Erratic Flight Path

France!

2008-05-11T07:28:00.000-07:00

My trip to Paris and Angers to visit niece Brenna was tres amazing! CDG airport (see the slim, tall ATC tower here) and the TGV and the Metro were all WELL-organized transport. But, it was tres mal to NOT see ANY GA-type airplanes the WHOLE time I was there! 8-(

LIGA April 08 Clinic!

2008-04-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

Wow! I just got to be part of the April volunteer weekend down in El Fuerte (and environs, some went to El Carrizo, some to San Blas), Sinoloa, Mexico, with LIGA, The Flying Doctors of Mercy.
AMAZING trip.
AMAZING volunteers.
I am in awe.
Got in 5.1 hours of flight time in trusty N7598S (AKA CF98S - compassion flight) with Robin and Tony. We flew Amal, a Med Student, down to help.
Also got in about 9 hours of support work in the clinic pharmacy! I backed up the local (orig. American), Spanish-fluent psychotherapist who subbed on patient services for the pharamacist, who's plane had mechanical problems and had to turn around. I also provided meds for the docs, and did lots of PDR research all day long as I sorted and shelved and labeled donated meds.
Our La Choza Hotel was lovely and the service was great.
I will be going back!

Scientists vs. Engineers in the cockpit

2008-02-18T22:13:00.000-08:00

I'm a science and engineering librarian for my day job, and have worked with both disciplines for years. The similarities and differences fascinate me.

Mostly I've flown with lots of engineers - when I got back into aviation, it was thanks to engineers at the company where I worked, and my primary instructor the second time round was an engineer (electrical), and most of the folks in my current flying club are enginers.

I've had the fun to fly with a physicist now, and he is good! Equally precise in checklists and data and such as the engineers, but seems a bit less inclined to keep adjusting settings!

Of course, this is an enormous generalization based on only one guy and one experience, but it does seem to hold with physicists' traits vs. engineers' traits I've observed at work, too!

SBP!

2008-02-18T22:11:00.000-08:00

Second flight to SBP today!
We both got about 2/10ths actual, and R got to log the approach into SBP as instrument, as she was in the clouds for much of the final approach!
I got the actual busting out of there. It was clear, though hazy, for the final 3rd of the journey home (starting about CMA).
What a great way to spend President's Day, admiring part of our country from aloft!

New task learned! Battery fluid testing

2008-02-18T22:06:00.000-08:00

So I learned another new task at our flying club's maintenance day this month! How to test the fluid level in the C182's battery.

I volunteered to do this routinely, as I am small enough to fit all folded up in the baggage compartment area and thus reach the battery in the tail behind baggage easier than the guys who have to dangle lots of legs out the baggage door!

We test in 2 ways:

With a flashlight and an angled mirror, to see in each battery post/well, and see that the fluid goes up the sides a bit, and has that nice look of viscosity and surface tension (hard to put in words, but easy enough to see!), and also
Using the floating ball (well, tube) type hydrometer - looks like a turkey baster with a measured off tube inside - have to squeeze the air out with the bulb, and carefully let the fluid up

Key is not to get this acidic fluid on yourself or the carpet!

It was pretty fun!

Cake for flight club maintenance day!

2008-02-18T22:05:00.001-08:00

Here's me at Big B

2008-01-13T20:31:00.001-08:00

L35! (aka Big Bear airport)

2008-01-13T20:26:00.000-08:00

Whew! It was INTENSE flying to Big Bear today, Santa Ana's created QUITE a bit of turbulence, especially high over ONT, but it was only ever MODERATE, not severe. Still, it was a lot of work, but, as CFI Bill G. (who was checking me out for BB) said, "worth it"! Gorgeous setting! See the WX station w/ ski slope background shot.

Interesting, the C182 really does not perform that great at 9,500 Ft MSL - throttle whammed to the firewall and only 20" Hg Manifold Pressure! In some ways it is easier to fly the C172 there.

Where but SoCal can you have breakfast at home in 60 deg. F., lunch up in snow country at 30 deg F, and dinner back home where it is now 70 deg?!

SMOKING RIVETS!: New stuff learned at maintenance day!

