I jumpseated on United from Eugene on Wednesday. Crew scheduling shortened my planned time at home by one day. Coming into La Guardia, I obsrved one of the worst performances by a United captain that I've seen. He slammed the airplane down on the runway and then turned off to the wrong side. Ground control cleared him back to the runway but told him to hold short. He then started to cross the hold line with another aircraft plainly visible on final. I was trying to figure out how to tactfully tell him he was about to cause a runway incursion when his first office realized what was happening and alerted him. He hit the brakes and, we jolted to a halt with the nose of the airplane about 20 feet on the wrong side of the hold line. The tower didn't notice, so it didn't cause a problem. Just goes to prove that no matter how experienced you are, anybody can have a bad day.

Flew to San Francisco on Thrusday—my first leg with Tower on a domestic flight. The captain flew the leg so I got a chance to observe another version (only the 2nd Tower captain I've been with) of how Tower does things. Friday I flew the leg back from San Francisco and got to experience typical daytime delays into JFK when the weather is less than ideal. We had to hold for an hour. When I flew for Evergreen, we only operated out of JFK in the middle of the night (typical freight operation) and never had to contend with the traffic. After the hold they started vectoring us for the approach, and I elected to hand fly for the practice. What I didn't realize was that they were going to vector us well out over the Atlantic. I wound up hand flying the thing for nearly half an hour, bumping through cumulus buildups with numerous altitude and speed changes. By the time they cleared us for the approach, I was getting a bit tired, but the approach went okay. I did get a little low on the slideslope at the last, corrected, and then wound up a little high. However, the landing was smooth and well within the touchdown zone.