Romper Room

This post has absolutely nothing to do with Romper Room. What it DOES have to do with is my commercial check ride. It's been postponed til early next semester. And despite what I said in my last post, that's actually a good thing. I had quite a bit on my plate already with the AMT program, and I was kind of starting to fray around the edges. Belinda, my flight instructor (and, I'm beginning to suspect, also my fairy godmother), worked out a plan that lets me put off the check ride until January 12 and 13 (it's spread over 2 days because I can't do class for 8 hours and then still squeeze in a whole check ride in one day) without having to take an F for Commercial III. So I've got a little break from feverish studying and panicking over not getting to fly because of weather (it's been crazy windy here lately). However, I'll probably have my books in my luggage when we fly back to Michigan so I can get some studying done over break. At least I can focus all my attention this week on passing my Phase 2 final exam on Thursday.

My Riveting Post

Man, I'm really bad at remembering to post. Here's what's new. I'm working on sheet metal in AMT right now. Five weeks worth of sheet metal. Five weeks worth of shearing and bending and drilling and riveting sheet metal. We'll finally be done with it on the 11th of this month. So far, I've built a spark plug tray and a timing light box, I've riveted countless sheets of aluminum together (using both flush and universal head rivets), I've sandpapered a gouge out of a sheet of plexiglass (I know that's not really "sheet metal" but it was still part of the project packet), I've stretched and shrunken angle doublers, and I've constructed a hole finder. I've enjoyed it for the most part (especially riveting), but it's had its frustrating moments and I'm ready to move on to something else.

My twenty-eighth birthday is this Friday. The church we go to here has a special time during announcements every Sunday, where they ask who has a birthday coming in the next week, and then they make those people stand up and the whole church sings Happy Birthday to them. Well, yesterday was my day to be sung to. When it was over and I sat back down, Jenny heard the little girl behind us say, "Mommy, why did we sing Happy Birthday to that big man?" Now that's funny stuff. :)

God willing, I'll start flying again tomorrow after class. I took a break that's lasted about a month, because I had some issues with my new instructor, but now I get to fly with Belinda again and (again, God willing) finally finish my commercial certificate. I'm going to feel like a big, fat failure if we go back to Michigan for Christmas, and I still don't have my commercial. That's a heads-up to anyone who might have to put up with me during Christmas. You've been warned!

Oh Brudder...

By now everyone already knows I aced my final, thanks to my adorable wife. So we don't need to talk about that.

Let's talk about Phase 2, instead. Now that's we're past the ridiculously long lecture sessions of Phase 1, it's time to get down to doing some interesting stuff. Today, for instance, my lab partner and I checked the tension in the control cables of a Cessna 150G, with a tensiometer. Then we checked the primary control surface movements with a prop protractor. And then, to top it all off, we removed the rudder from the Cessna, cleaned and greased the bushings, then reattached the rudder. Tomorrow, I'll be assembling a control cable (copper sleeve and steel thimble on one end, swaged ball on the other) then attaching it to a turnbuckle and safety wiring it. I know all of this probably doesn't make much sense to many of you. Frankly, I'm too tired to try and explain it all right now. I mostly just wanted to establish that my tools are finally proving to be a good investment.

Cram Session

My final exam for Phase 1 is tomorrow morning. It's all multiple-choice questions, and it's rumored to be 100 questions long. The questions will be selected from the FAA's bank of Phase One Knowledge Test questions, so if I can pass the final, I should very well be able to pass the FAA's test. Unfortunately, due to regulations, I don't get to take that written test until the end of Phase 3... in March '09. But, like I said, the Phase 1 final exam is tomorrow morning, so feel free to pray for me!

The Last Laugh

On my post about building my hammer, Chris K asked why the instructors didn't bother to take us through the tools before giving us what, at the time and under the circumstances, was a fairly monumental task. I had a pretty good post all typed out in answer to this question. In fact, I'm currently using the "Edit" feature, so it's possible some of you will read that post before I get this one up in its place. The problem with that post was that it was catty and far from what I would consider Christlike. It's kind of been a long time since I've felt particularly Christlike, and I'm very tired of being disappointed in me. So here's my new answer to Chris's question:

The "normal" Phase 1 instructor was fired a semester or two ago. Since my class is the first starting class they've had in a couple semesters, this is the first time the instructors have had to address the fact that they had no one to teach the phase. So the three remaining instructors divided up the phase, and each of the three agreed to teach various subjects. However, only one of the 3 has ever taught any part of Phase 1 before, and that was 15 years ago. So they're all a little slow in getting up to speed with their new teaching responsibilities. I remain optimistic that when we start Phase 2 next Monday, things will run smoother, since Phase 2 is familiar terrain for these guys. I'm hopeful that the worst is behind us.

Going Green

I don't think I mentioned it previously, but my headset broke recently. Yup, this close to being done with my pilot training, and my headset decided to give up the ghost. I had Larry, my electronics-savvy friend in the AMT program, try to repair it for me, but he was unable to find the necessary components (apparently, Flightcom uses much-smaller-than-standard components in their products). Since sending the headset to a repair place would have cost me $55 minimum and I only paid $65 for them in the first place, that didn't seem like a great option either. So I wound up withdrawing some cash money from my flight account and buying myself a brand new David Clark headset. I imagine most of you aren't terribly familiar with the name "David Clark" but it's an enormously popular brand of headset, and they're known for their unique green color. In fact, if you ever watch a TV show or movie where people are in a small plane or helicopter, pay attention to their headsets. Chances are the ear cups are a sea green color. If so, they're David Clarks. I spent the extra $15 to get them delivered UPS 2-day air, so they should be delivered to my door tomorrow at some point. I'm looking forward to trying them out on Monday.

On Getting Hammered

As Jen mentioned on her blog, I finished my hammer yesterday, after an extremely frustrating week of working on it. The FAA has certain activities that we, as AMT students, MUST do. The school decided to find a way for us to do those activities in such a way that when we're done with them, we have something useful to show for it. The solution: make the students build a hammer. The project seems cool, and I was actually pretty excited to get to it. Here's the problem with the hammer project, though. Some of the students in my class (including me) have never really handled tools in any meaningful way. We all, I think, assumed that there would be some instructions or exercises to get us up to speed on using tools before we were given the task of building a hammer. You know, something to ease us into the process, instead of just dropping us cold into a situation where competency with tools was a necessity. That, unfortunately, wasn't the case. So when they handed us a blueprint and some materials and said, "Here, build a hammer," some of us were dreadfully unprepared. What made it more frustrating was that they then told us, "Oh, and we're going to charge you 4 points off your project grade everytime you screw up and have to start over on any part of the hammer." So we were struggling along, using some tools (including a drill press) for the first time, and trying not to botch anything because we didn't want to get docked. Suffice it to say, I screwed up the head of my hammer and had to "buy" a new hunk of steel and start over. But, in the end, the hammer got finished, and I learned how to use some tools in the process. As Jenny also mentioned, my final exam for Phase 1 is next Thursday, which means the following Monday we're on to Phase 2. I'm optimistic that the quality of my AMT education will improve at that point, as the instructors will be back on familiar ground (the guy who used to teach Phase 1 got fired last semester, so the rest of the instructors had to step in and fill the void despite having never taught the material before). One more year...

Flyboy's Long Farewell, or Make Way for Greasemonkey

Let's talk about my flight training. Just where the heck am I with all that, anyway? The short answer is, pretty darn close to the end. As I mentioned previously, I have a new instructor, Mike, who is just about the best thing that's ever happened to me, as far as flight training's concerned. He's got me seeing things differently, which means I'm performing better than I ever have before. When he first started teaching me, he told me I was a little behind the curve on some things, in part because of the quality (or lack thereof) of my prior instruction. When we finished my flight period today, he told me I'm pretty much on top of things now. That's quite a change for one month of sporadic flight periods. So I've got to finish honing a few maneuvers and get some oral exam stuff locked into my brain, and I"ll be ready for my commercial check ride. Realistically, I'll most probably be a commercial pilot before the end of September.

Also, I just had a conversation this afternoon with Belinda (former instructor/assistant chief flight instructor), and she's agreed to do a little bit of instrument review with me when I've finished my commercial and she's finished teaching Private Ground Training (probably mid-October). In order for my instrument rating to remain valid, I have to do at least 6 instrument approaches along with holding procedures and VOR tracking within the previous 6 months. Failing that, I get an additional 6-month grace period to meet those requirements, otherwise my instrument raiting is useless to me until I complete an instrument proficiency check. All that said, I haven't done ANY instrument work since my instrument check ride back in March, so I'm due. In fact, by the time I get to doing my review with Belinda, I'll be somewhere in the first month of that grace period. I'm sure Mike would gladly do the instrument stuff with me, but I'm also sure he's got his own way of doing things. With Belinda, I already know what the expectations are and what she's going to be looking for. Seems easier that way.

