Drone demo for my dad

Yesterday was a beautiful day outside!  It was 80º F with sunshine and no wind!  Perfect conditions to fly my drone in!  My truck was in need of an oil change, so I stopped in the next town on my way out to see my folks to get that done.  It’s going to be $110 for a key plus a programming fee for a new key if a shim kit doesn’t work for my old one!  Holy cow!!!  We’ll hope the shim kit works!!!  Anyway, I got the oil change done and was back on my way out to my parents’ house in an hour.  When I arrived, I saw my dad reading on the front step in the sunshine, which he’s looked forward to so much over the past few months.  Pop gets depressed in the winter with all the cold and dreary weather.  I get the same way when it lingers on like it has this year.

I told Pop that I’d brought my drone out to show him.  He seemed interested, so I got it out, put the propeller protectors on in front of him, put the battery in, and told him I was on my way out to the extra lot to calibrate it before I flew it.  I calibrated it fairly quickly, setting all the parameters for distance and height very close and low, respectively, so that I didn’t accidentally wreck it while I was demonstrating it for my dad.  I yelled to him that I was ready and he must’ve been waiting, because he ambled right over, whereas normally he would never have heard me because his hearing’s so bad.  He leaned against the white Chevy truck and waited.  I made the drone take off and hover.  “Wow, that really moves a lot of air, huh?!”  Yep!  I flew it around a little bit for him and filmed him while I was doing it (he hates being photographed).  I told him to wave at it because it was recording him and he said, “Have it go film this kids over there!” and pointed to the side.  It was funny, though, because he didn’t try to cover his face with his hand or his cap or anything like he normally does.  I finished the demo by hitting the “Home” icon on the screen of my smart phone and landing it almost exactly where it took off from.  I took it over to my dad and asked him if he wanted to hold it.  He smiled, chuckled a bit, and held it, petting it for effect.  He asked all kinds of questions about it when we’d gone back to sit down on the front step again so I could put it away.  I told him all about how high it could fly and how fast and how far, what the different modes were that I could operate it in, and about another one that I was looking at once I got good at this idiot-proof one that I got to learn with.  “How much does one of those normally run?”  I told him about the prices of the drones and got quite the reaction.  He thought them to be pretty expensive, and they are, but the prices have come down a lot.  “Lots of technology in there, huh?”  Yep.  Lot’s of cool stuff!  The drone demo was a success!!!  I told my dad about the awesome warranty you could buy that would go so far as to even replace the drone if you wrecked it bad enough.  He laughed.  It was good to see Dad happy.

Dad and I watched a movie called “Red” on TV with Bruce Willis and a bunch of my other favorite actors in it, then watched the first part of “Red 2” before I left.  Jerrold and my mom were out back shingling the garage roof and Jerrold was getting ready to pack it up for the day.  When I hugged Mom, she thanked me for bringing my drone out to show Dad.  I left just before Jerrold did.  After we both got back to the apartment, we went for an iced tea and I told Jerrold all about my drone demo for my dad.  It couldn’t have gone better!