Carbon Monoxide!?

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Weird. The smoke alarm went off, not incredibly odd when I am using the fireplace, but it wasn't the smoke detector. It was the CO alarm. I was totally surprised. It had never gone off as long as I have had one, over many many years. Yep, after resetting it a few times. It was getting a reading over 200 ppm CO. When I took it downstairs I got a reading near 300 ppm. I started getting light headed at this point. After thinking maybe the furnace heat exchanger failed and puzzling around a bit I figured out what happened. As part of the huge winter storm that recently covered almost half of the US, we lost our electricity. So, being well prepared, I rolled out the generator and started doing what I normally do. The generator (although it was completely outside) was creating CO to get in the house. Using the fireplace draft (and possibly other leaks) the whole house created a vacuum around the seal of the basement garage door. After the CO got into the house the forced air heat...
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It was an aviation weekend. I spent a bunch of money (Ahh.. I mean time.. Hpmt..) in the air. Here is one of the flights shown mapped out on the chart. Cory and I went down to a 2400 foot grass strip skirting around and under the class bravo airspace of the world's busiest airport. It was a bit of an oxymoron. Navigating some of the worlds most complex airspace to land and have lunch at a primitive airport with a nice country restaurant/aviation museum. Loads of fun. I had blinders on most the time for simulated instrument time. It was bumpy and hazy. It was also 108 degrees F out. Needless to say, climb performance and comfort were issues. It "aint" much cooler 5000 ft in the air. The hazy picture shows what "home" looks like. It is (LZU) Gwinnett County Airport from the South on about a 1.5 mile left base for runway 25, although you can't quite see the airport off to the left.) It is refreshing to get a "good" look at things when the blinders come off. Reality is a lot different than what the instruments and charts say.










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