Geek Habitat

Note: This entry was actually started on MONDAY, July 28 –

It’s clear from my infrequent blog posts that I’ve been fighting “the crud” (sinus infection and, for awhile, lower respiratory infection) for months, really. About the time I’d get so fed up with it that I’d entertain going to the doctor, it would seem to abate, but only long enough to sneak up on me by the following weekend. When you have bad allergies (forget “seasonal”–these are omnipresent) you sometimes forget when you’ve crossed the line from “Geez, this is a horrible allergy season and I can’t remember the last time I felt really GOOD,” to “Geez, I feel really, utterly awful…the worst I have in a long time. And I don’t seem to ever being getting WELL.”

I am really glad I wasn’t on this Lufthansa Airlines flight which attempted to land in extremely high crosswinds. Note: the did make a successful landing on their second (”go ’round”) landing attempt.  Further, for non-pilots, the yaw back and forth and the aircraft’s odd sideways, not lined up with center line, approach to touchdown on the runway *is* proper (indeed the only safe) procedure for landing in crosswinds–it’s call “crabbing”, since it looks sort of like how a crab runs sideways in relation to where it’s head it facing. Even a heavy crosswind landing in a Cessna isn’t fun… I love flying with Justin but my least favorite approach and landings are when we are faced with strong, especially gusty (wind’s there one moment and suddenly gone the next, etc.) crosswinds.  It’s like riding a bucking bronco, and I have no idea how hair-raising it is to land, but judging by Justin’s look of complete concentration, it’s no fun.

I rode 14.89 miles with Justin and his BIL, David, this afternoon, and am feeling great. See the ride’s stats from my Garmin Forerunner 305+heartrate strap at http://tinyurl.com/2xaywq; you can compare my heartrate to Justin’s (his stats, here). He’s in far better cardiovascular shape than I am right now.

Congratulations and a heartfelt hug to Justin for strapping back into the cockpit of a trusty Cessna Skyhawk and going for a flight yesterday. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta sing, and pilots gotta fly, so I am glad he did it.

Justin took a co-worker and his son on a “first flight” last weekend, and a wonderful time was had by all. Today, the co-worker’s wife posted the following comment on his blog entry for the flight:

Awwwwwww….

The gift of flight is definitely one best savored when shared! I can’t wait until our daughter’s old enough to actually appreciate that her daddy can fly an airplane, and enjoy the view from above!

Justin and I figured it was about time I joined him on a General Aviation (GA) flight again, in part because it really has been too long (months!) and because we wanted Sprout to log some GA flight hours in utero. Baby Einstein’s got nothing on Baby Earhart, after all! As Justin so eloquently put it, she is now his “youngest Young Eagle of all!”