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