Day 125 - A Pair of Pilots and Hot Sacked by Travis

Wednesday May 5th 2010


Tonight I met a pair of pilots. They are Ken aka Han and Patrick aka Chewie.

Like the famous Star Wars characters, Ken and Patrick are equal in authority in their aircraft. One is always technically the pilot, the other a co-pilot, but both are equally rated and capable of flying their aircraft.

At first I couldn't remember what was and was not OK to say about them (my notes are incomplete) but the night is coming back to me so we're good.

I do have one of their business cards and could call one of them up to ask, I suppose. But I don't think I'll do that. After all, they fly at 51,000 feet in the fastest non-military jet in the world. Wouldn't want to distract them with a ringing cell phone when they're checking out the curve of the Earth itself from that high up.

I do recall them saying that they sometimes don't fly with masks on that high up because although regs call for it, there's just not all that much you can do if something goes wrong and cabin pressure is lost. In the event of an emergency the aircraft would automatically drop down to 15,000 feet (to where it's possible to breathe again) but they might just all be dead by then anyway.

One of the pilots (Chewie) said that to get this job he had to basically win the lottery for pilots. That's not to say they drew his name out of a hat, rather that he was the in the top percentile as a pilot and as a result he landed himself the mother of all pilot dream jobs.

Both of those guys were pretty cool. They sat at the corner of the bar near the entrance, one flirting a bit with Rina as she worked behind the bar, while the other told stories of getting escorted out of a town with his family by the sheriff after a small run in with the locals.

Han even bought me a beer. Thanks man.

I envy those two their camaraderie, the way they constantly looked out for each other at the bar (seriously: if either one of them was out of sight of the other for too long, they'd ask if anyone saw their partner and if not they'd go looking for each other) and ability to sample cities all over the country during their shared downtime between flights.

Carting important people around sure has come a long ways from the time when you basically put them in a box with two long polls and carried them everywhere, eh?

After I told them about my bar blog they joked about writing a blog together of places visited on their travels. I think they ought to do it.

Tonight's around the world at Jack's drink was Chivas Regal Premium Scotch Whisky. Very smooth stuff. The one think I've learned about Scotch after sampling several varieties these last two weeks is that it straight up sneaks up on your ass.

You're good, then you're exhibiting all the signs of drunkenness even though you don't feel drunk. This whole business of different varieties of inebriation depending on what you drank to get to that point is interesting to me. I wonder what will be different when I get to the Vodka? Or Rum?

OK so this might seem a good post, right? Interesting people were met and written about.

But no, we're not done yet.

I have to tell the story of being hot sacked by Travis.

It's not a very intricate story. DJ Benofficial and one of his buddies were trading off at the turntables (that buddy being DJ Vex) as Wendee showed up. She looked really nice tonight (hair, makeup, lipstick) and I remember Ken saying he liked better what DJ Vex was doing (right around when he started playing Set Adrift On Memory Bliss by P.M. Dawn). I don’t remember when Travis showed up with Caitlin, I just know Travis and I both gave up our seats to the ladies and proceeded to enjoy the music, the drinks and the night.

I think Travis and Caitlin have developed a sort of telepathy. They were laughing and joking, never really pausing to communicate devious plans or instructions. Yet somehow Caitlin jumped up, told me she was leaving and offered me her seat. So I took it. Travis said something like "Hey we're going to perform an experiment, you should turn around," and at that point I should have realized something was up, but no. So I turned around and Wendee did the same.

At that point Travis sort hop-landed his crotch on my left thigh, just above my knee. As you can imagine, I could feel the weight of his balls and cock on my leg, all warm and toasty like a hot pocket just out of the microwave after it's had a chance to cool.

Caitlin busted up laughing, I was sort of shocked and Wendee thoughtfully suggested that I should go take a Crying Game shower.

Lolz.

Later when we were outside Travis told me that he used to "hot sack" the door guys at the Flying Pig. They had to wear shorts and it got pretty hot and he never wore any boxers so you can only imagine what that was like. Lolz by that measure I got off pretty easy tonight.

I think I left with Wendee around 11:30 p.m. that night. I don't know if I said goodbye to Ras Dank (he was on door duty tonight) but I do recall it got so crowded for a Wednesday that ACME had to jump in to help Rina out behind the bar. Good looking out.

See you Thursday at Jack's!