A Random New Year's (yes I know it's already February)

I know that I haven't posted in a while but I might as well start with the randomness that New Year's Eve brought. I spent the day with my fiance having a great breakfast / lunch, took some pictures around the area (Solana Beach, San Diego, CA) and just hung out knowing that we wouldn't be with each other that night. It would be the first time that we were not able to spend the midnight together since we have been with each other. She was working, I happen to be off that night, but it ended up working out just right! I called up a friend and was invited to hang out! It was great...the randomness = new friends, old neighbors, good company, great food and the random bar that apparently was throwing a New Year's Eve Party for a different breed. Needless to say, we were the only Asians around (not that that matters) and we missed the flyer describing the party as a lesbian night out! =) Good times though! We each donated food cans taken out of Jerome and Joyce's pantry used to discount the cover charged, enjoyed the night then went back to their place and play some quiz games on the PS3...and of course, enjoyed more food! Here are some pics! [gallery link="file" columns="2"]

I have quite a few more pictures that I'll be posting here too in the next few days!  Stay tuned!

4 on, two off, 4 on – part 2 / my printed schedule after the fact

When I say after the fact, the schedules below depict the times that the aircraft recorded once meeting certain parameters e.g. brakes released or set & passenger door open or close.  These were not the original scheduled departure and arrival times but in fact, the true record of my legs or "flight time."  I guess you can say that the times in bold represent the time that I actually "fly."  The difference between the "Block" and "Credit" is that we get paid for credit while "Block" is the time I'm recorded to be in the aircraft.  It doesn't represent the time I spend in the cockpit in between flights or before flights (which is actually represented in the another bold header "Turn"), or the time I'm at the airport on a layover.  I'll further explain these "pairings" below in this blog post but for now, here is a picture of a 4-day typical schedule.  It's not like there is much to figure out.  It's pretty much cut and dry.  Following along the on the first line: The first line on my pairing "OSA A7470C" is Flight number 5548/ Originating from ATL (Atlanta-Hartsfield) / Destined to DAY (Dayton, Ohio) / Departed at 14:58 local airport time / Arrived at 16:16local airport time / TailN761ND <-- which is the registration number of the specific aircraft / A/C type being a CR7 (Canadair Regional Jet 700 Series) / Block1:18 (1 hour & 18 minutes flight time) / Credited 1:33 (in other words paid for 1 hour & 33 minutes) / Pax(passengers) on board 70 / Miles from ATL-DAY432 / BurnAv4423 (average fuel burned enroute measured in pounds / Turn 0:44 (time on ground to have the passengers get off, clean the aircraft, cross seatbelts, stock the galley, clean the bathrooms, refuel, input preflight measures, walk around the aircraft for a visual inspection, remove bags, add bags and passengers and close the door) 42 minutes.  That's line 1 in my pairing.  Pretty much going down through the day, I end up at Little Rock, Arkansas for a layover of 14:26 (14 hours & 26 minutes) where it includes the van ride from the airport to the hotel, the ride back to the airport in the morning, and any sleep that I get in between.

Screen shot 2009-12-24 at 07.04.33 AM

If you take a look on Friday the 18th, I was lucky to actually have a 28 hour overnight in Portland, Maine where I enjoyed some of the world's best known Clam Chowder from Gilbert's Chowder House. (yelp review here)

Everyday, I have a Report time which, and depending on how long the ride is to the airport from the hotel, we leave usually around 15 minutes prior to duty in to ensure ample time to get to the aircraft.  Of course, the means I also usually wake up about 1 hour prior to the Report time giving me enough minutes to accomplish the morning routine, throw the uniform together, pack up, eat breakfast and board the airport shuttle or taxi.

There isn't much more to explain really except for the Totals: line telling me that my initial Report time that I have to duty in at the company computers in Atlanta is at 14:00 on the 17th / and I'm Released at 16:46 on the 20th.  For those three days, I will be able to log 18 hours & 47 minutes of flight time, get paid for 20 hours and 48 minutes plus my per diem which is calculated by the TAFB(Time Away From Base) 74:46 74 hours & 46 minutes multiplied by our current rate of $1.65 / hr.

