This is my last Friday in the Federal Aviation Administration. Deliverance is mine. Minus the banjos.

These kids with their fast Internet and loud rock and roll music have made all the administrivia associated with university learning very, very easy. Yesterday I reserved my books online for pickup on the twentieth of August. I know what my classes are and who teaches them, if not the exact times. For those of you who went to school in the dark days when physically standing in line at the Financial Aid office was necessary, you will be thrilled to learn that (a) direct electronic disbursement is now possible and (b) online verification of tuition and fees paid is likewise possible.

My going-away lunch with the non-FAA'ers will commence in ten minutes. Goodbye for now, LiveJournal.

One of those nights where I am reminded why I will not miss this place during thunderstorm season. For anyone trying to enter my airspace from the west, northern New Mexico is effectively thirty miles wide for over a hundred miles inbound. After two hours of airplanes deviating in similar ways around an almost stationary mass of precipitation, I would have thought the confederacy of dunces to the southeast would pick up on what is being put down. But I'm not sure I'll have the pleasure of watching mediocrity being defined downward by people making $30,000 or more than me, for the same work or less, once I'm in law school. So I'll savor these moments as they occur. (/bitter)

The first month's rent arrived yesterday. Electricity; check. Gas; check. Water; check. DSL; check. Everything should work from the moment I walk in the door on August 1.

Almost everything I intend to move is in a box. The remainder is either furniture or items that collectively will take less than one hour to put in boxes.

My property management representative's father is having surgery of some kind on the weekend I move, so she may not be able to greet me in person on arrival. If not, she will FedEx the key to me next week.

Fuel stops are planned.

My bike is getting its warranty maintenance at REI, and I'll have it back on the 22nd.

My movie analog for commitment is Han Solo. You never realize what you have, until you're frozen in carbonite.

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The Free Agent

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This story has come up in the national media's consciousness, in large part because of the union and its friends at New York City television stations. Unfortunately, it comes out as he said-the FAA said, because they haven't really taken the time to tell you more than the distance between the two airplanes, and that the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

About 20-25% of the way through, you'll hear the incident in question between LAN Chile 533 and Cayman 792.

Runways are named for the magnetic headings to which they most closely correspond. The Cayman flight is landing Runway 22 left, heading southwest, while the LAN Chile flight was departing Runway 13 right, heading southeast. The logic is that the arrival will commit to the landing and turn off the runway, as the departure on the crossing runway passes harmlessly overhead. This works, until the arrival goes around after the departure has already left the runway, and at that point, you have the problem you hear on the radio.

The controller is babbling a little - I don't blame him, because he probably thought he was going to see a midair collision. Again, knowing their magnetic headings as above, the controller turns the Cayman to a zero-nine-zero, or basically due east, and the LAN Chile to a one-seven-zero, basically due south.

Those are forty-degree turns, and you don't issue a forty-degree turn to separate airplanes unless something has gone really wrong. A standard rate of turn is 3 degrees per second, meaning a wait of 13 seconds for the new heading under normal circumstances. Both of these pilots had to hear the panic in the Kennedy controller's voice, and may even have seen the lights on the opposite runway, so they probably exceeded the standard rate of turn in order to make this work. At the closest point, the union estimates a half-mile and 100 feet, based on a combination of the local controller's recall and the radar data. FAA's figures are somewhat larger, as much as 500 feet, but the point remains that this was a barely controlled incident. The controller made two really quick calls, and the pilots acted equally quickly to gain separation between themselves, but if someone else had tied up the frequency by calling the tower (he had several airplanes lined up for takeoff, on his frequency) or if he hadn't heard the Cayman pilot call his go-around. . .it would have been entirely in God's hands, instead of just mostly in God's hands. Traffic collision avoidance systems on these airplanes have only a vertical component, i.e., climb or descent, and there wasn't a lot of room between these airplanes and the ground for that to work on its own.

Of course, JFK's not the only airport in the country with simultaneous operations on intersecting runways. Memphis International, home of Federal Express, also has this issue, and in the last year, have seen a situation like this one. As with JFK, though, not permitting simultaneous operations would cripple the airport. If they all had to line up for takeoff and landing to the same set of runways, capacity for both departures and arrivals would drop by half, and the peak delays would go through the roof. Even if they waited until the aircraft reported wheels on the runway before clearing the departure, that's a loss of valuable time. Small wonder they went after Pete Nesbitt when he filed NASA safety paperwork on MEM's procedure. You can bet that they'll go after anyone at JFK who raises a complaint through official safety channels also.

The Plan.

I work my last day as an air traffic controller on July 28 (19 days, 22 hours, 4 minutes and 45 seconds). At around 2 p.m. that day, I'll turn in my headset and my ID, and demonstrate the cleanliness and fine working order of my mailbox and locker before I go.

