Up on the rooftop again!

I wanted to do some work on the roof this morning.  I did a little work and had a section uncovered when it started raining.  I got a tarp and covered things up until there is a forecast of dry all day.  Of course I forgot to take a picture today, so I had to go out tonight and take one with the flash.

This afternoon I worked on the club's mower, cleaning it up, sharpening the blades, greasing it and changing oil.  I couldn't finish the job because I found a belt that needs replacing.  Of course I had to take this picture in the dark also.

Vera found a CFL football game for me to watch this evening, our team  the British Columbia Lions won!

120 Yards!

The forecast for today was great, so after Vera's walk, we headed up to Toledo for some flying .  We got there just as the fog started to clear.

Once it cleared off, it warmed up fast, by the time we left at 2 PM, it was hot out there.  There were 6 other flyers out today.  I ended up getting in 10 flights before we left for James' football game.  After a quick stop at home to change vehicles, we headed for Mt. Solo.  James played good again today and had 120 passing yards, one of which was a 60 yard touch down.

In this picture, he is rolling out to pass to Joey (45), I think this pass was complete, but was called back on a holding call.

James (40) is handing off to Aiden (32) on the next play, Aiden ran it in for a touchdown.  They didn't win, but played a much better game than last week.  James did not have to take as many hits as last week either!  I saw him dish out a good hit when he was running a kickoff back, he put his shoulder into the first tackler and laid him out.  We stopped at Dairy Queen for dinner on the way home and I resisted  getting a Blizzard, it not often that happens!

Lots of variety today

I was just finishing my exercises this morning when Vera came in and said the Blazer would not start!  It did not start for me either, so I sent her to her morning walk in the van.  After a shower and breakfast, I narrowed the problem down to the battery connections, so I pulled them apart and cleaned them, it starts great now and Vera was able to take it to bible study.  While I was fixing that, Fedex delivered the radio I had sent in for repair.  I played with it most of the rest of the morning.  In the afternoon, when I went to the motor home to charge some batteries, I saw Dianne packing both twins.  You have to read her blog about that, it was funny!

Harper wanted to swing, so I buckled her in and pushed and twirled her for quite a while.  After that, I decided to mow the lawn.  Everything went good until I was dumping a load of grass in an little low spot we are filling.

I ended up getting the mower stuck about half way between where it is now and where I took the picture.  I had to get the 4 wheeler and pull it out.  I wish that I had taken a picture then.  The rest of the mowing went fine, but I did not try to drive through there again!  Vera made some great biscuits for dinner, she had also baked some zucchini which was pretty darn good.  It was a beautiful sky tonight, on my last trip to the motor home, I looked up and there were stars every where.  I was able to pick out the big dipper right way.

Birthday Pizza

I skipped exercises today and headed out to work on the B-36.  I made good headway on the new struts.  Then when I got them installed, the plane sat too close to the ground.  I tore everything out again and moved the retract units out 3/4 of an inch further and lengthened the struts the same.  Now there is plenty of ground clearance and I don't need to change the nose gear length.  James called last night and invited us down for birthday pizza at Vernie's.  We left early and got gas, then we wandered around Fred Meyer until it was time for pizza.  I ended up finding a couple of things, one was a cordless screwdriver with Lithium Ion batteries for the motor home.  I threw the one that was in there away yesterday, because every time I went to use it, it was dead.  Lithium Ion batteries hold their charge for long periods of time, so I have high hopes for this one. 

James' buddy Levi's dad has the same birthday as James, so his family was there also.  We had a good time and the pizza was great.  We had the Supreme with a stuffed crust, an instant favorite!

Loctite

Back to my normal routine after a couple of days off.  I started with exercises, but I took an umbrella to get to the shop without getting my sweats wet.  We ended up with almost a half inch of rain today.  After breakfast, news and emails I decided to do more cleaning and see if I could find the elusive blue loctite.  I also decided if I had not found it by noon, we were going get some when we went out for lunch and mail.

Need I say, that I did not find it!  We had a great lunch and I had their Marion Berry Cobbler for dessert, Yum!   My feet had been hurting this morning, so we went shoe shopping before heading home.  I worked on the B-36 this afternoon and discovered I need to shorten the new struts about a 1/4 inch, better than them being too short!  I recorded Monday Night Football, so we could watch the game pretty quickly this evening.

Birthdays

I worked on the B-36 a little, but I could not find my blue loctite, so I started cleaning the shop looking for it.  I got a bunch of tools put away before

James and Emmy's birthday party at the Dolan's.

It was great fun watching all the kids and visiting with everyone.  I was watching Ava eat cake with a fork, doing a really good job.

She did not like the frosting, so she fed that to grandma!

