Fall means time to get outside and do stuff…

Well it does for me anyway. I love the cooler temps and it always prompts me to want to get outside. It must be my aversion to sweating that lets me appreciate the cooler weather. It’s funny, for someone who doesn’t like sweating… I sure do a lot of it. Hey, when you are good at something… stay with it I always say. I once told (a disbelieving) Amber that I could sweat off more than 6 pounds of water weight on a single bike ride… which I then went out and did (like an idiot). I think my current record is 7 pounds on a 5 hour ride smack in the middle of summer. Of course at that point I am dehydrated and need to put liquids back in, which I do. So much for my new fad diet idea.

Anyway, back to the cooler temps… We have been on the go lately. Went to Brownwood to visit my mom (all of us including Ginger)… Karah and I went to an air show at Sheppard Air base in Wichita Falls on a whim last weekend… got tickets to the Dallas Stars game this Wednesday night (company gift), and we are all going to Austin next weekend to visit… I have next week off of work (too much vacation time) so I plan on riding my bike every day… yeah, definitely on the go.

Where to start… went to my Mom’s for a long overdue visit a week or so ago. Scrappy was in town as well and we all had a great time. I really think Mom and Scrappy need a Wii. I am serious. They have been all hooked on this computer golf game we got them a while back and we showed up with the Wii in tow (hey, it’s for the kids) and along with it Wii Sports Resort… yeah, I think they are hooked. Of course this all got turned into a rivalry between myself and Scrappy on the (simulated) golf course, a rivalry which will probably carry on for some time to come. It was all started (as with most things) with me and my big mouth. I spouted off that Scrappy needed to shave at least 15-20 strokes off his game before he had a chance against me. Well I will be damned if our old pal the Scrapster isn’t a quick learner. I know, I fell off my stool when he put up a decent number on his second round. Of course I couldn’t have any of that, so I would say that those watching would all agree that it was at this point that the rivalry began. They will be speaking about this mighty struggle of thumbs and trigger fingers out on CR 215 for years to come. I still say Scrappy has a hitch in his backswing with or without a Wii remote in his hands. Its one of those kinds of swings that you don’t want to look at, for fear of it burning into your mind and affecting your own swing. ;]

We didn’t just sit around and play video games… we ate a bunch too. My mom’s cooking is always a popular thing and she had her famous (well famous in my mind) chocolate chip cookies all waiting for us when we drove up late Friday night. They never had a chance. I think I ate the last of them with milk for breakfast. Of course I have raised a couple of kids who appreciate them as much or more than I do (so I had help). Amber and I did go out and do an early morning 7 mile walk though… so I think I broke even. The kids love going out and exploring out at her place. I think the boys spend most of their time walking around and looking for creatures and crawly things… Luc found a spider that was missing a couple of legs. Interesting looking and after consulting several guides, I think it was a Huntsman spider because of its long legs. Strange red color though. Cool stuff and Luc played with his new found “macro” setting to take some good close up shots of it.

For chores Mom had Scrappy and I get up on the roof to pull down an old antenna that I swear looked older than me. I am serious… I haven’t seen so many spindly broken vanes since, well, when was the last time anyone has seen Scrappy in a pair of shorts? I know, its spelled veins. Thanks. Anyway, it was probably comical to watch us pull down this 30-40 foot telescoping antenna what with all the support cables, the tree limbs, spiders (recurring thing around her place) and both of us out there in shorts with very few tools… but hey, isn’t that the best way to approach these kinds of projects? Just go get tools as you need em? Actually we did fine as there is one thing there is no shortage of around my Mom’s place and that’s ladders. I think she is going to put up one of those boomerang HD antennae soon. I hope it helps with reception but with the amount of trees she has there, its always going to be a fight.

Mom is doing great and she seemed really happy to see us. I think she missed her grandkids and probably even Ginger a little bit too. I think we have her talked into coming up to Plano to see Max’s first orchestra concert… or is it concerto? I don’t know, I am new to this. Anyway, it would be great to have her come up and visit as I think it’s a couple of days leading up to the weekend my brother is bringing Cydney up to visit us. Weekend was capped off nicely with Brian and Cydney driving up to meet us in Brownwood for lunch Sunday. It was the first chance we have had to meet her and I have to say my brother seems really happy right now. I could not be more pleased. I love that he seems like himself and seems really comfortable with her around us. It was probably a bit intimidating to drive up and meet all of us last minute but I give her top marks. She gets a lot of credit from me for even being seen in public with my brother. :P

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Last weekend was a cold grey bookend set of days that had most people inside all weekend. Not me, I went out and rode my usual Saturday ride with the Plano cycling group but that was definitely a low turnout type of affair. Fairweather cyclists. Hah. I snicker in your general direction… It was cold and wet and felt a lot colder than it showed on the thermostat. Did a nice ride and because there weren’t as many out, did a lot of pulling. I am enjoying riding my bike again and am hoping to keep the mileage up this winter. Who knows, I may pin a number on in the spring once again. We will see, I still have a lot of weight to lose to be competitive. Its too bad the mind doesn’t work like that… it always remembers when you were faster.