At 8:30 a.m. on July 29, I'll be going to American Self-Storage on Indian School Road to pick up my rental truck and car dolly. I imagine it will probably take the better part of the day to box up my kitchen materials, pack essential items for my carry-on, move furniture, and everything else. Following a shower and a change of clothes, I think I'll probably have a going-away party at Two Fools Tavern on Central Avenue, beginning with shepherd's pie and ending with vomit.

By 1:30 p.m. on July 31, I'll be leaving with Suzanne for Pittsburgh. Sometime around midnight, we will arrive in Oklahoma City. I'm assuming around 12 hours of driving for the next two days, ending in Springfield, Illinois and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania respectively.

By 12:00 p.m. on August 3, Jenny (radfemgoddess), her fiancé Andy and my brother Mark should all arrive in town to help me unload. After what is hopefully a mercifully short process, we will lay out sleeping arrangements and visit a Peruvian restaurant that Jenny has recommended.

By 3:30 p.m. on August 5, I will have taken Suzanne to the airport to catch a flight in time for the beginning of school the next day.

Sometime August 25, my school starts.

The House came up with a version of the war funding supplemental that passed almost unanimously, and this supplemental includes the updates to the GI Bill discussed in my earlier post. Pressure from all manner of veterans' groups has led us to a point where Bush has signaled a change of heart, with regard to vetoing this retention-killing advancement of veterans' benefits.

The language is different, and offers less than Webb's version of the Senate bill promised. For one, all the time I spent discharging my service obligation under my ROTC scholarship does not count (which I must admit, seems fair to me), and thus only one year and four days of active service is counted to determine the extent of my eligibility. On the other hand, it's still money I won't need to pay back, and I won't get it until the fall of August, 2009.

As I understand this bill, I am entitled to 60% of the benefits that would accrue to someone with three years' creditable aggregate service, on or after 9/11. Assuming Pitt's undergrad tuition is not less than any other state institution in Pennsylvania (but if not, terrific), that means $3,681.80 towards tuition, $300 towards books, and $3,100.80 towards rent and living expenses per semester. Over four semesters, that would be $28,000 I wouldn't have to repay, much less repay as it gathered 6.7% interest.

This is good news. Now all I have to do is, well, excel as a student.

And they scale upwards in intensity, depending on pay grade. I call as my first witness, Hank Krakowski.

1,622 controllers left service last year. Out of 3,450 hired since 2005, only 538 had certified as of the end of FY07. Of the ones hired this year? Only 4 of that 538 are in that category.

Our response: (a) hire a new Vice President of Technical Training; (b) pay him $168,000 plus whatever locality differential applies to Washington, D.C.; (c) have him field questions from Congress about what we can't do now that we once did without thinking about it.

If our current state of being represents the National Airspace System being run as a business, I guess I know what our version of embezzlement looks like.

45 days.

Yesterday I was told that my facility manager wants to have a meeting with me. My 'pink card' finally showed up from Region HQ (the 'pink card' is the official FAA document indicating that you've certified at a given facility type).

Additionally, he wants to discuss my resignation letter, and ask what he can do to make me stay.

Fortunately, I already know the answer to that question, and no, I'm not seriously trying to stay. But I admit I'm curious how they'll react.

George W. Bush economically stimulated me.

The new GI Bill.

I had a ROTC scholarship to attend WVU, and under the existing GI Bill, that precluded you from contributing a certain percentage of your salary to access GI Bill funds for post-undergraduate education. The logic was, you spent your benefit getting here; congratulations, Lieutenant.

I do have to look up a few paragraphs in Title 38 before I get too excited, but it would appear that this one is intended to reward people serving in the military on or after September 11, 2001. As an uninjured veteran with an honorable discharge from service, I could possibly expect my tuition, fees, books, room and board (probably whatever the estimate is that the University uses for awarding loans from lenders backed by the federal government), and a $1,000 monthly stipend for 21 months. That figure comes from my total months of active service following September 11, and the two exceptions to this (officers commissioned via a service academy after 2001 and officers accepting military scholarships to universities in excess of $25,000 total after 2001) do not apply to me.

My dad pointed me in the direction of this legislation after reading a summary of its effects in the Washington Post, and I now get to watch and wait to see if (a) it is vetoed and (b) the House and Senate will overturn a threatened presidential veto, in time for the upcoming school year.

If that's the case, then my legal education will be very nearly free of cost.

When I drive to Pittsburgh, Suzanne will ride with me in my rental truck. She has to be back in ABQ by the morning of August 6 for participation in teacher-administrator meetings, and she will fly back.

