29 November 2005

Pictures

These have been sitting on my hard drive.
I've been wanting to share them,
But didn't know how.
Here's the link.
http://usafa.facebook.com/photos.php?id=25205265&l=66a8b
It's also on the side in my links section.

27 November 2005

Back to the Hill

I'm back,
Unfortunately.
Doomed for another three weeks of school.
Then Finals.
Then two weeks break.
Then back again.
The cycle never ends.

Had a good time during break though.
Pigged out on Turkey and pie and such.
Mom’s a great cook

Went to my brother’s birthday party and saw some of my old friends.
We played three rounds of Laser Tag.
I was disappointed.I must be out of practice.

Went to my old Robotics Club and got to see them.
http://sonlightrobotics.blogspot.com/
They’re doing really good this year.
They using all my ideas from previous years.
They go to Nationals this Saturday.
I expect them to walk away with 1st.

Flight home was nice.
They moved me to First Class because I was wearing my uniform.
That was cool.
I’ve heard stories about that,
But never actually seen it happen.

I sat next to a mother and her three month old baby.
I talked to her a little and found out her husband was in the Army and died in Iraq two months before the baby was born.
That made me think really hard.
I’ve thought before about dieing for my country.
I prepared to do that.
But I never thought about what it would do to the people I leave behind seriously.
I’d thought about it a little bit,
Especially after watching “We Were Soldiers”.
(the part with the telegrams and the taxi)
I don’t know if God has a family in store for me,
But I don’t know what I would do about them.
I haven’t got a problem dieing.
I’ve put my faith in Christ and He’ll take care of me.
But what about them?
I know He’ll take care of them,
But I’d hate to be the cause of the kind of grief I saw in that movie.

22 November 2005

Commandant’s Challenge Day 3

Today was the final day of Comm's Challenge.
We had a SAMI (Saturday Morning Inspection) even though it's Tuesday.
After the SAMI,
We had what’s called Centrifuge.
That was a bunch of random events including running swimming and other stuff.
I was the guy that stands there and tells the runners which way to run and keep the spectators out of there way.
General Weida happened to be one of the spectators.
I finally got to salute him.
I didn’t realize how big he was.
He’s about my height,
But a ton more muscle.
I heard that some cadet’s went to his house and played Revelry outside his house at 0530.
Then he came out and did pushups with them.
He beat them all.
Not surprising

Well…
We found out how our scores matched up this afternoon.
We did really good.
Those two questions I got during Falcon Feud Helped.
My Squad got First place for Academics.
We did good on the rest too.
Of the four categories,
We got one Excellent,
And three Outstandings.
That was really good compared to all the other squads.

24 More Hours

Until I get on my plane home!

Announcments

They did it again.
This time we "woke up" (meaning: Those of us who actually slept)
to the Warrior Anthem.
It's a parody of "For the Longest Time"
writen about cadets,
for cadets,
by cadets.

ask me to play it for you when I'n home soemtime.
It's hysteriscal.

21 November 2005

Commandant’s Challenge Day 2

Today was the second day of Comm's Challenge
In the morning we had war gaming and Falcon Feud.
War gaming went well.
I wasn’t on the team,
But I heard we did well

Falcon Feud was fun.
There was one team from two different squads.
Each team had one person from each class four each round.
So there were ten rounds of four people.
We went two times against two different squads.
Each person had a buzzer.
We were quizzed on everything we’ve learned here.
Any thing to how many rooms in this building to the phone number for this office to the range of this weapon to the years this person graduated from the academy.
We dominated the other tem.
It was awesome.
We had double their score.
I managed to get two of the answers before he finished the question.

This afternoon was Field Training Exercise
http://theearthcanbemoved.blogspot.com/2005/10/commandants-challenge-practice.html
Unfortunately,
They didn’t put me on a team.
So I stayed here and cleaned for tomorrow’s SAMI.
http://theearthcanbemoved.blogspot.com/2005/08/triple-threat.html
(Even thought tomorrow is Tuesday)

20 November 2005

Commandant’s Challenge

Today was the first day of Comm's Challenge.
It started officially at lunch.
Our squadron’s first rotation was Drill.
So we had to go back to our rooms and change in Service Dress.
Then we grabbed our rifles and went to drill.
The first part was a uniform inspection.
Since I’m on Honor Guard,
My uniform was already set.
So I went around and helped other people with theirs.
Most of them had good uniforms.
I just fixed little things,
Link buttons that were upside down and dusting off service caps.
We did really good.
The inspector couldn’t find anything wrong with my uniform,
But he only spent about five minutes looking.
Then they graded our marching.
We already got an award for best marching squadron in the group,
And my flight is the best out of the squadron.
Everyone said we did good.
After dinner,
We had testing.
It was a 50 question test on everything we had learned during Comm’s Time.
All the Air Force policies and regulations.
That test is going to be 30% of my MPA (Military Performance Average, similar to a GPA)
I think I did well.
And that was the first day of Comm’s Challenge.
Tomorrow should be fun.
We have Falcon Feud and Field Training Exercise.
Fun Stuff

18 November 2005

Announcments

Oh...
My...
Goddness...

