I made it!

Well with many delays and more snow and ice I finally made it home! We got in to Cheyenne after dark on the 23rd and it was a wonderful to be home.

Xmas was spent opening presents and playing with all new toys :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Xmas and I can't wait to see some of you very soon in Hawaii, Aloha!

Heading Home

I am on my way home!!!

To bad I have been stuck in Scotland for 2 days... But it looks like all is good now. I am just waiting on a de-icing truck to come and spray our plane so we can get out of here! We will check the winds but if everything goes well we are tring to get to Bangor Maine today so that we will be home on time.

OK I'll let others use this computer, hope to see everyone soon, Aloha!

I am getting short

I know that I have not updated this in a little bit, I don’t have any good excuses but I do have some good news… I am almost out of here!!!

Yea I woke up an realized that I have less than 10 more days in Iraq and that got me in a great mood! So even though I had to wake up and sit duty crew (basically I am tasked with watching paint dry) this is a great day.

So what has been happening the last few days you ask, well let me tell you.

First here is my growing monkey, yes she is still getting bigger...

We saw the Harlem Globe Trotters the other night. They put on a great show, it’s amazing how well they can handle a basket ball it’s like it becomes an extension of their body!

Their mascot Globie was fun to watch as well as all the silly tricks that they did, it was really nice.

It would have been even better as we where to fly them last night but the weather was not cooperating so I had to cancel the flight due to bad weather. I guess the guys that flew them today instead said they were a lot of fun on the flight and told them that they spend 9.5 months a year away from their families to tour, and I thought I was gone a lot!

Oh we finely got some crew pictures, so here we are, and can you believe that they give us a $35,000,000 toy to fly??? Crazy!!!

Well I should hit the gym, yea I guess I only have a few more days to get in shape before Hawaii, and I want to look good for a special you know who ;) Aloha!

What a day

So what do you do if you are in a good mood, how about go for a little run. So me and Jordan (my copilot) headed out for a little run, we started running and I made some jokes about if her was ready to turn around and he said nope, so I said fine I’ll run till you say to turn around. I was trying to run the way they talked about in the book “Born to Run” that I just finished, shorted strides and working less, so it was hard and I am sure I went back to how ever I normally run but I was trying. As we got to our normal 3.5 mile turn around point (that’s 3.5 miles total) we kept running. Than we got to the spot where we have turned around before for a total of a 6.5-7 mile run and we kept going. Next we realized that we were pretty far from where we started no matter how we headed back so we decided to keep running all the way around the base. We circled the 2 runways that are 1.5 miles apart and after checking out what we did using www.gmaps.com it looks like we ran 10 miles, yea our little run turned into a 10 mile adventure! It was such a nice day and a nice run, we were talking the whole way and really enjoyed it, who would have ever thought that anyone could enjoy a 10 mile run. We didn’t time it but we figured it was a little over 1.5 hours.

So once we got back we relaxed and played some cards until they alerted us to go fly, yep we still had to work. It was a really short flight but we move a Humvee and did our part to save the world.

Now I am back at home, I hope the rest of you had as good of a day as I, Aloha!

An Awesome Day

Today was one of those days were you are glad everything worked out as it did. We were alerted to fly late in the day for a mission that didn’t wound that important, boy were we wrong. As it turns out we were to take only on person out of the country to Kuwait. So how could this be important, well his mother had passed this morning and we were getting him on his way back home.

It just makes me feel so good when we can actually do something to help people out and even though the plan was empty I felt like we were doing the right thing this time. We broke the first plane and then had to ask for a 2 hour extension on our day to make this work but with everyone’s help we got this guy on his way back home. I love when we can help someone out!

Also on the flight down I had something happen that I have never seen. All our navigation systems went ka put. Well kinda, the only headings we had were off out back up compass and we only had one attitude reference too. I was just really glad that we were out of the weather and could see where we were trying to go so it made it a little easier but it sure got my attention.

When we landed the communication people did a ctrl-alt-del and then everything came back, it worked on the flight back home so I guess all is good, but I sure hope that never happens as I am crossing the pond, that would suck!

OK well it’s now 0420 and bed time for me. I’ll post more pictures of my growing monkey when I can, it’s dark now but she is getting bigger… Aloha!

