Mom's Company Party

read the post below if you haven't already by clicking here or scrolling down...it's awesome!

Today was a relaxing day of just waking up late, eating some good food at Islands (Maui Burger + Loaded Fries and some sweet water) and heading down to Fashion Valley to return some goodies. We met up with Marella at their house in Fashion Hills and headed to the mall right after just for a little bit. I never knew that the Apple Store was that busy. It's ridiculous! At least I know that they have plans to make the Genius Bar much larger in the anticipation of more customers after their initial batch intel co branded computers.

I bought a new pair of Khakis from Banana and figured that's all I would need for my Mom's party and indeed it was! There was a lot of food and dancing (Adelle and I chose not to partake in the latter ^_^) Pictured above is: me, Adelle, Taylor, Jorene and Mom. Good times. Now, the dilemma is where or what to do tonight for New Years!!! It's crazy that its already here. NUTS!

Bad Service / NFL Star Struck?

I wanted to take Adelle to Rei de Gado in Downtown, San Diego and my friend Anh also wanted to hang out, so I made the best of it and combined the two. Ang was hung over like crazy and he needed food badly. I even called in for a reservation, but the service was just horrible. They didn't have our reservation and we didn't get seated until another 20 minutes later. After that, it was more than 15 minutes before we got our drinks and even then it was just painful to watch other people get refills while we haven't even gotten our first cup! We were all definitely just not having a good time or enjoying the restaurant in general. The food was good, but the waiters were absent from their duties. To say the least, one of the skewers fell on Anh's face and we only got a free dessert from it. I mean, it hit his eye pretty hard and I thought with all the events leading to that, we should have at least got comped. We ended the day though on a good note with him showing me his new Ecco (not Marc Ecko) snow shoes that he bought for his stay at Boston and that we would hang out again sometime later. Sorry that it was such a crappy first time there guys! On to the next part of the day...

The last few days have been me lingering on the idea whether or not I needed some new luggage for my frequent traveling. I went to the luggage store at Fashion Valley a couple of days ago to find out that Tumi was having a sale. Now, the only dilemma was deciding on what kind of design I wanted; duffel shaped with extra compartments or the traditional style. Of course, there was gray and black too. Tonight as I was looking around, I noticed a guy around my height looking at the same kind of bags. His mom, dad and wife were also helping him decide. I finally noticed that it was none other than Drew Brees! Starting to turn red and sweat a little, I just walked off to another part of the store trying to tell Adelle that it was freaking Drew Brees! She didn't hear me the first couple of times and asked, WHO?" in a loud whisper. It finally sunk into her head and she was telling me that I should go over and say hi. She even just started to follow him around the store trying to pretend to look at little pens and stuff. She definitely wasn't as embarrassed as I was. I didn't know what to do. For those who do not know who Drew Brees is, he is the #1 Quaterback for the San Diego Chargers.

Well, to make my star struck stupidity story short, I called Jojo and he told me that he wanted to talk to him and that I should hand over my cell phone to Drew. I was just so freaking nervous. I didn't even want to ask for his signature either. After talking to his wife for a little bit (asking advice on which bag to chose) I calmed down a bit and finally when they were checking out, I asked the store clerk for a Sharpie and politely asked Drew to sign my luggage. I think that I might have even said, "Do you think you can sign my bag for me?" I sounded like such a dork. He even turned a little red because I don't think that he has ever gotten such a request before. I told him to sign it large and he did just that. Check it out! Now, any suggestions on how to protect the signature? And yes I'm going to use my new bag. I just hope that no one takes it away! :-)

Another good day of flying in San Diego

Weather wasn't the best, but my co-pilot definitely was. Being his first time in a single engine aircraft, I thought that he did a good job of helping me out with checklists and going over different procedures. I decided that we could take off VFR to Ramona from Palomar airport and once I got in the air, I noticed that the haze was just too constricting. We did a little maneuvering around Escondido, but nothing too intense and decided to stay in the pattern at Ramona. I completed 4 touch-n-gos and we got on our merry way. It's great to give someone their first flying experience.

