Week 1

Well, here it is, after midnight on friday. "late night on the town?" you might ask. not at all. my evening consisted of watching the canucks lay a solid beating on the oilers, followed by 3 hours of homework (on a friday night, how depressing). After I could no longer read, i decided to watch a movie, The Quick and the Dead, to be specific. I love this movie, because it is set in the old west, a time when arguments were settled usually with a fight, a duel, or a noose. this may sound crude and inhumane to some, but I think that locking a criminal in a cell to rot until he dies is just as inhumane, if not more, than a noose or a bullet. Both are an effective form of punishment, and although people see those days past as crude and primitive, reading a newspaper today would suggest that society hasn't progressed all that much in some regards.

Now, for those of you who didn't come to this site to hear my opinions on justice and society, I shall recap my life since my last (and first) post. I started school on thursday at Okanagan Mountain Helicopters, FTU. I still haven't figured out what the FTU stands for, one of these days I'll look into it. Day 1 was a lot of introduction, as well as a start into ground school. Nothing too exciting.

Thursday (day 2) was more interesting. I started by doing my DI (daily inspection) of the helicopter (R22). after that was complete, the flying started. My instructor did all the hard stuff (obviously), while i watched. He went through the controls individually, and let me try each one out to get a feel for it. we flew over kelowna, from the airport straight towards the bridge, then headed south along the shoreline, and then back to the airport. once at the airport, I was introduced to the art of hovering. I call it an art because it is not something that a person can fake his or her way through. It is somewhat like trying to stand on one of those big exercise balls...not exactly easy. after about 5 attempts at me controlling the hover which resulted in Chris (my instructor) saving us from running into the beautiful grass just east of the runway, we called it a day. ground school was more or less like any other school, except more interesting, and a lot more intense.

Today was day 3. I was supposed to be there at 10:30 for my flight. However, due to the absurd light change procedure at the intersection of Highway 33 and sexsmith/old vernon rd, i wasn't at the airport until 10:40. This didn't matter, however, as my instructor is about as laid back as I am, and he didn't even want to fly until 11:30. so we sat and had coffee, and I learned that he likes video games. We flew more or less the same route as day 2, except extended more, and today, i took full control once we were at altitude, for the good part of an hour, with a few breaks so that he could demonstrate maneuvers. I had a good view of the windows I installed last month, of the house that I poured foundation and stripped forms, the OK park fire devastation, and a few other wonderful sights in the kelowna and surrounding area. More hovering at the airport followed, I was a little bit better, and a little bit more relaxed, which is the key to flying, or so I'm told. In ground school we watched a black and white movie from what had to have been the 50's or early 60's about how a plane flies (same principles apply to helicopter flight). homework was assigned, flight times for monday were designated, and free I was, until 12:30 on monday.

In other Owen news, I'm going to kamloops for the weekend, because Justin Bekker wants to go for a drive. Also, my truck is getting fixed on monday, I am quite happy about that. Well, this has been a very long Post, and I want to again end with a quote...they won't always be from songs, or from Five Iron for that matter, just anything that has inspired me or caught my attention.

" Like autumn leaves
His sense fell from him
An empty glass of himself
Shattered somewhere within
His thoughts like a hundred moths
Trapped in a lampshade
Somewhere within
Their wings banging and burning
On through endless nights
Forever awake he lies shaking and starving
Praying for someone to turn off the light"
-Zack de la Rocha