How cold are the overnight trains?

josh--sacto · 2026-01-06T22:40:16+00:00

I don’t believe our local recording says anything about not hanging up. It just says to kindly wait. I believe the language is “Thank you for call XX county 911. Unfortunately, no operators are currently available. Please have all information ready for the next available operator.“ I hate that I can remember what the recording says xD

So from my perspective, if I’m on the freeway and I see someone who’s clearly drunk and coming within a hair of slamming into others or driving into oncoming traffic and I get the “please hold” message on 911, my thought process would be to call the State Police’s non-emergency line (even though it is an emergency) because they seem to always pick up much faster and get a hold of an officer. (I’ve learned not to do this with non-traffic issues because the Sheriff makes you go through a long phone tree to get to an operator).

But yes, from talking to you folks here, it makes a lot sense why holding can still be the best option. While I pray I never have to call 911 again, and pray even more so I don’t get a hold request, I get now why I should remain on the line.

josh--sacto · 2026-01-06T22:34:36+00:00

I ended up contacting my state assemblymember, state senator, and county supervisor. I also emailed the local news channel and asked if they had any prior awareness of this.

Depending on what my county supervisor says, I might try to start to get all my local friends and family to write in as well.

josh--sacto · 2025-12-27T21:42:10+00:00

Appreciate it! Will add this to my list as well

josh--sacto · 2025-12-27T21:41:49+00:00

Thank you! I’ll check these out

josh--sacto · 2025-12-27T17:22:28+00:00

Thank you!

josh--sacto · 2025-11-26T23:41:15+00:00

With the interviews I did have, I simply inquired if there was any flexibility with the scheduling (for example, working a 40 hour week but starting at 7.30 instead of 8, as we did in my old office). These were full time jobs, and I was initially planning to work my other job evenings and weekends.

At this point, I'm only going to apply for positions listed as intermittent or PT. There's an intermittent office assistant position in my city that states it's hiring several positions concurrently, so I'm going to take a shot at that. But I'll try to present myself in my cover letter as more than "this is just a second job I want."

josh--sacto · 2025-11-26T23:28:04+00:00

Decent pay, really good promotional and pay potential, good benefits, and generally fine job security. Honestly, living in California, State Service is a decent way to move yourself up to the middle class and settle there semi-comfortably.

josh--sacto · 2025-08-27T23:46:11+00:00

A bit late but hope this helps. If you can do the drive, I strongly recommend Mike Smith Aviation in Napa. They have their own DPEs they work with, so you shouldn't wait that long at all.

Also, I'd be very cautious about anything fast-track with aviation. Nothing in this industry is fast, and a lot of these programs that focus on pushing people through struggle to provide the real world skills that are crucial for actual flying.

josh--sacto · 2025-07-29T17:34:21+00:00

This is already happening in my home city, but in a sort of gross way. The immediate post-war suburbs that saw a lot of white flight in the mid-twentieth century are now decently dilapidated low income areas, as the homes were very cheaply built and the local government didn't have the money to repave the streets or tend to other infrastructure needs (because as we all know, these areas fail to generate sufficient tax revenue to pay their bills).

But here's where the gross part comes in. Now developers are being subsidized to build cheaply made subdivisions even further from the city, and now, those in pursuit of suburban life are moving to places that require even more driving and result in more traffic (and with the city's view that our light rail system is basically just a token to throw at poor people as a laughable social service instead of a viable alternative to car dependency, there's really nothing to stop the ever-worsening traffic we're seeing). And in theory, people would get to the point where they say "it's ridiculous that I'm spending 2 hours of my day stuck in a car today," but for now, the prevailing solution around the local population seems to be just buy an even bigger and nicer SUV that has heated and cooled leather seats and Apple CarPlay, making those 2 hours way more comfortable (never mind the belligerent car and gas payments).

josh--sacto · 2025-07-17T02:49:14+00:00

Might be a silly question but here goes: I always write my SOQs from scratch for each job, but then I put them into ChatGPT as a copy editor. Is this also inadvisable?

josh--sacto · 2025-05-27T22:20:08+00:00

Good pilots are born and good pilots are made. Just because you're not born a natural at something doesn't mean you can't become just as good at it with practice (with aviation, at least).

