Good and bad news.....not in that order

OK... I have good news (x2) and bad news (x3)... lets me start off this blog with all the good news.

Same picture as two weeks with no dust storm...!

The past two weeks have been very rejuvenating over here.

Another beautiful morning this week.... CLOUDS!!!

The first good news is the weather.  For the first time since I've been here the highs (temp) were in double digits.  We have been below 100 degrees!  Our mornings and afternoons have been exceptionally pleasant with the light breeze and all.  I've also enjoyed my first clouds in the sky..... hard to believe, but yes...., this week is the first time I've seen clouds around the base.....in four months!  So my climbs and descents to and from base the past few days I've been busting through clouds.....which is WAAAAYYYY fun!  You feel like your flying, wait, that sounds weird...., maybe it reminds you that you're flying.  I don't know..., it's just really cool, and fun.  In pilot training after a sortie was done and we were getting ready to fly RTB (Return To Base) that was one of the most exhilarating things to do...go cloud chasing.  One flight this week when I was in the climb I had someone who said they were feeling sick, like motion sickness, so I told them I'd be as gentle as I could for them.  Except I saw this beautiful cloud just to the left of my flight path that was just asking me to punch through it..... I clicked off my autopilot and said "I'm maneuvering to avoid a cloud", but in reality I turned straight in to it.  It was awesome and the other pilot gave me a high five.  And the back seater said "Thanks".  Haha.  I'm bad.....

View behind our squadron (1 of 2)

With the clouds came higher humidity, or maybe I should say because of the higher humidity there were clouds, I don't know..  Either way, the humid air weighed down the normal dust filled air and it has been almost clear visibility here.... AMAZING!  There are mountains around our base that I've never seen before, which is good and kinda scary at the same time.  But dare I say..., it's been beautiful here the past few days.  And, if you put your arm up and hold it parallel with the horizon just high enough to cover all the mountains and building it looks like the same sky in the United States..., so that's cool!  Haha

Behind the squadron (2 of 2)

The other good news this week has been awesome is because of the missions I've been doing.  I can't talk about them of course.  But just know that 95% of our missions are five hours of boring nothingness.  But my last three flights have been in that other 5%! It's been really nice.

Clouds....funny how the the most simple things are beautiful

OK.., here are the bad news this week.  The first thing is that we got a new permanent scheduler here two weeks ago.  This job sucks!  It a pilot who gets deployed here to not fly..., it's a non-flying deployment.  So that dude comes here already hating life.  And then he thrown into this program which flies 24 hours a day and has a bunch of rules, currencies, upgrades and over all BS to deal with.  So its a lose lose situation for that dude.  But the new dude who came here is slow at getting 'spun up' on the job.  And since he's sitting in his office all day and I'm the assistant scheduler and out with 'the troops'...., I am the nearest alligator to attack.  So this week I've been pulled aside by Lt. Colonels, Majors, Captains and in passing heard it from the E's too..... It sucks!  I try to have answers for everything but sometimes I have to tell people to suck it up and deal with growing pains of a new guy.  I just get mad because I get the brunt of it....... it sucks!!!

Next thing that sucked this week is an email from my Commander.  It says that in the past we've been able to let people go back home at 179 (days), but to expect 210's.... that sucks! Really, you don't go home until you have a replacement and the pipeline is slow right now.... ughhhh.  So my 210 will be 27 November.  No biggie, and I shouldn't count days..., but I have been, DARN!  I'll caveat this bad news by saying that on the backside this is also a good news because it'll guarantee my 180 days short tour!  So I probably won't be back out here for another six to nine years!

My last bummer this week is hard to explain.  But I'll try....  There are a few 'really good' lines to be on.  And only special people can fly these certain lines.  These certain lines work with really cool people and do really cool things.  Basically the coolest things that we can do in our plane....they do.  It is kinda my turn, if they were to pick me for these special lines.  And everyone dosn't get picked, I understand that.  But today I got an email that they skipped a few people, and I'm in that number.  DARN again!  I REALLY wanted to be on those lines.  I have the skill set to be on them and I do everything right over here.  The two people that they skipped are the two assistant schedulers.  Aggghhhhh!!!!  My stupid 'extra' job prevented me from doing the cool stuff (I'm guessing).....  That'll be a tough one to get over while I'm out here.  It's a status thing in our squadron to be able to do it.  Oh well..... I'll just shut up and color (that's what they tell Lt's do..., meaning just shut up and don't complain).

