The Year in Review

Well, another year has come and gone. Almost. But I'll probably be busy with general revelry at the time the new year comes about, so I'm choosing to do this now, while looking at the Gulf of Mexico in the sun. It's been quite a year, and I've decided to do one of those "flashback" blogs. Kinda like sitcoms sometimes do when the writers are too tired/bored/lazy to come up with new material. So here it goes.

January:
The beginning of the year started out easily enough. I had no clue what waited around the corner. I was excited, because I had gotten 3 multi-engine students on my schedule, which meant more multi engine time for me, which meant I was even closer to being able to go the the airlines. How soon, though, was something I didn't realize. I was quite content in my flight instruction job and didn't really feel the need to move on yet.

February:
Feb. 4th my two good friends Alison and Ben got married in the Cities, and I was an usher in the wedding. While I was down there, a lot of my friends were there who had moved on and done other things after UND. They basically all asked me waht I was still doing there, as I had more than enough flight time to be able to leave. On the drive back up to Grand Forks, I realized that for the first time in a long time, I actually didn't want to be driving back up to GFK. So Ben and Al, somehow your marriage lit a fire under my butt and got me to start getting out of Grand Forks. The rest of the month carried on like any other. I flew, hung out with friends, got the resume and cover letter together, and started the process of getting out of Grand Forks. I also passed 1,000 flight hours in the latter part of the month. Another major milestone!

March:
March, as I recall, nothing much happened. Spring Break happened, but I'm pretty sure I just went home. Still sending resumes out to airlines, and hoping they called back.

April:
April was actually a pretty full month. My grandmother passed away, which I think was a blessing, as she had held on for so long with Alzheimer's, and she wasn't the person she once was. See ya later Grannie. Jes and flew down to St. Louis, which I think was over Easter. That was a lot of fun, and we got to see all our friends, as well as my relatives. It was in the last part of the month that I got my first two airline interviews. Andrea, a friend of mine from UND, was working in the HR department at Atlantic Southeast Airlines, and she helped me get my resume to the top of the pile and get me an interview. I drove home to the Cities and then flew down to Atlanta for the interview. Being it was my first one, I was really nervous, but the interview crew was really cool and made it very relaxing. After I got back from the ASA interview, I stayed at home for a few days and then drove over to Appleton, WI to interview at Air Wisconsin. Again, the interview crew was really nice, and made me feel completely relaxed. I did have a weird feeling about that interview though and about a week later got the "thanks but no thanks" letter from Air Wisconsin. Oh well.

May:
May was another big month. It started out with an interview with SkyWest, which was my top choice. I flew out to Salt Lake City for the interview which I thought went pretty well. It should be said that back in February, I had set a goal for myself to be going or gone from Grand Forks by my birthday, May 21. That day was rapidly approaching. About a week later, Ben, Alison, Jesica and I road tripped to Rocky Mountain National Park to attend the wedding of other set of friends of ours, Sarah and Casey. While we were there, I got a garbled call from my parents that said I had received a package from SkyWest and had been offered a job and that I started on June 5th! It was May 19th, two days before my birthday. The rest of the month was filled with packing, getting everything in order, etc.

June:
You guys can look up the specifics of June in past posts on this blog, but suffice it to say, it was busy. I started groundschool in SLC. UND had really prepared me well for this sort of thing, and I really didn't find it all that hard.

July:
July was flight training devices in Fresno, CA and simulators in Long Beach, CA. After sims were done, I began my first of several road trips across the country. This time it was out to Fresno, where I was based for a month. Fresno is hot, hot, hot. That's about all that can be said about it.

August:
I finished IOE at the beginning of August, and then I became a full first officer. Woot! I spent most of my time inside, as it was really too hot to do anything. I did manage to make it to Yosemite National Park for a weekend though, which was really cool and fun. Most of my days off, however, were spent going to SLC trying to find an apartment, cause I was going to live there starting in September. I eventually did find a place to live, and bid a forever farewell to Fresno at the end of the month.

September:
September I moved to SLC and life got tremendously better. From here on out, things started settling into a routine, and everything in Sept. and Oct. I pretty much the same. My parents did come out to see me, which was pretty cool. One other thing that happened, in my blog at least, is the imaginary friend of mine, Pinky. I know some of you don't understand Pinky, but that's ok. I just got bored writing about my own life one day so I decided to come up with a new character for you all to read about and perhaps have a few laughs with. Don't worry, it's not as if I think he's real or anything. I'm not crazy, though I'm sure some people would tell me that that's debatable.

November:
No, I didn't skip a month here. Like I said, Sept and Oct. were pretty much the same. In November, the world of my high school friends was changed when my friends Ben and Sophia had a baby, Marcus. He's the cutest thing ever, and will definitely grow up to be a great musician like his dad.

December:
December was a pretty good month. I finally had enough seniority in SLC to hold a schedule, instead of being on reserve. I also put in for and got a transition to the jet at the end of January. Back to ground school but as of next June, I'll get a much bigger pay raise! Woot!
The end of the year was spent with my dad's side of the family in a house on the beach on St. George Island in Florida. What a way to end the year!

All in all, this has been a pretty full year for me. Hopefully next year continues to be jst as good, but a little slower would be nice. This year almost burnt me out.

I'll leave you all with a quote from my brother regarding life and vacations:

Drew: "Which kind of mac and cheese would you like?"
Me: "I dunno. The Velveeta is good, but the Kraft stuff is good too."
Drew: "I know, that's why I'm having trouble deciding."
Me: "Well, the Kraft is a good classic. Velveeta is good too, but it's extremely cheesy. You want the extreme cheese?"
Drew: "You know, I love vacations. A week and a half ago I was worried about tests, and all these freaking papers I had to write, and now my biggest decision is which kind of Mac and Cheese to have."
Me: "Ain't life great?"
Drew: "Damn straight."

Happy New Year people. Even if things aren't working out for you as you planned right now, there's always next year!

It's the most wonderful time...well maybe.

It's that wonderful time of the year where everyone is trying to get someplace to be with the ones we love, and yet it's also the time when I think most tempers get lost. Being in the cockpit, the captain and I get to miss most of it, thankfully. Although most people are very pleasant, there is the occasional bad apple. On a flight to Sun Valley the other day, we had one. This time of year, Sun Valley flights are full of rich people going up to ski. The baggage compartment is always filled to the brim with the 400 pounds of baggage each person brings aboard, and the flights are always full. Well, on the flight before the one to Sun Valley, someone was coming out of the bathroom when we hit a little bit of turbulence. The person grabbed on the the closest thing they could to stabilize themselves, which happened to be the lavatory door, and the weigh of the person on the door knocked the door off its tracks, making it not able to close. When we got to SLC, maintenance came to fix it, but it took longer than anticipated, thus delaying the flight a little. The passengers started to board and one of them was already disgruntled about the late boarding. Then he decided to complain that it was too hot in the airplane, mind you he was wearing a jacket at the time. Anyway, with all the people on board, and all their flippin luggage, it took us a little while to get the numbers right to make sure we could take everyone and their baggage without kicking people or baggage off, thus delaying the flight further. In the end, we got out of the gate only 10 minutes late, which is damn good, given all the crap we had to take care of. That guy still complained to the flight attendant for the rest of flight. Whatever. In 7 days I'll be on the beach in Florida sipping on Caucasians and Coronas!

I love life.

