Post #200! It Sucks to be Pick Pocketed

So I just noticed that this is the 200th post for this blog. I'm not gonna lie but I never thought I'd still be doing this. Times have changed pretty radically since that first post. I've written about many subjects and google tells me that the ones most people come here for are on military aviation. Well this one is not on that subject, but maybe soon I'll get back to that subject. Todays subject is how much it sucks to be a victim of someone else's greed. Yes I got pick pocketed recently. In fact it was at a place I spend a ton of time at: an ice rink. However this one was in Pittsburgh and a a girls hockey tournament over Thanksgiving. Yeah Happy Thanksgiving to me. Now I did not lose my wallet. I lost something that could be even worse. Someone swiped my Blackberry right off my pocket. Ouch! It still hurts as in that blackberry was my entire collection of emails and phone numbers to more than 400 people/places. In the couple weeks since then I've been lost. I get text messages from phone numbers and have no idea who it is. I get calls from numbers and answer calls not knowing who it is. Worst of all is all the people that won't hear from me at Christmas or other holidays. If you're reading this I'm sorry (send me your phone number & contact info please).

The one good thing is I noticed my phone was gone in seconds since I have this habit of touching it a million times a day. I used my wife's phone to call and yes it was picked up and I heard the crowd we were in in the moment before it was hung up. I called T-Mobile and had it shut down and changed my email password. So i'm sure on a craigslist near pittsburgh someone bought my BB for a good deal. I am now using an older iphone unlocked for T-Mobile and its ok, but its never going to have all those numbers......

Doing the Right Thing

Sometimes life gives you lemons..... and sometimes you get the shaft! OK thats not how the sayings go. Somehow though thats how things usually go in life. Today I can report that on one occasion a company stood up and is doing the right thing. More than 4 years ago we remodeled our kitchen. We spent twice what we wanted to, but in the end had a great up to date kitchen which didn't break the bank. The company that we had do the job was great to work with. In fact last year we hired them again to tear out our '1970's basement (in our 1990's home) and give us a modern update. Again we loved it and the work was done great. So now you're wondering whats coming up now...

A few weeks back I noticed a spot on the floor in the kitchen was starting to rise. I was on the way out of town and mentioned it to my wife over the phone. It never went away and I never really investigated. A couple nights ago during a huge rainstorm I went to the kitchen about midnight and in bare feet felt another small raised area in the wood floor just a board over. Now I knew we had a problem but I figured I would look in the morning. I went back out to start the dishwasher and when I grabbed the detergent from the cabinet noticed a spot. Uh-Oh I found the leak or at least the general area where it was. The next day I called the contractor who had done the kitchen and he sent someone out to have a look. He of course found it and it was a copper pipe fitting that just wasn't sealed with solder. Needless to say there is a mess. The guy repaired it and took photos for his boss. I figured I'd get a bill for the repair and would need to do some ripping out.

The next morning the contractor called to say they would be covering it all! They didn't have to do that since their warranty is up, but they are doing the right thing. It really is nice to have a company do that. Just thought i'd share.

My Hockey Players are Growing Up!

If you are friends with me on Facebook this is nothing new, but I thought I would post a couple photos of the 2011-12 hockey players in the family. This season has me traveling 16 of 21 weekends and I just finished my first non traveling weekend of the past 6 weeks. We still had 2 home games for Frudoch and a 'team' trip to the Columbus Blue Jackets game vs. the Anaheim Ducks. Both were hard fought wins and FREE tickets to the CBJ game (thanks to Anaheim player George Parros) where they actually WON! Yes for the CBJ its been a tough start to the season at 2-9-1. In any case this post is about my hockey players and I do have one this year playing for the CBJ. Poppy is playing on 2 girls travel teams and while she did play some travel last year its only Oct 31 and we've already had more travel for her this year compared to all of last year.Just last weekend we went to Windsor Canada for the Hocktoberfest tournament and our girls team did a great job in going 5-1 in the tournament with our only loss being in the championship game by a score of 3-2. In 6 games they gave up only 6 goals with 4 shutouts! Frudoch has returned to play for the Capitals again this season but has moved up to the Bantam AA team. We've hit several out of town games and have several more to come. As one of the couple "new" guys on the team he's still trying to assert his place on the team. So far he's scoring a point a game thru 15 games and is winning faceoffs at a 71% pace. Both are tops on the team despite a second line role. This weekend we have 7 games between the 2 kids with Poppy drawing 5 and Frudoch 2. Oh yeah I'll be out of town for a portion of the weekend and its for a race meeting. Its all part of being a hockey parent.

