How’s your morning going?
Oops. I feel like a complete Homer Simpson. The past 24 hours has been one big screw-up. Nick went out a couple days ago and bought a very expensive nice R/C (that’s radio-controlled to you folks who like me until 2 days ago weren’t familiar with the term) helicopter – a Walkera Dragonfly HM040 – to fly with the kids. He spent a ton of time over the past day studying the manual, going back to the store to return a defective charger for a new one, and preparing for its first launch. Dreams of reaching 500 feet above the earth. Possible “Earth From Space” Photographs….
Its first “real” launch is planned for outside in the spring. We are in the middle of a deep freeze now here in Chicago – it is currently a “balmy” zero degrees Fahrenheit with 25+ mile an hour winds makes it feel like about 20 below! Until spring, we are relegated to trying to figure out how to use this thing indoors.
Last night was my turn to study the manual, and launch the Walkera for my first time. It looked like a snap to figure out – a piece of cake to fly. I studied the manual for a good 12 hours hour until I felt confident enough to operate the throttle. I tapped the throttle button slightly upward and…..WHOA!!!!! Sh**! (Those who know me know that I don’t often swear, but once in a while a situation happens that deserves a swear word…)
Oops-si-daisy. Look what I did:
Just so you know, it is supposed to look like this (or at least it did when my husband flew it! 
):
and this
And after Nick landed it, safe and sound, it looked like this:
What a difference! Not sure why I can’t get it to look like that when I fly it… Hmmmm. What do they call this thing again? Did I hear someone say “HELL-O-COPTER” ?!?
Nick was very good about the whole thing. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even let on that he was upset until my second “Homer Simpson” of the day. What I call our “defective alarm clock”. After a series of getting up at the crack of dawn for days on end, going out in the bitter cold and going to work, after spending weekends fixing things the kids and I have broke, Nick had to get up this a.m. at the brutal time of4:30 a.m. – by mistake. Yep, I accidentally pressed the wrong button when setting the alarm clock, folks, and instead of setting the alarm to the right time, I set the clock one hour ahead.
This, my friends, could
only
happen
to…
ME.
Unfortunately, I tend to have a track record for disaster. I’m a little on the clumsy, err accident/mistaken-ridden, side. I try very hard for success, but somehow I tend to sorta’ come up short. (Thank goodness this rarely applies to me taking care of the kids! That’s one thing I do almost flawlessly!)
Anyway, getting back to the alarm clock story… Nick, my good natured husband that he is, took this in stride (for the most part!), and emphasized the positive aspect of getting to do an hour of work in our warm, cozy house – when all was quiet.
What a guy.
Have a good day.
