6 Guys and a Little Lady

We finally have a picture of all of us that live in the Atlanta Crashpad. 

We have a nice little family and it was nice to finally get a picture.   It's too bad that we never had one of the original bunch.  This is already the second generation of housemates.  We lost two guys (one to SkyWest and the other bought a house with his wife down in Grantville, GA) and gained a wife.  In the photo starting with the back row from left to right is: Manoj, Justin and Myself then in the front from left to right is Lindsay, Matthew, Eric and Michael. 

The dynamic is quite awesome and I wish that I was around more to enjoy everyone's character.  I live in a loft on the second floor which is quite spacious, but without walls.  It's fine really just either really hot in the summer or cold in the winter.  Because I commute from San Diego, I haven't been spending that much time there at all and this weekend ended up being a blast. 

Last night consisted of many drinks into the early morning followed by yet another night (tonight) going out for drinks in Buckhead.  Good times guys!  Tomorrow will pretty much entail watching football all afternoon so that should be fun as well.  Go Chargers!!!

Smooth Beginnings in 2008

My first landing of 2008 was so awesome, I didn't even know that I was on the ground.  I can't say that the approach was handsome, but I got the plane down and safe while greasing the runway.  Why do FOs care about this kind of stuff?  I have no idea but I think that 1) it might be the fact that we aren't that grumpy yet being 'stuck' in this industry 2) we still care just a little or 3) we're just nerds and its fun.  Tomorrow should hopefully prove to be a lot prettier in terms of flying a nice approach but either than that, I'm excited for my career in 2008.  It's going to be a good one with good schedules, more pay coupled with ludicrous expensive loan payments and a good old time with family being that I'll be home more often.  I'm definitely looking forward to every minute of it. 

I think that I'm settled one way or another with my template, so now I'll just see to adjusting certain things here and there.  I'm still debating much of what I want to write about in this personal blog being that I really just like writing about everything.  From my own life stories to tech news and flying.  I hate being all over the place but maybe that's what makes this website ME!

Also of note, PhoneNews.com is or should be completing a redesign as we speak and being that I haven't contributed as much as I would have liked in the month of December, January is looking up to me reporting full time on my days off and whenever I can while I'm stuck at a hotel in some random city. 

Last Flight for 2007

I just finished my last roundtrip from Atlanta to Roanoke back to Atlanta the other day and after thinking about it, I have to admit that it was exhilarating just thinking about it that way.  What a way to finish up my 1st year at ASA with a down to minimums then approach lights in sight approach at Roanoke to a beautiful clear afternoon the following day.  We even did a short field full thrust takeoff to top it off.  Landing was alright, but not one of my nice squeakers, but it'll have to do for 2007. 

I have a lot on my plate for 2008 with my first loan payments coming in, which I can now just barely afford with my 2nd year pay, and a goal of flying as much as I can so I can start being more qualified to apply at other airlines.  Here's to you 2008!!!

Christmas -- Red Eye due to Dry Cleaners

I hope that everyone had an awesome holiday.  Being a first year airline pilot, you don't expect to have Christmas off, but I did and it was great.  Family time and time with the girlfriend, couldn't be any better. 

My post season holiday commute lengthend by the fact that a certain dry cleaner lost my uniform pants in San Diego.  This caused me to have to head back to the Atlanta crashpad via a redeye flight on AirTran and retrieve a pair.  I ended up flying half way across the country just to deadhead back to Wichita, Kansas.  On approach into the Wichita airport, the ground was completely covered with some white powder stuff.  I think that they call it snow or something.  It's going to be really cold in the morning from what I can tell!

Now, I'm just chilling here watching Journeyman which is on NBC online but also plays too many commercials, very disruptive by the way.  It's all the same too.  The one same commercial interrupting my online viewing experience.  I understand that they have to make money but they aren't sharing the ad-revenue with their writers.  These overnight are going to at least be a little bit more productive now that I don't have any shows to catch up on. 

I'm Baaack!

After a long week without having a computer and going through some recurrent training, I am back in San Diego reconfiguring the T43 that conked out two weeks ago.  IBM sent it back to me mentioning what they did, but it didn't say exactly if they changed out any parts, etc.  I'm really disappointed in their summary, but I guess you can't expect that much from a formally awesome laptop corporation.  Their warranty turn around and service is still top notch, but I can't help but be disappointed that it's not as great as Apple's Customer Support.  I've had much better times with my Ti Powerbook than any other PC Laptops.  Well, I'm here till Christmas Day, then I start another four day! 

I should be around for New Year's Eve so give me a ring.  I don't think that I'll be doing anything near spectacular this year, although I'm looking forward to not spending it in Atlanta like last year!  Who knows, maybe that's where I'll end up again. 

