Almost Out of Here

Well I have been bad and need to catch up on this site a little. First off I tried to head out back to my wonderful summer, oh wait now it’s my winter home… But the plane was broke so I got to hang out here another day =) I will try again tomorrow so I’ll keep you posted.

I had a good night last night, I thought it was my last night in Cheyenne so we pushed it up a little bit. The coolest thing was our waitress at the Olive Garden, she was AWESOME! She had a wittiness about her that was quite appealing, and of course she was beyond cute, but also she took care of use. I mean really took care of us. She let Katrina and Liz sample some wine so I asked her if I could sample some wine, she said “sure what kid would you like to sample?” I said all of them =) She then brought the bar over to us and after about 15 glasses of wine I was getting quite happy off of the samples. Needless to say I think I am in love.

After the Olive Garden we went to the Outlaw and well the night continued till I was driven home and passed out shortly thereafter. Waking up at 0400 was tough but having a broken plane and getting to go back to bed made it all bearable

KC's on Vacation

OK well I have had a fun time being back. I went camping at Gledno Lake in WY with some buddies and it was a blast, just hanging out on a lake in a pontoon boat and having a few beverages, ah the life. I had not camped for a few years and it was nice to wake up and cook a brat over a campfire for breakfast =)

Then after 2 nights at the lake I headed to my sister Amy’s place and helped her move out of the loft that I moved her into right before I deployed, yea bad timing on my part. I was soo tired but I managed to get some sleep on her floor that night before I headed out to the airport to fly to Topsail Beach NC (yes spend the last 3 nights out of my bed, so why do I have a house?)

I then spent a week on the beach with my buddies Scott and Karyn and Scott’s family and friends. It was an awesome house on the beach and yes the water was warm. I was thinking that the Atlantic would be cold but it wasn’t and it was really nice to body surf everyday =)

After spending a week eating to my heart’s content it was time to come home. I got back on Sat and had 2 nights of rest before my mom and her sister Gail came up here to visiting.

Oh can’t forget that I helped Josh cut down a 40’+ tree on Monday, it was insane. I have never worked a chainsaw from 30’ in the air, can’t say that I want to do that again but it all worked out. The tree is gone and the neighbors house is OK!

Today we went to Ft. Collins and spent my life savings on furniture, ok not all of it but it was pretty depressing. I will now have a new living room and bed room and I will take some pictures of it when I get the new camera that I ordered.

OK well sorry so short but I wanted to catch up and without pictures I know that no one is that interested. Tomorrows plan is to work on the plane and maybe get some new sheets, yes I did upgrade to a King size bed =)

I'm Home!

Well this is the final post for the Balad 08, or at least I hope so. I was pretty busy the last few days in Iraq, they even flew me the day before I was to leave, I am just glad that we didn’t break off station.

So we flew out on the 17th and made it all the way to England with just a quick gas stop. It was so nice to see green, I mean everything was soo GREEN, I guess after staring at nothing but sand for so long colors seam so vivid.

It was a fun night, I just stayed in the hotel and to be quite honest have no idea how and when I went to bed, I guess I was just a little tired and well we were all celebrating just a little bit ;)
The next day we flew across the Atlantic and to St. John’s Newfoundland, and the funny part was that I had the same hotel room as I had when I went to the desert. I thought that was pretty funny, everything kind of came full circle. I wish I could have taken some pictures but my camera is broke and it was a shame as the weather in St. John’s was the nicest I have ever seen! Blue skies and the visibility was endless, I would love to go back and just vacation there to see some more of the sights and especially if the weather was like that.

Then after a little confusion with some maintenance issues with the plane we pressed and took off for home. I got in to Cheyenne about 1630 on the 19th and was glad to be home. I logged 25 hours of flight time to get home and was amazed that it only took 3 days. Yes there are faster airplanes out there but I get to stop at all these cool places because I fly so slow so nanny nanny boo boo.

The house was fine other then the new jungle in the back yard, but 2.5 hours of mowing took care of the 3.5’ tall weeds. I think I am on my last load of laundry, washing everything with nice clean soap and water before I put it all away.

Today was more chores and I tried to run this morning, wow 6,400’ is a little different than sea level! The gym was tough too, the weight was not the problem but the breathing, never thought that I would be out of breath lifting weights.

