it necessary to hold on that tight for the time being. After about three hours of riding we came to a section that I was sworn to secrecy not to divulge the location of, what Doug and Jamie call the "Secret Dragon" . For those not familiar with the Tail of the Dragon over in far west NC/Tennessee, I have put up a link for you to go acquaint yourself with it's lore. The reasoning was very clear once we arrived. The roads were smooth wide uncluttered with traffic of all sorts, and thus was a great place for the bikes to "stretch their legs" as it were.
Now the whole time I have been riding both at home and while here in the mountains, I have been riding up on top of the scoot. I know that sounds funny but there is a difference between just sitting on a bike and making it go where you want and wearing a scoot. When you "wear the scoot" it sort of becomes an extension of your body. When this happens, the motorcycle will react to your inputs almost effortlessly. This Ying and Yang like merging of man and machine doesn't happen every time we ride, but when it does, for the lucky few, it can be a nirvana like experience. I truly believe few motorcyclist ever achieve this. I was wondering as we hit our dragon, how I could have gone so many years and not known some of these finer points of riding. As I was thinking this, the bike was very sluggish to my inputs. My timing was halting, I was on and off of the throttle, either a few seconds too late, or more often than not, too early. Just as the cacophony of thoughts were reaching a deafening crescendo in my mind, I suddenly slid one ass cheek off the seat as I prepared to enter the next turn. With this I lowered my torso over the tank and with out thinking, I lightened my death grip on the bars. As if by magic I noticed my attention moved about 30 feet up the road, my head turning in toward the place in the road where I was to be a few seconds from now. Here is where it gets hard to explain. I was no longer "on" the bike, I was "in" the bike. It had became an extension of my body. Every bounce, every slip, was countered or ignored, almost before it happened. Turning became effortless, a glance of where I wanted to go, and we were there. The coolest part during all of this: the faster I went, the more my surroundings seemed to be passing in slow motion! It was experiencing an awaking. I was tapping into a part of my conscience that had, until this very moment, laid dormant for some 30 odd years. As I realized what I was doing, a huge smile crept in to my helmet. After what seemed like three or four miles (but it could have been more) I ran up rather quickly on Jamie as he slowed in front of me. I wondered what the problem was, and as we drove on slowly I learned we had run off and left Gene behind. We preceded on waiting, watching our mirrors,and soon he emerged behind us, safe and sound. We all made our way to the next town ( I can't tell ya where) and found a place to grab some lunch. When I pulled my helmet off, the huge shit eat'n grin was still firmly in place, and I noticed as Jamie looked over my way, oddly enough, he was wearing one too! We shook hands and exchanged some words that honestly escape me now, but that look was there. It was the look that said what no words could ever communicate,
"That right there fellows, is why we ride!"
June 14, 2007 The gardens at The Biltmore Estate are located about 200 yards to the south of the main house, they are built on multiple levels with a wall encircling them on three sides and the forth is bordered by a very large multi roomed brick and glass green house. The tulips were gone from the main planting gardens situated in the middle of the common area, and flowers of a sort that are better able to grow during the hot hazy days of summer, had taken their place. Roses took up a large portion of the remaining area. They were so fragrant in many areas of the garden that their aroma at times were almost overwhelming. We were visiting during the latter part of the afternoon, when the shadows had grown long and a cool breeze could waft over you at any time, delivering a scent form any one of the four corners. We made our way around the gardens resting at the different moments of sight, of smell, or the touch of a pleasing wind that would cause us to stand still and just, enjoy our situation.
I feel like I need to make the whole Asheville eating experience sort of its own post. I think I will just summarize some of the high points here and move on. First of all, it is fantastic! We ate one fat (Freudian slip) fast food joint the entire trip and that was a Bojangles restaurant. I had a chicken bobiscuit Sunday morning when we left, and it was damn good too! Our culinary festivity's ran the gamut from Mexican/Caribbean (no, that is not a typo), Indian, good old fashion deep south cookin from Tupelo Honeys, (the former an establishment that defies classification), Greek Italian, Vegetarian fair, and last but not least, good ole North Carolina Barbeque. I think our favorite, no, I know our favorite was Salsas. The taste sensations are beyond description of the printed word. Each fork placement around your plate, brought with it an element of anticipation and pleasant surprise. Right when you knew you were going to come away with a common, meaty,or cheesy taste, BAM! Was that pineapple? Next bite, ok how about a dab of this, hang on, was that spicy barbeque shredded pork with at kiwi glaze! Oh my suffering word! We could have eaten there each and every night, in fact one evening meal at home was nothing but the take outs from previous visits, and it was superb! And don't even get me started on the margaritas or the mojitas, they were muy nummy also! It was almost as if each meal we ate was an adventure, an adventure that would rival any attraction central Florida could have to offer. Had it not been for all the hiking, biking, motorcycling, it would have been very easy to strap on ten pounds during our stay. Had it not been for the fact that just about everything we consumed was good for us, we probably would have!
