It's been a year or so, but this is just so awesome that I have to write about it:  A friend of mine was getting his helicopter pilots' license here in the Los Angeles area and staying with us for a while with his wife and child.  He got the idea to take me up in his helicopter, fly it here to our house and land it in our horse arena.  Of course I said, "yes", so we had our two boys stay home from school while my friend and I drove to Van Nuys Airport, jumped into his helicopter and flew it back to my house and LANDED IN THE HORSE ARENA.  IT WAS BLOODY BRILLIANT.  A few days later he took his wife for the same wild ride.  Right after they took off and flew away, a cop came and said that our neighbors were complaining that we were getting dirt into their swimming pool.  Then he said that if he had a horse arena in his back yard, he would land a helicopter in it too but could we please not do it again.  I filmed everything...I should put it on youtube.