Oshkosh Diary - Monday

Not much new in the farmfields of Oshkosh. The actual show opened this morning and I went down for a little while and took in one forum on avionics and building instrument panels. Now, I remember my problem with AirVenture; it makes me think too much about how I don't have the money to really build a plane. And yet, somehow I've gotten this far. Of course, when people ask, "where are you at on your plane," and I answer, "I'm on the subpanel (instruments)," they usually say, "ahh, it's time to spend money." So perhaps I've done this all wrong because I've noticed I've spent a generous amount of money on the project since 2001.

I also looked at dozens and dozens of the RV aircraft that people have built and have flown in and they are all gorgeous and appear to be much better than the one I'm building. They say paint hides a multitude of sins so perhaps I should stock up on paint while I'm here.

I woke up around 3 this morning and looking West I saw lightning and a thunderhead off about 50 miles or so so stashed as much as I could in the car and braced for a big blow, but we ended up getting only a small amount of showers and today it's windy and quite hot. A huge American flag on some business across the street from the Starbuck's I'm writing this at is blowing straight from the southwest. I wouldn't mind seeing it die down for Wednesday's barbecue I'm hosting, but I think this is pretty much it for the week.

My chief cook, who doesn't seem at all fazed by the prospect of cooking for 250 people, showed up from Tucson (actually, Chandler) yesterday afternoon and called this morning. So I guess I can stop asking people who pass the campsite, "hey, do you know how to barbecue chicken?" now.