2007-12-03T23:41:00.001-08:00

Maintenance day at our flying club is also a learning experience, usually a good/fun one! 'Twas this past weekend. some things I learned:

"Smoking rivets" - nope, not one of Batman's sidekick's phrases (!), but a condition where rivets are too loose, and they wiggle and rub in their slots a bit (e.g. under the wing), and create aluminum powder/dust that leaves a smoke-like trail. Not good - should replace bolts that are doing this.
How to take apart the taxi and landing light units on a 1970s Cessna 182 Skylane, and put new gaskets in.
That the backseat of a C182 mid 70s era is bolted in with 7/16th size bolts! (And it is a bear to undo 'em, and you have to jiggle/wiggle the rug under the seat and line up or create holes for the bolts).

Fires!

2007-10-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

My buddy Robin and I actually had a training flight in the retractable gear plane yesterday, because while the wind was gusting 30-40 mph at Van Nuys and higher up in Ventura County, it wasn't bad at Hawthorne and Torrance airports. But it looked better from the ground - aloft at about 1,750 ft. or so the about 1,000' thick layer of brown smoke and particulates existed. It was almost but not quite instrument conditions. We could not see any of the fires from that spot at about 4,500 aloft, but again, this flat basin area is pretty protected with the sea breezes pushing back at the Santa Anas. The myriad microclimates in SoCal are endlessly fascinating! Unfortunately they are sometimes dangerous, too. This is NOT from yesterday, but from July's fire north of SBA (from inside Bruce's Cirrus backseat).

Welcome to the World of Spark Plugs!

2007-09-15T18:04:00.000-07:00

Wow. It has been an intense owner-assisted maintenance day at our flying club for me. I learned how to do more of the steps of spark plug maintenance from nice but harried mechanics, we were short people everywhere today.

The only plug cleaning I've done til today is revving up the airplane at runup and running it lean and hot for a minute to remove plug fouling from flooding the engine!

This aviation blogger Andy has a relevant post on airplane spark plugs here: http://www.theandyzone.com/flight/2006_03_01_archive.html

Anyway, here at a broad level (I may write up the detailed steps for myself at some point, though of course I am not a mechanic), are some of the things we do w/ the Skylane:

Remove all 6 plugs; need 2 wrenches, one to hold the small bolt, one to turn the large; also need a plug socket wrench to totally remove them (even though I CAN do w/ my fingers), cuz this special wrench will "catch" the plug. Once you drop a plug IT IS GARBAGE - the ceramic could well've shattered inside.

Put the 6 plugs in the labelled metal "basket" for each. (We CAN replace plug 2 top w/ plug 2 bottom, and vice versa, but canNOT move cleaned plugs to a NEW slot, hence the keeping them straight).

Take the basket into the hangar, and, first, clean them all w/ the vibrator.

Not sure if Andy's "cleaning machine" that sounded like a grinder is the same as the Champion thing we use with the two vibrating rods, but it could be. (Interestingly, a Cessna Pilots org. board has some people recommending AGAINST these machines, saying they could be too rough on the plugs. Hmm. I am WAY TOO MUCH a newbie to have an opinion yet!)

Ah, per SkyGeek (http://www.skygeek.com/sppltoeq.html), the thing IS simply called a vibrator cleaner. So, run them all through that to get the worst crud off.

THEN, go to the "Spark Plug Cleaner and Tester" (must say I like Champion's easy descriptive names for tools!!), and....
Put each plug into the cleaning socket, push the red button to squirt special grade silica sand at the plug, whilst carefully twiddling the plug in a small circle, then keep twiddling while pushing the black button to blow air at the plug.
(If you are me today you find out the sand is low, so you have to find someone to help you find the sand, and it turns out its in a little Champion sealed bag, NOT in a huge canvas tote as you expected.)

Then, do NOT move to the TEST side of the Cleaner and Tester yet!! VERY important! I did NOT realize this at first...was not shown that step. The guys assume I've worked in a garage or hangar I think, which is nice, but WAY WRONG! Today was like BEING IN A FOREIGN LAND for me - MANY of the words I did not understand, AND thus could not look for the "X" which "should be right there next to Y." Riiight.

