Still Alive, and Loving It.
Okay so we'll be catching up with posts over the next few days. She left today, sadly, but will probably be making a return soon on various upcoming weekends so not all is lost.
Since the last post I've had three flights and another difficult sim, so there will be plenty to chat about.
That and all the gross couple stuff we did I'm sure you're just dying to hear.
I'll actually try to split it up into Nav stuff and couple stuff in different posts for the various audiences' viewing pleasure. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Go Figure, Plans Change.
So not much happened this four day weekend, other than getting news on Sunday that my girlfriend had swindled me into thinking otherwise and in fact would be arriving Tuesday night at midnight and staying for a full eight days before leaving to visit her family in Florida.
So yeah, we had the hardest sim so far and did some other stuff, but with flights tomorrow and the next day and a girlfriend to spend time with, I'm not going to be posting much. Hopefully will have time for a blurb now and then about gross couple stuff.
So not much happened this four day weekend, other than getting news on Sunday that my girlfriend had swindled me into thinking otherwise and in fact would be arriving Tuesday night at midnight and staying for a full eight days before leaving to visit her family in Florida.
So yeah, we had the hardest sim so far and did some other stuff, but with flights tomorrow and the next day and a girlfriend to spend time with, I'm not going to be posting much. Hopefully will have time for a blurb now and then about gross couple stuff.
Friday, July 02, 2004
Being Graded On Wing Flapping ...
Okay so when last I left you I was hyperventilating or something in between flight attempts. As it was the flight the next day when exceptionally well given the circumstances. Again we got a lightning within five warning early in the checklists, and again we sat on the runway for an hour. Unfortunately this time I had an instructor who had one student to focus on instead of two, so he just grilled me on various EPs and questions about the equipment while we waited. Fun stuff. It started off pretty bad as I'd volunteered to go get the lunches for someone else since they had never been and I had done it multiple times. Apparently this is a cardinal sin, as my instructor was waiting for me with a precanned "don't ever be stupid again" response when I boarded the plane. Better yet, when he opened his lunch his was minus a sandwich, causing him to throw the whole bag at the console and belt out various swear words in disgust. Always promising to have this going on right before he starts filling out your gradesheet.
As it was it was a pretty close to flawless flight with few mistakes. I could even tell at times he was trying to distract me with various tasks so that I would miss a clearance or altitude call, but I was wise to his tricks. Due to continuous weather as usual we only took the route out to point Bravo and made that the turnpoint, cramming a bunch of fixes and DR's in between. Eventually I came out with fifteen 4's out of a possible nineteen, which I was perfectly happy with. There was no rest for the weary though as we immediately had to get back for a horribly long test review that was a complete waste of my time. Nothing like 5am-6pm workdays with the last three hours being utterly pointless. I'm sure it helped some people who hadn't bothered studying or are just complete idiots in general but I would much rather have been able to talk to the girlfriend before she went to sleep with some of the time and used the rest to focus on what I actually felt I needed to study. As it was I ended up missing 1 on the actual test, due to as usual just a hiccup on the road to perfection, no real reason I should have missed the question I did. So my test scores are -1, -1, -1, -0, -0, -1 overall, although obviously the later ones are weighed more than the earlier ones. I can't complain that loudly except that I'm only somewhat in the upper middle of the pack, due to the number of people who have aced more tests than I have. I can only hope my flight and sim performance betters theirs.
Although I guess one thing I haven't mentioned is that Nav school has finally started taking its toll on some. The other section had their first DOR a couple days ago, a word most people shudder at. A "Drop On Request" in layman's terms means someone quit. For whatever reason, whether they couldn't cut it, or didn't want to cut it, they end up working a casual job in the squadron in BDUs until they bounce somewhere else in the Air Force into another job to fulfill their four year commitment. Most of us would never even ponder the option, but you'd be amazed how some people will talk an exorbitant amount of trash throughout the process of coming here about how great a navigator they will be, and then suddenly change their minds about what they're capable of, or what they want to do. I'm not talking about anyone in specific either, I've seen it happen on various levels in various classes.
Other than the DOR, we've had a couple people roll back for various reasons, and I personally feel at least a few more will soon follow. We've also had some test failures, which is never a good thing, and means you're talking to the Flight Commander for all the wrong reasons. Fail three and you find your way out of Nav school, but even less than that means you're finding your way to the bottom of the stack, and you'll get what's left when it comes to the drop.
Although we've taken the major academic test of the phase, we still have three flights as well as I believe four sims to go, and those are all major graded events. Seems like at least every other day we do some four hour event during which our every move is graded, I do feel a bit of pressure at times. A lot of what we do is timed, so you don't really have time to stop and say "crap what am I doing" without costing yourself huge overall. We lucked out in that we had a major sim prep Thursday afternoon and don't have the actual sim until Tuesday, so I'll have plenty of time to do some major prep work this weekend.
Next week's schedule is actually pretty crammed even though it's short. Tuesday I drew the noon sim instead of the 6am thank goodness, but we also fly both Thursday AND Friday. I actually find myself really looking forward to the flights, which I see as a really good thing. Although out in the force I hear you only fly 20-40 hours a month, I'm sure that's when I'll be happiest.
Finally crossing into July means the gf will be arriving in just a few short weeks, which is definitely promising. As usual nothing is for sure with leave and the military until pretty close to the actual date, but here's hoping.
Okay so when last I left you I was hyperventilating or something in between flight attempts. As it was the flight the next day when exceptionally well given the circumstances. Again we got a lightning within five warning early in the checklists, and again we sat on the runway for an hour. Unfortunately this time I had an instructor who had one student to focus on instead of two, so he just grilled me on various EPs and questions about the equipment while we waited. Fun stuff. It started off pretty bad as I'd volunteered to go get the lunches for someone else since they had never been and I had done it multiple times. Apparently this is a cardinal sin, as my instructor was waiting for me with a precanned "don't ever be stupid again" response when I boarded the plane. Better yet, when he opened his lunch his was minus a sandwich, causing him to throw the whole bag at the console and belt out various swear words in disgust. Always promising to have this going on right before he starts filling out your gradesheet.
As it was it was a pretty close to flawless flight with few mistakes. I could even tell at times he was trying to distract me with various tasks so that I would miss a clearance or altitude call, but I was wise to his tricks. Due to continuous weather as usual we only took the route out to point Bravo and made that the turnpoint, cramming a bunch of fixes and DR's in between. Eventually I came out with fifteen 4's out of a possible nineteen, which I was perfectly happy with. There was no rest for the weary though as we immediately had to get back for a horribly long test review that was a complete waste of my time. Nothing like 5am-6pm workdays with the last three hours being utterly pointless. I'm sure it helped some people who hadn't bothered studying or are just complete idiots in general but I would much rather have been able to talk to the girlfriend before she went to sleep with some of the time and used the rest to focus on what I actually felt I needed to study. As it was I ended up missing 1 on the actual test, due to as usual just a hiccup on the road to perfection, no real reason I should have missed the question I did. So my test scores are -1, -1, -1, -0, -0, -1 overall, although obviously the later ones are weighed more than the earlier ones. I can't complain that loudly except that I'm only somewhat in the upper middle of the pack, due to the number of people who have aced more tests than I have. I can only hope my flight and sim performance betters theirs.
Although I guess one thing I haven't mentioned is that Nav school has finally started taking its toll on some. The other section had their first DOR a couple days ago, a word most people shudder at. A "Drop On Request" in layman's terms means someone quit. For whatever reason, whether they couldn't cut it, or didn't want to cut it, they end up working a casual job in the squadron in BDUs until they bounce somewhere else in the Air Force into another job to fulfill their four year commitment. Most of us would never even ponder the option, but you'd be amazed how some people will talk an exorbitant amount of trash throughout the process of coming here about how great a navigator they will be, and then suddenly change their minds about what they're capable of, or what they want to do. I'm not talking about anyone in specific either, I've seen it happen on various levels in various classes.
Other than the DOR, we've had a couple people roll back for various reasons, and I personally feel at least a few more will soon follow. We've also had some test failures, which is never a good thing, and means you're talking to the Flight Commander for all the wrong reasons. Fail three and you find your way out of Nav school, but even less than that means you're finding your way to the bottom of the stack, and you'll get what's left when it comes to the drop.
Although we've taken the major academic test of the phase, we still have three flights as well as I believe four sims to go, and those are all major graded events. Seems like at least every other day we do some four hour event during which our every move is graded, I do feel a bit of pressure at times. A lot of what we do is timed, so you don't really have time to stop and say "crap what am I doing" without costing yourself huge overall. We lucked out in that we had a major sim prep Thursday afternoon and don't have the actual sim until Tuesday, so I'll have plenty of time to do some major prep work this weekend.
Next week's schedule is actually pretty crammed even though it's short. Tuesday I drew the noon sim instead of the 6am thank goodness, but we also fly both Thursday AND Friday. I actually find myself really looking forward to the flights, which I see as a really good thing. Although out in the force I hear you only fly 20-40 hours a month, I'm sure that's when I'll be happiest.
Finally crossing into July means the gf will be arriving in just a few short weeks, which is definitely promising. As usual nothing is for sure with leave and the military until pretty close to the actual date, but here's hoping.
Monday, June 28, 2004
Weather Cancellation.
Apparently a term I will learn to become quite familiar with. Nonstop thunderstorms in the area had us get all the way to about 5 seconds prior to starting engines in the checklist, then we had to hold for lightning within 5 miles for about an hour or so, then eventually we were cancelled. A full brief session, flight planning spin, and a couple more hours of prep, wasted on a no grade. Our show time was 11:30, and we just got back at 5:30. At least I got a flight lunch out of it.
The real party is that we now are hitching a ride with another class, half of us in each plane, so we don't fall behind the other half of our section whose morning flight went fine. That means 5:55am showtime. Hopefully this means the rest of our schedule won't get backed up, but nothing like a full day of flight and then having to come back for a test review for a couple hours, and then have to study for the major academic exam of the phase the next day on Wednesday. This should be fun.
Apparently a term I will learn to become quite familiar with. Nonstop thunderstorms in the area had us get all the way to about 5 seconds prior to starting engines in the checklist, then we had to hold for lightning within 5 miles for about an hour or so, then eventually we were cancelled. A full brief session, flight planning spin, and a couple more hours of prep, wasted on a no grade. Our show time was 11:30, and we just got back at 5:30. At least I got a flight lunch out of it.
The real party is that we now are hitching a ride with another class, half of us in each plane, so we don't fall behind the other half of our section whose morning flight went fine. That means 5:55am showtime. Hopefully this means the rest of our schedule won't get backed up, but nothing like a full day of flight and then having to come back for a test review for a couple hours, and then have to study for the major academic exam of the phase the next day on Wednesday. This should be fun.
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Spread Your Wings, and Prepare to Fly.
The day I'd been waiting for since I entered the AF finally came on Friday. "Gator eight six alpha, cleared for takeoff runway one four left..." Eventually on my resume I'll have some block about having 1,000 or even 2,000 or 3,000 flight hours in various aircraft, but as of now that number stands at 2.9. There were really three favorite moments for me for that first flight. The first was as usual, just plugging in to the radio and hearing everyone's voices crackling over my headset, from the pilot to the guy in the seat next to me. It's like they have a channel into your brain, so you can hear them clearly even over the noise of the engines and whatever else. That and you can hear yourself, which isn't something you're used to hearing at a higher volume. One of the things we do in an early checklist is do a mic check through the plane, and you basically hear "I3 loud and clear, S10 loud and clear, S9 loud and clear" all the way up to the front to the pilots. The instructors are referred to by I, the students take up the positions S1-S12. S1 is "lead" which means a lot of the tasking falls on his shoulders, which can be either a good or bad thing. Generally S1 is responsible for navigating the departure and approach, S5 takes the outbound enroute leg, and S9 the inbound. I was S10 Friday, but since all we did was three different departures and approaches, we all ended up lead for one of the legs.
