What is 861?

861?  This number could be many things to many people.  The number of movies they have seen in their life.  The number of miles they flew to get to Airventure in Oshkosh.  The cost of Avgas in the next year of two (OK, that may be a stretch, but who knows...).  But for me, it has a meaning all it's own.  It's the number of days in between posts to this blog, which is bad enough, but the really sad thing is that in those 861 days, I have only flown an airplane 4 times.  4 TIMES!!!  I am so ashamed, I may need counseling!

But here's the story...

I've written in the past about my issues with the quality of equipment available for rent, and the ridiculous price many FBO's charge to rent said equipment.  Add to it the rising cost of fuel and you have quite a few compelling reasons to stay firmly planted on the ground, just watching the action in the sky.  In North Carolina, every time I turned around, a flight school/rental outfit was closing it's doors, airports weren't busy and many of the people I hung out with just weren't flying.  The days of getting a call from a buddy asking "hey, you wanna go fly today, weathers great and I have the plane reserved?" seemed to dry up completely.  The only people I knew who were flying did it in their own planes and mostly for business.  Picking up and taking a random trip to Florida while my friend attends a few days of meetings wasn't really in the cards for me, I had a real job too, just not one that let me fly to meetings.  However, I may need to find one of those soon...  but, enough of that, back to the story.
So, needless to say, flying took even more of a back seat in my life and I became really discouraged, even started to think that it was a waste of money that I pursued my pilot's licence at all.  I began to focus on my career and decided that flying is something that should be in my past.  It was a fun ride, but, time to move on...

Then came a phone call that changed everything.

One day, in late July 2011, I received a phone call from a Microsoft recruiter asking if I would be interested in talking about a management position on the main campus in Redmond, Washington.  Now, being in IT for almost 17 years, I have always wanted to work at Microsoft and it seems that me telling so many people about it finally made its way to the recruiters.  Actually, I found out it was a good friend of mine who worked at Microsoft in Charlotte, but a guy can always dream.  Long story short, I interviewed, flew to Redmond to interview some more, then accepted a job and before I knew it I was on a 757 heading to Washington with a few suitcases and lots of dreams.  My wife and kids would soon follow as she had to stay behind and get everything ready to sell.  She's a saint, really, best wife ever!

As luck/faith/karma, call it whatever you want, would have it, I ended up purchasing a house 3 miles from an airport in Snohomish, WA.  I actually didn't know the airport was there when I purchased the house as every time I would meet the real estate agent at the house it was raining (go figure, rain in Seattle) and there were never any planes in the area.  It wasn't until after we signed all of the purchase agreements did I notice all the planes turning base to final right over my house, it was a wonderful discovery!

The airport is Harvey Field (S43) in Snohomish, WA.  It's privately owned by the Harvey family and it has to be one of the coolest places I have every been.  When I was in NC, you could go to an airport for hours and you were lucky to see 1-2 planes flying.  At Harvey, it's busy all of the time!  Between the GA planes, helicopter training and the skydiving operations, you will be hard pressed to get a moment of silence.  Needless to say, something awoke in me when I discovered this little gem just a few miles from my house...

It's now April and I am beginning the journey back to becoming a proficient pilot.  I will be starting my instrument training at Harvey soon and my plan is become the best pilot I can.  I can't wait to begin to experience all of the beauty that the Pacific Northwest has to offer from the air.  My goal is to never wait 861 days between blog entries and hope to never go more than a few weeks in between flights.  I want to use this blog to journal all of my flying adventures here in the PNW and elsewhere, where ever that may be...