Dichroic Reflections

good omens

Nope. No flying this morning. Thunderstorms in the area, turbulence, wind gusts forecast, low clouds - lots of reasons not to fly. We're going to try for the fourth time tomorrow around lunchtime.

This is difficult because every time I think I'll have a checkride I have to rearrange my schedule to try to be rested, alert, well-fed, and unstressed at the time of the test. This has meant skipping rowing or erging, trying to eat something the night before that will leave me well-nourished but not with an upset stomach, trying to eat breakfast ditto, and so on. Tomorrow, as with last week, I'll be flying around when I'd normally eat lunch, so I have to figure out how to make sure I'm not starving by then, but my stomach is predictably made more rebellious than it already is my nerves so I can't eat too much. As for practice, I give up. I've missed too many practices for this, and I'll be at JournalCon this weekend so will already be low on distance for this week. I'm going to row tomorrow, but will just try to row lightly enough so I'm not exhausted at 11.

I saw a great omen yesterday, though it obviously didn't predict today's outcome accurately. I'm not superstitious, but in a matter like this one that largely depends on my own confidence, I'll take any good omen that will help me feel calm and ready for the test. As I left work, it was dark and raining to the east, but the sun was out to the west - we rarely have clouds covering the entire sky. Since the conditions were right and the sun was low enough, I looked for a rainbow, and finally spotted it, just a faint glow and a few degrees of arc over the major airport next to our parking lot. As I drove out of the lot, I looked over and found that the rainbow had popped into brilliance, shining over the clouds, though still not very long. As I watched, an airplane flew right through it.

Sure it's all coincidence, but I'll take any confidence builders I can find - and could anyone really ask for a better image?