4:32 PM -- Friday! --

Kind of ticked this weekend, I earned weekend privileges and don't get to use em. My FTO wants "flight integrity" so the fact that there are people in my flight who can't go off base due to academic reasons has me sitting here cooling my jets on base. So much for my hotel highspeed internet connection! The thing that really bugs me though is that I know nobody is going to use me as a resource this weekend to study for their tests! Suck it up and deal I guess, least I get to go off base for a few hours tommorow for a squadron dinner. Out.

 
6:11 PM -- THE AGONY... --

Bright side though today has been an amazing day aviation wise. Started last night actually...walking back from dinner I screw up our entire formation when I see a B-1 Lancer in the middle of the ramp. Then I notice the F-15 next to it...too awesome. Then this morning we are at the academic fields playing flickerball (weird basketball/football/soccer game, same crazy kind of rules as volleyball)...cry...it is shaking the building as I write this. Sorry. Ok so we are playing flickerball and two F-15's come by low and fast and do a 10 minute airshow right over us...loops, rolls, and high speed tower fly-by's all in formation. I stopped playing flickerball and stood in the middle of the field to watch as the game went on around me. Then during lunch an F-16 pulls into the ramp and parks next to the A-10 I missed parking. Finally, I walk back to the dorm and there is an AWACS parked in the middle of them all right next to an F-117 Stealth Fighter! So I figure something is up, and it is. They call us into the auditorium and tell us we have 25 minutes to go out on the ramp and check all the planes out! Typical OTS, they give us something really cool, but you can only look at it for 25 minutes, minus the 10 minutes of marching and forming up. Long story short I got to see all of the above up really close. My roommate took some pictures so I will have them up tomorrow hopefully. Once we were done checking out the planes (or told we were done rather), we formed up and were about to march back to where I am now when a B-2 flew over!! What an amazing day! So normally I would be crushed and speechless to be missing the 15 right now but everything else made up for it. OUT!

 
11:38 AM -- Week 8 --

We got our graded for our informative briefs back today, I was one of only two in our class to get a High Sat, so I got that going for me. The brief next week should be a lot easier as well, since you get to talk about something tangible and specific, instead of someone's "leadership qualities" like we did in the informative brief.

Glad you all liked my pictures, I will hopefully make that update a weekly thing if I get off base as I need the un-fettered hotel access to upload them all like that.

Anyway, this week is going to be pretty slow, just a lot of academics. Only have to survive one more day and I will get off base so I have that to look forward to hopefully (As of right now I have 3 merits and 2 demerits, so I can get 6 more demerits and be ok). Stay tuned and thanks for the support.

 
5:41 PM

Mega picture update

Enjoy, feel free to ask any questions.

 
4:18 PM -- wow --

 
4:18 PM -- Hectic --

Sunday was spent getting ready for the next week since on Tuesday our lower class arrived. It is crazy to imagine that we looked as scared as these people coming through. My job Tuesday morning was to hang out at the airport and wait to see if anyone showed up for OTS. I was there all morning but no one ever showed...I got to eat subway though which was sweet (although the sandwich was inferior). In the afternoon I was in charge of giving briefings to the lower class as they arrived. Once they got here they got split into chalks of 10 people or so and once they were all formed up we would brief them on safety, etc. Funny how my fear of public speaking is almost totally gone, not sure when it happened but it makes life a little easier. I also spent all of the day taking pictures and video tape of the lower class. They all have to be reading their little guidebook "the talon" at all times, so it is hilarious to see them peek up from their book at you and then dart back down when they see you looking at them or taking a picture. I took all of their pictures and the video, and cut it into a video we are going to show at commanders call this Friday. I remember the coolest thing about the video our upper class was the pictures of them when they were inprocessing so hopefully the lower class will appreciate our pics. Also found out a guy I know is here from New Orleans in our lower class. I searched him out and will hook him up with a little preferential treatment...gotta take care of the boys right?

The dorm situation still sucks. We are totally isolated from our class...we don't deal with the lower class at all since they aren't in the halls with us. It is a real bummer, and I think we are missing out of a major part of OTS. We have talked to our FTO about it but there isn't much they can do. They may be able to move the casuals away, but it still leaves us on our own.

