a Ton of crap

Major progress on the remodel. Reframed the south wall over the nook, fridge and fireplace with J. and the roof didn't collapse while we did it. Yay.


Also hauled off the pile in the driveway that's been accumulating the past two months. Four trips to the dump totalling 2760 lbs of rubble.


I so tired.

Self-Dentistry

Oh, and did I mention we're also in the middle of a remodel?

It's every bit as bad as it looks. Only the bath is functional at this point, and only cold water. No heat. Outlets and switches dangling from cables in the middle of the room. Rubble and dust everywhere. (sigh) Remodels are just that way. They suck. You never know how you're actually going to build anything new until you take out what's there and see how it was built in the first place. Then you always run into stuff you didn't know was there. Unless you don't, and then you have to figure out how to deal with that...

Yeah, I know, I'm a buildergrrl so this should be no big deal. But to be honest, I'm a new construction type of builder. I usually start a project with a bulldozer - because I HATE REMODELS. (sigh)

Living in the remodel just makes it all that much worse. Nothing works, there's dust and rubble and crap everywhere, everything you own is in boxes under sheets and plastic - so who knows where anything is?? Trying to do your own remodel is like trying to drill and fill your own cavity - it's messy, no working space, no perspective, and absolutely no reason to do it yourself - unless you're a dentist and even then I bet it sucks.

I'm getting out of town this weekend.
Next week I'm camping in the back yard. Seriously.

Visit to 322MX

The other day the Flying Fish said, "Why don't you come on up to Arlington to check out your new airplane." How could I resist? So I flew on up in the little yellow cub to check it out. Parked behind FF's Cessna 180 and SP's Cessna 140... (All three planes were built 1940-1950)


Found the Flying Fish inside a hangar, making an airplane part...


Here's the finished right wing all riveted together:


And here's the left wing getting fuel lines, fuel pump, aileron and flap controls...


This is Jack. He's working on the horizontal stabilizer...


Have I mentioned how cool this all is??? I spent an hour at Glastar and came away super impressed by the shop, the parts, and the people working there.
Leaving at the end of the day...


Flying home...

Funny how things come around...

Way back when… years and years ago, when we were young and dreamed of starting a business… four of us went for a sail with a friend aboard Cinnamon Girl and we tried to think up something to start for ourselves. Over a weekend of deliberations, we decided to form a company building kites from the Flying Fish’s designs. But close behind in second place was an idea to build kit planes on spec, or for customers who didn't have time to build for themselves.

Chief among the kit planes we considered was the Glasair. They had a great design, a great kit, and they were pretty close to Seattle. Ultimately, we chose kites over planes which led to a story much too long to tell and got us all to where we are today.

For some reason, I find no irony in the fact that two of the original four are now building a Glasair Sportsman. And the friend who sailed us in Cinnamon Girl will be working on the engine. And the friend who first housed our fledgeling start-up will be helping us with our instrumentation and all-important CRM (cockpit resource management). In fact, nothing makes me happier than to see this team together again. I couldn’t wish for better craftsmen! But what's more is they're fulfilling their own dream – to build an airplane – and so they’re inspired to do their best work making their dream a reality. Would that we all could make an opportunity for ourseves to live our dreams!

Here are a few shots from day two of their progress…








Even more can be found here:
http://community.webshots.com/album/550018860KKupvd

322MX the beginning...

The Flying Fish and his oldest friend have begun building 322MikeXray, the plane we plan to fly to Patagonia and back in the winter of 07-08. 322MX is a Glasair Sportsman. An experimental class airplane. Seats 4, carries a cubic shitload of gear, can be configured as trike, taildragger, or with floats. It's comparable to the 1950's era Cessna 180 that we currently fly, but with more modern materials, aerodynamics, engine and avionics.

Here's day one of the build:





Flying Fish & Friend will be up at the Glasair factory in Arlington, WA for the next two weeks putting together the airframe. They'll go back a few weeks later to install the engine. Then 322MX will come back to our warehouse for instrument panel install and final fit and finish. Estimated completion is in the fall 2006.

Back in the Sky (at last!)

I had a great flight this evening. The weather has cleared out leaving blue skies and very little wind. The sun doesn’t set until after 8, so there’s plenty of time at the end of the day to make a plan and go for a flight.

Today I left Boeing Field (KBFI) around 6 and did a little airwork over Vashon Island before making a landing at Wax Orchards (WA69)– a lovely grass runway surrounded by pasture and lined with fruit trees. This is my favorite place to practice landings. There’s a nice image on GoogleEarth, but it was taken before the orchard was planted. You’ll just have to imagine the trees lining the runway.

From Wax I was off to Tacoma Narrows (KTIW), located just to the west of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The bridge is visible in the airport photo but what’s missing is the brand new suspension bridge being built right next to it. They’ve completed the caissons and are now in the process of stringing the cables between them. It’s a massive project – an obvious checkpoint on the downwind for landing. The view of the jobsite from the sky provides a sense of scale that the project webcams can only hint at from the surface (you can find them at wsdot.wa.gov/projects).

The other fun thing about KTIW is that it’s perched on a cliff nearly 300’ above the water. Landing to the north goes like this: call the tower from the south end of Vashon Island and enter a right-pattern downwind, cross over the suspension bridges and keep going to turn base out over the water, then turn in on final to land at the top of the cliff. (Taking off to the south is even better as the land drops out from under the plane as you soar into the sky!!)

As I headed back north from KTIW I waggled my wings for my niece and nephew who were keeping an eye out for a yellow plane just before bedtime. Then back to Boeing Field where the heavies were heading out for the night shift. I landed after a UPS 767 took off (leaving plenty of room for wake turbulence) and just before a DHL 767 took the runway. Those planes are absolutely mammoth compared to the J3 Cub!

In all, it was a really great flight. It feels good to be back up in the sky after so many gloomy days and way too much navel-gazing. And I find myself really glad, once again, that the Flying Fish thought up the Big Adventure that convinced me to get my pilot’s license.

Time Out

We just got back from the Cook Islands where we stayed a week at a little cabin we'd found on Aitutaki. It's the only cabin on an island that is othewise a day trip destination for snorkelers. Apart from a few hours in the middle of the day when three boats pull up for lunch we had the island all to ourselves. Schedule: watch the sunset, watch the moonrise, sleep, wake up and watch the sunrise, circumperambulate the island, snorkel, eat, nap, swim, eat, watch the sunset... repeat. It was lovely. It reminded us what it is to live.

Also, it was really good to get out of the country. This american society has so many self-inflicted neuroses - and what's the point? Social control through manufactured fear? More and more I've come to believe it. It was nice to get away from news, from americans, from the rat race, and spend some time in a much simpler culture where worries are of a much more immediate nature and the attitude is "Everything's going to be all right" as opposed to "Everything's going to Hell."

So now we're working on another long term plan which is in essence, to flip the proportion of rat race and vacation in our lives. The goal would be to have six weeks of engagement with the RatRace, and the rest of the time feeling like Everything's going to be all right - ideally in an environment or culture that supports such feelings.