$1.97/gallon


by Berck

Yesterday, I got gas after coming back from the post office to mail something I’d sold on eBay. I was annoyed that it was a $1.97/gallon. I filled up Arthur, something I’ve gotten reasonably good at doing finally. If I just stop after the automatic shutoff, it’s anywhere between 1.5-2.5 gallons shy of full. Unfortunately, it’s really difficult to fill all the way up without getting gasoline everywhere. Which is why you have to actually pull the nozzle out and watch the level in the tank… much like filling up an airplane.

This morning was cloudy and rainy, but it’s been clearing up this afternoon. I was trying to decide whether to go for a drive in Arthur or ride my bike. I decided to ride the bike since gas is so expensive. When I came back about 45 minutes later, I smelled gasoline outside my apartment. It took me awhile to figure out…

See, gasoline has a very noticeable tendancy to vary its volume in response to temperature changes. Water, for instance, doesn’t do this. Gasoline does– something most people aren’t very aware of. Most pilots know this. If you fill an airplane on a hot day, it won’t take as much fuel as on a cold day. This is why when it matters, fuel is measured by weight. The CRJ-600s I rode around on as a flight attendant can hold aproximately 14,500lbs of fuel. But on a 110 degree day on the ramp at DFW, they’re never going to get 14,000lbs in it. That’s a significant amount of fuel. It’s not as significant when you’re talking about a Cessna 172 that can only hold 21.5 gallons of fuel in each tank. (Only 20 gallons per tank are usable)

Gasoline was slowly coming out from under Arthur’s fuel cap. Still, something didn’t make sense. It felt just as cold outside as it was when I filled up Arthur yesterday. Then it hit me. As Nathan is fond of pointing out, the gas tank is inside the cab. With the sun shining and the windows all sealed tight, it was plenty warm inside the cab and getting warmer.

So I went for a drive with the windows down after all… cooled it off and used some of that gasoline.

Posted in Automotive Frustrations | No Comments

Waiting around for Stage Check


by Berck

The weather’s been icky the past couple of days, which I’m sure isn’t helping. I need to study, but I haven’t done that today either.

I got a new flight instructor last week. After my current one had annoyed me to no end, and it didn’t seem like I was getting anywhere, I got another one. He thought my maneuvers were fine and signed me off for a stage check. I’m not sure which one of them was right, but I like the noises the second one makes a lot better:)

I did another grass strip landing at Chickasha on Wednesday. That was fun. There’s not a lot to it, although I did it with a tailwind, something I’ve never tried before. Only about 4 knots, but still, it’s amazing how much difference 4 knots can make on your tail. I forget exactly, but a tail wind increases your landing distance something like 4 times as much as a headwind decreases your distance. I’m also not exactly sure why that’s the case. But the end result is that landing with a tail wind is not recommended. But I’m glad I’ve done it, so now I know what it feels like. You just fly down the runway and float forever. And then to do that on grass as well…. There’s nothing like a real soft field landing to help work out your soft field technique.

The interesting thing about Chickasha these days is note on the AWOS. (Automated Weather Observation System). In Norman, there’s a computer voice reading out the weather and it updates every minute. At Chickasha, it’s not as automated… There’s a human reading the weather, it’s not updated as often, but they also include airport notes. Like this one. “Runway One Seven Three Five is Closed. Landing is on the Taxiway. It’s 35 feet wide.” Yay. I landed on it with a 16 gusting to 22 knot DIRECT crosswind. By direct, I mean that it was perpendicular to the “runway”. I’ve never landed in a crosswind like that, but it was fun. That’s a lot of crosswind. To put it in perspective for you: The maximum demonstrated safe crosswind component of a C-172 is, I think, 12 knots. All that means is that someone demonstrated that the plane can be landed with a 12 knot crosswind. Doesn’t make it can’t be done it more, just that all that’s every been demonstrated to the FAA is 12 knots. It’s generally a pretty conservative number. To make it better, I did on a 35 foot taxi way. Which means that there’s really no room to get blown off centerline, unless you want to land in the piles of dirt. And that would be bad.