My second favorite moment came somewhere around level off at FL230 (Flight Level at 23,000 basically) when I got a chance to look out the window. Out there on the wing, high above the clouds, was the insignia that is on most Air Force aircraft. It was a pretty neat feeling to realize that I was in fact in a plane, thousands of feet in the air, and I was going to get to do this for a job, and even get paid. Basically it's like being accepted onto a team that's the world's best, and everyone loves being the best.
The third moment was during the changeover from the third departure to the third approach, when S9 came on the headset and said "S10 you have the lead." "Roger S10 has the lead" was my immediate response, and I was then in control of a piece of machinery that weighs about fifty tons inflight. All I had to say was "Pilot, Lead, Left 350" and the plane would immediately bank in that direction. Altitude changes, radio calls, turns, it was all great fun. It's a little more pressure to be the one in charge, as a whole lot of people are watching you screw up if you manage to. So far so good though, only a couple of the leads had us going off into the boonies requiring the pilots to make a turn on their own to stay within the corridor given to us by ATC.
Criticism is for the most part immediate on the plane. If you're not lead all the altitude and turn calls have to be communicated to your instructor before lead makes them, so your instructor knows you would have done the same or even what you would have done differently. For example for the 1000 to level off call, we have to point at our altimeter at 1500 to level off. At times though you'll be absorbed in a calculation and you'll hear lead come over the radio with the 1,000 to L/O, and immediately think "well crap" and try not to miss the next one. Even worse is the pilot coming over the radio if you're lead and saying "we're turning to x heading because we're getting way right/left of course."
Each position also has a number of additional duties, mostly referring to an emergency egress situation, but also some referring to flight preparation. I managed to draw being the lunch guy, so I was dropped off at the flight kitchen to pick up all the food we'd ordered when we arrived and signed in in the morning. I was quite impressed, $1.40 got me a chicken patty sandwich, chips, apple, pudding, jello, gum, a Snickers, a Nutri-Grain bar, orange juice, and a beverage of our choosing. And believe it or not that was the SMALL lunch, the larger one for a buck more apparently got people two sandwiches and various other things. I might spring for that on Monday for our second flight and just save the extra stuff and eat it later. During the full flights which we start Monday there is a lot more downtime, as you're up for 3-4 hours and have a lot of time between checkpoints assuming you're not crazily off course. We managed to not have anyone barf, although I must admit during all the step down altitudes on the approaches I was feelin pretty crappy. I'm gonna try wearing the wristbands that apply pressure inbetween those two major veins that I used to wear for reading in cars or riding boats on scuba trips, and that should eliminate that problem. Interestingly enough climb outs, and even turbulence had no effect. For the first two approaches we just buzzed the airfield, and it was literally an immediate improvement in the way I was feeling as soon as we did.
I did get a 2 for mission prep, largely because I hadn't cluttered up my chart with much of anything, figuring after the first flight I would know what I needed and what I didn't. And I was right, I know what needs to be added, and what some people have on theirs that is a total waste of time and a visual mess. The rest were 3's with the sole 4 coming from acing the EP quiz. Speaking of which we had the full Emergency Procedure test Thursday, and I managed to ace it extending my streak of acing tests to a whopping two. The party never stops though, on Wednesday we have our FN test, which covers all of the academics learned during this phase. That will require a lot of legwork to prep for.
I continue to try to get into a more regular updating schedule, and this week is going to be a much more ideal schedule for that among other things. We have our 2nd Flight Monday as I mentioned, but I drew the noon show time rather than the 6:30am, so that'll be nice. Probably won't be back until after dinner, luckily they give us all that food on the plane. Tusday we just have some CRM (Crew Resource Management) work in the morning, then after lunch a test review and a briefing by the 563rd about why we should go EWO. I'm pretty much sold on the other side of the house, but shoudl at least be educational. Wednesday morning is the FN academic test, but we'll be home by lunch. Assuming we don't fail the test that means we don't have to come in until 1pm Thursday, where we'll be spinning (doing all the calculations) for our fourth sim which although it has the identifier T2401 has been nicknamed Twenty FAIR O One because of the amount of problems usually ran into apparently. Basically it's the first time we'll be lead for an entire flight from departure to arrival, so juggling comms as well as all the log work should be interesting. The great news in that respect though is we get both Friday AND Monday off for the Fourth of July weekend, so we'll end up with several days to prep for the sim the following Tuesday. It's about time we've gotten some love from the scheduling department, we'd been getting the real shaft in prior weeks.
So yeah, less frequent updates have hopefully been made up for my lengthier ones, although I'm going to continue to try and update more often. I know I was desperate to read a nav journal before I came here and there basically wasn't any, so I'm doing what I can to help out everyone else.
Oh and since she much prefers it when I mention her in posts, last night in honor of my girlfriend I went to see The Notebook. I generally prefer drama and action, and she gernally prefers romance and comedy, so I actually saw one of each to broaden my horizons a bit. This was actually an excellent movie for its genre, and gets a solid 5.5 M's. The difference between 5 and 6 was that I ALMOST cried, but managed to choke back a few. Quite a touching love story, and enough to make you miss someone a whole lot. To cheer myself up I hopped over to Dogeball next door, which I'd heard from multiple sources was the funniest movie of the year by far. Yeah, 2 M's. It was as usual more of a "stupid funny" than "funny funny" as I call it, and I really wasn't too impressed. The most interesting part of the movie was trying to figure out how old Marsha Brady is at this point, and whether the Brady Bunch was on in the 70s or 80s. Luckily I continue my streak of hopping to crappy movies and not having to be really sad that I actually paid to see them, and paying for those that are actually worth my time.
So yeah, three weeks from yesterday and we'll (most likely) get to have dinner together or something assuming getting plane tickets and whatnot goes smoothly. Not really sure how I'll feel during or after the 12 hours or so we'll get to say hi. Something tells me I'll never take her for granted at any point when we're finally together, that's for sure.
The day I'd been waiting for since I entered the AF finally came on Friday. "Gator eight six alpha, cleared for takeoff runway one four left..." Eventually on my resume I'll have some block about having 1,000 or even 2,000 or 3,000 flight hours in various aircraft, but as of now that number stands at 2.9. There were really three favorite moments for me for that first flight. The first was as usual, just plugging in to the radio and hearing everyone's voices crackling over my headset, from the pilot to the guy in the seat next to me. It's like they have a channel into your brain, so you can hear them clearly even over the noise of the engines and whatever else. That and you can hear yourself, which isn't something you're used to hearing at a higher volume. One of the things we do in an early checklist is do a mic check through the plane, and you basically hear "I3 loud and clear, S10 loud and clear, S9 loud and clear" all the way up to the front to the pilots. The instructors are referred to by I, the students take up the positions S1-S12. S1 is "lead" which means a lot of the tasking falls on his shoulders, which can be either a good or bad thing. Generally S1 is responsible for navigating the departure and approach, S5 takes the outbound enroute leg, and S9 the inbound. I was S10 Friday, but since all we did was three different departures and approaches, we all ended up lead for one of the legs.
My second favorite moment came somewhere around level off at FL230 (Flight Level at 23,000 basically) when I got a chance to look out the window. Out there on the wing, high above the clouds, was the insignia that is on most Air Force aircraft. It was a pretty neat feeling to realize that I was in fact in a plane, thousands of feet in the air, and I was going to get to do this for a job, and even get paid. Basically it's like being accepted onto a team that's the world's best, and everyone loves being the best.
The third moment was during the changeover from the third departure to the third approach, when S9 came on the headset and said "S10 you have the lead." "Roger S10 has the lead" was my immediate response, and I was then in control of a piece of machinery that weighs about fifty tons inflight. All I had to say was "Pilot, Lead, Left 350" and the plane would immediately bank in that direction. Altitude changes, radio calls, turns, it was all great fun. It's a little more pressure to be the one in charge, as a whole lot of people are watching you screw up if you manage to. So far so good though, only a couple of the leads had us going off into the boonies requiring the pilots to make a turn on their own to stay within the corridor given to us by ATC.
Criticism is for the most part immediate on the plane. If you're not lead all the altitude and turn calls have to be communicated to your instructor before lead makes them, so your instructor knows you would have done the same or even what you would have done differently. For example for the 1000 to level off call, we have to point at our altimeter at 1500 to level off. At times though you'll be absorbed in a calculation and you'll hear lead come over the radio with the 1,000 to L/O, and immediately think "well crap" and try not to miss the next one. Even worse is the pilot coming over the radio if you're lead and saying "we're turning to x heading because we're getting way right/left of course."
Each position also has a number of additional duties, mostly referring to an emergency egress situation, but also some referring to flight preparation. I managed to draw being the lunch guy, so I was dropped off at the flight kitchen to pick up all the food we'd ordered when we arrived and signed in in the morning. I was quite impressed, $1.40 got me a chicken patty sandwich, chips, apple, pudding, jello, gum, a Snickers, a Nutri-Grain bar, orange juice, and a beverage of our choosing. And believe it or not that was the SMALL lunch, the larger one for a buck more apparently got people two sandwiches and various other things. I might spring for that on Monday for our second flight and just save the extra stuff and eat it later. During the full flights which we start Monday there is a lot more downtime, as you're up for 3-4 hours and have a lot of time between checkpoints assuming you're not crazily off course. We managed to not have anyone barf, although I must admit during all the step down altitudes on the approaches I was feelin pretty crappy. I'm gonna try wearing the wristbands that apply pressure inbetween those two major veins that I used to wear for reading in cars or riding boats on scuba trips, and that should eliminate that problem. Interestingly enough climb outs, and even turbulence had no effect. For the first two approaches we just buzzed the airfield, and it was literally an immediate improvement in the way I was feeling as soon as we did.
I did get a 2 for mission prep, largely because I hadn't cluttered up my chart with much of anything, figuring after the first flight I would know what I needed and what I didn't. And I was right, I know what needs to be added, and what some people have on theirs that is a total waste of time and a visual mess. The rest were 3's with the sole 4 coming from acing the EP quiz. Speaking of which we had the full Emergency Procedure test Thursday, and I managed to ace it extending my streak of acing tests to a whopping two. The party never stops though, on Wednesday we have our FN test, which covers all of the academics learned during this phase. That will require a lot of legwork to prep for.
I continue to try to get into a more regular updating schedule, and this week is going to be a much more ideal schedule for that among other things. We have our 2nd Flight Monday as I mentioned, but I drew the noon show time rather than the 6:30am, so that'll be nice. Probably won't be back until after dinner, luckily they give us all that food on the plane. Tusday we just have some CRM (Crew Resource Management) work in the morning, then after lunch a test review and a briefing by the 563rd about why we should go EWO. I'm pretty much sold on the other side of the house, but shoudl at least be educational. Wednesday morning is the FN academic test, but we'll be home by lunch. Assuming we don't fail the test that means we don't have to come in until 1pm Thursday, where we'll be spinning (doing all the calculations) for our fourth sim which although it has the identifier T2401 has been nicknamed Twenty FAIR O One because of the amount of problems usually ran into apparently. Basically it's the first time we'll be lead for an entire flight from departure to arrival, so juggling comms as well as all the log work should be interesting. The great news in that respect though is we get both Friday AND Monday off for the Fourth of July weekend, so we'll end up with several days to prep for the sim the following Tuesday. It's about time we've gotten some love from the scheduling department, we'd been getting the real shaft in prior weeks.
