Our House aka...the farm

This morning I awoke to (another) cricket in the house. Apparently the roaches are fading out while the crickets are definitely here and making a statement. I must admit though, that the crickets aren't as bad as the other, but still not that appealing to me. Rembrandt is enjoying his morning bath, while still being shy and slightly timid. Upon taking a stroll around the property I saw another familiar face (at least this time outside); we appear to have a baby prairie dog living in our yard (the grass is not long) but I saw him once before and again this morning he was crawling in the grass. As I was walking back inside admiring one of the many blue jays (or as Mason says, blue cardinals) a little gecko ran over my foot...ah life in the zoo, and this is all before 10am.

Folks we have a name...

Meet Rembrandt

Lots 'o' News

Today was a fun and exciting day of Ellen cleans the house. I cleaned the windows, inside and out (mason, are you proud),. vacuumed, dusted, yadda yadda yadda. On a sad not my rake already broke and I bought it yesterday, although nothing that duck tape couldn't fix. Last night was recipe "club" with the spouses group. That was lots of fun, and I got some good recipes to try out when Mason gets home. And people liked my plane shaped sugar cookies (there's a picture below.) This week I've been getting kinda crafty, so I also made our house a name plate. Many of the other houses have name plates outside so you can see who lives there, but they stopped making them before we got here, so I made my own version. Ours looks cooler anyways. (Again, picture below.)

I think that I have developed job ADD. I have said yes to 3 jobs, and then turned them all down, while now I have also told two people on base that I will work for them...ah! I think that I have decided to work part-time at our base shopette which is like a small convenience store, but the hours are nice and am hoping to do lots of substitute teaching in the Fall so that should all work out. Hopefully I begin nest week. On the teaching front, I am on a substitute teaching list for the Bright Ideas Charter School (in Wichita Falls) and I have an interview to be a substitute in the Wichita Falls School District next week. So between the shopette, and hopefully two subbing jobs that should keep me occupied, yet still putting dinner on the table each night.

It was really nice being home in Chicago, lots of work and not to much adult responsibility, but oh well. Things are good here too. We have a new hamster, who has yet to be named...he's bigger than Sheppard and definitely still is wanting his space. He has got the nocturnal thing down though. He mostly sleeps all day, and at midnight he starts running all night in the ball attatched to his cage. Tonight his bedroom door gets shut too. :-) Enjoy all the pictures.

http://neiu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012118&l=31a59&id=77800450

Back to Reality

Vacation was really nice in Evanston. I got to spend lots of time with my friends and family. I also got to go to my nephew Tristan's baseball game, which was awesome, and play with my neighbors Mary and Sean. The boat was quite relaxing and helped me to obtain somewhat of a tan, which I had been seriously lacking. I won't say that it wasn't a little sad to see that my room had become the Hamsters suite, and I had to sleep on an air mattress, but that was better than nothing.

Things back home, i guess this is home now, are pretty good, last night when I arrived, it was actually cooler outside than inside for once. Today, however it was back to 96 degrees and humidity which pushed us over 100. Weather is in the upper 90s through Saturday but then Thunderstorms all into the middle of next week. :-( Mowing the lawn will have to wait until a cooler day. After many interviews, many job acceptances, I decided to take a job on base which I interviewed for today. Hopefully this one will stick, since I seem to tell many employers I will take their job and then end up turning it down several days later. Mason had been a doll about it all. Next week I do have an interview to be a substitute teacher in the Wichita Falls School District so that would be great if that goes through and has somewhat of a decent schedule, if any. Mason and I both received our diplomas in the mail, so for those of us who didn't walk across the stage it actually felt like we'd actually graduated. We also both made the Dean's List. Yea!

Other family news: Mason reports that all is well from the flight deck, although shaving cream was running low, and the he was tired from flying back to back this morning (after waking up at 4:20am.) Things sound like they are going well, and he might be done a little early. This week I have Recipe night with the spouses group, so I am looking forward to that. And, we have a new hamster. He has similar coloring to Sheppard, but is a little bigger, and quite active. His name, To be determined.

