Last week there was an air show at Tinker AFB.  The days prior to the show had the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds practicing in the area.  I took this photo from my front yard as the Thunderbirds were practicing overhead.  As enjoyable as it was to watch, it was very humid making it very uncomfortable to sit out for a long time.  I took many photos like this one on my Flickr page.  If you click on the image, you can see the whole group.

After watching this video I miss being in the Air Force.  I remember my first air show I ever went to was at Tinker AFB and the brand new F-15 was there. I do not remember the exact year but I do remember it was in the 1970’s.  The plane did not do any special maneuvers other than just some high speed passes like the ones in this video.  I never worked on them directly but when I was at Luke AFB, near Phoenix, Arizona I worked in an Armament Shop where there were some F-15E’s and F-16’s.  The F-15’s left and went to Seymour Johnson AFB in North Carolina.

Since my vacation time has reached the use or lose point, I took off today on this first day of Spring.  The world is a better place today or at least I can pretend.  I sure wish my advisor would write me back and tell me that my paper is great as is and that no other work is needed.  I know… I can dream on this first day of Spring.  As I am watching television posting this message, Little House on the Prairie is coming on.  Now this is not a program that I would typically watch but it does have a strange nostalgia attached to it.  I remember going to visit my grandparents in New Mexico as a kid and my tough Grandpa Taylor would be watching this show.  It was so ironic that he would be watching this because I saw him as such a tough, strong guy.  He died in 1980 and I still miss him today.

Also my mom was always into Westerns and so seeing one reminds me of her.  My mom’s favorite place in the world was Tucson, Arizona.  She would love to go see “Old Tucson Studios” where many cowboy shows were made including several from John Wayne.  Since we always went there as a child, that was my first choice in bases when I joined the Air Force.  I filled out my “dream sheet” and selected Davis-Monthan AFB as my first choice and they gave it to me.  That was where my wife and I had our first home and where my oldest son was born.  The only negative thing about living in Arizona was that it was way too hot in the summer time.  I distinctively remember the absence of this euphoric Spring time feeling when I was there.  Spring was not distinctive because it never got cold.  Spring was almost a downer because it was a reminder of the 150+ days over 100 degrees that was coming.  When I was there, it was fall that I really loved because I knew cooler days were on the way.

Despite the heat, I have great memories of the desert Southwest from living there as well as childhood memories.  I still have many family members that live in Southern New Mexico in Deming, and Las Cruces.  It is rare that we have Springtime, a day off, and nothing pressing to do.  I may just go out and take some Springtime pictures today.  But first my wife and I are going to go to the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) for breakfast in Bricktown OKC.  We are going to spend time together and be thankful to God for making this such a wonderful day and blessing us so much.  My son is back home and life is great.  It would not do God justice to fail to give him credit for the blessings that we have been fortunate to enjoy.

As I post this, my television is being covered by the rumbling sound of jet engines from nearby Tinker AFB.  Even on my day off I can hear my work.  The Air Force has been part of my life for more than 20 years.  Actually if you count the time my dad worked at Tinker AFB as a child, I have been around the Air Force my entire life.  Our home is just about a mile and a half off the end of their northwest runway so we often have airplanes flying over our house that are so loud that we cannot even hear the television.  To many people that would be something to complain about.  To us it is just another blessing to see how God has blessed us with a stable job that we can live a decent life.  The Air Force has been and will continue to be a part of our lives.

It is hard to find anything more pleasing than a nice morning sunrise when you do not have to go to work.  The beauty of my situation this morning is that it is the end of the year and I have some use or lose vacation time that I have to burn so I took this beautiful Friday off.  Although it is a crisp 32 degrees at this early hour it still is a pretty morning.  This time last year we were sitting in the dark for a week.  You may remember the horrible ice storm that knocked out the electricity to more than 250,000 in Oklahoma City while more than a million state wide.  You can look at the photos I took here.  The weather forecast is showing another ice storm coming in next week though most believe it will not compare to the monster we had last year. Most people sleep in on their day off but not me.  I love mornings and I always have.  I went out to breakfast at the Waffle House at 5:30 this morning as she was going to work.  She could not take the day off because in her Wing they were having a General come to their office.  She had to be involved in the protocol activities so I had to do without my beautiful wife this morning.  As a second choice I thought I would spend my morning watching the sun rise over Oklahoma City.  I took this photo among others around 7:00 AM.

Below is another photo of downtown.  As you can see the Sandridge Energy and the Chase Bank both have crosses on the buildings representing the incredible sacrifice Jesus made for us as we celebrate his birth on Christmas.  Now I sit here listening to 40 meters on ham radio while typing a blog post.  I wanted to get some pictures of the full moon but there were some clouds in the western sky.  I only have two more classes before I can graduate the University of Oklahoma.  I will start those on January 20, 2009 and I am very happy to have this journey almost complete.

