Recap...

Yeah it's been a while, I've been busy. Busy enjoying myself actually.

The flight home was relatively uneventful, other than the fact I had to leave by 4am for the 6am flight... Also got robbed blind for extended parking at the airport because the economy lot was full, but oh well. It seems the plots that caused massive security at LAX were foiled along the way at some point, for other than the rain there were no mishaps on that end. All in all I awoke about 1:30am Pacific time and finally walked in my front door about 10:30. I was already tired, but alas it was a full house and Christmas had just begun.

Had the usual good time in the living room, with my sister's fiance and my brother's girlfriend making it a group of seven rather than the usual five. The typical hilarity ensued, which was captured in quadruplicate thanks to new digital cameras for my mother and sister to go along with my father's and mine. Great fun had by all, and eventually much chocolate was eaten and many insults were tossed.

Finally got an MP3 player for running, although it appears that the wireless earpiece I was hoping for doesn't actually exist. It would be a really cool James Bond type of product, being able to just have the mp3 player in my pocket or on my arm and have a wireless little thing in my ear, but alas. Got all sorts of interesting books and whatnot, which should keep me busy for the couple weeks before I'm off to ASBC.

Was able to meet up with a bunch of people during the few days I've been here, which is always good for the soul I suppose. Saw one friend I had missed out on seeing my last time to Santa Barbara, so it had been quite some time. That had me more cheerful than usual, even though misestimating the travel time to get down into that general area caused us to miss the movie time we were aiming for. Allowed more time for chatter though, which I never complain about.

Yesterday was dedicated to the art of snowboarding, which is always a good time. Although I can still make my ankle hurt if I move it a certain way, it wasn't noticable on the slopes. There was more snow on the ground than any previous trip, so the dreaded patches of ice were much fewer and far between. I took on the roll of teacher for the first few hours and managed to get one person from the stage of not being able to stand up to being able to heel edge and skid all the way down, and the other person from that stage to being able to do toe edge and sometimes string them together. Quite a lot of progress, and in the meantime I managed to not do anything retarded. Then while they all ate lunch I went over to some of the more difficult slopes, since we'd gotten on the mountain much later than planned thanks to me reading the wrong opening time and then an hour long rental line. We finally made it onto the mountain at like 10:30, and I highly recommend showing up at like 7 for a 7:30 opening in Big Bear in the future. Anyway, had some fun going fast for a while, then right before the lift managed to eat it pretty hard in a flat patch, which is always the most difficult section for me. I'm fine with most steep slopes, the steeper the better to a certain point, but give me a flat section and I'll find a way to catch an edge and go flying. I later did a nice somersault off the top of a lip (unintentionally) but other than that it was a mishap free day. Sore wrist and sore ass are really the only casualties, other than the usual sore muscles pretty much everywhere. Ended up being quite a long day as we didn't leave until around 6, then raided Denny's for all sorts of unhealthy food (I didn't eat lunch I was allowed) and eventually made the three hour trip or so home due to routing through Glendale to drop someone off. Finally hit it around midnight and tried to stack up some sleep, as we all know where I'll be tomorrow.

Speaking of which, all you stalkers and internet admirers, as well as prison inmates in Nebraska (well assuming you break out), I'll be at Disneyland tomorrow doing the usual New Years Eve thing. You could probably read past years' posts for info. Rumor has it that at Noon I'll be at the Walt Disney and Mickey statue in the center of Disneyland in front of the castle. Then of course for the big event at Midnight I'll be in New Orleans square at the edge of the bridge above Pirates of the Caribbean. Too bad I'm already hoarse from yelling so much encouragement yesterday, as busting out the countdown at the top of one's lungs is always great fun. So yeah, feel free to come say hi, I guarantee I'll say hi back. Well, potentially once I pick myself up from having keeled over.

La Dee Dah...

Another few days without being able to run or do anything significant, another boring post. Luckily I'm just about there and should be able to get off my ass just in time to fly home and do some fun things. Just quite irritating to be at least a week out of shape and have to get back into it. Rule #1, don't get injured. Rule #2, I have about a million rules and I label them all as Rule #1.

So I decided to go ahead and finish up the Myst series with Exile. Having completed it, I'd really like to say it's my favorite of the bunch. Unfortunately that's probably biased, because it's the most recent. I remember thinking the original Myst and Riven especially were incredibly awesome when they first came out. This one works out to about ten hours. And yes, I caved. I think it was twice I used the devil that is the walkthrough, and in both cases I'd spent about an hour wandering around trying to figure it out. The great thing about this game when compared with Riven is that solutions to problems are very near the problems themselves. When you flip a switch or whatnot you can generally tell what it did, without having to go wandering all over the map to various places you were stuck on seeing if whatever you did helped any of those problems. For those who like logic in general, I really have to plug Amateria. Quick synopsis before I get to that, you start off in one age, and can link to any of three ages at that point, in random order. The ages don't connect, and you don't need information from one of the three to do another of the three or anything like that. So if you get bored and stuck on one you can do another, but will eventually have to go back and puzzle through the one you're stuck on. Only once you've completed all three do you link to the final age and "piece it all together" as they say. I was unaware of this concept, so the two times I used the walkthrough were because I figured the answer must be in some other age and I'd missed it. Of course it wasn't, but I didn't really get that DUH feeling, because the answers were difficult as expected. Anyway back to Amateria, everything in this age is logic based, and at the end it all comes together in an amazing sequence that makes puzzling through the different aspects all totally worth it. Reminds me of my days with contraptions in the backyard, but you'd have to see old home videos to understand that. Voltaic also has a pretty sweet visual ending, so as a whole the results of your troubles are quite gratifying. The acting by the bad guy is quite good, and there are about a dozen possible endings, one of which has him rush you with some sort of hammer and knock you dead, which had me backing away from the screen in a hurry. Overall the puzzles are not as difficult as Riven, mainly because like I said they are solvable just based on what's in the general area for the most part. That's not to say they're easy, some do take a while, but they don't require copius notes throughout the game or anything.

Upon finishing I was quite sad the series was over, but then when watching the "Making Of" movies that came with the games (which you shouldn't watch until afterwards if you don't want spoilers) I saw that a new game called Uru, Ages Beyond Myst had just come out. So maybe there's some future play after all. I should mention Exile was the first game in the series to let you look 360 degrees in any direction at every turn, rather than just at a snapshot facing forward. This added to the photorealism as if you were really there, and created some cool effects. In Uru you actually can wandering around like your typical action game, from a third person or first person perspective, so it should be interesting to see how that changes things.

K done with computer game talk. In other news I leave at 6am on Christmas morning to go home, which means like a 4am arrival or something ridiculous to the airport. Probably going to extended park for two dollars a day at this place I got referred to at the airport to save the fifty bucks or something a round trip taxi would cost. Should be interesting to see what kinds of people are flying on Christmas morning. Plans call for family stuff that day, then a snowboarding trip on either the 29th or 30th depending on weather if it makes a difference, then the usual Disneyland extravaganza the 31st, then leaving again around 3pm out of LAX on the 1st and showing up back here late. Somewhere in between on the 26th-28th or 29th and so forth I'll be trying to fit in various excursions with people I won't be seeing again for quite a while, so feel free to call the cell if interested.

Swelling...

Is kind of a cool thing. I remember when I got a massive bump on my head from racquetball the night before my flight physical that I spent a lot of time touching it and going ooooh that's neat. Yeah so yesterday I was stupid enough to play football (two hand touch mind you) for pc with my section... On some random play I got a pass and proceeded to juke my way diagonally across the field doing the same move on like six guys in a row, eventually juking my own ankle out of its socket or something. It didn't really hurt when it happened, but by the time I got home it was beginning to be annoying. It kept me up most of last night because I couldn't find a position under the blanket that didn't make it bend and hurt, and by this morning was nice and swollen. Had to cancel both my flights today, quite annoying. Was beautiful weather too, it had better be that way the week I get back when I have to do all three flights I have left or I'll be real bitter.

So what's a guy to do when he can't even walk to the fridge without hopping? Well a computer game or two is always good. Over the past few days I'd been working on one of two games I'd actually gone out and bought to entertain me for the next few weeks before I head off to ASBC, and as predicted Black and White Deluxe ate up a decent chunk of time. I got to the last level which is especially difficult and it was getting old though (this is after somewhere around twelve hours of gameplay) so I decided to move on to something fresh until I had another craving that made me go out and buy the thing in the first place (the downloaded copy isn't patchable, and the bugs in the game without the patch make it basically unplayable. The Myst trilogy was the other game in the back, with both of them only costing 10-15 bucks. My bill at most restaurants is bigger than that. I'll give you the low-down on Black and White when I finish it, but let me say my piece about Myst and its successors. For those who like puzzles, logic, or thinking in general, you really need to install these games. There is a reason that for a while this was the greatest selling PC game of all time. To date the series has sold ten million copies. TEN MILLION. Imagine what small percentage of the population are gamers, and you have to figure a huge percentage played at some point. I'd truly forgotten how much fun it is. There are two feelings that will become familiar to those that dive into the world the developers created. The feeling of having utterly and completely stuck and having no idea what to do. This is the most frustrating thing in the world. Unfortunately, it used to be a lot more so. Before Google, or the devil as I call it when it is used in reference to the term "walkthrough." A walkthrough is a step by step solution of an entire game that someone has posted on the web so anyone who is stuck can immediately go and find the solution and move on. If you're going to try any of these games, I recommend repeating the phrase "walkthroughs are the devil" repeatedly. No matter how stuck you are. This is important for two reasons. First of all, when you realize what little thing you missed, or how simple the solution really was, you will feel like the world's biggest idiot. You can try to pretend like you would have figured it out eventually, but admit it, you caved. Second, the feeling of actually solving a puzzle, and in the case of some more complex ones watching it all come together, is one of true satisfaction. I tell you I almost feel as good solving a major problem as I do winning a jackpot. Almost. Then again you don't get paid to play computer games. Then again I do.

