A Cold, Rainy Day In Greeley

Today I figured out what I forgot when I was packing to come here; an umbrella (not that I could have fit it in anyway). Not only was it raining this morning, it was also the coldest day we’ve had so far (high of 58), so it was the perfect day to leave the house without an umbrella and forgetting to grab my coat before we left.

In better news, they finally decided what they’re going to do with me. Eric, our new sim instructor, decided to rotate us over the course of 6 hours like we thought he might do, but he also decided to be nice and let the third guy each rotation take a break instead of making him sit in the back of the sim bored for two hours. This is good both because each of us gets a break, but also because it means I get to continue getting experience as Pilot Monitoring, which will help me later on when I get out on line. My understanding is that they’re also planning on keeping me on the same schedule with regard to my checkride, so I’ll be having it Thursday morning (one of the other guys is going to have to stick around an extra day to be PM for me even though they’ll be done on Wednesday). I also found out that the person giving me the checkride will be Dusty, who was one of our ground instructors back in Billings. My air work was definitely a little better today than it was on Saturday, but I still have a ways to go before I’ll be ready for the checkride (which, being only two lessons away, is getting a little close for comfort), so please be praying I continue to improve at an acceptable rate over the next two days.

We still don’t know much of anything about what’ll happen after the sim. My guess is that they’ll want us to hightail it up to Billings so that we’re available to do our training flights in the real aircraft whenever planes become available (I’ll basically be on 1-hour call until that’s done). But there’s a chance they’ll decide to put the emphasis on getting the captains done and give us a few days off until they think we’d actually get to fly (the odds aren’t really in my favor, but pray anyways). If I get really lucky, they’ll decide to give us some time off before sending us up to Billings, which means I could be home as early as Friday.

Don’t worry, I won’t put any spoilers here, but we just got done watching the season premier of Heroes and it’ll be interesting to see where they take it this time around. I hope they’re able to keep it as entertaining and unpredictable as the first season (which Eddie, Adam, and I all found highly addictive). Because of the weirdness with how they handle TV schedules around here (delaying broadcasts but keeping the normal times in the commercials), we ended up also watching the premier of Chuck because it was on at the time we thought Heroes was going to start. Even if the show doesn’t really go anywhere, I have to admit that I found the amount it parodied things like Geek Squad and Firedog absolutely hilarious (and I know just enough people who should be working those sorts of jobs that the rampant stereotyping in the show is that much funnier). Right now, Chris and John are in the other room watching the premier of Journeyman (which I saw on the plane back to Chicago last week), a show that I think might turn out to be pretty good.

I’m hoping to post a video or two from my trip to Purdue last week on here sometime soon (and the instructions for Fried Spaghetti that Roxy asked for a couple of posts ago), but I’m afraid that won’t be tonight. I didn’t sleep all that well last night and I’m going to have to get up relatively early again for sim tomorrow morning (even though he’ll probably brief us for 15 minutes and send me home for another two hours, I still have to be there and awake). Please pray for good sleep so that my ability to learn in the sim won’t be hampered by being tired.

Ok, that’s it, goodnight everyone!