Betrayed by my friend...

We'll get to that later, but in the meantime, here's an update. Obviously there was the trip to Door County in the past month, but since most of the people who read this were there, I'll skip over that. No more weddings since my last post, I'm happy to say. I have a couple coming up in September and then one more in October, then my summer of weddings is officially over! Yay!

Most of you are aware that I'm moving back to St. Paul here in about 2 weeks. (A little less than that in fact, I'm quite excited!) It's been kinda hectic these past few weeks getting packed on my days off and also getting the car ready (oil change, trailer hitch, etc.) renting the trailer, all that fun stuff. Anyway, I have most of my place packed, and the plan is to just come back from work on the 28th of August, go right down to the U-haul place, pick up the trailer, load it, and be gone by about 7 that night. This requires that I be all ready to go when I get back, so I'm making sure all my stuff is packed early.



This is most of it, besides the small table and my bed of course.

It's been awfully hot here the past few days, into almost triple digits during the afternoon. For some reason though, my living room, where I mostly hang out has been hotter than any place else in the apartment. I thought perhaps there was too much sun coming in, but I closed the blinds and it was still hot. It wasn't until I was sitting in front of my computer that I noticed it was hotter there than it was a few feet away. I had found the source of my problem. My receiver/amplifier for my stereo is a rather nice one, big and powerful for great sound, but with that sound, the amp puts out a fair amount of heat. I didn't know how much heat that was until I put this little clock, which also has a thermometer in it, that my dad got me for x-mas last year on top of the receiver. Can you guess how hot the air coming off the receiver was?



That's right. One hundred and six freaking degrees. Betrayed by one of the things in the apartment that I love the most. Will I stop using the thing? Heck no! I gotta have my tunes somehow! I'm a freaking American! Do we ever stop using the things that do/will eventually cause us harm?!

Well, that's like, your opinion, man...

Well, almost another month has come and gone, and more stuff has happened. One of the biggest things being that I'm now off first year pay, which is awesome. I basically just got a 90% pay raise. I pretty much get paid every two weeks now what I used to get paid in a month. Awesome.

Also, for those of you who care, I will also cease to continue calling Salt Lake City my home in September. My lease expires on my apartment on the last day of August and I do not plan to renew it. Though SLC has been good to me, it's never felt like home, so I'm moving back home to St. Paul. A friend of mine owns a condo in downtown St. Paul and he has a room available starting in September so I'm moving in with him. I've also put my bid in to transfer to Chicago, which will be a little quicker commute for me than the 2.5 hours it takes to get from SLC to MSP.

This past weekend I was in Seattle for my third wedding of the summer. This time my good friends Nick and Chrissy were getting married. It couldn't have been any nicer weather in SEA if we had planned it that way. Gorgeous. I was the usher for this wedding, which was outside in a little park right next to a lake. Beautiful setting. Anyway, it was a good chance to see some people who I haven't seen in quite awhile. So much fun, and since some of those people live in the Cities, I can't wait to see them on a regular basis!

I'm getting old, and I need something to rely on...

These last few weeks haven't been too bad. The first weekend of the month, I was home for a weekend to attend my 2nd of seven weddings I'm going to this summer. The two who were getting married were my friend Dan and his (now) wife Jenni. I met Dan through another friend, Tim, who I've known for about 7 years now. Anyway, it was a really nice ceremony, and afterwards at the reception they had a live band, which my friend Tim and a couple of my other friends played at. Anyway, they needed someone to run the sound system, so I reprised my role as sound guy for the first time in about 2 years. It was a blast. Anyway, since Tim was not only playing in the band but also in the wedding party, his fiance, whose name is also Jen, had no one to go with, so she called me up the night before and asked if I wanted to be her date, which was fun as well. I also dress myself. God I love having good taste.

This last trip I went on was one where I flew out of Atlanta quite a bit. I have some good friends who live down there whom I haven't gotten to see in quite awhile, so on one of my overnights we all got together and hung out. It was pretty sweet really.

Not too much to report other than that really. I've kinda gotten screwed on my June schedule cause I have only two days off between my trips, which means there's not a lot of time to go places and do things. Oh well. I'll survive.

Speaking of survival, I would recommend reading First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung. It's a novel about surviving the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia in the late seventies. It's really a moving and compelling story.

