Well the first checkride is over with and I have about 22 flights before the next one so that feels pretty good. 

To celebrate Megan, Blake and I went out to Corpus Christi for the weekend which was a lot of fun. We left Friday and stayed in San Antonio for the night and left for Corpus Sat morning. We hit the beach for a bit and I realized I hadn't been to the beach in like a year and a half which is nuts. Then we went to the local bar there for "Belt Sander Races". These guys take belt sanders and mod them up to race them down a 40 foot or so track. It's pretty hilarious and my buddy Aaron who we stayed with has some big plans for his $20 black and decker belt sander he recently picked up at a pawn shop. 

Aaron lives in Port Aransas which is a neat little beach town. It reminds me of like Wildwood, and there's lots of little seafood restaurants, quiet beaches and a nice variety of dive bars and more lively club style bars. Aaron did a fish fry Sat night, cooking up a bunch of halibut that he had brought down from Alaska (fish he had caught and had packaged himself). Then we hit up a few of the bars that are within walking distance, I definitely miss not having to drive everywhere. We left this morning and did the 4.5 hour trip back to Del Rio and it went pretty quick overall but it's an exhausting drive. 

The trip was a lot of fun and I left feeling very jealous that guys going to C-130's get to enjoy 6 months out there on the beach training with the Navy while I'm stuck in the desert on Laughlin. CJ got hosed but oh well. 

This week I'll have a night flight on Tuesday where we'll fly to a couple outbases and shoot some approaches. Then Wednesday we leave for our X-Country flight. We'll end up in Shreveport, LA that night and then come back late Thursday night. It's definitely nice we don't have to do the XC over the weekend like in T-6's - that really made for a long couple weeks!

1st T-1 Checkride Tomorrow

That about covers it, I flew Monday and Tuesday and both flights went pretty well. Patternwork and MOA work was all really nice and the in-between stuff was decent. So hopefully things go well tomorrow.  I'll fly first tomorrow which means I do all the ground ops stuff and the departure out of laughlin which is kind of a pain - but I also get to get all my stuff over with pretty quick which is nice so I guess it's good and bad. I'll spend tonight go over stuff he might ask in the brief and be sure I have everything down for tomorrows flight. 815 Takeoff so at least I'll know how I did by lunchtime. 

Ah another week full of 5AM showtimes.... greeeeaat.

Last week was a bit unproductive as I got sick last sunday and only ended up flying on Friday and that was a bit rusty. But At least I'll have a couple extra days before my checkride to get prepared for that, it should be next Tuesday. I'll fly tomorrow and then Thurs, Fri, Mon leading up to it so it will be busy for sure. This weekend was nice, lots of good sports action this week with march madness coming to an end and the baseball season starting and flyers regular season coming to an end, then the Masters over the weekend so that was pretty nice. I spent most of today watching Tiger and Phil try and make a comeback (which they almost did) and trying to do a little studying during it. I never seem to be able to be very productive on Sundays but oh well I don't think it's a must. 

It's ben starting to get pretty hot here now, mid-80's to 90 during the day now, but unusually windy a lot of days which makes flying a bit more difficult - or at least mission planning and trying to find somewhere to go that doesn't have super high winds. 

The early morning schedule is starting to take it's toll and I'm very much looking forward to not waking up at 4AM. Hopefully 2-3 more weeks and this craziness will come to an end. 

Megan got a job of sorts this past week, she'll be coaching swimming at Texas A&M for a month in June for a camp they do for kids there. She's pretty excited about it and will be good for her to do something fun out there, not to mention the college station area is pretty neat. 

Other than that just same old business of sleeping and studying and flying - good stuff.