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.

Pulse

In 13 hours, I'll be sitting in a classrom, getting ready to take my last final of the semester. In 24 hours, Jen and I will be leaving AWANA to come home and try to sleep a little before our 3am drive to Tucson. In 34 hours, we'll be on a plane, getting ready to take off, bound for our connection at Dallas Fort Worth. Assuming no delays, in 40 hours, we'll be getting situated in our rental car, about to drive to Linwood by way of Saginaw. This time has arrived much too slow and much too fast.

Finally!

Jenny gets back from her conference today! I'm so excited to see her and hug her and kiss her and... well, I should go now.

Health is in the eye of the beholder.

It's Thursday today, one week exactly since Thanksgiving. However, it's also one week exactly since I last felt good physically. I started having sinus/cold-type symptoms last Friday, after our brief early-morning shopping venture (see Jenny's blog), which then mutated into the most bizarre progression of symptoms I've ever experienced. Friday was congestion and sniffles. When I woke up Saturday morning, I had one of the worst headaches of my life, but the sniffles were gone. I spent the entire day trying unsuccessfully to shake the headache. When I wok up Sunday morning, my headache was gone, but I was having stomach cramps. By Sunday evening, my stomach cramps had somehow multiplied and moved into my shoulders, so I was having alternating stomach and shoulder cramps. BAD shoulder cramps. When I woke up Monday morning, my shoulder cramps were gone but I started having really bad stomach problems. Tuesday morning found me feeling substantially better, but still aware something wasn't right with my insides. And, finally, yesterday I went to the doctor (well, nurse practitioner) and got my diagnosis and cure. Unfortunately, she opted not to try and figure out all the previous symptoms, and focused on simply finding a solution to my stomach troubles. I would've really liked to know how someone finds himself the victim of such a weird and seemingly-random list of maladies, especially when those maladies caused me to miss an entire week of flight training and all but one day of work. Today's Thursday, and while I'm starting to feel better again, my treatment regiment the FNP put me on has left me feeling exhausted and weak. In fact, I'm done typing now, because the concentration is too much for me.

Eye of the Storm

As I mentioned in my last post, I was starting to come apart under the stress that's recently entered my life. Well, in what I now know was a pretty wise act of self-preservation, I asked Sally (my sort-of boss) for some time off work, and she graciously gave it to me. I didn't work Wednesday or Thursday, and I certainly didn't help wash an airplane this morning. Instead, I've been spending the time alternately unwinding and studying, and it's worked wonders for my stress level. My original plan had me back at work on Monday, but Sally keeps telling me I'm more than welcome to take more time if I need it. We'll see where things are at on Monday morning before I make a definite decision. We can always use the extra bit of money my job brings in, but my instrument rating has to have top priority in my life right now. So, we'll see. Thanks, you guys, for praying for me. I'm feeling MUCH better mentally.

The Death of Me

Instrument is taking its toll on me in a very dramatic way. The stress I've been feeling is really starting to manifest itself in my daily life, and I don't know what to do about it. It seems like this is just going to loom over me until I've finally passed the Instrument practical test. I guess I'm asking for prayer, because I truly don't know how to keep going until this is over.

This here's a little something I like to call "Western Civilization the Cochise Way"

Today, class, my talk’s on the dawn of the world,
And the lifestyle of primitive man.
And I think, when I’m done, you’ll probably see
Just how full of bologna I am.

Now the topic, though based in historical fact,
Must be broached by my making a case
For the thought that our forebears were probably joined
By little grey people from space.

That’s right: guests from the cosmos most likely came down
And established Atlantis to serve
As a center of knowledge for primitive man.
You just have to admire my verve,

For I boldly assert that Atlantians taught
Our ancient ancestors to build
All the pyramids and wonders in history books,
Just before the Atlantians were killed

By a nuclear meltdown or maybe a bomb
That went off on their small continent.
‘Cause their alien science was better than ours.
It was meant for mankind’s betterment.

