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Normally this kind of post would be written around new years, but a year ago today, I set off on an adventure that changed my life again. Back in 2011 I did the same sort of thing. However this time last year I set off on an adventure back to Australia, one that would set off a whole new life here.

So this time last year, I was packing up my stuff getting ready to begin that long journey home. But I was flying towards the wrong way to go home. Off to the middle east for a few days and then homeward bound. It was a fantastic experience those first few days in a new country, exploring new things. Getting to experience new airlines, new aircraft new airports, even new seats on airlines I had flown before.

My time at home was full of friends, family and even time adventuring with Heidi.  It was such a fantastic time. When we came back, I had plans to work over the summer and maybe start my own business. I found a summer job I really loved and had a great time, but then things changed. Heidi got pregnant. I was going to be a dad. The thought of my own business went to the side, I needed to get a permanent job. Thankfully my summer job wanted me to stay on.

Then I landed myself in hospital to get my gall bladder removed, which was an adventure all on its own. I spent the fall recovering from that, adventures to Disneyland with Heidi and then working on a lot of stuff around the house while I waited to go back to work (long story).

Now the baby is here, I’m back working full time and now life is all kinds of different than a year ago. I do not have any regrets, just a lot of things that didn’t happen and may happen one day. Who knows! A lot can change in a year. It hasn’t felt like it has been a year, it sure felt like it was just yesterday I was sitting on that plane heading east.

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I have been home about a month now, getting back to the USA was certainly a change from being down in the southern hemisphere. Leaving my friends and family was sad, but returning to my friends and family up here was something that was needed. I had to get back to Heidi and DB Cooper and get back to life. Well, the vacation is now officially over today as I go back to work tomorrow. I won’t talk about the new job (you know for getting in trouble sake) but it is a seasonal job that should keep me busy.

The last month has been different, I have had lots of interviews, job offers, applications, thoughts, dreams and I settled on something I thought might keep me going. I have done a lot of work around the house and Heidi and I have done some projects we had put off for a long time (some that included 2 trips to the dump.. ugh).

But the vacation is over and although the job is only seasonal, I am not sure what will happen after the summer. But that is 3 more months away and I am not too worried! Here is to summer in Seattle!

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Well, as of about 2 minutes ago, I have resigned my job and this is the first part for everyone to know. You may want to know why I resigned. It isn’t necessarily because of a certain bad experience or anything like that. I took this job back during Covid after losing my job at the airport (like a lot of people at the time). While this was a good stable job, it was not something I had really done before and when I applied, I told them it may not be something I was into for the long run. Fast forward almost 4 years later and it is time to move on. While the job was fine to begin with, it has changed a lot over time and I just don’t think I am right for it any longer.

But why am I putting this on the blog. Why does anyone really care? They probably don’t but part of the reason why I am doing this now is because it has been a long time since I have had the time to travel. Living in the USA has meant a lot of sacrifices and while I had a good amount of PTO when I worked at the airport, since then, I haven’t. I am now in my 40s, I haven’t really had a good break from a job since 2011 and have been working pretty much non stop since.

So it is time for a bit of a break (this was originally Heidi’s idea) but when my last day later in February rolls around, I will be taking a 2 month break from work and getting back on the road. I am headed back to Australia for a break and some time spent with family and lots of friends. Some of my friends may already know about the trip, but this is a general call out to everyone in Aus who I have met over the years. It is time to catch up with me in March and April. I have not seen a lot of people in a long time. My last visit home to Australia was in 2016 and that was for 5 days and that was a whirlwind visit. Before that it was 2013 for 4 days and it was even quicker when I came home for a wedding.

During this trip there will be some time to travel about and Heidi will be joining me for some of that adventure. I will get into the trip more about the planning and the route and the fun that is to come but I wanted everyone to know that I am coming home and I am looking forward to it! Here is to a new adventure and everything that will come because of it!

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The question I am sure you are all asking is where have I been. I know I never wrote about Vegas, nor have I been updating regularly. I have been busy working all this week. I am pretty sure I have said before I am back working at the airport so each day is a new experience.

