Fresh Apple Pie!

Laury and Auna brought me a pie about 15 minutes ago for watching Sam.   Boy is it good, nothing better than warm apple pie, I was sure glad I had skipped supper when the pie showed up!  I finished up printing the club membership cards this morning and then took them to the shop to clear coat them.  I had some extra spaces on the last sheet, so I made myself up a card.

Of course, I used this picture from my Mustang ride.  I made a trip up to exercise Sam about 10, we headed to town at noon for lunch, an appointment and my monthly blood test.  After picking up the mail, our 1099R came today, so I am ready to do the taxes.  We went to the Country Village again for lunch.  I had the BT&T today with carrot cake, lots of Yum's for me today!   I stopped by Home Depot for the last piece for the paint booth and then it was off to the appointment.  When we finished there, we did a little grocery shopping at Safeway before heading home.  I made good progress on the paint booth this evening and had just came in when I got a call from Laury that they were coming over, right after that, Jackie called, Vera and I both visited with her for a few minutes.  All in All, a pretty good day!

Where does the time go!

I can not believe that I am 3 days behind again!  Monday, I spent the morning doing some work on the LCRC membership lists and the AMA club member list.  I took one break and went over for a short visit at Dianne's, lots of activity there as the twins had spent the night, watching Dianne search for the fabric softener was good for a couple of laughs.  I also worked on the Viking and did a few chores, nothing too exciting!

Tuesday we were in town early for an appointment, then ran a few errands before meeting Bev and Debbie for lunch at the Country Village to celebrate Bev's birthday.  We had a very nice time, good food and it was good to get caught up the latest news from them.  When we got home, I did a bunch of work getting the LCRC club roster up to date.  Every time I thought I had it, something else would pop up.  I did get started on a small paint booth for the shop, I am making one that will fold up when I am not using it.  I printed out a page of club membership cards this evening.  The picture below is Bev's cake in 2000.

Today, Vera had bible study and I worked on the paint booth.  I made good head way until I tried to cut the plastic end to shape, that is some tough plastic.  I made a couple of trips up to let Sam out, give him his pill, throw the ball for him and feed him tonight.  Two modelers stopped by for some help programming a radio, that turned into a fun challenge!  I had not done a glider before and I had to read the manual a couple of times.  Later, I took my IP Camera out and hooked up to the new ethernet connection in the shop and it started working, except I could not remember the password, so I had to reset it and use the default password.    I worked on the club roster some more, I discovered I had left one member off, Vera said she mentioned it, but I must have forgotten right away.  I got a couple of more pages of membership cards done today, one more session should do it.

Magnet Fun!

OK, here I am doing 3 days again, I hope this doesn't get to be a habit.

Friday the 25th.

I was really sore from yesterday's walk and I think that my right knee must have gotten strained a little climbing under the benches doing the drawers, so I begged off walking.  When I went out to the shop, I got all the planes on the to sell list down, dusted them and stacked them neatly in the front half of the shop.  I did some work on the Viking and got the fuselage fiberglassed.

Saturday the 26th.

Right after breakfast and emails, we headed to Home Depot for the refund on the Formica.  Then it was off to Hallmark for a card we needed, since it was close by, we had an Arby's Market Fresh Roast Beef sandwich for lunch, we love those!  On the way home, we stopped at Safeway and stocked up on pop and veggies.  I did some more work on the Viking and got everything except the top of the wing covered with fiberglass, before calling it a night.

Sunday the 27th.

