Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Fall cleaning!

It was 67 degrees and raining today (third day in a row of rain), which made it a perfect day to wash the airplane!

Although, I did hit culture shock when I asked a pilot on the airport "Where's the non-potable tap?"
"The what?"
"The non-potable tap? You know, for washing the airplane?"
I got a very funny look back. So I asked another pilot, who looked confused and aimed me at a third.

He grinned, and said "We don't have non-potable on the airport. It's all purified, off the city water." As my eyebrows started climbing to my hairline at the idea of wasting potable water on washing, his eyes were crinkling up in suppressed laughter. Fortunately, he continued on to outline where the airport had not one, but something like 6 taps around the hangars. "You're welcome to taxi over and use the hose outside my hangar - just wash the plane on the taxiway, so you keep the greasy belly dirt off my white apron!"

How do you wash an airplane with a hose? I'm not sure what to do with an abundance of water.  So I did it the way I know best. First, I rolled the airplane out into the rain to get wet. Then, I found the nearest tap, and filled the bucket three-quarters full, lugged it back, and added a good amount of aluminum-safe soap. Taking the nifty mop-like scrubber, dunk, and start at the top of the airplane, working my way down to the dirty belly.

Although, North Texas has such an abundance of dirt in the air, and I haven't flown the plane enough, so for the first time in my life the top of the wings were dirtier than the belly. That just ain't right.

When finished with the first pass, I emptied the very dirty water where we don't want plants growing anyway, then rinsed out the bucket, refilled it, and added just a little soap. Then I washed a second time, really cleaning now that most of the dirt had been removed and bird poop had time to soak.

I could have done a third pass with just water, but my arms were killing me. (The gym this morning was squats and overhead presses. Next time I wash the plane, maybe I'll do squats and deadlifts instead? Or be brilliant and wash her on a day I'm not already tired from the gym!)  So instead I called my father, and chatted with him about sacrificial anodes in water heaters and the newest high-tech paints which have ammonia that flashes off when applied, leaving behind an acid-based polymerization to create a film on the wall instead of ground pigment particles suspended in a drying medium, like... the entire history of paint before now.You know, standard daddy-daughter conversations.

After fourty minutes or so, we rang off, and I judged the airplane rinsed enough by mother nature, and pushed my dripping bird back in the hangar.

I guess there must be another way to use a lot of potable water and clean planes quickly. Maybe someday I'll acclimatize to the Lower 48 and think it's normal?

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Poor prior planning makes for playgrounds

Yesterday was laundry day. It was also group dinner day, though thankfully by the time for friends to come over I looked almost presentable, and the house was close enough to clean for confirmed bachelors to be at home. (Even if Old NFO did have to dodge me passing him with two milk crates of freshly dried laundry before he even got something to drink.)

I left washing the mattress pad until after dinner, not wanting it spread out to dry over the chairs or couch while guests might want to sit there. This meant that I spread it to dry over the living room chairs shortly before bed.

...which means there was a fresh damp white mattress pad for the bored black kitten to amuse himself all night. And this morning, it looked every inch of it. *sigh*

In fact, as I write this, the kitten dashed up at tapped Kili on the hindquarters. She snarled, and disappeared under the chairs, behind the mattress pad, covering her retreat with fierce hiss and lightning paw. He's now sprawled on the floor on the other side of the hanging curtain of cloth, upside down and back legs splayed, batting under the edge of the formerly white pad at her.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

A good day

Yesterday, I deadlifted 100 pounds.

On the other hand, when I tried to do a set of three overhead presses with 57 pounds, the third one inspired a spate of unladylike words as my right shoulder chose the moment the bar was almost - almost! - to the top of the rep to go extremely unstable. It hurt like blazes, too, on the way down. It didn't actually feel injured, just unstable and aggravated. Right pissed off, as a matter of fact. 

So I gave it five minutes to recover, and tried again. I got two rep, and one the third, the bar got to about ear height and I just ran out of gas. Picture a car halfway up an icy hill, wheels spinning madly as it slowly slides backward... that was my third rep.

Friday, I'll try again - but we'll back off to 50 pounds and concentrate on form, making sure it's perfect before we add weight back.

But you know what? I deadlifted 100 pounds. It was an awesome day.