Since my last post regarding this books, which was April 1st, I have read:
A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Into the Wild – Jon Krakauer
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J.K. Rowling
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
First They Killed My Father – Loung Ung
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J.K. Rowling

All really good books. The last Harry Potter book comes out in July, so I'm trying to read them all before that, so I'm re-caught up on the whole story.

Easy as 1-2-3, Simple as Do-Re-Mi

Well, another month has come and gone and I have slacked in my blogging. It's been a pretty full month. The biggest thing that prolly happened was my 10 days off towards the end of the month, in which a LOT of stuff happened. First off, my little brother graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Can't tell you how old that makes me feel, but we're all very proud of him.
The next day, I celebrated my 25th birthday. Holy crap. I'm getting old. I know, I know, Bebe. I don't get to say how old I am/feel. I got some pretty good stuff, mostly cash. Which was expected and always appreciated. I was also looking over my logbook, and found that that weekend (the 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st) has had quite a bit of stuff happen in the past. The 18th of May, 2000 was the day I got my Private Pilot certificate, thus serving as my entrance into the aviation world. The 19th of May, 2006, was when I heard that I was accepted for employment at SkyWest. The 20th of 2006 and 2007 are my friends Sarah and Casey's wedding anniversary and my brother's graduation, respectively, and the 21st is my birthday. Quite a packed couple of days.

The day after my birthday, my friend Ben and I went hiking along the north shore of Lake Superior. We were joined by our good friend Chris, who works in Duluth and happened to have the days off that we were going up there. We hiked between Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse, which is about 14 miles of hiking over two days. We camped out there too, which was awesome. I love camping.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, until the weekend when I went ot my college roommate's wedding. It was great to see people, and we had a lot of fun at the ceremony, which was held in Stillwater, about 30 minutes from the Twin Cities.


I also, just for the heck of it went to a site that I heard about, www.politicalcompass.org. This site has you answer a few pages of questions, then plots your answers on a graph to show where you stand politically. I'm happy to report that I am a Social Libertarian and well as an Economic Leftest, which puts me in the same area as the Dali Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Ghandi. Good old G.W. is on the complete other side of the scale from me. Woot. (My exact points on the graph are Economic Left/Right: -6.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.08
for anyone who wants to compare themselves with the greatness of me.)
That's it for right now, but I'll try to be a little better about this. In the meantime,

"Don't worry if your jobs are small, and your rewards are few,
Remember that the mighty oak, was once a nut like you." -Anon.

I listen for returning feet, and voices at the door.

I know, I know, I suck at this blogging thing lately. I really do. Sorry, but sometimes there's not a lot to report sometimes, just work. I think however, that after two weeks I could probably say something. I have made a couple of non-work related travel trips in the past few weeks, so I share them with you now.

The last weekend in April, I went to Albuquerque, NM to see my college roommate Tim, whom I lived with for 3 years in college. He's getting married over Memorial Day weekend, and in April I wasn't sure of my schedule for May and therefore wasn't sure if my schedule would allow me to attend. (I now know that it does, so this trip turned out to be a little bonus.) Anyway, he lives down there in a house that he and his soon to be wife Wendy live in. They also have quite a number of animals as well. There's the two cats Tweak and Lucy, (though Lucy is a very bitchy and FAT cat that I renamed Jabba the Hut) and two dogs, Max and Mia. I got there on Friday night, and at that point we just hung out. On Saturday, we went and took a tour of the place where Tim works, Eclipse Aviation. Eclipse is a very light jet manufacturer (Very light jets: think of a small 5 person airplane like the ones that I used to fly only with jet engines instead of a propeller.) and it is scheduled to deliver its first aircraft to its first costumer here in the next few months. I got to see the whole operation and see how the airplanes are put together from start to finish. Go to www.eclipseaviation.com to see the airplane if you're interested.

We then picked up Wendy, and went to "the" Mexican place in Albuquerque. It was very good to say the least. After that, we went up to the Sandia Crest Mountains, which are on the east side of town. They have a road, so you can drive right to the top. Beautiful view of Albuquerque. Apparently, I was there on one of the nicest weekends that they've had so far. Not to hot, not too cold. I left on the first flight on Sunday morning, which was at 10:30. This left Tim plenty of time to go back to his place to watch NASCAR, of which he is a huge fan. I would be posting pictures with this post, however, Tim has yet to email them to me, since he's in Virgina right now with his Best Man getting drunk and watching a NASCAR race live.

