Updates are comin'

Sorry for the lack of updates in the past week. There hasn't been much CTI news, and I've been working a good amount of hours lately. I don't get much down-time with taking 15 credits and working 30 hours a week on top of that. I'll throw something together tomorrow though.

Oh, I'm thinking about starting up a new blog on the side. I've found that my job gives me a LOT of things to write about, so I'm not going to waste any space on this ATC blog anymore for that kind of thing. I'm intending to write about the more intangible aspects of the job, since what I do affords me a fairly unique view of society and people. It's kind of a social experiment of sorts. I've started taking notes on funny and strange happenings during my shift, so I'll throw up some posts on the other blog and see if anyone reads. And hey, if nobody reads, no worries. At least it's one way to keep me sane.

A day off!

Note: I promise that I'll try to write more about school and less about work, but school is boring and work is infuriating. Guess which one gets more press?

Yes, so I finally have a day off! As I mentioned before, Feb. 3rd was the last day I had actually "off." But, President's Day is tomorrow, and I don't have school or work. Hell yeah. I'm going to crash out and wake up at 3pm. Unfortunately the grind starts again at Tuesday at 11:45 sharp.

Oh! I got a 94% on my map test the other day for AIRT43. Considering I studied that thing for 2 whole hours, I'm glad that I did so well. I thoroughly expected to simply brain dump the whole thing after I passed the test, but I'm surprised how much of it I've retained. Airways, radials, distances, MEAs, etc. are all still there. I've always had a knack for remembering numbers (and a horrible deficiency at remembering names and faces), but I didn't think that I'd find this so easy. That'll definitely help me out later on.

Unfortunately I'm still drawing a blank on good things to say about the school. I know that I tend to be a bit negative in these posts, but I honestly don't have anything to be too positive about. I was looking forward to non-radar problems in AIRT43, but apparently that's been scratched. We worked one the other day on the board (3 aircraft converging on MLC from V9, V7, and V6) , but West didn't really go through too many specifics. He hasn't really gone over any kind of non-radar rules or techniques, so we all just sat there nodding and trying to figure out just what the hell he was doing. I guess that's what the Academy is for.

Anyway, I try to update more than once every 4-5 days, but I really haven't been up to sitting down and typing. This weekend was absolutely killer. Take the last post I made about working a friday night and multiply it by three. I won't get into too much detail, but I knocked out $2,800 in sales over my last 3 shifts. Unfortunately I only ended up taking home $300, but hey, it happens. Everyone got crappy tips this weekend.

Friday night was a bit of a dud. I'm not sure what the deal was, but I closed and only had $800 in sales by the end of the night. This equated to $88 in tips (thanks assholes!). Fortunately this store is busy enough to where $800 in sales is disappointing. Saturday night started out extremely slowly, but then got insane. When we cut to a 3-floor, the flood gates opened. We ran about 80% capacity with three servers on, which had me running 7 tables, including a party of 12. Yeehaw. $1,200 in sales, $123 in tips. Meh.

Today was even worse, but for a much more strange reason. We had a bit of a lunch rush, and I found that I'd only worked 3 tables, while a few other servers were working 5-6. I talked to the hosts about it, and they didn't do anything. I talked to them again, and they still didn't do anything. I eventually ended up getting the manager involved, and she went and set things straight. Next thing I know, I'm running 7-9 tables continuously for the next 2 hours with me and one other server on. $800 in sales, $86 in tips. Yay! Oh, I even got my first complaint today.

Seriously, this is the only job that I know of where someone who has never done your job before gets to rate your performance and pay you what they think you're worth. At one point, I was working nine tables without an expo on or food runners to help me out. That is a ridiculous workload for anyone, and I don't know too many people who could take that on without being buried. And buried I was. But, the fat dumb and happy people in my section didn't know any better. Every table thinks that they're #1, and that whenever they ask me to do something, I have to do it immediately. Of course, nobody ever looks around and says "Oh man...this guy is really busy. Let's cut him some slack." Nope. The usual stupid requests still came, but this time from nine tables at once. Table 20 wants a refill of water, 22 wants their check, 24 wants some more iced tea, 8 needs three refills, 5 wants four refills, 4 needs an extra spoon, 3 wants a side of ranch, and table 1 wants me to break a $20 bill and check how much is on their gift card (which won't scan). In the middle of that fray, I'm dealing with getting food out for various tables (remember, no expo), and dropping checks to whoever looks like they might be done in the next half hour. Good service is out the window at that point, and I'm simply just trying not to crash the section.

