Farewell DBQ!

First of all, I can't believe it's so long since I've written. My apologies. I guess it's been a busy summer. It's been a chiller summer than usual. We didn't have hardly any days that were unbearable, which allowed us to keep the windows open and helped keep our electric bill down.
Since the last time I wrote, I had a birthday. A friend made dinner and a cake for me. The menu consisted of baked salmon with a jalapeno apricot glaze, rice, and broccoli. It was quite a treat.
I spent a couple weeks house sitting for co-workers while they took summer vacations and that helped keep the food bill down.
I interviewed in Duluth, MN for a coordinator position with Mesaba. I was turned down because another candidate had prior experience with the Delta computer system which is different that Northwest's. I wasn't too upset. I think Duluth might have been a pretty cool place to live, but there wouldn't be much opportunity for upward movement. After the interview, I went back to Minneapolis, but instead of boarding for Dubuque, I took a flight up to Toronto, ON to do some sightseeing. The flight got in around 8pm, so I didn't have much time to waste. I cleared customs and took the subway downtown. I went directly to the CN Tower because it was only open until 11pm. I got some really good time lapse shots before visiting the gift store. On my way back to the subway station, I grabbed a hot dog from a street vendor. I got back to the airport around 12:30am and hung out until customs and security opened at 4:30am. I took a 6:30 flight to Detroit and got lucky getting on the next flight to Minneapolis. I then had an hour layover before taking the afternoon flight back to Dubuque. It was a fun trip but I was definitely exhausted.
I've been putting in quite a few hours at Mesaba and Avis in sprint to the end. Mesaba's last day in Dubuque was yesterday, the 31st. The last flight left on time, just as the first arriving flight did on June 20, 2008. I spent quite a bit of time contemplating my future plans. I could either stay in Dubuque and hope for some students to fly with from UD, continue working for Avis and possibly another part time job. Or I could relocate to Minneapolis and stay with Mesaba, maintaining my seniority, and look for other employment to supplement my income. I decided that flight instruction was a priority to build hours, but keeping my foot in the door with Mesaba was also an important factor. That is why I started working for Mesaba in the first place. So I have come to the determination that it would be best for me to move to Minneapolis to continue working for Mesaba and look for flight instruction at one of the nearby airports. Training is sometime next week and I will be making the move in either the third or fourth week of September. I am looking for roommates via Craigslist, but until I finalize my training schedule I won't be able to setup any apartment showings. In the meantime, I will keep working hours at Avis in Dubuque. I'll be sure to inform you all of my new address when I get settled into a place.

Check out more pictures from Canada.

Catching Up

There's been so much going on, but I just haven't had time to sit down and write about it. The most notable event occurred last weekend in DeWitt, Iowa. I drove down for a friends wedding on Saturday after working at Avis in the morning. Aaron Soenksen married his college sweetheart Shannon Meyer at the Grace Lutheran church at 3pm. Aaron was also my flight instructor throughout my commercial flight training. We have kept in touch and even attended a couple of minor leage baseball games together. The service was beautiful and the music and vocalists were enchanting. My favorite part was releasing of butterflies after the service before moving on to the reception. The butterflies were flown in overnight and when they opened the boxes that they were in, they woke up and flew away. It was very cool. Most of the other people that I knew from school were in the wedding party, so I was assigned a table with a few "randoms". I met a few familes that were members of the country club and another gentleman who was a pilot in the second world war. Dinner consisted of salad and a pasta buffet. Afterward there was dacing for those who stuck around. I stayed for most of the night, but had to drive back to Dubuque since I had not made any plans to stay at a hotel or with anyone.
Sunday through Tuesday it was back to the grind. I put in a good amount of hours. Tuesday I worked for my boss at Mesaba in the morning after working the night before so that he could go home to see family. He was supposed to fly out, but ran late and missed the flight. So I drove him to Moline, IL to catch another flight. Later that day, we ran out of paper for printing contracts on at Avis and we had a car with inoperative air conditioning. So my Avis boss and I drove down to Moline again to get paper and drop off the car to be repaired. Needless to say, I didn't need directions the second time around.
Wednesday, I the day off entirely. I woke up around 11:30 and did a few chores around the house. Laundry needed to be done badly and I needed to enter some receipts in my ledger. I was about to leave the house when I saw that a new roommate was moving in with the girls up stairs. They had to get a kitchen table, a tv, and a sofa up stairs. So I offered to help them. We got the table up no problem because the legs were easily removable. Fortunately, I was still working on putting the table back together and I didn't have to help with the TV. It fit through the doors fine, but it was a heavy TV and took a lot of grunt work. The sofa was an entirely different story. It didn't fit up the front stairs because the door frame was too narrow. The back stairway and doors were wider, but we had to get the couch around 3 - 90 degree corners. We put a small hole in the wall forcing it up the stiars, but we got it! Afterward I headed over to a friend's parents' house to swim. Following that we went to the new Tony Roma's in town. I had the grilled norwegian salmon with rice and fresh broccoli. We had to cut out early though to make it to the movie on time becase the waitress was so slow. We saw the proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. It was very funny. And that was my day off!
Today before work I got measured for a tux for the wedding that I will be in on August 8th. Sadly, this means that I won't be able to attend the Koopsen reunion this fall. Will try to make up for it some weekend tho. Kalamazoo is a fairly easy destination to get to and with relatives close by it would be an easy mid week or weekend getaway.
All for now. Time to go clean some cars!