Fort Wayne Overnight / Discover kwiry

Well, with Fort Wayne being one of my favorite overnights in the ASA network, I was unable to hit up the 412 Club as we came in rather late.  I really wasn't that disappointed but I did have work to do such as bid for my January schedule.  I'm now #213 on the CRJ 200 with another 262 first officers behind me.  It's definitely kind of ridiculous after only being here for just under 1 year.  (Anniversary date = 27 December 2007)  I still won't necessarily get the choice of a premium line, but I'm hope that it works out.  I might end up heading out to the Gyro place just behind the Fort Wayne Hilton Convention Center Hotel.  It's close proximity to places that I know of and like make it a premium choice for destination but the biggest draw back of this overnight is the hotel where the Internet registers at 128K speeds.  It's record slow speeds make it too painful to browse the web sometimes. 

Not much has been done on the side of my other project, but of note comes the introduction of kwiry.com  I just started one today but its features are rather interesting.  First, you send a text to your profile, for instance a reminder of the song that you just heard or the artist, and then it shows up in your kwiry homepage.  You then are introduced to multiple links regarding the txt that you sent to yourself from web searches, favorites and even shopping.  It's basically an expanded post-it / sticky type deal but online.  It's quite useful really.  You should check it out and add me to your friend list. [my kwiry page]  

IBM T43 Conking Out

Well, over the last 24 hours, I haven't been able to constantly watch out for good phone news (even though I really wanted to write about the new Samsung that was released on T-Mobile's Network last night) due to the fact that my IBM T43 has been in and out of conscienceness.  I've been wanting, keyword wanting, a new laptop or desktop and its just been rather crazy dealing with something that isn't working for me.  Mind you I might have dropped it a few more times than usual because my Purdy Neat Luggage is out of commission as well.  So, I'm left with a Travel Pro bag that isn't at all nearly as awesome.  It's almost embarrassing being a pilot and using a cheapy bag.  

So, anyways, I called IBM and the will be sending me out a box where I can overnight my laptop to them and have them take care of the rest.  I really just didn't feel like dealing with anything, but I'm hoping that it just means that I need a new one and that they'll cover it all.  I know that once they open it up, they won't be able to diagnose anything or duplicate my issues, but hey, at least they'll be the ones tinkering with it.  I'm going to revert back to my trust Apple Titanium Powerbook 667, which by the way, was left out from being able to be upgraded to Leopard.  

AppleInsider's In-depth review: Amazon's Kindle

I have to say that I spend some good time reading this review and was left with no questions after 5 pages of relentless comparisons, short comings and history.  Almost 1 month after its initial debut, the Amazon Kindle goes through some hurdles in trying to become the king of eBook readers.  Myself being on the fence between the Sony Reader and the Kindle am still forced to wait another generation.  I had a chance to play with Sony's version but was frustrated at its slow response time and refresh rate.  Being that the Kindle has the identical screen and technology, I can assume that it already will be a disappointment to my petty but unforgiving needs. 

I've been reading books on PDF on my Palm Treo 650 via Adobe's Reader Palm Program and really haven't found too many short comings besides having to click next quite a few times due to the screen's size.  I've been happy.  I would have never seen the Kindle being compared to Apple's iPhone or iPod Touch in the task of reading books or webpages, but Mr. Dilger brings up some good facts of 3G vs. AT&T 2.5G.  The fact that viewing web pages on either device is something that I might want to do, it seems like Apple's Embedded Safari Web Browser has the upper hand in the ability to resize the page and view it in all its glory.  The Kindle was rather limited in a way that would definitely bother me due to the fact that it was horizontally inhibited forcing you to scroll through each page one at a time vertically.  The review almost convinced me to buy an iPod Touch rather than a reader! 

The path to saving trees is going to be quite difficult with having to convince people that they can highlight and take notes electronically, but hey, its just might work out!

AppleInsider | In-depth review: can Amazon's Kindle light a fire under eBooks?

Blogging Contests

I've never really believed in actually tried any of these "Leave a Comment" and win type deals, but a friend of mine just won, so I thought that I might give it a try.  It's one of those things that you think could never happen until you know someone that has won.  It's definitely kind of a cool gig and I wish that I could have some random give aways.  Maybe just sending out my old DVDs or something like that.  =)  Anyways, head over to http://biglakersfan.blogspot.com/2007/12/great-runs-athletics-shoes-giveaway.html if you want to give it a try.  There are many others out there, but I'll leave it up to you to find the those ones.  This is just one of the few that I thought was actually worth while. 

I still don't know if there is any catch to these such as a harvesting bot for emails and adresses, but so far, its been all good.  Go check it out!

Next-Gen DVDs: Advantage, Sony

I'm not at all bias because I own a PS3, but I've always thought of Blu-ray to be a little more triumphant even after all its short comings.  I just hope that the latest news of Warner Brothers choosing sides in the beginning of next year will make Michael Bay and Paramount cry because of their support of the latter.  It's just ridiculous how much the HD-DVD camp paid to have the exclusive rights.  Now, its Warner Bros. who are playing hooky and are trying to lure as much money as they can from either format.  In the end, its definitely the consumers who lose out buying into one format and just hoping that it'll prevail.  Wasn't it nice when we just had DVDs on the shelves and nothing else? 

