First Chance to Fly!

This weekend one of my coworkers who’s a private pilot instructor invited me to go flying with him in a single engine aircraft.  We met up at Kissimmee Airport around 8am, where Brian showed me the facility as well as the plane and how to go over the check list before flight.  He wanted to see a testing facility that Mercury had, and I wanted to see UCF from the air, so that was our flight plan.  Total flight time was around 1hr 15minutes.

Gaylord Palms – ICE! Orlando, FL

Tonight we went to Gayord Palms for their annual ICE! exhibit in Orlando, FL with Kaitlin, my roommate, and his gf  for .  The experience starts with a short video clip about how they bring in ice sculpting artists from china who are passionate about their work, the massive refrigeration units, and numerous tons of ice to be sculpted.  After that, there is a short video clip about Shrek, since the sculptures are based on the Shrek Christmas.  After watching the videos, you get parkas, which are necessary as the ICE! exhibit is less than 20 degrees inside.  I didn’t bring gloves, but I would highly recommend them.

New York City With The Parents

This weekend we decided to head to NYC.  After my parents drove down to Orlando, we got them in the inflight simulator as well as flight simulator.  The inflight simulator demonstrates the safety equipment on the Airbus A320, and does limited motion, such as a failed take off or a water landing.  The flight simulator is a CAE flight simulator for the Airbus A320, which does full motion and graphics.

Because of the flight loads to JFK, I had to send my parents to New York’s JFK airport on an earlier flight, and then Kaitlin and I would follow on the 3pm flight to LGA, as flight loads were lower to that airport.  Once we got there, we took the express bus to Penn Station and then walked to our hotel where my parents were waiting.   Since it was late, we walked to grab dinner and my parents went back to the room.  Kaitlin and I walked around times square and 5th Ave to take photos of all the amazing Christmas decorations this time of year.

The following morning we ate breakfast at a local cafe, and then my parents went to a museum while Kaitlin and I took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.  The ferry wait was almost an hour, and it was freezing!  We took lots of photos, and after we were each done, we met up for dinner and more walking around times square.  This time we went to the Rockefeller Christmas Tree.  We wanted to ice skate, but the line was so long there was just no way that was going to happen.