****
It was sometime in the middle of the school day. I had just gotten back to my room from a class or lunch and unlocked my computer. Between the doors slamming and opening sound from my AOL Instant Messenger, I skimmed an email from the Academy clinic:
"C1C Boyes,
Our records indicate you have not completed your 13S physical. Please contact to schedule.
SrA Bad News"
I sit in the office chair at my desk rereading the email. This doesn't make any sense. I already passed my 92TO (job title for pilot) physical and had a waiver for my eyes. Why would I be a 13S? Certainly there's a mistake. Also, WTF is a 13S? I pull up my Google machine and type in "13S AFSC." A page populates with nothing but bad news. If it were today, it would say, "AI Overview: A 13S is an officer in the USAF who is assigned to the Space and Missile Career field. A Space and Missile Officer..." Blah Blah Blah. Oh my God. I'm no longer a pilot.
****
Do you know that feeling you get when think you forgot something really important? Maybe it's a birthday. Maybe it was an important homework assignment. Perhaps, you locked your keys in the car (is that still even a thing? Well, it was a thing in 2006). At first there's a nagging little voice in your head saying, "you forgot something, stupid." Then, the pit in your stomach opens up and your brain, certainly not trained in base jumping, goes leaping and tumbling off the cliff that is the top of your spine. Vertigo, nausea, confusion. Now multiply that by some number my now 6 year old daughter likes to make up. "A thousand hundred million!" That much. Yeah. That's what it felt like.
There isn't much else to say about the day and following weeks. I remember standing in the middle of the hallway at the entrance to our dorm hallways, sobbing. For a 22 year old who'd given this meat-grinder of an institution his everything for 4 years, it was an existential crisis. I would make phone calls and talk to advisors trying to figure out what happened. "Can it be undone," I'd ask in exasperation. In the end, and to save everyone from my mad ramblings, there was nothing to be done. My fate had been sealed with a phallic-shaped stamp.
And so, over the next nearly half decade, I forgot about aviation. It was a dream that just wasn't going to pan out. And if I'm being honest, it still felt too raw. I was a little over a month away from getting the chance to live my dream out of the 1430 days I'd spent on the front range of the Rockies. Do you remember staying up late at night downloading that last song to burn to the CD you were going to give that one girl the next morning? It read 97% downloaded. Then your mom picks up the phone and disconnects the modem. "I said time for bed!" That was me.
The flying bug is relentless, though. Eventually, I'd start flying again, just for fun. The economy was in the tank. Pilots were furloughed and airlines were going through a major merger spree. Then one day, after some not-so-gentle persuasion, I would take another painful and terrifying leap into the abyss, hoping to land on my feet this time.
So here I sit, at my hotel desk typing on my laptop. AOL is long dead. Napster and Limewire are mere shadows of memories of a different time. Just like that technology, the blog is now almost dead. I'm sure my original readers have also long since moved on. It'll never been as entertaining as a 30 second "day in the life" video. So, this will be my last entry.
It's evening in Atlanta, just a stone's throw from the north runway. I walk through the packed hotel lobby bar on the way back from my first simulator session. It's full of airline employees positioning for a major winter storm. Heavy snow is falling at home in Saint Louis, a place I now officially hail from. I've lived there longer than any place other than my childhood home and in 5 short years, even it will be surpassed. It's there where my best friend and wife of 9 years (and often main character/protagonist in many of my blogs) and our two kids, ages 6 and 19 months, are hunkered down. Soon, the roaring of jet engines here will fall silent as freezing rain coats the pavement making any kind of movement at the world's busiest airport impossible.
Tonight for me, though, was business as usual. After an hour of briefing from the instructor, I climbed into my seat and got situated. My ipad was pre-loaded with charts and manuals that I'd need during this scheduled 3+ hours of fun on pneumatic stilts. The bridge lifted from the platform where the briefing rooms sat empty, the full-motion simulator lurched to life and the instructor sat down. "Okay guys, you ready to get started?"
An airline pilot's career will often happen in phases and most of it I have documented here. For me, I'd been through 4 distinct ones. Phase 1 was when I became a flight instructor to gain experience and confidence. It's there where all new pilots make their biggest mistakes. Phase two happened in September of 2013 when I was hired at a regional airline. It's where I learned to fly a jet and how airlines operated. I entered Phase 3 after less than 2 years when I upgraded to Captain. I learned there how to lead a crew of 3 and how to make true command decisions.
Most pilots have "dream jobs." For those that aspire to the airlines, we all envision ourselves at one of the Big 3 carriers or the two heavy Cargo airlines. In September of 2016, I sat in a classroom across the street from where I am writing this and started my "dream job." For the last 9 years, I've flown to virtually every corner of the US. Outside the US, I've flown to 14 or more different countries in the western hemisphere. I've flown as far North and West as Vancouver, as far south as Panama and far east as Antigua and Barbuda. I did all this over 3700 hours over 1655 unique flights. 
As the instructor slid into his position behind us, he gave his short spiel. "Okay, we are in LAX holding short of 24 left. Look over everything and make sure I didn't miss anything in the setup." After a brief pause he looked at me. "Captain, whenever you're ready, go ahead and brief." And so begins my 5th phase.
I can't thank all of you enough for hanging with me for the last 15 years of this. You've truly witnessed the highs and lows of my life. Every comment here, Facebook, and in person have had a meaningful impact on my life. Even those that don't comment, I see how many of you have read these entries. I wish I had more to say, both in thanks and in the form of future blogs. Unfortunately, I don't know if I will write another one of these, hence the entry title. What I will leave you with is this: From the bottom of my heart, thank you for going on this journey with me. It truly has meant more than you will ever know. Below, please check out some of the milestone blogs I wrote. I hope you get a kick out of rereading them as much as I did.
Signing off,
Chris
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