Friday, February 26, 2010

Day in, Day Out--February 26, 2010

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Woke up at 7:20.  Grabbed breakfast, headed for the airport.

Skies were lookin' splendid again.  Clouds at 10,000 feet.  No worries.

Flew to my first flight plan and started the lines.  I was on station at 9:24 this morning.  And there I stayed for the next few hours!  I had a couple of plans inside an MOA, but I could never reach Center.  I called and called and got nothing.  It was completely silent.  Hmm.  I called another Center, and they didn't have a frequency for them, although they gave me the freqency to the tower at Fort Leonard Wood.  I called him up and asked about the MOA and Restricted Areas.  They would be "hot" until noon, he said.  Very well!

So I flew south of the Restricted Areas for the next couple of hours.  East, west, east, west.  Nothin' really spectacular this morning.  Just same ol', same ol'.  I did get real close to one of the Restricted Areas, and an A-10 Warthog came out to greet me!  He passed right over my head and then turned on his side in a sharp arc.  So beautiful.  I never saw him again, although my transponder was heavily painted for much of the time.  Yikes!

At noon, the tower called me up and let me in the now "cold" Restricted Areas.  I finished the flight plan in about 30 minutes and then headed to Jones-Lebanon for fuel.  I landed and was greeted by a a BEAUTIFUL surprise inside the FBO:  LUNCH!!!  They had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and pie!  Perfect!  I threw a couple of bucks into the hat and gobbled up a plate!  I can get used to this!  It sure beat the granola bars and wheat thins I had planned!

I listened to the guys talk about war stories and modern politics.  I also learned that slavery was the black man's fault.  True story.  At least that's what they taught around the table!!!

I headed back up for the rest of the afternoon.  The lower-altitude guys had to leave early due to turbulence, but Matt and I had smooth skies.  We finished quite a bit of flight plans today, and we're already 1/4 done with this HUGE project!  I flew 7.2 hours today.  Wowzers!

I landed and wasn't able to leave the airport due to the rental car already being gone.  I'm not goin' to lie, I was pretty frustrated by that.  I ended up sitting at the airport for two hours as the mechanic worked on another airplane.  Here I was, having flown over seven hours...and not being able to go to the hotel.  I hate that about this job.  I finally left the airport at 6:45 P.M., two hours after landing.

I talked to Dad while at the airport first, however.  And I found out that my house has a couple more leaks.  Wonderful.  Heavy sarcasm there.  What a pain in the butt!  These houses are so expensive!  Time to fix it up and sell it!  We'll see how bad it is in the next couple of days...

We went out for Mexican for supper, then crashed at the hotel.  Tomorrow is lookin' like another full day.  Skies clear.  Or at least that's what the forecast says.  As such, I hit the sack at 10:45 again.

We're actually working.  And getting tired because of it!!!

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