Another topic that could be brought up is my impending quarter life crisis. Yes, in less than 20 days I turn 25. Holy crap. Apparently, having a quarter life crisis is now a semi-recognized psychological condition. It's symptoms include, but are not limited to:
* feeling "not good enough" because one can't find a job that is at his/her academic/intellectual level (This is pretty well taken care of)
* frustration with relationships, the working world, and finding a suitable job or career (No frustration with any of those)
* confusion of identity (I'm Ty. A midwestern boy at heart living in SLC.)
* insecurity regarding the near future (Unless the airline goes under, I'd say the future's going well)
* insecurity regarding present accomplishments (Uhhh, it's been a pretty good year for me)
* re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships (My friends are still my friends)
* disappointment with one's job (I fly for a living, and travel for free.)
* nostalgia for university or college life (This I do have.)
* tendency to hold stronger opinions (I've always been quietly opinionated)
* boredom with social interactions (I thrive on them, in fact, I need more of them)
* financially-rooted stress (I'm in debt up to my eyeballs, but staying afloat)
* loneliness (Only cause I'm in SLC)
* desire to have children (Someday, but not now.)
* a sense that everyone is, somehow, doing better than you (I'm doing quite well, thank you)

I'd say that I'm doing quite well as far as all this goes. I'd still like a new car to go along with my crisis though;)

Any minute now, my ship is coming in
I'll keep checking the horizon
I'll stand on the bow, feel the waves come crashing
Come crashing down, down, down, on me

And you say, be still my love
Open up your heart
Let the light shine in
But don't you understand
I already have a plan
I'm waiting for my real life to begin

When I awoke today, suddenly nothing happened
But in my dreams, I slew the dragon
And down this beaten path, and up this cobbled lane
I'm walking in my old footsteps, once again
And you say, just be here now
Forget about the past, your mask is wearing thin
Just let me throw one more dice
I know that I can win
I'm waiting for my real life to begin

Any minute now, my ship is coming in
I’ll keep checking the horizon
And I'll check my machine, there's sure to be that call
It's gonna happen soon, soon, soon
It's just that times are lean

And you say, be still my love
Open up your heart, let the light shine in
Don't you understand
I already have a plan
I'm waiting for my real life to begin

On a clear day, I can see, see a very long way
On that clear day, I can see, see a very long way.

Money can't buy happiness, but it will pay your bills...

Being off training pay is soooo nice since I'm finally making some money again. Not great money, but some money non the less. The past few weeks have been pretty good. I've been flying quite a bit, and my crews have been pretty cool. I wish I had more to report on that front, but I don't. It's pretty much been the same thing. Wish there was more.

Anyway, I'm going to be on a four day trip starting day after tomorrow, and then hopping a plane back home to the Cities for two days. Called Mom today to tell her and she said that I'd be coming into town the same days that Uncle Rick and Kelsey were coming into town to check out the U of M. Little surprise there! I won't pass up the opportunity to see family!

I'll see if I can get some pictures up here of my new job as a jet pilot, so you can see the new stuff that I'm flying!

For now I leave you with one of my favorite poems.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Thank God that's over

Well, IOE is over, and I'm officially a First Officer again. My tests and everything are done until this time next year, when I have to get my annual performance check. Woot!

My Captain for IOE was a really nice guy, and I had a lot of fun. The first trip that we did was just a two day trip, and we went to Spokane, Rapid City, and Orange County, CA. Rapid City was especially cool for me, as I've never seen the Black Hills from the air. The Black Hills are really weird in that it's surrounded by brown. Nothing to see for miles, then it looks like someone was just like "I think I'll put some hills and pine forests here," and there they went. Very strange. Saw Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial from the air, which was pretty cool.

The next trip that we did was just a quick one from Salt Lake City to Calgary, Alberta and back. This was my first experience flying into Canada as an airline pilot, and it was kinda interesting. We had to go through customs into Canada, and then go back through US customs too. It was weird. Especially since we weren't even staying, we were just turning around to go right back home. The Canadian version of the Transportation Security Administration are also tough to deal with. While the crew is going through customs, they have a nasty habit of planting things on your aircraft, such as suspicious notes, or ever fake wood guns, to see if we catch them. It sucks. We refer to them as Nazis.

