Life's a beach

My good friend Dave Tufts invited me to his beach house near Destin with his two girls Peyton (3) and Chloe (2). His wife Jennifer, and her mother went to Seattle so I got the "pseudo uncle" call! We came down Thursday afternoon and made it in time for dinner in Seaside, near their vaction home that they rent. The last time I was in the Destin area was at least 8 years ago, and also with Dave, and also on Mother's Day weekend. (Sorry Mom to miss out on celebrating with you AGAIN this weekend. I LOVE YOU!) Here are pics from day one at the beach, I had a blast playing uncle and spending time with my friend!

Chloe (aka Coco) all wrapped up getting warm and dry after SO much fun!

Both girls love mermaids and here are their fins, although hard to see.
After the beach we pulled the Burley's (pull behind bike trailers for kids) down 30A on the bike path to the Water Color pool. Dave didn't go very slow through the mud puddles and she got covered, but she still looks cute! Both girls were passed out for the 7 mile trip. What a rough day. :)
Chloe LOVES con queso! I think the nacho was just a mechanical device to get the cheese to her mouth! Imagine that!

Riding back after dinner. Dave asked Chloe what the best part of the day was and she said "bike ride". That's my girl!

Flying for fun!

It has obviously been a while since I last posted, but not much has changed or gone on since then. It's pretty much the same routine these days; work, ride, eat, sleep, rinse and repeat. The 3 houses are coming along well, except for one being delayed by the framing inspector. What a pain in the ass he has been.... I've been riding more and am working on plans for a Memorial weekend ride with 6 of my buddies. We will ride from Mark Brunner's new home in Blairsville to Sylva. The next day ride up to Clingman's Dome and back to Sylva then the following day ride back to Blairstucky.

Last week I was REALLY Jonesing to go fly, so I started making mental plans to get back up this week. I told Jason Morris that I wanted to go up soon and asked if he wanted a ride. So he and I went up yesterday for a quick hour flight. We flew over Stone Mountain then I asked if it was ok to do a touch and go at Lawrenceville (KLZU), he said sure. I'll have to say I rated it an 8 on my scale and he thought it was a picture perfect landing too! We then flew over Buford Dam at Lake Lanier and then back to PDK for another smooth landing. The lake is looking much more healthy these days with water, but the smaller islands really tell you how low the lake level is still. April showers brings...... water skiing in the summer. I don't care about flowers! Below is video Jason took from our flight, so check it out if you like. Ciao!

Flying over Stone Mountain

Flying over Lake Lanier

I’m a pielott..pylot..pilote... I fly planes.

It's official, I'm a PILOT! Yesterday, March 1st, roughly 4 months to the day after I started taking flying lessons, I passed my oral and practical exam. Since the very beginning I had hoped to do it in that amount of time and within 50-60 hours of training. I actually flew 42 hours before going for my check ride, which I was really surprised to have done.

Yesterday, Melissa and I flew up to Anderson, S.C. to do the exam with her favorite Designated Flight Examiner, Randy Haralson. He was exactly the type person she described; funny, sarcastic, fair and a general smart ass like us. I felt comfortable talking with him, so I knew that things would be OK. We started with the oral exam at the FBO in their conference room, and 1.5 hours later we were done. The oral exam is basically a continuation of the written exam, but the questions are asked by the DFE. I have continued to study for it since passing the written exam about a month ago. I was more worried about the oral exam than I was the practical. It was tough! But again, Randy was fair and I learned a few more things and will be a better informed pilot because of it.

Next was the practical exam and it went as follows (I'm writing this down now before I forget for future reference): Started off with a soft field takeoff, flew my flight plan to the first check point, diverted towards an alternate airport and stated distance and time it should take to get there, slow flight, power off stall, power on stall, steep turn, simulated IFR "hood" time with recovery from an uncoordinated attitude, flew a VOR heading TO the station, with hood off we practiced emergency landing procedures, turn about a point (I actually used the VOR beacon!), soft field landing (we counted the second touch down.... it was windy!), short field landing to a full stop, short field takeoff, no flap forward slip to land, GREASED the landing. Certified private pilot!

And since today is so beautiful, I'm taking Matthew Morris up for a ride this afternoon, my first official passenger! Thanks for all of the support and encouragement, it was fun! So who wants to go fly somewhere????

Who's f@*#!&g this chicken? That's right, me!
A more "sensible" pose!
Two pilots on a joy ride back to PDK.
A beautiful sunset
This beautiful artwork was done by Melissa when I soloed. My "tail feathers" have been up on the wall at the flight school and I finally brought it home. Notice the drawing of my mom and dad on the right when they were in the tower! I was a little more politically correct that day when I landed..... Who loves this chicken?

White people

Here is article #61 on a site all about white people and our funny cultural habits. Check it out, we are pretty funny people! http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com


#61 Bicycles
February 10, 2008 by clander

A good place to find white people on a Saturday is at a Bike Shop. Bike shops are almost entirely staffed and patronized by white people!

