Hits on this blog have taken a notable upturn over the last two months. Where before I was getting about 20-25 a day on average, most of them no doubt from a handful of loyal readers, over the last six weeks we've averaged more like 50 a day. This is wonderful, of course, and I welcome whoever stops by, but who the heck are you people and where are you coming from?
Actually, I can find that out, thanks to Site Meter.
For example, among the last 100 visitors was one from Trinidad and Tobago, who stopped by to read the review of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. And there was a visitor from Singapore, who got caught up in the whole Conocarpus lancifolius saga from some years back. That series of posts, actually, has produced a lot of traffic from around the Indian Ocean basin. This blog actually collects just about every scrap of information about those trees that appears on the internet anywhere, so that's not hard to understand. Someone way up in the frozen north of Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, dropped in to read Part I of my What is the U.S. Doing in Djibouti series. Which I never did finish.
Actually, apart from Conocarpus lancifolius, the three things that seem to bring most serchers to this blog are, in order, pottery pictures (pity I can't make any more for a while), Willa Cather's O Pioneers (no doubt high school students looking for a way out of reading it), and a picture of a King Air I posted about four years ago. Lots of people look for that King Air. I don't even remember why I posted it.
One recent visitor, however, ran a Google search for, "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" and found a post I'd written under that title. I have no idea what they were really looking for, but I hope they found it eventually.
Ah well. I didn't have much to say today. I applied for three jobs today, in two different cities. It would be nice to get at least one of them (particularly the one up yonder in that other state). Oh, and I started rewriting Lauderdale over the weekend, too. Got almost 2000 words in yesterday. If I keep up a 2000-word-per-day pace, I'll have it finished by... hmm, including time off for the honeymoon... Gee, May 24th. That's not so bad. I think I'll set "End of June" as my goal, though.
25 March 2008
22 March 2008
Little Green Men
If it weren't for a gift inscription on the inside page (thank you, M & L!), I would have no idea how long I've had Christopher Buckley's Little Green Men sitting unread on my bookshelves.
But thanks to the inscription I know it's been six years and change. The first few chapters seemed familiar and I think I picked it up at some point and abandoned it, I don't know why. Unlike the previous, this is not a book worth abandoning unread.
Little Green Men is funny and knowing and wise in that snarky post-Lewinsky Washington way Chris Buckley has. I like his work, and this is representative. I don't have a lot to say about it other than that it's a bit deeper than such things tend to be and the story is a rollicking good ride. I finished it in less than a week if that's saying anything, and I haven't exactly been reading at a quick pace this year.
The book is essentially three Frankenstein stories interlaid, each monster created by the monster before it, each more out of control than the one before it. Makes for a good ride. There are comments I'd like to make about some of the author's choices and some of the points in the story, but I don't think I can without giving the thing away, and I don't want to do that. So, suffice to say, a nice quick read, good book, well-written, most enjoyable.
But thanks to the inscription I know it's been six years and change. The first few chapters seemed familiar and I think I picked it up at some point and abandoned it, I don't know why. Unlike the previous, this is not a book worth abandoning unread.Little Green Men is funny and knowing and wise in that snarky post-Lewinsky Washington way Chris Buckley has. I like his work, and this is representative. I don't have a lot to say about it other than that it's a bit deeper than such things tend to be and the story is a rollicking good ride. I finished it in less than a week if that's saying anything, and I haven't exactly been reading at a quick pace this year.
The book is essentially three Frankenstein stories interlaid, each monster created by the monster before it, each more out of control than the one before it. Makes for a good ride. There are comments I'd like to make about some of the author's choices and some of the points in the story, but I don't think I can without giving the thing away, and I don't want to do that. So, suffice to say, a nice quick read, good book, well-written, most enjoyable.
Little Green Men
If it weren't for a gift inscription on the inside page (thank you, M & L!), I would have no idea how long I've had Christopher Buckley's Little Green Men sitting unread on my bookshelves.But thanks to the inscription I know it's been six years and change. The first few chapters seemed familiar and I think I picked it up at some point and abandoned it, I don't know why. Unlike the previous, this is not a book worth abandoning unread.
Little Green Men is funny and knowing and wise in that snarky post-Lewinsky Washington way Chris Buckley has. I like his work, and this is representative. I don't have a lot to say about it other than that it's a bit deeper than such things tend to be and the story is a rollicking good ride. I finished it in less than a week if that's saying anything, and I haven't exactly been reading at a quick pace this year.