At my current rate of 3rd year pay $39.55 /hr * 20.8 --> I pull in around $822.64 + my per diem ($123.36) giving me a total of $946 for this entire pairing.  Granted I was away from my family the entire time, it didn't include the time I fly back and forth from San Diego to Atlanta and whatever else you want to add in.  I'm not whining really, but this is a sample of just a week in the life of a pilot.  Now, the missing link in this bigger picture is the amount of duty time that I put in between flights that I didn't get paid for.  In other words, I was actually working or at work whatever, for about 32 hours and 2 minutes total during these three days; in my uniform, and not resting.  Keyword being resting.  That's clearly a deficiency of 12 hours just hanging around the various airports.  <-- Not fun.  (Add up the Duty on the bottom ride side of each day to get the total figure)  Now, why is that pilots are only paid for block / credit time, it started long long ago during the birth of the industry and hasn't changed since.  It's a mixture of corporate greed (if that's what you want to call it) and FAA regulations governing flight time in a given period for pilots.

I usually have 4 of these trips a month, sometimes only 3.  Hope you enjoyed the explanation.  Any questions?  Please leave a comment below.

(if you are interested any further, many if not all US airlines' payscales are available to the public listed under each airline profile at http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/)

LogTenProBanner2008

4 on, two off, 4 on - part 1

and "we're back!" All in all, twelve days total of “work” transpire. If you wonder why twelve instead of ten, it’s the added day of commuting and getting reacquainted with Atlanta the days prior to my 4 day trip that kicks things off. This is without mentioning the quick trip to Las Vegas the three days prior which included driving in the rain and snow along the CA 15 Freeway.

Back on December 9th, I boarded a red eye flight from San Diego at 10:50pm to Atlanta, arrived almost an hour early around 5:00am, and was lucky to get to my apartment around 6:30am. I shut my eyes and got as much horizontal rest as possible. During this short journey, I was accompanied by another fellow employee on a similar schedule, who also happens to be my flatmate therefore, I have to admit that my plight is shared amongst others and am in need of no singular sympathy. Just listen, err, “sit back and relax and enjoy the flight”, err, read the blog.

Because of my unfortunate mistake a couple of weeks back (link), I was forced to get a ride back to the Atlanta Airport and pick up my other roommate’s VW Jetta that he so kindly lent me enabling my accomplishing of errands. Once completed, I rested at the apartment in preparation for what would be a freezing schedule.

Back to back overnights in Toronto followed by another in Akron, Ohio, two nights in Atlanta, one in Little Rock, Arkansas and then two more in Portland, Maine was what laid ahead of me and thinking of it all just made me tune out. Sometimes I refer to this as teleporting, but only a handful know what I’m talking about. If you care to chime in, let’s do it over coffee and an open mind. ^_^

I found myself, once again, lost in my mind, so to speak. It’s been a rather difficult last couple of days only because the blur that is my life feels less and less controllable, but then again, I can reason that it is otherwise.

A few of my closest friends recognize the misty eyes or absence of me, but the character that I normally am temporarily disappeared. Slowly drifting back into the calm, I find myself in desperate need of my comfy bed at home in San Diego, the lively bodies that inhabit my house on Classique and the warmth of the season. I can’t wait to get home.

If you can't tell here in this photo, my captain took this of me when I was "chilling" on the ground in Little Rock.

Whirlwind of Work

This post is brought to you by:It's been a crazy tour of duty / flying the last couple weeks. From jumpseating almost every week back and forth to San Diego, taking care of the honey who caught the flu bug, food tasting for the wedding and the latest drama with my car's battle against a pole traveling at 5MPH and don't forget doing some work for my podcast, peak interest, I'm a little over-worked. I'm loving every minute of it without a doubt but my personal time has been limited as of late. I'm just glad that I'm able to use some inflight WiFi brought to you for FREE by eBay, Delta and gogoinflight! Thanks guys!

Here are some pictures from work over the last few days. (make sure to click on the pics for a larger / full photo)

I finally had some time and configured an affiliate link to introduce you to Coradine's LogTen Pro for Mac and iPhone! If you plan on buying it, it'd help me out if you used the link below. Check it out! It's the best in the ENTIRE industry. I'd even recommend that you buy an Apple / Mac computer just to use this awesome piece of software and an iPhone to pair it with for immediate logging of flight time!

