Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Nice to know I'm wanted

Lead story in USA Today: Demand for Airline Pilots Set to Soar. Better start getting those flight hours, kids! Here's the link:  http://usat.ly/l5eJ5e , which includes a video.

ps: "Psycho-motor skills" no, really?!?

It was a dark and stormy night...

After a great week at our cabin in northern New Mexico, I'm back at work. Last night's flight from Minneapolis to Fort Worth was stormy and we went pretty far east to get around the really bad stuff. After a short nap, I woke up to blue lights flashing on the ramp (meaning lightning was close) and heavy storms. After a delay of an hour and a half, there was a break in the weather and we scurried out the the jet. My First Officer had just enough time to do the walk around when the blue lights came back on and another onslaught of weather occurred. The video is of hail hitting the airplane as we waited for loading to commence. Finally got to bed about 10:00 this morning back in Minneapolis. Living the dream!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Back in the Grind




Well, even though I have a great job, it was tough to come back. We bought a log cabin in Northern New Mexico near our favorite camping town of Chama last week. Getting a mortgage has always been stressful, but let me tell you, it's alot tougher than it was just a few years ago. Out of my three weeks off, we only got to spend one week there, but it was marvelous! We also had a nice trip to Napa and Granite Bay. This week it's back at work flying between Minneapolis and Ft Worth. My FO and I had hoped to catch the aurora borealis early this morning, since there was an extremely strong solar flare 2 days ago. No such luck as the sun was already rising when we got far enough north this morning. Two days ago, the (new record) high tempo was 104, today it's 60 and very pleasant. I walked around Nicolette Mall after seeing the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and took some pictures. Different city in the spring!