Getting my ass kicked and my breath taken away...

I feel like I've had my ass kicked...repeatedly. My back is all kinds of outta whack. I had to call in sick to work Thursday because I can do little more than sit or lie down.

I'm sore all over. Two days in a row it was just myself and one other ramper working the last outbound of the day. All thanks to our corporate office's decision to fly half our afternoon crew to recurrent training this week. Well, that and the fact that none of the other half of that crew gives a shit about helping one another, so they haul at right at the time their shift ends (1830).

Well, Wednesday I was already worn down from being overworked the previous day. I unrolled the PCA (pre-condiontioned air) duct when the plane rolled in and hooked it up, then dove into the aft bin to unload the local bags. I felt a slight tweak in my lower back as I unrolled that hose...but it got alot worse while in the bin.

See, the good folks in our hub city didn't do their job correctly (big surprise there, the fucking retards) and failed to properly tag several small bags as "HEAVY" and, in my rush to get the plane turned, I tweaked my back even more. After the aircraft was pushed, I sat down in operations and the pain got progressively worse. I fought through it the rest of the night and hoped to go back and finish the week out strong (I'm in OT and I'm a total whore for OT). Alas, the pain is still pretty hardcore so, here I am with a 3 day weekend.

I've been a total lazy bum. I've sat on my ass, slept, watched TV, and that's about it for 2 days. I did drive around town by myself for about an hour the other night...that brought back memories. Almost 23 years old and making the drag in small town Texas like a high school kid. Awesome.

I did manage to get off my duff last night just long enough to go see the man, the myth, the legend Jack Ingram in concert in my hometown. I've now seen the man in concert almost 50 times, yet he never gets old. Such a great show. Got to hang with my old buddy Ben Smith for the whole show. Ben is an up and coming songwriter just getting started with his musical career...so you should check him out (and buy his CD's, of course).

I saw an old friend last night who's family, when we were in high school, were a host family for an exchange student from Germany. The exchange student was a cute blonde girl who I was just absolutely in love with back then. Hell, I still have a little thing for the girl. Well, last night, while talking to the the slightly inebriated old friend, she mentioned to me that the cute German girl still asks about me when she emails. I was like, "whatever, she does not...quit messing with me". To which she replied, "No, really...I swear you're one of like 4 people she still asks about all these years later...you need to go get that girl. Go get her, Dub."

I'm not really sure where to go with this...not really sure if she was just messing with me because she knew how I felt about the girl back then...or because she was kinda drunk. But she told me to call her today and get the girl's email address. So, I guess later today I'll give her a shout. I don't want to read too much into this whole thing, but I really want to talk to this girl...I'm a little giddy at the thought. :)

Well, I need to ice my back, take my drugs (over the counter, not the illegal kind) and get packin'. I'm moving today. A place closer to work with one of my coworkers. I move in today, he leaves for Germany for 2 weeks tomorrow. Hmmmm, maybe he can bring me a cute blonde souvenir from Lübeck... :-)

"I know who Charlie Robison is, I know who Randy Rogers is, I know who Wade Bowen is, I know who Cross Canadian Ragweed is, I know who Jerry Jeff Walker is, I know who Pat Green is, I know who Waylon was...and I feel a change comin' on...WE NEED A CHANGE!" - Jack Ingram, 5-27-05

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Current Music: U2 - One
Current Weight: 235

Fun things found in airplane cargo bins

This sums me up pretty nicely...

I tear my heart open,

I sew myself shut.

My weakness is that I care too much.

And my scars remind me that the past is real,

I tear my heart open just to feel.

The Green Monster! Pt. II

The Green Monster!

I've got stickers!

Allllllllllllllllllllllright...I'm so tired, I'm wired. Does that make sense?

I put in close to 40 hours over the weekend (Sat-Mon), so my sleep schedule is still screwed up. Luckily, though...we have a new shift bid coming up, so I just have a week or 2 more of the night shift.

We've been short-handed all week (any surprises there?) thanks to the suspension of the girl who caused damage to a 737 in a jetbridge accident. Gotta watch out for those probes on the side of the plane. She's back to work later today...we hope. We need that extra body on the night shift.

Yeah, that little accident cost the company a whole helluva lotta money. Of course, they charter a LearJet to get an inspector, a mechanic, and the part to Dallas...just to get here and realize they brought the wrong damn part. Idiots. They wound up swapping out parts with "An evil DFW eMpiRe" for a price and the plane wound up taking a 3.5 hour delay thanks to the repair. On a Friday. With tons of misconnecting passengers. Not good. Oh well, shit happens.

