The 100 Credit Month!

I'm commuting on Delta Flight 1038 from SAN to ATL trying to get to my last two day trip of the month.  September concludes with my schedule being completed @ 89% on-time arrivals and departures and the awesome fact that I was able to break the 100 hour credit mark!  The Captain was an awesome character to fly with as we always went out and enjoyed the town.  We always had some lunch or dinner with great conversation and even visited some random places like the mall in downtown Stamford, Connecticut or Orange Country Choppers in Newburgh, New York.  It was one of the best months that I have had here at ASA.

The paycheck on the 15th of October is something that I'm really looking forward to!  I've been working hard with the commute and all so hopefully it will it will pay off in one way or the other! :)  You have to realize that I usually get credited about 70-80 hours a month and with the extra ~20 hours, it's going to boost my pay about a third of my usual.  I'm young right so I should be trying to do this each month, but it just really depends if you could hack it.  Exhaustion is something that I hate feeling, but when you fly with a good crew and have good trips, it only adds to the pleasure. 

Being back home in San Diego more and more helps out in the "being grounded" feeling department but with the split of our crashpad in February, finding another place in Atlanta is up in the air.  I'll have more on the living situation later but being with friends during the weekend in San Diego helps in recuperating the lost time. 

With the impending launch of a new Macbook Pro, rumored to be announced on the 14th, my paycheck is going to be accounted for.  I've been waiting for almost 7 years now and am in bad shape with my Titanium Powerbook 667.  (I've been mainly using my IBM T43p on trips though so it hasn't been that bad)

Preposterous-ness of My Flight from ATL-MCN

So check this out.  My flight tonight was scheduled from Atlanta to Macon, Georgia: Flight ASQ4222 operating for Delta Connection.  It's a quick 18 minute flight from takeoff to touchdown for a total of 75 miles to the southeast of Atlanta.  Of course, we end up blocking about 40 minutes for total flight.  That time includes the taxi time around Atlanta and Macon thus concluding that the taxi time is longer than the flight by about 2 minutes.  That's normal for some of our quick hops, but now get this.

The van ride from the Middle Georgia Regional / Macon Airport is approximately 24.2 miles back to the north west for a total of 30 minutes in van ride!  Granted it was a nice Honda Odyseey and not a Ford Van that absorbs no shock or bump whatsoever, so it really wasn't that bad but tell me that's just not right!

So, now I have about 8 hours until I have to wake up (aorund 6:15 and be downstairs by 7:15 ready to go in the hotel lobby for a 30 minute van ride back to Macon Airport, followed by 5 legs concluding at 1600 then take a flight back to San Diego.  It's going to be a doozy!

The Good Feeling

Over the last few weeks, things have just been going a little too well.  It's definitely been a little bit since a major stretch of bliss, but I'm able to recognize that things are good again.  At least for the most part, the flying has been tremendous and the commuting hasn't really been all that bad.  I've been updating trelijah quite often as it's really easy to upload / email pictures to the site and the format is actually what I have been looking for in terms of quality.  The photos are almost full resolution!

I'm once again on the commute back to San Diego on AirTran enjoying the exit row eagerly awaiting the dry weather.  I'm about to head out tonight with one of my friends Joe who is back in town for a week vacation prior to starting up his last year at dental school in Boston.  Should make out for good times. 

I watched the Olympic Women's Beach Volleyball finals match last night which was amazing!  It's crazy to see that the two-some has won a total of over 100 matches in a row!  I haven't been on top of the olympics really this year as I've been preoccupied with some personal stuff including flying my butt off an going right to bed. 

To Commute or Not...Most Likely Will

In the next few months, I will be slowly transitioning to being more of a commuter and force myself to always fly home no matter what.  In other words, even if I have two days off, I will be flying back home to San Diego.  You see, the lease on our awesome Loxford Lounge Crashpad is due this up and coming February which leaves just under 7 months to slowly move.  Being that I haven't been around lately, doesn't really leave me that much time to pack up and go.  As long as I make it a habit to pack at least one box a week or month, I'll be all moved out by year's end making my reliance on the crashpad wither down to zilch. 

It is hard though now that I have been doing it a lot lately, but it really just takes will power.  I'm now able to concentrate on coming home since the fact my parents moved back to San Diego which cuts the drive home by almost 75% and is a lot more convenient all together. 

I was able to catch a flight on Delta Mainline this evening which is actually a rarity since I have been using the competition due to their availability.  Delta has always been full to and from Atlanta so my dependency has risen on Airtran thus enabling my frequent trips back home. 

