I ran across one of my high school English assignments the other day, written when I was a senior. I’ve held onto it for over fifteen years now, wondering what I should do with it. I have no idea why I didn’t think to post it here before now.

The assignment was to find a picture of our choosing, and then write a short story about it. We were supposed to keep the work under 300 words, but I nearly doubled that. The teacher forgave me because I wrote an interesting story.

The picture I chose was of an F-15 Eagle beginning its takeoff rotation with the blowers engaged. I thought, “Yeah, I can work with that.”

What follows is a photo of my assignment, followed by the transcribed text. It reads like something a ninth-grader could write, and I would change a lot about it if I wrote it today. That said, I am leaving it intact for you here. The story itself is not an accurate depiction of the scene it portrays, but the spirit of the work still gets my fist pumping. I chose the very unique title “Up And Away” for my short story.

I hope you enjoy.

It’s early in the morning before the sun has winked over the horizon. A soft breeze brushes over the landscape, ruffling the grass. There s a clear sky, not a cloud in sight. The moon and the stars light up the sky. Off to the east, a vague hue of pink suggests the rising of the sun is imminent.

There she sits, a brand new F-15 Eagle. Having just rolled off the line the day before, she looks sleek and smooth, ready for battle. Capt. Wayne Douglas looks at her from a distance, visually checking her out, and gives a nod of approval. She winks at him with the reflection of the moon on her canopy.

Capt. Douglas continues to approach this beautiful machine. From up inside the left side wheel-well appears his crew chief, TSgt. Jon Perry. “Good morning, Sir,” he says with an outstretched hand.

Wayne clutches Jon’s hand and says, “Good morning, Sergeant. How are you today?”

“Very well, Sir, thank you,” comes Jon’s reply.

The captain glances up at the plane and asks, “Is she ready?”

“Yes Sir. Configured the way you asked, Sir,” Perry answers.

Capt. Douglas begins to do his own preflight checks of the new aircraft. He slides his hand over the sleek body and takes a look into the intake. Seeing nothing that could do any damage, he proceeds down the wing to the tail.

He finishes his checks and is pleased with the look of the supersonic jet fighter. He moves back to the nose of the airplane and climbs the ladder to the cockpit. Sitting himself comfortably into the seat, he begins to strap himself into the harness, saying to himself, “Like a glove.”

The crew chief climbs the ladder next to the pilot to help him get situated into the cockpit. Finally, after getting all of the hook-ups and strap-ons ready, Perry gives the okay to start the engines.

At first, it is only a whine, but the sound gets progressively louder. As the engines come alive, Wayne can feel the rumble from his seat throughout his body. He grins to himself at the thought of having 46,900 pounds of thrust to back him up. The engine readouts begin giving him data on their status. Everything appears to be in order.

By now, the sun has started to peak up over the horizon lighting up the sky and dimming the moon and stars. Capt. Douglas gets clearance from the tower to begin taxiing to the end of the runway. The pilot and crew chief exchange salutes, and the jet powers up its engines slightly to start itself into motion.

Wayne moves his gorgeous jet onto the end of the runway, lining up perfectly with the centerline. He engages the wheel brakes and inches the throttle forward. His vicious pet begs to be set free with the push of twenty-three tons of raw power, and he releases the brakes. He then pushes the throttle past the max into full afterburner as the rate of acceleration pins him to his seat. The aircraft howls gruesomely as it screams down the runway at speeds no ordinary plane could even dream of. The airspeed indicator shows 150 knots, and Capt. Douglas begins to rotate the nose off the ground. All at once, the jet lifts off the ground at a menacing speed as she takes her passenger into the sunlit, morning sky on a ball of fire.

Recently, I’ve been tweeting a little nugget of semi-random goodness, sometimes thought-provoking, often funny, and never a David Allen original. I find this stuff on the internet and say to myself, “Ooh, I like that. I bet at least one of my followers will like it, too.” So I tweet it.

Most of the responses to these tweets have been positive, and there have been plenty of retweets. I love interacting with people, so of course it puts a smile on my face to see this kind of thing.

