Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Can I Have These Last Few Days Back?

For frak's sake, where have I been?  I just realized it's almost a week since I've posted anything.  It's not because I've been terribly busy or anything.  Well, I did have to work a few times.  And there it begins.  I've explained in the past how I get to choose my schedule.  On work days, I'm on call from 10 AM til midnight.  This not only keeps the phone from ringing in the middle of the night, but I have to finish my flying by midnight.

Except.

I can be assigned a trip the day before.  When this happens I'm released from duty until the start of said trip.  It's a dirty little trick schedulers use to get the most out of my fourteen hour duty time.

So Saturday I got nailed for a redeye.  One with a four hour break and no where to take a nap.  By the time I got home 5:30 Sunday morning, my day was already ruined.  Naps only extend the tired.  Then yesterday I flew to Medellin, Columbia.  It still amazes me I can travel round trip from one continent to another in the time between breakfast and dinner.  Still, seven hours of boring.  It didn't start out well though.  When the captain warned me to keep an eye on him because he'd been off for two weeks I suggested he must have been having fun.

No.  His father died.

When am I going to develop the ability to probe one's mind before saying stupid things?

When we got to Columbia he went inside for a mystery meat sandwich.  I declined because I had a steak dinner waiting at home.  Not so fast.   US Customs computers went down nationwide.  The captain got through just in time, but I stopped first to pee.  I was in line forever. 

Finally, I got home and fired up the grill.  My grill sucks by the way.  Time for a new one.  But that wouldn't have fixed my dinner.  Some time ago my meat guy went out of business.  The stockpile of filet mignon has long since been consumed.  Until I find a new meat guy, I'm not paying market price for the good stuff.  As a result, last night's dinner was a tasty, yet grisly mess, impossible to cut.

Then came today.  I hoped to write, but my car needs some work.  The auto shop isn't far - by motor vehicle standards - by peddle power, not so close.  They were going to have the car all day, so I threw my bike in the trunk.  Now, forget the fact I haven't ridden in years - the tires were so flat, I didn't know if they were still capable of holding air.  Somehow, no matter what direction I was peddling, I had 50 knots of frakking headwind.  How does that even happen?

Well, I did say I was going to start exercising this week.  Consider the first workout done.  Maybe I'll write later.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice post. thanks.

MC Howe said...

Um...Your welcome?

Natalie said...

Okay, I was chuckling at your post and then I saw the comment. RANDOM. But funny. I haven't been on a bike since I was 16, I'm pretty sure I'd kill myself if I had to ride it around for errands.

You are hilarious.

MC Howe said...

Natalie - I'm feeling it today. I don't know how Lance Armstrong does it. Oh, and here's the best part. The car needs more work. Same place. Same pain.

Kathy said...

I hope this question isn't too stupid, but what does redeye mean, in terms of flying?

MC Howe said...

That means flying all night. By the time you're done your eyes are red from being awake all night.

Jessie Oliveros said...

Cool-My husband lived in Medellin for awhile. He stayed a little longer, though :) And we buy our filet mignon from Costco. So good.

Amy Saia said...

You should do what I do, exercise in between putting cookies in the oven to bake. Jumping Jacks work pretty good.

Wendy Sparrow said...

LOL. Your anonymous poster is... uhh... interesting. Wow... your week was craptastic. We have a meat guy too! Well, we did. He hasn't been around for a bit. Our dog could always predict when he was here. The dog would go CRAZY... like rabid crazy... like someone was dragging a meat-truck around the streets. It would take our dog like an hour to settle down.

MC Howe said...

Jessie - I read that weird. My first reaction - poor girl, her husband abandoned her for Medellin. I hope that worked out.

Amy - I've got Wii Fit. With the Olympics going on, I'm trying to break my ski jumping record.

Wendy - Your meat guy delivered? Like the mailman? No wonder your dog went nuts. What kind of wierd world do you live in?