Say Hello To My (Other) Little Friend

So far I've blogged about the very scary camel spiders out here and the very deadly fat-tailed scorpions. Well, just when I thought that I had seen all the nightmares this place had to offer, one of the pilots found this little guy:

That, dear friends is known as a Sahara Sand Viper. There's nothing to really get an idea as to scale, but he's about a foot long. Want to know where he was? Well, see the tile floor that he's sitting on in the bottom picture? That's the bathroom floor inside the squadron spaces. The one I walk into several times each night when I am on alert. Wearing my flip-flops. The little guy decided to coil up next to the trash can. I have no idea how long he had been there when he was found, but he was quite alive and not really happy to be the subject of so much attention. He was striking at any and every thing that was in the general area. Including open air. Happily, the ever-reliable Wikipedia says that the bites are painful but not particularly life-threatening. I wasn't really anxious to find out.

On a side note, also according to Wikipedia, the formation that he's got himself coiled into is so that he can rub his scales together and make a rattle-type sound as a warning to stay away. I'll have to take their word for it because I didn't hear anything, but it could just be that he was too small to be heard. We trapped him in a box, covered every hole with duct tape, and called in animal control who came out today to remove him. We also wrote "Deadly Snake! Do not open by order of the XO!" on the box, lest someone think that it was a present for them and decide to see what their mommies had sent them.

Say Hello to my Little Friend

Well, last night at about 10PM one of our chiefs told me that they had found something. I went into the office to find this guy sitting in a bucket:

Turns out that this is an "Arabian Fat-Tailed Scorpion". Not a very nice little bugger, either. Here's a bit more information on him:

http://www.centralpets.com/animals/insects/scorpions/scp4079.html

I was surprised to find all that on a pets website. Sounds like a wonderful little companion, eh. I can assure you that when I took the picture he was quite alive and not really happy about the general turn his life had taken. I'm no advocate of killing things just to kill them, but we did kill this guy rather than try to release him. We couldn't figure out a way to travel the requisite 150 miles we all decided would be a comfortable distance to have between us and him. We also found an article about an entimologist (ironically enough) that got stung by one of these one night here at Camp Beuhring. Within an hour he had lapsed into a coma. The best part is that we found him on the sidewalk outside our squadron spaces. An area I frequently transit while I'm sleeping here on alerts with nothing more substantial on my feet than flip-flops. I will say that I transited quite a bit more gingerly last night. You can't really get a good sense of scale, but that guy was about the 4" max that the website advertises.

In other news, I received my first Air Medal yesterday. To read the citation you would think that I was Chuck Norris single-handedly winning the war on terror. Not really true. Others help.

Back To the Blog

So I should probably begin by apologizing for the extremely long time that has elapsed since my last post. I have been busily studying up to get my Helicopter Aircraft Commander qualification. Apart from getting our wings, making Aircraft Commander is the most important qual that we get as pilots.

In order to become HACs, we have to undergo a HAC Board with the XO and all the department heads available. They started out by asking me several questions about the aircraft, flight rules, squadron procedures and other related knowledge. After that is done they took turns giving me several scenarios designed to test my judgement and decision making capabilities when presented with emergencies in various missions that I may be called upon to fly. After everybody had asked their questions, they had me step out into the hallway so they could deliberate my fate. Then they called me back in and the XO informed me that I had passed my board. So now I am fully qualified to command a mission in an MH-60S.

I also passed one other milestone back on May 1st when I was promoted to full Lieutenant (O-3). So now I have two silver bars on my collar (actually, they're on my shoulders in my flight suit) instead of one. It also meant a pretty sizeable raise, which is really what I was looking forward to with the promotion.

A couple of posts ago I talked about buying fake watches out in town. Well, as kind of a reward for my promotion and making HAC, I decided to purchase the real thing. One of my buddies back home was puting together an order with Omega for their Speedmaster X-33. http://www.omegawatches.com/index.php?id=297&details=1&ref=32915000&no_cache=1
Omega only sells them on a special-order basis at an extremely discounted price to military pilots or astronauts. As part of the sale, I had to enter into a contract with Omega stating that I would not resell the watch within the first five years of owning it. Since they're a special production watch built after the order is received, the case-back will have my wings as well as my name and Naval Aviator number engraved on the back of it. One major drawback to that is that I now get to wait 3-6 months to receive my prize.

As far as medevacs go, since my last post I flew 9 Medevacs evacuating 10 patients. A few of those had me on the other side of the border. I don't really have any updated photos to put on here, but I should get some before too long and I will post them then.

In other news, Tricia and I are planning to travel back home to the states after I leave here. We'll be flying in to see my dad in Seattle and then driving our way cross-country to Dallas to visit her parents with stops in Utah along the way to visit other family. It promises to be quite the adventure.

Well, thank all of you for your patience with my blog and how bad I've been at returning emails lately. I'll try to be a bit more regular with it from here on out.