Nobody cares though. I got crappy tips in those 2 hours. I had one table complain about their service and stiff me (my manager was cool enough to realize that it wasn't my fault though), and more than a few left me 5-10% tips.

Now, I'm normally way ahead of my section. But staying ahead of that many tables? No way in hell. I don't know what management is trying to pull by running so few servers with such a high volume, but if they expect to have return customers, they need to have more people on the floor. That's why we run more than 2-3 servers in the first place. One person cannot handle the load of half the restaurant, especially without any assistance. I'm sure that I could have handled that load today much more smoothly than I did, but only with expos and food runners backing me up. Alone? No way.

To top it off, another manager (who has never worked as a server once in his life) commented: "Yeah, this is a hard shift." Hard shift? I work friday and saturday night rushes, and those are hard. That manager has had one week of following an actual server around to get a feel for what we do, and he thinks he can comment? I want to see him out there working that same shift. I guarantee he'll crash the whole damn thing. F- off.

I'm definitely looking to get into something else right after graduation. The money at this job is very good (I'm even planning on getting my own place as soon as possible), but the job itself is just getting to me.

Noch ein Blog zu lesen

My friend Charles just started up a blog about his life as an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University flight instructor. It promises to be a good read, so definitely give him a visit.

http://ipilot.blogspot.com

I'll also add a link in the right-side column.

Prüfung

Ugh. TRAN17 is killing me slowly. I just got an 84% on the last test, and I know that I could do better. But as Peter from the classic movie "Office Space" put it: "You see Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care." The problem is, I'm not going to get a promotion if I don't do well in this class. I keep telling myself that it's important to do the best that I can in these classes, since the FAA just might use GPA for hiring (even though they say it'll be based on ATSAT score). The upside is that I'm still doing just fine in all of my classes (though I did miss a couple small homework assignments last week), so as long as I concentrate on getting done, I know that I can do well.

I can tell you that working and going to school full time does take a pretty good toll on you. I'm finding myself feeling worn out quite a bit, which is definitely not a very good thing at all. The hours that I'm working (roughly 30/week) and going to school (13 hours/week, plus an online class) aren't what are wearing me out. I'm simply experiencing the effects of not having had a break in quite a while. The last actual "day off" that I had was February 3rd, which was the friday I came back from the Bay Area. Since then, I've either been working or going to school. Every day. Here's my typical schedule, which was my actual one last week:

Monday - School: 1pm - 6pm
Tuesday - Work: 12pm - 4pm, School: 7pm - 10pm
Wednesday - School: 1pm - 4pm, Work: 5pm - 10pm
Thursday - School: 11am - 2pm (the closest I have to a day off)
Friday - Work: 4pm - midnight
Saturday - Work: 6:30pm - 1:30am
Sunday - Work: 5:30pm - 11pm

I can't even consider taking actual weekends off either, that is, unless I don't like making rent. Big money is on weekends, and I think I've worked every weekend for jeez, the last 6 months (exception: the 2 weeks I was unemployed when I first moved to LA)? I guess I'm just a big workaholic or something. I don't feel comfortable if I didn't do something productive during the day. If I have a day off from school, I feel like I should be out making money.

Now, next week will be even worse. This last week, I didn't have to work friday night if I didn't want to. I wasn't scheduled for it, but I figured that it was a great way to make some good cash (at the expense of my mental health, but that's another story). Apparently I proved to management that I could handle it, because they scheduled me for a new shift on top of my usual tuesday, wednesday, saturday, and sunday shifts, and starts next week: friday 4pm-9pm.

