Since I'm getting forced to find a new job within the Air Force I'm spending a week at a basic training squadron to see what MTI life is about. These are the Air Force's "drill sergeants" for those that don't know. I've always heard it's long hours, hard work, etc. It's one thing to hear it, but it's totally different to actually experience it. I started yesterday at 0800, the MTIs had been there since 0330. The flight I was with was in their first week of training so they needed a lot of "guidance". The TI I'm shadowing is also teaching a new TI fresh out of school, so I got to see how that goes too.
The TI I'm with is the same rank as me, the student TI is one rank above us. In the TI world, rank doesn't mean anything unless you've got the hat. Student TIs don't get their hat until they've pushed their first flight, which takes 6.5 weeks after their school is done. These guys were going non-stop from the time I got there until lights out at 2100. The TI sent the student and me away for 20 minutes to eat at around 1400, but I never saw him eat anything. I did see him drink a couple glasses of chocolate milk, though. There is so much going on, so much to keep up with and remember. I feel sorry for the poor student, he's constantly getting yelled at, even moreso than the trainees it seems. He's handling it well, though, and he told me he realizes it'll get better once he finishes his first flight. It's almost like he's back in BMT himself.
The TIs as a whole are all super hard-core military-types, which is a change from the computer programmer world of the Air Force. They have no tolerance for excuses or screwups and won't hesitate to jack you up if you do screw up. It looks like a very challenging job, but could definitely be rewarding to see the progress the trainees make. I'm still not 100% sure I want to do it, I still have a few long days ahead to help me decide. These guys and girls are the sharpest folks I've ever been around, though. They all know their stuff cold, and also know how to teach it all.
Tonight I'm switching to a TI that's picking up a brand new flight. I just talked to him about an hour ago and he said to get some rest and be ready for a long week. He said he'd call me when the flight arrives, sometime after 2030 tonight. Tonight will be fairly short, just getting them showered and put to bed, but tomorrow starts again at 0400 and goes till 2100, then the same for Thursday and Friday.
I'll update again when I can, it might not be until the weekend, though. I have a feeling all I'm going to be doing at home for the next few days is sleeping.
I went for a flying physical last week and was disqualified from flying duty because I'm on blood pressure medication. The personnel center came out with a message saying all the 1N career fields (Intelligence) are being constrained to people being retrained out of other 1N career fields, so I can't apply for them. That leaves me with 11 jobs to choose from, 3 of which are special forces, which I won't be doing. So my list to choose from is:
Pretty slim pickings. I have no idea what I'm going to apply for, maybe radio/tv, command post, and contracting. I really can't see myself doing any of these jobs, though. I'm shadowing a basic training instructor this week and if I like it I'm going to apply for that special duty. I hope I like it.
The Air Force is making me find a new job... Since the Air Force promotes based on how many people it needs in each rank Air Force-wide and not specifically for each job, they end up with too many of one particular rank in some jobs. My job happens to be one of those. They choose who to make retrain by how long you've been at your current rank with people who have the least time in grade going first. Since I have 0 time in grade as a TSgt, I'm #8 on the list in my career field, and they're making 20 TSgts retrain. So they gave me a list of jobs and told me I have 6 weeks to apply for one or they'll apply for one for me. There were about 15 jobs on the list, and I was able to eliminate a few right off the bat, like the special forces jobs and chaplain assistant. That left me with 8 jobs, 5 of which were aircrew jobs and 3 intel jobs. I'd love to fly, so those are the jobs I decided to apply for.
I have a deadline of 21 September to have my retraining application in, which gave me about 6 weeks from the time I was notified. The Aircrew jobs require a flight physical, so I called up the clinic to schedule one and they told me it can take up to 3 months to get one finalized. My appointment is today, and I had to go in before the appointment to get blood drawn. While I was there, one of the techs came out with my chart and told me that the medication I take for my blood pressure is a disqualifier from flying duty. I asked about a waiver and he came back a few minutes later and said the senior flight doc told him she didn't think it was likely unless they're really hard up for people in a particular job. I'm going to go ahead and try to process everything, but it's looking like I won't be flying.
Next week I'm spending 5 days in a basic training squadron shadowing a training instructor. If I enjoy it then I'll apply for that. The intel jobs wouldn't be too bad I guess, I just wanted to do something a little more exciting than sitting behind a computer all day.
Well, time for me to go to my physical, I'll update more later.
Found out tonight that I got promoted this cycle! 4 years sooner than the average, not too bad I guess :) Angie made it too and she's coming in to town Friday for the weekend. San Antonio ain't gonna know what hit it!
Jaime and Josh took me to Howl at the Moon tonight to celebrate. It was a pretty good time. I vowed to drink 4 or less beers and be home and in bed by midnight. Here it is 0140 and I have a PT test at 0645 tomorrow. And I busted the 4 beer limit. Oh well, it's just a practice PT test...
