Pulling my laptop out of my bag this past Friday, I was excited with the prospect of a good relaxing day of hacking on whatever I pleased. Having fulfilled the Thanksgiving family obligations, and negotiated an errand-free day with my wife, I was pretty excited about a full day of tinkering.

Santa Rosa’s current conditions are overcast with plenty of fog. The forecast and the weather brief confirm that it should start to clear up around 10-11am.

After a week of utterly painful patience, my wife and I were finally able to get up in the air this morning, undertaking our first flight together with my new private pilot’s license.

One of my favorite aviation sayings is “you start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.”

Early on in my flight training I wrote that one of the most difficult aspects of the endeavour is summoning the strength to humbly, and realistically, self- assess your own performance.

One year ago today, my wife and I made the drive down to Hayward for the first time to take an introductory flight/bay tour with California Airways. My scheduled instructor for the flight was busy, and so another instructor picked up the flight.

It’s 6am on a dark Tuesday morning. I sip the bland coffee I bought from the donut place, wince at the taste, and get back to my flight log. Having just called to get a weather briefing, I rotate the whiz wheel every which way, computing my wind correction angles, estimated ground speeds and fuel burns.

Note: I half-finished this blog post, I’m posting it as such. I ended up becoming so busy I didn’t write for over a week, and now I can barely remember what I ended up doing, other than getting beat up by the wind.

Cell phone, wallet, laptop, helmet, keys; check. My pre-commute checklist that I run through before leaving the house in the morning. I unlocked my bike, bid farewell to the dog in the backyard and pedalled towards the train station.

I’m killing time in the California Airways office, re-re-re-reviewing my charts, going over the visual checkpoints I can expect to see today. After yesterday’s successful solo cross-country to Modesto, I had arranged to fly a longer solo cross-country today. This time around, Hayward to Santa Rosa, on to Sacramento Executive then returning home to Hayward.