Pilot # 38!

Superwoman!

Lookin good!!!

I know I know...., you all wanted to see what the dresser looks like now that it's "complete".  Kristen hasen't sent me any updated pictures of it!  But I have seen it on Skype.....and let me tell you.  She did an AWESOME job!  It is a brand new dresser!  I'm proud of her.  Maybe she'll send me a picture so I can share it with everyone.  The picture I have here is after stain but before polyurethane... it looks even nicer now!

Courtney and Kristen

The games used to be packed!  Sad.........

The VooDoo had their second to last home game this weekend.  Kristen went.  They suck this year. I think it's because they don't have Courtney and Kristen dancing for the Dolls and me not being their mascot, but my opinion could be a bit skewed.

Pilot #38 for your viewing pleasure

Well, as you can see in the title, I've moved to pilot number 38!  I'm done with the 40's.  It is kinda moving fast over here.  I feel like I just got here yesterday with #57 on my sleeve and now I'm #38....wow.  The time is moving fast because I never stop over here.  If I'm flying, which is everyday lately, the hours just roll by.  I just wake up, work out, bus to work, brief, eat, fly, debrief, eat, bus home, shower, sleep......rinse....repeat.  Haha.  Everyday.  Time is flying!

This week I got a package from my squadron.  It was really nice of them (whoever its from over there).  There are two of us here from Dover and we both got a package from the 9th.  It was filled with the most randomly awesome stuff. Like 4th of July decorations, soap, chocolate, gum, cookies, mini sports balls and random candy....haha.  It was pretty funny opening it.  But everything in the package found a home.  It was nice of them.

I also got a package from mother-in-law this week.  I got some Mio (water flavoring).  That stuff is a hit over here.  Actually, all water flavoring is popular over here.  Sometimes it feels like prison with water flavoring.  It's sometimes used as currency around the squadron to acquire different things.  Good times.

Here is our lead sensor operator with Old navy boxers on!  Haha.

Someone/business sent us a bunch of huge boxes filled with Old Navy clothes.  Anything and everything from Old Navy.  I think they just went to a few Old Navy's and raided their clearance section.  Some people have been taking underwear/boxers and socks, but that's about all we can use that they sent us.....sad..., and funny at the same time.  Haha.

Jolly Greens..., their motto is "So others may live"

We had a tour of the "Jolly Greens" offered to us if we could make it out to them this week.. I really wanted to go and the tour fell right after I landed so it was perfectly timed!  The Jolly Greens are the Air Force's rescue helo's.  They are the dudes that will come and pick up downed pilots (so we love them).  Those dudes are so BA!  They fly at 50' off the round.  They have a duty to bring downed pilots or critically battlefield injured soldiers to ROLE3 (hospital) within one hour of the call......which is tough if you think about the scenario here: The heat, dust, mountains oh and people shooting at you.  They sleep at the squadron and get the helos all ready to go with their equipment.  There is two pilots, one gunner, one gunner/flight engineer, and three PJ's (para rescue jumpers) <--- Those dudes are the cool ones.  They go thought two years of training before they become certified.  They can't drink alcohol during their training.  They are EMT's, commando's, and just BA's all rolled into one.  They all have HUGE ego's and walk around like their sh*t don't stink...., but if you think about it, that's who you would want rescuing you, right?  They are all in the gym all the time and pretty much all look like superheros.  Oh, and the guns on this thing......50 cals!!!  Holy crap, do not get in their way!  I can't discuss mission details, but lets just say I've seen these dudes in action......and you don't want to be on the receiving end of their business.

Me and my buddy Vipul

50 calibers of whoop ass!

Oh, and we learned in SERE a few months back that if you are in a downed pilot scenario and these dudes come to get you its actually not that pleasant of an experience.  They are there to do a job.  And they are watching out for their safety also...., so, when they pick you up they treat you like the enemy until they can verify that you are who you say you are (and ca prove it) because the enemy could have killed you and put on your uniform or anything.....they don't know.  And after seeing some of these dudes it makes me never want to go down...., because I'd be scared of being handled by them, just sayin'.

In closing this week:  If there's one thing I've seen down here and/or now become aware...., our military is BA!  We have almost perfected this war thing.   Even your their turf and by their rules.  We still are winning the game.  And the score is not even close.  I almost start feeling bad for these dudes that we go after because they have ZERO chance.  We are that good at what we do.  They can run, but then they'll just die tired.  Even if they know we are looking for them they can try to run, but now they'll die tired and scared.  Point is...., this machine (the coalition forces) can't be stopped over here.  These dudes need to put down their weapons and move back to their own countries. The end.

Dallas being bad climbing on the sofa to get her food on the table.....BAD DOG!

