The 2nd October Blog and the 1st November Blog

Where does the time go? I was planning on at least an every other week blog and here it is the middle of November and I need to catch up. There were a couple of flights during the past 4 weeks-I think. I just went back through the pictures of the last 4 weeks and loaded them. They started out in chronological order but this site is not user friendly so I'll deal with the pictures as I get to them.

Did a Friday visit to Terhune's on the 23rd of October. Meg and Cate, Erinn with Patrick and Finn, (Tiernan was in school) Ronnie(I'm not sure why she wasn't in school) and I went and had a fun time. Patrick and Cate are best of friends, both are dare devils. Finn is the most pleasant happy baby ever.

Of course we ended the visit with apple donuts, cider, & cookies

Mamo (Ronnie showed up a little late but early enough to practice her scarecrow training.)

OH Yeah, I did work during the month. This is a shot on top of the clouds from 41,000-enroute to Indianapolis.

And, another work day, the 24th, I flew 7 people to the NotreDame/Boston football game at NotreDame. I was one of 80 private jets that flew in for the game. Guess where the kids with money go to school?

Halloween produced a Harry Potter(Tiernan), a skeleton knight(Patrick)

and two beautiful monkeys-(Cate and Finn). That's Ozzie Osbourne(me) holding Finn in my e-bay high bid win '75 VW Peace bus

Two shots from the Toronto tip.

Sunrise on the ramp and breaking through on top.
Took the airplane to Indianapolis for it's 800 hour, 24 month inspection. The picture is an on final shot of IND airport. Flew the airplane into maintenance on the 26th and picked it up on the 10th of November. I did a Disney trip during the downtime-that blog will follow shortly.

As a pre-quel to that blog here is a shot of the Stover boys with E and A cashing in the piggy bank money for the Disney trip.

The rest of the month was filled with just lots of fun times-with Cate

with Patrick and Tiernan making pumpkin pancake after a sleepover at Mamo and Pop's,

bidding on ebay for a 75 VW bus and winning it. It was delivered by the seller.

Cate's new shoes

Cate had a visit to the airport and tried out the helicopter(she likes the USA Today when she's a passenger) and the jet(cookies on the wing are another favorite.

Hannah got a new bed and she loves it.

Cate came down with pneumonia and had us all a little sad. She's all better now.

My pumpkin carving.

Finn's first ride in Pop's truck-sitting in the front seat and loving it. This was not approved or condoned by his mother but she was unaware of it.

Meg and Cate enjoyed a trip in the new bus

Busy September

It was a busy September with not a lot of flying. So, while I intended to blog before my October schedule began, it just didn't happen. I thought I do it during some down-time on the trip, but, there wasn't much down time. A monday departure at 1PM and an extreme headwind gave us an arrival time about 6 hours later. (7PM body time-4 PM local) . Drive to the hotel, change clothes, drive to dinner, a couple of beers to overcome the flight dehydration, back to the hotel (11PM body-time-8PM local) bed. Tues-back to the airport at 8AM-flight prep, refuel, 10AM departure for Reno, NV. - lunch-flight planning and takeoff at 4:30 PM for 2 hour flight to Tucson. No hangar in Tucson so it takes a little more time to secure the aircraft for overnight. The hotel is about 10 miles from the airport across town during a busy travel time. Arrive at the Hilton east at 8:30PM, change clothes-out to dinner(Mexican, of course- La Parrilla Suiza 0n Speedway) about 9:30 PM. 11PM Back to the hotel-bed. Up at 5:30 for a 6 Am drive to the airport-no time for breakfast. light plan prep for 8AM takeoff to Houston. Houston is Central time and we're leaving Pacific time. A two hour flight puts us on the ground at noon. Lunch and a short break and prep for a planned 4 PM departure back to Tucson. Passengers are late because no one set their time to local and they lost track of the time zone changes. 4 PM Flight became a 5:30PM takeoff-2 hour flight puts on the ground back in Tucson at the same time as takeoff(Central to Pacific time). We taxi in and pick up a couple of passengers who we left behind in the morning. Taxi back out and take off at 6:30 for Scottsdale-thankfully only a 20 min flight. Hotel and dinner in Old Town (Tucson is great this time of year) Temps in the high 60's and locals wearing jackets wishing it would warm up. Last overnight and going home tomorrow. A 1PM departure allows a relaxing start to the day(breakfast at the GoodEgg, a drive through Old Town and a 10 AM drive to the airport.
So I hope that explains the failure to update during my trip.
( This blog site is not the easiest to manipulate and I put pictures on it prior to this trip but it's very time consuming to move those pictures to the top, so I'll start with the present and work back. The above pictures are from yesterday. The first one show the 157 knot tailwind that helped me make my fastest trip:Scottsdale, AZ to Trenton, NJ in 3 :45. Of course I faced those same wind as a headwinds on my way to Vegas on Monday and the trip took 6:05.
Below are a few of the sights from the trip. The first is a conference table at the airport in Houston-Million Air FBO. It's made from the wings of a light single-eng airplane.
The middle picture is my view of the camel back mountains from my hotel room in Scottsdale.

The third picture shows the early snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains. Talk is of an early ski season this year.
Just prior to this trip, I attended a New Jersey State Police awards party at the Tropicana Hotel in Atlantic City. One of the honorees was my nephew (Ronnie's oldest brother's son) Craig Costello. He was selected as the Trooper of the year for 2009. A very career enhancing award.
Craig and his wife Rhianna
A stroll on the Atlantic City Boardwalk : Ronnie and I with Rich (Craig's dad) and his wife Pat
I had lots of time in September to enjoy the treasures in my life. Here, Cate is showing me her new fall parka. When I asked to take a picture, she crossed her arms and said OK.

I had the opportunity to witness Finnian's first steps. He is very proud of his new ability.

If you haven't heard, Trader Joe's has come to the Princeton area. Just in time for newly immigrated Australian to land a job.
Kat started work about a week before opening day and is enjoying everything about it.

And did I mention how much I'm enjoying being with my grandchildren. Cate-angel in training

We had a final family beach weekend the third w/e of Sept. and it was rather chilly. We were all sorry we asked for outdoor seating.
It just happened to be a weekend for loosing teeth. Patrick lost his first, and Tiernan lost another one.(I don't what # it was)

And did I mention how much fun my grandchildren are! Here, Cate is trying on Aunt Kat's glasses and riding our neighbor's jumbo pumpkin.