First Flights!

Me in my flight suit
So, I should have written this last week, after my first ride in an F-16, but I was just excited at the time. AWESOME! You know, I was so worried about this first ride, from horror stories from other people: Getting sick all over the cockpit, GLOC, pushing buttons you shouldn't push.... so, I was pretty much freaking myself out to the point of psychosis. I think I was even making other people nervous. Thank god my squadron is full of cool guys, and gals, who have sympathy for me and actually took the time to make me feel more comfortable with the whole situation. Even though i was still nervous as hell, I took to the backseat of my first F-16D on Tuesday, Oct 16th. Rip was my pilot, and showed me around his "office" with special emphasis on what not to push or pull, sts. We taxied onto the runway, snaked the tower, and we were up and off. It was a beautiful day (rare!), very few clouds, very sunny. We did a few cool aerobatics and Gx's before heading back down to 500 ft off the ground, to start our low level ride at 500 kn, zooming over the countryside (reminds me of Trogdor, the burninator) and ridge crossing across the mountains. Pretty frickin cool. After about 1.5 hrs, we landed, headed back for refueling (this was a pit-and-go, 2 sorties for the price of one!) I had a little trouble with my own "de-fueling" mechanism, but thats a whole other story.... anyhoo, round 2 was just as great. We landed, taxied in, I got all unhooked on my own, and then back to the squadron. I think when i got off the car i was running about mach 1 to get to the nearest bathroom, bladder fullness hurts! But I survived, didn't get even close to sick, and I had so much fun! Which is the best part. I was mostly worried that I wouldn't like flying, because that would make this year very long and painful. No problem there though!

My second flight was yesterday, wed the 24th. More of a tactical mission which means I really had no idea what the hell was going on. Its pretty frustrating being so naive about the whole situation. Makes me feel very insecure and inadequate really, kinda a cut into my self-esteem. Its kinda like being plopped into the middle of rural china and expecting to find your way around, not knowing anything about the language, culture, lay of the land, just that they like rice. And same thing if you think of injecting a pilot into the middle of a complex surgery, having him/her be 1st assist, asking his to clamp the inferior mesenteric artery. He wold be like "clamp the what? The "heun-yaker or the howyadoin?" Most of the guys are again actually really good about answering my dumb questions. Hopefully it will get a little less muddy with time!

Not much else is new thus far. I'm trying to get some word on if my TDY for a course in December is going to work out. That will be 2 weeks in Texas, and then 1 week before that in South Carolina, and maybe a jaunt over to Milwaukee for a baby shower if leave is approved. :) Time is going fast!



Dillard (35th, the Pantons's flight doc, my collegue, and friend, and crisis counselor!)


Some scenery around our base, Kunsan, not much, but its actually a nice day!


I wish I could say these were our dorm, but they aren't.... the people who will move into these have really, really, really bad dorms now. Ours are just bad.



That is the gym in the backround, actually its pretty nice, has a climbing well... i will get some pics.

