Called Out

Monday I received a call at 6:00 am to go to work. I jumped out of bed and rushed to get ready. I barely made it to LAX in time. I checked in one minute prior to my "show" time. I quickly took care of a few things and then rushed upstairs to make the dead head to San Jose (this is when the company books me a seat to the location they want me to start my trip.) The first officer who was suppose to be flying with me was not on the flight. I could see that they were about to close the door and he wasn't there. I called crew support and they said that my FO canceled his dead head and he was going to get himself there. It was a bumpy flight. I sat next to a guy that looked like a nervous flier. He kept grabbing the arm rests every time it was bumpy. He also made some noises...deep breathing or sighs or something. I asked him if he was okay. He told me that he flies all the time but just can't get use to the bumps.

When I arrived at San Jose I found out that instead of leaving in a half hour to fly to San Francisco (a ten minute flight) we had to wait for over two hours to depart due to "flow" into San Fran. It just seems that nothing went smoothly. We went out to start up the airplane. It was getting an erroneous aural warning "Duck Leak" for no reason when I tested the alarm lights. I called maintenance control to take care of it. Then I noticed that the position lights circuit breaker had popped. I called maintenance again. They allowed me to reset the circuit breaker. I took care of some of the paper work and then noticed that the circuit breaker had popped again. I called maintenance again. Are you getting a feel for how the day was going? We finally got everything taken care of and started the engines. When we called for taxi they told us we would be delayed another hour. Since we already had the engines running and everything taken care of our wait was cut short by 20 minutes. Luckily we were just repositioning the airplane...there were no passengers on board. It was turbulent on the short flight to San Fran and really windy and gusty when we landed.

I was starving and had a chance to grab a bite to eat. I was suppose to catch a flight back to LAX at 3:15 pm. The flight didn't leave until 5:30 pm. I didn't get home until around 8:00 pm. The thing that I think is funny is that I went through all that to only fly for a few minutes. It seems kind of crazy.

I did sit by a very nice man on my way to LAX. It is amazing how much you can learn about a person in such a short period of time without even knowing their name. This man was 62 years old. He had been living in Colorado Springs for the past 15-20 years. He will be moving by the end of March to Hawaii to be closer to his mother because his father died last month. He was flying back home from a trip to Hawaii, his third in a month. He was flying stand by because he knows a United flight attendant who never uses her buddy passes. He graduated from the Air Force Academy and use to fly for the military. He also was able to complete his undergraduate and MBA while in the military. He received his MBA from UCLA. He wasn't in the military very long...maybe 5 or 6 years. He has worked for several different businesses since he left the military. He has lived in many different places. In Colorado Springs he was working for some kind of missionary organization. I could tell he was a religious man. He talked about how there are few good leaders. He believes that the best quality of a leader is humility. He has three sons. Two live in Colorado Springs and one just moved to LA to become an actor but currently works in a bar. He lost his wife a few years back to some kind of brain something (infection, tumor, I'm not sure he wasn't specific.) He has been remarried for two years. His wife teaches piano and is in a huge quartet group that is made up of 100 women. Her parents live in Fort Lauderdale. But she has siblings that live in Colorado Springs. Her family is into dirt bikes and ATVs. So this gentleman and his wife both have ATVs. I guess I could go on and on. I just think that people are so fascinating and their lives are so interesting. The flight attendant came by and told us we were having way too much fun. It was fun.