Puttin it down when it counts

Today was the first time I've ever landed a plane with the threat of not being able to have a second chance at the same runway. We had a section of rain about 2 miles wide, 1 mile or so off the departure end of the runway. All the IFS planes had been called back in due to the rain moving towards the airport. I was the last plane in, and our first landing was botched because I was too high and there just wasn't anyway for me to get down fast enough. The second time around, we could see the rain moving in, I got too anxious and was high again, but managed to do a forward slip all the way down until it was time to flare and touch the wheels down. We pulled off and taxied in. By the time we got out of the plane, it was raining on us. Pretty fun stuff, I like that sort of challenge. Not to mention how amazing it is to watch a patch of rain from the same height as the cloud, maneuver around it on your way in, and then come right down head on with the rain as you land the plane. Tomorrow I'm scheduled for 2 flights back to back.


Quote of the day:
"We're training for war. Everyday that's what we're doing."

Enough said.

bump set spike

Today was a break from the normal IFS routine. We did our morning brief, a few people did flights, and then we got done at 10:30am. A local airport, Fowler, has had construction recently so that Doss can now use it as a satellite airport for our operations. The Air Force has a minimum runway width requirement so that's what they had to change over at Fowler. So today, all the IPs (instructor pilots) were doing currency flights and going over to Fowler to test out our new procedures. Later in the day, they announced the changes and posted it online so we could all study them over the weekend. Turns out they totally revamped all our training areas and departure/arrival routes so we have to relearn all of that. And because the classes are going to keep getting bigger, we almost tripled the amount of training areas we have now (they're about 20 square miles each, divided by radials/distance from Pueblo airport). So the skies are going to be pretty full in a few months when they have enough planes and IPs to fill it up.

In the afternoon, we had our class volleyball and basketball tournaments. Only 3 teams played in vball and my team didn't win. It was good times though, and then I spent some time on the weights.

All next week, we'll be the new senior class and the junior class won't have arrived yet so the airport is ours. We're going to be doing our morning formal briefs at 0420 and most people are going to be double turning (2 flights a day). I'm only coming up on my 4th flight but a lot of people are on their 6th or 7th. Double turning will be a good test of stamina since that makes for a very long day (up at 0345, brief at 0420 followed by standup emergency tests, preflight brief for 45 minutes, fly for an hour and a half, post flight brief for 30 minutes, prep the next flight, preflight brief again, fly again, post flight brief again, then study for the next day until 4 in the afternoon, then work out).

The last class was a little smaller than ours and had about 4 people washout. I think three of them were for failing checkrides and 1 was either sickness or quit. So that's a pretty bad rate. They say those people will be giving high priority and fitted into a nav slot but personally, I don't buy it. If they didn't pass IFS as a pilot-select, and the Air Force is starting to send nav-selects through IFS, then where's the logic in sending that same Lt Sharp through IFS again? My two cents - don't consider losing your slot for wings as an option, strap the plane on and rip that sky up.

And heads up, the UAV assignments are on the horizon. My year group in ENJJPT should be clear, but those next classes better watch out... nintendo wings are coming!

Wichita Falls to Chicago Trip

These pictures are to supplement the comments from the other day from my trip to Chicago. It's quite enjoyable to be home and relaxing. 75 degrees is way better than 105 degrees.

http://neiu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011903&l=e9902&id=77800450

2 Weeks in

I got to take my first flight today finally. Formal brief at 0420, flight mission brief at 0514, took off at 0620. I was a little nervous since its been a few months since I last flew, but as soon as I got into the air, the feeling was back and I was feeling good. The flight went great and I got an excellent for the grade. Granted, the standards are pretty low for the first flight, but it's a good way to start the flight curriculum. Tomorrow I'm scheduled for the last go of the day, so I won't take off until 2 or so in the afternoon. We had a few people get airsick today. Unfortunately they were the same people who got airsick before. I have a feeling that it's just because of the long days and hot temperatures, based on what I heard. But I just hope they can push through it. Everyone in the class has confirmed their theory that being a pilot is the most kickass job in the world. A few people just have to convince their bodies to keep up. Nobodys dropped out yet so that's a good sign. I figure that would have happened after the first flight or two if ever.

