new hampshire

flew to lebanon, nh yesterday. i love this place. the airfield is tucked in between some hills. the terminal is incredible, complete with leather sofas, second floor deck, outdoor stone fireplace. basically they designed it with me in mind. we walked outside heading back to our airplane and eric and i stopped.

"you smell that?"

"yeah, what is it?"

"i think its......pine."

we werent within 300 yards of a tree, but the whole area smells like trees. good lord i love that place.

aww da wong pwaces

last night mark and i ventured out for a beer. we headed to a bar in providence, the red fez. sign on the door reads "closed july 3 - july 17 for vacation. okay. we go to mcfaddens, the local irish themed-really-has-nothing-to-do-with-ireland-other-than-the-fact-they-serve-guinness-meat-market-bar. hey, pints were $2 during the sox game, i can dig it. something bothered me though and i wasnt sure what. fast forward to tonight.
i had to figure out what was bugging me about the place. so we head back there. again, $2 pints during the sox game, groovy. then it hit me like a steam train conducted by doc and marty. pretense. this bar is based on pretense! admit it, whenever you go out to bar you wear your bar going clothes, and you walk in with your bar going walk. you can sit there and say no no, i dont, but you do and you just dont know it.
with this in mind, ive decided that im really not a bar going person. am i a sit-outside-and-share-a beer-with-some-friends type o' fella? sure as hell am. but the new poot has gotten rid of pretense and expectation and whatever else goes along with the scene. im just not into it anymore. furthermore, i dont want to meet someone in a bar. again, its all based on pretense. were there some good looking gals there? oh bob yes, but ya know what, its an empty image. as ive said, ive only been absolutely resolved to approach someone 4 times in my entire life, and somehow, being in the bar setting just voids any possibility of that happening, probably because its expected. if going to the bar is your thing, great for you. i just dont think i can swing it anymore.
oh, and about five minutes into the night, before a single beer was even had, i was called an asshole by a crazy guy on a bike. rock. and roll.
i worked 13 hours today. im tired. listening to buckley, and eying my bed with eyes gleaming with want. am i working again tomorrow? yes i am. but i might fly somewhere afterwards....somewhere far. really goddamn far. i havent seen canada yet.....

oh and if you dont know what the title to this entry refers to, im sorry.

nyc flight

some long overdue photos from the flight down the hudson river corridor. these are stills from the video that i am too lazy to shrink down to a good uploadable size:


george washington bridge
midtown
empire state building
ground zero
lady liberty

the social habits of the rhode island pooter

okay maybe not social habits, but since ive been down here, ive picked up some new routines that i find rather interesting. yeah its saturday night at 10:45 and im home. i stayed in to study flying stuff but needed a break and now you all get to learn about me. arent you excited?

first habit, eventough its more of a condition as opposed to a habit, is that im turning into a workaholic. since june 19th, there have only been three days that i have not gone in to work either because of normal work hours or because i wanted to get something done, or because i wanted to go flying. its sick and twisted but i dig it. in an effort to at least get my mind off of flying for a little bit each day i went out and bought a biography of abraham lincoln, which segues perfectly to the second new habit.

after a long day of slaving over airplanes (oh boo-hoo) i go home and, if its nice out, head right outside with a book. ill stay there until the last few rays of sun are left and then head inside and probably keep reading until i fall asleep. watching a sunset is by far my favorite thing to do in the air (when not in a plane that can roll and loop and stuff) so its carried over to when im on the ground too.

this last bit, im a little ashamed of. it transgresses alot of what ive done, who i am, what my friends think of me, and a large part of my integrity. every morning, ill wake up, go shower, get dressed, make a lunch or something (this isnt the new part, ive been a clean dude since 25 years ago....24 years ago). all the while, i usually put on the country music channel. thats right...country music channel. alot of it is stupid cheese, but alot of it is just fun. if you get the right song stuck in your head itll send you off to work in a pretty damn good mood. but, country music? i surprised even myself with this one. its ryan adams' fault. and someone elses, they know who they are. but goddamn, country music? watch, next thing you know ill be living out in wisconsin, driving a pick up truck and going to the big friday night bratwurst fry event. yee-haw!!!!

dog

emma....












is FINE. the little shit is fine. she had some weird 24 hour bug that could have killed her if we didnt get her to the vet. what a pain in the ass. well worth the vet bill though. now if we can just get her to stop eating rabbit shit in the backyard....

