Spring greetings!

I'm trying to get some photos in here, but it's not working! So I'll just write and try the pix later. Last weekend was the annual birthday spaghetti extravaganza. Things didn't go quite as I had planned..... I goofed of on Saturday and thought I would do all my cooking and cleaning on Sunday morning. Steve called on Saturday evening and suggested that maybe we should try to get in a few hours on Sunday morning, so I got to Merrill mid-morning, we flew for two hours and I got home at 1:00 P.M., just as Bryn arrived. We headed for Phillips immediately to do the shopping for dinner and I dived into the sauce (figuratively) as soon as we got home. Bryn consented to do some cleaning around the house so it would look nice for her birthday. Hmmm..... Peg got here just after Bryn and I got home, and Rose and Id arrived about 3:15 and we all kind of worked on 'my' famous dinner. Turned out quite nicely and everyone was over-served on the spaghetti, not to mention cake and ice cream. They all left for home around 10:00, just after the start of the big snow storm. I think we ended up with around 8-9 inches by the end of Monday.

I missed one day of work last week due to 24 hour bug syndrome, and so I worked 9 hour days and 4 hours on Saturday to get my 40 hours in. I was going to dive into house cleaning yesterday afternoon, but I somehow ended up snoozing in the recliner for a few hours in the afternoon, and then Russ called to see if there was any way I could make it to their house to play music. Oh, yeah, the Heartbreakers are going back on tour!! Next weekend we are going to play for a benefit for a local family whose son has MS. We'll see about filling the schedule for the summer.... So I went to rehearse and got home Saturday night about 11:00 P.M. Slept late this morning and spent the day doing laundry, washing rugs, doing dishes, ironing shirts for work, sweeping, dust mopping, etc., etc.......

I wish I could say that I'm done with driving to Merrill for flight stuff, but it seems to get worse. Tuesday I start with ground school for sport pilot. It runs from 5:30-9:30 on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, four weeks worth..... I still have to get registered with Wiconsin DOT (everyone wants a cut of the action!!!), await the return of my FAA N-numbering process and then an airworthiness inspection can be made. Then all that remains is the FAA written test and a flight test. Somewhere in that mix we'll need to do some weight and balance caluculations, including weighing the plane with three scales to set the wheels on. Also have to finish getting the plane's controls placarded in accordance with FAA regs, install the Emergency Locator Transmitter, and a few other things. Sheesh....

Another project that needs attention is the continuation of this year's taxidermy work. I have the two capes fleshed and tanned and in the freezer. Need to get the antlers mounted to the forms and then put the skin on the form and do the detailing. My hunting buddies are nearly done with their mounts, I'm lagging quite a ways behind. At least the capes will keep O.K. in the freezer.

Other than that, I'm not really very busy this winter. My biggest chore is trying to find something to fill my spare time with ;-)

Still can't get the photo upload to work, I'll try to get them in early in the week, so check back here as I'll just edit this post and insert the photos.

Enjoy the equinox on Monday, and don't do anything I wouldn't do. Carlo

A week into March already???

I'm having trouble getting any air time lately!! All last week was either lousy weather or me having too much going on. Still working too many hours and trying to fit life into the remaining available space. Last weekend was spent on an all-day safety seminar in Wisconsin Rapids, sponsored by Wisconsin Ultralight and Light Sport Aircraft Assoc. Or something like that. Lots of good information on safety and lots of other topics as well. While I was at this event, Peg was at Chris and Ashlee's place visiting. She picked me up at 4:30 and we returned to the kid's place and then headed out to eat at Carlson's Rustic Ridge on Castle Rock Lake. It was a nice evening. We stayed overnight at the kids, left mid-morning to drive home. That afternoon Bryn showed up at Ogema and spent the afternoon and evening with 'pa'.

One of the main speakers on Saturday was Frank Beagle, an ultralighter from the late 70's. Someone had made a slide presentation that included some pictures of Frank with his first ultralight, no wheels on it, basically a hang glider with a dinky engine that could run maybe 45 min. on it's quart gas tank. Some other pics of somewhat newer planes, etc. This guy has been through it all, knows everyone in the sport and still flies a light sport plane. I'm always amazed at people that have an extensive history in whatever it is they're interested in. I'm the opposite, always acquiring a new interest, gathering information about it, joining groups and never knowing anyone, always being the 'newbie'. I consider this behavior of mine to be a character flaw and have learned to let loose of these passing interests, as it doesn't seem to work to force myself to continue with things. I consider motorcycles to be free of this syndrome, as I have had bikes from when I was 15 years old until about 1981, skipped a number of years and picked it up again in 1996, I guess. I doubt I'll ever tire of motorcycles..... As to this airplane gig, I'm thinking it will be a lasting thing as well. In about 1982 I first read of people flying these things and have been drooling and plotting over them ever since. I recently realized that if I'm going to do this, I had better get going on it. I mean, I won't live indefinately and I'm thinking that I want to get into the air as soon as I can and live this dream I've been repressing all these years. So, here I am, once again a total 'newbie' again. But I guess it's better than not flying.......

This evening I went to Merrill to do a few maintainence items on the plane. Didn't accomplish near what I wanted to. The trim tab on the elevator had a few cracks in the .020 thick aluminum it's made of. I took the tab off in anticipation of replacing the aluminum body with the new one I got last weekend. I'll have to take it to work to get the old rivits out, transfer the hole pattern to the new piece, drill it and rivit it to the frame tube. Then I looked at the new spring latches for the cabin side panels. The original ones fall out and the panels can blow off. Well, it turns out that the new latches will need either modification to them or to the cabin panel frame. Oh, well, some other time. I tried to mount the new slip indicator to the dash. I finally found the cordless drill and a drill bit but the drill's battery pack must be flat. Oh, well, next week, maybe. Then I thought I might try to put the marking stripes on the gauges to mark operating ranges. Turns out the gauges are shaped a little differently than the striping kit allows for, etc, etc,. I ended up just making little red line segments for max condition on the gauges. I hope that satisfies the inspector.... So the only thing I really accomplished was to remove the trim tab. Hmmmm......

As always, I'm looking for guest posts on this blog. Please feel free to send me an email with your story, rant, whatever, and I'll see that it gets published on here. So far I've had entries by Peg, Rose and Bryn, I guess. Send me something!!

I gotta go, Carlo