Annual Cookout With Local EAA Chapter
On Saturday, May 12, EAA Chapter 1114 in Apex, North Carolina, held its annual family fly-in and cookout at a local grass strip, and the weather could hardly have been better. With temps in the mid 70s, moderate humidity, negligible winds and a thin high overcast tempering the glare of the sun, over sixty chapter members and their families and guests mingled among the open hangars and enjoyed typical cookout fare – hotdogs and hamburgers – and homemade side dishes brought along by attendees. A handful of aircraft had been flown in and were tied down near the crest of the hill adjacent to the runway. Some were classics – from the mid-1940s – but there was at least one almost new aircraft which had been built from a kit by a chapter member....
Read MoreSouthern Women’s Show in Raleigh – April 27-29
What do authors, avocados, wine, dip mixes and cooking demonstrations all have in common? They are all part of the Southern Women’s Show at the Fairgrounds in Raleigh this weekend. The list would also include cookware, home business opportunities, scarves and Chevrolet. And much, much more. As one of the extreme minority – men – in the crowd-packed facilities, there was still a lot to interest me, even without being in touch with my ‘feminine side.’ It was easy to move from wine booth to dip-mix booth to wine booth, sampling whatever was on offer. You can munch your way through the Exposition Building and come out, if not full, at least not as hungry as you went in. We met a local author, Lori Verni-Fogarsi of Holly Springs, who has...
Read MoreAT&T U-Verse, Part Deux
For those who have read my first blog post about switching from the cable company to AT&T U-Verse, and even those who haven’t (though you should), here is the next installment beginning a week and a day after installation. We were backing out of the driveway late in the morning of day eight and had to stop because there was an AT&T truck blocking us. The driver walked over and told us that he was there to connect the wire which had been buried two days before, and that he didn’t need to come inside. (We had been operating to this point with a wire lying on the ground from the post at the street to the house.) He then moved his truck out of the way and we left. Within thirty minutes we were back and began putting the groceries away. The...
Read MoreThinking About Switching To AT&T U-Verse? Read This First.
I thought Ellen was talking to a new neighbor at the front door. I was on the third floor and they were on the first, so I couldn’t hear words, just two female voices talking animatedly. When she called up to me to come down, I was right in the middle of some online search – I forget what – and wasn’t particularly excited about taking the time to meet and greet someone new at that moment. When I reluctantly descended the stairs to the entry, I saw them in the living room, perched opposite one another, and I thought the visitor looked waaaay too young to be a new homeowner in the neighborhood. And I was right. She was a door-to-door solicitor for AT&T U-Verse, the telecom giant’s answer to cable tv/highspeed/phone packages. These two...
Read MoreSouthern Ideal Home Show – April 13-15, 2012
This semi-annual event is always worth a walk-around, this time the Spring edition at the Wake County Fairground. A big difference was the lack of any vendors in Dorton Arena. Don’t know if it was lack of prospects, or the organizers trying to save money on the venue. Ellen’s leg issues have improved enough that she could almost keep up with me zooming through the Jim Graham and Exposition Center Buildings. We got to meet and chat with several vendors simply because she needed to find a chair periodically and take a load off. Figuratively speaking, of course. Ellen’s favorite rest stop was at the Garden Information Center. The free gardening magazine kept her entertained while I walked around some of the displays. We saw all the usual...
Read MoreVolunteering in the Florida Sun
I arrived at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport Saturday, March 10, a little over two weeks before the official start of the event. I’ve volunteered every year since 1999 with a group called The Raiders, and I like to have a couple of weeks in Florida after what seems like a much too long winter in North Carolina. It’s an annual ritual to hook up the fifth-wheel travel trailer and set out for Florida every Spring. As I drive the seven-hundred plus miles south, I can watch Spring arrive almost as though I’m traveling forward in time. At home the trees are barren and the grass is brown, and in Florida when I arrive the trees and the grass are green. ================================================== The Raiders have their own designated campground,...
Read MoreObservations on the Airline Experience
I get a snicker out of some of the ‘airline speak’ I hear – saying stuff like “illuminated” instead of “lit,” and “in the off position” instead of “off.” Who doesn’t love, “…tampering with, disabling or destroying?” I think a simple, “Don’t f*** with the smoke detectors!” would suffice. And have you ever really listened to the nonsensical random voice modulation flight attendants use when reciting their canned speech? I can only figure that they’ve repeated it so many hundreds of times that they aren’t even listening to themselves, and vary their voices randomly to make it sound as though they are. Thinking about it while sitting and waiting for takeoff, it occurred to me...
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