If you don't get stuck, Myst is only about 5-6 hours or so. In reality, it might be something like double that. Although I'd never even beaten the game prior (I'd got stuck when it first came out in 93, before walkthroughs) I had the advantage of having the memory of how to solve many of the puzzles. Thus about 2/3 of the game went through very quickly. Speaking of quick, since the game is so old, and modern computers are so fast, the game runs MUCH faster than previously. Literally split second load times for each frame, you can migrate around islands in seconds. Funnier still is the fact it only takes 2mb of hard drive space. As a good comparison as games travel through time, Riven takes up what at the time was a tremendous 85mb, or forty times the space of Myst. Then you have the more recent Exile, which takes up an astounding 2.1 gigs, or 2100mb or so. Cha-ching. Anyway back to the games, as a whole, the difficulty of the puzzles of Myst are not very difficult. I didn't use a walkthrough then, and I didn't use one this time either. Now if you move to the next title in the series called Riven, you're taking a big step. First of all I recommend playing them in order if you care that much, because the storylines make a lot more sense that way, kind of like a movie series. Second, the puzzles in Riven are much more difficult. Individual puzzles are still very doable, but there are a few greatly complex ones that require applying a whole bunch of stuff you've learned along the way to one conundrum. When I first played this game when it came out (I bought it, but later let someone borrow it and they never gave it back, the bastards) I made it a pretty good distance with no walkthrough, I'd say about halfway. Then I caved and used it for what turned out to be the most difficult quagmire, then for some reason stopped and never finished the game. This time around obviously getting back to that point was relatively easy, although I only really remembered premonitions about different parts of the game. There are really a couple parts that are just ridiculously fiendish. You'd literally just have to click all over the screen at times to randomly accidentally flip some hidden switch or push some hidden button. The vastness of the world makes it impossible to know where you should be doing this, as if you're stuck on one island logically it will seem like something somewhere else will unlock that door, or open that hatch, or whatever, when in reality the answer is right in front of you and wandering around everywhere else gains you nothing.

Riven as a whole is more like ten hours if you have an unfair advantage of previously playing parts of it like I had, and I'm guessing at least twenty or thirty otherwise. Definitely one of the longer games out there, and more difficult. I'd really seriously like to watch someone else play it. Someone of high intelligence especially. Other than the previously mentioned fiendishly difficult parts, there's really no reason someone smart shouldn't be able to beat this game. It's just interesting to see what kinds of things get different kinds of people stuck. What is completely obvious to me seems impossible to someone else. It's kind of like that who looks up when they walk into a closet thing. Some people check their back seats every time they get in a car, some people would carry around an alligator back there for days before noticing. Being observant helps tremendously in these games, you might walk down a hall or path like twelve times before finally spotting what you needed to. I seriously recommend it to anyone smart enough to enjoy the challenge. If you want hints ask me, it's much more satisfying to receive a bump in the right direction and come to the right conclusion yourself eventually than just reading it in plain text and going OH DUH.

So yes, get your hands on a copy of this game if you like a challenge. It's simple, takes five seconds to learn how to play, and can provide hours of entertainment. Did I mention the worlds, Riven's in particular, are asbolutely beautiful? I'm seriously looking for some of the stills to use as desktops. They truly look like what a fantasy world would be, to the point you pretty much feel like you're there. I won't give away any details, but at one point I literally flinched in a big way and started away from the screen due to an event that occurred. Pretty rare that you see that in a game that doesn't involve grenades at point blank range.

Ah, the clock strikes midnight, guess it's time for sleep. Tomorrow, I'll try out the third installment in the series, Exile. Never played it, and I'll be darned if I'm not going to beat it without using a walkthrough. Hm triple negative there. Think it made sense. Should be interesting to see how long it actually takes... This whole can't walk thing is rough I tell ya.

A Different View of the World...

Yesterday was by far my favorite day flying thus far in NIFT. The obvious explanation is due to a couple things. The wind for the first time wasn't a big deal, so the vast majority of the ride was smooth as silk. The other thing was the day was absolutely beautiful, and you could see for fifty miles in any direction. Luckily we happened to be doing a cross country, so it was my longest flight thus far, and by far the most comfortable. Took a bunch of pictures along the way of just what it looks like to be just chillin at six thousand. Another cool thing about the flight was due to the winds the active runway was runway 3, which is the runway always used by the major airlines. I got to taxi all the way over to that side of the airport alongside the terminals with gates and whatnot, and we performed the runup right alongside a massive Southwest plane. I found it quite hilarious that someone was crammed in coach looking out their window at me in my dinky Cessna out for a stroll. I felt even sorrier for the Continental plane behind them, because we actually got to take off in front of them, so hundreds of people had to wait while we putt putted down the runway. It's also kind of fun to be on the radio with tower and ground as they give these massive jets orders to hold short of the runway because we're on a five mile final, as was the case when we landed on the return trip. We did a touch and go way down in Live Oak County at an uncontrolled airport. Those are kind of fun, because first of all I'm actually beginning to enjoy trying to land properly, and then just being able to do the aircraft equivalent of flooring it and taking off again is pretty cool too. The other neat thing was all the navigation calculations I did during the trip planning to compensate for the wind and whatnot were pretty much right on, which is always a good feeling given my career track. I should also mention we flew a low level on Tuesday which was good times as well, where you just skim along about five hundred to a thousand feet off the ground and use dead reckoning to navigate; stuff like "there's a river" "ok here's the river on the map we need to go south" to follow along a predetermined course. Low enough you can see dogs running across lawns or what kind of clothing is hanging from a line is pretty cool. Only three flights left, doubling up tomorrow with a cross country and the second low level, and then backed up the last flight until after I get back from the holidays to allow more time to study for the FAA test while I'm sitting on planes in transit and sitting around home.

Some Mondays...

Are better than others. After a lackluster weekend of not getting a whole lot accomplished, I went to bed relatively early last night motivated to get off my ass this morning. And so I did. At 5am, even. Boy did I have flashbacks to what life was like for about twelve weeks. And boy am I glad those weeks are over. Getting up that early is a lot easier when you're getting eight hours of sleep per night instead of four or five. So yeah, was up way before the sun, and went off and ran the equivalent of a 10k again. What puts me in an especially good mood is that I did it in about 50:30, or just over an 8 minute average mile. This goes way back to about junior year in high school to find the last time I ran that far that fast. It isn't anything ultra amazing, as a freshman I ran one in 42:25 or so, which is under a 7 minute average, but it's really showing how far I've come. A couple years ago I could barely run one mile in 8:30, and I wasn't even attempting to run a 5k without walking. Now I can run a 10k nonstop at a faster pace than I used to run a mile. It's a really great feeling when you finish a solid lengthy run. Just about your whole body is tired, and you actually feel like you did something. It reminds me of the feeling after a race, the switch from utter torture during that last mile to jubilation as you cross the line the victor. Suddenly the weakness just leaves the body and you feel like you could go dance all night long. It also does wonders for the ego, I lose at least three pounds every time I run, even on cold days when I barely sweat at all. I've been holding steady at the 175 mark, but I continue to improve my endurance and keep adding more arm work, and have finally gotten around to throwing ab work in as well. One of the things that really works for me is watching some kind of motivational clip when I first wake up on days like these. Whether it's the Where Eagles Fly music video thing about F-15s, or something like a "The Thrill of Victory" segment from ABC, or even the finale to one of my favorite performances or shows, it really makes you wanna get up and get busy. Least it works for me. Even to the point I don't even listen to music when I run, I just use the time to think about everything going on, and dream about what might eventually be.

We have 1:30 muster this week instead of 8:30, which means more sleeping in if I feel the need. I'm just going to take over the FAA study book for the test I have to take at the end of NIFT and use that time to get a couple hours in each day. Basically just have to memorize the answers to about 730 questions and I'll ace the test. We'll see how that goes.

Cool Sounding Words...

I've always wanted to come up with a really cool sounding word. If I could find one that was totally unique, I'd probably use it as a permanent nickname or something. A word like Samurai. Just rolls out of the mouth and exudes power. You are correct in thinking I must have headed out to see The Last Samurai yesterday. This was quite a feature. I'll have to give it 6 M's out of 7, a pretty rare score. Speaking of score, that was possibly my favorite part of it. Whereas some scores are passive and some people think the best score is the one you don't notice, I disagree. The score of this movie took a very active role, and served to further the drama at every level. I've never had any problems with Cruise as an actor, which usually leads his movies to be at the top of the agreement list when heading out with a female to see something. I was over at the Regal Cinemas under the loop on Pat Booker, and was pretty impressed with the theater. The sound was pretty good, not an IMAX or anything, but at least the theater I was in was gigantic. Definitely the kind of place you want to see those rowdy crowd movies like LOTR or Star Wars. But anyway back to the movie, I really enjoyed the performances of all the actors. Cruise's love interest in particular did a tremendous job putting those non verbal looks on her face that let you feel yourself what she was feeling. The storyline itself had a couple hard to belief aspects, but had they been left out there would have been a lot less closure. This one jerked quite a few tears/sobs out of the audience, so be forewarned if that isn't your thing. Pesonally that's what I look forward to, movies that make you feel.