Now let's talk about AMT (my mechanic program). AMT is a 15-month program, broken into five three-month phases. Phase 1 is General; it's sort of an overview of everything we're going to cover in detail in the other four phases. Phases 2 and 3 are what get me my Airframe rating, and phases 4 and 5 are for my Powerplant rating. Phase 1 ends with a final exam on September 25. As it currently stands, I'm fairly sure I'm at the top of my class (although my whole class is only 9 people) and I'm really enjoying the program. The Powerplant instructor told me one day after class that Phase 1 is, at least in his opinion, the hardest phase, so if I'm doing okay with this one, I shouldn't have any real trouble finishing the whole show. That's great news! And since this is September 2008, we've (or at least, I've) started to mentally count down the time we're in Douglas, rather than counting up. What I mean is, I used to say, "Man, we've been here 2 years and one month already. How much longer will it be?" Now I'm saying, "We only have twelve more months before it's time to move to wherever God sends us next." It's the greatest feeling in the world, being able to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

My First Rattlesnake Kill

Jen and I decided to go to Sierra Vista for the day on Saturday and spend a little time reconnecting. With my school stuff and Jen working long hours, we haven't had much time to just be together. So we did that Saturday, and it was a really good time. After we got bored in SV, we came home and ate some pizza and watched a movie. Then, at around 6PM, we decided to go out and spray the weeds in our yard, so I strapped the big old tank on my back, pumped it up, and got to spraying (I also stuck our pistol in my pocket, which is sort of standard procedure anytime we do anything outside on the ranch). Meanwhile, Jen was wandering around the yard. She was strolling along our driveway, when all of a sudden, she let out a pretty good scream and started backing away from something. When Jen gets... let's say "alarmed," she sometimes becomes a little hard to understand. However, as I came around the bend in the driveway, I was able to gather that she had found a snake. I wanted to make sure that it was a rattlesnake before I pulled the gun and shot it, though, because we also have bull snakes on the property, which look like rattlers without the rattles, and they eat rats and things, which is good. Sure enough, this one was a rattlesnake, and it was laying across our driveway and looking for all the world like it had been run over. I drew the pistol and kicked some dust at it, figuring that if it was actually alive it would react in some way. It didn't react at all; it just kept laying there. I voiced my suspicion that it was dead, hoping Jen would calm down. Instead, she shouted at me, "I don't care! Just shoot it anyway!" Being the good husband that I am, I obliged her, and it's a good thing I did because as soon as the first round of rat-shot hit it, it started heading for the weeds. (I want to point out how tricky it is to get off a good shot with a pistol when you have a big tank of chemicals on your back and you're trying to keep the sprayer and its hose out of the line of fire.) I shot the snake again, a little more carefully this time, and he stopped his retreat. In fact, he stopped doing everything. I was content in the idea I had successfully killed him, but Jenny... let's say "requested" that I shoot him again, so I again obliged her and hit him one more time. The third shot flipped him clean onto his back, so there was no more doubt; the snake was dead. Tired of trying to function with a tank on my back, I went back to spraying the weeds growing on our walkways. When I finished that chore, I took off the tank and went back to the snake. My trusty tape measure told me he was 33 inches long, before I cut off his rattle for a keepsake (the rattle had 6 buttons on it; one less than the last one that was killed in our yard). With the help of a stick, I moved my victim to a flower pot on the edge of our driveway, where Chuck (our landlord) later picked him up and, I'm assuming, disposed of him. Chuck later told me that my kill was the third in three days; he had killed one on Thursday and one on Friday. I have a picture of my snake dangling at the end of a stick, but the limits of the computers in the campus lab won't let me put it on here. Maybe Jen will put up a pic of it (hint, hint).

Here's the odd little postscript to this tale: Today when I got back into my classroom after lunch, there were 4 or 5 people in a little huddle in one corner of the room, and one student was pounding on the floor with a signpost they keep in the room. When I got to the corner to see what was up, the student had just finished braining a baby rattlesnake that had somehow found its way into our classroom. It was 9 or 10 inches long, and only had one little button for a rattle. When the other students first found it, they thought it was dead... until it started furiously striking the sole of one student's shoe. Weird.

Samsonite

Today I got the highest score in the class on my Basic Electricity test. I missed one question out of 33. Not passing the test was never really the issue for me, though. What had me really bothered yesterday is that I feel like I'm just not grasping electricity (the structure of FAA and FAA-related testing is such that you can score perfectly on a test without having the slightest clue what any of the subject matter actually means). I still feel like electricity's somewhere beyond my mental reach, but I'm okay with the idea that I'll pick up those details I actually NEED to know for AMT, when it's time for me to know them. As an instructor told us all today, "We're not training you to be electrical engineers."

I'm admitting, here and now, for those who didn't already know this, that I'm pretty hard on myself (and I apparently LOVE to use commas). When I'm in a mood like I was yesterday, it doesn't matter that I'm at the head of my class. It doesn't matter that I'm in the final bit of my commercial pilot certificate. Like I just mentioned, part of what was getting to me yesterday was that I felt I should be a master electrician after one week of class on the subject. Who cares whether I'm doing well in the program? That's irrelevant (this is all what I was thinking yesterday, you see). The relevant thing is that I'm too stupid to get electricity, regardless of how long I spent studying it.

The other thing that was getting to me is that I don't feel like I'm doing well enough at piloting. My private certificate was a con job, surely; I didn't deserve it. My instrument rating was a fluke, certainly; there's no way I should have such a thing in my possession. The things I've done well, and do well, don't matter; they're beside the point. The only things I can see clearly on a day like yesterday, are my failures and those things I'm still not an expert at. I've worried, pretty much from my first flight lesson, that I'm not good enough or smart enough or talented enough or perceptive enough to be a good pilot. That thought has haunted me through every flight period and solo flight and cross-country and test and accomplishment. Well, I had a short conversation with my instructor (the new one, who's been making his living evaluating pilots) in which he told me, point-blank, that I have the talent and ability to be a great pilot. He also told me that he's noticed I REALLY lack self-confidence, which is both very accurate and very perceptive on his part. We talked a bit about that, and he assured me he could help me through the head games I'm playing with myself, because those are the only things holding me back from being a very good pilot.

So, to sum up this semi-rambling mess, I'm feeling much better about things today, than I did yesterday.

worthless
-adjective
without worth; of no use, importance, or value; good-for-nothing; Josh LaBo 27.75 years into his lifespan.

Yesterday's flight period went far better than I had expected it to. Mike has a few quirks in the plane that I'm not crazy about, but I'm sure it'll all work out in the end. I do like his teaching style, in general, and I feel pretty good about finishing my commercial certificate with him.

What was I thinking?

I'm sitting in the briefing room waiting for my new instructor to get back from a flight, so we can go up together for the first time. When I requested that Belinda assign me a new instructor, it seemed like such a great idea. I'd get my time in, in a timely fashion, and I'd be able to fly my check ride with Belinda. Now, though, I'm trying not to panic. For those who don't know, Mike (the new instructor) will be my 9th flight instructor since I started my training back in Michigan in 2005. I've had some absolutely miserable experiences with some truly God-awful flight instructors, and those bad experiences have left me pretty gun-shy when it comes to flying with someone new. And now, not only am I about to go up with a new instructor, I'm about to do it at 3:15 in the afternoon, when turbulence is near its strongest and I've already had a fully day of mechanic class. This is suddenly seeming like the dumbest thing I could ever do.

It's Been A While...

I guess I haven't posted much lately (if you think I'm bad on here, you should see my paper journal. Oy!) so I should probably write something, on the slim off-chance someone actually checks my blog for updates.

I started the AMT (read: aircraft mechanic) program at school on July 7, which means that today I finished week 3 (the program runs 15 months total). Because our program is approved by the FAA, we MUST be tested on 129 subject areas, and pass every one of them. One hundred twenty-nine subjects into 15 months means that in the last 3 weeks, we've had 4 tests (I think; everything is sort of a blur right now) which I've passed without any real trouble. But this is the "General Phase" so we're not getting very in-depth on anything yet. Monday will be our first time working in the lab (read: hangar). We'll be making fluid lines (read: little pipes) and pressure-testing them. I'm very excited for a chance to finally use the $700 worth of tools that have been riding in my trunk since the 7th.

It's sort of strange to think that in 15 months, Jen and I will be able to leave Douglas. We've only been here 2 years, but sometimes it seems like we've always lived here. I've been asked if I hope to move back to Michigan when we're done here. Somewhere along the way, Michigan stopped being "home" for me (though I still love the song "Michigan Christmas"). I have no desire to move closer to my family, because it seems like we all get along best when there are thousands of miles between us. And I don't feel as though I left many friends behind when we moved here (just as I don't feel like I'll be leaving any friends here when I go), so that's not a motivation. Come right to it, I can't think of anywhere that DOES feel like home to me which, I suppose, will help me get acclimated when we get wherever we're going after this, but I also can't help thinking it's just a little bit sad.

I'll most likely find out on Monday who my flight instructor will be for the rest of my commercial certificate training. I had a talk with Belinda a day or two ago (again, everything's a bit of a blur), and requested a new instructor. It's not that I'm unhappy with the instruction Belinda's been giving me. It's just that our schedules aren't really going to mesh until sometime in October, and I don't want to wait that long to finish my training. I need an instructor who can fly a 3:15 flight period with me when I get out of AMT, and there are 2 new instructors coming in who will be able to do that. Also, having a different instructor means I'll be able to fly my check ride with Belinda when the time comes, which is a definite plus. I've met both of the new instructors, and they both seem nice (and they both have years of flying experience; also a plus), so I don't really care too much which one I get assigned to. It's going to make for a LONG day, sitting in class for 7-8 hours, then getting in a plane and flying for another hour, but there's not really any other way around it; I need to finish my commercial certificate, and it's got to be this semester. God never gives us more than we can handle, right? Right?!

