Night Flight

Tuesday we made a run to Longview for my favorite cereal that Fred Meyer carries.  When we were done shopping we went to the Country Folks Deli for lunch.  I ordered the Chicken Pesto sandwich, it is huge, I brought half of it home for dinner.  I talked to Barry today and he will be up here Friday.  I didn't do to much the rest of the day and then I watched my recording of Monday Night football in the evening.

After Wednesday's Coffee with the Pastor at the Vault I went to the Post Office and there was nothing in the box, that doesn't happen very often!  Late this afternoon I flew a flight with the hexacopter and I was having a little trouble telling which way it was pointing.  I got out my LEDs this evening and installed them on the front and back.  I made a quick test flight about eight and it looks like they are going to work fine.  I notice that the dust on my pants from sanding on the Plautus Porter sure shows up!

It Flies!

Sixty Five emails in my inbox this morning and most of them were Cyber Monday ads!  Another bunch came in while I was checking those so it was well after noon before I had finished them.  I did order a few things as some items were pretty darn good buys!  I got the hexacopter out today and put a couple of flights on it.  I hooked it back to the laptop after the first flight, made some adjustments and it flew much better the second flight.  Slow but sure we are getting the left over desserts from Thanksgiving eaten, we are on the last pumpkin pie now.

Saturday and Sunday a New Hard Drive

I got the motor for the Plautus Porter mounted temporarily this weekend so I could see if the cowl lined up.  It turned out I need to lower the mount about one eight of an inch and it will be perfect.

I noticed the hard drive in my desktop computer was getting pretty full and I had a new 2 TB drive so I got out my Inateck Docking Station which has an offline cloning feature.  After a couple of false starts I got it to clone the original hard drive to the new 2 TB drive.  When I put it into the computer I also installed a 4 TB drive to store pictures on.  By Sunday afternoon I had everything working good again.  The Seahawks game was a little disappointing, but the Raiders won!

Indoor Flying

I spent most of today getting my indoor flying equipment checked out so I could fly tonight at the Centralia Middle School gym.  It was a small turn out, just four of us but we sure had a good time.

It turns out trying to land on the top row of seats when the bleachers are folded up can be tricky!  There is a gap between the bench and the wall for the plane to fall into.  They got Ken's plane out and there was no damage to it.  After the flying we stopped at Safeway for pop and chips, took the slow way home on Jackson Hwy and had a snack of Lays Chips as we drove.

Thanksgiving at Debbies

As we crossed I-5 on the way to Debbie's there was nothing but brake lights to the North of the Exit 49 bridge.  We pulled in the Park and Ride lot and I took a quick picture of the traffic approaching Exit 49, all three lanes were barely moving.  We found out later there was a freight truck into the center barriers up towards the rest areas and only one lane getting by.

This is the group watching football, it got more crowded later and I think there were about thirty people by the end of the day.

Debbie is glazing the ham, she had a turkey in the other cooker and they both turned out great.

This is Michelle, Debbie and Kyla, Kyla was Debbie's study partner during nursing school and is her best friend.

They don't all show in these pictures but there was lots of good food and desserts.

James had to leave early and go to work so I made sure I got a picture of him before he left.

Michelle asked for a picture of us just before we left, I had already put the camera in the Blazer so Mik took this one of us, Thanks Mik!  It was a very nice afternoon and dinner, I hope she does it again next year!

Up on the roof top again!

I had a text from Barry Friday to go online and look at the new motor home they had just bought.  It is a 2008 37 foot Monaco Cayman XL.  It looks like new, has four slides and the pictures showed lots of room inside.  I talked to him today and it ran great on the thousand mile trip home.

I stayed up until late last night so I slept in until ten today, I felt great when I finally got up.  I went up to let Sam out a little after noon, I only got to throw the tennis ball twice before he disappeared into the brush with it.  He showed up a while later with this stick he wanted me to throw.  He is pretty good at putting it through the railing into the cat bed.

We made a trip to town for the mail and moss killer for the shop roof.  I sprayed a batch of it on the roof and then decided to clean the woodshed roof.  That turned into a heck of a job, it has been a couple of years since I did it and there was lots of debris on it.  There were a lot of branches overhanging it that I cut down.  It took me until dark to finish but I got it done.

Jackie texted a picture of Cora this afternoon but I didn't have a chance to look at it until I got done with the woodshed.

I have been working on the multicopters the last couple of days.  I have been having a great time figuring out a couple of new types of flight controllers and getting them calibrated.

Catching up!

Sunday's church service was really good, it was put on by members who were veterans and it was quite moving.  We visited for quite a while after the service and then I spent the rest of the day working on a set of floats I got at the swap meet and watching football.  I was a little nervous during the Seahawks game but they got the win!