I worked on the Viking this morning, getting the top of the wings covered and the first coat of paint on the fuselage.  I had to wipe it right off because I sprayed some big runs into it.  Vera came home about then, so I took a break for lunch.  Later, I sanded it out and put another coat on it, being really careful not to get too close this time.  I was working on the RV-9 wing, when I heard the door and thought Vera had come out, around the corner flew Ava and Harper, that was sure a surprise!  They are spending the night with Grandma Dianne and were bringing me some brownies they had made.  Rielee was packing them, so they did not get airmailed.  The girls started playing with the lights and magnets stuck to the file cabinet when they discovered the magnetic parts dishes.  They were moving screws and nuts from one to another and dropped a few, so I got the magnet on a stick down and Rielee had a great time with it picking them up.  I sure enjoyed their visit, then it was back to work on the RV-9 wing, I decided to replace all the hinges on the ailerons and flaps because they were really stiff and would put a big load on the servos.  I use pinned hinges all the time as they are much freer that the mylar type.  Having the control surfaces off will make it much easier to recover the wing.  I am in for a dinner break, when this blog is done, I am going to go plan a small paint booth for the shop, I remembered I have some clear sheets of plastic that will work great!  Vera made some great oatmeal and raisin cookies yesterday, I think it is time for one.

Back to building.

We walked this morning for the first time in probably 3 weeks and I can sure feel it tonight!  After a visit to Dianne's, I worked on planes most of the day.  I got the top and bottom of the RV-9's wing fiberglassed where I repaired it.  A little sanding and I will be ready to cover it.  While the fiberglass and epoxy were curing, I got out a kit of a Navy S3A Viking that I had started a year or so ago and worked on finishing it.  This evening, I started going through the kits I have and made a list of the non electric ones to sell at some upcoming swap meets.  I also took a picture of the box labels and used them when I put the list on the club website.  It was nice knowing where everything in the shop was today as I worked, I hope I can keep it that way!

Back to normal!

It is funny how you end up with a container full of nuts, bolts and parts of each project, pretty soon you don't remember which container goes with what project.    Today, I sorted a bunch of those containers and put them into that red parts bin on the East bench.  After bible study, Vera came out and helped me, dusting everything for me, then she washed all my dust rags because they were looking kind of nasty.  As you can see in the picture, now I have room to work on my projects again, in fact, tonight I sanded out the RV-9 wing, put new bungees on the Super Cub and watched a couple of Blue Ray discs about flying.  We had picked up some frozen pizza last week, tonight we had one for dinner, we added some extra cheese, bacon bits and seasoning, it turned out great!

Dang, behind again!

Sunday the 20th.

I got the second drawer installed in the North bench today, then I started watching the playoff games.  Neither of the games went the way I wanted, but being recorded, I did not waste too much time on them.  Vera went to church in the morning and that was about it for our day.  I did get a call that the Formica was in for the East Shop Bench.

Monday the 21st.

Vera had an appointment to get a picture taken of her optic nerve this morning. Then we headed over to Home Depot to pickup the Formica and a few other things I needed.  Of course, the Formica had gotten damaged, they said if it was big enough to work, they would give it to me for half price.  We hauled it home, and it is big enough, so I started cleaning the East bench off.  I got it cleaned and decided the top needed to be fastened down better, so I ran a whole bunch of screws into it.  Boy were my wrists tired after that!  I came in and settled into my chair and slept the evening away.

Tuesday the 22nd.

I made good headway on the East bench today, I sanded the top down, trimmed the Formica to go around the lazy susan and with Vera's help, got it glued down.  Then I did a bunch of sorting, taking all the parts for gas powered airplanes out of the little drawers, since most of what I fly now is electric.  Some of the parts were over 30 years old and I don't even have the motors anymore!  The last thing today was sweep and then vacuum the floor, there was lots of sawdust from all the work the last few days.

One down, one to go!

I spent most of the day rolling around under the bench.  I got all the supports for the drawer slides installed and after some shimming, I got the first drawer installed.  There is no facing on it yet, but Vera helped me fill it up.  After a break for lunch, some heat pad time and a couple of episodes of Pass Time, I headed out to put the second drawer together.  That went pretty good since I had some practice yesterday.  When I had it all glued and clamped, I finished sawing out the opening for it and installed the drawer slides.  Vera brought the camera out to me and I took a couple of pictures of the progress before going in for dinner and some more Pass Time.  I made one more trip out to see what plane I wanted to fly, did a little gluing on a lazy Susan and called it a night.  The peanut butter cookies last night turned out great!  I have to pick one up each time I go through the kitchen, Yum!  I shouldn't have written that, now I want one!

