Life Observation # 98

Breakup during the middle of winter . . .

Just sux!

But a 50 degree day in the middle of January is pretty nice . . .

Except when it is raining hard and the wind is gusting at times over 100 mph.

It makes the rain feel like darts hitting you.

Melting snow, some flooding in places around town, and still an ice pack on the secondary street is making it dangerous to drive for some people.

I was knocked off my feet on the ice as I tried to go from my mailbox across the driveway to soak me good before going into the house.

I came home tonight to discover the damage at my house. Lost the fence on one side of the hot tub, parts of the covered side deck lost a few panels and I can’t tell how the shingles fared until daylight tomorrow but as the 16 inches of snow has melted in two days there are probably a few missing now that there is no ‘snow insulation’ on the roof.

I had to take several wind chimes down as they were like missiles bouncing off the glass lucky nothing broke or came through.

The dog cannot make heads or tails now since his ‘yard’ is under water and not a place to pee now and he does not seem to want to go on the deck. Does that mean he is trained too well?

To top off the day, my daughter is in the hospital again tonight with the same symptoms from earlier this year. I hope this is not the start of another seven months in and out of the hospital getting her well again. I wonder sometimes if doctors really know what they are doing. Her meds seemed to be working these last months but you never know.

Oh yeah, Kudos’ to the pilot and crew of the “Miracle on the Hudson River”. I had a bird strike ingested into an engine landing at PDK airport in Atlanta when I was a corporate pilot and it was no fun but all turned out ok so to put it down in the river with no one killed just shows what training, a little luck, and the powerful hand of God making all things work out for a positive outcome this time.

The Air Florida Crash January 13, 1982 in Washington DC into the Potomac River ended badly for many people. There were things that went well to save people but it was a needless accident due to pilot error. I lost a friend, Roger Pettit who was the co-pilot on that flight who used to fly out of my airport before he was hired by Air Florida. The flight crew wanted to get to Florida that night so made poor decisions about the snow and ice deciding not to de-ice the plane one more time before taking off. It hit the 13^th Street Bridge and ended up in the icy river.

I hadn’t thought too much about that in a few years but it recalled in my mind like it was yesterday. I can only choose to make tomorrow a better day!

Ice