June 11, 2007 Ok so we visit the Biltmore house Monday and what can one say about the largest private dwelling in the US, other than it would suck to have to dust the place! No it was really exciting, I think so often we can look at modern day buildings, and with all of our technology, not marvel at their construction. I needed to keep reminding myself that during the construction of this house, the airplane had not been invented yet! That in and of it self would make one marvel at its construction, but it is truly a palace! We toured it from stem to stern and them took our leave to the winery (with a brief stop by the equestrian center). The Biltmore winery is actually an old converted milk dairy. It was converted in 1972 and it was amusing to me to think that George Vanderbilt wanted his home his estate to be a working estate like many of the ones in europe, so during the early 20th century what could you raise and grow right in the middle of the bible belt (the buckle of the bible belt as it were)Milk! Well it looks like that was not the money maker that good ole alcohol could be so what do they convert it over to, wine. In a part of the country that some churches still believe Jesus was drinkin grape juice not wine, they open a winery. YOU gotta love the chutzpah! It was a fun tour, very informative and the wine tasting at the end was first rate. Next stop the gardens....
June 8, 2007 I know, with updates this often I will be lucky if my mom stops by to read them. I will attempt to post with a more consistent regularity in the future. Asheville was the bomb ziggity! Lisa arrived Saturday morning about a half hour after Matt and I finished our plane ride. It had been almost a month since I last flew and that is not good especially for a new pilot, we tend to get rusty quick and thus possibly dangerous. The last landing back at NAS was probably one of the slickest one to date. I am just glad someone was in the right seat to see it, making great landings alone is like pissing on yourself in dark blue corduroy pants, you get a warm feeling but nobody notices! The trip to Asheville went off with out a hitch, which now that I remember, it almost actually did, we moved Lisa's trailer over to my truck after unloading her R1, then we were to load both her and my bikes. Well I moved the trailer over to my ball and sat it down but forgot to pull the hasp down, when we went to load the first scoot, you guessed it , the trailer rose up and almost did nasty unthinkable things to the back of the truck. But alas it did not and we fastened it back securely this time and preceded with the loading. Like I said the trip was uneventful and we arrived in Asheville about 8ish, early enough to unload with the last little bit of twilight before evening fell. We spent Sunday bouncing around downtown Asheville, exploring the many small shops that abound there. I went to Church Sunday morning at the St Lawrence Basilica. It is a wonderful building. The architect was the same man that built the Biltmore estate. The entire building was built with small red bricks, which in and of it self is not extraordinary, but here is the neat part, the outside of the building has all square components it has strait walls built with strait flat bricks, ok no big deal right, but when you step inside the walls are all curved. The go strait up but the room is oval shaped from front to back and the ceiling is a giant (and I do mean giant) brick dome, with no beams anywhere inside for support! I can remember while I was sitting there during the mass feeling as if I were outdoors, it was so roomy and warmly lit. The Church I attend in Jax is bigger, it seats more people, is taller and wider, and yet I felt a warmer less enclosed feeling here than I ever had back home. If a building could wrap its arms around you as you sat in her lap and leaned up next to her bosom, this one did, and it was a truly memorable experience for me. Monday we dove into the Biltmore Estate, to go explore the big house and all its grandure....more to come (It's gonna be like a cliffhanger all week with the updates this week, it will be fun, trust me)
May 5, 2007 Happy Cinco de Mayo, which many of you might not know is the holiday were we celebrate the american mexican restaurant, and the dollar margarita. I, on the other hand, prefer to celebrate quatro de mayo, which was the 46 anniversary of my mother screaming at my father, "You did this to me, so fix it! Get this out of my body, NOW!!!" Yes, I have completed 45 Sol revolutions on this big blue marble. I got the scoot back last week from my friend Jamie down in Daytona, Brad and I rode down in my truck to pick it up. I rode the bike back home while Brad followed behind just in case something else mechanical decided to let go, but alas it ran great, and is still running fine. I have been trying to ride it to work when it is practical to do so as well as around town at night, to build back the muscles/calluses on the proper places for bike riding, as well as my riding skills. I have gotten rusty of late but they are returning. I have not been doing as much flying lately, the club has some new students coming up and they are in the cross country phase of their training so, the planes have not been available on the weekends. The week day afternoons are open but the smoky conditions around here have made for IFR conditions with completely clear cloudless sky's above. It will be OK, I scheduled a plane for Sunday afternoon, and now the weather reports are calling for a 50% chance of rain Sunday afternoon! It is like a rain dance for me to put pencil to paper at the club house, but hey, we need the rain so in the grand scheme of things, it's all good! I will be heading back to the hills of North Cacalaky, Asheville the last week of May. Lisa and I will drag the scoots and our mountain bikes with us, that we might make a full two wheeled assault upon said hills. We are going to take in the Biltmore Estate for a few days, attempt to straiten as many asphalt mountain roads as possible, and I understand that I am to imbibe in the full blown Granola revelry, that makes Asheville so quaint. It's ok, I will pack a few Kielbasa's just in case!