Well, December is the first month I hold a line and guess what? I got displaced on my first 4 day trip. What does that mean? Basically, my Captain was probably a check airman and they needed him or her to do an IOE trip. (You remember IOE right? I did that back in August.) Anyway, once they displace me, the trip comes off my schedule. Scheduling has until 72 hours before the trip was supposed to begin to put something else on my schedule to replace it. If they don't put something on my schedule by 72 hours prior, I am officially released from duty (in other words, they can't put anything on my schedule at that point) and the best part...I STILL GET PAID FOR THE WHOLE TRIP AS IF I ACTUALLY WENT ON IT. Freaking sweet. So, since they didn't put anything on my schedule, I still get paid for that four day trip, and counting the days off I had prior to and after that trip, I have nine days off! So what am I gonna do? Travel to Alaska? Spain? Rome? Hong Kong? Hawaii? Nope. I'm gonna drive home. That's right. 1800 miles each way and I'm gonna get all my things from my parent's house so I finally have them ONCE AND FOR ALL. I know. I'm nuts. Seriously. How many times can someone drive halfway across the country in a 5 month time span? We shall see. Mom, Dad, if you read this tomorrow morning, the 1st of December, I'll prolly be somewhere in Wyoming by that point. Give me a Jingle! God I love my job...

Rock stars have kidnapped my son...

Well, I had a three day weekend this past weekend in which I was going to try to go to Atlanta to see a few friends from college. This being the week before Thanksgiving however, the flights were all super full, so that didn't work out so well. I tried for the first flight, didn't make it and was told that it just got worse as the day went on. So there I was in the airport with a packed bag with no place to go. So I checked the flight loads to the Twin Cities, they looked good, and so I went home. Good times. I had the chance to see the newest addition to my high school friend possee: Marcus James.

Marcus was definitely not planned, but his parents, two of my best friends, have made the best of the situation and the kid is absolutely adorable. He was born on Nov. 3 at 11 am. I've never gotten to be an "Uncle" Ty before so this is kinda a trip!

This week I have three days worth of flying. I fly tomorrow just for the day and then fly on Thursday and get back Friday in time to catch the last flight back to the Cities. I get to spend Thanksgiving in St. George, UT. It's not as bad as it could be though. St. George is one of the nicer hotels we have, and at least it's not Los Angeles!

"The best things happen to those who make the best of the way things turn out." - Anon.

They certainly do.

There's quite a lot in my skull

Two posts in as many days? Holy cow! This is like I was back in groundschool and had nothing else better to do. Nothing is really new to report since my last one a couple days ago. I did a quick overnight in Sun Valley last night. It was kinda fun. I reported for work at 8 PM, we got to Sun Valley at about 10:30, went to hotel, met again this morning at 6:30, flew back to Salt Lake and I was done by 8:30. Nice. Sun Valley was really cruddy this morning, snow and low ceilings. It was kinda hair raising coming out of there, knowing we surrounded by mountains on all sides. We made it though, as is illustrated by the fact that I'm sitting here writing this.

Pinky has been enjoying the bed verily since I got it. I told him no cookies in the bed, as always, he was high on cottage cheese when I told him so I think it went in one elbow and out the other. So though I have crumbs in my bed, if I'm ever hungry in the middle of the night, there's usually enough of them to equate to an entire Chips Ahoy! cookie. They are definetly a thousand chips delicious. Pinky is also no closer to the realization of his dream that the world lose their affection for pants and wear Bermuda shorts. His new drug of choice, however, is to supplement his peanut butter addiction (seriously, a jar of JIF will send him into a frenzy much like cat nip on a feline) with a propensity for rendering himself unconscious by hitting himself on the head with heavy mining equipment. He was surfing the internet the other day and muttering something to himself about how a Caterpillar 994F Front End Loader was so grossly overpriced that a normal creature like him could never own one privately. I'm gonna have to keep an eye on him...

Utah and Salt Lake City are nice places. Don't get me wrong. The scenery here is gorgeous, and there's more outdoor stuff to do here than I can deal with. It does have some drawbacks though. There's not as much shopping. Before you get on me for being a woman, let me say that it's annoying to have to drive 20 minutes to the nearest Target. Growing up in the Cities where shopping is about prevalent as snow, it's a bit of a shock to have to travel to get to the nearest mall. There also aren't as many theaters, museums and concert halls here as there are in the Cities. You know that the Minneapolis/St. Paul area has more theaters per capita than New York? That's a fact you can take to the bank. There's also the fact that I have a whole load of friends up in the Cities. If Ben and Alison ever decided to leave the Salt Lake area, I wouldn't be too far behind. My lease on my apartment ends in February and I'm going to renew it for another 6 months. The rent's cheap and it'll give me an opportunity to save some money, cause if I did decide to move back to the Cities, rent would go up as housing is more expensive there. I flew with someone the other day who lives in Minneapolis and commutes here to SLC. He says the commute isn't bad, and never has a problem. So basically, what I'm saying is that while SLC is a really cool place, I'm not sure that it's a permanent home. Who knows. This time next year I could be still here, or I could be in St. Paul. I dunno. Mmmmm. Uncertain my future is. Search my feelings I should.

Leave you with a quote from Pulp Fiction:
"Who's motorcycle is that?"
"It's not a motorcycle baby, it's a chopper."
"What happened to my Honda?"
"Oh baby, I'm sorry. I had to crash that Honda."

It's funnier if you watch the movie. Trust me.

Come on over, come on over baby...

Well, another couple of weeks have come and gone. I haven't been posting much recently cause there hasn't been too much going on. They really didn't use me for about 2 and a half weeks or so, but they've started putting stuff on my schedule again, so that's nice. Seriously though, even though a long time has passed since my last post, there's really not all that much to report. I did finally get a bed, which is the best thing since sliced bread really. After sleeping on an inflatable air mattress for 2 months, one really begins to appreciate the little things in life, such as a full size bed.

I may be in trouble for this one, but I went to St. Louis last weekend. Gasp. I know, I know. I didn't see everyone, which I was really sad about, but I got to STL on Saturday night at 9, and left on Monday morning at 8:30. So not a lot of time. For those of you I didn't see, I promise I'll be back, for longer this time.

I'm going to Atlanta to see some of my friends that live down there next weekend. I have a three day weekend so I'll be able to stay a little longer than this past weekend where I only had two days off. I found out today that I'm working on Thanksgiving, and will be in St. George, UT for Thanksgiving night. Oh well. I do get back in time on Friday to make the last flight back to the Cities, so that at least is pretty sweet. I don't know what my schedule is for December, but I'll let everyone know as soon as I know!

They were making and breaking alliances like tube socks in a dryer

Well, another month has almost come and gone. Still sitting reserve here in SLC, which I half expected since it is one of the more senior bases, but life is good. I keep moving up the totem pole by about 4-5 people a month. The good news is that I am high enough up on the list to get whatever reserve line I want, so though I'm still on reserve during November, I have Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays off. Not bad at all.

Pinky has been complaining to me that there is still a severe lack of furniture in this apartment. He says that while it's true that girls want guys with great skills, they also want ones that have places for them to sit when they come over. I guess my rugged good looks and boyish charm will only take me so far.

