Oh man, I've started this post a bunch of times, but can't seem to get it going. It seems like it was a long time ago since I left LA and started my vacation, and I guess it was. Let me tell you, it was great. It was great because it was just what everyone needed. We got to get away for a few days, unwind, spend some time together, and recharge.
When we got back I still had a week until my next flight. With the boys back in school our normal routine started back up. One son ended up in the Dr.'s office but seemed to shrug it off with some medicine. I ended up driving my middle son to Bowling Green, KY, where we took a tour of a high school for gifted STEM students at WKU. They take kids for 11th and 12th grade, fully paid room and board and they will graduate high school with 60 college credits. I know that it's perfect for him. All he needs is to keep doing what he is doing and he can do it. The average ACT score for incoming Juniors was 30.8. Not sure he will score that high, but his drive in STEM is very strong. I have very mixed feelings about sending him away two years early. I know he could handle it, he's very well rounded and he would love it, but the parent in me just isn't ready for that yet. It's still a couple years away, so I've got some time to come to terms with it. We took some more family time over the weekend to do our yearly fall leaf drive and picnic. Another great adventure. I also had my important HOA annual meeting and was picked, based on the my successes this year, to be the president for next year. I topped all of it off by shopping for and starting the application process for HELOC so we can keep upgrading the house and consider finishing the basement off. Busy, busy, busy.
I got the results of my November bid and lo and behold it's not half bad. The downside is that I work all 5 weekends (counting Halloween as November, because it is for bidding purposes.) But the upside is at least it's consistent throughout the month. I've got a nice break between trips and a pretty good number of days off. I've got our Anniversary off and I'm actually going to be home on Thanksgiving day. I have to leave the next day, but I haven't been home on Thanksgiving for a couple years at least.
Wednesday morning I headed out around 530a to catch a flight to Newark and get back to the task at hand, flying airplanes. My flight in left me with about 90 minutes before I had to be at the plane. I had enough time to grab a quick breakfast, charge up my Ipad and wait. I'm getting sick. The kind of sick that reminds me of how my son was sick last week. Hmmmmmm. How is this possible? Oh, and not only did he manage to get me sick, but the Mrs, and his brother are also sick. Booooooo.
The first flight was a long transcon to San Francisco. I won't lie. This is just the kind of flight that is challenging after a layoff. It's long, and boring. Boring is good. It's infinitely better than action packed, I'm good with boring. But boring is still boring. This already makes for a long day, but when we got to SFO we had a two hour sit and another leg to LAX after.
By this time I had been on the go for over 12 hours since leaving home that morning and I wasn't exactly feeling great. I was ready to get to the hotel. We had to wait for some traffic to clear behind us in order to push off the gate, then we were underway. SFO was advertising 2 departure runways so we set up for the most expected runway. As we taxied out, ATC had a change of heart and told us to get set up for the other runway, that the one we had been planning on was currently closed. When we have a runway change all the work falls to me in the right seat. The first thing is that we need new takeoff data. I have to reload our flight computer for the new runway, then double check the new take off data that comes back. Reset any flap settings, take off speeds, power settings and verify that our departure is correct for the new runway. Then when I've got all that set up, I have to verify all of it with the Captain so that he knows we are all on the same page, and that he can double check all my work and see if I missed anything. In the meantime, I'm working the radios and making sure that we aren't taxing anywhere we aren't supposed to be. The goal is to be ready to go when you get to the runway. We got there and then were promptly told that he other runway was open and to taxi over there and get ready to go. It was kind of exasperating. I mean, I had just busted it all out and now I've got to go back and do it all again. There's just so many places that you can make an error, you've got to be so dialed in and focused to make sure you've got it all together. Now, I've done this many, many times, but that doesn't make each time any less important. Finally, after I had it all set up again, we were ready to blast off for LAX.
My goal was to try and make up some of the time that we lost on the push back and all the runway changes we endured. Plus it couldn't hurt to try and get to the hotel faster, right? ATC was going to slow us down, but then told us they would let us go, and sandwich us between two "heavies," meaning large wide body plane with a takeoff weight of greater than 300,000 lbs. We would be behind an Asiana 777, like the one that plowed into the sea wall in SFO.
Before we left SFO, the flight attendant told us that Jim Belushi was riding with us. That's cool. Wake turbulence is caused by the wash from planes and is worse when the plane is heavy, slow and clean, or like slowing planes on descents into certain airports when I'm behind them. It feels like uncontrollable turbulence to a passenger. The plane kind of bucks and rolls like a knuckleball dancing in the air. It's usually not terrible, but yesterday it got pretty sporty. I'm sure it made Jim hold on a little bit tighter. ATC had us slow down more to get some more spacing, then told us we would have an extended downwind. We had a great view of the Hollywood sign and Dodger Stadium as we cruised over downtown. We landed on the north side of the airport, but had to taxi to the far south side. About as far away as we could get. Then we found out that our gate wasn't ready. So it must have seemed like we had no idea where we were going, because it just took forever and ever. Eventually, we got where we needed to go, about 20 minutes later than we hoped. Thank god that's over with.
I got to my room, threw a shirt on and walked right across the street to the Burger King for my killer dinner. Too tired to do anything else, too far from anything else.
This morning we headed back out in the dark, and took another plane back to the east coast. I'm still not feeling great. Just kind of getting by. This flight was just under 5 hours, and it's not our only flight today either. We had another two hour break and when we got to Dulles I had hoped to go to the clinic, but there isn't one in Dulles. So I opted for a recliner and a 30 min nap before the next flight.
Before we got into DC, I took this great pic of the leaves in full color in Virginia. It's a great time for sightseeing in the mountains. I did enhance it a bit so the colors pop a little better. My original looks a little washed out, but these are indeed the colors you see.
We were just about ready to leave Dulles, when the tug driver told us they had maintenance coming out to check something out. We didn't know about it, this was the first we had heard of it. We were closed up and ready to go. Luckily it turned out to be minor, but it still cost us 15 minutes. Dulles has a runway closed and they gave us a very circuitous route to get to the runway. At least they only gave us the one runway today. We took off into the setting sun and made our way down to Orlando for the night.
Here's the sunset that we got to look at as we were climbing out. That bright orange ball is a pain in the ass, but it sure is pretty at times.
It didn't take long for it to be dark again. That's one of the hardest things about the winter time and we haven't even hit the time change yet. It's starting the day in the dark and ending it in the dark. As we cruised past Savannah I got a really good picture of the city lit up at night. We're cruising at 34000 feet in this picture.
That's it for tonight. The rest of my schedule on this trip is much more manageable. Or shall I say easy. I get a long layover tomorrow night to recover and I don't have a flight longer than 2 and a half hours the rest of the way.
I'll admit, the wear of the writing is wearing on me a little. I'm feel like I'm losing my steam a little bit, but there's only like 10 weeks left for the year. Wow, 10 weeks. Crazy. I'll make it. I'm worried that it's getting a little repetitive, but that's kind of what it is. One thousand things repeated over and over again. I guess maybe that's the point of all of this. To try and give a peek into my life at the same time help you to understand what this life is like. It's way too late. My alarm clock will be going off before I know it.