The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly...and then other stuff!

THE GOOD:

Candi and I had a very good Thanksgiving. She did an awesome job of cooking and everything was perfect. I know I shouldn't admit it, but I didn't quite have the highest of expectations for a whole meal with many different sides. Needless to say, Candi far exceeded my expectations. I was pretty sure we would only be eating part of the meal since something would go wrong or something would not cook right. You might think that I am selling ourselves (and by "ourselves" I mean Candi cooking and me complaining/judging) short, but I am not and anytime you have four items that were being cooked or made for the first time you tend to think that the law of averages will sabotage at least one of them. But, it didn't and it was one of the best tasting meals ever...the only thing that could have made it better was being with family. Below is a picture of the huge spread with a very nicely decorated table...we had the leaves in to extend the table to accommodate everything.

THE BAD:

A couple of things that are bad around here, but not too bad. One, the temperature dropped thirty degrees this past week when a cold front moved through. I understand it isn't as cold as Idaho right now, but high thirties and forties is cold compared to high seventies five days ago. The other bad thing is that I start my graveyard shift this week. I am starting a new phase of sims and since they go 24/7, I got the midnight time slot. We actually have to show up at 9:00 PM for the prebrief, the sim at 12:00 to 3:00, and then the debrief until 4:00AM. Yeah, that is bad. Luckily it will only be for two and a half to three weeks of this schedule, but now I have to try to find out a sleep schedule that will allow for studying, seeing my wife (when she is awake), and still getting other things done.

THE UGLY:

Three words: Boise State football! Wow, what an embarrassment to football other than pee-wee football....it would have been descent by their standards. I told Candi five minutes into the game that we were in trouble and if something didn't change we would be losing the game. I must be from the same gene pool as Nostradamus because I predicted that one pretty good. I know we can't win them all, but at least make it look like we know what defense is every once in a while. We single-handedly made the Hawaii punter lose his scholarship because we showed that he isn't needed on their team. Anyway, enough of me crying because grown men in tight pants rasslin' with each other didn't work out like I wanted. However, before I made my household burn all the BSU gear, we did get a family photo showing our support. Notice the game on the TV is in the introductions and I still could muster a smile.

THE OTHER:

In other news, there was great jubilation in Arkansas when their team beat the number one team in all of college football, LSU. When they won in the fourth overtime, I heard fireworks going off in our neighborhood.

Candi and I saw a deer run through our neighbor's yard, into the subdivision park, and then finally into the woods next to our subdivision. It made this prestigious blog because it was the highlight of Candi's week and now she stands by the front window looking out for the next once in a life time moment.

I rode my dirtbike over the break and even found a few friends to play with.

Finally, we are still trying to find a good church in the area and we have been researching all the churches in the area. If you are familiar with the South, you know that we have our work cut out for us because there are more churches than there are people to go to them. If you strike out a church with the word Baptist embedded in its name (they have to get creative not to use the same name as the other twenty Baptists on the same street) you can at least get it down to a manageable number. Anyway, in our research and looking at websites, we came across this church called Open Door Community Church just down the road. Here is a picture of their pastor:

If you don't see anything wrong with the picture...well, I can't help you, but their Genesis has the Adam and Steve version. If you would like to check this out and think I am making it up: http://www.sherwoodopendoor.org/

Well, that is enough for now and no, we didn't go and check it out even though I have a couple of pink shirts and some of you question my fashionable coat (Karl, Brandon, Kevin, and Rusty). I will talk at you all next week.

Slower Week

Not a lot to report about this last week. I had a couple of tests and cheated enough to get passing scores. The tests can be hard because they make us stay inside the lines on the coloring problems, but I think I figured it out with the smaller crayons. We have started our sims now, but we don't get to the full motion ones until after the Thanksgiving break. The full motion sims are so state-of-the-art that this time next year the pilots will have their initial qualification to fly solely on flying the sim. Basically, you will be qualified to fly an aircraft that you have never "actually" flown.

Over the past weekend we babysat for some friends. Candi and I are trying to figure out if we want to add to our family and our friends let us borrow their little one to see if it is really what we want at this time in our lives.

She was a good "kid," but we decided that one dog was enough. Although, Peaches (our free loading roommate) finally got some lovin' from a female. In his defense, he wasn't completely naked under the covers. I got up in the morning to find that Remy had finally found a soft bed.

I found a place to ride my dirtbike this weekend. A local here has 500+ acres that he has fixed up with a motocross track, trail riding, mud drags, flat drags, and any other thing the rednecks around here can come up with. He was a real nice guy that talked my ear off since I was the only one out there for a few hours (I actually got up early on my day off). Just proof that I did get up early and no one was there.I also found out that he has "one of those black boys" working for him. I guess we are in the South. The scenery was real nice and he had a 5 mile loop for trail riding through the woods and up and down hills that was one of the most technical trails I have ever traversed.

Here are some pictures of the riding area with the last one being of some of the local rednecks that race their four-wheelers up and down a little dirt strip for bragging rights of who has the fastest 4X4, lower geared, winch equipped, four-wheeler. BIG WHOOPDY DO! The funniest part is that they also do it in a big trench filled with water (I didn't get a picture unfortunately) and every few passes ends with one of the four-wheelers having to be lifted with a backhoe out of the mud hole.

