Saints are going to the SHIP!

What a long week for me.

So..., let me see if I can explain how the "getting kicked out of pilot training" process works.....

86=If I have been out of the jet for more than 10 days they'll give me a "free" non-graded ride called an"86" ride.

87=Every normal ride that I have is called an "87" ride. Basically every ride that is not one of the other numbers here is an 87.

88=If I "hook" (fail/unsat) three rides in a row, then i get an "88" ride. (there is only ONE "88" ride given per airframe).

89=Then there is an "89" ride..., this could be your last ride in the jet.  If you fail/unsat/hook this ride then you are kicked out of the program.....that sucks. You can have unlimited 89 rides in the program.  But if you hook one....you're done.

So..., I hope that I explained that well enough.  Last week I was coming off of two unsats in a row.  So one more and I would go to my 88 ride.  That sucks.  My first unsat was for throwing up in the jet.  My second one was for not knowing the ground references at a particular airport (it was only my second time there). So I was pretty upset and scared to get a third unsat.  And to top it off I was two rides away from my mid-phase checkride.  That is THE MOST hooked ride here at pilot training!  Oh crap.  Well..., things just got worse from there.  I had my ride and it went great!  I flew awesome... I had no mistakes.  Once we got back on the ground my IP (Instructor Pilot) gave me a thorough ground evaluation.  I did good on that too.  But then he gave me an emergency situation in the plane.  I've had many of these before and all you have to do is tell the IP how and what you would do to work through the problem and arrive safely on the ground.  But...., in this case i made a mistake.  I forgot to say some thing important and I basically tied my IP's hands...... He had to hook me.  Oh no!!!!!!1  That was my third hook!  Now I have to go to my "88" ride.......

Well.., my 88 ride was scheduled with the commander of the checkflight <--Not a good thing.  He is a former A-10 pilot and just basically a badass.  I flew my 88 ride on Friday.  I passed!!!!!!!  I flew pretty good, and answered all of his questions that he asked me.  Wheeew..... Close call.  I don't like those close calls.  We have already had two guys kicked out of our class of 34.  And two more have already been to their 89 rides and passed those.

They say that the mid-phase checkride is the hardest thing here at pilot training.  And I'm done with it!  I'm kinda feeling good about myself.  Wheeew.  Big ton of bricks off my shoulders for a while at least.

Now I move on in the program.  Next I'll be doing advanced aerobatics!  Wow!  I thought that I was pushing this plane to its limits already...but I guess not. This week should be fun.  OOOHHHHhhh yeah.  I also get to take the plane solo again.  But this time not just solo in the pattern and land three times.  No.   I get to take the plane for an hour and twenty minutes and have fun with it.  Just do whatever I want!  I love my job.  The AF is really going to trust me, a wanna be pilot with no "official" wings on his chest, with a 6.4million dollars aircraft all by myself!  Ha!  Sounds like fun.  They say that after that flight your confidence in your abilities really goes up a ton.  We'll see.

OK.  Enough with the drama.... Let's talk about what Kristen and I have been up to.  Two Fridays ago it was Kristen's turn to make something for us (my class) to eat.  She decided to make Tres' Leches.  That is a Mexican cake made with three milks.  She made it from scratch!  It was amazing!  We cleaned the two pans of it.  She was so proud and I was proud of her.

Speaking of cake.  Kristen's parents sent us a king cake for our birthday.  It was awesome!  We shared it with all of our neighbors. 

Kristen decided to try work over here this week also.  She took a substitute teacher gig for two days.  She "taught" second graders.  Haha.  The first day I think they ran all over her.  She came home with all kinds of stories.  It was so funny.  Then on the second day she realized that if she just simply writes their names on the board they get scared and start behaving.  Haha.  It was a learning experience for her.  Onr of the second graders came up to her on the first day and said "This is your first day huh"?  Haha!  Classic!

On Wednesday of this week the weather was looking bad.  There was hail in the forcast for our area.  And since the T-6's are so new to AF they want to protect them.  W had to help maintenance push ALL of the planes in every nook and cranny that we could find on base.  There is one BIG hanger and a bunch of small ones.  It was so cool.  It was also kinda funny when they would take some of the other planes here on base out of their hangers and put them outside just to make room for the T-6's.!  Anyway....., the hail never came and it ended up being a false alarm.  It was still fun though.