I worked morning shift twice this week on top of night shift. Wore me out, but I enjoyed it. I just worked in the operations office one of the mornings...that was easy cheese. I got to yell at people for screwing up...proving once again the fact that I was made to yell at underlings.

We've been having problems with the rampers in our hub city incorrectly loading bags. Mixing local, thru, and connection bags altogether. Sometimes behind mail and cargo. And throwing gate claim items behind bags...and sending an entire day's worth of mail shipments on the last flight of the day (screwing the night shift over even more). I dunno which one pisses me off most, but I'm ready to catch a flight to our hub and knock some people around. Them and one of our west coast stations. The ramp isn't rocket science, but for the morons on both coasts...it's damn close to it. I mean, c'mon, a trained monkey could do most of this job. Grrr....

This weekend is my trip to Fenway. I can't fucking wait. I leave for Boston on Friday morning, check into my hotel a few miles from BOS, meet up with Suzanne, and head to Fenway to see the Sox kick the Braves' asses! I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm...so...scared! Uhhh, sorry...Jesse Spano moment there. I'm gonna be seeing Suze for the first time in a long time. 2 years I think. That's gonna be a little weird, but it'll be nice to see her again. I'm looking forward to the whole trip. I plan on killing some of Boston's finest booze while I'm at it all. :)

Lastly, I'd like to share with you another proof that I'm the least lucky man alive. This week, I ordered new contacts online, as well as a new lanyard for my ID badges (ok, ok, and some of those cute little pudgy airplane stickers) from Boeing's webstore. Really, all I need is the contacts and the lanyard. Both are fucking backordered. Yup. Two separate orders from two separate companies...both of the necessities are backordered.

But hey, at least I get my pudgy airplane stickers! Boeing went ahead and shipped those babies!

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Current Music: Dropkick Murphys - Tessie

Oh, the irony...

Oh the irony...I fucking HATE ATL. With a passion. And I LOVE Chicago...

American Cities That Best Fit You:

65% Atlanta

65% Las Vegas

60% Austin

55% Denver

50% Chicago

Traffic, TAT Probes, and The Sox!

Rough day/night...good ending, though.

Took me 2.5 hrs to get to work today thanks to the worst traffic in history. I got "written up" for being almost an hour late to work. Hooray!

All planes were 15-20 minutes late tonight...that didn't make things any easier.

Then, the catastrophe of one of my co-workers damaging a 737 while pulling the jetbridge up to the aircraft. She elevated the cab of the jetbridge while too close to the a/c and bent the TAT (Total Air Temperature) Probe that is on the side of the plane. It was a complete accident, but all in all, it's an accident that is going to cost the company a boat load of money. We're talking in the tens of thousands of dollars. Hell, they had to charter a LearJet to get the part and a mechanic to Dallas.

Good news when I got home though...I have tickets for next Friday's Red Sox game at Fenway Park in Boston! Fuck yeah!

I'm off today...looking forward to doing NOTHING! Yes!
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Current Music: Ben Folds - Landed

One Broke Douchebag

Does it make me a douchebag that I've watched the movie "Love Actually" something like 5 times in the past week? I think it does...:-\ Damn sappy movie.

I have managed to offset some of my douchebaggery with watching lots of Texas Rangers baseball and a killer 40 point win by the Mavs.

I've been broke for close to a couple of weeks. I get paid every other Monday, so doing anything on my days off on every other weekend has been kinda out of the question. I literally left the house once this weekend in an attempt to save money.

It's Mother's Day today...be sure to NOT follow my example and be sure to at least call your mom. I still need to do that. I'm too poor to give her anything now...so, I'll get her something tomorrow.

Well, off to work...I kinda miss the smell of jet fuel.

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Current Music: None...Texas Rangers on the TV

Where Did I Go?

So yeah, it's been a little while. Uhh, sorry. I never realized people read this thing until I started getting threatening emails and text messages about my lack of updates. So, here goes...I'm gonna backtrack a little.

Things are starting to settle at work a little bit. Things at the new terminal have gotten a little better and things on the night shift, though every night is a pain in the ass, have gotten better as well. We've kinda got a routine down now. Except when all hell breaks loose. :) About a week ago, actually exactly a week ago we had a little incident.

Well, not 'we' per se...but one of our planes took a bird on the nose during final approach. Birdstrike, baby! Nothing left of that little fucker except blood and feathers on a newly delaminated radome. OK, so maybe that was speaking Greek to some of you. I'll explain.

Dictionary.com defines a radome as a domelike shell transparent to radio-frequency radiation, used to house a radar antenna. In the case of this (and most aircraft) the radome is the nosecone of the airplane. It's made of composite materials and is pretty damn sturdy considering the light weight of the materials.

