Chill Monday

Nothing quite like being able to sleep-in on a Monday. Well, sleep-in as much as I could with Oggy once again waking me up to let me know that it was time for breakfast. It's okay though because even though I would like to sleep much longer he has the right idea. By getting me up and out of bed I get shxt done and do not waste the whole day snoozing. I would kick myself later for wasting a day off from work just laying around.

Dead Helicopter

So first thing this morning I made sure to make my coffee then go outside and get my batteries charged up for a few calm weather helicopter flights. About one minute into the first flight this big tree got in my way and I crashed my nano. From that point forward it would not take off at all due to a burned-out motor and a bent  feathering shaft - dammit.

Oh well stuff like this happens and luckily I have a lot of spare parts on hand. But guess what part I don't have? That's right the one thing that I do not have on hand is a spare motor. Well as of this afternoon I will have 2 spare motors.

Actually only 1 because I have to put 1 into the helicopter and that will still leave me with a spare. Let's hope at $11 each that this does not become a thing that I do all of the time. The feathering shaft is not too bad and only a few bucks and I have about two or three of those so no big deal.

Still I would rather not crash at all. That is the whole idea of the small helicopter any way is to get some of these quirks with the beginner flying out of the way. Had this been the 130x helicopter or a bigger helicopter like the other ones that I want to eventually fly it could've been over a $100 crash easy. Don't get me wrong it will happen for sure when I get into the bigger ones it's simply part of the hobby and learning process. Especially when you are learning to fly 3D. My goal is to have the hundred dollar plus crashes happen few and far between one another.

Credit Card Fraud

So in financial news I received a call today right around the time I was getting ready to put in the order for my helicopter parts that I was just talking about. The call was from my credit card company letting me know that they were closing my credit card account number due to fraudulent activity that they are concerned with.

What a pain in the ass, don't get me wrong the credit card company is actually on top of it and it's really cool that they offer this service and it's being handled so quickly and efficiently. The problem is that all of the things that I pay with auto-pay using this credit card will now have to be adjusted. No big deal really it's just that several are coming up soon.

This will translate into a little time on the computer getting into my accounts as well as a few phone calls and then it should be all taken care of. The more important ones anyway, the others will get fixed as I stumble across them.

The really cool thing about my credit card company is that because of the inconvenience that this will cause me (really not that that big of a deal at all - this was their words). Anyway that along with my excellent standing with them they asked if I like coffee? Strange? I said "yes" and they told me great! What we will do then is give you a credit on your account for $10. This way you can get some coffee and a snack to enjoy all on their dollar while calling companies and setting up new account numbers. Holy shxt I thought! That was friggin' awesome of them.

So all-in-all even though it's a bit of a pain, at least my card was not one that was compromised and it will be pretty painless to get everything set back up. It's actually a pretty cool thing that they do to protect you and your time. Sitting on the phone trying to figure out good and bad charges would suck had my card been compromised for tens of thousands of dollars. Thankfully I keep really good tabs on my purchases so we were able to go through them all really quickly and verify that they were all legit and yes in fact they were.

Weather

The weather today has been nuts! First thing this morning we were in the 80s and almost 90s until about 11 AM. Then we saw these dark heavy clouds start to roll-in over the mountains and down into the valley. Uh oh something is coming we thought!

Well we thought right because it has been raining, thundering, lightning, and hailing outside since about noon. We have even had a few emergency broadcast alerts to warn us about flash floods and that type of thing in the area.

There have been lots of sirens and such as well which makes me believe there have probably been a few accidents, possibly at the new four-way stop I talked about the other day, ugh.

Usually this time of year we get at least one of these storms now and again but not with a mix of everything like today. At least on the bright-side we are not at work today and can hang out and enjoy it. Cicely is actually running around doing a few errands so she is driving in it. But at least she does not have to be stuck at the office worrying about the fuzzy kid.

Lights Out

I think the last thunder boom that sounded like someone thumped the top of the roof with their finger is my cue to end my entry for today. I think I will sit back and listen to the falling rain for a little while and who knows it might throw me into a nap.

Plus to be perfectly honest I want to try to get all of my gadgets charged up just in case we lose power for a few hours. I know those in more storm ridden places of the US and beyond would laugh at that last sentence. But around here it seems if someone farts too close to an electrical line we lose power in the valley.

Photo: Can't really tell from the photo but we are getting pounded today with a crazy summer rain lightening and hail storm.