Various Shots from Work + 1 New Guy Named Jakob

The beginning of this year brought on an onslaught of weather to the eastern seaboard and of course, I got to fly into it, around it and enjoy the flurries.  I really can't admit that I it was all joyous work, but it's all in the job description.  It's what we are trained to do and must do to bring you safely from Atlanta to who knows where.  Here are some shots; one with snow, one at night w/ the moonlight + Venus, and two others one of Atlanta Downtown followed by the Atlanta airport at night viewed from 11,000 feet. All these shot below were taken in the month of January.

Since I was fortunate to have two awesome flight attendants with me during a 40 hour stay in Allentown, Pennsylvania, we rented a car early morning and ventured out to three different vineyards, a chocolate factory as well as the local mountain to check out the slopes.  The vineyards were quite awesome, friendly and the various ambiances' were definitely different from the traditional ones here in Southern California.  For one, we don't have Ice Wine nor a freezing lake next to a cottage.  Peep these.

Sometimes, when I'm sitting in the back of a plane, non-revving, I'm able to snap some awesome up close pics.  Here is the airTran Atlanta Falcons themed Boeing 717 and one of Delta's newly modified 767 with winglets!  What do you think of these?

Something even more cooler...two of my very good friends, Kurt, who happens to be one of my groomsman and also shares the same birthday, July 28th, had his first child, Jakob with his lovely wife Krysti. Check out the happy father and son!

Up in the Air Again

I'm finding myself having to ride Mainline Delta quite a bit more these days as my AirTran options have diminished from 4 flights a day to San Diego from Atlanta to only one or two and even an occasional none.  It's a little frightening on how it will impact my commute as the Delta flights are pretty much always impacted and oversold, but I guess I'll have to make due.  My schedule for October is going to be as financially successful due to the lack of available trips to pick up and the fact that I had to cut one of my trips in half to an obligation in Fulton County.  If you forgot already, I'm set for a court appearance in relation to my speeding ticket that I got a couple of weeks back while driving to the airport. 

This is only my 3rd time using Qumana, a free blog editor for Mac OSX and I have to admit that I sometimes find the interface much more accommodating than the Windows Live Writer.  The reason for the transition back to using my Powerbook Ti is because I miss it.  It's the truth but the 667 MHz is sometimes just frustrating.  The battery life is long lasting and the size is great but the 30Gb hard drive also is a handicap.  I wish that I just had two good computers to use and stick with instead of being all over the place.  I have a broken HP dv1000 laptop at home that needs to be diagnosed (might need a new hard drive), a dual Pentium 3 1GHz tower that I've had for years which should still run, but I have no clue why it's not booting up and a box of parts sitting in Atlanta waiting to be put together. 

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The Good Feeling

Over the last few weeks, things have just been going a little too well.  It's definitely been a little bit since a major stretch of bliss, but I'm able to recognize that things are good again.  At least for the most part, the flying has been tremendous and the commuting hasn't really been all that bad.  I've been updating trelijah quite often as it's really easy to upload / email pictures to the site and the format is actually what I have been looking for in terms of quality.  The photos are almost full resolution!

I'm once again on the commute back to San Diego on AirTran enjoying the exit row eagerly awaiting the dry weather.  I'm about to head out tonight with one of my friends Joe who is back in town for a week vacation prior to starting up his last year at dental school in Boston.  Should make out for good times. 

I watched the Olympic Women's Beach Volleyball finals match last night which was amazing!  It's crazy to see that the two-some has won a total of over 100 matches in a row!  I haven't been on top of the olympics really this year as I've been preoccupied with some personal stuff including flying my butt off an going right to bed. 

To Commute or Not...Most Likely Will

In the next few months, I will be slowly transitioning to being more of a commuter and force myself to always fly home no matter what.  In other words, even if I have two days off, I will be flying back home to San Diego.  You see, the lease on our awesome Loxford Lounge Crashpad is due this up and coming February which leaves just under 7 months to slowly move.  Being that I haven't been around lately, doesn't really leave me that much time to pack up and go.  As long as I make it a habit to pack at least one box a week or month, I'll be all moved out by year's end making my reliance on the crashpad wither down to zilch. 

It is hard though now that I have been doing it a lot lately, but it really just takes will power.  I'm now able to concentrate on coming home since the fact my parents moved back to San Diego which cuts the drive home by almost 75% and is a lot more convenient all together. 

I was able to catch a flight on Delta Mainline this evening which is actually a rarity since I have been using the competition due to their availability.  Delta has always been full to and from Atlanta so my dependency has risen on Airtran thus enabling my frequent trips back home. 

The necessity for a crashpad in Atlanta would be only for the days that I am stuck in ATL due to weather or the times when I have training, but I guess that doesn't amount to more than what I would ben spending a year of keeping a place within the airport limits. 

I'm going to do it!  I really am and I feel more confident than ever because of my desire to surf a lot more and just swim and get more physically fit.  I have till end of the year to really achieve what I have been aiming for and that is normalcy. 

Murphy's Law

If anything can go wrong, it will.  It all started last night while doing my post flight walk around in Harrisburg, PA.  As I was walking down the stairs, the moisture on one of the steps made me lose my footing, and I came close to doing a face plant on the asphalt.  Of course, because of that close call, I sprain and twist my ankle a bit and just continued to limp around the aircraft.  We finally arrived at the hotel and while getting off the shuttle, I hit my head so freaking hard on the van door that I end up seeing stars and falling forward a little, almost, once again catching myself before the concrete sidewalk.  I'm still feeling a bump about 26 hours later. 

I wake up this morning, have a great breakfast and head back to my room.  After my shower, I grab an undershirt out of my luggage bag, head back to the bathroom and slip on some water but caught myself on the sink by holding onto the tile counter.  I'm definitely not that clumsy at all, and over the previous 12 hour period, I find myself already with 3 strikes.  Today was going to be a great day. 

Of course, after a deadhead back to Atlanta, we find out that our flight to Southbend, Indiana is delayed about 1.5 hours.  This has to happen on the last roundtrip of a four day trip.  We finally take off and once we land in Southbend, we find out that the flight back Atlanta is delayed also another hour.  So that means that my connection back home to San Diego edges closer to being a non-reality.  With all the weather in the vicinity of the Atlanta Airport, I luck out and find out that both Delta and AirTran flights to San Diego are going to be delayed.  We fly back, hang out on the taxiways in Atlanta waiting for the ramp to open up and I run to the next gate. 

I'm finally on the AirTran plane Flight 616 that finally ended up leaving around 1:30AM.  The flight was originally scheduled at 9:45PM, but I guess things have a funny way of working out.  I'm going to land in San Diego around 2:30AM, head to the DMV around 10:30AM to take care of some car registration an then finish up some loose ends back at the house.  It's going to be a good start though.  August is here and so is the last half of the year.  At least most of the little karmic critters are out of the way.