So it’s been about 3 months since my last flight. Why is that do you ask? What does the picture on the left have to do with my lack of flying?

Well, basically that is what flying at night is like and about 3 months ago I took my last night flight. It was… how do i say… frightening. Every blinking light looked the same, the night sky made it visually obvious how many planes were around us at all times, and out of these 9 million blinking lights, supposedly one of them was the runway. In addition to the visual difficulties, my ability to judge my altitude was completely thrown for a loop, 200 feet, 20 feet, 5 feet from the runway all felt the same. Basically like trying to fly while taking LSD and covering one eye. Thankfully my instructor knew which one was the runway but until we were about 40 feet away from the runway I still had a very hard time identifying it. I’m not color blind, have good vision, I guess it takes some practice, in the mean time I plan on avoiding night flying like the plague.

If I ever get stuck up in the air at night, my solution is just to circumnavigate the globe until I reach a country with sunlight.

Seriously though, I’ve gone through my usual personal cycle of becoming completely immersed in work for a few months and at the end of these cycle’s I usually start looking for things to buy and things to do…. So I’m really looking forward to getting back to flying but I’m having an instructor with me at all times until I get over my jitters and get comfortable with landings again.

Time went by and games got more complicated, by the time I was 25 I felt like an old man trying to learn modern video games, 12 buttons, combinations involved lots of different combinations of buttons and joysticks and gamepads… it was overwhelming and I generally thought “if this is gonna be so much work, why don’t I do something that will actually pay off, like meeting girls?”

Then a few weeks ago, my colleague Andy showed me this video game system that you can buy at x-gaming, it’s a full sized video game (the kind you stand in front of with a friend) and it came with none other than Street Fighter II. I bought it immediately.

It arrived, the delivery guys unpacked it, and in 10 minutes I was playing. What a blast I’ve had down in the basement reliving my younger days, eating pizza and drinking beer… it feels so decadent. In any case, if you’ve been trying to find me on icq or aim but I’ve been unavailable…that’s what I’ve been doing with my free time for the past 3 days!

The sub-prime meltdown inspired confidence in the greed of banks and their willingness to hedge their shareholder’s money with high risk investments. Tech companies for the most part have been real losers (except iCall of course )… we see companies like Ford dropping sales by 25%+ in a single month, the dollar is week to the point that just by being an american and keeping your money in cash you are essentially losing money every month. 

All I can do is really just sigh about it, take care of my family, keep my own businesses in order and wonder what the long term outcome of this entire mess will be.. or is that all I can do?

Never one to find a lack of opportunity in the chaos I have plugged money into United States Oil Fund and Fidelity Select Energy Service. I’m not claiming to be a prophet here, but my returns in the past 2 years on money that I have directly invested have been upwards of 40%… and I always make it by investing in (what seem to me) to be obvious winners. At 60 AAPL was a steal.. at 80 people talked about it being overvalued.. they all *knew* there was an iPhone coming, they *knew* what it would do, but they failed to see the forest through the trees and now AAPL is trading at what, 180? 190? I don’t know, I sold at 140.

Before I explain my reason for investing in oil directly through USO, let me explain why I am in FSESX. FSESX is a simple mutual fund, it holds about 50 companies in the energy sector, but it’s real key is that it holds drilling companies, refining companies and the like. These companies are pretty much agnostic when it comes to the price of oil, they still refine, they still drill, they still distribute, they still make money. If oil prices increase demand doesn’t go down in the same economic vacuum that many items do… they stay busy regardless, if oil goes down the demand increases and they see more business… and if new drilling opportunities present themselves (which they must… there are known huge reserves that are not legally drillable right now), the FSESX portfolio overall should see some nice returns. Call it hedging my bets. Currently about 25% of my energy investing is in fidelity fsesx.

So Oil… USO.. why will it continue to climb? Why is this current $143 per barrel “cheap”?

