Mitt liv som Tobin

Hey, my pilot's license arrived in the mail!

I neglected to tell you, LJ, about my checkride and all that. Right after I got back to Louisiana from Christmas in Southern California I started the final push. I mentioned something to my Ricky, my instructor, about going away to a conference in Mexico in the second week of January. "Want to finish up before then?," he asked, with a slightly mischievous smirk. The process of earning a pilot certificate culminates in the much anticipated ritual of the practical test, commonly known as the checkride, during which you must demonstrate all of the required aeronautical skills within the prescribed Practical Test Standards (here in pdf). We called up the FAA Designated Pilot Examiner and made an appointment for the end of the week. Leading up to the check ride, we did two long mock-checkride flights, methodically going over each and every maneuver to the FAA specifications.

The checkride itself was nothing like I expected. Instead of a calm, smooth, systematic check of all the required skills, it was a wild ride with a cantankerous examiner who unleashed an unyielding stream of directions and invective condescensions! ("Turn the AIRPLANE towards the AIRPORT, SON! Do it NOW!") We did the soft- and short-field takeoffs and landings in quick succession, and after that we were doing three or four maneuvers at all times. There was no isolated "turns around a point" and "s-turns" and "simulated emergency" or "lost procedures". There was, "Your engine has just failed and I want you to circle that point and then go into a power-off stall at XXXX feet." Our return approach to the airport was a similarly unconventional power-off straight-in three-mile final under simulated instrument conditions.

The saving grace is that, per FAA regulations, the examiner must tell you when you have failed the exam. If he hasn't told you that you have failed, then you have not failed yet, so despite the crazy ride I taxied the plane back to the hangar wondering What Just Happened. I parked the airplane and the examiner climbed out and walked into the building without a word while I remained outside to secure the airplane. When I finished and met him inside, I found him printing out my Temporary Airman's Certificate and offering a congratulatory handshake...

By the numbers:

It took me almost exactly one year (first lesson on Jan 10, 2010 to checkride on Jan 7, 2011) at an average rate of slightly less than one lesson per week (a total of 42 flights) at Fly By Knight in Hammond, LA. I had 56.9 hours at the time of my checkride and had completed 164 takeoffs and landings, all in Cessna 152 N5107B except for one flight in a Piper PA-28. The total cost was $8,536.21, which includes $7301.94 for airplane rental ($85/hr+tax) and instruction ($30/hr) and $1234.27 for exam fees ($600), airplane rental insurance ($319), books, charts, and other stuff.

A couple weeks later, I took my housemate Greg up on a sightseeing trip. You can check out his photos on flickr; one of my favorites is the one at the top of this entry, from the vantage of the camera being held outside of the open window. (-:

I now have a Masters degree in Physics!

I aced the midterm! The professor even wrote "Superb!" on it. This one's going on the refrigerator!

I passed!

From, I don't know, 2pm until 16:30 Aimee (lert), Trevor, and I chatted nervously in the library. At 4:30pm we went upstairs to look for Kris (vyncentvega) and Matt (lowgee). We loitered about. We'd been told that results would be available "after 4:30pm on Friday." Notification comes in the form of a mysteriously-delivered envelope with a letter containing just a few sentences.

At 4 or something, we saw the faculty walking down the hallway, meaning their meeting was over, their meeting in which they discuss each one of us who took the exam and decide whether or not we should pass. Adrian (my advisor) saw us in the library and came and sat with us. "I don't write letters, but I'm happy," he said, offhandedly, before starting a discussion about a proposed light-on-light scattering experiment. Things boded well.

At 4:45pm we decided it would be alright to go down and check our mailboxes. Sure enough, there was a single thin envelope in each of our mailboxes.

Adrian went out and bought us champaign champagne.

At 18:00 tonight:

At 21:00 tonight:

It's for Casa Zimbabwe. Or the Czech Republic. Or it's the starship Enterprise.

Well, University of Hawaii lost my transcript. I sent it to them on December 31, and their deadline was March 1, so maybe my application was too early. They finally wrote to me asking if I had sent one.. I said I did.. they dug around awhile and said, "whoops, here it is! sorry for the trouble! we'll be sending you an offer soon!" I guess that's good. Too bad it's so late in the game.

Also, my friend at University of Maryland just wrote with this bit: ``Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I actually just spoke to Dr. Chant (the graduate chair). He said that they just submitted their acceptences. That does not mean that you will have gotten an answer in the mail yet, or that, if you haven't gotten an answer you weren't accepted. It just means that the wheels are starting to turn, so you should know soon. Keep me posted.

Just when I start to give up hope on getting into any of the remaining places, things start to get exciting again. I hope you've all got your fingers crossed for berkeley berkeley berkeley.

( scoreboard )

I like this. Every day, like clockwork, at 11:48 AM, I receive a letter like the following. Hopefully this will continue. (-: YAY, FREE TRIP TO PITTSBURGH!! Now, if only these schools didn't schedule their visiting days for the same weekend. I have to admit that one of the reasons for me applying to CMU was because I wanted to visit Brandon there. (-:

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Tobin Fricke: Congratulations on your admission to the Department of Physics and Astronomy's Ph.D. program at the University of Rochester. We would like to invite you to our recruiting weekend on February 27 and 28 at our expense. The program starts around noon on Friday and departure is Sunday morning.

I applied specifically to a program at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

Edits: 1- It's worth noting that U of R is ranked second in the U.S. for "graduate student happiness" or something like that. 2- this was excellent return on investment; there's no application fee to U of R! 3- here's a question for you who have done this before (or who haven't, but are imaginative): what should I ask / look for on these visitations?

Now, only eight more schools to hear from. (-:

Yesterday my student affairs advisor back at Berkeley checked off the last item on my graduation requirements — transfer credit for EE128 `Feedback Control' based on Lunds Universitet's FRT010 `Automatic Control: Basic Course.' Rob Fearing wrote, ``Based on syllabus and reputation of Lund, I think we can give full 4 units equivalent UD credit.'' Excellent. That's 0.7 more units than originally assigned. So, my diploma is now in the mail!

Right now I am at the test beam, ``on shift'' officially for the first time, with littlepavel and two other people. There is some spare time as it takes about fifteen minutes to accumulate 50,000 pions the way things are configured now. Then we change the beam energy and do it again! You, too, can get that test-beam thrill, from the comfort of your very own home: check out the CERN accelerator status display, and read our electronic log book!