Happy Birthday Parker!

Church was great today, the fifth Sunday of the month so it was all singing.  Then at two we went up to Gabe and Des's for Parker's sixteenth birthday party.  Lots of the family was there and it was fun visiting with them.

Parker got lots of diesel money today.  They had a multiple choice quiz made up about Parker for people to do.  I got seven right which I thought was pretty good because I was guessing on most of them.

Road Trip

We headed up early this morning to get Marie's new phone set up.  I got started on it in her room, but I lost the internet connection and could not finish the change.  We took both phones and headed home.  The change did not go well, the new phone kept coming up with a Simm card error 1!  After many phone calls to Tracfone, they decided that they had sent the wrong Simm card!  Since we had no way to contact Marie, we headed back up to tell her it would be Monday at the soonest before we got it working.  Just past Hwy 12 Vera noticed the reader board saying there was an accident 12 miles ahead with both lanes blocked.  We took exit 72 and used the back roads to get to Marie's.  When we left and headed South on I5 we could see that North bound was a parking lot, luckily we had brought the camera and Vera took some pictures.  I am sure glad Vera noticed that sign!

We decided to eat in Napavine at the Plaza Jalisco.  We both had Polo Loco and boy was it good!  We came home with enough left overs for a couple of meals.

We took Jackson Highway home and as we went by the Toledo airport I stopped to get a picture of the beacon silhouetted against the sky.  It didn't turn out quite like I wanted, but OK!  I should have turned around and went back to where it was back lighted.

This will keep me busy

  I put two gable vents in the south end of the house this morning, the job went great until I was ready to caulk them and I didn't have the right color.  When Vera got home from bible study  she had picked up my dummy engines for the Ford Tri-Motor at the post office.  We made a quick run to town, had lunch and picked up the right color caulk.  It only took a few minutes to finish up the vent job when we got home.  Then I took a look at the Blazer's heater, the fan wasn't running.  I almost beat the rain, I was just putting things back together after finding a dirty switch when some big drops hit me.  I went out to the shop this evening and started on one of the dummy engines.  I can see putting them together is going to keep me busy for a couple of days, there are lots of little parts!

I read an article about using black and white on pictures yesterday, so I gave it a try last night.  I took this picture in 2004 and the building has since been torn down.  I think the black and white picture turned out pretty good!  It seemed to bring out more detail, because I don't think I ever noticed those three bird houses before!

What a great day of Flying!

I pulled the rotor head off the old Cobra so it would fit into the motor home and took it with us when we went to Toledo today.  It was the first thing I flew this morning.  I had a pretty good flight but the rotor speed was a little slow so I made an adjustment before the next flight.

I never did get it right after that, I went too far on one blade and they were way out of track.

This is my table, I should have put the canopies back on and it wouldn't look like so much of a disaster.  I got in ten flights today.  It was nice getting to visit with other flyers, with the bad weather we have not seen too much of them lately.

Mt St Helens looked great today!  We headed home about 3:30 with a stop at Betty's, a chocolate, marshmallow and peanut butter milkshake for me and a Deluxe burger for Vera.  A good ending to a great day!

Healthy!

I got the second aileron cut off the Ford Tri-motor wing yesterday, it went much better after seeing inside of the first one.  I also had an early doctors appointment yesterday, nothing serious, just a check up.  I was sure pleased when all the test came back right in the middle of the normal range.  We had breakfast at Stuffy's II afterwards and then did some shopping so our trip to town ended up lasting four hours.  Today, I slept in until about eight, I got going just in time for the last weather forecast on channel twelve.  I got one motor mount for the Tri-motor cut out, but I have to wait now for the dummy motors before I go any further.  I made a couple of runs up to let Sam out and feed him, he is sure fun to throw the ball for.

Chicago Style

I have been working on this Ford Tri-Motor lately.  I started on it about 20 years ago and it has been sitting in a closet ever since.  I can't find the plans, so I am measuring off some scale drawings to finish it.  I am also changing the way some things are done to the more current way.  I got one aileron cut off tonight and it was a fight all the way.  With out the plans, I had to guess where to cut and I was a little off so it did not come apart cleanly.

Vera made a Chicago style deep dish pizza for dinner tonight and it was so good!

