I was surprisingly fresh and focused after staying up all night watching dots on my clock and anime. Focused, sharp, impatient even but not too much. It’s a state of mind I like even if I’m serious by heart, at such a moment a smile is not far away. We flew another instrument flight today, which I wouln’t get too deep into, I’ll explain later. It was mostly flying in circles without looking outside, fly all with the instruments onboard. We tried contacting Orlando Approach which handles most of the organized traffic in order to make a special training approach back to the airport (a GPS one for the record). Due to the coverage of the Approach, it’s not uncommon at all hearing only their side of an conversation, with other aircraft being so far away from us and all.

There was a R22 from our school in our training area, that announced they were gonna make the same type of approach about 15 minutes before we did. 31G was its callsign I believe. After lengthy time of checklists and radio mess, we tried contacting Approach but within the minute we heard them respond to 31G, but we never heard the 31G side of the chat. About 15 minutes after we tried to contact the Approach, they were still sorting out 31G for their approach and hadn’t even started dealing with us. At the time we heard “*sigh* OK, 31 Golf, Orlando approach, What exactly do you want to do?” we figured out that either we said screw it and went back the normal usual way. We were shutting down when 31G finally came in for landing. What the hell they did remains a mistery to me.

I plan to break this blog up to two categories. Like my friend/admin says those stories are meant to come from the skies themselves, so from now on I’ll sort my posts into three categories. Mindless raving, flight, and combines (still working on the names of those). The previous posts have mostly been of the Mindless (or somewhat mindful) category. My next post will be flight. This is pretty much mixed, ’cause it’s alot of yada yada in it but it’s about flying. So stay tuned!

The UPS man is becoming a daily visitor. A certain someone is going nuts ordering things online and having me dragging the goods back to Iceland for the holidays.

Last time this happened I was meeting my brother in NY for his part of the marathon there.  I brought a gigantic suitcase of the size of roughly 2′x3′x6′ absolutely stuffed. My personal belongings composed of few pair of boxers, socks and a toothbrush were crammed in as filling. People on the streets of Manhattan made comments about the vast size of the container I dragged around, including the possibilities of using such thing as living habitat. I ran into trouble at both airports, both ways, at the shuttle in Orlando International, both ways, both taxis I took in NY, the hotel I checked in…plus getting the damn thing in and out of my car of total of 4 times (for I stayed few nights in Orlando for my finals there), and on top of that various run-ins with people just having a problem with my bag…about 23 “things” happened to me that would’ve never occur if I hadn’t had to carry the damn thing around in the first place. Plus of course the oversize/overweight charge but those that ordered the damn things can eat that.

I’m leaving the damn bag in Iceland. Not giving the opportunity for people to try this again. Then again, my sis brought back an Aeron chair that almost costed my brother-in-law an eyeball, so that’s their argument that I should stop my bitchin’ and just get over it.

This thing will happen again though. And it’s gonna be huge. Icelandic law says you can ship a container of household and belongings if you’ve lived more than a year outside the country, no taxes or anything. My sister filled hers with grills and other nonsense when she moved from Boston, and the same thing will happen to me. I’ll abuse this thing as hell though myself, like the rest, bring back a nice flatscreen HDTV or something…man. I’ll need an industrial grade voltage converter to run my applications when I get home. That is if I can afford buying things to ship home but hey.

Dayum. I woke up after 2 hours of sleep. Again. I thought I was finally passed that. Damnit, I need my sleep! I have an IFR helicopter booked for 9 AM, guess it’s better than a VFR one ’cause I have to wear foggles for the instrument practices. (Foggles: Fogged goggles so you can only see the instrument panel in your helicopter - from the people that brought you sporks!) It’s easier on the eyes.

My roommate threw out that 6 feet floor lamp that I stole somewhere over a year ago and never got to work. Replaced it with some fancy $12 one from Walmart. One with those colored light bulbs that bugs can’t see…looks like my beanbag’s on fire when that thing’s on.

I installed World of Warcraft again, partly to remember why I stopped playing the damn thing but mostly ’cause my best friends brother bought him a copy and I wanted to help him out. Good stuff, doing stuff you like with the people you dig.

What kind of post do you expect from 2 hours of sleep? Screw it, I’m gonna go get something to eat and either watch anime or stare at my binary clock until I go flying or I pass out, whichever comes first.