And I think you know what that little ellipsis there in the title is meant to represent.
Uh-huh.
The reasoning behind this exam and the directions for it are here. Let's just say that I did it, and that I have a clean bill of health. I think. I may have what the AoM article describes as a variocele, but I can't be sure. Without going into much detail, the signs are there. There's definitely something on the left side that ain't there on the right. I'll have to get that checked out when I go home, or possibly when I schedule that physical exam during Day 18 (or whatever) of this challenge.
Well. Now that that's over [cough], I must get back to memorizing Rudyard Kipling's poem "If."
I reckon I know when I'll be coming back into the fold: December 18.
I'm sitting here, sucking on a glass of Black Velvet (which I totally forgot I had until I did that post about how I see the world). There's a super-duper thunderstorm going on outside. It's only about 44 degrees and the rain is just pounding. This stuff must have started out as snow. Either way, it's bad news for all the homeless folks in Seoul right now. I hope they got to cover, especially the legless and armless ones. 'Tain't a fit night out for man nor beast.
With the idyllic evening in full swing, I figured, hell: why not give you guys a progress report?
I picked the above date for a couple of reasons which seemed pertinent at the time. Number One, it'll be the two-month mark. Exactly. Dead-on. Sixty days (more or less) without Facebook. Seems like a sound number. More than enough to break a habit, right? I can already tell the difference. There's a big change. I feel like my Internet use is healthier, I spend less time staring at screens, and I do more cool stuff outside the apartment now. I hardly miss my little blue friend anymore. My right hand has quit moving of its own volition. The only symptom that remains is that incessant urge to put my latest pithy platitude or ribald observation up in your news feeds. I might not resist that temptation, though. Folks I know on Facebook seem to enjoy them platitudes. I've actually gone so far as to make a list of witty Facebook statuses to put up retroactively when I get back on in a month.
Hmm...maybe I'm not as cured as I thought.
The second reason is that NaNoWriMo will be well over by mid-December. I want to make sure I finish that up (and have some time to keep going afterward).
Third: the fall semester will be done with. Final exams will be completed. I'll be in the midst of grading them, sure, but the daily madness of regular class will be past.
Fourth: I kind of need to be back on Facebook before I finish grading and go off to Australia and Hokkaido. Then I can put up all my lovely photos and make you saps jealous. There are some people I'm planning to rendezvous with while out on the road, too, and Facebook would greatly facilitate that process. I hate to admit it, but my little blue friend is good for something.
So there you go. Get set for my triumphant return, Facebook. I'm comin'. I hope to see you all at the reunion party.
...and that's that. For the past few weeks I've thought long and hard about what to do for National Novel Writing Month. I did it last year with great success, as you know. I banged out about 1500 words a day and finished well past the 50,000-word minimum. On the heels of that success, it behooves me to follow up with another project. But sink me if I can think of one. And it's not just the lack of inspiration, either. I'm just busy. Honestly busy. You know all the other times I said I was busy on this blog? Too busy to write? I was whistling Dixie. I have been hustling these past few weeks. The administration and grading of midterm exams has taken up a lot of my time. I just got the last batch put into the university computer system a few minutes ago, in fact. But there's also household chores, beer-brewing (still need to tell you about the second batch) and whatnot. Miss H and I didn't even get to ride the O-Train like we wanted to last weekend. And even though we joined a gym last Wednesday, we've only been once. For three days we were recovering from soreness, the weekend was hectic and this Monday just finished us off—swamped us. Miss H has laundry to do, groceries to buy and a ton of frozen breakfast burritos to make, while I have dishes to wash, Charlie's litter box to clean, and those aforementioned midterms to input (not in that order). Our apartment's a cluttered, dusty mess. Aside from the usual clothes, trinkets, loose change, receipts, scribbled notes and cordage, there's also three half-filled parcels waiting to be taped up and sent off home. We need to get this place whipped into shape, 'cause I still haven't baptized it with the requisite cocktail party. Oh, and I did I mention the deluge of condensation that's collecting out on the veranda? Or that my favorite great uncle died two days ago of acute pancreatitis? Yeah. The world's gone nuts. My current works-in-progress are taking up my attention as well. I feel like Mugunghwa (the 52,000-word novel I wrote last November) is almost ready. I like it, finally. It looks good. Should be ready for e-publishing by the end of 2013. As for Novel #1, a few tweaks will set it to rights. Then I can start shopping it to publishers in 2014. So no NaNo this year. What I will do, however, just to keep pace with Miss H (who is doing it, and more power to her), is start up Novel #4. Yeah, yeah. I know. Novel #3 is only sixty-eight percent complete. Sue me. I know exactly where it's going. I planned this shit out. I know right where Novel #3 will end, and where Novel #4 will begin. This was Miss H's suggestion, actually. And it's brilliant. Why not start my fourth novel, the third volume of my magnum opus? I might as well get the drop on it. I can easily mow down 50,000 words of it by the end of November. Something tells me it's going to be more fun to write than the previous two. Every book in the series will be more fun to write than the last. And, hopefully, more fun to read.
