Heavy-Weather Tactics:

[CSY Man]

Strictly private is fine, but uh, it gets a bit expensive if ya have to pay for evey hour....?

If flying is so good and so fun, why not have somebody else pay for the craft AND an hourly rate for the driver.?

That was my original thought years ago when I started flying.
And it sort of worked for a while.

On the other hand, If i was being paid for sailing the Bahamas, perhaps the fun factor would wear off....(Like if ya were being paid for having sex, or eating ice-crem, on somebody else's schedule)

Lfe could be really good, or really bad.

Sex for money = Prostitution....
Greedy senior pilots = Whores.....

Cool junior pilot on furlough....: CSY Man....D

[Troubledour]

Yeah, flying can get pretty expensive but I've always lingered in the lower buck range. As you mention, the direction of others can take the joy out of just about anything & for me flying has always been that thing that I do for myself & myself alone.

What's more, it's probably safe to assume that the standards of good behavior & civility are much higher for a professional pilot than they are for the average backwoods toolmaker. I've always been leery of professions that require good behavior & found freedom & reasonable prosperity in a field where urbanity simply doesn't exist.



Troubledour

[CSY Man]

Okay, back in business....

Had problems with 'puter crashes, almost daily...Thanks to the piece of junk O/S called Windows 2000 ME.

Finally threw it and the 'ol Dell away and bought new stuff, new DSL and all.

Wish I could have tossed away a few MS engineers and Dell executives as well..In the toilet.

All I did wrong was to buy the damn computer brand new 2.5 years ago... and not send it back sooner.....Never learn.

At any rate, uh the subject was flying..?

Proffesional pilots behave..?

He-he, ya are really wrong.
Aye, if the flying public only knew.
GM and Ford would profit as the traveling folks would go by car if they only knew the truth about pilots....

Before I started flying for a living, meh drove taxi cabs for a few years and also sailed in the merchant marine.....
Met many crazy guys out there, but far more in the flying business.
Flying attracts the adventures crowd, the sensation seeking ones and the weirdo's.
They (we) usually behave for a while just to get that good job, but we are good at hiding the uh. personality..

He-he, ya'll think we are straight, sober, hard-working and disiplined young men....?

If that was a fact, we would be bankers or doctors or involved in some such serious proffesion.
Only dreamers and mis-fits take up big loans and go to flight school to hope for a a future in aviation....Many don't make it.
It is actually hard work and an un-certain future.
Ya folks ever heard about Pan-Am, or Eastern Airlines, or Braniff, or Midway Airlines, Leisure Air, Tower Air and many others...?

What happened to the pilots that flew for the above carriers,?
Some ended up with other flying jobs, minus their seat and seniority. (One start at the bottom again every time)
A large group filed for personal bankruptcy. Too many toys and X-wifes they had.
Some ended up selling cars, or type-writers.
Quite a few got divorces and some ended their life as everything fell apart around them.

None of them mentioned the glamour of the airline business...

And there ain't none....
The carrier I fly for now is loosing $37.00 on every ticket they sell.
About $5 mill a day...They cannot raise prices as they would loose market share and loose even more money.
Big price wars being fought these days.

They flying public is of course benefiting, but they still bitch about less service and less food on the flights.
But nobody is willing to pay $40.00 more per ticket to get better service or a meal-tray..

Uh, and my point is...?

Flying for a living can be good now and then, but just like marriage and boat maintenance, the fun factor can be a bit over-rated from time to time.....

Be careful out there: Fly low and slow.

[Troubledour]

I know a handful of professional pilots, mostly corporate taxi drivers, & they are fun people. Several rotate in & out of my weekly poker game as schedules permit & they're among my favorites. 1) Without exception they're bright & capable people 2) When not on duty they're wild enough to be great fun 3) For some reason or another they are, without exception, abysmal poker players 4) All are well enough paid to make factor (3) highly entertaining & worth my time & 5) Perhaps best of all, they don’t seem to care how much they lose !

You mentioned the ability to behave when required to do so & that's what I was alluding to ... they’re all very clean cut & when they're on the job they're very focussed, professionally polite & straight arrow. So much so, perhaps, that they let go with that much more gusto when they can. This is what I'm not real good at, I tend to be hillbilly ornery at all times.

“Thanks to the piece of junk O/S called Windows 2000 ME” ? (no such critter that I know of) Windows Millennium was a good OS to scrap, W2k runs great on my computers. I run a network server (household/office LAN) with W2k Advanced Server, my workstation & laptop both run W2k Pro and everything else in the house runs W98se.

ME is junk, fundamentally screwed in it’s memory handling & M$ will not fix it, they’ve made their money & moved on. XP also has it’s problems, mostly relating to required system resources. In my own opinion, it requires a workstation or hard core gamer class machine, yet it’s sold bundled off the shelf with many of the weakest machines available (Wal-Mart/HP Specials w/ integrated graphics, HSP Win Modems, etc). As near as I can tell, given a properly configured machine, XP runs well enough. However, a well-built 486 running W95c will run circles around most of the XP machines in service today.

Way off thread, but maybe not … dealing with anything running ME would be akin to a heavy, survival weather experience.

Troubledour

p.s. Low & Slow is what classic tube & rag is all about ... all the world's an airport & if I get in trouble the worst that can happen is that I'll kick away some pieces & crawl out of the smoking wreck cussing like those that land badly tend to. On a more positive note, anytime I want to smell a flower or taste fresh corn, why I just reach out, grab it & peddle on.

