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Helicopter Rides at Old Congress Days

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A great event for all.

It was a good day for all involved. Nice weather, calm winds, and a great little small-town event out in the desert.

Old Congress Days was sponsored by the Congress Senior Citizen’s Association. It was a revival of the old Old Congress Days event they used to have in Congress, AZ, annually. If you’re not familiar with Congress, it’s a small, unincorporated town on route 89 about 15 miles north of Wickenburg. If you drive from Wickenburg to Prescott, you’ll go right through it just before climbing the Weaver Mountains.

Congress was a mining community and the old Congress Mine is still being worked a little. But that’s not the big business in town. There are a few shops, including a restaurant, a market, and a dollar store, and a brand new gas station is coming soon. The Trading Post is a fixture on Route 89 and a number of other businesses have sprung up on both sides of the road just south of there. There’s also a great K-8 school (which invited me to do a helicopter demonstration a few years ago) and a relatively new post office. Homes range from single- and double-wide manufactured homes on lots up to 10 acres to stick-built homes in a brand new subdivision.

When I heard about the Congress Days event, I called one of the organizers, Jane Summers, and asked if I could participate by offering helicopter rides. She remembered me doing rides at Yarnell Days (another 9 miles up the road) a year and a half ago. We discussed arrangements and the local volunteer fire department very kindly allowed me to use their truly wonderful helipad. The helipad is used to airlift local emergencies down to Phoenix; no helicopter is based there, but one can get there within 25 minutes when needed. I had to be prepared to land elsewhere if the medevac helicopter was inbound. No problem. I’d already landed on the opposite side of the tracks a few times for visits to the Trading Post and was prepared to land in the lot behind the dollar store if I had to give them more space.

We arrived at about 9:30 AM on the day of the event. Across the street was the swap meet that was part of the event. I shut down and Mike and I took out the few supplies we’d brought along: a folding table, tickets, Helicopter Rides banners, a flag with a collapsable pole (we’d had two but the other pole broke at the Mohave County Fail last month). We put up the banners and set up the table, then went for a walk to check out the swap meet and watch the parade.

We ran into our friend Jeannie along the parade route and watched the parade with her niece and her niece’s 9 month old son. The boy looked cute in his cowboy hat. The parade had a few classic cars and lots of miniature animals: horses, burros, and mules. I don’t think think I’ve ever seen so many minis in one place. They were mostly pulling carts. The people in the carts looked very large, even though they really weren’t.

When the fire trucks came, marking the end of the parade, we walked back with them to the landing zone. Our ground crew, Darlene and Dave, arrived and introduced themselves. Darlene had answered an ad I put on wickenburg-az.com for ground crew. She and her husband turned out to be among the best helpers we’ve ever had. Darlene is a great salesperson and Dave understood the importance of safety and did a great job helping Mike load.

Flying M Air at Old Congress DaysLet me take a moment to describe this landing zone, since it’s the best one I ever had for an event. First of all, it’s a helipad. That means it’s laid out and designed specifically for helicopter traffic. It’s 60 x 60 feet and concrete. It’s surrounded by gravel, so there’s no dust. That’s surrounded by a 3-foot high chain link fence that has only two gates — both on the same side. The fence made crowd control very easy — no one gets through the fence unescorted. Beyond that is a parking lot that was blocked off, the firehouse (a one-story metal building with a wind sock on top), and a lot soon to be occupied by a longtime Wickenburg business that is moving from Wickenburg to Congress. Behind the helipad are some palo verde and mesquite trees — perhaps 10 feet tall and beyond them is the railroad tracks for the Santa Fe railroad. No wires near enough to matter. My approach was over some empty land east of the railroad tracks, then over the tracks and onto the pad. My departure was over the tracks and up some more empty land, then over the tracks again to start the tour. On the one time a train was moving through, I made a slow approach and landed behind the last car after it had passed. Everything — including its location — was perfect for the event.

The loading started almost immediately. We’d decided to go with $20 rides around Congress. We figured that the low price would make it affordable to everyone. Congress is not a big place so the ride took 5 to 7 minutes. And from 10:40 AM to 1:10 PM, I flew nonstop, with two or three passengers on each flight. Darlene sold the tickets (and took photos) and the people lined up along the outside of the fence. (It reminded me of my Papillon days, when the passengers for my next flight were often right on the other side of the fence when I landed, waiting to be loaded.) Every time I landed, the line seemed as long — if not longer — than it had when I took off. Mike kept telling me to make the rides shorter and I tried, but I wanted everyone to get the same experience. No one complained about the wait, which got up to 30 minutes at one point. Everyone was happy and friendly and genuinely excited to have a chance to fly over town. And I guess the price was right for them.