In honor of AirVenture Oshkosh, my tweets this week have all been aviation-related. Here is today’s tweet:

The first (and so far only) response to this was one of my followers questioning the experience – as a licensed pilot – on which I could base such an observation. This was followed by a couple of back-and-forths regarding limits and how they are not necessarily “clear cut” when it comes to airplanes.

Frankly, this whole conversation has just been bothering me. No, I am not a licensed pilot. Those that know me also know that I am the first person to admit that I know relatively little when it comes to the operation of a flying machine. I am no expert.

First of all, this tweet was mine, but the comment was not created by me. That said, I did say it, so I am obviously behind the idea.

Now this may be a debate about aircraft limitations, but I guess my question is, why? Why would a pilot ever flirt with these limits? Don’t all airplanes have them? Yes. Is there such a thing as a limitless aircraft? Goodness, no. Every flying machine on this planet has an envelope within which it is designed to operate. The vast majority of pilots operate their aircraft in a small fraction of that envelope. They are still pilots, though and through. Many of my friends and I define a pilot as anyone who has sat all alone in an aircraft, firewalled the throttle, charged down the runway, and rotated.

Some pilots learn to use much more of that envelope. That is the guy I want to be.

But what I don’t understand is why it would ever, EVER be okay to exceed that envelope? Whether it be flying in excess of Vne, exceeding the maximum G-loading, or performing prohibited maneuvers, I cannot ever imagine a circumstance that would call for such action.

Is it possible to over G an airframe and have no damage occur? Maybe, I don’t know. I’m sure it depends on the plane and the circumstance.

Is it possible to perform aerobatic maneuvers on an aircraft that wasn’t designed or tested for such things? Maybe.

Buy why would you, as a pilot, ever want to find out? If you are wrong, it could kill you, and your passengers, and anyone on the ground that you end up cratering into. I call THAT sort of behavior foolish.

Sure there is the argument that if you get into a bad situation and need to do something outside if the airplane’s envelope to recover. But how did you get into that situation? Are you a VFR pilot who just flew into IMC and you are now in a descending dive? Do you need to pull-pull-pull to get the plane level again to save your skin? Will it work? Maybe, but the big picture here is this guy was a fool for flying into IMC in the first place. They are clouds. Stay out of them unless you are trained.

Perhaps I am closed-minded or prudish. But I feel like I have done enough flying to understand that each airplane has its strengths, its niche, its envelope. If I want to engage in a particular type of flight, I should use the correct aircraft and pursue the proper training. A good friend of mine put it this way: learn to use the full envelope of an aircraft, but only push one corner at a time.

This quote says it best:

Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.

— Captain A. G. Lamplugh

So now I need to know what you think. Am I ignorant or prudish? Am I missing the essence of being a pilot? Do I not “get” the fundamentals of commanding a flying machine? Is there ever, ever a good reason to demand more than your aircraft can give you?

Or do aircraft have limits that should never be toyed with, whether clear-cut or not?

I am extremely interested in your thoughts on this. If nothing else, I am teachable, and I am open to correction on this. But everything I know as an aviation enthusiast says that you just don’t try to make your aircraft do things that it cannot do.

What say you?

I was watching Twitter today and I saw a conversation between Cali Lewis and Dave Curlee taking place. Cali expressed frustration with the iPhones built-in Notes application and asked for other suggestions from her followers. Dave mentioned that Cali should use Evernote, a program that I have been using for years. It was my note-taking tool while I finished my colloege degree over the last few years, and it has been very useful for podcasting and recording shownotes.

I am personally a big fan of Evenote for a number of reasons. First, and this is not nuthin’, it’s free. The free account does a bandwidth limitation, but I have never run up against it. Not even close. For power-users, you can buy a subscription to get more bandwidth.

Second, everything is searchable, even your pictures. Take a picture of a sign or the front cover of a book, and after it is indexed on the system, you can search for the words in the photo. I don’t care who you are, that is just freakin’ cool.

And third, the entire thing is synced to the ‘net. So I can use the program on my desktop computer, then pull up all of my notes on my iPhone. And if I’m at a computer other than my own, I can log into the web interface and get access to all of my notes, edit the existing ones, and create new notes.

Oh, and did I mention this is all free? Yeah.