Look, I'd like to apologize to you whose blogs I follow. I know I haven't been keeping up with you very well. I've been meaning to stop in and comment on all your new stuff, honestly.
Trouble is, because I'm such a nice guy, I am now following something like, I don't know, 45 blogs. And a lot of you are as prolific as I am, if not more. You're a little tricky to keep up with sometimes, particularly when I'm trying to pass my bar exam (excuse me, I meant bartender's exam) and still keep up a full-time job. Things have been a bit mad around here this week. There was a big hullabaloo with reserving my tickets to England; and I had to go into the bank and sit in a soft chair and flirt with the pretty blond on the other side of the desk for forty minutes. (Raw deal, right?) And that wasn't my only money-related worry. I don't know if I'll be able to save up enough to even go to England if flights keep getting weather-canceled like they have been. I only worked one day this week, Friday. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were canceled out of hand due to weather concerns.
This, needless to say, sucks eggs. I need that money. And if the friggin' spring winds don't die down around here, I won't get it. This could be a problem. It'd be grand if I could get a job tending bar nights to supplement my currently minuscule income. Grand, that is, if I could pass my bloody test. I went down to Riverside on Thursday (which turned out to be a beautiful day) to do the written portion. I sat around for about an hour and a half, reviewing the flashcards and the textbook; then I went straight up to Missy (Wade's wife) and said, "I'm ready." Turns out I wasn't. She gave me a little oral quiz right then and there to determine if I was ready, and I messed up. (I said zinfandel was a white wine—ha!) Very gently, she suggested I study a bit longer, and then come get her. Face burning, I sat back down and reviewed for another half-hour. Then I got up and volunteered again. Missy handed me the test and said "There you go! Good luck."
Oh, it was a nasty one. I knew the wines, liquor classifications and alcohol-related laws like the back of my head. But I just barely failed anyway. I missed six drinks; maximum's five. And it was all simple stuff that I'd forgotten, too, like glasses and garnishes. Shazbot.
Soonest I can re-take it is early next week. It'll probably be tomorrow. Next weekend's booked up, because we're starting our first six-day week at work. The drone pilots are going to be flying some simple landing-pattern practice runs on Saturday and Sunday. They're short days, but still, I'm glad. It'll give me a fighting chance to make up the monstrous deficit. In the irrational part of my brain, I'm still holding out for that pie-in-the-sky trip to England, here.
Wish me luck. I'll try and make it over to your blogs sometime this week. In the meantime, please stop by mine and see if you got an award! I've been getting deluged with them lately, so it's statistically likely that you, dear reader, have received one. I only follow 45 blogs, you know.
A saphead I am, and a saphead I shall remain. I actually thought, as I walked to the car one frigid December night in North Dakota in 2007, having successfully skidded my way through three and a half years of college, that I was done with studying forever.
I wish the Knight-Who-Hits-People-With-A-Chicken from Monty Python's Flying Circus had come clanking across the parking lot and hit me with a chicken right then.
Boy, was I barking up the wrong tree. Why did I ever think I was finished with studying? I mean, I knew I was going to try and get a pilot's license and all. And I knew as soon as I stepped into the ground school classroom back in February of '08 that I was in for a trial. Private pilots have to know Bernoulli's theorem, basic principles of electrical circuits, meteorology, the Federal Aviation Requirements (dozens of them), airspace and safety rules...I could go on and on. We also have to know what the word "camber" means, what the angle of incidence is, what to do if your engine dies or you lose your electronic instruments, how far you have to stay below clouds in VFR conditions in Class B airspace, and hundreds more factoids of that ilk.
