Or not?

Trying to accomplish anything with your own site or blog on the net is difficult apparently. This will probably just sit here forever. I'm off to PT for my hip.....

2.5 years since my last post

Well, it's still here anyway. I think the old email address I was using died and went somewhere into internet oblivion, so if anyone actually asked another question in the last 2.5 years (not likely), I sincerely apologize for not answering. And well, since PilotSpeak.net failed, my marriage failed, my hip failed, and I am essentially unemployed at the moment, I thought I'd log in again....and post something. You see, I just watched Julie and Julia with my girlfriend Jannette and it made me feel like I should still be doing THIS. Which, of course, is the reason I started the blog in the first place. I'm good at it.

And now I have the time to devote to it.

So, ask away, should you stumble upon my little blog. You can see some of the questions and answers from the posts in the first few months to see how I am at answering questions.

And heck, maybe a few people will actually start reading this.....

My actual email is on the About Me on the right and is waynewatts@comcast.net We'll just use that one for now.....

Wayne

PilotSpeak vs MySpace

I hate MySpace, LOL! In essence, it's nothing but an easy way to have a user page and blog with some options, most of them annoying to anyone who visits the site. Half the pages I have seen there are barely readable and you are immediately bombarded with music the user has put on there. Usually music you don't like. It has also simply become a "showcase" for the "look at me, look at me" crowd. I do like the fact that bands have taken on myspace to showcase their talents. That's one good thing about it.

Part of the reason I thought of PilotSpeak.net was the fact that, obviously, people like having their own page and connecting with people. Unfortunately, they don't always care about the look or usefulness of their page. And even though MySpace is touted as a community, it's really not. It is an anomaly in the fact that it has succeeded on a global level for a site not geared toward a certain niche.

I designed PilotSpeak with the idea of a community centered around aviation. A real community that helps each other, shares ideas and information all centered around our jobs or love of aviation. To build an internet based community, I thought we needed more than just a webpage and a blog. We needed a site where we could use nearly everything we use the internet for, all in one place. A place on the internet to be, not just visit once in a while and see your new "look at me" photos.

That being said, let's compare PilotSpeak with MySpace.

	PilotSpeak	MySpace
Features
Personal Page w/ pics	Yes	Yes
Personal Blog	Yes	Yes
Photo Gallery	Yes	Yes
Connect with Friends	Yes	Yes
Professional Looking	Yes	No
Private Messaging System	Yes	No
Online Community Calendar	Yes	No
Community Forum	Yes	No
Polls & Surveys	Yes	No
Newsfeeds	Yes	No
Links to Interesting Sites	Yes	No
Classifieds Section	Yes	No
Job Listings	Yes	No
Travel Information	Yes	No
Online Chat Program	Yes	No
Military Transition Assistance	Yes	No
Web Based Email Address	Yes	No
In Your Face Bad Music	No	Yes
Net Worth	$1.97	$1,000,000,000,000

Hmmmm. Who would I rather be? Me or the guy who owns MySpace? Well, monetarily I would much rather be him! And good for him for being successful and creating something that millions of people like to use (even though for the life of me, I don't know why!).

But who would YOU rather be? A member of MySpace, or a member of PilotSpeak, even if you weren't really associated with aviation?

So there you go people. Join www.PilotSpeak.net and tell your friends. Get off MySpace! You'll be better off and hopefully someday I'll move over to that net worth category!

Wayne

My New Website is Almost Ready!

Why haven't I posted here in a while? I have been spending all my free time working on my new website, PilotSpeak.net. It's a community portal website for Pilots, Aviation Professionals and Aviation Enthusiasts. Please, please, please go there and check it out. While it is mostly for the aviation world, anyone can join and have fun there. You can have your own web based email, calendar and PIM. You can have your own web page and connect with friends, chat online with members, participate in the forums, up and download pictures, etc. It is especially useful for travelers! You can use and participate in the forum and events calendar to help you decide what to do, where to stay and where to eat on your next trip. Everything there is FREE!



I sincerely hope you all will become members of my new website and that you like it there!

Thanks, Wayne

Happy Holidays!

Hope everyone who stops by my little blog once in a while has a very happy holiday season.

Wayne

Gator Bait!

All I Want for my Birthday is..........

Tomorrow, December 4th is my birthday. All I want is a pair of tickets to the national championship game on January 8th in Glendale, AZ. That's all.

:(

Gators are in the National Championship Game!!!!

