Location Location Location

Listening to - NY Approach 118.00

To follow up my previous post on the possible locations of employment I did some more concrete research and found out some new interesting facts...

More positively confirmed sources show that IF I'M EVEN HIRED AT ALL and I get NH that I could work at MHT, ZBW, or A90! Who woulda thunk the Boston Consolidated TRACON is in NH?! LEB and ASH are contract towers so those are out of the question.

I'm still trying not to get too excited about all this stuff, since there is still the possibility that I won't get hired for some reason... We shall see.

- Matt

Jones Beach Air Show

Listening to - The Snake The Cross The Crown - Cotton Teeth

Jones Beach Air Show

Oh man, F-22 is gonna be sweeeeet...

I've seen the Blue Angels multiple times but they put on a great show. I've heard from multiple ATC and pilot sources that they are a bunch of assholes who enjoy busting airspace a lot though. Shame.

Nothing better than a day at the beach with my wonderful lady friend and watching airplanes all day too. Three beautiful things all at once. I'm gettin' spoiled... :-)

Fix Names

Listening to - The Snake The Cross The Crown - Cakewalk

With the advent of GPS, the RNAV approach and now the use of RNAV departures, the opportunity has arisen for the creation of many new GPS waypoints. Most everyone who's flown in the northeast knows about the BOSOX intersection, DRUNK intersection, and the HARVD and QUINC RNAV waypoints up in Boston.

The other day while listening to the final approach controller over at JFK on Live ATC.net I went to check something at AIRNAV.com and found a new departure procedure for JFK!

The SKORR one departure is an RNAV DP out of JFK that replicates the best of all the other DP's out of JFK into one smooth procedure without having to start messing with DMEs, VORs and even an NDB!

With the new DP comes new fixes, and as the SKORR One Departure would have it we got your NY sports here! First up, SKORR - that should be pretty self explanatory there folks. Then we branch off to the METSS and RNGRR waypoints to the southwest - representing the NY Mets and the NY Rangers (See, they grouped the teams as they should!). On the eastern track theres CESID and YNKEE - YNKEE I got... CESID... I'm lost on. If anyones got a translation for CESID I wanna know!

Also some other "trivia" if you may, when I took my instrument check ride a while back the examiner told me a story of how some intersections on the low-enroute chart came to be around LI. During the start of VOR flying back in the day, the FAA offered higher ranking employees the chance to name intersections in their geographic area. The then FSDO manager out at FRG went ahead and named some intersections after his kids. Check out the low enroute (click on L-34 up top) for the LI region and head out east of the Calverton (CCC) VOR. On V16, north east of CCC you have VIKKY. On V374 near its crossing with V1 you'll find BETHA. And then just west of Westhampton Beach Airport, but east of Brookhaven right over the bay you'll find ERICK.

That's all I got for you today. Keep a look out for new RNAV waypoints and even RNAV routes soon! I'm sure we'll find some great new intersections to make fun of or celebrate!

Matt

ATC Hiring Update

Listening to - As Tall As Lions - Maybe I'm Just Tired

Remember how I said I was scared before? Yeah no, whole new level of freaked the eff out now. I just put in my geographic preferences for ATC. While my first preference was NY (the entire damn state... I highly enjoy the state I live in!) my second choice was the killer. Nebraska? What happens if I get the one tower out west? Texas? Same deal. Although I could've specified counties for Nebraska and Texas I figured why limit myself. I didn't want to put Massachusetts either because I'm really leaning more towards a center and more importantly... New Yorkers aren't received very well in Mass. Especially those of us that are Giants fans and willing to support the Yanks when its NYY vs. BOSOX's.

So where was my second choice? New Hampshire. Land of the free and home of the hippie. I'm a big fan of mountains, skiing, hunting (to an extent), fishing, and hiking (of late...). Plus I could possibly get put in Boston center. The only other options are the three towers up in Nashua (that may even be a contract tower), Manchester, and Lebanon. I'd be happy with Nashua or Manchester but Lebanon is a bit of a haul. If I get NH or somewhere upstate at least I'll have an excuse to get a pickup...