I've been trying to review all this for the past two weeks (in anticipation of taking my pilot's exams and checkride before February's out). But let me tell you, trying to cram when you haven't so much as peeked at the material for nigh on two years is...something of a challenge.
But it gets even worse. On top of this, I'm trying to simultaneously get through bartender's school. It's a lot easier, sure—just memorizing drink recipes and various mixing tricks—but therein lies the problem. My memory, never the best, is being frayed thin by it all. At any given time I might have the ingredients of a gin and tonic or a Freddy Fudpucker bouncing around in my head, ricocheting off Bernoulli's theorem and principles of aerodynamics and stall recovery.
(I'm also still trying to edit my novel, but I'm beginning to view that more and more as a leisure activity.)
It's maddening. I don't know how I'm going to get through it all. This is worse than anything I ever faced at college. There, I could just roll out of bed, eat a bowl of Cheerios, glance over my notes, skim the textbook, slope off to class, sit for the exam, go play campus golf with the fellas, and execrate my bad-but-passing grade later.
I can't do that now. If I don't pass bartender's school I'll have no income. If I flunk my pilot's exams I'll be delayed in my pursuit of happiness—and be out of $500.
And if things are this bad now, what are they going to be like later? I'm not going to stop at just your ordinary average everyday garden-variety pilot's license, you realize. I'm shooting for a commercial pilot's license.
That takes time and money. How much time and money? Well, I'm glad you asked. I'll list the requirements for a commercial pilot's license right here and now. This is what I'm going to have to go through in order to achieve my pie-in-the-sky dream of having an international air service.
FAR 61.129 [Aeronautical Experience] [Excerpt]
For an airplane multi engine rating:
If you are applying for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane category and multi engine class rating, you must log at least 250 hours of flight time as a pilot (of which 50 hours, or in accordance with FAA Part 142, a maximum of 100 hours may have been accomplished in an approved flight simulator or approved flight training device that represents a multi engine airplane) that consists of at least:
100 hours in powered aircraft, of which 50 hours must be in airplanes.
100 hours of pilot in command flight time, which includes at least 50 hours in airplanes, and 50 hours in cross-country flight in airplanes.
20 hours of training on the areas of operation as listed for this rating, that includes at least 10 hours of instrument training of which at least 5 hours must be in a multi engine airplane, 10 hours of training in a multi engine airplane that has a retractable landing gear, flaps, and controllable pitch propellers, or is turbine-powered, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a multi engine airplane in day VFR conditions, consisting of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a multi engine airplane in night VFR conditions, consisting of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure.
10 hours of flight time performing the duties of a pilot in command in a multi engine airplane with an authorized instructor on the areas of operation as listed for this rating, which includes at least one cross-country flight of not less than 300 nautical miles total distance and as specified, and 5 hours in night VFR conditions with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.
Permitted credit for use of advanced flight training equipment:
Except when fewer hours are approved by the Administrator (FAA), an applicant for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane, helicopter, or a powered-lift rating who has satisfactorily completed an approved commercial pilot course conducted by a training center certificated under FAA Part 142 of this chapter need only have a total of 190 hours for an airplane or powered-lift rating and total of 150 hours for a helicopter rating to meet the aeronautical experience requirements of this section.
FAR 61.129 really freaks me out. In order to get a commercial pilot's license for a multi-engine rating, I need 250 hours of flight-time.
To put that in some perspective, you only need 40 hours to get a private pilot's license. A mere40 hours. And those 40 hours still depleted the savings I'd socked away in Korea, several thousand dollars.
Who knows what this is going to cost, or how much time it'll take, or how hard the final exam is going to be?
I've made a vow to be done with both bartender's school and my private pilot's license by the end of this month. I'm taking my last review lesson with Harold on Wednesday the 17th, and I'm going to knock off the last two time-trials at bartender's school in the next two Mondays, and take the final on Saturday the 27th.
[Gulp]
Wish me luck. Goodness knows if my poor abused brain will be able to take the punishment, and retain all the information necessary to pass a written, oral, and practical flight exam, plus a comprehensive six-minute time-trial covering roughly 100 drinks.
Let's hope Dad's luck kicks in again.
