Oh so that's who in those little planes flying over the beach

Had a fairly fast paced weekend. Started off with a gathering of grad students from Susanna's lab Friday night.

Then Saturday Susanna and I went to Zach's birthday party. Spent a lot of time helping kids put on skates and such. But still had a good time. Happy Birthday Zach! It was actually quite a party with several rounds of food, a little gymnastics course, little model planes, a climbing wall and rollerblading instructions.

Saturday night met some UCSB physics grad students Susanna knows.

Sunday went with Susanna and a Post Doc in her lab who knows how to fly small airplanes to the Santa Barbara airport where we got in a tiny plane that seats 3 people and took off. There are controls for two people and after he handled the take off, he standing handing the controls over to us. We circled around one of the islands and then landed in the Oxnard airport so Susanna and I could switch seats and then flew over the beach and found our house and then took it back into the Santa Barbara Airport. It was a cool experience. It wasn't really scary, but after doing a few rocking the plane back and forth maneuvers to get a feel for steering I realized I probably wouldn't be looking to make it a regular event.