Beware of Dressing in the Dark

About once each week I commute to Atlanta from Utah to go to work. The night before I pack and set out my uniform for the next morning. Since I usually get up at 3:30 to catch the 6:00 flight, I like to be as efficient as possible in the morning.

This past week, as usual, I reached into my closet to grab my pants. Since I have several pairs of black pants I felt for the right pair by the material. Finding the pair I wanted, I then hung them in the bathroom.

The next morning--if 3:30 can really be called morning--I got up and groggily dressed. Truth be told, the light was on, but I wasn't thinking especially clearly. I do remember noticing that the right rear pocket was buttoned closed, which I hadn't remembered doing. That was a warning sign but I didn't take heed.

After dressing I loaded my suitcase in the car and drove to the airport where I caught my flight to Atlanta. I still hadn't noticed anything. Once in Atlanta I found that I had nothing scheduled for that day so I proceeded on to my "crash pad" apartment, where I ate and then took a nap. Before lying down I undressed, still not noticing anything amiss. Can you say "fatigued?"

It wasn't until the next morning when I was about to leave to catch the bus back to the airport that I realized that not only were the pants I was wearing not my uniform pants, they were not even black. The were navy blue. And pleated. Both no-nos.

I hadn't packed a second pair of pants, so I scrambled about looking for options. At this point I saw that my roommate (who was still in Utah) had a pair of uniform pants hanging up. I reasoned that they would probably fit, although he is shorter and a little stouter than I am. This was an emergency, after all. They did fit, Not particularly well, but well enough.

Riding to the airport I hoped he would be understanding. As it was about 6:30 in the morning in Utah, I elected not to call him to ask for permission. But the more I thought about it the more concerned I was. What if he got to the crash pad expecting to use those pants and found them gone?

Fortunately Crew Outfitters, one of the uniform stores, has a branch location right in the ASA operations center at the airport. I happily arrived at the airport with a half hour to spare and marched right in, finding pants in just the right size. The only downside? Then were not hemmed. It didn't matter. I bought them and then tried doing a quick hem job myself. The results were worse than bad. I then tried safety pins with greater success. I then placed my roommates pants in his mailbox (and later called him to explain why his pants were there).

So for three days I wore unhemmed pants. But they were black. And not pleated.

When I return to Atlanta in a couple of days I will bring a backup pair of pants and a uniform shirt as well. You just never know when you may need it. Or why.

A Memorable Day

Sometimes things just don't go as planned. Yesterday as we were speeding down the runway in Atlanta we began to hear an unusual hum and feel a slight vibration. The captain chose to continue the takeoff and as we rotated (pulled back on the controls to become airborn) we felt something strike the fuselage.

"That felt like we blew a tire," the captain said as we lifted off. Another minute later we told the tower controller what had happened and warned him that there was likely some FOD (foreign object debris) on the runway. Sure enough, the pilots of the next plane taking off saw pieces of rubber on the asphalt. This confirmed our suspicion and after consulting with our dispatcher and maintenance, we elected to return to Atlanta.

One problem, however--we were overweight. The Canadair Regional Jet's maximum landing weight is 47,000 lbs. and we were at 50,000 lbs. Instead of risking an overweight landing, we decided it would be best to burn off fuel and then land. We slowed down and put flaps down to increase drag and thereby increase our fuel burn. I felt bad burning off around 450 gallons of jet fuel--probably costing around $1,800. What a waste in this time of high fuel prices, but that's how it goes. After 30 minutes we were low enough that we were confident we would be under our max weight by the time we touched down. Just to be as safe as possible we did declare an emergency and fire equipment were dispatched to meet us upon landing.

The landing was uneventful. The captain landed very gingerly, since we still didn't know which tire had blown. First the mains smoothly made contact. Then when the captain lowered the nose gear we felt the vibration again and knew that it was one of the nose gear tires that had blown. Fortunately our worst fear of being unable to control the aircraft on the ground didn't materialize and we taxied to our gate without further incident.

Once at the gate we were met by maintenance and other ASA personnel. One of them was kind enough to take a few pictures, as well as present the captain with a piece of the tire as a trophy of sorts. In the end it was a great learning experience, one I hope not to repeat again too soon.

Filling The Love Bank

When my wife and I dated we used to make tapes and share favorite songs with each other. We had a pretty similar musical taste, but through her I grew to appreciate groups like The Cure and Fleetwood Mac, while I introduced her to Paul Simon and The Eagles, just to name a few examples.

Then after we were married we got out of the habit. We did enjoy going to a few concerts together (Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles and the Moody Blues) but our practice of sharing favorite songs, particularly romantic songs, fell by the wayside.

In recent years as our children have developed an interest in music my wife started listening to new music again, starting with Radio Disney (the Mom station) and then steadily branching out. With the stress of motherhood and marriage the songs gave her a way to put feelings into words.

I, on the other hand, tended to listen to news and talk radio (NPR primarily) and only occasionally to music, and when I did it was mostly the same stuff I had always listened to or latin. In short, our musical tastes diverted. We still liked the same songs and bands we always had, but she was now into the newer artists and so this was no longer something we had in common.

Flash forward to late last year: with me away in training with ASA we both decided we had to improve our marriage. Somewhat surprisingly to me (because I'm dense) I learned that sharing music is still something that my wife enjoys and appreciates. Ever since then we have been sending songs back and forth via email. I try and send a new song most nights when I'm away. It has made a real difference. Not only have I expanded my musical taste, but more importantly we have this in common once again, and has added deposits into her love bank.

Today I went a step further. We typically send songs from YouTube to each other. Often others have made their own videos to go with a given song. Some are naturally better than others, generally consisting of photo and art montages. Last week I tried making a video of sorts using Power Point, but lacked the ability to make it into a real video. So yesterday and today I taught myself to use Windows Movie Maker and created my own video for my wife. Yes, there are better programs, but this one was on my computer already and works for my basic purposes. Did I mention it was free? I haven't sent it to her, so I can't give away anything here (to all three or four of you who ever read this besides her) but I may post it at a later date.

It was fun, albeit somewhat time consuming, but I feel like I created something of value, and I have been thinking of her all day. I should add that this also gives me new appreciatioin for my wife spending hours and hours editing the videos she makes with her students. Mine was simple. I can now begin to imagine what she's had to do. I won't be doing this every week, but once in a while when I have some spare time sitting on reserve I may just do it again. Hopefully it will make the balance that much higher in her love bank.

Edit: She liked it! Here it is below. Be sure and pause or disable the Playlist music at the bottom of the page in order to hear the song.