So yeah, less frequent updates have hopefully been made up for my lengthier ones, although I'm going to continue to try and update more often. I know I was desperate to read a nav journal before I came here and there basically wasn't any, so I'm doing what I can to help out everyone else.
Oh and since she much prefers it when I mention her in posts, last night in honor of my girlfriend I went to see The Notebook. I generally prefer drama and action, and she gernally prefers romance and comedy, so I actually saw one of each to broaden my horizons a bit. This was actually an excellent movie for its genre, and gets a solid 5.5 M's. The difference between 5 and 6 was that I ALMOST cried, but managed to choke back a few. Quite a touching love story, and enough to make you miss someone a whole lot. To cheer myself up I hopped over to Dogeball next door, which I'd heard from multiple sources was the funniest movie of the year by far. Yeah, 2 M's. It was as usual more of a "stupid funny" than "funny funny" as I call it, and I really wasn't too impressed. The most interesting part of the movie was trying to figure out how old Marsha Brady is at this point, and whether the Brady Bunch was on in the 70s or 80s. Luckily I continue my streak of hopping to crappy movies and not having to be really sad that I actually paid to see them, and paying for those that are actually worth my time.
So yeah, three weeks from yesterday and we'll (most likely) get to have dinner together or something assuming getting plane tickets and whatnot goes smoothly. Not really sure how I'll feel during or after the 12 hours or so we'll get to say hi. Something tells me I'll never take her for granted at any point when we're finally together, that's for sure.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
I've Been Trying...
To fit updating into my schedule for this entire week, but haven't been able to get around to it. The people over at scheduling apparently have it in for us, as we've gotten shafted in quite a variety of ways that have kept me quite busy. When last I left you I'd just finished my first sim, and was about to begin my first CGM the next day. Well since then I've had two more sims, and two CGMs. The third sim was an especially interesting surprise as we found out about it on Thursday, and it was Friday 3rd period. So while you all were enjoying your Friday night I was working until quite late. The good news is I'm progressing quite well in the sims. On the second and third I basically had zero communication errors, earning 4's in all the related categories. This was my area of weakness in the beginning, and the scripts I've been working out and extensive preparation has been paying off. Unfortunately just when you think you have everything down, they add more stuff into the mix, and you have about ten more things you need to think about at once at various times during the flight. It seems like the trick to being a great nav is to have the big picture in your head, with the list of all the things you're going to need to do, and somehow manage to do them all at once without skipping anything or making a mistake. Human error is just one of those things though, and sometimes you can't even explain what causes it.
It's kind of sad actually the reason I have time to blog is I got up prior to 6am today in order to fit a run in before class, and instead was woken up by horrendous thunder as according to weather bug rain is pouring down at a rate of two inches an hour outside. They definitely are keeping us busy, if you're not prepping for whatever CGM or Sim or Flight is coming up, then you're having to memorize Emergency Procedures (EPs) or draw up charts for future missions. We haven't really run into anything essentially hard, it's just a lot of busy work to be done simultaneously and keeping it all straight and knowing what needs to be done next and when is a bit tricky.
Unfortunately I received my first 2's on my gradesheet over the last two events. In my third sim two of the new categories that were being graded were things we hadn't covered very well in class, so they basically just demo'd them and gave us 2's which is somewhat irritating because I probably could have at least attempted it and had a chance at a 3. My 2 yesterday on the CGM was out of pure retardness, and basically forgetting to circle a couple of the points I'd plotted on the chart. All my log work was fine, but aesthetics apparently cost me. I'm still ahead of the curve grades wise, I seem to get plenty of 4's on all the events, but the 2's are quite annoying. We had our planning session for our last CGM yesterday, and I managed to only have one mistake, which was one more than the previous day. So instead of three 4s for the planning sections I'll probably get a 3 or something, and have to pick up the slack during the actual mission. Our first flight is still looming on Friday, with the EP test Thursday. Other than that it's a somewhat less stressful week than last week when a whole lot was hitting us at once, including two third period sims in three days.
On other fronts, it's now less than a month until my girlfriend will make an appearance, at least temporarily. Due to all her leave being rejected she's only going to be able to fly into the states to see me for a day, then fly to Florida to see her family for a day, then immediately fly up to Ohio for her technical training. The hope is during some of the weekends during that training she'll be able to bounce down here, but nothing is ever a sure thing with the military. So after it'll have been over three months since I've seen her when she arrives, we'll get to spend a short number of hours together, then maybe a random assortment of days over the next few weeks, and then after that she's back to Germany and I'm back to training by myself until most likely literally Christmas. It's not really the wait until July that's been bothing me, it's the wait that's looming between August and December, which will be a lot longer.
When asked the other day how my relationship was going my response without really thinking was "It is what it can be, and it isn't what it should be." Reflecting upon that statement after I said it was kind of depressing, but I guess that's the way it goes. It's not like we didn't know what we were getting in to, no one said it would be easy. Thank god for webcams, at least we are able to see each other on a daily basis, or the difficulty level would increase.
It's weird how there's not enough hours in the day sometimes.
To fit updating into my schedule for this entire week, but haven't been able to get around to it. The people over at scheduling apparently have it in for us, as we've gotten shafted in quite a variety of ways that have kept me quite busy. When last I left you I'd just finished my first sim, and was about to begin my first CGM the next day. Well since then I've had two more sims, and two CGMs. The third sim was an especially interesting surprise as we found out about it on Thursday, and it was Friday 3rd period. So while you all were enjoying your Friday night I was working until quite late. The good news is I'm progressing quite well in the sims. On the second and third I basically had zero communication errors, earning 4's in all the related categories. This was my area of weakness in the beginning, and the scripts I've been working out and extensive preparation has been paying off. Unfortunately just when you think you have everything down, they add more stuff into the mix, and you have about ten more things you need to think about at once at various times during the flight. It seems like the trick to being a great nav is to have the big picture in your head, with the list of all the things you're going to need to do, and somehow manage to do them all at once without skipping anything or making a mistake. Human error is just one of those things though, and sometimes you can't even explain what causes it.
It's kind of sad actually the reason I have time to blog is I got up prior to 6am today in order to fit a run in before class, and instead was woken up by horrendous thunder as according to weather bug rain is pouring down at a rate of two inches an hour outside. They definitely are keeping us busy, if you're not prepping for whatever CGM or Sim or Flight is coming up, then you're having to memorize Emergency Procedures (EPs) or draw up charts for future missions. We haven't really run into anything essentially hard, it's just a lot of busy work to be done simultaneously and keeping it all straight and knowing what needs to be done next and when is a bit tricky.
Unfortunately I received my first 2's on my gradesheet over the last two events. In my third sim two of the new categories that were being graded were things we hadn't covered very well in class, so they basically just demo'd them and gave us 2's which is somewhat irritating because I probably could have at least attempted it and had a chance at a 3. My 2 yesterday on the CGM was out of pure retardness, and basically forgetting to circle a couple of the points I'd plotted on the chart. All my log work was fine, but aesthetics apparently cost me. I'm still ahead of the curve grades wise, I seem to get plenty of 4's on all the events, but the 2's are quite annoying. We had our planning session for our last CGM yesterday, and I managed to only have one mistake, which was one more than the previous day. So instead of three 4s for the planning sections I'll probably get a 3 or something, and have to pick up the slack during the actual mission. Our first flight is still looming on Friday, with the EP test Thursday. Other than that it's a somewhat less stressful week than last week when a whole lot was hitting us at once, including two third period sims in three days.
On other fronts, it's now less than a month until my girlfriend will make an appearance, at least temporarily. Due to all her leave being rejected she's only going to be able to fly into the states to see me for a day, then fly to Florida to see her family for a day, then immediately fly up to Ohio for her technical training. The hope is during some of the weekends during that training she'll be able to bounce down here, but nothing is ever a sure thing with the military. So after it'll have been over three months since I've seen her when she arrives, we'll get to spend a short number of hours together, then maybe a random assortment of days over the next few weeks, and then after that she's back to Germany and I'm back to training by myself until most likely literally Christmas. It's not really the wait until July that's been bothing me, it's the wait that's looming between August and December, which will be a lot longer.
When asked the other day how my relationship was going my response without really thinking was "It is what it can be, and it isn't what it should be." Reflecting upon that statement after I said it was kind of depressing, but I guess that's the way it goes. It's not like we didn't know what we were getting in to, no one said it would be easy. Thank god for webcams, at least we are able to see each other on a daily basis, or the difficulty level would increase.
It's weird how there's not enough hours in the day sometimes.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Siiiiiiiiiimulators.
Well for the first time here at Nav school, I can say I've been busy. Due to Friday being a day off for the national day of mourning, our schedule got compressed this week and we've been doing a whole lot at once. On Monday afternoon we had our first sim prep, which consisted of going over three departures and arrivals that we would be flying "in the box" the next morning. Did I mention the 6:30am in your seats in the briefing room start time. So I went over to one of the guys' place around 5pm on Monday and started planning, and was pretty obsessive about having everything set up in a way that would make it easier for me to run all the comms on top of doing everything else, basically scripting stuff out and going over how the comm pattern would flow. I then went home at like 10pm but wasn't satisfied, so I inputted everything I had written into my computer and added color in a way that would make sense, such as different colors for communications inside and outside the plane to ATC. I finally hit the sack aroune 2am, and could feel it around 5am the next morning when I woke up. I think I was nervous though, because it was pretty easy to wake up, kind of when you know you have something important that day.
It was our first graded event for FN of around 15, and it really couldn't have gone much better than it did I think. I made the classic mistakes of trying to talk to ATC with my interphone still switched to pilot or vice versa, and blew through a checkpoint that was basically designed to be within a minute after takeoff when you're doing 80 other things at once, although on the actal departure plate (the sheet with the route drawn on it and a truckload of information to go with it) it looked much further away. Basically your classic errors of someone's first sim ever. We actually ended up doing two as the instructors demo'd the first one, but by the end of the second one I was feeling pretty comfortable in my position. That's a lot to say given I was sitting in front of a few hundred knobs and switches that I saw as foreign objects a couple weeks prior.
The reason I've been busy is we got out of the sim at noon or so yesterday, then after lunch immediately had a class prepping for our second sim which will basically be the same thing, running through departures and approaches, although these are more difficult. The bummer is today although our report time isn't til 11:45, we immediately go into a four hour CGM (Computer Ground Mission) planning session. During these you're basically handed a list of points and a weather sheet and draw up the entire chart and do the entire flight plan and fuel plan, in a timed session of 100 minutes. You don't have a lot of time to be making mistakes and having to start all over, so being efficient is the key. It's listed in a four hour block which probably includes being briefed on what the route will be like and then debriefing on how we did, with our gradesheets being added to immediately afterward. Our summary sheets in our grade folders will eventually show every grade we got in FN, and I'll explain a bit about how those work.
