Forced Landing

The weather was absolutely perfect today so I took a few hours vacation and headed out to the airport.  I was hoping that it was going to be as good as they predicted earlier this week.  Yesterday, I planned my flight out to Waterloo Airport.  Chuck and I went there about a year ago and we ate at the restaurant, which overlooked the runways.  We had their goulash and it was amazing!  I decided I would fly there and bring back a few orders.  Fortunately, I thought to call them last night to double check that they still made it, and I was shocked that they said no!  I was told that they are under new ownership so there have been changes made to their menu.  I reluctantly put away my cooler bag and Tupperware.  I was speaking with a friend at work today and she said that she would like it if I could fly her out to London to visit her friend.  She still has to work out the logistics of everything, but I told her I would fly out that way today and time the flight.  I really didn’t need to since I knew it was around an hour to get there.  Still, it gave me a mission!  I decided to fly to St. Thomas, which is about the same distance and just south of London.  This was the first airport I landed at during my solo cross-country flight for my Private Pilot license. 

 

It was a very smooth flight:

I was actually just going to fly around the airport and head back home, until I realized how much I needed to use the little Pilot’s room.  Needless to say, I entered the circuit to land:

I’m glad it wasn’t a huge airport and it didn’t take me too long to find the Flight Centre:

I ran into the building and asked the dispatcher if I could use their facilities.  I think my yellow eyes indicated my perilous situation.

I was there for less than ten minutes, before climbing into the saddle to head back home to St. Catharines.  They had some interesting aircraft there:

Mind you, none of them were as interesting or cute as this one:

It was a really nice flight.  I’m so glad I got out today since it looks like the weather is going to be poop-o-la for the next few days.

Today’s symptoms:  I felt quite good today (I certainly wouldn’t go flying if I didn’t!)  As usual, I’m totally drained after my flight, but it was well worth it.  My aches and pains aren’t as bad today as they’ve been the last couple of days.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 2/23/2011 8:10 PM

Flat Food

Today was really flat, food-wise at least.  When Chuck got home, we had a chocolate marshmallow Easter egg fight.  One of the eggs ended up landing on top of the heater grill.  We weren’t able to find it until after dinner:

It took me about ten minutes to clean it out with around thirty Q-Tips.  It sure smells yummy in our apartment at least!

For dinner – thin crust pizza.  Yeah, pretty flat.

For dessert – I gave Chuck the gourmet cheery pie I bought him at the Dollarama:

We haven’t cracked the bad boy open yet.  I think I’ll pretend I’m not in the mood for dessert when we do.  Blech!

Today’s symptoms: I had a fair bit of energy today.  I’ve just had to deal with a slew of body aches – really sharp and quite painful in my shoulders, arms and hands.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 2/21/2011 8:08 PM

Recovering Kitties

This past week was a little stressful as the new kitties were taken to the vet to be fixed.  At least they were able to go at the same time, so they can recover together.  I was able to pick them up on Friday.  I was led into the back where the recovering pets were, and shown Pinky and Boo snuggled together under a mound of blankets.  They were so cute!  It sure was nice to get them home:

I’m not sure what’s up with the expression on Boo’s face.  Looks like she’s smelling something stinky.  She’s very curious and decided to sniff my camera:

Abby and Mya were enjoying the sun the other day:

As you may have noticed in previous blog entries, Mya has a knack with her “evil eye” to scare away little Abby:

Maybe she just wanted Abby’s stinky little feet out of her face!

Looks like they’re calling for another “storm” in our area tonight.  The last time they did that, we got a few inches.  We have really turned into a bunch of weather-wussies around here!  As long as it’s not snowing in the morning when I have to head to work (I start at 7:15), I’ll be happy.  I try to walk whenever possible, to save gas and to not have to pay for parking.  The daily rate at the parking lot across the street from my office was $5.00.  It has now gone up to $8.00!  Ugh!  I’m going to need a pretty good reason not to walk to work any more.

