It's 3:41am Sunday morning. Fell asleep mid evening so now I am awake messing with the iPhone and pondering things. Saturday in some way a bust but still a good day. On my way home from getting a haircut stopped at the airport and picked up my trusty "Gates Cyclone" battery pack and brought it home for analysis. This was given to me by a ham friend Bob Gilbert, KA8JOY way back in the 80's. It was a telcom pull and I since replaced one cell to keep it going. Back in '98 I started using it with a solar panel to power personal electronics for the week spent camping under wing at EAA Oshkosh now called AirVenture. It powered my laptop, Ham radio stuff, scanners, cell phone charging and the compressor to inflate the air mattress. After about a 6 year hiatus started using it again at AirVenture. But now after so many years of use and abuse I think it's had it. Most the cells read 1.8 volts. One reads 1.5 and the worse .9 volts. It will no longer take a charge. It served me very well and now I need to replace it which will really hurt in the wallet. But this year I need something to run my BiPap machine and all the other stuff. Well at least I didn't wait till the day before departure to check this out. BUT this problem of powering the BiPap at AirVenture has been lurking in my mind since I started using the machine last fall. So I guess I'm still procrastinating a bit since I want to leave in 6 days. Now I gotta get a battery, charge it, test it with the BiPap, charge it with the solar panels. Di Da di da di da. So we'll probably test it for real at Oshkosh.
So Saturday started ok but before I got to cutting the grass or getting the plane washed I decided to call some flying friends to see what their AirVenture plans were. My friend Russ was my Instrument flight instructor then co-owner with me on 17D. He moved to the Chicago area back in the late 80's. Lately the only time I see him is at Oshkosh. No answer at home or on his cell. Next I tried my old high school friend Joe. Joe knew when he was a young kid he wanted to learn how to fly. Inspired as I was by his parents and a constant dose of Sky King and Wirlybirds. Back in the 60's aviation was still way cool and special. Plus we saw the dawning of the space age and the race to the moon. So Joe and I would eat lunch together at high school. He was learning to fly and I enjoyed sharing with him his adventure with that. I was always told I could not fly wearing glasses. Joe assured me that wasn't the case so when I was fortunate to land a good job out of high school I started flight training too. Unfortunately my family moved back to Ohio so Joe and I sorta lost track of each other. He flew up here for a visit once and we met once in Chicago in '74. And I flew to Oklahoma City in '94 to visit him too. So I called Joe to see what his plans were for Oshkosh. Historically when he and his family was there I wasn't. Then the last 3 years I when could make it he couldn't. Mosly for his or family health reasons. Well unfortunately this year he won't make it again either. His wife just had a hip replacement and still mending. The great thing about this is we spent at least 4 hours on the phone today mostly hangar talk. It was great! It was like the old days 40 years ago when we were kids at lunch. I feel so old!
By now it was late afternoon and the phone rings. The neighbor kids wanna spend the night so there went the rest of the day! Unusually don't let them interfere with my activities but they are growing up so fast... Jordan hasn't been over for months. Michael is almost a fixture here but he's 14 now and my wife and I are watching him blossom into a young man. I just don't want to miss it. We don't have kids so we are blessed to have the presents of Jordan and Michael.
And now I just spent more than an hour pecking a blog on the iPhone.
So Sunday I got to get the plane washed. This year at AirVenture the 170 and I will be camping with other 170's so we gotta look good. Also gotta get a battery and charge it. Visit my Mom. Possibly cut the grass. Got a LVB Tracker to fix. And probably a dozen other things to do.
Back to sleep.