Messed up already!

I headed out to the shop just as the sun was rising, turned right around and went back for the camera.  You could tell where every jet had went by the contrails.

It did not take me long to mess up the clean bench, I decided to put two drawers in before I faced the front with oak.  I dug around in my scrap wood pile and thought I had enough plywood to make the two drawers, so I started in on the job.  I had all the pieces for the drawers cut out except the bottoms, when I discovered that material was press board.  Off to Home Depot Vera and I went, the plywood was no problem, but when I went to get another sheet of Formica to do the East bench, they were out.  I finally located someone that could help me, I will have it Monday.  When I got to the Blazer, Vera asked if I had gotten drawer slides. "No"!  Back into Home Depot, even when they told me which aisle, they were darn hard to spot.  When we got home, I headed right back out and started cutting the drawer bottoms and the hole in the bench.  That blue pad sure makes it nice crawling around on the floor and under the bench.

When I was in for dinner, Vera noticed the sunset which was spectacular!

After dinner, I got the first drawer glued up and clamped.  I didn't make much headway after that, so when Vera came out and suggested it was time to quit, I was ready.  After a quick check of emails, I edited the pictures for the blog and started writing.  Now I can go in and wait for the fresh peanut butter cookies to come out of the oven, boy does she spoil me!

Lots of progress!

Well, here is the after picture of my North work bench, I went out and started on it about 10 this morning and by 3:30 it was all done.  Boy, the fumes from the contact cement were strong for awhile.  I just remembered I left a window open, Vera volunteered to go out and close it, what a sweetie!  The Formica went down great and the small piece for by the bandsaw turned out the first try.  I was really hungry when I finished, so we went to BK for chicken sandwiches and then picked up the mail.  I got a new magazine, so I sat down with it when we got home and promptly took a nap.  I made one more trip out to look at my handy work and fill the stove before coming in to download the pictures and do my blog.

A busy Wednesday!

We were up early and headed to Kaiser for Vera's doctor appointment, nothing wrong, just her annual check up, which went great!  They called her in early and the doctor said she is doing fine.  From there, we went to Fred Meyer for a few groceries and gas.  Our favorite route home was blocked by a train, so we went home through Kelso.  No exciting mail today, so we came home and had pizza for lunch.  I went out to the shop and got a call from a modeler who was having trouble programming a speed control, he wanted to come up and see if I could show him how.  It turned out the speed control did not have a BEC in it, so we needed to power it with a battery.  Once we had it working, I did the programming, the programming is done with the transmitter throttle stick while listening to tones that sound like Morse code.  My ham radio training came in handy there.  After we got it done, I had a nice visit with Steve while showing him my shop.  Later, I decided to clean off the North bench and get ready to put Formica down tomorrow.  I did not realize there was so much stuff on that bench, it is stacked everywhere in the shop.

Here is a before shot, it was a little cleaner than this, but not much, hopefully I will have an after picture for tomorrow.  I was adding some extra screws to the top and counter sinking the nails when Vera talked me into quitting for the night.  That was probably a good thing, because my back was getting kind of sore.

Another Meeting!

OK, I did not take a picture today, this the pear tree yesterday when it was snowing.  I have been having a heck of a time getting internet out to the shop.  The wireless on the new high speed modem would not get out there.  I tried several repeaters, but the signal was never that good.  This time, I ordered units that send the signal over the powerlines and they came today.  I got the instructions out and sat down to read them, boy was this a surprise!