NEXT, you MUST use "the air gun with the red and black levers." Riiight. Turns out to be a nozzle/trigger thing that goes on an air hose; the mechanic found it, then used it. Anyway, we must use this to BETTER BLOW OFF the sand from the cleaner on each plug BEFORE testing it.

BUT, you still canNOT get to the TESTING side of the cleaner/tester yet!

Now, you must "Gap the Plugs." My husband explained this briefly to me last month (when I done the graphite painting and reinstalling of already cleaned plugs) from his youth of working on cars with uncles, but I did not really get it totally, til today...now I kind of get it.

What you are doing is testing the teeny air gap the spark has to jump between the "tongue" on each side of these RHB38E plugs and the core of same. You want uniformity as much as possible. We would like our plugs to be sparking on both sides.

To TEST, and tweak, the gaps, you first measure 'em with a "gap gauge" (Skygeek has these too, on the same page as above: http://www.skygeek.com/sppltoeq.html; we have the little retractable kind. Our Skylane wants gaps between 0.016 and 0.017; luckily the gap gauge has a wire of 0.015 width and one of 0.019 width on one of the sides, so you want the 19 NOT to fit, and the 15 to fit loosely, with a bit of feel on each side, not too loose.
BUT OF COURSE FIRST THE GAP GAUGE IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND! And I canNOT help LOOK FOR IT, cuz I have NO IDEA what it looks like!! (You might have gathered this was all super frustrating to me!! Being so uninformed. But at least now I AM more informed!).

So, me and the next guy w/ his plane's plugs (he's not used the Cleaner/Tester much, but HAS gapped plugs alot, so we help each other out) FINALLY find the gap gauge in the tool carrier where other spark plug stuff is. Duh!

THEN, we have to find the "Gap Setting Tool" (again, see the Skygeek page) to clamp onto one of the benches and to CAREFULLY use to screw down the awl-like point to push in any tongues that are far enough out to let a 0.019 wire fit in the gap. This PETRIFIES me for some reason I still don't quite understand - I am SUPER AFRAID of screwing this up! I get guidance from a bunch of different mechanics and seasoned pilots, finally one guy (thanks MB!!!) shows me how to put the 0.015 wire into the gap after the plug is seated in the setting tool, and then CAREFULLY screw down the awl/rod just a bit, and then test moving the 0.015 in and out. This is still hard for me, and I think I totally wrecked a plug that was already only sparking on one side...but then I DROPPED this plug anyway, so it was TOAST.

But finally I ALSO FIX another plug that was sparking only on one side and it now sparks on TWO in the Tester, hallelujah!!!

So I ended up going back and forth between the bench w/ the setting tool and the tester side of the cleaner/tester a number of times. THEN there was no replacement plug for the one I dropped, so we had to have our parts guy go buy some more. THEN another one would not spark AT ALL for me, so I had to use one of the extra new ones, and so on.

This took me AT LEAST TWO HOURS, I swear, and even caused a few tears, not to mention sweat and grime (no blood at least!)

But now that I come to type it up, I feel a bit of sneaking pride I LEARNED ALL OF THIS today at the hangar!!

HOPEFULLY R. and I will actually get to fly the plane tomorrow (when I will be ACUTELY aware of the sparkplugs!!!)

This one's for you Werner! - USA flight prep steps

2007-08-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

There are less advance requirements for flying in the states than in much of Europe, as I mentioned, which is wonderful! But a good pilot still does LOTS of prep! Here are the key steps I took for a training flight in the old 182 from Hawthorne (HHR) to San Luis Obispo (SBP) with my flying partner Robin and our instructor Bill last Sunday.