The book is essentially three Frankenstein stories interlaid, each monster created by the monster before it, each more out of control than the one before it. Makes for a good ride. There are comments I'd like to make about some of the author's choices and some of the points in the story, but I don't think I can without giving the thing away, and I don't want to do that. So, suffice to say, a nice quick read, good book, well-written, most enjoyable.
But thanks to the inscription I know it's been six years and change. The first few chapters seemed familiar and I think I picked it up at some point and abandoned it, I don't know why. Unlike the previous, this is not a book worth abandoning unread.Little Green Men is funny and knowing and wise in that snarky post-Lewinsky Washington way Chris Buckley has. I like his work, and this is representative. I don't have a lot to say about it other than that it's a bit deeper than such things tend to be and the story is a rollicking good ride. I finished it in less than a week if that's saying anything, and I haven't exactly been reading at a quick pace this year.
The book is essentially three Frankenstein stories interlaid, each monster created by the monster before it, each more out of control than the one before it. Makes for a good ride. There are comments I'd like to make about some of the author's choices and some of the points in the story, but I don't think I can without giving the thing away, and I don't want to do that. So, suffice to say, a nice quick read, good book, well-written, most enjoyable.
18 March 2008
The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium
Pyrotechnic Insanitarium was the term used by a contemporary writer to describe Coney Island in its heyday at the turn of the 20th Century. I think I would quite enjoy a book about Coney Island's history. Pity this wasn't it.Mark Dery wrote The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink way back in 1999. It shows. It's been a very long nine years. And this is a pretty long review so I'll put it after the jump.
Leaving aside the problem that an unemployed person probably shouldn't read a book like this anyway--it's fairly depressing--I didn't bother finishing it for other reasons. From page one you know you're going to be reading things that may not apply any more. The before/after of 9/11 is a pretty severe contrast, and attempts to deconstruct American culture on the eve of the new millenium--and there were many--couldn't have predicted 9/11 or the turn said culture would take. Couldn't have predicted George Bush, either, who, like it or not, has defined this decade in ways historians will still be discussing a hundred years from now. And anyway, as Dery helpfully points out, the turn of the year 2000 had no special meaning whatsoever apart from what had been imbued to it by the culture: 2000 was itself a cultural creation, and had it merely been the turn from 1994 to 1995 all the cultural oddities and excesses Dery writes about would have been... well, they still would have been around. End-of-the-millenium angst was all well and good (Y2K anyone?) but most of the cultural issues Dery deals with were in the air already and only the notion that "surely, something big is going to happen" made any of it seem like it was a sign of the end times.
The fact is the 20th Century may have lasted from about 1918 until 1990, by some estimates, or it may have run until 2001. Perhaps the years from the fall of the Soviet Union to the attack on the World Trade Center were simply an interlude, history and humanity deciding whether we were going to go back and relive the violence and decadence of the 20th Century again or find something else to do. (Unfortunately I think we've decided to relive the 20th.) In any event, the constant reference to "fin-de-millenium" (Dery's terminology) makes the book feel older than it should--especially considering that, just as the cultural issues Dery discusses were extant before the 1998-1999 oh-my-god-here-comes-the-millenium era, they are still out there today.
Unfortunately the issues Dery chooses to discuss are not altogether nice. There are chapters about artists who use sheep entrails to make... not much, really, and about a photographic study of an exibition of Peter the Great's collection of freaks and mutants in formaldehyde. Things that are, in essence, gross, and I for one don't feel like reading about gross for the sake of gross. So, it's gross. So, there are gross things in life. It's one thing for an artist to make a statement that ignoring gross things or pretending they don't exist is immature, that's valid cultural criticism. It's something else to force gross down my throat because you think I'm immature. Fuck you.
Ultimately though it's not the nature of subject matter that drags the book down, since some people find such topics highly entertaining, if not arousing (I think I know some people like that. Not that I know them well, nor do I want to). There are other problems.