Well the plan is for a lake camping trip and then maybe a trip to Topsail Beach, NC then back to work on the 8th of Sep (yea I am taking a little bit of leave cause I think I deserve it).

I’ll keep posting thing on here so don’t worry. Have a great day and I am glad to be home!

Moving Out =)

Well I wrote a long entry but saved it using office 2004, guess that is not compatible with this computer =( So in short here it is...

I moved out of my room, I am living in a tent and I should get to go home soon, very soon. As soon as I get out of here I will try and let you all know, sorry no more pictures but my camera died =(

Don't worry I am in great spirits but not having internet in my room and having to wait 30 minutes to get 15 minutes of access time is keeping this short.

Hope to see you all very soon,
Aloha!

The easy life...

Or so everyone thinks. Yesterday we were alerted to go fly a mission at 1400, it was a good flight and we had a lot of fun but did not get back on the ground till 0200 and I finally got to sleep at 0430 after eating some food and taking a shower.

Well the schedule had us on standby status today at 1430, this means that we need to be rested and ready to fly if the pager goes off. So most of the crew slept till at least 1200 like myself cause we were tired and we needed to be ready to fly.

So at 1500 I look at the schedule and it has us flying tomorrow at 0345, yea in just over 12 hours, I call the scheduler and ask what is up because we all just woke up thinking that we might have to fly today and now we need to go back to sleep so that we can get up at 0300 to really fly. He said he was sorry but that we need to fly tomorrow. So now we just shifted our wake up time 10 hours to the left (earlier) and we have to try and get some sleep even though we are not tired.

This is just the life of being an aircrew member, they tell me when to jump and I say how high, but when the poop hits the fan it’s up to me to fix it. Sometimes it’s a little rough but I would not change it as it sure beats sitting in an office for 12 hours a day!

So off to the gym to try and get tired, than a shower and off to bed with the help of some magic sleeping pills that the flight Doc gives us for times like these.

Night

Got to give an office tour

So today was awesome, I got to share what I do with some of my friends over here. I took my buddies Jane, Al and Chin out to see a C-130. I sometimes forget that my job often interest people and they don’t always get a chance to sit in the pilot’s seat of an airplane.

I really like giving tours of the plane just as I like seeing what others do because we all have very important jobs in keeping this crazy blue ball called earth spinning.

I will have to wait to see if I can get some of the pictures that they took as I was doing the talking and not the picture taking.

I hope that Al can show me around before I leave so that I can see how they manage all the water on base (Ahh the good ole days of working in utilities).

I hope that one day I can show you all what I do and even better take you for a ride! Now I just need to finish my plane!!!

Banana fun

So today was an unexpected day off so I made the most of it. I ran to breakfast, did a spinning class at the gym, spent a few hours at the pool, had lunch, did laundry (ok just dropped it off and let others wash and fold it for me =), had Mongolian for dinner, and now for the best part…. On the way back from dinner I took 2 nice bananas and walked through the gym and pretended to shoot at people with the banana guns. OK so this girl Jenna thought that was the funniest thing, I guess sometimes you just need a little comic relief.

Have a great day!

Happy Going Home Month!

Today was another successful day in the skies of Iraq. Rest assured that when someone needs something moved to somewhere extremely hot, dusty and just plain filthy I will be there for them as that is what I do best. So what is my reward for such selfless acts… I got to hang out at the pool today after my flight =)

Yep after being up for 14ish hours I was enjoying the extreme heat next to a nice cool Olympic size swimming pool. I even got a little burnt on the legs, I put on sun screen but forgot about those things that hold me up all day =0 It was really nice to just pretend I was somewhere else for a few hours though the sights and sounds of army guys grunting was not the same as seeing bikinis on the beach but hey I’ll take what I can get, wow that sounds bad!

A big thanks goes out to Amy for sending some rice crispy treat my way. I already hurt my jaw from eating them, no they are not hard I was just so excited to get them my mouth was moving faster than I could control it and it made some weird noises and well the left side now hurts =( I hope it will be better in the morning. Also got a box from Dad with some very important supplies that I am sure everyone will appreciate (that anti stink stuff you put under your arms ;)


Well I know everyone likes to see pictures so here is one of me in my room, Amy note the cool watch;) and E check out that backpack! Yep it has been to over 50 countries and multiple combat zones and still going strong!