Here’s the problem: it doesn’t handle to-do lists well. I am currently trying to implement David Allen‘s (not me, this guy) “Getting Things Done” methodology in my daily life. It’s a bit if a learning curve. The big deal with the GTD system is that you should always know everything that you have to do. You should, and believe it or not, you can, know every open loop that you have to deal with in your life.

This is done through writing everything down in a trusted system that is outside of your mind, freeing your mind to do the task you have at hand while not worrying if you should be spending that time doing something else. It is possible to have so much going on in your life that you can’t wrap your brain around it, have none of it on your mind right now, still get things done, and be at peace with yourself.

GTD does not spend a lot of energy telling people what technology they should use, only the system. So I have been on the lookout for a good list manager. I do like Microsoft Outlook for it’s ability to handle contexts. However, since I have transitioned to a Mac, I find that iCal does not support contexts. I am using Awesome Note on my iPhone, but I’d really like something that would work cross-platform the way that Evernote does. Sure, Evernote does to-do lists, but it does not do them well.

So here’s my question: What do you use for a list manager? What do you like about it? What don’t you like about it or would change if you could?

Please leave me a comment. I would love to hear your feedback on this subject.

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This is the final part in a three-part series on the wonderful little event Aquatica hosted on June 24th in Orlando, Florida. In my first two posts, here and here, I talked about the general park experience and then got into the nitty gritty: rides! In this post, I’ll be discussing my impressions of the Splash-Up event itself.

I heard about the Splash-Up through SeaWorld’s Twitter account. Frankly, I think I got lucky. The event was open to the first 75 people to respond, and I was number three. I just happened to be watching Twitter at the right time to snag my spot. Each attendee was allowed to bring one guest.

Now I love water parks, and I was super excited to coming to this event. I was not sure what SeaWorld expected from the attendees, but being the social media fanatic I am, I came ready for anything. I had my laptop, my USB microphone, my digital audio recorder (and a microphone to go with it), and a digital camera. I was ready to capture all of the digital content I could so that I would be ready to give the park the new media coverage it deserved.

Turns out, they just wanted us to have fun and then talk about it later. Eh, whatever. I came with the intention of crushing it.

My first impressions when I showed up were all positive. Parking was a snap. I drove up to the gate, told the attendant I was participating in the Splash-Up, and they checked my name off the list. Perfect. I mean, they had a list. And it was at the gate. And it was complete enough to have my name on it. That’s bloody huge. Note to companies: first impressions are lasting impressions.

I parked my car and made my way to the front entrance to find this:

This kind of stuff is awesome. Little touches like this make guests feel welcome, like they were worth the time and energy to make them feel welcome. So far, I’m impressed.

The check-in process was simple and painless, and it was staffed by energetic people who seemed to be as happy to be there as we were. This was also where we got our press kits. It appears that more and more companies are finding value in the distribution of press kits on USB flash drives. Check this out:

This is brilliant! There is huge value to little things like this. Here I am at SeaWorld’s waterpark, and they are 1) treating us like media with an actual press kit, and 2) giving it to us on a themed USB flash drive! Think it made me feel special? You bet it did. Nice work, Aquatica!

As soon as I was checked in, I was greeted by the spoonbill, Papa.

I was told that Papa likes to check things out, and that my Scheyden Sonoma RG sunglasses would probably make for an interesting texture for him.

When a small number of us had gathered, one of the staff took us through our own private security line to check our bags and guide us to the Banana Beach Cookout. As I mentioned in part one of this series, the food was splendid. There were already a number of participants eating, and more were constantly showing up afterI arrived, giving me the impression that a lot of thought went into the organization of this event.

We were then joined by Rick Beddow, the Vice President of Aquatica. He thanked us all for coming out to the event and talked about some of the special offerings available at Aquatica. Are you understanding this? The Vice President of the park came out to talk to us! Mr. Beddow and his team recognize the true, tangible value of New and Social Media. Fantastic.

Next we were joined by some animals, an anteater and a kookaburra. One of Aquatica’s mantras is that guests get to play side-by-side with the sea. It is my understanding that visitors to Aquatica will get the chance to see and interact with the various animals throughout their visit.

The kookaburra was awesome, especially when he decided to talk. There is no talking over the call of a kookaburra. Try it, I dare ya.

The anteater was one of the Tamandua species, much smaller than the giant anteater.