Galloping down Granview

If you are familiar with the annual Klopmen Classic race in Pella, you know that runners often joke about actually having to wear wooden shoes to compete in the race. I don't want to spoil the surprise for those of you who haven't run, but you don't have to wear wooden shoes. Thankfully the same is true for Dubuque's annual race, the Grandview Gallop. Runners don't actually have to gallop. But can you imagine what it'd be like if they did?

There are essentially two ways to get into a swimming pool when the water is cold. Some prefer to wade in the shallow end and work their way up to the knee, then the waist, then the armpits. Others jump right in the deep end and and make a big splash. I liken my recent training regiment to the later method. I tested the water with with my tippy toe on Wednesday with a 35 min jog and dove in head first on Saturday with my first race of the season.

It was 55° and misty Saturday morning at 8:00am as the gun went off. Perfect weather for a road race. 750 plus runners came out to partake in the 4th annual Granview Gallop. The course lies on the beautifully landscaped boulevard of South Grandview Ave. in Dubuque, which is relatively flat believe it or not. The race beings and ends at Murphy Park. Runners head north on Grandview and double back when they get to third street. It gives everyone a chance to see who's beating them as well as who they're beating which may or may not offer some added motivation.
I kept pace with one of my cross country and track teammates. She has been doing quite a bit of training for her upcoming cross country season. I on the other hand have not, so it really felt like she was dragging me along the whole way. We crossed the one mile mark at 7:30 and the two mile at 14:55. My legs were feeling like jello as we crossed the three mile mark and I don't even remember checking my watch. I did the best I could to pound out the last mile. It should have been easy because I knew the course, but everything is more challenging when you're out of shape. My partner took off with between 800 and 1200 meters to go. I managed to pass a few more runners, but I couldn't catch up with her. I crossed the finish line in under 29 minutes. Our automatic timing chips recorded our official time. This was the first time I had seen a disposable chip. It is a flexible plastic piece that loops around the shoelace. They are programed with the same number as the bib and when you cross over the reader it records your time. After our cool down we went to the results station. They had two micro computers that printed out a ticket with each runners stats. All I had to do was type in my bib number. My legs were extremely sore yesterday, but today I don't feel a thing.
For lunch yesterday, I made my first attempt ever at potato salad. The only potato salad I truly like is my mom's, so I borrowed her recipe. Mine turned out ok, but only because I didn't have all the necessary ingredients. I didn't feel like going back out to the store and mom said they weren't essential. I beg to differ. When you're trying to recreate a masterpiece that reminds you of home, every detail is important.
Tomorrow I have to head up to Minneapolis on the morning flight for a day of recurrent training. We spend 8 hours in a class room and then have to wait 4-5 hours to catch the last flight home. I will probably spend the evening watching planes or looking for crew members that frequent Dubuque, just to say hi. Today we've got a full flight and people are beginning to check in, so I better look busy.

Looks like full race results are available for a limited time. http://www.thonline.com/grandviewgallop/

