Flying Kites

With a free afternoon in the Dominican Republic (I know, sucks to be me), we took some time to explore the city and enjoy a bit of the culture down there. It is a very poor culture with a high school graduation rate that hovers well below 20% and the poverty cycle is rather vicious. Along the coast near our hotel was a park where locals and tourists alike were gathered to play.

With a good breeze off the water, conditions were ideal to fly kites and boy did the kites fly! There were several street vendors wandering around a local park with simple 18" square paper kites they hawked for about 2 bucks. I figured my girls would love them so I bought two and encouraged my captain to join me in testing them out. The park was barely an acre and there were a couple of hundred of these little kites in the air!!

As we tried to get the kites airborne, several local boys stepped in and took charge, getting the kites aloft and then giving us glances as if to say 'are you sure you really want this back?' before reluctantly handing it over. From my very limited grasp of Spanish, I finally figured out that the boys expected tourists to leave the kites with them when we finished playing. Being suckers, the captain and I both bought a couple of more kites to repay the boys for their 'help'.

As darkness fell, we reeled ours in -quite a task to pull in 100 feet of string using a pencil diameter stick - and as we walked away, there were still hundreds of kites in the air flying by the moonlight!

Coast Pong

I haven't been on the job long and my first assignment is to be sent out from Atlanta to the west coast in San Diego where I'll copilot an air-ambulance Lear Jet. With one good night's sleep our first assignment comes - pick-up in Los Angeles and drop off at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. Next assignment - pick-up in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and drop off in Oakland, CA before returning back to base. Up next? Hawaii? Singapore? It's good to be flying again!!!

How many applications does it take to get a job?

Ok, this blog largely arose as something to do while on the road away from home - while home I found better things to do so the blog fell by the way side. On the road again, it seems appropriate to revive it!

I was furloughed September 1, 2009 (effectively fired with recall privileges) and took the time to create two nice resumes (one for flying, one for engineering). I averaged about 10 job submissions per week, several with very detailed online applications and I managed 2 interviews, although I did get back 4 rejection letters. I only applied to jobs in my fields that I was qualified for and was still largely ignored! On February 17 I interviewed with a charter aviation company for the second time and they actually brought me aboard! For those who were counting, that was 5 1/2 months of unemployment. That's over 250 resumes submitted with a 0.4% success rate!

To keep me honest though, I have to point out my spouse lost her job too, submitted one resume and had to chose from one of two jobs offered to her, though neither was in her field. Guess I shouldn't be so picky, eh?