Some long weekends just aren't worth it...

Jenny, in her most recent post, mentioned that Chuck and Patty came over (I think Saturday) to see what the workers had done at our house. Then she said it was another story for another time. That time is now, friends! I've decided to tell you about the workers and their.... umm... work.

By now, everyone should already know that Jen and I moved into a two-bedroom house earlier in June. The house is sort of... I'll say "dividable" in that you can close a couple sliding doors and essentially turn the house into a main group of rooms and a guest set of rooms. That being the original intent of the layout, each side even had its own climate control. The only problem is that the A/C on the "master" side didn't work worth a hill of beans, so we wound up spending a good deal of our home time in the guest side, where it was cool (usually). Well, Chuck and Patty decided to do some work on the heating/cooling situation. The plan was to put in a swamp (evaporative) cooler (for inexpensive cooling in the dry time), as well as a new heat pump (for heating the house in winter, but it's also an air conditioner for cooling the house during the monsoons, when a swamp cooler won't work). And the new package would heat and cool the entire house, rather than have two independent units working. Sounds great, right?

So the workers came on Monday and started working. (I feel a note should be made at this point that the workers are Mexican just like most of Douglas and, thus, have the very typical "manana" mindset, which means there really is no sense of urgency when it comes to working. A job gets finished whenever it gets finished, and there's not much you can do to hurry things along. This mindset is the reason Jenny and I no longer eat at Denny's in Douglas; even the waitresses live by it.) They made some decent progress, and at the end of the day, they told us they'd probably be finished sometime on Tuesday. Tuesday came, and they didn't get as much done as they wanted. Wednesday, I stayed home from work so Chuck or Patty wouldn't have to spend the day sitting in our house with the guys. They showed up around 7:30, worked for an hour, then said, "We have to go to Sierra Vista for a part. We'll be back in the afternoon." So I sat and waited. And waited. And waited. And they never came back. Well, they finally came back Thursday and got some stuff done (I'm guessing; I wasn't there this time), but they didn't finish the job they told us would be done by close-of-business Tuesday. This whole time, they were just leaving their trash all over our yard and house, because apparently cleaning up after yourself isn't something they teach you in Heating & Cooling School. I can't recall if it was Tuesday or Thursday when they installed the control unit for the swamp cooler, but they cut a hole in the wall right above an old standing clock, without moving the clock first, so the little German-looking figurines on the clock were pulverized by hunks of sheetrock. This, unfortunately, wouldn't be the last damage they did.

On Friday they came back and worked most of the day, which meant we weren't able to change our drivers license addresses or do our grocery shopping. At some point in the afternoon, we heard a tremendous crash like something got broken. We went to investigate and everyone played it all cool like nothing had happened. After they left for the day, I went into the guest bathroom and noticed they'd knocked a chunk out of our tile countertop. That, apparently, was the source of the crash, but they made a point of NOT telling us they'd damaged our bathroom. I think it was also on this day that they installed the control unit for the heat pump. But the first hole they cut in the wall wasn't in the right place, so they cut another one, which left a nice, square hole in our living room wall. Then the guy wired it wrong, so the A/C control turned on the heat instead of the cool.

On Saturday, they came back to finish up. Jenny couldn't take anymore so she went across the road to visit with our neighbor. I was sitting in the kitchen playing a computer game, and the guy came back in to re-wire the heat pump controls. He fiddled with it for a while, then tried to call someone, then turned and said to me, "You don't have the internet here, do you?" I told him I didn't, so he wandered off to try to figure out how to fix his mistake. Meanwhile, the other two guys, who had come in to hang out while wiring guy tried to work, decided to watch me play my video game. And ask me questions about my video game, and whether I'd ever played Halo 3 (which, as far as I know, they don't even make for PC). Then wiring guy came back in and fixed his mistake. Then he fixed the hole in the wall, which left a big white circle on our wall where there used to be pretty yellow paint. Some time after that, I heard another tremendous crash. Jenny was still across the road visiting, so I went to investigate, determined to get a straight answer this time. It turns out one of the guys broke through the ceiling in the garage, leaving a hole in the ceiling. But that's not all. The guy broke through right above a lighting fixture, the kind they have in businesses, with the long flourescent "bulbs" in them. So he bent one side of the fixture, at the same time knocking out the "bulb" and shattering it all over the floor. That was the last straw for me. I called Jenny and told her what happened. Then I called Patty and told her what happened. Jenny came home, and Patty came over to check things out. Then she laid down the law for the workers. This is where it gets really amazing. Patty told them she wanted the white circle on the wall painted. They asked if she had a can of the paint they could use (I'm not kidding). Then they suggested hanging a picture over the white area (again, I'm dead serious). Finally, they agreed to go buy a can of paint. Patty asked them repeatedly who broke the countertop, and no one out of the four workers would give her a straight answer. So then she asked where the missing chunk was, and again no one would answer her. So she told them she wanted it fixed, and that the tile is 35 years old, so it might be hard to find. They went into the bathroom and ripped up a piece of the tile to take to Mexico to try and match it. BUT THEY TOOK THE TILE NEXT TO THE DAMAGED ONE, INSTEAD OF JUST TAKING THE DAMAGED ONE. So now there's one broken tile and one missing tile. Then she asked why they'd put up the old registers instead of putting up new ones, since they included new registers in their quote, and since they'd told her at the start of the job that new registers would work much better than the old ones. They hemmed and hawed and Patty told them to put in new ones. Then she asked about the hole in the ceiling, and they assured her they'd fix it themselves (God help us all). And then something interesting happened: they got out a shop vac and started sweeping up the messes they'd made on the carpet. This is only interesting because it was the first time all week they'd done it, and I'm not sure it would have happened at all if Patty hadn't been there laying down the law.

At that point, the workers left to go buy registers and paint. They came back a while later and replaced all the registers with new ones (which, I must say, work much better than the old ones). Then they opened up the new can of paint and tested it on the wall. Against all reason and common sense, they tested it on an undamaged part of the wall instead of on the mess they'd made, and it was the wrong color. So now there's a little whitish spot of freshly-painted wall about 2 feet below the big white circle on the living room wall. At least they had the sense to stop at that point and not paint the white circle whitish instead of the yellow it was supposed to be. Patty's plan was to just have Carla (the aforementioned neighbor Jenny was visiting with) doctor up whatever color paint they came back with, and paint the wall herself (Carla is amazing in that way. Bob Vila wishes he could be Carla). But they took the can of paint when they left, without anyone noticing, so now we're back to no paint. Their plan was to come back today and patch the ceiling and finish cleaning up their mess. They may be there now; I don't know. I'm just hoping they're gone for good when we get home tonight.

On Spiritual Solitude

Since I'm apparently using my blog to vent lately, and because I'm presently thinking about Kara's "church family" comment on her blog, and Kelly's "thought you found a church" comment on my blog, I guess I'm going to talk a bit about our present situation. Jen and I have been living in Douglas for very nearly two years now (our two-year anniversary is July 13). In that time I have established one relationship that I would call a good Christian friendship. Just the one. Unfortunately, he's in the Marine reserves, and he got deployed to Djibouti last winter. So he's gone. You might be saying to yourself, "Wow. One Christian friendship in two years? What's Josh doing wrong?" God knows I've asked myself that question more times than is probably healthy. But consider our circumstances out here. We visited the Baptist churches in Douglas and didn't find a single regular attender of any of them that was our age. Plus, the preaching was WEAK. So we moved on to Sierra Vista. We reasoned that churches in a bigger city would be bound to have people our age. And we were right; we found some people our age at First Baptist in Sierra Vista. We even started attending the age-appropriate Sunday school class in order to get to know those long-sought-for people. And they more or less ignored us. One Sunday I even made an emotional little speech about how Christians needed to stop ignoring the people around them, and everyone wholeheartedly agreed. But nothing changed. We eventually stopped going there (between the unfriendliness and the fluff sermons every week, and the fact that we had to drive an hour to get there, there wasn't much to keep us there), and we didn't hear a peep from any of those people. The only e-mails we got from any of them were mass mailings. When I e-mailed them to take us off their mailing list, they finally said, "Yeah, we noticed you stopped coming. What happened?" Keep in mind that this was MONTHS after we stopped going there. So we moved on to First Baptist in Bisbee. It was a bigger church, by southern Arizona standards (maybe 80 people each week), but again there was no one our age. Not even close. A few older people were nice enough to introduce themselves, and every so often would come over and say hi, but it never really went much past that point (though I will say that the pastor and his wife are very nice people). So we found ourselves in the sorry state I described in a comment on my last post: we'd come in, sit down, get ignored, listen to the sermon, and leave. The one big advantage this church had was that the sermons were actually GOOD. But we can sit at home on Sunday mornings and listen to good sermons on the radio. What we need is a church family. We need to feel like we belong somewhere. We tried Valley Bible Church this past Sunday; it's basically our last hope. There aren't really any other church options for us if this one doesn't work out, unless we want to drive all the way to Lordsburg, NM and look there. Valley's a pretty popular church for New Tribes people, but it's also a very small church, and there was only one couple there around our age. We've met the couple once before, and they're nice enough. But they're also missionaries in training, which means they're going to be gone soon. And we'll be back in that same lonely church boat.

