The Insect Invasion

I forgot to mention that last week we had a bit of an insect invasion. They were everywhere. In our rooms, our clothes, even in the aircraft. Unfortunately the insects in question happened to be ladybugs. By the thousands. I say it's unfortunate because, as annoying as it is to constantly have to kill bugs that get into your house, it's worse with ladybugs. Nobody wanted to kill them. Instead we took about five times as long to try to carefully take them outside and release them to the wild. It was crazy. I just don't think that I could have looked Michenna in the eye knowing that I had intentionally squashed a ladybug. I wasn't alone. There were about two people in the entire place willing to just eliminate them. I guess I've got to sign on with the ladybugs' PR reps.

Tagging

I noticed that Tricia had filled out this little questionaire on our family blog and figured that I should follow suit here. I'm pretty sure that there is more to it than this, but I'm stuck here at the squadron for a couple more hours and need something to do so here you go:

How I met my wife:
[I] walked up to [her] at church ([she] was a single mom at the time) and said, “So, are you divorced, or is she an ‘oops baby’?” [She] was so shocked at [my] bluntness that [she] kept talking to [me]. It was a lousy pick-up line, but [I] like to point out that it worked.
(I would like to thank Tricia for that answer. The truth is that I was stuck between that "pick-up line" and "Gee, you shure got a purdy mouth." In retrospect, I'm really glad I went with what I did.

Favorite Vacation:
I'm assuming that my little 3-hour tour of the desert here doesn't count. Actually I really liked our Hong Kong vacation we took last Christmas. It's nice to do that while Michenna is at such a fun age.

If I had a million dollars...:
I would buy you a green dress (but not a real green dress, that's cruel).

Favorite Movie:
Well, this is a pretty tough one. I think that I would have to go with "Shawshank Redemption" for now. Great flick!

Something that scares me:
Well, I got a new one out here recently. One of our corpsmen was kind enough to find a camel spider and stick its (thankfull dead) body on top of our duty desk. This was a small one (about 2 inches), but I'm quite certain that if I see one that is alive and close up I will no doubt wet myself and cry like a little school girl for weeks. Go to www.camelspiders.net to see the little buggers for yourself.

Something you may not know about me:
I'm actually kind of a sucker for sappy 80's love songs. Foreigner, Journey, etc.

Something you may not know about Tricia:
She'd probably slap me if I told you.

The last movie I watched:
Beverly Hills Cop II

Something that reminds me of home:
The picture that Michenna drew of our family which is still hanging up on the fridge in my trailer.

Most painful experience:
One word: epididymitis. I will leave it at that.

One of my biggest accomplishments:
I got a "Great Job!" sticker with a star and everything on a spelling quiz in first grade.

Something funny that happened recently:
We flew up to a camp in Iraq and inquired about getting fuel there. We were informed that they had fuel available, but it was self-service. So we sent one of our crewmen over to check it out. He came back and told us that he couldn't figure it out because the tank "had all this British writing on it." One of the other pilots said "British? You mean English?" "Yeah."

Well, there you go. I hope that you all feel like you know me better now. By the way, I've had a few people tell me that they are having problems locating my email address. The easiest way to get a hold of me out here is to send stuff to mykuwaitblog@gmail.com . I check that email several times a day.

Out in Town and Other Ramblings

I forgot to mention that I've had a few opportunities to go out into town over the last few weeks. It really is nice down in Kuwait City. It's a very metropolitan city. There are a couple of Malls down there that we really like to go walk around in and a few restaurants as well. A few weeks ago I ate lunch at The Hard Rock Cafe. It was just about like any other Hard Rock I've ever been to, with one major exception. Kuwait is a dry country so therefore the Hard Rock here serves no alchohol. None. We all ordered Red Bull cocktails which is about as close as they come. I was able to buy a couple of shirts for Michenna and Tricia while I was there.

The real draw to going out in town, however, seems to be Ali the watch guy. Actually now Ali has left and Hussein has taken over but the idea is the same. Ali sells watches which, purely by coincedence, happen to look a lot like brand name watches. We call them "Faux" watches. I'll admit that I purchased a couple of watches from him. I got a faux-mega for myself. The James Bond edition, no less (see below). I also got matchin F-ag Heuer watches for Tricia and me. I don't have photos of those. Unfortunately, I quickly noticed that both of my watches were running slow (thankfully not Tricia's) so I took them back to Ali and he immediately swapped them out for new ones. You've gotta admire a guy who is willing to stand behind his fake watches.

