Just another Saturday!

During our "off season" schedule, my duty days and times are Mon-Thurs, 0730-1800.....During "Fire" season, Sun-Wed 0730-1800.....Love the four ten schedule.......I do miss the 24 on 24 off schedule I worked when I was fighting fire.....

Anyway, we have what is called a "Wild Horse and Burro" survey today.....What that is, is they fly over the forest and count the number of Wild Horses and Burros they have in the forest. Then they compare those numbers to previous, and do what ever those tree huggers do to find out if anyone may own them, or if the population needs to be controlled....

That brings me to Saturday....They are flying in the Austin/Tonopah district of my forest today, and since I am the only Forest Service employee in our office, I get the overtime!!!!!!!!!!!!They were supposed to take off at 0730, but here t is 0745, and they have not contacted me yet.

My job is to be like an air traffic controller, except, I only track the aircraft, I don't control them....We have this program called Automated Flight Following (AFF) that we track all of the BLM, Forest Service, Park Service and any contracted aircraft all over the country...

And alas, the pilot just called me on the phone to let me know they are briefing and getting ready for take off!!! Woooohoooo!

I am working OT today and tomorrow.......Can you say, "Go bank account, go!!!"?

So, under partly cloudy skies, I am sitting at the "Aircraft Dispatch" desk, looking at my motorcycle, wishing I was not here, but riding, but hey, at time and a half, I can wait until next week for "Spring Street Vibrations"!