Other Interests/Toys/Stuff (Not all is aviation, just a lot of the good stuff)
______________________________________________________
7/11/13 - Company outing.
Whale Watch from Gloucester. Nice Day.
______________________________________________________
1/4/13 - Ahhh, the joys of Christmas!
______________________________________________________
November, 2012 A trip to Cartagena, Colombia. We’ve been married 25 years, who would have thought! As you can see, my bride has aged substantially better than I. Middle-aged white man in shorts - not a good look. You may not want to click on that one!
Cartagena Colombia is beautiful. I had been to Bogota and Medellin earlier in the year. Contrary to popular conception, I found Colombia beautiful and friendly. I wouldn’t recommend going on a self-guided tour of the countryside, but the cities were completely non-threatening and seemed safe(-ish) (use common sense, of course) so we decided to vacation there.
Lots of interesting history, fascinating sites, and no Americans. Here’s a tip, though. If you decide to go there try to avoid Avianca at all costs.
______________________________________________________
Sunset Flight - Fall 2012
______________________________________________________
5/4/12 - Alex is a college graduate!
______________________________________________________
Reno September 2011 - Well, this is one of my few photos from the air races this year. We got to the event and got established just in time for the crash of the Galloping Ghost. Serious stuff.
I hope very much that we did not witness the last lap to be raced in the desert classic.
______________________________________________________
August 2011 - Who in their right mind goes to Savannah, in August?
If you can stand the impressive heat and humidity it’s actually a great time to go. Less crowds.
This is Forsythe park, a jewel in a beautiful city. Savannah is a great city, and is greatly underrated.
One stop in Norfolk on the way down in 938JB. Some pretty hairy scud running on the way back. Summertime flying on the east coast can be a dicey proposition.
______________________________________________________
February 2011. Spent a week in the Bahamas. The two weeks prior were in southern China, so the contrast was pretty extreme. Nice trip. Lots to do, including me breaking two toes while climbing on some rocky beach cliffs.
A trip to Monterey with the my wife, Lee. February, 2010. Nice. Beautiful area. Good company.
The boys at Reno 2009. This has become an annual and we found the promised land. This year we camped as guests of Fenceliners LLC. This has got to be the prime viewing area in all of Reno. 500MPH airplanes 50-100 feet away. It just doesn't get any better.
More "art" from Reno.
The family Spring 2009. Everyone's getting older.
My job as VP of Operations and Hardware engineering at ZeeVee, Inc. has taken me to China and Taiwan many times. Fascinating, broadening, and a little scary as an American - all at the same time. That's a whole story in and of itself and really deserves its own page.
My advice to any kid in school today - learn Mandarin Chinese. It's their century.
Some things I can just never get used to over there, though. Thankfully you don't encounter too many squatters.
Norm in the G3. "Mission Accomplished!"
He's back after just having downed an Iraqi MIG.
Actually not - No one except me has been PIC in the Glasair since I bought it.
Emily in Paris. That was a fun trip.
My new bike - well, new to me - it's an '05 FZ1.
Rocketship ride.
(7/16/06) Since the Cardinal is gone, I thought I would take the opportunity to fly a bunch of different stuff. This weekend I went up with Rajesh to Glenn's Falls in a relatively new DA-40. Nice plane. The G1000 panel is awesome, though it does tend to keep your eyes in the cockpit more than it should.
It's kinda slow, though. We were cruising at 120Knots at 4000' or so. If I were to buy anything to fill the gap between the Cardinal and the RV it would have to be at least as fast as the Cardinal, which would true out at 135K cross-country.
SOLD!! (7/7/06) Well, I finally sold the Cardinal. This is a picture in St. Petersburg, FL on my last long CC flight to SNF'06 after sparring with the F18 shown here. I intercepted him in flight and forced him to land at PIE and taxi to Signature to buy me some fuel (well, something like that anyway).
I sold the Cardinal to two guys from Fitchburg who were pretty pumped up about it. They should be. It is a great plane and I enjoyed it for many, many hours and great trips. Enjoy it Jack and Dave.
I am already having withdrawal symptoms and am not sure I'll be able to wait before getting something else to fly while I finish building the RV-8A. Hmmm... Maybe a used Cirrus SR-20.
Gets pretty exciting with the needles at three o'clock!
LOTUS SOLD!! (6/4/06) Actually it was traded in on one of these. The wife had been driving a beater Subaru wagon for the last couple of years and it was time to go. I needed the garage space for the more space intensive operations like mounting the tail and wings on the plane, so it just made sense.
It was a shame to lose that car. I never really drove it that much, but when I did it was an adrenaline-packed, hyper-active experience that was sure to cause loss of license one of these days. Driving the FJCruiser is just not quite the same, though it CAN climb some pretty impressive inclines - I've proven that expermentally. Don't tell the wife.
The worst part was dropping the Lotus off at the dealership. You could tell that the sales guys were just salivating waiting for their turn to go for a romp. Though the car was incredibly capable of mind-wrenching speeds, it was somewhat delicate in the lower gears. Dragstrip launches were a no-no with that transaxle and big tires. I hope it survived.
Goofing off when I should be scanning and paying attention to flying in IMC.
(7/6/05) A salute from Graceland.
Stephen D. Metzger Lunenburg, MA © 2013