~ 5 days in advance: pull out and review the SBP instrument approach plates
5-3 days prior: plan the route of flight from HHR to SBP and back (SBP is too far north for the Tower Enroute Control/TEC/"Mike" routing that makes some instrument flights very easy in SoCal airspace). ID navaids/radio fixes, and Victor Airways/typical general aviation routes, which are on the instrument and visual flight rules charts
3-1 days prior: "fly the closet" - sit in front of my Cessna 182 instrument panel poster taped to my home office closet, with the approach plates, and pretend to fly key parts of the route
Sometimes I also use Google Earth to "fly" the route - did not do this time, a bit lazy, since the instructor was coming along
2 nights before: No drinking or allergy drugs (the law is "12 hours bottle to throttle")
1-2 nights before: Write up a flight plan, IF planning to go IFR AND to "file" - e.g. not use Tower Enroute, or, no Tower Enroute Available, or want a backup plan
Night before: Watch weather (WX) channel to get idea of trends
Night before: Organize flight bag, charts, approach plates
Night before: Call the ATIS*s to get idea of evening WX and morning forecasts *(Automated Terminal Information System)
Sometimes the night before I also log into DUATS, which is online FAA-approved WX and flight info, like NOTAMS (Notices to Airmen), like taxiways closed and TFRs (Temporary Flight Restrictions) like rerouting off typical airways to avoid the Sta Barb area fires
Night before: Go to bed early
Morning of: Call ATISs right away
Login and get DUATS for all the current METARS (Meteorological Observations, hourly, many automated) and TAFs (Terminal Area Forecasts) as well as NOTAMS, TFRs, Winds Aloft, etc.
Used to call flight service and get this info from a briefer, but since the stupid Lockheed Martin takeover of flight service stations (FSS) and the even stupider closer of the HHR FSS, I rarely call because the way stupid automated system can never recognize my voice commands on my cell phone!!!
Exercise a bit if any time at all, helps get the brain clear
Have a good amount of coffee for more brain clearing!
Eat a high protein but not too heavy breakfast
Call ATIS's one last time
Call Robin or other flying partners, including Kevin - discuss conditions, and...
Make GO/NO GO decision!
MAY call FSS and FILE the flight plan, if one done - see above -- flight plan includes aircraft tail # and capabilities (e.g. GPS or not), color of aircraft, # of people on board, route of flight, estimated departure time, planned altitude of flight, cruising airspeed, estimated time enroute
Make sure all gear and charts packed
Make sure water and snack packed
Make last "pit stop"
Drive to the airport!
Meet w/ flying partners and reassess WX, etc.
Make one last GO/NO DECISION
Preflight check the plane physical controls and instruments
Jump in and GO!!!!

Omigod I want a Cirrus!!

2007-08-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

Gracious Bruce took me and Robin along to SBA. I got a bit of right seat work in! Wow, is it a responsive aircraft!

Awesome local pianist Brian Kinler - look for him!

2007-07-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

Brian is an amazing jazz/rag/cajun etc. pianist! Look for him to play at Vitello's and elsewhere in west LA!

Brian's MySpace page by a fan friend

Intellectually stimulating weekend!

2007-07-29T21:38:00.000-07:00

Wow, I feel smarter after this weekend, a nice change! 8-)

1) It was excellent to bust out 2 instrument approaches AND a hold in Justice's Frasca 142 sim w/ CFI Sean. A Simulator is SO DANG intense, I and many other pilots have a love/hate relationship with it. A sim wants CONSTANT pilot input, it is calibrated thusly, MUCH harder to fly than a plane in real life. The bonus is, once you get in the real plane, it is much easier! Finally by the end of 1.3 hours I was doing nice small changes and holding heading and altitude and doing manuevers well, and had a big grin rather than a grimace!
2) Enjoyed attending the dual physics lectures at UCLA Hillel w/ K. These got me back in physics information mode, after no colloquia at our USC campus for the past few months, since it is summer.

Draft promo reel of our actor niece Stacie Knock's work!

2007-07-10T10:20:00.001-07:00

Click on the link!
Stacie Knock

Garden Dinner

2007-07-08T19:06:00.000-07:00

First Carrot

2007-07-08T19:05:00.000-07:00

Starting to get the hang...

2007-07-02T20:22:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to (re)get the hang of the Skylane, I think. Last landing on Sat. was pretty good. That lovely engine makes the nose dang heavy, though. I quite like BR's lose an inch mantra for managing the manifold pressure. He totally knows his stuff, and now that I'm used to his style I'm learning! {I'd link to the plane pic but the club site is down....its a 182Q with newer avionics}

First Fruit of the Season!

2007-07-02T20:21:00.001-07:00

Peaceful 182 flight! While Robin navigates...VFR is weird... (photo by Dick S.)

2007-06-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

Skylane Redux!

