Ugh

A "TFR" is a "Temporary Flight Restriction". This is airspace that has basically been "shut off", or restricted to pilots. Any pilot "busting" the TFR will be up for action including having his pilot's certificate suspended or revoked, among a litany of other threats they make. Usually it results in suspension and perhaps additional training required.

President Obama is set to visit Chicago now, and as of today there's listed a huge TFR covering the entire Chicago area. Right now it's listed as only for Thursday evening, but someone from the FAA stated it would probably be extended to most of Friday as well. Meanwhile, Saturday and Sunday there is another TFR in the Milwaukee area. So let me get this straight. The days before Oshkosh begin, when half the pilot population in the country is flying up to Wisconsin, there are TFRs for airspace right by where everyone is going. Anyone want to place bets on how many people bust those TFRs and get in big trouble? Yes, they are supposed to look up that information before they take off. I did, and I will again Friday morning before I leave. But people are human and they forget, or assume that since there are almost never TFRs in the area, there won't be today either, or misjudge where they are in relation to it. And a measure designed to make the masses on the ground feel (not actually be, just feel) safer, instead ends up ensnaring innocent people just tooling along. It's just really bad timing...

I'm torn between being amused and something else at this story by the LA Times. At Los Angeles Airport, a bunch of airport/airline employees are living in a colony of trailers on the airport grounds. Over 100 trailers and mobile homes where if you're say an airline captain, you can live in a cramped trailer part time now on a crumbling concrete Lot B with 99 other trailers and workers for weeks straight. Yes, the life of an airline pilot sure is glamorous any more, isn't it? I may do it for 9 days at Oshkosh, but what you choose to do for an adventure is just that--a choice for an adventure. And I'm with family and friends at a unique event. If you need to do it, away from your family, for days to weeks in a row...hey, who cares if the guys holding a lot of people's lives in their hands have to go to the local gym to take their shower in the morning to conserve water and usually live in a trailer off the end of the runway? ;)

I'm leaving to go get my 2nd class medical here in a few minutes. If I flew at the show, I'd be reimbursed for the fuel as long as I had a 2nd class medical. (It's using the Commercial Pilot Certificate and appropriate medical for being "Compensated" with the fuel reimbursement. And smoke oil if I had any of that. Which people are probably glad I don't.) My 3rd class medical is good for 5 years while I'm under 40 years old, but I still have to go back every year for the 2nd class anyway, which is kind of irritating, but...it is what it is.

Getting some stuff packed up and more paperwork done is on the agenda for tonight-the plans for today went fairly well and I got a lot done staying up until past midnight and just...working. I think we're finally getting close to thinking about being almost ready. ;)

Quotes that came in today...

There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you. When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self destruct. It never fails.
~Richard Rybolt

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.
~Leonardo da Vinci