What's up world. It's Friday. I'm sitting on my perch on the 8th floor of Kirwan tower waiting for this coffee to brew so I can enjoy it. Sweet it's almost done.
So just before sitting down to make this composition, I fully retracted my blinds, making my window a fully-transparent porthole. Normally I have the blinds down but pretty much open; now I've changed it up. Full view: engaged.
Mmmm coffee's good. I like coffee. Put some Owl City on I'm going to talk about my future home.
So anyway while opening my blinds to enjoy my view of UK's awesome south complex I thought of how I don't want to live in a house. Of course, anything over ten years into the future is unpredictable, but until then I simply don't want a house. A house just isn't my style.
My style is living in a skyscraper, condo, apartment; something with a balcony a hundred feet above a city below. Where I could wake up (maybe a little groggy or hungover) on a Saturday morning, make coffee, and sit on my perch and enjoy being a minute working part of the city.
Then other days, when flying over the city on approach into the main airport, I could look out the right window and see the building I live in. I could poke my first officer and say "See the one with the pool on the roof? I live there!" We'd squeal a landing, break our fast with an airport bagel, and return to our cars in the crew parking lot which haven't moved in 4 days. Slightly jet-lagged, but feeling good, I'd make my drive from the airport to my apartment easily through the lack of 1pm traffic.
Then I'd waltz through the front doors of my complex, smile and nod at people I never see due to being out of town all the town, and return to my cozy studio. I'd make a strong Vodka Redbull (in the can of course), and climb a few flights of stairs to the roof. There, Id' kick my feet up by the pool I flew over just two hours prior and sip on my favorite cocktail; welcome home.
Because of my career field, 'home' is a very light term to me. I don't get homesick, in fact the opposite is true which I'd rather be far away from home than be stuck in Louisville or Lexington with nothing new to see. And it's things like that that make me really great pilot material. I'm the type of person who when get's tired and jet-lagged I still doesn't care if I'm in my own bed or simply the airport Hilton's.
So I figure that with all the above in mind, my future 'home' should be something cheap, and something I at least slightly look forward to returning to. If my place was just a house or some sort of rental garbage that I spend way too much on, then returning home would be depressing and a third of my life would be wasted. Al contrario, if my place was an affordable place for me to relax and enjoy two or three days a week, it would almost be a vacation to return to.
Think about people who legitimately don't have a home. Nomad's as the Tibetans call them. They spend they're whole life traveling; and not to say that I don't want to do that for the greater portion of my life, it's taboo to not have SOME PLACE to revolve your travels around. You need a home base, a domicile, your perch, nest, turf, happy place, whatever. It's part of human nature and a simply necessity to have a location to call your own for you to dwell. Even the poorest citizens of third world countries have a shack on the mountainside next to their three coffee plants which is about all they have in their name. Normal people have a place to call their home
However, the difference between me and 'normal' people is I don't want to live there. I just want that domicile sitting in the back of my mind as I fly from country to country sampling local beers and nightlife hot spots; so that when I finally do get close to returning 'home' I can at least look forward to kicking my feet up with a cigar.
But assuming in two or three years I start wearing a little silver star on top of my little silver wings, my true home will be the flight deck of whatever bird I end up in. The reality of my career is that I will spend more time with a yoke in front my me than I spend in my home city. More nights will be spent in a bed with a seatbelt in the tail of a jetliner or in an Airport Holiday Inn than with my future wife. Fortunately though, I'm really looking forward to that.
Currently my family and I are planning a trip to Europe. They asked me, "Maybe we could stop in London, isn't Heathrow on your bucket list?" And I responded no because a lot of places in the world aren't on my bucket list. Hong Kong, Dubai, Heathrow, etc. That's because most of the places in the world that appeal to me, and I literally spend nights dreaming about, are places where I'm simply fucking going. Unless I die tomorrow, there is no way I wouldn't end up at Heathrow SOMETIME in the next 20 years. In fact, I'll probably end up there in 5 years, and I'll end up landing a plane there in 10 (assuming they don't scrap it by then for being in the worst fucking location in all of London).
So I'll probably still be writing in this blog to no one but myself and I'll be sure to write about the first time I land a plane at Heathrow. Like I said I'll give it ten years. April 20th, 2022. Until then...
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