On August 3, if I haven’t found another one, I’ll be out of a job. As you might imagine, I’m suffering from a fair amount of anxiety as a result. I had seriously hoped that I’d have a job offer from a certain organization south of here by now. But I don’t. I still hope that I will, but in case I don’t, I need a backup plan. And I don’t really have one.

There are certainly several options available to me. One would be to continue working for my present employer in Arizona. It wouldn’t be a bad job, but it would be in Arizona, and Jonah would have to find another job. And we’d have to live in Arizona. I don’t want to live in Arizona.

Another choice would be to find a job as a flight instructor in Alaska. I could probably do that, but the pay would be half what I make now, and Jonah would have to find a job. It could be a very bad financial decision. But, it’s what I wanted back when I started this whole pilot business, wasn’t it? Don’t I still?

Another long-shot option is to try for a job with the airlines. I’m not well-qualified, but they’re reasonably desperate. It wouldn’t pay well, but we could keep living here and Jonah could keep her job. I don’t think I would want to make a career out of it– there’s only so many times you can fly to places like Alexandria, LA, Dothan, AL, Ft Walton Beach, FL, etc, and not grow totally bored. But it would get me the experience necessary to do something else. To do what, I dunno. Flying for some international cargo company, or flying fire bombers, or flying mail around Alaska…. I dunno. But I’m slightly better qualified for an airline job if I’ve taken and passed the Airline Transport Pilot written exam. I don’t have enough flight experience to actually get an airline transport pilot certificate, but I can take the written test. It’s 80 questions out of a possible 1,700. Studying for it is at least keeping me occupied. I’ll probably take the exam in a couple weeks. If I’m serious about this airline thing, I’d also need to get some instrument flight instruction, get instrument proficient again, maybe even multi-engine current… all of which would require spending a bit of money.

So these days I work, study, and sleep. The winter is very much over, and summer is invading. The thunderstorms are about the only part of the summer I like… and we had our first couple this week. Low-level clouds and stable precipitation all day today, the sort of rain that Colorado just doesn’t ever get… but May is the time it does happen. I wonder if this is going to turn out to be another wet summer.