Pound FAIL / #FAIL!

Leaving work today, I failed...miserable. I thought that my E39 5.28iT could talk on a pole, but I was rudely awakened by the feint reality. This is of course after the fact. Tomorrow, I'll know more about the costly damage as it ruined / totaled my hood, left-front fender, bumper and headlight.

I'm alright thank God but my pocket is going to be severely drained either directly or monthly via my increase in insurance premium. Stay tuned

The Last Month

The month of September ended in a whirlwind of vacationing, moving and surviving the slew of mosquito bites that I suffered both from Nicaragua and Atlanta. The last week in September was dedicated to moving, but after a great night of splurging at Taco Mac with some good pilot buddies, my roommate and I still hadn't made a final decision on where we would end up. Eventually being forced to move out of our apartment because the management ended up renting it out to a couple of college girls, we were lucky to be able to negotiate for a "non-upgraded" 2 bedroom, two bath for even cheaper than what we were paying in the same complex! The non-upgraded tag once specifies that it has black appliances rather than white ones, but you can't tell the difference at all anyways. We now have a pool view, and a 1-year lease for $818/mo (that's actually $750 + their fees for water / sewer / garbage, etc). I think we definitely scored as we're also closer to the front of the property making it so much easier to access the huge trashbin, Starbucks across the street, my favorite Cuban restaurant Coco-Loco, as well as Best Buy and the MARTA. I'm happy with the place and I'm just happy that my roommate, Mark Russell and I have a place that we both like a lot. Dealing with Comcast in trying to get the cable line activated was a little bit of a cluster, but apparently, it was disconnected within our apartment!? I guess it would have made sense for them to send out a mechanic guy to our apartment rather than just assuming turning it on from the outside was all they would need to do.

I finally made it back to San Diego by way of ATL-PHX-SAN and the last leg was great. Southwest is always just really friendly, but I have to admit that the two Delta pilots were great company for the 3.8 hrs in the jumpseat. Thanks for the ride guys!

For now, I'm just excited to be back home but there is so much to do when it comes to cleaning up my desk space, taking my bike out for a ride and hanging out with my favorite girl!

In the meantime, check out my new favorite drink at http://elijahnicolas.posterous.com/favorite-new-drink-and-turtwig-on-a-couch-at and the relaunch of the "peak interest" podcast at www.peakinterest.net or via iTunes.

Los Cardones EcoLodge and Surf Resort, Nicaragua

After a few weeks of postponement, I hopped on an American Airlines 737 aircraft from ATL to MIA, arrived and satisfied my breakfast hunger with Cuban sandwich along with Cuban coffee. After being delayed for 2 hours for mechanical issues, I finally took off to MGA in an American Airlines 767 (paid $80 for my ZED fare because I cannot jumpseat on American Airlines internationally unlike other domestic carriers), rode a KIA branded taxi for 1.5 hours and arrived at Los Cardones.  Granted this was another solo adventure but the purpose was to scout out the place and more importantly hang out with great company.

A few weeks back, I recently found out that one of my high school gal-friends, took up a 6 month gig to work as managers for the "resort." Whatever the cost, I had to go visit and hang out.   As most of you may know (or not know), I'm always down for anything.  Upon arriving at the resort dressed inappropriately in business attire, I was greeted by her, taken to my cabana and changed.  I was steaming and my wool pants had to come off!

Thoughts of picking up a surfboard and hitting the beach right away were lingering especially after watching Chris hit the waves, but I was feeling more of a mellow tone.   After a while, I decided that it was going to be just a day of rest. The night simply concluded with a wonderfully prepared dinner by Adam and chatter of what the next morning would bring.  It was a long day for me and this is exactly what I needed.

Through the next few days, I would eat 3 meals a day which were prepared VERY well, surf in the morning then just hang out the rest of the day. I didn't do that much except for the random hike around the facility, sleep in an awesome hammock for a few hours, talk it up with friends and just pass the time. It's been a while since I actually got to feel the second hand tick as the minutes at the resort lagged on by. Being "unplugged" was a great feeling, but sometimes I felt like I was missing things. Time was therefore just standing still at certain times but it was a good thing.

