It's been a fun couple of weeks...been all over the US and working my tail off. Hitting the gym more and starting to run. I have a goal...a mission...and a personal reward at the end. I just have to stay focused.
I've been working alot...big surprise there. I've been working as a trainer for a couple of months now...but now I'm looking at moving into coordinating (the guys that keep the schedule moving by strategically canceling flights, etc.).
I'm less than confident in my training abilities right now. When I was a ramp trainer at AirTran, it was all hands on...but trying to teach software, weather and air traffic theory, and getting hit with tons of questions that I know the answer to but fear I'm leading someone astray is something completely different. I like it to a certain extent, but I'm not sure it is for me.
I did my annual jumpseating on the jet this past week. Flew up to Milwaukee and did a Newark out-and-back with Aaron Krebs from back home. Had a great time...it's nice to fly with someone you know to a place you've never seen.
Flew outta Vegas...got caught in traffic and missed the non-stop AirTran flight to MKE...so I had to fly through Denver. Luckily, Frontier rocks and let me on last minute...as opposed to the AirTran agent who got nasty with me for even asking to jumpseat.
Before leaving Las Vegas...an old friend, Dave McKenzie, texted me asking if I knew who the crew was on his MKE-EWR flight that day. I knew what Dave was really asking..."Is Krebs the pilot on my flight?" (Dave and Krebs were roommates in college)...so I called him right then to tell him he missed it by one day. At the time, we thought that Dave was going to be on our EWR-MKE return flight the next day. That would have been entertaining...three ol' Gainesville boys on the same flight, on the same day...what are the chances? As it turns out, Dave was on the flight before ours...which was a bummer because Krebs had come up with some funny stuff for the "Welcome PA"...
I got into MKE later in the night and stayed at a hotel near the airport. We get an airline crew rate of $35 bucks there, so I booked it ahead of time and crashed out (after 7 beers and 4 shots with a bunch of local UPS employees at the Applebee's next door of course). The next morning, I went to the airport early and met up with Aaron. He showed me around, introduced me to the Chief Pilot and others in the crew lounge and we grabbed a light lunch. After the near act of God Almighty Himself to get my jumpseat credentials checked, we headed out for EWR.
The flight itself was pretty uneventful, but the approach into EWR was pretty sweet. The final approach to runway 22R rides parallel to New York with amazing views of the city, the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, etc...the kinds of views you only get while sitting in the front office of a jet. Kinda wished I had taken a camera...but with sterile cockpit on approach, probably wouldn't have been kosher.
So we landed in EWR and I had to go to the gate to fill out the jumpseater paperwork for the gate agent. When I came back down, I found my big backpack that I had gate-checked and should have got back in the jetway had been taken to baggage claim. Aaron chased down a ramper and had him go look for it, but it was too late...my bag was already on the carousel. I had to run like a bat outta hell to baggage claim, get my bag, and go back through security. Of course, the TSA line was half a mile long and, when I finally got to the metal detector, it got bumped by other people twice...and I had to be wanded and have all of my other stuff checked. I got back to the gate just in time for final boarding...took my seat up front, and away we went.
Amazingly, there were no delays into/out of EWR, so we got back to MKE way early. I was able to catch a flight on Frontier over to Denver at the last minute. Of course, I had been fairly lucky all day...so the luck ran out and we wound up taking a long mechanical delay due to computer issues. The guy behind me kept running his mouth to impress the girl next to him...making fun of the mechanic that was sent to fix the problem...so I wound up taking my airline ID's off and let into him for not knowing what he was talking about. Ahhh, that felt good. My tolerance for passenger ignorance just isn't what it used to be.
Landed in Denver pretty late and it was freakin' snowing. We let all the connecting passengers off first so they could run like hell to make their flights. Brian picked me up and I hung out with him, Chuck, and Kaycee for a couple days of relaxing. It was nice to have absolutely nothing to do and hang out with those three...they rock. We had some beers, played Trivial Pursuit, airline-geeked it up...just alot of nothing.
Got back to SGU on Saturday night...and here I am back to working. I'm planning on going back to NYC next week for a Yankees-Tigers game at Yankee Stadium. If you know me, you know I'm a die-hard Red Sox fan, but I'm a baseball fan first and I've never been to Yankee Stadium. Considering this is the last season they will be playing there, I figured it would be good to go see it and take the tour...alot of history there.
Speaking of the Sox...that was the original plan for this past weekend. Dearing, his dad, and I were supposed to go to Fenway to see the Sox play the Texas Rangers...but a miscommunication between me and Dearing (I was waiting on him to tell me he had plane tickets before I bought game tickets, he was waiting on my to tell him I had game tickets before booking a flight) kept us from going. Oops. Would have been a great game to see...the Sox came back from 5 runs down in the late innings to win 6-5...even after Manny got ejected in the 2nd. Oh well...
Well, for those of us that were at work at 0300 this morning...it's lunch time. Veggie enchiladas, here I come!
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