Searching for the groove

Not too long ago, Jose wrote a post about getting his groove back. After my session today, I realized that I've been searching for the same thing.

Ever since I took a couple months off flying when Carina was born, I haven't been feeling very good about where I was with my landings. I was hitting hard or ballooning way up. I was struggling to fly the pattern smoothly. I was having enough trouble that I asked my flight instructor to come out with me last weekend to give me some help.

He gave me a few pointers, so I went out today by myself to see if I could put them to work on my own. Right about when I got on the runway for my first takeoff, the pattern suddenly became very busy. There were planes everywhere. They were all different kinds with different speeds, so people were doing weird things for spacing like flying very long downwind legs. I had to leave the pattern and come back twice.

Despite the stress of a busy pattern, I was very happy with every one of my landings. I even greased one or two. It was exactly the great session I needed to boost my confidence in my ability to get this license.

As I drove away from the airport, I realized that it has been months since I felt that great floating, soaring feeling that follows a good lesson. I haven't had a grin plastered on my face all the way home from the airport since before Carina was born. It was good to have enjoyed flying again after being frustrated by my performance for so long.

So, I got my groove back, too. Bring on the next step!

Disappointment

The Huskies just lost to USC by only three points. This is the second year in a row that we've really battled against them only to lose by a slim margin. The silver lining is that I sort of expected USC to cream us.

Tomorrow we go to our last Astros game of 2007. Talk about disappointment. It's Craig Biggio's last game, so it's sure to be a classic, regardless of anything else. I wish the Astros could have put together a better season for his last year, though.

It was starting to storm right about the time I had scheduled to go out to the airport today. So, no flying for me. I'm scheduled tomorrow afternoon after the game, too, so maybe then.

There sure has been a lot of disappointment today.

Pattern work

I got to go flying Sunday night. I went up with my instructor, because I really hadn't been happy with my landings the last two times out and I wanted to get some advice.

So, we took off the first time and went around, carefully minding the position of the biplane that was flying the wrong pattern, using the grass, and just generally doing wierd stuff.

First landing: I came in a bit low, and I hit a bit hard, but not much. Flaps up, carb heat in, throttle up, and off we go again.

Second landing: Glide slope is better. My instructor advises flaring a bit earlier, which I do. I balloon a little, but then I get a nice stall horn with a soft touchdown. That's the first time I've heard the stall horn in weeks. Flaps up, carb heat in, throttle up, and off we go again.

Third landing: I'm a bit steep. I get down there, arrest my sink rate, balloon a bit. The stall horn goes off, but I'm still a couple feet above the runway. My instructor is in the middle of telling me to give it a bit of power to cushion the landing when we fall the last couple feet with a small bump. Oops. Flaps up, carb heat in, throttle up, and off we go again.

Fourth landing: Good pattern, better flare, stall horn goes off again, but I'm a little crooked when I land.

After 10 landings, we taxi back to the barn. After clearing the runway, my instructor turns to me and says, "I thought that would be a lot worse, from what you were saying." All I can say is that if things had been going that way all the time, I would have been OK with it. I guess I just need to practice by myself more to get used to the handling with the lighter weight.

Welcome, Jackson!

I'm an aunt again!

Jackson Sheppard Weiss
Born ~12:00 PM 9/24/07
5 lb 12 oz
19" long

Jackson is in the nursery now because his blood sugar is slightly low. He nursed before he left, though, so he's in pretty good health.

It's amazing how things change. First, there were no kids. Then Caroline came along. Now all of a sudden, there will be three little ones running/crawling/rolling around when we go to Casper for Christmas. That's a lot of kids!

Nephew on the way

My sister is having her baby today! They went to the hospital at 1:00 AM last night. Soon Carina will have another cousin.

13.070 gallons

I reckon there aren't many people in the world who know exactly how much gasoline their car can hold. I discovered for myself just 15 minutes ago.

