the quarter-life crisis

Let me just say, here and now, that I did not come up with that sardonic title by myself. It's actually a phrase coined by a friend of mine, David, whose plight is somewhat similar to mine. (He didn't get dismissed from his last job, though, I'm pretty sure.) Well then! Nothing's written in stone yet, but I have a good idea about what I'm going to do now that I find myself, a 23-year-old unemployed college graduate living in my parents' house, unemployed and living in my parents' house. My friends have been wonderfully supportive, my parents and grandparents have given me some good advice, and I'm feeling largely at peace with what's happened. My pride still stings a little, but as soon as Mom bakes some cookies I'll get over that in a hurry. As you'll recall, it says "aviation" up at the top of this page. Thus far, there hasn't been much in this blog concerning aviation, except me prattling on about my flight-related ambitions. This is because you have caught me in the interim. I completed ground school in the spring of 2008, shortly before I went off to Korea. Between then and the time I departed for the Orient, I took flying lessons at Cheyenne Regional Airport in Wyoming, and racked up about twelve flight-hours. I started this blog up in March of 2009, and only just returned to the United States in July. I haven't resumed my flight training yet because, well, I've been working part-time and trying to save money, and since lessons cost roughly $200 a pop... Excuses, excuses, I know. If you're a veteran pilot or a halfway serious student you're probably castigating me as unenthusiastic or cowardly. But it isn't true. It's been heartbreaking for me to be stuck on the ground so long, believe me. But I felt I had to accumulate some savings before I embarked upon my grand quest to become a commercially-licensed pilot with multi-engine, complex, high-performance and seaplane ratings. That takes some doing, you know. And some serious cabbage. Getting dismissed from newspaper has changed all that. I'm now free to move around and do things again. And I've decided, borrowing my mother's wisdom and my grandfather's counsel, to start moving toward my dreams in a more definite manner. What I really mean is, I'm going to not work at all and start flying a lot instead. Good plan, eh? Yes, you read that correctly. I'm going to start hammering away full-time at getting my piloting qualifications. The nice thing about this flight school here in town at the Apple Valley Airport (Apple Valley Aviation, it's called) is that they do both multi-engine ratings and commercial licensing. That's half of my airborne ambitions right there. If I can get that taken care of, then wherever I go from here I'll have the qualifications to work for pretty much any small regional cargo airline there is. Sure, I'll be green. I won't have a lot of flight-hours racked up. But I'll have the basic credentials, and that'll be something. But wait! There's more. There is another prong to my chase-down-dreams plan. As you might have guessed from my cocktail reviews and my ardor for all things boozy, I am something of a liquor enthusiast. I'm an amateur bartender, a newly-minted professor of mixology if you will. I mix cocktails for my parents most every night, and I ran a cocktail bar out of my apartment in Korea for some months. I've always wanted to try my hand at being a bartender. There's something so romantically human in it: me, behind the bar, in a dimly-lit room, shiny bottles arrayed behind me as I methodically polish a glass, two or three regulars sitting on bar stools, getting smashed, getting a load off their chests, the pungent aroma of spirits (alcoholic and human alike) in the air. I've been told I'd be good at it. Not to brag or anything, but people do come to me with their problems. I'm not much good at comforting them, but I like to think I give them some perspective. Sometimes that's all it takes. And anyway, as long as things didn't get too hectic, I think it would be the neatest thing to mix drinks and pull pints for people all day. Great potential for philosophical debate, that's for certain. I don't want to have a hoidy-toidy, hippy-dippy bar, you understand; I really want to work in (or own) a pub. Quiet place, not too big, kind of old-fashioned, lots of dark wood...a cozy, comforting, intimate venue. But to do that, I need a liquor handler's license. And if I'm going to go to the trouble of getting that, I could do worse than go the whole hog and just go to bartender's school. There are some good ones pretty close to me, down the hill in Riverside and San Bernardino. I'd get some practical training, I'd get an insight into the most popular drink recipes, I'd learn to navigate behind the bar, and most importantly, I'd get certified. That means I should be able to get work at any respectable bar, anywhere. Wherever I go from here, then, I'll have those two notches on my belt. Not only do I have my journalism degree and a little experience along with it, but I'll have my commercial pilot's license and a bartender's certificate. Think of it as an epistemological hat trick. If I go to Australia, I don't have to depend on finding writing jobs, which could be really scarce. I could work in any of the myriad bars in Sydney or Perth or Adelaide. Heck, I might even find a job as a bush pilot in the outback. (Gee, wouldn't that be swell? It makes me tingly just thinking about it.) The same would be true if I went to Anchorage: I'd have two trump cards up my sleeve, two fun ways to make a living in a new place. It seems like a good idea to me. It's a bit embarrassing to be acquiring this dual education while under my parents' roof, but they're kind and generous, and living here is drastically inexpensive. Here is the best place to base my educational expeditions with fully reserved capital. So, to that end, I shall pursue knowledge relating to two of my favorite things: booze and airplanes. And in so doing I shall finally fulfill the promise of this blog, that aviation should be one of the topics discussed within it. Further bulletins as events warrant.