Moon & Cat’s blog

Huntin' ducks.

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My first moblog attempt. Maria's watcing Super Why!

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If you could pick between the superpowers of flight or invisibility, which would you choose?
Submitted by aynge.

Definitely invisibility.  Because anyone can fly, it just takes the proper machinery, but invisibility--- just think of all the conversations you could listen in on and all the stuff you could get in to for free.  Not to mention just terrorizing the ever living snot out of people.

Hmmmmm Vox vs. Facebook.  Seems like you have to think a lot more to have an actual blog vs. a FB account.  I may have to start thinking a little bit again.

Here's some random thoughts:

I just took the baby to the Starbucks drive through to get some hot chocolate so I could get out of the house.

We're working on a will.  It's kind of morbid, but nice to know that we've (hopefully) chosen some responsible people to look after our affairs should the unthinkable happen.  The good thing is that if we've royally screwed up on it, we'll probably never know. 

There's a school bus broken down on our street.  Right out inthe middle of the street.  I was going to offer to pull it to the curb at least, but there was nobody there.  I how long it is before an "abandoned" bus can be claimed by anyone.  Because if I had a bus I would......... probably try to sell it to a bunch of RAGBRAI drunks.

I heard thunder today for the first time in about 6 months.  It still sounds the same.

Consists of getting a haircut and washing windows.  These are the kind of days that make you glad you're alive.

Yep.  N51172 is in the hospital.  Poor N51172.  I guess it should maybe make me a little nervous that I've been flying that particular plane, but the good thing is that it just started running funny and making more and more odd sounds, but never totally detonated in flight.  It's probably designed to not do that or something.  I guess we're looing at a $10,000 bill (or more), for a plane that's probably only worth $15k.  Hopefully after the new motor it'll go a little faster because it's no hot rod right now. 

Cessna

I like it.  A little different, but not enough that you don't' know who it is.

24 New Paint

Nowhere, really.  I think the idea of seven days of pictures of the baby wore me out from blogging.  Some people are just superheroes when it comes to blogging stamina.  Lots of stuff happening in their lives and a strong desire to share it with others.  That's what it takes to be a great blogger, kids.  Anyway, an update.

-The Baby is six months old.  We went for her six month pictures at JC Penny and had to wake her up from a nap to do it.  Bad idea.  The so called "Smilinest Baby That Ever Smiled" had no interest whatsoever in cracking a smile.  I just figure that some of these pictures are just photographic evidence that our child was/is alive at 6 months.  Hopefully nine months will be better.  I'll see if we can post some of the bad pictures on here..  In other baby news, Maria is sitting now.  She's not quite to the point where she can get herself up to sitting, but if you plunk her down she will sit for about 10 minutes before she falls over. 

- Flying update-  I had my first solo about a week ago!  It would have happened a week sooner, but the weather was just not cooperating with us.  So that was a bit frustrating, knowing that this milestone was just around the corner but we couldn't quite reach it.  But it was quite a thrill to be in that little airplane all by myself.  First of all, having a little extra room was great, in addition to that, that plane felt like a rocketship!  I couldn't believe how quickly it took off and climbed with just one person on board.  The down side to it was that I had a hard time landing with only one person- every approach I made was high because I wasn't sinking as fast with only one person on board.  It was a huge thrill, though and I didn't fall asleep until about 2am that night... just too excited.  Now we move on to the part of the flight training that I think is alot of fun- Actually going somewhere. 

Remember a few years back when the movie "Twister" was big?  For a while (and even today a little) the nation was enamored with chasing storms, hoping to see that elusive tornado.  I even remember seeing a news story about how Japanese tourists were coming over on vacation and booking these special tours that would try to bring them up close to seeing a tornado.  I have to say that I love seeing tornadoes, although it's a bit like riding a roller coaster- you really enjoy the thrill of experiencing nature in such a powerful way but in the back of your mind there's always the thought that your might get yourself hurt or killed.  My personal record is being surrounded on 3 sides by 5 tornadoes.  There was a basement very close by, so although it was dangerous, it was nice to have that ace in the hole.  The funny thing about that story is that we didn't seek out the tornadoes.  We were working at the farm shop and it all happened around us while we watched.

Anyway, since I've gotten to experience the weather pheonomena that the midwest offers- severe thunderstorms, blizzards (with and without thunder), and tornados- I'd like to experience a hurricane once.  They sure look spectacular on radar and on TV, but I'll guess it's nothing like being there.  The winds, the sea, the rain, the roofs blowing off, people shooting at helicopters overhead and possibly my personal favorite- the newsman leaning 45 degrees into the wind doing his report trying to show us the high winds.

Maybe someday I'll do it. (Especially if the name of the hurricane is "Hurricane Ditka."   If you're ever heading out of a hurricane landfall area, you may just meet me heading the other way. 

As covered a month or so ago, we purchased a new pickup that we are really starting to enjoy, although it's expensive to drive around.  One of the things that I didn't like about the pickup were its weenie tires.  So over this weekend while I was fishing (I'll post on that later as soon as a certain someone emails me pictures of the trip.) Cat's uncle who is the service manager for Cooperative Gas and Oil Co. in Sioux Center got me a great deal on some Bridgestone Dueler A/T Revo's.  I did a little research and supposedly this is the biggest tire that will fit on the pickup without modification, so they fill up the wheel wells a little bit, but they don't look overly huge, either.  So here's some before and after pictures.  Before:

Pickup

Note the overall tiny-ness of the tires and lack of a bugshield to dress it up a little.  I know this isn't a real great picture for showing off the tires but I forgot to take an actual before picture, so this will have to do.

And here is after:

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Doesn't that look better?  A close up of the tires:

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Looks like I need to wash it, but the remnants of that hurricane are creeping up to the south so I'll wait until that is through. There we go.  New tires.  Most people don't get that excited about new tires, but when you spend seven hundred bucks it's nice to have a positive feeling go along with it.