Training is well and truly over and it is all live now. Everything was scary, I can’t tell you how nervous I was, but I am sure so were a lot of other people.  It was still a good week. It is definitely a job I want to stick with, a job I am surprised to be enjoying & feel like I should have tried this a while ago.

I really don’t know what the future is going to hold with this line of work. Could I stay in this position forever? Dunno? But I guess I need to start looking at where i want to go with this? It’s time to start laying out a plan for the future. I need to sit down with my boss and work things out and also with Heidi, because what I decide affects her too.

Life is back to the M-F grind. Working to earn $$$ is always a good thing.

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Well my training for my new job is almost complete and I must say it has been challenging. I have had to learn a whole new GDS and system to go with it and that is always a challenge. Having to translate one system to the other in my head on the fly is rough, but I am getting the hang of it. It helps that they have a great tool that does a lot of the complicated command work for you, but you still need to understand things on the base level.

But working from home is now over, and I start going back and forth to work now every day. On a good and bad side there is no longer any more bus rides (apart from a car park shuttle) but that means that I won’t be reading as much. On the good side, I now don’t have to stand around waiting for buses (again apart from the car park shuttle) and that means I can get places easier, although I now have to contend with traffic.

All in all life is good right now, I am hoping to make it to vegas tonight (we are flying Stand By) and have a great weekend away with my wife as she deserves a break right now. She just found out last night she passed her Certification Exams (after spending weeks hiding in the closet trying to work and having semi frequent breakdowns, even though I told her it would be fine) and she deserves a good bit of relaxation by the pool in vegas.

Time to get back in the air again right?

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So tomorrow is a new beginning for me. I start my new job tomorrow, one that I am truly truly excited about. I won’t say much about who it is I am working for or what I will be doing, but rest assured this is right up my ally. I will be returning to the travel industry, something I have been wanting to do since I left my last job. But this will be a job that is not entirely travel, it will be something I have never done before.

One thing I have realized since I left my last job was that small companies are just not for me. Sure I don’t mind working with small teams etc, but having a background coming from a company where there is support in every direction, there is policies and procedures in place, this makes me want to return to that. Mainly because I know that there is always something there. That won’t be a problem with this new job as although I am sure I will be working with a small team, it will be for a multinational company, one that I am sure most of you have heard of. The great thing about this position and the team I will be working with is that this is going to be the first. It is going to be the first in many ways. Although there will be policies and procedures coming from the main division of the company, I am sure we will be developing a lot of it from scratch. Something I can’t wait to do. I get to mix in my passion, my skills and my knowledge all into one thing.

So while I get myself ready for 3 days of work in Bellevue, the rest of the next coming 6 weeks will be working from home. While I worked from home basically for a little bit, this will be every day of the week. So it shall be interesting. I am looking forward to this new portion of my life and can’t wait to get started once all the training is done. But lets revisit this in a month or so to find out how I like working at home. Guess it is time to polish my shoes?

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As you know I just started working at a new job, one that I wasn’t all that happy about. I took this job to help pay the bills, it was purely and ends to some means. Well yesterday I handed in my resignation, the job has served it’s purpose.

I have to admit that I went into this job knowing that I probably wouldn’t be all that happy. Even though I was spending all day with aircraft, it was not going to be easy. Sometimes things just aren’t as good as they seem to be. Don’t get me wrong, I loved being at the airport but it just sucked. I toughed it out, the periods of boredom, the non stop pain & torture to the body, the 3am wake ups and the times when I never got to see Heidi because we just weren’t at home together.

Well that is all over. After almost 2 months of process, I have managed to secure myself a new job, one that I am better qualified for and one that seems almost suited to me directly. I won’t say much about it publicly for a while yet, but I will still be at the airport, just doing something different yet the same.

I can’t wait to get started on this new job. From the moment I saw the first information on it, ages ago, I knew I wanted in, just didn’t think it would be possible. Then I see a job ad with more information and it turns out I am better suited for it than anything else. Sure I moved over here to the USA to work for one company, I didn’t expect this journey over to change my life entirely. To find a passion that I never really had so strongly before, to find the one that I love and now to find a job that is almost like a dream come true.