I also forgot to blog about The Life of David Gale which I got around to watching a few days ago. This was another superb movie, and who knows maybe I'm in a giving mood, but I'll have to give this one... well okay I won't I'll give it 5.5 M's. Only because it didn't have that extra oomph to get to 6. As crime whodunnit type movies go though, this one was great. I've always enjoyed Kevin Spacey, and Kate Winslet held her own as his counterpart. There were plenty of twists involved, and the only weak part of the movie is the final outcome is entirely predictable, although that's difficult to avoid. At any rate an interesting one to go see with someone on the other side of the death penalty issue as you. For conversation sake if nothing else. It shows some bias, but gives ammunition for both sides. So yeah, couple good films.

I should also mention that they showed the preview for Troy which was the most impressive I'd seen in a while. We're talking very large scale movie here, with some impressive panoramic scenes of just how gigantic the army that fought was. Yeah it's probably mostly computer generated, but what do you expect. Definitely one I'll go see for the effects side of things if nothing else.

On the other side of entertainment I also blew through Deus Ex - Invisible War a few days ago. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of good things to say about it. If you're a fan of the original by all means play it, but don't expect a higher level of entertainment. Unfortunately the engine requires a tremendous level of computing power, to the point my 1.7ghz gf3 system couldn't handle anything about 640x480. This is the first sign that it's soon finally going to be time to upgrade after over two solid years with this machine. I'll probably hold out for the hl2/doom3 era though. Back to the game, the inventory and gui are quite clumsy, and it's difficult to move between menus, so if you're instantly attacked it is unlikely you'll be able to turn on any biomods and pull out the most useful weapon at the same time before you're hit. The game is also entirely too easy, I had a ridiculous amount of credits at the end, and way too many extra biomod canisters and weapon mods, I could have upgraded everything multiple times over. This is a complete turnaround from the original game, where you really had to pick and choose your upgrades unless you abused the infinite credit bug during that one conversation. The game itself is much much shorter, with me finishing it in something like ten hours of gametime. It's one of those that keeps track as you go, so you can tell how bad your obsession with your computer is. It doesn't count all your loads after dying though, so in reality it's probably more like twelve. But the original was something ridiculous like thirty, and even then you hand't really done EVERYTHING due to the non-linearity. This one tries to be non-linear as well, but you really end up in the same places no matter what path you choose. There are four endings to play with, but I wasn't even interested enough to play through the other ones after choosing the one I did. There are some really cool lighting effects I'm sure, but my system couldn't handle them so they lost their luster at the lowest settings.

There was one really fun thing about the game though, and that was maxing out your strength biomod to the point you could pick up the body of a bad guy, and launch it about fifty feet in the air, and watch it slam up against a wall and crumple down to the ground. This type of realism with the body actually crumpling in a nonscripted motion is something I didn't expect to see until hl2, so it entertained me at various points in the game. Also interesting is the default is to play as a female character, and you actually have to change it to make it a male one. Just shows how creepy computer geeks would much rather watch a female barbie looking model running around taking guys out. I personally changed it to the one that looks most like me like I always do, but hey, that's narcissism for you.

Hm yeah think that's enough entertainment talk for the day. It's finally getting out of the 30s at night, so running in the early morning instead of midday should be doable.

Tellin it Like it Is...

Took one of those nifty "find out what you're attracted to" type tests through match.com that was actually pretty elaborate, and this is one of the results its spewed out at some point:

"Unique Tastes In Women: You are open to seeing a variety of women as attractive. Sure, women with "movie star" good looks catch your eye, but you are often equally wowed by more normal "cute" women. You're not one to judge people based on their looks. In fact, you're genuinely drawn to women that others might dismiss. Maybe it's because you don't buy into society's checklist for "mainstream" attractiveness. Instead, you notice unique features like a cute nose, beautiful eyes, or a cute butt, that make some women special in your eyes. For you, attraction is about the total package."

I mean hello, could they have been any more right. I could not have written it better myself. Well I could have, but it would have taken a while. After more jibberish it goes on to say:


"Open: You have a more open and accepting view of what makes a woman attractive than a lot of other men your age. On the test, you didn't pick the most "popular" women, but instead seemed to focus on your own personal tastes. This doesn't necessarily mean that looks are less important to you than other men. You simply have a unique set of criteria and keep your eyes open for special qualities that make a woman who may seem ordinary to most, extraordinary to you."

This may seem like BS, and who knows maybe it is and there are only like three possible results, but they sure did hit it right on the button. So, where they at? Hilarious responses as well as heartfelt ones to the below post by the way, keep em comin.

Audience Participation

Ah yes. Good times. Given I was bored enough to finally add that About Me section to the right, I figure someone else might actually be bored enough to respond to this. Note I didn't write this personally, I just jacked it off someone else's blog. These things tend to go around, and for once I'm actually curious/bored enough to post it on mine. Best way to respond would be via e-mail, using that handy dandy link that's also to the right. Let me repeat for effect, I wrote none of the below questions, other than number 20. That will be very obvious. Note there's no reason to spend more than five minutes on this, if you even feel like doing it at all. It's for entertainment value, and not to be depressing or an ego boost per se.

1. Give me a nickname and explain why you picked it.
2. Am I lovable?
3. How long have you known me?
4. When and how did we first meet?
5. What was your first impression?
6. Do you still think that way about me now?
7. What do you think my weakness is?
8. Do you think I'll get married?
9. What makes me happy?
10. What makes me sad?
11. What reminds you of me?
12. If you could give me anything what would it be?
13. How well do you know me?
14. When's the last time you saw me?
15. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?
16. Do you think I could kill someone?
17. Describe me in one word.
18. Do you think our relationship is getting stronger/weaker/or staying the same?
19. Do you feel that you could talk to me about anything and I would listen?
20. Name one person you think would be right for me.

NIFT is so nifty!

The young man stared at the expanse of pavement in front of him. It seemed to stretch nearly to the horizon, with the heat rising off it making the distant areas blur and wave to his eyes. Suddenly, the young man is jolted back from his subconscious by an authoritative voice in his ear. "Cessna 1581Romeo, you are cleared for takeoff." Suddenly his mind was ajumble with a million things at once. Calmly in his other ear came the voice of his instructor. "Release the brakes, throttle to full, right rudder to compensate for left turning tendency, wait for fifty five knots, pull up." So easy on paper. With the touch of a few fingers, the plane starts hurtling down the runway, and before the young man is fully aware, the wheels have left the ground. He's flying.

There were two really cool things about that first day. The first was hearing my own voice inside my headset. It's kind of like when you hear yourself on someone else's answering machine, and say something like "that so does not sound like me." It's as if you have a third person perspective of the whole thing. Your instructor is in the seat next to you, but since you can't hear him over the engine, you see his mouth move, but hear his voice in your headset. It's really just a cool thing. Little boys love playing with walkie talkies, I guess that never really gets old. I did way more on that first flight than I expected, including controlling the airplane the majority of the time. We didn't travel far, and in fact just went over and circled the downtown area a couple times. This however was one of the neatest things ever. It's not like a commercial plane where your window view is terribly restricted, you pretty much have panoramic views wherever you look. Just passing over areas of downtown you've driven through before a bunch of times and seeing them from over a thousand feet in the air is just cool.

As it turned out I went out again later that same day, and traveled to an uncontrolled airport to practice some landing runs without actually landing. I always figured landing would be the hardest part, and it pretty much comes with experience, knowing when to add power or reduce it, and knowing whether you're too high or low, and too fast or slow. Did I mention flying at night is the coolest ever. The way my instructor's schedule has been working out just randomly has had me doing more night hours than normal, and I'm certainly not complaining. I've been catching onto the navigation material very quickly, which allows us a lot of time to just enjoy the view between checkpoints. I've completed 4 flights so far, with 9 more to go including all manners of lessons.

Interestingly enough, I'm not at all enthusiastic about getting my Private Pilot's License. I guess I'm just more comfortable chilling out somewhere else in the plane telling the pilot what to do than actually having to worry about 47 berjillion checklists on a constant basis. The fact that the navigation material has come easy to me has me feeling pretty confident about JSUNT, but that's easy to say beforehand. I should have all my flights done by December 23rd and thus go home NIFT complete, but weather tends to rear its ugly head occasionally so might end up with a flight or two after the break. Either way I should have some chill time before I leave on the 15th of January for Alabama again. I'm actually looking forward to getting back there now that I'm free to do as I please, and see it from the other side.

Bit Behind...

Things are finally pretty much squared away here with the ol puter. Ended up with both a new hd and cdr/dvd combo drive, although as it turned out the only thing that actually required replacing initially was an IDE cable. Strangely enough halfway troubleshooting that problem and planning on buying a new hd thinking that was the issue, my cd began to die and eventually went kerplunk. The majority of the machine was put together the night before September 11th, so as computers go it had been getting pretty old anyway. So having to replace a hd although unnecessary at the time might have become necessary when it crashed and I lost everything in the near future. Least that's what I'm telling myself to avoid thinking I actually wasted money. It also gave me double the storage of the old one anyway.

Well lets go ahead and get all the geeky stuff out of the way in one post. Those not interested read no further. Ok on the computer game front I finished a couple more just for kicks. Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy was more of the same for Star Wars buffs. Basically any game that lets you twirl around a light saber satisfies many a little boy's desires. This one actually took it a step further and later in the game lets you choose from a single saber, two sabers with one in each hand, or the double bladed saber made popular by Darth Maul in Episode I. Compared with Jedi Knight 2 however, not much by way of any new gameplay. Actually the former was much lengthier and more fun in my opinion, even without the double saber. For those who want more of the same though and can never get enough, or the diehard fans, this one might be worth entertaining yourself with.

