What's it doing now?

Aircraft on the descent. Left seat temperature in the climb.

  We have a six leg, two day trip to here, there and everywhere for some VIP types. We are crewed on a new to the company airplane that has been ornery as of late. The logbook seems to have more maintenance pages filled out on it than flights. Ahh, I'm sure it's fine.
  We are burning dinosaurs roaring down the runway:

Me 'Set power'
Cojo: 'Power set'
Cojo: 'eighty knots'
Me: 'check'
Cojo : 'V-1. Rotate'
Cojo: 'Positive rate'
Me 'Gear up'
Cojo: 'Gear's up. Attitudes check'

  It's at this point I notice something. Or at least I think I do. Did the gear handle's red In Transit light just flicker? Hey did it just do it again? I ask the first officer if he saw it. Uhh, no.
  OK, must be me.
  We level off and set up for a fairly short cruise segment. I brief the descent plan and the approach and request a lower altitude. We're cleared down and gently push forward on the control column when it happens again, but this time it's no flicker, it's a solid red light. There's no hiding it, and the passenger behind us comments to his coworker right away.
  Oh, did I mention the autopilot has been MEL'd too? No auto pilot, no yaw dampner. I've probably only logged maybe 10 hours in the last year with the auto pilot off and it's been mostly in straight lines on final in visual conditions. Climbs, turns and descents in IMC while maintaining assigned airspeeds by hand? During bumpy thunderstorm season? Thats crazy talk.
  So now I'm hand flying the airplane and trying to solve this problem all the while trying to finish my coffee. The term task-saturation comes to mind. First things first. I quickly drink the rest of my americano and get down to the business of decision making. It is likely an indication problem because the gear is clearly not in transit, the landing gear hydraulic pump motor is not engaged and the gear doors are closed. So it's Choose Your Own Adventure time: We could go back to base and get maintenance to have a look-see, which could potentially take a couple hours or more. Or we could return to base and have a sub-charter finish the job which could also potentially take a few hours but both those options would likely scuttle the passengers' long planned, action packed 2 day business assault causing them to cancel the whole thing.. OR, we could continue and land as planned and snag the airplane on the ground and have another airplane fly up and take over the trip, or get that sub charter up here (the plan was to wait on the ground for 4 hours while the passengers conducted business so we had a little bit of time to work with). OR, I happen to know there is another operator at this field we're landing at, and they have a fleet of the same type of aircraft we're flying with a maintenance facility. But who knows if they have time to help us out?
  I decide to take the chance on landing at destination (grounding the airplane there). The passengers offload and I get the wheels in motion for plan A, B and C. I walk into the competation's office and ask for the DOM. I'm directed to a back room and guess what, I know the guy! Hooray for blind luck. After shooting the sh!t for a bit, we get down to the problem. He says, man we're in the middle of a hot section on our medevac machine and Billy's on holidays and Jimmey hurt his back etc etc.. 
  Sure we'll do it.

  They throw the bird up on jacks, and sprinkle a little PFM (pure magic) they get it fixed up like new. Paper work completed, hearty handshake and a big thank you, we head over to the terminal building and there the passengers are. 'Waiting long?' I ask. 'Uh we got here only a few minutes ago, Ed is just parking the car.'

  Perfect.

Occasionally you luck out and get it right.

Taxiway T/O

FL250 Southbound for a change.

  Finally, I get crewed on a trip that takes us to the lower 48 for a change. It's been months since I've bought myself 'pound cake' at starbucks. Although perhaps someone else had this trip and dumped it off because the daytime high at destination was 30 degrees. Farenheit. Yeah, with the distinct possibility for snow.
  We head first to an airport with Customs service. So we make a quick stop there, get out, get probed, go for a pee and a hot (non airplane water) coffee refill and get going. Further South, but the airport elevation  is over 5,000ft which is not helping with the OAT and snow flurries. That's OK, the coffee is hot.
  We are flying over the Rocky Mountain spine at 28,000ft but are denied any sort of view due to the extensive cloud cover. Milky white nothingness. The copilot comments that he feels like we are in the simulator. The only exception is that there isn't anyone sitting behind us in a folding chair with a mischievous grin and I don't feel especially trigger happy on the fuel firewall valves.
  Rewinding a bit...checking the NOTAMS as per usual in the morning revealed the usual new towers, ammended procedures and... ummm.. a closed runway at destination. Well, there is only one runway there. There is some ambiguous reference to a taxiway so I decied to call up Lockheed Martin FSS down there and get their story. 'Yep she's closed. No problem though, just land on the Taxiway'. Say again? 'Land on the Taxiway. Plenty long enough, but a little skinny, 50 feet wide.'

  Cool.
  We do the descent checks, load the RNAV which contains about 10 stepdown altitudes which I brief at length, do the RAIM check and start the approach. Center comes up 'Hey you in the Beech, you know about that runway, right?'
  You betcha.
  We hit the initial approach waypoint and turn 90 degrees to the left. Descend. Level. Approach flap. Descend and level a few more times. Gear down landing checks. 1000' until minimums. 500'.  Uh oh, I don't see anything. The METAR was 2,200' broken. What's up with this? Then voila, we break out of the cloud horizontally. There's the lake. Oh, and there's the airport. Full flap.
  Remember to land on the Taxiway. Roger. The big equipment tearing up the runway is a quick reminder. Now a 50' wide runway gives the illusion of being terribly high. However, since we are lined up with the taxiway and not the runway, we are much closer to the row of trees on the left side of the airport, which in turn gives the illusion of being too low. Split the difference and squeak it on the taxiway. At least they were kind enough to paint the runway numbers on the taxiway so there was no confusion.
  Backtrack and park. No snow, just some cold rain. We hit the Pancake House for a deliciously oversized breakfast and then hop in the rental car and explore the area for the next four hours before we head back home.
  That was fun.