Sick Of Flying

Yeah, you heard me, I am sick of flying...or maybe it is sick while flying. I was back to my old tricks on Thursday! I threw up multiple times on the second low level route on Thursday's flight. It had been since October of 2006 since I had actively gotten sick while flying and I thought I was over that period, but my body felt like kicking it old school and vomit for old times sake. I started to feel sick on the first route (about an hour) and then on the second one it really hit me. After I had done my business, I felt better and the IP said that we could press on with the third and final route. But, then about five miles from the runway on the way back to start the third route, I decided that having my face in a barf bag was something I would like to do again. At this point the IP said he had literally seen enough and was calling it a day. To my credit, the student engineer and loadmaster both tossed their cookies before me. As is the policy in the Air Force, I had to go to the flight doctor and start that whole process again. If you are unfamiliar with that process, look back at my October 2006 (Week 9) blog...not a fun day. Fortunately, they are giving me one more free-bee before I have to start with the chair and/or medications.

Other than making my insides become outsides, it was fun finally getting to fly low-levels in the real aircraft. It is a lot busier than in the simulators because you have all the outside radio calls of other aircraft, not to mention chatter within the formation. Also the charts that we have depict land where there is water now. Yes, most of the great state of Arkansas is under water and we are getting more rain the next few days. There is water every where and the fat clay (soil engineer speak) soil is already saturated and it causes for a lot of standing water.

When I wasn't flying or sitting through ground training, I was baby sitting my mother. Actually, Candi helped out with that task because taking care of my mother isn't a one person job. No, we had a good time while she was here and we even managed to corrupt her a bit...yes, my mother went to the dark side and bowled for the first time in her life. I suspect she will soon be a beer swilling, bowling shirt wearing, regular at Thursday night leagues.

When we weren't bowling, we went toured the local area, went to Memphis, and Candi took her to Hot Springs . The trip to Memphis was nice and we got to take a river boat ride as well as getting to see Graceland.

I got to see that some Presleys actually have or had money. Graceland was very interesting with a lot of things to see of one of my close family members. Here is my beautiful wife in front of old Els (us close family members call Elvis, Els) house.

I found out why I have to have so many clothes...it is genetic. I inherited it. Elvis had a new suit each performance. You all should quit questioning my hetero card because of my clothes and since at least I don't wear jump suits that are Beed-dazzled with shinny things. Here is proof that it is in the gene pool.

The town of Memphis was really clean and cool. It had a ballpark right downtown and lots of things to do and see. Here is a picture of the historic Beale Street.

In other news, I want to say congrats to a couple of people. First, my buddy John Strube (Sweetpea) got a sweet deal in getting to go to Ohio and do his F-16 training with a guard unit...GO GUARD. Holla back big boy! The other person is one of the non-rent paying people that live at our house...Josh Nelson. He is one ride away from completing his C-130 experience here in LR and should be on his way home to Minnesota by Tuesday...the weather permitting. Thanks for the memories and letting me beat you at golf.

Finally, I want to leave you with one last picture of Carl The Caterpillar. You see tomorrow is the last day of mustache March and Carl will go back into hibernation after one last victory lap. What a glorious run Carl had, but all great things must come to an end.

Academics Are Over

A sad chapter to this training has ended. I have turned the page in this book called life and moved to the next chapter after the academics/simulator chapter. Ok, enough of this book thing because I don't know anything about that subject. I do know that we crammed two weeks of activities into one week and ended a week early. All that means is that we are on to the flight line a week early, which won't be bad if my mother wasn't here. We had three final SKE simulators and a end of course test this past week to usher out this phase. Now we will do it for real in the actual airplane. I am looking forward to it, but I know it is a lot of work and long days...that usually start around 4:30 in the AM...YIKES!

As I mentioned earlier, my mother is in town. She is on spring break and we were looking forward to a bunch of activities with the time off that we were suppose to get...then the training people changed their minds. Now, we will probably have something to do everyday, but we won't know our schedule until the afternoon before and that makes it pretty tough to plan around. We wanted to go to Hot Springs, Memphis, and Eureka Springs, but we will have to see if the schedule will permit me to go along.

We all went to church on Easter and learned that the day was not just about bunnies and eggs. Afterwards we took a picture to show how pretty we are...

The picture left to right is: my mother (Judene), me (Jeremy), my mustache (Carl the Caterpillar), our dog (Zoe), and my wife (Candi). Zoe forgot her Easter dress and showed up naked for the photo shoot.

Other than that, not much more to say! I give up on making you all leave me comments. My only hope is that you give me a little more attention when I get home or I will have to find all new friends...and this time I will pick good ones.

Almost Done With Academics

First, congrats to the Broncos for making the "dance." I am sure the majority of the team reads this blog, so way to go boys. Georgia had a more difficult road, but they are in as well, which should make Peaches happy. Neither team look to have very high odds in Vegas of winning the tournament, but if you like long shots and are into gambling...