Don't get me wrong. I'm psyched that they're already putting me on such a lucrative shift. That should secure my goal of bringing home $2300+/month, assuming they keep me on that shift in the following weeks. My schedule since day 1 hasn't changed much so far, so I think that this should be a fairly permanent thing. But, now I have absolutely no way of taking a day off for the next month, that is, until my thursday class finishes up. Yuck. I wonder if I can handle that.

I could very well take this friday off, on which I'm planning on picking up a shift. I hear thursday nights are very lucrative (and rival saturday nights), so I'll see about that. Then again, having a single day off for the next month doesn't sound like much fun either. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to man up and do it.

This all makes me realize just how easy ERAU was. All I had to do there was concentrate on school. It's amazing that I only got a 2.975 GPA when all I had to do was study. Right now I'm trying to maintain something close to a 4.0, plus I'm having to work to pay rent. I guess I can be happy that the classes are just so stupidly easy here. Heh.

Oh, I made a bit of an edit to the title of my blog. I think it's very fitting.

Auf wiedersehen.

Müde

So, I'm watching Olympic Curling right now. What's curling exactly? I haven't the slightest clue. I'm sitting here with the most confused look on my face right now, watching people slide stones across ice and sweeping in front of it. I don't have any idea how the game is played, so I'm finding myself thinking that the USA has scored a point, but instead finding out Canada scored three. Weird. Where is bobsledding or ski jumping? Man.

As expected, Mt. SAC hasn't turned in the ATSAT lists to the FAA yet. They said that they'd do it last friday, but now they're saying "this week." Yeah, that's what you said last week. I'm really getting sick of these people. I'm glad that I decided to knock this all out in one semester, else I think I'd go nuts. I like to jokingly say that the school is overly annoying and difficult with its students to prepare us for working for the FAA. Actually, I'm really half-joking when I say that. Half of me laughs, half of me cries.

Speaking of Mt. Ballsac, I still haven't heard back from admissions about my transcript evaluations for my general ed classes, but I'm sure I'll hear something soon enough. The common story I've heard from people graduating in one semester is that the school will first botch your eval and say that you have to take extra general ed classes, then will back down when you put up a fight. Why can't we just get it right the first time? Who is hiring these people?

Ah, so. Work. Trust me, I won't go on a long rant this time (I fear I'm losing readership that way, if I had any to begin with). I just had my best week yet. I took home $385 in tips, along with my base $6.75/hour for 30 hours worked. That $6.75/hour comes out to be about $5/hour after taxes, so that's an extra $150 on top of my tips for an approximate total of $535. If I can keep up that earn rate, that's about $2300-$2400/month, or ~$28,000/year. High twenty-thousands per year for waiting tables? I'll take it.

The only problem with keeping up that earn rate is that I picked up a very lucrative friday night shift last week, one which I'm never scheduled for. I'm trying to pick up another friday night this week, but until I get established at this restaurant I might not be able to keep up $500+/week. The thing that I do have going for me though is that over the past 3 weeks I've been averaging a pretty constant $18/hour with base pay included. Even if I can't pick up a friday night again, I could probably pick up a shift or two mid-week just to get my hours up. That's the whole thing: Put in the hours. Let the math sort itself out. If I can work a consistent 30-hour week, I'll be making some very nice money.

That, however, brings me to a bit of a quandry. After graduation, I'm considering going and getting a higher paying "real" job until the FAA calls. One of the top ideas I've received so far is to go into auto insurance adjusting, which is a mid-$30,000/year salaried job that only requires a Bachelor's degree. No previous experience is necessary, and the company flies you all around the country for 2-3 months for training. That wouldn't be a bad gig whatsoever. Also, there are seemingly TONS of these jobs in the LA area.

The second interesting idea is real estate. I was just talking to my mom tonight, who is rated in the top 5% of real estate producers in the nation. She said that if I were to go that route, she'd train me from the ground up with everything that I'd need to know. Considering she does very well for herself, that doesn't sound like a terrible idea. But. I've been in the sales field before, and I didn't do very well. Granted, my bad experience at Tim's Toyota was due to a number of things, but you can imagine how apprehensive I'd be going back into a sales position. Something to consider though.

