okay

I haven't posted in a looooong time, and I only feel compelled to post now because I got some comments on my blog and feel guilty that I've been slacking.

But it's not my fault! I have had nothing to blog about...

I have been in Oklahoma City for the past 3 weeks learning to vector aircraft.  I didn't think it looked easy when I walked through the TRACON, and now I think it's even LESS easy.  The faux airport ("Academy") is the like O'Hare busy.  And despite having 3 runways, there's only one ILS and the weather is almost entirely IFR.  So you have C172s and BE35s trying to land in with GLF4, B767, F16s.  Come on. IND is certainly not like that.  Also, despite being solid IFR, there are anywhere from 5-35 VFR popups, which also tends not to happen in real life. At least not where I'm at.  What I don't understand is we have the same (actually slightly better) simulators at IND that they have down here at OKC. I don't know why they are paying us an extra $90+/day per diem when we could just stay home and learn specifically what to do, instead of making us come down here, sweat to death and learn procedures, frequencies and airspace at a fake airport.  Oh well...

I brought Ken and the foster Dylan with me, and it's definitely been an exercise in patience.  It's been 100+ almost every day I've been down here and neither the dogs or I have wanted to walk any more than is required for them to do their business.  Therefore, they're wound up constantly, trying to eat each other's heads, whining, pacing... agh.  Dylan escaped the apartment last Saturday and my coworker friend and I spent the better part of an hour circling the apartment complex (at midnight nonetheless!) looking for him.  He ended up being on my neighbor's back patio eating cat food. Then 2 days later he darted away while I was trying to throw away the dog poo bag and yanked the leash right out of my hand.  Luckily I caught him quickly that time.

I have been in contact with an ATC applicant and he's been asking me a lot of good questions about the hiring process and the job.  I plan on using those questions as blog fodder once I get back to Indy.