Summer 09 is lookin' fine

Time for another update! It's been a busy spring so far between work and flying. Thankfully, now I can say that the load has been lightened as I have completed the requirements for my Certified Flight Instructor - Instrument Airplane rating. My checkride came up a lot quicker than I expected. I figured that I had at least a couple weeks of flying left to do, but my instructor felt I was ready. I felt a little under prepared, but I knew that just mean I had a lot of studying to do. Fortunately I had Wednesday and Thursday off from work and my checkride was scheduled for Thursday afternoon. I took Wednesday to study the book knowledge that was required of me and Thursday morning I went up with an instructor to just get comfortable in the airplane again. I'm glad I did because the last time I flew was the 11th of May. I even got some actual instrument time (flying in the clouds) on Thursday. Before that, I hadn't flown in actual since December 16, 2006!
After the refresher flight, my instructor helped me get all my paper work in order. I went home for lunch and to grab a couple things before going back out for my checkride. My checkride was conducted by a check instructor from Davenport. He made the trip up to Dubuque because he was testing another student from Dubuque also. It was nice not having to pay to fly down to Davenport. We started with a few questions to test my knowledge. We talked about some instrument procedures and regulations. When he was satisfied with the oral portion we hopped in the plane for the practical portion. The flight consisted of slow flight, stalls, unusual attitudes, a GPS hold, followed by a GPS approach and a ILS approach. Now if you're thinking to yourself, gosh, I wish I knew what he was talking about, shoot me an email or send me a comment. I figured I'd spare the rest of you ALL of the details. And that does it! Afterward, he signed my paperwork and gave me a temporary license. My real one comes in the mail in a couple weeks. For those of you who haven't experienced this before, it doesn't feel official until you have it in plastic. So for now, I try to pay off all that I've spent since my loan money dried up. I also plan to start sending out my resume despite the dismal short term outlook.
This summer I'm looking forward to traveling a little more than I have been recently. Not flying should free up my schedule enough to visit some of the places on my list. Last week, I had the opportunity to go back to Pella for Amanda's graduation. This trip was long awaited because I had not been back since December for my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. I left on Friday from work giving myself just enough time to grab a sandwich at the house before the commencement ceremony. I went to a family friend's grad party on Friday night and saw quite a few people that I hadn't talked to in a while. After Amanda's graduation party on Saturday morning, I went golfing with Dad and Grandpa and Grandma Erickson who flew up from Florida. Not my best outing, but I can't expect much when I haven't played in over a year. Saturday night, I got to hang out with Jacob, who I hadn't seen for a while either. We went out to eat at George's. It was a tough decision between that and Pizza Ranch because I had been craving both. I went to early church with Mom before heading out on Sunday morning. So it was a short, but sweet 40 hours in Pella. I left from work and got back just in time to work again on Sunday.

Sun Country Slip-Up

It's been a while since anything exciting has happened in Dubuque. Unfortunately, the latest excitement was due to an incident at the airport this week. Sun Country Airlines was operating a return charter flight from Las Vegas to Dubuque for all the local gamblers who just can't get their fix from the new Diamond Jo Casino and the Mystique (formerly the Dubuque Greyhound Park and Casino). The plane arrived as scheduled around 9:30pm on Thursday night. American Eagle ground handles the flight because they have a larger staff, and more appropriate equipment to load and unload the Boeing 737-800. They also are trained to use the jet bridge, whereas our Mesaba employees do not use the jet bridge in Dubuque because it is not compatible with our aircraft.
After landing, Sun Country turned off of the runway to taxi to the gate, but the pilot misjudged the turn and the main landing gear went off the pavement into an area of mud. With a full load of passengers and bags, the aircraft sunk into the mud. It did not cause a big emergency, but all the bags and passengers had to be unloaded where the plane stopped. Fortunately, there is a bus charter company located across they road from the airport. Several buses were brought down to bring the passengers to the terminal. The bags were loaded onto the bag carts and delivered to the waiting passengers.
Meanwhile, our plane called into range. I advised them of the situation and told them to plan accordingly. They were able to land safely on the other runway and taxi to the gate. Shortly after our plane arrived, American Eagle's flight from Chicago arrived. So their agents had to divide their efforts and work their scheduled flight while attending to the Sun Country passengers and plane.
The good news is that no one was injured in the Sun Country ordeal and the aircraft was not damaged. The plane was scheduled to return to Minneapolis with a load of passengers yet that night but they ended up having to take a bus. Crews worked all night to dig the B737 out of the mud. I was told the next day that they had pulled the plane out by 5am. They parked the aircraft between Mesaba's gate and the University of Dubuque's ramp. That afternoon I learned that they were flying a new crew from Minneapolis on our flight to reposition the Sun Country aircraft back to Minneapolis. My guess is that the pilots from the night before may have been on temporary suspension until everything got sorted out. I doubt that they would have been in serious trouble and I don't think there would be any chance of termination.
Everything else is fine with me. I'm still working on my CFII. The spring weather has limited my flight time, but I should be done shortly. The school year at UD is coming to a close. Students have finals this week. My new roommate, Joel, has begun moving his stuff in for the summer. The next exciting news will hopefully be Amanda's graduation at the end of May. I plan to be home for at least some of Memorial Day weekend. I may or may not get another post in before then. Depends what else happens here.

A few more pictures. (Located on page 2.)