Oh well, I'm just tossing around ideas right now. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to let me know. It would only be for 1-2 years, and must 1) pay more than $30,000/year, 2) be ethical, and 3) be legal. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Ich soll gerade schlafen

Well, that's the last time I put off my CISB11 homework until after I get off work. It was due by midnight tonight, but I thought that I'd be out of work by 10 at the latest (I was scheduled to get off at 9). I didn't clock out until 12:30am. Whoops. It's a good thing that I've gotten 100% on all of my assignments thus far. One missed one won't kill me.

Actually, that's the second time I've done that this week. I should really be more careful. I forgot about an assignment due in my AIRT43 class on thursday, simply because I was busy studying my non-radar map (which I did get a very good grade on). I did forget what radial V4 is off of TUL VOR, but I only missed by 5 degrees, and even remembered small stuff like the distance from TUL to DEPEW (39 nm).

In other news, I'm hoping that Rogus (Mt. SAC Aeronautics Department Chair for anyone unfamiliar) faxed the ATSAT sign-up list to the FAA today. That school is a bit behind the power curve most of the time, so I won't be surprised if I go in on monday and they say "oh yeah...we forgot." Meh.

I really just want to get this program done. I'm not learning a whole heck of a lot, and the weeks are just dragging on. Then of course, I remind myself that I've only been here a month. Ugh. I'm so glad that I decided to do all of this in one semester. I don't know if I'd be able to handle two semesters of this crap. If we actually did something related to ATC, I'd have no problem. But, every bit of this program revolves around the basics that I already know. Oh, I did get a 100% on my first AIRT41 test, and a 94% on my AIRT42 test (I missed a couple questions on ATC history...big deal). 94% is pretty good for not having taken a single note or even cracked the book open. I've got a TRAN17 test coming up this coming tuesday that I will need to study for though. Hopefully that goes well enough.

That's about all the CTI news I have for now. Intriguing eh? Heh.

So, I worked my first friday night shift at work tonight. That was uhh, pretty different than I remember from my old store. We ran a 7-chart tonight on a full dinner push, which was a bit crazy. We used to run a 14-chart at the Prescott store on friday nights, and our dinner rush wasn't even as big as this one. Think I'm talking it up again? My sales from 4pm-10pm were $1,018. That's averaging $170/hour in sales, which with 15% tips comes out to ~$25/hour (and I easily had a couple $250-$300 hours mixed in there).That's not even including my base pay. Yay for waiting tables.

Wait, no. Tonight sucked. I mean, really sucked. We were all complaining at the beginning of the week about not making any money because of how slow it was. As usual, the rules of statistics apply, and we got smashed tonight to make up for it. Tonight was very lucrative (though tips sucked), but I'm not so sure it was worth it. I've never been so beat at the end of a shift. We ran a constant push for 5-6 hours straight, and my section was full 100% of the time. Working 5 tables at a time isn't too difficult normally, but doing that for 5 hours at a time really wears you down. I ran my section just fine, but I got my ass kicked pretty hard.

Seriously, once I'm done with school, I'm done. I'm done working for tips. I hate it. It doesn't matter if it's a friday night and every server is slammed. People just don't care. They think that they're the only people in the restaurant, and when they ask for something, they want it now. That's just not plausible, and I don't think that many people understand that. Maybe they understand that I'm busy, but they certainly don't understand the reasoning behind why they have to wait. Here's a clue: If you have to wait for something, it's for a reason. Have to wait 4-5 minutes for a refill? Great...yell at my other tables. They probably have more pressing matters, and you're #4 in line for your side of ranch. Not my problem. It's simple: wait your turn. It's just like waiting in line at a bank.

