The World Cup, Karen, Balty, a bit of Egypt...plus more on Jack Norworth.

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We had a great time this week with our guest, and long time friend Karen.

Of course, we talk about the World Cup. We headed over to the Duke of Edinburgh Pub to watch the final and joined a crowd in there. It was standing room only, but fortunately we got their very early to grab a table. Ashok joined Karen, Greg and Simon and we had a great few hours, supporting both teams along the way. We chatted about Paul the octopus that has predicted the correct outcome for 8 games in a row. That can't be chance!

Earlier in the week we joined Karen up in her local stomping grounds of San Francisco and we had dinner at the House of Prime Rib on Van Ness. Fun was had by all, and boy those prime ribs were good, as were the Yorkshire puddings! Apparently, the alcohol was pretty enticing too.

Karen joined us today to talk about her blog, http://baltazarfishegyptdiaries.blogspot.com. She's an aspiring children's author and she also talks about the trials of trying to find an agent and be published. The blog is linked to the main character of her current work in progress, Baltazar Fish. The blog is being written in the first person, and is set as a prequel to the novel. We discuss Egypt a little, as Karen's travels there inspired her book.

Earlier in the week, Greg, Simon and a friend, also called Simon watched Monty Python's Holy Grail, so there are a smattering of quotes from the movie in this week's podcast.

We then go over some of the recent news articles. Our favorite was a crocodile on the loose in Frankfurt. As Greg said: "The more you know, the less you care."

Before closing we go back to the previous week's story of the Jack Norworth memorial stone being placed at his burial sight. This project was undertaken by 2 friends, JP Myers and Chris Epting, both guests on the show. The event to put the new stone in place was on July 11th, 2010 and photos were taken. There are some article and photos about and from the event.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=106832&id=118727941506682

http://picasaweb.google.com/fultonavenue/July11th2010NorworthMemorialMarker#

http://dailyme.com/story/2010071100002916/seventh-inning-special-belting-102-year-old-hit.html

Post Podcast recording we headed over to one of the more incredible local restaurants, Sent Sovi. We indulged. Boy did we ever. We laughed ourselves silly and ate like royalty for the evening. Worth every penny! We'll talk about this a little more on next week's podcast.

BMSMA.

G&S

Instrument flying and such stuff

So my instrument rating training is coming on apace. Well, it's been going slowly actually but things have picked up of late, since I've got my teeth into my written exam study. I'm not sure why I want to put myself through all this at 43, but I do and I've got a load more exams yet to go before getting my instructor rating. I had a glorious flight today. We're very lucky to live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where in the summer the clouds come in from the Pacific and back up along Skyline Boulevard, making Half Moon Bay airport almost always in cloud. I was up doing exercises that I haven't done for a while, like 60 degree banks, holds and unusual attitude recovery and my instructor decided it would be fun to add a pop up clearance into Half Moon Bay. I got it filed, programmed into the G1000 and off we went. I've done a lot of approaches, including to Half Moon Bay, but this was the first where the cloud base was actually down to minimums. (KHAF is 370 feet and it was about 400 feet today so as I approached minimums I thought I'd have to do a missed approach for real rather than one for exercise.) Flying back though, VFR on top, and the vision restrictions goggles off, we got this massive panorama of the cloud bank, that was over the Pacific but ended abruptly at Skyline. It was the kind of view that just makes you stop and gawk. It's a pity I didn't have my camera with me, as it was unbelievably impressive.

My instructor is away for the next few weeks, so I'm going to focus on study but am going to take a couple of flights just for the hell of it. Greg, a buddy, and myself will be off to somewhere for a $100 burger somewhere. Should be fun and this time there will be photos.

S