As the Epic of Gilgamesh so clearly states
The Mesopotamians had flown
In space-alien airplanes transparent and round
Unlike any today’s world has known.

But after the blast that wiped out their home,
The Atlantians prob’ly had traveled
To Egypt, along with their wondrous know-how.
Now the mysteries of time are unraveled.

Those pyramids out on the hot desert sands
Weren’t really the tombs of dead kings.
In fact, they were for fueling Atlantian ships
And some other incredible things.

So you see, class, our history lessons are much
Like the scripts from that show, The X-Files.
You’re dismissed now. Hey, wait! I’d just like to know
Why you’re wearing those cynical smiles.

Madness

Have you heard about this new movement to make Santa Claus be skinny in order to set kids a better example? Am I alone, or are you shaking your head at it, too? I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm fat. I'm a big fat guy. I jiggle when I walk. Heck, I jiggle when I breathe. I've been a fatty since I was in the third grade. Coincidentally, I also believed in Santa when I was in the third grade. I absolutely must make it clear, however, that Santa's weight had no bearing whatsoever on my choosing the lardy lifestyle. I never, ever said to myself, "Boy, oh boy, wouldn't it just be swell if I could be a big fat guy like Santa." In reality, there were three main factors that influenced my decision to be corpulent, and none of them was Santa. Rather, they were, in no particular order, pastry, fast food, and candy. Don't get me wrong; I always liked Santa, but only because he bought my affection. I was a big fan of his generosity, but I can't say I ever admired (or even cared about) his weight. If I ever wanted to be Santa, it was only so I could have unlimited access to that ultra-sweet toy factory. The fact that there are people out there who honestly believe Santa's weight is a factor in the obesity of the grade school crowd, is just a little bit beyond ridiculous. I'll even go one step further and point this out: When overweight folks see a bunch of lean, sexy, beautiful people in the media, we're not motivated to slim down; we're only encouraged to feel bad about ourselves. Those images are simply fuel for the already-brilliantly-blazing self-hatred deep within us. And when we see a skinny person who USED TO BE fat, it's so much worse. If the idiots spearheading this movement are successful, they're only going to give chubby kids one more reason to feel not-good-enough. That being the case, it can only be concluded that Santa already IS a positive example for kids, because he's jolly and bright and kind, despite being morbidly obese. Those who think he needs to shed some pounds have obviously been duped into believing looks are the most important thing in life. And so, I'm forced to say, "Shame on you, America. You just keep getting dumber and dumber."

How to Ruin an Afternoon

Step One: Be a hardcore perfectionist.

Step Two: Attempt to plan an IFR cross-country that's well beyond what you've been taught, because you're required to.

Step Three: Finish the planning to the best of your meager abilities, knowing it's not right.

Step Four: Let it really eat away at you that your planning isn't right and there's nothing you can do to improve it.

Step Five: Allow the thought that you purposely took a zero on a term paper, to seep into your already-troubled mind and bother you even more.

Step Six: Go upstairs, put on some old James Taylor music and silently fume, while your spouse and friends are eating cake (in honor of your birthday) and ice cream, and playing games downstairs.

It's been some kinda weekend so far. I was supposed to write two papers this weekend, one for Creative Writing and one for Western Civ. And this is where I had to start making some tough decisions. My priority here MUST be aviation. If that gets lost in the shuffle, then we really need to wonder why we're still here. My practical test for my Instrument Rating is coming up in the next month or so, and it includes a 3 1/2 hour oral exam, so I really need to be reading and studying. Writing 2 papers really eats up study time... you can see where this is going. After crunching some numbers Friday morning, I determined that if I took a zero on the Creative Writing paper, I would still have an 85% in the class, with 3 more units and a final project to boost that grade into an A. So I resigned myself to taking the zero. Unfortunately, the Civ paper is worth about 20% of my total grade for the class, so I had to write it. That's not to say, though, that I had to write an award-winning masterpiece. I sat down at my computer and, in less than 2 hours, hammered out a four-page clunker. Again, I don't need 100% on the paper; my current grade is good enough that it can easily survive any grade, other than a zero. And so, having dealt with my papers by early Friday afternoon, I spent a big chunk of yesterday reading the instrument procedures section of the AIM (Aeronautical Information Manual). That's not to say I finished the section (it's pretty involved reading), but I'm a lot closer to the end than I was before the weekend started. After church today, I have to plan an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) cross-country to Casa Grande, so Belinda can be sure I know how to do it. I have 3 cross-countries to fly before I take my practical, so it's important that I get the planning skills down ASAP. And now I have to go get ready for church.

