Watching Videos on the UMPC

On my way back to San Diego,I busted out my new UMPC and started watching a movie. I have to admit that this device is pretty useful not only for videos, but for typing as well. It's a little hard to type that fast and I think that a regular keyboard would be a lot quicker, but like I might have mentioned before, it's all about portability. I'll be posting a little more about the full experience in a couple of days but for now, here are my initial reactions:

1. Handwriting - It's is simply amazing how easy it can read cursive. If there was an easier or faster technique, then it could be faster than typing. I'm not sure how much this feature will make me want to keep it, but it's just fun. The pen & touchscreen makes for a desirable tablet like device.
2. Speed - Using Windows Vista is definitely a big letdown only because the processor it too slow. Maybe if the device had 2 GB of RAM, it might make the user experience that much more enjoyable.
3. Programs -I happen to stumble upon the Microsoft Reader program that is bundled w/ the device, & if it works out, then this would be the solution to me buying an e-book reader. It wouldn't be that efficient but it would be able to do that much more than Sony's Reader. It also comes with Navigator but the Bluetooth chipset isn't loaded. I'll have to find out if any receiver will work particularly the one that comes with Microsoft Streets and Trips.
4. Origami - This is what Microsoft bundled w/ the Samsung UMPC as the solution to making it a worthy Media Player. I honestly thought that it ceased to exist after all the hoopla died a few years back.

Do I Really Need This?

Because I'm compulsive in nature, if I find a good buy, there's a good chance that I'll end up buying it. Now, it's just a matter ill really need it. We all know that I don't need more toys, but this Samsung Q1 Ultra that happened to be 70% off at Best Buy today was just a little too tempting. The handwriting recognition software is just too awesome but the only issue that I have right now is that the model doesn't have a built-in camera. It's also running Windows Vista which makes it all a title too sluggish taking away all the fun. The biggest plus is the fact that I won't need to bring my laptop on overnights because this is so small, light and ultra portable that it would fit in my flightbag. This whole article I wrote with the hand recognition software in Windows Vista. It was fun but the actual keyboard is pretty awesome once you start getting quick at it.

Blogging and Back to Commuting

If you've noticed already, I'm blogging a little less because I'm finding most of my time is being spend researching articles and learning how to write correctly.  In other words, I'm learning how to be a little more professional in my news reporting. (www.phonenews.com)  I've written quite a few articles in the last few days but they aren't ones that have gone without editing from the Admin.  =( I'm still having trouble here and there especially because of the fact that I'm so used to writing the way I speak which isn't that proper anyways. 

I'm back to commuting once again.  After this four day trip, I'll be heading back to San Diego on Thursday to hang out with the parents and continue my journey into cleaning and organizing what I can in the house.  It was nice to actually have some time in the Farmhouse and get organized a little bit, but I still have a lot to do there.  More specifically, all the clothes that I brought up from Palm Coast, I probably don't need anymore and other various things I just need to get rid of and throw them in a large giveaway box.  I also have a lot of papers to file as well as play catch up on 7 months worth of logbook entries.  I'm all electronic right now, but I still like to somewhat maintain a paper copy just in case.  That's going to a large undertaking.  Well, onto Atlanta, Georgia followed by a one way to Charlottesville, Virginia for an overnight.  You see, these first two days out of four only have 3 legs total, but the next two combine for an very very busy 11 legs!  It's going to a doosie!

Being a Landlord

I was a "live-in" landlord during my stay in Palm Coast which proved to be quite successful but my recent stint in managing and trying to be a friend to the students that lived there has been the opposite.  It was the first time that I did not make tenants sign a contract of any sort and I am paying for it.  Not dearly, but in the fact that now I will be forced to go back and forth to Daytona Beach to check up on the property and try to getting rented out as soon as possible.  I really don't have much to talk about except the fact that I learned the hard way.  Even though you want to be friends, there still has to be a line drawn in order to complete business.  Too bad.

Snowing in Atlanta!!!

After a really long day of flying and losing $200 on craps last night in Harrahs' Omaha, I came back to the crashpad and it started snowing!!!  Check out the pix.  All this snow fell within 1 hour of each other.

Okay, so it might not have been that much snow but it's the most that I have seen ever falling at once. It was so nice and calming. I just wish that my girlfriend was here to enjoy the moment with me. 

I also ended up heading out to a local bar called Bonz in off of Fairburn Road.  They had an awesome Triple Play Hamburger which was basically three different kinds of melted cheeses.  It was tremendous.  I'm probably staying here in Atlanta this weekend to rest and clean up all the stuff that I moved back from Daytona. 

