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Okay, so I’m not an old master. But I have been scarce.
In the middle of my series of posts about our awesome summer vacation, I dropped off the face of the earth. I predict it was around the time of the first midterm I had to give, and from then on out, I’ve been crazy busy at work, thus coming home exhausted. More »
Image: Air Force Times
Okay, some of you knew about this, but many of you didn’t. I am currently on full time Reserve orders to teach differential calculus at the AF Academy. I will be in front of my first classroom of cadets a week from tomorrow. I am working at least the entire fall semester, and I’ve been asked if I could help out this spring also, but I won’t know about the spring until we know more about the FY15 budget.
So I’m back in uniform, this time able to commute to work like a normal person. It’s quite nice. I’m pleased as punch to have this chance to help out the Academy’s math department, which recently had a mass exodus of instructors who could take advantage of early retirement and other professional growth opportunities. More »
For those who might not have realized, my husband’s new Air Force job will be as a faculty member in the Physics Department at the Air Force Academy.
On our house hunting trip to Colorado, it took us about 48 hours to choose our house and enter a contract. That was our goal. The rest of our time in the area was spent fulfilling assorted appointments, and we had a couple hours here and there to kill between appointments. In addition, both Dave and I had meetings on the Air Force Academy campus. Dave met with his new department, and I met with someone about trying to get a Reserve job.
The weather was beautiful, so we took some time to see the Visitors Center and hike the trail to the chapel and see the cadet area.
It’s tradition.
Whenever I fly to Nebraska for my Air Force Reserve duties**, I tend to rotate among the three airlines that fly between my local airports here and Omaha: Delta, American and United.
**Once we get to Colorado, flying to my Air Force duties will no longer be my only option. I’m very excited about this.
On my last trip to Nebraska in late April, I flew American Airlines and had a three-hour layover in Dallas-Fort Worth. As it turned out, my connecting gate was across the hall from the airport’s USO.
Typically, my layovers are VERY tight…less than an hour. Also, in an airport as big as DFW, to be so close to the USO was pure luck.
For those unfamiliar, USO lounges are set up in many airports mainly for the servicemembers on official travel. However, family members and retirees are free to use the facilities. In Dallas, the USO lounge would put many airlines’ VIP lounges to shame! A computer lab, kids’ play area, snack bar (you’re allowed up to three snacks/beverages free of charge), and a HUGE theater area with comfy seating.
I had been to this particular USO before, but since my last visit (2009, I believe), it had nearly doubled in size.
This time around, I met a family who was awaiting their connecting flight after having flown 10 hours from Germany. The kids were so tired, they were just plain silly! I also met several uniformed soldiers coming home from Afghanistan for their two-week R&R trip. I also met a very young female Air Force officer assigned to Holloman AFB, NM, I asked how she liked it and I’d never seen someone so happy to be in New Mexico. Good for her 🙂
There’s a luggage area that’s conveniently covered with carpeting. Why? So you can attach your velcro patches to the walls. I had no unit patches (my uniform doesn’t use velcro patches), but I had my name tape on my backpack…which is what I left behind.
The cubbies on the left easily accommodated the carry on bags we all had.
Like my dress? Read on for the big reveal. This is an iPhone photo of the portraits Dave and I had taken…so it’s a little blurry here, but looks really nice sitting on our mantle in the living room.
Hurlburt Field had their first ever Air Force Birthday Ball last weekend. For those who might not have been aware, the US Air Force celebrated their 65th Birthday on September 18th.
They oversold the ball by several hundred tickets. I manage the website and Facebook pages for our base spouses’ club, and I put up the posts about how to purchase the tickets in early August. About 3 weeks later I was sent a note asking to take down the posts. “We’re SOLD OUT!”
It was a huge, beautiful affair at the Emerald Coast Convention Center on Okaloosa Island. We had a lovely dinner and fun entertainment in the form of videos featuring Air Force Special Operations, a pair of very funny emcees, and an incredible guest speaker: the Fifth Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, Robert Gaylor. At 82 years of age, he enlisted in 1948 has known the U.S. Air Force for 64 of its 65 years of existence! His stories were lighthearted, but with great messages about knowing your aptitude, having a good attitude, and never giving up on learning.
My favorite anecdote was about his receiving a job offer at Barksdale Air Force Base in the mid-60s. He was asked to teach at the NCO Academy where he had just been an Honor Graduate. His family was resistant, his kids were in a good school at their current location and his wife was asking “Are you sure about this?” The kids asked “Do we have to?”
Chief: “What’s your last name kids?”
The kids, “Gaylor….”
Chief: “Then get in the damned car!”
After teaching just two classes at the NCO Academy, the school closed temporarily. He was sent on a remote assignment to Thailand (during the Vietnam War), after which he was involved in reopening the school. I had tears in my eyes when he told that part of the story…I’m not sure if it was from laughter or sympathy for his poor family.
It was very lovely seeing so many folks from Dave’s squadron at the event, also. We were spread among three tables!
A couple people had asked if I was going to attend in my Mess Dress uniform. I have that option, but I was looking forward to getting to put on a pretty dress.
A dress that had been sitting in my closet for 18 months.
My Hurlburt Thrift Shop dress!
My $5 Hurlburt Thrift Shop dress!
My only concern with this dress was possibly running into the original owner at the ball, ha ha!