The hole in the wall

Since this was the only day that was forecast to be dry for a while, I decided last night to put the gable fan in today.  I set up the scaffolding yesterday so I just had to wheel it into position today.  Once I got the hole cut in the wall, I was pretty much committed to getting it installed today.  It went pretty well, I just have the wiring to hook up now.  Vera came home from bible study just as I was getting started and she saved me many trips down off the scaffolding by getting things for me.  The fan is temperature and humidity controlled, it will come on when the temperature hits 110 degrees or when the humidity gets high up there.  My printed copy of last years blogs came today, it will be fun looking through it.

It's a girl!

We had a call from Jackie today and found out the new great grand child is a girl!  They are both doing fine although Jackie is in the hospital to get her insulin dosage figured out.  Being pregnant changed things so the body reacted differently to the insulin.

 I have been updating the computers to Windows 10, but the Sony laptop doesn't have the right processor, so I updated it to the latest Windows 7, once during the upgrade it downloaded and installed 89 updates!  I also cleaned up and rearranged in the shop  radio/computer room.  I had a large format printer that I was going to use, but buying the ink was only $11 less than a new printer which came with ink.  It went out with the garbage today!  James came up this afternoon and hauled in a batch of wood pellets for me.  We also took a look at the Maxima which was missing at low RPM's.  We didn't find any thing obvious, so we put some Sta-Bil in the gas to see if that would help.

Never give up!

Well, I guess that it is time to take down my Seahawks flag.  They didn't give up after a disastrous first half and made a pretty good comeback in the second half but there just wasn't enough time left.

 We went to church this morning, I put on my lucky Seahawks tee shirt and my new jersey but maybe I should have put on my Seahawks socks as well.  There were lots of people wearing Seahawks gear and a few Broncos shirts also.

Vera made a loaf of skillet bread from a recipe she found online for dinner and boy was it good!  I ate a quarter of it, part with garlic butter and the rest with Mik's homemade blackberry freezer jam.  I had dinner and dessert from it and both ways tasted delicious!

A week off!

I videoed the church service Sunday the 10th for Pastor Pam, she needed it for her seminary class.  I spent a couple of days getting it edited and after she checked it, I made a couple of DVD's for her and posted it on You Tube.

I kind of took the rest of this week off from the blog.  One day Vera noticed this squirrel on the rail.  I got the camera, Vera opened the door slowly and I was able to get this picture.  There have been lots of maple seeds left up there lately and I think he is the culprit.  Today we had a nice visit from Vera's niece Veda and her husband Loren.

James' Volleyball

Mark Morris and R A Long boys had a volleyball game tonight as a fund raiser for their senior graduation parties.  The picture of James setting was taken during warm up.

During  the introductions I would have liked to hear what was cracking the boys up so much.

For having his wisdom teeth pulled yesterday, James played pretty darn good.

R A Long won the first game, Mark Morris won the second one and R A Long won the last one.  After the game James was getting his picture taken with a couple of friends, so I took one also.  We had a really good time and the boys on both teams played great!

Off to Arizona

Bright and early this morning Barry and Mona headed out.  They were planning on making it to Mona's sister's place in Medford today.  I fooled around with the old Sony laptop most of the day, the update to Windows 10 failed so I hunted for the cause.  I had it running really good on Windows 7 by the end of the day and that is where I may leave it.  Of course I may feel different in the morning and try again.  I also got a canopy latch put on the Extra 300 and I made a set of wing bags for it while I was waiting for downloads so the day wasn't a total loss.

Barry

I was just hooking up the battery on my racing quad for a second flight when I heard a familiar sound, Barry and Mona had arrived.   They are headed back to Arizona and this was their first stop.  After we got power hooked up to the motor home, Barry, Mona, Vera and I went down to Papa Pete's.  Barry was treating me to my birthday pizza.  We had a really nice visit with them there and at home afterwards.  They were tired from a big day of loading so it was an early night for them.  Vera got my Mom's Cocoa Mounds recipe out and made a copy for Mona.  Then she made a batch of Cocoa Mounds for their trip home.