Wisniewski Got Robbed

Welcome to Cbus James Wisniewski. The land where suspensions are handed out to teach a "weakling" franchise a lesson. Whether it was Campbell or now Shanahan the cycle continues. I see this from a Jackets perspective of course, but what we see here is what Shanny references and Clutterbuck came at Wiz. He knew what he was doing and then milked it. Shanny played favorites and we lose again.

D you need some Inspiration?

I saw this making the rounds on Facebook today. Inspirational to say the least.

Cleveland Air Show 2011--We Picked the Wrong Day But....

So if you have read my blog before you know that besides traveling for hockey I also love to take the kids to Air Shows. This year we hit only 2, but wow what weather extremes over 6 weeks. In late July we went to Dayton and it was upper 90's and on Labor Day we went to Cleveland and had 60 and 30mph winds. Unfortunately for us the only day I could truly make Cleveland was the third and final day on Labor Day Monday and a stiff cold front had moved thru after Sunday's show had concluded. Saturday was upper 90's and sunny. Sunday was 80 and Sunny and Monday was the previously mentioned dreary cold and misty. However the performers still put on a great and most importantly SAFE show. Even the RC planes flew and those pilots did an amazing job in the winds. The weather also featured a very low ceiling which forced the performers to fly their "flat" shows which I did not mind as it keeps the planes closer to the ground and is different than the normal show so some variety is nice. Now to be honest when I saw the forecast I really didn't want to drive 2 hours to be outside in bad weather all day, but I had promised my son we would go to see one particular plane fly: the F-4 Phantom II.

The photo is not great as there was so little light, but I did work hard to get a few good shots as this was likely the final air show for the F-4 in US markings as this plane and the other 6 still flight ready are due to be destroyed later this year. They have all been converted to QF-4's and are actually able to be remote operated. They use them to test our missile systems and shoot them down. The F-4 was first flown in 1958 and saw heavy use in the Vietnam War. It can do Mach 2.2 and is a huge hulking beast when you compare it to the more modern fighters like the F-16. Even though the weather stunk I'm still glad we got to witness this proud bird thrill the fans one last time. After the show it returned to Tyndall AFB in Florida. The only way to see one now is in a museum.

Also appearing were a US Navy FA-18 Hornet which put on a great display and made sure everybody was hard of hearing with lots of low afterburner passes to make up for the lack of vertical climbs.

We even got a couple of bonus passes when the plane departed with a wingman to return to Virginia Beach. Nothing like having a couple of Hornets high and tight.



We were excited to FINALLY get to see the A-10 Wathog perform and it put on a great show with lots of low passes and simulated bombing runs. It also paired up with the F-4 for the Heritage Flight and although the P-51 Mustang could not go up and take part it was still a memorable Heritage Flight.




Entertaining the fans is important and School Time running 300+mph sure does the trick especially the kids!


Most air shows feature one of the big US military teams like the USAF Thunderbirds or the US Navy Blue Angels. This year we got 2--The US Army Golden Knights feature guys with serious skill jumping from planes. However, the weather was so intense that on this day only the best of the best were able to leap from 2000 feet and that mean several soldiers had to stay aboard the C-31 Friendship. Still the 5 jumpers did an amazing job all landing right on target.