Soon people will start double turning (two flights in one day) and we'll be on our way to some solos. The senior class says that they should pretty much all be done and out by this Friday. And then next Wednesday, the new class comes in and we become the senior class.

I took some pics today, particularly from a visit to the air traffic control tower. I'll try to get some more up later. And now I'm due for another 7pm bedtime

http://uillinois.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2259327&l=ad521&id=1913937

Small town to the Windy city

I was a little nervous about my travels yesterday, because while I have been on plenty of plane rides, this was only my second time alone, and I was a little nervous about my connection flight in Dallas. Basically to get out of Wichita Falls to go anywhere else (unless driving) you have to go to Dallas first. The municipal airport in Wichita Falls is only about 10 minutes from our house which makes it convenient, and it's one terminal, one gate, so not to big and scary. The security was more intense than I was expecting however. You were pretty much forced to check all bags, unless your bag was smaller than a briefcase, I think some kids has backpacks with them though. When the checked our bags, they checked everything. Everything came out of the suitcase and got swiped down. They were HUGE on the liquids thing, so if you didn't check something like hand sanitizer or liquid lip gloss once you went through security with your carry on bag, they made you throw it out. Also, all shoes had to go through the machine at security. I guess I haven't flown in a long time, so I was forgetting how much the whole process sucked.

The plane that we took was pretty hilarious, it had two propellers, and you got to walk out and climb up the stairs to get on it. Once inside I'm thinking that if you were taller than 6 feet you had to duck a little so you didn't bump your head. I'd say there were only about 50 seats on the entire plane. The ride was only 30 minutes so that was a good thing, because I think the pilot only knew how to descend by dropping vertically. It was kind of like a bad ride at Great America. Flying into Dallas was interesting because you could actually see the city limits, and lots of houses for awhile, whereas when we left Wichita Falls, it was like, ok, there's base outside the window and there are the few buildings in Wichita Falls.

The connection went well. We were almost delayed because there were no gates open, but they were able to get some stairs and we climbed off the plane and went into some weird gate. Dallas is a pretty big airport, but not to hard to find the next gates with the tram. I wouldn't really want less than an hour to make a connection flight there though. I had time to grab a sandwich before boarding, and then the plane boarded and left right on time.

Overall a good experience, and flying into Chicago is one of the BEST feelings ever because there are SO many lights, and you can see the lake, and the rivers, and it's pretty amazing. So, I'm glad to be home for a week and enjoying home.

Maybe Texas isn't so bad after all

I just found out this evening that my Texas review for teacher certification was approved, and I now hold a Texas certificate to teach 4th-12th grade English, Language arts/Reading, as well as 4th-8th grade Social Studies. This is very exciting! So I continue to submit the applications on a weekly basis keeping my fingers crossed for a teaching position in the Fall. :-)

The mountains look nice

but they'd look a lot better from the air!

Since our class started flying Wednesday, 32 out of 34 people in our class have gotten to fly. Some made their third flight today. I, however, got stuck with an IP (instructor pilot) who came down with strep throat right when I was supposed to start. So no flights for me yet. And of course, I didn't find out each day until I showed up for my preflight briefing and the only way I knew he wasn't there is because he didn't show after 15 min. I guess that's the effect of mixing civilians and military in one operation. And I'm normally a patient guy, but when I'm up at 3:45 am, sit through a formal brief and emergency standup evaluation every morning, then ready to go for my preflight brief at 0510, it's a different story. So all three days, I've been studying, practicing in our cockpit trainers, practicing my preflight inspections on the planes outside, and listening to other peoples' pre- and post-flight briefs. Since our class is still on formal release, we can't leave the flight room until the end of the duty day (which has been around 1530/1630 lately).