Oh right...Major news! As of 1700 yesterday I was in positive merits (3 merits 1 demerit) so I am going off base this weekend!! It almost sounds too good to be true so I won't believe it until I am driving out the gate, but myself and most of my flightmates have earned off base privileges. I am going to go to a hotel in Montgomery with a bunch of my flightmates and get some decent food and well...as they say here at OTS, we will stay hydrated. Also going to get to see Matrix which I heard is decent. I picked the hotel as it was the only one with high speed internet in the area and my whole flight is following me there. hehe it may be a complete dump but its online baby! Sorry no pictures yet, as soon as I get motivated I will burn a cd to bring here and do a major update. I know I keep saying that but I promise.

 
6:37 PM -- Finally! --

Also found out today that every single person in my class is switching rooms/dorms tonight. My flight is the only one staying in our current building while the rest cram into another one. It kind of stinks since we are the only flight in our building and have no lower class around us but we will make do. Also lame that we are on the same floor as the Casual Status students (the people quitting) I can only hope we don't share a dayroom with them...it is depressing to be around them because they represent everything you don't want to happen to yourself. Kind of nice to be in OCC right now since I am removed from all the chaos. Not sure what is going to happen to my gear but I may have a twilight zone moment when I get back ("Helooooo! Is anybody herrrrreeee?")

Not much else to report today, just feels good to have no upper class over us. I actually had one guy last night tell me to put my nametag on (I was walking down my dorm hallway). Here is was less than 12 hours to his graduation and he still cares about my nametag? Give me a break.

I promise to get some pictures up soon...I have a CD full of them from when we were inprocessing six weeks ago so I will get them up ASAP.

 
10:38 AM

We get to drive our cars this weekend which will be nice. Going to live at Burger King I think, and maybe take in a crappy movie at the base theatre. Matrix 2 comes out today and I can't go, I want to cry. I was thinking about SIE (Self Induced Elimination) so I could go see it but decided to wait another weekend. If I get less than 6 demerits this week I get to go off base next weekend for the long weekend so I hopefully will see it then. Already have one demerit today though from our uniform inspection...damn button cables. That's how you hold buttons on!! CABLES!! Anyway. Also got paid today, getting 886.13 every two weeks now (Everyone knows what everyone else makes in the military so people talk about it, not like in your screwed-up civilian world). Not too shabby for going to school and having absolutely no expenses. My bank account is going up for the first time ever!

I have also managed, like everywhere else I go, to get pegged as the sleepy guy who finishes all his work faster than anyone. It started with getting caught sleeping during APT, and then I fell asleep stretching my quads at PC yesterday morning much to my flights amusement. Hey it's not my fault I get all my work done, and no one asks for any help! I watch TV and sleep because I can darnit! Well I think I have to go...time for some Super Nintendo on my laptop.

 
4:45 PM

 
4:44 PM

This week is almost over, got the second graded test tomorrow which I hope I will do well on. Sorry for the dry update, kind of tired and my FTO is right behind me (finally got our computer in the classroom to work.)

 
3:21 PM

 
9:15 AM

Finally got my job assigned for when we are upper class. Since I work here anyway, I am going to be Command Post Ops Officer, which holds the rank of OT Captain. The command post is basically where stuff gets coordinated on campus. When you sign in for sick call, you sign in here. When there is severe weather, we make announcements and run checklists. We do security checks and the other buildings call their checks into us. It's not too bad as OTS jobs go, especially on days like today where absolutely nothing happens.

We had our final commanders call as lower class on Friday, which went pretty well. I put together a video of some of my flightmates dancing during one of our recent lectures and played it for everyone. It got a lot of laughs so I was pretty happy. I am getting pretty good at premiere now. What else...got my second PFT tomorrow. I'm not going to be a superstar but I am confident I will pass like last time. Not much else so I will sign off.

 
9:22 AM

The run was interesting this morning, we ran as the entire wing in formation all over Maxwell. We were all hooting and hollering with our different chants; we must have woken up the entire base. We also stopped in front of the General's house and he gave a little motivational speech and we sang the Air Force song for him. I am defiantly getting in better shape, but I was soaked at the end of the run from the humidity. It was like how they look after a run in baywatch, except with real sweat. Well got an inspection class in 20 minutes so I better go slap a final layer of polish on the old combat boots (gotta love BDU day...no garters yes!). God Bless America.