Another Day in Paradise

Today started out perfect, the “mailman” knocked on my door and woke me up at noon to give me a box from E =) Yea so I got up and sat outside in the sun and opened the box, and what did I find… about 12 pounds of brownies!!! Yea as E put it “Brownies are the new rice crispy treat” Thank you E, they are great and I am sure everyone on base will get to try at least one!

Other than that I have just been doing the flying and sleeping/eating thing, nothing too exciting to report. We did move some humves and some other junk around and that did feel good to be doing more than the handful of people that we have been moving.

Here is one of the trucks that we took, it's a tight fit!

As we were flying back and forth we were over head and I got this picture of our base, Google earth is better but this is what I got.

Oh and here is Monkey on Day 3, she getting bigger…

OK it’s 0330 and that means bed time. Aloha!

Happy Turkey Day!

After sleeping in a bit I finally got myself out of bed and sat outside for a bit until my crew started getting up. It was a nice day, the sun was warm but even at that it made me think about all the people that mean so much to me that I can’t be with right now.

Once the crew did get up we headed to the feast. The DFAC (chow hall) was decorated and some of the workers were in costumes. The costumes were a little different as it seemed they were going more for a seasonal theme rather than just a thanks giving theme, there were Indians, rain deer, elf’s and some other creatures that well I still am left wondering… The place was also decorated in a Hawaiian theme, yea as most of the Army guys here are from Hawaii we had a Hawaiian Thanksgiving! It was been over 14 years, WOW I am old, since I had thanks giving in Hawaii so it was nice to hear Hawaiian music, see a slide show of pictures from Hawaii, they even made road signs of some of the more popular places like Nimitz Hwy, Waikiki Beach ect… They even made the Hawaiian Island chain out of bread, yea it was pretty darn close if I do say so myself, and what would a Hawaiian party be without leis??? Yep most tables had leis for people to wear and enjoy the feast.

Yummy!

How I wish I was in Waikiki right now...

Hawaiian Islands made out of bread, who would have thought???

The food was top notch and after stuffing myself with all the regulars I did spurge and have some pumpkin pie with cool whip on top, I know, I know, war is hell!

After stuffing our faces we headed home and I did some cleaning as the mud is starting to subside, but then again I am sure it will rain tonight as I did mop the floors (yea all 10 square feet of it!)

Oh here is day one of my growing monkey, it says that she will grow 600% in 10 days, so we will see what happens and I’ll keep you posted.

I wish everyone the best thanksgiving possible and I miss you all, Aloha!

Aaron Tippin???

So today was a great day, we flew a lot and moved a bunch of stuff. Jordan my copilot had a blast today as well. He got a lot of flying and watched me do some cloud surfing on our way to Baghdad. I have to admit I had a blast. Oh and as you could see from the video above, we even got to puch a broke John Deer out of the way =) This is what I signed up to do, taking a plane and a crew to do a mission, move some important stuff and have fun doing it. Can’t imagining doing anything else for a living, shoot I would have even paid some money for the cloud surfing that I got to do, it was sweet!

So after our longer but rewarding day what did we get to do… Well I guess there is this guy names Aaron Tippin and from what I am told some people actually listen to his music if you want to call it that, just kidding just because that stuff makes my ears bleed I guess country music is still music.

He put on a pretty good show, I can tell that he likes doing what he does and he is a pretty good stage performer. I guess he is so big that he will be performing at frontier days this summer (only the largest outdoor rodeo in the world, by the way it’s held in Cheyenne that’s why I know about it). The rest of the crew knew of him and sang most of his songs, I waited for something that I had heard before and well waited the whole night cause I don’t know any country… I am sure Eric would have had a blast but for me it was just a nice change to see a live show.

After the show I went to be as I was beat. It was a great day and a lot of fun, this is what deploying should be. Aloha!

We got to Fly

Last night they alerted us after dinner, yea we were the alert crew so if something happened it would be us, but it was just for a super short flight to Baghdad and back or so it sounded but like everything it was too good to be true.

