Oh Hey. I Forgot I had this. RESURRECTION TIME!

HEY so it turns out I… will continue my blog after all.  Gotta build up that repertoire for eventual Grad School applications and such.  I’ll try for a weekly post.  No promises.  But anyway this will start in March!

Which is COINCIDENTALLY when I’m relaunching my YouTube channel.  Or rather… continuing with it.  WHEEE!

Let the fun continue!

Resolution Recap

Well the good news is that this, again, is a positive entry!  I promised myself I’d make check-ups on my New Year’s Resolutions, and that’s just what I plan to do.  Gotta mark my progress in some way, hopefully to guilt/shame myself into doing more things.  So… HOW AM I DOING?!

List A – Writing.
A1 – Finish Fanfic.  This is actually going pretty well, and I imagine I’ll be able to have them done in the relative near future.  A couple more months, or less if I really push.  I’ve only got Revisited and -Mind Net- to complete.
A2 – Finish novel.  This isn’t going as well as I’d hoped… BUT I have started doing a lot of character development and background for “Misadventures,” “Divinity,” and the “Soul Stories” series, which has helped me fill in plot holes and justify certain character traits.  I doubt I’ll be done by September with any of them; Misadventures is still my main one, though.
A3 – Publish on Cracked.  I’m about 60% done with one pitch that I’m not sure will be accepted, but I imagine this will be one of the first A-List ones I actually accomplish.  I might need to do it out of necessity; ouch being poor.
A4 – Publish short story.  I’ve written a couple of new ones since the year started, and I plan to submit them to contests and such in the coming month.  I meant to do it last month and then a lot of stuff happened and I couldn’t.

List B – Fitness
B1 – Improve ability to run.  This hasn’t happened yet.  Fail.
B2 – Stretch and yoga daily.  Also a failure.  I do it when I remember to, which is about once every fortnight.
B3 – Muscle… things.  This is… in progress.  I got a membership at the Y, and I go there when I’m around and have time and motivation.  But I’m doing better here than in the other two…
B4 – Archery.  This hasn’t happened yet and I don’t foresee it happening for a bit.  Too much money.

List C – Work.
C1 – In-Flight Manager.  I applied, and, as I’m sure everyone expected, I was never selected for an interview.  But they still haven’t replaced our current one.  I have no clue what’s going on with that.
C2 – Um… so… “no problems” may not be possible.  But I’m hoping to get through the REST of the probation with “no problems.”  We’ll all be happier once the audit is finished I think.

List D – Life Improvement
D1 – Spanish.  Hasn’t happened yet, although I’m going to start mandating it.  At least an hour of study a week.  It’s better than nothing… and if I want to improve my chances with, say, Hawaiian Airlines in a few years…
D2 – Learn to cook.  I’ve actually made a bunch of progress in this one!  In the sense that I made an omelet and some french toast the other day.  But that’s more than I could do in December!
D3 – Start a webcomic?  Let’s just shelve that one for now…
D4 – Learn to sing.  Shelved.
D5 – Learn about cars.  Yeah right.  I can’t even keep my car clean on a regular basis, let a lone anything else.

List E – Wishes
E1 – Go back to Hawaii.  Not looking so hot.
E2 – Go to Europe.  Nor is this.
E3 – Mom and Dad go on a cruise.  If I had more money…
E4 – Get acceptance letter to Hogwarts.  WE DON’T TALK ABOUT IT.
E5 – Buy a puppy.  Nope, not until I’m not a flight attendant anymore.  And no kitten, either.

So… disregarding List E because it kinda doesn’t really count, I’ve got a lot of work to do the rest of this year.  I’m really going to try.  Being poor makes some of them more difficult than others, but I know I’ll have half this list done by the end of the year (at least).  Or, rather, I hope so.

We’ll see.

Suddenly Political

This blog got political a lot quicker and stronger than I’d hope it would.  Oops.

The newest thing going around is the Kony 2012 video from Invisible Children.  And, as with nearly anything like this, it’s caused an enormous rift in the internet world.  There’s the camp of people who believe that sharing the video will solve all the problems.  There’s a camp that gets incredibly angry over any and everything about the video, claiming that everyone is just being a bandwagon political person when it comes to the whole thing with Uganda and Kony.  And then, as usual, there are the mild people who aren’t really on one side or the other of it, and perhaps recognize that simply passing on the video isn’t going to solve the problem, but that raising awareness is, at least, something.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to raise awareness.  I wasn’t aware of Kony before today.  I didn’t know exactly what had happened in Uganda.  And I’m not about to pledge my life and soul to Invisible Children, because I realize there is a lot of corruption with the charities in Africa (not always the groups, obviously, I just mean that what’s donated doesn’t always make it there).