 
1:21 PM

More drama this morning as well. My roommate is the new admin honcho, which involves putting the flight book together (where we hand in all our assignments) as well as taking it to our FTO's office every morning before 0645. Now what the old admin honcho would do was to go crazy after PC getting ready in the morning then run over to drop the book off then run back to the dorms to meet the flight then march back to chow. Well me and my roommate decided it might be a little easier to go take the book right after PC and then eat breakfast by ourselves, THEN go back to the dorms and change and meet the class at the flight room. We have been doing this for the last few days and it has been pretty sweet. But since the old admin didn't do it that way some people are ticked that we are. Make sense? No it doesn't. We are staying strong though, and I think the issue is settled. I just kept asking "Ok guys why would we do it the hard way?" And no one had an answer.

Other than that pretty slow day, don't have a class now until 1615 so I don't know what the heck I'm going to do. Maybe take a desk-nap.

 
9:00 AM

I met some casual students the other day. You go on casual status when you are A. Injured, or B. screwing up so bad they can't decide whether to kick you out or to recycle you into the next class. These 2 guys were hoping to be recycled. One of them had a dozen or so letters of counseling and was voted off the island by his tribe (his flight wrote a letter to their FTO saying how bad he was and that they wanted to get rid of him...this is with 2 weeks left to graduation! He must have been a real slacker). It was kind of a bummer to see the darker side of OTS, but It was also nice to see how far myself and anyone from my flight are from that kind of situation. So far no demerits today...and shouldn't get any unless we have another room inspection which I don't doubt. That just leaves an inspection class tomorrow and I may be able to get off campus. We shall see. Anyway archives up -- people who know me can picture me hunched over the computer for an hour going crazy trying to get them to work).

And thanks a lot for your emails, they are great to read every morning. OT out.

 
8:24 AM

 
6:00 PM

Had all Sunday off to get our academics and rooms up to par. Good thing as we had room inspection number 10 or so today and I only got 2 demerits (damn dirty floor...) So I have a total of 8 demerits now, with 1 merit. I may have 2 more merits coming from my work as interim tiger 2, so that would take me to 5. That leaves me a 5 demerit breathing room to get off campus this weekend. I would really love to buy some speakers for my computer at the BX and eat some Burger King. Is that lame or what that we look forward to crap like that around here? Ooooo speaker shopping and onion rings!

Was also a little disappointed today as I found out I wasn't selected for the squadron boards. These are the real deal boards for the same positions we held in interim. I was a real "zoolander" moment as they called the names out since I was sure, being one of the 2 picked for the interim boards, that I would be one of the 4 for these ones. The FTO's pick these positions though and for some reason my Capt. doesn't seem to think I can lead. I am kind of confused since I'm the only one in the flight with no letters of counseling and one of the few who has yet to fail any of the graded measures. Oh well I will keep my chin up and be a proud OT 2d Lt. More pictures tomorrow hopefully.

 
12:03 PM

 
11:59 AM

This first one is Training Day Zero, as I pulled up to the campus for the first time.

Here is me on day 2 I think, hair a little shorter than usual. To my left is OT Witter

This is OT Weidner, the other pilot in our flight standing in my room before we got them in inspection order. (Weidner got selected active duty pilot with ZERO flight time, never even been in a small plane...must have had damn good test scores!)

This is me fixing my roomates computer.

Me in my BDU's (Battle Dress Uniform). We got rid of that ugly orange name tag today, which is nice, although now there is no way to tell the upperclass from the lower which is a pain in the butt.

Another class picture. This is our flight room where we do most of our academics, inspections, etc. as a flight.

This was the day we got shots.I only got 3 so I don't know why I'm so sad

Ok let's see how that works...

 
9:04 AM

So week 4 is pretty much done now... We are going as a wing (upper/lower class) to Fort Benning, Georgia for the JMAC (Joint Military Athletic Competition) this weekend. We have to get up at 0400 Saturday morning to get on buses to drive over there. Found out my FTO will be on the bus with us so no mooning civilians this time around, or any of that other back-row activity that has been popular lately. I am not participating in any of the events, I know that is a shock to some of you, but the Counterstrike tournament was cancelled.

Also had another room inspection yesterday, makes I think 4 so far this week (most flights have had one since they've been here) My roommate left not only our common area light on (1 demerit) but MY bathroom light (1 demerit for me only!). I was not pleased. So here it is day 1 of the demerit week and I have 5 demerits, already halfway to no privileges (again).

Finally, I have upgraded by blogger account to allow me to upload pictures, so as soon as I get the disk in here with some extra time I will post a bunch. You're not missing much though all I see is dorm room-fligh troom-chow hall. Fantastic. later.