Of course when you make people wait (for any reason), they tip less. While I averaged a nice hourly rate tonight, my tip percentage sucked. Why? "Oh, that evil server. We had to wait 5 minutes for a refill. He obviously sucks at his job. 9% tip." Yeah, thanks asshole. While you were sitting there wondering where your drink is, I just had to get food out to a big party, had 5 requests from that one party, and 5 more from other random tables. On top of all of that is your refill, and many times if taking one of those other requests in front of yours works with my overall plan better, I'll do that. Yeah, you get bumped a spot. Sorry. Wait, no I'm not.

By the very end of our dinner rush tonight, I was seriously about ready to throw a drink glass at the wall. I was at my wits end. I'm normally a very calm and collected person, but tonight just got to me. Everyone wanted something, all the time. People aren't normally this bad...it must be a friday night thing. Oh, I did have one table of latinos call me a racist tonight too. Why? The manager declined their request to go sit out on the patio, and I dropped off their check before they were done (so they felt rushed). Unbelievable.

Yeah, no more. This job wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for ignorant people that don't understand just how stressful and trying this job is. Oh, and I would love to be able to decline requests. Oh man, that'd be the shit. Side of ranch? Sorry, too busy. Ask in 5 minutes. I'd be like the center controller you thought was an asshole when you were a student pilot for not giving you VFR advisories.

Man, that'd be great. But for now, I have to get everything you ask for, no matter how much it screws up my plans. I guess that is my job, but meh.

Okay, it's coming up on 5am. Time to sleep.

In the weeds

I have nothing really new to report on school, though I did just memorize our crappy AIRT43 non-radar map in 2 hours...bwahaha. I'll choke on my own hubris I'm sure.

But for now, I wanted to give a little update on work. When I first got here and found that I was making $20/hour by serving burgers and 1/2 oriental chicken salads, I thought about how nice it would be to be able to make that kind of money by being on the floor 40 hours/week. Now? Yeah, right. I make a good hourly rate for a reason, and it's not because the job is easy.

I had something kind of embarassing happen tonight. I was in the weeds. Hard. I had everything under control, but I was basically in the "get everyone paid and out" mode that I get into when I get really busy. I start dropping checks like a madman, and even sometimes catch flak from customers about hurrying them out the door. Yeah, well, that's too bad. If I end up at that point, my only goal is to get you out of my section so that I don't have to deal with you anymore. I'm just trying to reduce my workload by reducing my tables. Hey, it works. I'm surprised more servers don't work like that.

Anyway, yeah, things were bad tonight. I'm not sure how many people that read this have been a restaurant server before, but people tend to think that serving food to a few tables is always easy. Sure, there are some days when I'll be working 6-7 tables and won't break a sweat. On the other side of the coin, I've gotten my ass kicked by a 3 table section before. It all has to do with timing.

So, tonight the timing of all my tables was the worst it could possibly be. I must have flipped off an old lady on the way to work, because karma was obviously not on my side. That, combined with the alignment of Jupiter and Mars, made for a good time. It's rare that one simple thing will absolutely throw my section into disarray, but tonight it happened. What was that "simple thing"? I had to wait for a birthday sundae. Yep, you know what I mean. One of those free sundaes you get when it's your birthday...just a scoop of vanilla icecream, some chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. I'll never again look at a sundae the same way.

Here's what happened: I was working a party of 8 (an "8-top"), plus three other tables in my section. That's really not a tough workload at this store. The 8-top (just finishing dinner) requested that we do our stupid birthday song, so I had to actually punch the birthday sundae into the computer and wait for the bar to make it. That damn birthday sundae takes 20 seconds to prepare, tops. Well, 10 minutes later, and I'm still wondering where this thing is. The bartender is walking around cluelessly talking to random people, and he's not really paying attention to my or any of the servers wondering where our stuff is. No worries. I went and told the 8-top that I'd have it out as quickly as I could, and that my hands were a bit tied. Sorry.

Still waiting, I see that the hosts are taking a couple of my tables and putting them together to give me another big party. This is another 8-top. One of the #1 things that you need to do when you're about to get sat with a big party is get the rest of your section sorted out. If anyone needs refills, now is the time to do it. I know that I'm going to have to spend the next 10 minutes getting their drinks, taking orders, etc.