Monday Vera had an appointment in Longview.  After it we picked up some groceries on the way home.  I spent the rest of the day working on the PC-6 and the floats, of course I watched Monday Night Football.

Tuesday we went to town and did an errand then we had dinner at Applebee's which was great, Thank You Barry and Mona!

As we were getting ready to head down for Coffee with the Pastor Vera mentioned that the sun coming through the fog looked nice.  I grabbed the camera and took this picture from the porch.

By the time I walked out to the driveway it had started lifting and it was all gone by the time we got down to the Vault for coffee.  It was the biggest group we have had so far, there were nine people and we had an interesting discussion.

I had brought the game camera in about a week ago but just got around to doing something with the pictures today.  The deer eating apples were most of the pictures along with a few of me mowing.  They aren't too scared of us, I was hooking up the gable fan and they came right by me to get apples.

After lunch, I fell a tree that was shading the plum tree.  The job went great and I had it all hauled to the compost pile in two hours.  Then I blew the shop and house roofs off and put moss killer on both.  It was still pretty nice out so I decided to fly a couple of flights with the Tarot 200.

The quad isn't too streamlined, things are just hung where ever there is room.  The TV camera is on the front between the white lights and it's cloverleaf antenna is sticking up above everything.  Just after I took off from the porch it started to sprinkle.  Rain is not good for the quad because a lot of the electronics are sitting in the open unprotected.  I decided I was going to chance it and get in at least one flight.  It went fine and luckily Vera noticed and took this pictures of me.  After the work this afternoon the steak dinner she fixed me really hit the spot and tasted great!

Thursday and Friday attacking the Plum Tree and a Saturday Housewarming!

I did some work on the planes Thursday until it warmed up outside, then I got the chain saw out and cut down some vine maples that were shading the roses.  After I finished that I got the power pruner out and pruned the plum tree.  It hasn't been done for several years and really needed it.  There was a limb on the cascara tree hanging over a rhododendron that I have been wanting to cut off for a long time so it was next along with several others.  I ended up hauling several loads down to the compost pile and still had more on the ground when I quit because it was getting dark.  Friday morning I got started on it fairly early and pruned or cut down several trees that were shading the plum tree.  I took at least four loads down to the compost pile today.  On each trip I ran over a different trail chopping up the leaves with the mower.  After dinner I went out and finished the Cub's landing gear, now it is almost ready for a test flight the next time we go out.  I also got the reinforcement of the MXS landing gear done.  I am going to form a fillet on it with micro balloons and epoxy to cover the reinforcement.

Just after I got up Saturday morning it rained like crazy.  It made so much noise on the roof that I grabbed a camera and took a couple of pictures.  The rain gauge went up two tenths of an inch in about ten minutes.  I finished hooking up the Cub's servo wiring and hung it up, then I remembered the hubcap had been damaged and I needed to make a new one.  I used the bottom of a Pepsi can, cutting out an inch and a half circle of the dome shaped portion and it makes a pretty good looking hubcap.  This evening we went up to a housewarming for Jenny, a church friend.    We left a little early and visited with Marie for a while and put a new SD card in her digital picture frame with the latest pictures from my blog on it.

That is Jenny on the right holding the quilt a friend had given her.  We had a really nice time and there were quite a few people from church there.

Jazz and Dinner

Vera's bible study got canceled, and the Pastor was out of town so I didn't go down to the Vault today.  I worked on planes most of the day.  We had a dinner invitation from Mik and Michelle for tonight so we left a little early and made a couple of stops on the way there.

Jazz has really grown and she has learned a lot at obedience school.  She would come to Michelle, sit and lay down on command.  They had fixed ribs for dinner and were they ever good, I went back for seconds on them!  We had a really great evening celebrating Debbie's birthday, there was lots of laughter and great stories!  Mik is coaching girls basketball at Cascade and there were a couple of good laughs from his experiences.

Not only do I have a smart phone, I have a smart camera.  When we were unloading at home I noticed the moon so I set the camera scene select to Moon and took a couple of pictures.  I have spent lots of time outside trying different settings to get pictures of the moon.  For this one, I just zoomed up and pushed the shutter and the camera did the rest!   It's one of the best ones I have ever taken!

James

Sunday we went to church and I videoed the service for Pastor Pam.  She is going to need a video for the classes she is taking.  After that it was pretty much watch football all day, I think I was a little tired from Saturday.   Monday I got a pretty good start on the repairs to the Cub plus I found some maintenance issues to take care of.  James came up and we took a look at his car as it wasn't running right.  It turned out it was low on oil and I could see where it was wet below the oil filter.  I tightened it up and we filled it with oil.  I could still see a drip underneath so we decided he would come up Tuesday morning and we would look at it.  The Seahawks game sure turned into a nail biter but they won! 

