February Schedule!

There it is...posted on the right hand sidebar.  Take a look closely though and you will find that I will be flying 10 days out of 11 straight.  It's going to be freaking ridiculous the way that they have it for me in February.  I also have a lot of Recurrent Ground Training (RGT) and two Simulator Proficiency Checks (SR2A).  It doesn't look like I'll be making it home that much to San Diego.  I have to maybe even get a trip taken away because per our contract, we are suppose to have a day off prior to any of our training events and if you look at the 11th of the month, I'm still working.  I don't think that I have that I have that many good overnights, but I always try to make it the best I can.

I'm also looking at maybe participating in the St. Patrick's Day 10K here in Fiesta Island, San Diego.  Should be fun right?!  I better start training now or something.  Check it out!

 

Update: Adelle and I just registered to run the 10K.  Come join in on the fun and let's do it together!  Leave a comment if you decide to register. 

Just a Quik Pic

I haven't had that much time to blog at all either on here or on PhoneNews.com because I've been back and forth again to San Diego and dealing with the 60th birthday of my girlfriend's father.  So, until then, here's a quik pic!  Enjoy!

Now this is what I'm talking about!  All that debt that I incurred is going to pay off...somehow. =)

Here's another one during my Mexico City / Cuernavaca Excursion.  Good times!

 

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!

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. 

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. 

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]  

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!