But not all white people love bicycles in the same way, there is much diversity. First up, we have the younger urban white folks who absolutely love their fixed gear bicycles. These are seen all over college towns, Silverlake in LA, Williamsburg in Brooklyn, Queen West in Toronto, and Victoria, British Columbia. Fixed gear bicycles meet a lot of requirements for white person acceptance. They can be made from older (i.e. vintage) bicycles, thus allowing the rider to have a unique bike that is unlikely to be ridden by anyone else in town. They are also easily customizable with expensive things Aerospoke rims, Phil Wood Hubs, and Nitto Parts. The combination of rare bicycles and expensive parts makes it easy for white people to judge other white people on the quality and originality of their bicycles. This is important in determining if someone is or isn’t cooler than you.

White people also like Mountain Bikes because it lets them be in nature. It’s really not more complicated than that.

And finally, they love expensive Road Bikes and the accompanying spandex uniforms. This enables them to ride long distances and wear really tight clothes without any social stigmas. These types of riders will spend upwards of $5,000 on a bicycle and up to $400 on accessories, but will not ride to work. Perhaps because they cannot wear the spandex. It is important that you never question why someone needs a $5000 bicycle since the answer is always “performance.”

For the most part, these rules have been unisex. But there is a special category of bicycles that appeal far more to white women, the European city bike (pictured). White women have a lot of fantasies about idealized lives, and one of them is living in Europe and riding around an old city on one of these bikes. They dream about waking up and riding to a little cafe, then visiting bakeries and cheese shops and finally riding home to prepare a fancy meal for their friends who will all eat under a canopy with white Christmas lights. This information can be used to help gain the trust/admiration of a white woman, especially if you can pull off a lie about how your mother told you about how she used to do all of these things when she was younger.

And of course, it goes without saying that white people who ride bikes like to talk about how they are saving the earth. If you know a person who rides to work, you should take them aside and say “Hey, thanks. Sincerely, The Earth.” Then give a thumbs up. That white person will ride home on a cloud.

I passed the FAA written exam!

Today I took the FAA written exam for my private pilot's certificate. Out of 61 questions I only missed 7 and passed with a score of 88! When I finished the test I really felt like I missed more than that, so I was pleasantly surprised. But then again, anything over a 70 is a wasted effort! My dad said it's just more stuff that I will need to forget, which is probably true. I really thought the test had some of the "easier" questions on it. Or at least more than I thought there would be. But maybe it's easy when you know the answers..... I might have to ponder that.

Melissa and I are going up tomorrow for what may be our last instructional flight. We need to practice "diversions" from the intended route to get ready for the practical test which I plan to take in two weeks. I also purchased a book to prep for the oral exam which the Designated Flight Examiner will test me on when I go for the practical. Two weeks and counting!

Glad I wasn't this guy

I was at the jobsite when Matthew Morris called and said that a plane was trying to land with the gear UP! The pilots are an instructor and a student, and that's about all he knew. Since the houses we are building are near my house and thus, PDK, I went over there to watch. I guess you could say this is "rubber necking" for pilots! I got to the observation area at the airport and there were probably 40 people there already, along with 3 camera crews. The choppers were in the air, hovering, watching and filiming the action. When I heard about it I immediately called my instructor and it went straight to voicemail. I wasn't really worried that much because our flight school doesn't have a Cessna with retractable gears, but you never know who else she might be flying with. Safe to say, it wasn't her! Jason showed up just in time to watch a beautiful landing, even if all the gears weren't down. The instructor was even able to "taxi" the plane off the runway, or mostly. He came in at the minimum airspeed, full flaps, killed the engine, landed and crumbled the tail wheels, slid on it's belly for a while, then steered off the runway. I was impressed and pray that this never happens to me, dad, or anyone else for that matter.

Go here for the link to the 11 Alive News video.

Click on to get a better view of them on final.

Wally, this is gonna get scary....

They both "high fived" and then hugged. Both pilots and plane WILL fly again. A safe forced landing. I like it!

Brian the Builder

Here are some pictures of the house I am building with Jason and Matthew Morris. They have been in business for almost 3 years and have built 15+ homes so far. I came on board after cycling around Europe just to help them finish a couple of houses, I didn't really expect for it to turn into something full-time, but it did! My goal right now is to just learn since I have never been on this side of the building process, actually in the field and hands-on. Well, almost hands-on, I did pick up a shovel on Saturday and a broom today. Otherwise it's just making sure that things are scheduled and work is getting done to our satisifaction. So far, so good! We framed the house in 8 days, and got all of the mechanical roughs done in about 5 after that. Also included are exterior doors and windows, some concrete for posts and rear patio, fireplace, etc. Oh, and we have passed the HVAC and plumbing inspections on the first pass. Hopefully electrical and framing will go as smoothly, but I doubt it, they are pretty tough. So here's the house we're building! And you can also go to http://www.morris-brothers.com/ and check out some of their other projects.

Kitchen

Buckhead skyline view from the master bedroom! The entire front of the house on the upper level is the master suite and bathroom.