Dery's focus is relentlessly negative. Now, I didn't finish the book. I didn't even get halfway through, and I wasn't finished with the second section (out of 16) before I was skimming. It's possible that, in the later sections--well, in the 16th section anyway--Dery turns it all around and instead of just piling criticism atop depression ad infinitum he find something redeeming, some reassurance about the future of our society. But the fact that he labelled the conclusion "Last Things" and not "Last Words" leads me to believe the final rapier thrust in this one-sided fencing match is just like all the rest: straight to the undefended heart.
Let's be honest for a moment, shall we? Skewering American culture and society is easy. I do it. You do it. We all do it. The society we live in is the most individualistic on Earth, in history, and the fact that there is so much low-brow, so much stupidity, so many mass movements in one direction or another, so much low-grade shouting being passed off as debate, is a consequence of that. As an occasionally self-proclaimed libertarian I must accept that. But as much as I adore liberty, it results in a culture that is dominated by the lowest elements--and too much liberty scares people and makes them follow the crowd. Picking on our society does not require a 270 page book, and frankly the book just doesn't stay interesting. I may not have known about Renee French's Kinderculture series of skin-crawlingly creepy childhood cartoons, but I'm hardly surprised to find that they exist and, frankly, my life is not any richer for the knowledge. I don't need proof that most people are sickos. I suspect it anyway.
I read through to the fourth section, which was about the psycho-killer clown phenomenon. This interests me a great deal, as I have long found clowns to be mildly creepy. Not scary, but a little... je ne sais quoi. I do not like clowns for the most part, though I recognize that clowning has a long history and that our conception of them as scary pedophiles is a fairly recent invention. Clown antics, clowning around, those things are great. It's the dress-up part of clowns that is disturbing, more than anything, the idea of subjugating your whole self to another persona, a persona you yourself have created, one with no "character" or backstory per se but which relies entirely on the physical concealment of the self. A clown is a clown is a clown, after all. There's nothing creepy about acting, but clowning is not acting. Clowning is the elimination of the self: literally, in self, as it requires concealing the self solely for the purpose of being made ridiculous in the eyes of others. I just don't get it.
The chapter on scary clowns is... well, a little scarier than I want clowns to be. Dery draws heavily on the story of John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer who dressed up like a clown to lure young men into his home so he could kill them. Nice, right? But Gacy's murders took place in the 1970s and while certainly Gacy is guilty of creating a lot of the suspicion of clowns, I think Dery spends too much time talking about him. As it is, though, Dery makes a good point in his discussion that our mass distrust of clowns and people who would dress up like clowns has morphed over time into a general distrust of almost anyone who makes a living working with children. I suppose it's only a matter of time before parents start distrusting teachers simply because teachers want to work with children. Perhaps this is how the society in Children of Men came to be.
And the good point Dery makes is a problem, too. He makes some good points. He talks about the dumbing-down of culture and to what degree it is a real phenomenon (yes and no; there have always been plenty of people to partake in low-brow culture and there have always been performers willing to make jokes about shit, farts, and dicks. The difference is now it's much more widespread because broadcast media finds it more profitable to appeal to the lowest common denominator--after all, even the most hoity-toity highbrow cultural critic will find a few chuckles in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, but try getting your average joe with the emotional maturity of an 8th grader excited about Verdi's Aida, for example. He talks about how Edvard Munch's The Scream was taken in its day and how the image has been appropriated here a century later. Very interesting stuff.
Unfortunately, Dery's writing gets tiresome very quickly. He references every obscure philosopher and writer he can think of, and though he provides copious endnotes so we can read more about these depressing topics ourselves if we should for some reason want to, frankly he attempts to marry low-brow topics with high-brow writing and it just comes off weird. And annoying. It's as if Dery knows he's taking aim at such a large target that there's no reason anyone should take him seriously (a competent 8-year-old could critique American society), so he inflates his writing in the worst academic style so he can be taken seriously.
In short, even if it was late 1999 and I was specifically looking for a book about current cultural phenomena of a depressing and/or disgusting nature, I probably wouldn't have been too excited by this one.
The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium
Pyrotechnic Insanitarium was the term used by a contemporary writer to describe Coney Island in its heyday at the turn of the 20th Century. I think I would quite enjoy a book about Coney Island's history. Pity this wasn't it.Mark Dery wrote The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink way back in 1999. It shows. It's been a very long nine years. And this is a pretty long review so I'll put it after the jump.