This morning I found San Francisco 49′ers football star Jerry Rice and the Phoenix Suns star Shaquille O’Neal on Twitter.  That was pretty cool as well.  Now that we have the Oklahoma City Thunder I will have to temper my love for the Phoenix Suns.  As many of you know we use to live in Phoenix, Arizona while I was stationed at Luke AFB.  I also lived in Tucson, Arizona while stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB.  Those were some wonderful times of my life that I will never forget.  I lived in Phoenix during the great run of the Suns in 1993.  That is when I really became a fan of the NBA.

I had a very nice visit with my dad last night.  Many of you ham radio people may know him as W5QO, the trustee for the Del City Amateur Radio Club (DCARC).  It is hard to believe that experiment has lasted for six years.  It is hard to believe that in 2002 I was trying to kill time while my wife was spending time in the hospital visiting her mother has turned out to be a full blown ham radio club with an FCC license (W5DEL).  Though I had an amateur radio license since 1983 I was not very active because I could not afford the gear until my dad gave me a dual band mobile radio.  Now it is a whole different world where I have my own ham shack, President of the DCARC and a 70 foot tower in the back yard and all this since 2002. 

This year just does not feel much like Christmas with my 16 year old son gone.  He ran away on 26 Sep 08.  He is safe and staying with friends.  I spoke to him briefly on Yahoo Instant Messenger the other day.  We have decided to let him go and put faith in God that he will overcome and have a successful future.  Many have told me to file charges against the people that he is staying with but I think that would just make things worse.  My goal is to retain a relationship with him for the future and hope that he remains well.  Thank you for those that have offered their prayers of support.  We have decided to keep faith in God and enjoy life.  My other son got his driver’s license a couple days ago and we added him to our insurance.  Once I came too and realized that we really could afford the extra $100 per month premiums I was fine. I am happy for him as he just got a job at a local restaurant a couple weeks ago.  Despite everything I am very proud of both of my kids.  Once I graduate, I will have more time to do some hobbies that I have neglected for the last couple years.  I love taking pictures and talking on the radio.  Of course let’s not forget my big hobby of playing on the computer.  Thankfully today with amateur radio and photography joining with computers I can do all of them at the same time.

Again, it is a beautiful morning and I am off work too.  With no homework this weekend I am sure to have a nice weekend.  I only wish my wife could have taken off work.  That would have made it perfect.

As many of you may know I have posted about how the government does everything the hard way.  Everything we do is usually impacted by a new rule or policy that makes our jobs harder.  Over the last two days at work we have received this message or some rendition of it on our computers.  This is basically telling us that we cannot use any removable media on our computers at work any more.  This is going to virtually shut our office down in the short term.  My office produces Power Point presentations daily.  We take engineering photographs to display issues that are coming up.  With this new policy we cannot unload our work related photographs or reports.  Sometimes we deal with Excel spreadsheets that are so large that the government email will not allow it to go through.  This leaves us with our memory stick to move files from one computer to another.  We do this every day many times a day.

Although they did not post the reason for this policy, it is quite clear why they did this.  It is my opinion that their reasoning is two fold and that is to prevent the spread of virus’ to government computers.  The other reason is to keep people from taking restricted information outside of the government.  I took this screen shot this morning because I was just amazed at these ridiculous blanket policies.  We have the capability to scan these forms of removable media to check for virus and worms.  There is technology that is available that can encrypt this media that must be authenticated by our government common access cards (CAC).  This really should not amaze me at all because this is typical of the government to create these blanket policies to cripple everyone to punish a couple.  Instead of dealing with the trouble makers they shut everyone down from doing their assigned duties.

To give you an idea of the waste that goes on in the government.  If a person works in maintenance they are required to get their technical manuals or Technical Orders (TO) online.  They must print them out each time they want to work on a piece of equipment.  These printouts are only good for one day so they must be shredded and then reprinted the next day.  This means that litterally thousands of sheets of paper are printed and shreded every day at my work.  This is mandated by law.  If a person is caught using a printout from yesterday then they are subject to disciplinary actions.  This is typical for the government and keeps most people worked up over it all the time.  I am curious how this new policy of no removable media is going to play out as I have already heard that our colenel was even complaining about it and if it is true, he has every reason.

There is not a day that goes by that almost everyone in our office is required to create an electronic report of some kind.  These reports or presentations are almost always presented in a conference room on an overhead projector via PowerPoint or some other software.  I am curious how this will work out since no one will be able to get their files from their computers to the conference room.  One might think that we could just email it to ourselves on the other computer.  That is virtually impossible since to set up our Outlook Exchange server requires administrative privilages.  We would have to call the IT help desk for each person that wants to do a presentation on every computer.  Web base email is out of the question because they have blocked access to all web mail accounts including Cox.net or SBCglobal.  No Yahoo, No Google, No Hotmail.  No social networking sites.  They have even blocked access to even use CD-R’s.  To the average citizen this may seem a little over kill but the the government worker this is an average day.  You can add to this frustration that I received a delinquent travel voucher notice this afternoon for a temporary duty (TDY) that I took three weeks ago.  By law we are required to submit our travel voucher within five working days of return.  Our second level supervisor just signed it yesterday even though I submitted it the day I returned.  I fulfilled my duties immediately and my second level supervisor sits on it for weeks and then I get a delinquent notice.  This is typical of an average day.  I think I have beat a dead horse long enough.  I just had to share this information to get it off my chest.

