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This is going to be a taxing weekend. I get out of work early to eat dinner with Jessica’s family (who recently joked that I might as well call them in-laws - you can draw whatever conclusion you wish from that remark) prior to her graduation ceremony from Bates (technical school) where she is working on a Biotechnology associates degree. She gets to walk today but she still has about 6 weeks left of school. She should be done with the biology portion in the next week or two but she has a few other classes to finish up the degree. I’ve been quite unhappy with the way she describes how the program is ran. I often feel that they are just jerking the students around and delaying classes and projects so they can eek out more tuition. She hasn’t been paying the tuition but her parents have - and I’m sure they hope it reaps large dividends.

Directly - and I mean directly - after her graduation she’s off to the edge of Ranier National park for Jenny’s (her best friend) wedding. She’ll play the role of bridesmaid for the event. She’ll miss the rehearsal but she’s had some experience in the role so I’m sure she’ll be fine winging it. I’ll leave Saturday afternoon to head to the ceremony. I’ll have to leave afterwards as I am on standby on this three day weekend. Why a three day weekend? My base (home of the 62AW) has recently gone 62 days without a DUI and Monday has been declared a “down” day. It’s not really a down day because they’ve scheduled work for the flight line and I have a part to deliver so that it can get done. So, its not a three day weekend for everyone.

Sunday will probably spent at her parents house for fathers day. They’ve (her parents) tried to coerce her into preparing dinner - she’s thinking about ribs - and I’m thinking that it sounds like an excellent idea.

The next two weekends are surprisingly empty of plans but after that we’ve got the 4th, then two weeks of nothing, and then a camping trip to somewhere near a massive salty body of water. Its going to be a busy summer and this weekend is going to be one of the busiest.

While I haven’t yet reached the west coast I have arrived in America and its quite nice to be back. I’m still rocking the same clothes that I’ve been wearing for the past 60 or so hours. Traveling via military channels seldom goes without a hitch and I had quite a few.

I was scheduled to leave Iraq on a nice and roomy C-17. We got to the terminal 8 hours before our plane was scheduled to depart (standard procedure). We got on the buses when the time came for us to depart but were turned around halfway to the plane - our original mission time had been scrubbed due to a sand storm. It dashed our hopes of leaving on time. We waited for 4 hours after our plane was supposed to depart in hopes that the skies would clear - the didn’t. They sent us back to the housing area and told us that we should come back 12 hours later. A few hours after we got back they told us that our flight would be leaving in 6 hours - a full 6 hours early wahoo! It turns out that they lied - we ended up waiting 14 hours at the terminal for our plane to leave.

While there we experienced the ubiquitous indirect fire attack (they were shooting mortars at us). I was asleep on one of the benches as EVERYONE else in the room hit the deck and covered their heads when the klaxon alarms went off. I didn’t move and inch. I woke up a few hours later and laughed as they told me about what had happened. I laughed because its funny - really - it is. I guess you have to be a complete and total cynic to laugh at sleeping through a mortar attack. Truth is, I’ve slept through dozens of them and was fine. They can’t aim and the base is HUGE! The odds of probability were on my side.

So - eventually we got stuck on a C-130. I’ve got to say - worst plane ride ever. Most of you have been crammed into economy seats - these seats economy look like first class. In order to cram us all in we had to be creative. The plane had seats along the outside wall of the plane and seats in the center facing out - while seated you were facing someone else. In order to make the fit we had to alternate legs - your leg, the person across from you, your leg, another person across from you - I have a video that I’ll upload later when I have time (and I’m not paying for internet by the hour).

We got to Al Udeid (in Qatar) and we scheduled to come back to the terminal in 14 hours to catch our flight. We were supposed to meet up at 5PM. The time came near and we were told that we weren’t going to leave as planned. We were told to meet again at 5AM. We got to the terminal at about 0530 expecting to leave around noon. The airplane gods are a vengeful bunch and delayed our plane - again. Our departure time slipped an additional 3 hours. Oh joy!

I’m finally home and thats the important part - and - I’m only hours away from seeing my girl. I can’t wait.

Well, I’m halfway home and I’m trying to type this out on a keyboard that was made for germans… das ist nicht so gut.

I’m in Leipzig at the moment and I’ve only got a 8 hour flight ahead of me before I get to my connecting flights in the states. All in all, I’ve had over 36 hours of delays while I have tried to make my way home. The delays ate up my free time in Baltimore but its no big deal - I’m going to get home soon.

I’m not in the mood to write a full post so I’m going to give you a file and a couple of links. First off is the best appeal to an Article 15 punishment that I’ve ever seen. Its well worth the read - I had a feeling that I wasn’t the only sarcastic ass in the Air Force.

Next up is an writer that looks at our nation and its productivity if we completely eliminated obesity. Its more editorial than fact but she does bring the work of a few economists into the mix. Its an interesting read thats worth checking out.

Last is an article about corn and how it is and isn’t impacting the cost of food and gasoline in our country. For some reason, as an Iowa native, I feel compelled to write about corn whenever I get a chance. My home state only stands in the spotlight once in a great while. Most Americans only hear about Iowa once every four years during the Caucus. It’s a shame that most of them are still unable to point it out on a map.

The current situation in Iraq has been under intense scrutiny and debate for some time. We find it ever more in the spotlight as the democrats and republicans use it against each other for political gain. General Petraeus recently gave testimony to the Armed Services Committee and provided them with this slide. I haven’t had a chance to read through the transcript and frankly I don’t care - what concerns me is the information in the slide.

