Aviating and bs-ing

Listening to - Iron and Wine - Live from the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC.

I'll pick up from where I left off last time, but have no fear - I have some aviation related tales as well!

I took the dog down for a walk at Heckscher State Park on Sunday but was extremely disappointed. The trail is flat (aka boring) and there are no good views anywhere along its route. Only positive note on it is that there are a bunch of deer runs so if I go again at dawn or dusk, I may get some good spotting in. The dog enjoyed all 5 miles of it though and that's all that matters.

I ended up not flying on Sunday. My instructor was coming back from DC via car and had a lesson from 3-5:30 but had to push everything back a half hour due to traffic in what I like to call "The Dirty Jersey". This left me with a mere 45 minutes or so to aviate due to insurance policies and their restrictions. As much as I'd love to go and check out at the local FBO, this is the cheapest I can fly for and I know that the people who fly this particular aircraft fly it respectfully and carefully. You can't say that about the people over at the local FBO.

I felt bad asking my instructor to tag along just so I could fly for more than a 1/2hr or flying for a 1/2hr and having to have him come back to the airport to triple check my work. They implemented a new policy that if anyone takes the aircraft solo, someone has to double check that they secured the aircraft properly. I'm included in the "everyone" policy.

So that left me with classes Monday, work Tuesday, classes Wednesday, work 1/2 day today and finally a flight this afternoon!

Again, I sort of got short changed some flight time but it's ok. The aircraft that was tied down next to us moved his spot, so we moved the 150 to it's spot, and the owners Sundowner over to where the 150 was. This keeps us in a low wing, high wing, low wing configuration and also gives us a new storage box :-)

All this shuffling of aircraft and the requisite 1/2hr chat about how our weeks are going led to a 1415 departure from a scheduled 1300. There was somebody else scheduled for 1500 but I got the OK to bring it back by 1530 and call it even. I just went out and did some sightseeing along the beautiful South Shore. I overflew where I work and got a practice ILS-24 in as well. I swear I could do that approach with my eyes closed I've flew it so many times.

They were doing training over at N90 today and well... you could tell.

http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kisp/KISP-Apr-03-2008-1830Z.mp3

It might be hard to tell from the clip since it's mixed in with ISP ATCT, ZBW, and N90. There was a great seasoned controller from this sector who came on initially, and was the trainer, and a newer woman who I have heard working the next sector over last time I flew. The trainer set her up nicely, and she handled the initial load very well. Next thing we know, everrrrrybody has a request. It's like they knew she was a trainee and wanted to mess with her as much as they could. I of course... didn't help the situation and requested the practice ILS (21:00 on the recording for those listening along...). If she's gonna train she might as well see how it's gonna be. Surprisingly enough, the trainer approved it for her and she came back and gave me an initial vector, which he promptly corrected.

After that, a Comair to JFK somehow was passed through the ISP sector, a G4 popped up VFR over CCC going to FRG, SWA called in, and somebody else had called in for inbound to ISP too. Poor woman just couldn't keep up and next thing I know I have the trainer back on freq giving me vectors through, around, and all over for the localizer.

Have no fear, I am not knocking her at all. It's just shows how hard it really is to coordinate all that stuff and deal with pilots who aren't listening, VFR guys who just call up without an initial contact and start blabbering out their requests, and jerks like me who just want a practice approach for the hell of it.

She did a great job for the time she could, but the trainer knew when it was time to take over and she probably learned a great deal from him. Before I know it, I too will hopefully be in that same, scary, intimidating position.

Oh, I've pretty much decided that I'm going to stay in NY, but putting in that I want an enroute position. ZNY is literally 5mins away and I already know 1/2 the training department. Time to go make some phone calls...

And with all this, I'm trying to remember I don't have this job in the bag. There's still a great chance I could get axed out at any stage of the game.

After my flight, I started demo-ing our hallway bathroom. We're putting in a new tub, tile, vanity, etc etc etc. I took out all the tile and was not really surprised to find mold. Tons and tons of mold.

What went from a simple take out the tile, take out the tub, put in the new tub, put in vinyl, has now turned into take out the tile, sawzall out the tub, cut out the sheet rock, go to home depot, buy some green board, yada yada yada...

I opened Pandora's box...

Supposed to go on a flight tomorrow and it's supposed to rain (WOO!) but I might have to cancel due to the new complexity of this project. I had to stop working on it to write this blog (clearly a very important task), write a term paper for Corporate Finance that's due tomorrow (Whoops...), and study for my history midterm tomorrow.

I went ahead and bought what I like to call college student stay awake items since I'll probably force myself to stay awake until 4 or 5AM to get this crap done. Those items include:

Red Bull
Smuckers "Crustables" PB&J snakcs
Lipton Green Tea w/ Citrus
and Doritos...

Yes, quite possibly the worst crap you can eat/drink ever, but it keeps you awake.

I guess I should head off to the land of term papers and midterms.

- Matt