The necessity for a crashpad in Atlanta would be only for the days that I am stuck in ATL due to weather or the times when I have training, but I guess that doesn't amount to more than what I would ben spending a year of keeping a place within the airport limits. 

I'm going to do it!  I really am and I feel more confident than ever because of my desire to surf a lot more and just swim and get more physically fit.  I have till end of the year to really achieve what I have been aiming for and that is normalcy. 

August Update

So the family is finally moved back (75%) to the house which I loved in Rancho Penasquitos and while that's all great, my schedule for August has changed dramatically.  I loaded the end of the month with all the trips from the following week giving me another week off in San Diego to help tidy things up.  You have to love the oppurtunity of Open Time that allows you to swap things around.  All of this just means that I won't be coming back for the rest of the month, or at least might not come back due to the tight squeeze in commuting.  If you are around the SoCal area, hit me up.  I'll be around till next Sunday, August 10th.  CYA! Quick notes:  driving back and forth to downtown at around 2200 last night was fun, eating pizza on a curb on 5th with some old friends sure brought back some memories, the padres lost to the giants again, I got two free shirts at the game 1 from from Scripps (thanks Adelle) and the other from the Padres giveaway.  I'll post pics of a deal-e-o that ended my night rather early thus the driving back and forth multiple times.

Update: Here are the pictures that I promised.  It's House vs. 26' U-Haul!  U-Haul won hands down!

[gallery]

Murphy's Law

If anything can go wrong, it will.  It all started last night while doing my post flight walk around in Harrisburg, PA.  As I was walking down the stairs, the moisture on one of the steps made me lose my footing, and I came close to doing a face plant on the asphalt.  Of course, because of that close call, I sprain and twist my ankle a bit and just continued to limp around the aircraft.  We finally arrived at the hotel and while getting off the shuttle, I hit my head so freaking hard on the van door that I end up seeing stars and falling forward a little, almost, once again catching myself before the concrete sidewalk.  I'm still feeling a bump about 26 hours later. 

I wake up this morning, have a great breakfast and head back to my room.  After my shower, I grab an undershirt out of my luggage bag, head back to the bathroom and slip on some water but caught myself on the sink by holding onto the tile counter.  I'm definitely not that clumsy at all, and over the previous 12 hour period, I find myself already with 3 strikes.  Today was going to be a great day. 

Of course, after a deadhead back to Atlanta, we find out that our flight to Southbend, Indiana is delayed about 1.5 hours.  This has to happen on the last roundtrip of a four day trip.  We finally take off and once we land in Southbend, we find out that the flight back Atlanta is delayed also another hour.  So that means that my connection back home to San Diego edges closer to being a non-reality.  With all the weather in the vicinity of the Atlanta Airport, I luck out and find out that both Delta and AirTran flights to San Diego are going to be delayed.  We fly back, hang out on the taxiways in Atlanta waiting for the ramp to open up and I run to the next gate. 

I'm finally on the AirTran plane Flight 616 that finally ended up leaving around 1:30AM.  The flight was originally scheduled at 9:45PM, but I guess things have a funny way of working out.  I'm going to land in San Diego around 2:30AM, head to the DMV around 10:30AM to take care of some car registration an then finish up some loose ends back at the house.  It's going to be a good start though.  August is here and so is the last half of the year.  At least most of the little karmic critters are out of the way. 

4 Day Trips vs 3 Day Trips

You ever have the feeling that you should be done with work that day but then you end up at a hotel again?  Well, let me try to put it in another perspective.  It's the feeling you get after sleeping for 3 hours on a 6 hour plane ride to only wake up with 3 hours left!  It never ends!  I'm lucky that I have a great crew this trip and that the days aren't that bad.  I've also been playing quite a bit on my new toy so that's occupying quite a bit of time. 

It was a little depressing having to fly on my birthday, but what can you do?  A friend of mine told me that she has birthday leave which is hard to believe because I don't think we get that here in the US.  I'm definitely jealous. 

I'm heading home once again to San Diego only to be tasked with moving a bit of furniture from one house to the other as well but at least it will all come to an end soon.  Which reminds me...

August Schedule / Apps

My new updated schedule for the month of August is up and over to the right -->

I've been twittering a lot lately with the Twinkle by Tapulous application and have found it to be quite fun.  It shows you who is nearby as well as the people that you follow on twitter.  The program is just a tad buggy as it ends up resetting my device once a day or so, but either than that and some other random programs, I'm on it the most.  Riding the bus to an from the parking lot is quite boring and this keeps me occupied. 