Next we have my preferred game out of all those I've played recently, that being Call of Duty. This is probably the only one I'll actually reinstall now that I've started with a fresh hd. Another first person shooter, another game where you shoot up Germans. That seems like it's a storyline that will never get old. This has a lot of things going for it though. It's a spinoff of the Q3 engine, which frequent readers will know is my alltime favorite at the moment. This means anyone can adjust their mouse sensitivity to their preferred setting through the console, and not worry about trying to get it right by guessing and checking. Being able to instantly zoom in on a bad guys head without over or under correcting is quite handy in fast paced shooters, this one being no exception. This game has an extra kick if you've seen the movie Enemy at the Gates. This is a dramatic movie, and some of the most dramatic scenes are actually replicated in the Russian missions of Call of Duty. The fact that gameplay has evolved enough to include scenes which are basically cinematic is a pretty nifty thing. You really feel like you're living the movie in this one. As a whole, very thorough entertainment. This is the first game I've actually considered purchasing for the multiplayer aspect, depending on what kinds of mods develop and what the player base is like. Either way I'll probably play through it again on a harder difficulty level. Neither of these games was over eight hours btw, don't remember the exact lengths. Sadly I've heard from early reviews of the Deus Ex sequel that it is much shorter than it's predecessor. That's a real shame, since that is probably the last good really long game I played. Games that enterain for more than a day or two are always welcome.

Think that's all the geeky stuff for now. Major things happening on the military aspect of things, and I'll have to update the NIFT journal part of this blog before it becomes a JSUNT journal. Will try to get back on the daily deal here. Actually was staying up tonight waiting for a call back, I'd called someone on their birthday earlier today and they said they'd call me back later tonight, and didn't thus far. Well the night isn't over yet I suppose.

Computer Issues...

What appeared to be a big problem turns out isn't quite so big. But it took a long time to get to that point. Turns out I'll be doing a clean XP install anyway. Lots to blab/whine about though, and plenty of interesting happenings going on, will post when I get things set up again.

I Finally Caved...

Man I just kill myself sometimes. Okay let me explain. First of all I did some spelunking today. Second of all I finally gave in to a fad that everyone else has been doing. NOW do you get the pun? Yes, roll with me.

Heh. Anyway, first of all you know those stupid quizzes that are quite repetitive that everyone forwards around via e-mail to everyone they know and there's always a question at the bottom saying "who is the most likely to not respond." Well that's always me, because I've always felt if people wanted to know you they'd get to know you personally rather than read about you. Strangely enough I've gone against my personality and actually posted one of them up for the world to see. Now let me warn you, I find most of these things inherently boring, and thus I'm sure mine is too. I personally probably have never actually read one all the way through, unless I was tremendously interesting in finding out everything I could about the person. Which is rare. However some people just need things to read while they eat their breakfast that don't involve cereal boxes, so there it is to the right, under "All About Me."

We headed over to the Natural Bridge Caverns today, which was even cooler than I expected. I'd never been in a major cave before, and these were pretty spiffy. Some amazing formations, and just pretty much some scenery you won't find anywhere other than a couple hundred feet underground. Highly recommended, it'll go on my list of things to take people to do if they ever come visit me. Hint hint wink wink. Hopefully the list will become mighty long as I continue to get out and explore San Antonio.

The Easy Life...

Boy, life is really rough. Except it isn't. Wednesday morning we had a squadron "fun run" which for most people caused a lot of groaning but I of course enjoyed. Myself and another guy were even running satellites back to the back of the group and then back up to the front along the 2.5 mile course to make it more of a workout, fun stuff. On Thursday everyone who was stuck in the dorms due to wanting to stack up leave for the christmas/new year holiday got together and had a pretty darn good thanksgiving in the day room... We had homemade pretty much everything, which was topped off with Marie Callendar's pumkin pies, which I had to go stand in line for at 7:30 when they didn't even open until 8. It was a good thing I did though because I was 10th in line and by opening there were 150 people there... The good news is we had one left over so I'm busy hoarding it and siphoning it to myself over the next few days. :) Mad props to the person who did the organizing and dictating of who should bring what, they spent a lot of time on it and did a great job.

So we have a couple expansion pack reviews for Medal of Honor, called Breakthrough and Spearhead. Basically if you liked the game you'll like the expansions, but if you're paying full price you might be disappointed. Breakthrough is challenging even on the medium skill level and is about 4-6 hours in length, but Spearhead is less so, and seemed shorter as well, closer to the 4 hour end of that range. Unfortunately expansions tend to still be like 30 bucks, so if the single player campaign is all you're interested in, it's not a very good bang for your buck. There's another one coming out soon about the Pacific aspect of WWII, with both these focusing on the Europe aspect, with North Africa and Germany respectively. Speaking of coming out, the Deus Ex sequel is due to hit the shelves in about a week, and the original is one of my favorites and based on the reviews the sequel should be too. The best thing this game had going for it was length, it was no one day affair. I think that's the one that actually tracked your gametime too, so when you finally beat it after a few weeks of dedication and saw you'd put in 40 hours or something you had something to be proud of, or afraid of and repulsed by, as the case may be.

Currently entertaining myself with Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy, a spinoff of Jedi Knight 2 which was also excellent. On deck is Call of Duty, with Homeworld 2 probably appearing sometime down the line, although the Deus Ex sequel will probably make its appearance first. Then sadly I'll have to look for ulterior entertainment, as I'll have caught back up with the times. For those who think I've been in my room for days on end that's not entirely true. I still get my exercise, so if you go run several miles in the morning and do your pushups and situps to the point you lose at least 3 pounds from the beginning to the end of a workout, you can sit on your ass for the rest of the day too. :) Actually last night we ended up down at the Riverwalk checking out some of the nightlife and receiving free entertainment courtesy of a couple of the guys in the group. Not usually my cup of tea, but I was dd'ing it and I enjoy that perspective every once in a while. It's always good to go downtown, really nice atmosphere.

Speaking of atmosphere, I think I've decided living on a military base is pretty much the coolest thing ever. Yeah having to bust out your ID depending on the fpcon status at the gate can delay you a min or two, but being saluted as you go through is still pretty nifty. You see children playing in the street in the residential areas all the time, and wandering around to places like the bowling alley without having to worry about someone snatching them. A lot of people just leave their houses unlocked, a throwback to the days when people didn't have today's worries to think about. You never really have to worry about something happening like your car being stolen, because of the eternal damnation hanging over anyone's head who commits such a crime. Ending your career on something retarded is something pretty much all military members aren't willing to do. Yeah I might be the eternal optimist, but I really think the base is a really awesome city in itself, and don't think I'll mind living on them in the future. I'm not saying I don't love going off base too for fun because I do, and I'm sure I'll always enjoy having a metropolis in the area, and would prefer Washington DC to North Dakota. But I'm now confident I could survive in places like Alaska if I do end up sent there or Timbuktu. Granted the lack of attachments plays a large part in that. We'll see how that goes in the future.

Now That's A Ring...

Pretty much no one who read that title probably figured I was referring to the fictional object dominating the game known as Halo. I actually didn't have a clue what the plot was when I downlaoded it, just knowing it was a FPS. This game turned out to be a really mixed bag. It did some stuff really well, and other stuff not so well. There was more to the plot than most game, with some decent length mini movies in between levels making it seem like there was a point to what you were doing. One is even reminiscient of Aliens in that you look through the video mounted to someone else's helmet as they meet their fate. It's actually kind of interesting how entertaining it is to see things from someone else's perspective. Whether spectating a multiplayer game through someone's eyes, or watching a movie when the camera walks around as the person and you're seeing their view, it's just a neat thing to see the world from another's perspective and see the way they do things, and the way it's like on their end. Unfortunately the levels themselves were a random assortment of entertainment. Some were terribly repetitive and exceptionally boring. You'd literally fight through the exact same floorplan of a room like 5 times in succession with just a different mixture of bad guys inhabiting them. Other levels were very well designed, using atmosphere and sheer amount of outdoor space to set the tone. While some parts of the game were so boring I was just playing for the satisfaction of finishing and nothing else, some were quite fun, especially those involving controlling moving vehicles such as jeeps or tanks. The ending sequence in particular is quite exciting as ending sequences go. The ending itself is better than average, although you still kind of had that "are they really going to roll the credits just like that" feeling. The weakest part of this game I felt was the length. It's about 8 hours on normal difficulty, which is quite short for a single player campaign. Someone who plays an hour a day would only get a week or so out of buying the game, which is still full priced. There's a multiplayer aspect that as usual I haven't tried, but I wasn't impressed enough with the engine to recommend it for purchase just for that aspect. At times the enemy's movements were so jerky you could empty a full clip and a half into their general area and still come up empty. So overall quite entertaining storyline and well done set pieces, with some mediocre action in between.

I did actually get out this weekend as well, as I headed over to Sea World. There are only three nationwide and I'd been to the one in San Diego and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I figured I'd see if this one was up to par. The shows were more of the same, although as a whole I have to give the edge to San Diego. Interestingly enough though this one actually had two decent sized roller caosters in the park which were pretty fun. Since Sea World doesn't attract the major crowds of a Six Flags, being able to just stay on for multiple rides is pretty nifty. One of them was a suspended style beneath the track looper much like Batman at Magic Mountain or Top Gun at Great America, basically an identical layout to Batman. It's actually a very different feeling on that type of ride to be in the very front or the very back. Accelerating into or out of loops are two very different sensations, I recommend both to decide which you like better. Nothing beats the way back on big dips though, that over the top feeling is top notch. I continued my tradition of beating down the competition at the Whack a Mole game, and have a cute little blue dolphin curved stuffed animal thing that fits quite nice as a round the neck pillow to show for it. I also continued the tradition of getting myself onto the big Jumbotron at the Shamu show. Before this one they would put questions up on the board with choices and zoom in on someone random and they'd have to hold up fingers that represented the number of the correct answer... I of course had the dolphin sitting on my shoulder and was having it hold up fingers which apparently caught the attention of the camerawoman across the way, and boom there I am sixty feet tall. Usually I managed to get on the San Diego ones for getting thoroughly soaked when they came by on the splash run, so it was fun to be on TV without even making a total idiot of myself. Or then again maybe I was anyway. I did manage to get insanely wet, having never seen the show there I had no idea when they were going to get everyone, and I pretty much accidentally picked the perfect spot for the very first tail whacking that just hammered my whole section. It's a wonder things like my wallet and cell phone ever dry out after those kinds of things. Good times. If you ever go to Sea World, wear old clothes, and don't worry about getting wet, because it really does make it ten times more fun. Then you can go on those rides with the waterfall you go under in the big intertube and not worried about getting soaked, because you already are. In San Diego we went on that like four times in a row. Fun stuff. Alas, it's always good to let the kid in you get out every once in a while.

