Another sunny weekend!

Yet another gorgeous weekend! The girls rode their bikes to a nearby park. After pushing their bikes across the pedestrian bridge, the girls did an "All for One, and One for All!" before setting out on the ride...
Such a fun, scenic bike path...
We hung out at the park for a touch over an hour...
The girls had loads of fun!

You too!

There are some cool things that I've done in my aviation career, and this past Tuesday was one of the more memorable... I got a ride as a passenger in one of two chase cars for a U-2's recovery/landing. The U-2 is a special jet that has minimized its weight to increase performance... so it doesn't have traditional airplane features like a full landing gear or bright landing lights. The pilots wear space suits and helmets which restrict their visibility when landing. Given all of these limitations, the solution is to launch chase cars which drive right behind the landing plane to tell the pilot how far he is from touchdown and also to provide their headlights to illuminate the runway ahead during night landings. The recovery I went on was a night landing, darker than the video below but pretty similar.

I still can't believe that I was in a car going 15o mph chasing right behind one of the world's most famous planes! I loved it, and have such a great appreciation for the amazing things these folks do every day... If you have a minute to spare, I highly recommend watching the first 50 seconds of the video above.

Shockers... Sky High!

Unfortunately I won't be able to watch the Shockers in the first round of the NCAA tournament today, but I did bring the Wichita State Shockers with me on the road!
Today's destination, the island of Crete! Check it out, beaches and skiing all on this incredible island in the Mediterranean!
I love the views from the air, the contrast of 10,000' mountains right next to the sea was beautiful... my little camera just can't do it justice.
After a wonderful big, fat, Greek dinner with crazy amounts of feta cheese, olives, tatziki sauce with pita bread... and that was just our appetizers prior to our main dishes (I got the sword fish... yum!), it's time to rest up for the next flight tomorrow. That means, no Shockers for me tonight. I'm with them in spirit... Go Shox!

Let the Madness Begin... Go SHOCKERS!!

Here it is... my Bracket with Kansas beating Michigan State for the National Championship...

I'd love to put Morgan's Wichita State Shockers through to the Championship Game against Kansas, I could "only" get them to the Final Four! Is there a State of Kansas bias here? Must be a Pancake Day hangover! :-)

Unfortunately for the Shockers, they're in the toughest region this year. Finishing #18 in the rankings (sweet!), they drew a 5-seed and somehow got matched against 12-seed VCU. I want to file a lawsuit against the selection committed for prejudice against small schools. Wichita State and VCU have been two of the more successful "mid majors" recently with last years's VCU's Final Four run and Wichita State's NIT Championship last year, and Wichita State's own Sweet 16 run a couple years back. While I can legitimately see Wichita State going to the Sweet 16 this year (and beyond!), it's a toss up in this first round matchup against VCU. Darn you tournament selection committee!!

Besides the Wichita State-VCU game, another pairing I'm upset about is Vanderbilt-Harvard. Don't get me wrong, they're both going to be great games, but I'd prefer to see all four of these schools in the next round as well. As for the Vandy-Harvard game, what does the selection committee have against smart schools. Vanderbilt decided years ago that its intercollegiate athletes would not get scholarships for playing sports at the school, athletes actually have to be academically admitted to the university... not "back door" to entrance requirements. Has it hurt Vandy? How 'bout Vandy's huge win over #1 Kentucky in the conference championship this past weekend!

Rooting for the WSU-VCU winner and the Vandy-Harvard winner regardless of the outcome... but regardless... Go SHOX!! (and KU's going to win it all...)

Wichita State... Shock U

Sun(ny)day!

This Sunday was truly a Sunny Day... and 60 degrees! We took the girls out to ride their bikes for the first time since moving to England. Everybody in the city was out and about today... Spring in here!!

Morgan took Adayla's bike for a little spin...

The proud new bike owner...

They say the last two words that people typically say before an accident are "Oh Shoot" or something like that. Here is Tally's "Oh Shoot" face before impact, notice the feet off the pedals in preparation for the collision. Perhaps if she would have used those feet on the pedals to brake the magnitude of the impact could have been lessened...

It is indeed Spring... and only hours from March Madness, baby!!