DarkMercury.net - Fear will keep the locals in line...Fear of this website

So WTF is going on at work?

Ah good, I see everyone made it over to DarkMercury from merkursytesnet! I've been mentioning on the side that work has been stressful and troublesome and all but I've not quite said what's happened. Throughout the year as gas has been getting more and more expensive American announced some major cutbacks. They announced a 12% reduction in flying but never really specified what was being cut. This has been a huge source of stress to me, and there's a few reasons why.

Very early in the year we saw many airlines go out of business. Quite literally they stopped overnight, stranding passengers and even flight crews everywhere. Employees showed up to work only to find a sign on the door that said they were out of a job. ATA, Skybus, Champion Air, I can't remember them all but there were 5 or 6. This means there's a lot of pilots out on the streets looking, and not a lot of opportunity. If AMR (AMRon as we joke internally) was to furlough me I'd have to compete with them and of course they have way more hours than I do. The only thing I'd have going for me is current CFI certificates but I don't want to be back to $15/hr. I've got an awesome yet wickedly expensive car to pay for..

So I've been going to work as usual, flying day to day like nothing was going on. All the meanwhile talking to the captains I fly with, trying to figure out what was going to happen and making backup plans just in case. As it turns out, Eagle was in the middle of a hiring boom when oil shot up in price. The first thing they did was stop hiring. Literally just froze everything. It sucks cause I had two Kent friends in the first class that got canceled. I got scared that immediate furloughs were to come. Immediately after that, they announced that my airplane, the Saab 340 was going to be retired. But when? I knew they couldn't just fire all the saab pilots, since everything in the industry is seniority based. But what was going to happen now?

The answer laid in a displacement bid, where every pilot in the company makes a list of where they prefer to be based and the airplane they want to fly. The most senior get their first pick, and on down the line. My bids were to stay in Dallas, and at this point I was just hoping to keep my job. I bid for the ATR-72 which is a 65 seat turboprop that is coming to replace the Saab. As Will is so fond of pointing out "Waaa it's a turbprop! :( It's not a real plane /cry", this feeling is echoed by pilots, who overwhelmingly bid to fly the jets. Here's why I bid for the prop (even though I could have gotten a jet):

There's a pay increase for flying the jet (even though the prop is a larger aircraft, go figure), but there's only so many monthly schedules to bid for. I'd be on reserve (on-call) for possibly a year or more. I can fly more at a lower pay rate and still make the same amount as I would on the jet.
Since no one else wants to fly the prop, I am a pretty good way up the list and can hold monthly schedules. Much better than reserve as far as quality of life goes. More guaranteed days off.
Since it costs ~$10,000 or so to train a pilot in each plane, typically you are locked into your airplane for a year or two to make up for it. This isn't true in a displacement, so I can bid for and move to the jet whenever I want.
Real men fly props

I have a date of Nov. 24th for ATR training. The Saabs are supposed to be long gone by then. We don't know if they will keep some around as backup aircraft when others break, or if I will be having a paid vacation for a while. I hope it's the latter, with paid being the key word. Everyone says they wouldn't be going through the trouble and the cost of retraining if they were just going to furlough immediately after, so I'm finally starting to feel like I'm secure again at work. Expressjet (Cont. Express) just announced they are furloughing 314 pilots, and they had stopped hiring even before I applied at American Eagle. This industry is all about placing your bets and seeing where the cards fall...

My soon to be new plane, the ATR-72:

Fri Aug 22, 2008
[0] comments | Category: AmericanAirlines

Welcome to DarkMercury.net!

It's about time for an overhaul of my blog site. I've had this domain for a few months since this is an update I've wanted to do for a while, but just like my actual posts I tend to put it off. I do feel bad since I enjoy writing on this site, so I've spent the last week making updates to make this site more enjoyable. So what's new at DarkMercury.net and why should you care?

Obviously the new design header at the top of the page, brings the site into the new century at least. (big thanks to jo for the transparent logo .gif)
Removal of the giant eclipse in the background.
The text area of the entries are allowed to extend much further to the right, making the site easier to read (since it doesnt overlap the picture anymore).
Bigger text!
A lot of old entries lost their formatting and ended up as one huge paragraph. I had to manually go through and add br tags.
No more Dates at the top of each entry. Time and date are smaller at the bottom.
No more "Posted by Eclipse" since you know it's me.
Updated the top links. The DarkMercury.net logo is clickable to go back to the homepage.
I've joined twitter and have a feed from it on the left.
Updated the Meh and Featured pages.
The white links on the left remain there when looking at single entries and the news page.
Wider comment entry form.
Blue multiple entry seperators.
Some other smaller things like formatting that you can't see.

What is still left to do?

iPhone friendly links page (possibly iphone friendly blog site).
Gallery is semi-broken again since the move to the new site. Mostly the new albums.
Actually posting entries!

One of the best iphone features is the notepad so I can jot down ideas for writing and come back to them later. I think that combined with the twitter for quick updates will make it a little more interesting around here. Don't forget to update your links and RSS too:

Tue Aug 19, 2008
[1] comments | Category: Internet

My Gallery is fixed!
and not a moment too soon...

And to celebrate, here are some pics of the car with a little more light:

Album: My new 2008 VW Eos Convertible

Check out my Gallery for a ton of new pics, from my trip to Russia, my new desk and apartment here in Dallas, and pics I've taken while flight instructing in Kent.

2008 Volkswagen Eos

How do you make it rain in Dallas, Texas?

Buy a convertible.

Well technically I leased it, but its still freakin awesome. For a long, long time I wanted a manual transmission 4 seater convertible. Of course, living in Ohio it's kinda pointless, but that's one of the great things about living down here now. I had been looking at the Chrysler Sebring Convertible for a while, but the only manual transmission they had was on a GTC version for like 2002-2004. Needless to say they are rare and rarer in good condition. But enter the Volkswagen Eos! Basically a replacement to the VW Cabrio, its essentially a hardtop convertible version of the Jetta. It's a 4 cyl, 200 hp turbocharged engine 6 speed manual and it looks really classy in black. I got both black exterior and interior. It's basically a two-seater but it's not terrible in the back.

So why get rid of the mighty Saturn? I didn't really want to, but I have to get Texas plates before the Ohio ones expired. To do that, I had to get the equivalent of an e-check so I took it to a shop and they told me it would cost more to fix than it was worth. Bummer. But as a last gift to me, the VW place gave me $3000 for it, far more than I was expecting. You just can't help but love the old saturns (pre-2001).

So today I'm supposed to pick it up at noon so we go and they don't have it yet. Also the 2 salesmen I worked with aren't there. Come back in an hour they say. So Alison and I go shopping and do some errands. We come back at 2. Oh it'll be done in a few moments! 40 minutes later...Oh it's just getting gassed up! 20 minutes later I'm mad and they let me go back to see it and finally send me to another guy to do the paperwork and get the keys. By the time I actually get behind the wheel it's rush hour and raining a lot, so I don't really get to have fun with it like I want. And hence the pics below aren't the greatest... It's T-storms all week here but Friday morning I should get the chance to take it out and have some fun and get some good pics.

Anyways, I really like the car so far. With the top up it's quiet and there's no leaks and it has a huge sunroof. Enough to make you forget the top is still up. The sound system sounds great. (I have an aux in instead of my ipod line-in but it still sounds good) The engine is way stronger than my old saturns, the clutch feels great, leather seats and steering wheel... I really like it so far.

On with the pics! Click more