ET's Info-Stew

Do you know what a "non-duplication of benefits" clause is? If not and you think you have double coverage on your benefits (medical, dental, vision, etc.), you better learn. I learned the hard way. You can learn the easy way: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0903/is_n10_v11/ai_14244221.

Jenny and I went skiing with Patti and Carl a few days ago. I tried snowboarding twice in the last four years, and both times I sucked, barely able to stay up for more than 10 seconds. I've only ever skied once before, probably ten years or more ago, but I remember that I was able to ride quite a bit. This time I left my snowboard at home (what a stupid buy...hello craigslist) and rented skis.

Today I flew for the first time in 2 1/2 months. With such a long break I was worried I would be very rusty, in organization, communication, and landing technique. But I actually did rather well, especially since it was the first time I've flown in a Cessna 152 in 5 1/2 months.

Today Jenny and I watched Bender's Big Score. I had to watch it a couple times to understand a couple things, and I've come to realize a problem in the story line. Don't read on if you don't want spoilers.

Broken things add all kinds of stress. It's nice when they it turns out they aren't broken, they just need to be adjusted.

The explorer was making nasty noises whenever it was idling between 18 and 60 mph. You could feel a rhythmic thumping that didn't seem to vary with changes in speed. It started a few months ago a week after when we got new tires. Not knowing what was going on, we assumed the worst: a problem with the drive train. Usually something that big and important takes thousands of dollars to fix.

Today Jenny and I did an impromptu flight, planning to go to Salinas (KSNS) then Watsonville (KWVI), then back. This is the flight that we were going to take at night a couple weeks ago, but scrubbed due to lack of proper planning. I learned my lesson and last week came up with a good plan for the flight. Today the weather was forecast to be great, and I was much better prepared, so this was an excellent day. I would be testing myself because it was my first ever attempt to transition some of the complex Bay Area airspace.

For some reason, I keep forgetting what night means with respect to the FAA regulations. I'm adding that info here for permanent record.

Night is the time between civil evening twilight and civil morning twilight. Any regulation reference to the term night relates to this. Training and equipment requirements come to mind here.

However, some regulations refer to the time between an hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise. For example, the regulations for maintaining proficiency to carry passengers at night refers to this time period.

Today I was all prepared to take my 5th gup test, which is a landmark test in Tang Soo Do. But they apparently gave me the test last week, telling me it was in preparation for the test which would take place today. I guess going to the LLNL dojang yesterday paid off. So now I'm a 5th gup!

It is often said that aviation accidents happen as a result of a chain of errors, not just a single failure. Tonight, Jenny and I were going to make a night flight down to the Monterey Bay area and back. The entire day there was error after error, yet the flight was still on track despite my being nervous about it. It was only when we got to the plane and it hadn't been re-fueled that I finally called it off. Here is a summary of the negative chain of events:

Jenny and I took a fun flight up to Sacramento Executive airport (KSAC). This was my first time flying in and actually staying for a short amount of time at an unfamiliar airport. It's also the first time I've flown in nearly four weeks, so I was worried that I was going to have too much rust.