Saturday rode up to Kenosha and back with 3 other guys. It was a great ride.
I was then a lector at 5:30pm Mass.
Sunday morning went flying twice. Took a short flight locally while Minda was exercising. Went home and got the cars washed, did some paperwork, cleaned out the gutters, .... Then in the evening went to Koerner's airport near Kankakee and flew with some friends. Landed next to a restaurant. Had a great dinner with good friends and headed for home.
http://picasaweb.google.com/davidmcw3/090822BicyclingToKenosha#
http://picasaweb.google.com/davidmcw3/090823PPGTechny#
http://picasaweb.google.com/davidmcw3/090823PPGKankakeeKoernerToFranS#
It was a great weekend!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Yesterday. Air & Water Show. Wet. Blackberry problem.
There was a lot to do over the weekend. Minda & I were both working. There was shopping, office & home paperwork, social commitments, the Air & Water Show, ....
Saturday a bike ride was taken and then got to the office for a Saturday that was fully booked but unfortunately some patients didn't show. Primarily Heidi, our hygienist, was affected. This is a shame. She was counting on having a productive day but she had a lot of wasted time.
Minda & I attended Mass in the evening, got some things done around the house, went out for a bit and got to bed late. She was working at 6am so she was a bit sleep-compromised but not too badly.
My Blackberry Pearl has been used for playing too many podcasts and been banged around too much. The headset jack in it failed over the weekend. There was an online site that linked to a YouTube video that showed how to disassemble it. A specialized tool was needed that Radio Shack [now wanting to be known as, "The Shack"] didn't have but fortunately Home Depot did. The Pearl was taken apart and the headset jack was found to be broken. There is a plastic part that was shattered so it was removed and now the headset option is disabled but otherwise the phone is fine. It was cutting out when in use prior to this being done and worsening with time. The electronic short that this caused was not good. Now everything but the headset is fine. I am now using a small MP3 player that went into retirement after I acquired the Pearl for my podcast listening.
Some hours were spent at the office on Sunday morning/afternoon. It was threatening to rain but didn't early. Traditionally I like to bicycle to the Air & Water Show. There is a huge crowd but it is fun to watch some of it and have a destination for a bike ride. The rain started just north of Lawrence while I was riding down Lincoln & a spot out of the heavier rain was secured in a bank entrance which had a roof over it. Later, on eastbound Wilson, the deluge started again and a similar entranceway was utilized. The rain was light most of the time but I was still soaked. I was listening to the show as it was broadcasted on Newsradio 78 as I rode. There was more rain coming so I saw some of the show but left as the Thunderbirds started their portion of it due to a forecast of heavy rain anticipated in 20-30 minutes. The Thunderbirds had a nice 'low' version of their show from the description given on the radio. It started raining steadily as I approached home and after I arrived it was a real downpour. It is good that I left early.
How was your weekend?
Saturday a bike ride was taken and then got to the office for a Saturday that was fully booked but unfortunately some patients didn't show. Primarily Heidi, our hygienist, was affected. This is a shame. She was counting on having a productive day but she had a lot of wasted time.
Minda & I attended Mass in the evening, got some things done around the house, went out for a bit and got to bed late. She was working at 6am so she was a bit sleep-compromised but not too badly.
My Blackberry Pearl has been used for playing too many podcasts and been banged around too much. The headset jack in it failed over the weekend. There was an online site that linked to a YouTube video that showed how to disassemble it. A specialized tool was needed that Radio Shack [now wanting to be known as, "The Shack"] didn't have but fortunately Home Depot did. The Pearl was taken apart and the headset jack was found to be broken. There is a plastic part that was shattered so it was removed and now the headset option is disabled but otherwise the phone is fine. It was cutting out when in use prior to this being done and worsening with time. The electronic short that this caused was not good. Now everything but the headset is fine. I am now using a small MP3 player that went into retirement after I acquired the Pearl for my podcast listening.
