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!