1 year!

Yesterday was my one year anniversary at Chautauqua! Crew scheduling decided to celebrate by changing my schedule five times. Apparently they are still trying to get all their pilots and planes back in the right spots after the big ice storm. So I'm not in Richmond like I thought I'd be. I'm also not going home tonight (teach me to leave my razor, phone charger, and extra clothes at home). I woke up this morning in New York to the chanting and ravings of a group of malcontents on strike below my window. Personally, with as many people as we have looking for jobs, I don't really think this is the right time to go on strike, but what do I know? They've been hollering for a good two and a half hours now. Hopefully they will go horse or get what they want pretty soon because I'm here till noon.

Here I am last year:

ICE COLD

So that ice storm turned out to be more than Columbus could handle. We were put under snow emergency (unnecessary traffic highly discouraged) and the library was closed so I couldn't get my fix of access to the world or post yesterday's bit of fun until today. I reached epic proportions of cabin fever (ended up running out and defeating an ice cyclops to vent it). It seems that Indianapolis is much more adequately equipped to handle snow than Columbus. They can't even keep the highways clear out here.

Anyway, I got called out on a trip this morning and dead-headed to Cincinnati to start it off. Saw a giant fleet of DHL planes (may they rust in peace). My captain and I were talking about how very nice it is to have a job where we can see the sun in the winter. It really is great. LaGuardians didn't even need to fly to see the sun though, they had clear skies all day.

My stomach is telling me that it's time to go home and eat now, so I'll catch y'all tomorrow in Richmond.

I'm so glad that humans aren't snakes or arachnids.

Happy year of the Ox by the way! Herd that China was celebrating that a couple of days ago. I bet they don't have cool laws about oxen killing each other though. Just for kicks, anyone who comments on this post needs to leave a rhyme/limerick/haiku/etc about oxen.

We had a cool ice storm last night (as opposed to a warm ice storm). Here is what my bushes looked like:



If we were like snakes or arachnids it would be so totally gross to climb out of our skins every few months.

Day off

Today is my last day off this month. I was excited about getting to go to Bible study tonight, but apparently the Californian leading it is afraid of the forecast snow/sleet mix and consequently canceled it :( Maybe I'll host a cabin fever party at my apartment and see if I can convince someone to come hang out with me. Or maybe I'll just finish reading all of my books. Calvin's Institutes should take at least a couple hours, right?

My freezer got fixed yesterday!!!! woo hoo! The fan froze up, so it was a quick fix. Hopefully everything will stay cold now.

I dreamed last night

about getting some vacuum salesman to come demonstrate his product on my floor so I could walk barefoot on it without thinking disparaging thoughts about what could have been on it before I moved in. Right at the end of my dream I slightly woke up and stretched my arms. Didn't register the pressure on my palm until too late, and could only lie there in horror as my floor lamp went crashing towards its namesake. It let out a sickening sound that was unmistakeably the dying screams of my super expensive low energy bulb (guaranteed to save its cost in electricity in two years). ( I only had it for a year and a half) I knew there wasn't anything I could do to resuscitate it, so I went back to sleep and dreamed of picking glass shards out of my feet.

In spite of that ending, weekend was very nice and I thoroughly enjoyed my Sabbath day. It snowed quite beautifully yesterday, a good three to four inches of lovely whiteness. I suppose it is time now to head back to my apartment and see if any headway is being made on getting my freezer fixed.

I'm still alive.

I expect to stay that way for a couple days until the bacteria has a chance to develop an economy of scale. Then I drop off like the invaders in War of the Worlds. :)

I opened my freezer last night

Just too look at the succulently delicious pork chops that Mother gave me. Too my dismay the chops were not frozen. In fact the temperature in my freezer was about the level of a tropical summer house (which is really incredible considering that my apartment is at 60) So I tossed my thoroughly thawed meat slabs into the fridge (which was maintaining 34 degrees quite well) and now I need to find a good recipe so I can cook them up this evening.

:( :( :( :( :( :( :(

At least I can still enjoy them when they are cooked, even if I have to eat all six at once. :)

My Checkbook

is balanced!

I finally reached 1000 hours of flight time yesterday on my trip to LaGuardia, and today I fly into Washington DC for the first time with Obama as president. We'll see how it goes. My last Obama administration flight had an AHRS Fail with ATT mode 2 realignment problems which in turn led to Autopilot failure on the way there, and Eng 1 Impending Bypass on the way back. Hopefully this Obama administration flight will be better.

I turned on NPR this morning when I got up and bet myself that the first word I would hear would be Obama. Instead I was greeted by a nice symphony and some words about who wrote and played it. Don't gamble kids, you'll lose.

Got back from the Winter Conference last night

It was really amazing! Dr. Lefebvre talked about the law of love and how Levitical law can still be useful to the Christian today. He gave us a perspective of the judicial system of the Old Testament days that would allow us to better understand the law, and displayed how all those (seemingly useless in today's society) laws about oxen and shellfish and whatnot really display God's love for His people and His wonderful attributes of true justice.

Had a ton of fun catching up with old friends and making some new ones. Also, oddly enough (because I'm a horrible basketball player), I won two out of the three games of knockout I played! It must be because I can shoot well enough with nobody guarding me, but can't hit a shot to save my life if you stick a three-year-old in front of me.

