So much to do, so little time

June 1st- 1st Lt., 1st day of FTU, 1st day Conan hosts the tonight show...these are all of Mason's big exciting milestones for the day. Mason's been active duty in the Air Force for 2 years now, which means he's promoted from 2nd Lt. to 1st Lt. not much of a difference in status, but the pay increase is sweet! Today was Mason's first day as a B52 student copilot, which means he's begun FTU (formal training unit) - basically he starts training to fly the B52 for the next 8 months. He's got a HUGE bag full of pubs and studying began tonight! I'm not really all that into Conan, so I'll keep on tooting Mason's horn since he's to busy to post. He got an A on his first Master's paper, there were pretty much only three comments in the whole paper; the most amusing, "Mason, please use the word flightdeck instead of cockpit because it's less gender specific." Seriously?

The summer schedule for work started today, which is pretty much ideal. Mondays/Wednesdays I basically work 10-12:30 and 2-4:30 and Tuesdays/Thursdays I'll work 2-5:30, so great! I've been tutoring math, which I've been actually starting to like, since I get to know the kids more and more, but I think tomorrow they are having me sit in with a reading teacher so I can start to train to be a reading tutor-oh boy! Other than that I'm planning a trip home on Thursday to see my baby sister graduate high school- where did the time go?

This past weekend, Mason and I hosted a class BBQ. Since the pilots, navs, and EWOS are kept separate for most of academics, we thought it would be fun for everyone to get together and meet people they may not have met already while on casual status. It was lots of fun- and for once we had just the right amount of food, instead of like triple the amount of food. Almost 30 people came so this was a great guess at food. A humorous moment from the evening which Mason told me later was that a new friend Ryan (a fellow pilot) was leaving and told Mason he'd left him some beers in the fridge; Mason being a non-drinker sarcastically said, "thanks man, I'm such a huge drinker." It later dawned on Mason that Ryan probably had no idea Mason doesn't drink, and actually thinks he's a huge boozer...okay maybe you had to be there for the humor effect.We also decided since it was the last weekend of total relaxation before FTU started, we headed to the Louisiana Downs Harrah's Casino Race Tracks. They have horse racing Thursdays-Sundays all summer long and on the "regular" weekends it's totally free to go watch. We met up with some friends who were more knowledgeable of the races and had a nice afternoon. The first race we watched, Mason guessed #8 would be the winner and I picked #5 (we didn't bet) and sure enough #5's horse won, but didn't qualify because just before the finish the rider was bucked off the horse and injured pretty badly. Bummer. We tried our luck at placing some bets after that race. We bet on 5 races, won the first 3 and lost the last 2, but overall came out $12 ahead! AWESOME!

As a late Sunday afternoon adventure, Mason and I drove over to the East Side of base to see if we could spot any alligators. No such luck. Maybe next time!
More May Adventures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029681&id=77800450&l=afbf804ca8