Circumnavigation

Well, I'm back. After a truly excruciating 3-hour flight from MCO to DFW aboard a packed Canadair CRJ-100 (they look cooler from the outside) I was wheels down in Dallas at 2015 local Saturday night. It felt good, too -- I was somewhat surprised how much I'd missed being in Dallas the past two weeks. I'm not sure if that's because I like the place so much, or if it's only because I liked Florida so little. If only Texas had real mountains.

The whirlwind of adjusting to a new job, in a new city, working with new people at not one but TWO trade shows had taken its toll on me out in Florida. When I woke up for the first day of NBAA (when the picture in the following entry was taken) I couldn't remember ever having been so tired, or ever dreading what was to come so much. THIS wasn't why I wanted to write about aviation... God, what had I done?

Much like getting my wisdom teeth pulled -- and without benefit of the truly, truly wonderful drugs -- I suffered through it because it had to be done. Truth be known, a lot of it was pretty interesting; more important than personal enjoyment, I learned a lot... so let's call it 1/2 oral surgery, 1/2 lesson grudgingly learned. And yes, I'd do it all again.

Now, though, begins the real fun: the daily routine of being Associate Editor for ANN. I even have business cards (below) so it's official, I'm really working for them.

The rough schedule goes something like this: wake up early, and while Senior Editor Pete Combs is playing big-shot radio personality in NC, I'll grab any headlines from overnight and post them on the site in "real-time" for the morning. Depending on the workload, I then take a break until Pete is back in pocket at around noon, and then we'll coordinate what to post for the next day and what should go on that evening's Aero-Cast. Time will tell how much time that will take, although I've been assured I'll still be able to have a life, such as it is.

We'll see.

There will be moments of fun, too -- I'm supposed to check out IndUS Aviation sometime this week down at RDB (I refuse to call it Dallas Executive -- "Redbird" is such a great name for an airport, even better than Albuquerque's Sunport) and fly the company's Thorpedo T-211 light-sport aircraft. It's not the Avanti II (below) but it'll do...

And there will be more travel. I'll also be able to start flying again shortly, working towards the private license -- and I'll be able to write about it.

Sometimes, life doesn't suck. I've been thinking about that a lot lately, as well as the circumstances that brought me to this point. I'd never thought I'd be at this point in my life, back in 1998 when I was licking my wounds from Fresno. Nor would I have believed I'd be here now had you asked me in the summer of 2001, when I was unemployed, lovesick over a truly worthless woman, and completely unwilling to intermingle with the outside world. Back then, I chose instead to lock myself in my little house off El Pueblo, generally feeling sorry for myself. After three months like that, my friends and family finally forced me to leave the house, and get a job -- any job would do.

That led me to a little courier outfit called DMC -- which, one year later, led me to the world of small airplanes. Almost a year to-the-day after that, I left DMC for American Gypsum (yeah, yeah, thanks Tony) which, in a roundabout way, led me to Aero-News -- and Dallas, a city that has agreed with me more so than not.

Life is often more interesting than we give it credit for.