April 27, 2007 Well I am about a pint low right now, no I don't need another beer thank you very much, pint of blood. It has been so long since my last donation, I almost forgot how. No the truth is they have been calling me almost every week, I was afraid the secretary was going to come looking for me if I did go in on my own! I was surprised to find out I am a precious pint donor, seems they need people with O-negitive with what ever particular lack of antibodies that my blood happend to not have, so that when little baby's need blood, they get mine! I was used as a sort of show and tell for some of the other phlebotomists, because of the unique bag they use for me to bleed into. I feel so special. I went to donate yesterday but could not donate because my blood pressure was 130/100. The decision to go was kind of spur of the moment, and I really had not been drinking water all day like I should, in fact I was drinking Diet Cokes and that is worst because of all the caffeine. The guard rail of coke I did just before I left work probably didn't help matters either, just kiddin, see who is paying attention out there. It was much better today 123/90 still a little high but I have started running again and will knock of the cokes, so it should get better. I have my flight physical scheduled for May the 9th so I will be on my best behavior until then. I started up on the low carb thing again and as of today I am down 12 lbs. Now if I can just get the jar of Jiff peanut butter to stop nudging me awake at two in the morning I'll be fine. I locked the cabinet door but the friggen Strawberry Jam keeps finding the keys and lettin it out! But alas, my will has been strong and neither have had their way with me in the wee hours. The flying has been going good. I got in 9 touch and go's at Herlong last Sunday, the traffic was a bit hectic over there, but that is a part of flying too, so I guess it is to expected every now and then. I need to start doing some cross country flights, the up and down stuff here are around Jax is getting old and I feel like I am loosing touch with some of my navigation skills. I need about 20 more hours before I can qualify for a plane the club owns that is a lot more conducive for cross country flights, I hope to be in the 62217 before July.
April 13-14 2007 It is late Saturday evening and I just wanted to quickly post some of my bleary eyed perceptions from the last 48 hours. Our Walk for Life Relay was yesterday / today. The event started at approximately 7:30ish Friday evening, it was unusual in that the walk did not start with the fanfare or punctuality that I thought it might. They did have a pace car of a sort for the opening lap where all the purple shirt ed Cancer Survivors completed a circuit first, then an opening lap by some teen supporters of the event, then, with no further announcement, folks just started to walk, no starting gun, no blaring horns just the growing procession of people circumnavigating the course. Coming from my racing background, I was expecting some sort of a staging of the teams, possibly a Le mans type start were the first "drivers" in the relay might run across the track put on their sneakers and off we go. But alas, with little to no fanfare, we were "off " with our great adventure at approximately 8:00 PM Friday night. It was really 7:50 when Brad and I agreed "Well lets go!" The event was a relay were by each team entered would keep a participant walking for their team for the duration of the event. We finished up this morning at 8:30 and I am very proud to say we tied with another team (that was set up right beside us, Team Hoops), for best Team Spirit! I will give my thoughts and reflections later on in the week when my noggin is not quite so squishy, and when my feet don't hurt as much. I will close for now with this, of all the acknowledgements or accolades we could have come away with while participating in this event, Team Julie being recognized for having the most Team Spirit was the best reward of all. Hope we made you proud Baby!
