Why I Haven’t Slept

Sleep is one of the most important things in the world to me, I have come to learn. Try as I might, I can’t seem to be one of those “3%” that doesn’t need sleep. In fact, if I wake up in the morning not feeling adequately rested, I find that I’m subconsciously thinking through my schedule on when I can rest next.

Recently, I haven’t slept much at all- because there are more important things going on. Things that motivate, drive me, and give me purpose in my life.

You see, over the last few weeks we have seen some major things happen here at Angle of Attack that we’ve been waiting on for a good while, with another big one just around the corner. In order these are- the release of the PMDG 777, the unveiling of our new website, and the upcoming release of our 777 Training.

All of these events are, of course, interconnected. We wouldn’t be going crazy about the PMDG 777 if we weren’t doing training for it, and we wouldn’t have to release a new website if we weren’t doing training. Because we are releasing such a large training package soon, it only makes sense to have the website done before launch.

To breakdown what this has meant for my sleeping habits, it looks something like this-

1. The night before 777 release, I decided to jump on TwitchTV and test that system for marketing. Before I knew it, I had hundreds of viewers, and ended up staying up until 3am. It was a blast!
2. The next day, the 777 was released. I had gotten up at 7am to do another broadcast, and thinking it might be released. It was Tuesday (the first potential release day) after all!
3. The day was a blur, and a blast. We had hundreds of people watching, and we showed off some great features of the 777 while everyone tried to download the aircraft.

   After about 10 hours of broadcasting, the day finally came to a close.

4. Then, all hands were on deck for the release of the new website. I thought I was going to be able to do it on Tuesday night, before 777 release, and I’m really glad I didn’t!

   Although the new website is completely different, much easier to use, faster and fixes a lot of issues, there were also a lot of bugs I didn’t plan on.

5. I released the website Saturday Morning at 1:30AM. I got up at 3AM. I had to take my girlfriend to the airport here in Alaska, which was a 5 hour drive from the rural town I live in.
6. During that drive, I did my best to answer support tickets (yes, while driving) and keep the wolves at bay. It was soon evident that I had a lot more issues than I realized- and couldn’t do much until I got back home.
7. 10 hours of driving, and 2×5 Hour Energy Shots later, I was back home and straight to my computer fixing all of the reported issues- and they were many.
8. Finally to bed at 3AM after a blur of tasks, fixes, support tickets, database queries, blog posts, and more.
9. Up at 8AM, back at it. Worked all day, task after task, and to bed, again, at 3AM

To make a longer story shorter- I am extremely dedicated to what I do here at Angle of Attack.

We have some major things swirling around right now, with the 777 Training on the doorstep, and this new website and all it’s new functionality getting released.

We’ve been working on the 777 Training for a full year now, and the new website since May. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long for both.

Here we are, in this time of most importance, and it’s taking a lot of work.

And I realized- this energy I have had to break through all of this really intense and hard work isn’t the 5 Hour Energy left over in my body- it’s the passion I have for Angle of Attack, and how dedicated I am to making the user experience here at Angle of Attack top notch.

For the time being, I have found something much more important than sleep. Thank goodness it’s only temporary! Here we are in the launch weeks (PMDG 777, Website, 777 Training) and it’s crunch time!

Through this process, especially with the website, I ask all of you to be patient, contact support, let us know how we can improve, and we’ll soon show you how much better your experience at Angle of Attack will be.

It took us a lot of work to get where we are with this new site, but we are positive this is a great new direction. Just ask the many people that have signed up for Aviator90 in the past few days, and were able to access their training in a matter of minutes.

We appreciate your support and your business, but most of all, your contribution to this community. We recognize that you are an integral part in what we do and the core reason we do what we do. We Create Aviators. That is our purpose here. So far, we hope you are becoming the Aviator you always wanted to be.

Throttle On

Chris Palmer

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