Information Echo

Looking back on the last few years worth of blog posts it seems I never made a resolutions post since 2007. That’s probably a good thing considering my results from the last time I did.

A quick roundup of my 2009.

- My job was unstable and in the spring a sense of doom and gloom hung over not only me, but many of my fellow employees. Many of us (including myself) have returned to stable employment once again, but many others are still unemployed, or only working occasionally.

- Total hours flown, zero. I haven’t flown PIC since May 7′th, 2007. Looking back on that and realizing that it’s now approaching 3 years since I unofficially stopped flying it a bit surprising. Do I miss the stress of trying to stay current all the time given the renters policy at my airport? No. Do I miss the cost? No. Do I miss stressing about the weather, hoping it will play nice for when I scheduled a flight? No.

Do I miss flying at all? Yes.

I guess the last answer speaks volumes, but I don’t anticipate the situation changing in 2010 - costs have only gone up, my free time has officially gone down dramatically with changes to my job, and the spare time that we will have this year will be consumed with the horses and RV’ing. My medical is still technically valid from a year standpoint, but probably temporarily invalidated by some medications I’m currently taking, so in the end it’s all rather moot anyways.

- Speaking or horses, we got back into them in a big way in 2009 and both me and my daughter (if not other family members) have enjoyed it immensely. It’s amusing to listen to many people exclaim how expensive horses must be only to compare it to flying in my mind and have a little chuckle about the comparison. Horses are expensive, yes. Flying is vastly more expensive.

- RV’ing will continue to be a primary focus for the summer of 2010, I’m sure. We’ve officially travelled coast to coast now (Vancouver BC in 2008 and Prince Edward Island in 2009) and are now looking for alternative destinations. There’s more coasts, but I don’t have any interest in driving to the Arctic Ocean, so that probably means our next big trip will be south, possibly either early this year, or late fall - nobody wants to drive into the hot weather when it’s just as hot here. Both my wife and I are lucky to have quite a lot of vacation time, so this leaves some flexibility to break it up into one short trip in the summer, and perhaps the longer one in the fall. Time will tell.

So, looking back on things in general, the beginning of 2009 was rotten for reasons I have (and haven’t) mentioned here, but ended on a much more positive note. Lets see how 2010 goes.