Afterwards, I headed north to get out and high just under the Class Bravo airspace and decided that we would ask for flight following to Montgomery Field, but ATC offered an IFR clearance. WX was reported as skies clear with haze, so I decided that I might as well get an approach in. I love flying the mountain ranges around socal, but it definitely can be kind of scary. I was approaching rather close to a mountain waiting for my vectors inbound to intercept the final approach course and right at the last second before I was feeling uncomfortable, they turned me in. Wasn't that great of a landing, but still good. We stretched out for a while and I filed for an IFR back to KCRQ.

That entire flight went by really well and at 4000, we could see the haze layer and I thought that it was choice that I got the clearance. Got a full stop ILS 24 into KCRQ and coupled the auto-pilot for almost the entire way, but I just couldn't get the Glideslope to work properly. I disengaged it 4 miles and 1500 feet above the runway and made an AWESOME landing! I kept the noise wheel up until the next taxi way. Show-boating you might call it, but it was damn smooth.

I got to meet the aircraft owner (a doctor of course) of N440JP and spoke to him a little. I wish that I could have flown with him and learned that he pre-ordered a DA42. That's the new multi-engine aircraft from Diamond Star that just debut this past month. It would be amazing if I could fly that plane sometime soon. I might not even have to go to China to instruct anymore if I chose that path.

IFR to Ramona, CA then TEC Routes to and from Santa Monica

12/26/2005 [.5 actual instrument / 3 approaches]
IFR to KRNM / TEC Route SANM8 and SNMA10
KCRQ --> KRNM --> KSMO --> KCRQ


Flying to Ramona was great and with my IFR clearance to 9000 feet, it was executed with ease. The approach was rather harmless with a few clouds in between the airport and I. I did a lap in the pattern perfecting my procedure even more. I still have a lot more room to get better, but I can feel how much I have grown with each landing.

On the way out, I amended our previous IFR clearance for departure from KRNM to KSMO with FSS. I did forget to post an alternate but using a TEC route, I was unsure on the certain procedures. I definitely have to reacquaint myself with those things. I filed an IFR Flight plan anyways, with the route identifier for my course, but I wasn’t sure how to treat it. I mean, forecasted weather was okay and everything enroute wasn’t going to be too bad and a TEC route is an IFR clearance anyways. I definitely was just completely unfamiliar except with the language that I read in the Jeppesen Manual the day before.

Flying along the way and out of Ramona, Jojo sat in front and while we were going through a cloud, I could see that he was pretty tense. The entire flight was chill and I got to play around with the autopilot for the first time. I got the handle on it real quick and we were on our way to SLI. Of course, approaching the LA area, I noticed that there were some pretty big clouds and that we were going to be taken right into them. It started to drizzle a little and while in the cloud, we experienced some light turbulence. It shook the airplane pretty hard and I even broke a sweat, but it was no problem. I disconnected the aircraft just to reengaged myself and "feel" the plane. Flying throughout the Santa Monica area was a little disconcerning on my own and being in the clouds, I definitely was making sure that all ATC directions were going to be clear of anything and everything. I didn’t break out till about 800 MSL and 1 mile from the airport. I even briefed that it would be a circle to land, but when tower told me I was clear to land, I thought that I could make it. Cutting the power to idle and just slipping to lose altitude didn’t get me down and I informed them that I was going to execute a go around. Being very kind, they told me to circle south and enter a left downwind. I guessed that knew that I was unfamiliar. I wasn’t sure if that was already understood being that the approach did call for a circle at 680 MSL. But I made a good decision to go around and felt pretty good about it knowing that I was far from stabilized. I mean, I was really high!!! On the initial approach, I got a NAV flag on my HSI but proceeded because I was now using my backup OBS 2 which I had already tuned and identified prior to the approach just in case. FAR 91.187 basically told me that I should have informed ATC immediately when I had that outage, but I didn’t know that until just this afternoon reviewing for my ATP. The approach in was no problem and we had an awesome lunch at Typhoon. I was excited for myself. I built a little bit more confidence in that I successfully completed my first TEC route but the hardest part I knew was yet to come.

