We drove up to Oshkosh on Tuesday morning. The plan was to spend all day Tuesday and Wednesday, hit the Velocity Cookout Wednesday night and head home on Thursday morning. As is usually the case, I spent most of the time talking with vendors and checking out the latest products. I did attend a very interesting seminar on electronic circuit breakers from Vertical Power. Then we checked into our hotel and had dinner in a local Fond Du Lac restaurant.
Wednesday the rain started. We hung out in the hotel until about 10am waiting for the weather to clear. Ann was feeling a bit under the weather so I struck out on my own with my poncho and backpack. The flymart was almost deserted so I made good time picking up tools and other supplies. Then I hit the vendor hangars and got some spark plugs and oil filters (for the Cessna). Then I talked with Carlos and Grand Rapids (I’m using their displays) and Marc at Vertical Power. I checked out a couple other vendors and then headed back to the hotel to see if Ann was feeling up to the cookout.
She was feeling better, so around 5pm, we headed back to Osh.
We were able to sneak our car into the camping area (because who’s going IN at 5pm?) which was a good thing because it was a mess!
The turnout this year was huge. BTW, all of these pictures are from Brett Ferrell. He maintains an unofficial Velocity (www.velocityxl.com) website and his wife, Elizabeth took bunches of pictures.
Me (right) and Scott Baker (in green). Scott used to manage Velocity. Now he’s doing builder assist work (like Malcolm).
Andy Millin. The cookout is his baby. He cooks the brats and burgers every year.
Albert (in brown on the left), Ann and me.
Albert’s wife Bree and Ann helping out.
There’s this… thing. A pose, really, called “Eagle One” where you stand with your hands on your hips and look off into the sky. I don’t know who started it. This is my first attempt.
Me (left) and Ken Baker. I think this is after Ken won the “most brats eaten” award for the 8th year in a row.
Ken used to work at Velocity with his father (Scott) but now he’s working at Mecca. That’s what I call Scaled Composites. The company Burt Rutan started that’s currently building (amoung other things) Spaceship Two for Virgin Glactic.
We stayed until it started getting dark and then we left. The party goes on much later, but Ann still wasn’t 100%. Getting out was exciting. We almost got bogged down a couple of times trying to get out. Once we got back to the hotel, we looked at each other and said “let’s go”. So we packed up and drove home that night. On the way home, Just north of Milwaukee, I drove through the worst rain storm I have ever seen. Most cars were stopped on the side of the road. A couple simple stopped where they were. With a diesel engine under the hood and Rainx on the windshield, we just kept on going (albeit at a reduced speed). Got home around midnight and slept in our own bed. 🙂