The nightmare is almost over.......

As of this morning all of the major upstairs bathroom remodel work is done. Unfortunately all attempts to stop the leaking of the downstairs shower have failed, and I am all but convinced that the problem is with the drain that this stupid moron we hired to the work way back in March absolutely screwed it up. Now that I have a functional (and quite nice looking) upstairs bathroom again, I will wait until next year to start the process of ripping the shower out and re-doing that myself.

I desparately want to get back to airplane building. This house of mine has sucked enough life out of me this year, and it is time that I get my own life back for a change.  My only real saving grace throughout this whole affair has been taking time out to fly young eagles at the monthly EAA Chapter 301 rallies held at KFTG, and working with Mike Rettig to get his Flight review current. Mike's reccurency training was capped off with a great experience last weekend when both of us rented two different C-172s from a local flying club and we both accomplished a couple of "firsts" with our respective flights.

In my case I had been trying to take my niece and her two boys, ages 7 and 3, up in a GA airplane for the first time.We had been trying for over a month but seemed to hit bad weather each time until last week.

In Mike's case it was his first flight with the family,which now includes his wife and their new daughter. Mike is a good pilot, and it was very satisfying for me as a flight instructor to see him get back in the air again after a long respit from flying. Thanks for the opportunity to get you back in the air Mike! 

In all cases the weather finally turned out great, and all passengers and pilots made it safely to our destination and back. The destination,by the way, was a short trip to KCOS in Colorado Springs, where we then procured two very nice courtesy cars from the JetCenter FBO, and drove all of an eigth of a mile from the airport to get to a place known as SOLOs, or it is also known as The Airplane Restaurant. This is a fantastic place to go for a $200.00 hamburger. The restaurant actually incorporates almost all of a complete KC-97 air refuleing tanker from the 50s and 60s that served in the USAF during that time. The plane was procured and converted into a restaurant where you can actually sit inside the fueslage of the plane and eat a nicely prepared meal. I made reservations for all of us to sit in the plane, since there are a limited number of seats that are actually in the plane. The rest of the restaurant is in the main building, and there are all sorts of model plane displays and memorabilia to become absorbed in after you finish your meal. The cockpit has been largely preserved in an "as original" state,with the original cockpit radios, levers, and switches all still very much intact.

A great time was had by all, and both flights went very well. I am very proud of my niece and both of my great nephews for being comfortable with using the headsets, and for following my instructions when I needed to talk on the radio. The oldest one even got to fly the plane a little and he was excited about that.

So the act of actually flying every so often has helped me tremendously to get through all the trials and tribulations with the house projects, and now it is time to put aside foolish house things and move back into building mode. I am spending the rest of this weekend getting my shop back in order, and preparing to re-engage with the build, right at the point where I left off, which was getting ready to prep, clean and prime all of my Wing ribs.

Of course, another saving grace for me was to be able to attend Airventure in Oshkosh for my 4th year in a row. There is so much to recount from that trip that I will do so in a separate post. For all you serious builders out there, do not forget to keep your flying skills up during the build.