took me awhile to finish this one...
life's reset button
30 June 2009
organizational challenge
The commitment for USAF pilot training is 10 years. But pilot training takes about 1.5 to 2.5 years. And of course (I mean, _OF COURSE_) every pilot has to be an officer, which generally takes 4 years of undergrad work at a commissioning source to accomplish. This means that today, the USAF is making decisions about pilot manning ~16 years in the future. That's an awfully long decision cycle. Our OODA loop is very big...no wonder we are so terrible at managing our manning.
25 June 2009
geek update
Updated my webcall button now that it's Google Voice instead of Grand Central. There's a lot of new widgets to add to blogs out there...may have to play with a few. Also, working on a couple of substantive entries.
23 June 2009
Medicare
Somewhere in a computer, I am listed as turning 65 next month. (Erroneously.) So to all those writing and calling, no thank you, I do not need help learning about my medicare benefits.
08 June 2009
life's reset button
Just a few days ago, I passed 12 months in the U.S., which in my AF experience usually means something is about to massively change.
I generally find it takes at least a year to get to know a new town; learn some streets, get to know the people and neighborhoods a little, get used to my work schedule, make friends with neighbors and people at work, etc. It's nice when you get to that point. There's a sense of familiarity to your home and neighborhood, you can make plans for vacation or social engagements, or find some friends if you unexpectedly get some time off. Things fit.
Before you get to this point, everything is inefficient. Everything you do, you are doing for the first time, so you make mistakes, forget what time the drug store closes and get there too late. You don't know the local slang, what places are busy or slow when, rush hour and the good streets or bad; you have to go exploring a lot and ask a lot of questions. As you can imagine, if you move often enough, you never get to the familiarity point. The town and the people remain strange to you all the time, and the phone book (whether physical or internet) remains a constant companion. Everything has to be planned carefully in advance. Deployments have the same effect.
When you have a deployment or a move coming up, it really changes your priorities. Who's going to spend time buying furniture when you are about to deploy, or move all your crap across country? (Thus my continuing lack of a kitchen / dining room table.) Why buy a new car to let it sit unused and pick up a car payment? Why bother trying to get a date with that woman you just met? You're leaving and she'll be gone when you get back.
As you may have inferred, the Air Force is moving me again. New Mexico this time, my eighth city in nine years. I don't have orders yet, but we (the squadron and I ) are pretty sure I'll have to be there in August. I am so tired of getting good at something and then abandoning it to move and start again at nothing, and of having everything to do with work be last minute, improvisational, and sloppy. I can handle this for a year, or three, but as it's going, I would imagine I could do a full 20 year career and have it be this way the whole time...which I don't want.
Anyway, here begins a series of entries on PCSing.
I generally find it takes at least a year to get to know a new town; learn some streets, get to know the people and neighborhoods a little, get used to my work schedule, make friends with neighbors and people at work, etc. It's nice when you get to that point. There's a sense of familiarity to your home and neighborhood, you can make plans for vacation or social engagements, or find some friends if you unexpectedly get some time off. Things fit.
Before you get to this point, everything is inefficient. Everything you do, you are doing for the first time, so you make mistakes, forget what time the drug store closes and get there too late. You don't know the local slang, what places are busy or slow when, rush hour and the good streets or bad; you have to go exploring a lot and ask a lot of questions. As you can imagine, if you move often enough, you never get to the familiarity point. The town and the people remain strange to you all the time, and the phone book (whether physical or internet) remains a constant companion. Everything has to be planned carefully in advance. Deployments have the same effect.
When you have a deployment or a move coming up, it really changes your priorities. Who's going to spend time buying furniture when you are about to deploy, or move all your crap across country? (Thus my continuing lack of a kitchen / dining room table.) Why buy a new car to let it sit unused and pick up a car payment? Why bother trying to get a date with that woman you just met? You're leaving and she'll be gone when you get back.
As you may have inferred, the Air Force is moving me again. New Mexico this time, my eighth city in nine years. I don't have orders yet, but we (the squadron and I ) are pretty sure I'll have to be there in August. I am so tired of getting good at something and then abandoning it to move and start again at nothing, and of having everything to do with work be last minute, improvisational, and sloppy. I can handle this for a year, or three, but as it's going, I would imagine I could do a full 20 year career and have it be this way the whole time...which I don't want.
Anyway, here begins a series of entries on PCSing.
Monthly update...
It has been a habit of mine for several years now to write a letter once a month to a collection of friends and family. (At least, once a month was my intention, I have very rarely lived up to it.) The idea was to stay in touch with people and keep them up with where I was and what I was doing since I moved around so much. This was in 2000, just after I had commissioned and started my military service, while I was in Delaware; This was in the dark ages: before Twitter, before Facebook, before blogs, when all we had was email.
It was surprisingly difficult to make myself write a two page letter once a month. Anyway, starting this blog really put the final nail in the coffin of this process, since blogging is so much easier than writing an email and maintaining a list of emails to send it to. It is useful, however, to actually write entries like that, a summary of what I've been up to. One of my old email subscribers wrote recently and noted that I haven't written in awhile, which was the motivation for this entry and to send out an email to my list with a link to my upcoming monthly post.
I can thank my sisters for getting me involved in Facebook (and I do). I wouldn't have started blogging if it weren't for my last deployment...I've had conversations about this with my dad, who noted that people tend to grasp a method of communication and hold onto it at some point. It's not that email isn't faster than snail-mail, but if you only have mail addresses for all you old college buddies, it's hard to get into email. Changing established means of communication (or anything, for that matter) takes energy and a willingess in change and innovate. So anyway, I am trying to get back into the habit of writing once a month, and I will be posting them here.
~~~
minor edit 23jun09, a couple of typos
It was surprisingly difficult to make myself write a two page letter once a month. Anyway, starting this blog really put the final nail in the coffin of this process, since blogging is so much easier than writing an email and maintaining a list of emails to send it to. It is useful, however, to actually write entries like that, a summary of what I've been up to. One of my old email subscribers wrote recently and noted that I haven't written in awhile, which was the motivation for this entry and to send out an email to my list with a link to my upcoming monthly post.
I can thank my sisters for getting me involved in Facebook (and I do). I wouldn't have started blogging if it weren't for my last deployment...I've had conversations about this with my dad, who noted that people tend to grasp a method of communication and hold onto it at some point. It's not that email isn't faster than snail-mail, but if you only have mail addresses for all you old college buddies, it's hard to get into email. Changing established means of communication (or anything, for that matter) takes energy and a willingess in change and innovate. So anyway, I am trying to get back into the habit of writing once a month, and I will be posting them here.
~~~
minor edit 23jun09, a couple of typos
06 June 2009
04 June 2009
Holidays
Interesting upside to working on a 4 day weekend: our internet is actually fast enough to be helpful, rather than a brake on how much work I can do.
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