Some old guy once said “An object at rest tends to sit on his rear end until acted on by guilt, desire or, more precisely, your wife’s desire.”
So there I was, enjoying my last month of vacation,( don’t hate the player, hate the game) when “she who must be obeyed” reminded me that number one son was due home soon from wherever the heck he was and that I’d foolishly promised him that I’d teach him to fly airplanes and stuff. Not even the overstuffed leather recliner I hibernate in could muffle the groan. Like I’ve said Now don’t get me wrong,……………….
The date on that un-finished post was April 8th. Since then I’ve been kind of busy. Now I know I’ve used that lame excuse many times in the past when I’ve let this blog get just a little bit stale but this time it’s justified, really, swear to God.
Now of course I don’t have time this morning to catch you all up on what I’ve been doing in as great detail as I’d like to but I have a busy day of skydiving ahead of me and time is something that I don’t have an abundance of these days.
So here’s the short list of what I’ve been up to these last two months.
Teaching number one son Connor to fly– We were hitting it hard for a few weeks and he was doing good but both our lives have gotten busy and we haven’t flown together for a few weeks. He’s been doing great though.
Bought a new house– Cathy and I lost our collective minds and instead of paying for Connor’s housing while he goes to the University of Wisconsin Stout we decided to buy a rental house to put him in and maybe make a little money while we were at it. Did we buy one of the existing and operating student rental houses that were for sale you ask? Why no, we decided to buy a house that was built in the 1800’s and that has been vacant for the last 30 years. The epic story of how Cathy, Connor and I have brought this great old house back to life would take forever but I’ll get to it someday, really……I promise. I will say the last month has been filled with many many days of renovation that aren’t over yet. I have to meet a plumber, carpenter, and insulation guy this morning before going to work, just as an example. Up to this point we’ve been doing the majority of the work ourselves. That has been the biggest time sucker upper.
Getting my CFI (certified flight instructor) rating- Along with teaching Connor to fly I was working on finally getting my CFI done. I studied and flew and worked with an instructor that I liked and was on the cusp of taking my ride when my instructor stopped answering my calls to set up the next appointment. Turns out that he had a heart attack. He’s not dead but is out of the game for the foreseeable future and that delay has stopped me in my tracks. I do have the name of another instructor but now that I’m in the meat of the skydiving season I really don’t know where I’ll find the time. I’ll have to make time somehow.
Running the skydiving school– Goes without saying that flying and jumping out of perfectly good airplanes full time keeps me kind of busy. (It’s a pretty good job. It does have it’s up’s and down’s though) Ba da boom.
Getting ready for another Parkinson’s Disease event– Next Tuesday will be the 4th time a local jumper will be doing a large number (300) of jumps in 24 hours to raise money for Parkinson’s and I will be one of the two pilots who will do all the flying. We will be using a PAC 750 XL (low wing turbine) and will be making an takeoff and landing every 3 minutes for 24 hours. Should be fun!
Last but not least I’m going to be FLYING AROUND THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!! I leave July 5th. so stay tuned for more details.
That’s all I have time for for now. I’d promise to post more but you’ve all heard that promise before now haven’t you?