another down..

That's the second clep done this month...
Two more to go...

6 credit hours done..
I think my head is going to 'splode before I'm done this month.

onwards

watching the weather

I was out at Arlington this morning around 11 or so. I was killing time until a test at 1 at UTA.

It was lightly misting, then it changed to a light rain, drumming quietly on the roof of the car. I watched a few planes come and go. The field was VFR for a while. A few biz jets arrived and were parked. After a bit a pilot walked out to his bizjet and popped open the door to start setting things up for a departure. The clouds, were indistinct, you couldn't see anything up that wasn't white. Featureless. I'd not have been able to tell you what the ceiling was. Looking off in the distance you could see a few striations in the cloud layers, but I'd be willing to bet that if you'd been up, it'd have been a VERY indistinct horizon. After a bit the rain picked up some, still, the ceiling was indistinct. I thought about the few times I've flown in the rain, wondering how the paint on 508 ever stayed on the plane. What it was like to grease on a landing on a wet runway, it's the weirdest feeling I've ever had on a landing. A flash caught my eye, the beacon on top of the tower had started winking at me, green, white, green, white. That indistinct ceiling must have dropped in the rain, a nudge of the METAR widget on the iPhone confirmed it, it was now down to 800. Still couldn't see the cloud base, it was smooth and featureless...

Made me think more about the IFR, about the pilots who can fly in that great featureless white...

It was a peaceful hour I spent watching the weather until I left for my test. Everyone should take five (or more!) sometimes and just hang out at the fence and watch the world pass every once in a while. It's pretty good therapy.