All Alone


by Jonah

Berck is gone. He left early yesterday morning for Chicago to visit with his mom and his sister for Sydney’s birthday. I wanted to go, but my boss didn’t want me to go, we can’t really afford for me to take time off of work, and this way Berck can stay longer and teach Sydney how to cook.

Syd sent Berck an instant message recently saying to the effect, “I need to fry something for this recipe I’m following, and I know you told me that frying can be dangerous. My question is what oil is the least dangerous for frying?”

So I’m using my time alone to search for jobs. I’ve spent most of today doing that, and I’m about cross-eyed after looking through hundreds of classifieds. Otherwise, I did some shopping and got some Dr. Scholls inserts for my tennis shoes. I seem to be wearing through the foot of my right one. These gel thingies are really comfortable.

Although I’m not on my feet quite as much now. This week I got shifted from the puller crew to the in-checker crew. So instead of pulling stuff off of the shelves of the warehouse, I put stuff up. (Berck asked, “So if you’re not a puller, does that make you a pusher?”)

I’ve got a different schedule now: 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mon-Fri. But we usually end up working at least half an hour overtime each day…except Fridays, whey they tend to let us off early.

Stocking is a lot easier than pulling, at least, I think so. The pullers are timed and have to spend the whole day dragging a heavy cart up and down aisles grabbing stuff as fast as they can. In-checkers open packages delivered from UPS, FedEx, or by freight, make sure everything is there, and put them up on the shelves. So while I’m opening packages I can often sit down on the floor next to the box I’m unpacking.

My boss Barry, the warehouse manager, told us that he likes to put new hires on the pulling crew first, because it’s more structured and he can see how they’re doing, then shift them over to the in-checking crew. So I guess I passed the test.

More likely, I’m the only one who survived. Every single person hired after me has quit, except for the four most brand new people. The latest was my buddy, Brandi, who was hired just two weeks after I was. She confided to me Monday that she got offered a job in the little town where her church is (she’s a youth minister by night) doing office work for the city for the same thing we’re paid for grueling warehouse work. She was really excited, and I was excited for her as well but sad to see her go.

And irritated that I can’t seem to get employment that can support us.

So I’ve been playing the fill-out-the-application game all day. The last one I’ve found is an adjunct professor position at a local community college. It’s part time, but I’m qualified for it, so I’m a little excited. After I finish that, I think I’m calling it a day. This sure is a lot of hard work for little pay.

Posted in Nonclassified Nonsense, Warehouse Blues | No Comments

More Bloggishness


by Jonah

Here’s an interesting site that takes every state presidential political poll that comes in and projects it on a map of the United States, giving a winner for that day. It makes far more sense than national polls, which mean nothing with the Electoral College in play.

There’s a new Star Wars preview out online for Revenge of the Sith! Thanks to Nathan for the link.

If you ever find your favorite search engine down, here’s a Google mirror site.

And finally, a wonderful photo taken by our friend Bishop while driving through Crichton.

Posted in Bloggishness | No Comments

Norman Transcript


by Berck

It’s not very often that I both read a news story and know what actually happened. Everytime I do, the news story is so very bad, I wonder why anyone ever reads the news. First, I present you with the text of the article.

PURCELL – A University of Oklahoma flight student and his instructor walked away from an emergency landing in a field north of the Purcell Municipal Airport Tuesday afternoon.

Coy Reed, a flight instructor, and Michael Dow, a junior from Norman, were practicing routine “touch and go” procedures in the Cessna C-182 single-engine plane when they made the emergency landing shortly before noon.

McClain County detectives said Dow was piloting the plane and attempting to gain altitude after practicing emergency procedures at the Purcell airport when the plane stalled, forcing Reed to take control and execute a forced landing.

“They landed in an open field about 1 mile north of the Purcell airport but damages to the plane were minimal,” said Detective David Graham. “They seemed kind of shaken up a bit, which is normal, but they didn’t have any injuries from the landing.”

After the area was secured by McClain County sheriff’s de-puties, the student and instructor were taken back to the Norman campus. OU officials and investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were looking into why the plane’s engine stalled.