WOOHOO! The voters did the right thing!! I feel bad for Michigan and maybe the powers that be will start the process of creating a playoff system for division 1A college football.

It's Great to be a Florida Gator!!!!!

A Great Day in College Football.....Well Maybe

Yesterday I sat in front of the TV, remote in hand, and watched college football all day as usual. "Championship Saturday" lived up to the hype. Almost every game was exciting and close. I even stayed up until 12:30 am and watched the Hawaii vs Oregon State game. By the time it started however, I was already tired from all the excitement of the day.

Of course I am talking about my beloved Florida Gators beating Arkansas for the SEC championship while USC got beat by UCLA, opening the door for the Gators to play Ohio State in the national chamionship game..........or will they?

I have already posted about the BCS in my blog and what a bunch of money hungry crap that is. You can read about it HERE if you like, so I won't go into why it sucks or how to fix it.

However, again this year it has failed miserably and there is no clear number 2 team out there and now the voters must decide who plays OSU. It's between Michigan and Florida.

NCAA 1A college football is the only sport professionally or collegiate that doesn't have a playoff system, and without it, there is never a true champion. It is the biggest fallacy in sports. Money and greed are still more important than sportsmanship and letting the top teams decide their fate on the field. Shame on the NCAA and the university presidents for continuing to allow this to happen.

With the current and hosed up system, here is why Florida should go to the national championship game over Michigan. Numbers wise, there really is no choice.

Florida ----------------------------------- Michigan
12-1 --------------Record---------------- 11-1
4 ------Beat # of current top 25 teams----- 2
Yes --------conference champion---------- No
#1 -------schedule difficulty rank--------- #3


Take these into consideration as well: Florida is in the SEC, the consensus most difficult league to play in. Michigan already lost to OSU in the last game of the year for both teams and they are in the same conference.

Today at 8 pm EST, the bowl selection special will air on ESPN and we'll find out if at least the most deserving team, Florida, will play for the national chamionship or not.

The BCS SUCKS, either way.

I'm Building a New Website!

A month ago, I had a great idea. This idea involves a new company with a friend of mine as a partner and a web site. My idea is coming to fruition! The company is registered, the name is purchased (**********.net), a year of web site hosting purchased, logo done, design criteria done and I hired a web site company to help with building the website and handle some of the more technically difficult requirements. My goal is to have the web site up and running in two months from now. It is costing me a LOT of money and time, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.

That's all I can say for now, but stay tuned and when it's up and running, I'll post all the details here!

By the way, if you or anyone you know are a pilot or work as a professional in the aviation business, you will definitely want to know about this!

Cheers, Kila

Happy Holidays

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving last week and that your holiday season is merry and bright.

I went back to Waukegan a couple of weeks ago and finally got my T-2 check ride done. I am now one of about 9 people in the world with a T-2 type rating! Yeah! Ours will now be done in January sometime, barring any further delays.

Here I am landing in it:



Flew General Chuck Yeager around again a few weeks ago and got a signed P-51 Mustang model from him to boot.

Been flying tons as usual. I now have over 4700 hours. I have to renew my flight instructor certificate in December. The only time I have to do it is on my time off over the holidays, so that's when I'll get it done.

Been practicing piano as time permits. I am doing well I think, even though I am teaching myself. 4 1/2 more years to go! LOL!

Ace is doing great. Getting bigger and starting to fill out some. He's a very spoiled dog.

Larisa is still working at the Toyota dealership and selling lots of cars. She will be the top salesperson again this month. Congratulations to her!

Just for fun, here's me at the carrier in a T-45 Goshawk just before my very first carrier landing a LONG time ago! LOL! My roomate at the time took the photo.



Bought two new games that are really great! Medieval II Total War and Neverwinter Nights 2. Both are outstanding however NWN2 has a lot of bugs and needs to be patched. Either would make a good Christmas gift for someone you know if they like computer games.

That's all for now......... Kila

California Sucks, Part 8341B

Hello Everyone,

So, I get a notice in the mail from the city stating that they are very sorry, but there are/have been high levels of arsenic in our water. You know, the poisonous stuff that kills people? That's right, we've been drinking it! I have had an unusually high occurance of headaches of late, and now I think I know why! Isn't that great? Oh.......and they're "working on the problem"!