On the way back the airspace was closed as some real life video games were being played out so we had to hold, then after an hour the weather really took a dump, tower was saying visibility of 100 feet. Now is where I said to myself they must mean Vertical Visibility of 100 feet but that we would shoot the approach and see. The USAF books say we have to have the minimums (ceiling and visibility) before we can begin the approach, well we are flying under a mix of rules and the army says we CAN shoot the approach and see if we can land. So long story short we shot the approach.

For those of you flying type it was an NDB that we can’t fly at night unless we are aided with night vision goggles, not the most precision approach out there. Well I briefed the copilot on what to expect as we started to land, expect fog.

On the approach we could see the runway and everything fine but I knew what was coming, at about 30 feet the runway lights started to dim and the far lights at the departure end of the runway started to disappear. As the lights started to fade I concentrated on the 3-4 lights ahead of the aircraft that I could see and landed on centerline. We could always see the runway until less than 30 feet where we could only see a few hundred feet in front of us. Then as we slowed down it got pretty bad, OK real bad. If you looked under your night vision goggles you could see that they were helping immensely to cut though the ground fog, without them we were staring into a sea of white. As we parked, very slowly I might add and walked out of the plane it was an odd feeling, it was like we were in some other world. No one on the ground thought we could land in this but as I told them to look straight up we could all see the stars above our heads. The fog was not thick up and down and that allowed us to see fine until we touched down.

So our short night turned into a long night as we didn’t get back to our rooms till after 0300 and then the internet was down on top of that. I tell you war is hell. So I went to bed and passed out. Hopefully we will have a less adventuresome flight tomorrow, till then, Aloha!

The Fun Continues

What fun facts did I learn today…

There are people fighting for your freedom that enjoy playing some sort of gameboy as they use the restroom… Yea as I was taking care of business I kept hearing this funny noise and I didn’t know what it was then I realized that there was someone playing video games in the stall next to me. I guess some people just can’t get enough Pacman =)

As much as I love rain, it really sucks when you live in a dust bowl. Ok honestly I was walking around outside admiring out lake and I noticed how nice it was. The air was cooler with a little humidity, things were quieter and it made me think of when we used to make boats out of anything that we could find and float them in our very own “Lake Pikai” back at home. It was really nice, then I had to go pee and well I lost that pretty image as I had to go stomping though the mud just to get to the bathrooms. Oh and then the mile long journey to eat was even longer in the mud, so now I am back to hating rain in the desert.

Well that’s it for today, we did fly and had a lot of fun playing with the clouds. My Copilot is starting to pick things up, I am sure he thinks I am just jumping all over his behind for the fun of it but I am seeing him start to make some good decisions, now if I can just teach him how to land the plane… Just kidding. Have a good one and I’ll chat later, Aloha!

So Pretty on the Eyes

Wow, tonight we sure had a nice sunset. I used to think that Hawaii was the only place to see pretty sunsets but then I learned. I have seen beautiful sunsets across the globe from Arizona to Denmark, Wake Island to the middle of the Atlantic, California to Iraq. The world is a very beautiful place if you just take the time to enjoy it. Here are a few snapshots to the sunset.

Here are the boys, wish I was sharing this moment with someone cuter but they will have to do

This one is me playing with the panorama mode on my camera

Aloha

Life without a Job

So what do we do when we are not flying…


Global Domination


Have a cup of Joe with old friends


Hanging out with our buds


Playing with neat toys that are we find laying around

So what will tomorrow bring, only time will tell. I hope you all are having as much fun as we are, take care and Aloha!

Short Day

We just go back from flying and it was a short day. We flew for 2.5 hours and did do 5 stops but over flew one scheduled field as there was nothing to drop off or pick up there. Speaking of dropping off and picking up, most people who see the C-130 go, WOW that’s a big plane. In fact it’s not that big, just about the size of a 737 (what southwest flies) sure that’s bigger than a pickup truck but pretty small for cargo airplanes.

So what can we hold, well we can easily carry 60 people and their bags, or 2 humves and a dozen people, or 6 pallets of cargo, shoot we can even airdrop a bulldozer.

So what did we carry today??? Well all in all we carried 11 people (TOTAL). Ok I know that sounds wasteful and it is disappointing but I have to keep reminding myself that we are here not to move stuff but to test a new way of operating, we are testing the “Joint” out in Joint Operations and means lots of moving parts and communication, not just filling up a C-130. It is just sad to think that we are doing all this flying around and not physically moving much cargo, and that is what is hard for us aircrew to grasp.