An extra little thing that this change has allowed me to do is head off overseas for a couple of days. I have always wanted to fly Lufthansa First Class, but only from Frankfurt. I want to visit the Lufthansa First Class Terminal and now I can. I had set it as a goal for 2014, and things happened (Hi Wifey!) that made that goal a little bit harder to get. I think I also set it for 2013 too. Well, wait no more, because that is now happening! In around 11 days time, I will be setting foot inside that famous terminal and enjoying it so very much. I also get to catch up with a friend while in Frankfurt (for that one little day) and now I can have that little break I have wanted so badly.

Life is never a certain thing and change happens all the time. Let’s see where this new adventure takes me!

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It sure has been an interesting week. Last week was a walk in the park. Got to fuck around with planes all day up at Coupeville (what a blast) and spent the weekend with my lovely wife.

Now though it is back to the real world and back to work. Now that my training is complete I am the FNG at work. What does that mean? I am the F’ing New Guy. The butt of all jokes and the one stuck with all the shit. Could be worse though, I might not be working at all.

Right now I am doing ok, my body only hates me a little & I haven’t done anything too stupid. Although I did screw up in training I have been on the job 2 hours & so far so good.

The good thing about clearing training on a Thursday is that I work my Friday night shift & I have a normal weekend. Score!

Just so you all know, I still won’t be saying who u work for or what I do, it’s just for safety sake. That and I don’t want to lose my job.

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Today is my last day as an unemployed bum, and I am going to enjoy it. Starting tomorrow afternoon I go back to work (albeit just a few hours for orientation) and then on Monday it is into the thick of it with a full on training program.

I am still not going to say who I am working for but the job is going to help pay bills, which is the main thing. I am still out there looking for other jobs as well as this is not something I want to do long term,i don’t think my body would handle it to well. The training I have been doing in the gym has helped to some extent, but I doubt it will be enough.

While it has been nice waking up at 0730 every morning and slowly rolling out of bed, it has been getting to me a lot this week. I feel lazy and useless at times, and that just isn’t something I want to deal with. So I continue to sit & wait for Friday to roll around.

Days like today help though as the weather is nice & I can get out and get photos when I can (although Boeing isn’t playing ball this morning as I have waited almost two hours for this flight to depart).  It helps me feel like I have stuff to do, but when I have a job to go to i feel like I am contributing more to the relationship.

So for now u enjoy the sunshine & the planes doing touch & go’s at Renton Airport. Life can’t be all that bad right?

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So some of you have seen that I have a conditional job approval, the job is something that I don’t really want to do long term, but till something better comes along, it will fill the hole and hey, it pays. The job requires me working out doors with some good upper body strength (which should give people some idea as to what I am doing) and sadly, that is something I haven’t paid much attention to for a while. All I have been doing the last year or more has been running or bike, one or the other, all cardio all the time! I had to do a physical abilities test for the job (hence conditional approval) and while I smashed through a lot of the cardio part of it with ease, the strength testing was not that great.

The funny part of the story is that the Physical Therapist (PT) giving me the test said that I need to focus on my upper body training for the next few weeks before the job starts, so that the first few days are not going to be a problem. What he didn’t know is that for a good 6 months or more, Heidi has been telling me the same thing. Right then I was thinking “probably should have listened to my wife (she wasn’t my wife at the time but you know how that goes) and done what she said”. The PT thought that was a good laugh and kept going with the test. Telling me what I need to focus on over the next couple of weeks.

So I wake up this morning, after a night of helping to build IKEA furniture (and video games) and my body was fighting me big time. Just after the test yesterday my body was aching, telling me I had done bad things. Sucks to be my body though because it is time to start doing some weights. I pushed it through for about 45 minutes (wanted to do an hour but that wasn’t going to happen first day out). I guess I will have to keep pushing through it, because I tell you what, it may hurt, but it has to be done!

Here is to a new lot of muscles!