2007-05-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

WooHoo, now that R. and I are finally in the flying club, I'm starting to get back up to speed in 182s! Thanks for ever to SJM for getting me there and endorsed in the first place! 98Sierra is newer than ol' 64Xray, but I still retain a fondness for that ol' plane, pictured here! (From an SJM, JWN and me flight right before I left Illinois; parked at Dacy Field, one of our stops).

Bizarre Bird Methodically Plucking Flowers

2007-05-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

This chatty (feral former pet?), weird parrot was methodically sidling up and down the tree, plucking petals?! K and I took lots of photos, he was such a strange bird! (Artistic shot of the same sort of tree over at Asymptotia.)

Neon Food Coloring 2007 Easter Eggs!

2007-04-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

Once again Stace and I did psychedelic eggs, man, w/ McCormick "neons" and Eggland's Best (tm) free range brown eggs, the latter thanks to Kerry and her dad!
(The crab baskets were cuz of ACRL in Balmer.)

Okay, I am officially an old lady today, but I can....

2007-04-03T19:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, I am officially an old lady today, but I can still fly airplanes, hallelujah! GREASED the landings w/ K today, yay!!

My other avocation...gardening

2007-03-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

Here's our patio garden, augmented for spring!

The potted strawberries are taking off, and this second set of tomatoes -- first got fried -- as well, now they have their lovely veiling!
(March 2007 shot)

99s KEDW Flyin Jan 20th!! HOW COOL!!!

2007-01-20T19:47:00.000-08:00

A

AWESOME to be a part of this!! Still digesting! R was PIC INbound, since she decided we HAD to go, I was PIC OUTbound. Major Jon et al. were EXCELLENT hosts. We both got some actual in the Valley! Clear and calm in the desert inbound, clear and gusty outbound. Wow, the 99s SO ROCK to have organized this trip to the TOP OF THE PYRAMID!!

Manhattan Beach Christmas 2006

2006-12-27T12:45:00.000-08:00

Manhattan Beach Christmas 2006
(true observations!)

12 Surfers surfing*,
11 Bikers cycling,
10 Sea ducks paddling*,
9 Swimmers swimming,
8 Waders wading,
7 Boarders skimming,
6(0) Walkers strolling,
5 Fishers fishing,
4 Choppers flying,
3 Santas skating* **,
2 Gulls debating*,
1 Roundhouse on the pier*.

* we saw the exact number!
** I realize it does not fit the scansion but it is what we saw!

Sara T.

In Honor of Smooth "Bob" Tucker

2006-11-05T15:50:00.000-08:00

In Honor of Smooth "Bob" Tucker

Big Name SF Fan Wilson "Bob" Tucker from Illinois recently passed away.

He was iconic to my NISFA (Northern Illinois Science Fiction Association) friends and I. Paul and Sue even did a cartoon about him for our "Hard Pore Corn" Issue #3.

I've gotten my cofounder Marie's permission to scan HPC, still trying to locate Sue and Paul, hope they don't mind this!

SRT

Edwards AFB. Thunderbirds. TOO COOL for words.

2006-10-29T20:08:00.000-08:00

Edwards AFB Airshow!! Heritage Squadron Flyby!!

2006-10-29T20:04:00.000-08:00

Custard, made from scratch, a few weeks back...

2006-10-29T19:59:00.000-08:00

This one's thanks to Kerry! Custard made from scratch w/ Eggland's Best! 8-)

Kansas at the LA County Fair!

2006-10-29T19:55:00.000-08:00

Girls rule the skies!

2006-10-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

R. and I finally flew together! With me as PIC of necessity at my rental place, but she was awesome on Comms.
Avoided the coast after WX and Saturday's view indicated marine layer ready to come back inland in a breath.
So simply went to POC, but TOA-> POC (and back!) is a route with LOTS of VOR changes and of course SoCal freq changes. And 'twas a super busy day. ABSOLUTELY GREAT to have another pilot along! Haven't had this experience since riding "shotgun" myself for S. sometime in the spring; her Ms. EE has been down for avionics, etc. for a time.
We were some of the few women on the freqs, so not as awesome as that one day I had w/ my CFI A when she, me, the tower and SoCal were ALL girls, but still way cool.
Will do again soon!

EAA-esque Saturday!