OK well enough about that, now it’s time for a little gym time. Keep smiling and remember to eat your veggies! Aloha!

Why I am Here

If you want to know more on why I am here and what I am doing this time, check this out:

http://www.military.com/news/article/air-force-news/mini-herc-set-to-join-air-force-fleet.html?ESRC=airforce-a.nl

As you read "Formal Test" think of me ;)

THANK YOU UNCLE BILL!!!!

I got a box a few days ago from a very special person, Uncle “Brownie” Bill. Let me say I was over whelmed with the 5 pounds of chocolate and rice crispy treats at first but as soon as I tried the first brownie I knew I was in love. I did hand out some to the crew and they managed to disappear in .00002 seconds, yes they were gone faster than a sand crab into his hole during high surf!

Some other items that were sent out earlier by Dad have been working well…

Yes these fly traps are holding strong

And this bag-o-flies is filling up nicely =)

OK off to the war again, have a great brownie/fly catching day!

Deployment Fun

So who would have guessed that I would have to come to Iraq to see Naughty by Nature? Or maybe more amazing is that Naughty by Nature is still together???

So we went to a USO concert last Saturday and enjoyed the wonderful sounds of DJ Scribble and Naughty by Nature. I know it’s hard to believe that the place was not packed but it did draw a crowd of about 50 people.



Here is a short clip of Jordan showing how excited he was to get to meet a real live Rock Star.





PS I didn’t know if I posted pictures of Jordan after we convinced him it was a good idea to shave his head…


Aren’t Deployments great!

How to Combat Boredom

I know that I have not updated this in a few days, sorry but we have been busy as you will see. Ok so we might not be busy flying but we are finding unique ways to pass the time…

If you have aircrew sit around for 4 days and only fly them once you will find out that they can come up with all sorts of fun things to do with an 85 pound dumbbell, Enjoy!

Thanks Dad!

I got a box of love from Dad earlier this week, and I bet you all will never guess what is in it… OK so if you have been following my last few (6 or so) deployments you would know that rice crispy treats are a huge hit, so huge that I made the mistake of asking for them one year because I enjoy them so much. Well without saying a word I got no less than 5 pounds of that wonderful marshmallow goo in this box =) I also got my favorite Strawberry-Guava drinks and some tape/screws (yes I have a few home improvement projects to work on over here) and some wonderful fly traps. It is amazing how aggressive these flies are, one of them tried to fly away with the fly paper but the air conditioner that it was tied to slowed him down enough so we could club him before he got too far.

Oh and the crew wants to say thank you Dad because they have never had your rice crispy treats before and they now understand why I like them so much!

Well this trip is turning into the same Sleep/Eat/Workout/Sleep routine. I have been getting back in shape and actually enjoying the running. Who knows maybe I’ll try another half marathon someday… I wish everyone the best, Aloha!

We got airborne!

So we got to fly yesterday! Yea we flew around to 6 fields and got to finally move some people/cargo around and feel like we are doing something here. The flight went great and the crew is starting to mesh better. We were delayed getting to the plane but still took off on time and make it back early, we rock!

So what reward do we get after a successful flight? We get the day off! Yep so we took the day off and I went for a run. But the best part of the day… I GOT MAIL!!!

So the plan now is for me to get some dinner and then take a shower, we are sitting alert tomorrow so who knows what will happen. Have a great Monday, Aloha!

Happy Halloween!

So this was my crazy Halloween evening, yea living it up in the DFAC, can you believe there was no candy??? Yea all they had were this silly hanging monsters and some pumpkins on the table, I mean really can’t you do better than that? Maybe we really are in a war zone…

Speaking of war zone…

Here are the vents to the bunker that I spent most of my day in, yea we built our squadron underground. Yes those are the C-130's that I am flying in the back ground.


I don’t know why in the couple years that we have been at this base no one wanted to use this as an office, maybe because it is under ground? Or maybe the people that used it before us were not the friendliest? Yea we found some odd things in there, let’s just say I would not have wanted to be down in this bunker before the US took the base over. Nuff said.

OK well time to get some rest, hope you all get more treats than tricks... Aloha!