Category: weather

Random Thoughts: Smokey, stress, depression, weather

I don’t know if anyone out there actually reads this.  I really started doing this mostly for myself, but I have told a few people about it.  If there is still anyone out there, you’ve no doubt noticed that I haven’t been posting much lately (except my occasional flight log).  There a a few reasons for that and I’ll touch on most of them in this post.  I’ve actually been somewhat more active on Facebook and have even briefly considered shutting this down, but for the time being I think I will leave the blog up.  That said, I’m still likely to be more active on Twitter (I’ll reach my 1000th tweet this week, I think) and Facebook, but I hope to get back to writing here more often.

First off, on Monday, 26 Apr, my 19-year-old cat, Smokey, passed away.  He had been struggling and I actually thought we were going to have to put him down in Feb., but he hung in there until the end of Apr.  Unfortunately, that was a day that I had to teach, so I probably had the worst class I’ve ever taught that evening.  This was probably even more difficult for me than when Ellie passed away.  I really didn’t have a lot of use for cats when Smokey wandered into my life, but he adopted me and for the next 16 years, he was my cat.

One of the other reasons that I haven’t posted much has to do with stress in my life.  In fact, moreso than I really realized until about the last week.  In Jan, my friend Lenny asked me to write some new material for his malware analysis class for SANS.  It was something I really wanted to do, but I had a lot of trouble concentrating on it and really didn’t get quite as much written as I would have liked, though Lenny seems quite happy with my material.  Couple that with a pretty short deadline (only two weeks because someone else had originally agreed to do that part but had to back out at nearly the last minute) and the SANS class that I mentored from Feb-Apr and TA-ing at SANS 2010 in Orlando, and some stuff that I really needed to get done at work, oh, and Erin had a rough quarter, too, and preparing to sit for the GSE exam, and I was having trouble concentrating on anything or getting anything accomplished.  In fact, I still owe Lenny an appendix from Feb, that I hope to write this month yet. Well, the class I was mentoring ended the first weekend in May.  I passed the GSEC certification exam in Mar (with a 93, I think), and the GSE written 2 weeks ago (with a 98.67% that should have been 100%).  All of those have helped.  Also, for the last week or so, I’ve been making a concerted effort to simplify and only work on one thing at a time and as a result, I’ve had the two most productive weeks at work in over a year.  Oh, and on Monday, we should close on our refinancing on the house which will lower our interest rate and allow us to roll half the credit cards into it.  This should result in us being completely debt-free in 7-10 years.  The take-away from that is, I need to learn how to remove some of the stress in my life.  I think that has also resulted in my weight remaining stagnant (202±2) rather than getting down where I expected it to be by now (about 195).

Another topic I wanted to touch on, as listed in the title of this post, is depression.  Until I lived with it, I didn’t really understand mental illness.  A week or so ago, someone I know ran out of their medication and the mail order refill didn’t show up on time.  So, this person is off of their meds for a few days and someone who is supposed to be close to them says this person should “man up and get over it”.  Would you say that to someone with cancer? kidney failure?  Mental illness is no less a “real” illness, it results from a real chemical imbalance in the brain.  Clinical depression isn’t just the “feeling down” that we’ve all experienced from time to time and telling someone to “get over it”, really pissed me off.  To date, I’ve refrained from telling this other person what I really think of that statement, but that may not last.

The weather this month has been pretty ridiculous.  Lots of thunderstorms and heat, but I haven’t been able to get in the pool yet even though I’ve had it open for a week.  Sigh…  Another severe thunderstorm watch just kicked in and the Reds game is in a rain delay.  More again (relatively) soon.

This time it was a lousy day to fly

Today, I had planned to take a friend up flying with me.  We’ve been talking about it whenever we ran into each other for probably most of the 5 years since I got my lisence.  Alas, when I first called up the ASOS at KVTA at 08:30 this morning ceilings were at 800 feet.  When I called again around 10:00 it was down to 600 feet.  At that point, I called my friend and told him we’d have to try another time.  He was actually pretty cool about it.  I didn’t cancel the reservation, though, I had reserved the plane for 3 hours (from 13:00-16:00), so I figured if the ceilings came up a bit, I’d at least do some pattern work.  However, I called the FBO and told them, I wouldn’t be there before about 14:00 (so they could keep it warm in the hangar).  When I called the ASOS number again a little while later the ceilings were back up to 800.  Then around 12:30, I looked online and noticed that they were up to 1000 feet (my magic number), so about 13:15, I grabbed my headset and headed to the airport.  When I got there, they started preheating (did I mention the temp was -1°C or 31°F).  It was kind of chilly when I did my preflight, but I finished that up and climbed in.  The engine turned over on the second try and I let it idle at around 1000 rpm to get the oil flowing and warming for a bit while I finished up the checklists and listened to the ASOS.  By now, the ASOS was reporting winds out of 270@04 (right down the runway), altimeter 30.25, temp -1°C, dew point -2°C, and ceilings at 1200.  Okay, that gives me a couple hundred feet above pattern altitude before I hit the bottom of the clouds which at this time, I have to assume mean ice (did I mention the temperature).  Call CTAF, announce I’m taxiing (not that anyone else was on the frequency, but…), and head down to the runup area.  Do my runup, turn on the cabin heat, last look at the checklist, announce I’m taking runway 27, remaining in the pattern.  Taxi out, advance the throttle and we’re off.  I still love that takeoff roll especially when I’m solo, leaping into the air, I remember that first solo 6+ years ago.  Okay, climb to pattern altitude and I’m beginning to wonder about that 1200, it is getting hazy at about 800.  Pull the power abreast the numbers, flaps, watch airspeed, VSI, hmm… a bit of a crosswind when I turn final, but we can handle that.  Nice smooth touch down, flaps up, advance power, rotate and we’re off again.  Yeah, it is getting hazy at 800, but I’m not seeing any rime, so I’ll do the 3 landings to keep my legal to carry passengers for another 3 months.  The last landing wasn’t my greatest, but then I’m probably my own worst critic.  It was a pretty lousy day to fly, but there is still something special about being up in the air, even if it is only for about 25 minutes.  Hopefully, I can find a nice day in Jan to take my friend up.