Meanwhile, my stupid sundae is still nowhere to be found. It becomes pretty evident that in order to get the first 8-top their birthday song, sundae, and their check within the next 10-15 minutes (they're now done with dinner), I'd have to do it before the second 8-top sits. Normally I have a plan B just in case plan A doesn't pan out, but I didn't have a plan B this time around. Plan A had to work, damn it. Where's my f-ing sundae?

Well, the second 8-top sat down and started looking at menus, and I had to go over there and talk to them. No way out of that one. I went over there and grabbed drink orders (only 2 of them spoke English), and then had to go make them all. Oh great, there's the sundae. Great timing, asshole. What was that...15 minutes after I put in the order for it? Awesome.

So, now the first 8-top wants their birthday song and a check, and the second 8-top wants their drinks. That's not even considering that I've got 3 other tables going, and they intermittently want random stuff. I ended up getting the second 8-top their drinks first (and then took their food orders), all while the first 8-top is looking at their watches. Greeeat. I went over to the first 8-top and apologized and explained that I simply didn't have time to fit it in, and that I was simply way too busy. They seemed to understand well enough. They told me that they just needed to head out, and asked for their check (here, now I'm thinking I'm about to lose a good tip on a $140 ticket).

While this is all happening, I got sat with two more tables. I told the hosts to tell the new tables to wait. I don't do that very often, but if this section is going straight to hell, I'm going to be driving damn it. Right now I'm working 6 tables, complete with two 8-tops that are getting in each other's way, and 2 tables that need to be greeted and have drinks brought out to. Let's not forget the other (at this point) 2 tables I've been working that have food going out and have random requests. Here's where I start dropping checks like crazy. Weeeeeee.

Unnecessarily long story short, that simple sundae ended up causing bad table timing to propagate through my section for the next hour and a half. If only that lazy bartender had let me get that sundae out to the first 8-top before the second one sat down, all of that could have been avoided. Butterfly Effect anyone?

The people on the first 8-top really were understanding though. They left me a 20% tip on a $140 ticket, which ain't too shabby at all.

What I can't believe is that I just wrote all this about waiting tables. Jeez. In the words of the great Dane Cook: I can't wait to quit this job.

Ich will ein Fluglotse sein

I'm updating my blog right now instead of doing homework for my AIRT42 class due tomorrow. That's probably not the smartest thing to do, but honestly, how excited can you get about a couple pages of phraseology exercises? I suppose it is necessary, though. It's necessary for the people that haven't spoken a word on an aviation frequency, but it's also very necessary for me. Why me? I've keyed the mic literally thousands of times and spoken to all common forms of ATC (sorry, I haven't spoken to Gander Oceanic on the NAT tracks yet). Why do I need to go over this stuff?

Simple. I'm lazy.

No, really. I'm a pilot. Ask any controller, and I'm sure you're likely to get all kinds of horror stories about bad pilot phraseology. Really, we as pilots aren't generally trained to the same phraseology standards as controllers are. I'm not sure why that is (since bad pilot phraseology can create dangerous situations just the same), but those are just the facts of life. I can recall one exchange I had with Denver Center a couple years back with the utmost clarity. I bet the controller just about had an aneurysm. Let's check it out:

Me: Uhhhh center, 54H, any chance for one eight zero?
Denver: Seminole 8154H, verify you're requesting a climb to flight level one eight zero?
Me: That's affirm. 54H.
Denver: Seminole 8154H, climb and maintain flight level one eight zero.

That is as close to verbatim as I can get it. I won't discuss why it's bad (people with much more experience than I have already done such things), but I just wanted to point out just how bad I've been on the radio.

That, of course, is one of the good things about this whole CTI thing. Even though I know how to listen to and talk on an aviation frequency, I need some work before I'm able to get this phraseology thing down 100%. The people just going over this for the first time, well, they're lucky. They have the law of primacy on their side. They can learn it correctly the first time. Poor bastages like me have to correct mistakes and relearn a good deal. That is even more difficult than learning it the first time, in my opinion. Ugh...time to hit the 7110.65 some more. Maybe I should also do some homework.

