The VooDoo Game A Wedding and the Irish-Italian Parade........Aaauuuggghhh....

So much to talk about since my last update.  Agghhhh....... OK, here it goes.

I've been flying a lot around here lately.

I had a day off of flying so Kristen and I drove down to Biloxi, MS to see some sights and just get out of Meridian for a day.  It was nice.  We went to Keesler AFB which has a brand new HUGE BX which is awesome!  Then we went eat dinner (I can't remember where now) and hit up the mall.  We went into Books a Million and saw a crowd of people.  I figured it was an author of some sorts but since I'm not really a book reader I didn't really care.  But as I got closer and saw who it was I got excited.  It was Mike Huckabee!  Dude..., I voted for him last presidential primaries!  I went and bought his book and got a signature on it.  It was so freekin' sweet!  I was a little upset that people there didn't know who he was.  I didn't think that something like that would bother me but maybe because he was somewhat of an important figurehead in one of our two major political parties not long ago.......uhhhh.....do you ever watch the news?  I was hoping that those same people didn't cast a ballot three years ago. Geeesh...  Also, the dude in front of me told him that he was in the Air Force and the military was behind him.  That stole my thunder for my conversation with him so I just told him...."Good Luck".  Sucks huh?  That's all I could think of though!!! Agghhhh.

Me and my new rank!

On 15th March I became a 1Lt (First Lieutenant)!!!  Yaaayyy!!! Yes, it's cool, but really not a big deal because it's pretty much a guarantee that you get the first two promotions as an officer as long as you don't get a DUI/something horrible within your first two years.  So........I must have been a good boy because I got promoted!  Haha.

On that night Kristen and I went to B-Dubs for a celebratory beer.  We sat at the bar and started playing an interactive trivia question game on the TV monitors.  We were doing pretty well but there was another team that was always neck and neck with us.  It turns out that they were sitting right next to us.  We started talking and I found out that he's a pilot too, but in the Army, and he's a helicopter pilot.  That's pretty cool, so we just kept talking.  Then he asked me what I'm doing the next day.  I told him nothing, and he asked if I wanted to go up in the Chinook.  Hell yea!  So I called him the next morning and made it happen.

We kept the back door open so it was breezy.!

We flew all over Mississippi (at 500')!  It was pretty cool.  It was just the two pilots and then me sitting jump seat in the middle.   It was quite an experience.  The Army is so different the the Air Force.... There is seriously stuff duck taped and zip tied together.  I live in a different world in the Air Force.  Everyone around here was jealous of my story.  Thanks Jaye for making this possible <--Coolest dude in the Army!

Happy St. Patrick's Day......Cheers

I drove back to New Orleans two Fridays ago for Kristin and Murph's wedding (a good family friend).  I was in the wedding also so I was pumped!  I promised the bride that I would shave the stash before the wedding so this Mustache March was short lived.

Wren and I

Mrs. Denys and Becky

Mrs. Denys, Erika, Bridget, Kristen and Emily

Us with a family friend, Brittney 

Us and Sabrina

Aunt Gwen, Aunt Charlet and Mrs. Denys

All the female cousins

Me being cheesy

The original Bones was where it was at.  If yall know me about six years ago you know what I'm talking about!

Me and Michael Lewis (Saints) and his Super Bowl ring!!!

On Friday night Kristen and I went to the VooDoo arena football game.  Kristen used to be on the cheerleading/dance team and I used to be the mascot so it was fun and brought back a lot of good memories of back in the day.  And now Kristen's cousin and family freind are on the VooDoo Dolls dance/cheer team so it was great to see them too.

Kristin and Andrew ice luge!

Saturday was to big day, the wedding.  It was so much fun.  Kristin and Murph are such great people so it was an honor to stand in the wedding.  It stared for me at their house, where the guys all met up and got dressed.  We were all watching basketball eating and drinking.  It was my first time meeting most of the guys because I was a horrible person and couldn't make the bachelor party or the rehearsal dinner.  Haha.  At least I made it to the most important date.  Haha.

