No longer in the red light district

It happened, I took a checkride and I didn't hook it. In fact, heaven must have received an excessive amount of prayers on my behalf because a miracle happened and I received an "excellent." I only had four down grades on the whole thing. I don't expect you to understand the grading system, but pretty much I was the man for that one ride. It was very nice to have everything finally come together and it all happen at the most opportune time. In addition, I passed the hardest academic test this past week. The weather test marked the end of the academics for this phase of training. We still have weekly tests on procedural and aircraft knowledge, but we are done with the formal academic blocks. All in all, one pretty great week.

Because I did such a great job this last week, they gave me Monday off. Actually, since I am employed be the government now, I get to take advantage of diversity celebration...unlike my civilian job where they didn't "have a dream."

I have spent the weekend celebrating the invention of TiVo. My buddy Donny has this awesome piece of TV watching magic. I have watched the NFL playoffs, commercial free. It is a a brilliant invention, even if it means my kind (marketing types) may have a harder time in the future.

No, you can't pull my hetero card on this picture. We didn't sit like this for more than the picture and we talked about red meat, shotguns, and four-wheel drives after this man touching. I also got to spend time with my good friend Julio. Julio makes some great chips and I have told a lot of you about them. I would send you all some, but I don't think the mule ride out of Del Rio would do well with trying to keep the chips in their largest form.

Anyway, I don't have a lot of new information to pass on to all one of you that reads this. Which brings me to my last point...who reads this? If you would do me just a one time favor and send me an e-mail to the address at the top of this blog to let me know that someone reads this. I think people read this, but just for kicks I would like to know for sure. If you could just drop me a line, that would be awesome. The e-mail can just have "I read it" in the subject line, not like you really have to communicate with me. I know how scary that sounds, since most of you have done very good at steering clear of that burden.

Have a great week and I don't know when I will get the chance to write at the end of this week. I am suppose to go cross country this coming weekend. I will let you all know how it goes and until then...SEE YA!