I’ve done a little bit of research, not nearly enough of course, but enough that I realize that the video may be outdated.  Kony’s army may not be operating in Uganda nowadays and may not be as big as it was portrayed in the video any longer, but there’s no denying the horrible things Kony has done.  He, and every other warlord and cartel member, needs to answer for his crimes.  If passing this video around puts more pressure on the international community, which will make them hunt down these people, then that’s perfectly fine with me.

However, the comment that irks me to no end with this whole thing is “this has been going on in Africa (or the Middle East, South America, Asia, etc.) for x amount of time.”  As if that justifies it.  The “logic” and I hesitate to even call it that, is that just because it’s gone on for so long, there’s no point in fighting it, and getting upset about it.  I don’t think I even need to dignify that with a response.  These people use this excuse for the fight against terrorism, too.  Yes, it’s been going on for a long time.  Yes, it’s a tough fight and it might seem endless and daunting.  But then why even have cops on the streets fighting gangs?  Or drug cartels?  And think of different stories and things you heard of.  When have the heroes ever given up?

For me, the bottom line about it is that this is getting the word out about something I was not aware of, something that I want to help with.  I’m not necessarily going to donate to IC or any sort of charity that I haven’t researched. But if it spreads the word, and if we can actually take the time to contact those who can actually do something about it, perhaps it’ll be one step in the right direction to bringing Kony and other warlords to justice.  Or maybe that’s too idealistic and I’m a borderline hippie.

Next episode, 2012 RESOLUTION PROGRESS!  And hopefully less POLITICAL.

Singing in the Sun

This entry is much happier than last entry!

One of the best things about my job is being able to, with 90% certainty, figure out who you’re flying with during your trips.  And I just found out that tomorrow I’m flying with one of my favorite First Officers, which makes a 4:30 show much, much, much more bearable.  And next month’s paychecks will FINALLY get me back on track so I’m not impoverished quite as badly as I am this month.  Plus, today is the day crew bids come out for next month, so I can FINALLY list myself and Cait for our flights to visit Emily and James.

But the last trip I just got home from was fantastic as well.  It started and ended hectically, but that’s to be expected when there’s a small blizzard in Maryland and you’re 45 minutes late coming into Philadelphia because of it.  So sprinting in through the doors only to realize that my plane was parked right next door (going to Baltimore no less) made it awkward because my passengers watched me running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  But my crew was very happy and good-natured and we got to joke around a lot during the first day and a half.

Going to Roanoke last night was a quagmire of dysfunction.  Something about someone got on the plane who shouldn’t have and a double reservation and a double booked seat and weight restrictions and like 8 managers had to come out and deal with it and then we were like an hour late getting to Roanoke… come on, Charlotte, we expect this from Philly, not you! (that was sarcasm, Mr. or Mrs. Higher-Up Who Found This Blog).  And then this morning the van left before I got downstairs (that’s kind of just bad luck though; there were two Piedmont people in Roanoke from Salisbury but we had different report times etc. etc. but long story short I had to sprint through the entire airport to barely make it on the last seat on the flight to Charlotte) but, as luck would have it, I knew the Captain and First Officer so I had traveling companions for the rest of the journey, which is always fun.

And I wrote a ton, too!  Lots of downtime means I wrote out character outlines for the one story I’ve been working on since like 10th grade.  And it’s always great to do that because sometimes you learn things about the character you never knew, which is what happened in my case.  Which makes the story that much better and helped me justify a character “flaw” that I couldn’t figure out how to legitimately justify early short of a hand-wave or something equally lame.

And that’s how I ended up back in my kitchen, burning my mouth on soup, and trying to figure out how to pay everything I owe before the month ends since half my bills are due tomorrow.  Really hope I get some money back from the taxes so I can pay down (or, preferably, off!) some of my bills.