Tickets are purchased, I'll be arriving on Christmas morning and leaving New Years afternoon, anyone wanting to hook up between those days other than New Years Eve let me know, I'll have some down time. Speaking of which, this will probably be the only time I'm in LA for all of next year other than a quick day or two turnaround for my sister's wedding, so it'd be cool to see people before I'm back over here for the year.

Buck Seventy Five...

As of yesterday it had been approximately 4 years or so since I'd tipped the scales at that amount. As of today, that's no longer true. Finally hit the goal weight I'd been striving towards since, well a long time ago. Since I back up my blog into a word doc it makes it real easy to do a find word and find entries about this kind of thing from forever ago, and this is what I managed to dig up. At my flight physical last December, approximately one year ago, I weighed in at 191. The previous December, in 2001, I was 201. From what I remember, my highest was somewhere around 205, I never got to 210. So here we are today, and slowly but surely the weight has come off. I've never really noticed, I can't even picture the way my body must have looked with thirty more pounds on it. People who haven't seen me in a long time tend to comment, but I always just thought they were trying to be nice. But thinking about it, thirty pounds is a lot. Interstingly enough, I don't think I'm done yet. One of the new aspects of the PFT for the AF is a waist measurement, and although I'm not sure how they do that, I do know there's an inch or two that can be lost there. I suppose everyone says that though. Now that I think about it though, I'm going to have to start adding some muscle to my arms, which isn't something I've been focusing on since OTS, but am getting ready to start. So maybe any more weight lost will be cancelled out by adding muscle. Not that that's a bad thing.

I was gonna post some more stuff, but this is kind of a neat thing I've been looking towards for a while and I figure it deserves a post all to itself.

Two Days In A Row...

Such exciting times are these. This morning actually was pretty exciting, as I ran a mock PFT with my section and ended up besting my PR outside of high school by six seconds. Given I only started running again a week ago, this was quite promising. It's amazing what eating right because the only food around is what you buy can do. My low over the last few days has dipped down to around 178 or 9, suddenly my goal for like the last 2 years of 175 seems a lot more reachable. This was partly because on Tuesday I went for what I planned to be about a 5 miler around the east runway, but low and behold there was no way across the taxiway at that end, so I had to run all the way across the golf course to the taxiway crossing where it meets the west runway, and then all the way back across the base diagonally to get home, where I then had to skip breakfast to avoid being late for my muster time. Ended up being the equivalent about a 10k, and I was definitely feeling it for the next few hours in my legs. I recovered enough to PR today though, so that's promising. The previous Sunday I'd run 4 miles all on grass to avoid shin splints, but the 10K I did all on pavement with no ill effects, so far, so good. I figure after a couple weeks of this I'll try to get into more running days per week. I'm at 9:48 right now for the 1.5 mile, but the more that drops the better my physical output score will be once things get crankin next year, and I'd rather than be a definite strong suit rather than the mediocrity it was at OTS. Being sub 10 is good, being under 9:30 would be better. Going sub 9 would be quite a distance off, there were only a couple guys at OTS who could do that, and they were pretty much built to run.

On a less boring note, money continues to flow in from the various direct deposits we get with regards to switching bases... A chunk of change here to reimburse for the temporary lodging at billeting, a much larger chunk of change to reimburse for all the travel and mileage expenses during the three days, and I'm still waiting on an even larger chunk of change for the DITY move and hauling all my stuff. Although a decent portion of it is money I already paid and am being reimbursed for, much of it such as the DITY isn't and it's nice to see Christmas coming early.

Cut my hair again by myself today, found out it's much easier to do with two mirrors (I didn't have a second one handy), although I'm pretty sure it still worked out. Having someone do the back line in a few secs might make things easier, but it looks like I'll be saving the 6 bucks ever couple weeks everyone else has to pay. That's like $150 a year, more money for other stuff I figure. Word on the street is if you fill out a form you can get out of paying state taxes in your state of residence, because you aren't there for more than 30 days a year and you don't have a house there. That'll save me 20 something a month which works out to around $300 a year. Now as long as I keep from meeting any females, the monetary aspect of things should remain stable. Har. Oh how it's a double edged sword.

Various people have been coming across my site searching for JSUNT journal or Nav journal or Navigator journal, and unfortunately thus far this probably hasn't been too helpful. I can tell you a whole lot about casual status at Randolph, but I won't actually start my JSUNT class until after ASBC, so I can't be too helpful there.

And believe it or not folks, I actually remembered to bring the quote today:

"The past is a puzzle. Like a broken mirror, as you piece it together, you cut yourself. Your image keeps shifting, and you change with it."

You just got raised way up on the cool meter if you know the source of the above. E-mail me for confirmation and major brownie points. Being somewhat in limbo, I've had a lot of time to think about the past, and I found that quote particularly interesting.

Three's a Crowd....

Seems I have plenty of time to watch movies these days, wonder why...

First up we have The Graduate. Ok now look. I really gave this one a chance. I tried to ignore the whole concept I referred to earlier about not being a fan of old movies everyone seems to love, but wham by the half hour mark I had a hearts game going in the background. I actually had no idea what this one was going to be about, other than the fact that Dustin Hoffman was in it. Obviously the subject matter surprised me. I just didn't get what everyone liked about this movie. Three M's for failing to hold my attention at times. There was one saving grace, in a later scene he goes to Santa Barbara from Berkeley chasing his girl, and it shows him driving the 101 north of SB which I recognized. Interestingly enough, it shows him going through the one tunnel along the route. However, those who have driven it know that the tunnel is only on the NORTH side of the 101, not the south, so it would make no sense for him to be driving through it on the way to SB. Yeah so it was about a .5 second scene in the movie, but actually was more interesting to me than the rest of it. :/

Next up we have The Thomas Crown Affair. Very fun stuff, 5 M's. Your classic caper movie, with Pierce Brosnan doing his usual I'm too suave for words thing. Some fun twists, very entertaining. No major stunts like a Bond film, but kept my attention none the less. For the sake of brevity, I'll move right along to Quiz Show. This was pretty much what I expected, if you read the preview for the movie it's nothing outside the ordinary. We'll go with 4 M's, although I'm probably more entertained than most because I enjoy trivia and those kinds of shows. A few years ago I was one step away from being flown to NY to be on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, before I was foiled by trying to put the four main Seinfeld actors in order by their age. Who knew Jason Alexander was balding, but young.

I'm actually in someone else's room posting this and they're getting ready to go to sleep, so I'll have to cut it short. Not much going around here, today's duty day consisted of playing volleyball for two hours. Tomorrow we actually have a safety briefing for which we have to report at 0730, and then we're doing another mock PFT, and then I'll probably go to the second ground school session for NIFT even though it's repetition of what I've already learned through the reading and computer work. Friday we were given off, so I'll probably hit up Sea World or Six Flags or something. Gotta get on buying plane tickets to go home for Xmas and New Years too, you know where I'll be.

Foiled By the 5:00pm Saturday Closure...

Apparently that means they don't give out computers past 4:30. Not even at 4:32. Gr. So anyway here I am with various things to talk about.

Let's get some movie reviews out of the way first. This weekend I actually watched three, including two with Matthew Broderick, which was funny given I didn't know he was in either. The first was War Games starring him and Ally Sheedy when they're both like 16 or something. Pretty entertaining, it's from something like 1983 and about a kid accidentally hacking into a computer capable of starting a nuclear war. This was back when U.S. vs U.S.S.R. was big and that's prevalent throughout. The technology is pretty laughable twenty years later though. We'll go with 4 M's just because it held my attention even though it's two decades old. That's pretty tough to do, believe me. Old movies that are supposedly amazing tend to not score too well.

Next up we have The Matrix: Revolutions. Now this one is going to get 4 M's for a very different reason. Saturday night I drove downtown to see what there was to see, and ended up over at a section of the Riverwalk that ends in a mall. The Riverwalk is a pretty awesome place, tons of restaurants with tables right up to the edge of the water, so if you lean towards it you'll just kerplunk on in. Literally every kind of food imaginable, although it was pretty packed given it was a Saturday. I came across my first Hooters, which I guess is a staple around these parts. Also had another first, which was watching a feature film in an IMAX. IMAX are pretty much a movie geek's dream. You've got this gigantic screen taking up most of the room, and a sound system that is pretty much top of the line. This combines to form a pretty awesome movie experience. Either the tickets cost a bit more than average (9.95) or prices are high around here, but in my opinion it's worth it. I'm sure there are discount coupons or something, and now that I think about it I didn't even ask if there was an active military discount which I'm supposed to do all the time now. So anyway, they actually assign seats so if you're a single person and show up 5 minutes before the show you might still snag a pretty nice one, which I did. I literally just happened to be walking through that section of the mall and saw that there was an IMAX, the movie was playing there which I hadn't seen, and the show started in 5 minutes. Spontaneity as usual reigns and boom I was in the theater. So yeah, the fact everyone was several stories high gave this movie a boost. I like many others have to give the nod to the first one as being the best. Still some cool action scenes in this one, but it seems like they've gone from remotely realistic to very unremotely realistic as the series has continued. You have the infamous lobby scene in the first, the "I can take 100 guys at once" park scene in the second, and then the "I'm gonna have a brawl right here in midair while traveling at the speed of light" scene in the third. It just loses its luster for me when it gets to that point, I can't even pretend like it's possible. Pretty confusing ending too, people are dead yet they're not, you think someone just bit the big one then there they are talking to someone. Maybe if I see the trilogy all at once again I'll understand more. I don't see that happening though. I liked the instrumental at the beginning of the closing credits by the way, just as a random sidenote.