Some hours were spent at the office on Sunday morning/afternoon. It was threatening to rain but didn't early. Traditionally I like to bicycle to the Air & Water Show. There is a huge crowd but it is fun to watch some of it and have a destination for a bike ride. The rain started just north of Lawrence while I was riding down Lincoln & a spot out of the heavier rain was secured in a bank entrance which had a roof over it. Later, on eastbound Wilson, the deluge started again and a similar entranceway was utilized. The rain was light most of the time but I was still soaked. I was listening to the show as it was broadcasted on Newsradio 78 as I rode. There was more rain coming so I saw some of the show but left as the Thunderbirds started their portion of it due to a forecast of heavy rain anticipated in 20-30 minutes. The Thunderbirds had a nice 'low' version of their show from the description given on the radio. It started raining steadily as I approached home and after I arrived it was a real downpour. It is good that I left early.
How was your weekend?
Thursday, August 13, 2009
PPG last evening: Polo field in Batavia
The weather forecast was about as good as it gets. The flying was too!
It was a great time. There were at least 6 of us flying, including: Pete, Gary Brown, Scott Baxter, Steve, Andy, and me. Scott Clark made the drive from up north with me and his right ankle fracture is healing well. [His hard cast was removed on Tuesday and he is now using a soft boot which he can walk on.] Scott C used my camera most of the time so there are photos of me for a change.
Here is a link to the photos from my camera from that evening:
http://picasaweb.google.com/davidmcw3/090812PPGPoloField#
We are hoping for more good weather like this for sure!
It was a great time. There were at least 6 of us flying, including: Pete, Gary Brown, Scott Baxter, Steve, Andy, and me. Scott Clark made the drive from up north with me and his right ankle fracture is healing well. [His hard cast was removed on Tuesday and he is now using a soft boot which he can walk on.] Scott C used my camera most of the time so there are photos of me for a change.
Here is a link to the photos from my camera from that evening:
http://picasaweb.google.com/davidmcw3/090812PPGPoloField#
We are hoping for more good weather like this for sure!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Flying near Minooka 8/5, video by Wes Woo.
This was a lot of fun. There were about 11 pilots that flew and quite a few others. Many compared watching us fly with watching a herd of cats. We are all doing our 'own thing', playing with each other in the air, helping each other, ... and just generally having fun. It is a great escape!
Please click on the title of this post to go to the video or cut and paste this:
>> http://www.vimeo.com/6015419 <<
Wes did a great job of capturing the essence of the flying evening in this video.
Enjoy! ... We did!!
Please click on the title of this post to go to the video or cut and paste this:
>> http://www.vimeo.com/6015419 <<
Wes did a great job of capturing the essence of the flying evening in this video.
Enjoy! ... We did!!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Biking across Iowa in 2009.
It was a great trip! My daughter, Erika, made the trip with me and the rest of our group of the RAGBRAI CUBS team. The acronyms are: "RAGBRAI" = "Register's [as in Des Moines Register newspaper] Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa" and "CUBS" = "Chicago Urban Bicycling Society". [She is now an official CUBS team member!] It was a pleasure to have her along.
Our trip across Iowa was good in many ways. The people of Iowa are always a joy. Our group of riders and crew were fantastic. My bicycle held up well [no flat tires over the 450+ miles ridden during that week]. However the shifting from the small chain ring in the front on my drive train to the larger one required some bike shop repair.
The weather was cooler than it usually is during this time of the year. That was very welcome. We had a quite hilly route this year. The winds weren't too cooperative but we had a couple of days that were primarily tailwind conditions. It rained on Monday afternoon and a good part of the day on Tuesday but there weren't any strong storms for most of us. We also had some rain on Friday night. All of the CUBS seemed to enjoy the adventure of crossing Iowa on rural roads this year. We had no significant injuries.
The flying could have been better. I flew on Saturday evening and Sunday evening. Saturday evening we were about 6.4 miles from the primary Omaha airport of Eppley Airfield but the jets were flying directly over our overnight site of the Iowa School for the Deaf. The planes were a little too close for comfort for me. The flight was started late due to an 18 mile round trip to the river which was a bonus ride for some of us.