As was alluded to by my brother's comment on the last posting, in about a week my single silver bar will multiply into the two silver bars of a Lieutenant in the Navy. I'm pretty excited. It doesn't mean a whole lot as far as duties here are concerned, but it does make me no longer stand out as a new guy quite so much. It also means a pretty substantial pay raise, which is never a bad thing.

Life here in the desert is about the same as always. I haven't really flown that much since my last posting. I did a couple of medevacs but that's about it. I've included a couple of photos from my flights. Enjoy.

Here is the James Bond edition Omega Speedmaster that I bought from Ali. There are several drawbacks to owning a fake watch. However, in this case there are also about 5000 advantages.

Here I am sitting on deck in Tallil, Iraq. My eyes look a little blood-shot and I'd love to say that it was because I had been crying, sensitive guy that I am. Unfortunately, the truth is just that it is hotter than he...an oven...in the cockpit and I haven't yet figured out a decent way to stop the sweat from dripping into my eyes.

Here's a shot I took of the back of the helicopter while we were flying over Iraq. You can see our corpsman showing some love. In Hong Kong, I noticed that a lot of people liked to make the peace sign in pictures. Everyone here (the Americans) seems to really like the UT Horns or the I love you sign. Must be a cultural thing.

Hard at work while on alert the other night. As you can see I am taking great care to hone my cat-like reflexes for when I fly. In this case we set up Guitar Hero in our squadron spaces and I proceded to get absolutely destroyed by some of our crewmen.

Another picture of me getting my can whooped by one of our crewmen. I just like this picture because it shows "Screamin' Joe" living up to his call sign.

I'm a Lousy "Keeper of the Blog"

Well, here I am nearly two weeks since my last post. Again, it isn't that nothing has happened in the last two weeks, it's just that I'm a neglectful blog keeper. Thankfully, Tricia has been doing an awesome job of keeping the family blog http://wherearetheallens.blogspot.com/ . The pictures of her and Michenna are much better looking than anything I have here, anyway.

In the last two weeks, I've flown 4 Medevacs, including two into Iraq. The only really interesting patient we had was a guy listed as "Urgent" (the 2nd-highest priority we have) with chest pains. So we landed at the pad to pick him up and a few minutes later I see him walking out to the aircraft carrying his own bag. Those chest pains must have been pretty severe.

We also took part in a much-beloved semi-annual Naval tradition known as a PRT. PRT stands for Physical Readiness Test. It consists of sit-ups, push-ups, and a 1.5 mile run to check and make sure that we are within standards of physical fitness. This year was made especially exciting when the person in charge of laying out the 1.5 mile run course used his GPS to drive exactly .75 miles away from the starting point and declaring that as our turn-around spot. The problem was that he failed to account for the fact that his GPS was giving him straight-line distance while the course was laid out over a couple of curving roads. It turned out to be the longest mile-and-a-half that any of us have ever run. Unfortunately for me, my stress fractures that I picked up at Officer Candidate School flared up once again after the run and I have now been told by our flight doc that my distance-running days are over. Swimming, anyone?

Last night we had a no kidding thunderstorm come through. This wasn't one of those "Is that thunder? I think I felt a raindrop." type of storms. It was a full blown sky falling "Who are those four guys and where'd they get those horses?" type of storm. There were even tornadoes reported in Kuwait City (30 miles south of here). We all felt lucky to be spared the tornadoes, especially seeing as how we live in trailer parks and everyone knows that tornadoes are attracted to trailer parks. When it wasn't pouring rain, it was nice to go outside and watch the light show. Obviously, we weren't flying. There's an old Aviation saying (I don't remember who said it. Check that. It's attributed to a sign at Davis-Monthan AFB. Thank you, Google) that says "There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime." All right, I'll grant you that this isn't really peacetime, but I'm not really keen on testing the turbulence resistance of my aircraft anytime soon. I ended up getting caught in a downpour on my way back from dinner, which wasn't really pleasant, but overall the storm was a nice diversion from the norm out here.

Today I am on the 1st Up alert. It's a beautiful day outside. So of course I haven't launched yet. Maybe later.

Here's just a random photo of the "conquering heroes" returning home after a trip to Iraq. You can tell that we were in Iraq because most of us (except for me) are carrying our M-16s. I promise you, we only take the things flying with us when we have to. I'm the one 2nd from the right. It's a small picture.