Cleanup Time!

I went out and worked at cleaning the shop today.  One of the things I got at Harbor Freight was a four tiered rotating parts tray.  I had put it together yesterday and put a few things in it.  Today I did some serious cleaning and organizing.  About noon, I took a break for lunch, mail and Sam.  My new quad for flying in the gym came so I got it on charge for playing with later.

This is what I got done today, it has been a long time since I have seen the top of this bench.  You can see the parts tray on the left, it is pretty well filled up now.  I really like having my glues on the top tier, much handier!  I put several flights on the new little quad this afternoon, it takes video and pictures, but I forgot to download them for use here.

I got another picture from Barry and Mona tonight, they were at the nursery today getting some more plants.

The last birthday present!

First thing this morning, we headed down to Home Depot for some Moss Out for the lawn.  The moss is really heavy this year, in places you can hardly see any grass.  By the time we got out of there I had 4 other things in the cart.

Mik, Michelle and James had gotten me a Harbor Freight gift card for my birthday, today was the first time my Achilles felt good enough to go cruise the store.  We had a great time in there and I ended up with a bunch of stuff I have been wanting.  Just as we were leaving, we ran into our old neighbor, Eddie, he is sure fun to visit with.

When we got home, I got the spreader out and got the Moss Out put on the lawn.  Good timing, because it rained that night.

I got the Trex 500 out and put in a couple of flights this afternoon.  I was working on my shop vac when I saw Steve and went over with him to look at his Fiat project car, it is sure a cute little car.  I found a bad relay in the remote control for the shop vac and got it going.  The shop was really needing it, it has been several months since it broke and there was lots of stuff on the floor.

Barry had sent me this picture of the cactus in bloom in their backyard on Sunday, I meant to include it with yesterday's blog, but I forgot.  They sure are pretty!

Palm Sunday

The Palm Sunday Church service today was really nice.  The choir sang twice today, the first one was to start the service, both songs were great.  Michelle and James came up after church, James to mow and Michelle for some help with a school electronic lesson and then to clean the rental.  Before they left, I gave them a demonstration of the camera on the little quad.  Later when I was flying it again, the twins and Rielee spotted it and got a big kick out of seeing Papa and themselves on the screen.

I got the rudder glued on the Sukhoi this afternoon, after it dried, I hooked up the linkages.  I put a couple of flights on my Hughes 500 this evening and then about 10, I turned out the shop motion light and flew the little quad in the dark, it was great fun!

Night Flight

It was a day of rest for us, we both just puttered around on things.  I made up a light bar for the white LED's on the little quad.  I bent some plastic and tried several different layouts and in the end a straight piece of Plexiglas worked the best.  The piece I bent didn't go to waste, I used it to make a pair of mounts for the red LED's in the back.  I could hardly wait for it to get dark, but it finally did and I had a great time as it shows up really well.  I also got the elevator hinges glued on the Sukhoi and two of the three hinges in the rudder installed before I came in for the night.

 Our Andromeda sure looks nice this year! 

A No Hitter!

I went out to unload the motor home this morning and it wasn't long before I decided to make a test flight with Bob's Phantom to see if the compass calibration was still good.  I turned the camera on so Bob is going to find a bunch of pictures in the camera of our place.  Vera came out and took some pictures while I was taking pictures of the magnolia tree.

That led to me taking more pictures of the magnolia and the Easter lilies by my shop.  There are lots of flowers this year.

Mark Morris had a game today against Aberdeen, this is James catching a pop up.  There were some awesome catches by all the guys during the game.  One diving catch by the center fielder looked like something from the big leagues.

James got hit his first time up to bat.

James' friend Levi pitched a no hitter, this is the final pitch of the game!  They won the game 2 to 0.

It was one happy bunch of kids during the post game talk, James is giving Levi (3) a big smile.  Of course there were a lot of happy parents and grand parents also.

Flying!

This is how Mt Rainier looked when we arrived at the Toledo field today.  At one time, it had 3 lenticular clouds stacked above it.  I forgot my Nikon this morning, so I had to fall back on the $3 Olympus garage sale find, it did pretty good!

It was a great day with temperatures in the 70's and light winds all day.

Vera got 6 squares knitted on her project today.  During the course of the day, 9 flyers showed up.  I got in 17 flights in the 8 1/2 hours we were there.

This was fun, I was test flying Bob's Phantom with the camera turned on and Leonard flew his quad up close and I got some pictures of it.  It may not look like it, but we are both out over the runway.

This is one of the last flights of the day, we ended up getting home about 7:30.

