(no subject)

Had flight school yesterday! No video to show for it, alas. Instructor forgot to turn on the camera. Hopefully next time. For now I'm just glad that it went as well as it did, because I wasn't flying with my usual instructor, and I didn't want it to look like my usual guy wasn't doing a good job as a teacher.

It's always weird when I hear a female voice on the cockpit radio. Most of the pilots and all of the air traffic controllers in the Lawrence area are men. I know at least one of the ATCs at Logan is a woman, because I've listened on liveATC.net, but we've never gone anywhere near Logan's airspace. I don't know if similar conditions prevail at Manchester, which is around the same distance from Lawrence Municipal, but it wouldn't surprise me. I hear another woman's voice on the radio maybe one out of every five lessons, if that. Probably shouldn't be surprised. The FAA forms and medical certificates all refer to the person who wants to get into the cockpit as 'airman', regardless of what's been filled in or circled in the 'sex' blank; it's kind of a male-dominated field. As long as nobody gives me crap about getting my own license I'm fine with that, and nobody's given me crap so far.

I am aware that there are people who probably think I should kick up more of a stink. I find the terminology faintly amusing, to be honest. If the government wants to call me an airman, fine. The only part I give a damn about is the 'air' part. I suppose the reason they don't use 'pilot' instead is because 'airman' covers people who haven't tested for their licenses yet, and having to get a 'student pilot medical certificate' replaced with a 'licensed pilot medical certificate' every time someone goes from flight school to licensure is probably annoying or something. Hell if I know.

Anyway, the lesson went smoothly and with any luck I'll have video to show next time I fly, even if it's just flying patterns or autorotation practice.

(no subject)

First batch of honey-beeswax soap is currently wrapped in towels and cooling off in the microwave. Not because of anything special about the microwave- I just need to keep this stuff away from the cats and they haven't learned to work the latch yet. Had 8.5 ounces of coconut oil on hand instead of the 10 I thought; added a little more palm to compensate. End result may be slightly softer/milder than expected. Used two ounces of sweet orange essential oil and .25 ounce cedar oil as I could not find the clove when I did mise en place and didn't feel like waiting another day to go buy a bottle. The tablespoon of honey in the recipe is buckwheat honey.

I should be able to cut the bars tomorrow evening and set them up for curing in the closet. They should be safe to ship after a week or so. Ideally, soap should be allowed to cure for 4-6 weeks before using, but for the most part the soaps I've made have been A-OK for initial use after a week.

I'm gonna need addresses for people who want to test a bar of this stuff. Or a place to meet up with you if you wanna get dinner in the Boston area or something and have me hand over the soap on the spot.