Three flying sessions this week

I went flying today, because of the birthday party on Sunday that I did not want to miss.  The weather forecast was also much better for flying on Saturday.  There were 6 flyers out again today.  I gave some lessons on the buddy box to a couple of members.  One member brought his new Pitts Special with a smoke system on it out today.

This was only the forth flight on it.

I flew my Mustang, AT-6, Extra 300 and Birddog today.  About 2 the wind started blowing right across the runway and the clouds were rolling in, so we packed up and headed home.

This is how the sky looked just as we were leaving, we got a few raindrops on the way home.

Freeway Friday

We made a run up to Vera's sister Marie's today.  Vera had been shopping and saw some things she thought Marie would like, so we delivered them.  After visiting Marie until her lunch time, we went to Skipper's and had lunch.  Vera had their "Bill's Normal Burger", it was great, the best burger I have seen in a long time.  I got a couple of bites and it tasted pretty good also.  When we were done, I stopped by Mark's to give him the money from the sale of his stuff at the tailgate swap meet.  You could tell it was Friday on the I5, there were the normal idiots out there trying to pass everything on the 2 lane section from Chehalis to Castle Rock.  My new struts for the B-36 were at the post office, so that was the first place I headed for when we got back to Castle Rock.

I got one all finished this afternoon, I had to shorten it about an 1/8 inch and narrow the bottom about the same amount.  I drilled the top out to 3/16 inch for the wire that mounts it to the retract unit.  All the machine work is done on the other retract unit, so it will not take long to finish the next time I work on it.

Thursday Football

I headed out to the shop this morning to do my exercises, one look at the sky and I went back for the camera.  I spent 15 or 20 minutes wandering around taking pictures.  It was a nice warm morning and I really enjoyed myself.  I spent the rest of the day charging batteries, working in the shop and messing around on the computer until it was time to head for James' football game.

It was a rough game for James when they were on offense, several key players were sick or injured, so the line was not blocking well.  Being quarterback, James took lots of hits because of that.  They played good on defense and the game was 0 to 0 at half.  The other team had one or two good plays and recovered a fumble that gave them two touchdowns.  The score ended up 12 to nothing.  After the game, we went for pizza at Bruno's with Mik, Michelle, James, Kim and Henry and hashed over the game.

More Flying!

On the club's website last night, several members indicated they would be flying today.  Vera was game to go after bible study, so I posted that we would be there at noon.  I had to go in for my monthly blood test today, so we made a list of several other things I could do while I was in town.  Everything went smooth as clockwork and I had time enough for a stop at Sears before heading home.  I stopped at Subway and picked up lunch, hit the bakery for a treat and went home to get the motor home out.  When Vera got home, we took off and got to the field right at noon.  It was another nice day, a little cooler than yesterday, which was nice!  Our friends Bob and Nancy stopped by on their way back from Mt. St. Helens, they said it was 71 degrees up there.  Six flyers showed up again today, all different from the ones who were there yesterday, except for me.  Below, Audrey has just shot a touch and go. 

We did not stay as long today.  We left and went down to the county park by Toledo and had dinner before we drove home.

Flying

I had to load the motor home with planes this morning so we could head up to Toledo for some flying.  After a quick stop at Subway, we got to the field about 10:00.  One member was there when we arrived, by the time the day was over four others had showed up to fly.  I had a great day, I flew some planes that have not been flown in a year or two.  I played until about 6:30 then packed up and had dinner before we headed home.

Getting ready for winter.

After exercises, breakfast and checking emails, I paid bills online.  Well, all except one, Waste Control does not have a system set up to do that, so I had to write one check.  Vera came in and said I should look up tire prices online, funny, because I had been thinking we should get new tires today.  I did some checking and then we headed to town to check Les Schwab prices as they did not have them online.  I had a brilliant idea, we would go to the one by Fred Meyer and then we could shop if we got them there.  Their prices were pretty much in line with what I saw at other places online, so we got them there.  That is the new tread pattern for our rig, so you will know if we have been to your place.  After we got home, Vera made the best Oat Crisp Cookies, I think that I have eaten half the batch already.  I did some unloading of seaplanes from the motor home and now I am ready to watch Monday Night Football.  I hope you were able to enjoy that sunshine this afternoon.

Family Visitors

I am glad we came back from Maytown early, because it gave us a chance to get together with my cousin Gayenell and her husband Russell.

Gayenell was here for her class reunion and they came up for a couple of hours this morning.  I was able to get a hold of Cathy and Laury and they came over and visited with them also.  It was lots of fun getting caught up with what they had been doing and passing on information about our families.
Later today Vera and I went to Napavine, one of our friends and fellow club members had passed away last week.  He left the majority of his radio control equipment to the club and the officers got together today to sort it.