I was so impressed with myself, that I decided to do it again. I landed to the north the first time, and then landed to the south another two times.

Anyway, now I’m signed off, so I’m waiting around for a stage check. If I pass, it’s on to learning to fly a “complex” airplane, which is only like 10-15 hours of flight.

I should be taking these bad weather days to study for my oral. Maybe I’ll do that today.

I’ve been feeling restless lately. This has been giving me strange ideas, which I may or may not execute. Mostly depends on whether or not Joanna is similarly inclined. I’ll just let you guys guess, since I don’t want everyone to try to talk me out of it if we do manage to do it.

Now I have to go complain to the apartment people that our garbage dispose-all is garbage.

Posted in Flying, Nonclassified Nonsense | 9 Comments

New Job…Description


by Jonah

At work we’re moving to another part of the warehouse. There are several companies sharing the warehouse with Mardel. Hobby Lobby is the largest company; it also is in a couple of other warehouses on the site. Our building also houses Greco, which makes picture frames, and Crafts Etc., which makes crafts. Actually, as near as I can tell, all the crafts are made in China, but they’re stored in our warehouse.

Greco is the oldest of the companies. One of the owners started Hobby Lobby to sell Greco’s frames. Greco is also the smallest of the companies, I think, but they’re still growing, and they needed more space. So they’re moving from one side of Mardel’s part of the warehouse, where they were boxed in, to our other side. Now we get to expand into their old area.

Our move is expected to take six months. We’re only moving a few aisles down, so it’ll be a job for forklifts and pallet jacks. But our boss is creating a whole new shift to do the moving. I volunteered for the new shift because it’s from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. I’m currently leaving for work at 6:20 a.m., and I’m NOT a morning person.

Another advantage to the new shift is that it’ll be more interesting and involve more responsibility. I didn’t realize just how much responsibility until this week when I was informed that I would be taking over as the inventory empress’ chief slave. There are currently two people who do her bidding fulltime. Now I will apparently do ALL of it.

Ever since I started working at Mardel’s warehouse, I envied the inventory slaves; they looked so official walking around with their clipboards, efficiently pulling out bin boxes to count what was inside. When you’re dragging a heavy cart around, pulling books as fast as you can, doing ANYTHING else looks preferable. I wonder if I’ll ever get to do that, I thought, watching Jerry or Brenda make notations and slapping blank, white stickers over location tags, effectively deleting that item from inventory. Oh, the power.

So all this week, Jerry and Brenda have been initiating me in the brotherhood of inventorying. I have learned how to perform the following tasks:

DOD’s (I still don’t know what that stands for…Dead On Delivery, I’ve imagined.)
Zeroes
Sell Downs
New Labels
Moved Items
Duplicate Items
Duplicate Locations

And Monday I’ll learn how to do Final Counts.

All of these tasks are simple enough, yet they are not entrusted to mere mortal in-checkers. One must answer to Laura, the Inventory Dictatress herself.

“Sell Downs” are when we discontinue an item. We had 37 pages to do today. “Zeroes” are checking every SKU (stock-keeping unit) that has gone to zero that week; it’s a quick and easy way of keeping up with inventory.

DOD’s are the most complicated. Whenever a puller needs an item that’s in a location that’s empty, they

1. Curse
2. Check their store order sheet to see how many of that item we’re supposed to have in stock
3. Curse again
4. Helplessly, scan for boxed top-stock in the six surrounding sections
5. Give up and scribble “TO” for “temporarily out” on the order sheet

That “TO” now goes to me. I have to figure out where the missing product went. Sometimes this is easier than others. If I’m lucky, the stupid puller was looking at the wrong location, and the product was there all along. If it’s more complicated, I have to go to the warehouse office, find the file for the particular purchase order from the vendor the last time we got that product in, make sure we actually got it, make sure the product was actually stocked, and then search all the locations of that vendor for my missing product. If I still can’t find it, I have to count all the product in the surrounding locations and turn it into Laura (in case the product was misstocked and already pulled and shipped). Whenever Laura deems I’ve sufficiently proven my loyalty and service to her, my search ends.