1/2 of me, sister and mom

That's the groom in the purple wig.

And that's the bride dancing with someone in a wheelchair...good times.

Mia makes this picture work.

Mia, me, and my mom

Matthew and Mia (Cinco De Mayo 12' baby!!!)

Mrs. Denys, Kristen and Mr. Dennis

I was eating just fruit till I found out there was chocolate for them!!!

The bride (Kristin) and Mr. Pete!

Mama Oddo and me tearin' it up!

Bottoms up

The wedding was really nice.  But the reception was where it was at!  We threw down!  They had a good band and a fun crowd and that's the recipe for dancing!  They also had a funny photo booth that was a blasty blast!  It was nice to see friends and family at the wedding.

Sabrina's soon to be infamous "On top of the float" incident!

Eat your heart out. Haha.

The next morning Kristen, Mrs. Denys and myself went to the Irish-Italian parade.  It's the last parade of the "Mardi Gras" season so it was good that Kristen and I got to go.  There's groups of men that parade with a stack of plastic flowers while dancing to music.  They'll give you a rose for a kiss.  It's always fun.  Of course Kristen got a lot of roses.....but this year here was a female group...., and I got a rose too.  I felt special.  Haha.  Shout out to Amy and Henry who I saw at Cheescake Bistro after the parade, it was nice to see yall!!!

Nice

I've been scheduled to fly every day except one this past week.  And every flight has been a night flight.  Which means I go in around three in the afternoon and don't come home till after midnight.  That leaves Kristen with a lot of free time in Meridian.  She started going to the park close by.  It's really nice there. There's a 1.2 mile walking track around a pond and a larger 4.5 mile walking trail around a larger pond, a large playset, boat launch and a bunch of ducks.  They always have a lot of people exercising and relaxing around the lakes.  Kristen decided to go there and tan.  Haha.  That's my girl.  I love her.  It is beautiful over there and there's been a lot of sun so it's perfect.

My class had a picnic at the lake.  My friend JJ brought a rope to walk on.  Yes, A ROPE......TO WALK ON.  JJ is an avid hiker and amateur rock climber.  He says that this rope walking is what rock climbers do to keep up their balance and stay fit.  So we all gave it a try...... we all should never become rock climber I guess because we sucked!  Haha.  JJ was good though.  I'm just glad that no one got hurt.

Some one in my crew got sick on Friday and can't go see the doctor till Monday so we're basically off till Tuesday!

This is a Beechcraft personal plane for sale there....only $1.3 million

Bad picture, but if you look closely you can see the Blue Angels are flying behind our heads.

 

 

They had an airshow at the Navy air station about thirty minutes from here this weekend.  The Blue Angels were there.  Kristen and I love going to airshows so we went.  It turned out to be a beautiful day!  It was really nice.

B-Dubs!

Forgot to take pictures of the beer......darn.

After you get a promotion it is tradition to pay for a party with the money that your first mo months check will increase. I've been wanting to do this for the past week but with all of the flying and my going out of town it's been difficult.  Plus a few of the guys here have been on my back about it so I wouldn't forget about it.  Well..., I did it.  I got a large amount of beer and a large amount of wings from B-Dubs, a cake and brought them all over to the Drury Inn lobby.  I called up everyone in my class. It was a good time.  Not to crazy, but fun.  It was real chill.  A few people ended up showing up that I didn't invite (and that was a good thing).  I had A LOT of food, like too much!  The beer lasted the perfect amount of time.  And if you know me it wasn't any cheap beer.  Only bottles and only stuff that costs $8 a six pack and up!  Don't laugh....., that's real talk.  I'm a beer connoisseur.  We have about 25 boneless wings lefter over.  I had wings again for lunch today.  I'm sick of them.