1. Relative to the adjusted dollar, the price of oil and a gallon of unleaded gasoline is about the same now as it was in the 70’s gas crisis. This means that it is one of the few non discretionary purchases that has actually stayed even with inflation.

    

2. It’s non-discretionary… what are you going to do? Quit your job? Sell your S.U.V. and start driving an electric car? Build wind turbines on top of your house? Buy carbon credits? No. You’re going to take your medicine whether you like it or not, fill up your car and pay your electric bill. If you’re rich, the gas pump doesn’t affect your wallet, if you’re not rich you can’t afford to quit your job and you likely can’t afford to just buy another car unless you sell your existing one… guess what, dealer’s dont want S.U.V.’s now… you’ll get half of what you paid for it a year ago on something like a Hummer or a Suburban.
3. Worldwide demand is growing. China among others wants their fair share of the western lifestyle which includes lots of gadgets, lots of meat and lots of cars.. this all requires petroleum, china’s economy is strong, and the Yuan is outpacing the dollar by huge margins.
4. This is a LIMITED resource, in philosophy they say that in order to prove a hypothesis as valid, the philosophy has to be taken to it’s end… so if oil is limited, we know that *eventually* all oil will run out.

• The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
• The fifth would pay $1.
• The sixth would pay $3.
• The seventh would pay $7.
• The eighth would pay $12.
• The ninth would pay $18.
• The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beers by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.’

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected.

They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

• The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
• The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
• The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
• The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
• The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
• The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving s).

Each of the six was better off than before and the first four continued to drink for free, but once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got TEN times more than I!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something very important….they didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works.

The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

In January 2007, I purchased four round trip first class tickets for my family on Spirit airlines to the Grand Cayman’s for a vacation from February 9th thru February 17th. I purchased the scam trip insurance from Travel Guard (accidentally).

Due to weather we were unable to get to the airport for our departure. We tried to call, along with many other unfortunate Spirit customers. After several hours and many attempts to call and receiving the usual “we’re sorry, all customer service reps are busy with other customers”. At this point I decided that getting my family there was more important than getting them there on Spirit so I chartered a private jet.

Great vacation, good times.

The morning of our return home I go online to do online checkin with Spirit, but spirit says our tickets have been cancelled. Drats, ok well they must have cancelled them because we maissed the first leg. Lesson learned. Their web site indicates however that we have a credit with them that we can use (because we paid 6k for tickets that we didnt use). 

Their web site keeps having server errors while i’m trying to redeem these vouchers… no luck. Eventually I try calling Spirit customer service and *suprise* I get an hour of “we’re sorry, all customer service reps are too busy to help you”… so once again I get to choose between taking Spirit airlines to get home or getting home.

I bought tickets on American to get us home and we survived the trip.

I begin my weekly ritual of trying to call Spirit customer service to get a refund or at least get functioning credits with them for a future flight… and for about 3 months we continue to be unable to get in touch with a human being.

At my wits end I decide to call American Express, after all I am one of those lucky people with the card that everybody talks about (weee lucky me)… I figure that I am an important person so they will help me… and they try.

Spirit tells them they will call me… so Amex closes the dispute. Spirit never calls.
I re-initiate the dispute… Spirit says they will take care of the issue…. so Amex closes the dispute.
I re-initiate the dispute… Spirit says they tried calling me and will try again… so Amex closes the dispute.
I re-initiate the dispute… Spirit asks for me to send them a formal letter explaining the issue, I do… Amex closes the dispute.
Spirit claims they never got the letter.
This goes on a few more times. Frustrated but kind Amex reps continually spend hours trying to reach human beings in the customer service department at Spirit… they realize how hard it is.

During this entire time I have continued my weekly ritual of trying to reach a human at Spirit.. never once since the day I placed my order online did I reach a human being from Spirit… until today.