Okay last on the list was last night's fare of Glory. Now this had come very highly recommended by someone I've known for quite some time, and I finally got around to watching it about five years later. This one takes home 6 M's for a few reasons. First of all yes I'm probably biased, because yes it's a military/war movie. Second of all, I felt the acting as a whole was pretty amazing on all fronts. The one kink in the armor I felt was casting Matthew Broderick as the lead. Now obviously I'd just watched him as a teenager just beforehand, so trying to imagine him as a Colonel leading batallion is a large pill to swallow. But he just didn't give me the I'm in charge aura, seemed to unsure of himself. Afterwards thinking back I figured part of that was intentional, because he was young and not entirely positive of what he was doing. But even when he was laying down the law, he didn't exactly have me quaking in my boots, whereas any of his costars would have. Still, this one tugs at you, and as usual the fact it's based on a true story gives it even more power.

Yikes longer than average post here, I'll leave some more babbling for the next one (yes, I forgot the quote again).

One Bad Thing About Surfing in the Library...

Well other than there not being any decent waves, when their internet goes down you're pretty much SOL. Luckily there wasn't much to speak of yesterday, and there wasn't any today either. Conveniently forgot the quote that I was going to post again, one of these days I'll get it up there. Got paid today, that's kind of exciting as it's more than I was getting at OTS now that I'm officially O1. Keep coming up with random things I need to go buy... Was all set to inhale some Campbells chunky clam chowder and low and behold I discover I have no can opener... I'm such a smarty sometimes. We did a mock PFT this morning, and my time was pretty much the same as it was at the end of OTS, which was 30 seconds off what it was in the middle unfortunately... A good sign though given I hadn't touched my running shoes during the two weeks in between. Time to get crackin again.

Ah actually I can post a blurb on The Pianist which I finally got around to watching last night after having it sit on my hd for like a year. I figure with all this free time I'll finally get to watch some good movies, and this was one of them. Held my attention throughout, some very powerful stuff about life as a Jew in Poland during WWII. Or lack of a life, as it became apparent. Not for the weak stomached, but a strong 5 out of 7 M's. I'm pretty sure Brody if that's how you spell his name won an Oscar for his performance.

Got squared away down at Wright Flyers for my NIFT training, picked up all the computer based info and will probably give that a look this weekend to get ahead. The optional ground school starts Tuesday, still iffy on that, if I end up blasting right through the computer based stuff I probably won't need it reiterated and I'll just wait the week for my form to be approved and then get flying. They sure are smaller planes than I expected, I guess that's what makes it easiest to learn. Least I'll have more to busy myself with, this no internet no tv thing continues to suck.

Speaking of which all you people I normally chat with continuously do feel free to call, when I'm not busy (which is basically always) I'm quite available for conversation. I have a strange affinity for ending up in people's voicemails when I call them, funny how that is sometimes. :)

When is the Library Open Again?

Apparently not all the time. What an inconvenience. No 3am posts for a while I guess.

Been just sort of wandering around base doing various things on my little inprocessing checklist thingy... I ordered my local phone # and DSL but apparently although they'll come hook up on the phone on Friday they won't hook up the DSL until the 26th, sheesh... I'll be hittin up the library until then.

Found out I have incredibly boring eating habits, was able to buy two weeks worth of food for $50 thanks to the tax free and somewhat reduced prices of the commissary. I get something like $250 or something a month for food, so I guess the rest will go towards eating out, or just end up in my pocket. My room is finally all put together, after more than one later trip to buy stuff I had totally forgotten I'd need, like toilet paper, or a trash can... It's funny how you don't think about things until you go to use them and are like Hmmm... Haven't gone to try out the dining facility yet, been raiding Subway and various other local places, something tells me as I get going and am over in that section of the base costantly I'll figure out that full meals for two bucks is a much better deal.

Managed to break the rotating portion of my watch off somehow, going to have to not recommend anyone get this kind. Seems like a nifty way to change the mode until it's broken off making it almost impossible to do so... Most watches last me at least a few years, pretty sure this one didn't make it to one.

Someone had asked so I'll go ahead and post here, yes I'm allowed to have visitors, and yes you're allowed to stay on the base, it's just sort of an unofficial policy to not have lengthy overnighters in the room, meaning don't move anyone in. Of course you can always stay somewhere off base, but the price of free tends to work out better. I just have to call the main gate and get you a pass before you get here, so unfortunately surprise visits won't actually work.

I see people are beginning to find the Guestmap to the right, which is cool, looking forward to seeing where people are from. It's editable, but I'll leave that Greenland one up there, since something tells me that'll be the only one from that area.

Darn had a good quote for today and left it at home, will have to put that one up in the next blog.

Hm, yeah pretty boring last couple of days. Going to get the NIFT train in gear probably tomorrow, and see what the deal is with finishing that before ASBC.

Guestmaps are Nifty!

So go click on it and show me where you are! :) (Pst it's over there on the right below the guestbook...)

Where am I?

Okay so here we go. We have a new leaf on our hands folks, and it's being turned over. I'm finally at the point where I'll be able to spend more time entertaining myself with such activities as posting blogs.

My current location is Randolph AFB in San Antonio, Texas. Come tomorrow I'll be in-processing with the 562d Training Squadron. JSUNT is the name of the course, which stands for Joint Student Undergraduate Navigator Training. I'm pretty sure anyway. The first portion is called NIFT which stands for Navigator Instructional Flight Training. Actually I have no idea what it stands for. But basically it's the portion where we go through ground school and then actually get some stick time in the pilot seat for several flights, in order to sort of show us what it's like so we'll have a better understanding of how to navigate. I'll be here for a while, then probably go on leave for a week between Christmas and New Years. After that I'll come back for a couple weeks, then head back to Montgomery, Alabama for ASBC which is the Air and Space Basic Course. This is a six week course that basically starts your PME which is Professional Military Education. Hope everyone reads this post because I probably won't ever define acronyms more than once. :) Anyway at various times in my career I'll return to Montgomery for more training, such as ASBC and SOS which is Squadron Officer School. Basically each time you gain a rank there's more education that comes along with it. After ASBC I'll return here in March and hopefully sometime soon after start my actual JSUNT class. Once I complete my NIFT course I've heard they'll bump up my JSUNT date, which is currently scheduled for July 1, 2004. If I did end up in that class my graduation date would be June 30th, 2005. So basically even if I get my date moved up to the spring, I'll still be here over a year.

So in a nutshell that's what's going on. I know I repeated a lot from one of the previous posts but I just want to make sure I've communicated everything. I most likely will not be talking much about OTS on here. Unfortunately as a whole it was a pretty negative experience for me. I learned a tremendous amount, but my performance was consistently unsatisfying. I may make random references or tell stories from time to time (Goldhawks, hua) but for the most part I'm going to try to focus on the positive things going on, which at the moment means the future.

For all those who haven't driven the 10 freeway between Los Angeles and San Antonio let me some up a tour for you. To your left we have um, some desert. To your right we have um, some more desert. Tada. I ended up deciding to leave Thursday night instead of Friday morning, and did a little 250 miler out to Blythe at the edge of California. The next day I got going relatively early and was still feeling fine at 400, so made it a 600 mile day to Las Cruces. Yesterday I didn't manage to get moving until noon after the time change, but I decided to plow on through the eventual darkness and fog anyway, and managed to get here around 9pm. I'm currently staying in Billeting, because they don't inprocess in anyone on the weekends. The best time to tour a base is definitely Sunday morning, the place is a ghost town. Took tons of pictures, going to investigate various methods of posting them online once I get moved into the dorm and get my internet set up. Move in should be sometime tomorrow in between paperwork, so I'll have my address then for those who want it. I've managed to meet up with an OTS classmate who arrived on Wednesday and thus has gone through much of the process already. Always nice to be able to call on someone with a brain if necessary.

The base itself is cool, a neat layout involving octagon shaped roads and lots of pretty houses. A couple things were pretty neat about arriving, the first being the first salute I got at the front gate after showing my ID card, and the second being the exchange that followed. I mentioned I needed a map to billeting, and instead of giving me one the Security Forces guy said "oh yeah just go straight ahead past the flags to the Taj Mahal, take the traffic circle around and it'll be your third right, then go down past the chapel and take the second left, go down a ways past the static display and it'll be your second left again, followed by your first left and then right into the parking lot." Luckily given my AFSC (Air Force Speciality Code = job) is Navigator, I was able to make it without error, which made me think maybe I'm in the right place. Billeting itself is pretty ridiculously nice, I'm not sure if I was in the officer's version or what, but I had basically an embassy suites style room with bedroom, living area, full kitchen, and spacious bathroom. The dorm rooms are also pretty sweet judging from my friends, with the square footage being about quadruple the size of last year's dorm room at UCSB, which was already way too big for me. Should be interesting trying to fill the space or more likely than not, not filling the space. I'm quite excited to get everything out of my car and situated.