James came up this morning and tightening the oil filter seemed to have done it.  I used my inspection camera to check out the backside of the motor and couldn't locate any bad leaks.  James found this glider that he has played with for years and started throwing it.

It was doing the weirdest things, sometimes it would do a loop, the next throw it would glide down nicely and once in a while it would glide down upside down.  Just to keep things interesting it would nose dive into the ground at random times.  Kind of strange because James has a good arm and threw it about the same each time.  I was lucky to get it to fly ten feet.

Because it was doing something different every time it took a few throws before he was able to catch it.

The Calla Lilies continue to grow, I wouldn't be surprised if they bloom again.  No football games today so I got lots done on the Cub and I am ready to cover the tail.  I also am trying a repair of the carbon fiber landing gear for the MXS even though I have a replacement ordered.

Swap Meet

We were up early this morning, there was a swap meet in Olympia I planned on going to.  We decided to head out a half hour early and take the back roads as it was raining pretty good.  It was a good move, there were hardly any cars on Jackson Hwy or Old 99 and we were at the swap meet fifteen minutes before the doors opened.  I was looking for a landing gear to replace the one on the MXS-R which has a crack in it.  I ended up with four aluminum gear and I only spent five dollars.  After about an hour and three trips around the tables we headed to Costco.  We cruised every aisle in the food section and pretty well filled up the cart along with trying several samples they were giving out.  After filling up with gas at Costco we went to Panera Bread for lunch which was excellent.  Since it was still raining we decided to take the Littlerock Road home.  With a little help from the GPS I got us across Olympia without getting lost.  When we got to Rochester we took Harrison South, then went through Napavine, then Winlock, Vader and on to Castle Rock down the Westside Hwy.  I stopped at the post office because I knew the new flight controller for the hexacopter was there.

Later Jackie sent me this picture of Cora having her bottle, she looks really relaxed.  Jackie said when they prop it up she doesn't try to hold it, just lays her hands down and eats.  I was trying to make some DVDs for church but they were fighting me, I think I got a bad batch.

Friday Flying

The aviation forecast for Toledo was good so we went flying today.  This is Doug and a bunch of the planes that were there.  I had a good time and got in about a dozen flights.  I did stall the Cub and did a little damage to the tail, landing gear and right wing.  I also noticed the MXS was sitting low on one side and when I checked I found the carbon fiber landing gear was cracked.  Luckily I had lots of other planes in the motor home.

My old neighbor and friend Kay and her husband Rich came over and watched for awhile, it was sure nice to see them.

What a beautiful day!

Boy was it nice today!  I started some batteries charging and then got the mower out and mulched up the leaves.  There were a lot less of them this time.  It looks like about one more session should take care of them.  We made a run to town, then took a little drive in the sunshine and I took this picture at Lions Pride Park.  There were lots of people out on the Riverfront Trail enjoying the nice weather.  After we got home I got the hedge trimmers out and we cleaned up some flowers and bushes.

I am always surprised how good the pictures are that my Samsung phone takes in difficult conditions.  This picture was taken about 6:30 just after sunset.  The solar lights were nice and bright after all the sunshine today.

A good building Day

Tuesday:
Monday we got a letter from Marie that she needed some supplies.  Tuesday morning we ran down to Walmart and found most of what she needed.  We stopped at the Chehalis Walmart and got the rest of what she needed.  We got to Colonial just after Marie went to lunch so Vera walked down, got the key and we unloaded.  Vera returned the key, visited for a few minutes and we headed home.  This afternoon I got the flaps and ailerons for the PC-6 finished.  The rudder and horizontal stabilizer are both pretty simple so I should be ready to start covering on Wednesday.  I had a club meeting at Stuffy's this evening.  I had the Seahawks omelet and visited with the guys until the meeting started.  There is not much going on so after one report about the Port property the meeting was adjourned after ten minutes.  Vera was surprised when I got home so early, but I had called Mik and Michelle's and no one answered so I headed home.
Wednesday:

I went down for "Coffee with the Pastor" this morning and had a good time talking with Pam, Janet and Peggy.  I picked up the mail and a couple of things at Sentry before heading home.  While I was working on the PC-6 Jackie sent me a picture of Cora.  It looks like she sits up nice and straight, she is teething and has been a little fussy.

 I finished up the rudder and stab today and put everything together to see how it looks.

It turned out to be bigger than I expected.  A few minor things to finish, sanding and it will be ready to cover, I will have to decide on a color scheme pretty soon.

Since I was finished with the construction I cleaned off the work bench and made sure to take a picture because it doesn't happen too often.