Day's 1 and 2

Day 1 of Training:

The First day isn't really training. Today is travel day.

Somewhere obscenely close to 2 am the alarm clock sounds... Day 1 is underway. After finishing up my packing and the normal required prep. activities, I hop in the car near 2:40 for my drive from Manchester NH to Augusta ME. It's a 152 mile, 2.5 hour drive that i swear i could do blindfolded these days. In fact, I've put 120,000 miles on the wheels of a 2005 vehcile (another story). The road is empty for minutes at a time. setting the camera on the dash for a minutes captures the empty roads. At 3:00 am, I don't even spot animals.

I role into the parking lot at Augusta ME (KAUG) right around 5 am, The plane is out on the ramp... waiting Patiently. Today is a modified schedule for me. Normally i run 7 legs in the morning schedule... Today i do two less Legs, but instead i get to commute to Washington Via Newark, NJ. At 5 am it's pretty easy to be filled with False hopes - I like to think today is going to be easy. I am excited to be off to training, but not really looking forward to the time, dedication, and 30 nights in a hotel that it requires. The first 5 legs go well. On time, and smooth sky's. In fact, the part that normally jacks up my plans, the flying, goes well. Everything goes off without a hitch until i turn into a passenger. Even pilots are not immune to traveling woes.

My flight to Newark is delayed by nearly 3 hours... due to weather and winds in New York. I think weather and winds is ATC's way of flipping the bird to the FAA (another story again). There are a lot of people that really need to rediscover how important all people in all aspects of aviation are. The general public wants to travel via air, and for less than driving would cost. If you have to ask why you bag got lost, i'd look at the fair on your ticket... If your baggage handler was making more than he or she would at any fast food chain, they may put some effort into their jobs. ATC is facing the same issues.. caused by the FAA... if not for the RLA, i am sure they would all strike soon.

At this point, my 3 hour delay will cause me to miss connect in Newark, missing my only shot to DCA before i reach my 16 hour duty day limitations. I approach the gate agent, who, like I am not failure with restrictions on my positive space travel. He comes up with a wonderful idea, and places me on a Delta flight... which is Direct. Not sure if this i ok, i call company and ask. Of course, company doesn't answer the phone, so i wait for the answer. Turns out I'm not allowed to travel on Delta, so i go back to the gate, and guess what, planes booked full and they have given away my seat... Oops. Now I've no way to get to training... I'm stuck holding a ticket voucher worth $750.00 usd, no flight, and the knowledge that if i don't use it, due to contract, the company will be billed that that amount, and i turn, I. So somehow now i have just bought 750 dollars worth of flying on CAL. I call the 800 number on the voucher, and get everything canceled out, now I'm flying on my own. In the Airline gig, we really are not supposed to use our own travel privileges to travel for company... but i felt this was warranted, as i had screwed up the original ride.

Lucky me, i caught a ride to training, and arrived at the hotel. We used to stay in the Best Western Manassas, VA. It's was a decently shady joint, but right next to the training center. The new hotel is brand new, and pretty nice: Each room gets flat screen TV's, plenty of electrical outlets, and for some reason the deal breaker for me... a vent in the bathroom. I hate hopping out of the shower to a room full of steam, and a mirror that's not worth looking at for 10 minutes.

After a brief nights rest it's off to training. The training center isn't quite like what i would expect. I guess i always imagined that airline training would take place at an airport... Here it is, the "Training Center" in a strip mall.

The training center consists of 2 classrooms and a couple of offices. When operating at peak, this place goes non stop. I think they run classes at a nearly 24 hour clip. Today is a running review of basic Indoc... Hazardous materials, Safety, Security, CRM, Special airports, etc.

The lights in the training center give me the worst kind of headache, so when we discover that the rest of our training will be in St. Louis... i am glad. Roughly at noon we break for lunch at chipotle, serving bricks of burritos. After lunch it's movies, movies and more movies. A short CRM/Crash video.

The hotel is almost a mile away from the training center, so the company gave me an old friend. The BEAST used to be used for shuttling passengers and pilots when the weather was too bad in Maine... the BEAST is now in Mananas, but still have the Maine tags to show :)

After dinner at the hotel, bedtime it was... Day 2 done. Sorry for the roughshod post... I'll clean it up late.

Goodnight