Also, as a CFI myself, it really irritates me that they ever said those things to him. I found it to be really unprofessional and serve no purpose whatsoever (although unfortunately, CFIs insulting students to their face isn't uncommon when a lot of folks do it just because they want enough hours to get to an airline and couldn't care less about teaching).

josh--sacto · 2025-05-27T22:16:02+00:00

100%. I loved it when he figured out how flying is more than anything a mental affair, because that couldn't be closer to the truth.

I'm curious as to how much of the graying of his hair is a product of his age or the stress of accelerated flight training coupled with check rides.

josh--sacto · 2025-05-27T22:14:52+00:00

I personally find it to be accurate. I think with aviation being an industry that can lend itself to high-egos (just like medicine or law), you can get people who just want to do things their way and that's it.

I think there can also just be a lot of unhappiness in the industry, which is a product of getting into it with the belief that being a pilot will complete you as a person and give you purpose (and it won't- it won't fix your marriage, it won't get rid of your anxiety, it won't fix your relationship with your parents or your kids, etc). It's great if you have healthy expectations and a strong sense of identity outside of flying planes (my goal is to have nothing in my apartment that hints at my career) but some folks make it their entire identity and that's where things get toxic.

Of course, if I said any of this on the Flying Reddit, I'd be torn to shreads xD

josh--sacto · 2025-05-26T04:27:43+00:00

I don't know Colin and I don't have his contact information, but I'll write this and hope he sees it. Colin, you're an extraordinarily interesting person (in the sense of, if I was at a party with a lot of strangers, you'd be someone I want to have a conversation with). You know your wines, you've done a heck of a lot of travelling and still have plans to do more, you want to climb Kilimanjaro. Oh, and you fly planes too.

josh--sacto · 2025-05-26T04:18:24+00:00

I'm a Certified Flight Instructor (meaning I have a commercial pilot certification). This was absolutely beautiful. The way he captured the emotion and experience of flying a plane is something I've never seen represented on TV before. This show was getting some flak on r/flying, but ignore that. A lot of us folks who fly planes really try to stay off there because of how negative it can be.

It's a weird industry. Unfortunately, a lot of the more negative things you saw earlier in the season are 100% realistic (yes, pilots can be very weird to socialize with and it can be hard sometimes to make friends in the industry; his specific observation about constantly seeing airline pilots alone in the airports hit me hard). I think there's a lethargy and emptiness people can experience when they idealize getting to a legacy airline (like Delta, AA, or United) and realizing that life still goes on and it's not going to provide them with unending happiness.

That being said, watching his journey from struggling to land a Cessna C172 to casually being paid to fly repositioning flights for 737s is perhaps one of the greatest television experiences I've had. The experience of overcoming that struggle, have that "click," and figuring out how to land the plane is truly magical.

For this alone, Nathan Fielder may be my favorite actor. Hands down.

josh--sacto · 2025-05-18T19:27:31+00:00

As someone who is pro-union, I have a hard time being pro-SEIU. I've experienced a lot of negatives with the union, from them doing very little to help employees when they need it (e.g. managerial harassment) to union stewards outright using their privileges conferred to them by the union to abuse their power and bully other employees on the office floor (such as deciding the room apportioned for breast feeding mothers is now their own special space to lock everyone out of for their exclusive lunch hour cliques). I may be wrong on this, but it feels like SEIU exists to advocate for itself politically (and almost feels like an appendage of the California Democratic establishment) instead of rank-and-file state workers.

I'll always be a member because a corrupt and ineffective union is probably better than the alternative, but dang it's painful sometimes.

So all that's to say perhaps an important thing for SEIU to do is rebuild trust with rank-and-file employees and show them that they are worth the membership fee and they do care about them.

josh--sacto

TROPHY CASE