While the Golden Knights were buzzing around the sky preparing to jump we did get a special visit from up north. A Royal Canadian Air Force CP-140 did several low passes. Its pretty amazing to see an aircraft that big banking and turning at such a low altitude. This plane flew at both the Toronto and Cleveland Air Shows on each day.



Finally the show ended with the headliners: the USAF Thunderbirds. Due to the conditions they were forced to fly an alternate show and for the photographers this makes things tough. Catching one or 2 fast approaching planes is doable when they are low. For 6 planes its difficult since the zoom is your friend (if you have a good one). I tried my best, but the conditions were ever worsening and I decided to shoot a few photos and just enjoy the show. I got some nice pics, but not what I'd call great. Here are a few.





So as you can see it was a great air show and I left off many many acts and all the static aircraft. It is a great place to watch even in dismal weather. Probably my favorite locale with Lake Erie and downtown Cleveland providing dramatic backdrops. While I did the best I could with the photos I'm not particularly happy with the results. Maybe next year!

I Told You we like Eagle Hockey Gloves

Here is a sampling of our stock. More to come too.

We Went to Grand Cayman BWI.....WOW!

Our "El Cheapo" view!

So I'm kind of catching up here from June. Earlier this year we decided to take the kids to Maui. Well the day we were to book the trip our Subaru decided it didn't want to be turbocharged anymore and well the bill to repair it (so we could unload it) consumed a great portion of our budget. Shortly thereafter I began to look for other destinations that would have a similar WOW factor, but would be cheaper for the family. After debating south Florida vs. the Caribbean I decided the kids would really like to get their passports stamped and I picked Grand Cayman. I am so glad I did!

Grand Cayman is the largest of the 3 island chain and while its not Maui it is pretty awesome in its own right. Travel for us entailed a 6am departure from CMH and a connection barely 2 hours later in ATL where we boarded an old MD-80 for the 2:30 flight into Grand Cayman. We used Delta Air Lines (who else) and collected lots of Skymiles and bonus miles swelling my account to about 150k miles. We booked thru Delta Vacations and got a killer package on flights and hotel and transportation in Cayman. While we booked the "el cheapo" rate consisting of no balcony no view we did in fact get a great room with both the balcony and the water view. We stayed in the Marriott Grand Cayman Resort and it was everything we hoped it would be. The only issue we could come up with was the lack of cold water in the shower and the air conditioner working so well that it got too cool at night. To me those are not issues but expectations. While technically it was the start of hurricane season the chance of a big storm in June is almost non-existant. The weather for us was great. The beach.....Seven Mile Beach lived up to its reputation of one of the best beaches in the world. Our end was so quiet and the snorkeling was amazing on the artificial reef that have been created just off shore at the Marriott.


The Reef Balls artificial reef at the Marriott

The downside to the trip is eating. It's not cheap anywhere-even fast food was $35 for a family of 4. A sit down meal at a family place is going to cost you roughly $75-100 and a nice meal for 2 is about $150 or more. We knew this going in and just considered it part of the expense of a trip. There are so many cool things to do there, but the number 1 attraction (for non scuba divers) is Stingray City. This sand bar about 4 miles out is super cool. A chance to get in the water and play with hundreds of wild Southern Stingrays in their environment. I will never forget holding a wild female stingray as long as I live. This 7 foot across and 180 pounder was the highlight of my trip. We went there with Red Sail Sports and they took great care of us on their catamaran with a great sail home after some awesome snorkeling in water that ranged from 12 feet to 6000 feet. So neat to do.

The money shot
Flying home was the reverse of the trip down with the exception that our departure was much later at around 1:30pm and that put us into ATL at the busy hour. Our MD80 was again old, but this time it was empty and allowed us to have full rows to stretch out. We also got a chance to see Cuba as we flew over. We also said to heck with carry on's and checked our luggage since it was free for AMEX/Delta cards and this made it much easier to travel and end our journey on a relaxed note. After the fun of the trip I even managed to get a bottle of Dom Perignon home from the Duty Free shop without hacking off the US Customs people.