A 4 is an "Excellent" and means you basically did a great job, and were within tolerances even smaller than necessary. A 3 is a "good" or Sat, basically meaning you did what was required and were within the required tolerances on everything. A 2 is "limited proficiency" or Fair I believe, basically meaning you either dorked it up, or required outside help in the Sim, or were outside tolerances on your calculations. A 1 is apparently RARELY seen, and pretty much requires being totally unprepared and having no clue what you're doing. For the most part on the first Sim everyone got 2s and 3s, with 2s being what was required as this point, as it's expected that we'll need a lot of help to get us going and remind us what we're forgetting to do. Starting with later sims a 3 will be required to pass, and that will be the standard on everything until the end of nav school.
So yeah, after our four hour CGM this afternoon, we will then have a short break and immediately have to go over to the Sim for which the briefing will start at 1700 and we'll be in the box by 1800, and not get out until at least 2200. That means home around 11 or midnight or something probably, with my brain pretty nicely fried.
And in case you thought the rest of the week would be easy, the following morning we actually perform the CGM based on our flight plan, altering our route and trying to stay on course along the way and whatnot. That afternoon we have the planning session for our 2nd CGM, which is Friday morning. Friday afternoon we plan for our 3rd CGM and well, then I guess we have a couple days off for the weekend or something. :)
Would love to babble more but gotta get on over to the squadron for the festivities.
Well for the first time here at Nav school, I can say I've been busy. Due to Friday being a day off for the national day of mourning, our schedule got compressed this week and we've been doing a whole lot at once. On Monday afternoon we had our first sim prep, which consisted of going over three departures and arrivals that we would be flying "in the box" the next morning. Did I mention the 6:30am in your seats in the briefing room start time. So I went over to one of the guys' place around 5pm on Monday and started planning, and was pretty obsessive about having everything set up in a way that would make it easier for me to run all the comms on top of doing everything else, basically scripting stuff out and going over how the comm pattern would flow. I then went home at like 10pm but wasn't satisfied, so I inputted everything I had written into my computer and added color in a way that would make sense, such as different colors for communications inside and outside the plane to ATC. I finally hit the sack aroune 2am, and could feel it around 5am the next morning when I woke up. I think I was nervous though, because it was pretty easy to wake up, kind of when you know you have something important that day.
It was our first graded event for FN of around 15, and it really couldn't have gone much better than it did I think. I made the classic mistakes of trying to talk to ATC with my interphone still switched to pilot or vice versa, and blew through a checkpoint that was basically designed to be within a minute after takeoff when you're doing 80 other things at once, although on the actal departure plate (the sheet with the route drawn on it and a truckload of information to go with it) it looked much further away. Basically your classic errors of someone's first sim ever. We actually ended up doing two as the instructors demo'd the first one, but by the end of the second one I was feeling pretty comfortable in my position. That's a lot to say given I was sitting in front of a few hundred knobs and switches that I saw as foreign objects a couple weeks prior.
The reason I've been busy is we got out of the sim at noon or so yesterday, then after lunch immediately had a class prepping for our second sim which will basically be the same thing, running through departures and approaches, although these are more difficult. The bummer is today although our report time isn't til 11:45, we immediately go into a four hour CGM (Computer Ground Mission) planning session. During these you're basically handed a list of points and a weather sheet and draw up the entire chart and do the entire flight plan and fuel plan, in a timed session of 100 minutes. You don't have a lot of time to be making mistakes and having to start all over, so being efficient is the key. It's listed in a four hour block which probably includes being briefed on what the route will be like and then debriefing on how we did, with our gradesheets being added to immediately afterward. Our summary sheets in our grade folders will eventually show every grade we got in FN, and I'll explain a bit about how those work.
A 4 is an "Excellent" and means you basically did a great job, and were within tolerances even smaller than necessary. A 3 is a "good" or Sat, basically meaning you did what was required and were within the required tolerances on everything. A 2 is "limited proficiency" or Fair I believe, basically meaning you either dorked it up, or required outside help in the Sim, or were outside tolerances on your calculations. A 1 is apparently RARELY seen, and pretty much requires being totally unprepared and having no clue what you're doing. For the most part on the first Sim everyone got 2s and 3s, with 2s being what was required as this point, as it's expected that we'll need a lot of help to get us going and remind us what we're forgetting to do. Starting with later sims a 3 will be required to pass, and that will be the standard on everything until the end of nav school.
So yeah, after our four hour CGM this afternoon, we will then have a short break and immediately have to go over to the Sim for which the briefing will start at 1700 and we'll be in the box by 1800, and not get out until at least 2200. That means home around 11 or midnight or something probably, with my brain pretty nicely fried.
And in case you thought the rest of the week would be easy, the following morning we actually perform the CGM based on our flight plan, altering our route and trying to stay on course along the way and whatnot. That afternoon we have the planning session for our 2nd CGM, which is Friday morning. Friday afternoon we plan for our 3rd CGM and well, then I guess we have a couple days off for the weekend or something. :)
Would love to babble more but gotta get on over to the squadron for the festivities.
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Waiver Approved.
That's pretty much the news of the last few days, and one hell of a weight off my shoulders. Better yet it's good through May 2006, so that's a long time before I'll even have to hassle with it again. No worries about having to find another job, and no worries about getting rolled back. I should be with my class to stay barring unusual circumstances. This next week is going to be a good test for a lot of people, we have our first few sims as well as some computer ground missions, everything is getting a lot more in depth in a hurry. Tomorrow morning we have our checklist class in the mock up instrument room that lets you run through everything that you'll find on your panel for the sims and flights. Last Friday we had our most involved ground mission yet, for which we had to do the entire chart, flight plan, and fuel plan on our own at home before coming in to class. I was pretty close with the numbers and am very satisfied with how I've progressed thus far. Ecah time they add something new I catch on pretty quickly, and spend most of the repetition time making sure everything else is engrained in my brain. Sadly we still aren't really getting a feel of what day to day life as a nav will be like, because after this phase we learn about systems to replace most of the by hand procedures, and beyond nav school we won't be doing the majority of the radio and comm work we do here. I won't be complaining if it just keeps getting easier though.
So it's lookin like December drop and February graduation are much closer to being set in stone. But boy is that a long time away. In other random news we had our 4th monthiversary as we've dubbed them a few days ago and it's now just a little over a month until we see each other when she stops by here on the way to training. Then it'll be the weekend warrior strategy after that probably, we'll see how it goes. It certainly feels like it has been a while apart, and I guess it has.
That's pretty much the news of the last few days, and one hell of a weight off my shoulders. Better yet it's good through May 2006, so that's a long time before I'll even have to hassle with it again. No worries about having to find another job, and no worries about getting rolled back. I should be with my class to stay barring unusual circumstances. This next week is going to be a good test for a lot of people, we have our first few sims as well as some computer ground missions, everything is getting a lot more in depth in a hurry. Tomorrow morning we have our checklist class in the mock up instrument room that lets you run through everything that you'll find on your panel for the sims and flights. Last Friday we had our most involved ground mission yet, for which we had to do the entire chart, flight plan, and fuel plan on our own at home before coming in to class. I was pretty close with the numbers and am very satisfied with how I've progressed thus far. Ecah time they add something new I catch on pretty quickly, and spend most of the repetition time making sure everything else is engrained in my brain. Sadly we still aren't really getting a feel of what day to day life as a nav will be like, because after this phase we learn about systems to replace most of the by hand procedures, and beyond nav school we won't be doing the majority of the radio and comm work we do here. I won't be complaining if it just keeps getting easier though.
So it's lookin like December drop and February graduation are much closer to being set in stone. But boy is that a long time away. In other random news we had our 4th monthiversary as we've dubbed them a few days ago and it's now just a little over a month until we see each other when she stops by here on the way to training. Then it'll be the weekend warrior strategy after that probably, we'll see how it goes. It certainly feels like it has been a while apart, and I guess it has.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
What The, A Week?
Strange seems like I just posted. Been pretty busy, we're finally getting into some of the meat of nav school, and it's finally requiring a higher level of understanding than previously. These last few days have been spent doing ground missions, which is essentially the first step towards the eventual simulators and flights laid out in the same manner. Yesterday was actually a good gauge of how everyone was doing, as we we had to complete a full flight and fuel plan, and he timed us so we could see how close to the required 50 minutes that we would be given for the real graded version we were. Some were done in a half hour or so, and some weren't even done with the first section by the end. I hear various rumors about people in both section who are starting to reconsider their career specialty, but apparently that's only natural at this stage of the game. This is one of the hardest aspects of JSUNT, as you're forced to learn a whole lot all at once. My problem is just the random errors that are always associated with doing like a thousand calculations total for each flight plan. This sometimes requires redoing extra sections or replotting points on the chart, but in reality this just gives me extra practice. I've become pretty proficient at what we're doing, and am catching on relatively fast to the new twist they add each day or new topic they work into the flight plan.
We ended up getting Friday off due to the national day of mourning for Ronald Reagan, but apparently that actually won't be all that helpful because instead of learning what will be required for our first sim and then having all weekend to prepare the required charts and departure and approach briefings, we'll learn that Monday afternoon and have to have it done by bright and early Tuesday morning. I think that'll be one of my least favorite taskings early on, as poring over departure and approach plates isn't my favorite thing to do, and briefing about them going into extensive detail like we're required to do here sounds pretty lame. The good news is in the "Real AF"(tm) it's a much different story and the pilot plays just as big a part as the nav. The pilot also handles all the radio communication with ATC, which we're responsible for here in the simulators, although not the flights.
It really seems like they try to give us as much of the load as possible, and then as the course proceeds teach us about instruments or computers that will basically eliminate a lot of the work by hand that we've been forced to do early on. It really seems like it will get easier, not harder, as long as you focus on learning each new thing that comes your way.
Amazingly enough still no news on my waiver, although the guy at flight medicine is able to see that the recommendation is forwarded, for some reason he wasn't able to see the tab they showed me down at Brooks where it would show whether it was a recommendation to approve or reject. My Flight Commander was trying again yesterday, so we'll if that works any better. Apparently it did actually go up to AETC though, and they're telling me this probably fantasy story that the real deal with the final result will come back within a few days. The good news is I found out it could come back any time before my first flight and I won't get rolled, contrary to what I earlier thought about it needing to be in 15 days prior. It just means more paperwork for my squadron as they have to put together a medical delay package anyway just in case. So hopefully with a lot of phone calls things will move right along.
Plenty of rain these last few days, which got them to cancel the Squadron Run this morning that was supposed to be a 7:15 showtime (boohoo) this allowed a few extra hours of sleep so I could stay up and watch the Lakers OT win last night and call her to wake her up, which made for a pretty nice evening. I really have been slacking on the exercise thing though, every week I try to start fresh on Monday, and something like walking outside into pouring rain shuts down the running idea. It does seem like we get an extraordinary amount of rain for a place as desert like as Texas. It's still like 85 when it's raining though, that's what's funny.