---

By the way, I ended up getting ~85% on a quiz on the "parts of an airplane" the other day. It's exactly how it sounds: this is the fuselage, this is the wingtip, etc. And yes, I got an 85%. I'm trying to figure that one out. I guess it would have helped if I could tell through the horribly xeroxed diagram just where the arrows were pointing.

Really, if a guy with a B.S. degree in Aeronautical Science and a CFI/CFII/MEI certificate gets an 85% on a quiz about the parts of an airplane, son, there's something wrong with your quiz.

Es endlich kommt

Well, I just received some good news a couple days ago from a professor at UAA (University of Alaska Anchorage) on the atccti.com message board. Apparently on friday afternoon, UAA received a notice from the FAA giving them the green-light to give the ATSAT to all CTI students graduating before June 30th, 2006. Of course this doesn't only apply to UAA. Mt. SAC students and graduates already in the FAA's testing database have begun getting notices to expect a test date within the next 45 days. I'll get the full scoop in class tomorrow I'm sure, but this ball is finally rolling. It also appears that most of us were wrong about the FAA's intentions to try to stick more people in the "B-scale" by cutting testing dates. It now seems as though the 1% budget cut taken across the board for FY2006 might have had a thing to do with it.

Now, unfortunately, I can't say for sure that I'll be able to take the ATSAT this time around. I'm graduating before June 30th of course, but I'm not on the FAA's testing list just yet. Last week we began sign-ups, but ran out of time in class to accomplish them. I'll be signed up fully tomorrow afternoon, but I hope that's not too late. I doubt it will be though, since there would be a LOT of people left in the cold if that were to happen. Then again, this is the FAA we're talking about.

Der neue GTI

This isn't supposed to be a car review blog, but what the hell? This is probably one of the best cars I've driven in a while, so I suppose it gets an entry of its own. For anyone who doesn't know what kind of car I'm talking about, I'm talking about the new MkV (say "mark five") Volkswagen GTI. Here's a pic:


I have a soft spot for German hatches. I test drove the Audi A3 about a year back, which is based on the same platform as the GTI. I thought that the two cars would be very similar, but I couldn't have been more wrong. The A3 is more elongated and quite a bit "softer" than the GTI, with the GTI having a more aggressive presence. I don't have enough time behind the wheel of either car to really comment further on suspension, etc.

Since my bud Brendan sells Volkswagens up in the Bay Area, he was able to get me a test drive in a Black Magic Package-0 with a 6-speed manual transmission. This thing was pretty basic, but hey, I drive a car with the word "value" in its official title. I'm not allowed to talk. For what the car is though, it's priced very well. That seems to be a long-standing plus of the GTI line: affordability. The car MSRP'd somewhere just above $22,000, but the expected dealer markup brought that up over $27,000. I can't say that I blame them though. This car just came stateside. It's right off the boat, so to speak. And yes, it is a proper German car. It's built in Wolfsburg, Germany, and not in Bratislava or Puebla, Mexico (yes, Bratislava really exists).

When I first sat in it, I knew where every button and switch was. How? It's almost identical to my Jetta on the inside. Granted, the Package 1 and 2 cars will have upgraded components, but the Package-0 seems to share a good deal of interior components with its boaty hubcapped cousin.

There are plenty of differences though. The gauges are upgraded, and the steering wheel is, well, weird. It's got bulky segments, and has a flat bottom section. It feels strange when you're parked, but just as a Mooney suddenly fits like a glove right after takeoff, it feels great when you're actually moving.

When we got going, Brendan drove it off the lot and gave me a little bit of a preview of what the car would do when we got out of eyesight (and earshot) of the dealership. We parked at a random fast food restaurant down the road a bit, and I swapped into the driver's seat.

The first thing I noticed was that the clutch caught VERY low. I almost stalled the damn thing the first launch, but I quickly found that it was very easy to get going at 800-1000 RPM without much effort. This was definitely much better than the A3, which I stalled 2398092834 times during the course of the drive.

