This post started off as "A Week in OKC" but I got put on night shift a few days after I started that post and haven't done much more than go to class and sleep since.

Anyway, here's a summary of the festivities...

I got here on the 16th around noon, after a rather gloomy drive over here. It rained overnight while I was in Little Rock, enough so that the thunder and lightning actually woke me up early that morning. It remained cloudy for most of the day between there and OKC. I found my way to my apartment with no problem, unpacked most of my stuff, and gave my brother a call who is staying in nearby Muskogee, OK. He shows up about 5 hours later after he gets done with work and we go out and enjoy some wings and beer, and try to catch up on things. I hadn't seen him since Christmas so it was a nice visit. He spent the night here, Sunday morning we grab some grub at a local Waffle House and then go tour the Oklahoma City Memorial. Once I figure out how to get my pictures off of my iPhone without wiping them out (hey Apple, ever thought of allowing people to drag and drop off of this thing!?! I've already had one synch wipe out most of the apps I had installed on here!) I'll post the ones I took.

First day at the Academy everyone starts out all hyped up and excited, and leaves a little underwhelmed. Not that everyone isn't still excited about the job, but in summary it is just a day of filling out more forms and then getting the same speeches about benefts and workplace behavior that you get almost anywhere you work these days. Oh, and you get told not to look at pornography on the government computers about a dozen times by just about everyone who walks into the room.

I'm not going to give a day by day run-down on Basics because it would be pretty pointless. In short, it is how the FAA crams all of the aviation terminology and concepts down everyone's throat in 5 weeks that someone is likely to encounter in ATC. As a pilot, almost all of this is nothing I haven't been exposed to or tested on before. In fact, some of the test questions were almost taken verbatim from the instrument written test. My only real gripe about it is that they spend far too much time on certain subjects, like airport markings and lighting. For example, they spent almost 4 hours on that subject, when a private pilot ground school may take up about an hour to cover the same subject. I realize that this is new material for most in these classes, but they could shrink some of this stuff down as to not bore everyone to death in the meantime.

Socially, the guys/gals I'm in class with have been a good bunch to hang out with and have made my time here significantly more bearable. Though most of our time has been spent together in study sessions or just BSing after class, we've found some down time to go enjoy some good BBQ, catch a movie (Star Trek was awesome), or enjoy a late night breakfast at Waffle House after class. Mitch, Kevin, Hsaing (pronounced "shang"), and occasionally Matt and Keef have been my partners in crime for study sessions or just to hang out. I'm trying to interact with some of the other folks a bit more, but with them all living about 20 minutes NW of here, it limits our ability to just pick up the phone and walk over there on a moment's notice.

Gotta run to the store now and pick up some stuff before class...night classes are just soo much fun!