Strange seems like I just posted. Been pretty busy, we're finally getting into some of the meat of nav school, and it's finally requiring a higher level of understanding than previously. These last few days have been spent doing ground missions, which is essentially the first step towards the eventual simulators and flights laid out in the same manner. Yesterday was actually a good gauge of how everyone was doing, as we we had to complete a full flight and fuel plan, and he timed us so we could see how close to the required 50 minutes that we would be given for the real graded version we were. Some were done in a half hour or so, and some weren't even done with the first section by the end. I hear various rumors about people in both section who are starting to reconsider their career specialty, but apparently that's only natural at this stage of the game. This is one of the hardest aspects of JSUNT, as you're forced to learn a whole lot all at once. My problem is just the random errors that are always associated with doing like a thousand calculations total for each flight plan. This sometimes requires redoing extra sections or replotting points on the chart, but in reality this just gives me extra practice. I've become pretty proficient at what we're doing, and am catching on relatively fast to the new twist they add each day or new topic they work into the flight plan.
We ended up getting Friday off due to the national day of mourning for Ronald Reagan, but apparently that actually won't be all that helpful because instead of learning what will be required for our first sim and then having all weekend to prepare the required charts and departure and approach briefings, we'll learn that Monday afternoon and have to have it done by bright and early Tuesday morning. I think that'll be one of my least favorite taskings early on, as poring over departure and approach plates isn't my favorite thing to do, and briefing about them going into extensive detail like we're required to do here sounds pretty lame. The good news is in the "Real AF"(tm) it's a much different story and the pilot plays just as big a part as the nav. The pilot also handles all the radio communication with ATC, which we're responsible for here in the simulators, although not the flights.
It really seems like they try to give us as much of the load as possible, and then as the course proceeds teach us about instruments or computers that will basically eliminate a lot of the work by hand that we've been forced to do early on. It really seems like it will get easier, not harder, as long as you focus on learning each new thing that comes your way.
Amazingly enough still no news on my waiver, although the guy at flight medicine is able to see that the recommendation is forwarded, for some reason he wasn't able to see the tab they showed me down at Brooks where it would show whether it was a recommendation to approve or reject. My Flight Commander was trying again yesterday, so we'll if that works any better. Apparently it did actually go up to AETC though, and they're telling me this probably fantasy story that the real deal with the final result will come back within a few days. The good news is I found out it could come back any time before my first flight and I won't get rolled, contrary to what I earlier thought about it needing to be in 15 days prior. It just means more paperwork for my squadron as they have to put together a medical delay package anyway just in case. So hopefully with a lot of phone calls things will move right along.
Plenty of rain these last few days, which got them to cancel the Squadron Run this morning that was supposed to be a 7:15 showtime (boohoo) this allowed a few extra hours of sleep so I could stay up and watch the Lakers OT win last night and call her to wake her up, which made for a pretty nice evening. I really have been slacking on the exercise thing though, every week I try to start fresh on Monday, and something like walking outside into pouring rain shuts down the running idea. It does seem like we get an extraordinary amount of rain for a place as desert like as Texas. It's still like 85 when it's raining though, that's what's funny.
Thursday, June 03, 2004
All About a Form 24, As If You Care What That Is...
That's pretty much all we've been learning the last few days. Essentially it's the flight log that a nav uses on every flight he goes on, which is pretty much the only written record of where the plane went and when. It's also used to keep track of where the plane is located while you're out there, as well as to calculate how much fuel you have left, and whether you have enough for a detour or whatnot. As usual we proceeded through it at a snails pace, literally a five hour block of class today just covering the front side of the log, which although it involves plenty of calcuations, seems extremely straightforward once you know what you're doing. Monday we have our first "ground mission" in class, where you basically are given info like you would on a real flight, and have to do all the ground planning stages planning out your route, courses, adjustments for winds, fuel requirements, and total distance and time and whatnot. You basically need to come within 1 or 2 degrees or 1-2 miles or 1-2 minutes for the most part, so it's not an exact science. Apparently a week from Tuesday we have most likely our first sim, which will require all of this and a whole lot more, which we're going to get hit with starting tomorrow as we cover the rest of the pages of the log, and then next week when we go more in depth into the radios and what's required of us during departures and approaches.
The appointment went both good and bad, bad because the measurement that is going to be critical in my waiver package is twice as bad as it was before, but good in that the doctor confirmed that my job isn't affected by it and thus the waiver will hopefully be approved. It was supposedly going to be in the system this afternoon after a committee down at Brooks bet this morning to haggle it out and come up with an official recommendation to AETC, after which AETC will have the final say although apparently they almost always go along with the Aerospace Medicine Consultation recommendation from Brooks. Of course flight medicine here hasn't e-mailed me, so they'll probably get around to that tomorrow, if not I'll most likely have to call them myself assuming my flight commander hasn't already moved things along and gotten an answer. Again it won't be the "official" answer but hopefully it will be enough to keep me from being rolled if it's positive.
Okay tip of the day is for those who have joined the latest fad of putting music on your blog. There's a reason I don't do this. Whatever song it is, you had better hope that the first 30 seconds or so is the most amazing piece of music on Earth. Because anytime anyone clicks on any aspect of your page, such as an archive or a comment section to leave a comment, or back to the main page, it starts over. So in reality they aren't hearing this song you think is great, they're hearing what usually becomes a tremendously annoying opening after about five clicks. Besides which they usually don't have volume adjustments built in, so they drown out whatever music the reader is currently listening to. So do us a favor and plug music in your page, we'll go download it or something, but don't bore and deafen us.
Updated the pictures for JSUNT 05-05 as well, e-mail/IM me for the link if you don't have it already.
That's pretty much all we've been learning the last few days. Essentially it's the flight log that a nav uses on every flight he goes on, which is pretty much the only written record of where the plane went and when. It's also used to keep track of where the plane is located while you're out there, as well as to calculate how much fuel you have left, and whether you have enough for a detour or whatnot. As usual we proceeded through it at a snails pace, literally a five hour block of class today just covering the front side of the log, which although it involves plenty of calcuations, seems extremely straightforward once you know what you're doing. Monday we have our first "ground mission" in class, where you basically are given info like you would on a real flight, and have to do all the ground planning stages planning out your route, courses, adjustments for winds, fuel requirements, and total distance and time and whatnot. You basically need to come within 1 or 2 degrees or 1-2 miles or 1-2 minutes for the most part, so it's not an exact science. Apparently a week from Tuesday we have most likely our first sim, which will require all of this and a whole lot more, which we're going to get hit with starting tomorrow as we cover the rest of the pages of the log, and then next week when we go more in depth into the radios and what's required of us during departures and approaches.
The appointment went both good and bad, bad because the measurement that is going to be critical in my waiver package is twice as bad as it was before, but good in that the doctor confirmed that my job isn't affected by it and thus the waiver will hopefully be approved. It was supposedly going to be in the system this afternoon after a committee down at Brooks bet this morning to haggle it out and come up with an official recommendation to AETC, after which AETC will have the final say although apparently they almost always go along with the Aerospace Medicine Consultation recommendation from Brooks. Of course flight medicine here hasn't e-mailed me, so they'll probably get around to that tomorrow, if not I'll most likely have to call them myself assuming my flight commander hasn't already moved things along and gotten an answer. Again it won't be the "official" answer but hopefully it will be enough to keep me from being rolled if it's positive.
Okay tip of the day is for those who have joined the latest fad of putting music on your blog. There's a reason I don't do this. Whatever song it is, you had better hope that the first 30 seconds or so is the most amazing piece of music on Earth. Because anytime anyone clicks on any aspect of your page, such as an archive or a comment section to leave a comment, or back to the main page, it starts over. So in reality they aren't hearing this song you think is great, they're hearing what usually becomes a tremendously annoying opening after about five clicks. Besides which they usually don't have volume adjustments built in, so they drown out whatever music the reader is currently listening to. So do us a favor and plug music in your page, we'll go download it or something, but don't bore and deafen us.
Updated the pictures for JSUNT 05-05 as well, e-mail/IM me for the link if you don't have it already.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Pretty Lines on Pretty Maps, er Charts...
Plenty of that today as we started learning about the various procedures to plot routes on a chart, including compensating for turn radius and adjusting for variation and a bunch of stuff that really seems pretty basic. Literally a five hour block of instruction to fill out only a partial flight plan, based on a simple route of like five checkpoints. Some people seemed to have various problems, such as continuously forgetting to convert true north to magnetic north or vice versa, which anyone who knows a minor amount of geography will realize are not the same thing.
He keeps telling us that in the next few days we'll be receiving more information than any other time during nav schol, and I'm really hoping the next week or two are actually challenging. As it is currently it's becoming more like a chore to crawl along at a snail's pace. All for one and one for all, or something.
So tomorrow is the big medical appointment down at Brooks, where they'll probably set in motion the approve/deny action on the waiver. Whether I can get the waiver turned around in about 10 days is another story. Two bridges to cross, and then home free. Theoretically.
In other news, yesterday's temperature reached 107, with a heat index of 114. Guess I won't be running in the afternoons anymore.
Plenty of that today as we started learning about the various procedures to plot routes on a chart, including compensating for turn radius and adjusting for variation and a bunch of stuff that really seems pretty basic. Literally a five hour block of instruction to fill out only a partial flight plan, based on a simple route of like five checkpoints. Some people seemed to have various problems, such as continuously forgetting to convert true north to magnetic north or vice versa, which anyone who knows a minor amount of geography will realize are not the same thing.
He keeps telling us that in the next few days we'll be receiving more information than any other time during nav schol, and I'm really hoping the next week or two are actually challenging. As it is currently it's becoming more like a chore to crawl along at a snail's pace. All for one and one for all, or something.
So tomorrow is the big medical appointment down at Brooks, where they'll probably set in motion the approve/deny action on the waiver. Whether I can get the waiver turned around in about 10 days is another story. Two bridges to cross, and then home free. Theoretically.
In other news, yesterday's temperature reached 107, with a heat index of 114. Guess I won't be running in the afternoons anymore.
Friday, May 28, 2004
Oversized Instruments...
Are pretty funny lookin really. We used a bunch of them in class over the last few days, learning all about the knobs and switches and instruments and what they do and whatnot. A couple really long four hour blocks, going over some of the major stuff that we're going to be doing during the sims and flights.
I've found that 2+2+2+2 does not equal eight, as over the last few days I've grabbed random naps here and there and not really gotten any solid sleep. That should change this weekend though, as we've got three days off for Memorial day that I'll be sleeping through most of.
The webcam has started performing better, it's pretty close to real time with enough frames per second that you can almost read lips. It certainly does wonders for morale in comparison with never seeing her at all.
Are pretty funny lookin really. We used a bunch of them in class over the last few days, learning all about the knobs and switches and instruments and what they do and whatnot. A couple really long four hour blocks, going over some of the major stuff that we're going to be doing during the sims and flights.
I've found that 2+2+2+2 does not equal eight, as over the last few days I've grabbed random naps here and there and not really gotten any solid sleep. That should change this weekend though, as we've got three days off for Memorial day that I'll be sleeping through most of.
The webcam has started performing better, it's pretty close to real time with enough frames per second that you can almost read lips. It certainly does wonders for morale in comparison with never seeing her at all.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
One Hundred.
Finally, a result I am satisfied with. Alas, that is just one test of many that I will take during nav school. It's a good stepping stone to the future though. It was the hardest test thus far by a longshot, and the fact I'm getting better rather than worse is a good sign.
Today was the first day of the FN phase, or Fundamentals of Navigation. It's the longest phase, and it's the hardest phase. The instructor said according to statistics 93% of people who flunk out of Nav school don't pass this phase. I'm really not worried though, it's just building on what we already know. The hard part is finally performing in the simulators and then eventually on the flights, and doing one's job under pressure. I'm actually looking forward to it.