Candi has been putting in more hours lately, but has been finding time to go to the base gym. One of my classmates lets his wife out of the house every once in awhile, so Candi has a partner to take some of the workout classes that they have to offer. She is gimping around like an old lady after a hard workout this past week, but then again she is old...compared to my young 30 year old life.

Well, this week will be a short week and I will let you know how having the house to ourselves goes and if we come close to burning it down with our cooking. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

More Learning

I would like to say I have studied enough and learned enough to make it through this course without much thought...but I am a retard. No, I do have the same number of "x" and "y" chromosomes, which doesn't appear to be the normal in rural Arkansas. But, the systems of the C-130 are quite a bit more complicated than the other aircraft I have flown. Not only are there bigger systems and more systems, but they are older and more mechanically complicated. The academics are going well, despite the inadequate ratio of brain space to information needing to be retained. The instructors are really great teachers, but sometimes they forget that we have had zero time in this airframe and most of them have well over 5,000 hours.

We got to go to the flight line for the first time this week. It was an awesome experience, but at the same time humbling. The external fuel tank (not one of the four main tanks or two auxiliary tanks) that is carried under the wing is bigger than the T-6 I was flying this time last year. We take off with over 30 tons of fuel...yes, you heard right...almost 62,000 pounds of get-there juice.

C-130s taxiing here at "The Rock" (as it is affectionately called)

Over the weekend, Candi and I set out to see the sites of the state where the state bird is a mosquito and the state "outfit" is overalls. The leaves started changing colors last week and this weekend was the best time to do a drive-by viewing.

We went down to Hot Springs, which is a hot spot for tourism during the warmer months, and then up Scenic Highway 7 and over to Petit Jean State Park and then back home. It was an absolutely beautiful trip. Don't think that just because I am thirty and old that I started using adjectives and acting like an old person that lives for nature's beauty, but the sites were some of the best I have ever seen. Do you agree?

We went through a lot of small towns and rural areas. We did find that the sleeve monster must live in these parts because a lot of local folk were missing sleeves. It was the first day of hunting season down here, so that kind of made us a little weary of getting out of our vehicle. But, in a brilliant move, I had Candi wear a tiara made of large sticks and no one even as much as shot at me...Candi however suffered some minor bruising and bleeding from multiple sleeveless, camo-overalled, gender-neutral looking people shooting at her. Here are a few more pics.

My beautiful wife with an ugly local...at least he has sleeves

A hard to see waterfall from several hundred yards away that "falls" out of sight

Other than that, we will be enjoying the extended weekend...even though the Razorbacks lost. The whole state goes into mourning after a football team loss. No matter where you go there are people talking about the games. I say people because the women around here are just as into the football thing as men. I have never seen the like of it, but women will be talking to other women in the grocery store (I saw it AGAIN first hand this weekend) about how the passing attack needs to include more underneath short routes. I am a man and a football player and I don't even talk like that! WOW!

Well, a short week this week and then the next two weeks are short as well. You got to love being in the military, outside of UPT. We will be staying here for Turkey Day and we are going to bake our second turkey. We will have to get a smaller one though, our microwave isn't that big.

P.S. I had to clean up a mess this past week because I found out the hard way that you don't put Mr. Bubbles in a bathtub with jets.

And I Am Officially OLD

This week was horrible because I put a foot in the grave by turning thirty years old. All of my life I have always thought people who were thirty and over were old...so, now I am old. It was the first birthday that I didn't actually want and that should be a shocker to those of you that know how much I like getting presents, attention, and being pampered for a day. But, I would have forgone all of that if I could have had twenty-nine repeated.

As for the birthday, we went out to eat, I opened presents, and then I studied! What a way to spend a birthday...reading! That is like getting a present of a hammer with a note to bang my hand with it, not something I really wanted to do. But, being the ultimate professional pilot, I studied so that the terrorists will not win this war.

Thank you to all of those who sent cards, presents, and e-mails. Thanks to my wife, I got a lot of e-mails from friends back home that wouldn't have remembered me without her.

Classes have been going well. I passed our first test, but I still feel like I don't have a clue. The C-130 is so much more complicated than the T-44 that at times it seems overwhelming. At least I will have years to learn every little detail instead of weeks.

Other than the reason I am here in the land of overall wearers, not a lot going on. Candi and I went on Saturday to Pinnacle Mountain State Park which was recommended to us by several people. It was absolutely beautiful. Candi didn't tell me that we would be hiking straight up rock faces, but we made it and even the dog was able to scramble up the rocks. We are going up to the Ozarks next week to see all of the fall colors, but some of the trees around here have started turning colors. Here are some views that we were able to capture with my excellent finger painting skills:

Maumelle Lake from the top of Pinnacle Mountain

Start of the Ouachita Mountains

Candi and a tired dog...and a few trees (that is all there is in Arkansas)

Arkansas River and trees

The top of Pinnacle Mountain with the Arkansas River in the background

Notice any similarities from above? Found this pic on-line of one of our C-130s flying by the same place...something to look forward to!

Thanks again to all of those who helped make by horrible birthday descent. Next week please check the blog to see if a yankee can navigate through rural Arkansas and still live to blog about it.