I realize there's no other way we can leave on July 31, arrive on August 3, unpack and enjoy the city for a couple of days, and then have her home by August 6 without air travel. As much as possible in the future, though, I'd prefer that she take the train.

In the last two weeks, I've learned that some airlines like to tell pilots that the regulatory minimum fuel, or possibly a little less, is best if they want to see a pension, and that the FAA's recruiting is going so well that most of the twenty-odd new trainees we received last month are here because their Social Security number ended in a 7. Apparently, it would have cost too much and taken too long to have them all take the AT-SAT (developed over the last five years at considerable expense to the taxpayer) and select the twenty-odd best scores out of a group of a few hundred; thus, FAA HR responds belatedly to pleas from facility management in the only way it can - incompetently.

On top of that, the six major airlines are decreasing summer flights by anywhere from 6% to 10%. That's good for FAA, because it will need all the help it can get in managing air traffic safely in spite of its personnel issues. Because of the way that slot bidding at major airports works, this does not mean there will necessarily be more competition to drive down prices; if anything, it will mean the reverse. Any airplane you board for the next four months will be packed. If it isn't, that means it's not taking off because the flight won't be cost-effective.

At any time in the future that I can drive or take a train instead of an airplane, I will.

I just got a call from a sweet woman at Indiana University-Bloomington. Her name is Pat Clark.

The conversation basically amounted to, "We admitted you and the deadline for your seat deposit was May 1...are you still interested?"

"Well, family blah blah blah I'm going to Pitt."

"Would a tweak to your financial aid mean something to you?"

"How much of a tweak?"

"How about a $10,000 yearly tweak, if you can maintain a 3.2?"

Umm.

80 days, 57 shifts and something to think about.

Sure.

In those few cases, though, it was always made worse by a lie, or a delay in informing me about the horrible thing in question.

This is one of the problems I have with the Biblical ideal of forgiveness for all wrongs in this life, or turning the other cheek after one has been slapped for no excellent reason. I don't do this, or at least, I honestly can't look at someone who fucked me over and say, "Even if what you did was wrong, I will pretend it never occurred and be as friendly as before." It doesn't work that way for me. At best, I can go through the formality of accepting an apology if one is offered, and then shut that person or thing out of my life to the greatest possible extent. Why? Because the absence of any repercussion for that person or thing, as I suffer, can be embittering. See also: FAA.

In order to reach a point like Christ or Gandhi wherein all wrongs are simply shrugged off as non-occurrences, you would have to discipline yourself against caring about what happens to you. That sensitivity, that allows me to enjoy human warmth and kindness, is also what makes me register human coldness and antagonism. It may be that I can reach that level someday, and look past all of life as a sport and a pastime, but it hasn't happened yet.

64 shifts left, that I know of.

This counts an overtime on the last Tuesday in May. Of course, there will probably be more before the summer ends.

My supervisor has been given a sick leave abuse letter intended for me, from the powers above him. I laughed and said that I come to work a shocking percentage of the time, given the balance I have.

The sun sets, only to rise again. Thank God.

It feels so good to write that.

Yesterday was my adventure in extended resting. I slept from 2:15 a.m. until about 5:50 a.m. during the shift, and then I went back to Suzanne's for breakfast. As it turns out, I slept there from 7:00 a.m. until 8:30 a.m., when she left for work.

I tried doing all the things I normally do on a day off - bike ride or a run, a little laundry - but all I wanted to do after dinner was to nap.

I laid out on Suzanne's futon around 6:15 p.m. and regained consciousness around 9:45 p.m., to help her do dishes. I got back into bed around 10:30 p.m., and slept approximately until 7:00 a.m. this morning.

Today I will finish my passport paperwork, regardless of how unnecessary it is. I think I'll also work out whether I should be completing a Master Promissory Note in advance of receiving Pitt's formal financial aid award in June.

Somewhere in there, I'll have to go to work, but I promise to give not a single quantum of effort more than necessary.

I saw Rush last night.

For two hours, anyway. I had to work an overtime midnight shift, which forced me to leave about an hour and a half before the end.

Snakes & Arrows is probably their best studio album since Presto, if not longer. The songs tend towards memorable choruses, which distinguishes the album from tuneless sludge like Vapor Trails. There is both a standout AOR-format 'single' ("Far Cry") and consistency of quality between individual tracks, which typifies their better albums.

I say all this knowing that:

(a) Several friends of mine will justly mock me for liking Rush. I admit that in terms of cool, a Rush concert is like playing Dungeons & Dragons with ten thousand people smoking barely passable weed, trying to show you what they drew on their notebook cover during biology class, dude. I don't care.