Sunday evening I had my best flight of the trip when I circled the town of Red Oak. They have a very nice airport and I later learned from Larry [one of our local hosts] that the industry and city fathers of the area have a good relationship with the federal government and the FAA which allows them to have and maintain their paved runway and taxiway airport. It is very well maintained and has 2 long intersecting runways which are long enough to handle some larger jet aircraft.
The rain on Monday evening stopped me from flying that night. My spark plug cap broke down on Tuesday evening in Indianola and I couldn't get a replacement until the next day. There were a number of children at our host's homes who were disappointed that the air show was canceled.
Wednesday evening it was learned that the replacement wasn't right so another perfect evening for flight was lost. This was very frustrating. Before I was aware of the problem, I made a trip to the airport in Chariton. There was a hot air balloon coming in to land and a biplane giving sight-seeing rides. The biplane was being piloted by Chris Price. His wife Heather was running the business end of things. She was nice enough to keep an eye on my paramotor while I made a trip to the motorcycle shop to try to replace the wrong spark plug cap for my machine. Unfortunately I got to the shop at 7:15 and they had closed at 6pm and wouldn't open until 9am the next morning. The next morning I waited until they opened and exchanged the part for one that finally worked. Unfortunately I didn't get to test it until I returned home to Illinois due to weather and time constraints.
At&t phone & mobile internet service was horrible. We had almost no service during the entire event. The overnight towns were the worst. Verizon & Sprint did much better. 10,000+ people coming into rural towns for one night clogs up the mobile phone and mobile internet services pretty effectively for at&t at least.
Thursday evening we had our fund raising banquet and invited some state troopers helping with the ride to join us for dinner. It rained a bit that evening also and it was windy so the flying probably wouldn't have been good. Friday morning the weather didn't look good in the forecast but actually wasn't bad. However, I waited too long to assess the conditions and by the time I decided it was good for a flight there wasn't enough time to take to the air. Bummer!
Friday was a long ride to Mount Pleasant. I spent a good part of Friday riding with the head of our group and my good friend, Jerry. In Mount Pleasant we had a storm that was producing wind that stayed north of us in the evening but finally produced some rain and more wind during the night. It wasn't bad in my tent at all and I slept OK. By Saturday morning the sky was clearing but everything was wet. Bikers were encourage to leave early to be at the group photo site by 11:30.
Saturday was a ride of about 42 miles which was the shortest one of the event. We were starting from the other end of town which added a couple of miles to those of us with the CUBS. Our group gathers for a group photo on the last day in our new jerseys which are provided by our fees and are part of the total cost to ride with the CUBS. This year the photo site was about 4 miles from the end of the ride. I rode the 4 miles down to the river to check out the route and then rode back before it was time to get together for the photo. My total mileage for that day was about 57miles. It was quite hilly from the photo site to the Mississippi River which is the end of the ride.
Our group forms up in a double line and appropriately sings, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", on our ride down to the river. In spite of the hills it seems that this was one of the best results that we have had in keeping the group together over a longer than usual final leg to the river. We were all quite proud of ourselves.
We then rode a few miles to a local hotel. There we showered, packed up our bikes and other gear, and eventually hit the road for the trip from Belvidere, IA, to Lincolnwood, IL.
It was a great ride!
To see photos that I took during the week please go to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/davidmcw3/RAGBRAICUBSFlyingcub2009?feat=directlink
Our trip across Iowa was good in many ways. The people of Iowa are always a joy. Our group of riders and crew were fantastic. My bicycle held up well [no flat tires over the 450+ miles ridden during that week]. However the shifting from the small chain ring in the front on my drive train to the larger one required some bike shop repair.