What follows is a true story, written for a creative writing exercise, posted at Jen's suggestion.

It was an otherwise-ordinary evening in the summer of 2001, when I learned a very important life lesson. My roommate, Josh, and I, along with our friend, Bobbi, had decided to go out for dinner. After an unnecessarily lengthy and, at times, heated discussion, we finally decided on Applebee’s. Josh and I were both craving their all-you-can-eat riblets. All through my teen years, I never tried drugs or did any of those other foolish activities normally associated with peer pressure. Short of those extremes, though, I’d never had a problem with doing something silly or weird at the urging of my friends. This night, though, my questionable standards would lead me to ruin.

Our trio arrived at Applebee’s and, as was expected, Josh and I both ordered the riblets, while Bobbi ordered chicken fingers. Josh tended to be a little bit competitive, which I knew well and which is normal for young men in their early twenties. However, I foolishly failed to take this fact into account when I placed my order. Our food soon arrived, and we began eating. After Josh and I had both finished our first platter of riblets, our waitress promptly brought us each a second helping. We finished these in due time and entered into a brief discussion on whether or not we felt up to having thirds. This was where Josh’s competitive nature reared its ugly head. Convinced we couldn’t wimp out at seconds, Josh talked me into one more round of riblets, though I admit I didn’t need much persuasion.

Our waitress arrived a few minutes later to take away our bone-laden plates, and inquired as to whether we’d be needing even more riblets. Josh decided he’d had enough. Unfortunately, he also decided I needed to keep eating. I looked to Bobbi to be the voice of reason but, having finished her chicken fingers, she was in the mood to be entertained and decided to argue Josh’s case, instead. The two of them convinced me I should try for five orders of riblets, to which I finally acquiesced, though I honestly wasn’t sure I could succeed. You know, looking back, there’s really something to be said for the human body’s capacity to ingest ridiculous quantities of meat. Thanks to the events of the evening in question, I now know that the whole thing eventually becomes almost exactly like shoving marshmallows into a tube sock. You can just keep shoving and shoving. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Our waitress reappeared and handed me serving number four. After finishing this plate of riblets, I was pretty sure I was ready to quit. My stomach was uncomfortably full, and I was just a little bit afraid of embarrassing myself by puking in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Once more consulting Josh and Bobbi, my so-called friends, I found myself grudgingly requesting a fifth helping of pork. A moment later, I found myself just as grudgingly eating said pork.

As I set down the final bone, thus marking my victory over five plates of sauce-laden riblets, relief welled up within me. I’d done it! I’d gotten the better of a disgusting amount of meat! Feeling like a hero in my own right, I turned to my friends with a smug smile. It’s to my eternal shame that I confess, now, my smile was short-lived. Unimpressed with my accomplishment, Josh and Bobbi decided that I needed to go for ten, and that they needed some dessert. Placing our respective orders with our long-suffering waitress, I silently promised myself I would stop after my sixth order of riblets.

It turns out I lied to myself in that moment, because our waitress soon brought out the seventh order. As she set the plate down, she said, “I told my manager about what you’re doing, and he says if you can eat ten orders of riblets, he’ll give you a free dessert. But you have to eat it in the restaurant.” Giving her the look such an idiotic suggestion deserved, I resignedly started in on the plate of meat.