Last weekend our friends Casey and Sarah came over from St. Louis to play in the mountains with us for a few days. We went hiking to Doughnut Falls (the same place Ben and I went a few weeks ago) and saw a moose. It continually astounds me how stupid people are. This particular moose, which will be henceforth named Mortimer (Pinky's idea), was grazing in an open field near the parking lot for the trail we were going to take. There was a guy there and a college age idiot (more on that in a minute) and his girlfriend. Anyway, the college idiot seemed to be out to prove that Darwin was right and through acts of sheer idiocy remove himself from the gene pool. This guy walked to within 10 feet of this moose, which outweighed him by a good, I dunno, lets say a conservative 900 pounds. He then proceeded to use his FLASH on his camera, spooking the moose. The moose grunted, and moved forward a few feet. At this point the kid did the smartest thing he could at this point, which was to turn and back away. Alas, if the moose had decided to charge, which would have done us all a favor and prevented the idiot from spawning, the chase would have been short lived, as we soon saw when he turned around that his shoes were untied and he was smoking. Wonderful. If only the moose had decided to go his moose way home through this guy's midsection, we'd be saved from this obvious drain on society. Sorry. Not much pity from me on this topic.

On Sunday, Kelly, Casey and Ben went rock climbing. Since I still haven't developed the need to dangle above the ground on a rope, I went with the girls hiking. It was a good time to say the least. We hiked up a canyon on the south side of the city. It started to get really steep near the end. We found this really cool waterfall, much of which was ice. (It was a nice 55 degrees in the valley that day, but the mountains were a little chilly!) I wish we had run into more people cause I could have introduced Sarah, Alison and Julie to those people as my wives. Hey, we're in the land of the Mormons, why not milk it right?

This week was spent sitting on reserve and not getting called. It gave me plenty of time to run errands and the like, so that was good.

One other thing, Kelly and Julie had a Halloween Party last Friday, and I needed a costume quick, cheap and easy. With all the trash and packing material I had around the apartment from all the boxes I've had shipped to me, I duct taped them to a big black lawn bag and went to the party as white trash. Get it? It was pretty sweet. Nice play on words too. Anyway, I post more as the days go by. For a music suggestion, I'd recommend anything from the early '90s. I've been on one of those kicks lately. Also, Michael Jackson's album, Dangerous, is pretty sweet. Not gonna lie on that. Pinky's getting pretty good at the moonwalk.

Mmmm. Reading I have been...

Since the beginning of September, I have began reading quite a bit more. This is probably due to the fact that I have alot more time sitting in hotel rooms while on overnights. Anyway, since September, I have read:

The Complete Walker 4
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Into Thin Air - John Krakauer
Under the Banner of Heaven - John Krakauer
The Relic - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Reliquary - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Thunderhead - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
The Codex - Douglas Preston
The Mole People - Jennifer Toth
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Our Endangered Values - Jimmy Carter

I am currently out of books. Feel free to make suggestions as to ones to read. Thank you in advance.

I am the walrus

Since it's been like 10 days or so since I posted, and I know so many of you live vicariously through me, (it's ok. I'm a pretty cool guy.) I have decided to post again. Bear with me if this post is riddled with spelling errors, I'm typing on a keyboard that doesn't work all that well at the SLC Public Library. (But why not type on your computer? More on that to come.)

I guess I'll start where we last left off. Two weekends ago, Ben, Al and I went camping in Moab, UT. It was pretty flippin sweet. It's right down by Arches National Park and Bryce Canyon NP. So the scenery was gorgeous. We camped, and went biking too. Al and I are what could be called "novice" bikers, so we stayed away from the hard stuff, like hills with 12 percent grades. It's also a climber's paradise, but Ben didn't bring along his ropes or anything, so we'll have to save that until next time. Moab is only a 4.5 hour drive away, so it's not that far to some pretty cool stuff.

When I got home, I discovered that I had a four day trip on my schedule starting the next day, into my favorite of all places, Southern California. (Sarcasm)It was fun, and my captains were pretty sweet, so it went by pretty quick. No complaints there.

Last weekend Ben and I went hiking in the rain to a place called Doughnut Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon, which is just a little south of the city. It was pretty cool, and we did a little hiking through uncharted territories around there. All in all, pretty sweet, I'll have to go back when the weather is better.

As to why I am not writing on my own computer: my hard drive blew up. Or, rather, it nearly did. About two weeks ago, I noticed that the hard drive was starting to get louder. About a weeke ago, the whole thing started slowing down. Taking alot of time to do things that before only took a few seconds. Nuts to this I thought. Pinky suggested I take it down to the local Apple store and get it looked at. Smartest thing Pinky ever said. Mind you, and this time he was high on peanut butter and wearing Bermuda Shorts, but apparently, it makes him think better. Anyway, I took it in, and they said I needed to have the hard drive replaced before it melted/blewup/died. We backed up all the information that I had on the thing, and then he told me that it would be $300 bucks to replace the thing. "Not so!" said I, "For I purchased the Apple Care Protection Plan when I bought this thing two years ago, which extends my warranty up to three years!" So what did I end up paying? Zilch. Nada. Nothing. I'll have my computer back in good working order by Thursday afternoon. Woot.

People have sometimes asked me why I would bike up canyon roads, go rock climbing, hike up waterfalls, spend the night in the north woods in a tent when the temp got to below freezing. I was having a hard time with that one myself, but Pinky helped me out, with the words of a country song:

Daddy's belt, momma's drapes
Standing tall on the backyard shed
Looking cool in my Superman cape
I told the neighborhood girl
Said, "Hey y'all, watch this!"
My fate was a broken arm,
My reward, one big kiss
When Daddy asked me why I did it,
I made him laugh out loud when I told him,
"Cause the chicks dig it!"

Scars heal, glory fades,
And all we're left with
Are the memories made.
The pain hurts, but only for a minute
Life is short so go on and live it
Cause the chicks dig it!

No, I'm not going country, and I'll have pictures posted as soon as I get my computer back.

I'm noticing a severe lack of trembling and awe in my presence

Since I've written, I have done much. To further expand on the title of the last blog entry, Something Under the Sink is Drooling, when I came back to my apartment after being gone for 6 days, I realized that I forgot to take out the garbage before I left. Long story short, I quickly went out and bought scented candles and some Febreeze. One would think that my friend Pinky would have helped me out, but he's a lazy little rodent, so no help there. When I got home on Saturday night, he kept blathering on about there not being enough pants for everyone in the world. It was kind of an interesting idea. He took the position that since there were not enough pants for everyone, that no one should have them. That would save quite a bit of fabric, thus enabling everyone to be able to have a good pair of Bermuda shorts in their wardrobe. He hypothesized that if we all wore Bermuda shorts, conflict in the world would end because we'd all have an overwhelming urge to go to the beach and drink Mai Tais. Interesting Pinky. Interesting.

Anyway, the 4 day trip I just got done with was a blast. My captain was a younger guy and really cool. We went to places like Twin Falls, Pocatello, and Sun Valley, which are all in Idaho, and we also went to Casper, WY. Of course we also came back to Salt Lake. In Twin Falls the Snake River cuts a huge gorge on the north side of town, so my captain and I walked down there. There's a huge bridge across it that people go base jumping off of all the time. Very pretty. Sun Valley airport is absolutly nuts, because it's surrounded on three sides by mountains. Very close mountains. Thankfully when we went it was a nice day, but from what I hear, when the weather's bad, you have to bring a clean pair of underwear for after you land cause it's so scary. When we were in Sun Valley, we had a passenger who must have been on drugs. She was walking towards the aircraft and I pointed her out to the captain. She looked about as out of it as you possibly could be. Her belt wasn't buckled, her fly was down, she was barely holding on to the bag that she was carrying. It was kinda sad. She didn't cause any problems on the plane though, so whatever I guess.

I have a three day weekend starting today, so Ben, Alison, perhaps Kelly and Julie and I are going backpacking. Not sure where yet, but it should be sweet.