Sweeps and Sweats

Yeah, I always wanna be a gangsta...
Still working on the ghetto-factor, not quite there yet.
Anyways, so Oct has been good so far. That pic was from my first night outa at Zizzicks, a bar in Gunsan City, of course very Americanized, and very Juvat friendly. My squadron has lots of people who love to dance, so I'm feeling right at home here. :)
We had a nice 4 day weekend d/t Columbus day, off on Monday, and what the heck, why not take Tuesday off as well? Gotta love govenment jobs... So, Monday night was my first sweeps night, or "green bean" sweeps. Started off as a nice BBQ outside of the dorms, and then we loaded the bus at 19:30 to A-town (America town, about 3 miles outside the gates of the base, pretty much just a lot of stores, bars, clubs and restaurants, all run by Koreans, and infestated my us americaners. the sweeps consiste of various activities, including drinking, at usually about 3 clubs. They do some crowd surfing exercises, some table surfing acrobatics for warm up. Then usually is the naming ceremony, where the pilots get their call sign, lots of creative stories involved. (I'll get mine probably at the next sweeps). There are various contests (yes... involving drinking for the most part, but I was saved by the clause "drink it or wear it.") We were actually done fairly early, all on the bus back by 11:15ish, and then back to the dorms for traditional breakfast.
Wednesday at work, was a mini-exercise, kinda an exercise to get ready for the week long "lets pretend we're at war" exercises they love to do here. Our involved a simulated mass casualty exercise, of which I got to be quite involved in. I'm happy to say that because of my performance, I was able to highlight the number weakness we, esp as new staff members, had, and that we have some work to do. :)
This Saturday was "Pantoberfest" for some and "Rocktoberfest" for some others. The 35th fighter squadron, the Pantons, throw Pantoberfest ever year, complete with german beer and music, brats, saurkraut, leiderhosen, and a huge fire. The Rockertoberfest was put on by the base, and had a couple local bands play, and then Rock Kills Kid from stateside played the headliner show. They even made their way back to Delta (the panton's hooch, where Pantoberfest is held) for some extra songs. )
To round out a good couple weeks, today, Sunday, we decided to go explore the countryside a bit, and go on down to one of the National Parks for a hike. A 45 min drive turned into... maybe a 3.5 hours drive, maybe there was some faulty navigation there, or maybe we shouldn't get direction from Koreasn when we can't speak Korean.... but we finally got to the start of our hike. It was quite a jaunt up LOTS of nature stairs, rocks, etc, and finally, finally, to the waterfall, that really was a lot bigger in the pictures, but it was worth the hike anyways. And now as i sit here waiting for my motrin to kick in for my feet will stop throbbing, I am awaiting passing out in my bed, and waking up to a whole new week.


Again, trying the ghetto-look


Me and Gracie, in Leiderhosen



Joanne and her signs of the devil


Rock Kills Kid


Finally at the start of the trail, one of many temples




Tea at the temple

October in Korea

So, its been exactly a month since my last blog. man, I really suck at keeping this up to date. Anyways, so the rest of my time in San Antonio was great. I had a birthday, which is always a good time. I went out with some friends for sushi and sake-bombers, and then to a couple places downtown. We ended up at this martini bar, and was doing pretty good until my friend Stacey showed up, which prompted the crazy shot buying binge. It was a great time, dancing, even though it wasn't really a dancing kind of establishment, but didn't matter to us!
Our last week there we did the field training for SERE (Survival, evasion, resistance, and escape.) We spent a week in the woods, and it wasn't exactly your typical camping trip. (No s'mores by the campfire, that would have been awesome though). We learned general field survival stuff, life building fires, find and building shelters, then navigation skills, evasion skills. And... I think thats all I can really say about it... the rest is classified... (so fun to say.)
So, now I'm back in the swing of things at Kunsan. They put me right to work in the clinic, and I feel like I never leave that place now. I'm trying to get all my training and paper trail taken care of so I can actually fly in the F-16 soon!
Last weekend was my first trip up to Osan. I went with Joanne, one of the other new flight docs here. She actually decided to try out for the womens basketball team for the base, so they have a couple scrimmages up there this weekend anyways. I think she is the sole officer on the team, at least she can get away with saying she's THE Capt on the team. :) Osan was good, much bigger than our little Kunsan, and, it has a Starbucks on base, what else could you ask for? Lots of families there, its just ridiculous they still consider it a remote location. We strolled around the shopping district during the day, watched Joanne's game, and then went out to dinner and a couple bars/"clubs" there at night. Nothing too crazy, although I can definitely see how things can get wild up there pretty quick. I unfortunately had caught a cold from one of the 10 thousand pts who came in with cold the last weekend, so I wasn't up for a whole lot anyways.
And, thats about it so far! More events coming up this month to write about inlcuding "Pantoberfest", my first Sweeps, and more Kunsan adventures!
No pics this time, I need to take some more!