Alaska Tour 2025 – And Life Update

It’s been a minute with posting anything around here, so let’s get caught up and see what we have going on in Noklahoma!

A&P Mechanic

So, June of 2021, I started working as a helper at a flight school down in Chickasha, OK, pronounced Chick-Uh-Shay, called Chickasha Wings. It’s been a blast working there, and after 30 months of on the job training, I was able to get my 8610-2 signed and take and pass 3 written tests, and 3 oral and practicals and I’m now a licensed A&P mechanic (Airframe and Powerplant). So, if you have any work that needs to be done to your plane, hit me up!

My daughter drew this tattoo for me to celebrate going from petroleum geology to mechanic work. Seems like you should go the other way and not go from white collar to blue collar in your 40’s but, whatever. I’m diggin’ it!

Also, I started my own shop with another mechanic, and that’s been going well, all things considered. We’re staying busy, but it’s also, just been 4 months, so, we’ll see. My ultimate goal is to start my own shop in Norman, once I get my IA (Inspection Authority) certificate added and can sign off on annuals and major repairs. That would be awesome to have my own pace, 6 minutes from the house, to be honest.

In the meantime, I get to keep hanging around an airport and seeing cool planes like these!

Slacker County

Also, I started playing music last year around this time. We started as a trio, but during our first show, our lead guitarist literally walked off stage and sat in the audience for the rest of the show. I am not embellishing this or making any of it up He literally set down his guitar, mid song and went and ordered a beer and watched the rest of the show. Eyeroll, musicians, am I right?

Regardless, we went from 3 to 2 and after a couple of name changes, we landed on Slacker County. We’re also on IG and TIkTok and Bandcamp, but not much on Bandcamp yet. We’re planning on recording an album or 2 when we get back, as we have close to 40 or more originals that are already pretty tight. Until then, it’s a little anemic.

We have fun playing and last fall thought we should try to go visit Alaska this summer. My bandmate lived there as a highschool teacher for about a decade or so, but alas, minus some couches to surf, we got no help thru connections. However, we were able to pull off 9 shows during our 2 week “vacation”, so hell yeah!! I’ll get to not only see Alaska, but also play music while I’m there! It’s nowehere close to break even, as far as pay for shows vs trip costs, but we’re at about 75% covered, actually.

Minus having the 2 dogs getting watched for 16 friggin days, that was my biggest expense, to be perfectly honest.

Here are some pics of Slacker County from last year. Including the Pride Fest, where we got our first trailer! Purcell Art Walk was always good to us, even in the godawful heat, and yes, that 102 is not an exaggeration.

Check out the schedule posted above, and if you have any chance to come check out a show, we’d love to see you up there!!

I hope to get to see Maggie from Northern Expenditure, at one of the Fairbanks shows, but we’ll be playing, Anchorage, Fairbanks, and the Kenai Peninsula, so there’s gonna be some windhsield time for sure. At least it’s not like Dallas traffic though, so, I’m down with it.

Beyond that, everything is pretty much about the same. I’m still teaching a class at OU, so get to dabble with petroleum geology still, but nothing else to report out on this end.

Actually, I’m sure there’s way more to report out on, but this is what you get today.

Let me know if you’re gonna be able to make it to any shows, and make sure to stop by and say hi!

See y’all out there!

Jay – Mr. SSC