After I met the animals, I had a chance to talk to some of the staff behind the event. I met with Nick Gollatscheck in Marketing and Melissa Albers, the Manager of Digital Media Marketing for all of SeaWorld.

During our chat, I was able to learn more about SeaWorld’s approach to social media. They, like NASA, learned that people are interested in the “ordinary” day-to-day operations, especially when they come to conservation and animal rescue. They have had lots of positive feedback on the SeaWorld Parks Blog. The blog and Twitter accounts have both had information about turtle releases and manatee rescues. There’s more to SeaWorld than just theme parks.

The bottom line to all of this is SeaWorld is serious about connecting with people, with individuals. They understand that people like you and I, just regular folks that care about what is happening, have a voice. They to listen to what we have to say, interact with us personally, acknowledge great content, and embrace the opinions of the people.

Simply, they care, and they are willing to connect with us.

If there was anything at which I had to nitpick regarding the Splash-Up, I can think of only two things. First, I wasn’t really sure what to bring. I think perhaps I was a little spoiled by the amazing communications that came out of NASA during days leading up to the epic Tweet-Up in November of 2009. NASA’s staff sent several emails to my inbox detailing everything we could expect, and what was expected of us in return. I really would like to have had more information about what Aquatica expected of me when I arrived. I mean, I brought my laptop in case I needed to record some content. As it turns out, it was overkill. All I really needed was digital camera and some swim trunks.

Second, we only had a few hours at the park. Since the event started in the afternoon, I did not have time to experience everything Aquatica has to offer. I would like to have been able to check out the wave pool, the private cabanas, and the two rivers.

Again, I am nitpicking, and the entire event that Aquatica and SeaWorld put on was truly fantastic. I applaud SeaWorld for engaging the online audience and for really trying to connect with people. I cannot wait to see what they do next. So far, they have done a really bang-up job. Great work SeaWorld!

I recently created a list of some life goals that I would like to accomplish some day. I published them on a seperate page on this site. Since I originally posted that page, I  have added a few things to the list. I’m also sticking them here:

The complete list, including these additions, is posted here.

Again, nothing on this list is in any way difinitive or locked-in, but it is certainly something I can read and smile about. Perhaps I will nail some of these up as accomplishments. When I do, I’ll be taking you all along for the ride. It’s gonna be awesome!

This is part 2 of my blog series on the “Splash-Up” hosted by Aquatica, SeaWorld’s waterpark in Orlando, Florida last week. In my first post, I talked about some of the unique things Aquatica has to offer guests, and then began sharing my impressions of the rides. In this post, I will pick up where I left off with the rides.

After I finished being funneled through the flumes of the Omaka Rocka, I decided it was time to check out what I call the “family slides.” Most of the rides at Aquatica are for a single rider or a pair of riders. Walhalla Wave & HooRoo Run, however, can take up to four riders at a time!

The Walhalla Wave is a twisting and turning flume ride that is sure to have you squeeling and laughing all the way through. As you take each new turn, the large raft washes up the side of the flume, increasing the thrill with each new “cut”. Then the raft enters a dark, enclosed tube with more twists and turns until it finally washes you and your riding companions into the landing pool. Since the raft is round and has no “front”, you can ride this slide over and over and it will never be the same ride twice.

HooRoo Run, which shares a lauch platform and landing pool with Walhalla Wave,  is a straight flume with no turns. During the wicked-fast ride, three steep drops, each longer the the one before, accelerate you to a water-skimming landing in the pool six full stories below. Awesome. Hooroo, which means “goodbye” in New Zealand, is the perfect name for this slide. Sit down, hold on, and let the rest happen. Yeah baby!

The final ride of the day for me was the Taumata Racer. Taumata places eight riders side-by-side on mats. When the ride attendant give you the go-ahead, you line up at your slide and assume the start position. Then, when you are given the “go” command, you launch yourself into the tube along with your seven competitors in a race to the bottom. The slide starts out as a tube with a full 360-degree turn to either the left or the right. After the turn, all eight slides come back together, the tubes open up, and there is a mind-numbingly steep hill to the finish line! Each rider is timed, and the results of the race are shown for everyone to see. This ride is simply a hoot!