So if a guy can't find a friend at church, where else can he look? Campus is full of young people. But a lot of them are fresh out of high school, and I'm going on 28, so our perspectives just aren't the same. Plus, the aviation department is sort of separate from the rest of the school, so the only other students I ever meet are other aviation students. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but this is also a very small department. I know for a fact that the only other Christians here are a 19-year-old girl (not the best person with whom to strike up a friendship) and a twenty-something guy with whom I've unsuccessfully tried to form a friendship.

What this all boils down to is that I'm feeling pretty lonely lately. Like I mentioned in my last post, if I have something I want to talk about with a friend, I'm out of luck. I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate Jen. I appreciate her very much. I wouldn't have been able to last this long out here without her. But a man needs other men to talk with, just like a woman needs other women. I think that really had a lot to do with how I was feeling when I wrote my last post. I'm lonely, and that feeling is aggravated by our utter lack of a church family, of a place where I feel like I belong. Where I feel welcome. Or wanted. I guess all I can really do is look forward to finishing the AMT program 16 months from now, because we'll be able to move on to the next place God has for us. Maybe I'll find a friend there.

"Ghosts appear and fade away..."

Okay, I'm going to admit something. The overwhelming majority of the time, I have no desire at all to ever go back to Michigan, for anything. Ever. That's not what I'm admitting, though, as I already consider it pretty common knowledge. What I am admitting is that, after taking the time to check in on some blogs this morning, I find myself wanting to go back to Michigan. There, I said it. I want to visit Michigan. I want to eat a #18 (whole on white, cold, with everything) from Intermission Deli in Bay City, then grab some Superman ice cream and take a stroll on the Riverwalk. I want service with a smile (or at least not a scowl) from wherever I go. I want to not have to knife-fight with enormous bugs in order to walk through my home. I want to hear english spoken in public by someone other than me or Jenny. I want to get caught out in a nice, warm rain. I want to see water when I'm out and about, without going two hours out of my way to see it. I want to hang out in a mall I can't walk the entire length of in 2 minutes. I want to know for sure where I'm going to church on a Sunday, without having to consider drive-time, sermon quality, or the fact that no one will talk to us while we're there. I want to be excited about telling something to a friend, without immediately afterward realizing I don't have any friends around to tell. I want to see green grass and smell it being cut. I want Bob Barker to host The Price is Right again (okay, that one's not really Michigan related). I just want to get out of here for a while. I think I might even NEED to get out of here for a while.

I know we technically haven't even left the United States yet, but I'm afraid I'm already experiencing the first hints of missionary burn-out. Or maybe it's just a mood.

Update

Here's what's happened in the week since I last posted. I was able to get that night solo out of the way, and it mostly went well, except for a couple small mistakes on my part. I still have 0.8 of an hour of night solo to log, but that'll be easy enough to take care of once the new semester starts. For reasons that haven't been made known, it was decided there will be no summer flights this year, which means all the college planes are grounded until the end of July.

We finished moving into the house on Friday, though we're still a ways from being fully unpacked. Our A/C doesn't work at the house, so some dude is supposed to come today and install a new swamp cooler (and possibly also fix the A/C; I'm a little hazy on this point).

Jenny's wrist is healing up well. She still has to take a painkiller now and then, but I guess it's bothering her far less than it used to.

And that's about all the news that's fit to print.

Jenny

Oh, and for those who don't know (which is probably everyone except possibly Kara) Jenny sprained her wrist over the weekend while we were moving stuff into the new place (not sure exactly how or when). She's on painkillers and wearing a wrist brace. Please pray it heals up quickly, so she'll be out of pain, and so we can finish moving this weekend. Thanks!

Joshua 1:9

It's 4:48 right now. I'm waiting for 5:00, because that's when the new Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF) comes out. Unless something drastic has changed since the last forecast came out at 11:00, I'll be making my night flight to Tucson for 10 stop-and-go's. I think I posted about this before and said I just had to do 10 touch-and-go's, but I found out about 90 minutes ago that I'm required (by the school, not the FAA) to do stop-and-go's instead. They're essentially the same thing, except a stop-and-go has me bringing the airplane to a complete stop on the runway before taking back off. It's really a pretty minor inconvenience, but it's going to add some minutes to my already-considerable (in my opinion) flight time. I don't expect to be back to the college until around 11 PM. Another half-hour will be spent securing my plane and driving home, so I won't be getting in until maybe 11:30. That's not necessarily the end of the world, but it'll be some time after that when my adrenaline rush finally burns out and I can sleep.

All of this kind of makes me sound like I'm bored with the idea and I'm just waiting to get it over with. In actually, I'm finding it hard not to be scared of this flight. I've already made one attempt at it, and my nerves got the best of me so I aborted the flight. This is probably my last chance at it until July, though, because the powers-that-be decided there will be no summer flights this year, and the semester ends on Friday. So I either trust God and just go do it tonight, or else I sit and kick myself for a month. If any of you read this before 10:30 PM Michigan time, I sure could use some prayer.

Decisions, decisions

Let's talk about the house. For those who don't know, Jen got a call last week from Patty Chambers who, along with her husband, Chuck, own Lee Station Ranch north of Douglas. Patty was calling with a fairly unique offer, especially in light of our recent move to Twin Buttes. Turns out Patty's mom, who owned her own home on the ranch property, passed away in March. Chuck and Patty don't want her house to sit empty for 4 years until their son and his family come to stay in it, so they're looking for someone to live there in the meantime. Since we're only going to be in the area for another 16 months or so, they've offered the house to us. They don't want any rent from us; the only thing we'd have to pay is the monthy electric bill. Nice as that seems, living on the ranch would turn our five-minute daily commute into an almost-thirty-minute commute each morning and evening. Because of that, our gut reaction was to turn down the Chambers' offer straight out. But we decided to at least go take a look at the house and talk to Chuck and Patty. So we drove out to Lee Station yesterday morning, and the house is AMAZING!!! It's big, it's clean, it's furnished, it's in good shape, It's quiet and secluded, it has an unbelievable view and a garden and a sewing room and a monstrous kitchen (all HUGE selling points for Jen).

After our tour and some time spent talking with Chuck and Patty, Jen and I went to El Chef for breakfast and made a list of pros and cons, to try and help us decide what to do. And when it comes right down to it, the only real big con we could think of is that longer drive time every morning and evening. With gas prices steadily rising like they are, the thought of adding 25 minutes to our commute seems a little silly. At the same time, though, we'd be saving $265 a month on rent, so we'd be able to buy more gas if need be. Another drawback is the thought that we just moved a month ago, and we'd have to do it all over again. It's a hassle, sure, but I'd be hard pressed to think it's not worth it.

We assured the Chambers' that we'd pray about it and try to have an answer for them in one week. I'd appreciate it if you all would pray, too. We really need to know what's the right course of action in this situation. We had a hard enough time deciding to move off-campus; now we're talking about moving much farther.

Because it tickles me

Here's my favorite line from the new Indiana Jones movie:

"Well, the way you're sinking your teeth into those wubbleyous, I should think Eastern Ukraine."

The Car

Jen tried her best to keep people up-to-date with the whole car situation. I thought, though, for anyone who might be even remotely interested, that I would try to explain in a bit more detail what went wrong. On Thursday night, the car started acting up. It had a little shimmy to it when it was stopped or in park, and it tended to stall if we decelerated too much too soon. Based on those clues, I guessed we had a bad cylinder. Turns out I was right; our number 3 cylinder was only registering 20 pounds of compression, while the other 5 cylinders were all around 120 lbs. Upon inspection, it was revealed that our number 3 cylinder had a broken rocker arm (rocker arms open and close the valves that let in air to be burned with the fuel, and let out the exhaust gases created by burning the fuel and air). I'm not sure which rocker arm was broken (intake or exhaust), but either way a valve wasn't being fully opened when it needed to be to keep the cylinder firing correctly. Since the problem was a rocker arm, there wasn't much need to take the head off the cylinder (which would have been expensive), because the rocker arms are outside the cylinder heads. This was really the preferable diagnosis, since the only other likely problems were a cracked cylinder ($$$) or a damaged valve (which would have meant taking off the cylinder head, which ultimately would have meant $$$). We were also told, by our mechanic, that Buick engines have a tendency to break their rocker arms, so the next time we experience engine trouble, we'll at least have a starting point for figuring out the problem.

As for my long-awaited glasses we picked up last night... they have to go back. Again. They used a too-long screw to hold the frame together around the right lens, which means that 1) I have a doofy-looking screw poking up out of my frames, and 2) the included sunglass clip won't sit properly because there's a stupid little screw in the way. This whole issue is becoming far too complicated, as far as I'm concerned. Does anyone know of anywhere else in Cochise County that takes Avesis vision insurance?