Some of you may not realize, but I've been minimal-izing my life as of late. Coming down from an awesome high, I'm loving it more and more. Sometimes I'm tempted here and there, but simplicity and happiness is where it's at. This vacation made me realize it once again that with an ocean, good friends and food, life can be truly gratifying.

Videos and more pictures after the jump!

[gallery link="file" columns="2"]

I uploaded little tours of the resort to my youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/enicolas and you can watch the videos there or right here down below! The first one is of the resort and the second is of my living quarters. Check them out and leave a comment here or on my youtube page!

Web 2.0 and the Posterous New Blog

Intro:

I recently signed up for a posterous site, http://adellelijah.posterous.com, to host both Adelle and I together in one cloud space and in doing so, I actually ended up creating two more different posterous sites, http://adellelisa.posterous.com and http://elijahnicolas.posterous.com so that we can post on an individual basis.  Adelle actually didn't like me posting my stuff to "our" site so I decided that we each needed a separate one for self preservation.  I'll just admit it already: I am a posting whore.

Over the last few months, I've been using the Thesis Wordpress Theme in order to help with Search Engine Optimization on elijahnicolas.com.  I love the simplistic layout of the Thesis Theme so much that I even ended up buying the commercial license to use on Peak Interest (www.whatspyi.com) as well as my fiance's blog (www.adellelisa.com) which she is very hesitant to update but at least it's there.  Over the years, I have graduated from the Blogger platform hosting a multitude of different sites, to trying out joomla for a hot second to finally settling down on wordpress as my choice for a content management system.  Of course, twitter came around along with friendfeed and now posterous all within the last year or so and I indulged.  All the while, I was only looking for that singular reasonable mean to have all my personalities talk to each other and reflect each other's status'.  With posterous, I think I may have found the perfect solution!

Body 1:

The basic idea of Web 2.0 was to forge a design template that allowed for an easy GUI interface for those that weren't code savvy.  It was to provide a simpler means to update ones' online mediums / personality sites and in doing so, collaborate with others in the virtual arena.  That's my personal spin in layman's terms.  If you want the "real deal," here's Wikipedia's here.

Posterous has done just that.  They simplified the entire process.  They have taken out the horrific means of uploading to an FTP site or Content Management System and instead substituted it with the easy medium we use everyday: e-mailing.  You can "attach photos, videos, MP3s and files" to your e-mails, send it off to space and boom...it's that simple!  You could always do that on Blogger.com with text and photos and use a not so great plug-in with WordPress, but with one touch, I can upload a picture with a small post to my posterous account directly from my email address, it detects where I want it to go and publishes instantly without a hitch not only to posterous, but to anywhere else that I'm connected to be it my facebook, blogger, wordpress or even twitter account.

I was thinking of having it update my actual wordpress blog, but that's when things started to come together in my head.  I finally drew somewhat distinct lines.  I have come to the definite conclusion that my posterous and mobile blog are one in the same.  That's almost a no brainer, with a slight difference that the blogger site has a black background and posterous has a white one.  Posterous and my trelijah mobile blog are just quick snippets of my life.  Twitpic and twitter are just even quicker moments that I deem "3rd class" per say.  Of course the hierarchy of it all would be a long post, such as this one, on elijahnicolas.com, a picture accompanied by a posterous moment then a tweet.

Conclusion:

It is however convenient to have one place to update every personality, but duplication starts to become rampant and I don't want that to happen.  For now, I guess I'll keep trelijah going along with elijahnicolas.posterous.com and maybe with time, just end trelijah.  But as I always keep on saying, you can always count on me for some type of update.  That's enough.

p.s.  I had to edit the template of trelijah to fit the new format of pictures.  I like them in the full form.  Nice stuff!

