September 11, 2004

Not a day like any other.
Got up late and thought about what we were doing 3 years ago this morning.
The disaster, seeing the first tower collapse on television. The skies being cleared of all but military aviation. It was an odd sensation. Like the day Kennedy was shot, Reagan was shot, the Challenger explosion, or the Columbia break-up, we all seem to know what we were doing on 9/11/2001...
But back in the brightening shadow of a projected hurricane track and just thru the left overs of the two previous, things around the ole' homestead needed cleaning up. Saw about getting the front mowed, looked at the back 40, but figure it'll wait for a few more days. Moved "old Blue" (my '81 chevy c-10 pickup) from the front and mowed there too. I figure I need to haul a bunch of crap off, and since old blue (also known as "frankentruck" a metric/standard mix) will be instrumental in the next week or so of that, it's parked next to the house with the big battery charger is now attached and slow charging... added air to the tires all around and brushed off a fair amount of leaves from various surfaces as well. The neighbors no doubt will go into shock seeing it moved. If it weren't for the fact that the dirt helps hold everything together, I'd see about washing it as well. Perhaps some windex...

With a nice clean mowed surface in the yard, I got around to the reasonably delayed wing inspection and de-sanding. Happy to report that several cells are now empty of sand (what little there was) and I'm sure the St. Augustine white will mix nicely and be hardly noticable within hours. The flipping process went as easy as ever and apon close inspection there was no damage to be found from pole flying last weekend. This is always good news. Returning the wing again to the proper bottom up layout position, I took a few minutes to clear the lines of any tangles and shoo off any small insects. Mushrooming for bagging carefully, I sat eveything into the stuff sack for an easy "from the bag hook-in" and stored all happy with a job well done.
Thankful for the overcast skies, this all would have killed me I'm sure in sunshine, I called it a day and came on in to get ready for bowling this evening.
What did everyone else do today I wonder, probably something far better than I did.
-Robert