UPDATE: 21 Nov 2008

Thanks to KC5FM for pointing out the US-CERT web site’s warning about a malicious code being spread through USB Flash drives.  I certainly hope that a fix is discovered soon as work has really been hampered.  You can read the article here…

http://www.us-cert.gov/current/index.html#malicious_code_spreading_through_usb

If you are familiar with Oklahoma summers you may have heard the peculiar loud clicking sounds coming from the trees.  This cicada is the culprit and when you hear them you know that it is not just summer but the hottest part of the summer.   For some reason, the locals call them locust but they are really cicadas.  These bugs are so loud you can hear them more than the length of a football field and when you get hundreds of them going at once, it is pretty loud.  I snapped this picture this cool day on the side of the power pole in my backyard.  Since the arrival of the remnants hurricane Gustav last week we had an amazing cool down drooping temperatures to the 60′s for highs.  This is virtually unheard of for this early in the year.

As I said before, the arrival of these cicadas is indicative of the hottest part of the summer.  I think this cool spell has really taken this guy for a shock.  I literally got the lens three inches from it and it did not even move.  I say it but who knows whether it is male or female.  The point being is that not only was it not making his noise but he seemed paralyzed from the cool temperatures.  It is currently about 80 degrees but that is very cool for these bugs.  We find these empty shells around on trees but it is not that common to catch one that will let you get this close.  I just love the cooler weather as it is so pleasant to just sit in a lawn chair on the porch.  These cicadas do not know how to take this summer.  In the hottest time of the year we usually get very little rain during July and August but we had more than nine and a half inches of rain in August making it the wettest August in recorded history for Oklahoma City.

Speaking of Oklahoma City, this has been a huge week for us with the unveiling of the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA name, colors and logo.  I have been waiting for this day for more than two years since we were able to experience the displaced New Orleans Hornets after hurricane Katrina did so much damaged.  Locals really grew to love that team and the NBA as a whole.  I lived in Phoenix where the rabid Suns fans were so exciting you could hardly help yourself getting into the atmosphere.  After a long fight between the NBA team and the city of Seattle to get a new arena they were released from their lease on July 3, 2008.  It was September 3, 2008 when the unnamed team became the Oklahoma City Thunder.  I read many local message boards in the area and I was so embarrassed by the behavior of many of our Oklahoma City citizens and their complaining about the new logo while failing to be thankful for having an NBA team.  Many cities are waiting in line for the chance to have a major league (Big four) sports team because of the impact they have on the local economies.  I read somewhere that our city made more than $56 million in the two years the Hornets were here.  I had to work and then went to visit my dad on September 3rd so I did not get to go and take pictures at the announcement.

This afternoon we had a Wing function, or Sports day where the Wing personnel get together and have hamburgers, steaks, and other foods.  We get to know each other in a non work related environment.  I got out early so that is why I am home early.  I have been associated with the Air Force in some capacity for 21 years and have been very proud of the environment we have.  The Air Force has always promoted a family environment they like to refer to it as esprit de corps. Do not get me wrong…I have had some bad times in the Air Force but they do promote an environment to look out for each other.  The Air Force core values are Integrity First, Service before self, and Excellence in all we do.  You will see these signs all over any Air Force base posted all over the place.  It seems that active duty takes this more to heart than the civilians but it is still a part of life.  To this day it gives me a good feeling when walking across the base at the end of the day and the national anthem begins to play.  Everyone stops, even cars, and faces the flag while the military salutes the flag.  When you go to the movie theater on base, they always stand at the beginning while the national anthem is played.  It is hard to describe if you have never been around the environment but it sure does give you a sense of pride for our country.

Well I suppose I have rambled long enough but this was a rare opportunity to catch a cicada coming out of its shell.  I hope you have as nice a day as I am having.  The temperature is absolutely perfect.

81TFW_RAF Bentwaters_c1985_B_002CE_Fairchild Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II_81-0949, originally uploaded by YAHQQLIGAN.

This was taken by YAHQQLIGAN at RAF Bentwaters. My wife, two sons, and I were there working on those planes in 1991-1993. We first lived in a town called Leiston, then Felixstowe, then RAF Woodbridge. I was in the 510th Aircraft Maintenance Unit (AMU), 81st Aircraft Generation Squadron (AGS), 81st Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW).

This is near the town of Melton in Suffolk, UK around 75 miles north east of London.