Leaving aside the problem that an unemployed person probably shouldn't read a book like this anyway--it's fairly depressing--I didn't bother finishing it for other reasons. From page one you know you're going to be reading things that may not apply any more. The before/after of 9/11 is a pretty severe contrast, and attempts to deconstruct American culture on the eve of the new millenium--and there were many--couldn't have predicted 9/11 or the turn said culture would take. Couldn't have predicted George Bush, either, who, like it or not, has defined this decade in ways historians will still be discussing a hundred years from now. And anyway, as Dery helpfully points out, the turn of the year 2000 had no special meaning whatsoever apart from what had been imbued to it by the culture: 2000 was itself a cultural creation, and had it merely been the turn from 1994 to 1995 all the cultural oddities and excesses Dery writes about would have been... well, they still would have been around. End-of-the-millenium angst was all well and good (Y2K anyone?) but most of the cultural issues Dery deals with were in the air already and only the notion that "surely, something big is going to happen" made any of it seem like it was a sign of the end times.
The fact is the 20th Century may have lasted from about 1918 until 1990, by some estimates, or it may have run until 2001. Perhaps the years from the fall of the Soviet Union to the attack on the World Trade Center were simply an interlude, history and humanity deciding whether we were going to go back and relive the violence and decadence of the 20th Century again or find something else to do. (Unfortunately I think we've decided to relive the 20th.) In any event, the constant reference to "fin-de-millenium" (Dery's terminology) makes the book feel older than it should--especially considering that, just as the cultural issues Dery discusses were extant before the 1998-1999 oh-my-god-here-comes-the-millenium era, they are still out there today.
Unfortunately the issues Dery chooses to discuss are not altogether nice. There are chapters about artists who use sheep entrails to make... not much, really, and about a photographic study of an exibition of Peter the Great's collection of freaks and mutants in formaldehyde. Things that are, in essence, gross, and I for one don't feel like reading about gross for the sake of gross. So, it's gross. So, there are gross things in life. It's one thing for an artist to make a statement that ignoring gross things or pretending they don't exist is immature, that's valid cultural criticism. It's something else to force gross down my throat because you think I'm immature. Fuck you.
Ultimately though it's not the nature of subject matter that drags the book down, since some people find such topics highly entertaining, if not arousing (I think I know some people like that. Not that I know them well, nor do I want to). There are other problems.
Dery's focus is relentlessly negative. Now, I didn't finish the book. I didn't even get halfway through, and I wasn't finished with the second section (out of 16) before I was skimming. It's possible that, in the later sections--well, in the 16th section anyway--Dery turns it all around and instead of just piling criticism atop depression ad infinitum he find something redeeming, some reassurance about the future of our society. But the fact that he labelled the conclusion "Last Things" and not "Last Words" leads me to believe the final rapier thrust in this one-sided fencing match is just like all the rest: straight to the undefended heart.
Let's be honest for a moment, shall we? Skewering American culture and society is easy. I do it. You do it. We all do it. The society we live in is the most individualistic on Earth, in history, and the fact that there is so much low-brow, so much stupidity, so many mass movements in one direction or another, so much low-grade shouting being passed off as debate, is a consequence of that. As an occasionally self-proclaimed libertarian I must accept that. But as much as I adore liberty, it results in a culture that is dominated by the lowest elements--and too much liberty scares people and makes them follow the crowd. Picking on our society does not require a 270 page book, and frankly the book just doesn't stay interesting. I may not have known about Renee French's Kinderculture series of skin-crawlingly creepy childhood cartoons, but I'm hardly surprised to find that they exist and, frankly, my life is not any richer for the knowledge. I don't need proof that most people are sickos. I suspect it anyway.
I read through to the fourth section, which was about the psycho-killer clown phenomenon. This interests me a great deal, as I have long found clowns to be mildly creepy. Not scary, but a little... je ne sais quoi. I do not like clowns for the most part, though I recognize that clowning has a long history and that our conception of them as scary pedophiles is a fairly recent invention. Clown antics, clowning around, those things are great. It's the dress-up part of clowns that is disturbing, more than anything, the idea of subjugating your whole self to another persona, a persona you yourself have created, one with no "character" or backstory per se but which relies entirely on the physical concealment of the self. A clown is a clown is a clown, after all. There's nothing creepy about acting, but clowning is not acting. Clowning is the elimination of the self: literally, in self, as it requires concealing the self solely for the purpose of being made ridiculous in the eyes of others. I just don't get it.