Kristen and I went to the lake today to feed the ducks bread.  The ducks were HUGE and RUDE.  It was funny.

Just six flights left till I'm off to the sandbox....Yaaaayyy!!!!

Dallas licking her lips after just eating a mosquito hawk.  Good girl.

Kristen came to visit!

Another beautiful day at Bonita Lakes here in Meridian, MS

 I flew the MC-12 three times this week! It was awesome.

My first ride was on Monday and we flew to Downtown Mobile Airport and did touch and go's.  That was pretty cool because we have some pretty neat stuff on our plane.  It looks just like a civilian plane except we have a cool paint job and a bunch of weird stuff sticking out of it.  It felt like everyone around the airport was looking at us like "what/who is that"? Haha.  It was pretty cool.

So my first flight went well and my IP was really cool too.  It was weird while in the plane because even though I was flying with an instructor, since I have my wings now I feel like I am more friends with the instuctor rather than being evaluated.  Which could be bad I guess, but it really let me relax and fly a good jet.

On Monday night I found out that I wan not on the schedule for Tuesday.  And it just so happened that Mardi Gras was the next day in close by hometown New Orleans!!!  Hummmm.... So what was I to do........ I went of course! 

Nice beads

Mardi Gras was nice to go to.  I missed it last year while in pilot training (That was a funny story all in itself when I showed up on Fat Tuesday in my flight room all depressed last year thinking.....this just isn't right).  But not this year!  Kristen and I met up with our good friends Tori and Mike (who just got done with Meridian) in Metairie, LA (just outside of New Orleans) for a "quiter" Mardi Gras.  It was probably good that we did because the weather was bad.  It rained on us a few times.  But I saw a few old friends and had a good time so that was nice.

Each stack has 10 letters in it!!!!!!!!!!!

I picked up mail that was sent to my house when I went home.  One of my packages was a bunch of letters.  150 letters to be exact.  My uncle asked if his son, my cousin's class could write me while I was deployed.  I said yes of course because I thought that would be cool.  But I got A LOT of letters.  Not only from my cousins class (7th grade), but 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd!  Wow!  It was a little more than I was expecting.  There is no way that I can write all 150 students back individually so I am writing one letter back to the teacher, and she can read it to them all.  I hope that's OK...?

I had my second flight on Thursday where we just did stalls and stuff like that.  I HATE almost stalling an aircraft that has no ejection seat..., it just dosen't seem right.  But I think that might be my last time doing it for real because I'm sure in the C-5 we just do it in the simulator.  Wheeeeeew.  There was a funny moment in the flight though..., the other student had to pee and the toilet wasn't working in the plane (standard).  He asked if we could land, taxi back and he could run in.  Our instructor wasn't to pumped up about it and suddenly I remembered....I have a piddle pack!  Haha.  I have never used a piddle pack before, nor have I ever even seen one until I got here.  And for those who don't know what a piddle pack is it's a small thick plastic bag with some type of crystals in it.  You are supposed to pee in it and the the crystals turn into a gel substance.  It's freekin' sweet!  Haha.  Well, I remembered I had one and offered it up. The other student used it.  Maybe this is a gross story..., I thought it was cool.

Kristen got here on Saturday!  Yaaay!  I didn't fly.  Which was OK because we got to spend some QT together (That's a military acronym for Quality Time) at B-Dub's (That's a civilian acronym for Buffalo Wild Wing's).  Haha.

I flew today again, Sunday.  It was my first semi-real-simulated mission. We got to take the plane up and not worry about doing stalls and falls or a million touch and go's.  We started to learn how to fly it like we'll be flying it in the sand box.  We got paired up with one of the back seaters who I'll be doing the rest of my training with.  He seems cool.  Which is good because we'll be paired up for the next three weeks or so.

After bragging last week about how my mom always calls me on Sunday and keeps my weekly clock updated she she called me this week to tell me that she loved reading that.  One problem..........., she called me on Saturday.  It was so funny.