From what I hear there's a lot of downtime, so I'll be doing all sorts of nifty things like working out, reading, and posting blogs! Once internet is up and going we might even see daily posts! Good times.

Officers, Dismissed.

It's all over. And I'm back in LA for a bit.

Well...

I guess if I don't put this to paper soon I never will. Something about writing it down makes it seem like it's finally set in stone.

First things first. I will not be going to Pensacola when I graduate. As previously mentioned there were five spots available out of the twenty something people who applied. I have been told I'm the alternate. This means I managed to place sixth. Thus unless something unthinkable happens I will be heading for Randolph. This is probably going to be one of those things I'm bitter about for a while. The really stupid thing is that the previous class had the same five slots, but only three people who wanted them, so two people got stuck there. Yet six weeks later the opposite happened. You'd think they'd just wait for the next class to fill the slots, especially since the class dates for Pensacola are months away. Alas. There's always the possibility of heading over there somewhere way down the road. But for now it looks like the road is closed, and I've been diverted.

So, what am I doing now. My next destination is Randolph AFB in the city of San Antonio, Texas. I'll be training with the 562nd Training Squadron for quite a while. I have some other training mixed in beforehand, but my class date will be July 1, 2004. The expected graduation is June 30th, 2005. Then comes some follow on training after that. So needless to say, I won't be mission ready for quite some time. Prior to all that I'll be attending the Aerospace Basic Course (ASBC) right back here at Maxwell. That starts January 15th and goes about six weeks.

Right now it looks like I'm flying home on the evening of October 31st when I graduate and then spending a few days in LA. Sometime probably in the middle of the week or more likely the weekend I'll be taking my new car (2003 Altima 3.5SE for those curious) and head out to Randolph arriving probably sometime around the next Monday. I'll be there in casual status and also going through NIFT most likely (the pilot portion of training) until January, when I'll TDY back here to Maxwell for the six weeks, after which I'll return to Randolph for over a year.

From what I hear, San Antonio is a pretty nifty place to be. Sounds like the tan I've gotten here will be maintained. I'll be living on base with all the other aircrew in training, so I should meet a lot of interesting people. There are luckily a lot of pluses to the career track, although I'll it probably won't involve travelling above the speed of sound. Travel will be a lot more common, and I'll see many parts of the world. The time spent abroad will be more peaceful, and there will obviously be less chance of getting blown out of the sky. Special Ops is the only somewhat dangerous area I might end up in, but I've never minded a little action.

So the mindset at the moment. There's a big tradition with RMOs (Round Metal Objects) in the military, and we all purchased the one representing OTS. On it are the words: "For Many Are Called, Yet Few Are Chosen." They remind me that although I may not have gotten my preferred career track, there is a huge amount of people who want nothing more than to be an Air Force Officer, and haven't even been able to gain acceptance to OTS. Then there's those who want nothing more than to fly like a bird, but will never be medically qualified. It is a tremendous honor and privilege to even be wearing the flight suit of the USAF, and I should consider myself lucky to have made it this far.

I'm doing my part to protect our country and our way of life. Sometimes you just have to take what comes as it comes, and do what you can with it. Who knows, maybe the something mentioned in the title to this page is in San Antonio. Or someone, even.

Erm...

Hm, accidentally had a social life this weekend. Luckily this week looks like quite a boring set of classes, so I'll probably get a chance to blog in between. Probably. Lot to say, will eventually say it.

Hm How'd That Happen...

Apparently the weekend got lost in the shuffle somewhere there. Stayed overnight off base for the first time and basically did a whole lot of nothing. Boy does that feel good. You should try it sometime. Sleep in way late, watch some tv, read a book, stare at the wall. Eat a lot too. Very fun stuff. So yeah now boom we're deploying this afternoon on a mock mobility exercise, so I'll be living in a tent until Friday. Maybe then I'll be able to update a bit. You never know around here though.

Just a Quick Blurb...

Had to stop by to delete another naughty guestbook post, and figured I'd leave a note. Final CWT (academic test) is tomorrow, so come this three day weekend I'll have plenty of time to do things like post blogs.

The light at the end of the tunnel is becoming more visible.

Oh Yeah By the Way...

I'm still alive. Three weeks seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle. Basically around here, if you have time to blog, it means you're not doing something you should be doing. With sleeping being at the top of that list.

So in a nutshell what's been going on, hm... Took the first couple PFTs, and increased my score on the second by around 80 points thanks to dropping my 1.5 mile time a minute, always good news. Also took the first two CWTs, and unfortunately although I got a 94 on the first I only got an 88 on the second, and although that's still well within passing range, that could cause problems.

Reason being that we finally got down the assignment information for everyone as to where they're going. Unfortunately for navigators, the Board that decides whether or not we go to Pensacola (my preferred result) or Randolph doesn't meet until October 1st. We did have a briefing about both bases though and talked to current WSOs Navs and EWOs, all potentiall career paths for us depending on where we end up. From my last count, after a few SIE'd, there are now 23 Navs left in class 04-01. There are 5 available slots to Pensacola. Any way you slice it, those are pretty bad odds. I would have liked to show improvement on both my second PFT and CWT, but was only able to accomplish half of that goal. Luckily there is a whole lot of other stuff that is taken into consideration at the Board, including a letter I write explaining why I feel I belong there, a letter my FTO writes to plug me, and basically all the stats on me here such as results from leadership activities and briefings and so forth. All that should do me justice, but that last CWT score has had me pretty worried. No clue when the results of the Board will come back, might be a few days later since there are so few apps, or it might be a few weeks later. So right up until a few weeks before graduation I'll have no clue whether I'm packing up and going to Texas or packing up and going to Florida. All I can do is hope I suppose.

The end of the sixth week was important for another big reason, the upper class graduated on Friday. There were actually several events involved, including the Dining Out for graduating members and their families at the O'Club on Wednesday, Open House on Campus on Thursday so they could see where the members studied, ate, and slept, and then the Graduation Parade on Friday. For all those who were pondering not inviting their families, I highly advise against it. All of these events are really cool, and give the people you're related to a window into the life you're going to be leading. Especially for those who have no experience with the military, it's a chance for them to see what it's really like. By the way, week six is really ugly. The first week is equally ugly, because trying to stay awake is the biggest challenge as you run on no sleep with a million things to do. But week six they just pile on the academics, and you have something major due every day with not much time to work on it. While also juggling volunteering for merits for the upper class graduation activities and working shifts at CQ, OCC, PCC, or OTSAC (yeah as if you'll understand any of that). I hear week nine is the next roughest, we'll have to see about that.

Unfortunately for me it's clear across the country from just about everyone I know, so it will be pretty rough on anyone who wants to come participate. It's definitely going to be the coolest thing ever though. So now that they're gone we inherit upper class positions and ranks, so I'm now known as OT Captain Wilson in the position of Operations Group Executive Officer. Basically I work with the top two in charge of OPS which is about half the class. This means I'll get to be carrying a saber at graduation marching out in front of one of the groups of squadrons, one of only 14 out of 150 or so who get to. Pretty spiffy. Privileges become more meaningful, as we become eligible for off-base privileges for the first time next weekend. Unfortunately you have to have 5 or less demerits by Wednesday night, and I'm already at 4 before getting through the weekend, so I'll probably be hanging out on Campus much like this weekend. Alas.

So, we're at uh, forty days to go. No prooooblem.

Federal Holidays Are Good For...

Posting blogs, it would seem. It's a good thing we had the day off too, because I had a lot to catch up on. As expected it's been a long time since I posted, and I'm kind of sad about that. Coming in I really expected to be able to sit down for a few minutes each day and chug out everything I did in journal form, and be able to reminisce about how sucky it was later. Now that we're finally into third class status, we actually do have a bit of free time now and then, but it's really hard to motivate myself to want to do anything. We have to be on point all the time, from 5am to 5pm, and then even with various evening chores or activities after that, so when we do get time to relax, step one is the head hitting the pillow, and step two is lalaland.

I know how much I loved reading the journals of others who came before me, and it's sad people won't get the same from mine. I guess I might as well get used to it though, as I'm sure much of my job won't be something I can talk to my family or friends about. It's a small price to pay for a cubicle by the window I suppose.

So what all can I say about the last couple weeks... Well they sucked a lot, and I'm glad they're over. Too much to do in too little time, a whole lot of demerits (54 in one week was my top) and plenty of downers. Luckily morale boosting is something they feel is important around here, so they make sure to make you feel good at least a couple times a week before knocking you flat again. I think we got lucky when it comes to FTO's though, ours is stern but civil. He makes sure to let you know when you screw up, but isn't overbearing about it. By now our class has lost a few dozen people, but our original flight of twelve is intact. We had our first PFD, and I conveniently had felt like crap for the two days prior, as well as during, so my run was a good minute off what it should have been. I suppose I can partially blame the heat and the fact the other two events (pushups and situps) come beforehand and that's not the way I train, but I still should have done much better. I have a long way to go to get to where I want to be, but I'm really getting into the swing of things now and should be dropping some weight along the way to make things easier. I did get personal bests in the two non running categories though so that's something to be happy about.