Take care all and I will be home this month!!!

Sleepy KC

So lets just say that I must have been pretty tired. I went to sleep around 1300 and woke up at 1800 and thought about getting up but I was still tired so I fell back asleep. I then woke up at 0600!!! Yea like another 12 hours later, as I was sitting there I was trying to figure out how I could have slept so long when I noticed that I fell back asleep till 0700 when I decided I NEED to get up.

Yea so I don’t know if I have ever slept so long in my life! I know that I have slept for 12 hours before and what not but this was a LOT of sleep. I guess I have been pretty tired and didn’t know it. I have been sleeping about 6 hours at a time and taking naps here and there to make the sleep work for the hours that I have been flying but I guess this was my body saying that it was not working and it needed a little recharging.

When I got up I ran to DFAC 3 for breakfast like I have been doing and I felt fine. I didn’t even hear any rust coming from my joints after that slumber so I guess I am good to go. Then I tried to use the wood shop and the guys there were buttheads to me so I left and went to the hospital where I chatted with Theresa and watched as a guy was brought in with a gunshot wound to his right eye. It is really amazing that they let you stand in the ER with all this trauma going on and you can see how they do everything. I am sure that the insurance agencies in the states would freak if they knew someone was just standing there in the ER.

I had a sandwich for lunch and now I am thinking about lying out in the sun to try and get a little color, ok mostly red but I try.

If you do the math that is a lot of hours that I have had off and yes I got an extra day off today, don’t know why but that is how the cards fell and I am not going to complain. In fact our crew won the Air Hogs award for the month of July, that means we flew more hours than any other crew here, our total was…. 81.9 I don’t know the inclusive dates but I know that didn’t count the 9.6 that we flew before the award was handed out. Logging about 90 hours a month is pretty good or painful depending how you look at it.

Ok well time to sweat and then take a shower. Hope you all are sleeping good and if not I hope you can have the opportunity to reset you sleeping clock =)

Flying all night long...

OK so I am orbiting over Baghdad right now, yes here is a picture to prove it

=)

We just watched Dan in Real life with Dane Cook. It was a good one, one of those comedy love stories where the guy always gets the girl, but maybe one day that will be me, hahaha yea right.

So I only got another 6 hours in the air before I get to land, yeppie!!! It’s so crazy to fly for so long and go nowhere. OK well time to catch up on some emails and such.

OK emails are ready to send, now time to nap =) Hey even superman needs a little shut eye from time to time.

Well I am back on the ground and sending this off. Have a great day!

More time in the sandbox

Not much new to talk about here, I did see the Batman movie and it rocked!!! Highly recommend it to all. The cool part was before the movie I went to eat and I ran into Matt Garrison, a buddy from college, what a small world. It was nice to catch up but kinda sad too. Matt informed me that one of our college buddies was on the B-52 that went down in Guam on the 21 of this month. This is the second person from school this year that I have now known to pass. The first was involved in a T-38 crash in Sheppard AFB in May of this year. Not to scare anyone as I am as safe as I can be but it is just a reminder that what I am involved in is dangerous but it is something that I completely love doing and would not want to do anything else.

OK sorry for the not so happy subject but it was something that I have been thinking about as a friend just lost his stepmother and another just lost a close friend. I guess it is been something that I have been fortunate to not have to deal with until this late in my life.

OK so happy stuff. I am off to bed so I can fly another wonderful 9.somthing hours in the sky! Chat later and see you soon, I should be home in less than a month!!!!

I am back, here is what I did

I am back from one fun trip. I spent the last week in Afghanistan flying my butt off. I could easily fill a page for each of our days as each one was an adventure but I’ll try and only share the highlights with you all.

We left on Thursday and had some mx issues at our first and only stop, Kuwait. First it was some radio problems then I decided to break the on off switch of my oxygen regulator, I really need to stop going to that gym! Once we got our new regulator we were already too late to make it to Kandahar in our allowed time so I had to ask for a waiver so that we could continue. Of course we got it and then we were on our way.


