Halfway there...

Just for the record, today was an inordinately long day. My checkride was rescheduled from last Friday for this morning, so my nerves managed to wake me up at about 3:45. Unable to recapture any Zzzzz action, I got up and prepared for the day. Made my way to the flight line, and picked up the weather report. Just my luck! Instead of gloomy and rainy, the forecast for today was nuclear hot (the "weather-guessers" got it dead on today)! More good news, my assigned check pilot was the CW5 in charge of the standardization of ALL Army flight training here at Ft. Rucker. This guy has been around the block a bit, as he attended flight school back in 1978.
As we began the start-up checklist, there was a portion of the flight controls that failed one of the checks. Great. So, we had to call for maintenance. Here at Fort Rucker, all of the helicopter maintenance is contracted out to civilians, and not just any civilians - unionized civilians. So, as is the Union way, to fix a simple problem (our Flight engineer could have replaced the part in literally 15 minutes) required a (figurative) meeting of the %#*@& United Nations, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House before any repairs were even considered. We found the problem at about 8:00, and repairs weren't completed until nearly 11:00.
So, now we are all hot and sweaty, having been on the flightline in the 97 degree sun for almost three hours. We strapped back in, and flew. Fortunately, the ride went relatively smoothly. Once my portion was complete (2:35), my 'stick buddy' had to climb in and do his flight. I had the priviledge of waiting around to help cover and tie the aircraft down after his flight was completed. We didn't actually get off of the flightline until nearly 6:00 p.m. Makes for a bit of a long day.
Due to the extremely long day, we have to come back tomorrow afternoon to complete the question-and-answer portion (also known as the oral portion - let the jokes rip, we've heard 'em all before). So, I am going to hit the hay and actually sleep in past 4:00!