(Pipe) dreams of flight?

Since the beginning of this year, I've been re-embarking on an old dream of obtaining my private helicopter license and then moving on up to commercial.
Being that I was never in the air in anything prior to my first helicopter flight in a Robinson R-44 in January, I never truly realized the thrill of being in mid-air, unsuspended.
After putting in some new research and taking a second successful discovery flight in another Robinson R-44 last month, that old dream has been reinvigorated.
Monetary gains from a career-path aside, helicopter flight could also be looked at as another instrument in the war on stress.
What better way to achieve a sense of peace than hovering two-thousand feet above pretty much everything that's been troubling you?

I already realize the costs involved and the amount of training needed to satisfy FAA regulations.
However, the amount of detractors I've been running into hasn't exactly been short in number.
Some say the job prospects begin to dwindle the longer it takes me to complete any step in the training process.

There have also been suggestions to attempt the US Army routes as well.
That has been attempted on a couple of occasions, but with my personal nature, I'm putting the dignity of myself and the armed forces ahead of personal gain and being mindful of any potential, disastrous "wash-outs" in any phase of their training steps.

With that said, this "out-of-pocket" route seems to be the one I'm firmly seeking to follow once the initial funds have been set aside and I've developed a domicile near suitable training centers.
As long as a road everyone else makes the process out to be, it'll be much more worth it in the personal accomplishment department in the far-future sense of things.
Better to get the plan formulated into action and executed now.
I personally don't want to be miraculously old and grey, wondering why I never accomplished that one thing in life I always wanted to do.
So for all those detractors out there letting their personal responsibilities of kids, marriage, relationships, numerous work commitments,. etc dictate the decisions of free people around them;

This is my dream, and I believe that there is your pipe. So do yourself a favor and stay stuck in it.
I got a reality of flight to conjure up.

Job hopping to just plain, jumping ship.

Don't know how many people actually still read this, but I've been through some dark times over the last couple of months.
From a lengthy time at a rather nice place of employment in a industry I've been troubled with, to just wanting to get away from it.
The pressures of commercial vehicle driving aren't for everyone and the fact that I've entered and exited with the frequency of a person who doesn't know when to quit until it's too late is one sign in many that I should just stay away for good.
By staying away for good, I should do two things;

1)Get back into a previous job that didn't leave me with the clenching feel of anxiety everyday.
I've been employed in the security field for longer than I've driven trucks.
I go to work, make sure all tasks required of the post I'm assigned are completed, then go home(could be anywhere, really) and do what I please with my downtime. No sweating work until I'm actually there again.

2)While working a regular job where it's easy to keep it separated from personal life, I should refocus on a field of study in college that I found interesting and worth doing.
Vocational-tech fields like welding and vehicle maintenance were courses of study that kept me coming back and yearning for more.
In addition to the classes not really feeling like classes, the types of people attending were from varied walks of life and this enjoyable, yet productive common goal actually made me more sociable to the point of knowing physical people in real time.

Looking back on positive experiences like this and racking them up against the multitudes of negativity I've experienced every time I've been on the road makes me wonder.
If not driving trucks gave me more positive and productive experiences than driving trucks, then why did I complain about not doing it for so long?

The answer to this lies in the fact that I was having a bad home life and just needed to find a different place to lay my head at the end of the day.
The only thing trucking has afforded me in the productivity department thus far is discovering and finding a liking for places I thought about moving to.
Since I've found those certain places, I feel it's time to get on with things I want to do and to stop suffering from these daily bouts of anxiety pangs I get every time I attempt to get myself out onto that 2-8 lane stretch of Hell known as The Freeway.

It's up to me to see to it that this latest company I've jumped to will be the last and that I could finally say goodbye to it within the next 5-6 months.

Realizations of futility.