Words

In a sense, this is kind of a follow-up post to the last entry.  You’d think I would have learned this by now, but you really do have to be careful what you say, especially online.  A lot of things that make spoken words so… understandable, if you will, get lost in text.  And that’s what happened to me twice in quick succession the other day.  After that trip got cancelled, I went on the Face Books and posted a status where I said, “LOL JUST KIDDING scheduling double booked us” and some other junk about being back on reserve now.  I hadn’t meant it to be vicious or vile, like I was yelling or angry… in fact, anyone who knows me for more than five seconds knows that when I start typing stuff like that, my voice is usually being loud and sarcastic and lulzy, not mean.  But I tend to forget I’m not in college anymore, and many of my coworkers don’t know or understand that side of me.  So it offended some of the schedulers, and I didn’t realize it until a couple days later when one of them called me out on it (politely, not rudely I might add), explaining that it actually was not scheduling who did it.  Talk about feeling like shit.  I went back and read the status and realized that, out of context, it did look like I was snapping and yelling at scheduling and blaming them for shit.  So I wrote up an apology and hopefully they won’t kill me.  Honestly, we have the best schedulers ever at our airline, and I would NEVER speak ill of them.  Not just because they kind of have my fate in their hands, but because they are genuinely nice people and will do their best to help you if you ask for stuff from them.  So, again, if any of you happen to be reading this: I am sorry, and I promise I will be much more careful with what I say next time.  I should know by now that when something like that happens around the office, it’s usually never the fault of the people you think it is, but someone higher up.

So with that being said: Whitney Houston died the other day (in case you have lived under a rock and didn’t notice).  And I’ve come to the realization that the most annoying people in this situation are not the people posting/Tweeting “RIP Whitney” but the people who are posting about how stupid the people posting “RIP Whitney” are.  Usually they follow it up with “blah blah we care about a drug-addicted pop diva BUT NOT ABOUT <insert lesser known musician here> or <insert soldiers/cops/firemen/etc. here>!!!”  Well… that may be true, but you know what?  How many of you were posting about those dead soldiers and firefighters and cops before Whitney died?  It was the same after Joe Paterno died, those people who were honestly touched and affected by him posted about him, and then the other half posted about those people, bitching about how they didn’t know him personally, he was a horrible person for the cover up, yadda yadda yadda.  Just because you weren’t affected by that person, doesn’t mean aspiring singers or others weren’t upset by it.  I tell you right now, the day any of the actors from Glee or Betty White or Within Temptation or Nightwish or Criminal Minds or Lady Gaga dies (heaven forbid!), I’ll be posting about it, and I will be legitimately sad because I do look up to and respect them and enjoy their performances.  You may not care, but then don’t get mad when I don’t care about your musicians or whoever you consider really important dies.

But that all being said, I do wish the media cared more about our dying soldiers/cops/firemen/paramedics/etc.  They all do deserve the recognition and amount of sorrow and our pouring of support that movie stars get.  But at the same time, I know why they don’t do it: its stale news by now.  Another soldier dies, another cop shot on the streets, yeah it’ll make the news in the hometown, but the rest of the country is weary of seeing those types of stories.  It’s not right; but that’s how the media works.  What’ll sell more, the 4058th soldier to die in the Middle East, or the unexpected death of a Grammy-winning superstar?  And, let’s face it, how many times a day do we stop and think about all of those men and women who have died?  Maybe you do say a prayer daily, or think about them, and in that case I applaud you because I know I get so wrapped up in my own silly life that I rarely think of those people, who do deserve our thoughts, prayers, respect, and help.

Well this turned into a much longer, sappier rant than I’d originally intended.  And there was one more thing I was going to add but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was.  I do need to clean my EVERYTHING so I should get started on that.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll start going to the gym again.  Or learn to cook.  We’ll see.

Trip Cancellation

Sometimes we get to the airport and suddenly there’s two flight attendants and only one trip.  And then there is a fight to the death to see who actually gets to fly the trip.

Okay so half of that sentence is a bit of a total lie.  But the plus side is that I got to go home and work on making LISTS and THINGS.  And now I’m just sort of… writing/relaxing/preparing to submit things to writing contests and all that jazz.

Haven’t been doing the gym thing like I should have.  Which means I’m just wasting money.  I’m getting up and going tomorrow no matter what.  Even if I have to go super early.  But I will go.  And be HEALTHY.  Since I’m on reserve and the odds of me getting called out are actually pretty low since there are virtually no open trips and about 13 of us on reserve.

Maybe I’ll upload a few parts of my poorly drawn webcomics or something.  We’ll see.  I should somehow be productive tonight.

February… wait already?