The chapter on scary clowns is... well, a little scarier than I want clowns to be. Dery draws heavily on the story of John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer who dressed up like a clown to lure young men into his home so he could kill them. Nice, right? But Gacy's murders took place in the 1970s and while certainly Gacy is guilty of creating a lot of the suspicion of clowns, I think Dery spends too much time talking about him. As it is, though, Dery makes a good point in his discussion that our mass distrust of clowns and people who would dress up like clowns has morphed over time into a general distrust of almost anyone who makes a living working with children. I suppose it's only a matter of time before parents start distrusting teachers simply because teachers want to work with children. Perhaps this is how the society in Children of Men came to be.
And the good point Dery makes is a problem, too. He makes some good points. He talks about the dumbing-down of culture and to what degree it is a real phenomenon (yes and no; there have always been plenty of people to partake in low-brow culture and there have always been performers willing to make jokes about shit, farts, and dicks. The difference is now it's much more widespread because broadcast media finds it more profitable to appeal to the lowest common denominator--after all, even the most hoity-toity highbrow cultural critic will find a few chuckles in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, but try getting your average joe with the emotional maturity of an 8th grader excited about Verdi's Aida, for example. He talks about how Edvard Munch's The Scream was taken in its day and how the image has been appropriated here a century later. Very interesting stuff.
Unfortunately, Dery's writing gets tiresome very quickly. He references every obscure philosopher and writer he can think of, and though he provides copious endnotes so we can read more about these depressing topics ourselves if we should for some reason want to, frankly he attempts to marry low-brow topics with high-brow writing and it just comes off weird. And annoying. It's as if Dery knows he's taking aim at such a large target that there's no reason anyone should take him seriously (a competent 8-year-old could critique American society), so he inflates his writing in the worst academic style so he can be taken seriously.
In short, even if it was late 1999 and I was specifically looking for a book about current cultural phenomena of a depressing and/or disgusting nature, I probably wouldn't have been too excited by this one.
I'm not feeling well
I was thinking about what to title this post, since I like titles that consist of only a portion of an easily recognized idiom. But most of our idioms for being sick don't make any sense:
Under the weather
It's about 78 degrees outside and sunny, with a light breeze. It's a beautiful day, no question about it, and it's been nice most of the last few days, although maybe a little on the warm side on Saturday. If I was under the weather, literally, I assume that would mean I'd be outside. I'd be outside because the weather was nice. Being outside on a nice day has nothing to do with being sick. And when I get over this head cold I won't go around saying I'm "over the weather," which makes no sense at all. Not that being under the weather does, either. And anyway, I'm inside right now, so if anything I'm avoiding the weather.
Sick as a dog
Jackson is not the sick one here, I am. I have a head cold. Jackson is probably bored right now because I'm not playing with him, but he isn't sick, ill, unwell, or otherwise suffering from physical malady. That said, he does go to the vet a lot, but when I think about Jackson, I don't think of him as being sickly. And other dogs in this building are generally in good health, too, although there a few that are unwell and in their declining years, and one even died recently (I'm sorry, passed away). But if I was looking to describe myself as sick, I wouldn't point to the dying dogs in this building; after all, there are dying people here. I could say I was as sick as one of them, but that would be considered rude, and, anyway, I'm not dying. I have a head cold. I am not as sick as any dogs I know of right now, and in any event I've never known a dog to get a head cold. I'm as sick as a Smitty.
At some point I expect to get better, and then I will be back on my feet
What, I'm not on my feet now? Well, actually, no, right now I'm sitting Indian-style on the ground in front of the chair, because I have to use the chairback to prop up the lid of this POS laptop. I can't do this for as long as I could when I was ten years old. I think I could sit Indian-style for days at a time and not be any the worse for wear when I was that age, but nowadays my butt gets numb after about ten minutes and I have get up and walk around. And at that point I'm on my feet, even though I'm still sick. It would be one thing if I was bedridden with illness, but I'm not, and yet people still refer to someone as back on his or her feet after even a minor illness or a financial setback--and I really don't get the financial use of this phrase.