Three weeks ago I was fired from a trucking company I at least came to like to a certain degree.
My time there was a little under a year, but overall things were going quite smooth up until Nov 9th. This was when the culminations of tight driver regulations hours, non-cooperation with an inept shipping department, and the lack of legal parking spaces all came to a head and led to a borderline anger incident.
I've honestly had problems like this in the past, but this was the first instance where police were called, I was handcuffed, and transported to a psychiatric facility for it.
Sure enough, this blow-up ultimately led to myself getting fired from the company and now having to deal with all the other negative fall-out associated with incidents of this particular nature.
Now I'm with my third trucking company in my 8 year history of full-time.
I've looked back and realized that of all the jobs I've had up to this point, truck-driving jobs are the only ones I've been fired from. Everything else I've quit voluntarily.
Sizing up the unique difficulties that commercial driving entails, I feel there are far too many odds stacked against you to ensure a long-lasting, cool-headed approach to making it through the day. Federal motor carrier guidelines, state/local ordinances, and even policies of individual customers you're picking up from or delivering to have their own unique ways of twisting your patience.
After going through all these difficulties and stacking them up against the stresses of other jobs I've held or thought about pursuing, I'm just now beginning to think that I was in over my head when I first pursued and became certified for this particular line of work 8 years ago.
Why I got into this line of work to begin with?
That right there is a complex question in and of itself.
Some of it had to do with money obviously.
The rest of it was a mere culmination of wanting to get away from mom/dads house and perhaps get out on my own in some capacity.
Instead, this particular route has been bumpy from the get-go and has yet to smooth itself out, if ever.
Right now, I'm giving it yet another chance since I'm still able to get hired on with certain companies. But, if I feel that nothing's ever going to be right in doing this, I'm keen on just saving up whatever money I can, get a small apartment in a place I actually want to live, and go back to rent-a-cop-ing.
The money may be less doing that, but if I live in a cheaper area, I could essentially have time to go back to community college and take courses again.
In short, back to the drawing board for the umpteenth time.

Fundamental Church of Latter Day Monotones.

Hay is one of the preeminent types of freight I typically pickup and deliver on my chosen routes of operation with my company.
Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico rural farms are typically where I go to get it.
Today though I was given a load assignment for a hay pickup going to just outside of Compton from a farm in Atlanta NV.
Atlanta NV is basically a town that sits not too far from the NV/UT stateline and lies along the pristine and lonely highway of US-93.
Took me about 4 hours give-or-take to get there from Vegas.
After driving 3 miles down a dirt road to the farm, I noticed it more closely resembled the headquarters of an ultra-religious cult, sort of like the Branch Davidian thing in Waco TX from long ago.
From speaking to a person on this farm last night, I could tell there was something odd about her voice, very monotone and withdrawn. Tired perhaps?
After pulling up to the scalehouse and engaging my park brakes, I walk over to the main offices located near a large warehouse on the main farm quad.
As I walk up to it, I notice most of the men wearing buttoned, long-sleeved shirts with no particular design and very uniform in appearance.
The few women I saw walking about looked almost as if they were auditioning for Little House On The Prairie.
I get to the receiving/shipping office and a young, blonde-haired woman comes to the window.
I ask her who's in charge of the hay-loading and she refers me to a man named Luke.
As she was talking, I knew she wasn't the same person I talked to the night before, but spoke with the same withdrawn, monotone voice.
Judging by the way she was dressed and the way she spoke, it was as if she was either raised to be very cautious towards outsiders, or groomed to be subservient to men.
In some case, probably both.
I soon meet up with this Luke character and he weighs the truck, then proceeds to get the trailer loaded.
After all of this got done and he was getting my paperwork together for delivery, I finally asked him the big question of, "So are y'all Mennonites or some derivative of it?"
Luke responds like he was just waiting for me to ask about the peculiarities of their farm and themselves. "We're actually members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."
He goes on to briefly explain their customs and the differences between the men and women.|
He does this warmly and without any guff, presumably due to myself being of noticeable rural upbringing as well.
After hearing all of this I remembered the news stories about that Warren Jeffs character and the ongoing debates over polygamy.
As I drove on, I was a bit stunned to learn that's who they were after to being to farms like this a few times over the past year.
But at the same time, I'm a bit more comfortable knowing what's it all about now.
Despite the media and government backlash against them, they're a throwback to some simpler times, if one could call it that.