The Ideal Workspace

When I'm couped up in my room for more than four hours doing nothing aimlessly browsing "the Internet," I sometimes feel compelled to move my heffalump to another remote location. Indulging myself with yet another fall favorite, the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino, I find myself doing the exact same thing that I was doing at home: nothing. Although, I am searching for reception venues, so I guess I'm being somewhat constructive. ^_^

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from elijahnicolas

twitpic vs trelijah vs posterous

How do you know which blog / photo medium you want to upload your random photos to?  I've really never made the clear distinction besides the fact that when I want a good clear picture of it, I upload it to http://www.elijahnicolas.com/trelijah (via blogger.com 's services) but if I want to give people instant gratification on twitter, I use twitpic.  Now I'll just have to connect my posts here on posterous and blast them out that way.  Maybe I can even tie my trelijah blog (or retire it) and just go posterous main stream.  What you think?

Posted via web from elijahnicolas

Starcross'd Creative and the Johnson Wedding

With the technology that's been trickling down over the last decade, same-day edits have become more and more popular among various wedding reception activities. Finding the right videographer who can produce a video in such a short turn around time is not too difficult, but finding the right one that can amaze, and shock and awe the entire reception is a whole different story. Over the past weekend, a couple that I've known since their inception back during our  second year in high school finally tied the knot at the Immaculata Catholic Church in San Diego.  I had the honor of being a groomsman for Mr. Gregory Johnson and enjoyed the entire day hanging out with the couple, the bridal party and everyone else later that night.  Following their ceremony, we ended up taking pictures for a couple of hours around various San Diego sites, then headed to the reception where we danced the night away.  My job was simple and now complete but back in a corner of the reception hall was a video editor hacking, cutting, cropping, splicing and post producing various little snippets of film at a rabid pace transforming them into another masterpiece.  His name, Christoffer Dumlao from Starcross'd Creative.

Running around throughout the entire day capturing various shots of the event with his creative eye and Canon EOS 5D Mark II, he created yet another Starcross'd Creative Same-Day Edit exhibiting the entire day of the Johnson Wedding.  You can always visit their website, peep their other amazing films from full on scripted wedding videos to other multiple same-day edits as well as their new animated film // a true love's story or better yet, sign up to have their exclusive touch grace your important day.

Here is their final product which was shown at the wedding that night from Starcross'd Creative: you fill my heart \\ melanie + gregory’s same-day edit

Melanie & Gregory \\ Same-Day Edit from Starcross'd Creative on Vimeo.

"His Story"

Over the last two months, both Adelle and I have been making our rounds on the phone or meeting our friends and family in person, telling them the good news! If you haven't found out already, YES...WE ARE ENGAGED!!! The actual date was June 26th, 2009. We have yet to update our facebook profile statuses due to our own stubbornness to announce it there so in the meantime, we're just in a relationship!!! I'm going to start this off by telling you MY story.

Back in Spring 2000, at a Memorial Day BBQ that a mutual friend had invited me to, we crossed paths at the potluck table.  I asked her what her name was, we exchanged brief hellos, and when I mean brief, it's the shortest of conversations. It went something like this:

Elijah: Hello! I'm Elijah. I go to Revelle. How about you? Strange girl across the table picking up chips: I'm Adelle. I go to Marshall. Bye!

-- and she walks off because she has to go sit down next to her friend on the grass on her little towel.  Granted, I weigh about a 140 at 5'11", am wearing khaki short and a Structure Polo with some Dr. Marten Sandals.  I guess you could have just imagined a tool or a dork, or both combined, but she basically gave me the straight hate!

The night continued without any further contact which then transitioned into what ended up being a bonfire.  As the ocean air began to chill, another mutual friend from Atlantis Hall, which happened to also be my dormitory, wanted to head home.  She said that she needed a ride, and being my awesome nice self, I obliged.  Little did I know that her "friend" wanted a ride too.  I thought, "What the heck?"  (I actually didn't think that because I am a nice guy.)  Good thing though, because it just so happened that her friend was Adelle.  We got into my 1985 Turbo Diesel 300D Mercedes, cranked up some surfer-punk music and drove up the hill back to campus.  I was into the punk music contrary to popular belief that I would have been all into hip-hop / rap, etc I too also liked alternative, punk, and metal.  I dropped off Adelle first at her place and then Alice and I walked back to our hall.  That was that...

