June Flying Activities

It's been dry here compared to a typical June. While bad for crops and the landscaping, that has meant some good flying weather. On the 19th, Dianne and I flew to Bolton Field near Columbus, OH. It's a nice place to visit as there is plenty of parking on the ramp and there is a good place to eat (JP's BBQ Ribs & Chicken) at the terminal building. Dianne snapped a picture of me next to the Tiger on the ramp at Bolton. The clouds looked worse than they were -- high, broken layer. It was a nice flight.

Last weekend I attended the Wings Weekend held at the Butler County airport. The FAA Wings Program helps pilots maintain or gain proficiency. For each phase of the program, you attend an FAA sponsored aviation seminar and fly with an instructor for at least 3 hours. Every year in the Cincinnati area, flight instructors volunteer their time for a "Wings Weekend". Pilots just show up at the designated times, get paired with an instructor, and fly. There are also seminars held all three days. It makes it easy to complete a phase of the Wings program. I completed phase II this year.

UC DAAPworks

The University of Cincinnati's college of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) has an end of year show called DAAPworks. We went to see the show on the last day. Graduating students display a major project along with a description (sometimes) of the project, what they were trying to accomplish, etc. I added sometimes since not all the displays had anything to read. That made it very confusing and hard to appreciate the final product. At the left is a picture of Dianne taking in one of the displays.

It's an interesting exhibit to see. There is quite a wide variety of displays due to the breadth of the college. In general, I enjoyed the architecture, graphic, and industrial design areas the most. I'm sure all the students worked hard and they were all reasonably good. But when you view the displays side by side, you can really see differences in the skill levels between students. I also snapped a couple pictures in the Fine Art gallery. This piece consisting of papers suspended from the ceiling was interesting. Here is Dianne next to a recycled art pieces made out of plastic grocery bags and styrofoam packing material.

Norwich, NY

In the beginning of June I had to make a business trip to upstate New York. At the left is a camera phone picture of the Chenango County Courthouse in Norwich, NY. I lived in the area many years ago. It's a rural county with many small towns. In many ways the demographics and population are very similar to the area where I grew up.

One evening I had a chance to look around Norwich a bit. Driving around I had some feelings that things hadn't changed much since I left. There are a few new buildings and stores (e.g. Walmart) and some stores had closed. But basically the standard local merchants like McLaughlin's clothing, the Corner Cigar newstand, Garf's deli, Nina's pizza, etc. were status quo. That brought back memories.

On the other hand, there were times when it seemed like I hadn't lived there at all. I drove out to see the place I used to rent. It's about ten miles out of town near Chenango Lake (shown at right). I went out to the place using "the back way" and returned to town by the larger roads. I made that trip hundreds of times on the way to and from work. When living there I felt I knew every curve, sign, driveway, and house along the way. But driving out there I felt I really had to pay attention to make sure I didn't miss a turn! What has happened to my memory?

I drove past the old place and it looked terrible. There wasn't anyone home, although it seemed like someone was still living there. The grass was about 2 feet high, no flowers, tree branches down in the yard, and very little up keep. Just down the road some of land had been turned over to loggers. There were piles of large tree trunks and the side of the hill was torn up by the logging roads. As a whole, it was sad considering how pretty the place was with the large pond for fishing and swimming, tennis court, ski trails, garden, etc. Although my memory isn't great, I'll have to remember the place the way it used to be.

Summerfair

It's been some time since I've made a blog post. Seems like my work life is busy and there just isn't time on the summer weekends.

On June 4th, Dianne and I went to the annual Summerfair art celebration held at Coney Island. It is fun to walk around and see the wide variety of items displayed by the invited artists. Dianne bought a bracelet this year -- quite a surprise for her. It's silver and has two intertwined strands that give it a Celtic knot sort of appearance. It was a very hot and humid day, but there was a good crowd.