24.92

its july 5th. less than a month left of my 24th year. some of you may remember a post regarding what I expected to happen during this time. I wrote that, since 24 has always been my lucky number, everything big that was going to happen to me, all the major stuff that would directly influence the rest of my life would happen at some point during this year.
unless you haven’t read this in awhile, you should be able to tell without even reading any further that I was pretty much right about it. almost. lets review, shall we?

Obviously, getting my pilots license was the best thing that has ever happened to me or best thing ive ever done, which ever way you want to look at it. so that has to rank as #1 overall. as a direct result of this though, I got a job managing the flight school. I actually wake up everyday and look forward to going to work if you can believe it. I found my path, my career, my life. I knew this would happen this year.

the one area of me that remains completely where it was a year ago is the girl situation. I was hoping to get into something this year, not because I’m looking for a wife or anything, I just enjoy it…immensely. but, she never manifested herself in my life this year (use of Buddhist term on purpose). interestingly enough though, Ive learned enough about myself to know that im not even close to being who I want to be yet, so maybe its a good thing after all.

this last bit wasn’t apparent to me until yesterday, but I’m so glad to be out of boston. I really don’t know how I even lasted there as long as I did. I went up there for the 4th of july and while I love my friends and all, I couldn’t wait to get out of the city. it is easier to be happy when I am not there. it used to be that I needed to always be doing something when I was there, whether it was going to the bar or looking to hang out with someone, I just always needed to be doing something. now, I can relax. I don’t need to go any further than a wingtip and a sunset to be completely content and its great.

in other news, Emma, my dog isn’t doing so well today. will she make it through? we don’t know yet. hopefully my next post is not a sad one.

cynicism and its reluctant poison

tonight i wanted to write a post. i thought of all the observations ive made regarding life in RI up to this point and listed them, quite pointedly and with a remarkable level of excruiating elitism that honestly made me rather dissappointed in myself. i dont want to be that type of person, i really dont, nor do i want to sound like a self righteous suburban gandhi, but i would prefer to be at the very least decent.
cynicism is fun. everyone partakes, at some point in judging someone else, whether over a certain fashion choice or by some materialistic venture they may have pursued. what is the point though, in discrediting some other persons aspirations because they are not aligned with your own? what i may deem as ordinary someone else may see as noble. what i deem as extraordinary someone else could scoff at and call it frivilous.
as i said, i dont want to be that person. there is no point to it. as soon as you dismiss someone's ambition as being subserviant to your own, you are belittling them and taking them for granted. i do of course reserve the right to view certain types of aspirations as worthwhile and admirable and others as being trite. this is not an attack on the person, or a judgement against them. if youre doing something that makes you happy, all the best for you, i hope you get it. but when someone strives for something that takes a remarkable amount of effort that perhaps goes outside their normal means, ill be right there in their corner rooting them on. when someones goals dont go any further than a new set of rims, well, thats cool and all, but i hold that there are more dear things to be found.

but i mean...rims? can you find a quicker way to blow $2500???

i got alot of responses from folks about my invite to go flying. dont be jealous please, im just doing what i love to do. yeah its cool, but so is studying for the bar exam or going and performing surgery on a beached whale. anyone can fly a plane, its pretty simple, but becoming a competent lawyer or looking at a animal and be able to say "i can fix that" is remarkable. ill still take my sunsets though. at 4,500ft you can watch the sun drop below you. ill post some pictures as soon as i get them.