The Move

The past week and a half have been pretty disheartening for me as I've seen what a hard time Jen and I have had in adjusting to a new home. Jen was just telling me last night that the trailer still doesn't feel like home to her yet. It has started feeling like home to me, except at night when the trailer starts making all sorts of night noises that are unfamiliar to me; then I can't sleep. For instance, the floor boards started creaking last night at about 11:15, as though someone was walking down the hall. It woke me up, and I thought it was Jen going to the bathroom, but then I opened my eyes, and she was lying right next to me. After that, every time I was just dropping back into unconsciousness, they'd creak again, for no good reason. I'm also really struggling to adjust to being at school all day, now that we don't live on campus anymore. We've already had to deal with a handful of minor repairs and upkeep issues, but the one we're faced with now is a doozie. We've been trying for over a week now to get our computer to connect to the wi-fi that runs through the trailer park. But when it gets to "acquiring network address" it just sits and sits and never gets any further. Now, I know our wireless works, because it instantly connected to the college when we first moved here. I called a computer-savvy friend, and he walked me through some troubleshooting before coming to the conclusion that it's something on the server's end of the connection. After hounding our landlord all weekend, we finally got him to bring the park's resident computer guy over to try and fix our situation, to no avail. Now it's looking like we're just not going to be able to have the internet at our home. Frankly, I'm perfectly fine with that. As you've no doubt already noticed, I don't spend a whole lot of time blogging or anything; I basically only use the internet for games and weather forecasts. But Jen's a different story. The internet is an extremely valuable tool for her to keep in touch with friends and family she left back in Michigan. For reasons we haven't completely figured out in the last two years, making friends in southern Arizona is like trying to catch a leprechaun; it just ain't happening. So most of Jen's social circle consists of the people she left behind. Now, if she doesn't have free access to the internet, she's basically shut off from that social circle. Being a guy, I see this basically as a problem that needs fixing, and I'm desperate to fix it for my wife's sake. The only real solution I'm coming up with, though, is to buy a laptop that can go wireless, so we can go to McDonald's or somewhere else that offers wi-fi, and tap into it whenever Jen gets the urge to check in with her circle. I'm thinking that our "economic stimulus" check would be more than enough to cover a laptop, but I've been unable to talk Jen into making the purchase. The girl doesn't even like to spend $5 on herself to buy a shirt; buying a laptop to meet her needs is almost unthinkable. It's just frustrating for me not to be able to provide my wife with something she really needs.

Jackpot!!!

Jenny called Twin Buttes today, just to verify that we were still going to be able to move in on Monday, and the owner told her we can have the place tomorrow afternoon!!! To that end, I spent a pretty fair chunk of my morning packing more boxes, and that's probably how we'll spend the rest of our afternoon, as well. This is very, very exciting!

Night Solo

I logged my very first night solo flight time tonight. I've been in my own head far too much lately, about my landings. All it's really done is make me real jittery when I fly. To that end, I spent some time this evening praying that God would get me out of my head and show me when to flare so I could make some decent landings and start building up my confidence again. I did three landings tonight, and all of them were really pretty good. Each time I came across the runway threshold, God showed me just when to flare, and each time I made a landing I was very pleased with. A part of me wanted to keep going and do more, but I decided that sooner or later I was bound to have a landing that wasn't so pretty, and it would just get me all freaked out again. So I took my three well-made landings and used them to assure myself that landing isn't such a hard thing to do, after all. Flare was found; confidence was built up; prayer was answered; God is still good.

Fail-safe

Despite not being in the mood to fly this morning, I went over to aviation bright and early and got a plane all ready to go to New Mexico. The duty pilot checked over my planning and gave me the okay to fly, so I got in my plane and started it up. I noticed that my fuel pressure gauge was bobbing back and forth, but I figured it was just the plane getting itself awake and situated. I took off, turned to my heading, and began my climb up to 9,500 feet. One thousand feet above the ground, I switched off my electric fuel pump, per procedure, since the engine-driven pump would be operating just fine on its own by them. When I finally got up to 9,500 feet, I noticed that my fuel pressure was on the low end of the green arc, which isn't too terribly rare in the Cherokees, so I switched my electric pump back on to boost me back up to a wide margin of safety. Things were good for a few more minutes, until I noticed that my fuel pressure had bled back down to where it had been before I turned on my electric fuel pump. Before this morning, that was something I'd never seen before. Usually, turning the electric pump back on solves the problem and everything is ducky. I flipped the pump switch off, then flipped it back on again, and my pressure spiked back up to normal... and then bled back down again. It was at that point that I did a 180 and headed back home. After the plane is started and running, the electric fuel pump is more or less just a backup for the engine-driven pump. I probably could have made it to Silver City and Deming and back without any difficulty. But my fuel pressure with the engine-driven pump was already lower than I really like it to be, and it was looking very possible that I wouldn't have any options if the pressure dropped below the green arc. No fuel pressure equals no fuel to the engine. When my engine is starved of fuel, my airplane is magically transformed into a glider. Now, it's true that a glider can make a perfectly safe landing just like an airplane, but that's assuming the glider has someplace to land. Since I happened to be flying over the southern slopes of the Chiricahua Mountains when my fuel pressure dropped, it would have been quite a feat to find a safe spot upon which to set down my glider. I took a little flak from an instructor who happened to be in his office when I got back to the school, about my decision to abort the flight. Then I called my instructor and explained my situation, and she praised my decision and assured me it was the right thing to do, which boosted my confidence quite a bit. I guess the lesson here is that being a good pilot is more a matter of decision-making than actually handling the controls of a plane.

Again and Again

Well, I know I never really posted about my long cross-country that I flew a couple weeks ago (I haven't been online much lately), but tomorrow morning I'm flying to Deming and Silver City, both in New Mexico. I've still got quite a bit of solo cross-country time to log, so a nice Friday morning flight to NM seems like a fair way to knock some of it out. That's assuming the Friday forecast is still favorable in the morning, of course. Otherwise, I'll be enjoying a nice Friday morning on the ground.

Packing

We went on a short box hunt this morning after we finished our Subway breakfast sandwiches (they were delicious). Wal-Mart had trouble giving us any definite answers on when or how we could obtain boxes from them, so we popped over to Safeway. The dude we talked to there told us to come back around 2 or 3, and he'd have some boxes for us. So I did, and he did. We ended up with six apple boxes from the produce section. I've already filled up three of them (I've been home from Safeway for an hour) with books and games. Most of our bookcase is now packed up, minus the books I need for aviation and our coloring books (you never know when the urge to color is going to hit). And all of our games are packed, except for one deck of cards and one card game, and Star Wars Monopoly because it was too long to fit in an apple box. Our little corner of the bedroom where the filled boxes go is starting to really fill up. This is good, because we usually wait til the last minute to pack (this will be our fourth move in 3.5 years of marriage), but it's also bad, because we don't get possession of our new home for another 15 days. I really hope we don't go crazy with packing to the point where we eat McDonald's for every meal for a week because all our kitchen items are tucked away waiting for to move.

Disturbingly Eager

It's strange, but I didn't realize how incredibly eager we are to move, until our "let's casually pack a few things this afternoon" turned into "full-blown, work-up-a-sweat packing day." Unfortunately, we only had a few boxes to work with, so we've run out of things to put stuff in for now. But that's only going to stop us until we come across more cardboard.

Long way to fly...

God willing, I'll be making my long solo cross-country flight tomorrow morning. I've got all my courses and checkpoints figured out; I'm just waiting til 7pm so I can get the weather forecast and finish up my nav logs. I'll be flying out of here at 6:45 tomorrow morning, and I probably won't be back til sometime around 3:00; maybe even a little later. In preparation, Belinda and I worked on gusty crosswind takeoffs and landings during my flight period this morning. Those went well, so I don't see any reason why tomorrow shouldn't be more of the same.

On a sadder note, there was a plane crash at the Benson airport last night, that apparently claimed 2 lives. Benson is a 50-mile flight from here, and the airport is a popular checkpoint for Cochise College students, when flying to Tucson. As a matter of fact, I'm using it as my first checkpoint tomorrow morning. The plane that crashed was making a short trip from Safford (one of my favorite airports) to Benson. The pilot landed hard and bounced, then added full power, which flipped the plane over and killed both people on board. It's a very sobering thing to hear about, and it makes a pilot realize once again that panic and poor planning are two things we can NEVER allow into the airplane with us.

Nothing in aviation is ever concrete...

I sat down and talked with Belinda regarding my commercial training and the requirements I have to meet. It turns out I'm still going to have some flight time to log before I'm done with Commercial 2. Here's how this discovery changes my last post: instead of 1 night solo cross-country, I now have two; instead of only having the one long day cross-country, I now also have 2 (possibly 3) shorter, though still fairly long, cross-countries to fly in addition to the long one; I'm going to end up logging 8-10 hours of local solo time, just flying around the valley to rack up hours.

Where I'm At

Some people are starting to wonder, I guess, so here's the latest on the aviation front. This past week I flew a very short solo cross-country to Willcox, just to get used to soloing again (it was my first solo flight of any kind since last spring). That same night, I made a local flight with Clif (the only instructor on duty all week) with a heavy emphasis on landings, to prepare me for the night solo flight I have to make. With these two flights done and over, there are really only two things I need to do to finish Commercial 2 (there are 3 phases to complete before I earn my Commercial certificate).

The first thing I have to do is make a LONG solo cross-country flight. The big requirement for the flight is one leg of at least 250 nautical miles, and our syllabus gives us the option of four options we can take to complete this beast. I'm mostly set on the option that will take me to Blythe, CA then Kingman, AZ then back to the college. I've already sat down with my sectional (you'll recall that a sectional is an aviation map) and mostly figured out my route. Now the big question is when I'll actually get to make that flight. It's sort of doubtful that I'll be able to go during the week, because I'll be gone approximately 8 hours, and they like to have all the Cherokees available for flight periods on the weekdays.