It should be said that, by this point, I was painfully aware of how out-of-hand the situation had become, but that I felt powerless to stop it. It had started as a joke, an easy way of giving my friends something to laugh about. Then the management of the restaurant had gotten involved. All I could do now was push on to number ten, then go home and die from meat poisoning or some other fitting consequence of so absurd a prank.

When my tenth and final order of riblets arrived at our table, the aforementioned manager came with it. He shook my hand (I’m not kidding), then said, “I talked to our cook, and he tells me you’ll have eaten about 64 ounces of meat when you finish this order. Did your waitress tell you about my offer?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “But there’s no way I’m going to want dessert after this.”

Being a generous and good-natured fellow, he made a new offer. “Okay, if you finish this order of riblets, I’ll give your friends a free dessert to split.” It seemed a fine idea, except my friends had already each eaten a dessert of their own. I informed him of this and, after a moment’s careful consideration, he said, “Okay, I’ll take their desserts off the check if you finish this order.” As you can imagine, at this point my friends became even more persuasive in their urging. Watching their fat friend eat an almost supernatural amount of meat had been good enough for them, but now they were faced with the prospect of each saving five dollars on the check.

Suffice it to say, I finished that tenth order of riblets, and the manager was as good as his word: my friends did get their desserts taken off the check. As I squirmed in my seat on the drive home from Applebee’s, wishing unsuccessfully for a swift and merciful death, I was forced to acknowledge that I’d learned a very important life lesson: Giving in to peer pressure is always a bad idea.

Favorite

This is my favorite picture from our weekend away. Incidentally, it's also going to be my new profile picture. I'm just full of changes tonite.

"He met a pilgrim shadow..."

Does anyone else use Hotmail as their primary e-mail? If so, are you as annoyed as I am that Hotmail decided to turn itself into a sad Yahoo Mail clone? The thing I liked most about Hotmail was that it wasn't very much like Yahoo Mail at all. And now it looks exactly like Yahoo Mail. It's like when Meijer decided it needed to look just exactly like Super Wal-Mart. Can anyone suggest a really good e-mail service that ISN'T Yahoo or Hotmail? I've been feeling like it's time for a new e-mail address, anyway, and I may as well switch services while I'm at it. I'm expecting suggestions.

It's more effective if you hum the Star Wars theme while you read it.

Flight Program
Episode 4
A New Hope


It is a period of Southwestern
unrest. The sinister Federal Aviation
Administration, represented by the nefarious
examiner, Chuck Perry, has administered
one of its most awesome weapons,
the Part 141 Instrument Rating midstage
check, against the peace-loving
Douglas LaBos.

However, in a stunning display of
simulated pilotage, Josh LaBo, celebrated
hero of the Douglas LaBos,
has overcome the dreaded
midstage check. After seeking out
the legendary pilot master, Belinda,
Josh has been informed that
his training in the ways of
the Instrument could be completed
by Thanksgiving…

Half Finished With Fall

Erin is officially gone now. I was telling Jen earlier that it feels weird to look over at aviation now. For a year, I've associated the sight of the aviation building and ramp with flying with Erin. Now that she's gone, my brain is having a hard time finding something with which to associate the sight. As a result, the building seems all mysterious and unknown again, the way it felt when we first moved here. But I start flying with Belinda at 12:15 on Monday, so my brain will have something new to work with. If all goes well, I'll still be able to easily knock out my instrument rating and begin commercial stage 2 before Christmas break. Actually, this whole situation is probably a gift from God. I'm at a point in my training where things are getting a little more serious, and Belinda's got a whole lot more experience, both flying and instructing, than Erin, so she's probably going to be able to give me better insights into things than I'd been getting from Erin. That's not an insult to Erin; it's just a matter of experience. I'm looking forward to the experience.

I finished my midterms for my two online classes this morning. I got a 90% on one of them. I really phoned it in on the other one, though, so I have to wait and see what grade I wind up with. My classroom class midterm is Wednesday. This is the class in which I've repeatedly butted heads with the instructor. For some reason I can't comprehend, it's made the guy act like I'm his best friend in class. I'm expecting a high grade on the midterm, not because I think he'll fudge me some high marks, but because the fact that I'm butting heads with him means I know the information, both what he's taught us, as well as what the textbook says. I'm one of those sickos who takes Western Civilization classes because I think they're easy credits.

