My Favorite Merc's

I know these guys... in general they are assholes. But they always looked like they were having fun! They used to do "wiferdills" and "return to targets" right over the trailer park I eventually lived in in Baghdad. When they were flying over random lead would fall out of the sky from people taking potshots at them. I wish I could have gotten a ride...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=helicopter&v=K3M68jKZ9Ms

The LZ you see in the video is where I spent a significant amount of time. I think I am going to have to look into the mercinary biz... Why not?

On a surprizingly very related topic... Tomorrow is the first day of Mustache March! This means that every female that sees me for the next month will be slightly grossed out by my apperance. On the positive note... it will be very easy to make little kids laugh.

Air Force's Newest Aircraft Commander!

Yesterday, I passed my forth and final checkride as part of the upgrade to Aircraft Commander. Each check ride is designed to test one particular aspect of being the incharge of a crewed helicopter. First was Emergencies... they take you into the air and throw a bunch of malfunctions at you and see if you can handle them in the most survivable maner. Next is instriments... this one they just check if you can fly the aircraft safely in the US air traffic controle system with out the used of the windows. Third is "Remotes," This they check your skills at search, rescue, and recovery in a nonhostile environment. Last of all, they test your tactical employment of multiple helicopters. It is to see if you have the menal abilities and hand eye coordination to take a formation of helicopters behinde enemy lines and use them for what ever god or the president desided helicopters should be used for. I passed all four check rides... so starting monday (after some paperwork) they will give me a copilot, the keys to a helicopter*, and a fire team and tell me to go and exact the will of the american public upon the enimies of the United States (that make it to Montana.)

*yes they do take keys. All UH-1's have needed keys to start the engines since the late sixties when a disgruntled student pilot washout stole a huey gunship and landed it on the lawn of the white house.

Convertable Caddy... almost.

Ladies and Gentlemen... I have known about a particular 69 Deville convertable here in Great Falls for the entire year and a half+ that I have lived here. It just sits happily in this old dudes driveway. I have litterally been thinking about it for a year and a half. Well I finally got my shit in a sock and went over to the guys house with the money and a friend. (to drive my other car back home.) Honestly... I got in the car to test drive it around the block... and something wasn't right. It drove beautifully... no complaints in any physical feecher of the car itself (Though I wan't thrilled with the AM only radio) But there I was, in the car, with the money, driving with the top down and a big smile on my face... and by the end of the drive, I don't think I would have bought it for half the price he was asking. I am completly shocked at myself, but I have to say this was a pure instinct move on my part. I had almost no reason in the world not to come home with that car. The mind says "YES!!!" but the heart and gut say, "hmmm..."

So, we will see... My insticts have proven themselves in the past I will continue to trust them untill they prove otherwise.

Shit... a 1969 Caddy Deville convertable... Does anyone else want one?

Weekend lessions... so far.

First of all, My computer was over heating... So I started by placing in up on pens so that the vents would be completely unrestricted. It worked well for a few months, but eventually even then it would still over heat and turn itself off. I figured it must be dust decreasing cooling, so I desided to take it part and clean it. Well... I have no idea what unknown physical force is holding the labtop upper and lower halfs together. I must have taken about 30 screws out of the thing... removed the screen, every possible removable panel and card... yet this buger would only space about a quarter inch from its self. I couldn't open it up completely. (well I could have... but) So then I remember some compressed air in a can that I had seen at work. Well I just put the little straw in the fan vent.... WHOOSHSSHSHSHS!!! Dust every where! I think that got it! The cloud is still disapaiting in my living room. Great! now just to put it back togeather. I can only assume that I am more efficient than the folks at Dell... because I didn't need 30 screws to put it back together. Only 28. I have no idea where on earth the extra screws came from. I can only assume it was the underwair gnomes playing a joke on me by placeing extra screws in the pile wile I slept. Either way... the point is don't take apart your computer to clean it. just blow some air in it. Unless you want a visit from the underwair gnomes.

My second lesson is Air Soft (tm) is not so soft. My buddy and I were in the sporting goods store examining air soft style style training weapons. After looking for a wile compairing feet per second rateings... we knoticed that though most were between 120 to 180 fps... execpt one style which was only $5 more... but had a fps rating of 300+ fps. Why would any rational american male go for anything else. Well about 30 minutes later I have a good argument against it. (See the picture below. We were (training) in his house... when his first shot hit me right in the forhead from across his house. (About 30+feet) It hurt like a mother!!! I am thinking, this dosn't seem like the friendly air soft game I remeber from Madison... this is much more sinister. Well after a several more iterations... the basterd goes for another head shot! Again it hurts like a mother! I look in the mirror. Those little plastic bbs are breaking skin... and it looks like I just got double tapped in the head. So we called of the training untill we could do some experiments. First was a popcan. Plink! right through the side. Ok next a glass bottle. Clink... it cracked the bottle. Amazing! So for further exersise iterations we dressed for out door winter sports and there was significanly less broken skin.

http://www.airsoftgunroom.com/7041.html This is an amaising piece of technology!

Air Soft... not so soft...

Mustache march is coming! In only 2 and a half weeks I will be looking like this again. I know they are so sexy I should probably stock my frige full of wine coolers for all the hotties that are garonteed to follow me home.

The dangers of the man.

Well it has finally come to this. I have so much knowledge and experiance it is now leaking out of my brain and onto the internet. I also thought the world could use some alternate spelling techniques. As you can see I have started my own blog... I appologise ahead of time.

As per the title, my job is not all guns, booze, and strippers...it is also the man. The problem is that I work for the real "proverbial man..." Most of the time it is a nice sybiotic relationship. Unfortunatly about once every few months "the Man" re-asserts and kicks me in the nuts or stabs me in the back. Today it was a small amount of both. I was warned about my "anti-athority attitude and style in my flying." To get a good idea of what it was like today, imagine the scene in Top Gun where Maverick was getting chewed out by the CO with the cigar only instead of a screaming CO with a cigar it was the boss from office space.

So to celebrate my official status as "anti-athority" I am having one of the dead guy's beer. (There was a guy that died in my appartment, the landlord gave me his beer when they cleaned out his appartment.)