I'll put up the pics from tonight tomorrow. We have a social for all the promotees tomorrow afternoon so I'm sure I'll be drunk tomorrow night too...
It's just been more of the same here lately. Work is really busy again and my boss is out for a while so I get to run the shop, which is not as much fun as you'd think. Earlier this week the flight chief said he wanted to put me in for a quarterly award. I said ok, fine with me. He said, "Great, I need a 1206 with 21 work-related bullets by Wednesday morning". I like being nominated for the award, but it sucked having to write my own package, I suck at Air Force writing.
Tech results are due out on 14 June. Angie's coming in to town on the 15th, so we're either going to be celebrating our promotions or drowning our sorrows, just like last year and the year before... I'm excited about her coming to visit, I haven't seen her since New Years in New Orleans.
Joe came to visit the weekend after I got back from San Francisco. We had a blast while he was here but I can't keep up the rockstar lifestyle like I used to. He flew in on a Thursday and I picked him up at the airport and we headed straight up to Austin. I brought a 12 pack of Shiner for the 1.5 hour trip, for Joe of course, not for me, I was driving. I had enough Holiday Inn points from my TDY to get a free room, so we were set. We had a great dinner at some place with the word Cactus in the name I think. Desert Cactus maybe? Anyway, it was good. After we ate we walked down 6th St and found some cool bars, met a group of girls that we ended up wasting the whole night with, and had an overall good time. After the bars closed we were walking around and Joe noticed two girls sitting on the sidewalk. I was talking to some bartender who was standing outside her bar trying to convince her to serve us more beer even though the bar was closed. When I came over to Joe he was talking to one of the girls and the other one was talking on her cell phone and crying. In Joe's inebriated state he didn't notice the big black X's on the girls' hands. I pointed it out to him, "Joe, these girls are underage". So we left them on the sidewalk and went to find some food. We found an awesome little pizza stand and stuffed our drunk faces with scalding hot pizza. We grabbed a cab back to the hotel and called it a night.
The next morning we checked out and headed back to San Antonio. We stopped by the house long enough to let Laci pee then went to a little Mexican joint to grab some lunch. After that we went home and took a nap. We got up sometime that evening and got ready to go out. We headed downtown to the Riverwalk and ate dinner down there. We walked the Riverwalk a little bit then went back up on the street to find some bars. We went to a little hole in the wall called the Basement but there wasn't much going on, so we headed out. When we got to the top of the steps some guy yelled at Joe to wait a second. When he got to us he said to Joe, "Hey, you know that girl you were just checking out?" I thought he was trying to start a fight, but it turned out he wanted to hook Joe up with his friend. So we went back in to the Basement and she wasn't nearly as hot as her friend made her out to be. Luckily they were both really cool, so we left with them and went next door to Pat O'Briens. Pat's was packed out upstairs where the DJ was, so Joe and I left the other 2 and came back downstairs. We sat down and like 30 seconds later some girl throws herself at Joe. Luckily she's actually hot and they instantly become "that couple". You know the one that's eating each other's faces right there in the bar. After Pat's closed we went outside so they could say their goodbyes, and Joe somehow failed to get her to come home with him despite her friends urging him to "take her home and fuck her". So we returned to the house for sleeeeep.
It's almost midnight here now and I have to work tomorrow, so I'll finish this tomorrow after work.
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I had trouble getting to sleep last night, dragged ass all day at work today, had an eye dr appointment at 2:30 hoping to get home a little early but ended up getting home at the normal time. I took a nap, just got up long enough to let Laci out and check my email, and now I'm going back to bed. We have a deadline looming at work so we're going in tomorrow to knock some stuff out. The worst part is that the project is completely irrelevant to the mission, it's the DO's pet project.
So, to finish the story of Joe's weekend here. Saturday we woke up in time to eat lunch, which was the leftovers from the Mexican joint we ate lunch at the day before. We took it easy most of the day then headed out to the Flying Saucer for dinner and drinkin. Josh and Jennifer met us up there and after a few beers we headed to Legend's for some karaoke. Joe and I each sang a song, but by then the wait was crazy long so we left ant went to Sherlock's. Surprisingly the band wasn't that great that night which is unusual for Sherlock's. We were there till last call (I think), Joe found comfort in the loving arms of a stranger, and I met a psycho chick. The psycho part wouldn't become apparent for another week, but that's a whole 'nother blog.
Joe found his way home the next morning around lunch time and we got cleaned up and went out for a late lunch at a Chinese buffet. Back to the house, we were lazy bastards until Joe went out with a different girl he met a Sherlock's the night before and I did laundry. Joe left Monday morning and my life returned to normal. The end.
Now I'm gonna crash, then work tomorrow, then I'm scheduled to work 12 hours at Six Flags on Sunday, but I may end up working at work instead.