Justin just told me about the Sundance Film Festival this weekend in Salt Lake so I might just hit that up.  Sounds like fun!

Mexico...(part 2)

I woke up early around 6:00AM Saturday Morning still in a daze from moving / driving the entire night before from Daytona to Atlanta.  I pushed the snooze button just once because I knew that I had to get going in order to get ready for a day's excursion to Cuernavaca.  Little did I know what I was about to go through.

Some people that I met in the terminal were quite nice and some advised me to drive, some to not drive and some just thought of how cool it was to be traveling the way I was doing it.  My day's itinerary went like this: Fly to Mexico City (9:45 Eastern - 12:45PM Local --> 4 hour flight), land and find the rental car place which I booked through Expedia, drive from the City to Cuernavaca without a map, somehow find my girlfriend, hang out till 3:00 in the morning, drive back to the City, catch a flight to Orlando and ten connect to Atlanta, take the shuttle back to my car, change into my uniform, head back to the terminal and operate my ship to that night's overnight. 

I got first class which was great but instead of sleeping, I messed around on my computer and read a book.  I should have slept especially with a long road ahead of me. 

Everything went as planned, but there were bumps in the road which included driving 24 kilometers in about 1.5 hours just to get out of the City, driving 1 hour to Cuernavaca, getting lost for about 30 minutes in the city of Cuernavaca and asking a police officer to draw me a map which he did so willingly.  I arrived around  hang out with Adelle and her friends, have dinner, go out Salsa dancing till 1:00AM and then get about 1.5 hours of sleep!  It was all worth it in the end!!!  Adelle's friend were so inviting and awesome to hang out with.  Driving around Mexico in and of itself was an adventure.  I did think though that I had it in me as long as I could be aggressive enough.  I drive a little 5 speed Chevy something that isn't offered in the US because i don't think that it'll pass crash tests it's so small. 

Here's a picture of Adelle and I about 1 hour later in front of a library of sorts in the Zocalo of Cuernavaca. 

He's is one of the few signs along the road of welcoming me back into the city after a 1 hour mountainous drive from Cuernavaca at 4:00 in the morning.  It was nice not having to deal with traffic but filling up the rental car was a hassle let alone trying to find the place that I had to drop it off of.    

I got onto the flight without any problems, first class, ended up in Orlando and saw that an AirTran flight was leaving almost immediately, so I was able to catch a ride on them also in 1st class but the savings in time was spent on the taxiway due to delays for weather.  I still arrived at the time previously planned for, shuttled, changed and headed right back out.  I also got to catch the last 5 minutes of the Chargers game in the rampers' lounge and what an ending!!!  GO CHARGERS!!!  Final Score:

Do you guys like these long blog entries or would you prefer shorter ones?

Here are some pictures of Adelle making it to the top of the mountain / pyramid.  Yeah for buddy!!!  Oh yeah, for those who don't know, Adelle is on volunteer mission where she helps out in an orphanage and also gets to tour around Mexico at the same time.  She's been there for two weeks now so communication has been sparse.  Can't wait till you get back babe!

Moving, Mexico, 4-day (part 1)

Well, I decided to go on an excursion this past weekend all beginning with a notion that I wanted to surprised my lovely sweetheart in the city of Cuernavaca in the state of Merelos just one and half hours south of Meixco City.  The whole notion was originated by spontaneity like most of my "less than 24-hour excursions." (refer back to London) 

Of course, I had to do this all in the middle of a full four day trip followed by two days off then back to work for another four day trip.  In between this all is where I was to take a flight to Daytona Beach, move out, drive back to Atlanta, take an early flight to Mexico City, somehow get to Cuernavaca, drive back up to Mexico City at 3:45 in the morning, make a flight back to Atlanta which connects in Orlando, take the shuttle back to my car, get dressed then head back out for work. 

It all began like this...

"Hey dood, I'm going back to Daytona to vacate the master suite so that I could rent the entire house to students." -me

"I could help you out..." -Kurt

"Sure..." me

Well that's when we made the plans to fly down, rent a one way SUV pack all my stuff in and drive back to Atlanta.  Kurt and I could moved an array of affections that I've collected since I first moved there in 2005, loaded up the 2008 Ford Explorer from Avis Rental Car then headed out.  We stopped by our old flight school, CAPT, and caught up with some instructors and students and also found one of our favorite ground / flight instructors, Cary Green,  at his own facility called Avia Aero Services.  It was great reminiscing about all the times that we had and learning about a few of our other colleagues and just getting reacquainted.  I do miss the kind of educational, promoting, environment that we had at CAPT. 