Well 2012 is starting to fly by (no pun intended) and now it’s the second month already.  I joined the YMCA and have gone exactly twice (once to workout and the once to run outside when it was 40* because literally it was full inside and I didn’t want to deal with it).  I’ve been working on various writings which is exciting and makes me feel like I’m sorta being productive to my whole college… degree… thingy.  And I haven’t heard back from the In-Flight Manager position and I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not going to get an interview invite for that.  Maybe I’ll send another resume in or even hand-deliver it since I don’t really have an excuse not to, being 5 minutes from HQ…

Moving on, I’ve flown 2 out-and-backs already, which officially makes it twice the amount of trips I flew in January (though to be fair the January trip was a 3-day).  And speaking of which, I start another 3-day in about 4 hours.  Except it’s a really weird trip with low time… we fly two legs tonight, two legs tomorrow, and then the day after we fly six.  Uh… okay?  But the cool thing is we get a long overnight in Providence so I’m gonna try and hang out with a friend or two of mine when we do get there.  But the weather is looking kinda sucky right now and I’m wondering if we’re even going to get out of Philadelphia on time tonight.  My guess is not, especially because I just noticed one of the earlier Salisbury flights is literally running about 5 hours behind schedule.  (Which I realize doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be behind because it may not be the same plane but shut up).

Um… so the out-and-backs have been pretty tame, actually.  Lots of Salisbury > Charlotte and back… and one round-trip to Tri-Cities.  That was actually kinda fun because I had the -300 which has 50 seats, yeah?  So going out to Tri-Cities it was full, not a single empty seat.  Coming back, we had 4 people.  And an infant.  Yeah.  Not kidding.  But when we picked the plane up, I watched literally a dozen children and babies get off the plane with their parents… and then wandered on the plane to find what appeared to be a disaster zone or the aftermath of an F-5 tornado.  It took both me and the flight attendant coming in to get the plane ready and spiffed up so that we could leave on time.  And she was telling me that they were out of control for half the flight as it was.  Ugh.

But then the kicker was when we were coming back from Charlotte and our flight was delayed a long time coming in from Newport News.  And then we learned it was because some people were giving the flight attendant a hard time and ignoring instructions and yelling at her, so they got “removed” from the aircraft.  Remember, kids, “federal regulations require compliance with all lighted signs, posted placards, and CREW MEMBER INSTRUCTIONS.”  But then I asked my passengers what they said the delay was about and they told me that the airline said it was some “crew issue.”  That’s adorable.

I don’t think I have much else to say beyond that.  Hawaiian Airlines is hiring and  I would love to apply with them, but it’s really tough to do without having someone to stay with in Honolulu.  And, of course, getting time off work will make it nearly impossible to do as well.  But it is a dream job and maybe, someday, I’ll be able to apply!  We’ll see.  I’m perfectly happy where I am right now, but maybe in a couple of years things will be different.

You know, once we become American Airways.   … wait what?

Pain

I can barely move my arms, especially my right one.  Everything hurts.  I think I might be dying.

Oh how I’ve missed this feeling.  Welcome back to the Gym, Matt.

I finally started going back to the gym yesterday after weeks of putting it off.  There’s a YMCA nearby that my roommate goes to and so I tagged along after running out of (vaguely) viable excuses as to avoid it.  I biked for 20 minutes (which amazed me; I expected to only last 12ish) and then used a bunch of weight-lifting-exercise-machine-things.  Just to remind every muscle group that they did, in fact, exist, I targeted ALL the muscles, which is why my shoulders are having trouble moving and my chest feels tight and uncomfortable (the muscles, not my heart.  I think.  Eh it’ll be fine).

Still, despite the tightness and pain, I’m happy to be getting back into a workout routine of sorts.  I know I gotta take a few days off but I just had to sign up before February to avoid the obnoxious joining fee (lol $100 what?)  So instead I only paid $9 and then my $35/month starts on the first.  Which is just another thing to add to my monthly budget.  Next month is going to be terrible.  My paychecks will be abysmal and I don’t think there’s that much open flying anyway.  But then March is when things will start to get interesting and pick up since we’re stopping half of our LGA flying, and let me just say that I can’t WAIT until we’re out of that hell hole.  Once we’re just in PHL and CLT (which, to be fair, have their own slew of problems as well), I think things will go a lot better for the Piedmont.

