Airshow 2010

We had a busy weekend the last couple of days.  We went to the Rockford Riverhawks baseball game Friday night.  Carpenter's Place, the non-profit that I am the Treasurer of, had a special evening at the ballpark.  The Riverhawks, who were playing the "T-Bones" from Kansas City (I love the names of minor league baseball teams!) took a 5-0 lead in the first inning.  Piece of cake game, no?  The T-Bone's pitcher settled down an held the Hawks scoreless the rest of the way while they took a 6-5 lead.  But in the bottom of the ninth, the Hawks came back to score two in the bottom of the ninth to win the game.  Everybody went home happy.   It was even bobble-head give-away night with the entertainment featuring (inflatable) sumo wrestling, a rubber chicken toss, and trivia giveaways.

Saturday we painted the ceiling in the garage.  We had a new floor poured for the garage and have been letting it cure.  Today, we finished the walls, Gemma sealed the new concrete floor, and we are about to put all the stuff back into the garage tomorrow.

But the highlight of the day was going to the annual airshow at the Rockford airport.  They had a bunch of planes on the ground that you could get up close to or even go or sit inside.  You can see some pictures of the show at my Picasa website.  On the ground there were helicopters, small fighters, some commercial aircraft, a B-52, a refueling tanker, a FedEx cargo plane, and a modified 747-400 super jumbo, The Dream Lifter.  This is the jet that Boeing uses to fly large parts (for example, cabin and wing assemblies) from Italy and Japan to the U.S. to build the new 787 passenger jet.  The tail section swings out to the side to load the parts, and it can hold the equivalent of  a 10-lane, 3-story bowling complex with room for a restaurant, or 80 Mini Cooper cars, or 40 million ping pong balls (the ping pong balls are for prospective.)  The flight demos featured conventional propeller driven aircraft (both single and bi-winged) along with military aircraft from the F-18 to the Warthog to the Harrier jet.  The featured flight team was the Air Force Thunderbirds, but it was so darn hot that we left before the took to the air.