I’m sitting here writing this looking at bare walls and boxes of stuff piled all over. I’m moving tomorrow, and despite the fact that I got pretty good at moving in the past this one is difficult. It’s actually a very short move. I am only going about 10 miles. However, I have more stuff then before, and I am much more sentimentally attached to this place then any of the others.

My new apartment is pretty nice. Older, but in nice shape. It’s a corner unit so my bedroom as two windows walls with windows and an HUGE walk in closet. The bathroom is straight out of the 70s but I installed a new shower head so that is ok. The kitchen is older but functional and the living room/dinning room is very light due to a huge sliding door that opens onto a balcony. Over all I like it. It’s out of the city a ways but right next a big mall type shopping center (mostly upscale).

The downside is that I will be about 15 minutes farther away from the airport meaning I am going to have to get up a little bit earlier for those early shows.

I’m also losing an awesome roommate. He’s become a great friend and I’ll certainly miss having him around, although our schedules as of late have had us having only 1 or 2 days off in common each month.

So here I sit, procrastinating from packing (mostly because I am almost done and there is just the little stuff left to do) thinking about how I am going to miss this place and yet excited about setting up my new place.

Strange world we live in.

I was supposed to be done last night, getting back into Dayton on the last flight from Charlotte. We were running behind all afternoon but managed to catch up on the push out of Atlanta (ATL-CLT-DAY). The ground crew there did a nice job turning us despite being short staffed and having an AWA 319, a Republic 170 and a AWAC -200 in addition to us. We managed to push 3 minutes late but then were held on the taxiway for 25 minutes for release to Charlotte.

Unfortunately this is pretty normal for Charlotte. Nobody is certain why, but Charlotte has problems handling traffic. There is no major airspace in the area (think PHL crammed between New York and DC), there are no major military operations area (think PHX), huge amounts of international traffic (JFK, LAX) or habitual bad weather (SEA). But for what ever reasons Charlotte has trouble dealing with more then a few planes at a time. US Airways doesn’t help of course by scheduling a huge bank of departures just as the arrival time peaks. If you look at the Express only schedule it isn’t uncommon to see 5 flights scheduled to leave at the exact same time. That’s quite a feat considering there are only 2 runways.

Anyhow, we sat on the ground in Atlanta and then once released got about 50 miles from the runway and were slowed to 250 knots (from 310). They kept us slowed like this until about 90 miles from Charlotte when they started vectoring us off the airway and then back across it. Eventually we got cleared back to CLT but were then slowed to 190 knots. We finally did make it back to the airport where I managed a half decent landing on 18R.

Of course the company had us switching airplane so after parking I made a mad dash to grab food and then to our airplane (which was shut down and dark and cold). I got the APU going so the FAs didn’t have to sit in the dark, did the walk around and got back inside as the captain got there with our paperwork. We both started getting the plane ready and I called ops to tell them to call the gate to start boarding (we were only 20 minutes from departure). Of course as soon as I did that we got an ACARS from dispatch. Apparently the visibility in DAY was down to 1/16th of a mile and not expected to improve for a while. I quickly canceled the boarding call while the captain called dispatch to find out what was going on. Of course they had no clue what the plan was and told us to call back in 30 minutes. Things I did while waiting: ate, drank some water, watched the rain drops on the window, wondered if we would get home, hummed “do the hustle!”

(side story: going through security on day 1 of the trip in DAY… It was 6 am and I was tired. A TSA agent asked how I was doing and I told her that once I woke up I would be doing ok. She replied “oh, when I am tired I always just sing “The Hustle” and it wakes me right up.” Of course, it being early in the morning and my mind being impressionable, that was stuck in my head the rest of the trip.)

Anyhow, after about 25 minutes the gate agent came out and said the passengers were saying that according to people they were talking to the weather was fine in Dayton. She needed a break from the people I guess and hung out for a few minutes and then went back in side. Shortly after she left the CA called scheduling again and they still didn’t know what was going. He said he would call back again in a bit. A few minutes later they ACARSd us that the flight was canceled.

The bad news was that I wasn’t going to get home that night (it was day 4… I just wanted to get home). The good news was that I would get day off pay for the next day.

We eventually tracked down a hotel. While waiting for the van they assigned us a 7:15 am show meaning we were down to just 8 hours of rest, the min allowed by the FAA. Of course, that 8 hours included the time waiting for the van, checking in to the hotel, walking to the rooms and then on the flip side walking downstairs, checking out and riding to the airport. In other words I got about 5 hours of sleep plus the fire alarm went off at 3 am. Yeh!

We showed at 7:15 this morning and found out we were actually flying the flight. It turned out to be pretty routine except for a nasty crosswind the captain got to fight into Dayton. Oh well, a day late but not a dollar short.

I’ve been flying the 700 this month. I have about 600 more hours in the 200 then the 700 and have always felt more comfortable flying the smaller airplane. This month I think I’ve about gotten to the point where I am equally comfortable. One of the things that was holding me up on that is that it is very hard to have a BAD landing in the 200 while the 700 forces them all the time. However, a GOOD landing in the 700 is really good where as in the 200 it is just good.

There are pictures up from February. Exciting.

In non flying news I am moving across town this weekend. Should be all kinds of fun. Really.

Yeah! I got a table!

The new apartment is SLOWLY coming along. Actually, it isn’t coming along at all. The table is the only thing in there right now. I am putting stuff in boxes here but nothing has made it over to there yet.

Tomorrow starts a 4 day trip. Yeah!