The second flight I have to make is a night solo cross-country to Tucson and Casa Grande. I can go to those airports in whichever order I choose, but I'm required to do ten stop-and-gos at Tucson. A stop-and-go is a lot like a touch-and-go, except you have to come to a full stop on the runway after landing and before you take back off. I anticipate that exercise being extremely tedious, so I'll probably save Tucson for last. The bright side of this flight is that I won't be limited to weekends; there's not much demand for planes at night, so all I have to worry about is having an instructor around after hours to dispatch me. I think I have to have 5 hours total of night solo flight, and this cross-country should take about 3.5 hours, so I'll have to maybe go back up by myself for some local time before I'm through.

Unless I've completely misunderstood my instructor, once I've met these two goals, I'll be done with Commercial 2 and on to Commercial 3. Since I'm finishing my Commercial certificate under FAR Part 61, there are only a few flight requirements left. The main focus for phase 3 is getting really good at the commercial maneuvers in the Cessna, and then I'll be more or less ready for the check ride. It's definitely possible for me to knock this certificate out before summer, God willing.

Confession

I need to get something off my chest. It's been bothering me since Saturday afternoon, and I'm hoping that confessing it on my blog will help dispel the guilt. Among the food items being sold at the airshow on Saturday were trays of nachos slathered in hot, gooey, orange cheese sauce. Since my $5 hamburger more or less completely failed to satisfy me, I decided to buy myself some nachos just after Jen and I had found a good spot to set up our chairs for the show. I wandered over to the food booth in question, paid my money and received my pile of nachos and goo. I had taken about 5 steps away from the booth, when a sudden, strong gust of wind (I'm not joking) blew the top chip clean off my pile and right onto the back of a guy in a nice, white tanktop. Of course, this left a hot, gooey, orange ring of cheese on his back, but he didn't seem to notice for the first second or two after impact. I panicked, fearing he would think I had intentionally attacked him with hot nachos, so I put my head down and double-timed it away from him. As I made my escape, I heard voices and such that left me believing he was quickly becoming aware of his situation. I hurried back to my seat and prayed he wasn't following me. As I sat and ate my nachos, though, I started feeling really guilty that I'd ruined this guy's clean, white shirt and hadn't even had the decency to fess up to the man. I'm not sure what I could have done for him, besides apologize and offer to let him throw a nacho back at me, but I still feel terrible about the whole thing. If, through some strange miracle, you were at the Douglas airshow in a white wife-beater and some jerk nailed you in the back with a cheesy corn chip and you're actually reading this, I'm really sorry about your shirt and I swear it was unintentional. If you want me to pay for your shirt, leave me a comment and we'll work out the details.

Jen and I had fun at the airshow today. I'm sure one or both of us will provide more detail and some pictures soon, but for now it's enough to say that we were at the airfield for around 7 hours, and we both got badly sun/wind-burned. Just wait til you see the pictures, friends.

Airshow!

Tomorrow is the second annual Border-to-Border Airshow here in Douglas. Jen and I have been looking forward to it for a while now, and we plan on leaving the apartment at 10:00, which will give us some time to eat tasty carnival food and look around before the actual show starts at noon. The winds have been pretty strong and gusty here the past couple days, and tomorrow is forecast to be more of the same. I'm curious how strong the winds actually have to be before the aerobatic pilots are grounded. Let's hope it takes more than tomorrow can offer.

Rated!

After a very tense, very turbulent 1.2-hour flight, I'm now officially instrument rated! Tomorrow, I get back into the Cherokee to start working on commercial phase 2. Thanks for all your prayers. And thanks be to God, who answers prayer so faithfully, despite the failures of His children.

Tomorrow

I flew a practice flight with Belinda this morning, to go over what I'll most likely be doing on tomorrow's recheck. It went really well, but that might be, in part, because the sky was like glass this morning. It's hard to screw up when there's no turbulence or wind shear knocking you around. When we got back from our flight, Belinda talked to my examiner and found out that my recheck is going to be at noon-ish tomorrow, when the turbulence and wind will be much more pronounced. The forecast for tomorrow calls for light winds, though, so it still might not be that bad. We shall all find out tomorrow.

I spent this past week sick, so I didn't get a chance to fly even once all week. And I just found out the other day that my examiner isn't going to be around on Wednesday or Thursday of this coming week, so Tuesday is pretty much my only chance before spring break to finish my instrument rating. Monday morning is my time to go back over to Libby with my instructor and work out the kinks. If I can finish the instrument rating on Tuesday, then I can get back into the Cherokee on Wednesday and/or Thursday, and fly a long (about 7.5 hours) solo cross-country during spring break. Please, please pray that the weather is favorable for flying on Tuesday. I really want to be done with instrument.

Not much of an update...

I don't have much to report since my last post. I got sick again over the weekend, with a slightly scaled-down version of the same thing I was sick with a couple weeks ago. That said, I skipped my flight period this morning. The winds have been pretty ridiculous lately, and today was no exception, so had I actually gone to my flight period I wouldn't have flown anyway. This pushes back the tentative retest schedule Belinda and I had figured out last week. And with the winds as strong and unpredictable as they've been, I'm not sure when, realistically, I'll have an opportunity to get back in the plane with my examiner and finish up that rating. God's timing is perfect, and He's got His hand in this, just like in everything else, so I'm not too concerned about it all. It'll happen when the Lord wants it to, and not a second before then. However, it would be nice if it happened sort of soon, because I want to wrap up my instrument rating before I go get my medical certificate renewed, and I have to do that before the last day of March.

Disapproval

Well, my application for instrument rating was disapproved (that's the proper way of saying I failed my check ride). I have an excuse that I could easily use here to make it look like I was somehow victimized, but the reality is that I made a very foolish mistake that could have been fatal if I'd been by myself in actual instrument weather conditions. So I didn't pass this time. The good news is that I have a sort of "get out of jail free" card that will make it so I only have to redo that part of the check ride that I did wrong. I won't have to redo the oral or any other portions of the flight. In practical terms this means that, when Belinda approves me to retest, I'll get in the plane with my examiner, fly to Libby, do 2 instrument approaches, and come home. That's not so bad. It's really not. And I'm still ALL DONE STUDYING!

Murphy's Law

I had a long, ranting post all typed out, but I decided it wasn't necessarily written with the most Christlike of attitudes. Here's the short version: I didn't think to reserve 737ND for this morning so I could use it on my check ride. Accordingly, someone else took it before I got to the aviation building this morning. The only other plane I could have flown is one I've never flown before, so I wasn't really comfortable with the idea of taking it on a check ride. Despite that, I tried to preflight it, but the battery was dead. So I called my examiner and asked him if we could go at 1130, instead, which was fine by him. Immediately after I hung up, I went and reserved 7ND for 1130. Now, if God will keep the winds from getting too strong, I should have myself a check ride in a few hours.

Giant Killer

After a fairly difficult start (for reasons I'm too tired to explain right now), I passed my oral exam at about 5:15 this afternoon. I'm scheduled to fly the hands-on portion of the exam tomorrow morning at 7:30. But the important thing is, I'M DONE STUDYING FOR THE INSTRUMENT ORAL!!! No matter how tomorrow goes, I'm done studying. I can enjoy my weekend and cross-stitch and do anything I want, without feeling the slightest bit guilty that I'm not studying for my oral! Thank you all for your prayers. God was faithful, just like always.

I just found out (seriously, it was only about 10 minutes ago) that my examiner doesn't want to start my check ride until 12:30 tomorrow afternoon. He also mentioned that we may very well end up doing the oral tomorrow and saving the hands-on until Wednesday (assuming we have decent winds on Wednesday). I'm mostly okay with that possibility. It enables me to really focus on passing the oral, without having flight stuff rolling around in the back of my mind the whole time. An added bonus of drawing the exam out like that, is that I probably won't have a flight period on Thursday (we'll just start fresh on Monday), so I'll have a four-day weekend in which I won't have to do ANY studying!!! Cross-stitch, here I come!

Goliath

Despite my posting about it yesterday morning, the reality of my situation didn't actually hit me until last night around bedtime. That's when my smile went away and the anxiety made my guts feel like overactive snakes. I hate getting like this anytime something important is about to happen in my life. I hate being all preoccupied and jittery and moody. I so badly want to just take this in stride, to have the sort of confidence David had when he turned down armor and went to face a giant with a sling and 5 smooth stones. I guess it's all about faith. And I guess I'm seeing how small mine really is.

Check Ride

It's now official (or as official as anything in the aviation world can be, with the wind as gusty and unpredictable as it's been lately): my check ride for my instrument rating is Tuesday. The oral will probably begin around 9 and, assuming I don't fail it, the flight portion will probably happen sometime around noon. This weekend (and Monday), I'll be hitting the books to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. Today's big topic of study is going to be weather and aviation weather services. I would really appreciate prayer for Tuesday. Thanks!

Resolution

Kelly got me thinking when she suggested I have a second blog to serve as our missionary webpage. I thought it was a really smart idea, so I created a new blog this afternoon and e-mailed Cathy about it. If all goes according to plan, the link will be changed so that it goes to the new blog, and I can stop trying to figure out how to make this blog more missionary-ish. Now I just have to come up with something to put on the new blog.

Great Expectations?

