Walking on the Moon

I’ve got a cell phone again.  I finally found time to go down to the Verizon store, find out that I was out of my contract period and that they would replace the phone I lost in <cough> January, and get a new one.  It cost me $20 and I have a simple clamshell phone from Samsung that looks like a little Star Trek:TOS communicator.  I really like it, though it’s positively quaint by the standards of the nerds I hang out with.

After I got the phone I decided I should check my messages.  After all, I’ve been without a phone for 7 months.

Of course, no new messages.  At least I know my friends know me.

My jaunt to do approaches Saturday was also interesting because it was the last entry in my first logbook.  When I started taking flying lessons on 12 Feb 2000, I bought a student pilot package that included a Jeppesen logbook.  Now the first 6 years of my flying experience are in one place, with a bow wrapped around them.
I’ve got an electronic copy of all the stuff, but the physical book is an interesting artifact in its own right.  There are the out of order entries around 9/11 that show how desperate I was to fly, but how I couldn’t look at my logbook while I was grounded for fear that I wouldn’t get to add another entry.  After I got to fly again and started instrument training I added the missing entries, but in the excitement I’d forgotten to add them in order.

There are a lot of firsts in there, too.  First passengers, first flight in 32169, first trip out of state, first everything, really.

As a nice coincidence, I didn’t get to make the last entry.  Flying with Andy as a CFI he gets to make and sign the entry.  Just like he made and signed the first one in 2000.
Now I get to start another one.  I’m a lucky guy.

My CFI and I were up shooting approaches Saturday morning. We actually filed each leg IFR through the tower entoute control (TEC) that the LA basin employs, which makes it super easy to fly IFR legs locally. We filed 3 legs, the first two one after the other and the last one after an hour or so break for lunch.

I was issued the same squawk code for all three legs.

I don’t remember ever getting the same squawk for 2 legs, much less 3 with an hour between two legs. Weird luck.

Apparently I mostly read the blogs of people who show me distrubing things.  I don’t know is that says something bad about me or them.
In any case, Jeffrey Rowlands disturbed me today by showing me a site where you can pay to be responded to.