Also I was looking at one of my “stories” (for the record, “stories” in quotes will probably function as a euphemism for fanfiction to make myself feel better about it) the other day and I noticed that it was published in January 2010 and I just updated it yesterday… at Chapter 6.  6 Chapters in over two years.  FFFFFFAIL.  But I’ve been on a kick so I’m trying to get that all done soon.  And then on to BIGGER and BETTER things.

On a related note, I need to go mine Mithril.  I’m only about 16 levels behind James and Emily now on Kartikeya so if I work hard I should be able to catch up…

Rest In Peace, Joe Paterno

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m not a sports fan and I could care less about baskebasefootsoccerball.  Nor am I in any way affiliated with Penn State, save for having a lot of close friends who attend(ed) the school.  But that all being said, even I am familiar and can respect the man known as Joe Paterno, who passed away early this morning.

Watching Facebook shows nearly every person I know mentioning how sorry they are, to rest in peace, and all that jazz.  But every now and again I come across someone who, once again, is bringing up the whole Sandusky case, and how they’re not sorry he’s dead because he’s apparently responsible in some way for his actions and “blah blah blah blah.”  And that sickens me.  This man, who has shaped the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, can’t even rest with dignity because so many in the media and in the rest of the world are misdirecting their rage onto him for something he isn’t responsible for.

This is my understanding of it.   Joe Paterno received a second-hand account of the abuse happening from that grad student who witnessed it.  He then passed it on to his superiors, with what I’m sure was good faith that it would be properly investigated and dealt with.  This is where a lot of people start bitching about, “blah blah blah HE SHOULD HAVE DONE MORE.”  Maybe he should have, and he himself has expressed regret that he didn’t do more.  But maybe, at the time, he did everything he was supposed to.  What’s the policy and protocol for reporting incidents at Penn State?  Are you intimately aware of it?  Because, in the past, people have been fired for not following the chain of command in these situations.  Hell, that might also explain why the grad student didn’t go directly to the police.

Let’s not forget, the real villain in these heinous incidents is Jerry Sandusky, not Joe Paterno.  Sandusky is the one who violated those kids.  And, since Joe Paterno was crucified by his superiors, that grad student who witnessed the attacks and the people Joe Paterno reported the incident to should all be axed as well.   And maybe they have been; I don’t know.  I’ve not followed it closely other than to try and figure out what actually happened.  And the saddest part is that Sandusky, as my best friend put it, has become a footnote in his own scandal.  The media got their witch-hunt, which gave them plenty of fodder to run dozens of stories on every single aspect of the situation.  There’s nothing more that the media loves than watching a legend fall from grace.  Just another reminder that I’m glad I switched away from the mass media in school.  I don’t ever want my name associated with those vultures.

But in the end, the real story is that the Penn State community lost their figurehead today, a man who has contributed in many, many ways to the university, both in terms of wealth and in creating athletes and students with honor and character.  I won’t lie; I’m not exactly familiar with the exact accomplishments and contributions of the man, but I’m certain, from what I’ve witnessed on the news and with all of my Penn State friends, it far outweighs his mistakes in the Sandusky incident.

So, for those of you who doubt him and still wish to speak ill of the dead, go right ahead.  Oh, but, answer me this: how many lives can you say you’ve truly affected in your time on earth?  Because, something tells me, Joe Paterno has you beat.

First Trip (of the Month)

Finally got called out for a trip!  This is Night #2 of my 3-day trip.  Tomorrow we’re due to deadhead (which means just… fly as passengers basically while getting paid for it) down to Charlotte, NC, do a round-trip to Asheville, and then fly on up to Salisbury again.  But there’s also a rather formidable snowstorm on the way, which I fear may trap my pilots and me in Hartford tomorrow.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

This has been a fairly uneventful trip.  Not too much in the way of delays (until our flight for LGA came in late but I have an awesome crew who don’t rush me and let me get my stuff taken care of whether the gate agents are snapping or not), and I’d say about… eh… 85% of my passengers were self-aware or seasoned travelers so they didn’t cause me trouble.  One girl kept using her Ipod and I had to blatantly ask one of my exit row people if they fully understood English… which was awkward, but it’s a violation of regulations if someone who doesn’t understand English sits in those exit rows (and let’s face it, you really want someone who can understand and respond to the flight attendant’s orders sitting there).

I wish I had more exciting things to type.  Really, I do, but it’s like 12:35, I’ve been listening to the same song on repeat for nearly an hour, and I’m starting to fall asleep.  It was a long day, but I’m really happy I got afternoon reports instead of the 4-5AM reports.  Talk about being absolutely miserable.