Surprisingly No Rain Today

We were expecting today to to be a complete washout, so when we woke up to the natural light seeping in through the window around 7:30 this morning, we bounced out of bed and went out to take advantage of it. We weren't sure if it would soon storm again or not, so we figured every minute was precious. We walked down to the old pier again, since Nicole didn't have her nice camera last time. While the water is always a nice color, the pickings are slim for actual photogenic scenery since it's just you know . . . a beach.

After returning to our hotel, we had breakfast and went for a swim. Sea life is very sparse since there's no reef, but I did spot a crab and a starfish, as you see here. After spending a decent amount of time at the beach, where Nicole finished her thriller novel and I continued reading a thriller of my own -- the trials and tribulations of an American contract pilot flying in China. Scary stuff! After beach time, we walked toward the "town" to do some shopping. Almost everything was closed. Many had signs that said, "Reopening in November." Apparently we are here in the offseason. I got a deal on our hotel (relatively speaking) since it normally goes for well over $300 a night.

And that's the crazy thing about these islands. Who has the money to afford places like this during the "on" season? We walked through a few other resorts which go from $600-$800/nt (during offseason). And yes, they look really nice, but I'm not sure how one can really justify that price in exchange for some more topiaries and a nicer pool. But I suppose some folks like to go big or go home when they go on vacation. Now the bizarre complaints to staff about the rain make a bit more sense. I can picture some big wig from New Jersey yelling, "I just paid $800 a night for this! Can't you make the rain go away?!?!"

We thought we might find an alternate place to get lunch, but everything was closed. We ended up reversing course back to a place called Seven Stars, the same resort we had lunch at a few days ago. If we're going to pay $50 for lunch, we better at least get friendly service. I suggested a boycott of our hotel's restaurant/bar since they always seem to either lie or have attitude. After lunch, we discovered that that the Seven Stars had a bocce ball court and nobody really enforces or restricts access to such things (take that $500/nt hotel!). Nicole, being the Italian that she is, was drawn to it like a bee to a flower. Next I knew we were tossing large balls toward a small ball. A simple game, indeed. The sun was still shining, so now we proceeded back to our hotel and decided to check out a standup paddle board. Neither of us have ever done standup paddle boarding before despite it being quite popular in our area. And you can't beat free, so it was the perfect time to try it out. The people who checked it out before us were struggling, so we thought perhaps it was more difficult than it appeared.

Now not to toot our horns, but both Nicole and I were able to stand up immediately without incident. Perhaps our backgrounds in skating or surfing helped. It was a fairly relaxing activity as well, though I couldn't really get anywhere fast. You are sort at the mercy of the waves/current. I was trying to take pictures of Nicole doing it and she just sort of sailed away to the west in search of new trade routes or something. Tomorrow we face the daunting task of flying American Airlines through Miami to get back to LA. Wish us luck.

Well At Least We Have Yesterday

Today was overcast and rainy the entire day. You can't win them all, though. We were fortunate to have some unexpected sun throughout most of yesterday, so I suppose it's fair. It wasn't particularly rainy in the morning -- just very grey, so we borrowed some bikes from the hotel and rode over to the eastern edge of the island which took less than 15 minutes. We locked the bikes up at a resort nearby and walked around. The place was virtually deserted. We bought a few food items at a nearby market and biked back to our place. We went to the beach (also deserted as you see here).

We did some reading and crosswords even as the rain began to pound down hard. We had an umbrella open over our loungers, so it really made no difference to us. Eventually the wind started pushing the rain into us despite the umbrella, so we sprinted back to our room where we continued our reading and I did one of my training modules for the airline until it was time for dinner. With some bagels and a can of soup on deck, we thought we'd try the happy hour downstairs believing that they had 2-for-1 appetizers and drinks. When we went down, we inquired to confirm that this applied to appetizers and the man nodded.

But as seems to be the case everywhere on this island, people like to say what they think we want to hear until we get the bill and feel like we've been swindled realizing that this 2-for-1 appetizers deal is nonexistent. So we ended up paying $40 for a couple appetizers, a beer, and a bottle of water. We knew the island was going to be expensive before we got here since it's like the playground for A-list celebrities. (After all, we are Bricole, everyone's favorite celebrity couple, but even we try to live like the commoners to keep ourselves grounded). Oh well. It is what it is. It looks like tomorrow we will have that soup and bagel after all.

First Full Day on Turks . . .and Caicos Too

Fully expecting to wake up to rain, we were surprised to find the sun poking through some cloud cover. After a breakfast of bagels and donuts purchased from the grocery store, we went out to the beach in front of the hotel. After a bit we decided to go into the water. It was a comfortable temperature. Not really much in terms of sea life to look at with the exception of an occasional lost fish, but it was nice and clear. We were at the beach for a while, but for whatever reason, my nose started draining uncontrollably from the salt water, so we went back in to take care of me.