As for me, well, I love giving rides at events like these. It lets me introduce people to helicopter flight — after all, this was a first helicopter flight for more than half the people. I gave the kids helicopter toys with the Flying M Air logo on it. I even gave out a few to dad, since the toys are almost as popular with them as they are with the kids.

When the crowd thinned out, I gave Darlene and Dave the “deluxe” ride and Darlene took some more photos. A few more passengers waited while we were gone. I took them up while Mike paid Darlene and Dave for their time and they went on their way. We did a few more rides, then packed up and headed home. We landed at Wickenburg at 2:00 PM.

It was a great day for me and for Flying M Air. We figure we flew about 55 people that day. Many thanks to Jean and Virgil for making the day possible. I look forward to coming back next year!

Zen and the Art of Ikea Furniture Assembly

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I experience a Zen-like calm while assembling Scandinavian-designed shelves and cabinets.

Okay, so I’m exaggerating. But it certainly was pleasant — at least for a while.

Our storage shed at Howard Mesa was in desperate need of some shelves and mouse-proof cabinets.We needed the solution to be cheap.

In a fit of confusion, we’d gone to a Wal-Mart in Prescott and bought some crappy, Chinese-made modular shelves. Of course, we didn’t know they were crappy at the time. Although I hate Wal-Mart and hadn’t stepped foot inside one for more than two years, for some reason we thought we could find what we needed there. After all, Stan raves about the place. Maybe it had changed in two years. It hadn’t. (People say I’m too hard on Wal-Mart but I know I’m not.) And the “furniture” we bought was so poorly made that we brought back all the pieces we hadn’t assembled. We’re still trying to figure out what we’ll do with the three pieces we did put together.

Back to square one.

I was going to try Office Max when Mike suggested Ikea. There’s one down in Tempe, near Phoenix. I didn’t think they’d have what we wanted, but got online to check their catalog. That’s when I found the Träby series of cube-like shelves with optional doors and drawers. We went down to Ikea with the truck to see them in person. They were exactly what we were looking for. And — surprise, surprise — all the pieces we needed were in stock. I loaded up the cart, checked out, and loaded up the truck. Yesterday, at Howard Mesa, I began assembly.

If you’ve never assembled Ikea furniture, you really are missing out on an experience.

First, open the box in which the item’s pieces are packed. You’ll find the box completely filled in with furniture pieces, bag-wrapped hardware, and the minimum number of foam inserts. There’s no wasted space in that box. Since Träby had a natural wood finish, each piece was wrapped in clean, blank newsprint paper.

Now unwrap the hardware and sort it out. There will be pieces you’ve never seen before (unless you’ve assembled Ikea furniture in the past). You might want to sort out the furniture pieces, too. Each one will be slightly different and have tons of holes pre-drilled into it.

Open the instruction booklet. The whole thing is pictures. Line drawings of furniture pieces and hardware with arrows and numbers. In fact, it looks a lot like a coloring book before a kid has gotten to it with crayons. My favorite picture is the one of the man with the pointy nose on the phone; they phone wire is connected to the Ikea store. In words: Call us if you need help.

Next, get your tools ready. You’ll need a philips head screwdriver. That’s it. Okay, sometimes you might need a hammer, but if you do, the hammering job is so light that you can use the heel of your shoe or the handle of the screwdriver.

Now sit on the floor with everything around you. And follow the numbered pictures in the instruction booklet. You’ll screw in weird, tall screws that stick up an inch or more, then stand a panel on top of them and use round do-dads to hold it in place. It’ll be rock solid when you turn the round thing, as if there are ten more screws doing the job. Back panels slide into slots and are held in place with other slots.

What’s amazing about the assembly process is that everything is so incredibly well designed that the pieces can only go together one way. When you’re finished assembling a piece, you feel as if you have performed the final function in a long string of tasks that bring that piece of furniture into existence. You feel as if you’re part of the Ikea team. Like there are a bunch of Europeans nodding their approval at you from across the ocean.