This week saw the end of the NVG (night vision goggles) training and on to SKE (station keeping equipment). As I mentioned earlier, SKE is basically allowing us to fly in a formation without being able to see each other. It is not ideal, but the Army guys don't always want to wait until nice weather to get their bullets and food. It is a lot more work, both to fly and to prepare for because so much of it is procedure. But, if you have another Herc next to you that neither of you can see, you want them to do everything procedurally and not just "winging it!" This upcoming week we will have our final three sims (that will be focusing on SKE) and our end of course test. After that, it is on to the flight line for the final 18 flights before being done with the whole thing...I'm so excited!

Now to those who I offended last week. If you haven't guessed, I like to have fun and joke around. I was only joking when I said that you are an inbred, no good for nothing, perv if you have a lip beard. I apologize to those who felt like I was a bit harsh...but seriously, don't you have thick skin? You have made it through life with a caterpillar on your lip and you didn't get slack for it before now? Anyway, I am sorry and to show my sympathy, here is my attempt to gain acceptance...

...and Candi doesn't think it helps my looks! I thought the more I covered up, the better I looked!

Candi and I are trying to take advantage of our geographic location before it changes again by experiencing the sites of the South. We visited Branson, Missouri this weekend and got in touch with our hillbilly roots...literally! The oldest show in Branson is the Presleys' Country Jubilee.

For those of you not familiar with Branson, just think of it as Las Vegas and substitute the sound of slot machines for banjos and guitars. It has the shows of Vegas with the family environment of Chucky Cheese. It was a good time and we got to see several shows that were really good. We also got to see the biggest Titanic museum in the world! I was thrilled to go to this one...

Not to mention we got to hear some ho-down country and hillbilly music along side a bunch of senior citizens. The demographic was quite a bit older than us, but then again it isn't the peak of the tourism season yet. One of the highlights (at least for me) was Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. It was like the Tournament of Kings (Las Vegas) show where you are served food that you have to eat with your hands while you are entertained by people on animals inside a large arena. It was a "Wild West" theme and had lots of horse riding and equestrian tricks (big word for me). They also had pig races, ostrich races with people riding them, and chicken chasing. But, back to the horse riding. Candi and I were selected out of the crowd to ride horses in a race...the joke (which we were told of before hand) was that instead of real horses, they gave us stick horses. Well, if you will look at my blog profile...I am a veteran jockey. It paid off and we won medals for our side of the stadium by finishing first in running around barrels in the arena. Candi nearly lost her slip-on shoes in the dirt, but she managed to keep them on and keep up with me...of course, if they would have fallen off I would have drug her across the finish line to keep from losing to the other team. Here is the hardware:

While in Branson, we visited the outlet malls, where, of couse, I bought another pair of shoes. These I actually needed though (softball cleats). Even though I am not playing now, I plan on playing when I get home to Boise. Once again, I outshopped Candi:)

Well, I have to finally clean the house, kick out the girlfriends, and quit doing the drugs for a while because my mother is coming to visit. She was planning on Cabo with the college party crowd for spring break, but I think I talked some sense into her and she will see us instead. We plan to show her the Little Rock sights, as well as some other AR hot spots and Memphis during her week-long stay. Should be fun...just hope I don't have too many flights to work around!

Armageddon Is Upon Us...The End Is Now

PANIC EVERYONE, THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE!!!!!!!!! Well, that is at least what the fine people of Arkansas thought because there was snow in the forecast! I am not making this up for a better read, these are the facts according to one good looking guy. The weather guessers went on the devil box telling the locals to expect up to 12'' of snow in a couple of days and people would have thought they said that the world had come to an end. Wal-Mart and the other grocers had bare shelves, people were shutting themselves in with generators, and everybody was cancelling their appointments for the next few days. It was 50 degrees and partly cloudy when I got the phone call that my sim for the next day had been cancelled due to weather. I expected people to be on the street corners with cardboard signs stating, "Repent, the end is near," but I think they were too busy freaking out to come up with that solid of a plan.

Then the snow came! It snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed and piled up, just take a look!

Yep, that is almost an inch and a half. The few that braved this winter disaster, went about 30 miles an hour on an almost wet 55 mile per hour freeway. The snow never stuck to the roads, but that didn't stop Arkansas motorists from driving slightly faster than idle and the road departments from dumping tons of sand onto non-slick roads making it worse for drivers that didn't have the foresight to have sand tires put on. Store owners closed up shop due to the idea of snow, although the majority were the smaller stores. The base gave us a snow day, but I still went to the gym and did all the normal stuff that you can do when it only snows a little bit. However, the locals weren't so convinced. The Bible states to clothe yourselves with patience (along with other things), but if you would have had to co-habitate with Arkansans when it snowed...you would be naked.

With the rain in the early part of the week and the snow in the latter, I made a historic investment...a $6 Tiger Woods Golf game for my X-Box. One of the best ideas, except I haven't gotten to bed before 1 a.m. since the purchase. It has turned into a team thing...

...and even Candi is addicted to it...ok, she plays in order to get some time with me.