Swimming with the Stingray

Why we ONLY use EAGLE Hockey Gloves!

One question I frequently get from other parents is: Where did you get those gloves for your son/daughter? The brand is EAGLE if you haven't noticed from the many hockey pictures. A quick short answer is they are the best gloves made for hockey. This is a pretty bold statement when you consider the massive numbers of pro hockey players using gloves from other manufacturers such as Reebok, Easton and Bauer just to name a few. Unfortunately the Eagle gloves you can buy today are NOT the ones we use. EAGLE was bought out by Vaughn a couple years ago and while the logo is the same the product isn't quite exactly the same. I'm lucky in that I stocked up with LOTS of gloves and I also am willing to buy custom versions of the old ones that EAGLE will still make (for a price$$$$$$$).

Eagle today is now chipping at the market in more than just gloves. They've recently launched a new stick line as well as hockey accessories in addition to new models of gloves. I'll reserve judgement on those as we see how they work. Eagle was built originally on a mission of uncompromising excellence in a hockey glove and based on the 7 pairs we have here thing are great. I may just buy a new pair and see if that fit and comfort of the past are back. If not its pay the big bucks and have the old ones custom made.

What do you mean today is the last day of May?

Really?

You've got to be kidding me right? Wasn't it just a couple days ago that we just had spring break? Apparently I missed the entire months of April and May as tomorrow is June 1, 2011. The last 2 months have literally flown by. Heck I was in Chicago on April 29th and that feels like it was just a couple days ago. I really can't fathom that the year is approaching the halfway point. I know the primary reason and unfortunately that's not going to change anytime soon. Oh well moving right along...

Frudoch finished up the tryout process last weekend and for a change we are happy with the result. Not ecstatic, but happy. He did very very well in his first tryout for a spot on the Tier 1 Ohio AAA Blue Jackets. Well enough that the coach needed an extra couple hours of tryouts to get those last few spots sorted out. Over those 3 tryouts Fru played masterful. Never the flashy player, but always the workhorse you build teams around. As I left the tryout I knew he was close. However this year that team would be part of the Tier 1 Elite League and frankly the amount of money this season would have cost was going to be crazy. This league stretches from coast to coast and is serious. We did decide that if he made it we would let him play and worry about the money later. How many chances do you get to fulfill a dream? When the phone range the next day I knew the answer immediately from the tone of the coaches voice. Not this year for AAA hockey. However, the coach said he was indeed a AAA player and would love to have him on the team. He was that close--razor thin margin. When you consider he played A and down a birth year its amazing they didn't laugh him off the ice. He made a quantum leap. So that brought us to last weekend where we had 4 tryouts over 3 days to hopefully avoid last years saga of not having a spot. Armed with the recommendation of the AAA team we decided which league would be best and did the tryout. Fru was not feeling 100%, but played great in the first 2 only to be cut from AA contention after just minutes. I was dumbfounded. He however worked even harder in the other groups tryouts and was on a island with a couple other kids clearly better than anybody else. Come Sunday we had back to back tryouts with just a couple hours between. So would it be AA or A or even no spot again. The answer was pretty quick as again he was on an island this time by himself. After the tryout I felt good. When we got home the phone was ringing and a AA offer was extended. Success! So this year Frudoch will again play with the Columbus Capitals. Only this year he will be on the 98 team at AA. To heck with the other group....

Poppy was up next. Her first tryout went well. Her second is now 5 days away. Its with the 'other' group and I don't trust them. Cross your fingers for us. So bringing this season to an end I promise that the ONLY hockey we will play--the ONLY time I will set foot in an ice rink--the ONLY time I will smell that awful hockey gear smell will be June 5th. After tryouts I need a break. Hello Grand Cayman Island in 3 weeks!!!!!

The long expensive season...

