January 2008

Fairly busy week, but aren't they all. My main effort last weekend was removing the engine from my airplane, and boxing it up to go to St Albert AB for a mini-overhaul. One of the drawbacks of flying an ultralight airplane is that the engine has a very short life between overhauls, only 150 flying hours. I've just learned that the $700 cost has ballooned to $2500, because of corrosion and wear on the crank and pistons. The cause is probably the long time the airplane sat before I bought it. It first flew in 2000, but accumulated only 33 hours before I bought it in 2005. The shop owner says the type of wear is typical of engines that don't get much use. Most unfortunate for my bank account. At least I will have a basically brand new engine when it's done.
On Tuesday I went to do my annual military fitness test. It consists of a shuttle run, push-ups, sit-ups, and a grip test. There are three levels, fail, pass, and exempt, which allows you to skip the test the next year. The pass level is set at the 50th percentile, and exempt, I believe, is the 80th percentile. I used to be able to get exempt every time (barely), but then I became a bum. I was a bit worried about my ability to pass the thing, but I did. The shuttle run is 20m, at a gradually increasing pace. Oldsters have to run five minutes to pass, and run for seven minutes to get exempt. I made it to five, anyway, and could have gone on for a bit longer, but if you're not going to get exempt, there's not much incentive to carry on. I also had to do at least fourteen push-ups and seventeen sit-ups (yeah, I know, pathetic), and I forget the standard for the grip test. Well, at least I did more than the minimum.
I'm also slowly getting caught up with my routine jobs. The CASARA newsletter has been sent out, and so has the CAHS meeting notice. I volunteered to write a safety policy for CASARA, so we'll see how that works out.
I started taking a dance class because a) I need help and b) my friend Kathryn, the instructor, had a student who needed a partner, though she was probably hoping for someone better than me.
Last week, on the way back from Oakbank, I saw a car being driven erratically. So after I watched her miss a turn off on the Perimeter, and then just about go off the cloverleaf, I phoned the cops. I wound up ahead of her, so while describing the situation, I pulled over to let her catch up. As I was talking to the police dispatcher, she pulled alongside me, and stopped. I rolled my window down, and she asked "Where's the South Beach Casino?" Boy, was she ever lost. We were on McPhillips St just south of the Perimeter, going south. South Beach is thirty miles north, on Hwy 59.