The weather was cooler than it usually is during this time of the year. That was very welcome. We had a quite hilly route this year. The winds weren't too cooperative but we had a couple of days that were primarily tailwind conditions. It rained on Monday afternoon and a good part of the day on Tuesday but there weren't any strong storms for most of us. We also had some rain on Friday night. All of the CUBS seemed to enjoy the adventure of crossing Iowa on rural roads this year. We had no significant injuries.
The flying could have been better. I flew on Saturday evening and Sunday evening. Saturday evening we were about 6.4 miles from the primary Omaha airport of Eppley Airfield but the jets were flying directly over our overnight site of the Iowa School for the Deaf. The planes were a little too close for comfort for me. The flight was started late due to an 18 mile round trip to the river which was a bonus ride for some of us.
Sunday evening I had my best flight of the trip when I circled the town of Red Oak. They have a very nice airport and I later learned from Larry [one of our local hosts] that the industry and city fathers of the area have a good relationship with the federal government and the FAA which allows them to have and maintain their paved runway and taxiway airport. It is very well maintained and has 2 long intersecting runways which are long enough to handle some larger jet aircraft.
The rain on Monday evening stopped me from flying that night. My spark plug cap broke down on Tuesday evening in Indianola and I couldn't get a replacement until the next day. There were a number of children at our host's homes who were disappointed that the air show was canceled.
Wednesday evening it was learned that the replacement wasn't right so another perfect evening for flight was lost. This was very frustrating. Before I was aware of the problem, I made a trip to the airport in Chariton. There was a hot air balloon coming in to land and a biplane giving sight-seeing rides. The biplane was being piloted by Chris Price. His wife Heather was running the business end of things. She was nice enough to keep an eye on my paramotor while I made a trip to the motorcycle shop to try to replace the wrong spark plug cap for my machine. Unfortunately I got to the shop at 7:15 and they had closed at 6pm and wouldn't open until 9am the next morning. The next morning I waited until they opened and exchanged the part for one that finally worked. Unfortunately I didn't get to test it until I returned home to Illinois due to weather and time constraints.
At&t phone & mobile internet service was horrible. We had almost no service during the entire event. The overnight towns were the worst. Verizon & Sprint did much better. 10,000+ people coming into rural towns for one night clogs up the mobile phone and mobile internet services pretty effectively for at&t at least.
Thursday evening we had our fund raising banquet and invited some state troopers helping with the ride to join us for dinner. It rained a bit that evening also and it was windy so the flying probably wouldn't have been good. Friday morning the weather didn't look good in the forecast but actually wasn't bad. However, I waited too long to assess the conditions and by the time I decided it was good for a flight there wasn't enough time to take to the air. Bummer!
Friday was a long ride to Mount Pleasant. I spent a good part of Friday riding with the head of our group and my good friend, Jerry. In Mount Pleasant we had a storm that was producing wind that stayed north of us in the evening but finally produced some rain and more wind during the night. It wasn't bad in my tent at all and I slept OK. By Saturday morning the sky was clearing but everything was wet. Bikers were encourage to leave early to be at the group photo site by 11:30.
Saturday was a ride of about 42 miles which was the shortest one of the event. We were starting from the other end of town which added a couple of miles to those of us with the CUBS. Our group gathers for a group photo on the last day in our new jerseys which are provided by our fees and are part of the total cost to ride with the CUBS. This year the photo site was about 4 miles from the end of the ride. I rode the 4 miles down to the river to check out the route and then rode back before it was time to get together for the photo. My total mileage for that day was about 57miles. It was quite hilly from the photo site to the Mississippi River which is the end of the ride.
Our group forms up in a double line and appropriately sings, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", on our ride down to the river. In spite of the hills it seems that this was one of the best results that we have had in keeping the group together over a longer than usual final leg to the river. We were all quite proud of ourselves.
We then rode a few miles to a local hotel. There we showered, packed up our bikes and other gear, and eventually hit the road for the trip from Belvidere, IA, to Lincolnwood, IL.
It was a great ride!
To see photos that I took during the week please go to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/davidmcw3/RAGBRAICUBSFlyingcub2009?feat=directlink
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