Bliss

This is going to meander a bit, probably a lot, so stay with me.

While those of you in the US are celebrating Columbus Day, here in Canada, this is our Thanksgiving Day. I guess, because much of the country will be under snow by the end of November, the powers that be decided that early October was a better time for the celebration. Tim and I had planned on celebrating the day by flying until we dropped. We both arrived at the field around 9:00 this morning, got out of our vehicles, our hands went numb from the cold and we said, "Naaaaw!", got back into our vehicles, had a coffee at the nearest donut shop and went home.

That left me with a large part of the morning unoccupied so I chose to do some fall tilling in the garden, starting to get the corn stalks and such back into the ground. There was a definite symmetry about doing that today - celebrating one harvest while starting the preparations for the next. The tiller was pulling like Len's 53 on my Magnum and the smell of the freshly tilled earth ranks right up there with the aroma of methanol and burnt castor in the morning as one of the all time greatest smells. I was in a special beautiful place and, as some one wrote about an entirely different experience, I felt as though I could "reach out my hand and touch the face of God". It was one of those strangely special times.

As is usual when I'm following the tiller around the garden, my mind started to spin on things philosophical. I got to thinking about how wonderfully blessed my particular little family has been this year with the arrival of our first grandchild a few weeks ago (Keep up your posts on that subject Ted, I sit there going 'Yeah, yeah!' every time I read one). The entire family will be together later today for dinner (I expect to point out to my grandson all the construction errors I made in the Magnum so he doesn't repeat them) and the thought of our now expanded family all gathered around the same table fills me up to overflowing. And I got to thinking about the responsibility such blessedness brings with it.

So, this is my very long-winded way of wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Where ever you are, regardless of any idealogical or political differences we may have, particularly to all Canadians and ex-pats living in Canada and especially to Tim, who took the giant leap this year and became a Canadian citizen, have a good one, eh!

Best, Hoovie

To all our Canadian SSW members............

Hey Dennis!,

Love those little South American "turkeys"!

Hey Randy!
Nobody calls my boids "turkeys" and gets away with it.
That is except when they say they love em (LOL).

>Hey Dennis!,
>
>Love those little South American "turkeys"!
>
>Randy Ryan
>AMA 8500
>SAM 36
>I fly 'em all and love it!

I didn't do any gardening, but I did "take advantage" of the down time by doing some wet-sanding on my F-Twister fuselage. I've done so much of that today that my arm feels like it's about to fall off, but the fuselage is looking pretty good. It'll be ready to shoot enamel on very shortly. As I type this, I'm looking out the window, and seeing that the sun has now come out and the wind is still light. I'm thinking I might try to get out to the field again to see if I can sneak in a flight or two. Not sure if I will, but I'm thinking about it.

This weekend has been pretty disappointing for me, from a flying standpoint. I took Friday off to extend the weekend to four days from 3, with the hope of getting in as much flying as possible. The forecast midweek looked promising. Bah! Gales were blowing all day Friday and Saturday, which meant I had to spend that time working on putting in a new floor in the shower stall, as seen below. Yesterday was OUR family celebration, and I spent the afternoon wistfully looking out upon perfect flying conditions. Then today. Frustrating!

However, even with all that, I am truly thankful for all that I've been blessed with. With any luck, there will still be at least a few weekends of flying before the serious snow flies, and there may even be a chinook or two during the winter. Otherwise, there's always building...

Tim

Update: I will, indeed, be heading out in less than an hour. My son is going over to his girlfriend's house, so instead of my wife driving him, I will, and then head to the field to get in a couple of flights. So, David, in addition to the turkey, you can eat your heart out!

Tim

Got out to the field, and got in three flights, so now I can say I got my Thanksgiving flying in. It wasn't the grand all-day fly-in I had envisioned, but it was certainly better than nothing...

Tim

Actually, I really should set the stage a bit more, because the title really does fit the way the day turned out.

As David said, the weather this morning was, to put it mildly, crappy/ Cold (about 43 or so), cloudy, damp, with a wind out of the north. Not blowing hard, but enough to bite through what we were wearing, and make things really uncomfortable. There were two old-hand R/C types there as well, and even they decided not to fly.

So we went out for a coffee, and then home, and the description of our day is up above.

However, around 3:00, the sun came out, the wind died down, and the temperature rose into the low 50's (about 52 or so). In other words, for this time of year, conditions were PMP (pretty much perfect). So I decided there was no way I could miss out.

I got to the field around 4:00, and took about 20 minutes to set up. The wind (what there was, there wasn't much) was from the south, so I took advantage of the empty R/C field, as there's a large earth berm next to the circle that causes some turbulence when the wind is from that direction. I had just changed back to my Tom Morris handle from a homemade hardpoint handle, as I didn't like the way the homegrown handle felt - there seemed to be some jerkiness or roughness in the eye bolts I got from the LHS. I'll have to check those when I get a chance. Anyway, I set up the handle as best I could, and took my first flight. Just went round-and-round, as I detected the need to dial in a bit more down line. Just as I finished up the first flight, a fellow flier pulled in, so I chatted with him for a couple of minutes, then he watched my second flight. This one featured two sets of two consecutive loops, but not much else... I was still deciding about the handle setup. Felt better. Third flight featured four consecutive loops and three consecutive lazy-8's, and by this time it was after 5 and time to pack it up, but at least I managed to get in some flights, and find my bliss for the day. Still waiting for two tanks I ordered in mid-August to arrive, which would allow me to fly longer than 3 minutes at a time, and also to get the AA-Sr. into the air. Ah, well... maybe by the next outing. Next weekend is looking pretty iffy for weather, so I'll probably be working again on the shower stall, and on the building...

Tim