The biggest bird in the world must have flown past my car today, because when I came out of class I had like a three inch wide streak from my roof all the way down the driver's side door to the side sill and onto the pavement. We're talking it must have been baseball sized. It was that kind of day let me tell you. It had been a while since I washed the car tho, so I gave it a good shine.
The 24 season finale was not as good as past season's, I was disappointed. The episodes leading up to it were much more suspenseful I thought. Really not the closure I was looking for.
Not much else interesting, but didn't want that ugly post down below to stay up top too long. Might as well hit it, so I'm not quite so tired if she calls me to wake me up to webcam chat on her lunch break. No one said it would be easy...
Finally, a result I am satisfied with. Alas, that is just one test of many that I will take during nav school. It's a good stepping stone to the future though. It was the hardest test thus far by a longshot, and the fact I'm getting better rather than worse is a good sign.
Today was the first day of the FN phase, or Fundamentals of Navigation. It's the longest phase, and it's the hardest phase. The instructor said according to statistics 93% of people who flunk out of Nav school don't pass this phase. I'm really not worried though, it's just building on what we already know. The hard part is finally performing in the simulators and then eventually on the flights, and doing one's job under pressure. I'm actually looking forward to it.
The biggest bird in the world must have flown past my car today, because when I came out of class I had like a three inch wide streak from my roof all the way down the driver's side door to the side sill and onto the pavement. We're talking it must have been baseball sized. It was that kind of day let me tell you. It had been a while since I washed the car tho, so I gave it a good shine.
The 24 season finale was not as good as past season's, I was disappointed. The episodes leading up to it were much more suspenseful I thought. Really not the closure I was looking for.
Not much else interesting, but didn't want that ugly post down below to stay up top too long. Might as well hit it, so I'm not quite so tired if she calls me to wake me up to webcam chat on her lunch break. No one said it would be easy...
A Nightmare...
Is a really uncool thing. Like, really.
This one was really strange. I'm going to have to say that never was I more of a believer in the paranormal than at the end of this dream. Granted then I woke up to reality, but still. I'm going to warn you, stop reading here if you are those types who will have nightmares of your own just hearing about it. You've been warned.
WARNING.
Again. You probably do not want to read any further. This is one of those curiosity killed the cat type things. I'm not going to put anything else in this post so don't bother trying to skim past it. Then again maybe it's just me that finds this type of dream scary, you might be totally unaffected by it. But you've been warned.
.
.
.
It takes place in my old house, in the living room area when you first walk in for the most part. Initially I'm there by myself, except the room has changed dramatically. There are walls partitioning off the various areas, into basically a maze. It seems much bigger, as I'm able to basically get lost in there. It's dark and nighttime, and there's a horrible sense of doom for some reason running through my brain. All I want to do in the dream is go to my room and go to sleep, but something won't let me. Something, or someone. I tell my mom about it the next day, and she says boy that's really weird and we go on about our business. But that night, it happens again. Except this time, worse. The feeling this time is that I'm being chased, and whatever is chasing me through the maze is catching up. I discover that the walls however don't extend all the way to the ceiling, so at one point I'm able to climb up and look around and see the layout and that the some sort of focus is on one area of the room, so for some reason I need to get there. It's over by the china cabinet near where our Christmas tree is every year, and I'm able to climb down into this one section of the maze that was closed off from everything else. Lying there in sort of a halo of light although there is no visisble light source are two large books, that look like they might be photo albums, or who knows what. We're talking eighteen inches or so square, and quite heavy. It is then that I wake up from the second night's dream (all this still in my single dream from tonight in reality) and decide trying to sleep again is a bad idea. I wander down the hallway and look down the entry passage to the living room from the dream. All looks normal really, so I go out and turn on the lights to the room located close to the hallway by the kitchen. I take a few steps into the room, and that's when the lights turn off. I IMMEDIATELY spin around, and there is noone by the switch, so I breathe about a half sigh of relief, before I notice that the switches are turned off, flipped back into the downward position. I slowly take the few steps back to the light switches and turn them on again. I take a few steps backwards, and literally watch as the switches slowly move downward, and eventually shut off again. I am now quite freaked out about the whole thing, so I go wake up my mom. My dad for some reason is not present in the dream, nor any siblings, and I didn't seem to notice so that was apparently normal. She's annoyed I woke her up in the middle of the night but does as all mom's have to when their children have nightmares and comes to investigate the situation. At this point I'm trying to tell myself I'm still dreaming or might have been hallucinating, so I'm telling her about what happened as we walk out to the living room. She turns on the lights, and we walk out into the room. We both watch and the switches slowly lower, and shut off again, leaving us in darkness. This is where my cat starts freaking out. He comes running into the room, and is just hissing and spitting and looking more freaky than I've ever seen my cat, just a horribly evil look on his face. Now see here's the thing. My cat died a few years ago. In the dream I'm also aware of this. He was buried in the backyard. So as I take a step or two toward it, I'm aware that it can't possibly be my cat, except it is. At this point the cat literally in English in a nightmarish voice says "MATTY" and then leaps at me. Those who know me know that's a name I hate and would prefer no one ever use, but I'm not sure how that all factors in. Somehow my cat has grown a set of teeth with a bigger mouth span than a human's, so it's able to completely wrap around my forearm. I start flinging my forearm around rapidly, trying to get it off, without success. I run over to the front door that opens up into the living room and entryway, and opening it up, hurl my arm with such force the cat loses its grip and flies outside. I then slam the door and lock it, and just as I do something hits the door with such force that it could only be very large, and very heavy. It's as if the cat immediately lept back to try to get in, but the cat couldn't possibly cause such a force. My mom and I look at each other through the darkness, and suddenly the only thought going through each of our heads is whether all the doors and windows are locked. I always used to sleep with my window open at home, because otherwise I'd wake up sneezing every morning due to dust or allergies, and in the dream I can't remember whether or not I closed it that night. My mom and I sort of stare at each other wondering what we should do, and she goes over to try to turn the lights on one more time. Again, the switches slowly lower and turn off, but not before I happen to glance towards the china cabinet, and see lying on the ground two large books. While my mom goes to get the phone to dial 911, I slowly start to move towards the books, as if drawn to them by an unknown force. I hear as if very far away my mom yelling that the 1 button won't work and the line is dead, as I pick the books up.
Unfortunately, in real life, that's when something woke me up before 6am this morning. Not sure what it was, either. Usually I'm a pretty heavy sleeper, so it must have been some sort of sound, but I have no idea what it was. I really felt like I was about to get some resolution in the dream as to what was going on had I stayed in the dream a few seconds longer. Opening the books seemed like it was going to tell me something, and it was like something or someone in the room was trying to communicate with me. I was so freaked out upon initially waking up that I considering calling my parents and waking them up at like 3 something in the morning their time just to tell them to check the living room for anything strange and test the switches. I literally was a total believer in paranormal happenings at the end of the dream, because all my rationality and logic could not explain the light switches, nor the cat, nor the books being both in my dream and reality. Something, or someone, was in that room with me.
Is a really uncool thing. Like, really.
This one was really strange. I'm going to have to say that never was I more of a believer in the paranormal than at the end of this dream. Granted then I woke up to reality, but still. I'm going to warn you, stop reading here if you are those types who will have nightmares of your own just hearing about it. You've been warned.
WARNING.
Again. You probably do not want to read any further. This is one of those curiosity killed the cat type things. I'm not going to put anything else in this post so don't bother trying to skim past it. Then again maybe it's just me that finds this type of dream scary, you might be totally unaffected by it. But you've been warned.
.
.
.
It takes place in my old house, in the living room area when you first walk in for the most part. Initially I'm there by myself, except the room has changed dramatically. There are walls partitioning off the various areas, into basically a maze. It seems much bigger, as I'm able to basically get lost in there. It's dark and nighttime, and there's a horrible sense of doom for some reason running through my brain. All I want to do in the dream is go to my room and go to sleep, but something won't let me. Something, or someone. I tell my mom about it the next day, and she says boy that's really weird and we go on about our business. But that night, it happens again. Except this time, worse. The feeling this time is that I'm being chased, and whatever is chasing me through the maze is catching up. I discover that the walls however don't extend all the way to the ceiling, so at one point I'm able to climb up and look around and see the layout and that the some sort of focus is on one area of the room, so for some reason I need to get there. It's over by the china cabinet near where our Christmas tree is every year, and I'm able to climb down into this one section of the maze that was closed off from everything else. Lying there in sort of a halo of light although there is no visisble light source are two large books, that look like they might be photo albums, or who knows what. We're talking eighteen inches or so square, and quite heavy. It is then that I wake up from the second night's dream (all this still in my single dream from tonight in reality) and decide trying to sleep again is a bad idea. I wander down the hallway and look down the entry passage to the living room from the dream. All looks normal really, so I go out and turn on the lights to the room located close to the hallway by the kitchen. I take a few steps into the room, and that's when the lights turn off. I IMMEDIATELY spin around, and there is noone by the switch, so I breathe about a half sigh of relief, before I notice that the switches are turned off, flipped back into the downward position. I slowly take the few steps back to the light switches and turn them on again. I take a few steps backwards, and literally watch as the switches slowly move downward, and eventually shut off again. I am now quite freaked out about the whole thing, so I go wake up my mom. My dad for some reason is not present in the dream, nor any siblings, and I didn't seem to notice so that was apparently normal. She's annoyed I woke her up in the middle of the night but does as all mom's have to when their children have nightmares and comes to investigate the situation. At this point I'm trying to tell myself I'm still dreaming or might have been hallucinating, so I'm telling her about what happened as we walk out to the living room. She turns on the lights, and we walk out into the room. We both watch and the switches slowly lower, and shut off again, leaving us in darkness. This is where my cat starts freaking out. He comes running into the room, and is just hissing and spitting and looking more freaky than I've ever seen my cat, just a horribly evil look on his face. Now see here's the thing. My cat died a few years ago. In the dream I'm also aware of this. He was buried in the backyard. So as I take a step or two toward it, I'm aware that it can't possibly be my cat, except it is. At this point the cat literally in English in a nightmarish voice says "MATTY" and then leaps at me. Those who know me know that's a name I hate and would prefer no one ever use, but I'm not sure how that all factors in. Somehow my cat has grown a set of teeth with a bigger mouth span than a human's, so it's able to completely wrap around my forearm. I start flinging my forearm around rapidly, trying to get it off, without success. I run over to the front door that opens up into the living room and entryway, and opening it up, hurl my arm with such force the cat loses its grip and flies outside. I then slam the door and lock it, and just as I do something hits the door with such force that it could only be very large, and very heavy. It's as if the cat immediately lept back to try to get in, but the cat couldn't possibly cause such a force. My mom and I look at each other through the darkness, and suddenly the only thought going through each of our heads is whether all the doors and windows are locked. I always used to sleep with my window open at home, because otherwise I'd wake up sneezing every morning due to dust or allergies, and in the dream I can't remember whether or not I closed it that night. My mom and I sort of stare at each other wondering what we should do, and she goes over to try to turn the lights on one more time. Again, the switches slowly lower and turn off, but not before I happen to glance towards the china cabinet, and see lying on the ground two large books. While my mom goes to get the phone to dial 911, I slowly start to move towards the books, as if drawn to them by an unknown force. I hear as if very far away my mom yelling that the 1 button won't work and the line is dead, as I pick the books up.