That wraps up my experience with the rides at Aquatica. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time during my short visit to try out Tassie’s Twisters, Roa’s Rapids, Loggerhead Lane, or the twin wave pools of Cutback Cove & Big Surf Shores. I will be sure to hit those attractions during my next visit to Aquatica.

Aquatica is a fantastic park with lots to do. There is something for everyone in the family, and many things for the entire family to do together. While I did not try them out myself, I am certain that my kids would simply love playing on the two areas designed just for the little ones in your family. I highly recommend this park, especially as part of a vacation that includes SeaWorld. SeaWorld Orlando is, by the way, our family’s favorite theme park.

In my final Splash-Up blog post, I will talk about the Splash-Up event itself. You all know my passion for new media, and SeaWorld’s digital media and customer relations staff is doing a fantastic job. Stay tuned.

Last week I learned about a Tweet-up at Orlando’s newest theme park, Aquatica By SeaWorld. Actually, since Aquatica is a water park, the organizers of the event called it a “Splash-Up”. Clever.

Now, my family has annual passes to SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay, but we have never been to Aquatica. So I was really excited to get the chance to experience the park for the first time. In this first blog post, I will be talking about the park itself and the experience I had while I was their guest.

Aquatica has some some special offerings that are not available at any other theme park in Central Florida. They feature the Banana Beach Cookout, an all-you-care-to-eat dining experience. Simply pay once in the morning. Then you don’t have to think about meals for the remainder of your visit. They offer buffet-style dining with a summer bar-b-que flair. I thoroughly enjoyed the food, and I’m looking forward to feasting there again.

Also, Aquatica has private cabanas available for rent. While I did not get the opportunity on this visit to check them out, I simply love the idea and I can imagine it would be a splendid way to spend the day.

On to the rides. The first slide I decided to try was Dolphin Plunge, Aquatica’s trademark slide featuring a short “swim” with the dolphins as the tube passes underwater through their habitat. Aquatica’s most popular slide, it is proudly shown in all of the TV commercials. While it is a cool concept, the idea that you are swimming with dolphins is lost as soon as you vanish into the completely dark tube. I did my best to assume the correct riding position. This, of course, helped me to go even faster, kicking water into my face, and assuring I was totally blind while I “swam” through the clear portion of the slide … only to be promptly dumped into the landing pool. Fun thrill ride? Most certainly! Playful swim with the dolphins? No so much.

It should be noted that there are two viewing areas from which I was able to see the dolphins. That, actually, was very enjoyable. There are several beautiful black-and-white Commerson’s Dolphins. I’ve never seen animals like this before, and they seemed like they were having as much fun swimming as I did watching them.

The next ride, Whanau Way, was easily the ride that had me laughing more than any other. There are four different slides to choose from at the top of the tower, each unique. Time only allowed for me to ride one of them. After twisting and turning through the tube, the two final drops accelerated me into the landing pool with so much energy that I was skimming across the water. It was totally nuts! I only wish I’d had the time ride test fly the other three flumes on the ride.

After I was able to stop laughing, I decided it was time to check out Aquatica’s newest ride, the Omaka Rocka. This single-rider flume starts off like any other. However, after a few seconds of twists and turns, it dumps you into a funnel. You wash up one side of the funnel, then the other, and finally are carried away into more flume, then another funnel, and another. After the first funnel, I entered the tube going backwards. I figured the second funnel would turn me around again. And I was wrong. With Omaka Rocka’s twin slides and six funnels, you are sure to never get the same ride twice.

In my next post, I’ll share my experience with the Walhalla Wave & HooRoo Run slides, and the thrilling Taumata Racer!

Another Sun ‘n Fun Fly-In is behind us. Most of my week was spent at Sun ‘n Fun Radio performing my duties as Editor-In-Chief. We really stepped things up at the radio station this year. Admittedly, we bit off more than we should have. The listeners were probably oblivious (at least I hope so), but those of us that were working behind the scenes to make it all happen were constantly busy. Too busy. It left many of us, myself included, overly stressed. In spite of that, we accomplished some pretty awesome stuff, like live internet streaming of the radio station thanks to our friends at LiveATC.net.