After regrouping, and blowing my schnoz a few times, we set forth again to explore the other areas down the beach from our hotel. We had walked about a mile down the beach when I turned around and pointed to rain in the distance that appeared to be about two miles away. I told Nicole we should find a place to eat lunch or get out of the rain should it strike. I assumed we had a few minutes, but I barely finished my sentence when it started pouring. An employee at the nearby resort was sprinting to gather up towels and beach equipment while yelling, "It came too quick!"

We found refuge at a prime ocean view spot at the bar & grill. We split an $18 club sandwich and I tried a Turk's Head Amber beer. The waitress said that everyone has been complaining about the weather. I was thinking that we had gotten lucky with the weather so far. By this time, the rain had already stopped. It had poured for all of maybe three minutes and the place was practically deserted. Now don't get me wrong -- I was concerned about getting rained out, but I realize now that this week the weather may be like Hawai'i, where it does technically rain everyday, but it's not a washout. I assume these folks who are complaining are from the east coast because they need something to complain about.

After a relaxing lunch and finally meeting people who were actually friendly toward us, we continued down the beach beyond what may have once been a pier and for another 1/2 mile or so before turning around. The wind on the beach is quite strong, but it's almost a necessity because the sun, heat, and humidity is extremely strong. The weather online said it was a feels-like temperature of 109º Wowzers. This was making us quite parched, so we walked back to our place where I mixed some ginger-ale with some fruit juice we bought at the grocery store. Gin and Juice if you will.

Finally Arrived in Turks . . . and Caicos too.

Well if you read the last post, it was considerable effort to finally reach the Turks & Caicos. I caught maybe 30 mins of neck breaking sleep enroute from Atlanta, but woke up in time for both biscotti and this view out the window. The water was a nice turquoise blue as you can see. Though, if you look on the horizon, there's a fairly strong thunderstorm cell building up as well. This was to be expected as we are not the brightest and chose to go to the middle of the Caribbean at hurricane season's peak. After landing, the hot and humid weather was a welcome relief to the aircraft's cold cabin. We breezed through customs and immigration and got a "taxi" to our hotel.
Now, I should explain something about transportation on the Turks & Caicos, and that . . . there isn't any. No buses or traditional taxis to speak of - just shared ride vans that charge PER PERSON. Four people in the van all going about 8 miles from the airport? That'll be $80. Uber needs to get in here. After the disheartening "taxi" fare, we received a less than warm welcome at the hotel, where our room was not yet ready.

We got some lunch in the meantime, which was good because I was getting cranky. I just really hate being in 90 degree heat while wearing pants. Nobody likes pants. Finally we got our room and I could take my pants off. Yay! Speculating that we will get rained out for the next four days, we went straight to the beach to take advantage of the sun before it goes away. Soon enough, some storm clouds started rolling in and we were forced to flee the ensuing downpour. After it rained itself out, we walked to a grocery store down the street which is comparable to Whole Foods. You see, everything on this island is quite expensive.

Our hotel is almost like a condo since it came with laundry, a toaster, some dishes, and various utensils, so our dinner tonight consisted of bagels and cream cheese washed down with a local beer called "Turk's Head." It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow because everything is so weather dependent. With any luck, we will find some gaps in the rain and the storms so we can go out and play.

NonRev Adventures

Recently my parents faced a bit of a challenge trying to get to Santa Fe, New Mexico. You see, it can be a challenge to get to some of the less popular airports due to fewer flight options and one has to change planes somewhere and "Two-Leg It," as I say. Over the course of about 12 hours, I changed my parents' flights three times and had them going to a completely different airport in the end. Needless to say, this was a bit stressful for them. All the flights kept getting oversold at last minute when they had 40 seats open just the day before.

This same airline, which shall remain unnamed (let's just say it rhymes with schmamerican), caused Nicole and I issues just days later. The checkin process was archaic, requiring that we wait in line to speak to an agent who types furiously for a few minutes before issuing a paper ticket straight out of 1992. And despite entering Nicole's TSA-PreCheck number, she was put in the commoners line. Despite boarding a flight with more than 50 open seats, the gate agent issued us tickets that were rows apart from each other. And despite an online listing system that showed 12 seats available for our final leg, the company's own website wouldn't allow tickets to be purchased for said flight -- indicating that in fact that were no seats. In the nonrev world, 12 vs none is a pretty big difference. Why the discrepancy? So as we walked by a lineup of slot machines at McCarran International Airport, we figured that flying Schmamerican was too much of a gamble. How did we end up in Vegas? Well . . .