On another note, I biked so hard the other day I threw up. Oo Ra! Ben and I were going up a very steep canyon, and I had to pull off. Walked around for about 30 seconds, then honked. Good times. I've joined the ranks of Casey. Anyway, I'll post pictures of the adventure, where ever we go, after the weekend!

Something under the sink is drooling...

Well it's been awhile, so I'll start off with last weekend. Mom and Dad came down which was alot of fun. They came down on Friday morning, and we went and toured the town a little and saw a couple of the canyons in the mountains that are just outside of town. Had lunch, then checked the 'rents into their hotel. Saturday we went and toured Temple Square, the heart of the Mormon religion. I've been there before, but the whole experience is rather weird. They have a 12 foot wall around the whole thing, but everyone inside is very friendly. Non-mormons are not allowed inside the temple itself, but the grounds are very pretty so that took up a little time. We went to eat and in the afternoon joined with my friends Alison, Ben and Julie and went to Park City. We walked around old downtown for awhile, looking at the shops and such. We had dinner at the Wasatch Brewery, which, like the name implies, brews its own beer. It's a place that I've been to before and is quite good. On Sunday Mom and Dad tried to fly back home and I went on a bike ride with Ben. We biked up Emigration Canyon which is one of the easier canyons to ride. (Not as much elevation change and such.) My muscles weren't doing too bad, though I couldn't feel my lungs by about halfway through! I gotta get more used to the altitude. Salt Lake sits at about 4,000 feet above sea level, so it's a little higher! When we got back from the ride, dad called to let me know that they had not gotten on the last flight leaving for St. Paul and were going to have to stay the night. They did however, end up getting on the first flight out the next morning.

On Monday I got a call from scheduling to let me know that they had placed a trip on my schedule. Woohoo! I get to fly! It was back in the California system, and I spent three days flying into LA, San Diego, Yuma AZ, Palm Springs and a couple others. On Thursday, I flew back to SLC and got on a plane to go home to St. Paul right after that. Friday and Saturday were spent seeing some friends whom I haven't seen in awhile, and eating home cooked food. As promised, I will post some pictures of the apartment, flying, and the SLC area.

I shot this horse three days ago...I believe it's starting to turn...

Not too much has been going on the last couple of days, I've been on reserve again since Sunday, but alas, they have not called. Oh well, it's given me a chance to get errands done and come to the conclusion that I'll be sleeping on an inflatable mattress for the rest of my life and have no living room furniture. It could be worse though I suppose. I could have no internet. That would be bad. Very bad. It would leave me alone with my own thoughts days in and day out, pondering. It'd probably result in my coming up with an imaginary friend named Pinky. We'd have such wonderful conversations, Pinky and I, but Pinky, not being the sharpest tool in the shed, would never be pondering what I'm pondering. I can see the conversation now, "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?" "I think so, but where are we going to find a mallard and a spoon at this time of night?" .....Sorry. That was weird.

In all seriousness though, my road bike that I had shipped here is coming tomorrow, yay! I've had it shipped to Ben and Al's place cause Ben is the one that has the tools to put it back together anyway. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

I went to the SLC Public Library today to get a library card. The downtown library is very nice, open with lots of glass. The one thing I didn't like was all the B.O. and the teenagers. I have never witnessed a place where so many people congregated at the same time that all needed a severe slathering of Old Spice. It was like I was on the Sarenghetti amid a herd of wildebeest in the sweltering noonday sun. What I wouldn't have given for an economy size bottle of Febreeze. Then the drama of teenage girls. Oh. My. God. There were a few of them there, who took it upon themselves to gossip loudly enough as to inform the rest of the patrons of the library who among their group of friends was doing what with whom. "John called me fat yesterday!" "You are sooooo not fat!" "I know! It's a gland thing!" (At this point she's shoving a twinkie in her mouth. I kid you not.) "John is just being stupid anyway." "I know. Boys are so stupid." As you can imagine, I'm glad I'm not in jr. high anymore. Praise the lord.

Anyway, not too much else planned on the schedule for this week. Planning on taking that bike out for a tour tomorrow, which will be sweet. Mom and Dad are taking advantage of the reduced price tickets that come as a perk with my job and are coming to see me over Friday and Saturday. Not sure what I'm going to do with them, but I'm sure I can some up with something. Until then, I'll be content to converse with Pinky . I'll leave you today with a line from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Jack Sparrow: No! Not good! Stop! Not good! What are you doing? You burned all the food, the shade... the rum!
Elizabeth Swan: Yes, the rum is gone.
Jack Sparrow: Why is the rum gone?
Elizabeth Swan: One: because it is a vile drink that turns even the most respectable men into complete scoundrels. Two: that signal is over a thousand feet high. The entire royal navy is out looking for me, do you think there is even the slightest chance they wont see it?
Jack Sparrow: But why is the rum gone?

In the city of the Mormons

Hey all - Sorry it's been awhile since I posted. I did mean to post something last Thursday, but I forgot to actaully post it. It is now posted following this one. Anyway, the last few days have been kinda a rush. Got into SLC on Wednesday, and stayed in a hotel for the night. Met up with Ben and Alison that day and just hung out. I couldn't get into my apartment until Friday at 3 so I didn't have alot to those first few days. Kelly and Julie Paasch (Two more of our mutual friends from back in the UND days who live here now, Kelly works for SkyWest too) offered their couch to me on Thursday night which I took. Friday after I moved in I got on a plane back to St. Paul to pack up some stuff (I didn't get as much packed as I'd like, but oh well) to get down to Salt Lake City. Returned to Salt Lake on Saturday night and hung out with Ben and Alison again. Sunday after Ben, Al, Kelly and Julie got back from church we went rock climbing. I'm not really one for that, but it was a small rock, not that tall, so I decided to give it a shot. It was pretty fun, but you still won't catch me on that big stuff. Today I'm running errands, getting internet for my apartment (I'm at the downtown SLC library right now) getting my mail forwarded, changing my address for bills, etc, etc, etc. Good times. I'll be glad when all this moving mess is done with and I can actually call this place a home. It'll happen eventually!

Sorry this is late

Well, this will be my last day in Fresno. HAZA! They've actually been keeping me pretty busy these last few days, which was nice, cause it got me out of the house for awhile. I found a place to live in Salt Lake last time I was there. It was a nice, kinda smaller one bedroom place in downtown Salt Lake, in a nice part of town. The address is 43 South 300 East. I think. It's something like that. I'll get you the definite address when I get there. But you can google that address to kinda see the general area. Anyway, the apartment isn't the biggest thing ever, but it'll do. The kitchen is quite small, but it does have a gas stove, which is kinda nice, cause I much prefer that to electric. It also has radiators for heating which will be alot cheaper during the winter than electric baseboard heating. Tim (my old roommate from college) and I had a place with that back up in Grand Forks and the heating bill was like $200 a month for electric! Can't afford that! It's an older, historic building, just off of a neighborhood called the Avenues in Salt Lake. The Avenues is kinda middle-upscale area that's called the Avenues because the north/south streets are letters (A Street, B Street, etc.) and all the east/west roads are numbered. (1st. Ave, 2nd Ave, etc.) Anyway, I move in on Thursday, and I'm driving over tomorrow. It should take about 10-12 hours to get there, but I plan on leaving first thing in the morning. Getting the hell outta this city! I'll post more on the move and then some pictures when I get them up!

