[vash]

i gotta eat my words. eat them my dry flavorless words. my wife hit it out of the ball-park with her last Christmas gift. she gave me an "experience" that i wont soon forget. she got me a first timer flying lesson.

yesterday was a cloudless day. i showed up at a company trying to hook people into flying. hahah.

we messed around with a flight simulator. thanks to years of video games, i didnt suck. but it wasnt exciting. i had no idea what to expect, but i didnt expect them to lead us to a plane. my wife nervously forced me to go first. SURE!

i strapped into the pilot seat and we did some checking of things. clueless here. well, it ended with me starting the tiny plane. my wife was in the backseat. i taxied it down the runway. very car-like when we checked runway intersections...all clear, the tower gave us the all clear to line up. i got the foot pedals down immediately. braaaapppp! i lined up and applied the brakes. then the pilot said horrific words, "take it up cliff!" WTF?..i throttled up and when i got to speed, i pulled back on the stick..the plane took off...and i took off with it.. it was stunning. i headed down past I 880, and buzzed over Oakland. over the stadium. past the bay bridge. i've worked on the bridge but have never seen it from 1500 feet. he told me to head out over the golden gate..braaap!!! the tower asked us to drop down to 1000, and i did, and flew over the GGB!! hahahhaha..i was giddy. we flew about for a few hours and i took it back. i had the runway to my right and he said to bank right and line it up...i kid you not..i landed that thing. i was sweating bullets. he assisted me i'm sure, but i am not sure he did that much. i taxied it to our parking spot without cusinarting anybody's property with my prop.

you pilots are a steeley bunch..large stones. it was very very fun. my wife got kinda sick and postponed her flight until today. she did well too.

it was the crazyiest thing i have done in a long time.