So it's 2:30something and I need to be up at 6:30 for class. Laaaaaaameeee...

Goodnight folks.

The Itch....

Listening to - Iron & Wine - House By The Sea

I got that itch... That, "You haven't flown in way too long" itch... That, "Get in an airplane you fool!" itch...

And the itch is starting to hurt.

Unfortunately, one of my instructors is in the hospital while the other is starting a 3 day trip out of Detroit tomorrow ::sigh::

Money is tight, so I will only fly the Cardinal now which means just asking for the keys for the 150 will not work. I'm signed off on the Cardinal/complex aircraft and I think the Cardinal repairs are finally complete. Legally I can fly it by myself, but personally I'm not confident enough in my ability to handle the beast solo. I have yet to experience all the quirks of this particular aircraft and flying it off an annual/massive repairs solo is also not my idea of a good time.

I want my damn commercial ticket already. I am seriously so close but so far away that it hurts. Now that schools almost over I am ready to put in 100% to studying for the oral and reviewing maneuvers. I enjoy my check rides with Frank and I want to knock out the rest of my biggies before he decides to retire. Yes there will be more after the commercial despite my high potential for being picked up by the FAA. I still want my CFI and II. If I do become an ATC, then once I pay off my student loans and get settled I'll start work on my multi. If I don't, I'll probably get working on my multi a lot sooner so I don't have to find a real people (read: suit and tie) job and hopefully hop on with a regional.

Four more class days left this semester, and two days of finals.

I can't wait to start working full time. I'm being half sarcastic half honest. God knows I need the money and $896/2wks is good money for a summer job. My job just tends to get mind numbing once you work five days a week. I think I have an overactive mind that when I do meaningless tasks I need to keep my brain moving with something. For example, every night before I go to bed I have to have music on and make sure it plays throughout the night otherwise I can't fall asleep. Whenever I take an exam I'm always humming a song in my head and tapping my foot to some sort of beat. Hell even as I'm writing this I have music going and the foot is definitely tapping out the beat.

That may be one reason why flying or controlling are good jobs for me. When you're flying you're constantly scanning your instruments, the horizon for traffic, listening to a steady flow of radio transmissions waiting to hear your aircraft called upon to answer to the ATC Gods, recalculating leg times/fuel burn etc etc etc. Controlling you're constantly scanning the scope looking for potential conflicts, doing math in your head to assure non-conflict, talking to aircraft while listening to your land-line as well and probably a hell of a lot more that we never really focused on during my internship at ISP ATCT and ZNY. We got to control live traffic at the ISP ATCT but ZNY was almost all simulated traffic with two days of observing live traffic. Basically I just couldn't handle a desk job. I can barely handle a 80 minute class!

::sigh:: well at least three more days until I can get air born again. I don't know if I can wait...

- Matt

Busy busy busy...

Listening to - Anathallo - Hoodwink

Wow the pace of my life picked up BIG TIME in the past week or so. Unfortunately, most of it hasn't been due to aviation related items. Between working, class, end of semester projects, work around the house, favors for people, and oh having a social life I've been drained.

The weather of late has been beautiful. I've been spending many days outside cleaning up the front and backyards from my dogs destruction. This morning I noticed a big patch of feathers on the ground and as I got closer I found a carcass of a Robin. I'm not sure if he managed to catch it or what happened, but I'm pretty sure he uhh... destroyed the poor thing.

Work has been good of late. We've been throwing mulch most of the time now to get the flower beds ready for planting. The best part about that is being able to work out in the sun for a good seven hours a day. I've already got a nice farmers tan going on and it's only April... lol

Last week...or the week before that, I forget we went and washed the 150. It was disgustingly dirty and with a ton of elbow grease we were able to remove 80% of the actual grease. The plane is going in the avionics shop soon to be upgraded to WAAS (I'm way too excited about that btw).

The biggest source of aggravation/stress has been the onslaught of new projects for a few of my classes. For my computer programming for economics class we got assigned a fifteen part project, half due on May 5th, the other half due on the 12th. It wouldn't be a problem but the programming language is so crappy and buggy you spend most of the time attempting to decipher obscure error messages. For those of you curious we're using "Maple" (gags and dies). I guess I'm slightly biased since I used MATLAB for two years before I had to switch over to Maple.