Well, composites are typically in a "laminated" state that support the structural integrity of the item. When hit hard enough (like hitting a fucking bird at 400mph), the composite item can become misshapen and the integrity of the composite is compromised.

Basically, long story short, radome+bird(speed)=grounded airplane.

We're an outstation, so we have contract mechanics...very good at what they do, especially when they have to improvise. One was on site when the plane landed around midnight, checked the plane out through and through for about an hour to ensure the bird never entered the engine intakes or anything like that...then began the business of hunting down a radome.

There was alot of drama in between in all of that with our night crew. Basically, alot of pissiness because of lack of communication and lack of similar views on what the real goal needed to be...was it getting to leave work on time? or was it helping the mechanics when asked and avoiding the lost revenue of a canceled flight? Anyone in the airline business knows the correct answer to that...

We're an 'outstation', therefore we have no hangar, and few spare parts just lying around. Usually, if we need a part, it can be there in a couple of hours...or we can "rent" the part from another airline. In this case, we rented a radome from "Evil DFW Empire Airlines" that runs similar, very silver a/c. Must be nice to have VERY expensive parts just lying around.

Our mechanic managed to get the radome and began the replacement by 0330. He recruited me to help him out off and on through the night. I started helping him full time at around 0630 and had to hold the damn thing in the air after the supports were disengaged. My arms were sore the rest of the weekend. The thing is lightweight, but standing on a ladder and holding something in the air for about an hour is kinda tough.

That plane was supposed to leave at 0700, but a tail swap pushed that a/c's push time to 0810. New radome was in place and had it's airworthiness signed off at 0830. Not too shabby for one A&P licensed mechanic and a lowly ramp rat.

Anyway, so there's my "I got to play with a 30 lb. nosecone that costs more than a really nice house" story. The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. We've been a man short at night all week. We finally replaced our smoky-ass, dying piece of shit of a pushback tug. I pushed a solid turd into a hole with a big waterhose in the pouring ass rain (yes, I just typed that). Unloaded "precious cargo" into an armoured truck. Got to work my first full on triple-ops. Good times, eh?

I've accomplished nothing today. I was thinking about non-revving to somewhere fucking random like LA or Tampa, but decided to sleep all day instead. So I've sat on my ass all day and talked to people online, played around with the blog, watched some TV.

I did leave for a little bit with Robbie Mac to go eat. We went to Ye Olde Smokehouse II and had BBQ sandwiches and onion rings. When we got there, we saw our old Sunday school teacher from when we were in high school, Dave James his wife, kids, and mom-in-law. Dave was definitely the coolest Sunday school teacher I ever had and honestly, one of the only people from FBC Gainesville that I still like. He sat with us for little bit and we played catch up. Still very cool. I actually miss that guy.

Robbie says he was contacted by someone with the military in regards to Cpl. Compton's security clearance and that he referred them to me. Well, I'm gonna act all skitzoid if they call me and tell them Cody's an Islamic radical. :)

So yeah, I really wanted to do something this weekend...but really, I'm down to 10 bucks until my check decides to direct deposit itself...any minute now. I'm finally gonna be almost caught up on bills for the first time in a while. There's still a ton of credit card debt, but I can deal with that. My car is ALMOST paid off and I'm gonna try to work some OT and get it paid off ASAP.

I'm still looking for a place. Something has opened up, but it's kinda in the other direction from where I want to be and it's gonna be open at the end of the month. I dunno if I'll have the cash to do anything by then. We'll see.

Saw some of my Sweeney buddies last week. Met them at the airport...that was fun. Saw Skip there, too...that was kinda awkward. Oh well...I can't make them like me. I can only know that I changed that place for the better, no matter what Ernie thinks.

Hmmmm, what else. The lovely Kari intro'd me to a pretty sweet ass band. They're called SouthFM. You can get my favorite song from their new CD at iTunes using the link below. Great song...and I leave you with the lyrics. Be good, folks...and be good to each other.

so save your breath
for the rest of this relationship
cause it will get harder
and harder
for us to breathe
and when you fall find my hand
to help you stand again
cause times will get harder
and harder than these

where did you go
I thought I'd be the first in line to know
you know that I have trouble letting go
and when the world has taken
everything you have to give
I promise I will never say
I told you so

we'll prove two people can stand
when everybody else is falling apart
in a world that keeps ending
I know you and I could
make a new start
my days go by

Oh, one last thing...the BWI supervisor chick, Gina, on the show Airline is wicked hot...I might have to make another BWI trip. :) That's all.
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Current Music: SouthFM - Where Did You Go