The last trip of IOE was the long one. The first day we went from SLC to San Francisco, then to Medford, Oregon and then spent the night in San Fran. Didn't get to do as much there as I would have liked, so I'll have to come back to explore downtown. The next day was the long day. We flew from San Fran to Boise, the Boise to Denver, the Denver to Cedar Rapids Iowa, then Cedar Rapids to Chicago, and finally Chicago to Green Bay, WI. Long day to say the least. The third day was back to Chicago, then a round trip to Syracuse, NY and the to Moline, Ill. (Which is basically the Quad Cities area) The fourth day we just flew back to Salt Lake City. So thankfully that's over with.

I have two days off before I have to fly again. Not sure what I'm gonna do with it, but I'll figure something out.

This last one is for my dad, who thinks that I don't read anymore, which couldn't be further from the truth. So I've been keeping track. Since the beginning of the year, I have read:

Watership Down – Richard Adams
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH – Robert C. O’Brien
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff – Christopher Moore
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
Montana 1948 – Ray Watson
And I'm about halfway through A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson (Thanks Uncle Tad, by the way. You gave me that book for my 21st birthday. I read it then and had forgotten how good it was.)

So that averages about 2 books a month, and for two of those months, I was in ground school,simulators and doing IOE! So how you like them apples!?;)

Quite a twister I've been in...

Well, it's been quite awhile since I've posted last. Sorry about that, let's see if I can update a few things since I last talked to you all.

When I left off, we had just started the flight training devices. Needless to say, that went well. After that, we started simulators, which also went well. Our instructor in the simulators was someone who had been with the company for a LONG time, so he really knew his stuff. As an example, my employee number is 26808. His was 536. He's been here awhile. After four days of simulators, we had a week off. It was unusual to have such a long break in the middle of sims, but I didn't care. I needed a break. I got home on a Wednesday night, and Thursday morning. The snow hit St. Paul. A LOT of it.

I woke up the next morning to closed airports, businesses, streets, everything. There was quite a bit of snow. Thankfully the snow gods were looking down on me, and my neighbors decided to have a "snow blower" war to see who could clear out the most sidewalks first, which thankfully, included our front walk. All I had to shovel was the area from the back door to the garage. My dad borrowed a snowblower from the people across the alley from us for the apron of the garage, and all that was taken care of! I was surprised that my parents hadn't bought a snowblower yet, since Drew and I aren't there regularly for manual labor, but they really don't need one with all those snowblowers that our neighbors have! My parents were gone for a few days up in Duluth during the time I was home, and I got the pleasure of puppy sitting Hayley. I didn't ever really realize how much having a dog is like having a small child. Let her out, be home to feed her, blah, blah, blah. There was one day that I went over to my friend's house, which he and his fiance had just bought, to help paint. I was gonna be gone the whole day, so I just called the neighbors and asked them to let the dog out and feed her. Outsourcing, you gotta love it.

When we got back to SLC, we had three more simulator sessions before we took our checkride. We did very well, and our instructor (the one who had been with the company for a long time) said that my sim partner and I were some of the best that he's taught recently. So that was a nice compliment. Our checkride went equally well, even though our checkride pilot was known for being a hard-ass. We passed, and passed easily. Pretty awesome.

We had a day off after that, and my sim partner flew his wife out from Sioux Falls, SD and we all hung out and went up to Park City. It was a beautiful day that day, almost hitting 70 degrees.

The next day my sim partner and I went to Santa Barbara, CA for our aircraft checkride. SkyWest is different from alot of companies in that before we go up and fly with people in the back, we get to go up with an empty jet at night practice. That was alot of fun! While we were in Santa Barbara, we went swimming in the pools, and took bikes that the hotel supplied down to the beach. Gorgeous! My sim partner took pictures and I'll post them when I get copies. We got back into SLC, and I had a few days off before I had to go to St. Louis for just a little more training, but I talked to the travel people in my company, and they let me go a few days early, so I've been hanging out with family and friends since then! It's been pretty awesome. I go back to SLC day after tomorrow. I then have two days off, then I start flying people! Yikes! More to come after I know it, and I promise I won't take so long this time.

One more thing, I suppose you're all wondering about Pinky, since I haven't talked about him in a little while. I suppose it's safe to talk about it now, but he was lying low from the police ever since an unfortunate incident involving Aqua Net hairspray, Ramen noodles, extra chunky peanut butter and a Moped. It was quite tragic, but thankfully, no one was hurt. More about that later I guess, I don't want the cops to catch the trail.

I leave you with this:
"God is a comedian playing to an audience who is afraid to laugh." - Voltaire

I can't think of a title. Oh well.

