Marks Odd Job

I've always thought that Mark's job was fascinating, exciting and at times, a little dangerous. He fixes, rebuilds, maintains and even drives (not flies) airplanes. Yeah. I'm a little proud of him. I love hearing stories about his day and make a point to remember terms and names of tools and processes so that he and I can have a-somewhat-intelligent conversation after work. But, in the last year or two he's let me in on a few of his projects by taking videos or snapping pictures while he works. 

It's crazy the things they have to do to get to small, awkward places. 

This is a still from a video Mark made for me. It's him working under the rudder pedals. Yes. He's upside down. His head sort of has to slide in and under the pedals. There's just barely enough room. Not the ideal job for someone claustrophobic. Oh, and this particular job can take an hour or two. 

This incident happened while a newbie was supposed to be manning the brakes while Mark gave the plane nearly full throttle (that's a LOT of power). 

Apparently the brakes were not properly depressed, because the plane lunged forward. The greenhorn quickly corrected the mistake by standing on the brakes. 

Mark then noticed that people were starting to come out of a nearby hanger 

to take pictures of the plane. This is what they captured. 

Wild huh! They couldn't have done that for a million dollars. 

All of the craziness makes me even more thankful that he works so hard to provide for our family, day after day.