Until the Blu-ray camp can put out a low cost device, it'll be a while before more people end up picking up a player.  Thanks to the price drop of the PS3, more and more people have been bought into the idea of a 2 in 1 where the Xbox 360 requires an add-on which by the way is now only $129. 

BusinessWeek released an article yesterday late afternoon concerning the latest in the format wars.  Next-Gen DVDs: Advantage, Sony

image provided by Gizmodo

Gmail + AIM = Chat Heaven

Gmail just released seem-less integration with AIM directly right in your mail account.  It's awesome and you have to do it!  Highlight your buddy window and then up in the menu comes the option to log on to your AIM account.  Input your username and password, and *BOOM* just like that your contacts are imported right into your buddy list!!!  I think I'm the first to blog this bad boy!

Gmail Blog = Crazy Delicious!

Flight Benefits No More

As of December 4th, 2007, Delta and Atlantic Southeast Airlines have terminated their previous non-revenue agreement and have embarked upon a bumpy, unfriendly to all employee change to their reservation system.  My first of many stories I'm sure, but here goes.

My friend and I went down to Daytona Beach, Florida to get our first class medicals by a gentleman of the name Dr. Robert Kurrle M.D., who by they way is really friendly and thorough.  We were on different flights out of Atlanta to Daytona Beach but we wound end up being on the same return flight back to Atlanta.  Because we would begin paying $5.00 per leg and approximately 1 cent or so every time we non-revved (which is a fee compared to free in the previous agreement), we decided that we should both list on the jumpseat.  I went ahead first and got listed and then Matt followed suit but was then told that he was kicked back to S3C "Non-Rev" status.  That definitely surprised us as it seems to allude to the fact that he might have to pay for this leg back!  It's quite ridiculous that other airlines can ride free using "jumpseat" privileges, but we can't because we are ASA?  There was another gentleman riding but he was non-ASA and he was rolled back from jumpseat to S4C and didn't have to pay!

I could be jumping to conclusions but its not the same friendly system that we once had.  Our parents, significant others and dependants are still "free" on ASA, but on mainline Delta and other Delta Connection Carriers, Skywest Inc. has agreed to some bogus deal where we would have to begin paying..  Where is the reason to be a pilot?  We have lost our flying privileges, the ease of going through security without having to wear our uniforms, let alone not going at all before, the prestige that the uniform once held and the pay rates that the Delta pilots use to get or the entire industry for that matter!?  It's definitely no wonder our younger generations are not at all enticed by this career.  Next summer should prove to have many more canceled flights due to crew shortages.  We have approximately the same number of pilots here as when I started, but I have already moved up half way up the First Officer List.  Everyone is leaving!

Update: We contacted our ALPA representative and he said that they have been trying to work out those kinks, but because we have a PPR number, we are rolled back to non-rev rather than just jumpseat.  So, in other words,  WE HAVE TO PAY!!!  Tell me again why?  I think that I need to go international. 

Last Month on Probation

They say that a lot can happen in the last month of probation at any given company and so far, its has all but been true for me in the last week of flying.  From having a fuel leak (at the gate good thing) to spotting a knick on one of the fan blades on the right engine, all these flights of late are just full of little surprises. 

I had a chance today to fly a charter flight which included flying the aircraft to Louisville with only 1 person onboard who was the charter coordinator, then to Gainesville, FL with 30 people who consisted of the Florida Gators Womens' College Basketball Team, coaches and assistants and then back to Atlanta with just the flight coordinator.  Food and drink was provided so the flight was extra awesome.  There were just a few things though that made my list of quirky.  Here's what the WX looked like on the way to Louisville (KSDF).  

For one, while I was running around the aircraft doing my inspection preflight prior to leaving for Atlanta from Gainesville, it was when I noticed that one of the fan blades on the right engine had a small knick in it.  It definitely didn't look good at all, so I called the captain and he too agreed that it was a good find and that we should probably do something about it.  We don't have a maintenance facility in GNV, but someone was able to come out 40 minutes later and take care of the issue.  It was basically written off and to be looked at for when we got back to Atlanta.  That was that and it was really that simple.  But, there were thoughts of get home-itis and I prevented them from reasoning out the situation.  It was a good thing and proved to be of no incident.  We couldn't even have been sure if it just occurred or if it had always been there but hidden because of the blades position.  You see, the blade was at a 12:00 position when I noticed the problem, but when I was pre-flighting it at the other stations, I never saw anything.  There isn't any proof that we caused it or anything, but bottom line is that I saw it that one time and that it was to be determined by us the next steps in solving the problem.  Here is a picture of the fan blade. 

I'm home now and am just writing about what happened tonight, but I feel like I'm going to learn quite a bit in the next couple of weeks.  Wish me luck!