I managed to sleep in until 9am yesterday, and then headed down to the Chinese grocery to buy some Dr. Pepper. I read less than half of the very dense General Operations Manual before class. We got to the classroom before 3pm, eager to get started. Just after 3pm, a young guy rolled in on a wheelchair. He didn’t say anything at first, and pecked around at computer on a desk in the corner. It became obvious he didn’t have any use of his fingers, but he seemed pretty adept at holding his wrist just right to get his fingers to do things.

After a few minutes, he introduced himself and gave us a half-hour personal history. He’s been working for Mesa for 15 years, got hired initially as a first officer in the Beech 1900. After a couple years of service, he made captain by age 26, being the youngest captain ever. He made check airman at 29 and was busy working in the training department as a check pilot when he skied into a tree in Winter Park, CO. He liked deep powder, and would apparently go ski through the trees in an attempt to find the stuff that wasn’t packed down. He hit a tree he never saw and broke his neck. After 6 months of rehab, Mesa took good care of him, and he’s been working as a ground instructor ever since.

After giving us his history, he talked about the company awhile, then we spent another 45 minutes or so giving him our histories. I still can’t get over the diversity in our class. We have folks originally from England, France, Netherlands, Ghana, Kenya… At some point our instructor from the day before walked in and said, “Tom?” “Yes?” “You been, uhh…” and pantomimed smoking a joint. We all looked pretty wide-eyed at the instructor who started laughing at himself pretty loudly. “Just kidding, but we haven’t gotten your drug testing results back, so you’re gonna have to wait outside until they’re done.” So, Chad, our quadriplegic instructor, sent us off to dinner in hopes that Tom’s drug testing results would come back by the time we returned. I hopped in a car with my roommate (who isn’t living with me) and we went to a chinese place for dinner. When we got back to the classroom, Chad said he wasn’t feeling great and Tom’s drug test results still weren’t in, so he was just going to put off class until tomorrow and sent us home.

Fortunately, before he did, he left us with a huge study guide, which I’ve been trying to get through. It’s big, long, and is just the questions with no answers– which is useful. I’ve been typing up the answers, which is more industrious study than I think I’ve engaged in in a very long time.

I think I’m going to head out to the pool so the entropy fairy can work her magic on my room.