100 hours... a reflection (LAST RIDE IN).

 This will be a relatively brief entry, because I have a rather hectic couple days surrounding it.

On the eve of my 100th hour, I have to take pause and look back on the "Last Ride In."

I started flying in January of this year, and currently have 99.1 hours in my logbook. Tomorrow I will cross 100, which is one of the big milestones in a pilot's career. This journey began with the trip to Seattle at the end of 2018, and my tours of ATP and OSM in 2020. In the 100 hours of flying, I obtained my private pilot certificate, and will tomorrow be taking the 3rd progress check in pursuit of my instrument rating. I am 75% of the way there. My brain is fried today between work and this, but I felt I had to write something, like how I wrote something before I started senior year of high school and began college. I'm a younger pilot now and want to look back on this when I hit 1000 hours and reflect. I also want those of you following me on this adventure to understand a little more. Not of the 22k dollars I've spent, but more of what it's like in there. The only people I've taken thus far that are not pilots or instructors are my brother, my dad, and two really good friends. Only two of those four flights were WITHOUT an instructor. So very few of you know what it's like to go, and even less to be sitting at the controls. 1/8 of a percent of the US population holds a private or higher. It is a blessing every day to get to go up, as I try to remind myself each and every day.

I could sit here for a couple pages and talk about what I've done and where I've gone, but that isn't what matters. I just want to briefly write two more paragraphs: One for you guys, and one for my future self. Entreat me that today, and I will be back offline for an even greater hiatus as I really settle into the rigor of this training. I will hopefully be getting more YouTube content soon, as well as asking Instagram for my account back, and there is still the Snapchat (((And the gofundmeeeeeeeee :( ))).

TO my followers:

You have two feet, planted firmly on the ground, for most of your life. You have two hands, two arms, two eyes, and two ears, that go about in the same fashion. The Weedwacker, however, has two wings, however, and can't be held to the ground, because that would defy its very nature. This strain to leave the ground you can feel it, like a muscle, from the minute you fire the mags to the time you lean the mixture to cutoff. She is alive in ways only your conscience can truly feel, but will stir every fiber of your physical being. You can see everything as you climb, terrestrial and aeronautical. You are one with the wind, and one with the numbers scrolling around your vision. The actual flying business, when it gets down to it, is an intuitive thing. I tell everyone that they will fly when I take them up, and they get so scared, until they take the controls. They'll swear they were terrified, but I think them reluctant to admit the liberation of motion in three axis. It isn't right, true, but the wrongness feels so good. There is truth in the old quote “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will ALWAYS long to return." On the LAST RIDE IN, you'll always want to be the last one out...

TO 1000 hour me (or whenever):

There is no good way to start this, I only know how I plan to end the paragraph. You right now are probably smiling while you read this, remembering where you were and how you were thinking. Right now you are probably comparing us with 20/20 hindsight while I can only imagine. You have probably left the Weedwacker (or are close to it). I could ask you about the jets. Or the commercial maneuvers. All of the written tests we have left. Right now I'm still at Wawa, trading sleep for caffeine and money for air. The Shadoe stock market is in recession lol. I'm waiting on the iPad mini 6 to even exist. I have Charlene and the original leather jacket, the Aldo Calerwen's and the Torgoen T9 Redwing and the Rayban Aviators. Did any of those stop existing or get switched. I have the offbrand brown leather bag and am looking at the lightspeed markham. I still want to apply for the Air Force this fall. I've kept the phone book under 50. BUt now I don't know what else to say and barely what to ask. I do have to try, though, so...Tell me: Is it all true? Was everything I said right? Do you still feel it? Can you still smile as you walk across the flight line? I need to know we didn't burn out. I need to know that 22k dollars and counting we made it to the end. I want to lay it to rest for you. There is still a fire everywhere I go, and I seek to fan the flames. I know, that it will burn to embers, to dust. I just hope that we haven't reached the LAST RIDE IN.