Do my pre-flight when I get home Friday night, my ID has expired. Suddenly realized I needed new ID to fly and I need to cast an absentee ballot to vote. I’m sure they’d take an expired drivers license as ID for a vote, but doubted TSA would do so for something as important as a flight. They have standards.

The DMV in Sioux Falls was open at 8am, I was number 2 in the line. $8 for another five years of the governor’s permission to operate, out the door as soon as the obligatory crappy photo was embossed. Not so bad, I don’t look exactly like the Son Of Sam this time.

Call the travel agency, no answer. Stop by the airport to explain my fate, discover there is no reservation because travel agency sends me the request for confirmation at 5pm EST on Friday and goes home for the weekend, never processing that e-mail saying book it.

Cool. Adjust schedule, pay the same ticket price at the gate, e-mail travel agency saying cancel, all is roses in my world. I can spend Sunday with family.

Which, the Little Tricycle Motor took her first two sequential unassisted and unsupported steps that day. Let go of the couch, lurched a couple of times, managed to grab onto me before her internal gyro’s tumbled and stood there smiling like only angels can. Was it only a year ago I was typing these out from her hospital room and she had to occassionally be reminded to breathe? How fleeting these moments are…

At the courthouse at 8am Monday, out the door by 8:15 and off to the airport. Boring flight, which is sort of a good thing.

This morning a co-worker was grousing that if he stopped to vote on the way home he might be late for dinner.

whimper

Well, as the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but it’s almost impossible to drown the dumb SOB.

– Max

But before that, being nearly at the end of my vacation, I got to take my son flying. First time in a small aircraft for him, and the first of our three kids that I’ve had the pleasure of breaking the surly bonds, etc. (He’s only 25; I’m a bit slow off the mark.)

Flew over to Harris Ranch, near Lemoore NAS, and it was good. He turned out to be something of a white-knuckle flyer, but allowed as how he’d like to try it again some time; and there were some “neat stuff to see from the air”. The bumpy air wasn’t in the plan, but you take what you get.

All told, the day was pretty darn fine.

Tomorrow I can start the dark muttering.

A beautiful day, the family’s healthy, the winds are fair and though the nation’s course may veer, my plot is set.

Tomorrow comes.

That’s how I usually remember it, but this is a family oriented blog.