Monte loves that cereal ;)

It was neat flying the same route that I had flow some years ago. Karachi was still a butt head on the radio and didn’t want to talk to anyone. UAE was still a hopping place and looks like they are bringing in the big bucks.


One the way into Afghanistan we saw a lot of aircraft coming and going, here is a B-1 up close and personal

When we landed at Kandahar we got some chow and headed to your new home, Tent #2. It is a nice tent if you like dust everywhere. At least the A/C inda worked so we stayed cooler. There is a little gym and rec center about 100’ from the tent so we never had to go far for anything other than food, even the showers and bathroom were close. The one nice and peaceful thing is that I don’t have internet access, no email nothing. It’s kinda like the wild west.

The food was good, it’s mostly a NATO base so the menu was very divers and European (that means no ice or cold drinks) Ok well that’s the lead in now enjoy the rest of the adventures…


And you thought the French don't have an army...

The first day in Afghanistan

Our first day started off with a huge (350+ people) ceremony for a fallen Marine LT that we carried. It was the largest ceremony that I have seen and I was glad that we could do our part in bringing him home.

We then flew to Bagram and that place had changed from 2004. They have a new runway and the base is exploding, ok bad choice of words, how about expanding!

Then we went to Salerno, it’s a fun 3,500’ gravel strip. Now this is the kind of stuff that a C-130 was made to do. I had a grin on my face ear to ear going into that LZ. On the ground it makes you think this is what it was like in Vietnam, or at least the little out posts made me feel like that. We had to bump a Humvee as it weighted too much for what we could carry out of there (more to follow…)

Salerno, yes the weather was not perfect

The base fence does not give me the warm fuzzies

Don't see any pavement do you?

Then we flew back home to Kandahar. They asked us when we got home if we could do one more leg for to drop off some water and they said it was very high priority (almost as much as TP) so we said yes.

We took 24,000 pounds of bottled water to some Australian base and when we tried to get someone to take it no one would!? Rob my loadmaster went up to a dude on a forklift and asked if he would take this stuff and he said he has his own work to do. This was a first for us, no one would take this water that was supposed to be of such a high demand. So after waiting for over 45 minutes and no one would take this we had an idea… Just kick it out the back! So we asked tower and for some reason they said yes to letting us drop this stuff off on some dirt taxiway so we did.

Lots of water

The procedure is to set the brakes, push up the power and release the brakes as the loadmaster unlocks the cargo. Well it worked like a champ! The plane went forward and the water fell out the back =) Lets just say that “combat offloading” the cargo more than made up for having us wait 45 minutes. It was awesome, the water was flying everywhere and we made a mess, but they got the goods, we got a good laugh and got out of there!

Sharana

Today we got to go to another cool assault strip. This one was a little longer about 4,000’ long but it was up hill, i.e. the approach and departure end of the runway was over 300’ different. This along with the 250’ cliff before the runway made for quite the optical allusion. The approach was interesting but the takeoff was one of the most intense takeoffs I have ever done. It was downhill with Max crosswinds and we needed every inch of that runway. When I rotated for lift off the plane did not want to go anywhere but I did not want to go off the 250’ cliff either, so we had a little wrestling match and thankfully I won!

Looking down hill on the runway

C-130J on takeoff rool

Wow I wish we had that much power! He is already rotating!!!

The rest of that day was vanilla after that. Our next mission was to go do an airdrop; this was what we were waiting for! Doing what the C-130 does best, throwing junk out the back! As we taxied for takeoff we got a call that we needed to divert to Salerno and pick up another fallen solider. When we landed it looked like most everyone on the base made their way to watch us upload and take off. It was again a very humbling sight to see everyone saluting our plane as we lifted off in front of them from this tiny gravel strip in the middle of a war zone.

Mass CDS

Our mission today was to go do an airdrop; this was what we were waiting for! Doing what the C-130 does best, throwing junk out the back! As we taxied for takeoff we got a call that we needed to divert to Salerno and pick up another fallen solider. When we landed it looked like most everyone on the base made their way to watch us upload and take off. It was again a very humbling sight to see everyone saluting our plane as we lifted off in front of them from this tiny gravel strip in the middle of a war zone.