DOD’s will be my most common task. After every store has finished being pulled, the order sheets all go to the warehouse office, where they are adjusted and reprinted according to what was actually on the shelves. Next someone in the warehouse office calls over the intercom, “Jerry, DOD’s are ready; Jerry, DOD’s are ready.” And Jerry goes and fetches them. Since I’m working much later than Jerry or Brenda, I’LL be the one to get them, and they’ll say my name over the intercom. Ha ha!

Anyway, Laura is a demanding suzerain, but kind. As long as I serve her carefully and make occasional jokes, I will remain in her good favor. She seems to like me, for some reason.

Which is a good thing, because she’s in charge of the new moving shift.

Posted in Warehouse Blues | 4 Comments

Mt. Magazine State Park


by Berck

Joanna figured we should see what Arkansas has to offer since it’s relatively close and has hills. She picked Mt. Magazine because it’s relatively close (we only used 2 tanks of gasoline round-trip) and it’s the highest point in Arkansas.

This seemed as good a weekend as any to head out there (especially since we didn’t want to go in the summer), so we packed the car and set off. Packing for a weekend camping trip seems so incredibly easy compared to packing for a few months camping.

The weather was pretty good. Saturday presented us with a high overcast stratus layer which prevented us from getting any sun, but it was remarkably warm with a high around 65. We put the top down on Saturday and didn’t put it back up until we got back. That’s one of the only things I miss in the winter is top down driving. Joanna was smoking something and started directing me to I-40.

“Aren’t there good roads?”

“I don’t know…”

“Well, why should we drive Interstate?”

“You don’t want to drive on the Interstate?”

“No! When do I ever want to drive on the interstate?”

We took Highway 9 out of Norman and drove through the countryside. Interstate driving is so boring, and you don’t get to see anything. The two-laned roads really aren’t much slower in places like Oklahoma. The speed limit is 65mph, but there aren’t any cops, and the roads are pretty straight with lots of passing opportunities. Passing provides a good excuse to downshift into 3rd at 60mph and hear the engine scream— something that’s just silly on the interstate. Joanna and I discussed passing techniques– she drives me crazy by passing in 5th gear all the time. “I don’t NEED to downshift.” she says. I maintain if you’ve got the power, you might as well spend as little time in the opposite lane as necessary. I view it like using maximum available power for takeoff in an airplane, always. Why needlessly risk trouble? Joanna seemed surprised that in third gear, the rev limiter doesn’t cut in until 85mph.

We stopped in Tecumseh, OK for lunch at a little cafe full of smoke. Jonah had country fried steak; I had a burned burger that was made better by the addition of lots of pickles and grilled onions.

We didn’t get there until about 5pm. Fortunately, Joanna had called for reservations, because it’s a very strange park. There didn’t appear to be any way to pay for a campsite after the visitor center had closed. Stuck on the window was a piece of paper that said ASH #8 in letters big enough that I could read them from the car. Joanna walked up and managed to figure out that ASH is more or less our last name, and took the note to mean that we were supposed to be in #8. The nice thing about being assigned a campground is that you don’t have to pick. Given the choices available (not many), we probably would have picked #8 anyway.

Joanna scavanged for firewood while I set up the tent. The wood was pretty damp, so she made a lot of smoke before getting a fire going, though she didn’t seem to have much trouble. It was nice to be camping somewhere that gathering firewood isn’t prohibited like it is most places we’ve been lately. (In much of the west, fires weren’t allowed at all last year…)

On Sunday morning we drove the scenic loop and walked up to the highest point in Arkansas.

We took a different and probably better route home. We went through McAllister, home of the only remaining Flight Service Station in Oklahoma. I talk to someone in McAllister everytime I fly…. now I’ve been there. We also went through Holdenville, yet another no-where place I’d flown to. I remembered finding Holdenville was somewhat difficult because there’s really nothing between Norman and Holdenville. It didn’t look much different from the car.

The weather on Sunday was sunny until we got within about 60 miles of Norman. Joanna and I even got just a little bed red-faced.

A good weekend. I took a few pictures– they’re up on the photographs page.

Posted in Wanderings | No Comments