Try living out of base...and then pick up some open time on your days off so you can upgrade your Ramen with a shrimp flavoring. I'd pick up trips that ensured 24 hours off when I needed to...otherwise I was flyin. It takes effort to break guarentee when on reserve. Maybe then you can afford that beef flavoring I hear all the captains talking about. All I know is...if you enjoy it, its a job youre going to love. But if you don't enjoy it, then you are going to hate it more than you can imagine. It's a great job because like others on here have said, you can go home and you can totally leave work at work. There is no bringing work home. But you CANNOT bring home to work. If youre on a four or five day trip and all you can think about is home, youre going to be miserable. You won't last a year. That being said, I have very few original thoughts of my own so take this lesson from Joe Dirt...

Old Cajun Man: [In a muffled back water accent] Home is where you make it.
Joe Dirt: What?
Old Cajun Man: Home is where you make it.
Joe Dirt: You like to see homos naked?
Old Cajun man: Home is where you make it.
Joe Dirt: Oh.
Joe Dirt: Guy likes to see homos naked, that doesn't help me