On top of that lovely project, I have a five page history paper due on the 12th (not too bad at all actually), another paper for my corporate finance class, and a large philosophy midterm on Monday (I should realllly start reading for that huh??). Again, none of this would be a real problem but I have a large helping of senioritis and spring fever. It's just too damn nice out to spend eight hours in a classroom.

I've been going out a pretty good amount lately too. I had my first Long Island club experience last weekend. It was... interesting. I felt like everyone was either in their very early 20's or in their mid to late 40's... No in between. Like I said, very interesting place. There was a cover band playing all the hits from the 70's, 80's, 90's, and today haha. I went with two friends from Italy which was fun but we didn't make it back in until about 4am. Oh yeah, my dog wakes up at 630 lol.

Last night I went into the city to see this band Kaddisfly from Portland, Oregon. My band in high school had played with them about four years ago and they were the nicest dudes in the world. Turned out they played some kickass music and we hung out with them for the entire night. Now every time they come to the tri-state area we attempt to go see them.

They played at The Knitting Factory which is in downtown Manhattan. My friend who I went with is a cheap bastard and wouldn't pay the $5.00 for him and his girlfriend to take the subway ~forty blocks downtown so we ended up huffing it. It was a nice night out so I didn't really mind, but it was a good hour walk that I could've lived without.

After the show, I offered to pay for said cheap bastard and his girlfriends subway fare with my metrocard and we headed up towards tourist trap USA to eat some expensive food (read: Times Square). We ate at Bubba Gumps shrimp placethingamabob. It was pretty decent. It was fun to venture to the touristy area and have the waitress ask us where we were from. She was sorta relieved to hear we were locals hah.

Caught a 1:16AM train home and I walked in my front door around 3:00. Parents went upstate to go see my cousins senior recital which meant I got to be up at 0800 to let the tile guy in. The bathroom is ALMOST done! I need to spakel(sp?) the rest of the bathroom, install the vanity, sink, toilet, and paint then I can finally say it's finished.

On the aviation side of things I'm hearing about my first well, conflict of interest I guess we can call it between my love for general aviation and my potential future job in air traffic control. AOPA says defeat the new bill! NATCA says support! I say I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place! We'll see what happens on Monday when the bill is put on the floor (that's what I'm getting from what I'm reading online at least...).

And how about these gas prices? $3.89 is the lowest I've seen here on Long Island. All I'm saying is gas is absolutely ridiculous right now and I can't afford to drive anymore. Excuse the language here BUT FUCKING $45 TO FILL UP A 12 GALLON TANK?!?! And that's cheap. The Senate introduced ideas regarding investigating alleged price fixing (no...really?!) and a proposal to create a team like the one that was created to investigate Enron. Take down the dirty bastards, I'd like to be able to use my car other than going to work and school (remember, I take the train when I go to NYC). Hell, I even carpool when I go to work!!!

I rarely get political, so please excuse that last rant... I'm just a little bit pissed right now...

Anyway, I need a nap since the tile guy is on his way out and then it's back to the grind.

11 days left of school... Thank god.

4.16.07 neVer forgeT

Listening to - Billy Joel - Invention in C Minor

Today we remember the 32 bright minds from all over the country and the world that were killed at Virginia Tech. Although I had left the semester prior, it was one of the worst days of my life. Anyone with a pulse felt something that day, but those of us who are part of the huge extended family we like to call the Hokies were hit the hardest.

Anyone who has ever even visited the campus of Virginia Tech knows that as soon as you step foot onto the drill field you can feel something special. Something unlike any other campus that I had ever visited. That's why I went ahead and gave up a 3/4 scholarship to Clarkson in Potsdamn, NY to go somewhere that gave me no money, but gave me something money couldn't compete with.

So for today, I ask if you can, to wear something orange or maroon to remember those that had their lives cut short.

RIP My fellow Hokies.

We Are Virginia Tech

Matt