Grillin'

Tonight as I type this out on the iTouch I am waiting for the coals in our new charcoal grill to burn down to ash. Lala and I went to Home Depot this afternoon after I got home from work. It's not a fancy grill, just a typical Weber charcoal grill that will work for a small family. I figured I might as well be grilling if I'm gonna be eating while Lala is off visiting her mom in Vegas this weekend. I may even have a few guys from our small group over just to chill and grill. :-)

We also got 5 more bricks to complete the little brick ledge around the garden area I made for Lala as she is still workin her new green thumb in action with all the new little plants we have on the back porch and sitting on the kitchen counter.

Work is going well; I just got my abbreviated schedule approved by the Skipper so I'm all set.

Well, it looks like the coals are ready for me to throw our burgers on so this is where I say goodnight.

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Happy Earth Day

Pretty uneventful day so far. I drove in this morning to attend the class I'm taking to refresh my knowledge of the jet. We are reviewing for a test that normally takes people a couple weeks to get through the material for and we'll be taking it after only 5 days of reviewing the material. So I'm not going to write much as I need to get back in the books before too long.

We finished class about and hour early so we all stuck around and did our practice NATOPs homework together, but since I've done it a little more recently than the others, I was going back and helping to refresh their memories on how to do certain stuff. We also talked about a lot of their sea-stories which always help to broaden the horizon of knowledge a bit.

All in all things are good. I'm starting to feel the pressure of coming back to flying again but it is well worth it and I look forward to sharing more good news soon.

As my contribution to Earth Day, I am placing the leftover parts of the strawberries that I ate for lunch out in the compost pile and I will be putting on thick socks instead of using the little space heater to keep my feet warm.

What are YOU doing for Earth Day?

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First Day Back

Today was (as the title so boldly puts it) back in the saddle... well, not completely back in the saddle since I am technically still med-down, but I did go to class today as I stated in my last post. we got through what would have taken a regular class 6 hours in about an hour and a half. So I went over to the squadron to take care of some administrative stuff and got picked up for helping out with a Sim tonight... stinks that I'll have to miss part of our small group that we are hosting @ our house this month but I'll come home to catch the last half of it. should be fun to get back in the Sim for an EP (Emergency Procedures) hop for an instructor going back through. Most instructors know me by name now and don't treat me like some useless student who doesn't know anything yet so that's pretty cool. I've also got my appointments set up for medical so I can get back to flying as early as May 5th!

I can't wait!

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Visiting Lala @ Work

Yup, the title says it all. I drove in to visit my girl @ work and to bring her a toasted tuna fish sandwich for a small dinner.

Today has been a pretty good day so far. I went to church this morning and was able to say hello to a bunch of local friends. We also celebrated the news of the birth of a new baby for a couple in our small group... really exciting!

After church I drove home to change and grab the shovel because I was off to volunteer near the condo where Lala and I used to live. The community is putting in a garden and our small group is volunteering to work a plot and donate all the fruit and veggies grown there to a food bank. We are still in the early stages if the garden so today we laid out cardboard on top of the tilled ground where we had already placed some kind of lye and other natural fertilizer then on top of the cardboard we placed compost from the city's stash of people's yard waste. The compost was steaming showing us that it was still working so we'll let that sit on top of the cardboard for a week then lay the topsoil down next week so we can begin planting within the next few weeks. lots of fun.

tomorrow I finally get to go in and sit in a class full of Cat-Others (a special Category of higher-up individuals than myself going through the FRS [Fleet Replacement Squadron] that require less training to get qualified in the jet). This basically means I'll be going through a shorter syllabus to get done faster as I've already done the academics portion of the training about a year ago. I'll also start going through the simulator events again on an abbreviated scale so I can get back to flying as soon as I am med-up come May 5th or so. Awesomeness is an understatement for my feelings right now but it will be hard work as I prepare to get myself back in the jet again. I'm expecting long hours and lots of stress for the next few weeks but it'll be well worth it to be back up in the air again.
:-)

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New beginnings

I'm posting this from my iPod Touch in hopes of making this easier to do. Also if I use the iTouch (or hopefully later an iPhone) then it'll keep me posting more regularly. I'm using the Lifecast app to type this up and the only drawback is that I can't type in landscape mode. other than that the typing isn't so bad and if I make a mistake 9 times out of 10 the iTouch software recognizes it and corrects the word for me. I guess I'll keep this short for now since I am going to take Lala some late lunch at work. If this posts well then I'll be back later to finish telling y'all about my day.

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