2006-10-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

Second month for my newish buddy R. and I to participate in maintenance day at the flying club we are hoping to join...she and I have moved up the list since last month, now #s 5 and 6!
Anyway, I got to do/did even more on the Skylane this time! Most interesting thing was checking the fluid in the hydraulic wells for the brakes on the pilot side -- very, very small plastic screw at the top of the cylinder that must be removed; Air Force guy and member D. showed me how to do; the 182 crew had made a teeny dowl (sp?) to use as a dip stick - it worked, and the fluid was fine!
Last time I was this EAA-esque (that is, do mechanical work under an A&Ps supervision) was crawling around in the PE/PW 182 with Don K., circa 2002!
Way cool!
I shall never be an engineer, but this taking apart and putting back accurately parts of an aircraft definitely makes me a better pilot!
I went home greasy, tired, and happy.
Blue Skies!!

Physics/Astro Webliography

2006-10-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

In libraryland, B4 there were blogs there were "webliographies"! 8-)
Bibliographies on the web that is.
I used to do for a colloquium series at FNAL; now I'm doing at USC, w/ Prof./Blogger CVJ's blessing! It is here: http://isd.usc.edu/~sarat/PhysColloqBibliogs.html

Amazingly, greased landings and little rust!

2006-10-09T19:58:00.000-07:00

Well, once again a month elapsed b4 I got aloft, sigh.
But yesterday rocked!

SO GREASED the landings at SMO and TOA! K was impressed and complimentary. Maybe some of my total best landings ever, truly - center aligned, 3-point, gentle, gentle. [His hip was bothering him, so as I told him I took that in part as a guide, using a commercial pilot approach, "injured" passenger, give 'em a smooth ride. He said great, thanks, but aim for all the time. Yup!]

I'm totally convinced the studying the previous and just prior Friday eve's, plus the bit of "closet flying" Sun. am helped clinch it.

Only one minorish faux pax (sp?) -- right around LAX, got the handoff to second controller in SoCal Departure in about 6 mins., previous controller gave heading of 080, so I stayed on that past the VOR. Next guy asked in a few minutes, snippily, what my heading was. Told him. Then, more snippily, "Weren't you cleared to SMO VOR and beyond?" Me, "Yes. Oh...my bad [actually said that on freq, oh well, think he knew meaning]." So apparently I shoulda been on the 125 radial, since that was the original, on the ground clearance; apparently the 080 heading was only to get me to the VOR faster.

So guy #2 turned me due south which sent us closer to shore for over LAX, so really no harm done, we were high enough, and just a bit inside "the corridor." I suppose that last point is justification, ah well. As I said, shoulda been on the 125R, but it wasn't quite clear. Need to talk to colleagues about just what clearances override what other clearances.

All the pre and post ATC guys were great, esp. enjoyed the guy who alerted us to "interesting traffice crossing overhead"....it was a Mustang warbird! Beautiful!

Rust seems all off the wings now!

2006-09-09T18:51:00.000-07:00

Another very good practice day! Held over PADDR for close to an hour, with Keith. Almost all hood time. Did QUITE well, and an intersection hold, too!
All the rust seems knocked off, and finished off another page in the ol' logbook, too, yay!
Robin and I are hoping to get into a flying club soonish; that could help stave off the rust for less $!

Email moratorium attempt!

2006-09-09T18:39:00.000-07:00

So it seems that many in my place of employment, and I've gotten too into this also, interpret every single email message from the absolutely most negative angle possible!

Aargh! I got into email snarls again this week, ironically from posts when I was in a good mood and just blitely trying to inform people.

So....I am going to try mightily to have an email moratorium AT LEAST for the rest of the month! My aim is to only use email if I MUST to RESPOND to someone. I will keep my own messages TOO A MINIMUM.

This will be very good discipline for me, AND a challenge!

Email is too much the main mode of communication on campus, and it is harder to reach people on the phone and F2F. But I am gonna try my dammedest!

These links help bear out the problem and the experiment!

Super Tomatoes Now Subsiding

2006-09-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

Truly a BUMPER CROP this year!
But now we are down to 1-4 ripe a week, quite manageable and no more mouth sores! 8-)
Huge batch of yum-o sauce in the freezer, too.

