WOOHOO!!

Well, I'm back again! Nice to see you have all decided to keep reading my blog as I post. Well, I'm just guessing that you're reading it because I never get any comments...but I'll just be positive and assume. :-) (yes, thats a slight nudge in the direction of leaving me some comments because I'd love to hear what you think!)

Its the beginning of February and I'm finally back in Oregon, and hopefully I'll be staying here for a while too. By that I mean that I hopefully won't have to travel anywhere for at least a month. (And then I think in March I'm going to Hawaii to visit my aunt!)

Anywho, I left off back at the end of January. Lets see, the last week of January I had to head to Newport News, VA for a Weight and Balance (W&B) conference. For those of you that don't know anything about aircraft, W&B is basically the process of making sure that the aircraft isn't too heavy to fly and that the weight is in the right places so that it is stable in the air. Ever wonder why on smaller commercial airplanes where they ask someone to move from the back to the front, or when there are a bunch of empty seats on a plane that they said they couldn't take any more passegers. W&B is the reason. If its too heavy, the plane won't take off and you go boom at the end of the runway. If the weight is in the wrong places, the aircraft is unstable and it is possible to get into a situation that is unrecoverable, and you go boom into the ground. Not that I'm trying to scare you! :-)

Now to continue after my discourse, I cought the red eye out on Sunday night because flying from the west coast to the east is a pain, and I would have had to leave my house at like 3 in the morning if I flew out on Monday. But, I'm rather glad I did because three awesome things happened during my travels to the east. First off, when I got to the airport, I went to sit down in the terminal and some no good-two timing-meanie head of a girl tried to steal the outlet that I was about to plug my computer into. Actually, I'm lying. A wonderful young woman named Amy happened to sit down accross from me and proceeded to entertain me for the next 45 minutes or so until my flight left. Turns out I THOUGHT I was sitting in the right place, but I was actually at the gate for a plane going to NY, and I was stopping in Chicago. But it turned out alright because since then I've become quite good friends with Amy, and the more I learn about her, the more I like her. Hopefully we'll get to be friends for a long time!!

Now after that, I hopped on my flight and luckily enough I was able to sleep for about three hours on my trip back home. Landed in Chicago about 515 in the morning, and because I have such wonderful parents, they picked me up from the airport and we went out for breakfast. Awesome thing number two! The third thing that was great, was that when I landed at Richmond, I got to hang out with a friend of mine that I haven't seen in almost 5 years. Originally we were just going to grab lunch together because she was working, but she surprised me by taking the afternoon off, and so we were able to get lunch, and walk around the city, and just spend time together. We had a ton of fun. Always great to get back in touch with friends you haven't seen in forever!

Then the conference went pretty well. Nothing too much to report on there. But one of the days I did get to go down to the CG aircraft Depot and see the new modifications that we are going to start receiving in the field at the end of the year. The MH-60T model. WOOHOO. It comes with some new parts, but most of all, it is an all glass cockpit. So basically there are just 5 screens that hold all the navigational information. (see pic). Doesn't really mean much to most people, but to us aviators, we can't wait to start playing with it!

Then I got to see Emy again on my way out of the city. We ended up going to see Mamma Mia together in Richmond. I know, what a dork I am, but hey, ABBA's cool :) And it actually was a really cool show! Then I flew back home to wonderful rainy Oregon to get back into the grind again.

I must say that I do believe I'm improving on my social scene though. I have started to meet a bunch of people that live around here, and I've been trying to get out more and more. Although I am thinking about making a pact with myself to stay single until 2010 just to make sure that I don't go rushing into things and that I make sure I'm ready for another serious relationship. Either way, I'm planning on just staying with the dating scene for quite a while as of now.

Well, I think that about covers it for now. I know this is a long one, but I wanted to share my trip out East! Enjoy the rest of your day and week and I look forward to hearing from all of you!