It is not a fun thing to do, going through someones life time collection of planes and things.  The club will use one plane for a club trainer, some were too damaged to salvage, some will be sold, along with the tools and equipment at the club's swap meet in the spring.  After that, Vera and I had dinner, filled the car with gas and took the slow way home through the rain.  It had turned into a fairly eventful day.

Rainy Saturday

This is what we woke up to Saturday morning at Maytown Lake.  It slowly got better and finally the rain stopped, but it was still cold with a fairly strong wind.  A few more flyers showed up to join the ones who had spent the night.

One of the new flyers brought this twice sized Flying W with folding wings.  It is an enlarged version of the one in yesterday's video.  It flew fine, but he only stayed for one flight and left because he was cold.

I was really interested in seeing this Sikorsky fly, but the rough water and wind kept it from making it's first flight.  He built it 5 years ago and decided it was time for it to fly.  I took some video of the attempt and I will put a link at the end.  By noon there was not much activity, so after lunch we decided to head home a day early.  Since we were not in a hurry, we took the slow way home and explored some new roads.  As we normally do, we kept an eye out for unusual 

buildings.  It is sad how many old barns are left to fall apart.  We had a nice relaxed ride home and got home about 3:30, by 4:00 we had most of our stuff unloaded and settled in for a nice evening at home.

Here is the link to the Sikorsky attempt.
http://www.vimeo.com/29220941

Friday Seaplane Flying

I had everything ready for our trip to Maytown for a 3 day seaplane Fly-In except my clothes, so I did a quick packing job this morning.  That plus the forgotten cell phone I came back for made our start about 45 minutes late.  We took the slow way except for the last 5 miles up I5 to Exit 95.

There were two neighborhood dogs that were the official greeters.  A couple flyers had already left when I took this picture at 1 PM.

John, one of our club members, coming in after a successful flight.

 Vera took this picture of me flying my Pondside on Friday.  I had a great day, flying all three of the planes I brought with me.  The Albatross flew better than it ever has after some modifications I made last week.  The lake is a man made water ski lake a half mile long on 72 acres.  I made my last flight about 7 and settled in for some of Vera's lasagna, it was great.  We ended up reading most of the evening as we only got 2 channels on the TV.  I did make one last trip out when a late arrival did some night flying.  I took some video, here is a link to it.
http://vimeo.com/29204872

Football

I finished up on the motor home today, vacuuming the rugs and cleaning in the cab.  James had a football game today at Coweeman.  It was their first game of the year.  Cascade got off to a good start when they ran the opening kick off back for a score.  After a bad snap, James ran the ball in for the extra point.

Then James (40) intercepted a pass on Coweeman's first or second play of the game.  They scored again shortly after that to go ahead 14-0 a couple of minutes into the game.

James and Elijah making a tackle, James played all but 3 plays of the game.

James is passing to Joey (45), he was 2 for 3 passing this afternoon, I thought he played a really good game.

Mik has just given them his best speech ever, but said no one listened!

After the game, we all went to Izzy's for dinner and had a good time hashing over the game.

Motor Home Cleanup

I have been working slowly at cleaning the motor home this week.

Not a plane in sight, that is a rare thing since I retired.  Of course, if you look the other way towards the cab and overhead bunk, there they are!

I took some that I have not flown lately into the shop and hung them up.  The ceiling is getting pretty full.  Each one of them is a favorite for one reason or another.  Some fly great, some have special memories attached to them and some I just like the looks of.

Tuesday 9/13/2011 Battery Day

I went over to see the twins this morning, while I was there, Steve came home with stickers for them.

Ava made sure Steve got his stickers.  Macee stopped by shortly after that and the twins put on quite a show for her.  I took a short video of it with my phone that you can find here.

Video of Ava and Harper showing off.

I decided to service the coach batteries in the motor home today.  I tend to put it off as they are not too easy to get out.  Everything went good this morning and I had them out in nothing flat.  I filled them with water after I made a run to get more distilled water.  Then I hooked up the charger and charged both of them.  When we got the motor home, it had two batteries, one for the motor and one for the interior.  Now it has 6, one for the motor, two for the interior and 3 to charge my radio control stuff with.

Electric Fly-In and Picnic

I was excited about flying Sunday, so I was up early and we got to the field about 8 AM.  We wanted to get set up before it got hot!

This is how things looked at 9 AM from where we had the motor home set up.  People were slow to show up today, I think many of them just came for the picnic.  There was a lot less flying this year, everyone was sitting in the shade visiting.

By 11:00 we had a pretty good turn out and the tailgate swap meet was in full swing.  We had people looking at things all day.  Lunch was good, but a lot of the people left right afterwards.  We flew and visited all afternoon until everyone left, then we started the generator and air conditioner.  We cooled off and had dinner in the motor home while waiting for it to cool off outside.

