Start early and stay late. That is necessary to do any flight instruction in the weather we have experienced this past week. During the snowstorm, and the high winds on the backside of the low, the airport was a ghost town. The winds whistled through the planes parked on the ramp. Blowing snow reduced visibility to a quarter-mile.

It is a new year. 2009 and the decade of the “aughts” are gone.

It is Friday afternoon, the end of the work week — time for my commute from Columbia to Boonville. Time to turn on some music in the car and shake off the pressures of the office. Time to take off the mask of smiles and pleasantries I must wear in my professional life. Time to go home, where I can be myself, grouchy and irascible.

Winter has come to mid-Missouri.

Janice Bradshaw has done it again.  On Monday night at Thespian Hall, she engineered the annual community Christmas concert, and it was a rousing success.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has changed its winter forecast.

It was custom for a state governor to make a public proclamation of thanks.

The concept of a think tank may seem very contemporary. But behind it are ideas and practices extending back to Bible times.

Whether flying is an avocation or a vocation, many pilots will tell you that their greatest worry is losing their medical certification.

The near perfect weather this past week brought a flurry of aviation activity to the Jesse Viertel Memorial Airport.  In addition to a number of instructional flights, the transient activity picked up.

For  a little extra proof of the  context accuracy of the Bible, look a the historical accounts of war, and especially war equipment.  The soldiers had to be supplied.   Those supplies --and even the raw materials -- were very well known.

We completed a few flights this past week between weather systems. I did instrument training and was able to get into the clouds with my customers.

It is a poor burn that  makes for a fairly good light from those simple wick lamps, sometimes still used now.

I have been preparing for an upcoming ground school by studying aviation accident reports. I am looking at the trends.

Sad, but probably true — evidence suggests that ethnic prejudice, in part, contributed to motivation that sent Christopher Columbus on his famous voyage.