Okay, I have to admit something. I have a bit of a fetish for brake pedals. Brake feel can make or break a car in my opinion, so I was interested to see how the GTI felt. I was a bit disappointed at first to note that it's very sensitive off the top. It definitely wasn't as bad as a 350Z, but it's up there. I was already expecting the worst.

We started off, and I got to mess around in a straight line on the freeway to get an idea of what kind of acceleration the car had. Just like my car, it's got a fairly low sensation of speed. In fact, it's worse than my car. It was very easy to romp on it, grab third, go for fourth, and realize that you were at 90 and climbing hard. I expected the car to push you back in your seat a bit more (the A3 felt faster), but the speedometer tells no lies. This car gets up and goes.

Unfortunately I got stuck behind a trash truck, so I didn't get to play around in the corners too much (which is what I really wanted to do in the first place). I did get to take one corner at a good clip in the thing, but as Brendan will attest, my line was g-a-r-b-a-g-e. Hey, I claim ignorance. I'd never seen that onramp in my life. ;)

I can, however, comment that the overly-sensitive brake pedal somehow becomes perfectly natural when it's time to brake into a corner. I found it very easy to get a heel-toe knocked out and trailbrake into the corner without much difficulty at all. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the nose shoots in like a champ, and the tail was more than happy to lighten up sufficiently. I did catch the ESP light, but I noticed that unlike the ASR in my car, the programming is very unobtrusive. It didn't kill my corner whatsoever. In fact, it still let me have a good amount of fun. This is a nice change from the ASR programming's "no fun" policy. I make a squeak with my tires, and that damn thing chops my throttle.

Anyway, that is unfortunately all I can say about the car at this point. I wish I could have had a bit more time behind the wheel, but Brendan needed to have the car back and actually get to work. Hopefully I can get some more stick time at some point and be able to report something useful.

Damn, I want one. Machs gut.

Beschäftigt

Sorry for the lack of updates this past week. I've been pretty busy with school and work, and really, I haven't had much to talk about. Well, let's start at the beginning.

Classes. What can I say? I've said it many times before and I'll say it again: this program is a joke to someone with prior experience. I didn't expect anything hard, but c'mon. I can say one thing: it's been a decent refresher for me, since I've been pretty removed from the flying world for some time.

I do have some real issues with the academic training here though. I'm finding that certain things are being taught either incorrectly, or are taught in a way that's "kinda sorta" true. I suppose some of the information doesn't need to be taught in a fully detailed way to a class full of future controllers, but still. An FAR professor telling the class that a CFI legally needs a second class medical to work? C'mon. That's just WRONG. Sadly, that's not the worst bit of misinformation I've heard here. But, I'll digress.

Unfortunately, there is still no word on when the ATSAT will be taking place. To be perfectly honest, I'm not holding my breath on even this semester. I hope to god that I'm wrong, but it looks like we might all be in for a bit of a wait. NATCA president John Carr even made a blog entry about it today. That can be read here. It's definitely worth a read.

Work. Well, work is work. I'm currently working 20-25 hours/week, and averaging a pretty solid $20-30/hr while I'm on the floor. Entire shifts rarely average below $15/hr, with the lowest being $13/hr on my first day. Suffice to say, this is a pretty lucrative gig. I just wish I could do this 40 hours a week! I'd really be rolling in the dough if that was the case.

Well, I guess I don't really want to do it 40 hours a week. Not at this store. Being on the floor any more than 5 or so hours at a time really beats you up. I used to work 40 hours a week at my old store, but then again, we ran double the amount of servers at any given time. In Prescott, I might have had a 3-4 table section during the dinner rush. Here, I had a 7-table section tonight. And you better believe I used 'em all.

I am very happy to note though that I am back in my old form again. It took a few shifts, but I've knocked off just about all of the rust. The good thing is that I think I might actually like my job. This store is very well run, and everyone is *gasp* good at their jobs and help each other out. It's a good group of people, and I don't mind spending my hours away from school there.

Ich werde im einige Tage noch ein Update geben. Morgen fahre ich nach Nordkalifornien, um meine Freunde zu besuchen.

Machs gut!