Ugh it is to early in the morning to be thinking without a caffeine drip… so here is some planes

From Seattle Spotting 2015

The Boeing 757 EcoDemonstrator (the thing on its back is a camera)

From Seattle Spotting 2015

A P-3C Orion doing laps at BFI

From Seattle Spotting 2015

An Alaska 737-900ER after a Charter flight heading for the Museum of Flight ramp

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Transavia 737-800

From Seattle Spotting 2015

China United Airlines 737-800

More later in the week!

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?

For your Friday night enjoyment!

From Seattle Spotting 2015

A new Southwest 737-800 arriving at Paine on delivery.

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Idaho Vandals Q400

From Seattle Spotting 2015

San Diego State University Q400

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Alaska 737 with Split Scimitars

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Delta’s first 737 with Split Scimitar Winglets

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Alaska’s Spirit of Hawaii 737

From Seattle Spotting 2015

ADB Antonov AN124

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Oman Air 737-900ER

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Air China 737-800

From Seattle Spotting 2015

ANA’s last 737-800

From Seattle Spotting 2015
From Seattle Spotting 2015

The Boeing Catfish. A Modified 757-200 used for testing of the F-22 systems & components.

At the moment I am in what I like to call a transition phase. I have a job, but it hasn’t started yet, so I am really just taking each day as it comes. The only problem is, I am someone who has not had this much time off in years without going somewhere or doing something. This may seem like a vacation, but it isn’t.

Sure it is good to be getting up at 7:30 in the morning and rolling out of bed slowly. Drinking coffee till lunch time is fun as well, but it just gets a little bit boring. If you know me really well, you know I have a tendancy to over think things. I have a habit of just thinking way to much on one thing and causing myself problems. Like Monday night, I was meant to cook dinner for Heidi when she got home from Uni, however because I didn’t know what time she was going to be home I waited. Part of me was thinking to myself “just cook now, she can reheat” and I was to busy beating that part of me up and saying “stop it, cook when she leaves so it will be hot when she gets home”. Sadly I spent almost 45 minutes doing that dance, so when I finally did hear from Heidi, she was just getting home, and I had not even started cooking. *sigh*

I don’t know how to stop myself from over thinking at times. I do have stuff to do, but there are days like yesterday where I just get bored sitting around. I want to be able to keep my brain doing things for enough that I can still tune out for some part of the day. The sad thing is I just don’t know how to do that sometimes. Days like today where I have an appointment pushed back tend to turn into a mess for me. I like to plan things, so I have a way of controlling my time, my thoughts and what I do. I am not someone who likes to sit around doing nothing. Sadly that is my life right now, and I need to get used to it. These two things just don’t like each other.

So what am I going to do for the next week? Well I know that since I have spent a total of 1 hour with my wife all week (not including sleeping in the same bed) I am looking forward to spending some time with her (which will wait for Saturday). Tomorrow I want to get out and get some spotting done and Sunday will probably be spent doing chores (cleaning, shopping). At least I know that Friday afternoon around 1pm, I am back employed and looking forward to getting my brain in gear, Even if it means 7am starts *sigh*

The Lufthansa Retrojet in all its glory. Spent forever waiting for this thing to fly again, and then it does on a rainy crappy day *sigh*

From Seattle Spotting 2015
From Seattle Spotting 2015
From Seattle Spotting 2015
From Seattle Spotting 2015
From Seattle Spotting 2015
From Seattle Spotting 2015

In case you were wondering, the livery is based on that of the original 747-200 when they was first delivered to Lufthansa. The only difference is the grey belly was polished aluminum. Not any more!

From Seattle Spotting 2015

The FAA’s Learjet doing some Pattern Work at Paine Field, testing instrumentation

From Seattle Spotting 2015

KLM’s New Livery on a 777-300ER

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Head on with the KLM 777-300ER

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Up close to a Dreamlifter

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Hainan 787 over the Keys

From Seattle Spotting 2015

A Cathay Pacific 777-300ER after a test flight

From Seattle Spotting 2015

KLM New Livery back at Paine

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Head on with the FAA Learjet

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Saudia after its first flight.

It has been a great few days of avgeekery around Seattle and I manged to get a lot of great stuff this week… so here are some for your Sunday night enjoyment:

From Seattle Spotting 2015

A Southwest 737-300 in new Livery

From Seattle Spotting 2015

A United 737-900ER with Scimitars

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Alaska’s new livery

From Seattle Spotting 2015

A Delta 737-900ER with my friend Charles onboard

Stay tuned later in the week for more!

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!

Final Day of Avgeek goodies, more from around Seattle

From Seattle Spotting 2015

British Airways – Boeing 777-200ER

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Alaska Airlines – Boeing 737-700 – Portland Timbers Livery

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Alaska Airlines – Boeing 737-400 Combi

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Delta Air Lines – Airbus A330-300

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Republic Airways – Embraer E190

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Cargolux – Boeing 747-8F

From Seattle Spotting 2015

Cargolux – Boeing 747-8F

And that conludes my first week of march in spotting 😀