There's a speaker system that goes through all the dorms.
Every morning Command Center gets on and announces weather and Uniform of the Day at 0630 every day.
This guy just got on and started rapping.
Now he's playing rock over the announcment system.
This is wierd.

17 November 2005

Snow

It's snowing again .
I went to Chemistry and it was perfectly clear out.
I did my Lab and was finishing up when I looked out the window.
It was snowing,
And it was coming down thick.
It's still snowing
The snow from last time hasn't melted yet.
I can't wait to get back to Texas.

16 November 2005

One More Week

Seven Day and then I will be on a plane away from this place,
Back to the homeland.
And only two of those days are school days.

14 November 2005

Freaky Weather

Ten minutes ago,
It was clear and 65,
It’s now pitch black and snowing.
The quad is covered with snow.
Tomorrow’s high is 31 and the low is 16.
At least it’s supposed to be warm for Comm’s Challenge.

11 November 2005

Veteran’s Day Formation

Did you know that West Point and the Naval Academy had today off?
We didn’t,
We had the usual schedule with a few extra things.

We had a formation to retrieve the flag.
It was really cool.
Everyone was out there in formation around the Air Gardens.
After The flag was lowered,
The was a roar coming up behind us.
We were facing the flag,
So I couldn’t see what was making the noise.
But I new.
I know that sound better then almost any other.
(With the exception of the distinct sound of the family car)
It was an F-16.
I know the sound of those engines.
I spent a lot of time by Carswell Joint Reserve Base,
And I learned to identify a ton of aircraft just by listening to them.
But I new this was not just one F-16,
It had to be four.
It didn’t sound like just one.
I new they would probably be in a four ship formation too.
Then they flew over our heads and I could see them.
What a sight!
I couldn’t help but smile.

05 November 2005

AF Vs. Army

I had fun at the Army Game today.
I went to the mandatory Tail gate parties and had some fun.
Somebody had an old car out there and had spray painted ARMY all over it.
For a buck you could tack a swing at it with a mallet.
There was a pack of cub scouts there.
They gave these kids a baseball bat and they went to town on that car.
It was really funny.

In case you don’t know,
We do pushups for every touchdown.
I was down there pumping,
When I looked up and saw General Weida in front of me.
That was uber cool.
I think Gen Weida is one of the best role models here at the Academy.

Then the Army mascot came over and tried to pick a fight with the Bird.
That’s about all he succeeded at.
Needless to say,
The Bird kicked…
Uh…
Donkey?

Even after the Bird beat him,
He wanted more.
So a few Fourth Classmen jumped out of the stands and tackled him.
He had enough after that.

04 November 2005

Spirit Dinner

Tomorrow is the Army Football game.
We had the spirit dinner tonight.
The food was decent,
But desert was awesome.
Each table got a plate with a one inch thick cake.
On top of he cake was about two gallons of Ice Cream.
That was awesome.
After wards I found one on another table that hadn’t been eaten.
I brought it back to the squad for everyone else.

After the Spirit Dinner,
We had a Spirit Bonfire.
We got all the palates that had been shipped up here over the past year or so and burned them.
EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) lit it for us.
They put some kind of explosive in it.
It burned nicely because the air could flow through the pallets.

03 November 2005

Saweeeet!!!

The new leadership rocks!
In case you haven’t heard,
The Air Force just recently got a ton of new people in high leadership positions.
We got a new Chief of Staff, Secretary of the Air Force, and Superintendent.
We have new Commandant on the way too.
The new Secretary of the Air Force was sworn in today during lunch.
Here at the Academy!
In honor of the event,
Our new Superintendent put all the fourth class cadets At Rest for the meal.
We were all psyched!
We usually eat At Ease.
At Ease means we can move around,
At Rest means we can talk too!
The only problem,
None of us new what to talk about.
We were so used to not talking,
We had trouble trying to talk.

But it gets even better.
This afternoon, we had a briefing from our new Chief of Staff.
He’s awesome!!!
On top of this being the best briefing we’ve ever had,
He put us all at rest until the end of the football game this weekend.
EVRYWHERE!!!

Let me explain the significance of this…
On the Terrazzo,
We’re at attention.
Ok, we’re pretty much At Attention every where.
There are a few select places where we are At Ease,
And even fewer were we are At Rest.
At Attention means we stand perfectly straight,
Look forward,
And square all our corners.
We have to stay to the right of all the hallways,
Use only the outside stairwells,
And great upperclassmen by name.
(Not easy when there are over 200 we’re supposed to know)
When on the Terrazzo we have to run.
Not just run,
But run on the Marble strips.
And not just any Marble strips,
Only the most inconvenient ones.
We’re At rest only in Fairchild Hall (the classrooms) and our rooms.
Something like this.

Wind

Wow,
We had some wild wind today.
The computer said it was at 41 mph when I looked.
I think that was average though.
The gusts were much higher.
I was standing at an extreme angle just to keep from getting blown over.
That was wild.

Oh...
and on top of that.
The sun just finished setting.
It'll be dark by 1800.

01 November 2005

Stupid Technology

The Network is insanly solw right now.
My dial up back home was faster than this.