I bought it just a couple months after we moved here. I had taken a Honda Pilot-load of donations to the shop and after unloading, I took a look around. And there was the dress sitting with other gowns. This one happened to fit and was marked for $10. When I took it up front to pay, the manager said that the gown was actually $5 because it had been sitting on the rack for a certain amount of time (2 months? 4 months? I can’t remember the thrift shop consignment rules)…
I bought some silver gloves on Amazon, silver strappy dress shoes at the local Shoe Dept. store, and a pretty blingy headband at Claire’s. I had a silver purse and jewelry on hand, yay!
I think I might have finally redeemed myself from the $300 dress I got in Omaha in 2010.
Perhaps you’re a little confused here? These are Civil War-era Union Army Lieutenant Colonel shoulder marks. They might provide some insight to why those “oak leaves” we wear now are called that, even though I’ve never seen an oak tree with leaves shaped like the modern-day rank.
So I wrote a post 363 days ago about how I had received a notification for promotion about 390 days ago. In that post I also promised not to change the name of my blog…
But who’s counting the days now?
On September 1st the promotion went into effect.
While for those on active duty it’s usually a very elegant affair complete with a re-affirmation of the original commissioning oath of office, a fun “pinning on” with the family and catered meals (in fact, I had the privilege of attending a very nice promotion ceremony for a colleague who became a Colonel on September 1st), for us reservists it’s more quiet. I will be flying to Nebraska later this week to perform some duty days and will be in my new digs. Well, the same old digs with new oak leaves sewn on.
I don’t feel any different, and the job I’m doing isn’t going to change as a result. The AF Reserves are special that way…
I am WAY behind on posts in general, I plan to write about Dragon*Con and Jacob’s birthday this week. Thanks for your patience!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
?”I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”
It came across my @BreakingNews Twitter feed this evening. Before CNN, before FoxNews…Yahoo news had apprently caught it from Yonhap News Agency.
I did get a grin out of Korea Central News Agency apparently reporting that their “Dear Leader” died of fatigue on a train. Um…okay!
Dave and I were in Seoul, S. Korea from May 1998 – June 2000 (me) and July 2000 (Dave). We had a great time there, but you couldn’t get complacent…every 3-4 months some sort of dialogue or action would remind us that there was real evil less than 100 km away. We were in missile range if the poop really hit the fan.
So as I did for Bin Laden 6.5 months ago, I present to you my favorite song when an Axis of Evil leader passes away.
My military spouse blogger friend at Wife of a Sailor has published a thorough list of military promotions for Veteran’s Day. This list had circulated among currently-serving servicemembers’ e-mail accounts this past week.
You’ll see that many businesses actually offer their promotions year round (such as Anheuser-Busch theme parks, Lowe’s, and Home Depot) and the National Park Service’s Veteran’s Day weekend promotion is for everyone.
Wanna know a secret? I came in the Air Force about a year before my husband did. Many of you know this, but many of you don’t.
Because I had switched to the AF reserves in 2005, the timing for competing for promotions became very different for the two of us. So even though up till now I promoted to each of my ranks about a year before Dave did, he competed for and made Lieutenant Colonel about a year before me. So he officially now outranks me 🙂
Only 13 months after his notification, last Friday Dave finally got to have his long-awaited pin-on ceremony at the Hurlburt Field Memorial Air Park. A cold front had just come through and even though the temperatures were a bit warm, the humidity was nice and low.
Enjoy some pictures from Dave’s special day. I didn’t take that many. We’re hoping to get the pictures that one of his Airmen took during the event. Then you’ll see more of the kids and me….but this was Dave’s day, so enjoy pictures of him 🙂
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| The event was held at the base’s Memorial Airpark, which as you can see is an outdoor venue. The weather was nearly perfect! |
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| The boys were tickled to see their names posted on the chairs. |
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| I snuck in a picture during the oath, although I should have just been standing nicely during the ceremony. Dave’s commander flew down from Offutt AFB for the occasion. |
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| The cake will get a blog post of its own. |
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| Hey — is this lady really juggling for you? In my blog post draft this is animated! |
Today I’m doing a “reset” of sorts. As great a time as we had at Disneyworld, on our road trip, and hosting our North Carolina friends showing off the sights of the Florida Panhandle, I realized we were “on the go” for a solid MONTH!
From June 8th through July 10th! Wow! And then there’s GeekMom Jenny who’s currently halfway through a 40-day vacation!
So here’s our “reset”: The kids are taking it easy, we’re taking care of a few errands, cleaning up the house some, and we’re getting ready for this weekend’s next set of festivities.
My Dear Husband’s assumption of command is this Friday. Dave will be taking command of an Air Force weather squadron, and I couldn’t be more proud! The “change of command” ceremony itself is a pretty elegant affair, and much of our extended family is coming into town this weekend to see the ceremony and celebrate with Dave.
I did a cursory search for some easy-to-digest information to help define Air Force Squadron command to a non-military member. I didn’t think I’d find it, but I found this recent blog post with exactly what I need! An Air Force Colonel at Sheppard AFB, TX wrote about how squadron commanders are selected and what kind of job is ahead of the Air Force’s newest squadron commanders. Wow! How easy is that? I’ll just link it for you here:
Sheppard Live: Squadron Command
I’m proud and excited for Dave, but also nervous about what impact squadron command will have on the family. While part of me is dreading that I’ll never see Dave for the next 2 years, that his new wife will be his squadron, I also remember how it was when Dave first started his 3-year PhD program in North Carolina. Several fellow Air Force PhD-student families warned me, “Kiss Dave goodbye for the next 3 years. He’s going to be living at his office!”.
So. Not. True. Dave did a great job managing his time and even though it was tough work, things didn’t seem as bad as I thought they would be.
We are looking forward to have all the parents in town for the weekend, along with Dave’s brother and our 16-year-old niece.
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