Too long and no excitement!

Wow!!! It's been a while since I have had the chance to write on here. Like I said before being put on nights is great cause I am all by myself. Well it was supposed to be that way. Then the LT thought it would be such a great idea for him to come over tonights also. AAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!! This was definitely a bad time to subside from indulging in all tobacco products. My nerves are shot! I swear I need a Q & A Board. Whenever he has a question he could write it on the board, and I'll come behind him and answer it. That way he doesn't ask the same question 20 different times in one night. If he tries thenI'll just tellhim to look at the board before he decides to ask me again. Come one! How hard is it to understand that a STS (Significant Threshold Shift) Is a average shift of 10 Db or greater in 2k, 3k, or 4k frequency, and/or a shift of 15 Db or more in any one of the frequencies. Is this so hard to understand? Really needed to get that out there.

So on to other business. They have destroyed the water pipes again. Here we are once again using bottles of water to bathe with. I just don't feel clean afterwards, so I created this little thing out of a 5 gallon bucket, a hose, and pieces from an old eye wash station. The only problem is having to crouch down in the shower stall if you want to get really good pressure because the whole thing works off of gravity. Really quite impressive if I must say. It gets the job done though.

What else have I been up to? I put a headlight on mr RC Truck so I could drive it around here at night time. It's not so much for needing to see where the hell I'm going as it is for where the hell the truck is. I know what direction I headed, but I just don't know how far out there I've gone. So I took one of those headlamps with the halogen bulbs and turned it into a headlight. I removed the bulbs and wiring and drilled the holes in the RC cars bumber then super glued everything in place. It worked OK for a sec but I think the battery pack for the light is interfering with the receiver. Have to find another place to put the battery pack. If that doesn't fix the problem then my ESC (Electronic Speed Control) is going bad.

I have decided to take a college class out here to pass the time. Algebra. Things that make you go HMMMM! I thought this would be easy. I haven't even touched a math book in a little over five years. This was very interesting. I realize now I should have just gone straight to college instead of enlisting. That way I would could use some of that stuff I retained for a little bit after high school. Now everything is Greek to me. I can't even remember basic stuff. I felt so retarded after the first class. I wanted to ask if they were offering a consumer math course instead. Now that I've been to a couple classes I feel it's coming back to me little by little. I think my grandpa said it right when I was a younger boy. "All you need to know is add, subtract, divide, multiply, and make sure no one is taking your money". I think thats the best advice I've ever received from anyone. That's it for me.

Later,

Joshua

Some more near death...

Last night was crazy! You've all seen the pictures of those sand storms right? Well last night about 2230 we had another one. This time we couldn't see it coming so we had no time to prepare. I was just sitting in the office trying to type up a plan for this Combat Lifesavers Course that I will be starting at the end of this week. When I noticed it was starting to get a little dusty. I had heard the wind blowing outside, but I really wasn't paying to much attention to it. When I decided to look out in the hallway I couldn't even see across to Maint. Control. Thena couple of the flight line guys came into maint. control and there green coveralls were now orange from the storm. One of the flight line guys said he was working on one of the birds and next thing he knew his tool cart was 3 birds down the line. Another one said he was in the gym when it hit and he tried to go back to flightline, but when he walked out of the gym he couldn't even see his hand in front of him. So he decided to come to maint. control. He said he made a complete circle around the gym tent ended up back at the entrance. So this went on for about 4-5 hours. That isn't even craziest part!

Apparently there was a C-5 that was caught in the storm, and was looking to land. If you don't already know this is by far the biggest bird the Air Force owns. Sitting in my office again using a cravat as a respirator. I hear the sounds of a plane flying overhead. All I can think is who the hell is actually flying in this storm? Come to find out this C-5 had mistaken our parking pad as the runway, and what I heard last night was the C-5 hitting full throttle and climbing before he smashed into all of our birds and took out the flight line shops. Never a dull moment around here. I haven't had the chance to download the pics from last nightbut as soon as I do you can check them out on my photopage.

This night is just starting so I'm sure I'll have more to write about by morning. Maybe I'll just hide out in Air Frames so I don't miss the "retard hours".

The People of Night Crew!!

I have been sitting here trying to write this blog for the past 2 hours. Everytime I think of something in my head it sounds good, but then when I type it up on the screen it looks and sounds completely different. I fear that I may never get this posted tonight. Screw it! I'm just gonna type it as it comes to me and hope to god it turns out OK. So, as I've said before I was brought over to night crew. These people are a strange group of individuals. I have no idea whether it's the lack of sun light or just simple pleasures for simple minds. Either way it makes for an interesting night.

It all starts out at the mess tent where you get a bunch of marines betting to see who will down 20 mustard packet in 15 secs to chasing each other around the shop with dead camel spider just to hear someone scream like a little school girl. I'm not quite sure if this has to do with the lack of sunlight altering the mental status, or just plain simple pleasures for simple minds. The Air Frames guys have come to call this the "Retard Hour(s)". This takes place everynight somewhere between 0400 and 0700. We all know this state. It's the one where you've been up for anextended period of time , and your coming down off you second wind , and all you really care about is making it back to rack before you fall asleep on your feet, or like a bum on the bench outside the tool room.

You have to constantly watch whats going on around you for the fear that you may be the next mark in someones evil little prank. God help you if your the one caught sleeping. Learn to do it with one eye open.


I don't want everyone to think that all night crew does is screw around. They just know how to have a little bit of fun just so it doesn't seem like the never ending groundhog day. I caught some of the marines in action last night performing maintanence and what not.


I want to thank air frames fro giving up a body to be my persona ldriver all night. Sells is the man!!! He drove me around in the flight line cadillac for a good portion of the night.


This is where it all ends. The sun comes up and we the night crew must say goodnight. I have my own little photo page if you would like to see more of the pics I've been taking since I've gotten to Iraq. http://www.flickr.com/people/35722325@N00 Just click on the photos link and should take you directly to my photopage.