My wake up call arrives at 7:00 am, to the sound of rain pouring into the open skylights outside my room, onto the rug. Oops! I grab a quick breakfast and John arrives at 8:30 as planned. We talk for a while about flight planning, and go over my flight plan. Not knowing how to do an IFR plan, I start with my destination approach plate and work backwards. I'm pleasantly surprised to find that John says I've stumbled onto the correct way to do it! Then he busts my bubble by telling me that a published standard route already exists for the trip. We spend some time on reading charts (this is only about the third time I've sat down with the Jepps), I get a pop quiz on yesterday's work, and we go out for a working lunch.

Over lunch, John casually mentions that he's set up a tentative check ride for me next Monday. Gulp!! Well, at least its a goal. Back to the hotel room for several hours of simulator time. VOR homing, tracking, both with and without the vacuum instruments (do you see a recurring pattern here?), and some vectors to intercepts. I'm bushed, and my throat is parched; more so than in the airplane. Actually, we did more time on the sim than in the plane, so that kind of makes sense (guess I take both equally seriously). Homework for tonight is another flight plan, studying the Jepps in more detail, and going over some chapters in the guide. We quit at 5:00 pm tonight, so at least I have a fighting chance to finish the homework. Still, its hot and sticky, as the air conditioning is (still) out. What's more the noisy kids are still there, running their radio-controlled toy car into the walls and furniture. It begins to dawn on me that these kids *live* here, along with several other welfare families. (What welfare families are doing buying their kids expensive radio-controlled toy cars is not a question I'll address here.) I twist the hotel's arm to move me into another room, which turns out to have working air conditioning, is away from the noise, and is in generally better shape. I take an hour from studying to move, and to call my wife with a progress report.