I did get to fly in the lovely beech bonanza on Friday. What a wonderful little plane. My buddy was doing some instrument recurrency stuff. I said letting the auto-pilot fly the stuff seemed ... well, not quite in the spirit of things. His GPS (Garmin 530) made everything way too easy as well. He asked me to set up the profile ... and then once I told him the approach he would just tap a couple of knobs and all the frequencies would tumble in to place. Not fair! What ever happened to being just one little digit off on one little nav aid? ... It was so much fun. He loaned me a Boise headset for the ride ... Seriously light weight and oh so fine ... 1200 bucks worth of smooth ... My very nice headset invariably pulls hair out ... Not the Boise set though. I don't know if they "attenuate" better, but they are definitely more user friendly. I like the engine quite ... Good plane. Good time.

Today he was over to join us for church (Pentecostal's) and lunch. I've known him for years ... Kinda all of a sudden he and my daughter, Two, are seeing each other. It's really nice to have another pilot in the house ... Neither one of us could remember the name for what ever those design items that extend from the leading edge and make stalls more difficult are. I was telling him that I really like feeling the buffeting with the soles of my feet. He was saying the bonanza has very pronounced stall characteristics, but when we went through the stalls series on Friday, I wouldn't have said that was so. It's more like the airplane is clearing it's throat ... Cough cough, hey ya gonna lower the angle or what ... Then right back to positive rate with nary a hair out of place. Good airplane. Slow flight practically hovers pointed at the moon ... It shudders in to a very polite little stall ... And goes immediately back to minding it's manners with no extended hanky panky. 1.7 ... Two landings for me. He did an acceptable power off 180.

There are a few things to tend to here in my home this week. Christmas things. Christmas things first. I really like decorating for Christmas. There is a new puzzle on the coffee table in the den ... a tradition for us. Usually they have a Christmas theme, this year V chose a New Years scene.

Today I did hang a bird feeder out under the rose vine. And I also hung a pair of hummingbird feeders. The birds have been hopping around in the vine inspecting the nests that are vacant.