It's cold again.

I thought that I'd be out of the east coast by now but unfortunately I'm not and the weather is turning cold once more. It isn't too bad just rainy and chilly. I've been spending my days at the airport in Princeton again stealing their wifi and flying as often as I can. Not going up today but went up yesterday and the day before yesterday. I've been practicing orienting myself to the NJ terrain in relation to NYC and Philadelphia along with major landmarks. On top of that I'm also practicing my emergency procedures checklists for engine failures.

I went solo 2 days in a row. The first day I flew north west over a golf course and lots of open fields and practiced engine outs by gliding with the throttle closed. I would slowly circle down over a patch of grass that I had judged to be acceptable to land on and set myself up for approach. Once I broke 1,000ft. I open the throttle back up and get out of there as I wasn't actually going to put the plane down on the golf course or any other field for that matter. Besides legally we can't be more less than 1,000ft above a populated or congested area and I didn't want to scare the shit out of any golfers or get close enough so that some grounding with a grudge against general aviation could get a snapshot of my tail number.

Yesterday when I went solo I just stayed in the pattern over Princeton to do the same thing but this time actually land on the runway. I was able to do it once and the rest of the time was being held up by the helicopter school as they hogged the runway and kept getting in the way late in the afternoon. They were doing the same thing, emergency engine out procedures but it was difficult for both fixed wing and rotor craft to share the same space.

I'm now officially signed up to take a Kaplan Express GRE course in Allentown in a couple of weeks and my prep package arrived in the mail today. Unlike the full blown classroom course which is 2 days a week for a month, the express course is condensed into a long weekend and half the price. I figure if I still don't feel up to speed, I can always take another express course.

I finished Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" the other night. I now have a new found respect for the Mercury 7 and a new favorite astronaut: Wally Schirra who flew Mercury-Atlas 8 in Sigma 7. and have been drooling over NASA's website for the astronaut candidate program. Apparently geographers are in demand because they need to understand the geomorphology of how the surface forms on Earth and other heavenly bodies. So I thought to myself hey why not steer myself in this direction from graduate school? I don't see myself entering the Air Force, Navy, or Marine Corps to fly jets as my eyesight disqualifies me but hey after they retire the shuttle they'll be back to the automated flight systems that won't actually require the skills of someone from "flight test" to go up. Nevertheless having knowledge and passion for aviation won't hurt. Somewhere down the road I would like to continue my training after I get my private certificate to at least the instrument rating and commercial license. I'm dying try aerobatics and experience G-forces both inside and outside (positive and negative.) Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to have the coolness of flipping a ship in any attitude, speed and direction through space without loosing one's lunch? I've already taken 3Gs in the Cessna Aerobat over Penn Yan and been weightless for a few seconds as I we did a nose over and got a pencil to float off the instrument panel. No problems whatsoever.

Back in Hackettstown I've been trying to figure out the stationary bike but for some reason can't get it to give me distance. I've also with caution tried the treadmill as I don't have an elliptical trainer and so far it's not too bad on the left ankle. I'm just taking it easy not sprain it again (nothing impressive). I miss the elliptical and pool that I was using in Tokyo but this will have to suffice for now. My goal is to be able to be able to do the international sprint distance triathlon in a little over an hour. Unfortunately I don't have a functioning pool at my disposal. I saw a travel yoga mat at target that looks useful. I've found my free weights again and am trying some new reps: flys and the two-handed hammer over the shoulders.