Today’s symptoms: I had quite a bit of energy to start out, but crashed just before 16:00.  Now I’m achy and just feel lousy in general.  I’m kinda looking forward to going to sleep tonight.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 2/20/2011 6:58 PM

Flight of Jealousy

The skies were perfectly clear today.  I watched about four small planes fly past my window at work.  It was around the third or forth plane that little tears started trickling down my cheek.  In the spur of the moment, I phoned the airport to ask them to plug in my plane, I emailed my supervisor that I was taking a couple hours vacation, then out of the office I flew! 

I had no idea where I was going to fly, so I started out along the Lake Ontario shoreline, over to Niagara-On-The-Lake.  I then climbed to 3600′ and entered the Niagara Falls scenic circuit.  Here’s a shot of Great Wolf Lodge:

Then toward the Falls:

The Rainbow Bridge…not too much traffic:

I didn’t see the rainbow while I was taking this picture (you know, since I also had to concentrate on flying the plane):

I was going to head toward Fort Erie but decided to go back out to Long Point.  The temperatures have been fairly mild the last couple of days, so I wanted to see if there were any ice fishing-dudes still out there.  On the way, I passed a flock of geese:

You can see Long Point along the top of this next pic.  I love the reflection:

To my surprise, since I could see how thin the ice was along certain parts of the shoreline, there were still quite a few fisher-folks out there:

The pollution over Hamilton was really noticeable heading back home:

And last but not least, the next picture in the new St. Catharines hospital updates:

Needless to say, it turned out to be a great day!  I’m taking tomorrow off as vacation.  I have to bring the new kitties over to the animal hospital in the morning to be fixed.  I can’t wait to get the call saying they made it through the procedure.  In the meantime, Jan will be coming here and were going to do a little shopping then head over to the chiropractor to get cracked and popped.

Today’s symptoms:  I had quite a bit of energy today.  I’m now dealing with a fairly bad headache and some body aches, but it WILL be better tomorrow – gosh darn-it!

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 2/15/2011 8:31 PM

Big Head Guy

I’m happy to report that I had more energy than I did over the last five days combined!  I made good use of it as Chuck and I decided to go over to the Walden Galleria in Buffalo.  I really wanted to hit the Apple store so I could buy a camera adapter for my iPad.  Now when I travel, I can upload pics from my camera directly onto my iPad, then do a blog.  I have a HUGE trip planned to Florida in April, so this will come in handy.  Stay tuned for a blog post in the very near future for my “big disclosure” which involves the flight down to Florida.  Fortunately, I found the camera adapter, so I’m all set there.  I wasn’t really in a clothes shopping mood, so we did none of that (except for some shirts for Chuckles).  After the mall, we purchased a few items in Tops then headed back to Canada.  I asked Chuck if we could stop at the pet store in Niagara Falls, Ontario so that I could look for some “At Ease” spray for Abby’s floor-pooping-problem.  For some reason, I thought the orange gummy bear laying in the parking lot right outside my door, was a sign of luck and good fortune (especially since he was the same colour as my airplane):

 

Soon after we left the store, Chuck mentioned that he was hungry.  How convenient for there to be a Mandarin in the mall.  Wasn’t I just there last weekend?  Hmmmm….you can never visit the Mandarin too frequently.

Chuck decided to take a picture of me while waiting to be seated.  I really hate having my picture taken:

It was clearly evident how many illiterate people there are around here, as per the next two pictures:

Duh!

I hit the salad bar while Chuck went for the real food, which included a big, yucky crab leg:

It the Chinese New Year, and we were lucky enough (it must have been the gummy bear!) to be witness to their celebrations, which included two huge dragons and some really neat percussionists.  There were two people holding up poles with lettuce hanging off of them.  The dragons would come by and bite the lettuce off the poles.  I guess they were hungry.  I think they could have given them something more exciting than lettuce – like a cheesecake:

Nom nom nom…..

What a wonderful day!  I’m pooped now though.  Hopefully I will sleep tonight as cute and peacefully as little Abby:

Today’s symptoms:  Much more energy that over the past week.  I have a fairly bad headache this evening and I’m having lot of pain in my neck.  The neck things has been going on for months now, so I think I should see my doctor about it.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 2/12/2011 6:26 PM

Snarly Mya

The saga of introducing and integrating the four kitties.  It’s going fairly well with little Pinky.  There are a few growls here and there, but nothing aggressive at all:

 

 

Boo is still being a little growly when she comes over, but it gets better each day.