The slide does paint a rosy picture - but - as we all know - its not that rosy. The Iraqis really need to man up and take this country over. The longer they squabble over power the more detrimental it will be to their long term prosperity. The charts do not give the entire picture as they only provide a limited time line. We’ve been here for 5 years - I want to see the charts for the entire time on the ground.

Unfortunately, the US military presence will continue until the politicians can come to an agreement. Even after the government begins to function and corruption decreases (which I hope it will) the Iraqis will continue to rely on the US military to do things they cannot - Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), Combat Search and Rescue, Logistical Support, and Air power.

As bad as I want to see our guys out of the fight - things could fall apart quickly without our help. I just don’t think they are ready despite continued progress - I wonder how longs its going to be before we are done. Waiting sucks - it really does. Its a shame we can’t get the Iraqi government to subcontract our role in their country. How cool would that be? Don’t let them pay us - have them pay Black water, KBR, or whomever they wish. They could regulate and control the situation to their desire until their own military and police forces can handle the country as a whole.

BlueCoat, the web filter ran by the USAF, has caused me much aggravation since my arrival at Balad. I am not the only one that is feeling pain - everyone else is affected by this poorly written web filter. Recently, I discovered a way to circumvent the filter - RSS feeds. Techically, I’m accessing the site information without breaking the terms of service because I am not accessing the site or any restricted content - including all images hosted on that server that could potentially corrupt me (I think the only reason the filter exists is to 1. save bandwidth, 2. block porn, 3. prevent idiots from downloading viruses). RSS stands for really simple syndication - really, I’m not kidding at all. Its the summarized content of a website that is delivered without all of the extra advertising, images, and themes of the full website. You get the good part of the website without all of the crap that slows down your browsing experience. RSS feeds are read and displayed by readers that can be web or desktop based.

Google - the company that does almost everything - well, they haven’t figured out how to build an electric car that runs for a 1000 miles on a single charge… yet - has a free reader that is quite simple to use. Simply register, subscribe to the websites of your choosing, and read away. The reader allows you to view all feeds or just those that have been recently updated. I’ve added a RSS link that you can see to your right - right below the Askimet spam count. Click on the link and you can easily add my feed to the reader of your choice. You’ll never miss another gripping update - ever - you can rest easily now.

So - Screw you BlueCoat - I’m going to get my news one way or another.

I changed the header on my web page (notice the mountains are gone) to a picture I took from the office a few days ago before I left for home. Its strange to have a clear shot of the sun coming up when you get used to the mountains blocking the early morning sunlight.

Work has been sporadic but its enough to keep me from going insane. The filters at work block out most of the internet so I spend some of my free time reading the news. There is only so much going on at one time so it tends to wear out quickly. I took a few pictures of the bay (look below)

Here is a photo of us doing what we do best - building things that make loud noises and send chunks of steel flying at high velocities. Serj Tankian would say that we are building the components needed for death showers. Well, he isn’t far from the truth.

This is why we do it

We haven’t got all of our people in for this rotation but I do have a few friends here. One of the people here was a classmate when I was in tech school. I haven’t seen her in almost 6 years so its kinda cool to talk to her. The other guy I know I met at AFCOMAC so its not like I don’t know anyone here. Its nice to be in this environment because we all bond quickly so its not like we don’t have any friends out here.

Ok, so a few weeks ago nukes were transported from Minot AFB to Barksdale AFB - nuclear surety was trampled as “nobody knew it happened.” Some believe it was a plot to steal a weapon so that we can bomb ourselves so that we can blame it on Iran and bomb them back… Several air force members (who happened to be assigned to Minot/Barksdale) have recently died from a series of accidents. Normally I don’t buy into conspiracy theories but I know how much security we give to stuff that I get to move around. I’ve heard stories of how much security special weapons get. I don’t know how this could have happened. The theories are extremely interesting and well thought out - they might be better thought out than the theory that there was no plane that crashed into the pentagon but it was done deliberately by the US govt.

All of the links are interesting reads - I’m guessing its really nothing but if the information keeps on piling up I might join the conspiracy boat.

I got this in my email today and it is one of the damn funniest things I’ve ever seen. This kid is is going to get in some serious trouble. You may not want to zoom see these full size… just saying.

Below is what I received in my email

Priceless!!! These are by far the funniest pictures I have seen of anyone marshalling a jet or helicopter!

A few days ago somebody found a pic of a KC-135 guy marshaling a jet in his underwear. The next day Airman Jerknuts of our grand 34th AMU decided to out do the tanker guy. I think our guy won!

The chief lost his mind over this. He read 11 people their rights and they all lawyered up. The chief confiscated a bunch of cameras (not before the pics got put on laptops of course) The kid asked everyone if they minded, including the aircrew and super, no one cared. There’s a huge cluster-gaggle with it. Apparently every lawyer in the AOR plus a few extras have to be flown in for this.

Tags: Airman Jerknuts, funny, USAF, war

As I mentioned the other day, retraining is a long and arduous process. Today I got the giant email from personnel command telling me what to do. I already knew what they wanted me to do but now I have that process in official memorandum. So, now the hard part is getting the rest of the base to help me along with this process. So far, I’ve had little luck. I only have two major appointments that I need to take care of: medical and language skills testing. Nobody is answering the phone at the hospital and I am not surprised at all. I do have a lead on where to take the language testing so its just a matter of waiting for some information. Patience is the key to the whole process but I just want to be done with what I’m doing now… I don’t wish to wait any longer. Its a shame the process didn’t take me as long as it takes me to blog about it. I’ll probably have to get another waiver on the flight physical because I’m overweight for my size… yes, I am overweight for my size. I don’t know what they are expecting, other than maybe the build of a track and field athlete or a holocaust survivor. What too soon? yes… that was in poor taste.