This last election saw measure M approved here, even though yours truly voted against it. Yep, our sales taxes just went up so the city could pay for 15 more policemen and 15 more fireman. What a crock of S*** that is. Like the extra cops are gonna actually DO something like prevent all the thefts, burglaries and crime in my neighborhood. Right. Bet you a million-gazillion dollars not ONE thing will change and not one statistic will improve.

I previously wrote about the traffic conditions on I-205 in this series. Well, they finally approved to widen I-205, albeit 10 years too late. Yeah! OMG! WHAT? They are only widening it by ONE LANE? OMG! You have GOT to be kidding me! How inane is that? You know what? That isn't gonna do a damn thing either! What a waste. It won't shed one minute off mine or anyone else's commute time. NOT ONE MINUTE. It needs to be widened by two lanes or it's just a waste of time and money. Like about 13 BILLION dollars wasted.

God, I cannot wait to get out of this hell hole.

Insurance Companies Suck

Ok, I know I've mentioned this somewhere in my blog before but I'm gonna talk about it in detail now.

Let's start with auto insurance. I don't even know where to start.......I guess by saying this; I've been paying for it for about 28 years now. About $40,000 worth. I have used it ONCE in my life! For a $3000 fender bender a long time ago. I haven't even had a speeding ticket in over 10 years. And yet, even though I'm an impeccable driver, I am still required to have the insurance and pay insane rates. What about my other $37,000 I have given them? Why can't I just use that? Why can't I get back some of that money? What about earning interest on it? Why did my insurance rates go up almost 50% when I moved to the SF Bay Area? (Let me tell you: illegal aliens who drive here legally and don't have insurance that the rest of us have to pay for! We're force to have uninsured motorist coverage here because of the high number of uninsured drivers.)

Now, you the good driver make one mistake and have an accident. You've been paying insurance for 20 years with a perfect record. And yet, the insurance company will now INCREASE your premiums, and in some cases drop you altogether for this! Totally unfair to good, honest people. They can legally do this too. Why? Because they pay off politicians, that's why. Insurance companies are some of the most corrupt businesses around.

Another thing that kills me about the auto insurance companies is their advertising. Borderline false advertising everywhere.

Geico: (Little Gecko Dude) "My job is saving you money. I love my job."

Progressive: "15 minutes could save you thousands!"

Statefarm, Wachovia, Esurance.com and a hundred others.

I get at least a dozen letters in the mail each week from various companies all claiming they can save me money. I called or contacted every one of them folks and NOT ONE could save me a penny. NOT ONE! So the little Geico Gecko simply ISN'T doing his job at all.

Then you have your house and property insurance. Been paying for that for 26 years. NEVER used that. Some places you have to have fire hazard or flooding insurance with it. Worse, they won't even insure the poor folks who live in hurricane/earthquake areas anymore (against a disaster like that). Well, shouldn't insurance cover any kind of disaster? Isn't that what it's really for? And yet they can get away with not covering the only thing likely to cause you some loss? Does this make sense to anyone?

Then you have your PMI insurance which is another required insurance for a house you buy if you cannot put at least 20% of the value of the house as a down payment. Another way for banks and insurance companies to milk you for every dime.

Then you have your health insurance. About 20% of Americans can't even afford that! Hospitals and doctor's fees and charges are so outrageous, that the insurance companies then charge too much just for the insurance. And a lot of them won't cover the cost of fighting something serious, like cancer. Again, shouldn't it cover everything? I mean, you get screwed paying so much for insurance, then you get really sick, and the insurance won't cover it, so you get doubly screwed! Nice. A lot of doctor's fees are to cover THEIR insurance to protect them against frivolous lawsuits. (Here in this one paragraph shows why doctors, lawyers and insurance companies are in the top five on my hate list).

Then you have your life insurance. What a scam that is for the most part. You have term and whole life. Neither of which is any good. And don't let any financial advisor tell you otherwise. It's mostly crap, especially the whole life. The best you can do is just get term insurance for the bare minimum your family would need to get by on, just in case you pass away. And don't get any insurance on a non-working or far less money making spouse. My wife doesn't have life insurance for example, but I do. Have you heard some of the horror stories about people trying to get their money from these companies? Unbelievable. They will look at any excuse to not pay out! The premiums go up exponentially as you get older too. Once you have enough money saved for retirement, you should drop all life insurance at that point.

Then you got your airplane insurance. Now, this doesn't affect most of you, but let me tell you that aviation insurance companies RULE the aviation world. Since 9/11, aviation insurance has more than TRIPLED. Additionally, their requirements for covering, hiring and training pilots are ridiculous. They are far more restrictive than the FAA's own requirements and have absolutely no bearing on how skilled or good a pilot is. None whatsoever.