March 28, 2007 I had a very event filled weekend this last week. It all started last Thursday with a banzai run down to Orlando to help a long time friend of mine, Lisa, move some furniture to Asheville, North Cacalacky. She also asked if I could drag her Yamaha R1 up so that she, or we, might get in some seat time while up there. I blasted off after work Thursday for Orlando, loaded up said scoot and furniture, paused for some of the best italian chow in Florida. A small side bar here, if any of you are ever in the north Orlando area, do yourself a huge favor and stop in to Positanio's. The food is made fresh and it is fantastic! Anyway, I bolt back to Jax that night to get so rest for my half day at work Friday. I get out of work at about noon, load up some more goodies at the house, and by 1:30 I am haze gray and underway. The trip up is not that bad, I always try to swing by the library a few days before to snag some books on CD, so it goes by pretty fast. I arrived at about 8:30, to the warm greetings of Lisa, along with her next door neighbors, Chris and Susan. They were all sitting out on the front porch enjoying the cool evening air, whilst imbibing in some cold brews. Well, not having gave up beer for lent this year (like I did last year), I was all ready join them after 7 hours of windshield time. The house is a lovely little duplex, snuggled into the mountains just east of downtown Asheville. Lisa plans to live part time in Orlando and some of the year here, although most of the time she will lease Rocking Porch out to individuals as a vacation rental getaway by the week or month if they so please. Another side bar here, folks up here love to name their house like "Tara" in Gone with the Wind. Well this house is located on a street called Rocking Porch Lane, so the house is referred to as Rocking Porch as opposed to the Asheville house or something else like that. Anyway, I was there to help transport some goodies and to help with the unloading of stuff. She also wanted to do some tile work in the bathrooms. Now those of you that know me know that tile work, for me, takes a great deal of planning and execution time, as I have been remodeling a bedroom bath/shower for the past 15 years now! We were contemplating doing three rooms in one day, silly us! I told her that I thought it might be possible to knock out all three in one day. I would make the final decision after I arrived and could scope out the rooms in person. (better!) Alas, it was not to be. The upstairs bathroom required some interesting cuts and layout design that ate up most of the day, besides the law of three's came into play. You know the law that states any home project will require at least three trips to Home Depot (or Lowe's in this case) before the project can be completed. The long and short of it is that I did get the upstairs floor done , and would have had the tile grouted in, but someone (who will remain nameless) bought mortar instead of grout. With that task done it was time to get on with some olympic caliber front porch rockin! The midnight hour was fast approaching when the next door neighbors and some of their dinner friends returned home, and then the beer and stories started to fly. Now I consider myself to be a card carrying, John Birch Society, conservative, and here I was, carousing with two Jr. high school teachers in the middle of what could easily be considered San Francisco East, I mean this place is absolutely filthy with granola eating, tree huggin, bed wetting liberals. But I was on a mini vacation of a sort, so I just sat and listened, and the conversation was for the most part harmless until I heard the line that two women or two men could raise a child as well as a man and a woman. It was on! Save it to say, things got loud. Unfortunately I had a few to many Vodka cranberries in me to offer up a compelling argument. Between my alcohol induced fuzzy logic, and their, well, liberal induced logic, I could not convince them to come over from the dark side. In the end we agreed to disagree, and still parted the best of friends (I hope). It was four A.M. and I was scheduled to leave by about nine the next morning, and seeing as how the woodpeckers local would be up and at it in about three and a half hours, it was time to hit the hay. Sure enough as soon as the sun hit the horizon, birds from three neighboring states converged to the trees just outside of my bedroom window, and proceeded to proclaim how the branch that they were sitting on was their's and the rest of the aviary world could just piss off! The cacophony of whistling/pecking, and god knows what ever else they were doing is bad enough on a normal morning awakening but toss in three hours sleep, beer and the vodka, well it was not the Mary Poppins tweeting that a non-hungover individual might have enjoyed. Suffice it to say that I was unarmed, well I did not a have a shot gun, and that also would have been way too loud ! I am eager to visit again when time and an empty weekend will allow me back this way. I think I would like to fly up, the local airport is about 15 miles away and in the clubs Piper Arrow, it would only be about 2.5 hour flight instead of an eight hour highway trip.
(Sung to the tune Rocky Top) Rocking Porch, you'll always be, a home away from home for me, Good old Rockin Porch,
Rockin Porch Cacalaky, Rockin Porch Cacalaky!
March 14, 2007 Daytona Bike week is over and just in the nick of time. This was my 36th Daytona, I think my first one was back in 1971. I would go down with my father and his brother (my uncle Bob). They were a little more, how should I say, enthused with party atmosphere than the racing. They would attend the short track races, when they could, (they used to sell out every year). We would usually go stay the weekend, back when you could rent a motel for just two nights. Now days, they have three to five day minimums for most motels in Daytona during all the different speed weeks. Each year I lament how crowded it is, which is usually not a problem for me. It is only a pain when you try to go from one venue to another to watch an event and that is when it frosts my ass to have to deal with all the Harley Heathens! I hate to wax poignant about the good old days, but the fraternity of motorcyclist just is not what it used to be. Oh well the racing was good and that is all I cared to see anyway. We were treated to a culinary delight, 1989 U.S. Superbike champion Jamie James the "Ragin Cajun" made his world famous jambalaya for us as we waited for the 200 to start. Jamie is from Louisiana and can cook almost as well as he rides a motorcycle, and I had four servings!