I discovered, yesterday, that Jen and I are now mentioned on the missionaries page of Immanuel's website, along with a "click here for more info" link that delivers the curious to this blog. Now, I have no problem at all with how that's set up, but it's gotten me really thinking about my blog. I recently had a conversation with our Bisbee pastor, in part about people's expectations (and the expectations I perceive people having) of Jen and me as missionaries in training. And now on our home church's missionary page, there's a link to my blog intended for people to get to know more about us and what we're doing. Up til now, I haven't intended my blog to be the sort of online prayer letter that so many missionaries' blogs and websites wind up being. But is that what it should be? Until now, this blog has just been me (infrequently) posting thoughts or rants or play-by-plays of important events or (even more infrequently) photos. But now it feels like it should be something more than that; not necessarily more formal, but perhaps more formatted, if that makes any sort of sense at all. All this time, I've sort of been operating under the assumption that the only people who come here and read stuff are people who already know who we are and what we're doing and just want my personal take on whatever Jen's already posted about (she's way better at blogging than I am). That's sort of been the purpose of all this. But now it's been given sort of a different purpose, and I'm trying to figure out exactly what effect that new purpose should have on az2maf. What do you guys think? Despite the flavor of the comments on my last couple posts, this isn't just some trick to get more people to comment on my blog. I really want your thoughts, opinions, etc.

As I was saying...

I was so shocked to see that someone besides my wife or Kara actually posted a comment on my blog, that I'm now going to finish my earlier tale of the stage check gone wrong. I'm in a bit of an awkward situation in the flight program, because my flight instructor is the school's assistant chief flight instructor, one of only two people who work on campus who could perform my stage check. Since I flew my long IFR with her, she couldn't serve as my examiner on the stage check (it would look shady). The chief flight instructor is the only other person here who could do my stage check, but he's going to be the examiner on my check ride, so that wouldn't work, either (it would also look shady). What's the solution to this horrible dilemma? Why, ask Dr. Bob to come down from Tucson and fly the stage check, of course! Dr. Bob is the chief flight instructor of our Tucson satellite facility. He took up flight instruction after he retired from his position as CEO of some company (read: old). So Dr. Bob flew down on Thursday morning. I'd only met him one time before that morning, and my first impression of him was that he was very quiet... and old. My experience with him on Thursday pretty well solidified that impression in my mind. He struggled to think up questions to ask me on the oral and, I think because of our age difference, we had a really hard time communicating. He'd ask me a question that I wouldn't understand. I'd give him an answer that he wouldn't understand. Then he'd tell me I was wrong and proceed to give an explanation that I wouldn't understand. It was frustrating.

After an hour, Dr. Bob looked at his watch and said, "We've been here about an hour, right? Let's go fly." So I went out and did my preflight inspection. Everything looked okay (though I admit, I forgot to check the fuel tanks. It should probably be stated at this point that I sometimes flake out pretty badly in stressful situations) so I went back in and told him I was ready to fly, but that I needed to use the restroom first. He said he'd meet me outside, so I ran to the bathroom. When I got outside, Bob had the right wing untied and he was in the process of untying the tail. Since I always untie the wings one after the other, I just assumed that he'd already untied the left wing, as well, since he was working on the tail. Keep in mind I could have just looked at the chain, since it was on my side of the plane and everything. But I didn't. So we got in the plane, I went through my checklist, and started the plane. I made sure everything was up to snuff, then attempted to taxi out of the shade hangar. We got about three feet before there was a horrible sound and the nose jerked hard to the left. Apparently, that's what happens when you don't untie the left wing. A mechanic came running out and made sure the wing wasn't broken, then helped me untie the wing. I started the plane back up and we taxied out to the runway. I got most of the way through my "before takeoff" checklist. In fact, I got to the part where you tune your radios and make sure they're all working properly. I got so frazzled by the thought that I was taking too long, that I forgot to finish the checklist. The only two items I missed were turning on the lights and setting the flaps at 10 degrees. See, a Cessna 182 requires you to have 10 degrees of flaps out when you take off, so you can get sufficient lift. Yeah. I took off without my flaps. I noticed that the plane really didn't want to leave the ground, but I got it off and then proceeded with my climb checklist (yeah, planes have checklists for just about everything). When I got to the "retract flaps" part, i realized my mistake. It was going to be a long, long ride.

I feel it's necessary, at this point, to state for the record that Dr. Bob was pretty weak in his role as stage check examiner. The point of the IFR check ride (and, accordingly, the final stage check) is to make sure a student can function in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) under an instrument flight plan. A HUGE part of that is maintaining proper communications with Air Traffic Control. Since neither check takes part under an actual instrument flight plan, though, the examiner is supposed to pretend to be the Air Route Traffic Control Center and give clearances and stuff to the student. I actually had to ask Bob to give me clearances. And then, when we got to Sierra Vista, which has a control tower (and, logically, controllers), Bob took over the radio and made my calls for me, so then I basically had to ask him if I could do the talking. I did two instrument approaches at Libby (Sierra Vista Airport is also Libby Army Airfield; it's a joint-use, so we usually just call it Libby); one was pretty good, and one was not as good. Then Dr. Bob had me fly direct back to Bisbee Douglas International (it's a non-towered airport about 7 miles northeast of the college) for one more approach. I was about 5/6 of the way done with the approach, when Bob told me to break it off and head for home because some yahoo was flying around over the airport and Bob couldn't spot him. Keep in mind that I made the entire flight without being able to see outside the plane, so Bob had to watch all the traffic to make sure we didn't hit anyone.

When we got back to the school, I made a decent (not good by any means) landing and parked us back in the shade hangar. We got back inside and Dr. Bob proceeded to critique my flight. The problem was that I had to tell him which things I'd done wrong, because he couldn't remember. Then he started filling out my logbook (his entry is nearly unreadable because it has to be written kind of small and, again, he's pretty old), and asked me if I had any questions. (This is my favorite part of the whole thing.) I said, "Did I pass?" And he very casually replied, "Sure." Then he ate a hamburger and I walked out.

I told all of this to my instructor on Monday, and she decided that we would unofficially redo the flight portion of the stage check, since it's virtually identical to the flight portion of the check ride. Unfortunately, we were going to fly that do-over today and possibly again tomorrow, as well, but since I'm sick I didn't go to my flight period today and, unless I'm back to 100% tomorrow morning, I'm probably not flying tomorrow, either. Very, very frustrating.

Stage Check, or That Really Stupid Thing I Did

The day after my long IFR that went so miraculously well, I had my stage check. Now there's been some confusion as to just what the heck this stage check was about, so I'll take a moment to explain it before I tell you how it went. In the Federal Aviation Regulations, there are two different sections (Part 61 and Part 141) under which a student can learn to fly. Part 61 is sort of the norm for anyone who goes out to a local airport, hires an instructor, and rents a plane so they can learn to fly. Part 141 is intended more for flight schools. It's certainly the more clearly-defined of the two Parts, because, at least in theory, a pilot who learned Part 141 is probably going to be favored by a potential employer, over a pilot who learned Part 61. Part 141 schools have to teach by an approved syllabus, and each stage of a student's progress has to be checked by a stage check (consisting of an oral exam and an actual flight with an approved instructor). Here's where it all applies to my situation: before a Part 141 instrument student can take the check ride (the actual test that will actually earn that student his Instrument Rating), that student is required to take a "final stage check" to determine whether that student is ready to take the check ride. And that's what I took last Thursday. This regulation is both a blessing and a curse to a student. It's a blessing because failing a stage check doesn't go on any sort of permanent record, while failing a check ride will haunt a pilot when he's looking for employment. It's a curse because the stage check is more or less exactly the same thing as the check ride, so even if you pass it with flying colors, you still have to turn around and do it all again with a different person in the right seat.

I've been really sick the last couple days with some kind of respiratory infection or something. Typing everything I just typed has made me really tired, so I think I'll wait til later to tell you how my stage check went. Sorry. I didn't mean for this to be a two-parter.

I reckon it's time to update. I flew my long IFR cross-country this morning. It went great! As I tend to base my worth as a pilot on however my most recent flight went, I'm feeling about 10 feet tall right now. The purpose of the flight was to make sure I could fly according to an IFR (instrument flight rules) flight plan, if the weather was ever bad enough that I couldn't fly visually. To that end, I had to wear the hood (a view-limiting device) from a few minutes after takeoff until just a few minutes before touchdown at the college. What that ultimately means is that I flew from CC to Casa Grande (south of Phoenix) to Tucson and back to Douglas without being able to see outside the airplane. My instructor was with me, acting as my safety pilot; she was my eyes outside the plane. Like I said, everything went great. In fact, the whole thing came off far better than I had expected it to. It really did wonders for my confidence level, both regarding my IFR skills as well as my piloting skills in general. This all just might work out, after all.

Thanks to those who prayed for me. Your efforts made the difference.


Oh! I almost forgot to mention this. I received my logbook endorsements last week, for both complex and high performance airplanes. In order to fly high performance airplanes (each engine on the plane being over 200 horsepower) or complex airplanes (the plane has retractable landing gear, an adjustable pitch propeller, and cowl flaps), a pilot has to receive instruction in the appropriate type of airplane and then get a written endorsement in his logbook from a qualified instructor. Since the school uses Cessna 182s for instrument training, and since our 182s are complex and high performance, I got endorsed for both types last week. So now, if I ever get the chance to rent one type or the other (or both), I'll be able to. Exciting stuff!

