Halfway to the Finishline

Its been almost two years since my journey began in learning how to fly.  Today I was prepared to take my checkride with my examiner.  Last evening I found out where I had to plan my cross-country trip to for the examiner.  I began planning around 8pm and finished my 10pm.  I wanted to get to bed early so I wasn’t tired for my checkride.  I crawled into bed by 10:30pm and had the most frustrating night of sleep.  I finally fell asleep and had a night filled with dreams.  I told my CFI that I would tell her one of the dreams I had about my checkride but only after I had completed my checkride.

I got to the airport by 8am so I could input the current weather and preflight the airplane for the checkride.  My examiner arrived at 9:30 for our checkride at 10am.  We began with making sure all of my documentation was in order.  After we finished with the documentation he began by explaining what the oral exam would include.  He began asking me questions and I started answering them.  The time seemed to go fast and I was surprised that the topics that I really stressed about were never asked about.  When we were all finished he reviewed a couple of items that I answered incorrectly and why my answers were incorrect.  I looked at the clock when he said we were finished and a hour and a half had passed.

Next he told me to go and check the current weather and decide if we were going to complete the flight portion as well today.  When I got to the airport this morning I was concerned at the winds for the day and the gust factor as well.  I thought maybe they would lessen as the day went on but at 11:30 they had not yet lessened.  At one point the examiner saw me staring at the weather report and said  “Staring at the report will not make it change.  I’ve been there before”    I told him that I wanted to wait until 11:53am when the new METAR would be out.  I decided to go and preflight the airplane while I waited for the new METAR.  My decision was that if the winds and the gust factor increased that I would not go and if they decreased to my flight limits then I would go. 

When I finished preflighting the plane I checked the weather and the winds had increased my 1 knot from 16 to  17 kts and the gust factor from 23 to 26 kts.  So I went in and found the examiner that I was choosing not to continue with the flight test portion of my checkride.  He said that we would go tomorrow morning at 8am if the weather was good.  So far it looks much better than today and now I am stressing about the flight portion for tomorrow.  I hope I can get some sleep tonight.

Tomorrow morning before my flight I need to input the current weather into my cross-country plan and get to the airport and preflight the airplane.  I really want to be able to pass it on my first try but I am concerned that I will forget to do something important or not be able to do my landings within PTS standards.  They seem to be my weakest point.  Hopefully the stars will align tomorrow morning and I will be able to remember and do what I need to complete my flight test.

 

Blogging…I think I am getting the hang of this..

 

Pine Lake Misty Morning

At almost 50 years of age everything technical becomes a challenge.  We changed our TV service from cable TV to satellite TV and then from one satellite company to another.  With each change comes new instructions.  Yesterday I changed our cell phone service from one company to another and switched to different phones.  Now I have to learn how to use my new phone and teach my husband how to use his new phone which has more bells and whistles than mine.  I have taught myself how to text but I’m sure its not how all the younger people text but I can still do it.

A  couple of weeks ago I decided that I wanted to learn about blogging and maybe start my own.  WordPress has made it easy for me so far although I have nothing to compare it to because this is my first attempt.  Today I learned how to add things to my sidebar, add images and customize my Theme header with a picture that I took at Cape Cod a year ago.  There is so much more to learn but each day I try to find out about something I have no idea what it is and learn about it.  Today it was widgets.  I added a couple to my sidebar.  This is like learning a foreign language for me but its fun.  I enjoy reading the different blogs and looking at how each has individualized their site.

This was never a goal of mine for 2010 like getting my private pilot certificate but I can see how this maybe added to my list of things that I did in 2010 that I didn’t think I could do.  Sometimes we surprise ourselves with what we are capable of if we will just try something new.   Tomorrow I will tackle more vocabulary related to blogging that I’m not familiar so I can maybe add more to my blog.