Chris Wright, an equipment operator for the college’s flight program, and Glenn Schaumburg, director of aviation, spent Tuesday afternoon looking over the plane’s engine. No official cause of the incident has been released though Schaumburg said the probable cause is a malfunction of one of the plane’s four cylinders. He said a crew will go to the secured plane today and examine it more thoroughly.

“Even if it is the cylinder, it’s absolutely nothing the pilots or the mechanics could have seen,” Schaumburg said. “This is one of those oddball things.”

Schaumburg said the stalled plane was likely between 28 and 30 years old but “isn’t quite near retirement age yet.” Schaumburg said safety mandates require OU planes have their engines routinely replaced as well as pre-takeoff checklists. Schaumburg doesn’t attribute the plane’s malfunction to its age or a lack of safety measures, nor does he believe Reed is to blame for the incident. Schaumburg said Reed was an OU student and was hired by the School of Aviation “a year or two ago.”

“What I can say about the pilot is that he did an absolutely excellent job. He went through the emergency checklist and when that didn’t work out he found that convenient field to land in,” Schaumburg said.

This story is so wrong that I can’t even begin to guess at where they got these ideas. First, the story claims that the aircraft is a “Cessna 182”. This was actually even more amusing in the print article, because it had a picture of the aircraft in the field. You don’t have to know much about airplanes to know that a Cessna 182 is a high-wing airplane. The plane was actually a Piper Cherokee, a low-wing airplane with absolutely no similarity to a Cessna 182. I cannot even begin to guess how the reporter arrived at the aircraft being a C-182. Not only does OU not have any Cessna 182’s, but it’s not a plane that’s generally used for training by anyone.

As for what actually happened: What actually happened was that after a routine simulation of an engine failure, the student applied full power for a go-around. At this rather inopportune moment, the engine decided to break a valve and bend a pushrod. The engine was then effectively running on three cylinders and was running so poorly, that they elected to go ahead and make the simulated forced landing an actual forced landing.

You’ll notice that at no point did the aircraft stall. This doesn’t stop the reporter from claiming, “…Dow was piloting the plane and attempting to gain altitude after practicing emergency procedures at the Purcell airport when the plane stalled..”

And there are all kinds of other things that I don’t understand at all. Like what does this sentence mean? “Schaumburg said safety mandates require OU planes have their engines routinely replaced as well as pre-takeoff checklists.”

Safety mandates and pre-takeoff checklists require OU planes have their engines routinely replaced?

Overall, the student and instructor did a good job. As Dale likes to say, “Doors opened, people got out.” And the airplane is perfectly fine, though they’ll probably have to take it apart to get it out of there.

These things happen. A couple months ago, one of our instructors was flying one of our aircraft when the exact same thing happened– stuck valve and bent pushrod. But instead of putting it down in a field, he used what minimal power was available to get it back to the airport, which wasn’t very far.

Posted in Nonclassified Nonsense | 1 Comment

Sayre, OK


by Berck

My instructor called me yesterday and told me that the only time he could get a plane for us a do a 100NM cross-c0untry was 6am. I’m not a big fan of morning. I got there at 6:30am and it was still dark. My instructor didn’t show up for another few minutes. We’d have had to wait around for the sun anyway, since it was supposed to be a day flight. I don’t like getting up early.

It was a nice, cool flight. I picked Sayre because I’d never been there, it’s an approved field, and it was on the same sectional, so I didn’t have to plot a course on the backside or buy another chart.

The air was perfectly calm, something that’s not been too common around here. The mornings tend to be calmer, though, because there’s no thermals rising from the heated ground. It was nice almost being a little cold at 6,500 feet.

There’s only one flight left in this stage with my instructor. It’s a 100NM night VFR flight. The rest are about 12 solos.

I’m planning on knocking the first one out tomorrow afternoon. It’ll be my first solo flight since my private cross-country. Since I’m a little nervous about it, I’m going to fly to Ardmore again. It’s easy to find. I’ll go to different places for my other flights.

Eventually I’m going to have to make a 250NM cross-country. I get to pick either Little Rock or Dalhart, TX. I’m thinking about Dalhart just because I like it out west. Most of the students pick little rock because it’s greener and landmarks are easier to find.

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