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!