Flying on thursday evening...?

Due to my job, I don't have a lot of time to fly. I work in logistics at a food distribution company monday thru friday from 9 am to 6 pm..  I'm lucky if I get out at 6, usually I have to stay until 7 or later.
I had a different schedule when I was a student pilot, I didn't have to get to work until noon so I had all the morning to take lessons and take advantage of nice weather days. Now it's different, and I feel frustrated sometimes because we have had thunderstorms on the past 3 weekends and they are forecasting more storms for the next weekend.
I really don't like to be at work on a tuesday or wednesday and see the sun shining with calm winds outside. I really wished I was out there flying instead of stuck at my office coordinating trucks, routes, backhauls, appointments, etc. I would enjoy it if my job was aviation related i guess, but it's not.

Anyway, Thursdays is a good day, there's not a lot going on at work, most of the weekly routes are out delivering and I don't have to worry about next week's logistics madness until friday. Last thursday I got off work a little earlier (around 5:30 pm), called the school and reserved a plane, I got home,  got my flight bag and arrived at the airport by 6:30 pm.

 I usually take someone with me flying, either a passenger or a safety pilot, but this time no one was available. So I was going solo this time. I haven't been solo on a plane in a while.

 Sunset was at 8:21 according to the weather channel so I had time to fly to Centre, AL C22 which is 53 nm from RYY and back before night time. Log some much needed XC time.
This was a memorable flight for two reasons.. first, I was excited on my descent to C22, announcing my intentions to the silent CTAF on 122.9 just to find out there were huge yellow X marks on the runway...  I will never ever go out flying without checking NOTAMS again. I felt embarassed. Lucky me, there's PYP airport just 3 miles south and just a little above 50 nm from RYY, so I did a touch and go and went back to RYY.
The second reason is this flight was my first time watching the sunset from the air. WOW.. beautiful.. those  colors were truly unforgettable.. as I was descening towards RYY, it was getting dark. The runway was lighted and the city as well. I really got hooked up on flying at this time of day.
The forecast for this thursday is good so I will do the same this week. I still don't know where I'm headed to. Probably Chattanooga KCHA or Athens KAHN.  We'll see.

Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport terminal opening

KPUJ is the newest airport in the state of Georgia, it began operations since november 2008. However, the terminal was not finished until last week. On May first an open house was held at the airport for the terminal opening; they were supposed to have more than 20 airplanes on site and an airshow. Weather was not good to have that many airplanes landing. There were 3 helicopters and a multiengine aircraft at the ramp. Also, the airshow was cancelled due to insurance issues, according to a local newspaper.

 I tuned the AWOS on my scanner and the ceiling was 600 ft, and visibility 10. Is that considered IFR? The rotaing beacon was turned off and it's supposed to be on when conditions are IFR I believe.

Back to the terminal.. the only thing I can say is WOW.. it really is beautiful. The architecture, and decorations are very fancy. I really really loved it. I am happy because this airport is only 10 minutes from home while RYY is 20 mins. The flight school I go to at McCollum (RYY) has only single engine airplanes and helicopters. I hope that I will be using PUJ in the future more often and if a flight school lands in that airport, I wish they have a multiengine program. I have so much hope in this new airport, I might be posting a lot of stuff about it too.
http://www.pauldingairport.com/