April 2nd

Some thoughts and observations the last few days:
* I'm not sure I'm going to try to sneak pictures on the flightline anymore. I guess we had a C-130 getting ready to take off and a passenger sneaked a picture. amazingly a security forces person saw it, they all rushed the plane right when it was about to take off. They asked who took it, noone fessed up, so they were going to check everyones bags and cameras. Crazy! I don't know what happened but they just said over the radio they had it taken care of. I still can't believe they were able to spot it.

* I met the new guys and we've been training them up, well me Mohr, Clark are. The rest of the outgoing guys, much like I expected, did a half-ass job training them. The Gate even forgot to peek in the DV lounge for the DV until the PAX were on the plane. How pathetic! We have like two three flights in 12 hrs and you can't do your job correctly? Their version of training is to wait for the new guys to ask questions, then answer them. With training your supposed to discuss possible scenarios, stuff like that. The outgoing guys are no longer working for us, I voluntold three of them to a work detail starting Monday to help the Chief out with other sections doing the drawdown. "How coincidental",one of the Freight NCOIC's told me, "that the three biggest troublemakers you volunteered for the detail!" Ya, what a coincidence!! hahaha


So the outgoing guys aren't catching a flight out until April 6th. It's very dissapointing, the uncaring attitude, the minset of settling for "just average." It kindof diminishes my personal feelings for them, which were I liked all of them. It's wierd, I guess it's almost like a divorce, I kindof feel like a failure. I mean, I really thought I could change them, and like a divorce, you do remember the good times, but's it's the recent events that drown out the rest. Some of them will straighten up down the road, some it will be many years, bad choices later.
The new guys average age is higher and we have three NCO's. I sat down with each one of them and went down my list. It was like when I read to the class my syllabus at the beginning of the year. I think they get that there is no messing around over here, even if it is slow. We shall see!


* I am still doing the P90X. I am amazed at how I can do the excersizes very well now. If you have never done these workout you might view this part of the blog as boring, but watching the videos time and time again, you almost feel like the head guy Tony Horton is your best friend. He is pretty hilarious at times with his witty dialogue, ie "towel-boy", "tip of the day: don't smash your face", and of course his Pteradactil imitation. After awhile you know all his quips, he is pretty hilarious. So I google to see how old Tony is today (in the workouts he's 45 looks like 20; now he's 52) and I find this link, a blog of people bagging on all of his funny and sometimes stupid comments. I laughed my butt off, it was killing me, all of the little things he does and says that make you temporarily scratch your head during the videos are on hear. Here is the link,
http://nachosrule.blogspot.com/2008/07/p90x-best-quotes-and-moments.html
If you have never done P90X workouts you won't get it so don't bother, but after reading it, there is definitely a fraternity of people who have done the workouts. It was good to laugh, nothing else here really does.
* I am FINALLy......FINALLY to my half-way point. But at least now I have a tiny sliver of light creaking through the door. I can actually count down now, envision at the top of the hillslowly starting to go down. The rest of the March people have only 30 now, I can only imagined. Jenna cried again for me, poor thing. Very frustrating, but she's an emotional rollercoaster when I am there, so she will be happy a minute later. One deployment per lifetime is enough. I swear I better not hear any ultra-hyped dialogue from the commander when I get back about "we're the best, I'm gonna keep putting our unit to fill these deployments, we gotta be ready." Nope, not happening on my watch, not going to put the family through that again. Plenty of other guys in the unit who have not been on a deployment. sorry if that doesn't sound patriotic to some but it's my life