We've got a quiz next Wednesday and I have a feeling that if we all pass that, then we'll get off of formal release. At UPT (real pilot training, down at Sheppard), formal release lasts a few months. The whole idea is that they're basically forcing you to stare at the books all day until you've proven you can handle it. At this point, I feel like I could probably take my first flight and then be ready for the final checkride. But I'm sure I'll change my mind once I see how the plane actually handles. Either way, I'm just eager to get back in the air. The more time that passes since I've last flown, the more uneasy I get. And my last flight was in the beginning of April. And that's great compared to my peers, but for me it's too long, I need some lift.

So to put it all in perspective- I've been here about a week and a half now. I've got about 4 and a half weeks to go. And in 1 1/2 weeks, the senior class graduates, we become the new senior class, and the next class arrives. (There's two classes here at one time). It'll be interesting since the class sizes are supposed to just keep getting bigger and bigger. And as nice as this place is, there's a lot of quirks they need to fix before they're ready for a few hundred wacky lieutenant pilot-trainees.

I've been working out for more than an hour every day which is great. There's a bunch of guys here who are right at my skill level for volleyball so I play a few games just about everyday. After 12 hours of studying, it's a good time.

On a sad note, yesterday 2 people from the senior class failed their final checkride (or maybe it was the recheck of their final checkride). So it sounded like they washed out (which means they don't go to pilot training, and the Air Force throws them back in the mixing bowl for career fields). And I think today 1 other person from the senior class failed. So a few of the guys in our class who have no flight experience got a little nervous about that, but I think our class is a little sharper than the senior class.

I plan and taking some pictures next week to show everyone what this place is like. I didn't want to do it earlier since we had a hard enough time getting through our morning briefings and proving that we're airworthy.

Quote of the day:
Student: "Sir, I have a thousand feet to lose so I will pitch the nose forward to gain airspeed up to 137 in an attempt to restart the prop spinning"
Instructor, callsign Bonemass: "and what's that gonna look like"
Student: "Well sir, I'm gonna be looking at a whole lotta ground out my windshield at that point"
Instructor: "Well isn't that comforting!"

PS

A few more points of order, as Mason would say...

-Mason did not get to fly today because his IP (Instructor Pilot) was sick, but it looks like tomorrow will be a go.

-Ellen got a job!!!

and

-Our long lost bookcase arrived

Should I be Embarassed

Having Mason gone, I spend a lot of evenings watching TV. (I read books too) but I have found myself having to "tune in" for shows that I wouldn't normally watch. Some of the "must sees" are: Army Wives, Hell's Kitchen, Deal or no Deal, Wheel of Fortune. I've been making time for: So you think you can dance, Friends, The Nanny, the Wonder Years; and I must admit I like the show Are you smarter than a Fifth Grader. I am still waiting to see how I like Singing Bee, and I saw something like, Do you know the lyrics tonight, and I'm not sure about that one. So yeah...that's the exciting night life around here.

A small perk...

of Mason being gone is that I don't need to cook to impress anyone. Not to say that Mason is picky when he is home, but when he is gone I get to cook foods that I like and that he despises. That being said tonight I enjoyed a beautifully glazed grilled salmon (cooked on my new George Foreman grill thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Wideburg) and broccoli with Parmesan cheese. The yogurt and orange juice aren't that exciting, but the salmon was. Mason can't even stand the smell of fish cooking.

Today was fun, other than dinner. I had lunch with some girls from the ESSG (ENJJPT Student Spouse Group, look who has acronyms now) and I was pleased to meet two girls whose husbands' will be in Mason's UPT class. That was exciting. So, maybe now there's some people who I can hang out with and go to the pool with. YEA!

