Getting Settled In

To all of you following my blog (which by now I'm sure the numbers have dwindled), I am sorry for not writing more often.

The past few weeks have been hectic. Getting settled in and set up in my living quarters has been the least of my worries. The stress all lays with my ground job: ADP Officer (Automated Data Processing). In other words, I am in charge of getting the command set up and running properly with all forms of communication such as phones and computers. Going to a new base has proven most difficult as it seems they weren't ready to receive us yet. So I've had to handle the pains of starting from scratch and have basically tumbled through the brier patch to get things running. What's worse is that even with all the work hours I've put in (sometimes even pulling all-nighters just to get something done), the output is usually so small that it makes almost no difference to the command as a whole.

Enough whining and on to the good stuff... I've almost got everything up and running. A few loose ends here and there as well as an ongoing project are still keeping me busy but I am happy to report that I am finding more time to sleep than before, which has been helping me fight off being too sick to fly.

Ahh, the flying! When I first arrived, the few of us that came over early started flying with the Marines to familiarize ourselves with the area and missions flown. It's interesting to see from a different perspective and pick up on different ways of doing things and I enjoyed those flights but it was good to get back to normal once OUR jets arrived. Flying with different crews is good to keep things from getting too monotonous but I like the stability of flying with the same crew here so I can pick up on the little things that can make everything easier. It also helps that we rotate positions from within the crew too.

I've been on the night page for a while now (and my body is still playing catch-up) so the world I get to experience is seen mostly in a green hue due to the night vision goggles. The weather (until today) has been pretty clear and from high up where we fly, you can usually pick out our home base from a little over a hundred miles. Watching the cars down below is a little surreal because apart from the partial blackouts that occur frequently and the explosions sometimes witnessed, these cities could almost be any other city in the US.

Well that's all for now. I left work at 0530 this morning so I could come back and get some rest but now its time to head back in and keep working. Life is rarely dull here.

Remember Lala, I love you!

P.S. Almost forgot to pass along the new callsign: "PUFF" ...  Maybe someday I'll explain it.

Posted with LifeCast