The Burdens of Being Recumbent

About five years ago I got my first recumbent bike and became attached to the comfortable and speedy way these things operated.
Back pain was minimal, you were pretty much out of the face of the head-wind, and you could practically ride all day on these things.
Sadly though, I've slowly begun to realize how difficult it is to obtain parts for these things.
The current one I've had I've been riding for a little over year now.
It rides like a beast when it's working properly, but when inclement weather or road conditions hit it, parts wear down quicker.
The typical response is to go to a local bike shop and find the correct part for it.
Install it, test it and then you're pretty much good to go.
But that really isn't the case with recumbent bicycles and the primary components of shifter cables, brake cables, and the chain which are all longer than that of a normal bicycle.
You call around to different shops and end up eliminating them from your list due to them not having it.
Sure you could order these types of things, but when you have a job like mine, that isn't really a good enough option.
You order them online and then you're not riding your bike at all until 2-3 weeks later when you're finally able to swing by the house or wherever you had them delivered to.
This excessively long delay in ordering, shipping and transporting takes what should be a healthy activity and turns it into nothing short of uncapped anger and a heart attack waiting to happen.
Why places don't stock just a few of these parts and instead cater to the masses, I don't clearly understand.
Surely they just can't order a few for those oddities that happen to pop up every once in a blue moon?
In the meantime, I'm really beginning to weigh the decision of using a recumbent as my primary bicycle/means of conveyance.
Especially in the midst of surprise breakdowns in an area with limited supplies, I wonder if it will be worth it to just switch back over to something more commonplace.

Colorado, Utah, or New Mexico?

After having lived in CA since four years old, I've reached that point in my life where the politics and other ills of this state have begun to affect me at the personal level.
There are many things I've found that you can't legally do here that you can do legally in other states neighboring it.
I've recently warmed up to firearms and after going shooting in places like Utah and New Mexico, that insatiable taste for weapons ownership is strong.
Apart from that reason, the housing costs in this state are still far beyond what I would call affordable in this obvious post-housing collapse economy.
I feel that if I want to get a place of my own and get it paid for in a realistic amount of time, it's better to seek out different areas with better prices.
With that, I've had the luck and pleasure of hauling loads across the states mentioned in the title for the most part of this entire year.
All of them are great, but the thing is I need to pick one and just shoot straight for it and now I narrow it down to costs.
Colorado has some nice places in the cities like Denver, Aurora, Grand Junction, Fort Carson and in between. Housing costs are generally affordable there.
Winters get tight, but not as nasty as some places and at least the sun still shines during those months.
Utah has a one large city and many small towns scattered throughout the state.
People like to criticize the prevailing religion in that state, but the colleges/universities there are quite affordable and student-teacher ratios are good to work with.
New Mexico has an awesome mix of desert, mountain, and plains scenery.
In addition, they appear to have educational opportunities in small towns and it is also quite affordable as well.
In the end, housing prices and college-affordability/resources seem to be what I'm pushing for.

Gut Anxiety and my hatred of certain areas.

I just got finished hauling a load of hay from the pristine lands of New Mexico and having been on my California to Colorado runs for 3-4 months straight.
I get a preplan for a load assignment going up to Hermiston OR and flip out immediately at this news.
There are a few key reasons I seem to hate going up that routing.
First off, the 5-freeway and pretty much all roads running from CA to WA are all 55 mph for trucks.
While cars themselves can stick between 65 and 70, those of us hauling trailers are stuck doing this traffic-impeding speed that slows everyone else down and could cause more harm than good.
Sure, 60 is allowable under the right eyes, but the downgrades and consistent rolling hills wear your brakes down when having to abide by these asinine speed guidelines.
Secondly, during the winter, the highway maintenance and law-enforcement of western states seem to act like real pussies when it comes to winter/snow driving conditions.
Going through the mountain states like Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, the chain requirements for trucks are such that they only need to be installed where there's power going to the drive wheels.
Have chains there, the grip will pull the rest of the tractor-trailer unit safely along with it.
Also, these aforementioned states have worse grades and weather than the westernmost states, but go with practicality and minimalism that works.
As soon as snow falls in CA, OR, or WA, either maximum chains on all tires including unpowered wheels on the trailers and road closures abound.
By snow falling, it isn't even that much, just a few measly inches that don't do any damage to anything.

So here we are, stuck on this load going up to Hermiston and potentially having to deal with state-government induced weakness along their highways.
I can't wait until I'm moved away from these particular states and the types of shit they make you put or shut up with.
Driving, or just working in a different state and not having to worry about coming back out here.
Coastal scenery, ever-green forests, fuck the 5-freeway and practically any road that branches off of it.