I just uploaded my schedule for March and if you take a look at it, I’m going to have quite a few days off in a row.  I’m looking at even making it a little bit longer with a few swaps here and there.  I’m still getting some flight hours in too along with a good pay credit.  It isn’t that great, but at least I’m not losing out on too much. 

If you are wondering what I’m going to be doing for vacation, I’m actually going to be running a 10K in San Diego on the 15th followed by Spring Break with Adelle to who knows here.  The following week, I’m left to believe that I’ll just be wandering around the world maybe in Asia if I’m up to the long flights.  We’ll see.  Anyone going to be around?

It’s been a crazy two weeks of training here at ASA.  While celebrating my first year anniversary at my first official flying job, I knew that it would be time to undergo what every pilot goes through at least once every year for the rest of his career.  It was just the beginning and I have to admit that it wasn’t even that bad. 

For many of the those who do not know, all pilots throughout the airline industry undergo what’s called Recurrent Ground Training and Proficiency Checks at least once every year with another type of training every 6 months ranging from Line Oriented Flight Training (LOFTs) or Line Checks once you’re a captain.  What does this all mean?  Our job is on the line every year as we need to pass all these tests or risk having to go back through training.  We also have to maintain first class medical which entails routine doctor visit every 6 months.  All this with only making $19K my first year.  I’m looking forward to making $30K now baby!!!

Now, I have one day off followed by a two day trip, then I’m off for three days.  I think that might work on my taxes or something.  I also have A LOT of filing to do as all my mail piled up over the last 6 months. 

I’ll be posting my March schedule shortly and I’m off for 20 days!!!  I have 17 days straight but of course, one of those weeks is Adelle’s spring break so we’re going to try to find something to do.  Either hang out around the US or maybe even head out to Europe or South America.  I have no idea yet.  Traveling is just so expensive these days with how much the dollar has fallen.  It’s going to be an awesome month of March!!!

I’ve been using Windows Live Writer for quite a while now and have been completely satisfied.  I’m able to write when I’m traveling back and forth from San Diego but I wasn’t really into bringing along my Powerbook until now.  Of course, that posed one problem.

Being only available for Windows, I had to find a Free Offline Blog Editor for Mac and stumbled onto Qumana.  It’s quite basic, and offers all the necessities for WYSIWYG editing.  It’s GUI is simple and its just as easy as using Windows Live Writer.  The only draw back that I’ve found annoying is how slow the spell check runs, but so far, with writing 2 simply posts, I haven’t had an issue.  Check it out!!! 

It also has an "Insert Ad" button which I’m going to play around with.  Seems fun.  There it is down below.  It’s cool, but I don’t think that I’m going to really use it that much. 

Powered by Qumana

It’s been about two weeks since my last post and that’s due to the overwhelming amount of studying that I’ve been having to do for my proficiency check.  Of course that went well as I’m still flying happily on the line.  I also went back to San Diego to hang out with Adelle where we watched Jumper and Definitely, Maybe. 

I liked them both as Jumper was a different kind of theory that I really haven’t been exposed and found the concept interesting.  They definitely left it open for a sequel which I may or may not see.  Definitely, Maybe was just an all around feel good movie but it’s not something that you can go watch over and over again.  It was a little too predictable but still romantic. 

I’m back in Atlanta for 4 days of 8-hour a day class work that’s called Recurrent Ground Training.  Both the PC and RGT happens once a year at most airlines and its my turn!  It’s kind of crazy as it all puts it in perspective that we are really celebrating our one year anniversary here in Atlanta. 

There are quite a bit of merger rumors lately and we have no idea how its going to affect anyone, but I just hope that people come out of both sides with smiles and hope.  It’s such a negative industry that anything can just trigger a mud slide of emotion and disgruntle-ness.  Oh well…

I haven’t been able to write lately either for PhoneNews.com due to the fact that my hotels that I’ve been staying in are charging for Internet service!  It’s an outrage!  I thought that it would be easy to write more articles this year, but its only getting harder as my work times are more sporadic and just with all these qualifying events happening, it doesn’t look good.  Let’s see what kind of news I can dig up.  There’s been a lot for sure like all the unlimited plans that all the main carriers have released!  It’s about time a price war starts in the mobile phone industry. 

