0 for 4

Ok, 4 tries, and 0 successes...what a week! This heavy layer of clouds just will not leave. I have gone in before 5 every day this weeks to spend an hour mission planning and about the same amount of time briefing just to cancel each ride (excpet for Monday which still turned out to be an incomplete). The worst thing was that every single time we knew we were going to fly at 0400 when we looked at the weather. So each day we've had to pick the best of all the bases even though it still doesn't have a pattern altitude; just so that we have SOMETHING to brief up. And every day without fail, here's how the briefing goes:

We approach the IP, salute in and start into the brief. I started every brief this week with this statement to the IP: "The weather is awful, we don't even have the mins to take off out of here and there isn't a pattern anywhere. However we picked ________ (location) just so we have something to brief". And then I continue with the briefing. So far all 3 of the past days I've started out with that statement and EVERY SINGLE TIME I'll get a couple more minutes into the brief, give them the weather, and they say along the lines of:
"Wait a minute, the weather there is what? We can't go there!"
My thoughts: "Hello, yes, I told you that at the very beginning of this discussion!"
IP: "Ok, let's pull up all the weather and look at this." About two minutes later: "There is nowhere to go, all the bases are weathered in!"
Me: "Thank you mister obvious..."
IP: "Well why are you briefing this if we can't go there?" "Oh well, I'll guess we'll brief it just for practice"
Me: "Please refer to my very first statment at the beginning this brief..."

Augh, so frustrating. There is absolutely nowhere to go with this weather, but every time we brief we know that somehow whatever we pick will be wrong...What a life.

At least today I did get one thing accomplished that I've been trying to do since getting here. I finally changed the oil on my bike. I've been trying forever to follow the 'rules' of not doing that kind of thing in my own driveway, but every time I've gone there in last couple of months they've been closed. Finally I made it today and they didn't have an oil pan that would fit under the motorcycle. So finally I just broke down, took the 15 minutes and quickly just changed the oil here. So that's done at least. The choke is still giving me problems and it looks like I'll have to make a trip to starkville to get a replacement part to solve that problem.

I'm actually not flying tomorrow, though it's been important for me to be on the board every single other day this week...but at least I don't have to give my completely ignored statement one more time!