Nothing to read, just pictures, pictures are worth a thousand words, so these are three thousand words long!  I did like the pictures said and it worked after step 2, so I did not do number 3!  Later, Don, a new flyer stopped by with his Christmas present from his daughter, a new plane that he wanted me to check out.  I have the same one, so it did not take long to unpack it, put the batteries in and everything worked.  We took it outside and I test flew it so it would be in trim for him.  A few clicks of right rudder and a little down elevator trim and it was flying fine.  Just before I landed I heard this little voice calling "Hi, Alan" the twins were getting ready to go home and got to see the plane fly.  After Don left, I got ready for the Cowlitz Valley RC Flyers meeting in Longview at Toppers.  I went early enough to have dinner there, when the waitress asked me what I want, I told her an order of hashbrowns and a chocolate shake.  She asked if I wanted whipped cream on it, I answered, No I have to cut back somewhere!  Her and the others there for the meeting cracked up.  We had a good meeting, one of the longest for a long time, the club is losing their field some time in 2014 when it is converted back to wet lands.  We have been there for 30 plus years, we started a hunt for a new location by forming a field committee.  I had taken along the box of propellers and a few things of Bill's that we missed last night and the guys took most of it, so I am done with that project.  After I got home, I wrote up minutes for the second night in a row and called it a night again.

OK, who ordered snow!

Just what I needed this morning was snow, I was getting ready to load more of Bill's stuff into the Blazer to take to the club meeting in Centralia and give away.  It slowed down and I was able to get most of it loaded, then Jeff stopped by and volunteered to take some up for me, so I sent the rest with him.  We left a little early so we could visit Marie, but the big red signs were still on the doors warning not to enter.  Not wanting to be exposed to anything, we headed over to our favorite seafood place to eat, it was closed, so we ended up at Arby's.  After eating, we headed to the union hall and the president was there with it opened up, so we started unloading, Jeff showed up just after us and gave us a hand, so we had it setup in no time.

There were 20 members at the meeting, and by the time we headed home, all we had to take back was a box with a few propellers in it.  After we got home, I wrote up the minutes and called it a night.

Driving Session

This morning, we slept in a little after our night of Madden and TV.  After breakfast, emails and some Xbox, James and I headed out for another driving session.  First we went North on I5, then back to Castle Rock where we did some cruising around town before heading South on Pleasant Hill Rd.  While we were driving around Castle Rock, James saw the Johnson boys and got to wave at them, he said they saw him and were pointing him out.  At Ostrander we got back on I5, took it down to Allen St and stopped at Jack in the Box for lunch.  After lunch, I had James drive by the Kelso airport (A must see for me when ever I am in the area!), then I told him to take me to Kaiser.  He got us there with no help from me.  Next, I had him navigate to Home Depot, again he got us there with no help!  Apple Bee's was the next stop, he chose up 15th as his route and it worked out great.  I had him park near Apple Bee's and we took a short break for some pop before heading to his house via the Civic Circle, which is always a challenge, our driving session ended up being 2 hours.  We got there in time to watch the final 2 minutes of the Seahawks game, that was probably the low point of the day.  I had a nice visit with Mik, Michelle and James before heading home.

I did some more work on the RV-9 wing tonight, it has been broken twice in the same spot on the right side, you can see where I have the leading edge sheeting off.  I took one break for dinner, Vera had made some awesome chicken vegetable soup.  I went back out and got the two halves of the wing joined again, stripped the covering off and after this picture was taken put a carbon fiber rod in the top spar to reinforce it.  It is a nice chilly 26 outside, the Restore I put on the deck last summer is working great, as it is not nearly as slippery as the other decks that don't have it.  The porch into my shop is getting the Restore treatment next summer for sure now after seeing how much it helps.  I hope you stayed warm today, my pellet stove sure felt good.

This does not look good!

This morning I discovered there was lots of damage from the glue attacking the foam.  All along the center of the fuselage the foam was eaten away like it shows in the picture.  I decided the plane was weakened too much to save, so I salvaged the carbon fiber reinforcements I had added and threw the rest away.  It felt kind of satisfying, seeing it in the garbage.   Michelle and James came up to have me take a look at their vacuum cleaner.  We had a nice visit, then went out and tore the vacuum apart, it turned out the bearing housing on the motor was broken and the bearing was bad.  It was not worth fixing, so after James sawed off the handle, it fit into the garbage can fine.  I took James out for a driving session, he is doing great.  He asked if he could spend the night, which was fine with us.  We spent the evening eating pizza and cocoa mounds, watching TV and playing games.