I got to really just hang out with some buddies this past weekend which was quite relaxing and enjoyable.  I went out with my buddy to a shooting range and I have to say that I was relieved that my aim is still pretty good.  I still have a lot to learn, but its definitely getting to be a little bit easier as my confidence level goes up.  The shooting range in Oceanside called Iron Sights is a great place to rent and try out a variety of handguns and rifles.  That’s my number one choice in San Diego for now until I have to re-qualify next month. 

I also ended up at a Moroccan restaurant called Marrahkesh in Newport Beach where I had rabbit for the first time.  It definitely tasted like chicken but I can’t say that I was too impressed.  The lamb was awesome but I enjoyed the baklava and tea the most.  The tea was a minty green with a lot of sugar.  The rest of the experience was enjoyable as I got to hangout and meet some people for the first time.  I met one of my friend’s roommate from UCSD and his wife of almost a year and she participated in the belly dancing.  Bobby also got up and danced a bit.  It was all fun.

We headed out to a bar in Newport Beach called “The District” which was basically a really small bar that was on par with PB Bar and Grill but a little bit more upscale.  We had a couple of drinks, met more peeps and called it a night night around last call at 1:45AM.  I crashed at his pad and woke up to a beautiful day.  I really can’t see myself leaving Southern California for anything else and I didn’t want to leave.  We walked the pier and ate a Duke’s where I had an amazing seared rare ahi steak tuna.  The food was spectacular. 

Now I’m headed up to Flint, Michigan where I’m going from 70F to 11F.  i can’t wait! 

Well, as you now, I recently just inherited my sister’s not so new hand me down Sprint Treo 755p and tried to find a link for IBMs WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment v5.7.1.  To my surprise, the direct distribution link that was provided by Palm Inc. was disabled on January 12, 2008 as Palm is not allowed to distribute the package for some unknown reason. I need this application to run Opera’s Mini Web Browser for Moblie Phones and all other Java enabled applications for the Palm OS.

I used it before on the Treo 650 and and wanted to see how much better it would be with the new EVDO data speeds. So, I tracked down a place where you can d/l the Java Environment Program and thought that you might need it. Here it is! Also, the only file that you need in the entire package to sync with your Palm device is located in the WEME571JVM/JVM/ARM4T folder named J9JavaVMMidp20.prc. You could read the enclosed PDF for more details.

Download v5.7.1 at Softonic

After you download it, then click the banner below to download Opera Mini! It’s awesome because you can actually view webpages in all their glory and best of all, it’s free! Check out all the features.

The last roundtrip that I had was to Peoria, Illinois where my captain and I decided to walk around the afternoon that we got there.  It started snowing quite a bit and the walk turned into a rather long, cold and windy one.  We headed to the theater to watch National Treasure: Book of Secrets and we also got to watch Rambo.  They were both entertaining but I can’t necessarily say that Rambo was for everyone.  It’s for those who like 70s - 80s style shoot-em up no plot kind of thing.  I liked for what it was and that’s how I usually enjoy things anyways.  Book of Treasures was interesting and just fun, as all Disney movies are. 

So, back to the walk, before we arrived at the theater, we hung a left to the Walmart where I bought a $4.00 beanie cap.  It saved me on my walk back to the hotel and I even slept with it because it was just that cold.  The temp dropped from 18F to 8F and it snowed about 6 inches that very night. 

We woke up that morning and got downstairs for a 5:00AM van time and was alerted that the van driver couldn’t make it out of his home, a taxi was going to take 1.5 hours and that they were trying to find someone else to take us.  It all worked out about 45 minutes later so I can’t say that it was that  bad.  I enjoy biscuits and gravy, an orange, and some frosted flakes for breakfast. 

I got to the airport and it looked fun.  Along the way in the van, the driver had a news radio station on and they said that the Department of Transportation of Illinois alerted that the roads were “treacherous” and that no one should be driving.  Look at what we go through to get our flights done!  The airport runways were great as the ground crews kept them clean throughout the night but the ramp area where the plane was parked over night was horrible.  Here’s a picture of it.  I was basically doing my preflight in 6″ of snow and having it leak into my shoes and up my pant legs.  It was fun for about 10 seconds then I got over it.  =) 

Check it out…Enjoy!