Here is a picture of my reflection on a T-6 propeller.

Here is my next trainer plane (maybe). The T-1 Jayhawk.

I had to go work in the tower this week.  It was so cool.  I had a very small job there of making sure that every plane coming in for a landing did have their gear down and locked.  It was cool though.  I was right in between two of our three runways and there was planes taking off every few minutes.  I was there for five hours and was keeping track of just the T-6 runway....we had 131 landings! A little over one landing every 2 1/2 minutes.

DALLAS IS 1 TODAY(or 7 depending on how you want to count it)!!!!!!!!!!!!  Kristen is baking her a cake right now.  Dallas will have a doggie party sometime in the coming week or so.  Kristen promised it to her. 

Dallas opening up a box with some valentines day/ birthday presents from Kristen's parents. 

Short one

Sorry faithful readers..... I don't have to much time this week for a "good" blog.  I am so busy right now. I had work everyday this week and Saturday!... It just sucks.  I have a lot going on right now.  My first AF checkride should be coming up either Tuesday or Wednesday.  I spent today spending as much time as possible with Kristen, studying, grilling, and now studying/watching the Saints game.

Kristen and I filled up our fridge that we got for Christmas.  I haven't had time to enjoy a beer just yet.  But hopefully soon!

I am taking care of my neighbors lawn for 6 weeks while he is at training.  He planted some rye grass in his yard.  It looks great!  It grows so much in just 7 days.  He has the only green lawn on base.  Every time I come in for a landing over here I can spot my house quickly by just looking for the GREEN.  The second picture is our house...... Our grass is not as green but it probably is the second most green on base.

We got to drink beer in the flight room this week.  I brought a bunch of coozies to share.  I used the Saints one of course.  It may not sound like a big deal.... But on a Saturday evening after a long day at work.  A cold beer in the flight room kicked ass!

The rest of the pictures this week are just some fun and inspirational pictures. 

Oh yeah..., Kristen may be coming back in town for Mardi Gras.

Brrrrrrrrr....

Well...., since I last updated this blog, the 4th of Jan, Kristen and I have each had a birthday.  Yaay!.  Not to special though.  We never seem to make a big deal about our birthday.  I don't mind it.  I actually prefer it.  Now, if other people want to make a big deal about it for me that's OK.  But Kristen and I never get that excited......  Oh well.  Haha.  Thanks to facebook.com everyone in my class knew it was my birthday anyway and wished me a good one.  Kristen's parents sent us a king cake.  That was awesome!!!  We shared it with our neighbors.  It was funny....one of our neighbors kept calling it a kings cake instead of a king cake.  Its a little difference but if you are from New Orleans like us and have always heard it pronounced one way..., then Kings cake sounds funny.  On that subject..., today I brought a praline for lunch (sugar and pecans).  I had another student, from Baltimore,  call it a prAline.  Haha.  Nothing like New Orleans.  Gotta love it.

OK, back to updating our lives.

It was back to work two Tuesdays ago.  The first day was not bad.  They eased us back into it.  It was no flying for the students that day.  They let just IP's fly and get their feet wet first.

We started to fly on Wednesday.  Well..., everyone else started to fly on Wednesday..., but not yours truly.  Myself and one other student are way in front of the rest of the class  in terms of flights.  So I think that they are letting us "sit" a while and let everyone else catch up.  I did get to fly that first week back.  Your first flight after a five day break in training is usually a "free" (non-graded) flight.  So I had one of those.  It was nice because I didn't have to stress about it.  My stomach started to feel a little queezy up there so I made a quick RTB (return to base).  Oh well.  Not as much practice as I wanted but it would have to do.

Last Friday our base had a drop night. A drop night is a ceremony/party where the outgoing pilot training class, two weeks before graduating and getting their wings, learns their official plane that they'll be flying..., and what base they'll be moving to.  It happens basically every three weeks around here.  It's a big fun party.  Free beer and a lot of fun. Mine is 8 Oct of this year!