I say Europeans because Ikea is a Scandinavian company and the Träby shelves I bought were made in Poland. The workmanship was quite impressive for such inexpensive furniture. And everything is designed right down to the last screw hole.

The cabinet doors went on just as easily. The only hard part was bending my body in such a way to get the screws into the right pre-drilled holes. The hinges had all kinds of adjustment screws, but I found that if I just used the center setting for each screw, the door hung properly — the first time, every time. Sheesh.

Things changed when it came time to do the drawers. I’d bought two sets of them. Each set had a big drawer and a small drawer. When I opened the box, I got a shock: the drawer insides were lavender. You know. The color. Popular around Easter.

I followed the instructions to assemble the drawers and found that the pieces fit together admirably well. But I hit a snag when I screwed the roller tracks into the cubes I’d already assembled. I kept stripping the screw heads before I could get the screw all the way in.

Now this was weird. I’d been screwing things in all afternoon and hadn’t changed my technique. I hadn’t stripped a single screw up until that point. Now I was stripping the heads on every single screw, unable to get them all the way in. What had changed?

I looked at the box the drawers had come in and saw my answer: Made in China. I guess Poland wasn’t cheap enough for the folks at Ikea headquarters. They’d outsourced to China, like everyone else. The Europeans who’d been nodding their approval were now snickering at me.

I got fed up and stopped only halfway finished with the job. I’ll need Mike to get two of the screws out so I can try again with a fresh set. I’ll go to the hardware store today and buy new screws. Hopefully, they won’t be made in China. Or, if they are, they’ll be made with slightly better quality metal.

Lessons to be learned here? Cheap is cheap for a reason. Even Ikea outsources to China. The best-designed furniture can still be rendered useless by poor-quality hardware.

Today I’ll put together the last shelf cube. With luck, I’ll get that same feeling I had yesterday at the end of all my successful assemblies. But when I feel those Europeans nodding their approval, I’ll ignore them.

As for the Träby shelves and cabinets — they look great and are rock solid.

[posted with ecto]

Ikea, furniture, Poland, China

Chopsticks

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Use ’em or lose ’em.

The area we lived in in New Jersey had a huge Asian population — and that means lots of good Asian restaurants: Chinese, Japanese, Korean — they were all within 10 miles of our home. In those days, we ate out several times a week and would usually hit one Asian restaurant a week.

I got very good at eating with chopsticks. I’d learned way back when, in Boston on a trip with my friend and her father. We were sixteen and her father was there on business. We stayed in a suite near the Prudential building and would wander around the city while her father was at work. One night, he took us to dinner at Benihana. That’s the touristy teppanyaki steakhouse chain. They handed chopsticks all around the table, but by the end of the meal, I was the only one still using them. Even back then I realized that you couldn’t learn something without trying.

Through the years, I got lots of practice. Whenever I went to a restaurant with a fork and a pair of chopsticks, I’d use the chopsticks. This was good, because sometimes I’d go to a restaurant where the fork was missing. Like when I worked for the New York City Comptroller’s Office right after graduating from college. My partner was Chinese, originally from Hong Kong, and on payday, we’d go to Chinatown for lunch. Lucille (my partner) didn’t go to the Chinese restaurants where the tourists went. She went where the Chinese people went. I was usually the only non-Asian in the restaurant. She’d order food and I’d eat it. Sometimes, she didn’t tell me what I was eating until after I’d had some, afraid that I wouldn’t try it if I knew what it was. But I’ll try just about anything once. She brought pigeon for lunch one day and I even tried some of that. I didn’t eat the head or the feet, both of which were still attached. I do recall asking later if it was a local pigeon — New York has lots of pigeons. It wasn’t.

Lucille used to say that every time you try something new, you add an extra day to your life. It’s something that has stuck with me since those days long ago.

Now I live in Wickenburg and chopsticks are difficult — if not downright impossible — to find. And on the rare occasion when I do eat in an Asian restaurant — usually on trips down to Phoenix or up to Prescott or out to San Francisco or New York — I’ve discovered that my chopstick skills have deteriorated. I need more practice.

I got some the other day at the Kona Grill in Scottsdale. I’d gone “down the hill” on some errands: buy food for Alex the Bird, see a lawyer, visit a jeweler, and see a doctor. Mike had some birthday gifts to exchange and the Scottsdale Fashion Center mall had all the stores he needed to hit. So we met there when I was done with my errands. By that time, I was starved — I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Our first stop was the Kona Grill.