Phantom

I got the horizontal stabilizer on the Sukhoi today while Vera was at bible study.  I leveled it, carefully glued the top joints and went in to do yesterday's blog while the glue set.  Other wise, I would have been messing with it too soon and getting it out of line.  James had a game today, but it was rainy and cold plus I was a little sore so we did not go.  Michelle texted me that James was walked once, had two hits and two RBI's, they won 5 to 4 when one of the kids scored on a wild pitch.

I did some work on Bob's DJI Phantom quad today, then when I was ready for a test flight, it was raining.  I came in from the shop later and it was not raining but getting dark so I decided to try a short flight.  Vera came out and took some pictures during the first part of my flight.  The Phantom flew fine until I tried the return to home feature and it took off upward.  I switched back to a manual mode to bring it back down and tried again with the same result.  After doing some research online, I am going to do a compass calibration next.

MM Concert

Today I got lots done on several projects in the shop.  The primary one was mounting and hooking up the Sukhoi's motor.  I also test flew my little SU-26 park flyer after doing some repairs to it.  I flew right through the sun, couldn't see it and it ended up with it in a vine maple behind me and now I have a little more repairs to do.  I got it fixed and put a heat sink I found onto my Slow Stick, plus a couple of other small jobs.

James was singing at Cascade tonight, the Cascade 6th grade choir was singing when we got there.  After a short break, the Cascade 7th and 8th grades sang followed by four Mark Morris groups.  The advanced mixed choir that James is in was the last to sing.  All the groups sounded great!

This is the boys of the MM advanced mixed choir waiting for their turn.

Here is James just before they started singing.

After the concert was over, we joined Mik, Michelle and James at the Sweetspot for a yogurt treat.

Catch up Day

Sunday, I got caught up on the blog after church.  Church was nice today, the Choir did a song with part of the Hand Bell Choir as accompaniment, it sounded great!  Later in the service, the Hand Bell Choir did a song that was beautiful.  After church, there was cake for a couple celebrating their 60th anniversary.  This afternoon, Michelle and James came by and I helped Michelle with her next robotics class equipment.  This evening I repaired my Spectrum transmitter that got dropped and broke a couple of switches.

Today after lunch, Steve came up for some help programming a new plane into his transmitter.  Before he left, he ended up buying two more kits.  Later, Ken and Jim stopped by and bought 3 kits.  The pile is getting smaller slowly but surely.  I had gotten some different props for the Tarot 200 quad, so I tried them today.  After I tried the last set, I installed some white LED's on the front of it.  I wanted to go outside and try it, but it was raining so I flew it in the shop with the lights out.  It shows up but I don't like the way they hang down so I will probably build a light bar for them.

When I came in from installing the lights, Vera had made banana bread.  One is missing, it tasted great!

Baseball

Baseball season at Mark Morris is underway.  James got a nice write up in The Daily News this week.  Today, they were playing Lynden and this is James (23) during warm up.

We lucked out weather wise, the sun was out for the majority of the game.  There was one heavy shower just before it started and a few sprinkles during it, but they never had to stop play.

James played first base and made a couple of solo outs there.  He also bunted once to advance a runner to third and it turned out perfect, he even beat the throw to first.  They won 4 to 3, it was a close game all the way.  Afterwards, we met Mik, Michelle and James at Panini's and More for lunch which was really good.

Flying

Wednesday while Vera was at bible study and a birthday celebration, I had a flying buddy stop by with a load of airplane kits.  He has Parkinson so can not build or fly any more and he had asked me to sell them for him.  I took pictures of all of them, priced them and put the list on our club forum.  If they don't all sell there, I will take them to our club swap meet in June.  After Vera got home, we took some pictures of the tulips we had planted last fall.

Thursday morning we headed up to the flying field in Toledo.  There was a lenticular cloud over Mt Rainier when we got there and I forgot to take a picture of it, so here is one of Mt St Helens taken today to show how little snow there is on it.

There were six of us at the field today, Ken and Jim mowed the runway while we had lunch.  It was fairly windy all day, but I had a great time making cross wind landings.  On the way home when we were about half way along Barnes Drive, the right lens fell out of my glasses.  I made sure that I didn't step on it as I got stopped and found it on the floor.  I got it put back in when we got home, but it seemed  a little crooked.

Friday morning we headed down to Kaiser to get my glasses fixed, as I came out the door, I notice the magnolia was really bloomed out, so I got the camera and took a few pictures. At Kaiser, I got right in to see a tech.  She put the lens in right, made some adjustments to tighten it up and installed new nose pads.

