So how was your weekend, world? Mine was pretty damn good. I spent Saturday either in bed, working on a writing project which I am really fucking excited about even if it is not coming along as well as I had hoped, or partying with my own personal dynamic duo Rob and D. (I suspect D is Robin but I am never 100% sure with those kids.) Saturday was D-Unit's birthday and we celebrated with an evening of pizza, drinking, and friends at the casa. It was very enjoyable as I was able to wear a bucket on my head (photo forthcoming) and be funny, opportunities which rarely present themselves. I spent Sunday at the Lone Star Flight Museum's final fly day of the year before they put all the toys in annual maintenance and the like for the winter. Of course I took pictures and managed to escape with out ANY sunburned parts. I am starting to get good at this shit! When I got home I sacked out on the couch for a bit and then read most of The Golden Compass. I might finish that tonight depending on how motivated I am about hitting the office close to on time tomorrow. Today was just another day at the salt mines with the added bonus of being the day I had to complete my self-appraisal. I HATE doing the self-appraisals at my job for two reasons. The first is that we have to really hype ourselves up and contrary to what you may think I do not actually enjoy writing about myself, or at least in the way we are expected to around the office. The second reason is that our self-appraisals have to be written in third person so our supervisor can cut and paste them to make their appraisals of our performance. That just strikes me as being retarded, particularly since these have nothing to do with our raises in that I am certain nothing I write on there will get me any more money. It is just another opportunity to fail. Oh well, it is all done now anyway.
Sunday out at the LSFM was a very cool day; much more relaxed and informal than the airshow they have in April. Throughout the four hours they were performing flight operations they flew the B-17, B-25, P-47, Corsair, Hellcat, and a couple of other aircraft whose names/designations escape me at the moment multiple times throughout the day. The belle of the ball was their newly painted Hawker Hurricane, which has been in the museum's inventory and under restoration in Colorado since 1990. This was the first public appearance of the Hurricane, which is painted in the colors of L. C. "Wildcat" Wade (who is pictured on the left in the cockpit of his Spitfire), a Texan who joined the RAF in December of 1940 and earned his commission as a Pilot Officer in April of 1941. He flew Hurricanes in Egypt with the No. 33 squadron and then flew Spits in Egypt with the No. 145 squadron. He died in an accident in January 1944 at Foggia, Italy. He was credited with 23 kills and earned both the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross. (The museum's Spitfire, which I have yet to see fly, is also painted in his colors.) While it is no Spit, it was very nice to see the Hurricane in the air.When I first arrived and walked out on to the tarmac I could not quite place the sound that assaulted my ears until a UH-1 Huey came flying out from one of the hangers and did a low pass over the flight line. It reminded me of the scene in We Were Soldiers where Mel Gibson introduces the troops to their new horses and put me in just the right frame of mind for shooting pictures. As soon as I made it to the flight line, they started prepping the Hurricane and soon enough it was in the air and I was able to get my first pictures of the bird. Here is one I selected mostly at random since I have not had time to cull the pictures I took. Enjoy!
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