California Observations and More “Afters"

Hello.  For a while now I’ve been thinking about sharing some of the little oddities we’ve noticed about our new location, and we have some exciting developments on the exterior of our property!  Also, Caleb is coming home this week so we’re looking forward to that.  Also, we are now officially less than four weeks away from the wedding.  Ack! And ahh!

Some fun little trivia about California*, most of which we find irritating: California traffic lights do not have the “left-turn yield to oncoming traffic” option.  You may only turn left when an arrow invites you to do so.  At all intersections with traffic lights, even minor ones.  Also, each and every intersection has a sign that indicates whether or not you can make a u-turn.  Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t, and we can’t seem to find any pattern to it.  Also, in my experience, you turn to the north (left or right depending on if you’re coming from the east or west) to go north on a highway, and south to go south.  At some junctions in this area, the situation is reversed.  That was confusing at first.  The other big thing is California’s big push for every home to have a certain percentage of light sockets exclusively wired to accommodate CFL bulbs.  That one actually makes me more legitimately angry than irritated if I think about all the implications, so we’ll just move on to more pleasant topics for now.

I’m very excited that our back yard looks almost normal now!  We still want to plant some vegetables and flowers and stuff around the border but here’s another set of before and after shots:

Unexpectedly, our neighbor alerted us to this issue with the roots of this sycamore tree in our front yard encroaching upon our mutual water line.  It was shocking to walk around the yard and see these roots all over the yard, about to pop above the ground.  So, I had it removed.  And now you can see the blooming rose bush better and there’s no shadow on the house. :-)

Before:

Now we just have to fix the mini-crater in the front!

*I should add that I do not know for sure if these statements apply to the whole state of California, as so far we have only traveled in a forty mile radius around our house. 

Our House aka May I live a Thousand Years and Never Paint Again

I hate to disappoint but I spent so much energy painting and shopping and arranging that I can not muster up much clever copy so I’ll just let the pictures do the talking, with just a few comments.  :-) 

Front of the house before:

Front of the house after I clipped the hedges: 

We’re thinking of painting sometime this year, something less drab.  We’ll probably do some more landscaping, too. 

Living/dining room before:

Living room after:

Living/dining room before: 

Living/dining room after:

Kitchen before:

After:

Family room before (poor photography, sorry!):

Family room after:

We didn’t quite get the color right here so we may repaint later.  Also, we’re hoping to replace  the futon sometime this year. 

Guest bathroom before:

And after:

At one point the bathroom was actually the same orange as the kitchen but it turned out to be a bit much for this little room.

Office before:

Office after:

Guest room--looked the same as the office before:

We’re planning on putting some nightstands and a little dresser in here sometime this year, if we get a bedroom set for the master.

Master bedroom before:

And after:

Master bathroom before--carpeted, boo:

After:

Caleb seeding the crater in the back yard:

You can sort of see the grass starting to come up!  Also, there were several completely out of control trees and hedges that I took down a notch.

So there you have it. 

Easter

Well it’s been a little while since you’ve heard from us on the blog front!  Caleb has been in Atlanta learning how to fly the C-12 and I’ve been keeping busy with projects around the house and yard and hanging out with our new group of friends, etc.  We have reached a good initial stopping point with the decoration of the house, so I do have pictures to share but to maintain chronological order, here are pictures of one of the Easter breads I made this year, before and after baking.

I think I might have actually overdone it a bit on the yeast this year, or  I need to remember to put the eggs more on top of the twists so they don’t get so swallowed up.  Also the bread sucks the dye off the eggs when they’re engulfed like that.  Still attractive and tasty, though.

Chasing the Dragon Lady

A couple weeks ago, we were waiting to get into our house and had absolutely nothing to do.  So we went to base and watched the Dragon Lady.  Now, we are in our house and I have about a million things to do.  So, I am writing about the Dragon Lady.  Life is funny, isn’t it?

Anyway, the U2 Dragon Lady, more commonly referred to as the U2, is an interesting aircraft that has been used by the Air Force to monitor anything the Air Force wants since the 1950s.  Apparently it still hasn’t found what it’s looking for.  (Get it? A u2 reference!  Ah ha ha!)

Actually I know little about their mission, other than that they take pictures of stuff and they can go into space.  Seriously, the pilots wear special flight suits with bubbles over their heads.

Being selected to pilot this aircraft is somewhat like trying to join the CIA.  With most planes, you go through pilot training, you write down planes you want a piece of paper, and they find one for you. U2 pilot wannabes apply and interview for the position after they’ve done a tour or two or more in other planes. I guess it’s a pretty lengthy and competitive process, perhaps partially because they have to make sure you’re not going to sell all the secret stuff you’d be seeing and partially because this plane is the “Most Difficult to Land Plane in the World,” which is what this post is really about. 

Funny-looking, isn’t it?  Apparently, this is the required shape for what it’s supposed to do.  

The only problem is the view of the runway that a pilot would have in any other plane is somehow obstructed by the plane.  I can just imagine a couple engineers and a pilot sitting around the newly designed and constructed U2s, the engineers saying:

 “Yes siree Bob that is a fine-looking aircraft.  Just had 150 of ‘em come off the ramp.  Cost billions of dollars.” 

The pilot climbs in and says: “Hey fellas, I’m not going to be able to land this plane.  I can’t see whatever it is I need to see to land.  Your billion-dollar aircrafts are unlandable.”  

“Well, shoot, Chuck, what are we gonna do about that?  It’d cost way too much to redesign and reconstruct now.  Say, I know: when the flyboys are coming in for a landing, we’ll have one of their buddies chase them down the runway in a fast car, and they’ll both have walkie-talkies, and the one in the car will tell the one in the plane how close he’s getting to the ground!”

“Brilliant, Bill!  You’ve saved Uncle Sam billions of dollars!”

Okay, I don’t know if that’s what happened or if this crazy landing method was planned all along, but that is exactly what they do!  I have seen it with my own eyes: several times in the space of thirty minutes.  For some reason it tickled my brain and made me laugh: there’s a big black aircraft approaching the runway and some little white cars sitting at the end of the runway.  Suddenly the cars take off, flying down the runway at 90 mph, driving really close to the plane, the pilot in the car radioing the distances to the pilot in the plane.  They touch down, another one comes in, and they do it all over again.  The sight is one of the strangest, wildest, weirdest things I’ve seen; a car chasing a plane down the runway. 

This video does a pretty good job of demonstrating most of what I’ve said, only with less flair.  

I love the part when he says “a remote base.”  Clearly he’s never been to a UPT base. 

Also, one of Caleb’s former instructors now flies the U2 so we're basically friends with a celebrity. 

The Apples Don’t Fall Far From the Trees...

Our meager CD/movie collection boxes:

Our books in boxes:

As you can sort of see we still have a fair amount of unpacking, painting, hanging, and repairing to do before the rooms are ready for their close-ups. 

And, just for fun, here’s a picture of me playing with one of Caleb’s new toys:

So I guess there’s a little sneak peek of the guest room.