We were planning to go to Turks & Caicos in the Caribbean, which does not have direct flights. Our first, and most direct option, was to go from LA-Miami-Turks, but then the Miami flight was filling up rapidly because 20 people randomly decided they were going to go to Miami that day. There was a workaround that involved flying from LA-Las Vegas-Miami, so we tried that. Once in Las Vegas, all flights from Miami to Turks looked sketchy at best, so we went Las Vegas-Atlanta on Delta. Now bear in mind that we arrived in Atlanta around 5:45am and hadn't slept, so we wanted a place to rest. We each had some United club passes that we get from our credit card company, but we didn't have a United boarding pass. Ah, but wait! I listed us on a flight from Atlanta to Houston on United, scanned the pass at the desk and immediately canceled the booking once we had our foot in the door.




Now some might say that is cheating, but the boarding pass rule is bollocks as far as I'm concerned. Refueling with hot oatmeal and some Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, we prepared for our third leg, which would (hopefully) take us to Turks & Caicos, and into a tropical depression. Not like emotionally depressed, but the low pressure system kind.

On the Oregon Trail

Although I flew in and out of Portland a few months back, I hadn't been overnight in Oregon (job-related or otherwise) until now. We landed in Redmond, a small town in central Oregon, a little after noon. I had the rest of the afternoon to explore. It seems there are a lot of natural features in the area, but most of the exciting ones are not easily accessible to someone staying at an airport hotel. I found some caves about a mile and a half away and decided to check them out. There are about four different caves, and I chanced across the first one after about a 30 min walk in the 90 degree heat.

This was the view of the cave opening, which by itself was not terribly inviting. As you can see, it is a rather small space. Out by myself, I wasn't terribly enticed to venture inside since I figured I would find either a homeless camp, teenagers making out, or bigfoot. As I continued down the trail beyond the cave, I ran across two ladies that looked fairly familiar and then realized they were the flight attendants from our flight. Everyone looks different in normal people clothes. They said they had gone into the cave and wanted to do it again.

Weighing in at probably 120 lbs apiece, they were not exactly imposing figures, but somehow this strength in numbers reassured me if we might end up in a brawl with hobos or horny teenagers. It was very dark inside. Fortunately they each had their cabin flashlights, whereas all I had was an iPhone which didn't do much. At some points the ceiling was quite low, and eventually I did graze my head, but appear to have survived the skirmish. The cave was about 100m long and eventually had an opening on the other end, where we emerged back into the hot sun. Then we all met up later with the captain for an early dinner at a dive bar offering Taco Tuesday specials. I had four tacos and a beer for $11. Not too shabby. The clientele of the establishment was almost entirely over the age of 60. The old folks like a good deal.

After dinner I walked around the neighborhood for a bit and along a nearby creek. It paralleled a golf course for a bit before abruptly ending at a residential road.

 All in all, it doesn't seem like a bad place. The airport looked recently renovated and clean, people seem friendly, and there's good scenery in the area. On reserve, I really have no say as to where I go and when, but I wouldn't mind getting sent to Redmond again.

Back in the Saltiest of Lakes

Early last August, I earned my ATP certificate in Atlanta after almost two months of both ground and sim training. It was a great feeling of accomplishment to finally have the privilege to fly a jet. In order to maintain this certificate, however, I must come back once a year for recurrent training and be retested orally on my knowledge and also in the simulator. I have not met any pilots who have positive feelings about this experience, but I'm sure the traveling public would be glad to know we get tested every year to get our licenses renewed. So off I went to Salt Lake City again.

The first day of ground was straightforward, but my sim schedule of 8pm-2am wasn't exactly ideal for maximizing my focus. On the first day of sim, we did everything bad that can happen to a plane -- engines on fire, missed approaches on one engine, lavatory toilet in flames -- the usual things you might encounter when flying Aeroflot. The following day was the actual checkride, but there is only so much studying I can do at a time, so I took the train downtown since I had all day. When I was here last year, I recall a museum on the history of the mormon church that was under renovation.

Well now it's open, and admission is free, so I decided to check it out. I'm not mormon, but I find religions intriguing. Unfortunately, I didn't really get much out of this particular museum. It's more of a museum about mormons for mormons. Everyone else in there was commenting on captions at the exhibits with interest and excitement, but things didn't quite have the same meaning for me. There was a replica of the golden plates that Joseph Smith found and hid under a hat to translate from Egyptian hieroglyphics to English. It did sort of cover the history of the mormons and their various settlements and the lives of the Smiths at least. But I was honestly hoping for a bit more -- like how are certain countries chosen for missions and what's the deal with the secret underwear? See, that's how I know this was not a museum for a mere passersby. While it has amazing reviews on tripadvisor, I feel as though it could have been a bit more inclusive. Though, to be fair, I tried to avoid all museum staff for fear of being recruited, so maybe not too inclusive . . .