Happy Fathers Day 2011!!!

 I have been flying A LOT!  And that's awesome!

I flew eight out of the last nine days.  And I got my first Air Medal (every 20combat sorties...I'm at 22 right now)! And I've flown almost 100 total combat hours also.....that's cool. And, Uncle jack, the weather DID get better.  It's crazy how beautiful the sunrise over desert and mountains can be.... but it is!

I flew three times with a Lt. Col. who has been around planes for a while.  He's an Air Force instructor pilot at the instructor pilot school and he's a United pilot also.  So I was pretty pumped up about flying and learning from him.  It was a good three days....I soaked it all in.

I just started getting into a regular gym routine which has me SORE!  I found a vet clinic on base for the service dogs that I can volunteer at on my days off so I'm excited about that.  It's not guaranteed that they'll have dogs there everyday but they told me just to come by and check.

I got a package from my godchild and cousin.  They sent me a "Swamp People" t-shirt which was pretty funny.  And I divided the large bag of roasted and salted almonds into smaller bags to eat during our flights.  And saying that let me share a little routine that we go though every flight.  It's called "halftime soda time".  Haha.  It's at the halfway point of our flight.  We make an announcement in the plane and pop open a cold soda to keep us alert.  It's a fun thing we do.  It's also usually the point where you snack during the flight.  So the almonds have been my snack the past few days.....

It's Fathers Day today so "Happy Fathers Day to all the daddys out there!  I sent mine a tech themed cookie bouquet...Haha.  It may be a little weird.....but....it's the thought that counts anyway....Haha.

Before

Before

This pas week Kristen went and picked up my old dresser from my moms house.  She has dreams and asperations of refinishing it.  And by that I mean sanding the whole thing and re-painting it!  That's a lot of work.  I told her..... but she's doing it anyway.  I think it's going to come out awesome!

During (stupid picture wouldn't turn right side up)

During

I still am P-42 this week.  Two more dudes, at least, are leaving this week so next blog I'll be lower.  Well, that's all for this week.  Till next week......

Dallas is so freakin cute (she lost her ball under the tool box)!

Doing the J-O-B

Even the locals are Saints fans!

Last weekend I went to the bazaar (it like a flea market type of thing).  The base invites the locals to come on base and sell their goods.  It's pretty cool.  I didn't buy anything this time because I didn't want to hold on to it for 5 months in my tent.  But I saw some good stuff there!

My buddy, Chris and me went to a climbing gym here.  Its pretty cool..., the Canadians hollowed out a conex box and made it into a rock climbing gym.  There's usually a few people there.  Some people are serious about climbing here.  They've even brought their own climbing shoes and personal chalk... Haha.  I usually fall down every 10 seconds so I'm not that serious.  And then of course we had to unwind with a cigar and near beer....

Here is a few photos of "stuff"  that good folks from the ol' U S of A sent us just this week......we get a lot of stuff here!!!

Other than that I've been flying...a lot. Which is a good thing.  I had three days off in a row and now I'm on my fourth day flying in a row.  I'm flying all night lines right now so that means I'm sleeping in the day time.....which is weird, and hot.  And I've also finally got in a workout routine which is awesome!  But I have been so tired.  My regular day has been wake up, workout, take bus to work, eat, fly, take bus home, shower, sleep, repeat.  I flew in bad weather twice this week here.  This plane gets TOSSED around in the air = no fun.  I had my barf bag out just in case a few times.  That sucked.....

Sunrise on my way home from work...pretty

I'm doing this blog in a hurry so it's probably not going to be as long as usual.

My high school 10 year reunion was two nights ago.  I missed it and that sucks.  It has been fun looking at the pictures online from it so see how everyone has changed and grown up!

 Kristen is doing great.  We Skype almost everyday.  I also sent her a patriotic cookie bouquet this week.

Ohhh. I was just talking to my mom on the phone and she reminded me that I didn't tell yall what my pilot number is now....it's P-42!!!   I'm a little closer to P-1 every few days!

Life is a beach I'm just playing in the sand

 OK, so there is too many pilots here right now officially.  There are a bunch of new Mission Commander dudes that all have to get 20 rides to be qualified as an MC.  I am a co-pilot, it only took me three rides to get qualified.  Getting qualified is the most important thing around here because they need as many pilots fully qualified as possible.  Which means that the 15 or so new MC dudes always fly.  Which leaves the 17 co-pilots over here SOL for the time being.  So in the last eight days I've flown three of them.