Let me tell you about our aviation insurance for work. To cover just the corporate plane that I fly, for one year, is much higher than the average household income of a family in the United States. Yet the chances of that plane, with me flying it, having some kind of accident is so remote it's almost immeasurable. On top of this, the insurance company (and it wouldn't matter which one it was) makes me go to some kind of yearly training for the plane. That would be fine, except the 3 day course, comprised of half systems review and half simulator training cost $11,300. That's OVER $500 an hour to be taught by a guy who may never have even flown my plane and knows LESS about it than me! And that doesn't include the flight to and from the training facility, hotel room, rental car and food! My boss went with me last time, so they got over $1000 an hour. So, to save the company money, I tried to get the insurance company to let me teach and train my boss each year (I am a certified flight instructor (CFI)) and let us hire another CFI to do my yearly training. I would supply them with a syllabus equal to or better than the one where we went, and we would do the training in our airplane which would be more practical and better for my boss. It would save a TON of money, time, inconvenience and be better overall training (I proved to them that it would be). You know what they said? NO! They actually got angry that I would even suggest such a thing. They also said, in so many words, that a CFI at one of those training centers is better than any other CFI, even if they haven't flown the airplane they are teaching! In other words, only their CFI's will do. The rest of us somehow aren't trustworthy or something, even though all CFI's live by a code of moral and ethical conduct. A person who isn't even a pilot can see through this ruse. Why do you think those training centers charge lawyer type fees for the training? Because the insurance companies make us go! They do because they can. And the insurance companies are in on it too. I guarantee it.

Think about how much you and I give away to insurance companies in our life. I don't know what the percentage is but it's quite a bit. And the only thing an honest, respectable person gets out of it is..........nothing. The insurance companies just get richer and richer..........

Would you like to start an insurance company with me? I tried. I saw how much money you could make in aviation. I figured on average, for every 10 planes you insured you would get $1,000,000 minus your business expenses (many big flight departments have that many planes alone!). And if you insured safe companies, you essentially just get to keep it! (I bet you more than 95% percent of all corporate flight departments have never had a plane crash) But the old adage "it takes money to make money" is never more true than here because you have to actually HAVE the money somewhere to cover the insurance costs in case one of their planes crashes into a Walmart one day. So if you have about $10,000,000 you can start an insurance company and make another $100,000,000 a year easily.

Anyone? Hello?

Oh well.

Feel free to post your comments on Insurance. I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way.

Pictures Taken With My New K790a Phone

Here are some recent photos I took with my new cell phone:

Ace



Ace in his co-pilot seat NOT being very useful! LOL!



3 images from the King Air of a full moon at sunset








Here's the cockpit in front of the pilot (me) at night. Taken without a flash.



Have a great day!

Enquiring Minds Want To Know!

Well, maybe 3 or 4 of them anyway! LOL!

Ok, so it's been two months since I have updated my blog. Guess how busy I have been?

I have had a TOTAL of 5 days off at home in that time. I was in three airshows and also spent nearly a week in Waukegan, IL training in the T-2 Buckeye to get my type rating in it. Our first one will be finished in Nov. sometime. I didn't actually get it as the plane broke down on my check ride so I'll have to go again to do that with the FAA examiner. That kinda sucked.

I went to my annual Flight Safety training in Long Beach, CA for 3 days.

And I flew a ton of flights for work as well. I now have over 4634 flight hours.

Ace got neutered and is all better now. He has grown quite a bit and is nearly 6 months old. He's still cute as hell!

I got a new cell phone last week. I got a Sony Ericsson K790a and I LOVE it! It takes 3.2 megapixel pictures so I don't need a digital camera.

The Gators are doing awesome so far in college football and are undefeated. It will be tough going undefeated in the SEC however and they have the toughest schedule in the country, playing Auburn, LSU and Georgia (all top ten ranked teams) this month alone. We still have Florida State at the end of the year as well.

I had to stop my piano lessons, which sucks, but I could only make one each of the last two months while still having to pay for the whole month. I did go buy a couple of self-teaching books and will continue to practice and learn on my own as my schedule permits. I am not progressing nearly as fast as I want, or could, because of my limited practice time, but I will not give up on it. I really want to get good at it!

Well, that's all for now. I will post some pictures next time.

Cheers, Wayne