Spirit customer service rep Niurka Paulino (who can be reached at 954-447-7965 x 1711) she goes by the name “Nikki” (and seems ready to “rumble” from her loving demeanor) finds my account, puts me on hold to “talk to her manager” and advises me that these non-refundable tickets cant be refunded and that spirit wont issue me a voucher for use on a future Spirit flight… 

SCRREEEECCCH… wait, did you just tell me that you are going to take my $6000 and you’re not going to even let me reschedule the flights for a different time? Yep, sure did. I guess this is how they stay profitable, taking the money and not providing any services in exchange for the money.

She was however kind enough to remind me that I had been suckered into paying $20 dollars (or something like that) for “Travel Insurance” through Travel Guard and gave me their number. Travel gaurd of course advised me that there was nothing they could do because it was my fault that I had missed the flight. The fact that Spirit couldnt actually be contacted seems to be beyond everybody’s care.

Perhaps Google in all their infinite wisdom will pick up this blog entry and link to it.

But don’t worry my dear readers, I’m not done, now I’m just going to find another way to get my money back from them.. many people have won claims against spirit for this type of practice.

I pretty much plan on doing the following:
1) Filing a complaint with the BBB
2) Filing a complaint with the Connecticut consumer affairs department (they are actually really helpful).
2) Making friends and family aware that they should avoid Spirit Airlines.
3) Blogging about it (here) so that the occassional stranger will know to avoid them.
4) Keeping a really really close eye on the skies with my binoculars in the tri-state area and making sure to report any altitude violations I see to the FAA.
5) I may file a series of small claims against them which will force them to spend some time and money defending this rip-off practice, I’m not sure.
6) I may just waste 50k suing them for fraud. I have lots of good lawyers who are always happy to to get new work.

If anything happens I will update you!

As always,
-Arlo Gilbert

There isn’t a lot to say about it. It was fun, I was safe, I landed well, I took off well, I used my checklists and I talked to myself as though my instructors were in the plane.

This it the one fun thing… and perhaps I wish it had been explained better to me in the beginning… but the fact is that the goal of flight training is to drill procedures into your head and this is done by constant repetition.

Of course with my luck even though I was flying solo, my instructor “Greg” happened to be in the air also and jumped in and helped me out with a confused tower/approach controller.

Thanks “Greg”!

Not only does the name define exactly what we will do, but it’s a really cool way to help! I’m not 60 with 10 billion dollars (yet) but I am pretty sharp and I do know more about billing credit cards online than pretty much anybody else on the planet… not patting myself on the back, it’s just something I’m exceptionally good at.

So since it’s not exactly a top secret business plan, I envision mitzvot dot com as being a one stop shop for jewish fundraising activities online. We will provide organizations with a single link that they can send to potential donors to collect from $5 to $5000 at a time… we’ll help them manage their silent auctions and charity fund raisers for almost nothing… and the fact is that what we do charge will surely be meaningless when they increase their fundraise significantly.

Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks this is a cool idea, one of the richest and most successful guys on the planet today told me that he thought it was interesting as well. Who could it be? Eh… name dropping is so 2007… but it was definitely my biggest brush with fame.

I’ll try to keep blogging more regularly, when life gets busy sometimes things like blogging fall by the wayside.

-Arlo Gilbert

Most student pilots from my understanding prize the first solo so much that it fits in well with life events such as:
* Birth
* First tooth
* Graduated college
* Marriage
* Had first child
* Death

The point is that soloing is a big deal… one that i’ve been looking forward to for quite some time now but wasn’t quite ready for it. Soloing really represents not just a personal milestone but also the fact that your instructors now feel confident that your odds of dying from a botched landing are lower than they were when you walked through the door (how much lower i’m not sure, but i like to credit my instructors so i’ll guesstimate that they were giving me at least 50/50 odds).

So back to my birthday, it was literally the worst flying weather i’ve seen ever. 0 miles visibility, below freezing, fog, clouds, rain… pretty much the scariest and worst flying conditions possible. Even instrument rated pilots would be unlikely to fly in these conditions, so my birthday solo was canceled.. Oh well. Then as g-d might enjoy planning, every one of my next scheduled flights was also supposed to be absolutely terrible weather.