A little of this and a little of that

Mason reported today that he got 100% on a big exam today and that all is continuing to go well with training. Some people begin flying tomorrow, and Mason will hopefully hit the flight line on Thursday. Tomorrow's morning brief is at 4:20am...yikes! I guess I like the fact that I can sleep in somewhat here on base. Although the planes around here fly pretty early too, and they can be a bit noisy.

Today some of the base temperature readings read 105 degrees, but the afternoon it was a cool 99 degrees, oh yeah, with humidity. Thank goodness for the AC.. Although by the end of the day you pretty much need that shower since 2 seconds outside will warrant you a sweat bath. When I put my sunglasses on before walking out the door, they fog up once they hit the steam. Tonight there are big storms in the surrounding counties. We had lightning and thunder, but so far no rain. We'll see what happens over night.

The job hunting has left me with somewhat of a homesick feeling. It was nice to be paid decent wages in Chicago. Around town here, companies seem to max out at $6.50 an hour. So, I'm going with the new approach of trying not to stress about it, and when the right job comes I'll be happy about that. I applied for another batch of positions today, so keep your fingers crossed. In the meantime, I am VERY excited that I am going to visit home from July 14th until the 23rd. I think I have to share my room with Gus, Jill's hamster, but that's okay. If anyone wants to summer vacay in our home for a week you are more than welcome to stay here. Then hopefully, the first weekend in August some of my friends will be coming down here, and before long Mason will return. All the while this GRE is in the back of my mind that I am scheduled to take mid-August. Bummer.

Home Sweet Home: Part 2

These are the photos you've all been waiting for, of course, not as exciting as the wedding photos, but these are the pictures of are more or less the completed house. There are still two closets filled with some boxes, but that is mostly school papers, my teaching materials, photos, and other knick knacks. The house looks pretty good, and feels pretty cozy, although it wouldn't be as lonely if Mason were here. So visitors are still welcomed. Enjoy the latest pictures! (I tried to put them in the best order I could so you could see the house layout. )

http://neiu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011631&l=17b6f&id=77800450

Where's Waldo?

Mason sent this picture tonight. Can you find him? He's the one in green.

"Dont forget - the next Saturday isn't for another 7 days"

Got to sleep in until 12 noon today and it was great! Housekeeping knocked around 8 am so that wasn't cool, but you could here all down the hallway "NO! thanks..."

After lunch, I spent about 6 hours in our flight room studying with other people from the class and preparing our first formal briefing for Monday, it was back down to dinner. And after that, you guessed it - back to the books! By the time I got down "chair-flying" in our cockpit trainers, it was already 10 pm and ready to settle down in my room. So another day at the Doss cave without getting outside at all. There's not really any benches or places to hang out outside since its just a parking lot on one side and the airport on the other. So if you're outside, you're either running on the track or on your way to town. Tomorrow I'll try to get on the track, but we'll see how that goes since we're having a class meeting in the afternoon and waking up early on a Sunday is a joke.

Mondays when we start our full blown formal briefings and infamous "stand-ups" where they call a person at random to stand up in front of the room at attention. They tell us the reading on a few gauges and then say "your airplane" and we have to troubleshoot and fix the problem from that point all the way until we're on the ground and everythings shut down. So tons of rote memorization and thinking under pressure. It's when what they call the "butt up - brain off" switch comes into play. But its supposed to be ran very similar to how it actually goes at UPT (that's Undergraduate Pilot Training if you recall - what I'm doing at Sheppard in October). So all this preparation should be good. Especially since IFS (Initial Flight Screening) is still in it's early stages where not every UPT class has had every student go through IFS. So when I go through UPT, I'll have other people in my class who haven't had any flight experience and the instructors will have to make sure to start at the basics with them (and allow the rest of us time to catch a quick breath).

There's 7 other guys here from my class at ENJJPT (Euro Nato Joint Jet Pilot Training aka UPT at Sheppard AFB) so it's been good getting to know them better. Everyone else in our class is great too, I've been really impressed how people who have never been in a plane already know as much as I did when I was ready for my private pilot license and it's only been like 4 days of training. Majoring in Aviation Human Factors was an outstanding choice in my path to being an AF pilot. I highly recommend it...