I'm Back!

So, you already know that there's been quite a lengthy dry spell since my last post. I wouldn't say I've been raking in the big bucks, but I have been working a ridiculous amount of hours. Since my last post I have completed my Certified Flight Instructor rating and am now continuing with my Flight Instructor Instrument rating. Most flight school's and training facilities won't hire instructors without their CFII. Although now, the market looks bleak for instructors period. UD will be slowing down as summer approaches and students return home to their summer jobs. So, in the meantime I continue to put in hours at Mesaba and Avis.
Haven't had a chance to travel anywhere recently. My last venture from Dubuque was for a friend's wedding in Bettendorf, IA. I met Austin while living in the dorm my freshman year at UD and he began dating Cassie sometime during our sophomore year if my memory serves me. They had a very nice ceremony on Saturday, March 14 and the reception was beautiful. They had roast beef, pasta, cheese cubes, salad, a variety of bread, and cinnamon roll pieces (of which I had seconds). There was some dancing afterwards, but I chose not to get my groove on. I did however muster up the energy to get on the dance floor for the garter toss and I came away with the prize. This was the second garter I've received in the last several years so either I have really good luck or people are aiming for me. Doesn't do much good though when there are no prospects on the horizon.
Even though I'm hogging all the garters, that doesn't stop my friends from getting married. My former roommate, Tad, will be getting married to his college sweetheart this August. They have asked me to be a groomsman in the wedding and I accepted. The wedding ceremony will be in town and the reception will be held at the newly renovated, historic Julien Inn.
In other news, I began helping with my church's website several weeks ago. They decided to change their name and logo to better represent their mission and outreach. The website is not like the one I redesigned for Classic Aviation in Pella. This website has a more dynamic format that develops as the user requests it through their browser rather than the static html pages for the airport. This makes updating the content much faster, which is important to make sure our members have the most up to date information. The site isn't fully completed, but you may look at what is done so far at www.bridgeontheweb.org.
Sorry again for the lack of news and thanks to those of you who lit a fire under me to get this going again. Thanks for reading!

My SAAB Story

This story begins on a cold boring Tuesday in Dubuque. There were no passengers scheduled to fly out on our afternoon flight, so my boss gave me the rest of the day off. I was scheduled to have 

Wednesday off as well, so I decided it was time to fly somewhere. After all, my last trip was all the way back in November when I went to Paris and Amsterdam. This time I decided on a slightly less audacious undertaking. I had several options with a list of people and places to see, but I didn't think three hours notice was enough time to drop in on anyone. I called Matt, my former roommate to see what he was up to, but got no response. So I checked the availability to Toronto, Canada. Wide open! Just as I was about to board the flight out of Dubuque, Matt called back to let me know it was ok to come visit him in Waterloo. So I quick changed my itinerary and hopped on board. 

Since the flight attendant and I were the only ones in the cabin, we got to know each other pretty well. She had been to Dubuque a couple times before, but we hadn't talked at length until now. When I got to MSP, my former manager, Kai, was waiting for me. He told me that he thought it was odd that there were no connecting passengers coming from Dubuque. We chatted for a little bit before I got on another SAAB headed for Waterloo. 

Matt was waiting for me at the airport. We stopped at Casey's to pick up some pizza before heading back to his apartment near the UNI campus. I met most of his roommates and we watched some tv before I crashed on his floor. Early next morning he dropped me off at the airport where I boarded a CRJ200 to go back to MSP. From there, I got on a CRJ900 bound for Houston. The flight was uneventful and 2 hours later we were pulling up to our gate at the George Bush International Airport. By now, my phone was almost dead because I didn't think to grab a charger. To save the battery life, I kept turning my phone off and on only when I needed to use it. The plane I came down on was headed directly back to Minneapolis. 

I contemplated taking this option, but decided to have lunch instead. I found a Fuddruckers in the A concourse and enjoyed a burger and fries while watching a plethora of Continental aircraft taxi by. The next few hours I spent walking around taking pictures trying not to draw the attention of any TSA officials or local law enforcement. For a brief moment, I got to go outside and experience the near 60 degree weather as I took a shuttle bus from the C terminal to the A. I got a message from Lori saying that she needed a car from Moline, IL. I told her I wanted to go to Memphis first and if she could find me a flight, I would do it. Everything lined up so I continued on my journey. 

I left Houston for Memphis at 4:15 on another 200. Another uneventful flight. I arrived in Memphis about an hour or so later. I only had an hour layover so I decided to get some authentic Memphis barbeque. I didn't want to spring for the ribs, so I got the BBQ pork sandwich and it really hit the spot. 