In any event, it's a very annoying sickness. At first we thought it might just be a bad allergic reaction to pollen, but it's not like there was suddenly so much more pollen in the air on Sunday than there had been on Saturday. Anyway. It's a bit of a bother, though, because I have a lot of things I need to do, and I just don't feel up to it (another idiom) right now, mentally more than physically. My head is somewhat foggy, though it's better today than it was yesterday (I didn't sleep Sunday night what with the post-nasal drip). I hope by tomorrow to be more or less over this, at least enough that I can get back to work.
Under the weather
It's about 78 degrees outside and sunny, with a light breeze. It's a beautiful day, no question about it, and it's been nice most of the last few days, although maybe a little on the warm side on Saturday. If I was under the weather, literally, I assume that would mean I'd be outside. I'd be outside because the weather was nice. Being outside on a nice day has nothing to do with being sick. And when I get over this head cold I won't go around saying I'm "over the weather," which makes no sense at all. Not that being under the weather does, either. And anyway, I'm inside right now, so if anything I'm avoiding the weather.
Sick as a dog
Jackson is not the sick one here, I am. I have a head cold. Jackson is probably bored right now because I'm not playing with him, but he isn't sick, ill, unwell, or otherwise suffering from physical malady. That said, he does go to the vet a lot, but when I think about Jackson, I don't think of him as being sickly. And other dogs in this building are generally in good health, too, although there a few that are unwell and in their declining years, and one even died recently (I'm sorry, passed away). But if I was looking to describe myself as sick, I wouldn't point to the dying dogs in this building; after all, there are dying people here. I could say I was as sick as one of them, but that would be considered rude, and, anyway, I'm not dying. I have a head cold. I am not as sick as any dogs I know of right now, and in any event I've never known a dog to get a head cold. I'm as sick as a Smitty.
At some point I expect to get better, and then I will be back on my feet
What, I'm not on my feet now? Well, actually, no, right now I'm sitting Indian-style on the ground in front of the chair, because I have to use the chairback to prop up the lid of this POS laptop. I can't do this for as long as I could when I was ten years old. I think I could sit Indian-style for days at a time and not be any the worse for wear when I was that age, but nowadays my butt gets numb after about ten minutes and I have get up and walk around. And at that point I'm on my feet, even though I'm still sick. It would be one thing if I was bedridden with illness, but I'm not, and yet people still refer to someone as back on his or her feet after even a minor illness or a financial setback--and I really don't get the financial use of this phrase.
In any event, it's a very annoying sickness. At first we thought it might just be a bad allergic reaction to pollen, but it's not like there was suddenly so much more pollen in the air on Sunday than there had been on Saturday. Anyway. It's a bit of a bother, though, because I have a lot of things I need to do, and I just don't feel up to it (another idiom) right now, mentally more than physically. My head is somewhat foggy, though it's better today than it was yesterday (I didn't sleep Sunday night what with the post-nasal drip). I hope by tomorrow to be more or less over this, at least enough that I can get back to work.
13 March 2008
Interview, part 1
Okay, well, everybody wants to know, so:
I made it through the interview. I'll tell more about it in a bit, lots to do right now, but I did survive. The sim was awful, but then I haven't flown anything in nearly two years, and I didn't have to fly an approach then (man was it ugly). But as one of my fellow interviewees mentioned later, because I have so many hours in crew airplanes I suspect they gave me a big pass on a lot of things. Didn't know all the tech questions, haven't ever had to read a Jepp chart before (we used USCGC/NOAA charts in the Air Force, which I like better because they're less cluttered; also, I'm used to them). Got through the HR interview okay though. The easy part. I was pretty surprised they asked me back for the "physical" on Wednesday, though I guess some of my fellow interviewees were not as surprised even with my being horribly noncurrent. I guess the hours and the crew time is a good thing.
So I haven't formally been offered the job, that comes on Friday after they complete the background check and my paperwork goes to a Captain's Board. I don't think there's anything in the background check that will be a problem and I've been told the Captain's Board isn't likely to deny you a job offer when the company wants to hire as many pilots as they do (700 this year) unless you turn out to be a total jerk and nobody else noticed. So there's a pretty good chance I'll get offered the job on Friday.
