Congratulations and Thanks for a great story.

I would have crumbled with all the extra oversight! The headset thing alone
would have sent me to another examiner.

I'm having a brain fart at the moment - what was the diff between flying the
270 radial upon crossing the VOR and turning 270 upon crossing?

"Guy Elden Jr." wrote in message
snip
This time the controller instructed me to go
direct ARD, then proceed outbound on the 270 radial. Or at least, I
_thought_ that's what she said. Doh! I didn't realize my confusion
until...
you guessed it... it was time to turn! Well I started to turn to 270, then
twisted the OBS to 270 as well to track from the station. As soon as I got
on course, I keyed my mic to ask for clarification... first x-mission went
something like "Trenton approach, Skyhawk 1234K, clarify 270 heading or
270
radial." No reply. Next x-mission, "Trenton approach, Skyhawk 1234K".
Again,
no reply. Oh, and did I forget to mention... the examiner noticed almost
immediately after I got to 270 that I didn't know which to do... heading
or
radial... so he's bugging me about that, and I tell him I'm already on the
case with ATC... ugh!!!