[PilotMan]

I headed back to work yesterday. This trips is very conveniently commutable for me. Where last week I only had 3 day trip, but was gone for 4 days, this one is a 4 day and still just gone 4 days. I left home around 730a for my 905a flight to Newark. The flight had a few available seats and I was the only stand by passenger listed so getting a seat wasn't a problem.

We landed around 1100a I had about 45 minutes of free time before I had to get to the plane. Not having eaten I ran down to the cafeteria for some lunch. I have a really hard time turning down a Reuben and fries. I really struggle to eat healthy on the road. I downloaded the paperwork for our 2 hour flight to Atlanta. This is only the second time that I've been back to Atlanta with my new company. I used to come here all the time when I was with Comair. It always brings back a flood of memories and mixed emotion.

The weather surely wasn't an issue. Things were nice both in Newark and all up and down the east coast. I took this leg so it was my landing. The guy that I'm flying with on this trip was stationed at the same AFB that my Dad was and where I was born many years before. Aviation can be a very small world. That goes both ways. If you burn bridges anywhere in this business it can come back and bite you and keep you from getting where you want to go. All it takes is one or two people to derail a shot at a major airline.

We landed and parked in Atlanta and only had 45 scheduled minutes in between flights. After we parked I didn't even get out of the seat at first. I had to get right to grabbing the paperwork for the next leg and then setting the plane up again. It took just about 10 minutes of that to get all my paperwork ready and reviewed, then another 20 to get the cockpit set up and preflighted. By the time I was able to get up for the walkaround we were already boarding and just a few minutes to push.

I walked around the plane, then ran inside the terminal to use a real toilet that I can stand up straight in and then right back to the plane. The next, and last flight of the day was out to Denver. My little bit of exercise had to hold me over for another 3+ hours.

ATC was reporting some turbulence going into Denver so we had everyone finish up and sit down. If you've ever been into Denver, you know they can have some hellacious turbulence to playing it safe is always the best option. We landed early and even with a last minute gate change rolled right up to our spot.

Even though it was only 2 flights having that first leg commute from home made it feel a lot longer. Our layover was a shorter layover so instead of going all the way downtown we stayed out closer to the airport so that we didn't have to waste so much time going back and forth.

Last night was short, but I knew that today would be a short workday. We headed out to the airport at 700a. The plane had overnighted and the only real issue would be whether or not it would need to be deiced. I got everything set up pretty quickly. The Captain checked the wings, but couldn't really get an idea if they needed cleaned off. The temp was such that it could've gone either way. When I went out for the walkaround I discovered that they had already sprayed the plane off with some Type 1 prior to us getting there. That was enough to get the frost off and keep us from having to worry about it.

We pushed back with a nearly full flight, on time, for our only leg of the day, down to Ft Lauderdale. On climb out we heard a report of more turbulence so I kept the plane a little bit slower to mitigate the bumps as well as, to allow for a faster rate of climb. Once we were up to cruise and 40 minutes out the ride eased up and we had a great flight.

ATC originally gave us a direct routing down to Tallahassee, but as we got down over Alabama, they rerouted us due to an active military area that we needed to stay away from. As we got to the top of the decent I pulled the weather for Lauderdale up and saw that it was warm, but raining and windy. Somewhere just east of Ft Myers we hit the rain. It wasn't related to any thunderstorms, but it was heavy.

As we were coming down the noise from the rain and the speed that we were going made it seem like we were just plummeting toward the earth. The rain was loud and the wind was bouncing us all over the place. I broke out of the clouds a few hundred feet up and the rain let off for the landing. The wind was still howling though, but I still managed a rather soft landing.

We taxied in and that was it. I was done. I stayed and said goodbye to all the passengers, while the Captain, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, took off to go home. I had been planning to get out today after watching the NDSU football game on ESPN3, but the non stop rain cooled that plan really quick. Instead I ordered a pizza and just watched the Bison lay the smack down on the Griz of Montana. Getting retribution for the week one loss to start the year.

WOOT! WOOT!

I'm out again tomorrow morning and am officially half way done with the trip.