Jen and I will be celebrating three years of marriage on Tuesday. Weird, huh? It seems like we've been married forever, not in a bad way, but because it's hard to remember life before we were together. To celebrate, we're going to spend next weekend at the guest house on Lee Station Ranch, a local ranch owned by a couple we used to go to church with. They awarded me their son's memorial scholarship earlier this year and invited us to visit anytime, so we're finally taking them up on their offer. It would have been this weekend, but they're out of town until tomorrow afternoon. That's okay, though, because it looks like we might be going to Patagonia (the nearest body of water, unless I'm mistaken) with the Burkes tomorrow. To that end, I really need to go work on a writing exercise for my Creative Writing class.

Cracking...

After the tremendous outpouring of support and encouragement for my last post (yep, that's sarcasm), I've decided to talk more about the situation. I've been simming a lot lately, for various reasons. First and foremost, I have some sim time requirements I have to meet before I can do the mid-stage check. Unfortunately, simming isn't going too well for me, and I'm not totally sure why, but it's really beginning to frustrate me. It might be that I've been "flying" approaches that involve an NDB, and I'm really bad at NDB tracking. It might be that my upcoming instructor transition is always in the back of my mind now. It might be both, or it might be something else altogether. In any case, I think I'm starting to crack under the stress. I'm right on the verge of my mid-stage, but I'm also right on the verge of an instructor change. And I found out that the assistant chief flight instructor is going to be taking over my training. She's also been my pilot examiner for all of my stage checks up to this point, so I'm having a hard time seeing her as a flight instructor instead of a testing authority. I feel like all my forward momentum in my training this semester has petered out, and I'm dead in the water. I've been really listless and moody lately, but that's how my body always reacts to anxiety and stress. I just want to make it through this week, and I'm sure things will pick back up. Erin will be gone, I'll be working on getting used to Belinda and, hopefully, I'll start moving forward in my training again, under her tutelage.

Speaking of Erin, she's coming over for dinner tonight, so we can sort of say our goodbyes. She leaves for Wisconsin tomorrow, and she's only working a half day, so I have no idea when I'm flying or who I'm flying with. Maybe I just won't fly at all, and start fresh on Monday.

Changing of the Guard

Erin, my flight instructor, is taking a gig with a regional airline. She's moving to Wisconsin next Thursday. She was my seventh flight instructor, since God first put me on this path. Next week, I'll be assigned to number 8. I'm hoping against hope that #8 will be as high as the list gets before I finish at Cochise.

Loyalties

Just before I left for work this morning, I found out that a very dear and beloved friend of mine (my closest friend, after Jen) tried to kill himself either last week or over the weekend. Details are sketchy right now, because the only source of information I have is my friend, himself, writing on a laptop, apparently from his hospital bed and apparently heavily medicated. There are 2000 miles between us, so I can't even go visit him. I can't talk to him face-to-face, I can't hug him; I have no way at all of letting him know he matters to me, except by sending him a stupid e-mail.

This past week, Jenny called me out to the second-floor railing outside our apartment to show this interesting critter. Now, we get a LOT of bugs out here, but this was the first time either of us had ever seen one like this. It looked EXACTLY like a leaf! As always, click the picture once to enlarge it. Enjoy!

Improving My Memory

So. We meet again. How long's it been? Too long, I guess.

Since our apartment is so stinking hot (the swamp cooler was down overnight for maintenance), Jen and I are going to enjoy some McDonald's for dinner tonight, followed by a short quest for a flash drive. I have to save a pretty substantial number of files for my Creative Writing class, and a flash drive will enable me to work on my writing exercises on any computer on campus. Since the world has largely lost faith in the lovable little floppy disk, a flash drive seems like the way to go.