On a side note, I found it quite interesting that even though Dr. Lefebvre gave his messages in a comparatively dry and unamimated style, they were very exciting, and created an enthuastic response in his audience. Hurrah for orators!

Well here I am

two dozen years old, flying airliners and yet, ironically, too young to rent a car. Kinda makes sense though when you think about how safe flying is and how dangerous driving is. I'd take landing on an icy runway in a stiff crosswind any day over driving around a bunch of maniacs. [Not that you are a maniac driver, just everyone besides you. ;-) ]


hmmm. An idea I just had! Talk like Yoda this year I will. Going to bed now I must be.

If my estimate is correct,

I should level up tomorrow. I've been gaining a lot of xp in literature and flying, but I haven't decided yet what on going to spend my next set of upgrades on. (I might use one to acquire the skill of not ending sentences with prepositions.) Ooo... gourmet cooking or 100% smooth landings would be cool upgrades too, but they cost a lot of xp, so I'm not sure if I'm ready for them yet. I wonder what kind of evil bosses I'll get to fight as a level 24 human???

ahh biblioteca

So the library has a bunch of cook books. 50% of which are geared towards fast, easy, quick, and simple meals. 35% are for various diets including: low-carb, vegetarian, you-name-it intolerant, Jewish, and lose xxx pounds in xxx amount of time. The remaining 15% are desserts, grilling, gourmet, drink mixes and lastly normal old-school cookbooks. None of them however, advertise low-budget cooking in their titles :( Seeing as my purchase of a skillet has already taken me over my grocery budget for the month, I am quite disappointed about this lack of information.

I did get tomorrow off though!!! yay! So now I get to decide if I want to drive home after I get off duty at midnight (putting me in at 3am) or wait and go the the morning service here in Columbus. I'm leaning toward the latter.

Did you know?

That the Columbus library has been voted the best in the nation several times running? I know I really like it. It is warmer than my apartment and has more internet than my apartment. Did you know that the internet is like a gas? It floats around in little clouds that are attracted to things like modems and networks. It probably has some other chemoelectrical attraction that I haven't discovered yet. Whatever they are, the library must have a lot of them, because there is a lot of internet here.

I got a new refigerator today!

It sticks way out into my kitchen, but IT HAS IT'S OWN SEPARATE FREEZER!!!! So I don't have to worry about freezing my veggies anymore. I also don't have to worry about my meat not being totally frozen and turning brown and smelling funny when I open it up to use it.

I also had a funny incident on the way to Bible study this morning. I ran out to my car, slowed down and watched helplessly as my feet slid right out from under me. Went right down on my side. Then, after I got back, I got out of my car, propelled my feet like the roadrunner gearing up for a quick cruise and went right down on my back. Fortunately the only icy patch on the pavement was right next to my car door so driving was much less hazardous.

Went to the library tonight. Was working on my computer and some lady came over and asked me to fix her laptop. I tried, failed, gave her a few suggestions about what to do, and got to listen to her whole life story in exchange. I'm guilty of it too, but it reminded me of an article I read about how most Americans are willing to share way too much information with complete strangers because we are living to fast to settle down and actually develop a relationship with somebody.

Cool pic of the day:
Taken quickly so it's blurry.

woot

I've been working with crew scheduling and finally got the last two Sundays off for this month. I also got rid of my reserve on the 17th and 18th so now I can go home from the 12th to the 18th! I'm still trying to drop my trip on the 11th which would be really ultimate, but I'm having a slight bit of trouble over it. Could have traded it for a trip today, but I turned in my uniform to the dry-cleaners and it only got done at 4 today. But now I have a clean uniform!!! Also finished my puzzle, two Agatha Christie books, and Revelation, and cleaned my room ..er.. house.

I've been working on organizing and following a budget over the last couple months. I finally got a monthly cash flow plan organized for December, and so now I'm trying to compare my results and decide what numbers to change for January. My biggest misses were in food. I had allotted $60 per month for groceries and another $60 for restaurants. I spent $128.21 and $171.39 respectively. Yikes. Hopefully I can do better this month since I bought a huge ..excuse me.. HUGE thing of peanut butter, and I intend to make sandwiches instead of eating at restaurants 13 times.

In other news, I'm finally a confirmed bachelor! The proof lies in my dinner last night:

1st rant of the year.

So this is probably not the best was to start off the blogging year, but I have to get this out.

What is up with plumbers??? Are they all under five feet tall??? Or do they never wash their hair? In 98% of the showers I have been in (And I've been in a lot of showers) I have to squat way down to wash my hair because the shower head is placed conveniently somewhere between the level of the middle of my chest to the top of my neck. The shower in my apartment is no exception. I can easily knock the head about with my shoulder. I'm sure it's all well and good for short people who want to adjust the angle of the head three times during their shower, but honestly! Get a stool or something! Ok that's all for that.

I read a lot of good books last year. I was thinking about putting out some reviews, but I decided to read more good books instead. Right now I'm in the middle of four great books, and since I go to the library to get me internet reception, I doubt I'll be running out any time soon. :)

I lost a hubcap for my car :( I don't know where it could have rolled off too. I'm thinking of not replacing it, because (hopefully) it will make my car much less of a target for crime in my neighborhood.

Flying to LaGuardia and back this evening.