Lame video to break the silence

Here is a video of me testing an inflatable life vest. Michelle and I plan on flying out over the Pacific, such as to Catalina Island, and although we'll usually be within gliding distance of land, the vests were cheap off ebay. I don't have to have the vests officially inspected since I don't fly for hire, but I wanted to test them before relying on them so I fired them off then replaced the CO2 containers. I know this video is lame, but that is part of the fun :)

Home to WI to visit the Brouchoud family

Michelle and I took Katie back to WI so she could see the family (meet most of them for the first time). We drove to Vegas and valeted our car at the Tropicana since we'd be staying a night there on our way back. Katie was pretty good most of the 3.5 hour flight, but did get fussy for about 45 minutes and cried for about 10 minutes. There was just too much going on and too many people checking her out for her to fall asleep. Overall, the flight was good. Michelle's parents picked us up from the airport and we went home to visit. The next morning, we drove up to Kiel to visit my brother Joe, his wife Amber, and meet my new niece Leila. Jon, Kandy, and Juliana met us there as well as my parents. We had a good time and enjoyed some really good grilled chicken and played some disc golf. Jon managed to loose one of Joe's discs, but we weren't able to get it out after hoisting Joe up in the tree.

Sunday, we played some more disc golf and I managed to loose one of Joe's discs, then my parents hosted a party and had all sorts of people over to visit and meet Katie. It was a good chance to catch up with people I haven't seen in a long time. Jon, my dad, and I went out on a hike to Todd's pond and I picked up a few birds on my lifer list. Monday we went to Sheboygan for lunch at the airport since it was rated best of the best for airport restaurants. It was pretty fancy with great food at a good price, but it was located at the end of the runway instead of centrally located near the intersection of the runways. Being at the end of the runway did have it's advantage as we watched the formation takeoff of some WWII planes heading to Oshkosh, there must have been near 40 of them. Tuesday, we went back out to Woodland Dunes and Michelle and I picked up some more lifers. With my dad's help, I was able to definitively identify them using the bird book, but I wouldn't have been able to on my own.

Wednesday we met Joe for breakfast and went to see my mom's property and Cedar Lake. Thursday, we went to visit my brother Jeff and took a tour of his company, this was Michelle's first time there. We continued on and stayed the night at Jon's after dinner at Famous Dave's. Friday, I headed for Oshkosh while my parents drove Michelle to Milwaukee to visit her family. I took a tour of the A380 that was ok I guess, but took an hour and a half of my day and I ran out of time at the end. I didn't have time to wander through the airplanes, talk to the Cessnas to Oshkosh crowd, find the CAP or Angel Flight, but I did manage to check out some engine monitors and some portable oxygen setups. I ended up buying an Aerox system that gave me a pretty good show special. Now we'll be able to fly up higher where the airplane is more efficient, the air is smoother and cooler, and I can get stronger tailwinds. It'll also give me more margin when we're flying through/over the mountains. Michelle gets a kick out of the cannula she'll wear that looks like a moustache. I'm thinking about going with the Insight G3 engine monitor although they still aren't on the market and have been 'almost there' for a few years now.

After Oshkosh I headed to meet Michelle and Katie in Milwaukee to begin our visit with her family. That'll have to be a separate post since I'm getting tired and I don't have that video compiled yet.

Some recent flights

We flew to Santa Monica for lunch on 7/12/09. Figured this would be good practice flying into the LA airspace and is along the same route we would take to Catalina island. The spitfire grill is close, but not right on the field so I wish we had brought the stroller for Katie. The Typhoon and the Hump are right on the field, but weren't open yet and were asian cuisine. The Hump seems to be only open for dinner which is RIDICULOUS since it has the best view of the runway by far.

The forecast is too hot for camping this weekend (7/18/09) so we decided just to fly for lunch. We've never been to Porterville and I see they supposedly have camping on the airport. This gave us a chance to check out the campground and see if we'd come back and camp another time. The campground was nice grass with very nice shade trees and bathrooms. The restaurant said the airport will turn off the sprinklers if people are camping so you don't have to worry about that. Even though the campground is nice, there really isn't much to do there. It would be nice for transient camping or for an airshow, but not for just camping.

Ken Block at IYK (from cell phone)

I was really stupid, I shot this video from my cell phone when I had my camcorder sitting 20 feet away in the car... See everybody standing around? There was nobody making sure the course was clear. I was standing next to the building and he was drifting away from me so I wasn't in any danger, but nobody was stopping traffic from entering "the course".

Ken Block on Top Gear at Inyokern Airport

Here is the Top Gear episode that was shot at the Inyokern airport. The close up tail shot of the orange and white airplane (around 3:15) is mine, you can see the number N951CC. I love the video, but am not happy the airport allowed this shoot at Inyokern. They didn't show him doing donuts around the tied-down airplanes, but he sure did. I went to the airport meeting today and gave my 2 cents that owners don't pay to tie their airplane down to have it put at risk. Check out how much dirt he throws up, now would you want your paint job taking that punishment? The owners weren't even told this shoot was going to happen to give them a chance to move their planes out of the way! There was practically not safety either, nobody was making sure somebody wasn't around all the blind intersections he was flying across. What was done is done, but hopefully the airport board will not permit this type of activity again at the airport.

Father's Day Fly-in

Here are the two videos of this years (my first) Father's day. We flew up to Columbia, CA (O22) for their fly-in. The flight was smooth and we saw Half Dome and circled around Pine Mountain Lake on the way up. The camping was great, about 70 or so during the day, comfortable in the sun and the shade was cool. There really weren't any bugs either (flies or mosquito's) however we did find a tick in Katie's pack & play and a tarantula. I think we ended up with 4 lifers added to our lists as well (birds, we've seen most the airplanes before except maybe the AirCams). Katie did great and the airshow was pretty good for a local fly-in although it was mostly just flybys with no aerobatics. We'll be going next year for sure.

We took a short ~1/2 mile walk to the city which is actually a state park. They have all sorts of old shops such as panning for gold, saloons, and blacksmith. We got our first family portrait at one of those places that takes old fashioned photos. It's not the best photo, I'm missing a chunk of hair and I'm not sure what to think about Katie, but it was fun. I hear Mark is going to take some real photos; I'm looking forward to updating the family portrait :)

Katies First Camping Trip (camping)

So here is the camping video of our trip to Kernville. The camcorder ran out of memory Friday afternoon and we forgot the spare memory stick at home, but Katie still has plenty of air time :)