Understand that I’m not a big fan of chain restaurants. They tend to deliver mediocrity. This is especially apparent in the low-end restaurants — the ones where you can get a meal for under $10. I truly believe that places like Country Kitchen, for example, serve prepared foods that they heat up when you order it. Food that was prepared in some big factory and quick frozen or vacuum-packed before being shipped to the local restaurant.

Kona Grill is a chain, but it’s one that we’ll eat in. So are P.F. Chang’s, Macaroni Grill, and Outback Steakhouse. The trouble is, all the new restaurants going up are part of a chain. There are so few independent restaurants. When you find a good one (which is not easy in a place likek Phoenix), you should eat there regularly, just to preserve it. Someday soon, there won’t be any independents left.

We arrived at Kona Grill at happy hour. Mike and I aren’t big drinkers, but the happy hour menu did include half-price selected appetizers, pizzas, and sushi. So we settled at a high-top in the bar, ordered some appetizers and sushi and token drinks, and prepared for a feeding frenzy.

They gave us chopsticks, probably because we ordered sushi. Now I’ve never been to Japan, but my understanding is that in Japan, sushi is “finger food.” That is, you eat it with your hands. (If you’ve been to Japan or live in Japan now and can set me straight on this, please do use the comments link — I’m genuinely curious.) I usually use chopsticks — mostly to get practice — but I’ll use my fingers when I eat big sushi — you know, like futomaki — that you can’t stuff into your mouth at one go. I’ve found that my chopstick skills are no longer sufficient to hold together half a piece of sushi after I’ve bitten into it. (It could also be the sushi chef’s rolling skills.)

Anyway, we enjoyed a good, cheap meal and got our chopstick practice. We also got a chance to walk around a big mall that wasn’t crowded with 15-year-old, tattooed kids on cell phones.

Next week, I’ll be in Mountain View, CA with my editor, Megg. She’s already asked what kind of food I like so she can buy me dinner on the publisher. I’m hoping to get some more chopstick practice then.

Stupid Girls

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Some reading material for those who care.

A while back, I wrote a quick blog entry about a girl sitting next to me on a flight to New York. In it, I marvelled at her apparent lack of intelligence and willingness to spend most of the flight “sucking face” with her pimply companion.

I just read an article on Salon.com that put this in perspective. It’s called “Return of the Brainless Hussies” by Rebecca Traister and it discusses, among other things, that there simply aren’t any good role models for today’s girls. Celebrities like Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, and the Olsen twins are teaching young girls that it’s cool and sexy to be dumb.

The article also references a recent video called “Stupid Girls” by someone named Pink. I’d heard of Pink, but had no idea who she was — or in fact that she was a she rather than a he or a they. (I really don’t keep up with this stuff. My music tastes are permanently stuck in the 70s and 80s.) The song mourns the rise of stupid girls and the video mocks the celebrity examples out there. It’s a sad commentary, but one I’m glad is out there. Maybe someone will learn something from it.

Or maybe not. Today’s youth is too caught up in celebrity activities, fashion, and consumption. Ms. Traister’s article is a nice, objectively written piece that brings things into perspective. If you’re a parent of one or more young girls, read it and learn.

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed

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A memoir by Alan Alda.

Never Have Your Dog StuffedLately I’ve been floundering around, looking for something new and interesting to read. I heard an interview with Alan Alda on NPR a few months back. He talked about his book, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed. It sounded like something I’d enjoy, so I picked up a copy.

The book was interesting, full of stories from his childhood and his attempts to get started as an actor. His mother was mentally ill and her illness worsened as she aged. His father, Robert Alda, was an actor with humble beginnings in Vaudeville. Alda discusses his relationships with his parents throughout the book.

In reading the book, I learned that M*A*S*H was Alda’s big acting break. Although he’d appeared in a number of theater productions all over the country and a few movies, none of them had given him the boost that he needed to become a well-established actor. M*A*S*H did that for him. It also apparently helped him hone his acting skills so he could perform better and portray his characters more realistically.

If I had to rate the book on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, I’d give the book a 3. While it was interesting, it wasn’t the “couldn’t put it down” kind of book I really like to read. In fact, I read it over the course of a few weeks, with 20 or so pages a night before going to sleep.

But if you like to read about actors and other celebrities and have an interest in Alda or his M*A*S*H character, pick up a copy and give it a try. You’re likely to enjoy it more than I did.