It's about 25 minutes till my birthday and I think I'll call it a night.  I had a great weekend which included a little birthday gathering at the house with some of my friends friends and I'm off again for another 4 day trip followed by a quick trip to San Diego (<36 hours) then by a nap then a 4 day trip.  Check it out on my August Schedule. 

***Update*** as always, because of the awesomeness that ASA lets up swap around our trips and schedules with an open time pot, I was able to trade my nap this weekend for something else a lot later in the month.  Looks like I'll be in San Diego for most of the upcoming weekend.  Check out the updated schedule.  See you on the beach!

The Beginning

Well, here I am again trying out, not only a new service, but a new device that my friends and I are planning to develop for. So far, in the last 72 hours, I have crashed the new phone multiple times thus not allowing me to accurately time the battery life using the built-in "usage" calculator. It's frustrating alright and sometimes the phone is just a little too slow. One gripe with using the contact sync feature with Apple's buggy-shoulda-been-beta mobileMe software package is the 5 seconds that I have to wait while trying to pull up one of my buddies. I can't say that I'm sold on it the "Exchange for everyone else" and will probably cancel it after the free 60 day trial. It's nice to have a calendar and photo library sync up but I can't justify the $100/yr just yet. I'm flying again quite a bit and with the initial award for August, it looks like I'll be able to keep up the commute or head out for another out of country adventure. I need I save some money up for the holiday season but who am I kidding anyways? Life is on another upswing and as long as I can keep up the positivity, it'll be smooth sailing.

I'm going to be Twitter-ing more often and even uploading some mobile photos that can be found on my facebook profile. Facebook released a handy little native app so depending on whether I keep it up will determine the continuation of trelijah. The name is probably going to change again...introducing eliPhone...maybe. :)

On and Off Again

As before and many times ago, I have mentioned times when I truly believed that I was ready to only be once again let down by the simple disappointments of expectations.  No matter how much I attribute them all. or at least most of it to being my fault, I still find myself yearning for more.  It's been a hard year and it is almost to the date where I found myself questioning the whole idea more and more.  There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of the future and where I will be 3-6 months. 

I've been throwing applications out there to various flying companies but of course, the state of the industry hasn't been allowing me the opportunities to interview or even be an exception the rule.  It's definitely going to be a touch couple of months and holiday season due to almost every airline cutting back flying.  So with the onslaught of upcoming furloughs and less flying, it's going to be hard to move upward and continue my cross-country commute. 

Things are the crashpad have been great but as we only have about 8 months left on the lease, the itch is slowly turning into a reality that I will have to find another crashpad and be more out of cash every month due to the highly possible increase in rent.  I'm lucky that the roommates that I have tolerate my messy space in the 2nd floor loft, but that luxury will disappear next February. 

The last couple of days have been a blessing in disguise.  I tell you this because the flying in Florida, particularly Miami and Tallahassee reminded me how much I love flying.  Not only the love for flying, but the love for actually flying passengers around.  The views of the coast just truly are exhilarating at  10,000 going 320 knots.  I'm glad really that I was fortunate enough to end up at a company that has the backing of a great parent company.  I can only hope on how the fall schedule will turn out. 

Powered by Qumana

July Schedule

I think that I'm finally finished moving around my schedule swapping and trading around.  What I have posted at www.elijahnicolas.com/wp/img/08Jul.jpg should reflect all my recent changes and modifications.  Should be a pretty easy schedule giving me time to head back to San Diego to hang out with family as well as Palm Coast to tidy up the house and get it ready for tenants.   I'm finally up and running at 90% again and probably can safely say that I'll be 110% buzzing in no time.  Flying is going well, the birthday month is here and things can only get better, right?  Thanks to everyone who found the time to chat to me about the randomness.  

June Schedule

For those of you that did not notice, I didn't have a regular June Schedule posted for quite a while.  This is due to the fact that I kept on switching things around in Open Time and now, there you have it.  Yes I have been "off" for the greater part of the month, but as you can see, I'll be working the next couple of days.  I'll still be trying to build up trips and make them longer so that I could get paid a little more, but as of now, this is it.  It's definitely a pretty light load though don't you think?

The Next Couple of Posts

Now that I have a great trip experience to write about, I'll definitely be posting a lot more in the next couple of days.  To sum it up here and now, I expired my last allowed paid vacation from my company this past weekend.  I decided to take a trip to Israel which happened to include a last minute 2-day trip to Cairo.  With that, I now have the remaining year to move all my trips around for larger breaks in between days of flying and maybe might be able to take another trip somewhere on the other side of the world.  Stay tuned for a nice post tonight on the first part of my 4 part journal entry.  Maybe it might just be 3 parts, but we'll see... =)