Marie's Phone

We made a couple of trips up to Marie's today, her phone only had 6 more days of service and I had picked up a new Tracfone for her.  When we arrived the first time these four deer were walking past her window.  I had taken my laptop along and with it tethered to my phone, I tried to switch her old number to the new phone.  The program wanted some information I couldn't find, so I gave up and asked her if she could get along without it while I took it home and tried.  Before we left, we got a list of things she needed, then we stopped at Walmart and picked them up on our way home.  When I finally got the service set up, it turned out they would have to send a new sim card which might not get here before her current service ended.  I got her 30 days more service on the old phone and we ran it back up to her along with her supplies.  The weather was terrible the first trip, the second trip up was better and when we came home it was great.  I had to make one more trip tonight, I had a club meeting at Stuffy's.  I had missed the last meeting, so I felt that I should go to this one.  I couldn't find anything on the menu I wanted, so I ordered their carrot cake, except I ended up with German chocolate cake, I had eaten most of it before I realized it was wrong, but Great!

Seahawks Win

Here I am with my new Russell Wilson jersey on ready to root for the Seahawks.  Mik, Michelle and James gave it to me for Christmas, I love it!

I had a couple of Debbie's cinnamon rolls for a snack before we went to church.

It started snowing this morning about 9:30, so there was not a large turn out for church.  There was a piano duet this morning of the Three Wise Men that sounded great.

This is how it looked when we got home.  I settled in and started watching football, the Seahawks win sure made my day!  The new jersey must have helped, because the Seahawks played great today!  It snowed off and on all day, when I came in from the shop this evening, there was about and inch and a half.

Moon

James was stopping by early to leave his car while he went fishing, so I went out early to check the pellets in the shop stove.  On the way back I noticed the moon was showing up really clear so I went and got the camera.  I took a couple of pictures that looked pretty good with the camera on automatic.  I went in, downloaded them onto the computer and I could see they were over exposed.  I went back out and took a couple one stop under exposed and one at two stops under exposed.  This picture is the two stop under exposed one.  It would be a little sharper if I put the camera on the tripod, but it was cold out there and I didn't want to mess around any longer than I had to.  I had a nice visit with James and Dalton until Chris showed up to take them fishing.  I went online later and got a printed hard cover book of my 2015 blogs ordered.

I worked on the Lancaster bomber today, when landing it wants to drop a wing really bad.  Both wing tips are angled up which causes wash in instead of wash out making the tips stall first.  After checking out how other people corrected it, I decided to cut a vee groove in the bottom of the wing and bend the tip down in front to close it and create washout.

This is after I glued it and filled a few spots, most of the groove turned out about like the left end looks.

I was careful not to cut through the top of the wing, with the light hitting it right, you can see how it tipped the leading edge down.  When James, Dalton and Chris got back from fishing we visited for a while and before the boys left, they packed six bags of pellets in for me.  I have been going through them pretty fast during this cold weather.

New Years Day Flying!

This is just as the sun came up New Years morning, I had the motor home all loaded yesterday, ready to head for the field today.

On the way up Jackson Hwy. there was no traffic, so I stopped and took a picture of the barn with the Dr Pierce's ad on it.

Then I turned around and took this picture of the trees, the frost was really pretty!

Mt Rainier looked nice with all the snow on it.  Seeing this and Mt St Helens as you are flying is sure a bonus.

Once I had both of my propane heaters set up, I got the planes out and started flying.  First I flew the MXS-R on the left to warm up my thumbs.  Then I put the first flight on the Extra 300 on the right, it flew great!  The maiden flight of the little purple and yellow Mustang was next, it took some trimming but it was flying fairly well by the end of the flight and even with the small wheels I taxied back after the landing.  Not too bad for a fifty dollar plane.

May brought fresh, still warm cinnamon rolls she had made.  Boy were they good, the first layer disappeared in a big hurry.

In the afternoon, it looked almost like any other day of flying except for the coats and frost on the ground.  We had twelve club members show up during the day and ten of them flew.  There were also five family members with the flyers so it was a nice turn out.

There were skydivers and this ultra light flying today.  Both look like cold things to do when it is freezing.

The jumpers did look like they were dressed a little warmer than usual.  At least we had very little wind on the ground and heaters to stand by.