I haven’t been getting all that much flying time in between the move, work, and Lisa’s flight training.  Fortunately for me Kurt is nice enough to take me up with him when he goes.  I have to admit that going 3 weeks between flights can cause some rust to develop on your skills.  Especially since I am not 100% familiar with the flight characteristics of hist Cessna 182.  I am getting a little better each time, but I am still not as proficient as in the 172.  On the other hand I haven’t logged time in the 172 since some time last fall.

The good news is that I am getting more comfortable operating in the IFR system.  I still get plenty “wrong” and shoot Kurt blank stares quite often when I don’t understand something, but each flight I am getting more an more right.  Today I played with the GPS a little bit while flying under the hood.  As more and more things become mechanical, the multitasking gets easier.  It is easy to get focused on the “IFR Stuff” and forget that you are flying a plane, but that is getting better to.

Today we did a circuit from Montgomery to Ramona to Brown and back.  As a treat today, when we were landing at MYF there was a Blimp launching from one of the taxiways.  I got a few pictures of it from the ground when we were securing the plane in the hanger.

In the spirit of getting out of the house and being social, Lisa and I met some friends at Woodstock’s Pizza for their Thursday trivia night.  Woodstock’s is kinda like a cross between a California Pizza Kitchen and and your regular hole in the wall pizza joint.  Most of their pizza’s are of the gourmet variety, but most people are drinking beer.  I seem to think there were about 15 teams playing.  We took second place, only loosing by one point.  They gave us a coupon for a free pizza.

It was a good time, we’ll probably go back and do it again.  If nothing else to get the free pizza.

I had the occasion yesterday to attend the 5th Annual Loews Coronado Bay Resort Surf Dog Competition.  People bring their canine companions out to the beach, wade them out in to the surf, set them on the board and let them hang ten back into the beach (with doggy life vests of course).  If this doesn’t seem like a natural activity for a pup, your correct, its not.  Most of these dogs had to be trained to do this to any degree of success.  Our friends Kurt and Wendy were entering in Wendy’s dog TJ in the competition and so Lisa and I headed down for the event.  Lisa was going to help out by catching TJ on the way in and I was TJ’s personal photographer.

The amount of people and pomp for the event was astonishing.  Helping that out was the promotion of the movie “Marmaduke” which was partly filmed at last years event.  Marmaduke the dog was in attendance as were Owen Wilson and George Lopez.  After the competition, the dogs and owners were treated to a pre-screening of the movie.  Red carpet treatment and all.

Here are a few pictures from the event.

For those who don’t know, Rob (a co-worker) and I have been in San Jose on business. Last night we hopped on the express train from San Jose to San Fransisco to catch the Padres vs Giants at AT&T. I think this is the first time I have seen a major league sports game where I was routing for the away team. All and all the giants fans were pretty tame.

After the game we went out for a few drinks and some greasy pizza. Oh by the way Padres won 5-2. Go Pads. We hoped the midnight train back to San Jose and crashed for an early morning.

AT&T Stadium:

The game:

Lisa and I had occasion to spend the evening with some new (to me) friends in Mission Bay.  There are several concrete fire pits set up on the beach and we made a nice fire.  While there was still some daylight left we saw a few dolphins swim in to the bay which was pretty sweet.  Later in the evening we watched to Sea World fireworks which happen most weekend nights.  All and all a great night.

The Fire Pit:

Some Nice Fireworks:

I was driving home from work yesterday, intending to hit up the gym for some cardio.  IT occurred to me that it was a beautiful sunny day and that I hadn’t had a real out side run in quite a while.  Not since the fall in Salt Lake City up City Creek Canyon.  So I drove home instead and headed out for a run around the block.

Not only was it sunny and 75 which made for a comfortable running temp…  Not only was I running some great hills through and overlooking some pretty nifty canyons… And not only did I get a really good workout…  but as I am running by the intersection if Viper Way and Top Gun road, I spot two F-16s flying over head just departing Mirimar.  How cool is that.

Anyway, good run, great day.