I also got to take Steve up flying twice while he was here. Thursday we spent almost two hours boring holes in the sky. Steve got about 20 minutes of "stick time" while we were up. Giving the controls over to the right seat passenger is a little like handing out free drugs at the local high school, one hit on the Airplane Hookah, and it is all over! I don't know if it actually hit him as hard as it hit me back when I was 6 years old, but if I get a call from him asking me to send up my old Jepperson Ground School training books, I will have my answer. Well not a lot else going on right now. I am going to start instructing myself on instrument flight via my Microsoft flight Simulator. This is a cheep alternative to spending 400 bucks on instrument ground school and the 110 hour minimum flight time in IMC or simulated IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions) that is required to gain a instrument rating. I will still have to eventually spend the time and money , but I should be a lot better prepared when that time comes. I did get some interesting news about the CAP, I only need 150 hours of flight time before I can do observation flights for the cadets. The CAP has two sailplanes at Herlong and that is what they prefer to do the O-Flights in, so looks like after I get my hi horsepower rating in 62217 (in order to do more X-country flights), I will spend a few weekends getting my sailplane rating too. Sailplanes require 3 hours of dual time and 10 hours of solo time before you test for the rating. These are the required hours if you already have a private pilot certificate. Oh well not much flying will be going on this week end, we are having a safety stand down this weekend, so I get to spend Saturday from 0800 to 1600 listening to airplane safety lectures and testing. It's all good though, anything that can help to hone my flying skills, whether in the air or on the ground, is a good expenditure of my time.
March 5, 2007 Well Daytona Bike week is upon us once again and I am ready for it in spades! Steve a buddy from Cleveland (which is the indian word for "Land of Burning Rivers" or is it the yiddish word for "Well at least we don't smell as bad as Pittsburgh!" ) is arriving today, but I digress. I will be in a motorcycle oil, high octane induced, testosterone laced coma for the next few days so the post, if any, might be some what hard to read. Unless you are a member of that peculiar genus species, asphalti rapidicus curvebendus or flattrackum turnlefti steerrightia, the language and syntax might not be intelligible to you.
The point of this post is that I would like to tell everyone about an event that is fast approaching. It is called Relay For Life. It is a walking marathon of a sort that is held to benefit the American Cancer Society. This event will be held in Ocala on the 13-14 of April. It is an event in which various teams will place different persons from their team out to walk around a track continuously for 18 hours. We have entered in the event as Team Julie, and in doing so have pledged to place at least one person in continuous motion for the duration of the event. For those that are on the team to walk a sincere and heartfelt thanks. Not a day goes by for me that I do not feel Julies presence with me, it is usually most felt if I am picking my nose in the truck. To honor Julie I have decided, that in much the same way I feel Julie walk with me each and every day, that I too will walk with each and every team member, for the entire duration of the event. Now as most benefits are about charity contributions now comes the hard part. We as the team participants will pony up the money to sponsor ourselves, but the event is about raising money for the American Cancer Society. When Julie was diagnosed with cancer we were floored. The scary part of the diagnoses was the lack of knowledge about what we were about to face. The ACS was there for us from day one. They were there to help us with literature about the disease, as well information on support groups, and other helpful knowledge. They helped us get into gear so we could hit the ground running to help us make tough decisions about which direction we needed to go to treat the cancer. They are also a predominate funding force in the search for cures from this horrible disease. It is our ultimate hope that someday we might be able to look back and think of the time when we used to be afraid of cancer like we were of polio, and on that day we can all hold our heads up high and say "I am glad I helped end cancer"
For those that would like to contribute, shoot me an email and I will send you instructions on how you can help us
Walk for Team Julie!
March 4, 2007 Bi-monthly post seem to have work their way to the norm. I feel I have been remiss in my duties, to inform enlighten and most importantly, to entertain. I shall endeavor to tighten it up a notch in the future. I was airborne once again today, well to be more correct we were airborne today. I took a long time friend, Matt White up, and a good time was had by all. We flew up to Herlong and were going to try to bounce a few touch and goes but there were parachutist in the air. After waiting a few minutes for them to clear the air space, I decided it might be better to proceed on with our flight. I had a feeling the sky's over Herlong would be silk lined most of the day. We proceeded down to Matt's house, where Sandy (Matt's wife) was waiting out front to get her picture taken from 1500 feet in the air. We spent about 1.5 hours sightseeing from the beaches to downtown Jax, then came back to NAS. The winds were a bit gusty, and I once again ran out of airspeed about a half second before I ran out of altitude during the landing, a problem that has me a bit concerned. I feel the next few hours of flight time I need to concentrate on my landing skills, they seem to have gotten rusty of late, well at least my landing with winds skills have. I have read in some publications that some pilots just will not fly in adverse winds, they feel uncomfortable with the increased pressure high winds place on their piloting skills, as well as the heightened danger, and thus some just avoid them all together. Anyone reading this knows where I will be the next windy day if given the opportunity to go bounce a few.