My classes are going okay. The content of my Western Civ class remains vexing (so far, I've been told that aliens planted Atlantis so the Atlantians could teach Neolithic man how to build pyramids, that the Eyptians of the Middle Kingdom had space-age technology like x-ray machines, and that Pharoah had all the Hebrew firstborn put to death because he feared the birth of their Messiah). To be fair, though, the guy who teaches the class is a basketball coach, versus an Egyptologist or PhD or anyone who would actually be qualified to teach such a class. The last time I took a Western Civ class, it was taught by a brilliant Egyptologist named Dr. Scott Carroll, so I guess I was naive to expect anything from this class other than disappointment. And, as I've said, the only function this class must serve is to provide me with the credits I need in order to receive full financial aid.

In my Creative Writing class, one of our two required texts is a book called Writing Down the Bones. It's a book of writing tips written by a Buddhist, who regularly quotes Buddhist holy men and describes writing as a spiritual exercise. In one of my assignments, I mentioned that I felt very strongly the book was a guide to worshipping the creative self, and I felt spiritually demeaned and disrespected by being forced to read it. The teacher's reply was that, as a college student, I should be open-minded and that she's never had a complaint like that for this book, so my accusation is essentially baseless. However, she did tell me I could do my readings out of the ENG219 (Advanced Creative Writing) book if it would make me more comfortable. I'm already halfway through Bones, though; jumping into another book would only mean more work while I try to catch up. Still, it's something I may end up doing. If I really feel strongly about this, then extra work is a small price to pay, right? Or is she right, that I'm not being open-minded about this? What do you think?

My Human Geography class is going well. I'm actually enjoying it. The content is very interesting, and there hasn't been a single mention of aliens or Atlantis or worshipping anything. I imagine that last will change once we get into the unit on religions, but I don't expect that the text will attempt to coerce me into choosing a new god or belief system.

Flying is also going well, more or less. Erin and I flew to Sierra Vista yesterday morning, so I could practice some instrument approaches over there. I flew my first real-life (I'd already done them in the simulator) ILS approaches, and they went really well. I also flew a Localizer approach that went well. I see my mid-stage check on the horizon, and it makes me think I might really make it through this rating, after all.

Jen's friend Carmen took some pictures of us last Friday. She's in a digital photography class, so she needed to take some pictures, and we needed some pictures taken because a Sunday school class at our AZ church is focusing on missions and missionaries, and they asked for our picture. So the three of us went over to the ramp and took some pictures with the airplanes. Many of them turned out really well. I expect Jenny will probably post some of them, sooner or later.

It's been a while since I've posted, and Kelly is requesting posts to read, so here we go. After I finished my Commercial 1 stage check (I think that's what my last post was about) I began working on my Instrument Rating, which means I'm now flying the Cessna 182. I MUST have my Instrument Rating finished by the end of this semester, which means I don't have time to really get a feel for the 182 before I start working on the Rating. The Instrument Rating is, obviously, all about flying IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) which means we're practicing flying solely by our instruments. This means that the vast majority of my time in the 182 is spent wearing a hood, a vision limiting device that keeps me from being able to see outside the airplane. So I'm trying to learn to fly the 182 while not being able to see outside the 182. It's kind of frustrating sometimes. But I'm doing better than I personally expected to, and better, I think, than my instructor expected me to. This just might work out, after all.

My classes started on Monday. I'm taking one classroom class and two online classes. I naively thought the online classes would be a little easier than a classroom class, which is why I took 2 of them. I was mistaken. They involve obscene amounts of reading, both from books and from the internet. It's taken me a few days to get used to them and sort of settle into them. Ultimately, I'd prefer to sit in a classroom a couple days a week. Lesson learned.

I started my job 2 weeks ago. I got a work study position in the aviation department. As a work study, I'm only allowed 16 hours per week, and 12 of them are scheduled for office work (mostly keeping up on the paperwork that keeps the FAA off our backs). The other 4 hours, however, are open hours for the weekend, so I can help the fueler/washers wash airplanes. Since the fueler/washers and I are all new to the job, we had to wash a plane last Thursday AND last Friday. It's much harder, physically, than I expected it to be, because we not only wash the planes, we also wax them. Even with 3 of us on the job, it still takes somewhere around 3 hours.