That was interesting

So I'm sitting on reserve on Friday and I happen to check my schedule and see that they put a two day trip on my schedule beginning on Sunday. Wohoo! That means I actaully get to do something besides sit on my butt! Anyway, Saturday afternoon rolls around and I get a phone call from scheduling telling me that they need me to repo (reposition) an airplane from Fresno to Palm Springs. Cool. I asked how I was going to do my trip the next day, and they said they'd fly me to San Fran on Sunday so I could make my trip. The captain and I met at the airport in Fresno, and got ready to repo the aircraft. Just as we were getting ready to close the door, we get a message to call scheduling. We called and they needed us to do a quick maintenance flight on another aircraft in Fresno. Good times. It was quick and painless, and then we were on to Palm Springs. When you repo an airplane, by the way, there are no people on the aircraft. Got into Palm Springs at about 9 or so, and got to the hotel, which was REALLY nice by the way.

The next morning I left the hotel at about 10:30 to catch a flight to LA. Got on that flight no problem, then had about an hour before my flight to San Fran. The flight from Palm Springs to LA was on a SkyWest airplane, the flight from LA to San Fran was going to be on a United aircraft. We boarded the United airplane, and the flight attendant told us that we would be delayed getting into SFO (San Fran) and to just hold tight. I called up scheduling to let them know that I could possibly be late to begin my flight in SFO. About 20 minutes after we supposed to take off I finally talked to the head flight attendant what was going on and the flight attendant revealed that we had no flight crew! No one in the cockpit! They were delayed getting into LA. I asked when we would be getting off, and they sayed it was no going to be a 3:30 takeoff. Not gonna work if I had to be in SFO by 3:50. I called up scheduling again and told them the situation and they told me to call back. After about 10 minutes I called back and they told me that they had found someone to take my trip, and that I was going back t oFresno, cause they had nothing else for me to do. So after a long day, I ended up doing nothing. Oh well. Such is the life of someone on the low end ot the totem pole in the airlines. It'll get better as time goes on though thankfully.

I am going back to Salt Lake on Wednesday to look at some more apartments and see if there's anything else to find. Then it's back to Fresno for 5 days then goodbye to it forever! Woo hoo!

The mormons are coming, or rather, I'm coming to them

Well, went to Salt Lake City on my two days off yesterday. I had found some places online, but not every place advertises online, so I knew there were some more places I could check out. I got on the early flight to SLC (Salt Lake City) and was there by 9 am Mountain time. Rented a car for really cheap cause of my SkyWest discount and also stayed in the same hotel that I stayed in when I was in training. It was kinda weird. Felt like so long ago that I was there. Anyway, spent the first part of the day looking at the places in the city that I had found. Some of them were ok looking, others not so much. I went back and checked in, got some lunch, and then went north to North Salt Lake and Bountiful which are two suburbs north of Salt Lake and where Ben and Alison (more on them in a second) are going to try to live.

Ben and Alison are two friends of mine that I went to school with and instructed with in Grand Forks. Alison recently got another flight instructing job in Ogden, which is a city about 30 minutes north of SLC. Ben, though he went to school to be a pilot, isn't all that into the flight side of it, plus he has recurring medical problems, so he's planning on going back to school to get a business degree from Utah State. They apparently have a very good program. Anyway, they are moving down to SLC in about 2 weeks, about the same time I'll be moving there. Couldn't have worked out any better if it were planned right?

Anyway, I have some prospects so I couldn't set up viewings of the places that I found while I was there cause it was short notice, so I'm going back next week on my next couple of days off to check stuff out.

On a different note, I've been assigned some flying to do on Sunday and Monday, so I'll be flying around those days. Not too much longer in Fresno! Yay!

Sweet Sassymolassy

Weel, I'm done with IOE, which marks the last test I'll have until a year from now. I'm an official full blown First Officer. And now I get to sit reserve.
What is reserve? Well, you're basically on call. You have a block time per day ( say like from 9 am to 6 pm) that they can call you if they need someone to help cover a flight. So that's what I'm doing for the rest of the month. Some days when you're on reserve you may be busy, others you may not. When I'm on reserve I have to be no more than an hour and a half away from the airport at any given time, so I unfortunatly can't just go out and do stuff that's too far away. Oh well though. I do have a few days off at the end of next week which I'm going to use to go and look at apartments in Salt Lake City. I have some promising places which I found on the internet, but I still have to call them on Monday to see if there are any places available and to set up show times. So that's my life for right now. Today I'm off but tomorrow I'm on reserve until next Wednesday evening. We'll see if they use me or not. Who knows!

I can see the light!

Just got back last night from another trip. The captain was really cool. She was in her thirties and used to be in the military. The first day was kinda long, we went to Las Vegas twice, then went to Los Angeles twice? I think. Anyway we ended up in Inyokern, CA for the night which is about as much fun as it sounds. It's a small po-dunk town north of LA that has nothing around it for miles except military testing sites. Wonderful. The next day we didn't really do anyhting all day, flew from Inyokern to LA and then deadheaded back home. Deadheading is where you don't end up back at your base so you just hope on another flight back home. You still get paid though even though you're not flying. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Today I do another two day trip with the same captain and hopefully this should be the end of IOE if I have enough time by the end of it! Hopefully hopefully so! Today we're off to LA, Bakersfield, and Inyokern again, then tomorrow it's LA, San Diego and someplace else. I'm not sure anymore, but whatever. So hopefully the next time I write I'll be done with IOE Woohoo!

FYI

For those of you who are unaware, you can click on the pictures below to blow them up so they're easier to see!

Yosemite National Park

Zion National Park

And now for something completely different...

Crazy Horse Monument, Black Hills, SD



Famous Wall Drug in Wall, SD



The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. Made out of what? You guessed it! Corn cobs!

These next few are the sights along I-70 through Colorado






I-70 through Utah

The grass was rocking back and forth in the breeze like an oscillating fan set to medium

First of all, that last post was supposed to be titled "For the UNINFORMED", not the uniformed. That would be a little weird. Well anyway, I went to Yosemite today. Wish I could have camped, but the time I got there all the campsites were taken. Oh well. I drove up to Glacier Point, which overlooks Yosemite Valley. What a cool view. I'm getting the pictures developed tomorrow, then I'll post them all. I didn't think that it was going to be too crowded, but boy, was I wrong. After about 20 more minutes of drving, I made it to the Charlie Foxtrot that is Yosemite Valley. (For those of you who are unaware, Charlie Foxtrot is an abbreviation for a rather vulgar term which means that there are alot of screwups taking place in a very confind area.) Wow. There could not have been any more cars and people there. Yosemite was unlike any place I'd seen, both in the views and the people. There was a grocery store, yes, a full size store in the park, which is run by the park service. So many vehicles though. I'll have to make sure to come during the week sometime. Which brings me to a rant. First of all, I have come to the conclusion that National Parks, or any park for that matter, is best viewed from a car with a ginormous sunroof (Subarus) or a convertible. Basically, a smaller vehicle. LARGE VEHICLES SUCK! THEY DRIVE ME CRAZY! Anyone who needs to bring a vehicle larger than a Ford Explorer anywhere is bringing too much stuff. I can't tell you how many honking tanks of vehicles were clogging up the roads. Don't get me started on motor homes either. Good lord. They're slow, they guzzle gas, they take up more parking spaces than God would. So basically, if your car get less than 22 miles to the gallon highway or makes the Titanic look like a Tootsie Roll, it doesn't belong in a National Park. Another thing about it, every now and then, you'd hit a spot where the pine smell was so strong you'd think that you were breathing out of one of those bottles of pine concentrate that my mom uses to make the house smell nice at Christmas. So cool.