I got my self fingerprinted for the CAP and will be turning in my paperwork tomorrow (Monday). The work that has to be done with the Cadets requires an FBI background check,and therefore the need to be fingerprinted. I imagine it also has to do with the fact that in the future, they might allow me to fly missions for them, and handing over a quarter million dollar airplane might also necessitate them wanting to know as much as possible about me beforehand! Something I was not aware of is that when I start to fly for the Civil Air Patrol, I will have to maintain certain personal grooming standards, mainly short hair off the ears, off the collar, no more mutton chop side burns, and no beards. There goes my moonlighting as an Abraham Lincoln look alike Elvis impersonator gig! The hair was not the tough part, the having to take a bath more than twice a month is what really cause me to take pause!
Oh well it will be good to more use out of the old rain locker, just kidden (insert Eddie Izzard head shake here)
February 19,2007 Well I did not get to fly this weekend and you know what that means(in my best John Wayne voice) "A day without Avgas is like a day without Sunshine!" The ceiling was a little low Sunday morning, 3000 feet, That is high enough fly I am legal at 1500 feet but I prefer at least 2000. I was scheduled to go at 10:00 with a friend, but I noticed on the way home from Church a smattering of very fine rain on the windshield. Now you would never imagine having to worry about icing in North Florida but it was 44 degrees at the surface and that works out to about 38 degrees at 3000 feet not freezing but very close. I decided to check the icing probability's on the aviation weather web page and it was greater than 50% chance at 1000 feet! I hated to do it but was time to call this flight off. My instructor said all during my flight training, that one of the hardiest things for him to teach is good judgment. The flight probably would have went off just fine, but you know, I'll take the disappointment and wait for zero chance of icing, over endangering myself and a good friend.
I hopped over to Cecil Field tonight to see about joining the Civil Air Patrol, which is the Air Force Auxiliary. The CAP fly's drug surveillance missions, as well as land and sea SAR (Search and Rescue) missions. They also promote flying and military service to youngsters through their CAP cadet program. There are two squadrons here in Jacksonville, one about 20 miles from the house that is what is known as a composite squadron, meaning they have cadets and seniors, and the squadron over at Cecil which is only 7 miles from my house, but it is, for the time being, just a cadet squadron. I think I am going to join the Cecil Squadron and see if we can't build it up to a full composite status. If not I can always switch to the Craig squadron if things don't work out over here. I am not absolutely sure as to what my job function would be with the cadets, but as I understand it, they need seniors to teach them leadership skills, moral values, and the occasional class involving the aeronautical sciences. I guess I could teach two out of the three. This evening when I arrived, I noticed three V-22 Ospreys sitting on the ramp. I have known about the existence of this aircraft since its first test flights some 20 odd years ago, but I have never seen one until about three weeks a go, when I saw it flying on the other side of town near Mayport. When the instructors came in to greet the class, we were all informed that the a Marine crew had stayed behind and agreed to show us one up close. I could not contain myself, a very audible "OH COOL!" was heard form the back of the class room where I just happened to be standing. We went to the ramp and were given the 25 cent tour, inside and out, then, just we were about to leave, I noticed a forth bird on the horizon, entering the pattern and setting up for a landing right in front of us! For those of you not familiar with the Osprey, it is what is know as a tilt rotor, aircraft. It takes off like a helo, then when airborne, it tilts the engines and rotors, one on the end of each wing, until the rotors are vertical to the horizon, then it flies through the air like an airplane. I was happier than a pig dipped in poo at just getting next to one, now I was about to stand and watch as one transitioned from straight flight to vertical flight and land right in front of me! I don't think these kids had any idea just how far over the cool needle was reading right about now, mine was bending the needle around the needle stop! I think I will dig up some info on the Osprey and maybe do a presentation to the cadets, to let them in on just how extraordinary the aircraft they witnessed tonight, really is. Here is a link for those of you that might be interested in what one looks like.