This week started on Sunday!  Yeah.., it sucks.  But we are a few days behind in our training so the commander ordered us to come in on Sunday like it was a normal week day.  I've never done that before.....and just as I imagined.... it sucked.  This week I had only one flight again.  This one counted though.  And..., my IP was with the second guy in charge of our squadron!  Woah.  I'm not one to get nervous about that kind of stuff though.  It was fun.  And I had a good flight. 

This week our flight lost our first person.  His name is Doug.   He's a great guy who doesn't deserve to be kicked out.....not yet.  He is being put up for commanders review because he can't overcome his air sickness.  He throws up every flight.  He is my buddy over here.  I hope everything works out for him and his fiance. I'll miss him.  I ope the AF gives his a good new job.

The weather over here has been crappy.  It rained today.  But we can fly in the rain.  Its the cloud deck.  It hangs soooooo low all the time.  We need at least 2000 ft off the ground with no clouds before we can start flying (others can fly..., but we have not been cleared to fly through the weather yet).  So it's been crappy. And the temperature has been crazy!  I took a few pictures of my temperature reading from my trucks thermometer here one morning.  One says 24 degrees and one says ICE.  Just ICE..?  It must have been to cold for my truck to know what the hell was going on.  So much for global warming.  Al Gore should have to pay back all of the money that he ever made about global warming.  Haha. He's a joke.

Well..., not too much else going on over here.  Three day weekend coming up here.  Thanks MLK.

Christmas break!!!! Waahhhooooooo.......!!!!!!!!!!

What a great break.  Kristen and I had a wonderful time getting out of Del Rio.  It was so nice to see friends and family.

I believe our 11 days were supposed to be time away from work and relaxing.  Well..., at least it was time away from work. haha.  We stayed busy the ENTIRE TIME back home in New Orleans!!!  But..., it was well worth it.

This picture was included on purpose because Christmas was just a blur.

My last week of work was rough.  It was so hard to stay focused at the beginning of the week knowing that it was a short week.  I knew that the 23rd, Wednesday, was our last day of work....but I also knew that some people in my flight asked for off one day early to go home. So when I showed up to the flight room on Wednesday morning and there was only seven of us there of the 17 students...... my day starting sucking really fast!  Us seven were ready to go soooo bad!  There was nothing going on that day and to top it off....., fog....., there was some seriously thick fog all morning so no one was flying!  Geeez.  As soon as I got off of work, 3pm, I came straight home, washed my truck, and packed it up.  We planned to leave the next morning but you know how that goes.  So we left a few hours later for the long 12 hour drive to New Orleans.

We stopped at Taco Bell just outside of San Antonio.  We love us some Taco Bell which is really funny because we live where they have REAL Mexican food, but sometimes you like the fake kind ya know.  And since we don't have a Taco Bell around here we had to stop.  Dallas was good on the drive too.  We got to New Orleans around 3am.

The next day, the 24th, I woke up and drove straight to Krispy Kreme!  I gotta have them!  Then we got some Raising Canes fried chicken for lunch and went to the neighbors for presents and dinner.  I got a "Westbank 4 Life" hat to remind me where I came from I think.  It's a really funny hat and if you are not from the New Orleans area than you probably wouldn't get it.  The westbank is.......the bad side I guess. Haha.  Then we went back to Kristen's parent's house to open up presents there. We got a small refrigerator especially for my beer!  How freakin' sweet!  First Kristen let me keep my bicycles inside and now my own beer fridge..... haha.  I gotta be one of the luckiest husbands around.  Other husbands I'm sure are soooooooo jealous.

The next morning, the 25th, we had Christmas breakfast with my dad's side of the family.  It was so cool.  I love breakfast!  And to accommodate everyone in the family, mostly just me, we had Christmas first thing in the morning over there so that we could all be together and still have time to go to other houses later.  It worked out perfectly and it was so nice to see all of my family.  I missed everyone and I think they missed us too.

From there we went to Kristen's house to have Christmas with her family.  As always the food was awesome!  Her family is really laid back and chill so that was nice.

And finally from there we went to Pat O's in the French Quarter.  It was cold outside, but once you started drinking that cold Abita beer everything seemed to warm up.  There were so many people from high school I saw out there that night.  We met out some friends from out of town there.  It's funny, we both used to live there and now both of us moved away.  I guess that's how the cookie crumbles.

