I'm not dead. Well, I kind of feel like it. Hopefully I don't look like it. I've been here 11 days. My room mate and I were discussing it this past weekend. It feels like I just moved in, but nope... Classes are in full swing. The lunch ladies hair-nets are grasping for the gray wisps that dislodge themselves. The assholes are in  full swing as well. I'm in college. Holy shit. I'm. In. College.

     I'm one of the lucky individuals who 1) Gets to fly at school. I mean, who gets to fly at school? And 2) Who isn't loaded down with some ridiculous amount of classes. It's a nice balance. Although balanced, it's totally new to me. Not have familiar faces to look at everyday is kind of difficult, but the unfamiliar faces outweigh it. I haven't met a ton of people and I think that's mainly due to my unique personality and my picky-ness when it comes to friends. But one thing I do know is I really enjoy the ones I have made.

     I was contemplating on whether I was going to bring this next bit up... I decided that I would mainly because I realize that whether anyone says it or not, everyone is going through some stage of it. Yup, you guessed it. Homesickness. Might I start off by saying, "BOOOOOooooooooo." Why body? Why, must you do this? I had such a hard time leaving my parents. In fact, I'm having a bit of a difficult time typing this. Oddly enough, eleven days in, I feel it. This is truly where I need to be. It's totally natural to feel homesick, but it's such a crummy feeling. You know... Something reminds you of home, and you're immediately a friggin' mess. Or in an instance where you know you have no control over something, and you wish Mom or Dad or Grand Ma or Grand Pa or Auntie or DOG, was there to fix it? But they aren't. Do you know why? Do you really really know why? Because we must grow up. It's totally necessary and if you don't grow up, you turn out to be someone other than yourself. I made the decision a while back.

I'm going to grow up.

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Let's start. Here's my story.

Here is where I live!

I don't actually live in that, but you get my point. This school really has it going on. Night life every weekend. (If I could actually stay up to enjoy it.) It's been ridiculously hot here recently. They're calling for 97F tomorrow! That's hot and you know it! We have NO A/C in our resident halls which makes it almost unbearable to stay in the room that long.

Here is the main terminal at Grand Fork International Airport! I don't ever go in this building because I'm not a passenger. ;)

I'll be sharing much more with you on my journey. Feel free to send me emails. I would most definitely love to hear from all of you! sid2k12@gmail.com

Take care,

Sidney

Approach Into KROA. C-172L

     This morning was full of great feelings. No, not that 'too many burritos' feeling that I had the morning of my check ride. It was a... a... a feeling of just the right amount of cherry pie. A brilliant feeling. Checked the convective outlook to see what NOAA was forecasting. Once more, a day full of pop-up thunderstorms were in order. Nothing surprising there.
     Stopped by my eye doctor to pick up my lenses for my glasses. I am the king of destroying lenses. Micro scratches to the MAX. Any way, I picked those up and headed down the road to New River Valley Airport. I got to the airport around 9:30 where I had to wait on the fog/clouds to lift.

 

       My aircraft was fueled up, so I departed for Roanoke around 10:30. Had to climb to 5,500 ft due to low broken clouds.

        My approach into Roanoke is the post before this one. I sped it up to save you from boredom. Landing was... Firm? Eeeek! First landing of the day. (Not a very good excuse!)


     Katy was very sweet to take me out to lunch while the desk crew at Landmark Aviation looked for an extra headset that I could borrow!

     I had a Club Sandwich from Pete's Deli, which was amazing! We then meandered our way back to Landmark and departed for MKJ (Mountain Empire)

        *After this point, I had a passenger to entertain, therefore I didn't get much (practically ANY) footage or videos.*


     We flew over the town of Wytheville on our way and flew over my grandparent's house just to say 'Hi'! Then  we began our descent into Mountain Empire where I greased it onto the runway! 'Not bad for the Guinea pig flight!'

Greg Biffle, his pilot, and his C210 were there. ... or so I was told! Due to impending thunderstorms we made a quick pee & drink stop and turned right back around. There was lighting distant to the west. This wasn't what I was really worried about, I was concerned about the pop-ups that move in mid afternoon. We dodged one thunderstorm over Wytheville on our way back and then had this to contend with...
   

     Rain! To the North & North-East moving where you ask? Directly over Roanoke of course! Obviously I was to busy trying to get this plane on the ground before this wall of rain met us. 'Clash of the Titans' is a much more interesting movie than 'Clash of the Cessna 172 and the Wall of  Impending Rain' would ever be. Though... The budget wouldn't be as high...

Touchdown. Heavy rain. Poor line man!

     ... And just as quickly as it came, it left. Kind of! Katy and I said our goodbyes and I waited out the storm until I found a golden opportunity.

     But not before the television goes out!

     I depart for PSK and have a nice, uneventful flight home! Roanoke's Controller services were quite nice to put up with me on four separate occasions today!

     I logged 3.4 hours today. It was worth every penny... and a cookie!