Near the end of the week, things really started to look up for me. On Thursday, I was host for Stephen Force on the “Not At Sun ‘n Fun” podcast. Stretching the capabilities of technology, the Internet, and our tiny little pipe to the outside world, we used Skype to bring Captain Force and all of his guests into the radio station, through the board, over the AM radio waves, and back out to the Internet to be streamed live for the listening audience. Crazy, but well worth it … and a whole lot of fun in the end.

Many of my friends began to arrive on Friday, some of whom met on the deck of Sun ‘n Fun Radio for the second annual Gathering of Aviation Podcasters. While there were not as many podcasts represented this year as there were last year, we did welcome some newcomers. Uncontrolled Airspace, CopterCast, and Flight Time Radio appeared on the show. Of course, I was there to represent The Pilot’s Flight PodLog.

As soon as the GAP was finished, it was time to head over to the Piper Aircraft tent for the myTransponder party. Piper provided the food. Ace and ForeFlight provided the beer. And there were a whole bunch of door prizes. I’m sure I’ll forget something, but here’s a list of the door prizes:

• Piper Aircraft: 1 Flip video camcorder, 1 box of golf balls, and 2 PiperJet books signed by the test crew.
• Cessna Aircraft: 1 model of a Cessna Citation Mustang with a display stand.
• ForeFlight: 3 one-year subscriptions to ForeFlight Mobile 3.
• Pilot Getaways: 2 one-year subscriptions to the magazine.
• Scheyden Precision Eyewear: 1 pair of Sonoma Classic Flip-ups and 1 pair of Jet-A Hybrids.

Look at all that suff! It’s nuts! I want to personaly thank each and every one of the companies that brought stuff to give away. That said, the real highlight for the party was the fellowship. Friends interacting and having a great time together with the sounds of the night airshow providing the background music. Eric from ForeFlight was busy all night giving demos of ForeFlight Mobile 3 HD on the iPad, and I’m here to tell you, it’s gorgeous. Our friends at Piper Aircraft were amazing hosts to the 65 guests guests who arrived.

On Friday, the USAF Thunderbirds did their first full show. Will and I decided to go find a place from which to just watch the airshow. Now, I’ve known Will a long time now, and we both love the Thunderbirds and airshows in gerenal. I mean, that should be obvious, right? Then how is it that we’ve never actually sat down and watched an airshow together? The two of us just watched as the ‘Birds tore open the very atmosphere that was supposed to be supporting them aloft. Okay, we didn’t just watch; we were pumping our fists in the air, hollaring and cheering like the two ten-year-olds seated in front of us. It was epic!

Near the end of the show, we headed back to the radio station to get ready to perform an episode of The Pilot’s Flight PodLog live on the air … and on the ‘net. Our guests included Mike Douglas of the Mile High Flyers Podcast, his wife, David Thurlow of CopterCast, Phil Clark of The Modern Day Nomad, Rod Rakic of myTransponder, and Roger Bishop of the Indy Transponder. Rico Sharqawi also made a cameo apperance … a hilarious little cameo at that. The show was fantastic. The shownotes and audio are available here.

As soon as the show wrapped up (and the final hits of Jeremiah Weed were downed), I headed out to get my family settled in. After having been without my wife and boys for a week, even Skype video just wasn’t enough. I drove them around the field in a golf cart for a bit to see the airplanes on the field. Then we headed over to the outdoor theater to see Will and Rico present “A Pilot’s Story“. Nick Spark, a previous guest on the podcast, was also there to present his film “The Legend of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bottom Riding Club“.

The evening was wrapped up with a group excursion to Outback Steakhouse for some grub and good times. Yes, this is what Sun ‘n Fun is all about. It’s about the people, the friendships old and new, the stories, hangar-flying, and the ocassional tall tale about the time I flew the F-16 at mach 2.2 with my hair on fire.

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It’s Sunday night. Eh, check that: it’s a little after 1am on Monday morning. Frankly, I’m tired.

One of my friends Tweeted me today. She said, “I’ll bet you are living on 6 hours of sleep and loving it.” She couldn’t be more correct. Last year at Sun ‘n Fun I learned early on that I sleep like a baby at night after a long day here. I suspect that I’ll be fast asleep before this laptop shuts itself off after I post this entry.

