Open House and Wichita Wakefest!

This weekend Desmond, Jen and I went to the Cessna open house, as well as the Wichita Wakefest. The open house is part of Cessna's 80th anniversary celebration, and was open to employee's and their families. Jen and Desmond went so they could see where I work. I went so I could see the areas of the plant that I would never otherwise see. The place is huge...giant hangars that house the assembly lines, completion areas and all the engineering and administrative offices. They had quite a bit of static displays. Sorry about the crappy photos, but they were taken with my phone because we had forgotten the proper camera.

The next photo gives an idea of how many people were there. Its taken as we were walking into the "food court" area...they had pretty good food.


Desmond was excited to get his favorite: plain hot dog. He likes to eat it by starting in the middle...seems kinda weird, and it draws a lot of looks, but as he is quick to point out, "There's no hot dog eatin' rules." True. And as if the photos couldn't get worse, in serving Desmond his hot dog, I managed to smudge the camera lens with frankfurter slime. Sorry.


After we ate we went to see my desk, and saw the assembly lines. No cameras allowed. But when we got back on the ramp some of the older radial-engine airplanes caught Desmond's eye.
On our way out we stopped for some complimentary ice cream. Jen stole an extra vanilla that she ate later...for shame.

Anyway, from there we drove over to the structural test center and then the fitness center, so that Jen and Desmond could see that stuff. The test center was also camera free, so there's no photos of the airplanes and airplane parts all set up in the fixtures, wired with sensors ready to be broken for the sake of safety. Its pretty cool.

The Wakefest was alright...maybe a bit of a let down. We went down there early in hopes of avoiding the rush, and to get a good spot to watch. Nothing started on time. I wanted to see the motorcycle and skateboarding expos which were intended to be a sort of side show to the wake boarding competition. We never did get to see the motocross bikes or the skateboarding, but we did get to see the street bikes. The bikes were loud and Desmond was frightened at first, but after a while he seemed to like them. I think he made the connection between the sound of the bikes and the "vrooom" sound that we make when we play with his cars and trucks. After seeing the motorcycles he kept making the "vrooom" sound.

It rained a little, we had some beer and BBQ, and eventually the competition started. The crowd was maybe around 1000 people.


Desmond got to feel out a motorcycle, but they wouldn't let him take it for a test ride...no faith.


And on the way out Desmond got to take a bounce in the inflatable castle jumpy thingy. A pretty good day.