When does it ever end? Yes I'm talking hockey hockey. The kids seasons officially ended with games in March and while part of me was sad to see the end I am pretty darn tired from all the travel. 2 kids playing travel hockey gets tiring pretty quickly. Yet I know I'll look back on this year and love every minute. Between the 2 kids we had more than 100 games and more than 180 practices. The kids played in 26 different ice rinks in 2 states and it would have been 3 states except Frudoch missed a tournament in Pennsylvania and Poppy's team missed one there as well due to a screw up by the team manager. I don't even want to think of how much fuel we went thru for my car and truck. This winter we had our Subaru blow a turbo on the way to an early hockey game in Cleveland which added another $3k to the expenses and then had to sell said car as there was so much metal sucked thru the engine that it would fail. If I had to guess... we spent more than $8k on hotels, food, gas, supplies, doctors appointments, hockey equipment and car repairs. Never mind the time which has even more value. Why do we do it? Hockey is a great sport. Perhaps the greatest. Our vacation this year was staying home and resting after a long season. The best part..... Development camp started last week for both kids. Frudoch as an instructor and Poppy as a student.

Of course the next step is Mid Am development camp tryouts for elite players and for the first time Frudoch is invited. Should be a great measuring stick for him before tryouts for the 2011/12 season which are less than a month away. Poppy will skip girls Mid Am camp and will be looking to play all girls travel next year as no matter what anybody says a girl doesn't get a fair shake on a boys team. Even when she is better than the boys. Oh well it was tons-o-fun and its already going again so I need some sleep.

Steve McQueen Fans Unite.....

And head on over to Steve McQueen Film Festival for the 6th annual Steve McQueen film festival. Its a unique way to learn all about McQueen if you are new to his films or a great way to learn some of the back stories on his films. So much fun to follow along and watch at your own pace on your own time and discuss as the week goes on. Hurry though only another 6 days left!

We Had a GREAT Weekend!

Please see: http://www.lightthelamp.com
Quick update from my favorite CBJ blog. Of course I'll have much more to add about the weekend.

So as I said the update was quick. It also was pretty vague. I'll add a bit more here before blogging on. During the weekend of Hockey Day in America. The Columbus North Stars headed up to Detroit for another tournament in search of glory. As before they found it! Once again playing in the AA Squirt Travel division the North Stars (who are not a AA team and who are not a travel team) were able to beat all comers and win in AA. The team is exceptional for their unselfish play and teamwork. This group of Rec level players again stepped it up to take it to Travel teams from the CSHL and the Little Caesars league among others. They did encounter a first on the year though. In their 2nd game they never had the lead. They did come back late though an get a tie. Following the championship game they pushed their overall record to 14-0-2. We did lose a player for the rest of the season with a broken leg. He sucked it up and PLAYED in the championship game after taking a couple ibuprofen and one serious tape job. No kidding--he really broke his leg and we learned later it was a serious fracture to his tibia and a fracture in his ankle. Talk about tough! Here are a few shots of my favorite player--CHEETO!