Tonight Kristen and I went and bought sheets and towels for my deployment (sigh).  It's getting close.  My good friend Mike is leaving tomorrow for the sand box.  He's going to a different location than I am so I won't see him till we both are mission qualified on our own planes living in Dover.  That seems like a lifetime away but in a year from now I'll be back from the sand box, mission qualified in another airplane (C-5 Galaxy) and living in Dover, DE!  Awesome!

Mustache march is in full effect right now.  For those that don't know it's a tradition in the Air Force flying community to grow a mustache for the month of March.  At the end of the month you see how crazy, long, ugly, funny but mostly creepy it looks.  It's really funny to see people walking around here with mustaches on their face.  I'll save a picture of my face for next blog.  I have to shave mine off this coming Saturday for a wedding on Saturday night.  But I'll take a picture to show how awesome it looks.

By the way, my small pox shot is looking a lot better.  No picture of it either this week.  I'll have one next week for yall (Last week I got a few messages from people that the photos were gross anyway).

Where am I?

I'm asking myself that question sometimes when I wake up these days.

Getting fitted for my gas mask

My mom calls me on every Sunday.  That helps me keep my weeks straight. It's funny when she starts every conversation with "So where are you at right now?"

Bye bye stuff

Bye bye truck

This week my class here in Meridian, MS started on Tuesday.  I told my base that but they didn't believe me.  They were going by some official document that said it started on Friday. So on Tuesday afternoon when some of my classmates called me asking me where I was for class and that some of the higher ups were pissed because I was a no show/no call......I got a little scared.  It was to late to go tell them on my base that day so the next morning I went there and told them I was late.  They told me..., "Oh well, just get there tomorrow and be two days late".  Haha.  I called to Meridian and told them that and they said, "no way"!  They want me here "by the end of the day"!  Wha!  It was 10am already.  I had to pack my stuff, check out of the hotel, put all extra clothing in permanent storage, buy new plane tickets, get a ride to the airport (hour and a half away).  Wheeeew.  Needless to say.......exhausting day!

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Also, I got boo koo (a lot) shots!  I am immune from everything.....seriously....., try me!  I am still treating my small pox shot.  It takes 28 days to heal fully.  I'm on day 12 today.

I wear desert tan flight suits now.  They're way cooler than the green ones.  One problem.... all four of mine that I have here are to small!  Haha. I never tried them on.  I just figured that they'd be the same size from one color to the next.  No one told me but....., they don't.  Haha.  I called and they're supposed to be sending me some that fit. That would suck if I had to small uniforms for the next 6-9 months. But seriously..., the tan does look good.

I was supposed to have my first flight yesterday but the weather was crappy.  We need almost perfect weather to do our flying here so even if its cloudy its no good for us.  I'm on the schedule to fly tomorrow again though and the weather looks beautiful so it looks like I'll get up for sure.  It's been sooooooo long since I've flown now (late Sep/ 24 weeks).  Maybe the AF forgot...., I"M A PILOT!!!  That's what I'm paid to do!  Haha.

I'm a little nervous actually.  But I've been studying and getting ready so I'll be alright.  Basically once I start flying I'll fly every other day it seems like so I should be done in 30 days or so. Wow.  That's making this deployment seem really close all of the sudden.  But don't get it twisted......I"M PUMPED UP!  I am so excited to do the damn J-O-B.

Well, next week I should finally have some good AF stories again on this blog.  It's been a while since I could talk about flying related stuff.

Kristen is still in New Orleans hanging out with her parents this week.  And why shouldn't she be....it freekin' Mardi Gras' this Tuesday! I'm really missing her.  We talk everyday but I can't wait to see her again.  Hoping it's sooner than later.  I'm trying to get off on Tuesday so I can go and spend the day in New Orleans......, but the chances are looking slim.

Dallas misses me

Till next week.