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!?;)