Well, that did not go as planned!

Thursday

I decided Thursday to finish a plane that has sat around the shop for years half done.  My first problem was, the glue I was using did not stick to the material very well, the second problem was I don't like the way the edges of the material look.  I have tried several ways to fix it and none of them look that great.  I decided to finish it, test fly it and then give it away, that would get it out of my way.  I puttered away most of the day on it before coming in to watch some TV.

Friday

I did some more work on the plane today, getting the rudder, ailerons and elevator hinged.  We made a couple of runs to town, one to do the recycling and pick up the mail.  Later, we made a quick run down to BK for dinner.  I went back out to work on the plane some more and discovered the glue was attacking the foam, so I quit for the night.

Vera had made Cocoa Mounds, so I had a few of them and settled in for the evening.

Oops!

We were up early and headed to Vera's 8:40 appointment, the only problem was, it is next Wednesday!  I guess we should have checked the print out from when we made it, or the calendar on my phone.  We zipped back home and Vera was able to go to her bible study.  After the class, we stopped and picked up the mail on the way to see the house Debbie and Josh want to buy.

My blog book was in the mail, so I opened it for a quick look at the cover, then it was off to see the house.  They were not there when we first stopped, so we ran over to Mik and Michelle's place to drop off a couple of things.  Mik showed up while we were there, so we had a short visit before heading back to see the house.

It was trying to snow so I never got any pictures outside, this is the fireplace in the living room.  It is a nice place, lots of closets and storage space, we had a good time looking around.  We had lunch after leaving there, picked up a few things and got gas at Fred Meyer before heading home.  Along with my book, the HDMI splitter for the shop TVs came today, so as soon as we were unloaded I went out to install it.  It worked great, I plugged it in, plugged in the HDMI cables and both TVs worked.  I spent the rest of the afternoon getting the cables neatened up.  Hanging two pictures back up after taking them down to run the cable just about killed my back, I am headed to the heat pad as soon as I finish this.

An old friend Diana sent me a couple of pictures from about 1960, this is me and my 1960 MGA Coupe.

Blue Ray

I was waiting anxiously for Fedex and UPS this morning, Fedex had a new Mustang and UPS had the Blue Ray player.  Normally Fedex shows up early in the morning, but today UPS was first, so I took the Blue Ray player to the shop and started unpacking it.  Before I got it all hooked up, Fedex showed up with the new Mustang, it is to replace one I crashed, but I still have all the gear from it in a bag.  I put up a shelf under the new TV for the Blue Ray player, but while I was making it, I had a Blue Ray video in the player watching it.  After the shelf was up, I started covering the plane of Bill's I have been repairing and watching TV and Videos.  By the time I came in this evening, I had it all covered and the motor mount modified so the cowl would go on right.  It looks like I will be able to test fly it the next time we go flying.  Vera made a double batch of corn bread today, it turned out great, we had it for lunch and dinner.

New Teeth and New TV

The big news here Sunday was, John Patrik had two teeth pop through!  Jackie gave me a call to tell me and we had a nice visit.  I messed with the Facetmobile Sunday, changing to a little smaller motor, it did not need all the power the first one had, I was flying around all the time at half or less throttle.  Then I watched the Seahawks' Big Win, that really topped off a good day.

It is Monday as I write this, patiently waiting for my new TV to show up.

I think it was about 10:30 when UPS showed, I took it right out to the shop and started unpacking it.  The installation went pretty good, I hooked it to the antenna first and after pointing it the right way (the wind storm had pointed it off to the Southwest), I got 14 channels.  Then I got the drill out and started running the HDMI cable from the Dish Network Joey to the TV.  After I got it hooked up and working, we had to make a run to town for cable clamps and the mail.  After I got the clamps installed and the wiring neatened up, I took a break and went over to see what the twins were doing.  I think I grinned the whole time I was there, they are talking so good and boy are they fun to listen to.  I had to move quite a few things to run the HDMI cable, so I started cleaning, sorting and putting things back.  I took another break later, we went down and had Whoppers for dinner.  I spent a little more time out in the shop, watching the new TV and putting things away before coming in for the evening.  It is sure nice having HDTV out there now.

