4-day weekend; Check hook; 88 pass

Ok, it's been a WHILE since my last post. It's hard to stay on it with how busy we've been lately, but I really do want to keep up with this as much as possible, so here goes another bit of review.

Last weekend we had Friday and Monday off so Friday morning I headed to Montgomery to be my relatives out there. I got there in time for a great July 4th lunch at Grammie and Grampie's with the Smith's and Tif. The Maxwells were up in PA for PapPap's memorial service. I had a great weekend with them and it was very relaxing which I really needed. I stayed over at Grammie and Grampie's this weekend, which was a nice change to stay in a bed. Not that I'd ever complain about the couch over at the Smith's. Kaitlin was so cute, for some reason she really likes me; and I'll never complain about that! She always wanted me to be holding her and was constantly bringing me books to read for her and sharing her toys with me. She's the cutest thing! She has nick-names for everyone, and she calls me Da. Which, considering she's only missing 1 letter isn't bad at all! :)

That night Michelle and Tiff and I drove out to Maxwell AFB to see the fireworks, but evidently they weren't doing any because we were the only ones there, and there were no fireworks! Oh well, at least we saw some in the sky over the city as we drove back, and then a few people in their neighborhood had some good fireworks too.

Saturday Luke and I went to a shoe store as he had a coupon for 20% off their marked-down shoes and we both needed a new pair of running shoes. Then we played Axis and Allies most of the afternoon. I'd never played before but it was a good game. Definately takes a lot of strategy and planning. I also watched The Prestige and The Illusionist which were both really good movies I had never seen before and they highly recommended. Both were about magicians (as in bunny-out-a-hat magicians) and had some great plot twists. Sunday I left in the late afternoon after church and lunch at the Maxwells again. I had a great time out there with them as always. Oh yeah, and Tif had a motorcycle! She had a Suzuki Intruder (2005 model I think?) and let me take it around the neighborhood, and I must say I loved it at the time! It was so comfortable compared to my Ninja!

Monday I got some stuff down around here I've been needing to get to. Wednesday was my checkride and I was feeling really confident and ready. The whole ride went really well except for one thing. On my way into VFR entry at Gunshy I was clearing and clearing but somehow just did not see another T-6 was going to be a conflict so the IP had to take the jet and breakout. As soon as it happened I thought "well, I probably just failed this whole ride before it even really started" but I put it aside and just concentrated on flying the rest of the profile. Like I said, it all was pretty solid. But sure enough, after the GK and EP on the ground we debriefed the flight, and I'd hooked it for 'visual clearing'. Even so I ended up with a 10U on it, and would have had a 7G if it weren't for that whole clearing thing. So it was quite frustrating as I felt that it was something I had no control over since I honestly just did not see him! But, it happens and wasn't the end of the world...just frustrating.

So Thursday I tooke my 88 progress check with the flight commander from our sister flight. That one went well, but ironically the same thing happened again, only this time I actually spotted the other guy and executed the breakout as I needed to. I passed with no trouble and was cleared to continue on with the program. So Friday morning I was scheduled to fly my first instrument ride, but that got canceled due to weather...which makes no sense since instrument flying is exactly that:flying in the weather...huh. :) But I did get my night sim done, which was a low threat sim and pretty fun.

Friday night Stew and Zach invited every one over to there house since Zach's birthday was today. So I went over there and at first there were only 4 of us over there as Kieth was there too. So we lounged around, cooked up some burgers and watched some random tv shows (like modern marvels on the history channel). Then just as I was about to head out around 9 every one else from the flight decided to show up! But I still had to go as Kyle, a 2008 grad from the Academy who's a great guy and friend and fellow hardcore-24 tailgater from the chillin' and grillin' team was in time over at Harry's house with Bendel as well. So we spent a few hours in Harry's kitchen just catching up and sharing laughs over the old times together. It was great to see him again. He'll be out here again starting in August but won't start UPT until 2 April (which was my start date this year!). It was really neat, he shared with me that I had a big impact on him making it through that 2-degree year of his. It was just cool and very humbling at the same time to know that I had a positive impact on another person's life like that.

Guess what I got today? My new bike! After talking to Tif I realized that I could save about $800 a year on insurance just by getting rid of my ninja and switching to a cruiser. I guess a bike with the word "Ninja" in the name tends to really increase the insurance costs. Anyways, I found one when I came back here at the Boat Gallery down town and had been back and forth a couple of times to look at it and haggle a bit. i wanted to trade in my bike initially but he was not willing to give anything anywhere to what I should be able to get out of it, so I'm advertinsing the bike and trying to sell it myself now. Anyways, long story short, he was wanting 3400 for this bike, which was already bellow blue-book, and I got him to sell it to me for 2800, so I was pretty happy about that! It's a candy-apple red 2002 Suzuki Intruder 800 with a nice set of saddle bags on there and only 10k miles on it. I know, it's the same bike Tif has, but I promise I thought it was a Marauder at first and was not trying to steal her idea! But it does look really different as they changed the model quite a bit over just a few years. I'm really happy with it, and rode it about 60 miles today on the highway to go get pizza with a bunch of guys from the class, and it's definately more comfortable for the long haul that my Ninja! So I'll have to get some pictures of it on here in the next few days.

Also, we finally have a patch that we're sending up that should get approved no problem! So maybe we actually will have a patch before we track-select. Here's a picture of it:



Ok, and it's not uploading because blogger is acting up. But, even so, watch this video if you've never the 'i need more cowbell' skit as it will explain the patch when you do finally see it:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZhSkRHXTKlw

And I'm going to bed. This morning from 930 to 1230 we painted our flight commander's parking spot. Which makes no sense to me, why paint something you're just going to park over anyways??? But it's a requirement for us to get off of formal release, and he's coming back from 3weeks of leave on Monday. During that time I got a nice little sunburn so I'm a little on the red side right now. Today was a HOT one, and even starting in the morning like that it was just unbearably hot. Oh well, at least we got it done. But it was a huge waste of my Saturday time. This whole weekend has gone by way too fast already, I need more time! There is never enough time...