Recalling (kinesthetic) memory

2006-09-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

When I was first reflecting upon the joy of getting aviation, and then yoga, back to the forefront of my life over the past two weeks, I thought about this reactivation of stored skills and knowledge more from the INTELLECTUAL memory side of things.

But then this weekend I've gotten back into running/walking the SC track, and realized that all 3 of these joyful, disciplined things I've finally been able to get back into are very much part of KINESTHETIC/PHYSICAL memory! Hence the post title.

It is a true joy to find one can bring back skills and knowledge and polish them up and get them shiny again! Awesome that humans can store skills for quite some time.

Yoga and running came back to me a bit more easily than I feared, as did the flying, per earlier post.

Time of course to re-vow not to let any of these skills get so stored, but keep 'em active! (Now that I'm done w/ the dang contin. appt/tenure dossier compilation, Illinois family/friends visits there and here, and getting quite sick from the stress!)

Blue Skies!

Sara T.

Pratchett's L-Space: physics and libraries intersect...

2006-09-01T10:49:00.000-07:00

"L-Space" is discussed in several books in several different appearances of The Librarian (now an orangutan, post-magic-accident). The DiscWorld Companion summarizes the concept thusly:
"Even big collections of ordinary books distort space and time, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned second-hand bookshop, one of those that has more staircases than storeys and those rows of shelves that end in little doors that are surely too small for a full sized human to enter."

Wow do I see this in action, AND have to avoid the tendancy myself...

2006-09-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

"Affronted speeches of dodgy self-justification."
[Terry Pratchett, in Night Watch, p. 216.]

Pratchett gets SO many things right!!

Diamond Lane Mnemonics

2006-08-31T13:51:00.000-07:00

So, K and I call the diamond/carpool/high occupancy lane "the carp" as a really fast way to say carpool when one is on the fwy driving 75 mph with usual nasty type Beemer drivers on our tail.

Our friends K, F and M on their recent visit spun out the ideas. Will do some graphics and links soon, but here's the raw list in part! 8-)

Marilyn
[diamonds are a girls' best friend, etc.]

FDL (pronounced "Fidde")
[fwy diamond lane - close competitor to Carp!]

HOVR (pronounced "Hover")
high occupancy vehicle....runway?!

various historical, pro, con DL links:

http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~idris/Essays/Rogers_Diffusion_of_Innovations.htm
http://republican.sen.ca.gov/web/mcclintock/article_detail.asp?PID=38
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/paffairs/faq/faq79.htm
....
more later!

Day Job

2006-08-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

My "day job" is Science and Engineering Team Leader at the University of Southern California (Go Trojans!) Science & Engineering Library. I am lucky to be the "subject selector" for physics and aeronautical engineering, two of my totally fave topics!

Looking forward to a cool tour the USC Women in Physics group and I have concocted for Sept. 15th - thanks to Katie for her enthusiasm!

This is me Yule 05 at SMO

2006-08-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

AVX Short Final!

2006-08-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

NIght IFR!

2006-08-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

Nothing like 2.7 hours at night under the hood (last Friday!) to knock off the rust and reap the important tangential benefit of a confidence boost everywhere in my life!
After using almost too much runway at FUL (all too easy to be high and fast at night; thanks to Keith for his calm!), the 2 landings at VNY and one back at TOA were quite fine. Woohoo! And I SO GREASED the landings at Brackett and TOA on Saturday with Kev! Double WooHoo!

Okay, trying again

2006-08-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I took down my blog on another service; I'd used that blog for postings about being transplanted to LA, and then about pursuing (successfully!!) my instrument rating (I've been a private pilot for years). After attending a conference where a number of known library bloggers brought their own unique style of ranting to F2F sessions, where I found it just a tad grating, I was kind of sick of rants, so took that blog down (plus it was not a free site).

But now I've had 2 queries about where's my blog, so it is time to begin again! (Thanks to cvj for being my tipping point!)

Plus, I needed a place to put those diamond lane menomics I promised Kathy, Felix and Mary!

So here 'tis, "Erratic Flight Path." Which could describe my pursuit of my aviation avocation, though not my pursuit of my career of librarianship -- THAT has always been a very clear path!

Happy Reading!

Sara T
("the aitchless beauty" as someone called me long ago when I was young!)