The kids were content to stay in all weekend as they truly appreciate their decompression time once the school week is behind them. I could only take so much so on Sunday I had to strike out and go do something. I asked who was in and only had one taker… the Crunch. She loves me right now and she must if she agreed to go to Wichita Falls to an air show with me. Everyone knows how much I am drawn to airplanes but no one else in the house seems as interested… too bad because I found a great little air show at Sheppard Air Base in Wichita Falls. It took some driving but was totally worth the price of admission… (free by the way).




First I want to apologize for the picture quality… tough conditions to shoot in. It was just a crappy day. I will try to do something more colorful soon.

When we got there… there was a B1B inbound from Dyess… that was pretty cool. It didn’t stop; it just made a nice slow pass for us. Very majestic plane for a bomber when you compare it to a B52 or the WW2 era bombers before that.

One of the planes I really wanted to see was the F15 Eagle. I have seen them fly a half dozen times and it never gets old. Ultimately I would be disappointed as its service ceiling needed a minimum of 1500 feet and the cloudy/foggy (Luc used to say “froggy”) conditions wouldn’t allow it to go up. The announcer made it a point to let us in on the fun and games behind the scene. Evidently the F18 Super Hornet pilot was ribbing the F15 pilot because he could take the Hornet up while the Eagle just had to sit there and watch. And what a display it was. I think because of the conditions and the later start… this led to shorter displays for all the planes. What it also allowed for was more fuel for the Navy pilot and less of a script for his routine and he made the most of it.









(remember...you can click on any photo to see it larger)

Got to see/hear him break the sound barrier or was right at it during one of the two high speed passes… Full cone not once but twice. This is commonly thought of as the point when the sound barrier is broken but it’s really just the atmospherics that cause this. It’s a debate that I am not bright enough to expound on so I won’t. It’s no doubt impressive to see either way. Couple of shots with a full cone and another one forming on the second shot… Cool huh?




He did something called a whisper pass which I would imagine would scare the hell out of anyone on the battlefield… he throttles up hard and early and then just cuts his engines to idle as it flies silently by. Of course when it comes to modern jets it would have all been over with miles before it got to you. It was still a very cool thing to have this plane fly by you just below Mach 1 while making less noise than your average hybrid.

One thing I didn’t get a shot of (and I really wanted to after the fact) was the C 17 Globemaster… Unfortunately Karah had just about had enough of the ear assault and had already eaten her fill of funnel cake (no mean feat), so we headed out just before that plane flew. She had been mostly unimpressed but I’ll be damned if the minute we got out to the parking lot she looked back and was mesmerized by the slow and almost unbelievable turning display being done by the C 17. It is so big and slow that you just know it’s going to fall out of the sky like a rock at any moment… so you have to keep watching because your mind cannot figure out why it hasn’t. It’s impressive.


Almost forgot… another cool thing we saw was Matt Younkin in his Beech 18 transport plane. This is a plane that was designed in the 30’s and used actively through the 40’s as a transport and cargo plane. It was never designed for what he does with it today. I would love to see the Beech aviation engineering team watch one of these shows… Unreal. Loops, Rolls, Low passes, you name it. This guy put this plane through more than the original designers every intended for it, a plane I might add that already had a full life of service before it was ever restored and repainted for its second life as a stunt plane. Cool stuff.


Got to see a Mig 17 flown by Randy Ball. The only civilian that is rated to fly this level of military jet at public events. Doesn’t sound like a big deal until you consider the fact that this plane can pull a sustained 8G during hard turns, something that was never bettered until the F 16 Falcon was introduced. The F 16 is one of our modern strike fighters and uses onboard computers to assist the pilot, something not available on this Russian beast… and the Mig 17 was utilized back in the Vietnam era, and conceived before that. 8G…think about that. A really aggressive sports car can only pull about 1G… Roller coasters might pull 2-3G… and an F1 car will pull 4G during hard cornering. 8G seems incredible at that point.

Anyway, sorry for the picture quality... or lack thereof. I will do better soon.

Ok… I need to get back to work breaking stuff. Hey, it’s what I do.

Seeing a hockey game tonight. Dallas Stars vs the Nashville Predators (expansion team). Haven’t seen one of those live since I was a kid and we got invited by the Levy’s to see the Whalers. I miss hockey, only because it reminds me of my childhood. Should be a blast.

Oh… funny Max story. I like to put one funny kid story in per entry… but this one is an old one and it’s out of season but it’s still amusing. He was about 3 or 4 I think and Amber had all of them at the public pool. I am pretty sure it was crowded. Max yelled across the pool to his Mom that “he needed to go to the bathroom”… then about 30 seconds later yelled… “Nevermind”. I can just see Amber's face. Funny kid.

More later. Be good everybody… ;]