let’s go fly! Palomar Airport (KCRQ) @ Pinnacle Academy DA40

Fast forward 3 years later, July of 2003, I turn 21.  I'm living it up the leftover high that was my birthday party, heading out every weekend, hitting up all the bars between Downtown San Diego and LA -- it was just crazy fun and definitely costly, but I always refer the 6 months that ensued to as "dirty 21 fun!"  Turning 21 helped me grow a pair and I started to ask a few people out.  To my surprise, some said yes and I thought to myself why didn't I ever talk to girls earlier?  You see, I didn't really "talk" to girls.  I mean, I talked every now and then, perhaps a peep would leave my mouth, but I was always too shy to take it any further than a simple, "Hello.  How are ya?"  I promise when I have a son, he is going to grow some balls and not miss out on his high school dances like I did the first year or so.

Well, it just so happened that I had a friend who convinced me to take "Human Sexuality" with her during the 2002 Fall Quarter.  I signed up, got into the class but was confronted with a slight disappointment that she didn't make it in.  Do I just drop it or stick it out even though she isn't here?  She was a junior and I had a lot of credits already, so it wasn't like I needed to crash the course.  I didn't even need it as I was Management Science major.  I also happened to run into a bunch of old friends from freshman year and while I got distracted with them, my other friend never made it into the class.  Good thing I guess because we probably might have continued our random get-togethers.  It's not like that at all either...really.  Shopping, the occaisional dinner.  Just keeping it kosher at all times.  But onto the climax!

A few weeks pass and I finally had my chance to talk her.  I definitely recognized her and thought that she was cute for sure, but at the time, I wasn't looking for anything more than a study buddy.  Seriously!  So, with that, I finally was able to reintroduce myself, but I made a big error.  I went like this:

Friend: Adelle, this is Elijah, Elijah, Adelle. Adelle: I think we've met before at a picnic. Nice to meet you again. Elijah: Oh yeah, we met your freshman year?! Adelle with a confused look: What year are you? Elijah: I'm a 4th Adelle: so am I!? (weirdo)

Well, I follow her onto the UCSD shuttle bus that takes us to our respective automobile location, sit near her and just start chatting it up.  We have a final coming up, so I pull out the study card!  I got the digits easily without a hitch and filed it away in my pocket.

a cowgirl and an “astronaut”

I didn't call her either till about 2 weeks later the night of Halloween in Downtown San Diego. I had to really convince her over the phone to that she should be coming out being that it was our first year as 21 year olds celebrating what usually becomes a night of drunken celebration. She met up with us and that was that. We continued hanging out and one day, we realized that we were dating. The rest is history.

I proposed in Atlanta after she had rode the aircraft that I was flying back from Toronto. I landed and did the announcements.  It was just all put well together.  I even had the flight attendants have her wait behind and then told the captain that I wanted to get a shot of us in the cockpit.  While he was taking the 2nd photo, that's when I popped the question.  Happy engagement babe!

truly surprised her since she just woke up from a 2 hour flight

she says yes & my Captain can barely click the camera fast enough

Offline Writing and the Future of elijahnicolas.com

Most of the time when I come across various topics that I want to write about, they usually pop into my head at the most inappropriate time. While I am in the middle of my commute, without an Internet connection and / or just too lazy to log in to a hotel wifi hotspot, my thoughts end up lost in the cloud. I also end up thinking about random topics while I am on an "off day" being a heffalump. The trend that looms... I end up writing a new entry publishing every 4-8 days wishing that I could update more often. With that, I'll have to admit that in order for my blog to stay current and lead to a more successful following, I'm going to have to update it at least quite a few more times increasing the average to at least 3-5 entries a week. It should be a lot easier than I make it out to be but in reality, there are just too many things on my mind to talk or write about and I hate writing multiple topics in one day. The post following this entry will mark the beginning of what I would like to call a more technical / review stance of where I want to take my blog. I've written a few articles and just ended up "sharing" my RSS News Feeds through Google Reader but I have yet to actually share notes, write my opinions and share my analysis of the current day to day.

More or less, it wil remain a mix of my daily activities but I will also gnaw at the various technology trends, rumors and what not posting as if I was an editor for a higher website. It should get a little more exciting here at elijahnicolas.com ... I promise!