Unfortunately, in real life, that's when something woke me up before 6am this morning. Not sure what it was, either. Usually I'm a pretty heavy sleeper, so it must have been some sort of sound, but I have no idea what it was. I really felt like I was about to get some resolution in the dream as to what was going on had I stayed in the dream a few seconds longer. Opening the books seemed like it was going to tell me something, and it was like something or someone in the room was trying to communicate with me. I was so freaked out upon initially waking up that I considering calling my parents and waking them up at like 3 something in the morning their time just to tell them to check the living room for anything strange and test the switches. I literally was a total believer in paranormal happenings at the end of the dream, because all my rationality and logic could not explain the light switches, nor the cat, nor the books being both in my dream and reality. Something, or someone, was in that room with me.
Friday, May 21, 2004
Another Phase Comes to a Close...
IN as they call it is now over other than the test Monday. More of the same, not a whole lot to share. Lots of by hand calculating, conversions, plotting, ratios, working with charts (not maps mind you, apparently that's a swear word around here) and various other tasks. Spent all day today reviewing, then reviewing what we reviewed, then reviewing what we should review on our own again before Monday. Insanely boring. This test should be my best shot at 100 so far, as it's mostly problems, and the only way you miss those is by careless mistakes. We'll see what happens.
Big ol party goin on in the quad, celebrating another classes drop night. One of the guys here actually bought a bus, one of those short ones that seats like 10. Literally a yellow school bus. I dunno how legal that is, but he has it decked out with a massive audio system, and has it parked out there just blasting music, pretty good stuff. Finally been getting some beautiful weather, so it has been close to 90 daily and around the 70s at night. Makes for good nighttime running, although I've slacked for a couple days due to a weird sleeping schedule. I've talked to the gf at least once a day via the webcam, which really does wonders for morale. I've always been a morning person anyway, so getting up early to talk during her lunch break works out fine.
Oh and my appointment for my waiver got moved up to June 2nd instead of the 17th, which is now before the June 10th cutoff for me having to be off DNIF status and able to fly. So that's one problem handled, but I'd still have to get the waiver approved and turned around fast enough that it is back here within like a week instead of months like some of them take. So it's still an unknown factor, but it's no longer a sure thing that I'll be rolled. It would be great if I didn't, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up.
IN as they call it is now over other than the test Monday. More of the same, not a whole lot to share. Lots of by hand calculating, conversions, plotting, ratios, working with charts (not maps mind you, apparently that's a swear word around here) and various other tasks. Spent all day today reviewing, then reviewing what we reviewed, then reviewing what we should review on our own again before Monday. Insanely boring. This test should be my best shot at 100 so far, as it's mostly problems, and the only way you miss those is by careless mistakes. We'll see what happens.
Big ol party goin on in the quad, celebrating another classes drop night. One of the guys here actually bought a bus, one of those short ones that seats like 10. Literally a yellow school bus. I dunno how legal that is, but he has it decked out with a massive audio system, and has it parked out there just blasting music, pretty good stuff. Finally been getting some beautiful weather, so it has been close to 90 daily and around the 70s at night. Makes for good nighttime running, although I've slacked for a couple days due to a weird sleeping schedule. I've talked to the gf at least once a day via the webcam, which really does wonders for morale. I've always been a morning person anyway, so getting up early to talk during her lunch break works out fine.
Oh and my appointment for my waiver got moved up to June 2nd instead of the 17th, which is now before the June 10th cutoff for me having to be off DNIF status and able to fly. So that's one problem handled, but I'd still have to get the waiver approved and turned around fast enough that it is back here within like a week instead of months like some of them take. So it's still an unknown factor, but it's no longer a sure thing that I'll be rolled. It would be great if I didn't, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Wind, Oh How You Give Me A Job.
Believe it or not, I've actually had fun during the last two days of class. They've entirely consisted of CBT or Computer Based Training which is of course my preferred method of learning, and better yet we've been learning how to do a truckload of calculating, something I've always been good at and picked up quickly. On Monday we learned about 30 different kinds of conversions that we can do with our little whiz wheels, all of which made total sense to me. I breezed through all the quizzes at the end of the sections, rarely making a mistake other than a random careless one due to the speed at which I was working. My plan on the test is to do the entire test twice without looking at my answers from the first time the second time through, that way odds of a careless mistake are miniscule, and who knows if I can manage to get the other half of the test that isn't problem solving down pat I might end up with my first 100. From the sound of the other section a couple days ahead of us it supposedly gets much harder sometime in the next couple days, but I'm not impressed thus far. I'm really happy about the way things are going though, and feeling confident about the rest of the course. This is supposedly the time people start getting weeded out, and I can already see that happening in some respects, but it's going to have to get a lot more challenging before I'm worried about being in that boat.
Unfortunately still no news about whether I'll get rolled back, which would really be disappointing. They're already spoon feeding us it seems like, and I wouldn't really gain anything from doing nothing for six weeks. All it would do is delay my career some more, although I'll still get paid in the meantime. I like the situation I'm in, and I tend to be resistant to change at times. Guess I'll have to work at that.
We finally got my webcam working through my multiple firewalls, so my girlfriend was able to see me for a brief minute or two before I had to zip off to class after lunch while she was volunteering near one of the computer labs there. She seemed quite pleased, and I'm more than a bit bitter that vice versa still isn't possible because she's still waiting on the password to be able to log in to her new internet. It's been like two months that we've been waiting on this, and it really would help a lot to be able to see each other on a regular basis, even through a computer.
Managed to get off my ass and go running tonight, and also managed it Sunday, so trying to get into the every other day thing again before I attempt to take it even further in a few weeks. Quite a bit out of shape, just a three miler leaves me pretty breathless.
And in other random news, two rather strange hits to this blog have come from someone connecting through www.house.gov and www.doj.gov. That's right, the House of Representatives and Department of Justice's websites. Wonder what they found to be so interesting. Guess that's why I don't discuss politics. :)
Believe it or not, I've actually had fun during the last two days of class. They've entirely consisted of CBT or Computer Based Training which is of course my preferred method of learning, and better yet we've been learning how to do a truckload of calculating, something I've always been good at and picked up quickly. On Monday we learned about 30 different kinds of conversions that we can do with our little whiz wheels, all of which made total sense to me. I breezed through all the quizzes at the end of the sections, rarely making a mistake other than a random careless one due to the speed at which I was working. My plan on the test is to do the entire test twice without looking at my answers from the first time the second time through, that way odds of a careless mistake are miniscule, and who knows if I can manage to get the other half of the test that isn't problem solving down pat I might end up with my first 100. From the sound of the other section a couple days ahead of us it supposedly gets much harder sometime in the next couple days, but I'm not impressed thus far. I'm really happy about the way things are going though, and feeling confident about the rest of the course. This is supposedly the time people start getting weeded out, and I can already see that happening in some respects, but it's going to have to get a lot more challenging before I'm worried about being in that boat.
Unfortunately still no news about whether I'll get rolled back, which would really be disappointing. They're already spoon feeding us it seems like, and I wouldn't really gain anything from doing nothing for six weeks. All it would do is delay my career some more, although I'll still get paid in the meantime. I like the situation I'm in, and I tend to be resistant to change at times. Guess I'll have to work at that.
We finally got my webcam working through my multiple firewalls, so my girlfriend was able to see me for a brief minute or two before I had to zip off to class after lunch while she was volunteering near one of the computer labs there. She seemed quite pleased, and I'm more than a bit bitter that vice versa still isn't possible because she's still waiting on the password to be able to log in to her new internet. It's been like two months that we've been waiting on this, and it really would help a lot to be able to see each other on a regular basis, even through a computer.
Managed to get off my ass and go running tonight, and also managed it Sunday, so trying to get into the every other day thing again before I attempt to take it even further in a few weeks. Quite a bit out of shape, just a three miler leaves me pretty breathless.
And in other random news, two rather strange hits to this blog have come from someone connecting through www.house.gov and www.doj.gov. That's right, the House of Representatives and Department of Justice's websites. Wonder what they found to be so interesting. Guess that's why I don't discuss politics. :)
Sunday, May 16, 2004
A Trojan Tragedy and a Television Travesty...
Woah gettin all creative with the blog titles. Okay let's see what's been the happenins.
Finished API in JSUNT, took the test on Friday, and managed to miss one that I really shouldn't have missed. So thus far I've missed one on all three tests, putting me somewhere in the middle of the pack most likely. The good news I've been waiting for is that we're finally starting the IN phase or Introduction to Navigation, during which we finally start crunching numbers, spinning the whiz wheels, and working problems for more than half of the eventual test for that phase. This is what I excel at, and what I feel will be a great place to catch up.
The bad news is I found out Friday unless I get my appointment moved up, I'll definitely be rolling back to another class after being put on medical hold. I find out Monday most likely if they're able to bump me up somehow, if not I'll probably be chilling out for three weeks doing nothing again. It'll be a bit depressing to leave the group of people I've hung with for my entire Air Force career thus far, but I guess that's what happens whenever you PCS to a new base, so I might as well get used to it. More about that on Monday or Tuesday when I find out what the deal is.
We'll cover next American Idol, which yes I must admit I've been watching these last few weeks. Actually not watching since I have no TV, but I've been downloading the episodes. AI is particularly annoying about their commercials, especially during the results show when it takes them an hour just to let you know who got eliminated. And speaking of which, I really have to comment on what a travesty it was. Latoya London's version of "Rain on my Parade" is easily in my top three songs from the show during all the seasons combined, and easily the best of this season. I haven't a clue how she got the boot, and it's quite sad. Nothing against the other three, but she was top dog. Prior to her belting out that one my favorite had been Diana, and I guess we'll have to see if my original choice ends up holding up. I'm actually glad I already knew she was rejected before I watched the show, or I probably would have been floored. America gets 1 out of 7 M's for screwing that one up.
On a more positive note, this weekend's fare was the epic Troy. I went in expecting a Gladiator style action flick, and I got all that and more. Peole I know had given it medicore ratings, and so I was expecting some decent stunts and action, but I totally disagree. The panoramas of this one are amazing; the CGI is top notch. They obviously used truckloads and truckloads of extras, but on some scenes in particular you can't even tell whether it's just a TON (or actually several tons) of them or they've actually been backed up by CGI for the most part. I must draw particular attention to the hand to hand combat scene between Hector and Achilles, basically one of the climaxes of the film. The choreography of the battle is superb, and puts together a fabulous sequence. You can see the actors' faces for basically the entirety, which means they must have spent a hell of a lot of time practicing, because it is entirely believable and very powerful. We all know I love dramas, and this one is way up there. Some plot elements don't make much sense, such as an entire battle between armies shutting down for a battle midway through between two major characters, as if the other thousands of people would just pause the bloodshed and watch and then continue, or as in the case of the movie call it quits for the day. Other than that though, great drama, some great acting by some power players, a very believable Achilles by Brad Pitt who must have put on 20 pounds of solid muscle for the movie and looked it, and an equally impressive soundtrack that wasn't overbearing except when it was supposed to be, which is something you don't always see. A solid 6 out of 7 M's for this one, first time in a while I've seen that quality in the theater. And to think it's only the beginning of the summer season...
Woah gettin all creative with the blog titles. Okay let's see what's been the happenins.