I sold a couple of the planes that I listed on the club forum today.  There was indoor flying at Centralia Middle School tonight, so we left early and took the back roads.  Just past Lewis and Clark State Park, Vera spotted this field of skunk cabbage.  I turned around and came back for a couple of pictures.  There was another angle where it looked better, but it was raining and I didn't want to walk up to it.  I had a great time at the indoor session and it was about 10:30 before we got home.

Wind

Sunday we went to church and we really enjoyed the service.  The children's sermon Fred gave was especially nice and you could see the older kids connect with it.  The rest of the day was spent watching the wind blow and messing around on the computer.  There was a couple of loud thumps on the roof, but when I looked, the branches were not that big.

Monday I went up and let Sam out, about the forth throw he headed into the brush.  My Achilles was a little sore so I went to the fire pit and called Barry again.  85 down there and he was on the way to the store.  We chatted until he got to the store and then since Sam hadn't came up to see where I was, I called him.  He came up after a couple of shouts and looked like he had been playing with something that had been burned as he had some black streaks on him.  I did some more on the Sukhoi and got the first set of hinges glued in.  When I took the garbage can down, I discovered the For Rent sign had blown down yesterday during the wind.  I brought it up to the shop and repaired it before putting it back up.

Today, I let Sam out again and on the second throw he didn't come back!  I found him in the brush breaking off some limbs.  In the picture, he has already broken off the light colored one in the foreground and is working on a second one.  The ball is never far from where he is working, sometimes he tries to pick up the limb with the ball in his mouth also, it hasn't worked yet, but he will probably master it one day.  I did some cleanup in the shop today, I got the tools from the flooring job put away plus the pond vacuum and pressure washer.  The pressure washer has been out since last summer, so it was about time.

Riding with James

I did some work on the Seb Art Sukhoi today, I got the hinge slots cut for the rudder and elevator.  James came up this afternoon, he was selling cookies for a MM baseball fund raiser.  I went along with him for his last couple of sales and I remembered to take a picture for my blog before we got home.

Friday the 13th. Flying

We headed up to Toledo first thing this morning.  I helped get the mower out and running so Dennis could mow.

I tried Nora (the little red plane) last week and it wasn't acting right.  I put a newer motor and receiver in it and tested it today and it flew great.

There ended up being ten of us there during the day.  I flew seven of my planes during the day and made twelve flights, the longest with my little glider was 30 minutes.  It never got as warm as was predicted, but it was still nice  day.  I hardly noticed the Achilles today which is a good sign, I did ice it good when we got home.

Laid back week!

I got the pond cleaned up this week, I sure like my Pond Vacuum.  I did some more flying with the little quad (drone), once it got on the other side of the house and I had to rely on the camera to get it back, then I almost ran into the oak tree.  It was a big surprise when I saw the limb go by on the monitor.  Once when we were outside, Vera noticed that her wild currant Dianne gave her was in bloom so she took some pictures of it.  I spent lots of time icing my Achilles this week and the swelling is slowly going down and it hurts a lot less.

Barnes Drive

Vera and I drive Barnes Drive most of the time when we are going flying at Toledo.  I have always liked the look of this swampy area, so today I stopped and took some pictures on the way back from picking up a generator at the flying field.

With the morning sun coming through them, the trees do not look as much like a haunted forest as some times when we drive through there.  I love the look of the moss hanging off the branches.  This afternoon when it was so nice, we transplanted some roses.  Then we headed for a club meeting in Centralia.  We stopped at the Chehalis Applebee's for dinner which was delicious (Thank You Cathy!), then it was off to the meeting.  We had a good time visiting with the other modelers and I got rid of the club trainer aircraft that I have been packing around for years.  I also gave away some glues that were donated by a friend.  One of the members wife had brought brownies with cream cheese frosting that were really good!  It was a nice way to end the meeting.

Good Bye Pampas!

Today Vera finished up the blanket that Mik's grandma had started.  Mik wanted it finished so he could give it to James.  I spent most of the morning getting caught up on my blog.

James came up this afternoon to help me out, the first thing I had him do was weed eating.

 Vera has been wanting the pampas grass taken out for a long time, so James and I attacked it today.  I had James weed eat and dig a groove around it, then we put a cable in it and got about half of it out the first try pulling the cable with the Blazer.

We just got a small piece of it the second pull, then James dug a deeper groove and the rest came out the third try.  We loaded it all into the yard cart and towed it down to the compost pile.  We sent James home with the blanket, a shirt I got for Mik and a batch of cocoa mounds.  It was a good day, great weather and I had a good time working with James.