Flying at Toledo

Vera and I headed up to Toledo a little after 9 this morning.  The 2 heaters are the most important part of my setup today, the high was about 40 degrees!  I had made some changes to the Facetmobile, so it was the first thing I flew.  Vera came out and volunteered to take some video of it with the new video camera setup.  She did great and I will add a link to the video later.  We were all by ourselves until a guy who got a plane for Christmas showed up.  He had tried to fly it 4 times and crashed each time.  He wanted to know if he could try it at our field where there is more room.  Because he did not belong to the AMA (which provides our insurance), I had to tell him No, but I would check it out and test fly it for him if it checked OK.  It checked good enough to try, so I took it up and trimmed it.  He took some video of the flight and was really excited to see it fly.  I let him do some flying high enough to stay out of  trouble.  After the flight, I made some suggestions of changes needed before he brought it back to test fly again.  Only 4 other flyers showed up today, but we had a good time.  We headed home about 3 and after unloading, I put the motor home in it's carport, the first time it has been there for many weeks.    I spent the evening editing pictures and videos.

Here is the video Vera took of the Facetmobile flying.

https://vimeo.com/56842127

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

Time to catch up again!

Wednesday the 2nd.

After our day of flying I felt like resting today, so I spent most of the day right here on the computer.  I used Blog2Print to order a book of last years posts, I am trying a little better format this year.  It makes the book bigger, which costs more, but I had a discount coupon that had to be used by the 3rd of January that helped.  I also got expedited shipping because I want to see how it looks, it should be there the 18th.  This evening I settled in with another Pink Panther movie, I did not know that there have been 4 actors playing Inspector Clouseau!  I have 3 of them recorded, now I just have to find the one with Roger Moore.

Thursday the 3rd.

First thing this morning, we headed down to Kaiser,  I made an appointment to get my teeth cleaned.  Then we had lunch, did some shopping, picked up the mail and went home, UPS had been there!

The UV-C Air Sanitizer I had ordered from Costco had showed up.  I did some looking at where they recommended putting it and decided it would be an easy job, so I started in.  It was a complete kit, there was even a 2 7/8 hole saw included to cut the hole for the UV light.  I spent some time sealing up the duct work in the filter area and installed new filters, I also washed the electrostatic filter.  Now we just have to wait and see if we can tell any difference!

Friday the 4th.

We made an early run to Castle Rock for mail and some groceries.  Then I worked on one of Bill's planes that needed lots of repair.  Once Vera came out with me and said we should recycle the old TV before the new one shows up Monday.  We did some quick checking online and found we could take it to Kalama.  I called and found out we had 45 minutes before they closed.  It went like clock work and we had about 20 minutes to spare.  On the way home, we stopped and had Jack in the Box for dinner.  A little more work on Bill's plane and it was time to come in for the evening.  Just before I came in, Jackie texted me and during the session, she mentioned that JP got his hearing aids!  We are excited to see if they help.

New Years Flying

We headed up to the Toledo field about 9:45 this morning.  Dick the club president already had 4 or 5 flights in and had cleaned the snow off the tables for us.  Leonard and Audrey were the next to arrive, we ended up with 8 people there before the day was over and 7 of them flew.

Leonard brought his Flying W and it worked great in the snow!  I ended up getting to put 1 1/2 flights on it and had a fun time shooting touch and goes.

Yep, that black blob is me flying my helicopter.  It was right at freezing all day, but with all those clothes on I felt great!  We managed to give one of Bill's planes away to a new member today, I had let him fly it and then Vera and Audrey talked him into taking it.  It was a good way to start the New Year, I hope you have a great New Year.

12:37 AM

Here are a couple of late additions, Dick Anderson posted the pictures on the club forum.  The first one is me with the plane we gave to the new member, it will be a good one to learn on.  The other is Leonard with the Flying W, here is a link to a 3 minute video of him flying it.
https://vimeo.com/56616993