Food here is pretty good. They've got a grill for burgers, fries, etc made to order. The only catchy part is the lunch and dinner is the same thing so you have to make sure you don't get all the good stuff at lunch and leave nothing for dinner. All you can eat and free by the way, with to-go boxes. Good stuff. And the staff here is uber-friendly. You can be walking down the hall minding your business out of uniform and they go "Sir, good afternoon, how are you today- Excellent sir! Have a wonderful day!". It's so peppy that you have no choice but to be at least a little cheered up. And the whole place is very well kept. If there was only some more outside or windows in the rooms, it would be good to go.

More Skiters

..Apparently, anytime of day is a bad time to mow such extreme grass. The mosquitoes seemed to get me anyways. An exciting day of more job searching and cleaning house for me. Perhaps Mason's day was more exciting...we'll see.

Ellen's bad decision

I was so excited about my new lawnmower that I decided to take it for a spin around 8pm. Now by 8pm our backyard is starting to get darker, the sun is on the other side of the house. But, after about 2 minutes of being out at dusk and in 7inch grass I was being attacked by the GIANT mosquitoes that we grow here in Texas. Needless to say I was quickly covered in large quarter-sized welts...bummer.

PS. Jill, I was told today that I have picked up the Texas accent. No poofy hair...yet.

PPS. Customer Service everywhere SUCKS!

Projects, Projects, Projects

119 Hercules seems to be the address where nothing can get delivered too. Somehow my new debit card and a bookshelf we ordered disappeared into the abyss. Oh well. With Mason gone I have been taking on many household projects. I bought a dresser from someone on Craig's List so we now have somewhere for Mason to put his clothes. Also, I purchased and assembled a bigger desk for our office. I was very proud of myself. Today after much frustration with Office Depot losing our shipment, I went into the store and picked up our last bookcase. That will be tonight's big project, that and our new lawnmower. Our yard is beginning to look like a jungle, so Mason allowed me to purchase a lawnmower as my last and final purchase ever! Anyways, that means that we might finally have finished pictures to show soon. I had a job interview today that was okay, and another tomorrow. I'm hoping for the position tomorrow, but am still waiting to hear back about a teaching position for the fall.

Room, tench-hut

The first real day of training is over with, finally!

After the first serving of the boldface/ops limits quiz we got this morning, about 8 people didn't pass because of grammatical things (it has to be exactly as they gave us on the handout before getting here, "30 sec." does not equal "30 seconds") and a couple no-answers. So then they turned right back around and gave it to us again. And after that there were about 2 or 3 people who still didn't get it all right. Fortunately, they said we can still get out of blues and wear our flight suits starting Thursday. It was a surprise to me because I figured it was one of those "we have to earn it" privileges.

I guess I should explain what this whole program is. IFS - Initial Flight Screening is a relatively new method in the Air Force for an old purpose. Anyone going to pilot training who didn't have their civilian pilot's license used to just have to go to their local airport and get about 15 hours of instruction. But now they've created IFS here at Pueblo, Colorado where all incoming Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) students will go through first. About 200 people have passed through here so far, with class sizes getting bigger each month. Our class is the largest so far at 34 people. They also expanded the program to include every UPT-bound student, regardless of whether they have civilian flight experience or not (and that's where I come in). Eventually Navigator students will come through IFS as well. The whole purpose is to give everyone a little step up before going to the full blown pilot training (UPT) as well as pick out any of the people who got their pilot slot without ever touching a plane in their life and then decide it's not for them. It saves big bucks to figure it out here at IFS rather than in UPT. It's sort of a mutual understanding around here that there's not any shame or stagelights for those who are ground-bound, it's just a matter of fact that flying's not for everyone.

