After it seemed like it would never happen, I’ve finally soloed. I got up ridiculously early this morning after not sleeping terribly well and checked the weather. 2.5 miles visibility, but I knew it would clear up soon. Winds were 060 at 4 knots. Sure enough after showering and driving to the airport it was better than 5 miles visibility. It seemed like the entire Airman fleet of airplanes was leaving all at once, at 8am. D. endorsed my certificate and logbook, and after I preflighted the plane, we both took off for closed pattern work just like any other…
The weather still sucks. Right now, it’s just barely good enough for me to solo…. It’s It’s 2200ft overcast, but winds are gusting up to 17 knots and are expected to pick up a bit as the day wears on. 18 knots is the maximum (including gust factor). Winds are supposed to be light and variable tomorrow morning, and the sky is supposed to be clear by 8am. So I’m scheduled for 8am. We’ll see what happens. I tried to pressure D. into letting me solo today since who knows what it will be like tomorrow, and I’ve got to…
A memorial service was held for my grandmother in Mobile today. There will be another one in her hometown of Richmond, VA on June 5th that Berck and I are planning on attending. Here’s a eulogy my dad delivered at the service today. I thought it was a pretty cool synopsis of my grandmother’s life… DOROTHEA BOCK STAPLES June 11, 1915 – May 11, 2004 Most of you here in Mobile knew her either as Sarah’s mom, Robert’s mom-in-law, Joanna, Stephanie or Ben’s grandmother or the little ole lady in the wheelchair with the big smile. She was certainly all…
It’s storming. The OKC TAF doesn’t look good for the morning–600ft ceiling at 4am, and only 1200ft at 10am… overcast, mist, etc. Right now there temperature’s 10 degrees with a dewpoint of 8 degrees, which means low ceilings all morning. I talked to D., and we went ahead and decided to aim for tomorrow afternoon. There’s that possibility of a window of higher ceilings before the wind picks up after it gets a little warmer. We’ll see. I’m not going to get too excited. I’ve been experimenting with classic Italian cooking the past couple of days, serving Joanna multi-course meals.…
Well, my grandmother passed away Tuesday night. I’m now completely out of grandparents.