Prior to even departing KSMO, I called up and went through the routing to CRQ with FSS and they were a huge help in helping me navigate on paper the exact routing. I spoke to Andrew on AIM and he told me what it would be like on the climb out and with all those instructions I thought that I was going to be overwhelmed. To my surprise, I found myself repeating the instructions no problem with only one confusing detail. I thought that I heard "left turn to 270 on climb out," but departing 24 I knew it was a right turn to get to 270. Tower corrected my read back and I was on my way. It was a little fast but ATC was pretty quick on getting me to my intended course. We climbed out west then eastward into a clearer sky with fewer clouds than on our initial approach into the area and both my passengers fell asleep rather quickly. We had a nice 30 knot tailwind increasing my groundspeed to 160 knots. It was an easy ride home and this time along the entire route, we had little to no cloud obstructions enabling us to sight see and relax a little. You can tell that the flight was great because my passengers didn’t wake up at all until we were 2 minutes from the Final Approach Fix into KCRQ. I woke them up with a breifing from the cockpit. (this is your Captain speaking thingy, ya know?) Yeah I'm a tool, but I like to think that I am practicing. It was a great day of flying. I definitley wish that I had a chance to fly everyday and just build up time like this. I feel that it is really valuable in the overall learning experience of being a pilot.

I executed a total of 3 approaches and logged .5 actual instrument time. I also bought the Jepp plates which I definitely appreciated much more than the NOS version charts. Erasable highlighters are the bomb too!!!

Good Start

Well, Jet Transport Class is over and I have to say that we're off to a good start! A great start actually after a rough commercial multi-engine conclusion. I scored a 98%, I should have finished at 100% but I caught myself in a word game and changed my answer. Oh well, now on to San Diego! I can't wait!

Loving it!!! +6

I just wanted to relay this post! I wasn't able to view this on television until the highlight reels were being aired, but I was listening to it and watching it on the NFL live gametracker. You have to listen to both! They vary so much...just listen!

Turner 83 yard TD run

Below are both the Chargers and Colts radio calls when Michael Turner makes his game clinching 83 yard touchdown run. I’m certain that Chargers radio broadcasters Josh Lewin and Hank Bauer will make it on Dan Patrick's Homer Call Play of the Week Monday morning on ESPN Radio.

- Courtesy Chargers broadcast

- Courtesy Colts broadcast

6 players to the Pro Bowl. That's right, you don't hear anything about the "other" guy. Oh yeah, and by the way, congrats to Mr. Shawne Merriman for being voted to the Pro Bowl!!! May he bring the Chargers Defensive good action for years to come!

off comment note: I have my first CAPT 500 series final in about 14 hours. Goodnight!

Final...

Already? Yeah, already. We just finished our presentation concluding our piston phase at CAPT. We are also coming up on our first 500 series final this Thursday afternoon. Should be great! Guess what, we aren't even completing the course work till tomorrow afternoon. I can say that I have a pretty good grasp on things, but still have yet to 'master' them. I have to admit, that I find myself really excited and motivated to be learning completely new systems. I'm loving it! April 7 also just keeps popping in my head.

Congrats to another 2 of our CAPT cadets that have a start date of January 3rd at Pinnacle Airlines. They graduated about 2 weeks ago and were notified on the same day of their interviews that they were hired! Amazing news for the program and its future! I'm glad to part of this new era of pilot training.

The date is now set...

Not in stone is it yet, but as of today,the date stands to be Friday, April 7, 2006. Start buying your plane tickets now folks! I will hopefully have finished my DC9 Type rating with the 25 hours initial operating restriction type certificate along with all my current ratings. It's going to be a fun and arduous next three months but I'm looking forward to it. This is where it counts!

13-1!!!

And we still aren't going to make the playoffs! Isn't that just the rub! I have never been so excited over a win, but still with last week's disappointing play calling, the season might as well be worthless. I hope that I can just bite my tongue and wish for the best, but to have the Steelers lose as well as the Jags and we win the last two...its going to be a tough one. Beating the Colts was freaking awesome! I wish that I had watched it, but it was pretty good on radio and internet. Wasn't that bad at all. I guess that I might have to succumb to DirectTV NFL pass next season if things doing get better.

Go Chargers!!!

Now on to studying a lot! I got a final on Thursday as well as a Weather Presentation. Can't wait for this week to come to an end.

Class Picture

This is a picture of us in Jet Transtion Class Day #2. Expect us to either start to lose a lot of weight and gain large bags around our eyes in the following months. We already have out next week panned out for us with a final exam prior to us leaving for Christmas Vacation. Yipee!!!

We are all officially three stripers as of this morning! Congrats Forrest!

