I'm blogging this.

A friend at the squadron here said there was some good stuff at thinkgeek.com. A piece of apparel that is sure to scare the insecure male:


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original post by email:
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thinkgeek.com

I'll update this post shortly.

email, links, humor

Humor

I highly recommend today's XKCD, gave me a great laugh!

XKCD

post...

...that someone told me was very important.

http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/important/

cadet advice

Some advice I would give USAFA cadets if/when I go back to visit.

The most useful major I can think of based on what I saw then and what I've been through now, would be operations research/industrial engineering. It doesn't directly apply to flying (as some parts of mech engineering did for me), but it does apply in a huge way to things like the logistics of moving a squadron to the desert or scheduling training sorties efficiently. Barring majoring in that, a really strong grasp of statistics is good, as well as a good knowledge of Excel (or other spreadsheet program, but Excel is what the AF uses). Also, for those who end up using weapons, a strong grasp of geometry and trigonometry.

Start an IRA and the TSP immediately.

Take the DLAB in whatever language you studied, even if you think you won't pass.

Start your masters degree immediately, get TA for it. I recommend 100% online.

Build an "I love me" book right now, containing all official paperwork, and financial info.

Practice writing OPRs once a semester and write them for your subordinates. Ask your AOC for advice/feedback.

warrant officers

The army has them. They fly helos. They fit between the enlisted ranks and officer ranks. They are technical specialists, meaning that that tend to stay in their area of expertise, and don't often move on to other things. This goes against Air Force service culture, which believes anyone who flies a plane should be an officer (and should eventually move out of the cockpit and try to be a general). But I believe this is a mistake. Given the pilot shortage we are currently suffering from, I think it would be a good idea for the Air Force to create them in this service. They would take less time to train, and they return more value over time since they stay in the cockpit, rather than moving on to desk jobs. I will have to do some research, but I am pretty sure we used to have them, back when we first split from the army.

A pilot takes about 7 years (4 years of college + 3 years of training on active duty) to create, that's a very long pipeline to try and manage in terms of meeting present demands and future needs.

When I was the Academy (10 years ago!), there were several of us who used to discuss the Air Force's problems and speculated that warrant officers might be a good idea.

Inspired to write this entry along with previous entries by Mr. Gates' encouragement of un-traditional thinking.




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original email entry, same date:
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more to come on this topic...

history, af,

4079

Army Sgt. John K. Daggett, 21, Phoenix, AZ, died Thursday in Halifax, Canada, of wounds suffered 1 May in Baghdad when an explosive struck his vehicle.

www.stripes.com

links, history, war, iraq,

Update 24 May: My guess would be they were transporting him home and he died enroute.

food

Interesting this rote that I haven't gotten tired of many foods, probably because of the variety there is here. I used to get tired of certain foods or meals and would have to quit them for awhile, but here that hasn't happened. The only things I can think of are pineapple and the generic breakfast meal (scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage). I even preemptively stopped drinking so much red gatorade, which is available here in abundance, so that I wouldn't burn myself out (or get kidney stones), but I don't seem to have built up a revulsion to it.

imbalance

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/may/11/buying-wings-but-operating-rotors/

tags: links, air force, history, war

Boyd

My schedule just changed and I should have some more free time, so look for some updates here. In the meantime, a couple of links relevant to John Boyd.


http://www.d-n-i.net/

http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/school/ots/boyd.htm

History

I just had a interesting conversation with the wing historians here. As a persistent reader of this blog will know, I've become fascinated/obsessed with history of late, so I stopped by their shop to see the work they do. They are DOD/USAF employed civilians and they produce a monthly history of events here, most of it classified. Apparently they send most of their stuff to the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell AFB, which has both SIPR and NIPR sites. Despite all that you may have heard about us in the news, they don't hear from us very often, so we haven't been going into the official histories very much, something I will try to change if I can.

Oh, and here's my NIPR Intelink blog.