The next day, the 26th, we went to another Christmas with my mom's side of the family.  We had an "As Seen on TV" dirty Santa gift exchange there.  It was so funny.  Kristen got a clapper and I got some HD sun glasses. Haha.  My mom got us a water dispenser.  We definitely NEED that over here because the water is no bueno!

That night we went on our friend's party bus:  www.whodatpartybus.com .  It was our friend's birthday.  It was so  nice to have a designated driver for Kristen and I.  We spent the whole night in Jefferson Parish (which is weird), but had a great time!!!!  There are some compromising photos from that night which will never be seen!!

The next day, the 27th, after we finally woke up we ate breakfast/lunch at Taco Tico, another one of our favorite fake Mexican restaurants.  Then we visited the Oddo's.  They are so awesome.  Then for some stupid reason we went to the mall.  CRAZINESS!!!!

The next day, the 28th, we ate lunch with Crystal (one of Kristen's old co-workers) at Frostop (great burgers and root beer).  Then off to Kristen's moms work....they wanted us to stop by while we were in town.  That night we went out to eat with my mom, Bill and Kristen's parents at Cheesecake Bistro.  It was sadly....just OK.

The next day, the 29th, we picked up Kristen's grandma and drove her to the westbank for some Sicily's all you can eat Italian buffet.  It is so funny.  Kristen's grandma loves that place.  I eat lasagna, Kristen eats salad, and her grandma eats baked chicken.... no pizza.  Haha.

That night we met my uncle and cousin for some good ole Poncho's Mexican buffet. What can I say..., we just love fake Mexican food.

The next day, the 30th, we met Kristen's mom and friend for lunch at Kristen's favorite Chinese place, Canton.  I just ate rice.  Then we visited my granny and grandpa for a while.  That night we went to the Hornets game.  Kristen danced with a few of the Honeybee's on another dance team before so we really went to see them dance.  We are not big basketball fans but I do know that the Hornets won!.

The next day, the 31st, we went to visit my paw and his wife.  They fed us the usual......., homemade burgers and french fries.  It's always good.

That night was completely crazy.  We had four different places to go before the clock struck midnight.  First we went to the neighbors house and visited Kristen's godchild and ate some food.  From there we went to a friends business for another New Years Eve party going on, and ate.  From there we went to the Oddo's, and ate.  And from there we went to Kristen's aunt's house..........and..........ate.  New Years Eve was a lot of fun though.  It was a team building and time management exercise.  Haha.

The next morning , the 1st, I had to go to Dillard's at 10am (door busting) to buy a fake Christmas tree at 75% off.  That's my first time doing that....., and it's pretty serious!  People get violent and really serious about those good deals.  But..., I got what I went there for!

Later that day we met my best friend Woody and his wife Jen at Lager's for food, beer, and the LSU game (disappointing).  My sister also showed up which made it even more special.  Woody just put his two weeks in at his law firm and has decided to step out on his own.  I'm so proud of him.  I knew that he would make it big one day.  And he's not done yet........ be looking for him in the political arena in the future - I'll put money on it.

That night we went to Copeland's for dinner with the neighbors and Kristen's family.  Copeland's was sooooooooo good.  Definitely the best food of the trip.

The next morning, the 2nd, I decided to make a bed for Dallas.  Kristen's dad has all kinds of tools at my disposal so I had to take advantage and make something.  And Dallas loves to look out of our front window but she's not quite tall enough.  So I decided to make a place where she can sit or lay down and "guard" our house.  Kristen will paint and decorate it soon and it's going to look nice!

We went to Carretta's for lunch with Kristen's parents.  Yet another some what fake Mexican restaurant.  The margarita was great!  That night Kristen's dad cooked steaks.  They really enjoyed them.... I ate a pizza.

The next morning, the 3rd, we packed up and started the drive home.  We stopped at Popeye's in Lafayette because..... of course......we don't have one of those over here either.  Dallas was really good on the drive home.  She slept almost the whole 12 hours.  I'm sure she was tired from playing the past 11 days straight with the other two dogs.

Today, the 4th, we spent the day setting up and hanging Christmas presents.  Then I had to study for a little while.  Tomorrow is going to be back on the grind!  It's going to be a big Air Force slap in the face. Haha.

 Till next time folks.......