This is how it looked at 7:30 PM as we left, the Harvest Moon is just coming up.  All I did when we got home was plug the power into the motor home and then settled into my chair to watch the Seahawks.  I was still a little tired Monday, so I just puttered all day at unloading some to the planes and then watched Monday Night Football all evening.

Hot and Dusty

We wanted to beat the heat, so we headed out early for the Toledo field to mow for Sunday's Picnic and Electric Fly In.  After a stop for gas and propane, we got there about 8:30.  We did beat the heat, but the mower really churned up the dust.  By the time I was done, it was pretty hot, also.

LCRC's version of American Gothic!

Leonard and John used the Weed Eater and Rake on the ditch and fence area and put up the field sign.  Everyone pitched in on the safety cages and we had the field looking pretty good by Noon.  I put in a few flights and we headed home to the air conditioning.  Boy the shower sure felt good after I got everything put away.  I messed around charging batteries and working on planes this evening until for some reason my newest transmitter quit.  I guess it will head back to the factory tomorrow.

Birthday Pizza

As I was going to the shop this morning, I noticed the sun was just coming up.  I went back and got the camera and started taking pictures.  The one above is what it looked like at first.  I wandered around out there taking pictures for about a half hour.

This is my final picture.  After finally doing my exercises and having breakfast, I called Barry to wish him a Happy Birthday.  He did not have anything going today, so we agreed to meet at the Centralia Papa Pete's for lunch.  We had a nice lunch and visit.  I stopped to see Vera's sister, Marie, on the way home, she  was not in her room, but I found and surprised her at the dining room.  She had just finished lunch, so I wheeled her back to her room and got caught up on things.   When I left there, I stopped and picked up some model airplane stuff for a modeler who is in an assisted living facility.  He wants me to sell it at the tail gate swap meet at our picnic Sunday.  When I finally got home, I worked on the B-36 until it was time to run down to Battle Ground to pick up the rest of the modeler's stuff from his brother.  When we got home, I settled in and watched the Thursday Night football game.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday

Monday I worked on the B-36, wet sanding and painting the nacelles.  Vera made banana bread in the afternoon.

Tuesday was more of the same until 5, when it was time to head for the model club meeting in Longview.  I left early to drop off a loaf of banana bread to Mik, Michelle and James.  After the club meeting, I went back to their place to visit and see if I could help James get Madden 12 going, but we didn't have any luck.

Wednesday morning as I was headed for the shop, I heard the kids playing outside, so I went over to watch.  They were busy in the pool, playing with rocks, following the cats around and singing.  Harper decided to put on her sandals by herself, she finally got the front velcro strap closed and marched around in them for a bit before kicking them off.  It was the most fun I have had in a while.

Wednesday the B-36 made it outside for the first time!  It is huge when you try to move it around, I managed to get it through the shop and outside with out dinging it anywhere.  I sat it on the ground and right away found a problem, the springs in the landing gear struts are not strong enough and the tail sank right to the ground.

I had Vera take a picture with me holding it so you can get an idea how big it is. I spent an hour trying to get the struts apart so I could put in heavier springs.  The pin holding them together refuses to come out, so I am looking for a stronger strut online.

A Good day of Flying

The forecast for today was great, light winds and a high of 88 degrees.  I was headed to the Toledo field at 7:45.

I was all set up and ready for the first flight at 8:45 and got in a couple of flights before anyone else arrived.  Eleven flyers showed up today and lots of flying went on.  We had a little excitement when one plane went into some trees and another crashed while the pilot was watching the first crash, hard to fly and watch something else.

Nice days make for nice pictures. This is Audrey coming in for a landing.  I finally headed home about 5:30 and it was a pretty warm drive home.  I enjoyed sitting out on the deck getting caught up with Vera's day and having my apple crisp dessert.  It was a good day of flying and I even got a little done on the B-36 after I got home.

Finally Done!

I was determined to finish the pond today and I did!

I made a few changes in the way the water flows and it sounds louder to me.  After we had it running, we made a run to the Post Office to see if any of Vera's books had arrived.  It was the last chance to check until Tuesday.  She was in luck, the one from Auburn was there.  We made a stop at the store for some bacon so Vera could try the bacon press.  When we got home she made the best BLT's  I have ever had.  We spent the afternoon watching the Huskies game.  It was a good game, close all the way, maybe a little too close at the end, but they won.  I did a little work on the B-36 this evening, with a little luck, it will be ready for the electric fun fly next weekend.

On the way to the motor home to check on some batteries, I noticed the roses were still blooming by the shop.  The bush made a good recovery from the harsh winter.