time: 12:54 a.m.
about: busy? probably
A lot has been going on lately. My mom even asked me today, "Don't you ever get tired? You're always up running around." I took another bite of my Spam sandwich, thought for a second, and said no. Even though everything has been really crazy lately, I seem to be handling it pretty well. Especially today, the most jam-packed day of all. I woke up 30 minutes late today, ate breakfast and showered, fished my work shirt out of the hamper (where it had been sitting for at least 5 days), and ironed the hell out of it (and hopefully ironed the smell out of it, too). Work was okay, only one shift of carts. But there was cartloads of overstock. When people change their mind about groceries and decide that they don't want something they originally intended to buy, we go put it back on the shelf. Today I spent about two and a half hours putting stuff back on the shelf. It's not the putting that's so hard, it's the shelf. Customers find the weirdest crap in the weirdest places. And when they don't want it anymore, I have to use creative thinking to come up with where it should go. My store isn't the best thought-out store, with related items in completely unrelated aisles. You'd think Hamburger Helper and Tuna Helper would be right next to each other. Not so. Dried beans? Different size bag, different shelf. Anyway, it gets me away from bagging and I can aimlessly wander around the store for 90 minutes at a time without being yelled at.
After work, I stopped by Katie's house. She's been really sick lately and I told her I'd stop by and see how she was doing. Hopefully she won't be down as long as the doctors say she will. She wanted me to stay and watch a movie with her and I really, really wanted to but I was expected at my grandparents' house. So I had a popsicle and left. I'm horrible, I know.
My grandparents' get these sudden urges every now and then where they need to see us grandkids. The burden is placed on me, my brother, and my sister because we're pretty much the only grandkids close enough to visit without making a day of it. I'm pretty sure I've written or talked about this before, but my mom's side of the family used to get together only once or twice a year. Now we're getting together for birthdays, holidays, Saturdays...anytime that the whole family seems to have nothing better to do (which happens all too often). It'sreally not that bad, more inconvenient than anything. Very inconvenient in today's case. And we were only there for about 20 minutes.
I had about an hour and a half at home after that. It was in this time I indulged in two Spam sandwiches and got a weather briefing for my upcoming flight. I left at 5:30 to make it out to Skyline by 6:30. About halfway through the trip I realized that rush hour traffic does not exist on weekends. I made it to Skyline at 6:00, two and a half hours before my flight time. My route was just KSUS direct to KSIK, Spirit of St. Louis airport to Sikeston Memorial airport, a little over an hour by air. Real easy stuff. I breezed through the planning, got a weather briefing, did a real quick weight and balance check, filled out my VFR flight plan form with all my checkpoints and frequencies, done by 7:30. (In retrospect, I should've taken more time because I forgot to figure out the leg times which really screwed me over once we got off the ground.) So I talked with Stephan (Gaffney) and a couple of the instructors hanging around there, chatting and watching the Cards game. Nathan arrived at around 8, so I called up flight service, listened to a quick weather briefing, then filed two flight plans, there and back. I preflighted the plane with the little daylight that was left, cranked it up, we were the second Katana out of the gate. All three were leaving on night XCs. The flight to Sikeston was pretty uneventful. It's harder at night to keep straight-and-level, though, so it took a little longer due to my frequent heading and altitude changes. I'm sure approach control was about ten minutes away from asking why the radar blip for Katana N713MW was bouncing all over the place like a drunken idiot. I like to call it "maneuvering". Anyway, we landed okay, a little high and fast, but that's how I like it. That's how I live. On the ground, Nathan called flight service. I called Jake. He was at his aunt's house in KC, on his way home from Colorado. We chatted a little about what's going on and what's going to go on. Nathan put me under the hood (a device that allows me only to see the instruments, nothing outside) for about half an hour on the way back. I did better not seeing than I did seeing. I kept it straight (mostly) and held my altitude much better. We talked about aviation adventures of the past and of the future and before I knew it, we were back over Festus. I turned on the airport's runway lights. Pilot controlled lighting is great. Look out the left side of the cockpit, seven clicks on an empty frequency, and BAM! you've got runway lights popping up. It gives you a sense of control. Seeing this whole horizon of lights, this grid below you, and changing it with such magnitude. You have to see it and have a really stupid sense of humor to enjoy it. I balked the first landing at Spirit, nailed the second one.
I spent the rest of my night drinking Mr. Green and watching Maximum Velocity on public access TV. I could've gone for a Spam sandwich.
This entry is a lot more than I originally intened to write. I gotta get up really early tomorrow. Ah, the sacrifices I make for...well, nothing. I have to stop writing before I get any crazier. The Mr. Green has gone to my head. I'm making aviation jokes that no one understands for Christ's sake.
Put the autopilot on,
Drew
done...and this time, for good - November 18, 2004
a Democrat thinking like a Republican - November 11, 2004
go vote, get screwed - October 26, 2004
do you miss me? - October 12, 2004
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