February 13, 2007 Has it been two weeks already! I am gonna have to start selling drugs to pay for this nasty flying habit I picked up. Can you believe they actually pay folks to do this, if the people signing the checks knew the pilots they were paying would actually pay them to let them fly, well, it would all be over 'cept for the crying! Oh well I won't tell. I have been up about 4 times with my new certificate (it is actually called a Certification not a License). The flights were all just your average up over to Herlong, bounce a touch and go then around in the air for a little while and back to the base to let someone else have the plane to further their instruction flying time. It has been really neat to take friends and family to the club to let them see where I have been spending all these months, actually years, and to show them what I have been learning. I don't think I have scared anyone yet, everyone that has been up with me has been very confident in my flying ability's, although as Brad says, as far as the FAA is concerned, I am at least, a minimally qualified, FAA certified pilot, that is to say every one I went up with, I think, was more assured of their safety flying with me than I was! I think it is the pilot mind set of constantly looking for an emergency landing area, listening for the slightest hiccup in the motor, and keeping my attention split between looking for other traffic, all the while watching the instruments to assure everything is A-OK with the flight. Becoming a pilot has ruined me for sitting back and enjoying flitting around in the air! Just kidding (Eddie Izzard Head shake). The last flight was with Celeste and we had a bit of excitement while we were up. We had just left Herlong and were headed to Dr. Inlet to scope out an eatery that we sometimes visit by boat with Brad and family, when a call came over the radio from the base. They asked me if I could talk to base ops for a minute, which I told them, sure, then wondered what in the hell I had screwed up bad enough that ops wanted to hammer on me about over the radio! They said they had a report of a plane down close to where we were, and could I fly over to take a look see and report back to them.. I was on it like Donkey Kong! The location was in Cecil's airspace so I switched over to Cecil tower to get cleared into their class delta airspace then, I explained to the Cecil tower what we were up to. They acknowledged our SAR mission, and we were off to find the downed plane! When we arrived on station, we orbited the area looking for any signs of a downed aircraft, but after about three or four minutes they called us up to tell us it was a false alarm, so we could continue on with our flight. We flew on over to Brads house to do some tight turns and wave at he and Kendall standing out in the road in front of their house, and then back home to NAS Jax to end our flight. Celeste and I both were over the moon with the excitement of a sudden recruitment into the Civil Air Patrol for our impromptu Search and Rescue mission. The thing I was most please with as I think back on it, was how quick I was able to do what needed to be done with the radios, the plane, the searching, and it was all so very natural. I did not go up with that in my noggin as part of my flight plan, but with relative ease I was able to accommodate them, and possibly help a fellow aviator. I guess maybe, just maybe, I am a slight a bit more than just minimally qualified after all!
Well it's official
I am an FAA Licensed Private Pilot!
and I would have bet 1000 dollars when I arrived back at NAS Jax that I was not going to get it! I busted so many times (or so I thought) that I was sure I had screwed the pooch. I guess the long and short of it was that I am not as bad as I thought. He did mention that I was the calmest person he had ever given the oral exam to, and I admit I aced that, I had answers to ever one of his questions, It was like talking shop amongst friends, we were off on aeronautical banter that bordered on the aerodynamic theory at times, it was a cake walk, then the flying part came in and I had my brilliant moments there too but there were times that the poo just rose to the top and.... well, it was not pretty. But alas, he must have noticed some brilliance in there amongst all the chaff, and after all who am I to argue with an agent of the federal government!
A year and a month after Julie got her wings, I finally got mine too!
January 26, 2007 Where the heck did January go! I have been flying and studying and my noggin is truly turning to mush. I am taking my Flight test Monday the 29th! I will meet with the FAA Inspector at 0930 in front of the base and take him in to the flying club. I will spend approximately 3 hours doing an oral exam, then if I pass that I will go up and do about a 1.5 to 2 hour flight exam. If all goes well, Monday evening I could hold a private pilots certificate! Either way I will post the results here for all to see. Wish me luck!
January 9, 2007 Whoohoo! Orange and Blue lets, Go Gators!! Wow, what a game, the Gators worked 'em silly! The Gators came into the BCS Championship game as 7.5 point underdogs, they fought their way up all year past mid year Auburn loss to win the national title against the number one ranked Ohio State Buckeyes! The Buckeyes were never really in the game as Florida held them to 82 total yards of offense. Ohio Quarterback (Heisman Trophy winner)Troy Smith passed for 35 yards and two turnovers. Not to sound pithy but the 41-14 score should have been 41-7 as the opening kick off was run back for a touchdown only because of a key hold that was not called on Ohio State. The one bright spot in Ohio's game was the touchdown run by Antonio Pittman, but alas it was way to little and even though it was only in the second quarter, it was a bit too late. The Gators defense kept the Ohio on their heels and off the field allowing only 6 first downs the entire game! Chris Leek, the oft maligned Florida Quarterback was a master of the Florida Offence, passing at will, with surgical precision. He spread the ball around for more that 213 passing yards, but perhaps more importantly, no turnovers!
