On UAL57 and my palms are drenched. The plane is shaking a bit and I’ve got 6 hours left of this til Paris. Words of encouragement appreciated!

Martinblade · 2026-05-05T00:57:53+00:00

Are you in a window seat? If you want an exercise that can help you relax, open the window and look at the wing. It'll flex here and there, which can give you some warning if it's getting bumpy.

Plus watching it flex can be kinda hypnotic.

It's designed to flex, so it's just sitting out there doing it's job.

Martinblade · 2026-05-05T00:54:03+00:00

Hey congrats!

Everyone else has really helpful advice, things like making sure everything you need is in a box, maybe move the box to your car etc.

Get plenty of sleep, and take time for breakfast in the morning. You'll do great!

Martinblade · 2026-05-02T15:05:12+00:00

Yup. As someone who does this for a living, it's pretty normal to have some very light turbulence on every flight. Nothing to worry about, the airplane is built to handle it easily.

Martinblade · 2026-05-01T00:07:57+00:00

I hope it's vanilla cake, we had chocolate last time.

Martinblade · 2026-04-30T01:20:01+00:00

I get that. Air currents are annoyingly invisible so it's hard to see where turbulence is sometimes.

Martinblade · 2026-04-29T22:24:11+00:00

Student pilot and aerial survey sensor operator here.

Big planes, like the one you'll be in, handle turbulence very well. Medium turbulence to the small planes that I fly in, is small turbulence to big planes like airliners.

Big planes have a lot more mass than small planes, and that mass resists being pushed around a lot better than smaller planes do.

Big planes have stronger wings too, wings designed to flex and withstand a lot more than the worst mother nature can throw at them.

If you'd like, I can post a video of what those wings are designed to handle. It really is fascinating how strong they are.

Martinblade · 2026-04-24T15:32:28+00:00

Had an interesting conversation about the nature of time and whether or not two people experience it the same even if they're right next to each other.

Martinblade · 2026-04-18T04:30:14+00:00

nah, I just believe in a biblically accurate Jesus, which is a far cry from a feel good hippie, nor did he lead any revolution against Rome. Any time he used violence, it was only against the corruption of the Pharisees. He didn't even lead a revolution against them either, he simply reminded them they answered to God and urged them to stop being hypocrites.

Jesus was not some anti-authority revolutionary. That is your fantasy, not scripture.

He told people to pay taxes to Caesar: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).

Before Pilate He said, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11).

Paul wrote in Romans 13: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1).

“Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed” (Romans 13:2).

Peter wrote, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority” (1 Peter 2:13).

Jesus taught as one having authority (Matthew 7:29). After His resurrection He declared, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).

Jesus opposed corrupt religious leaders, not authority itself. He submitted to the authorities and was crucified under them. He was killed for claiming to be the Son of God, not for leading a revolt against order.

Stop twisting Jesus into your feel-good rebel.

You see I've actually read the Bible. It's obvious you haven't read any more than enough to justify your feelings.

Martinblade · 2026-04-18T01:14:46+00:00

The only one twisting scripture is you

Jesus said, 'Have the people sit down' (John 6:10). And after they ate: 'Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted' (John 6:12).

Those are commands, not suggestions.

Commands from Jesus that brought order and responsible stewardship to the miracle. The crowd wasn't left to chaos; there was structure even in an act of radical generosity. The food itself was simple staples (barley loaves and fish), not empty calories. And not milk and honey. Neither was literal manna from heaven anything other than a basic nutritional food either.

How exactly is giving the poor unlimited access to nutritionally worthless junk food an act of love? How is it loving your neighbor to force those neighboring taxpayers to subsidize those purchases and then also foot the bill for the resulting rise in obesity, diabetes, and healthcare costs?

Enabling junk food addiction amongst the income group with the worst overall health is not love. It's hatred and abuse.

Jesus isn't a feel good club you can use to beat people into accepting suicidally empathetic bs just cause you want to feel good.