All told, between the new classes, the job, and the 182, this has been a hard week. It's been quite some time since I was actually busy on a daily basis, and I'm still trying to hit my stride. But the 182 is going to bring us one step closer to Africa, the job is going to pad our savings account for our Michigan Christmas trip, and the classes are giving me full-time status so I can keep pouring large amounts of financial aid into my flight account. It's all quite a change for me, but it's also all working for our good.

A Stranger in the House of Instrument

After a bit of a delay (Erin called me last night to tell me I'd been rescheduled to 9:45), I had my stage check this morning. Despite a little bit of trouble with my commercial maneuvers, I still passed, with the assurance that my flying is right at the appropriate level, if not a little beyond that. So now I'm on to my Instrument Rating, and the Cessna 182. Thanks for your prayers, and thanks be to God, who accomplishes His will in spite of our doubts and insecurities.

The Big Test

My Commercial 1 stage check is this Wednesday at 8:15am (11:15 Michigan time). It will involve successfully performing some fairly difficult maneuvers, but passing it means I can focus almost exclusively on my Instrument Rating, which I MUST finish before the end of this semester. Please, please pray for me, that I would be able to satisfactorily answer the questions and perform the maneuvers asked of me.

Humdrum

I've been kinda out of it lately, when it comes to Blogger (and Livejournal). The thought of blogging has just lost its appeal for me, and I'm not sure why. I was taking a walk tonight (just got back), and I found myself thinking about writing a post (with pictures) about my flight bag. When I first started out on here, I was all excited about passing along the stuff I was learning, and generally any sort of aviation-relating thing I found interesting. I've gotten pretty far away from that in the last months, so I think I'm going to try to get back into it by posting about my flight bag: what it's all about, what's in it, why I've chosen those particular items, etc. Maybe this all sounds terrible arrogant or something, but the truth is, I find flight bags in general really interesting. Maybe some of the rest of you do or will, too (I'm thinking, though, that most of the gals who read the post will say something like, "Oh, it's like a big (or in some cases, not so big) purse for pilots"). Anyway, keep an eye out for that post. It'll be coming soon.

Phoenix and Back Again

Here are the pictures I took on my cross-country yesterday. As always, clicking on them will enlarge them.


I know I've done this picture before, but it bore repeating. This is what my instruments look like in flight.

I took this because I was curious what I look like when I'm flying. Apparently the answer is, "scary and intense."

This is the town of San Manuel. I thought the layout of the town was interesting. It's far less square than most towns I fly over.

This is Coolidge Airport. It was my final checkpoint before I ventured under Phoenix's airspace and into Gateway's airspace.

This was the view just behind Coolidge. It was an eerie thing to behold, after spending a year flying over round fields.

For reasons I just don't understand, some people actually enjoy playing golf. I will admit, though, that golf courses are very pretty from the air.

And, finally, this is Benson Airport. I actually had a much better shot of this airport all lined up, and then I accidentally hit the camera's power button and lost it.

Well, that's it. I hope you enjoyed them. They're the last ones I'll be taking for a while.

Victory in Jesus!!!

I'm back! My commercial 1 cross-countries are now a thing of the past! And this morning's trip went spectacularly! The only reason for it that I can come up with is that I was praying hard, and a lot of people were praying along with me. Thank you to all those people. God was, and is, faithful.

Incidentally, I managed to snap a few pictures, mostly between here and Phoenix. They'll probably be showing up on here before too long.

Thanks again to everyone who prayed for my safety and success.

Weather permitting, tomorrow morning at 6:45 (9:45 Michigan time) I'll be leaving for my final cross-country of commercial stage one. It's also, arguably, the most difficult cross-country I've had to fly yet. I would greatly appreciate prayer.