Airline

Most people don't really know what it's like being an airline pilot. You see a movie like "Catch Me if You Can" and think that's what it's like, maybe back in the 60's, but not anymore. I fly an Embraer 145, that is a 50 passenger regional jet. I am based in Chicago but live in north Georgia. Most weeks I work 4 days on and 3 days off, but that can change. I have to drive to the Atlanta airport, about an hour away, get on a plane and fly to Chicago. I get my schedule every month on about the tenth, that is for the next month. We used to get travel benefits and could travel almost anywhere in the world for free, and we could give our friends buddy passes so they could go with us, that is all but completely gone now. There are still several perks though, my family and I can go anywhere in the country for almost nothing, as long as the flight has empty seats. Also I get a lot of vacation time, and don't have to sit in an office. The best thing about my job, when I leave the airport I leave the job there, I have to think very little about it while I am at home, and rarely talk about it. I always say "I work to live, not live to work". I do enjoy my job, but at the end of the day, it is only a job, a necessary evil.

I'll lay out a basic work week for me. I have been with my company for a while, so I have a pretty good schedule. Last week I had to leave on Friday, I rarely work weekends but I have a fishing tournament at the end of the month and had vacation at the beginning, and in order to get around them I had to work some weekends. I had to be at the airport in Chicago at 10:30 am. There was a flight from Atlanta at 8:30 that got me there at 9:30, you gain an hour from ATL to ORDC (Chicago, O'Hare). I left my house at 6:00 am for the flight. My schedule for the day was to fly from ORD to Indianapolis back to ORD then to Charleston, SC then to Houston to spend the night. When I got to Chicago and looked at the departure boards and saw that my Indy flight was canceled. This meant I got to sit around the airport until my Charleston flight left at 3:30. So to put this in prospective, I had been up for 11 hours when I operated my first flight. This is not all that uncommon for day one of a trip.

We got to Houston at 9:00 that night an had to be back at the airport at 6:30 the next morning. That day we went from Houston to West Palm Beach back to Houston and then to Jacksonville, FL. We got in at 5 pm and had to be back at the airport the next morning at 7:30 am. That day we left Jacksonville, went to Newark, NJ, then to Boston, then to Cleveland, then to Louisville, KY. Again, we were in Louisville for about 10 hours. The next morning was early, we got to the airport at 4:45 and went back to Chicago. This was the end of the trip. It was a little unusual because we were done before 6 am. I was actually able to catch the 6 am flight back to Atlanta. I got home at 11 am on Monday.

There is normally very little time to see the sights, and you spend most of your time at airport hotels anyway, so you are not really close to much. Occasionally you will get good overnights. I have gotten to see all the stuff a Washington DC for example, and someone else was paying for it. That kind of stuff is nice. I like to go to MLB games in different cities. And sometimes I can get a long overnight in Atlanta and go sleep in my own bed.

There is plenty to complain about, but all in all, the good far out ways the bad. I got some pretty good pictures on this trip too. You get some pretty good views.

West side of Lake Okeechobee

Sunrise leaving Jacksonville

Hard to see, but that is the Statue of Liberty

Leaving West Palm Beach

West Palm Beach again

West Palm again

New York

Leaving Boston

New York

Squirrel!

Last winter we kept hearing a scratching sound between the floors. I thought it was a mouse, but the queen swore it was something bigger. We put out sticky pads along the top of the wall in the basement. A few days later I heard a chirping sound like a bird. I looked at the sticky pad and sure enough there was a squirrel on it. Now came the problem of how to get a live mad squirrel out of the house. My first thought was just to scrape the whole thing into a box and take it outside and shoot it, but if it fell off the pad in the process and climbed up my arm I would have been a little upset. So, I took a BB gun (I wasn't about to shoot a .22 in the house) and had to shoot it in the head about 15 times to kill it. Now I've squirrel hunted my whole life and enjoy it, but this I did not enjoy. I hate to see an animal suffer, but I saw no other way out. When you are hunting, or in this case exterminating, you should always kill the animal as quickly and painlessly as possible. Now, I was raised never to kill an animal unless it was to be eaten or was some kind of pest, like a mouse. But I didn't find eating an animal that had been living off pine and insulation to be all that appetizing, so I just threw it away.

The middle one, or spider monkey as I call him, holding the fresh kill.

 We found where it had gotten in the house and patched the hole. The next day another squirrel was scratching where we had patched. Now it was on. I live in a neighborhood and am not supposed to shoot guns, but I live at the very back, surrounded by woods and the only people who could hear me don't care. But, just to be safe I went and bought some .22 shorts to make less sound. I loaded up and went for a squirrel hunt from the back porch. I got one on the first shot and they haven't bothered us since. Now this one I felt would be okay to eat, so I skinned it and cut it up. I used some Academy fish fry to coat all the parts and fried it in a skillet on my grill outside. It was great, and we haven't had any more squirrel trouble.

The fish fry turned out pretty good.

Fishing in the snow

I had a little time off this week and couldn't wait any longer to put my line in the water. I got everything ready and went to bed for the night. The next morning I woke up to a snow covered deck (very uncharacteristic for Georgia). But this wasn't about to stop me. I put on my under armour snow ski gear then put on my chest waders and went to Amicalola Creek. I thought the snow was all over when the sun came out (I hate cold weather), but I was wrong. Standing on the creek bank, the clouds rolled in and the snow started lightly falling again. I spent about an hour and a half fishing, which was about all I could handle, and had three rainbow trout, and one brook trout big enough to eat in my basket.
It was very cold and not ideal fishing conditions, but there is never a bad day of fishing. And we got a delicious, healthy dinner out of it. Looking forward to going back next week when it will be 65 degrees.