The needle of my trusty Corolla had been nearly empty for days as I drove a few miles to and from work. As I left work today I decided I really did need to fill the tank today on my way home. I knew of several gas stations on the way, two of which were convenient to get in and out of.

I blew past the first one at 45 miles an hour, realizing belatedly that there was station #1. Ah, well, there was still station #2. I pondered for a few moments, estimating traffic over the bridge and consequent drive time, air conditioning set to maximum, my driving habits... Surely, I figured, I had enough gas left to get to station #2.

Over the bridge I drove, with the soothing stop-and-go flow of rush hour. We crept through a stoplight and then approached my intersection near station #2. As I turned onto the street and accelerated up to 20 mph, the unthinkable happened! 40 yards away from station #2. Softly, my engine quit, without even a whimper of a warning.

30 yards. I kicked the automatic shift into neutral before trying to restart it, but the timing was going to be tricky.

20 yards. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't bother trying to restart.

10 yards. Yeah, I think I can make it, no oncoming traffic for me to avoid.

In a display of energy management surely worthy of a veteran flight dynamics engineer, I smoothly turned left, coasted up the incline and drifted to a stop in front of pump #2 with only a faint touch against the braking pedal.

After celebrating my foolhardy luck, I watched with interest as the gas counter soared upwards.

"Funny, I always thought I had an eleven and a half gallon tank."

What to do in Austin?

Does anyone else think it's strange that your Google account user name is another e-mail address. I mean, it seems like it should be your Google address, if anything.

Life is flying by, as usual. I booked a hotel room in Austin for this weekend. A suite, actually, so that there is a door between us and the Baby Who Makes Noise All Night. I think that's the one thing I learned (again) from our ND trip - it's hard to sleep in the same room as Carina! I knew that from when she was bitty, too.

We are going up for a baby shower, but I didn't want to drive there and back in one day. So, I'm trying to decide if we should try to do anything else while we're there. Maybe a short hike the next day? What's that BBQ place that everyone says is so good?

Why I'm so silent

Yeah, I haven't been posting much lately. I'm pretty busy, work and home, and the only thing I have to talk about is baby stuff. How many posts can you possibly read about how Carina is now *almost* sitting up.

People do like photos, though, so here are some of our 3-month-old.


Oh yeah, I also broke the plane last week. Nothing dangerous - I backed the elevator into the side of the hangar when I pushed it in. :( I'm trying not to think about it.

Snakes in Mission Control

No kidding - they found a baby coral snake inside mission control this morning. It was apparently living inside a steel door. I'm not sure if this beats the aligator they caught inside a building at KSC earlier this year.

CRAZY NASA ANIMALS!

Sitter Cam Catches Ghost

This was an interesting video. I've always been a skeptic of the paranormal (go science!), but something like this makes me reconsider...

Traffic

I went to the airport today hoping that the clouds I was seeing from home would be less scary over there. However, there was a big one sitting pretty close by, and my instructor wasn't around to ask for advice. I didn't go. Turns out, it was raining about half a mile up the road, so I guess I made a good decision.

Since I didn't go flying, I decided to stop at the mall and get a haircut. It took a long time. The guy that cut my hair seemed more interested in telling stories than in finishing the haircut. So, significantly later than I intended, I started home.

I-45 was closed. Bay Area was a parking lot. I was stuck 10 minutes right in front of the mall. So, I turned back into the next entrance and went to El Dorado. It was slow, but moving. But then El Camino was closed. So I had to go back to Highway 3. Which was slow with all the traffic from the freeway. All-in-all, it took me almost 1 1/2 hours to get home.

When will this be over?

Back from ND

I have soooo much going on right now! I'm going completely crazy.

We had a good time in ND. My grandmother keeps her house a little warm for my taste, but after we convinced her to use the A/C, it was nice. My parents were able to come up, too. Carina has her grandma wrapped around her little finger! :)

The best part is that Carina did really well on the airplanes. All four legs went by with very minimal fussing. And the fussing she did was because she was hungry and her mean parents didn't want to feed her until the plane took off.