There is important news from this weekend.  I achieved my goal — to receive a complex aircraft endorsement by the end of 2011.  The endorsement took about ten hours of instruction in a Piper Arrow II (PA-28R-200).  We could justifiably gripe a bit about the glide ratio of the Arrow, but it is a forgiving, enjoyable, and I think capable cross-country machine.  Next step…a real cross-country flight!

The other day we witnessed something remarkable. The crane operator at the junkyard was using his crane to extract the motors from refrigerators, obviously for the copper.  The following was his process:

1. Snatch one refrigerator from pile o’ refrigerators.
2. Set refrigerator on ground.
3. Violently smash refrigerator with crane, sometimes twice just for fun.
4. Find motor and grab with crane.
5. Lift.
6. If motor does not come loose, shake, yank, smash, till it comes loose.
7. Toss motor 75 feet through the air to pile of motors.
8. Toss refrigerator 50 feet through the air to pile of miscellaneous scrap.

Upon noticing this fascinating process, the boys would mark each smashing with a chorus of “whoah!” and each tossing with a laugh.  They did not want to leave so we stayed for a few more.

Against C’s better judgement, I took all three little men out of the country to go fishing and wilderness camping.  Things worked out pretty well.  G and B caught the biggest walleyes of the week, twenty inches a piece.

Ten is the number of reverends who would’ve had to faint before we would’ve had to halt Uncle Chuck’s wedding. Said another way, a minimum of eight percent of the attendees would have passed out before Uncle Chuck had to pause the proceedings and wait for one of them to revive.  If we assume that the couple were not going to pass out because they were too fired up, then we would mathematically expect 88 percent of the attendees to have passed out before a halt was necessary.  Thankfully, no one fainted and this situation is hypothetical.

We had a chance to visit the Green Bay Packers’ training camp this week.  The evening yielded these photographs.

The family had the chance to visit the Airventure Convention yesterday.  Here are two highlights.

Finally, C agreed to go flying with me as Pilot in Command (PIC).  I think she just wanted to get it out of the way.  M and K also went along and it was M’s first ride in a small plane.  Before the run-up, K suggested that C might want to pray that she would not get sick!  It was a smooth day (that’s why we went) and I do not think she enjoyed it, but I think she didn’t hate it.  So now, we shall wait to see if her dislike at least moderates into indifference and then maybe someday she will enjoy flying.  I think I see a couple of opportunities for advancement if we could go on a double-date.  Stay tuned.