The whole program is set for 6 weeks, with 25 flying hours during 19 sorties (flights). Some people can take advancement checkrides in order to skip a couple training flights and go home early. But most of us agree that we might as well get all 25 hours logged since it's on Uncle Sam. Plus as class leader, I think I'm supposed to stay the full length regardless.

Near the end of our 12-hour day, when we were supposed to take our Physical Fitness Test (PFT), a thunderstorm conveniently rolled in our test was pushed back to Thursday afternoon. Thunderstorms are pretty common in the afternoon here, and we were all glad to get an extra two days to get acclimated and ready for the test. Going from sea level to 5,000 MSL can have an impact on your run time.

So after a crappy night of sleep (counting planes doing touch and go's doesn't work as well as counting sheep I guess) and a long day of not-so-brief briefings, I'm going to bed. Tomorrow's day off will be full of reading, study-groups, practicing in the cockpit trainer, and getting ready to give the first academic student briefing of the class thur morning (yay for me). Oh yeah, and the gym - PT, PT, good for you, good for me.

Did he forget to mention...

Mason was selected to be the class leader at IFS in Pueblo because he had the most flying ratings. Bravo! Also, as you may have noticed it is true that our hamster Sheppard passed away into hamster heaven. Boy, a girl looses both her men in one day...perhaps a Sheppard II will come along another day in the future. I spent the day applying for jobs and doing random things around town. We'll see how that goes.

Welcome to the Rockies

Yesterday, eight of us ENJJPT soon-to-be-studs caravanned up to Pueblo, CO. We spent the night in a hotel just a few miles from the airport so we could check in fresh and clean today. Inprocessing itself here at Initial Flight Screening (IFS) only took 15 minutes or so. But then the rest of the day was full of meeting everyone (about 34 in our class it sounds like) and getting ready for our first day of training. Pueblo's not too close to the mountains but you can definately see them from here. All in all, the drive was pretty amazing.

Tomorrow it's up at 0530 for a full day of academics, quizzes, and then the Physical Fitness Test to finish it off (at 5,000' elevation I should add). And I think we're stuck in blues until everyone passes the boldface/procedures/keynumbers quiz. So cross your fingers, I can only last so many days in the blues uniform with 100* weather, not that the flight suit is much cooler (but it's so damn comfortable and fun to wear). There's about 8 people with private pilot certificates and 2 with their commercial in our class. We're also the biggest class yet, and it's supposed to keep getting bigger each class as they send more people through here.

Sheppard, RIP- thorough investigations are called for. Conspiracy theories, anyone?

A "Productive" Day

After staying up until nearly 5am on Friday night, Mason and I slept in until 1:30pm on Saturday (yikes, is it already 1:45am...); we're apparently catching up on all those missed hours of sleep from our teen/college years. Nevertheless, we awoke in time to go to the base theater at 2:00 for a showing of Shrek 3. Tickets for the two of us were only $7, so a pretty good deal. We then ran home for a quick lunch and then returned to the theater to see a FREE movie pre-screening for the movie, "The Kingdom" that comes out the end of September. "Hairspray" will be screening in July; Mason said he was so sad he would be out of town for that. (yeah right)

Mason leaves tomorrow for Pueblo, CO for a six week flight training course. (visitors welcome to come stay with me in WF) and so we went running at the track on base. I should clarify and say Mason went running and Ellen sat in the car reading her book and timing him. :) After Mason busted his running shoes we had to drive to town (at8pm) to get him some new gym shoes. On the way we took some pictures of some of the flooding in are area. There were whole trees submerged, and a huge van that you could barely see the top of near the Holiday Inn.

We returned home and Ellen made the most delicious Chicken Parmesan for dinner. Now Mason is polishing his boots and Ellen is working around the house. Mason is hating Kelly Clarkson while Ellen is hating Peter Bjorn and John...anyways. Our home is open for the next 6 weeks if anyone wants to visit me.

http://neiu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011433&l=f7184&id=77800450