[CSY Man]

Okay Troubledour.

Ya seem to say that Windows 2000 and ME is 2 different systems..?

Well, I was lucky and got both wrapped into one.
Had nothing but problems, and mucho other people agreed: Dell
teck support folks, AT&T teck support folks, and others..Heard nothing but bad stuff about Windows 2000 ME, (Or ME 2000, whatever)
My experience only confirmed it, If I could jam that system up the tail-pipe of the guys that made it and sold it as good stuff, I would.

The new machine I bought is indeed a HP from Curcuit City, got all the discounts and the rebates and so far so good.

Have bought Dells's and IBM's in the past and not impressed.
In other words: If I am paying for crap system and crap service, I might as well go to the local K-Mart...No waiting for them to "build" my system, no shipping, no phone calls if I am un-happy.
Just cart the thing back within 2 weeks and get every penny back.
8 days to go, no questions asked....

As for flying and playing games to get the job.
Well, I am yer ultimate red-neck and can not really hide my colors.
Just say it as it is and if they don't like it, screw 'em...
With that attitude I landed a 747 job in Japan some years ago,
proudly talking about my HOG durning the interview..(HOG, Harley Owners Group, and the nick name for big fat motor-cycles)

But of course I shaved and bought a new suit for the occasion.

Not any more however....
No more Mr. Nice Guy.....

Going sailing in November...Anybody else....? (Bahamas)

Stay cool

[Troubledour]

The only way you'd get ME & W2k on the same system (in the domestic market, anyway, who knows what happens in Bangladesh) would be to install W2k over ME. That is, to upgrade ME with Windows 2000 but not do a fresh install on a hosed clean drive, or alternatively, set it up as a dual boot system with the two operating systems on different partitions or physical drives.

ME & W2k are radically different operating systems. Me, or the end of the so-called 9X line, is essentially a hideously complex graphical user interface over DOS. In fact, W95 can also be called DOS 7. W98 & ME are simply developments (patches) along that same vein.

Windows 2000 & XP however, are both derived from the NT Kernel, are distinctly different systems & could be referred to as NT5 & NT6. They're also more expensive & serve as M$'s industrial duty, business class, secure networking OS. In fact, the preferred file system for NT, W2k & XP is NTFS (New Technology File System) & 9X systems won't run on it at all. You can run NT on FAT & FAT32 disks but if you do you sacrifice many of the inherent security features that help to justify the cost.

NT, W2k & XP are all inherently stable operating systems, provided they’re installed on machines that have the nuts to run them Aside from the kids' machines I run NT class hardware exclusively. I’m especially fond of W2k, in my own opinion M$ hasn’t produced such a trouble free OS since about DOS 3. I will upgrade only with great reluctance & only then after the early adopters have suffered as early adopters do.

If you have any further trouble I’ll be glad to help if I can. I’m a certified (or certifiable, never quite sure which) hardware tech & at the least a power user lever systems engineer. I haven’t used any of that professionally, my certs relate to volunteer civic activity like computer recycling & tech support for NFP Agencies. However, if asked I will offer an opinion, if I don’t have an answer I’ll say so or get the answer & you’ll then have one more check against what others are telling you.

Troubledour

[delmarrey]

Now this is why I drive a MAC. They may be a little more expensive BUT.........
They are user friendly! I run a PC at work with W2k XP and it's always doing something weird. I dragged in a .gif the other day and I started getting error messages. Had to trash it! I did the same on the Mac and it fits right in, no problem. Plus, most of the virus out there are directed at PC's. In the ten years that I've stuck with Mac I have yet to pick up a virus. Knock on wood!
With OS X I get an automatic up date, online, every week that I can select or reject depending on the programs that I use. The OS X comes in a duel system so you can still run the old programs. Or you can split it up into even more systems and donate each of those to certain programs. One thing that it real important with the wife, is the OS pops up a window and asks "do you really want to do that " before you delete or quit someting. Gives you time to think before loosing a..................?

[CSY Man]

Okay Troubleodour...:

The operating system I had on the old PC was Windows 2000, ME edition....Same bundle, same package....It all came from Dell pre-installed.

it turned out to be a dog, big dog.....

As for Mac and Apple and all that.
Yup, perhaps that is the choice and the future.
Never tried one.
Perhaps it is like buying a catamaran...Kind of weird and not sure about the whole thing, but it looks tempting and some guys swear by it...?

If it was that good however, why ain't everybody doing it....?

[delmarrey]

"If it was that good however, why ain't everybody doing it....?"


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

This is why I don't have a Cat yet!

[CSY Man]

Okay Troubledour.

I may take ya up on fixing stuff:

In a nut-shell: After I installed a stupid CD printer driver, to be able to make my 6 year old HP Laserjet 3100 printer work, the brand new PC refused to go into "sleeper" mode.

The printer driver interferes with the stand-by, or hibernation mode.

Been on e-mail with tech support for hours and hours, and finally gave up.....

Therefore...If I leave the machine running for the next 10 years, is that bad..?
Or if I shut it down and restart it every day for the next day, is that bad...?

Del:

Aye, ya don't have a Cat because it is too expensive...?

Hmm, more later on that one..

[bradbarrett]

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Enjoy!