A Personal Note . . .

Keith and Deb

Keith's Personal Update

If you can call it luck, we stumbled on to the fact that I had prostrate cancer late in the summer of 2002. I had the surgery and functioned at substantially reduced power through the hunting season.

Please be advised that this prostate cancer business is very insidious and requires investigation and monitoring. The PSA test is invaluable, but not totally conclusive, as my numbers were within the range of what was considered acceptable.

I was off flight status for almost 6 months and returned to requalify as a MD-80 captain March 1, 2001.

If you have been a guest here, and have asked how we got into the business, you probably heard me explain that Ringneck Ranch is the product of my flying career becoming barter fodder for a corporate raider and a cannibalist pilot group of union brethren that chose to dispense with the rules. I quickly concluded that there was no way that an airline operated like that could survive as a viable business and I was right!...three times! What I never envisioned was that the "ugly sister at the dance" would be absorbed from a 3rd bankruptcy leaving a little hope of sustaining some viability to my flying career.

The absorption process is arduous and there will be generous amounts of pushing, biting, and kicking, to complete consolidation. This time the folks in charge understand the implications of a cooperative work environment and have a vested interest in maintaining a viable business.

The process of integrating a perpetual motion machine like an airline is interesting and extensive. It may require that I not be at the ranch as much while learning a “new” way to operate the MD-80.