Speaking of being not-so-nice, check out this little interaction between Mya and Abby.  The spent a few minutes together playing with this catnip filled rainbow:

Then Mya turned into a hideous, snarly, evil, raging, mean, malicious little snippet:

Look at cute little Abby, cowering in fear!  Mya can be the biggest sweetheart you’ll ever meet, but she sure has a bully side to her!

I wish I had more to share this week, but it hasn’t been a good few days symptom-wise.  My fatigue has been really bad, leading to complete exhaustion and full-body weakness.  It’s been rather unpleasant.  Usually it hits me for a day or two, but it started Sunday afternoon and it’s still going today, which is Thursday.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.  I don’t want to play this game anymore!

Today’s symptoms:  Yuck, blah, argh, whimper, ugh.

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 2/10/2011 8:46 PM

Delivery!

I was all excited to take a couple hours of vacation time today to enjoy the “perfect” weather that was predicted.  Although very cold this morning, the sky was perfectly clear (as forecasted).  I was shocked when that all changed around 9:30.  A blanket of low, gray clouds moved in and the wind picked up.  I was so bummed.  I called Flight Service in London to get a weather briefing, and it sure wasn’t sounding like things were going to improve.  I decided I wouldn’t totally give up at that time and called back around 1:00.  To my delight, the weather was clear in South Niagara and heading North.  After hanging up, I giggled like a little school-girl and frolicked around the office. 

 

When I got to the airport, the Chief Instructor was speaking to one of the Aviation Mechanics, whom I knew.  The mechanic asked me if I was flying to Brantford (in a joking tone).  I said I didn’t plan on it but since I had no planned destination, I could head out that way.  He said he had to pick up some glue at Aircraft Spruce .  I had to tell him a few times that I would fly out there and pick it up for him – he eventually believed me.  He said he would call the store to pay over the phone and have them get the order ready for me.  I accepted my mission and headed out.

It was a little windy, but not too bad at around 2000 feet.  I got clearance from Hamilton to fly right over their airport.  Shortly after, I arrived at Brantford.  The winds were evident from the snow blowing across the runway:

I had a decent landing and made my way over to the apron closest to the Aircraft Spruce store.  As soon as I stepped out of the plane, I realized how badly I needed to use the little pilot’s room.  I also soon realized how far away the Flying Club (with washroom) was from my plane.  Of course, I was walking/running into the wind.  Fortunately, I made it in time and greeted the dispatchers on my way out of the Flying Club.  I told them that I flew all the way there just to use their facilities.  She seemed a little shocked, so I had to mention that I was kidding.  Anyway, the walk back toward my plane was much easier with the wind at my back.  I snapped a shot of Vyctor before walking over to the store:

I picked up the glue and promised the clerks that I wouldn’t sniff it during the flight home.  Back to the plane before my engine cooled down – he started up well.  Here’s a shot of Brantford Airport during take-off:

The flight back was nice.  I decided to fly south of Hamilton rather than through it this time.  I passed what I assume is a vehicle scrap yard:

I could clearly see the yucky weather to the North of the Lake Ontario shoreline:

I arrived home less than forty-five minutes after leaving Brantford.  I had the glue as my co-pilot during the flight.  It was a glue-sniffing-free flight, you’ll be happy to know:

I was totally wiped out once I got home – well worth it though!  Fortunately, I never feel tired until after the flight.

Tomorrow, I’m driving to Burlington to meet up with an Army buddy at the Mandarin .  We usually meet there once a year to keep in touch and enjoy some great food.

***  Wow!  I was just scared to death.  I had the sound turned up quite high on my laptop and when I Googled the Mandarin to include the link, their theme song played, causing me to fly about two feet off of my bed!

Today’s symptoms:  Felt really good, especially after finding out I was going for a flight.  My fatigue is quite bad this evening and I’m also experiencing a lot of jaw pain.  Tomorrow will be better!

Posted by Lizzy McFly at 2/4/2011 8:42 PM