(from left to right, back row: Ryan Nay, Forrest Foust, Greg Farlow, Kevin Lubic front row: Kurt Buffington, Laura Pigott, Elijah Nicolas, Manoj Osuri)

This is probably one of the greatest links in regards to "flying through" a jet engine. It is a flash animation and I want everyone to check it out! http://www.rolls-royce.com/education/schools/journey02/flash.html

1/120 + 4.5

Well, today was the first day of Jet Transition. More specifically, we actually started CAPT 502: Jet Transport Systems. It is official, I am almost there. I can't see the light just yet, but supposedly, I have about another 120 days of the CAPT program remaining which includes the Christmas break and weekends. It's all so surreal. That means that this blog is almost 1 year old. Laura and I were remembering when we first met which was just about a year ago from this week at our initial interviews. It's amazing to see how far we have come in the program.

My class, AB05-01, has been combined with AB05-02 along with two other students who started at the Commercial level. That brings it to 8 of us all in all. It's going to be a great class I know it! Laura, Manoj and I have decided that we would wait to ask for our three stripes until our other classmate finishes. We are just a crew like that!

Driving to Daytona is just going to be a pain now since that we will have to leave approximately 45 minutes early to find parking and walk to class. And then when the Daytona 500 and Bike Week come along, its going to be such a mess. I do look forward to the King Air Simulator, but more so, the MD-90. Some words of encouragement from Mr. Dan Barnes (a Jet Instructor Pilot), "Our job is to try to kill you everyday, but your job is to prevent just that from happening." Good stuff eh? It's going to be an exciting time.

Well, after yesterday's accomplishments, Manoj, Matty P, Laura, Greg Farlow and his wife Stephanie, and I decided to head out to Cancun Lagoon where they have flip it Tuesdays. Let me explain. Every time you order a drink, the waiter comes by and tosses a coin in the air. One side is labeled, "FREE," while the other is just plain. If it lands on the "FREE" side, then your drink is absolutely free. No gimmicks! Of course, the entire first round with the bartender tossing the coin up wasn't free, but then after we sat down and got a table, I intervened with the waiter and asked if I could flip it myself. I managed to flip it and scored drinks for all of us. The waiter and I became good friends just as I was finishing up my 3rd beer. Yup, you heard it, I drank more than my normal one and half. I ended up having 4.5 beers (my shirt kind of got a quarter of that half) and a shot of something that Laura got. I kept on flipping some good stuff. I think that all in all, we had four beers each, if not some of us even had 6, and our tab came out to be... $3.71. Yeah you heard it! Freaking three bucks! That excludes the first four that we had to pay for at the bar prior to sitting down. But seriously...that place was fun! I know that I had a lot of fun. Here a picture of me, Manoj and Matty. I'm actually hanging on...You guys remember the UPS man on Mad TV?!!? Yup, that was me... and Jojo and Anh, I was once again running around the car! It was great times! Look at my eyes, they are actually wide open!!!

Guess to whom you are now looking at!?!?!

Yeah that's right, I am now an official Commercial Multi-Engine Rated pilot with Instrument privileges. This is Mr. John Castronover to which I had the opportunity to have for my FAA Designated Examiner. He was by far, one of the most experienced pilots that I have flown with. From all his various type ratings to years put in with Eastern Airlines and retiring with his last leg in San Diego, I had a good chance to see how happy ones life can be in aviation as well as how bitter one can feel about certain airline companies.


Well, not to brush my nose off or anything, I was given one of the best compliments I have ever been given in my aviation career. "Elijah, you had the plane eating out of your hands. You are definitely one of the best students to come out of here. Your commanding presence in the aircraft is definitely what will make you well qualified to sit left seat." Okay, so yeah, I won't let it get me cocky or anything, but to have a 33,000 hour pilot say that to me, a 231 hour pilot, really makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I have no other way of putting it. It was great and I felt good about the entire ride. The confidence factor and the lack of anxiety (well, not as much as I normally do) really helped me out a great deal. Whatever the next picture with me will be will have me standing with 3 stripes! Bring it on Jet World! Yeah, no time to break people, I have jet class day 1 tomorrow!

First half complete!

I was able to not only finish my in house oral exam and the checkride but the Adv. Meteorology course today! I didn't do as well as I would have liked in AWX but I was able to score above a 90%. Very low in my books, but hey, I completed all three qualifying events in one day. Take that for some thought.