The pandemonium was over by Friday night and by Sunday it was sunny and in the high sixties. We took advantage of the nice weather and hiked back up Pinnacle Mountain after church with some buddies from the base. If you want to see pictures...go back to my October something blog, it was prettier then. We did some geo-caching and it was pretty fun. Basically, you go online and find where hidden treasures are stashed and then, with the help of a GPS unit, you find them. They are usually little boxes or canisters with trinkets in them. Generally you deposit something and sometimes take something out in order to put it in the next one you find. There are log books so you can see everyone who has been there. We ended up finding one that is the "state treasure" and you get a number and after collecting all 50 you get something, maybe a pat on the back? I am not that into it, but the guys we were with were, and it made for an interesting hiking trip.

In disturbing news (according to Candi) it is now MUSTACHE MARCH! The mustache is the third worst hair idea behind the mullet and the rat tail, but I am sporting one! It is so hideous that on the weekends I am letting my beard grow out just to make it blend in a bit better. The halls and cockpits are filled with dudes (and some females who must think every month is March) wearing the upper lip fungus with pride. Most can't grow one and it is reminiscent of high school boys in their pursuit of manliness. Stay riveted to your word boxes (computers for the lay person) for the unveiling next week of my feeble attempt at the pervert look. The last few statements were only an opinion and in no way reflect the feelings of the entire Presley family. If you were offended in any way...you should shave yours off!

I had a few more sims this past week that were uneventful at best. I am making up my Friday sim tomorrow night and then I am done with Phase II. The next and final phase is...stay with me...Phase III! How many didn't see that one coming around the bend? In Phase III you learn how to fly in formation using radar in case of flying in bad weather. Basically flying next to another aircraft with four spinning airplane blenders, all the while without actually seeing that aircraft. "Safety First" is lost with this concept. You learn not to bump into the blips on the radar and then all drop your cargo in the same spot. Apparently it isn't used that much, but we still need to know how to fly that way.

Finally, I have two items. One is a "thank you" to the five people that were so brave to stick your neck out and say that you associated with me by reading my blog. Nice to see it isn't all for not. And lastly, I told you that Candi cut her hair last week. Here is a picture of my beautiful wife's look with a five inches cut off...and I just got an idea for enhancing the growth of my mustache...

Shame On All Of You

You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves for your lack of comments on this blog in the last couple of months. I even had what I thought was a clever ending and nothing. I don't skip class just to come up with a good script for my health. If it wasn't for a guy I haven't seen in ten plus years and an occasional comment from my great aunt, I would have nothing! Thanks Travis for making me feel as if at least one person reads it and for the rest of you, well thanks for your undying support and great friendship...

Now that I have dried my eyes, I can tell you about this past week. It was a very hectic week for a guy that has not worked a full week in several weeks. I had something every day, can you believe it? I should get overtime or something...

I had academics for a few days and then a few sims. I got shot at and had to avoid every kind of munitions that you could think that someone would lob at you and even some that you probably didn't even know existed. Fortunately I didn't get shot down, but even if I had got shot down I would still have full function of my extremities and wouldn't be living in Akmed's cave...remember it is a simulator. We also flew a formation low level and a night flight on NVGs (night vision goggles). The formation flight wasn't too bad, it is kind of like playing follow the leader at 500 feet above the ground. The NVGs are pretty awesome. It is almost like daylight with those things on, only minus one little thing...DEPTH PERCEPTION! It is pretty amazing what taking away the third dimension can do to you. I had a few landings that integrated my underwear into the upholstery of the seat. We have to rely on altitude calls from our navigator and when they forget to tell you that you are ten feet off the ground and you are still trucking down, it provides for a very abrupt stop to your vertical movement and can even reverse your vertical movement...what the non-aviator type would call a big bounce. This upcoming week we are flying an NVG flight out of Kandahar, Afghanistan as well as a few more NVG sims and academics. It should be pretty fun except the academics, which their fun factor rates right up there with root canals and baseball bats to the head.

In other news, people at my civilian job finally did something. Yes, it looks as if they finally learned how to be productive, although their output has nothing to do with their actual products and services. As you can see by the pictures below, even engineers and dirt lovers THINK they are funny. I would wear it daily, but in accordance with Air Force regulations I will have to refrain since it has not been approved by a squadron commander.

My question to you (I know you won't answer because you won't leave a comment) is if I really do have a peanut shaped head like the patch shows? According to the patch, if I had a top hat and a monocle I would look just like Mr. Peanut. I might not be the best looking guy in the world (although my name has to be considered in the top ten), but I think I should get a bit more credit than that...COME ON! Thanks to Jon, Rusty, Karl, and the other environmental staff (that are obviously having a slow winter) for their efforts. It looks great! The only question is why in the world would I want to go back to this type of childish hazing in a couple months? I sure never did anything to encourage this type of behavior!

I guess pilots are like fairies, we both have wings. Please don't tell any of my brethren that I said that or I will be stripped of my wings. C-YA