Odd perspectives based on experience

I’ve long been fascinated by weather.  While I’ve never purchased a home weather station, I’ve often thought about it and I’m a Weather Channel junkie.  Weather became even more important to me when I learned how to fly.  Pilots (literally can) live or die by the weather.  If you read my earlier entry this evening, you’ll note that it was raining and overcast nearly all day today.  The reason for the title of this post though, is that I realized as I was driving to Cincinnati and back (and to some extent during the game) that I was trying to estimate the ceilings (I estimate that they ranged from about 200′ to maybe, briefly 1200 or 1500′) and visibility (actually pretty good most of the time) and determine in my head whether the weather was MVFR or IFR (it was IFR pretty much until I got home).  Normal people don’t worry about that, but this flying thing has (somewhat) changed my perspective on weather.  It isn’t good or bad, just different and it struck me today, so I decided to write about it.

My flight review

Yesterday (well, it will be 2 days ago by the time this gets published), I had my flight review.  For those who don’t know, private pilots in the US are required to have a flight review with a flight instructor at least every two years in order to continue to fly (to maintain an ATP requires more frequent recurrent training).  With the thunderstorms the night before, I had difficulty sleeping (and more importantly getting up when the alarm went off), so I was afraid I was going to be late.  It turned out, the instructor’s power went out overnight, so his alarm didn’t go off.  I ended up actually arrive right at the time that I had scheduled the review for, but the instructor ended up being about 30 minutes late.  That was okay, though, I had blocked out 4 hours for the 1 hour of ground instruction and 1 hour of flight instruction required by the FAA.  I actually had hoped to make this both a flight review and instrument proficiency check, but we ran too late to actually accomplish the latter (I’ll try to schedule some time with the instructor next month to get that done).  I did finally fly a complete GPS approach (the GPS27 @ KVTA).  It actually was extremely hazy and we encountered the base of the clouds at about 2700 feet (MSL), so I might as well have done nearly the entire flight under the hood given how little I could actually see.  While doing some of the touch and goes, I was able to see some of the flooding in the area (we got 5″ of rain overnight).  We got another 2+ inches last night and the radar is looking like we’ll get a good bit more tonight.

Some random thoughts

It has been a while since my last entry. I’ve just been busy. Erin’s season ended with a heartbreaking 3 point loss to UC-Clermont in the ORCC semifinals. OU-L led most of the game (by as many as 10 in the second half), but some questionable officiating late and just not hitting some of their late shots cost them. It was a disappointing ending, but they had a pretty good season (18-14 or something like that)

Ohio got a lot of attention due to the tight Democratic race for President. I was actually kind of hoping that this past Tuesday would put an end to it until the conventions because, frankly, I’m tired of it. Alas, that was not to be, but at least I won’t get all those automated calls in my answering machine (at least until Oct).

The Buckeyes men’s basketball team got the win they needed to keep any hope of an NCAA bid alive when the upset #15 Purdue in overtime on Tuesday. Now they need to do the same to Michigan State and get a win in the Big Ten tournament or they’ll be going to the NIT.

They’re calling for the biggest storm since 1993 (I honestly don’t remember a bad storm in 1993, but that’s what they said on TV this evening) in the next 2 days. We’ve been getting hit with storms every Tuesday and Friday for the last 2 months, but they’re talking about 5-12″ out of this one. I don’t mind, I love snow.

I’m alive again, and the blizzard (not) of ’08

Well, at 23:00 last night the temperature was 54°F, at midnight it was 44°F, and at 07:00 this morning, it was 14°F. That drop reminds me so much of the blizzard of ’78 (wow, was that really 30 years ago last week?). Alas, this time, we got the rain to start, but didn’t get the snow. We did have wind gusts of about 60 mph this morning. Meanwhile, it could be worse, Matt is dealing with -26°F and a broken windshield this morning, Shane is still in Iraq, and, at least, I’m on solid food again (you don’t really want to know what I’ve been through since Sunday morning, trust me on this one). On the other hand, if you’re looking for a way to lose 8 pounds in 2 days, this one works, but I’d just as soon pass.