(b) Neil Peart is rock's most painfully self-conscious libertarian, and for some reason, they let him write lyrics about being that.

(c) Coldplay wishes it had the talent Rush does.

I have a place to live in Pittsburgh.

I have fixed a problem (that I created) with my financial aid award notification, and hopefully will hear more via email shortly.

My last hours in the FAA will be partially spent converting an Air Force idea to suit the civilian workforce - position certification guides. I don't know what other facilities are doing to address the issue of half their trainer-capable workforce (the half with all the experience) retiring, but our best guess consists of itemizing all tasks required of a trainee on a given piece of airspace, attaching references, and letting them the corporate memory glance over our efforts before retiring. Part of the solution, part of the problem or part of the landscape - I think I made the right choice.

On Wednesday, we'll have to celebrate the passing of triple digits into double digits.

I was accepted at Indiana University-Bloomington's school of law. It's a top-tier, just like Iowa, but unlike Iowa, they have offered money.

The money still isn't right. I refuse to go $110,000 or more into debt for this career. Even if it were right, I want to live in a city of reasonable size and expense, within an afternoon's drive of my family. The only competition that Pittsburgh ever has had, among the schools to which I applied, was George Mason. Possibly Temple, too - it's a good school, and I like their emphasis on trial advocacy - if it were in a better part of Philadelphia.

I have told people that I often feel like the absentee son in my family. Neither my father nor my mother have ever made me feel that my career choices were something to hold against me. With that said, the time I've spent in New Mexico has been marked by a realization that my time is terribly finite, and so is the time which my parents have. I really haven't given them a chance to know me as an adult, and since I haven't given them grandchildren (and for the next five years, it would be an unplanned gift), the least I can do is be close at hand. I can show them, more frequently than I have for a decade, who I am, and what they mean to me.

Hunting for an apartment seems to be coming to an end. I'm choosing one a little pricier than the ones in Oakland. It's in a better area, has a parking space in a lot rolled into the rent, and is located along several bus routes. The lease documents also appear to have been written by adults intending to rent apartments, instead of baiting undergraduates into expensive mistakes. I'm optimistic.

Colebrook Management appears to have its shit together, although I have yet to speak to a human being working in their employ.

Paragraph 3, "LANDLORD does not have to give TENANT a receipt for rental payments." I'd like that amended to read, "LANDLORD is not automatically required to give TENANT a receipt, but will provide one upon request."

Paragraph 13, "Either party may end this LEASE at the end of the original TERM by written notice. LANDLORD or TENANT must receive this notice at least 60 days before the end of the TERM." I probably can't get a rewrite of this, but I will need to bear in mind that it renews NLT April 1 if I want to say goodbye to the good people at Colebrook Management - per paragraph 14.

Paragraph 20, "LANDLORD is not responsible for any loss, expense, injury or damage to any person or property caused by: a) theft; b) fire; c) ice, snow or rain; d) water; and/or e) plumbing or pipe leaks." This reconfirms the importance of renter's insurance.

Paragraph 24, "a) The PROPERTY is considered abandoned and/or turned over to LANDLORD if: (1) RENT is five (5) or more days past due." I will have to make sure that there's a signed, dated receipt because of this condition of the lease. I'm still liable for breaking the lease, if I get tossed out, so a clerical error is just not tolerable.

We'll see just how negotiable this stuff is. If they're hell-bent on it, I'll keep looking. After the last time I was fucked on a contract, I'm not eager to repeat the experience on a smaller scale.

A bike, specifically. The Novara Safari, available at an REI near you.

This much I know of Oakland and the University of Pittsburgh: you can drive all you want, but finding a parking space is right up there with a virgin birth and a royal flush in terms of likelihood, at almost any time of the day. I don't mind public transportation, and buses run from the adjacent neighborhoods with free ridership if you have a Pitt ID. But I also know that buses can be full, and buses can break down, with no corresponding effect on the time at which my classes start.

I had already given some thought to it, during my last visit to Pittsburgh. I saw lots of cyclists, and lots of bikes chained to racks as I walked over the campuses of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon. When I had to park at Carnegie Mellon - about a fifteen-minute walk from the law building, and I had one of the last thirty spaces in a multilevel garage that can hold several hundred - I knew I should probably resign myself to parking my car somewhere for most of the semester.

Beyond the practical, I love riding it. As the review attests, it has wide, MTB-like tires, which suit uneven terrain and road surfaces. I don't think I'll have much time to hit the trails on my weekends, but it should handle fine in light slush and snow, as long as I have some combination of asphalt, concrete, salt, gravel or sand for the tires to gain purchase. I've tried it on some light inclines in the neighborhoods around my house, and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with steeper hills and higher concentrations of atmospheric oxygen.

120 days.