What did I do the other five days you ask?  Well, I was a scheduler at the squadron for two of them.  Then I took it upon myself to become a sort of MWR (Morale Wellness and Recreation) Officer for my squadron because I realized there are a lot of things to do around here this week, non military related.  So for one of those days I went to all of the countries MWR rooms, if they had one, and got info of any events they have coming up.  There is a lot of fun stuff (95% of the stuff to do is the Americans pulling the weight for the rest of the NATO countries).  In looking high and low on base for all this info I came across an Army officer who asked me to be on the MWR board.  I said yes, and now I'm a representative for our country on the NATO MWR board.  Funny stuff.  I just wanted to know about stuff to do and now I have a bunch of extra duties.  Oh well, it'll make the time go by faster.

There is some sort of race usually once or twice a week..., with bibs and t-shirts given out!  How freekin' cool!  In combat....a road race!  They also have poker four nights a week with a $50 prize given every night.  They have a chess tournament every Friday.  Karaoke, bingo, table tennis, basketball leagues, guitar lessons and all sorts of stuff like that to do.  Not to mention the USO has free internet and phones, and occasionally brings in "talent" (celebrities).  So..., there's a lot to do.

In the past seven days I've ran a 3K, 5K and a 10K.  Pretty cool.  Yesterday I went to a cigar club meeting (because that's what you do when you're deployed, smoke cigars and grow mustaches), smoked a cigar donated by some business in the USA (thanks America for being so damn cool), drank a near beer (non-alcoholic) then walked to a chess tournament, which I lost out of in two games....very fast.  Speaking of that..., Romania has some smart chess players.  they were like calling "chess plays" to each other through body signals.  Like in baseball....., it was scary.  They were good. One dude beat me in three moves.....seriously...., these dudes were pros.  I'll be back next Friday to avenge my country (if I'm off).

OK, now lets get back to flying.  Last Sunday I flew..., sort of.  We were stepping to a jet with a known TCAS problem.  TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) is the electronic system that lets other planes know where youu are and lets you know where they are so even if you can't see them with your eyes you can pick them up on TCAS and avoid them.  Now, just that system alone would be bad to have over here because then someone on the ground could buy something like it and point it up and see and the planes above him and we don't want that.  So we have to incript our TCAS so that just people we want can "see" us.  TCAS is on our MEL (Minimum Equipment List) so its a needed item for flight over here. Wheewww... There's your aircraft lesson for the week.  Anyway, we tested ours on the ground and it worked fine.  Just as we rotated we got a TCAS FAIL warning.  Darn!  So we had to get a quick vector and come back home.  That flight lasted .3 (13-17 minutes).

We stepped to a spare jet once back on the ground.  Did all the preflight again and took off.  Everything was fine until 10,000 feet. At which a bright red Master Warning light started flashing in my face.  Now there is a difference between a Master Caution and a Master Warning light.  Warnings are red and cautions are amber.  A red one is a BAD one!  This particular one said L BLEED FAIL which means that the exhaust off of the left engine, which is used to keep our jet pressurized and heated/cooled, which is above 700 degrees Celsius has a leak.  Not good.  We shut our firewall door so that if here was a fire it would either be contained in the engine or out side of it, but theoretically not in both.  So that was good, but now we had no idea where the 700 degree air was going.  No idea.  It could be someplace bad and start a fire, or someplace OK like vented outside.  But since we had no idea we made a quick return back to the field again.  landed safely and I saved the Air Force $20,000,000.00 worth of an airplane.  You're welcome taxpayers.  That was my real EP (Emergency Procedure) so far.  We train and go in simulators all the time just waiting for the day like this and my first one came.  It was fun.  And it was over bad people land which makes it even cooler!  This sortie was a .5 (30-35 minutes).

So I flew two combat sorties in one day which was cool. But at the same time I really didn't do anything but ground two jets for a while.  Oh and I got me and my three crew members pink butts back to mother Earth safely but that's besides the point.  Haha.

If you want a laugh you have to check out my buddies blog.  He just started it, just two posts, but he has a way with words and is so funny explaining things. His blog is called slowflyingelephant.  If you click on the title of his blog on the sentence prior to this one it will link you to it.  It's funny.  It'll give a little more insight as to what's going on over here, living conditions and funny random stuff.

There was a dust "tornado" here this week.  This is not something all that special because they have they all the time.  And you don't want to get caught in one because the dust actually hurts your face and it gets everywhere.  But this one was special.  It was really bug and was sucking objects into it (like cardboard and water bottles).  People were just stopped on the boardwalk watching it so I filmed it.

Dallas is the cutest dog ever

Here is her face when she knows that she is not supposed to be on the couch

I recieved a package from my my mom, sister and a card from Kristen so over all it was a good week.  Now if I can start doing more of what the Air Force spent millions for me to do.....fly.  It'll be alright.  Till next week.