So why aren’t I flying?

I’m annoyed that I had to come to New York yesterday just so I could sit around and do nothing. Well, I did a little more than nothing, but I didn’t get to fly.

I rode JetBlue yesterday. I didn’t get an exit row, but I did get one of the new “even more legroom” seats which have 38″ of seat pitch. 38″ is way more than even I need. The flight left about 45 minutes late, then we were in a hold for another 15 minutes. In other words, a normal flight to JFK.

I eventually met Anjeanette in the village for dinner. We ended up at the Slaughtered Lamb Pub in the West Village. Anjeanette picked it. I had a mediocre burger and okay fries. Decent (though not exciting) beer selection. Anjeanette, I think, mostly likes the place because of Mrs. Pacman. Which we didn’t play. We did have a fun time, and I hope I’ll get to see her again some time.

I really should learn my way around some subset of NY without a map. The village would be convenient because that seems to be where everyone wants to meet me, but on the other hand, everyone else knows their way around the village, so maybe I should pick some other place to learn. The village confuses me because the streets aren’t at even vaguely 90 degree angles.

While I was at the pub, crew tracking called me. At about 9:30pm. Since I didn’t go on duty until 7am the next day, I figured that they must have something for me in the morning, and I figured the sooner I knew about it the better. It turns out that she was calling to notify me of a trip on SUNDAY. Why they called me late in the evening on my day off to notify me, god only knows. I suppose that’s better than 7am or 3am.

So, today is Wednesday, and they don’t have a trip for me until Sunday. I whined about this via SMS to one of my buddies that was in my class. He’s got a line this month and thought he would let me know that it looked like he was going to time out for his trip to Dallas tomorrow, and maybe I should try to get crew tracking to give it to me. I thanked him, and told him to call me later tonight after he finds out what’s up.

So when crew tracking called a few minutes ago (after I went off duty, of course) it wasn’t to notify me that they’re giving me the Dallas trip. Nope, it was to let me know that they want me to sit ready reserve tomorrow morning.

Which really, really, bites. I was trying to figure out how to amuse myself in the city tomorrow, but it seems I needn’t have bothered. Ready reserve means that I have to be at the airport, in uniform, ready to fly at a moment’s notice. Starting at 7am. Which means getting up at 5am. To sit there. W00t.

I’ve got 70 hours in the jet now. I need to get 100 hours before the end of August, or I have to take another checkride in the simulator. I really don’t want to have to do that, so I hope they get me my time. There’s no reason I shouldn’t, but I’d feel a lot better once I did.

Plus there’s the fact that I still suck at being a first officer, and it would be nice if I could get better at it. And I’m not going to get any better at it if I don’t fly. I still can’t land on center line, I still say, “uhhhhh…” into the radio, and I still forget to do stuff.

I didn’t want to leave the apartment today because there was a notice from UPS that they’d tried to deliver my new sheets yesterday and would try again today. This meant that Sydney’s trick with the note that says, “UPS: Leave packages outside the door!” didn’t really work like she said it would.

I finally got the sheets, took a shower, and decided to go to the laundromat to wash them. It seems that whoever used either the washer or drier ahead of me got sprayed by a skunk because now my brand new sheets smell like skunk.

And then I vacuumed Sydney’s apartment. And cleaned out her refrigerator, which was downright scary.

I’ll be going to bed early tonight so that I can get up early in the morning.