11-5-04

Howdy. I hope all is well with everyone. I'm well into my third hour at the cozy coffee shop that has been doubling as my office lately. I've spent the last few hours totaling up my logbooks and updating my resume in the delusion that I might have enough experience to get a job doing something besides instructing. It’s not that I don't like instructing. It’s just that health insurance would be nice. So would moving out of mom's place. I just talked to a contact at Great Lakes Airlines, and he said to send in a resume even though I only have 750 total and 25 multi. Great Lakes has a bad rep as far as pay and schedule, but you build a lot of time. I just can't help but think that the sooner I start building twin turbine time, the better. I could wait around for a year or more trying to build enough time to get on with a "better " regional, or I could try to get on with lakes and have a year of airline experience under my belt. We'll see. I'm probably getting ahead of myself. Last Friday, as I sat at the flight school cursing the cloudy October weather, I overheard an older gentleman inquiring as to whether there might be an instrument instructor around who wouldn't mind going to Michigan that afternoon in his newly acquired Archer. I practically leapt out of the scheduling room with my hand in the air. The man, who had a certain Boris Karloff quality, wasn't current on instruments and didn't want to spend another night in Kansas waiting for the overcast to break. I checked the weather and agreed to take the trip. I guess he moved up there last winter. He had owned the very same Archer while he lived in Kansas. He sold it before the move, then happened upon it again when he got the itch to buy another plane. I planned the whole trip and filed a flight plan while he returned his rental car. Our departure was delayed by a bad battery in his intercom and a couple of pee breaks for Boris. It wasn't long after we were finally underway that we were being tossed around in some very wet cumulous clouds and receiving vectors out of the Kansas City class B airspace. I was impressed that despite the turbulence, my new friend was holding heading and altitude fairly well. I was still happy when we broke out of the clouds around 7,500 feet. Soon after, we were handed off to Kansas City center and cleared direct to Kankakee, Illinois (south of Chicago). As we passed south of Kirksville, Missouri, I thought of the multitude of airplane accidents in that vicinity lately. It was about that time when Boris asked if I could take the controls for a moment. "I need to take a leak!" he admitted. It was bound to happen sooner or later in my career. I should have expected it on this flight. He had, remember, taken more than one piss break during our pre-flight debacles. He pulled a red bottle, like the ones in the Sporty's catalogs, out of the back and I learned that the "find a spot on the wall" technique isn't just for urinals. Substitute cloud for spot and it also works in an airplane when an old guy whips it out in the seat next to you.