Dima’s Corner

It was the Bastille Day Regatta weekend. It is an annual event at the University of Iowa sailing club where old and new member get together and have some fun on and off the lake. We started out with a race consisting of a couple dozen of MC Scows, FJs, and Lasers. It was my first time sailing a Laser and it was pretty fun. A Laser is the smallest one person boat that we have and therefore it is very sensitive and is very easy to capsize. It was not easy, but I was able to stay afloat and even came in in the middle of the pack during one of the races.

Lots of good times this weekend. First, Gabe’s birthday was earlier in the week so we met up for some BBQ and then hit up the Piano Lounge for some drinks and laughs. Then on Saturday morning we drove up to Waterloo to pick some fresh strawberries at the Heartland Farms and then joined more people at the Lost Island water park. The weather looked iffy with possible storms in the afternoon so there were not that many people and it was great - warm weather, no sunburns, and no lines for any of the slides. Much better than our Aquatica experience the week before. To finish it off, we went to lake MacBride on Sunday to grill out and hang out at the beach.

On Saturday I got a tour of our Cedar Rapids air traffic control tower and it was pretty neat. It was a solid IFR day with ceilings at 600 so the only traffic in the area were the regional jets coming and and out. The controllers were not busy and were happy to show us around, demonstrate how the equipment works (or does not…), and we just had a good time overall. Interestingly, they are still using the old (very old) ARTS stations in TRACON. Brrrr…

Then on Sunday we got together with all bunch of people to play some paintball. We had twenty people show up so mostly we just played 10 vs 10 and it worked out pretty good with almost everyone using the rental guns keeping the game fair. We played the maze and the city courses, three times each, before joining other teams for capture the flag game at the fort. We won both of the games and then we played on the battlefield with a medic. That did not work out that well since our medic decided he did not want protection and as a result got taken out fairly quickly.