We drove back making minimal amount of stops which included eating at Woody's BBQ, getting Starbucks' Java Chip Fraps with Red Velvet Cake and fueling up.  We made it back to Atlanta around 12:00AM, upacked and drove back to the airport to drop off our rental.  I got home around 3:00AM due to van time confusion which forced us to wait 30 minutes but needless to say, I was tired when I got home...wake up time for Mexico, 6:00AM.  Thanks for coming along Kurt and helping out.

Finished...

I just finished the task of updating all the assignments that I had for Phonenews.com I'm now very tired, but here goes for a quick summary of the day: I woke up around 4:15AM this morning after only have 3 hours of some deep sleep, but of course it wasn't enough. Flew for 6.5 hours for a total duty day of 9.5, ended up in Chattanooga, TN where I had some pretty good Mexican Food. Im' staying at the Wingate by Wyndham which had a happy hour downstairs, but the wings and beer wasn't anything that I felt like consuming at the time. It was free, and free is always good, but I needed meal.

The flight to CHA is about 21 minutes in flight, so things go by really quick. By the time you level off at 16000', you end up coming back down almost immediately and set up for a quick approach. We also had a new hire who was on Jumpseat IOE and it was cool to show him around a little bit on a walk around and go through the loads of paperwork that you get to deal with as an FO. They never teach you the stuff in training. It was just cool to know that I'm just a little ahead of the curve to look like I know what I'm doing. :-)

I enjoyed helping him out a bit and I'm sure that he'll do fine. It kind of peaked my interest though to know that I feel good about the job that have. I'm still waiting for my first big second year check to come in on the 15th, but till then, I'll keep my chin up because my view will always be better than yours except for if you're stationed on the International Space Station!

Updates....

Well, if you have been crawling all over the site lately, you'll see that I have just included all the previous posts from the last 3 years here and imported them all.  All the pictures and whatever all have backlinks all over the place and I want to simply tidy things up a bit.  It's going to be a long work in progress as some of my overnight don't have adequate Internet connection.  Luckily, Newport News is an exception. 

Today included an eleven hour duty day with about seven hours of flying block time.  It was rather on of the longer days but I got a lot of reading done, ate some Quiznos during a 1 hour break which is almost never had, and basically just tried to fly a lit.  My landings were quite as good but it was also one of those days that I had a chance to sit back and be thankful that I'm a freaking pilot!  I'm flying people around!!!  It's still a great feeling and I wish that everyone could have a chance and fly in the flightdeck with me. 

The latest excursion that I have is the the final move from Palm Coast to Atlanta.  I have a couple of items that I need to bring up so that the master bedroom could start being rented out.  It's going to stink to say goodbye, but hey, its only temporary and the fact of the matter is, I need to break even already!  It's costing me too much!

I have to wake up at 4:00AM, so CYA!

Hotel Internet

Well, I'm at an awesome overnight but it's too late to do anything and I have to duty in really early in the morning, so that leave me with chilling in the room.  Of course, being an Embassy Suite Hotel, I'm forced to pay $9.95 per 24 hours for access.  It's a bunch of bull I tell ya!  Why isn't wireless internet, cable internet, or anything else for that matter free?  Why hasn't free internet access been included with the "hotel criteria" for airline crews?  We are so dependant on the internet and personal computers these days that's its just savage.  =)  I'm updating this via my mobile phone's connection to my computer which is at 115.2 Kbps. For those out there, its about 2 times modem speeds.  Not fun but at least its something. 

PhoneNews.com is currently revamping its website and I have been tasked to complete tagging and categorizing a bunch of past posts.  I was able to complete 16% of the project this afternoon and was hoping to do a little more, but now its just too slow! 

I can't study nor can I do anything that requires a broadband connection.  Oh well, time to sign off and go to sleep. 

Importing DONE!!!

It's 5:30AM... for everyone that wanted me to convert and be able to peruse through the archives of my travels beginning in 2005, there you have it.  Everything from all the trelijah picture blogs to my CAPT experience, luxembourg, Focus Air and now ASA, it's all here. 

The only problem that I had was the massive emails that were sent out to my subscribers.  I apologize to you all and  I promise that I'll create a better plan the next time I migrate. 

I have a lot of work to do in tagging and categorizing my past posts, and that goes too for the new phonenews.com.  Oh its going to be a legendary week!

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.