Here comes Sunday morning, kids are watching cartoons, wife is making something that only she would like to eat and I’m fiddling around on the computer bored… check the METAR’s and sure enough it’s a spectacular flying day.. I call and as luck would have it, one of the instructors.. lets call him “Greg” had a no-show appointment which meant I could practice some landings.

I honestly had no clue that this would be the day that I would solo, but after a few good landings, some power off stall practice, and some engine failures landings “Greg” decided we needed to do a full stop (i thought he just needed to go to the bathroom)… but no my loyal readers, pee he did not, instead he asked if I wanted to fly by myself (solo).. affirmative, Captain Arlo ready to solo!

In any case I could build this up but it was a lot of fun, I did pretty well on the landings, takeoffs and radio comm. Did 3 landings with full stops and it really was exhilarating. A few interesting things about flying solo that I found was that 1) the plane weighed less so i took off faster, came in faster, and generally had to reevaluate my pattern power settings to have a good pattern… and 2) I was talking to myself the entire time because I am so used to saying “flaps 50%, power 20%” and generally advising my instructor of what I’m doing and what I”m thinking.

Really I don’t think I am able to wipe the smile off of my face… my wife and kids gave me a great big “Mazeltov Daddy!” when I walked in the door and now I get to go out for a post-birthday/post-solo chicken wing extravaganza celebration.

Here’s to you “Greg” and everybody at performance flight… that was fantastic and I can’t wait to do some solo missions!

- Arlo Gilbert

That landing where you flare at the perfect moment and your wheels touch down just moments after the stall warning goes off… that landing where you aren’t sure if your wheels have even touched the ground or if you are just in an extended ground effect…. perfection.

I swear, that sensation is better than any other feeling I have experienced (other than my kids saying “i love you daddy”)… I knew the perfect moment to flare.. I just felt it… 

Anyways, this post makes no sense to non-pilots… but if you’re a pilot and you’ve ever had that moment, then you know exactly how I was feeling. If you are a golfer it’s that rare perfect drive…

In any case, we did that landing followed by 12 more today, it was a lot of fun, it was exciting and I ended up learning a lot.

We spent a lot of time today working on VOR’s and I now know something that many pilot’s don’t know… when you get handed off from new york approach to white plains/westchester tower.. the want to know only two things from you.. Tail number and distance+direction from them… when you call in with those two items it is literally exactly what they want to hear and as a result you get WAY heavy priority over the other planes in the area, even big jets because (jmho) you are giving them respect by not wasting their time.

So I’m up at bat shortly to do my “tests” to determine if I am ready to solo, that involves me doing some tests on major emergencies in the sim (which you can tell i’m great at already by reading previous blogs ).. and then it involves a customary sole crushing by the head of the school, Larry Gottschamer… where he determines whether you are actually capable of flying a plane without an instructor.

Soul crushing is really a bad word though (larry made up the term, i just use it), see I had been a bit misled by some instructors to believe that I was on the verge of soloing when the truth is that I was simply not ready for that.. I now look at my first soul crushing as a “thank g-d that somebody had the insight to NOT let me fly alone” because the truth is that I did not have the skills needed. Now however, I do.

Larry probably saved at least one life and even though I know that he felt terrible for having crushed my soul, the fact is that the experience of failing terribly at something got me to do two things.. 1) take a break for a few weeks and 2) really begin slowing down on my desire to complete training.. I like my instructors, I like my time in the plane with them so why in g-d’s name would I want to rush?

Much like as a child you are in a rush to grow up but as a grown up you get to look back and say “why? childhood was great, people helped and took care of me and looked out for me and gave me great advice!”… now I actually look at the completion of training with a bit of sadness because I will not have the fun times in the cockpit with great guys like Al atPerformance Flight at Westchester County Airport and the mistakes that I make will be made by myself, not with somebody more experienced there to save me.

So Larry & Al.. thanks for not letting me grow up too quickly as a pilot.