When we arrived a little behind schedule because of our extra stop everyone was there to help get us loaded for our drop. We were dropping 16 CDS bundles, it’s little things that just slide out the back and have a chute on them. 16 is the most that we can drop at once so it was a full load.



Half of the CDS is loaded


Rob and Dan hard at work as I walk around and take pictures =)


24,000 lbs of fuel ready to go

This was one of the highlights of our trip. It’s not often that we really get to do what it is that we train to do but here we were being called up to fly into so strange crazy place on NVGs (night vision goggles) and drop off needed supplies. Nothing felt better then hearing the strike report “PI” Now I don’t know if the drop really was a PI (point of impact, meaning that we put the stuff within 25 yards of where they wanted it) or not but when the dude on the ground is happy with how I gave him his stuff I am happy that I got it to him!

Because of some delays in getting the drop off with our extra first stop we ended up cutting the last stop of our day because of time. We were supposed to go back to pick up that Humvee that we did not get yesterday.

Leaving Afghanistan

Today one of our crew chief Will wanted to fly with us so we brought him along for the ride. He like it a lot and enjoyed the flight. I am glad that I get to share this with people; I guess it’s not the typical 9-5 job, but then again what is?

Will

So today we got to fly into Kabul, it’s a nice place and all but would be a lot nicer if the winds were not so gusty. They were calling the winds 15 knots gusting 42!!! Yea you could call that a little sporty. The winds were right down the runway so that was to our favor but the last thing I wanted was wind shear so we had our radar in wind shear mode and kept the speed up. Everything worked out and it was a greaser but that was not my intent, I just wanted to get on the ground.



When it was time to move the power cart Dan one of my loadmasters thought that he could drive the power cart tug. Everything was writen in Russian or something but he figured it out.

Our next stop was only about 20miles away, yea nothing for a plane but hey that’s what we do. Once we took off the closed the runway that we were going into as a Predator had just crashed on the runway. The Predator is a remote controlled airplane so gusting winds would be really tough for someone to fly if they could not feel what the plane is doing, or at least that is my opinion.

After holding for about 2 hours we finally got to land and drop off our cargo. Due to the delay we happily dropped the leg of our day that was to pick up the Humvee in Salerno. This was the 4th day in a row that we were to carry that Humvee and we never did. I know it’s bad but it became the biggest joke that we would never carry it and well we never did.

Our next stop was Jalalabad, some tiny blacked out assault strip that I had to go find. With my navigator Kevin’s help we found it and I pranged it in. It was not that bad but being that I had a very short runway I was not going to let this one float, did I mention how much I hate NVGs (night vision goggles)?

Once we downloaded we were off and headed back to Kandahar. We loaded all of our stuff up and headed out of Afghanistan.

It was good flying and a lot of fun, I wish we could have stayed a little longer but we are needed to save the world somewhere else.

When we got to the Died we in processed and got our beer cards and headed to the beer tent. Yes it was 0730 in the morning but this is the only place in the middle east where we get to have a beverage so we were not going to let a silly thing like the sunrise spoil that for us.
I really didn’t need or want anything but I couldn’t let the crew down so I had some Captains. I mixed it with A&W Root Beer and it was soo yummy!

With alcohol in our system we headed to our new beds as we would have to be up in 12 hours to fly home, ahh life on the road.

More Airdrops

So now that we have gotten some sleep in the 115 degree tent it’s time to get up and fly home.

We got alerted earlier than they told me we were going to get alerted so that was not a nice way to start off the morning, or night or whatever time it is… Once I got the crew together we headed out and tried to go to Chow. This is when the bus driver told me that he can take us anywhere but the chow hall, yea some things just don’t make much sense to me, so after wasting 5 minutes debating this little rule I gave up and we went to the grab an go instead. We all grabbed some togo food and headed to ops. I needed to get a brief on what we were doing as it was another airdrop.

This was something new to me; I was to fly over a city and throw out some 315,000 leaflets and then go home. There is no check list for leaflets so we planned for a mix of procedures as they told us to do and then headed out to the plane.

This was one of the most interesting missions as I would be flying low and slow over a city that I would normally not fly over. So we discussed how we were going to do this some more and made sure that we would minimize our exposure and get everything out as fast but safely as we could.