Now I just have to figure out whether I actually want it. Lots of time away from home--as in, more than half--and the pay actually isn't that great. They pay $24.34 an hour for first year guys, which sounds great. But you are legally permitted to fly only 1000 hours a year for a 121 company (that is a passenger-carrying company). So you do the math. For perspective, a first-year teacher in Anderson School District 5 makes $29,600 a year (give or take a few bucks). Food for thought. If I make $12.67 an hour and work 48 40-hour weeks a year I make the same. And I'm probably home every night.
I want to fly again, but unlike every other interviewee and all the captains I talked to, I didn't grow up wanting to fly for the airlines. I happened upon this thing accidentally, and as much as I enjoy it... I don't know whether I want to take on the burden of commuting to San Juan, flying for three or four days, then commuting home, then doing it all again the next week. That's just a lot of time away from home and Smittygirl--I don't think it's a good idea to start married life by spending four nights a week away from home all the time, especially when there will be plenty to do at the home in question...
Lots to think about. But much to my surprise the interview went fairly well and I'll probably get offered the job (it's nice to apply for a job where there are more openings than applicants). And it was nice to just sit and talk pilot talk with people for a couple days. I don't do much of that. Funny, it used to annoy me when it was all anybody could talk about (and it would if I was back in that situation)...
So that's the update. Thanks for the best wishes and crossed digits. Now I just have to think a lot about things. And stuff.
I made it through the interview. I'll tell more about it in a bit, lots to do right now, but I did survive. The sim was awful, but then I haven't flown anything in nearly two years, and I didn't have to fly an approach then (man was it ugly). But as one of my fellow interviewees mentioned later, because I have so many hours in crew airplanes I suspect they gave me a big pass on a lot of things. Didn't know all the tech questions, haven't ever had to read a Jepp chart before (we used USCGC/NOAA charts in the Air Force, which I like better because they're less cluttered; also, I'm used to them). Got through the HR interview okay though. The easy part. I was pretty surprised they asked me back for the "physical" on Wednesday, though I guess some of my fellow interviewees were not as surprised even with my being horribly noncurrent. I guess the hours and the crew time is a good thing.
So I haven't formally been offered the job, that comes on Friday after they complete the background check and my paperwork goes to a Captain's Board. I don't think there's anything in the background check that will be a problem and I've been told the Captain's Board isn't likely to deny you a job offer when the company wants to hire as many pilots as they do (700 this year) unless you turn out to be a total jerk and nobody else noticed. So there's a pretty good chance I'll get offered the job on Friday.
Now I just have to figure out whether I actually want it. Lots of time away from home--as in, more than half--and the pay actually isn't that great. They pay $24.34 an hour for first year guys, which sounds great. But you are legally permitted to fly only 1000 hours a year for a 121 company (that is a passenger-carrying company). So you do the math. For perspective, a first-year teacher in Anderson School District 5 makes $29,600 a year (give or take a few bucks). Food for thought. If I make $12.67 an hour and work 48 40-hour weeks a year I make the same. And I'm probably home every night.
I want to fly again, but unlike every other interviewee and all the captains I talked to, I didn't grow up wanting to fly for the airlines. I happened upon this thing accidentally, and as much as I enjoy it... I don't know whether I want to take on the burden of commuting to San Juan, flying for three or four days, then commuting home, then doing it all again the next week. That's just a lot of time away from home and Smittygirl--I don't think it's a good idea to start married life by spending four nights a week away from home all the time, especially when there will be plenty to do at the home in question...
Lots to think about. But much to my surprise the interview went fairly well and I'll probably get offered the job (it's nice to apply for a job where there are more openings than applicants). And it was nice to just sit and talk pilot talk with people for a couple days. I don't do much of that. Funny, it used to annoy me when it was all anybody could talk about (and it would if I was back in that situation)...
So that's the update. Thanks for the best wishes and crossed digits. Now I just have to think a lot about things. And stuff.
10 March 2008
Whirlwind
Sorry for the thin postings of late dear readers. I have no real excuse other than not having much to say.
Today I am off--later this afternoon, anyway--for Dallas, to interview with American Eagle. That would be the regional airline, a partner of American Airlines, and not the clothing company. They're flying me out today, I'll stay in a hotel, and the interview is tomorrow. I'll know tomorrow how the interview goes--which is to say, if I make it through the entire day and they ask me to stay for some medical tests on Wednesday, then I got the job. If on the other hand at some point during the day tomorrow they offer me a standby ticket and a free ride to the airport... well, then I didn't get the job. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck. And also that I don't make a fool of myself.
