Journal entries for August, 2007

Bored out of your mind at work? Wish you were accompanying me on my roadtrip but the fates didn't allow it? Now you can follow along at home! All the fun of sitting in a car for hours without the tedious scenery to look at!

Eloquent snippets
Waft about impressively
Holocaust, mostly

Car pulls to the left
Must hold constant right steering
Why don't cars have trim?

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With my impending move, I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to move both of my cars. I plan to rent a U-Haul truck to move my stuff, so I can tow a car behind it, but getting the second car there would be trickier — I'd either have to drive the truck with one car in tow, then fly back to Covington to drive the other one, or I'd need to pay a friend to drive my other car alongside the U-Haul and then fly them back home or something. Neither option is very appealing.

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When I moved to New Orleans last year, I knew I wouldn't be staying there long-term. I thought of it as a sort of foothold back onto the mainland — I'd stay there for a year and then move to somewhere that more closely matches my wishlist: Most importantly, I want to live near friends. Aside from that, I want to live in or near the mountains (New Orleans is basically the exact opposite of that), away from a city (roughly the level of rurality of Clemson), and somewhere in the generally southeast part of the country; ideally towards the more northerly parts of the southeast, like North Carolina or Virginia.

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Before I go into detail, I suppose I should first just say that my checkride went splendidly and I'm now the proud possessor of a private pilot's certificate with 42.5 logged hours. Surprisingly, I find that I'm actually more excited about this accomplishment than I was when I graduated from college. I suppose that might be indicative of misplaced priorities, but college felt like something that I simply had to do. Sure, when I was done I had put in a lot of work and succeeded at something difficult, but it had been something that was practically a requirement, so it wasn't all that remarkable that I did it. Nobody gives you a ceremony when you properly raise your kids, although I'm sure that's not an easy task. But it's just something that's expected of you. Learning to fly, on the other hand, was a mountain that I climbed willingly and purely because I wanted to, and I guess that's why there's a greater sense of reward when I reach the peak. Besides, my college degree doesn't let me do anything nearly as fun as flying an airplane. (OK, maybe indirectly it does).

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Earlier this week I completed all of my training prerequisites other than the overall 40 minimum hours of flight time, so for the past few days I've been working with Mike on reviewing my landings (soft-field, short-field, etc) and maneuvers (slow flight, stalls, 45°-banked turns, turns around a point, etc). Yesterday he decided that I was ready, coincidentally just as I reached exactly 40.0 hours in my logbook.

Before you can schedule an FAA practical test (known as a 'checkride'), Fly By Knight makes you go up with a different instructor than the one you trained with, who plays the part of an FAA examiner makes you run through the maneuvers and landings that the real examiner will make you do. That instructor decides whether you're ready for the checkride itself — if he gives you a thumbs-up, you can go ahead and schedule the official test. If he gives you a thumbs-down, then you need to spend a few more flights with your instructor reviewing things a little more.

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On Saturday I had a bit of a 'Dinner And Wine And Board Games' evening with Bryan and Cat, along with Danielle, the pilot from New Orleans I met a few weeks ago. We had a great time living the yuppie lifestyle for an evening. I made lasagna and Cat made pineapple upside-down cake and we played Apples 2 Apples and Cranium and Eat Poop You Cat.

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