I arrived at the radio station shortly after seven o’clock this, well, Sunday morning. I certainly have my work cut out for me here. Lots of computers to set up to stream audio to the Internet, editing audio to be aired, and serve up files and Internet connectivity for both. The place is a mess. We will be ready when its time to go on the air at 9am Tuesday, but all of us volunteering at the radio station need to be on our A-game. After struggling with several computers today, I’m a bit further behind than I’d hoped to be.

Today I also drove around the grounds to set up check-in spots for many of the major areas on @Foursquare and @Gowalla. I probably need to do more, but it’s a really good start. I’ll generate a list of those that I have created when I have more brain cells left.

At the end of the day, Dave Shallbetter made the first of probably many toasts that we will have this week. This particular toast was to “friends lost”.

’nuff said.

On a side note, thanks to our friends at Skype and the wonderful technology behind webcams, I’ve been able to have several face-to-face chats with my family back home. There just isn’t a much better way to stay in touch when distance separates.

Tomorrow I plan to report to the station around the same time to get things going. Then I have to take a short flight over to the Piper plant in Vero Beach, take care of some paperwork, and fly back. I hope to be back by 11am, but I have a feeling it’ll be closer to noon. That’s okay, it just means I have to really stay on task to get the rest of my stuff in order for the start of the live broadcast.

And with that, I’m going to his the sack for a few short hours of sleep.

P.S. It may not sound like it, but as expected, I’m having a blast here at Sun ‘n Fun. I hope you are able to make it to KLAL!

Are you going to Sun ‘n Fun next week? What are you looking forward to at this year’s event?

As most of  you know, I will be spending next week at the 36th Annual Sun ‘n Fun Fly-In. Last year I volunteered at Sun ‘n Fun Radio, the AM radio station located on the field. I had such a great time with it last year that I have decided to come back again - as Editor-In-Chief.

There is a lot to look forward to at this year’s event. One of the most exciting things for me this year is Sun ‘n Fun Radio will be streamed live over the internet thanks to our friends at LiveATC.net! Not only will you be able to listen to various air traffic control frequencies during the event, but you will also be able to listen to the radio station. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can listen in from virtually anywhere.

If you didn’t already know, the U. S. Air Force Thunderbirds are returning this year! The F-16 Fighting Falcon (a.k.a. the Viper) has long been my favorite airplane. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I can watch a single F-16 turn jet fuel into noise every day of the week and not get tired of it. Now, take six of them, fly them wingtip to wingtip, and perform aerobatics at 300 knots. Get some, baby!

Last year, my cohost for The Pilot’s Flight PodLog and I appeared on Sun ‘n Fun Radio for a full-length episode of the podcast. It was one of our best episodes ever. This year, we will be doing the same! After the daily airshow on Saturday (which should be awesome after the Thunderbirds demonstration), Will and I will do a episode of our podcast live on Sun ‘n Fun Radio. Come hang out at the station or listen live on the internet. If you can’t do either, the show will be edited for the podcast feed like always.

Also this year, some of us are hoping to implement some location-based social networking tools at the event. We are not sure what color this will all take on, but at the very least, you should be able to use Foursquare or Gowalla to check in at various places as you move around the convention grounds.

On Friday night after the airshow, myTransponder will be hosting a new media meetup. We don’t know all of the specifics on this yet. However, we will be making some final decisions on a venue soon, so stay tuned. The meetup last year at Sun ‘n Fun was awesome, and the meetup at Oshkosh was even better. I’m really excited about the myT meetup this year.

Will and Rico of WilCo Films will be talking about their movie “A Pilot’s Story“. I believe that is happening on Saturday after Will and I do our podcast.

I will probably be doing QuickCasts, hopefully every day, to keep you all up-to-date on what is happening. And I plan to drink plenty of Leinenkugel’s Berry Weiss with my friends as things wind down in the evenings.

So back to my initial questions:

1. Are you going to Sun ‘n Fun this year? If so, what day(s) will you be there?

2. What are you looking forward to at Sun ‘n Fun this year?

Please leave me a comment below. Maybe there is something I don’t know about that I simply can’t miss (like the book swap at Oshkosh last year – still kicking myself for that). And make sure we get together for a little hangar-flying sometime during the event!

Oh, and Leinies. Yes … mmmm … Leinies.