Oh Shit, Oh Dear

A few years back, an Air Force tanker mistook the small commercial airport north of the river here in Topeka for the almost two mile runway at Forbes Field.  I am not sure when it hit him that the runway was real short but I do know the takeoff was hairy.  They drained every ounce of fuel out of the plane and only the Pilot and Co Pilot were in it when it took off to go to the right airport.  Yesterday, a stretch jumbo jet landed at Jabarra Field north east of Wichita thinking it was the McConnell runway.  In both cases, I would love to have a recording of what they said at that moment of truth that they had landed on that small of an airfield.  Makes me wonder if all that electronic hardware was worth the money someone paid.  My Garmin would have gotten them closer than 9 miles. 

Yesterday, I found that Windows 8 has a small icon called maps. It starts out as a map of the US and you can zoon in down to the street level.  For me, it was kind of fun to go back to some of the places I had been.  Kind of like travel but you can stay in your pajamas.  That and a good cuppa coffee and it was a good way to burn off an hour or two.  Almost as much fun as taking the mental trip I do in writing this blog.

A couple of days ago I smoked a turkey on the grill and we have about 10 lbs. of turkey meat to make things with.   I love that simple hint of smoke along with that wonderful turkey taste.  The only problem is that unless we get Dave and his wife Barb to help us, we will have to freeze the majority of the meat either today or tomorrow.  I think that putting the meat in a plastic bag and putting it in the fridge helps even out the smoky taste.  Next time I will brine the turkey.  This time I didn't and it just isn't salty enough.  Oh well, that is what they make salt shakers for.  Today's lunch will be turkey sliders on those sweet King Hawaiian rolls.   Brushed with melted butter, granulated garlic, Worcestershire sauce and onion powder and heated in the oven to melt some cheese they will be delish.    I also need to work on the roma tomatoes that have a rice and turkey filling with Feta cheese melted on top.  Dang, I am sure making myself hungry.

The weatherman predicted that we would have a glaze of ice on everything this morning and he missed by a few feet.  The ground might have been damp but for the most part it was still too warm to form ice on.  The car windows are flashed frozen with a light coat of ice but the roads are not that slippery.  The gravel on the driveway had a funny crunch when I went out to get the paper but the footing was pretty good.  This is the time of the year when we are getting cold enough at night to have stupid things like hail and snow but it warms up enough in the daytime to melt it all off.  Soon enough, that won't be true. 

I don't know how the weather effects you, but I think I fall into that category that gets mildly depressed when the days are short and the sun doesn't shine.  Even cold days with some sunshine are tolerable but I could not live in a place like Seattle or places that have the monsoon season.  There were other reasons to be sad in Vietnam but just the rainy season there was bad enough to just put me in a funk.  The only salvation here is that the Topeka Library has a great selection and I have at least one book to read.

 

Even cold days are fine with me if the sun shines

Oh well, enough of this, moving on to real life.

MUD