Today I am off--later this afternoon, anyway--for Dallas, to interview with American Eagle. That would be the regional airline, a partner of American Airlines, and not the clothing company. They're flying me out today, I'll stay in a hotel, and the interview is tomorrow. I'll know tomorrow how the interview goes--which is to say, if I make it through the entire day and they ask me to stay for some medical tests on Wednesday, then I got the job. If on the other hand at some point during the day tomorrow they offer me a standby ticket and a free ride to the airport... well, then I didn't get the job. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck. And also that I don't make a fool of myself.
Not Again
This is from today's New York Times, by way of Taegan Goddard's Political Wire. What current president does this sound like?
"Mrs. Clinton showed a tendency toward an insular management style, relying on a coterie of aides who have worked for her for years, her aides and associates said. Her choice of lieutenants, and her insistence on staying with them even when friends urged her to shake things up, was blamed by some associates for the campaign’s woes. Again and again, the senator was portrayed as a manager who valued loyalty and familiarity over experience and expertise."
07 March 2008
Demon Inflation
Yesterday I went on my weekly shopping trip to the local Publix. I tell you, prices are just out of control, I don't know what the government figures are right now but inflation is just spiraling.
My favorite treat at Publix is of course the sour cream doughnut, a wonderful confection with absolutely no redeeming nutritional qualities to spoil the exquisite taste. They cost 69 cents each and I get one every few weeks when I go shopping hungry (something you should never do, but we all do it anyway).
Well, yesterday I discovered something utterly shocking. My doughnuts, lo, even the sour cream doughnuts, are not immune from the forces of consumer price inflation. The new price? A shocking 70 cents. 70 cents! My God! At this rate I'll never be able to afford them again.
My favorite treat at Publix is of course the sour cream doughnut, a wonderful confection with absolutely no redeeming nutritional qualities to spoil the exquisite taste. They cost 69 cents each and I get one every few weeks when I go shopping hungry (something you should never do, but we all do it anyway).
Well, yesterday I discovered something utterly shocking. My doughnuts, lo, even the sour cream doughnuts, are not immune from the forces of consumer price inflation. The new price? A shocking 70 cents. 70 cents! My God! At this rate I'll never be able to afford them again.
03 March 2008
We're Doooooooooooooooomed!
One of the fancy brass hinges came off the laptop yesterday.
Much to my surprise it broke where it attaches to the bottom of the machine, not to the side of the lid, which was where I assumed it would break if it was going to. I can reattach, fortunately, and intend to, but it appears that this fix is going to be rather less permanent than I had hoped. Especially considering that the wires connecting the lid to the base are fraying. Quickly.
I just want to say, since it's going to come up again, that Service Net, Inc, is a piece of shit company with no ethics whose employees are coked up assholes and script-reading shitbags with no more concern for their fellow man than they have for a housefly, and whose leadership and corporate governors are the sort of people who deserve to be dragged face down through a briar patch behind a panicky horse. I have nothing but ill will for the company, its employees, and any other company who contracts or does business with them. I hope when they die their bodies are thrown into landfills to be eaten by maggots and worms and after their jewelry is picked off by poor children to be sold at pawn shops they will be utterly forgotten forever by everyone who ever knew them and the evidence of their lives will be wiped forever from the collective memory of man.
Service Net I curse thee!
Much to my surprise it broke where it attaches to the bottom of the machine, not to the side of the lid, which was where I assumed it would break if it was going to. I can reattach, fortunately, and intend to, but it appears that this fix is going to be rather less permanent than I had hoped. Especially considering that the wires connecting the lid to the base are fraying. Quickly.
I just want to say, since it's going to come up again, that Service Net, Inc, is a piece of shit company with no ethics whose employees are coked up assholes and script-reading shitbags with no more concern for their fellow man than they have for a housefly, and whose leadership and corporate governors are the sort of people who deserve to be dragged face down through a briar patch behind a panicky horse. I have nothing but ill will for the company, its employees, and any other company who contracts or does business with them. I hope when they die their bodies are thrown into landfills to be eaten by maggots and worms and after their jewelry is picked off by poor children to be sold at pawn shops they will be utterly forgotten forever by everyone who ever knew them and the evidence of their lives will be wiped forever from the collective memory of man.
Service Net I curse thee!
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