Stupid is as Cochise does...

Family housing had our once-a-semester hall meeting last night. What a complete and ridiculous waste of time. As Jen and I drove to Tucson with the Lymans this past Saturday, we had a conversation about what we'd like to discuss at the meeting on Monday. We jotted down about 5 items we felt were important so we'd be sure to remember them. Last night, as soon as the meeting started, the assistant director asked us if we had anything we wanted to bring up. As soon as I told him and the director we had a list of items, they both visibly shut down. Then they proceeded to shoot down every single one of our issues (except that they're going to try to bring back Nickelodeon). And it wasn't that they politely addressed the issues we raised. Instead, they got downright rude. For instance, I brought up the fact that we weren't comfortable putting our stuff in a maintenance storage area where the maintenance workers would have access to it, and we wouldn't be able to get to it without someone unlocking the door for us. I asked if they could do any better for us, and the assistant director's response was, "You're not getting a key." The problem with that answer is that 1) I never asked for a key, and 2) it almost completely failed to address the real issue at hand. Then, when we had exhausted our list of issues, they told us they had nothing else to discuss with us, and they dismissed us. The big question that all of this raises is, if they're not open to discussing our problems or suggestions, and they don't have anything of their own to talk to us about, then why even call a meeting in the first place? But yet, that's how so many things at Cochise College are done. I'm reminded of little kids playing grown-ups. They act out those motions and actions they see adults doing, but they don't really understand the significance of those actions a lot of the time. In the same way, the leadership at this college tries to go through the motions they see competent people performing, but they have no idea what those motions are supposed to accomplish:

"Hey, we should have a hall meeting with the family housing students."

"Why?"

"Umm... because that's what you're supposed to do at a college."

"Do you have anything you need to address with the family housing students?"

"Nope. But I know you're supposed to have hall meetings at a college. That's just the way it is."

"That's a really good point. Let's have a hall meeting!"

Jenny recently tagged me to share my version of our story. Then she proceeded to get a little upset with me when I didn't promptly do what she had requested. I already explained to her why I haven't done so, but I'll go ahead and share my reasons with the rest of you. The first reason is that Jenny pretty well covered all the bases with her version, and I would feel painfully unoriginal if I sat here and copied what she'd already written. The second reason is that I wasn't in a very good place, spiritually, when we first met, and I don't really like to dwell on those memories because they tend to be extremely useful by Satan in discouraging me. So now you know. If you want the "authoritative" version of how Josh and Jenny LaBo became Josh and Jenny LaBo, please refer to Jenny LaBo's blog.

A Note To Those Who Comment Anonymously

While, like most bloggers, I really appreciate it when people take the time to post comments on my posts, it does tend to bother me a little when people choose not to identify themselves in said comments. Though not normally a problem for me, this did happen recently, and I found it troubling mostly in that I think I know the individual's identity (the writing style was extremely similar to someone I used to know) but I have no real way to be certain. Please don't do that; just put your name on it or identify yourself in some other equally clear way. I promise, unless you're unnecessarily mean or vulgar, that I won't delete your comment. Deal?

Monkey Wrench

The other day I posted a sort of break-down of my plan for the remainder of my education here in Arizona. Naturally, one day after I wrote the post my circumstances changed, forcing me to reevaluate that plan. For me to obtain each of my pilot certificates and ratings, I have to take a ground training class as well as go through the necessary flight training. I was supposed to take flight instructor ground training last semester, but it was cancelled due to lack of interest (my interest unfortunately wasn't sufficient to keep the class on the fall schedule). I was assured before Christmas break, though, that ground training would definitely happen this spring. I would finish ground training this spring and work on the flight training this fall, thus enabling me to begin my maintenance training next spring. Here's the wrinkle in that plan: flight instructor ground training just got cancelled again because, just like last semester, I was the only person who registered for it. So now I have a decision to pray about and eventually make. I can either take flight instructor ground training next semester (because, once again, I've been assured they'll definitely run it next semester) along with the requisite flight training. The other option is to just forget about my flight instructor certificate for now, finish instrument and commercial this semester, and start on maintenance next semester, with the possibility of picking up my instructor cert when I'm done becoming a mechanic. The bottom line is that MAF only requires me to have my instrument and commercial. They recommend the flight instructor certificate, but they don't require it. I know which way I'd like to go with this decision, but I don't want to be hasty in making it. I want to really take some time to seek God's will. My plans just don't ever seem to work, and His always do. Anyway, that's the newest update from this tired, dusty corner of the world.

In reply...

Since a Norwegian brother recently posted a comment asking me where I was at in my training, I decided to write a short post about it, for him and for whomever else might be interested. Before I can apply to Mission Aviation Fellowship, I need both pilot certification and maintenance (or mechanic) certification. Cochise College does offer both programs of study, so I'll be able to sort of kill two birds with one stone, but I've been warned that trying to tackle both areas at once can lead to some disastrous consequences. That being the case, I decided to work on my pilot certificates first. As of right now, I've earned my private pilot certificate and I'm working on both my commercial certificate and my instrument rating. The college breaks the commercial certificate into 3 phases. I've already finished phase 1, and will likely finish phases 2 and 3 before summer. I have one instrument cross-country flight and two oral/flight exams to finish, and I'll have my instrument rating. Next fall, I'll be working on my flight instructor certificate. If all goes well, I'll have it by next Christmas, and then I'll start working on the maintenance program, which lasts 15 months. All together, that seems like a really long time to be a student, but I've already been more or less assured that I can be a part-time flight instructor for the college while I work on my maintenance certification. That will enable me to make some money and maybe pay some debt, and also log some addition flight hours before I apply to MAF. And that ain't too bad. So now you know, Anders (and whoever else didn't know but wanted to).

Back By Popular Demand

While we were in Michigan for Christmas, I heard from more than one person that I apparently don't update as often as they'd like. Since my long, miserable fall semester is finally over and done with, I suppose I'm out of excuses for my infrequent posts. So here we go.

Jen and I just got back from Michigan 2 days ago, after having spent 2 weeks with our families. Despite having really looked forward to our trip, I found myself a little disappointed by the experience. I couldn't reach any of my friends, except one, to see if they'd be in town and available for hanging out. I never got a chance to eat a delicious sub from Intermission Deli in Bay City (if you ever get there, try the #18). I spent the entire second week of our trip sick (which severely impaired my ability to sleep at night). I had a really bad eczema flare-up on my left hand while we were in Deckerville (though that did indirectly give me a chance to spend an afternoon with my dad, so it wasn't all bad). And we had a really interesting trip back home, but that really deserves its own paragraph, so...

Our original plan was to spend New Years Eve night in Saginaw with Kara, then leave for Detroit at about 3:00 in the morning to return our rental car and make our 6:50 flight to Chicago. That afternoon, however, we were informed that parts of Michigan, including Detroit, were forecast to get hit with near-blizzard conditions in the night. In order to make life as easy for us as possible, my parents drove with us to Detroit that evening and got us a hotel room a couple miles from the airport, which was a tremendous thing to do. The next morning, we took a shuttle from the hotel to the airport and everything went fine. We got to Chicago with no problems, enjoyed breakfast at McDonald's, and settled in to wait for our flight to Tucson. That's where things started to fall apart. The plane that departed our gate before us got stuck at the gate waiting to be de-iced, which led to our flight boarding about an hour after our original departure time. Then we had to sit on the plane and wait to be de-iced, ourselves. Then we taxied just about all the way to the runway, and our captain came on the comm to inform us we had to taxi back to the gate to let off one of our passengers. When we got back to the gate, two stern-looking older gentlemen boarded the plane and walked to the back. I was in the aisle seat, so I got to see their I.D.s; they were American Airlines officials. They got to the back of the plane and, a moment later, began leading some guy to the door. As the guy started walking, though, he apparently decided he had way too much freedom, so he said, quite loudly, "It's okay. I'm not a terrorist. You folks enjoy your flight. There's no terrorists on this flight." We found out later that the guy had passed out drunk right after boarding, and the flight attendants had been unable to wake him to put his seat back up for takeoff. Had he kept his mouth shut, he probably would have been A-okay. As it is, I'm sure he probably wound up having a spirited chat with the TSA or somebody for his comments. After that, the flight attendants were required by federal regulations to repeat the entire safety demonstration, since the cabin door had been opened. After that, we taxied back to the runway and finally took off-- about 2.5 hours after our original departure time. We made it to Tucson with no further episodes or incidents and the worst seemed to be behind us... until we got to the baggage claim. Two of our bags came through with no problem, and we were waiting for my duffel bag. Suddenly, it came around the corner, but it didn't look right. Jen figured it out before I did, and said, "Your bag's in a bucket." For those who don't know, if your bag is damaged or destroyed in transit, the handlers will helpfully put it in a sort of plastic tub before tossing it onto the conveyor belt, in order to keep your possessions from spilling out. When the tub finally got to where we were waiting, we discovered that the stitches on one end had completely given out, thus exposing the contents of my bag. Fortunately, I'd packed it so tightly that everything was holding together in a miniature wall of laundry and books. Also fortunately, that was the end of our problems on our trip home.

We took a bunch of pictures on our trip, which I'm sure Jen will post in some form before too long. Be sure to look for those. In the meantime, I hope everyone was satisfied by this unnecessarily long post. If I remember, I'll try to post again sometime before February.