Hokusai

Under the Wave of Kanagawa, by Hokusai Katsushika, a picture I have always liked. Taken without permission from http://www.andreas.com/hokusai.html

forgetful

My shift changed recently, and I started showing at the internet cafe earlier. So I forgot they close for cleaning at noon (local), so they are booting me. More later.

institutionalized

This is a post about being institutionalized, in the Shawshank definition of the word.

It would be hyperbolic to call it brain washing, and a little understated to call it simply "becoming comfortable with one's surroundings;" I have recently noticed myself in a mood here that I've experienced before on deployments: content happiness.

I had a few decent days at work, where I wasn't dead tired at the end of my shift, and I had time to get enough sleep and do a bit of blogging and emailling, and I was happy. And at first it's a strange change, and a welcome one, because I hadn't been happy in weeks. And you don't question it, because it's good to be happy. But then it wears off and you start to think again, and you realize that you're happy because you have accepted the crappy things in your life that you cannot change. (Interesting comment of stoic philosophy here.) You accept those things, and minimize them, and do what you are able to be happy with your life as it is.

On rote, it's easy to settle into routine. Same things at the same time, every day (or every other day, every three, etc.) And once you settle in, and begin to get good at your job, you get a measure of control over how things go, and have a measure of predictability. Certainty, even the certainty of something bad, is usually less upsetting than ambiguity. (The complete unpredictability of my life in Hercs was another reason I didn't want to stay.) So even though you don't have all you could want on rote, you get comfortable.

What's really disturbing to me is that some of these times are the happiest I've had in the last few years...deploying is the only thing I do consistently for the AF, so it's the only thing I get good at and consequently the only thing I feel empowered doing. I realized as I was walking around Al Udeid this last trip in than I have spent more time there in the last 5 years than I have anywhere else except Abilene, TX.

Happiness, but it's the happiness of a hamster in a cage. All your basic needs taken care of, a place for everything and everything in its place. But it doesn't last. Eventually you remember the things you are missing out on at home through emails or phone calls or mail, or you go home, where life is messy and disorganized and you never have enough time for all the friends you want to spend time with. You go from the hive of deployed life when you can't get a moment to yourself to your empty apartment, and having to work to find people to hang out with. After my last rote I woke up one morning and realized I hadn't slept in a bed next to a woman in more than a year.

I have had good experiences on the road that I will carry with me for a long time, and I'm grateful for them. But I'm not getting any younger...one day I'll need to start this "the rest of my life" thing or I'm afraid I won't be able to. I've been terrible at relationships my whole life, I'm going to need some practice if I actually want to get married some day.

I have to quit deploying.

[writing dates: 8 apr 08, 28 apr 08, 30 apr 08, 3 may 08]

security clearance

I had a nav friend tell a story about how he used to fly on the RJ-135 before he got his security clearance. He wasn't cleared to see some of the gear on his own plane, so before he went back to use the bathroom, they had to announce him and everyone secured their classified before he left the flight deck.

tags: air force, history, flying

FW: more on Gates speech

tags: email, history, air force, letters

-----Original Message-----
From: Witt David R Capt 46 ERS/OPS
Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2008 2:34 AM
To: 46 ERS OPS ALL
Cc: X A1C 46 ERS/OPS
Subject: more on Gates speech

All,
Sorry to beat the dead horse, but if you are interested, here's
link to the full text of Mr. Gates' speech at Maxwell.

d

http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1231

V/R,
Capt David Witt
46ERS DO

On shift 2100-0900z daily
DSN 318-443-6454/6456/7190/6209
VOSIP 308-443-8300/8303
NIPR: david.witt@X.af.mil
SIPR: david.witt@X.af.smil.mil
SIPR: predator.ops@X.af.smil.mil (mass account)
SIPR Blog: http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/blogs/david_witt/

interesting thoughts

A good column from a favorite author of mine.

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2008-04-20-1.html

tags: email, links