We went on our vacation a couple weeks ago and had a great time despite being dominated by a poison ivy breakout from an unmentionable place.  Among the many things we did while on vacation, we went back to one of our Air Force homes at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.  What can I say?  I loved that place so much but was only able to stay there for 16 months before being moved to RAF Bentwaters in England.  Davis-Monthan AFB is a great base to be stationed as they are a training base for A-10 pilots.  I was a weapons systems mechanic when I was there.  I worked on MAU-40/MAU-50 bomb racks, triple ejector racks (TERS), and LAU-117, LAU-88 missile launchers, and AIM-9 launchers.  Lets not forget the massive powerful GAU-8/A Avenger Cannon, gatling gun.

This gun system is an amazing piece of machinery that I have torn down to the smallest piece and put back together again.  This gun system is an ugly monster though when it jams up and I have been involved in a number of them as well.  Although I worked on the A-10 at three different bases (Davis-Monthan, RAF Bentwaters, and Eielson AFB), it was Davis-Monthan where I got my start.  People affectionately refer to this great base as DM.  Amazingly I still have a remote connection to this base even today as I continue to work in a system program office (SPO) for a different weapons system that occasionally requires parts to be pulled from the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan AFB.

My wife and I have some wonderful memories of this base and my oldest son was born here just prior to the start of the Gulf War.  Of course we had to make a point to come out to the base and take some pictures.  The above A-10 is one of the planes that was there when I was there.  We did not have a lot of time to stay because we had to be somewhere that evening but it was a great time.  The weather was cooler than normal and only hit 93 degrees one time during our entire vacation.  This is almost unheard of for Southern Arizona this time of year.  During our combined trip we took 722 pictures and during our Tucson portion I took 266 photos.  Although most of the pictures are uploaded onto the Flickr site, some 60+ did not make it on their server and I am not sure which ones that did not make it.  All of them did however make it onto my Windows Live site located here.  It is very time consuming to go through more than 700 pictures to verify all the photos especially when many of them are very similar.  I hope you enjoy the vacation photos as much as I did taking them.  Again, I had a bad poison ivy break out as you can see in some of the photos.  It was still a good time despite that.

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.