Our Dumb Blog

I’ve got 3 dual instructional flights, 1 solo, and a checkride before I’m done with Stage 2 commercial. This stage I’ve been learning accuracy landings, and maneuvers such as Lazy Eights, Chandelles, Eights on Pylons, Steep Spirals… If my instructor didn’t annoy me quite a bit, I think I’d probably be enjoying it a lot more. Fortunately, Stage 3 is in a “complex” airplane and I’ll have a different instructor. “Complex” probably sounds cooler than it is– all it means is a plane with flaps, retractable gear and a variable pitch prop. Still, it will be the first time I’ve ever flown something other than a Cessna 172. Well, sort of. It’s a Cessna 172-RG.

I just found out last week that I have to have the FAA Commercial Written Exam AND I have to pass an oral exam before completion of Stage 2. It would have been good if I’d known this sooner. Still, it’s not a very big deal. I’ve been studying for the written, and like all FAA written exams I’ve taken before it, it will be a pain.

And it looks like I’m going to have plenty of time since the weather has turned all wintery again. The AWOS this morning was claiming 2 miles visibility, 100 feet overcast and light snow. There’s no snow, so I think the “automated percipitation descriminator” wasn’t doing such a good job of discriminating.

The weather was nice yesterday, which is why the plane I was scheduled in was broken. And the weather is predicted to be bad for the whole week.

So, back to my books. I haven’t scored less than a 90 on any of my written exams so far, and I wouldn’t want to screw that up here at the end. Not that it matters to anyone but me.

We had our first real Valentine’s Day as a married couple yesterday. Last year we were driving through Bryce Canyon and splurged on firewood ($3 for an armload; Berck just about collapsed under the load I laid on him) for a nice, warm blaze.

This year, Berck cleaned the apartment and cooked a roast, mashed potatoes, and asperagus roll-ups. I washed my hair and put on a dress. Berck gave me a CD, in case I gave him a present. (I had given him a CD for Christmas, and he said, “But I thought we didn’t give each other Christmas presents!” I guess we’ll have to work on holiday traditions.)

After supper we played some Twenty Questions (cool site), then went to bed early.

It was my best Valentine’s Day ever.

Actual Fact: Saudi Arabia’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice banned the selling of red flowers in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day.

We had a Good Day yesterday. I made biscuits for breakfast. We went for frozen custard at Rusty’s, then took the long way home, exploring a good bit of southern Oklahoma. The weather was beautiful, perfect for driving with the top down. We passed through several of the little towns Berck flies to.

One of the little towns along our way was Maysville, which doesn’t have an airport but does have an aviation theme about it. There’s a diner with a plane tail sticking out of the roof. This is because Maysville is the home of Wiley Post, who seems to be the most famous Oklahoman in the world, barring Will Rogers; the two men died together.

Otherwise, Maysville doesn’t have much to offer. As we approached the center of town, the street signs proceeded as follows:

1st ST
SECOND ST
THIRD ST
FOURTH
MAIN ST

I guess Maysville couldn’t afford congruent street signage.

Main looked very much like an alley, the next street being far more main (and a state highway).

We turned east onto it, then back north when we got to Lindsey, which is big enough to support a McDonalds. Speeding along, we passed one mobile home with a man outside practicing lassoing a sawhorse. “Well,” Berck remarked, “I guess you can’t get any more stereotypical than that.”

Actual Fact: Wiley Post was the first man to fly around the world solo. He also developed the first pressure suit for high altitude flying, using it to reach a record of 50,000 feet and discovering the jet stream.

Berck woke me up Monday morning. “Jonah! It’s 6:32!”

I set my alarm for 5:55 a.m. It takes half an hour to get to work, so I usually try to leave at 6:20 so I have time to put my lunch up and go to the washroom before walking the two-minute walk to the other side of the warehouse where the timeclock is located.

I’m glad I was driving the Miata with the radar detector holster ready to go.

I clocked in at 7:03.

Last night I dreamed I got two tickets. So I drove extra slow on the way to work this morning.

Actual Fact: In a recent study published by the British Journal of Medicine, St. John’s Wort worked a heck of a lot better than Paxil. Half of participants felt better with St. John’s Wort, while only a third felt better with Paxil. And the Paxil takers complained of lots of side effects.