Very Niiiiice

Last night, Sheri and I watched "Borat." I've heard horrible things about how offensive and bad this movie was. Personally, I liked it. The running of the Jew....that's funny! I find that if you offend everybody....then it's fair. This blog is no movie review, but I want to throw my two cents into the ring. Throughout my life, I've spent a large amount of time making fun of everybody from, my own race and color to everybody else you can imagine. Am I seen as the devil...well...maybe by some, but to my experience, I've been well received through my life. The fact is, Borat is a movie. It's NOT REAL! This is Hollywood....accept it for what it is. I just can't stand it when people start pressing their morals on the rest of society. On that note...people should not have to be subjected to Wholesome Family Values. Now how do you feel when someone tells you what you should and shouldn't be allowed to experience? Yeah...my message to the world....take that!

Off the soap box and into the real world. I've been flying again. Aerotech raised their rates on the planes....because someone with no insurance crashed a plane and did enough damage to where the rest of us renters have to pay for his mistakes. Anyway, I did a review flight last week and yesterday, my instructor hit me with a last minute Cross Country flight. This was a risk in terms of what all my flight training has told me, but I have to say, I learned from it. In my training program, you're told...don't fly under pressure. Don't be in a hurry. Be as prepared as possible, etc... What my instructor did and I support is....he threw me into the fire. With less than a hour and 15 minutes, he said...plan a cross country to Summit (KEVY) and go fly the round trip. I took off at 1105L and had to have the airplane back by noon for the next student. Considering each leg was supposed to take about 27 minutes...I had to rush. Well, I was late coming back and naturally, that made me feel bad for the next guy. As it turns out, he was doing some ground school with his instructor so my delay was not critical. I didn't know that as I was flying back from Delaware. Anyway...this was an awesome experience as I had to quickly remember everything it takes to fly to a distant airport and do it safely. As relaxing and easy as life is when you have all the time in the world for things....the best learning usually takes place under some form of pressure. As much as I had, "Say you'll do it some other time" running in the back of my head....I knew I wanted that challenge and it felt great to have stepped up to the plate. Was there a major risk...not really. I know how to fly. I know how to turn around and land back at my home airport if I didn't feel comfortable. I know how to use a radio to call for help....so....was this really a risk....or was it a great opportunity to use the skills that are deeply embedded in my brain? It all worked out well...so I'm going to say....Thanks Pat....hit me again with another challenge.....I'm up for it.

On the subject of my written test for my license, I need to study hard over the next week. I plan on taking it sometime next week. I hadn't done some real good concentration and study in about 2 months....I took a practice test last night and scored a 75%. 70 is passing...but I want to score higher. Funny...all through school...I never really gave a shit about passing....now that I'm an adult and flying is something I care about...I don't want to be just passable.

My business life is going full steam ahead. I'm doing ok with money. No millionaire by any means...but I'm doing ok. In my head, I keep thinking...."How do I leverage my time and money to increase my overall performance?" I wish I had the answer....either I haven't found it yet...or it's right in front of my face and I can't see it. Either way....I will not complain as I'm happy with my life and appreciate what I've done with it so far.

I'm sitting in the ASIG Passenger Service office. Looking up, I just saw an artifact from my history that is still on display. I used to work here as an employee. Back in the winter of 1997, I got a job here and during my short time as an ASIG (Signature Flight Support back then) employee, I got my hands on a label maker. The Supervisor back then had just gotten a label maker and was labeling all kinds of things. Me, being the jackass that I was (still am) decided to label the most obvious things. So....if you look around this office, I'm sure you'll find labels on the most obvious things. Hopefully, everyone who has ever seen these, "Obvious" labels has found them as amusing as I have. After all....How often do you work in an office where some idiot has labeled the ceiling, "Ceiling" just in case you didn't know what it was.

Thanks be to God.