But the weather wasn’t cooperating. Clouds, low ceiling, ice, snow. T he forecast changed hourly, it seemed, and trying to get the plane to the shop for the appointment was gonna be difficult due to weather.
But Friday was supposed to be clear.
It was.
With winds out of the west at 25 gusting 38. ceilings broken at 3000. Fun.
So, at the end of the day, when winds were down to 18 gusting 30, I preflighted and took off for the 35 mile flight to the airport where the avionics shop is located.

Nice. At 3500 feet the winds were 50+ knots. at first it was not too turbulent, so I enjoyed ground speeds of 170 knots. But shortly I had to reduce to Va (and then to less than that for a while) to prevent damage due to turbulence.
Approach vectored me to the base entry and then final was…..fun.
Turbulence on the descent and lots of side vector. Winds were 18 gusting 28 10 degrees off the runway centerline. I did a faster approach with only 10 degrees of flaps.Dancing on the rudder all the way down. Smooth touchdown and then I had to get progressive taxi instructions from Ground to find my way.
Was fun taxiing too, what with the gusty (and high) winds. But the plane is in the shop in time for it’s appointment.

So I’m not flying for about a week while they tear into the panel and install an ADS-B transponder.

Toady I am at an NRA Range Officer course.

Last week: -25F to plus 28F in less than 24 hours.

Today, +50F to +4F in 12 hours.

One would think that concrete and stucco and brick would just spall and crumble.

Rather, I am discussing the DNC response to the SOTU by Stacy Abrams.

Nice set of talking points, somewhat divorced from reality and pretty much not a rebuttal, just a bunch of illogical responses and statements containing half truths and slogans. Failed to address much, really.

Sad, it was. Very sad. Almost as if it had been written by N. Pelosi in one of her less-lucid moments….

I would have welcomed a decent response.
But there was none. 

The case, that is, of Jussie Smollett.

So, to recap, Jussie claims he was assaulted by a person who knew he was a gay actor…..at 2 AM when, on a whim, he chose to go out on the coldest (to date) night of the year to get a sandwich and this person who assaulted him knew he was black despite being bundled up head to toe against the cold…Said person or persons attacked him and beat him and put a “noose” around his neck and then poured “a chemical” on him all while telling him that “This is MAGA Country” (which is a term not used by folks that wear “Make America Great Again” hats, but rather by liberals, Hollywood types and journalists (but I repeat myself) who have never met anyone who supports Trump’s agenda). 

But there MAY be a break in the case. It appears that the latest Hollywood news is that actor Liam Neeson had , because of a crime committed against a “friend” of his by a black man, decided to take revenge against all black people and especially against a black man…..

And so here we have it….Hollywood, again, eating it’s own. 

There, I solved the case.

(No, despite rumors, the attack wasn’t really a GRINDR date gone bad and we are sure of that because Jussie won’t let anyone check his phone or cooperate in any fact finding by the police)

The game was OK.

I didn’t bother to watch the halftime show.

I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of politics.

Which one does she tell you about FIRST in the first 30 seconds after being introduced?

I mean, the rest will come out soon….But what is the FIRST one she tells you about? 

Well, that’s just bullshit. Would you like to know what detectives are telling us?
It never happened. CPD is wasting hundreds of man hours to solve a Grindr date gone bad. The “victim” is refusing all forms of cooperation, his “ear witness” isn’t cooperating, the Hollywood press is running with a non-existent narrative. The “persons of interest” are all but unidentifiable and left the area 20 minutes before the “attack,” not to mention the anonymous witness who saw a “hillbilly looking” character that not a single camera in a one mile radius has a picture of.
And that’s just from a couple of people working the case.

Anyone with two working neurons to rub together can see that the story just doesn’t smell right.
Let us recap:

1. Some dudes were waiting for him in the middle of the night when he JUST HAPPENED to decide to go out at 2 AM to get a sandwich…….And they recognized him and somehow knew he was an actor and gay (cause it shows, AmIRite?) and cared enough (I had to look up the dude on Google just to find out who he was) and therefore knew enough to take this action………and this occurred, mind you, on one of the coldest nights of the winter so far (‘Cause all MAGA hat wearing people have nothing else to do on a cold night, and are stupid enough to not go inside where it is warm)….and after they roughed him up, they just happened to have a handy noose to put around his neck (Hint: a noose is only a symbol to black progressives, not to anyone else)….How many rednecks say things like “MAGA Country”?

2. He somehow staggered home despite the (mild) beating and called for help….not the police, mind you, but someone else (his (“manager”)….who he may or may not have been on the phone with at the time of the “attack”. Said person sometime later called the police (if he had a phone with him, why didn’t he call RIGHT THEN?) and reported the “beating”….. (Hint: If you’ve ever been set upon by a couple of rednecks, then you might not believe that they will just be satisfied with pushing you down and (maybe) striking you on the cheek…..Trust me, it is generally a LOT more beating…kicking and stomping and general mayhem, that takes place before they leave).

3. When police arrived approximately 45 minutes later….for some reason the “noose” was STILL around his neck. Odd, that. Almost as it were a symbol or something….

4. Neither the “victim” nor his “Manager” are willing to give access to their phones. One might think that they were hiding something.

5. The ONLY men that can be seen for over a MILE around the alleged attack location anywhere near the time of the (alleged) attack on video cameras are walking away calmly, not hurrying as one might expect after (gently and/or slightly) beating someone….and their position and timing says that they had to have done it at least 20 minutes before the alleged attack occurred.  Again, kinda odd.

I’m not sure what the motivation is for this claim, but I strongly doubt that anything remotely like what the “Victim” claims happened actually happened…..I think he made up many, if not all, of the details he reported. Like someone who has never met a Good Ol’ Boy (say a Hollywood type) might THINK that they speak and act…(if, say, one had never met anyone outside of those Hollywood circles)….not like how they really do.

How many hundreds of man hours are being wasted on this “case”?

Either you’ve seen it and understand, or you haven’t and don’t.

6 of ’em. 1.1 hours. Density altitude was -2200 ft , the plane climbed like a rocketship. First time I overshot my pattern altitude by 200 feet.

Landings were “Meh” simply because I am out of practice…..Like shooting, flying is a perishable skill. And it has been nearly a month.

Winds were 120 at 8, so Runway 9.

First one was ok, second one was too fast. Third and fourth were just right…but in the low density altitude air, the damned plane just would not set down on the runway. I sat in ground effect for over a thousand feet, stall warning horn blaring, at an altitude of like 5 feet, at an airspeed of about 35-40 knots FOREVER, just tying set the plane onto the runway. Float float and more float

5th and 6th landings were good, but still a bit long.

I might go up tomorrow and practice some more.

Liking this cold, dense air.

1.1 and 6.