things that make me go LOL

these came off the strip printer a few mornings ago.  Cincy must've been distraught at the loss of their coffee pot :(  I cannot sympathize, though, we have to go down 300' to get to the nearest coffee pot!

and today training on Local...

me: SWA174, Indy tower, you ready to go?

SWA174: We're southwest! We're always ready to go!

me: (giggle) (takeoff clearance)

as they're puttering out onto the runway

SWA174: ehh, that's not what his wife says, he's never ready!!!

also this

is disgusting.

even more things!!!

Last Friday it was getting near the end of my shift.  I'd wandered up to the tower cause I was bored and I wanted to check if anyone wanted a break before I went home.  No one did, but I continued to sit up in the tower and shoot the shit with my coworkers.  A few minutes later, an aural alert went off, accompanied by a red EM on the radar scope. We were all like WTF?  so my coworker zoomed out on his scope and we saw a target way out of our airspace up near FWA at FL390 squawking 7700 (emergency!).  I wasn't working so I went to another scope and watched it (in horror).  With each scan, it dropped 4000' to 5000'.  In under 3 minutes it had dropped from FL390 to 10,000'.  I thought for sure it was going to KEEP descending, and I was feeling a little nauseous at the prospect. When it leveled off at 10,000 I breathed a sigh of relief and guessed there was some sort of pressurization problem.  I recalled something from the academy about unpressurized flight only occurring at or below 10,000'.  I'm so smart!!

Anyway, a few minutes later the phone rang, the plane was coming here to land (it was a pressurization problem after all).  So they made me work ground.  It'd been a hot minute since I'd worked an emergency on ground control, probably as far back as when I was still training (October-ish!).  So I muddled my way through that, and the plane landed without incident.  and I breathed several more sighs of relief.

Almost a week later and I'm still vomiting in my mouth a little thinking about that ridiculous descent rate.  Had I been on that plane I'd probably have been barfing everywhere.  Guess that's why I'm a controller, not a pilot!

(side note: squawking is a dumb word.  it requires way too much concentration to type/spell right.)

hmmm... what else?  Nothing, really.  Still keeping on keeping on in training.  the end may be in sight, but I don't want to jinx myself and end up with 8 MORE months of training :/  my new favorite thing to tell people is that I could've had a baby in the time it's taken me and my 2 RDO-mates to certify.

Also I had a man show up at my door today with a can full of ant-killer.  very exciting!  no more ants!  I even left some food crumbs out while I was at work and NO! NOT ONE ANT!  Hooray! :)

more things

training is still.... stagnant? at best.  We had some pretty freakin busy traffic associated with the NCAA Final Four which I thought I handled splendidly.  But I was later informed that the traffic was "too complex" and "ungradeable" and basically counted for nothing even though I was moving metal like someone at the ATL.  SPLENDID, like splenda (which may or may not cause tumors).

my apartment is still infested with ants.  They will go away for a few days and I will breathe a sigh of relief and think they're gone and come home to thirty billion ants INVOF my sink.  Gag.  I've pretty much given up eating anything here that requires preparation of any sort so I don't create dirty dishes or crumbs or anything.  Ant cups don't work, cinnamon doesn't work, cayenne pepper doesn't work (unless you want reddish brown spots all over your house).  Perhaps the orkin man will.  I've been hesitant to call because it says in my lease that "Pest control is the financial responsibility of the tenant" ugh.  bitch PLZ.

I got to see an F18 today.  It was the second time I'd seen one.  This one had its afterburner on.  It was pretty sexy, haha.  And I got to tell someone "Follow the F18 to runway 23 left" which gave me a weird little thrill. 

Other than that, everything's pretty much same-old, same-old.

Here are some pics from when I was still in classroom training.  One of my instructors has some friends at the "Paper Mill", so we got to go over there and sit in some bizjets.

here I am in a Hawker with LD.

This time you can actually see me!

Here I am with Josh, I think we were in the Citation.

I work up thurrr.

I drew this in class one day.  Who needs an expensive DSLR when you've got me around?! :p

and last but not least, HEEEEEEEERE'S KEEEENNNY

Well, I guess that's all for now...