The leaflets

Everything worked out just fine and we got the drop off. I don’t know how or if we will ever know if the coverage is what they wanted but I am sure that we littered so town with lots of papers =)

Once we made it home we had over an hour of paper work to finish up before we could head to our beds. I sure liked my own bed. The cots and temp beds work but there is nothing like my own bed!

Well this week has come to an end, I had a great time and I am sure the fun will continue.

Aloha!

Yes Wii Can!

I finally figured it out; have you ever heard the term “burning the midnight oil”? Well last night I realized what that is and let me tell you I was burning that oil, to the tune of 38,000 lbs of JP-8!!! Yep I flew another 9 hour mission boring holes in the sky keeping the sleeping world below safe. At least this time we did something to spice up the flight =)

We brought a projector and a Nintendo Wii with us! It all worked out a little too well to be honest. We hung a sheet in the back of the plane and ended up having a 8’ screen to play Guitar Hero on. They also were playing some Mario Kart racing and even bowling! Yea the controllers worked all the way on the other side of the cargo compartment so it was no kidding just like a bowling alley. There were some issues with playing movies that we need to work out but other than that it sure made the flight more enjoyable.


This is over the ramp in the back of the plane


Front to back view of the cargo compartment, now can you tell how big our screen was =)


Yes even some video for ya

So how does a plane fly with everyone in the back, just fine ;) OK not everyone was in the back, because I am not a huge gamer I hung out up front and made sure that the gravity gods did not mess with us.

After we landed I hit the gym and got some sun and now am thinking about a nap.
Everyone keep smiling cause I am!

Aloha!

High in the Sky

I just got back from a wonderful night of boring left hand turns in the skies of Iraq. Yep I had the distinct privilege of not only watching the sunset from 18,000 feet above the ground but also watching it rise some 10 hours later =) Now I did this all without refueling so why anyone would want to be on a plane that can refuel in the air is beyond me!

We watched Blood Diamonds, it was the first time I had seen it. I liked it, lots of action and drama with even a really cheesy romance thrown in the mix. It is not the most upbeat movie but entertaining and eye opening at the same time. Morale of the story is Americans are bad but I am sure glad to be one!

I should have some pictures emailed to me from the flight, we were playing with the camera and taking pictures threw our NVG’s (night vision goggles). Took a little tweaking but I think they turned out alright.

I got our 4th of July explosions emailed to me so enjoy some C4 at its finest =)

I tried to get my hair cut today but they are close till further noticed due to some “electrical problem” I guess it’s a good idea to let them fix the problem instead of electrocuting the hair off of my head =0 So now it’s time to hit the gym and then bed as I have only gotten a 2.5 hour nap in the last 31ish hours. Keep the email coming as I enjoy getting it and I hope to see you all soon.

Cannon Ball!!!

Yesterday I spend the day taking people to Bahrain so that they can enjoy a weeklong conference, or should I say party. Yes Bahrain is one of the location in the middle east that you may consume alcohol, but I am sure that the people how have been fry for a few months would easy into the beverages of their choice and not make fools of themselves ;) I unfortunately was not so lucky to get on that trip other than being the bus driver.

Today I had the day off and got to spend some time at the pool. Yes today I finally burnt myself pretty good, I guess there is a difference of going to the pool at 1500 and going at 1200. Today we went at high noon and I got to feel the full effects of the sun on my white belly. But maybe one day I too will get a darker belly like so many others but I am afraid that I am cursed with the “I can only turn different shades of pink and red” skin. But that is fine with me, I still had fun jumping off the diving board.

Dinner was not that exciting tonight so I just had some spaghetti and a sandwich. I bet that if the dudes that work at our show hall opened a sandwich shop in the states they would put subway out of business in less than a year. They are not the world’s best sandwiches, but they are working with less than the world’s best supplies, but they can make you a sandwich any way you want it in less than 15 seconds. I mean these guys are efficient!!! Thou I am sure if they got to the sates and started seeing how lazy us Americans are they would slow down too and be just like everyone else, but at least here they are working like they need their job to stay alive.

Well that’s it for the update for now, I’ll keep you informed of all this exciting stuff as it happens. Miss you all and I’ll see ya soon!