Tomorrow morning at 0900 EST, I will be beginning the DE (Designated Examiner) Oral Exam and Checkride. To be a Commercial Multi-Engine Pilot or not to be...that is the question. Stay tuned!

If all goes well, I will be making the transition to jet systems very, very shortly! I also go home next Saturday!!! Not this upcoming one, but the following on the 24th. So you know what that means, I don't have any time to buy presents because I'm booked till I leave. Sorry guys! Definitely next year when the inflow starts happening again!

way to go chargers...

Too early in the game, we took chances that helped us lose. The two turnovers and just plain awful secondary helped contribute to what we could call the end of our season. With the schedule ahead of us, it looks very unlikely, unless a miracle can happen, that you would see this awesome team in the playoffs.

It's also 2:19AM and I'm still working on some flight planning. Call me a slacker, but I want to rock on the oral exam tomorrow! I don't even know what time I go in.

Ocala and JT

Today was a great flight before my Commercial Multi-Engine End of Course. It was the preride check and I was able to perform my maneuvers per PTS if not just a little off. I'm sure that I'll have it down before the actual ride this coming Monday. It was a stress free flight. It was also the first time that I got to fly into Ocala Airport. For all of those who do not know, Ocala airport is near the Private Strip called Greystone. This of course is where John Travolta lives. We flew over his house while I snapped some pictures. Check it out on the trelijah page. It was a really enjoyable flight.

There were a few things that I need to practice but I will try to do my best. My roommate Jeremy came along for the ride and his debriefings were very thorough. It was great to now only fly with another pilot monitoring but as well as another instructor to keep you up to date on your check line items. Good stuff.

I had a huge hamburger over at the Tailwind Cafe on Ocala Field. It was great! It was about the size of a hand and as thick as and inch or so. Damn good meal I tell ya! Almost on par with Islands in San Diego.

We took off and headed back to X47 and decided that my steep turns from the previous flight were sufficient! :-) Its on for this upcomming week! In house Checkride and the FAA ride this week. Wish me luck!

still alive

Yes, a lot has been happening. With Manoj and I trying to "catch up" through multi-engine commercial phase, we are flying our butts off. Not only are we in the air for about 6 hours, but we bust duty days like they never existed. I mean, we are on track to finish on time but this is without our personal safety zone of performance being reached. What I really mean is I am confident of my skills, but not for testing purposes. We aren't even techincally behind the rest of the group. They just had better oppurtunities to fly out west and double on lessons where we were just doing one a day. Is it our fault that the date for jet was set without them knowing where we were in the course? I am not at all bitter because it is how the game goes. I am determined to finish and move along, but I do wish that I had more time to brush up on things. Being rushed and/or pressured is never a good feeling.

Over the last few weeks since the Asheville Entry, we have been to Peachtree, Georgia (near Atlanta), Pensacola twice with different instructors, Tallahase over again and just about anywhere else we could build time. It's been a great ride. We were 1 out of the two crews that were unable to go out west. I really wish that I had the chance to do just that. The stories I hear about what the cadets learn are just amazing. Makes me jealous.

I am also sorry for not being able to fly that one day. To everyone who does not know, I did go home for Thanksgiving because my mom really sounded like she wanted me home. I mean, come on here...it is a Holiday that pratically everyone takes off. Being that most West Coast flights depart early, I had to leave Wednesday morning which then caused me to miss a flight. I felt really bad that I let down a couple of people, but for reaching a finish date with the sacrifice of family? There is a thin line. Don't put words in my mouth either that this program isn't a priority. This issue was coming and was forseen weeks in advance and the one day that most people have off to travel, I get dinged?

Luckily, I was able to change my flight from December 23rd to the 24th without that much punishment. It only cost me $7.00 because of the refund due to ticket pricing changes. Good stuff. But with that being said, please don't expect any presents this year. I am copmletely broke!

My friend Andy is doing really well in China. I am really proud of how much he has learned and the website that he is maintaining. You're doing a great job Andy! I've been listening to my language CDs and speaking to my mom a little bit. I'm still in the pre-beginning of things and dialogue, but I think that I am actually getting somewhere. ^_^ I can't spell things, but pronouncing is a different story.

Go Chargers! Last night's game against the Raiders looked like a joke. We just need some key events to take place and we're in!