Finished API in JSUNT, took the test on Friday, and managed to miss one that I really shouldn't have missed. So thus far I've missed one on all three tests, putting me somewhere in the middle of the pack most likely. The good news I've been waiting for is that we're finally starting the IN phase or Introduction to Navigation, during which we finally start crunching numbers, spinning the whiz wheels, and working problems for more than half of the eventual test for that phase. This is what I excel at, and what I feel will be a great place to catch up.
The bad news is I found out Friday unless I get my appointment moved up, I'll definitely be rolling back to another class after being put on medical hold. I find out Monday most likely if they're able to bump me up somehow, if not I'll probably be chilling out for three weeks doing nothing again. It'll be a bit depressing to leave the group of people I've hung with for my entire Air Force career thus far, but I guess that's what happens whenever you PCS to a new base, so I might as well get used to it. More about that on Monday or Tuesday when I find out what the deal is.
We'll cover next American Idol, which yes I must admit I've been watching these last few weeks. Actually not watching since I have no TV, but I've been downloading the episodes. AI is particularly annoying about their commercials, especially during the results show when it takes them an hour just to let you know who got eliminated. And speaking of which, I really have to comment on what a travesty it was. Latoya London's version of "Rain on my Parade" is easily in my top three songs from the show during all the seasons combined, and easily the best of this season. I haven't a clue how she got the boot, and it's quite sad. Nothing against the other three, but she was top dog. Prior to her belting out that one my favorite had been Diana, and I guess we'll have to see if my original choice ends up holding up. I'm actually glad I already knew she was rejected before I watched the show, or I probably would have been floored. America gets 1 out of 7 M's for screwing that one up.
On a more positive note, this weekend's fare was the epic Troy. I went in expecting a Gladiator style action flick, and I got all that and more. Peole I know had given it medicore ratings, and so I was expecting some decent stunts and action, but I totally disagree. The panoramas of this one are amazing; the CGI is top notch. They obviously used truckloads and truckloads of extras, but on some scenes in particular you can't even tell whether it's just a TON (or actually several tons) of them or they've actually been backed up by CGI for the most part. I must draw particular attention to the hand to hand combat scene between Hector and Achilles, basically one of the climaxes of the film. The choreography of the battle is superb, and puts together a fabulous sequence. You can see the actors' faces for basically the entirety, which means they must have spent a hell of a lot of time practicing, because it is entirely believable and very powerful. We all know I love dramas, and this one is way up there. Some plot elements don't make much sense, such as an entire battle between armies shutting down for a battle midway through between two major characters, as if the other thousands of people would just pause the bloodshed and watch and then continue, or as in the case of the movie call it quits for the day. Other than that though, great drama, some great acting by some power players, a very believable Achilles by Brad Pitt who must have put on 20 pounds of solid muscle for the movie and looked it, and an equally impressive soundtrack that wasn't overbearing except when it was supposed to be, which is something you don't always see. A solid 6 out of 7 M's for this one, first time in a while I've seen that quality in the theater. And to think it's only the beginning of the summer season...
Thursday, May 13, 2004
More Space, Fewer Problems...
The comp was down for a while over the last couple days as I made some changes to the hardware. The new sound card arrived as well as another 250gb drive which will allow me to use the previous solely for backups for the most part, to avoid any further fiascos with lost data. Unfortunately with my new case to remove or add screws to the far side of the drives requires taking off the backside of the case, which in turn requires detaching the motherboard from basically everything, since it's screwed directly into the back wall of the case. This had been something I was planning to do along the way anyway, in order to redo some of the wiring in that area and hide most of it behind the motherboard. The result is a much cleaner looking viewable side, with the focus being on the light show rather than the mess of cables. Somehow I managed to put it all back together and power it up and have everything work on the first try, something that usually doesn't happen. I'm up to 620GB total, which should last me quite some time. These adjustments pretty much finished off the interior, the only remaining hardware item missing is the video card, which I should be adding within a month or two upon its release. Backed up the main data drive onto the old 250gb that had the lost data issue, so barring the whole apartment burning down (knock on wood) I'll be safe from random drive failures in the future.
The last few days of JSUNT have been pretty uneventful, just various classes for API which we finally finished up today so we can take the test tomorrow morning. Most of it was about weather, with some pretty basic stuff about airplane instruments and so forth as well. Not a whole lot we didn't already know, other than going a bit more in depth into weather than we had previously in NIFT, and going over some of the instruments that will be in our panel that we hadn't seen previously. Following the test we move on to the next phase of Introduction to Navigation or IN as everyone calls it, where we'll get more into the nitty gritty of the nav logs and what we'll be doing on a regular basis.
I also found out I'll have to go to Brooks for an examination to accompany my waiver package before they confirm/deny it. Doing some research through their website showed that of the 162 or so AF personnel in the database with substandard depth perception, all but four were given waivers, and of those four none were solely due to the depth perception problem. So other than a few more hoops to jump through I'm not all that worried about the final result. As usual worst comes to worst I'd get rolled back a class, which just means more sitting around.
The comp was down for a while over the last couple days as I made some changes to the hardware. The new sound card arrived as well as another 250gb drive which will allow me to use the previous solely for backups for the most part, to avoid any further fiascos with lost data. Unfortunately with my new case to remove or add screws to the far side of the drives requires taking off the backside of the case, which in turn requires detaching the motherboard from basically everything, since it's screwed directly into the back wall of the case. This had been something I was planning to do along the way anyway, in order to redo some of the wiring in that area and hide most of it behind the motherboard. The result is a much cleaner looking viewable side, with the focus being on the light show rather than the mess of cables. Somehow I managed to put it all back together and power it up and have everything work on the first try, something that usually doesn't happen. I'm up to 620GB total, which should last me quite some time. These adjustments pretty much finished off the interior, the only remaining hardware item missing is the video card, which I should be adding within a month or two upon its release. Backed up the main data drive onto the old 250gb that had the lost data issue, so barring the whole apartment burning down (knock on wood) I'll be safe from random drive failures in the future.
The last few days of JSUNT have been pretty uneventful, just various classes for API which we finally finished up today so we can take the test tomorrow morning. Most of it was about weather, with some pretty basic stuff about airplane instruments and so forth as well. Not a whole lot we didn't already know, other than going a bit more in depth into weather than we had previously in NIFT, and going over some of the instruments that will be in our panel that we hadn't seen previously. Following the test we move on to the next phase of Introduction to Navigation or IN as everyone calls it, where we'll get more into the nitty gritty of the nav logs and what we'll be doing on a regular basis.
I also found out I'll have to go to Brooks for an examination to accompany my waiver package before they confirm/deny it. Doing some research through their website showed that of the 162 or so AF personnel in the database with substandard depth perception, all but four were given waivers, and of those four none were solely due to the depth perception problem. So other than a few more hoops to jump through I'm not all that worried about the final result. As usual worst comes to worst I'd get rolled back a class, which just means more sitting around.
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Today's "Idiot" Award...
Shoutout to the person residing in the Santa Ynez apartments at UCSB connecting through SY196132.resnet.ucsb.edu.
They decided to be slick and sign me up for various e-mail listings such as a Russian bride mailing list, and were unfortunately too stupid to realize that in the confirmation e-mail that would be sent to me to confirm it was in fact me who made the request (which it obviously wasn't and is why they send confirmation e-mails in the first place) it would say "Request was made on Wed May 12 05:50:57 2004 (Moscow time) from IP-address 128.111.196.132" Go figure, that's the same IP that's been screwing around with the GuestMap whose posts I just deleted there as well.
So I was kind enough to send the network admin at SB an e-mail informing them of the various things that person has been doing. Unfortunately I'm not able to see when their connection actually gets shut off, I can only hope they give me some more ammo to use in case it doesn't happen shortly.
Nothing more satisfying than putting idiots in their place.
Feel free to post more on the GuestMap those of you who do actually have brains, always nice to see where people have ended up or are currently located.
More later, class is calling.
Shoutout to the person residing in the Santa Ynez apartments at UCSB connecting through SY196132.resnet.ucsb.edu.
They decided to be slick and sign me up for various e-mail listings such as a Russian bride mailing list, and were unfortunately too stupid to realize that in the confirmation e-mail that would be sent to me to confirm it was in fact me who made the request (which it obviously wasn't and is why they send confirmation e-mails in the first place) it would say "Request was made on Wed May 12 05:50:57 2004 (Moscow time) from IP-address 128.111.196.132" Go figure, that's the same IP that's been screwing around with the GuestMap whose posts I just deleted there as well.
So I was kind enough to send the network admin at SB an e-mail informing them of the various things that person has been doing. Unfortunately I'm not able to see when their connection actually gets shut off, I can only hope they give me some more ammo to use in case it doesn't happen shortly.
Nothing more satisfying than putting idiots in their place.
Feel free to post more on the GuestMap those of you who do actually have brains, always nice to see where people have ended up or are currently located.
More later, class is calling.
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Woah, Blogger Went Nuts.
Totally new format to the page, interesting new interface, major changes from the previous. So far I think I like the changes, interesting that right on the main page it says my blog has 541 posts. Given it's been up for over 2.5 years I'm averaging a little more than one every other day. I've got about 50 more pages of 2003 to go through and edit, which should go pretty quick since I was in training most of the time, then I'll zip through this year and finally be done with the Word doc of the whole thing. Edited for spelling and grammar, chronological, and very, very long. Also just about done with siphoning out all the Air Force related posts through OTS, for those curious about the process and so forth arriving at the page and not wanting to sift through all the "other stuff." E-mail or IM is a good way to acquire either file, although I can't imagine why you'd want the first unless you're well, really bored?
Didn't accomplish much this weekend, but caught up on sleep so that was good. Tomorrow we have a 0700 call time at the BX parking lot and no one knows why. Rumors of initiation of some sort but I'm guessing we're being voluntold to do something. Then unfortunately it's a full day of classes, about more stuff we already know for the most part because of NIFT. We have yet another test this Friday though, so I'll have to be digesting it all as it comes. I hear this one is a lot harder, who knows maybe making it more difficult will help me ace it. Yeah, that makes sense.
Did I mention how cool wearing flight suits all day is? The idea of having to wear blues or BDUs now, or worse yet being in corporate america in a nice shirt and tie, really makes me want to upchuck.
Totally new format to the page, interesting new interface, major changes from the previous. So far I think I like the changes, interesting that right on the main page it says my blog has 541 posts. Given it's been up for over 2.5 years I'm averaging a little more than one every other day. I've got about 50 more pages of 2003 to go through and edit, which should go pretty quick since I was in training most of the time, then I'll zip through this year and finally be done with the Word doc of the whole thing. Edited for spelling and grammar, chronological, and very, very long. Also just about done with siphoning out all the Air Force related posts through OTS, for those curious about the process and so forth arriving at the page and not wanting to sift through all the "other stuff." E-mail or IM is a good way to acquire either file, although I can't imagine why you'd want the first unless you're well, really bored?
Didn't accomplish much this weekend, but caught up on sleep so that was good. Tomorrow we have a 0700 call time at the BX parking lot and no one knows why. Rumors of initiation of some sort but I'm guessing we're being voluntold to do something. Then unfortunately it's a full day of classes, about more stuff we already know for the most part because of NIFT. We have yet another test this Friday though, so I'll have to be digesting it all as it comes. I hear this one is a lot harder, who knows maybe making it more difficult will help me ace it. Yeah, that makes sense.
Did I mention how cool wearing flight suits all day is? The idea of having to wear blues or BDUs now, or worse yet being in corporate america in a nice shirt and tie, really makes me want to upchuck.