My last flight of the day was on yet another 200. I got into Moline at 830 and picked up the car at Avis to be shuttled to Dubuque. In my rush to get home, I neglected to ask for directions to the highway. But as luck would have it there were signs upon exiting the parking lot. If only I knew which highway went where. I made the mistake of taking 280 to Des Moines instead of 74 which would have brought me north quicker up to 80 and then to 61. I got the lovely scenic tour of downtown Davenport, which I recognized from our cross country visits to Credit Island Golf Course. 

I pulled into the Dubuque Airport just as the approach lights turned on for American Eagle from Chicago. Our plane from Minneapolis wasn't on the ground yet either so it turned out to be a good trade off. 

Yesterday, I was reminiscing and telling coworkers about my trip and I got to thinking about when I was doing cross countries for my Commercial Pilot's License. Back then, I had to pay for the plane and lunch. (There's a book called the $100 hamburger with great locations around the country to fly to for lunch. By the time you pay for the plane and the fuel and lunch, it comes out to about $100. But that was in the good ole days too!) I'd much rather non-rev for free and just pay for the hamburger.

Thanks for reading my SAAB story. Get it?

New News

I've found that this sliver of time in between church and work on Sunday's works well for blogging. It doesn't offer me as much time as I would like to process my thoughts thoroughly, but if I didn't do it now, I wouldn't do it at all. Especially with today being Superbowl Sunday. So, right now I've got pasta boiling on the stove and I'm eating some apple pie that I baked earlier this week. Nothing special, just a Sara Lee frozen pie, but it is delicious. 

I had quite the action packed weekend. Yesterday, UD held it's first indoor track meet in the new Chlapaty Recreation and Wellness Center. I caught most of the field events, but couldn't stay for the running portion because I had to get back to work. The place is very nice, but it looks kind of bland. It could use some banners or murals to liven things up. One of my former teammates said there were about 10 men's and women's teams there, but I didn't verify. I will post a link to the results here and you can see for yourself. (I haven't had a chance to look at them yet.) Men's Results | Women's Results 

At the meet I ran into sports information director Paul Misner who said he recently received a plaque with my name on it. Turns out that it was the ESPN The Magazine Academic All America Team Award I earned this past year.

After work yesterday, I helped out with a volunteer appreciation banquet for our church volunteers at The Bridge. The Bridge meets on the UD campus, but doesn't not have any real connections with the school. For our banquet, we borrowed the Tri-State Community Church basement on the north side of town. The menu consisted of turkey breast, bake potatoes and toppings, tossed salad with strawberries and glazed pecans, and an assortment of desserts. I didn't have time to bake, so I brought a rhubarb pie and a blueberry pie from Hy-Vee. They turned out to be a pretty big hit. After dinner, we played a couple large group games to get to know one another a little bit better. I had a good time because I got to learn a whole lot more names than I do by just going to church on Sunday morning. 

Well I've finished my pasta and it's time to head to work. Looks like I'll have to change there. I've still got my church clothes on. 

More pictures from the track meet.

 

Doin' Fine in '09

Ahhh! I haven't posted yet in 2009, so this is long overdue. However, I must keep it brief. So far it's been another rough winter in Dubuque. Coupled with last winter when we broke the previous total snowfall record of 75.7" set in the winter of '61-'62. This year has seen record setting low temperatures with wind chills reaching -30°F. Needless to say, these conditions make working quickly and safely on the ramp difficult. I've done a pretty good job of keeping warm at work. I usually wear my Mesaba coveralls over a hoodie with a hat from my small collection and my brand new Carhartt work gloves. They cost a pretty penny, but they're worth every cent. Not all of our passengers have figured out that boarding requires going outside, but I figure if their dumb enough to get in their car, drive to the airport, and walk to the terminal without a coat then it's their own fault for being cold. I just stand at the bottom of the stairs and wish them a good time at their tropical destination while I pull icicles out of my nose.
Northwest continues it's merger process with Delta. Dubuque received it's new signage last week and begins to project the Delta image. We still adhere to some Northwest policies and procedures and will continue to do so until they are phased out over the next two years.
I'm nearing completion of my CFI rating, which means I'm also getting ready to send my resume off to Mesaba. Even if I get turned down initially, I'm hoping the process will give me a new goal for building hours and time frame to reapply.
As a follow-up to my last post, I did make the 2008 Iowa Aviation Calendar! My photo was used as the background for the last page with a preview of 2010. I received a plaque, a certificate, and 5 calendars in the mail. I thought it was pretty cool. Time for lunch! More news to come.