Forgive the unoriginality of this post. For the first time in almost a year, I have a cold. It's not a big one, and I think that I'm getting over it already, but it still sucks.

As for class, last week was when we had all our tests, which I am happy to report I aced them all. The first test was on Monday, which was the big systems test. Got a 96% on it! Our other tests were emergency procedures and limitations tests, which again, I'm happy to report I did fine on.

We had Friday off, so I used that time to go get a new aviation medical, so I can continue flying. Again, no problems there!

Yesterday we started FTD or Flight Training Devices. It's basically a complete mockup of the cockpit with moving buttons and switches, but unlike a simulator, it doesn't move, so it's cheaper for the company to operate. The first day went very well, and the instructor seemed to be impressed with my sim partner and I. We had today off, and tomorrow we start again and don't have a day off for a week. Hopefully things go as well for the next week as they did yesterday!

All these things that I've done...

This past week has been a rather full week of new things. First off, for those of you who didn't know, I've been awarded a transition to the CRJ. (The kind of jet we fly.) I'll still be based in SLC, but just flying a new airplane. So last Monday I started ground school again. It hasn't been going too badly, but this who waking up at 6 am on a regular basis is kinda kicking my butt, but oh well, I'll deal with it. Our class is divided between new hires and transitions. There are 15 new hires and 15 transitions. The thinking behind that is so that the new hires can be pared with someone who has already been here for awhile to kinda show them the ropes. As it turned out, someone who I knew from UND was one of the new hires, and so now he's my sim partner! Nice to have someone I know as my sim partner.

The CRJ so far, is a lot easier to understand as far as systems go than the Brasilia (the airplane I used to fly). When they designed the systems for the Brasilia, they must have been on drugs. (Don't get scared or anything, the airplane was by no means unsafe, it was just difficult to understand why they put things together the way that they did from a technical standpoint.)

Today a bunch of us are going to a sports bar in downtown SLC to watch the Superbowl. Should be a fun time and a good way to relax after a very full first week. I'll write more when I know more!

Now on to an airplane that sucks and blows...

Well, after 8 months with SkyWest, I'm transitioning over to the CRJ (Canadair Regional Jet). This is kinda unusual, as SkyWest has what's called a "seat lock" in place, meaning that whatever airplane you start out in, you're "locked" into that airplane until a year is up. Well, they need CRJ pilots so badly, that they're releasing people out of their seat locks early. So this means I get to transition sooner!

I'm excited to start ground school tomorrow. I'm sure that it'll be challenging, but I'm not as worried about it as I was the first time going through, cause now I know what to expect. A bunch of people who were in ground school with me when we were new hires are also going through transition with me, so I'll know a bunch of people in class already.

Today was mostly filled with running errands, especially getting food. I'll hold a regular schedule for about 3 weeks now, (8-5 Mon-Fri) so I'll actually be home to eat dinner. So I needed to get food to eat! Class starts tomorrow at 8 am, I'll write again soon to let people know how it's going!

The two pictures above were taken on Saturday, when I got back from my last trip in the Brasilia. The first picture you see is the flight deck of the Brasilia, my "office" so to speak, for the last 8 months, and yes, I do know what all those switches, knobs, buttons and gauges mean/do.

Seeing the world through rose colored glasses

It's been awhile since I've posted, and I suppose it's about time again. After spending a wonderful 10 days in Florida/St. Paul, it was inevitably time to go back to work. I flew a four day trip with a pretty cool crew, and got back in town on the night of the 8th, just in time to see Ben and Alison one last time, or so I thought.

Ben and Alison are moving back to the Cities, as the job market here stinks. I can't blame them. Anyway, I called them on Monday night and they said they weren't anywhere close to being ready to go. I spent most of Tuesday (Happy Birthday Drew) helping them load up their trailers, and bid farewell to them that night. They called me the next morning. They were still here. Apparently the weather decided to turn foul in Idaho and Montana, so they stayed another day. I said goodbye to them again that night. They called the next morning. The weather was now in SLC, and most of yesterday was a slippery mess. I bid them a final farewell last night, and they should be well on their way by now.

I have a couple of trips left this month, then I transition over to the jet. Yay! I have alot of limitations and emergency procedures to memorize by the 29th of January!

One more thing - I have glasses. Got them yesterday. Look pretty good in them I must say. My distant vision is just not quite what it should be, so I needed to get them so I could pass my aviation medical that I have coming up in Feb. I'll take some pictures and post them when I can!