This last weekend our FTO gave us four hours of base privileges, which basically means we were able to wander around inside the gates for a while. We hit up the BX and then went bowling, which was quite fun. Nice to get off campus at least temporarily. I saw a ton of cool planes set up as monuments and whatnot, going to have to go back around with a camera once I have more time. I've been trying to take pictures whenever I think of it, so I've got some pretty good ones of the action so far. We wore our blues for the first time while going off campus, which was pretty trippy. You see your flightmates in nothing but pc gear and BDUs (camouflage) for weeks and suddenly they're lookin all preppy, quite entertaining. I dunno about those flight caps though, that'll take some getting used to. Going to be pretty pathetic as a nonprior to have my two ribbons at graduation while people like my roommate have like four rows, but I guess that's what eleven years in the service gets you.

Watched a Real World episode tonight now that we finally have tv privileges (we can even talk at lunch and dinner now, oooooooh), that was an interesting taste of what once was. I've been managing to get in a bit of phone time too, now that I discovered I can just call people and have them call me back on those phones, since they probably get free long distance on their cells and I can't use mine.

I gotta give a huge thanks to those who have sent me stuff, I've been making my roommate jealous because of the amount of mail I've received, and it is really awesome. You have no idea how cool it is to actually see proof that the other side of the country you used to live on is still over there. Makes my day. :)

Also gotta plug those I've talked to on the phone, that is the best stress release there is. Anyone interested in hearing how a typical day goes over here feel free to e-mail me at otsstudent.044@maxwell.af.mil with your phone number (don't have my address book) and I'll hit you up sometime. E-mail here is kind of fritzy though so I'll probably be able to check once a day at most. You could also try my usual hotmail address to the right but since I can't access that site here I'm having someone else maintain it and am checking in around once a week so there will be a longer delay.

So, we're at uh, sixty days to go. No prooooblem.

A Sign of Life.

Believe it or not, I've been here a week. Feels like a month. So much has happened, I really don't know where to start. Unfortunately for the internet world out there, nearly all of what has happened won't ever be publicly posted.

Needless to say, I arrived at Maxwell AFB in Alabama last Tuesday night just before midnight, and have been living quite a different life since then.

This is pretty much the first time I've had a spare few minutes to do much of anything. I'd love to unload just pages and pages of journal entries, but to be honest I don't know if it's going to happen.

Many people were planning to use my site as a source for information about what life is like at OTS, but the briefings that were held regarding what was to be kept private are going to prevent that from happening. Posts will consist of the various major events that go on, as well as how I'm feeling about the whole thing and whatnot. When it comes to procedures, things to memorize, or what you should know to get a leg up by the time you get here, I won't be discussing it.

Truthfully, I'm glad I was learning at the same pace as everyone else. There is an absolute truckload of procedures to learn, and you're purposely given not enough time to learn them, in order to cause mistakes and pressure. Stress is paramount, as is sleep deprivation. The best advice I can give a week in is just to remember what you're here for, and realize everything making your life miserable is temporary.

One of the reasons I decided to post today was the fact that they just dropped off the first of my two BDU tops (Battle Dress Uniform- the camouflage outfit) with the name tapes sewn on. Up to this point we've been wearing plastic nametags, and that will continue until the upper class graduates in about a month.

When I pulled it out of the bag though, it was an interesting feeling. For the first time I had a piece of clothing that said WILSON, U.S. AIR FORCE. I guess it's kind of like being handed your starting jersey for a soccer team or something. My roommate is piror active service eleven years, and says he still remembers the first time he saw him name "in lights" so to speak.

Nothing had really been hitting me thus far, but I think that finally made me realize I'm really here. We're confined to campus for the first several weeks, which consists of an area about the same size as Manzanita Village back at school, or maybe a couple football fields square. Thus I haven't seen any of Alabama really, other than the midnight bus ride in from Atlanta to Montgomery. Other than the heat, and constant lightning warnings, I haven't really seen any evidence that I'm quite far from where I grew up. I'm sure as time passes I'll figure it out. Seeing my name on the uniform is pretty cool though. Being referred to as OT Wilson isn't as exciting (officer trainee) although for some of the personnel paperwork they refer to you as Staff Sergeant Wilson, which takes some getting used to.

So anyway, I'm alive, and moving forward. I count something like 73 days left until OTS graduation. Ouch. More when there's more. Eventually.

See You All On The Other Side.

Would have liked to have posted more, but thinks came together pretty quick here.

Flight leaves at some point this morning, my call time is 4:30am to MEPS. Ten weeks later on Halloween, assuming all goes well, I should have graduated and will be commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the USAF.

Internet access during the process will probably be sparse, but I'll try to keep journals somewhat daily and post them when possible. No promises however, I hear things get a bit busy.

To all of you who IM'd/e-mailed/saw me this week, you rock. Especially to those who called last night to wish me the best, it's great to know there are people on this side of the rock that care about me. I'm feelin the love. Good luck to all of you in your pursuits until I return.

Get Out of Jail Free Card

Also known as a verification of my degree, I finally managed to secure one this morning after three days of chasing professors and letters around trying to prove my GPA was high enough. Made it by a cool 5 thousands of a point I believe. Had it completely under control. Yep.

So the plan is now to head down to LA sometime later today or maybe tomorrow morning, and spend the weekend getting my act together there. Then I'll be getting dropped off at MEPS bright and early around 4am Monday morning, and hopping on a plane heading East.

Been saying goodbye to a lot of people today, who knows when I'll reappear back on this side of things. Only one thing is for sure, I won't have much hair.

Going to see The Producers on Sunday at 2pm, and then promptly going to sleep, but other than that my weekend should have plenty of gaps for more goodbyes and whatnot, just call my cell.

Today's Word of the Day...

There's this group of people, they call themselves the ALUMNI of UCSB.

As of today, I'm one of them.

Yet Another Waiting Game...

Everything, and I do mean everything, is up in the air right now. I'm hoping to get grades back tomorrow. If they're good as expected, the process will move along, if not, my OTS class is delayed at least six weeks and I start summer session B a couple weeks late. If that works out, then I start trying to get the letters from professors to the registrar, to get the verification I need as well the as getting the transcript process started so they can mail it directly to OTS. Hopefully, that will be given to me by Thursday. If it is, I could potentially be driving to Alabama, leaving very early Friday. I'd have to do a whole lot in a whole little amount of time though, so who knows. If not, I'd fly out Tuesday or possibly Monday, assuming I can switch my plans with the recruiter from driving to flying at such short notice.

So basically, I know nothing at this point, but by the end of tomorrow I should know a little more.

Oh Yeah By The Way...

Finals went quite well. Awaiting the results.

Short and Sweet.

Let's see, one final tomorrow, two the next day.
Yeah, that's about all there is to say about that.

P.S. So Far, So Good, might be getting out of here in a hurry after all.

Blah Blah Blah

Life during summer school sure isn't too exciting. I can probably sum up the last couple weeks in a few paragraphs. Last Monday I ran my first sub 6 minute mile since high school in a whopping 5:59.74. Didn't make it by much, but that's still pretty awesome. Did a couple more hard workouts then this most recent Sunday ran a workout that consisted of a 1000, 800, 600, and 400, with the first three adding up to the 2400 requirement I'll be doing at OTS. I ran them very hard, and granted there were breaks in between so it's not at all an accurate comparison, but I managed to get under 9 minutes, which is something I've been far from managing previously. My best 2400 running straight through is 9:55 from a couple months ago, but I haven't timed it since then. I'm hoping I'm somewhere in the mid to lower 9s now. The next day I ran down to the beach and then all the way back up to the KEYT tv station which is on top of this huge hill, and had my friends pick me up and drive me back down to save my shins. My right shin still felt pretty sore though, so given it was a hard week I decided to take a couple days off. Staying healthy/in shape is the goal, getting injured is not the goal. I was still feeling it Tuesday and a bit Wednesday, but today I don't feel it at all so I'll probably do an easy run tomorrow and see how it goes.

In other news, I won't be driving to Alabama as predicted, due to the fact the verification I need from my university stating I graduated that I have to take with me won't be available until the day after I was planning to leave. It's still somewhat up in the air though, my friend brought up the idea that it could be overnighted to me somewhere along the way, although since most of the travelling is on a weekend I'm not sure how that would work. The other main problem is I'm not positive about the grades and so forth that I need yet, so nothing is set in stone. I'm having to haggle teachers for letters to the registrar stating my grades won't change to expediate the processing, and do all sorts of fun stuff like that.

Midterms came back and they went well, so I'm feeling pretty confident going into finals. I haven't missed any classes since the midterms so I can be sure that I'll know everything that had been covered in class. Two of them are essay based but I have the review questions of which three will be on the final, so there can't be any surprises. The other class the T/A does a really good job in section going over various kinds of problems that will be on the test, and also will be having another review session similiar to the midterm one where she went over entire tests from the old test booklet of which the actual questions ended up very similar. So overall feeling good about grades.

It will get interesting though, I have a final the 30th and two on the 31st, and the bummer thing is summer session B starts that next Monday the 4th, so I will need to hopefully know my grades by then and know if I need to be registering for second session. I don't see it happening, but you never know. Theoretically if I get the grades I need they'll be able to turn them in with a letter by like the 6th, and I'll be able to pick up the verification I need on like Friday the 8th. Then I'll go home and futz about for the weekend cleaning up my life and then hop on a plane Tuesday morning and suddenly appear in Alabama at some point that evening.

Other than classes not a whole lot going on, random entertainment here and there, been reading some of the books I bought off the recommended Air Force reading list, finished up "The Wild Blue" by Steven Ambrose which was very entertaining, finding out what it was like to fly in WWII makes it simple to figure out how easy people who fly have it today. I'm now working on "Beyond the Wild Blue" by Walter J Boyne, which basically details the history of the Air Force from WWII to basically the present day, covering all the major events and conflicts and leaders and whatnot. By the time I'm done with this decently sized book I should be much better informed going into OTS about those that came before.

Oops time for class again, guess I'll stop hogging the library computer.