This guy taxied next to me while I smoking a cigar in my secret spot

I think all of this has given me a case of the GET-HOME-ITIS. Which is bad because I have between 50-80 days left over here......  Oh well.  It's just a bad few days, I'm always positive and I'll get over it soon.

I've got one other really good problem though...  I got a lot of people who love me out there and I always get packages in the mail!  If that doesn't lift your spirits after a day of getting shitted on then nothing will.  I got a package from Kristen with a rum cake from her cruise and a letter.  I got a package from my mom with Light Sport and Ultralight airplanes magazines.  And I got another package from Mama Oddo with even more flying magazines.  Thanks yall!  This week has been a rough one and it was nice to get stuff from people who love you to make things all better at the end of the day.

And I know what you can say, "You joined the military and you knew what it was about so just deal with it".  And if you feel that way, I don't want to change your mind.... I'm just venting and saying that sometimes it sucks.  And it's OK to say that it sucks sometimes.  There will be better days, and they'll come soon.  I'm not worried about it.  I usually can make lemonade out of lemons but this past week has been a lot of lemons......, it'll take me a few days to make lemonade out of this.

 
I'm P-16 this week and so far there's only five dudes slated to go home this whole month.  One left on the 1st, another on the 9th, one on the 15th and the final on the 18th of this month.  So by September 3I should be at least P-13.......... that's slower than usual.  But my mathematical formula still says that I'll be out of here on day 186 exactly right now. And that's good!

FRED.. (Freakin Ridiculous Economical Disaster) <-- That's the C-5's nickname

A Travis AFB C-5B flew in here one day this week so I decided to go and see it on the ramp.  For no real reason except to get next to my next plane and touch it.  I asked to borrow a vehicle so I didn't have to walk to it but we only had one left and I didn't want to take it in case we had an emergency and someone else needed it.  So I started on my walk.  As soon as I got outside I saw the C-5 vertical stabilizer (tail) and it looked small...., which meant that it was gong to be a long walk because that thing is five stories off the ground!  When I got out to our squadron's gravel parking lot I saw the squadron commander drive up in his personal Toyota Helux Surf (4Runner).  He got out and said, "Do you want to borrow my vehicle?"  Wha?  How freakin' cool!  It was like he sensed that I was about to walk about two miles....  That was so cool.  He threw me the keys and walked away.  That was so cool!  It's awesome to have a cool boss.  He likes me, so that's a good thing out here.  The C-5B was a BEAST!  I talked to the pilots a while.  It was funny because they were just as happy to talk to me about the plane I'm flying as I was to talk to them.  I guess the grass is always greener.  They were like, "You get to fly VFR (Visual Flight Rules.... (less restrictive) out here and we always have to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules... Very restrictive)"  And I was like..., yeah, but yall just took off from Germany and are flying back to Vegas with this cargo.....?  The grass is always greener!  But it was nice to see the C-5 close up again..... I can't wait!  3 Feb 12 is my C-5B training start date in San Antonio!!!

C-Sexy

Yesterday September 11th came and went.  There wasn't that much different here on base.  I think everyone here tried to treat it like a regular work day.  Yeah there were conversations like "Where were you when it happened" and stuff like that.  But really not much over that. On 10 Sep we had some comedian here and a band preform.... I didn't go because I though it was a little weird to go to something the night before 11 Sep.  Not to mention that a lot of people in one place could be a target for bad things to happen.  The next night, 11 Sep, Outback Steakhouse was on base cooking at our chow halls.  It was so cool!  We had steak (they had..., not me), real mashed potatoes, carrots, salad and onion mums!!!  It was so awesome!  Kind of a weird to me to have that here on that particular night..., but it was good.  Very uplifting!  I waited in a line for 45 minutes before I even got in the building!

Someone in my squadron had a quote from somewhere and I like it..., it sounded something like:

"September 11th is not a holiday.  It is a time to pay tribute to those who lost their lives that day and those that have lost their lives since.  It is a time to refocus and renew our determination to rid the world of people who take away the freedom and rights of others."

And I really liked that quote.  He's right, it's not a celebration.  But it is good to never forget.

OK... I LOVE this picture

I flew a few American flags that day on my plane.  That was cool.  LSU beat the crap out of Northwestern.  Oh, and my biggest threat of the day..... I FLEW WITH MY SQUADRON COMMANDER!!!!  Agghhhh.  It was soooo stressful!  I did really good on the flight though so I was pumped up! There are no pictures of that day because I didn't have my camera!!!! darn.

Here is an updated graph of my formula as to when I'm coming home... See ya'!