I recently moved some furniture and carpet from my grandmother's house into the hangar.  It's sad to see her house empty out in preparation for sale, but good to know her stuff will continue to be used and loved.  The space is just about ready for the big tear down of Pitts S-1S N599B, and the rebuild of the '56 F250, I hope.

Oak teacher's desk from Bedstemor's office, next to my fastener cabinet.

Dumpster with 50 years of junk in it, mostly out of the backyard sheds.
Growing up in the Great Depression taught her to save EVERYTHING...

Put 1,000 miles on the '64 F-100 the past couple months hauling stuff away
from my grandmother's house. It's running great, but at 13 mpg it's pricey...

San Tomas Elementary, Cambell

I took a drive through my old neighborhood in Campbell, CA this morning.  I haven't lived there since 1980, and it's amazing how different everything appears after nearly 40 years.  It's like a scaled down version of the place I remember, with "new" mature trees, houses where the Food Fair shopping center used to be, a new freeway (CA85), every remaining orchard replaced by new houses, etc. etc.

My elementary school, San Tomas, sat at the corner of Hacienda Ave. and Abbot Ave.  It was torn down in the 90's and replaced by houses. The park just south of the school remains and is now named after Mr. Jack Fischer, principal of San Tomas in the 1950's and 60's.  These murals used to adorn the walls of my school and were saved, as was the memorial for Mr. Fischer.  Nice to see them again after so many years.

Mural of "New California" from San Tomas Elementary School, Campbell

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Mural of "Old California" from San Tomas Elementary School, Campbell

Memorial to Jack Fischer.  This rock and plaque used to sit in front of San Tomas Elementary school.. 

Honda Odyssey Transmission #2 has failed

Back in 2001 we bought a new Honda Odyssey thinking we were buying into legendary Honda reliability. The first transmission failed 6 years later with only 70,000 miles.  Honda replaced that transmission under warranty.  Just this week, after 6 more years and 70,000 more miles, the second transmission has failed.  We are new car shopping, and we will NOT be buying a Honda.

Apple Time Capsule is junk

For three weeks the Time Capsule has been doing ok, backing up our iMac and networking our printer.  Then today it suddenly loses communication.   Airport utility says "device not found".  Great.   There's a nice shiny green happy LED light on the Time Capsule...obviously it thinks everything is ok.  I click "help" on Apple's airport utility, and enter "device not found".  Apparently nobody at Apple ever thought "device not found" would be a possible topic requiring help,  as the search comes up with unrelated, useless results.

Looking online, I learn more from random forum posters on Apple Support community.  From there I learn how to do a "soft" reset and a "hard reset".  I try both, and.....nothing happens.  Shiny green happy light continues to shine, no reset indicated.

This is ridiculous.

So now I'm forced to do a "factory default reset", since the drive is not responding to the other reset actions.   I had to do a similar reset several times on initial set up as well.  This cannot be how this thing was designed to operate.

We officially started our kitchen renovation yesterday as I began to demolish the old redwood deck in our backyard.  Manual labor like this makes me appreciate higher education...

We're adding 192 ft2 of  space to the kitchen, including a little walk in pantry/office area.  The flow to the backyard should be improved as well, with the back door eliminated from our breakfast nook and a new door added to the expanded kitchen.

We started the process last fall with a refinance, then moved on to an architect for the plans, then engineering work, and finally city permits that just came through.  Spent over $6k so far and haven't built a thing.  Unfortunately that kind of expense is a fact of life in this area of California.  Every cost is double or triple the national average.

A Cool photo

Since the blog description says "a place for cool photos", I suppose I should post one.  Here's a favorite from 2006, looking back over my shoulder while steering around thunderstorms near Grand Junction.  Everything was black and scary ahead, but behind was this glorious display of color and shadow.  It felt like flying into a tunnel.   I never tire looking at clouds, no matter how much flight time is in my logbook.

Dodging thunderstorms in an F/A-18 Hornet at sunset

Random thoughts on middle age...

I'm in my middle 40's and thinking about aging more than ever...
At this age mortality is no longer an abstract concept.  I miss the feeling of endless possibility that came with youth, even as I recall the uncertainty and anxiety of those years.

Am I "over the hill"?  I'd rather think of life as a plateau than a hill.  The initial upslope is youth (growing up/establishing a career/starting a family).  The big middle chunk is mostly flat, with gentle ups and downs (raising a family, working, retiring, grandchildren).  The end will hopefully be a steep drop in my sleep, with little warning or time spent dealing with sickness.   That's a better mental picture than being on the "over the hill" downslope from age 40 onward...

Life has been good.  Although I've seen my share of tragedy, things have gone mostly according to plan.  Freedom from regret is a big deal at this point in life, and I'm thankful for that.  Even small doses of regret can be crushing.  It's hard enough to accept life sweeping you along at an ever increasing and unstoppable pace when you're on the right track...it must be horrible to feel that acceleration along the wrong track.

I feel for people dealing with major regrets during middle age.