The biggest thing I've learned over the past two weeks however, is that National Parks SUCK.............without people there to share it with so...I'm calling on Alison, Dave, Chris, Derek, Chris, Deanna, Rachel, Tim, LeAnn, Jenny, Andy, Jodi, Andy, Natalie, Jeni, Matt, Margot, Dani, Colleen, Chrissy, Nick, Ben, Casey, Sarah, Ryan, Mike, Chris, Ben, Sophia, Jesi, Steve, Nate, Richard, Ellen, Timmay, Trevor, Mike, Marc, Shaun and my relatives, Bebe, Mom, Dad, Mike, Rams, Mitch, Cody, Rach, Teri, Steve, Lis, Rick, Corlyn, Kels, Cameron, Tad, and Drew, to get off your butts and come do some stuff with me! I'll see what I can do about buddy passes!

For the uniformed...

What exactly is an IOE trip? Well, IOE stands for Initial Operating Experience. Before they place you in the general pool with everyone, they send you through about 35-50 hours of experience on the flight line. They place you with a special captain who is basically your teacher to make sure you get down a general flow of things, so that way, when you get out with everyone else, you are all on the same page. They can do their best to teach you everything they can in groundschool, sims and stuff, but there are some things you just have to get out there and experience it. So that's what IOE is. It's kinda like on the job training.

Done for a little while

Got done with my first IOE trip yesterday. All in all, it was a fun experience. My IOE captain was a really nice guy, and we had some fun while doing it. I'm still not "officially" hired yet, but getting closer. They want you to get about 35-40 hours for time before they release you into the real world, and on that trip I got about 22. A little ways to go yet. Anyway, my next IOE trip doesn't start until next Tuesday, so I have some time to kill. I was in a hotel last night, but today I'm going to move into a crashpad.

For those of you who are wondering, a crashpad is a place pilots can stay to rest. It's usually used by people who commute to their base, and don't live there. For example, if I were based in Fresno but lived in Salt Lake, I would need to commute to get to Fresno for the beginnings of my trips. If my trip ended late, past the last flight back to Salt Lake, I would need a place to stay. Instead of sleeping in the airport or paying for a hotel room, I could rent out a place in the crashpad so I'd have a place to sleep. This crashpad is a three bedroom townhouse with about 4 twin sized beds per room. People kinda come and go, and it's never really full there. Most of the time people don't live there like I'm going to be, but since I'm only here for a month before I transfer to Salt Lake, the guy who owns the place said that'd be cool.

Not sure what I'm going to do for the next few days in Fresno, but I'm pretty sure a trip to Yosemite is probably in order. What the heck else am I gonna do? I'm working on getting those pictures developed too, so I'll get those on here when I can!

Where are we again?

Well yesterday was much better than the first day, mostly cause we were on time and didn't have any aircraft problems. Yesterday I did alot of the flying cause my captain wanted me to get some experience with the aircraft. Good idea I thought. We left Medford, OR at about 12:30 and went to San Fran. It was really cool all the way down cause my captain was pointing out all the sights along the way. We flew right over the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, which are right next to each other. May have to stop there sometime for some wine tasting. My captain also pointed out a string of lakes that runs north/south along a line about 10 miles in from the coast. They start north of San Fransisco and continue down past San Fransisco. My captain was explaining to me that that is where the San Andreas Fault Line is. Kinda scary, just a little bit. We also flew over Stanford University, and saw their partical accelerator, which is buried below the ground but you can see it from the air cause there are no trees growing over the area for about a mile long straight line. The rest of the day was pretty routine, I was getting my routine down better and figuring out what I needed to do and when. The rest of the day took us to Eureka, CA, and to Redmond, OR, with stops again in San Fran inbetween. I'm getting to know San Fransisco very well. Last night we got into Redmond by 9, got some dinner and then hit the sack. Today we don't have to show up until 2, so that's nice, and hopefully we'll be done by 10 tonight!

What a long, strange trip it's been....

Well, the last couple of days have been quite eventful. I left St. George at about 7:30 MST on Saturday. The drive out of St. George is awesome because the same kind of rock formations that are in Zion are also along the interstate out of town. (It's actually carved be the same river, the Virgin.) Drove through some pretty country and hit Las Vegas. This is definetly a place where I'm going to have to come back to. On the highway you could see the strip very easily and I'm sure it would have been cooler had I driven through it at night. After Vegas, I-15 turned into a mad house. We were still going 75, but there were aas many cars on the road as you'd expect from like a busy rush hour scene. Also, even though the sign said that the speed limit was 70, no one seemed to care. I set the cruise at 75 and was still being passed by people. When it was two lane freeway, it seemed that the right lane was for people who wanted to do 5-10 over the speed limit, and the left lane was for nut jobs. Anyway, crossing the desert was pretty cool, about as barren as you'd expect from seeing Roadrunner cartoons or something like that. At Barstow, I got off the freeway and started on (I may be wrong on this) Highway 58 that led to Highway 99. I also had to get gas in Barstow, and, are you ready for this? - paid $3.67 a freaking gallon! Oi ve! Anyway, the rest of the trip to Fresno was uneventful, and I got in at about 3ish PST. Spent the rest of the day in the hotel room except for finding some food, and then went to bed.

I had to show up for my first day of IOE yesterday at about 12:15, so I got up at about 9, got all my stuff together and headed to the terminal. At about 12:15, the flight attendant walked in, really nice guy named Monte. We were waiting around for our Captain to show up when I got a call from Flight Ops. saying that he was running late and not to worry. He eventually got there at about 1:00, which made me a little nervous cause we were supposed to depart on our flight 15 minutes later! As it turned out however, the airplane that we were supposed to take on our trip was late, so we had some time to kill. The airplane eventually got there at 2, which of course, put us behind for all our flights. This would be a pattern that would repeat throughout the day. Our first leg was to San Fransisco. It was pretty uneventful, other than the fact we were late. We left out of there for Reno. Lake Tahoe, which we flew right past, was very pretty and I wish I had had my camera so I could have taken pictures. There was a prettty strong wind in Reno, so the captain did the landing, and we were again, still late. By this time I was starting to figure out what order things were supposed to happen in, and I was getting it down pretty well. We left Reno for back to San Fransisco. After the takeoff, the captain asked if I wanted to fly. Sweet! I flew to San Fransisco and did the landing there too. The landing was even pretty good I thought! We left San Fransisco for San Luis Obispo, which is south of San Fran. I did the takeoff, which left a little to be desired. Not exactly my best work. On our way to San Luis, the attitude indicator on the Captain's side started acting up. This is a problem, because even though I have one on my side, the captain still needs one on his side. It seemed to correct itself by the time we got there though, but we were still monitoring it. After the passengers got on in San Luis, we taxiied to the runway, and the captain was supposed to do the takeoff. Well, just as he added power, the attitude indicator started acting up again. Since we were in the air when it happened last time, we were ok then, but since it happened while we were still on the ground this time, we had to taxi off and see if we could fix it. The captain got on the phone with maintenance, and after about 10 minutes of pushing buttons and turning stuff on and off, it was decided that we couldn't go and would have to taxi back to the gates. Our airplane wasn't going anywhere so we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. In the end, we ended up taking another airplane that was done for the day from San Luis. On the flight from San Luis we were empty, cause all the passengers had re-booked flights for the next morning, as at this point, we were two hours behind schedule. It was about 10:30 pm when we left San Luis and we still had a ways to go. By the way, we were supposed to have been done for the day by 10:30. Though I did not do the takeoff, I flew to San Fransisco and did the landing there too. We picked up passengers and got the heck outta there for Medford, OR. I flew the entire leg there and we FINALLY landed at about 2 in the morning. Got to the hotel and I CRASHED. We're meeting today at noon in the hotel lobby for yet another day, though this one should be a little more mundane cause we only have 4 legs as opposed to yesterday's six. I am enjoying this, but as my captain put it, "Yesterday was the day from hell." So hopefully today is better!