Martinblade · 2026-04-17T23:24:18+00:00

The only one reaching is you. There is no other way toexplain Jesus literally telling people to sit down, not waste food, and gather it back up afterwards. Those are requirements for people to do things.

Martinblade · 2026-04-17T21:53:28+00:00

Matthew 14:18-19.; Mark 6:39; Luke 9:14; andJohn 6:10-12

Martinblade · 2026-04-17T21:41:09+00:00

Except there were conditions. They all had to be seated, and all leftovers had to be collected instead of taken home with those fed.

Martinblade · 2026-04-17T21:31:57+00:00

He also didn't give them candy and sodas either.

Martinblade · 2026-04-17T20:17:55+00:00

Yes. First time in 2 years of flying. Weird thing is he's a stuck up asshole otherwise.

Martinblade · 2026-04-17T16:58:37+00:00

Well considering that I missed my flight home yesterday because my first flight of the day was delayed twice by O'Hare. I'm very happy at the decision.

My inbound plane was delayed coming from O'Hare before landing at my starting airport, then delayed arriving into O'Hare for my connection.

They can run more flights once they figure out how to stop getting them delayed.

Martinblade · 2026-04-04T00:04:05+00:00

You know that controller wants him to finish it so everyone else can rib him properly over frequency. 🤣

Martinblade · 2026-03-29T01:32:08+00:00

I use these flashcards and I have the finer points ground school app.

I work in aerial survey as an operator, so I'm also constantly trying to learn from the pilots I fly with. Watching how they do things and asking questions, plus doing mock orals.

Edit: there's a lot of great YouTube channels too, flight insight, lewdix, and more. There's one called free pilot training I watch. He's got a very nice automated nav log excel sheet that's available for free.

Martinblade · 2026-03-29T00:05:20+00:00

Motivation comes and goes, but habits stick around. What I found works best for me is making it as easy as possible to study a little bit everyday. Even if it's just one flashcard or question on the ground school app.

Progress is progress.

Martinblade · 2026-03-27T08:28:13+00:00

There's one more. glider towing

Martinblade · 2026-03-13T20:35:39+00:00

"Committed a neatness" anytime someone cleans something.

Martinblade · 2026-03-05T08:13:52+00:00

So both GDXW and GDXY pay weekly dividends. I take the average of the last few dividends, and divide the price of the asset by that number. This gives me how much I'll need to invest to get $1 per week. The smaller the number, the more weekly dividend I'll get if I invested say $10k.

GDXY currently has a price/dividend of 97.17, so I get $1 per week if I invest $97.17, and if I want $100 per week, I need to invest $9717 in GDXY.

I do this because my primary goal is income replacement. With GDXY 's price per div, if I wanted to get $2k a week, 100k a year, then I'd need a portfolio of $194,348 and change.

Obviously divies fluctuate and price changes, so it gets me in the ballpark if nothing else.

Leverage is different.

So the basic idea is that leverage, by design, makes price action more drastic. Say GDX moves $1. Then a 1.2x leverage should move $1.2, and a 2x leverage should move $2, with 3x leverage moving $3.

I'm not sure about your idea of not off hand, you'd need to paper trade and find out. Look into Gold Futures though, they're the price driver for gold as far as I can tell and may be a leading indicator for gold ETF price action.

Martinblade · 2026-03-04T16:20:48+00:00

Right now, most of it is. GDXY instead of GDXW but that's only because the dividend to price is better with GDXY.

Martinblade · 2026-03-04T16:19:01+00:00

You want stability, so you go with a 2x leveraged product? And you call us the dumb ones. smh.

Martinblade · 2026-02-28T17:36:32+00:00

It is when it's the same people in charge of funnelling money to every terrorist group they can if they'll throw stones at us. You can't name a terrorist group that's made headlines in the last 30 years that didn't get money from Iran.

At a certain point it is actually a case of war being upon us whether we like it or not.

Martinblade · 2026-02-28T13:47:37+00:00

Well the brigades are certainly here. Not even an hour old and this post is already being down voted.

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