I Flew on an Airbus A319.... and Lived to Tell

For those of you who have visited this blog or know me at all it should come as no surprise that I love flying and anything airplane related. However I am somewhat partial to Boeing and will go way out of my way to fly on any model of their jets. I generally fly airlines that have either all Boeing or mostly Boeing fleets. My airline of choice for the last several yeas has been Delta. This was great as they operated a mostly Boeing fleet since the MD-88's they had were now considered part of Boeing after McDonnell Douglas was taken over by Boeing. I have never mined the Embraer jets that Delta's regional partners have operated either and while not a huge fan of the Bombardier CRJ's have gotten used to them as well. When Delta bought Northwest the all Boeing fleet went away as Northwest had a mixed fleet including many Airbus jets. These are now all repainted in Delta colors and the A319's are replacing many of the older less efficient MD-88's throughout the network. Delta is also using the Airbus A330 on overseas routes and also on long haul flights to Hawaii thru Atlanta. For many years I have not had any interest on flying in an Airbus. In fact the last one I flew on was an America West A321 many years back when CMH was a hub for America West. I took that flight to Las Vegas and was happy to not need the services of the Euro plane ever since. Well unfortunately this year my trip to the SCCA National Convention meant I would either have to hang out in the Atlanta airport for an extra 4 hours or swallow my pride and fly home on an Airbus A319. I did the latter....... and lived! My trip out had me on an MD-88 and then a 767-300. Returning from LAS to ATL I was jam packed into an OLD 757-200 without the video system. (yeah it had CRT monitors in the ceiling with color so washed out that skin color was green) Since I chose to fly Delta from CMH to LAS I had to give up the option of non-stop as only Southwest flies that route non-stop. If you know me then you know I will only fly SWA if they are the ONLY airline to go to the place I need to go. I refuse to fly them and happily pay much more to avoid flying with them. An interesting side note is that the non-stop flight on SWA cost more than the 1 stop on DAL. Several others went with me to the convention and all paid more. Those that bought their tickets a couple days before me paid about $15 more each way. Those that purchased on the same day as I did paid about $50 more each way, and those that purchased about 3 weeks after paid a whopping $175 more. The bonus to me was the skymiles as I'm now at 100K and am planning a trip to Hawaii. Only when researching that trip I discovered if I wanted to go thru Atlanta I'd have to fly on an........................Airbus.... Oh dear.

Quick Post: Live From Las Vegas

Well I'm on my annual trip to Las Vegas for the SCCA National Convention and it came at the perfect time. This morning I left a snowy andbiterly cold Columbus Ohio for the sun and warmth of Nevada. Today was 57 degrees with temps forecast near 70 by the end of the week. Wow what a difference. Last week we had an ice storm with nearly one inch of ice covering everything and bringing down trees across my property.Today I ate In-N-Out Burger in a sweatshirt. Will I win anything? Probably not, but I feel like I beat the winter blues and not a moment to son. Forecast for home this week: highs in the teens with lows in the single digits to negatives...

The Future of Aviation!!

NASA recently awarded grants for the development of the future airliners. 3 firms were chosen. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrup Grumman. The designs are all somewhat radical, but it does give us a glimpse of what the designers are thinking. The aim is to cut fuel use and emissions in half and areas impacted by noise by 83 percent with an aircraft that has the speed and range of modern long-haul jets (85 percent of the speed of sound, 7,000 miles) and payload (50,000 to 100,000 pounds) of a large single-aisle jet, such as a Boeing 757. Date of service introduction is planned for 2025. I think we may need to add a decade or two onto that before the design of the current jets are moved out.

First is the Boeing.

From the look of this my first reaction is what is going on at Boeing??? The design is obviously all about function rather than form. The looks of the plane are secondary to what it can do. I see this as more of a freighter, but then I wonder how do you load the freight into the middle. Obviously this is a design exercise so the idea is efficiency. The option of 2 or 3 engines and turbojets and turbofans is interesting on the same platform. Methinks I'll take a pass on this one and hope that Boeing concentrates its efforts on military if they go forward with this design.

Next we have the offering from Lockheed Martin.


At first look it appears to have one enormous engine, but that's just an optical illusion i believe. It looks like the second engine is obscured by the fuselage. The other net thing appears to be a box tail connecting both sides of the wing to the tail of the plane. I like the somewhat conventional style of the plane and think that most people will as well. Engine noise should be low in the front half of the plane and I'd guess the range would be fantastic.

Finally we have the version presented by Northrop Grumman.

I really like the V-tails on this as they remind me of the F22 Raptor. The twin fuselages though are downright bizarre. There does not appear to be and way to move from one to the other. The flight deck is separated as well which from a safety perspective eliminates the threat of a crew takeover by a hijacker, but also prevents the passenger from getting their buh-bye from the pilot. Also the engines are right by the pilots. Lots of noise for them as well as the first class cabin(s). It reminds me of the Virgin Galactic transport plane and the Boeing offering is the Spaceship One. You don't think...????? Nah.