January 6, 2007 Just got back from flying, the weather was awesome, bright blue clear skies, 4 knots of wind and it was right down the pipe(blowing the same direction as the runway). I took off from NAS and headed over to Herlong to get in some touch and goes. My first landing in a was lined up perfect coming in with the proper speed every thing was looking great. There was a plane at the hold short line waiting for me to land so I had an audience for this landing. I brought it down right past the numbers and set it down so soft, it felt like I was rolling the plane down off a set of car ramps, just as I was cleaning up the flaps and was about to advance the throttle to take back to the air, a voice came over the radio. It was the plane at the hold short line. Just before he announced that he was taking runway 25 to depart he comes on and says "Nice landing eight zero Romeo!" I just about pissed on my self! I wanted to turn and look back, shove my fist in the air in a triumphant "Yes!" or just do something to acknowledge the other pilots recognition of my slicked in reunion with terra firma, but alas I was still flying a plane and had to keep a cool head and proceed on as if I did that all the time. You know one of those smirks came over my face like "ain 't no thang" but inside, I was doing the Snoopy Dance, feet all a flutter nose up in the air. I stuck around for a few more landings but after sharing the airspace with two gliders, their tow plane, another plane doing laps at 1500 feet taking pictures of the field, and last but not least, parachutists, well, I felt I was running a little short on eyes in the cockpit. Every one was doing things by the book, but Herlong is an uncontrolled airfield and all it would take is one bonehead to enter into the mix that was not following the flow of what everyone else was doing. I decided it was time to head back to the confines of my own little safe class delta air space, with all the P-3's, S-3's, F-18's E-2 Hawkeye's and even an A-6 Intruder that was flitting around today, boy they are loud. When I got back I had a P-3 holding short, waiting for me to land, so I decided to do a no flap landing which is somewhat faster on approach than a normal landing, this would get me in and out of his way in a hurry, and I could use the practice. After flying in over the numbers and holding the plane about three to four feet off the deck to allow the excess air speed to bleed away, I set it down and rolled over to taxiway Charlie. When I announced my position on the taxiway to ground control, they gave me clearance to taxi to my line, and ah,oh by the way, they were asked by Pelican 3 to thank me for the no flap hustle in on final. An aviation tip of the hat for the airplane equivalent of jogging across in front of waiting traffic instead of sauntering through the cross walk! I am sure I will be able to get this grin off my face sooner or later, I just hope I don't run in to a friend that tells me their goldfish died, it could be very awkward!
January 4, 2007 Wow 2007! Sorry I have been absent so long, I would love to say I was studying, or busy with work or some other noteworthy task, but to be honest I have been coasting these last few weeks. The Holidays and the anniversary of Julies passing has just left me, well numb is not really an accurate adjective, more like emotionally adrift. I find my mind and or mood in a sort of gray zone, being neither sad or happy, just being. Everything is fine, I will soon kick start my brain back to give-a shit mode, but maybe for a few more days I will wander in the mist. As Pink Floyd once so eloquently put it " I.......have become, comfortably numb"
Enough of the pity party, I did have a wonderful Christmas, although it did rain most of the day, copious booty was had by all as we made merry. Celeste and I attended the Jags game together Christmas Eve, as we lost to New England. Come to think of it the last time she went to a game here was to see the Bears and we lost then too! Mental note to self, leave Celeste at home for future Jags games! For New Years, I went to Asheville N.C. An old friend of mine is purchasing a summer home in the Asheville suburbs, and I went to help with some moving of some of the larger items, as well as to deliver some extra household goodies that I have been hanging on to for way too long. I have not been to the mountains of NC for I guess the better part of ten years now, and I did enjoy my short visit there. I stayed in a little town outside Asheville called Black Mountain. It is a quaint, wide spot in the road with a small business district that includes a spattering of hardware stores mixed in with antique shops. A place where quilt shops adjoin the town pub. I had some of the best pizza I have ever had there(and I have had Chicago Pizza), and spent Saturday night watching a local band's fiddle player (in said little pub) do his best to try and start a fire with his bow in a seven encore rendition of Orange Blossom Special. He and the drummer battled it out until one of them gave in. I think it was the drummer that actually had to quit, not because he was tired, I think his beer gave out! We spent New Years Eve back at home and rang in the new year with our silver in one hand and Brats and Sauerkraut in the other, a time honored tradition handed down to me from my fathers father. What a wonderful way to welcome in the new year, and finally lay the old one to rest.