National Parks are flippin' sweet

Got up and hit the road from Grand Junction this morning at about 8:00 am. There are a lot of national parks along the route today, and I wanted to make sure I hit at least one. (I was on I-70 by the way.) I knew I wasn't going to be able to hit them all, but the two I had a good chance of getting were Arches and Zion National Parks. Whether or not to go to Arches basically came down to me coming to the exit, and trying to decide whether to get off or not. I eventually decided against it, because I wasn't sure how much time I was going to have for the rest of the day. It was a hard one though, cause I've seen pictures and it looks absolutly gorgeous. Arches, in the words of Arnold, "I'll be back."

I-70 to I-15 across central Utah is freaking phenominal. Rock formations everywhere, canyons, etc. I got lots of pictures at the scenic rest stops. Will post those as soon as I get the pictures developed!

At Richfield, I got on Highway 89 going south, but stopped to get gas. Just so you know, according to the Flying J gas station in Richfield, UT, the Terrorist Threat Level is Moderate. Apparently there must be something besides horses and cows in that town that terrorists might want to destroy. I'm guessing they're Republicans.

Highway 89 is also very beautiful. For the first part of it, it winds along the base of the mountains along a river bed. There was a bike path there too, perhaps I'll have to come back someday!

Eventually got to Zion National Park at about 1pm mountain time. Any words that I have to describe it wouldn't do it justice, so either look it up on the internet or wait until I post pictures. I pulled off at one of the stops in the park and went on a quick hike up to a "canyon viewing area" It took about 20 minutes to get up there, but when I did, the views were breathtaking. We were at the mouth of a canyon about 2000 feet in the air. Many pictures were taken.

Zion has very narrow roads running through it, especially to some of its more popular points, so they have an interesting way of taking care of it. Cars in the late 90's were beginning to crowd the roads too much, so now they have everyone park in the visitor center parking lot and then take a shuttle. Shuttles run every 5 minutes or so, so you're never waiting long for a shuttle. I took one into the canyon of the Virgin River, one of the rivers that carved out Zion. It's a really cool place and I walked along the shores of it, again, taking mucho pictures.

On my way back to the parking lot on the shuttle, it started to rain. Like really really hard. Everyone got off the shuttle and ran to a shelter about 20 feet away. The parking lots were a good 100 yards away so we waited until the rain let up a little before all making made dashes to our vehicles. Once inside, I drove through the rain for about 15 minutes until it let up, and got into St. George at about 6:30. Staying at a Days Inn here, and tomorrow it's Fresno or bust!

Hills are black, mountains are rocky and junctions are grand

Today was a wonderfully full day of driving. I mean that too, great scenery, and I don't mind driving at all. Woke up at about 6:15 mountain time. Got a shower, checked out of the Ramada, and was on the road out of Rapid City by 7:30. Feel free to go get a map so you can follow along with today's route. It's ok, I'll wait.

Took highway 16 south out of Rapid City to where it joined up with 385 in Hill City and took that south. No, I didn't go by Mount Rushmore, cause I've actually see that a number of times, and I haven't seen the Crazy Horse monument since Mom, Dad, Drew and I came here back in '94. So drove by that, then took 385 south to 89, where it joined up with highway 18. Gorgeous drive, by the way, which is to be expected from the Black Hills. It was supposed to be 99 there today, so I'm glad I got out of there early. I took highway 18 west until it joined with highway 85 in Wyoming and took it south to Lusk. Lusk is a very undescript, 3,000 person town, but I've been there 3 times before, cause every time I've gone to Denver, we've always gone through the Black Hills and then through Lusk. Kinda weird.

Anyway, took highway 18/20 west toward I-25, then headed to Cheyenne. In Cheyenne, stopped and got lunch and some gas, and tried to figure out what I was gonna do once I hit Denver. My goal today was to make it to at least Denver, but I was in Cheyenne by 11:00, so there was no way that I was going to stop for the day in Denver, cause that would be a waste of a driving day! My dilemma was wether or not to head west on I-70 from Denver, or head down to Colorado Springs, then head west on highway 50. I eventually decided on I-70, cause highway 50 would have taken too long, though I do plan on doing it sometime.

I-70 is beautiful, for those who haven't been on it. Once I got into the mountains, I turned off the AC and rolled down the windows. Even though it was sweltering on the plains, in the mountains it was nice and cool. It also helped the car's engine to not have to run the AC as well. Drove past Vail, which was a REALLY nice place. I can see why people live there and why it costs so much. Just prior to getting to Vail I went through the Vail Pass, which was the highest point on the Interstate at 10,662 feet. Pretty cool!

Also drove through Glenwood Canyon, which is again, a very cool place. I suggest you look it up on the internet. The way they had to lay the freeway to get it through there is quite an engineering marvel. I think there was a show on the History Channel about it. Finally made it to Grand Junction at about 6:00 pm and here I stay at the Best Western. Tomorrow, I'm driving past a whole crid load of National Parks, including Arches, Capital Reef and Zion on my way through St. George and Las Vegas. I may have to stop to stretch my legs on a number of occasions! Another thing too: about 5 minutes before leaving home yesterday, I checked my email and found that my transfer to Salt Lake City had been approved for September, so I'm only gonna be in Fresno for a month! Then I get to move again to Salt Lake! Good times. This was unexpected as Salt Lake hadn't had many people moving into it lately. Nice surprise!

I've got two queens...

No, I'm not talking about poker, and I'm not talking about drag queens either. I have two queen size beds in my hotel room. But that comes later I guess.

Anyway, I haven't posted in awhile cause I've been back home in the Cities, so there's not much to post on. Just kinda chillin at home, making the least out of my days, which is perfectly fine. Today I started my 2000 mile odessey to Fresno, CA. Feel free to pull out a map and follow along if you like. I took highway 169 out of the Twin Cities down to Mankato, and from there took highway 60 to I-90. Once on I-90, that's where I stayed. It was, for the most part a pretty uneventful trip today, about 9 hours all told. In Mitchell, SD, the car needed gas so I stopped, and also saw the world's biggest corn palace. (Or so they say) It's a palace, you guessed it, made entirely out of ears of corn. Got back on 90 and drove past the Badlands, unfortunatly not having time to stop there. Oh well. There will be next times. I did stop in Wall, SD though to take a picture of the famous Wall Drug. As I was leaving Wall, it started to rain. Hard. That was fun, but it's not the worst rain I've driven through. Got into Rapid City at about 8 pm mountain time, and tried to find a hotel. Apparently Wednesday nights are a hopping time for this place, cause I had to go to about 5 hotels before I found this one, a Ramada, and it's the last one in the hotel. So I have two queen size beds. Dad says I have to sleep on both to get my money's worth. So tomorrow I'm going to be at least to Denver, but if I get there and it's still early enough I may do some more driving. Who knows. Anyway, more on that later. I did/am taking pictures along the way, but I have my 35 mm camera so I'll post pics once I get them developed. Night.

I have no idea where I am anymore...

