What's Next

The box cutters are still on the counter and yet the speed of Naval Flight training has made Brian and I wonder if we should ever put them away. So what's going to happen? We could be at the Kingsville NAS for a year OR move within 5 months if Brian gets an E-2 or C-2 - if the latter occurs, we could get a PCS for the east or west coast while Brian stays to train in Corpus. Have I lost you yet? No worries, sometimes I lose myself. This is why I have included pictures!

The first picture is of the EA-6B prowler. The EA stands for Electronic Attack which means that the majority of what the Prowler does is jam radars - it can disrupt everything from cell phones and garage door openers to forms of detonators.


The second picture is an E-2 Hawkeye. The big disc on top serves as a long distance radar where the crew can receive weather, serve as air defense, air traffic control, and the control for search and rescue missions. It seems like this is the most low-key plane in the bunch...Brian would take off and cruise....then land.


This third picture is a C-2 Greyhound. This plane is mostly land-based because it brings cargo from land to the carrier. If Brian got the E-2 or this C-2, our time in Kingsville would be cut due to the training that would be required for these propeller driven planes - instead of a 12 month stay, we would be here 6 months and Brian would continue his training in Corpus Christi. Meanwhile, our PCS (permanent change of command), could be in Virginia, California, or Washington State. If I understand this correctly, this would mean that all of our stuff would go to our new PCS while Brian would be training 45 minutes from here! Crazy


This jet is called the FA-18F Super Hornet which replaced the Navy's F-14 Tomcat, (the jet the pilots were flying in the documentary, Speed and Angels). The Super Hornet is pretty much like the FA-18 Hornet (pictured below) except for the advancement in technological stuff and it's a bit larger.


This jet is the FA-18 Hornet. Uhh, have you seen Top Gun?


So far Brian isn't preferring any one of these planes to the other - he has just finished ground school and has recently started his simulation flights. In a matter of weeks, his training in the T-45 (jet trainer) will begin and he can make a better-informed decision about what plane he wants down the road.

These pictures were taken at the Air Show in Kingsville, TX at the end of March. It was awesome to have Avie and Mariah join us to peruse the air craft and watch the Blue Angels do their thing! I highly recommend going to a show if they ever come near you - the noise, the community - it's a part of Americana at its finest! For most of you Fam and Friends in KC,near St. Joeseph, MO, they will be there May 1st and 2nd.

Lastly, for those of you who never saw what Brian flew in Enid, OK, I've included a picture of the T-6 Texan. T-45 pictures to come!

Book Review: "The Way the Crow Flies" by Ann-Marie MacDonald

I seldom read novels, but when this 800 page read was given to me by my book-junkie-mother-in-law with the phrase, "this reminds me of you," I couldn't resist. I began....and then I began again....it's hard to get pumped about a massive book sometimes. It all begins with a young Canadian Air Force Family relocating to Centralia, Canada from a base in Germany. Jack McCarthy is a high ranking military person, (will I ever remember the ranks!?), and Mimi is an Air Force wife and mother of Mike and Madeline. The car is loaded and the family is scurrying along the Canadian countryside in order to arrive at their new duty station. Mike and Madeline hit and tease each other, Mimi yells in French from the front, and Jack offers to pull over and get some ice cream. The set-up is quite surreal but anything seems surreal when it's set back in the 1950's and 60's. The family discusses the Wall, the space race, the possibilities of nuclear disaster, and ultimately, what their neighbor country, the United States, will do about all of it.

They arrive and within a few short days, the moving truck arrives, Mike and Madeline meet the neighbors, and the McCarthy's are hosting parties. Their seasoned military neighbors cause them to drink, sing, dance, and speak German, French and English on a regular basis. I was quite allured by the strength of Mimi, the worldview at that time, and the similar military lifestyle this family was having compared to mine. (minus the country, rank, our lack of kids, and their lack of dogs). It was only a little more than a month ago that we moved from Enid, OK to Kingsville, TX and 6 months before that, we were coming from Overland Park, KS - and while I didn't get a "home" set up in a couple days, I did set one up over the course of a week. My time is improving with experience!

Then, Madeline goes to school and has to stay after with the teacher, Mr. March. To make an 800 page story relatively shorter, Madeline is sexually abused, a classmate of her turns up dead, Jack gets wrapped up in some top-secret defector mission that causes him to lie to his family, Mimi thinks he's having an affair, a neighbor of the McCarthy's is wrongly accused of the murder, and Mike joins the USMC and becomes MIA in the Vietnam war. The book holds the reader captive by the mere fact that you feel as though your witnessing a train derailment - by some supernatural force, I couldn't stop reading. The truth isn't exposed until 20 some years later when Madeline trudges through her inner psyche. It wasn't a fairy tale ending by no means, but it was an entertaining read. And yet, I am left wondering, I hope my mother-in-law was reminded of me just because of the military affiliation verses the "train derailment" aspects.

Lastly, a recurring theme that I savored throughout the read was the uniting hope in winning the space race during this time period. Forget NCAA bracketology or World Cup games, the world was really watching and waiting to see whether the boundaries of humanity could be pushed all the way to landing on the moon. As I relished and imagined what this excitement meant to people 50 some years ago, I was met with the current news that President Obama is cutting funds to NASA - our space program is now dependent on the Russians, or whomever would like to give us a ride to the space station. People that are still alive from the space race period must be having a heart attack today! We've gone from a democratic pride and uniting hope in testing the limits in 1969 to extinguishing a portion of a program that breed households of kids hoping to grow up to be astronauts and explorers. What do kids want to be today? What kinds of dreams are we pushing them to achieve? To be a consultant? An employee of a monster think-tank where at the end of the day, they have nothing to show for their work except a check and a headache from staring at a computer screen? To read more about the new space goals...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7099244.ece

The next book I'm going to delve into is "Shop Class as Soulcraft" by Matthew B. Crawford - his research is geared towards understanding why our inner desires to produce something is in disharmony with the majority of our careers today. This may be the reason why people can be so dissatisfied with their jobs - what do they have to show for it? I have a couple more pages to go in that one before I can give you my complete review. After all, our military relocation hasn't proved too fruitful for my job opportunities - as for now, I will continue reading with a vengeance!

Hello Blogosphere

Is this too narcissistic? That is all I can think about as I sit down to write my first post. I guess I may be a bit too traditional - typically I like to talk about myself when asked, but since no one is asking, I guess my excuse is to partake in a societal phenomenon. I don't want the millennial generation boat to leave without me! After all, I am just so darn interesting. So let's get down to business.

I am a mid-twenty something stay at home wife - not exactly by choice, but by the frequent change of military station due to my husband's flight training. This means that I can daydream about being a bartender, a professional basketball player, a piano prodigy, fashion designer or a hippie from time to time while I realistically apply for anything and everything. It also doesn't help that my dominant area of education is a little specialized, (French), and we've gone from Kansas City with about 2 million inhabitants to towns like Enid, OK with 47 thousand and Kingsville, TX with 26 thousand inhabitants. This limits career opportunities a bit! I've been told that we will be in a more permanent command after the completion of my husband's training, but a quick lesson to learn in the military life is to not have any expectations. (Note to self: this is a good life lesson in general). This little morsel of military wisdom has only been gained through 2 years of military spousal experience, otherwise, I am midwestern civilian, born and raised in Kansas.

Stay tuned for stories on the unexpected, the transition from civilian to military life, soul searching, spirituality, job searching, book reviews, and the pursuit of community no matter where one is through lots of good food and beaucoup drink - Santé!