Sunday, April 09, 2006

CoEx Interview and run-on sentences

April 7th was a very busy day.  Got up at 6am.  Plan was to leave the house at 7, get to Hopkins Airport at 8 and the plane left at 9.  Well it took a little longer to get ready than we thought and Alison’s puppy decided to take a giant dump in the car, so we got leaving around 7:25.  So we’re hauling it up 77 and I-80 during rush hour hoping I don’t smell like it for the rest of the day and make it to CLE around 8:10.  No big deal, right? 50 min right? 

Well the airport is busier than I’ve ever seen it so I go to the self-checkin and it says my boarding time is 8:25am! Shiot!  Run to security which of course has a long line.  God bless the TSA.  So I’m running to the gate with my shoelaces still untied and I notice my ticket is gone!  Totally dropped it in the hallway!  Go running back the other way without tied shoes.  Luckilly I found my ticket (no one was kind enough to pick it up and take it to some random food place, thinking they were helpful) and got to the gate right as they started boarding.  Two other KSU students, Eric and Mark, were on the same flight.  We said hellos and boarded the 737 to Houston.

We got there around 10:30am local time, with the interview starting at 2:00.  We talked about interview stuff untill 2, managing to find our way to the Expressjet Simulator Building.  This was different than the American interviews, they had everyone come into the same room were they answered some questions and talked about the different kinds of internships.  They wanted to talk to the KSU students first, so they called us up one by one.

I was third and once again had a whopping 10-15min interview.  I thought it was way too short!  I didn’t get to sell myself completely.  Everyone else agreed too.  There was nothing more to do at Expressjet so we went back to the airport (IAH).  Got some food and talked about how short it was.  Our plane left at 7:00pm local so we were there for like 3.5 hours.  Plane got in CLE around 10:35pm our time.  The approach was kinda cool.  CLE weather was 2.5mi visibilty and clouds overcast at 600 feet.  Broke out of the clouds right at the airport.  The stuff pilots live for.  All in all an exhausting day and I hope to hear good things from Expressjet in the next week or so.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Bootcamp for Macintosh

Apple today released a program called "Bootcamp" (?) which allows you to install Windows XP SP2 onto your intel mac. There was already another way to do this, but Apple has now made the process much easier. On top of that, Bootcamp also installs windows drivers for the following devices:

- Intel Chip Set Software (6.2.1)
- ATI Graphics (8.24.0.0)
- Intel Integrated Graphics (6.14.10.4512)
- Marvel Yukon Ethernet (8.49.2.3)
- SigmaTel Audio (1.0.4889.0 nd375 cp1)
- SigmaTel Audio proto_A2 (1.0.4889.0 nd375 cp1)
- Atheros 802.11 wireless (AirPort) (4.2.2.4)
- Broadcom Wireless (4.10.40.0)
- Apple Bluetooth module (1.0.0.1)
- Apple Keyboard Eject Key (1.0.0.1)
- Apple Keyboard Brightness (for computers with built-in displays) (1.0.0.1)
- Startup Disk Control Panel for Windows XP (1.0.0.1)

Holy crap! Apple themselves released a full set of drivers for windows including video card drivers and even the keyboard brightness! I actually called this a while ago and all I got was the "It'll never happen." What does this mean for Apple? Well now that Windows XP works fully on mac hardware, their computers become the only ones that can natively run OS X, WinXP, and linux. It's a geek dream come true, right? And let's not forget how awesome their computers are. If only the macbook pro had two mouse buttons! They should have anticipated this! The holy grail would be here! I'm still waiting for a smaller macbook pro because the current one, although thin, is still gigantic.

Friday, March 31, 2006

Continental Express Interview

Got my interview with Continental Express scheduled for April 7th.  Similar to American Airlines, they are flying me to Houston for the interview and maybe a tour.  Should be a lot of fun and I’ll be even more prepared after American Airlines.  Will keep informed.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

All coming together

Earlier in the month, I applied for internship positions at three airlines: Continental Express, American Airlines, and Mesaba Airlines.  American Airlines has already called me back and scheduled an interview with me on Tuesday, March 28th.  They are going to fly me down to Dallas and hopefully the interview will go great.  I’m so looking forward to this!

Express is revamping their internship process, so I hope to hear from them soon.  Mesaba was kinda my backup choice, and that airline is going through financial problems (they are hooked together with Northwest who just filed for bankruptcy).  So for summer I can hope to be interning with a great airline!  It’s so exciting that everything is coming together.  I know I’ve been working really hard these past few semesters and haven’t gotten to hang out as much as I wanted to, but in the end this is really really good for me.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Multi Engine (Expanded)

My multi-engine checkride was scheduled for Thursday, March 16th.  As always, I never get to do the checkride when it’s first scheduled.  I’ve been flying a Piper Seminole (PA-44 / 180) since the start of the semester.  I had 11.1 hours in the airplane by the time I took the ride.  So anyways, Thursday comes by and I get to the airport.  Turns out the FAA had come by and took one of the Seminoles somewhere for something (I don’t even know what).  The other one was down for maintenance, so I was like “damn” and all that.  I did the oral exam, which lasted for about an hour and a half and went fine.  Scheduled the flight for Sunday at 9am.

Sunday 9am comes by and the clouds are pretty low.  One of the requirements of the checkride is to actually shut down an engine in flight, which has to be done at a high enough altitude so that if it doesn’t restart you can glide to an airport.  I needed to be able to get to 4,500ft, and the clouds didn’t let me do it.  My examiner is leaving town for the week on Tuesday, March 21 so there’s not much time.  Rescheduled flight for 7:30am Monday March 20.

7:30am March 20 comes and it’s the same thing.  Lake Effect is causing a lot of clouds pretty low.  Examiner says he can do it later in the day, like 3pm.  Waited all day for the clouds to rise.  About 4pm they finally start to break up and we decided to go.  The ride went pretty smoothly.  I was very nervous before the flight, but once I actually start flying I’m always better.  I ran through the maneuvers which were okay.  Then we failed the engine, which was cool and probably the last time I’ll see a stopped prop hanging out there for a while (hopefully).  Then we did the VOR-A approach into KSU with a simulated failed engine all the way to the landing.  After all that, we took off one more time and did a short field landing and I was done!  There’s nothing more satisfying than the moment when you realize you passed a checkride.  Glad to be done.

Now I can focus more on my Certified Flight Instructor work and it frees up about 3 hours in the middle of the day for me too.  Woots.