Well sorry it's been so long since I posted, the days have seemed to go by very quickly. Sunday was our 4th simulator lesson, dubbed "hell day" cause they throw just about everything at you that they can. So you have one little thing that turns into many large things, all while you're trying to fly the aircraft. Jason and I had some fun with that, but afterwards, our instructor said that we handled ourselves very well, and even though we came close to dying on a couple of occasions, he said that we were definetly ready for our checkride the next day. This day was more to see how we react under very intense situations as opposed to if we lived or not. All the things that happened that day weren't very realistic in terms of them actually happening all at the same time in the actual aircraft. Sunday night was pretty chill, and went to bed early so I could be well rested for the checkride on Monday.

Monday morning we met our instructor at 5:30 and got right into it. We had a little "mock check" first so we could make sure all the wrinkles were ironed out. I went first and did pretty well, then Jason went and also did well. Our instructor said if we flew like that on the checkride, we'd have no problems. We had a two hour break while Hugh and Chris went in and did their checkride review. We waited in a little area with a tv and a vending machine and some nice couches. I ended up falling asleepo watching Fox News. (imagine that) When it came time for the checkride, Jason went first, and passed just fine. When it was my turn I was nervous, but was confident I knew what I was doing. The checkride was very straight forward and seemed easy compared to all the stuff we'd benn doing over the past 5 days. After I landed, he said, "Ok! You're done! Congratulations!" I was glad it was over but in my mind I was almost like, "That's it?" Not that it was easy, but it could have been worse!

After Chris and Hugh got done with their ride, we went upstairs to the bar and had a few during happy hour, and then met up with Stefanie and Cindy, and decided to go downtown. We went to a couple of bars, walked around. Nice downtown area. We didn't get near the docks where the Queen Mary was, we didn't have enough time, but we could see it from a distance all lit up. Looked pretty cool, I think I'll have to come back sometime. This morning, Chris, Hugh, Jason and I all got on shuttle to LA to catch our flights. Tonight we have our aircraft ride, which is where we go up in an actual airplane (empty) and practice all the stuff we've been doing. Not alot of airlines do this, but SkyWest wants our first time going actually going through all this stuff to not be when there are passengers aboard. Chris and Hugh have their flight tonight in Carlsbad, and Jason and I are in Santa Barbra. Very nice area, although we couldn't see the ocean from the sky cause it was covered in clouds. After tonight, Jason and I both get on a 6:20 am flight to Salt Lake City, then I catch a flight home and he catches a flight home to Tampa. Holy cow! I'll try to take some pictures tonight, but we'll see how busy it is. Meanwhile, here's a few pics from the last few days!

This is Flight Safety, where we did all our training.

This is one of the simulator bays in Flight Safety. The sims you see are about as wide as two 15 passenger vans and sit about 10 feet off the ground on hydraulic jacks which move like the aircraft would in flight.

This is the Santa Monica Airport terminal. Pretty nice place!

This is the view out our balcony in Santa Barbra. Jason looked it up and apparently we're staying in a $200 a night room! Pretty posh!

Ummm, strong with the Force this one is...

Day 3 of simulators is over and done with, only 2 more days to go! I can't believe it has gone by so quickly. Yesterday was more normal stuff, takeoffs, landings, approaches and the like. We also introduced some emergency situations like electrical problems, engine problems, and fires. Engine fires are fun, because it means that by the end of the procedure, you've shut down the engine that is on fire. The aircraft is perfectly capable of performing on one engine, but it requires alot of control input on the part of the pilot to keep the airplane straight because now you have one engine producing alot of power and one engine producing no power which creates quite a large yawing motion toward the dead engine. We also did some single engine landings and approaches which are kinda fun, but as you keep looking at all your instruments and don't let the airplane take you for a ride, it turns out fine. After sims Jason and I had a few hours before we had to brief in the afternoon, so I came back to the room not feeling all that tired. I turned on the TV, sat in a chair and woke up 2 hours later! Guess I was. After our briefing with our instructor and the other group, Jason, Hugh, Chris and I went to go grab some grub at the airport terminal. The terminal itself is really cool, cause it still looks like it did back in the 50's. Very old school art deco kinda place. We ate at this cafe on the second floor which overlooked the airfield, and watched airplanes takeoff and land as we ate. We came back to the hotel, studied for awhile and then was in bed by 10:30.

Today the big thing we practiced were V1 cuts. To describe: V1 is the speed when we're taking off that we're committed to taking off, even if we're still on the ground. So if we're barreling down the runway and have an engine failure past V1, we keep going, and don't abort the takeoff. They were kinda intimidating at first, cause these can get really ugly if you don't do them right. (You basically careen off the runway at a high rate of speed.) We never did go off the runway, and after a few of them I was feeling pretty good. In fact, I wanted to keep doing more, even though it was Jason's turn. We did some more emergencies today, and those went well too. Our instructor says we're doing very well and he fully expects us all to do very well. Tonight is just a little more studying, making sure I get all my callouts done correctly. Days have no meaning anymore, I didn't even know today was Saturday until someone told me it was today. Eh, whatever. Anyway, I can't believe I've already been at this for a month and a half. Time flies. Gonna try to get to bed by 11 tonight, so I'm ready for tomorrow!

Can't see the forest through the trees, or perhaps the mountains through the smog...

First full day in LA As I said yesterday, it's much cooler here, which is freaking awesome. Jason and I caught a 2:50 flight out of Fresno yesterday for LA. The flight itself was pretty uneventful. As we neared LA though, there seemed to be no nature left and only city as far as the eye could see. Apparently that's the way it is out here, one city just fading right into another in an endless sea of housing. It was cool though cause we flew right past downtown and I could see places like Dodger's stadium, and the coliseum. LA is a huge airport too, it seemed to stretch on forever, with large hotels leading up to it. We got our bags and then took a shuttle to Long Beach where we are doing our training. It can be as short as 20 minutes if the traffic is good, but alas, the traffic wasn't, and it took us a little over an hour to get there. The hotel we are staying at is another Holiday Inn, right off the 405 Freeway in Longbeach. It's a pretty nice place. We get our own rooms too!

We called our instructor, and he's staying in the same hotel we are, so he told he'd give us a ride to Flight Safety the next morning at...wait for it....3:45 am. Wonderful. We all got to bed as soon as we could, cause it's another early morning. We met our sim instructor the next morning and drove to Flight Safety, which is about 10 minutes away. Flight Safety is a company that was formed in the 60's and all they do is run simulators. Companies come to Flight Safety and contract out pilot training to them. Flight Safety has locations all over the US. They have about 10 simulators per building, which may not seems like much, but when you consider that each of these simulators takes up a whole lot of space (I'll try to get pictures for you) you'd understand why. All these simulators are full motion, using either electrics or hydraulics to simlate movement. So that means when you push the power levers forward to take off, it feels like you're actually moving! Anyway, we got in the sims and did our thing for about 4 hours. Jason and I did a pretty good job and our instructor seemed pretty pleased. He's a really cool guy by the way, been with the company for I think he said 9 years. Anyway, after we got done with our stuff, we chilled for awhile while another group did the same thing with our instructor. After they were done, we briefed on what it was we are going to be doing tomorrow, which mean WE GET TO SLEEP IN. Only until 5, cause he's driving us again at 5:45, but hey, an extra 2 hours is worth it. Tonight is some studying and then a good night's sleep hopefully.

This is the hangar in Fresno where our FTD was.

This was the hotel in Fresno. Nice pool area!

View from my hotel in Long Beach. Too bad there's always so much dang smog!

Hotel in Long Beach. Sorry it's on it's side. haven't quite figured that one out yet.