Since I covered the museum in a short amount of time, I went to a park near the Mormon temple to go on my phone and study a little bit for the looming checkride. Then I got hungry. My food options back at the airport hotel are quite limited, so I went to a local chain called Crown Burgers, which is like the In N' Out of Salt Lake. It is, however, more expensive and not as good. It wasn't bad per se, but at almost $6 a burger you kind of expect to be wowed. The interior of this fast-food was . . . different. It was decorated like an old man's house that hasn't been updated from the 1970s, but was decorated in the 70s to look like a medieval castle. That probably makes no sense, and I didn't have to foresight to take a picture, but that's the best description I can give.

After taking a nap and doing a little bit of studying, I took my check ride and despite the high stress environment, came out on top with confidence just like this bear driving a car made to look like an Embraer 120 Brasilia turboprop. Everything is confusing in Salt Lake City. Nevertheless, I can relax a little bit for the next 12 months and my parents will be happy to hear that their travel benefits can be extended for another year.

Politics Politics Politics!

Through this job, I have flown places I'd never thought I'd see and met all types of people. Some like to discuss politics while I'm locked up in the cockpit. And to be honest, the only ones who want to talk politics are fervent supporters of Donald Trump. When they ask me what my political leanings are, I deflect and say I'm middle of the road moderate (which is mostly true anyway). On a long flight from Houston to Cleveland, one captain discussed in detail why he thought Trump was the obvious choice to restore order. I said nothing. During a dinner with the crew in Guadalajara, a captain and two flight attendants talked proudly of how they supported Trump because he wasn't the typical politician. I said nothing, but hid in shame hoping nobody overheard this conversation. I mean -- I was in Mexico after all. I hear they're paying for the wall. I usually keep my mouth shut, but I can't help but recall a famous poem that ends in "Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me."

Over time, I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats. I am not someone who goes to a polling place and just votes down party lines. I know people who would vote for a ham sandwich if it was the right party, but that is not me. You see, this election is important, and the rest of the world simply cannot understand how this race is even as close as it is. The choices could not be any simpler in my eyes. There are people who hated George W. Bush and said he was the worst president we have ever had. Some even called him Hitler. The same hyperbolic statements have been said about Obama as well. Once you bring Hitler into the conversation, the conversation is done. One can argue adamantly with Obama's or Bush's policies, but to say that they are like Hitler is way out of bounds.

On the other hand, what we are experiencing now is absolutely terrifying and eerily reminiscent of Hitler's rise to power. You tap into people's fear and anger. You act as their only voice against a government that has seemingly neglected them. You find a scapegoat. Whether it be jews or muslims and immigrants, the tactics are the same.

"Oh, he'll never do those things he says," is the common response from the Trump supporter. "That's just Donald being Donald. You never know what he's going to say." And isn't that exactly the problem? A lot of people who voted (yes voted) for Hitler thought his propaganda about the jews was outrageous, but 6 million people were murdered because of something he said that nobody took seriously.

"Oh, but Hillary! She's a criminal and should be locked up!," they say. Locked up because of a private email server that didn't have the proper encryption? Anyone who has parents born before 1960 knows that the older generation does not understand this kind of technological stuff. That doesn't excuse her as a former cabinet member for being sloppy, but let's be honest with ourselves. She had no idea she was doing anything risky. I firmly believe that the majority of the criticism leveed at Secretary Clinton is due to the simple fact that she is a woman. Most of the people that don't like her cannot articulate why. "I don't like her voice!" "What is she wearing?" "Stupid b***h can't even please her husband!" "Everything she says is a lie!" (Politifact would counter that only about 25% of the things she says are untrue . . . compared to about 70% of the things Trump says). The above statements, however are simply not said about male candidates. If you have an issue with Clinton's policies, that is fine. Maybe you're a gun owner concerned over your 2nd amendment rights. Or perhaps you consider yourself a pacifist and are leery of Secretary Clinton's record on war. All fair points.

You may have legitimate concerns about Clinton's policies, but you simply cannot glance over at her opponent and think that Mr. Trump would do a better job. This is a man who has ran his entire campaign around building an impractical and racially-motivated wall, insulted our veterans, has no understanding of our constitution or the three branches of government, insults just about every minority group in the country while he himself becomes very combative if someone says the tiniest insult about him, and encourages his supporters to become violent with his dissenters. If you are ok with all of this, you are voting for a ham sandwich. Sorry, that could be worded better. You are voting for a ham sandwich wearing a toupee.

I hereby endorse Secretary Clinton, the only legitimate candidate in this election who has the experience, temperament, and dignity fit for the office of the President of the United States.